History Creator / MarkTwain

* AnAesop: The novel satirizes racism. When a slave (who has one drop of African ancestry and therefore looks just like any white woman) has her child SwitchedAtBirth with another, no one notices even though that one drop of difference supposedly justifies one child being property and the other being an aristocrat.
* PassFail

* AnAesop: The short story is a polemic against war and the cognitive dissonance that causes it to be celebrated.

!! ''King Leopold's Soliloquy'' (1905)
* AboveGoodAndEvil: Leopold's main argument. Even if his crimes were not necessary for him to maintain order, he cannot be judged for them because he is the king and the king is not accountable before mere mortals for anything he does.
* AnAesop: The pamphlet goes to lengths to show the atrocities were largely ignored by the West because the victims were black. The pamphlet even shows graphic photographs of the aforementioned maimed women and children.
* AristocratsAreEvil: Not only does Léopold himself [[CardCarryingVillain revel in his evil]], but he also praises [[UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia Tsar Nicholas]] for being equally brutal and small-minded. The narrative implies that it is the very nature of monarchy to amplify the very worst of human nature and crush every good tendency of the human race.
* BaitTheDog: On a couple of occasions Leopold appears to come close to feeling remorse for his actions after reading of a particularly brutal episode in the report, only to immediately convince himself that he's done nothing wrong and it was necessary for business to continue (for example, ruminating at length on how much the children who died of hunger must have suffered before deciding "it can't be helped", or saying he regrets having sixty women crucified before specifying that he means because he could have flayed them just as easily without getting as much negative attention).
* CardCarryingVillain: Even most cartoon supervillains would think Leopold is too extreme.
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: At times Leopold seems to genuinely not understand why so many people oppose what he's doing in the Congo and is baffled and outraged that they continue to criticize him even though he's a king and therefore AboveGoodAndEvil. He also claims at one point that the missionaries who initially exposed him only did so to get revenge on him for not allowing them to trade in the Congo; the possibility that they might genuinely believe what he's doing is wrong seems to be at best secondary in Leopold's mind.
* EvilColonialist: Leopold epitomizes this trope, which is TruthInTelevision as his RealLife reign in the Congo Free State was so brutal that [[EvenEvilHasStandards even the other colonial powers]] demanded he be made to stop.
* EvilIsPetty: Leopold repeatedly plans to use his immense wealth for acts of petty vindictiveness against his critics such as buying a dinosaur fossil named after him as a insult towards his reign just so he can destroy it out of spite.
* HumansAreBastards: Leopold is actually right when he says that he alone is not responsible. After all, if his soldiers did not obey his orders to kill and mutilate the natives, and if Western society did not consider Africans to be subhuman, none of this would have happened even with him on the throne.
* InsaneTrollLogic: Used repeatedly when he wants to justify everything he has done or [[NeverMyFault put the blame in others]], including the victims themselves if needed.
* LackOfEmpathy: Leopold doesn’t give one iota for anyone who is not a king, and not even his own family is safe from his depredations. (It’s implied that he raped [[MaritalRapeLicense his wife]] and [[ParentalIncest his daughter]].) And those outside his race and social class have it even worse.
* MoralMyopia: Leopold is willing to oppress, exploit, mutilate and slaughter the Congolese and dismiss it as a mere price of doing business, but anyone who criticizes him for it is a craven villain who dares to attack God's representative on Earth. He also appears to be deathly afraid of going to hell, but thinks his main problem in that regard is his tendency to occasionally blaspheme while cursing his opponents rather than any of his myriad crimes.
* NeverMyFault: He is able to find justifications for any of the atrocities he has committed or allowed, putting the blame on the people who denounce them as he considers they are nothing more than shameless spies who have no right to criticize anything a king appointed by God does. [[InsaneTrollLogic Or even blaming the helpless victims]], such as when he says widows must be overtaxed and overworked to death too as "there is nothing much left, now, but widows" and "business is business".
* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: As with most colonial leaders, Leopold views the native Congolese as practically subhuman and not worthy of moral consideration, although he takes it further than most in terms of what he thinks it's okay to do to them.
* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: Belgium's King Leopold II argues that he's brought prosperity, peace, and dignity to the Belgian Congo. By enslaving the populace and forcing them to work on rubber plantations, and chopping off the hands of women and children as a ''warning''.
* TakeThat: Not only are King Leopold and Tsar Nicholas portrayed as utter monsters, but all of contemporary society, including each individual reader, is condemned, because such atrocities and the unjust social order that enables them could only come into being through popular consent.
* VillainHasAPoint: Whilst it comes in the middle of his hypocritical and self-serving ramblings, Leopold does occasionally make a good point about the hypocrisy of countries like the United States condemning him for his activities in the Congo when they were the ones who allowed him to take over in the first place and were perfectly happy to take his money and ignore his atrocities until the press got ahold of the story.
* WantsAPrizeForBasicDecency: While most would argue that Leopold is lacking even in basic decency, one of his excuses is that the miniscule remuneration he pays to the Congolese in return for giving up one tonne of food ("just short of a penny a week per nigger") is better than giving them nothing in return. He also apparently expects people to forgive him for slaughtering the Congolese because he sometimes allows them to kiss the image of the Saviour just before they die.
* YouBastard: The pamphlet ends with Leopold [[BreakingTheFourthWall directly thanking the reader]] for being complicit in his crimes; after all, if the public did not turn a blind eye to colonial atrocities he would have had to stop long ago.