History Main / RapePillageAndBurn

** Sacking towns is the best way to maintain a steady income in most games; once you defeat a settlement, you're typically given a choice as to whether to just occupy it, loot and the occupy it, sack it or raze it to the ground. In ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammer'', this trope comes into play to a greater degree than before, since due to the SlidingScaleOfGameplayAndStoryIntegration, many factions simply have no interest in actually ruling certain territories -- [[TheHorde Greenskins]] never really bother to settle and govern lands they conquer, humans don't live well underground, dwarfs deeply dislike open aboveground spaces, nobody can survive in the [[{{Mordor}} Chaos Wastes]], etcetera. As a result, many factions will only enter each other's territory to remove strategic threats or to sack settlements for extra income. This trope is especially intrinsic to the gameplay of two factions:

*** The [[HornyVikings Warriors of Chaos]] and [[BeastMan Beastmen]] have no settlements, carrying their minimal infrastructure with their armies, and as such have no way of maintaining internal income. As a result, they need to constantly defeat other armies and sack and plunder civilized settlements, in order to make money and maintain their dark gods' favor.

*** The [[EvilCounterpartRace Dark Elves]] meanwhile have an economy sustained almost entirely by [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil slave labour]], which is represented in-game by featuring slaves as a separate currency that boosts the players economy based on how many slaves the player possesses. Slaves are gained via raiding enemy regions and sacking their settlements, therefore encouraging the player to indulge in this trope in order to maximise their economic potential. As slave numbers also degrade over time the player is pressured to keep this behaviour up for the entire campaign in order to maintain stable numbers.

* While the official goal of the Greeks in Literature/TheTrojanCycle is to retrieve Helen, most of them are fully intent on doing this to Troy. The actual event was covered in the [[MissingEpisode now-lost]] epic ''Iliou persis''. A variant version from the Trojan perspective is covered in the opening of the ''Literature/{{Aeneid}}''.
** ''Literature/TheIliad'' indicates that the Greeks also sacked neighboring cities during the long siege of Troy itself. It opens just after the sack of Lyrnessus, where Briseis was enslaved.

* Creator/{{David Mitchell|Actor}} is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJqEKYbh-LU none too fond of this idea]]

* In ''Literature/GreekNinja'', that's what happens to the main character's hometown.
* In ''Roleplay/ThereIsNoGATEWeDidNotFightThere'', Kell Rhavenfell's default tactics when dealing with the Rabbit tribes is to raid their villages for slaves while murdering all those who resist before eventually putting them to the torch, as seen in the interlude *The March of the Burning Sky*. Kell even "makes an example" out of the surviving warriors by ''[[CruelAndUnusualDeath crucifying]]'' them in the remains of their homes. ''Yikes...''

-->'''Cooler''': With [the Big Gete Star], we have entrapped this planet! And now... we are going to f**k it! Both figuratively...\\

'''Cooler''': ...and ''very {{literal|Metaphor}}ly''.\\
'''Krillin''': You know, just because it can't reject you doesn't imply consent.

** Upon Roger's death and the start of the Golden Age of Piracy, pirate crews swarmed towards the New World, inevitably passing through Fishman Island. Several of them went on to pillage the place and attempted to kidnap mermaids and fishmen in order to sell them into slavery. [[WorldsStrongestMan Whitebeard]] quickly put a stop to that by [[{{protectorate}} declaring Fishman Island to be his territory]] in order to [[BloodBrothers honor his sworn brotherhood with King Neptune]]. For the next twenty years, no pirate dared to cause trouble in Fishman Island again.

* ''Literature/TheWitcher'': In "Something Bigger", Dandelion mentions the attacking Nifgaard army which "burns, kills and rapes everything in its path...not obligatory in this order".

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': In the background options for Shepard, Shepard can potentially have faced this twice; first, if the Colonist background is taken, Shepard survived a slaver attack on his/her home colony on Mindoir, but also lost his/her entire family at [[DangerousSixteenthBirthday 16]]. If the War Hero background is taken, Shepard [[OneManArmy singlehandedly]] ''prevents'' this from happening to the colony of Elysium.

One of the many ways your hometown can become a DoomedHometown. A group of bandits, pirates, and an ArmyOfThievesAndWhores cause trouble primarily by sacking the town--that is, [[{{Plunder}} looting]], damaging property, and sometimes even murdering and kidnapping innocent townsfolk. Raping is optional([[RapeDiscretionShot -ly shown]]), but the town is almost always [[BurnBabyBurn burned down]] afterward. This gives an excellent opportunity for the bad guys to KickTheDog. Rape, Pillage, and Burn is guaranteed to appear in any work involving {{Pirate}}s or HornyVikings. Sometimes appears, though not as frequently, in TheWildWest or MedievalEuropeanFantasy. This activity is a common pastime of TheHorde.

* ''FanFic/AYoungWomansPoliticalRecord'': The Francois army occupying Rhine makes a habit of raping and murdering the civilians living there.

* In ''Literature/DragonBones'' the heroes encounter a group of bandits who are about to start with the raping. They stop them there so that the bandits never get around to the pillaging and burning. However, they later see some villages that weren't as lucky. The situation is thus that it is actually warfare, but the high king who should protect the villagers claims it's just some random bandits who have nothing to do with the neighbouring country. This is not good for his reputation--his subjects tolerated a lot of his misbehaviour, but not protecting them means they're better off without him ...

* The ''Literature/{{Foundation}}'' series features a planet sacked after revolting against an Imperial viceroy. As an added TearJerker, there was already a fleet approaching to take out that viceroy for revolting against the Emperor, but its commander was highly displeased at being denied his chance for plunder and glory and had the planet bombed anyway.

* ''Literature/TheGeneral'': This is what happens when a city is taken by storm. Well, not burning but the troops are customarily allowed to rape and pillage for twenty-four hours. Call it incentive to surrender on terms.
* In ''Literature/AHarvestOfWar'' this is both the MO and ultimate goal of the villains in Draeze.

* ''Literature/TheImmortals'': What happened to Daine's family. She got her revenge, though, [[spoiler: when a local wolf pack took her in, finally understood what happened when she tried to explain it to them - wolves don't hunt their own kind - and went more or less batshit with rage]].

* Creator/BernardCornwell: This happens whenever a city is captured. In one of the ''Literature/{{Sharpe}}'' books, the hero storms an impossible breach in order to get to his wife and daughter ahead of the pillaging hordes ''of his own side'' who have got in elsewhere.

One of the many ways your hometown can become a DoomedHometown. A group of bandits, pirates, or even mooks working for a BigBad cause trouble primarily by sacking the town--that is, [[{{Plunder}} looting]], damaging property, and sometimes even murdering and kidnapping innocent townsfolk. Raping is optional([[RapeDiscretionShot -ly shown]]), but the town is almost always [[BurnBabyBurn burned down]] afterward. This gives an excellent opportunity for the bad guys to KickTheDog. Rape, Pillage, and Burn is guaranteed to appear in any work involving {{Pirate}}s or HornyVikings. Sometimes appears, though not as frequently, in TheWildWest or MedievalEuropeanFantasy. This activity is a common pastime of TheHorde.

* While various monsters are implied to ransack villages in the ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' series, it's explicitly shown in the introductory section of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'', where Link is initially set on his quest by a band of roving Bulblins who raid his home of Ordon Village and kidnap the children.

** Einar's village in northern England, originally settled by Norse settlers, was attacked by English troops when he was a child, which resulted in the death of his father. Many years later, the village is attacked ''again'' by Danish raiders, who burn the houses, steal the food and valuables and capture the survivors to sell them into slavery. They would've probably raped Einar's mother and sister if they hadn't killed them first, but Einar himself ends up being sold as a slave to Ketil.

** Gregor Clegane is the avatar of this trope, a true expert in cruelty and savagery. [[spoiler:He kills the Red Viper after confessing to raping and murdering his sister. And then the venom Oberyn Martell put on his lance [[KickTheSonOfABitch killed Clegane in horrible agony]].]]