"Every ruler should have a garden. It's always useful to draw lessons from nature...From a garden one learns to cull the weak and unfit, and to encourage the strong and the vigorous. An inferior bud soon feels the strength of my pinch!"
— Gilad Pellaeon, New Jedi Order: Destiny's Way
Weeds are the bane of every gardener. They grow and multiply very quickly, so if left to their own devices, they may overcrowd the soil and drink up all the water, nutrients, and sunlight that the pretty flowers, juicy fruits, and tasty vegetables need to grow. Thus, they need to be yanked out by the roots wherever they crop up.
Naturally, it is very easy for some people to twist this basic fact of gardening into a disturbing metaphor for removing "useless" people from society in order for the "useful" ones to be able to flourish — after all, nobody ever argues that weeds deserve space in a garden as much as flowers. The "useless" one(s) can be a whole group of people being discriminated against, a single person being treated cruelly and looked down upon, or anything in between. "Weeds" may be directly accused of overcrowding a place and stealing resources from "flowers," or a villain may be shown gardening in their spare time, cutting away the weeds and pruning the flowers, as a metaphor for the perfect world they plan to make. If someone is on the verge of being disowned by their family, expect a comment about "pruning the family tree." This trope may even extend to sentient flowers and other plants harboring Fantastic Racism against weeds. This fallacy may be reinforced by the concept of Beauty Equals Goodness, with beautiful, colorful, rare flowers being held as superior to ugly, dirty, common weeds.
Another character may refute the logic of this analogy by pointing out the positive qualities of weeds (hardiness, edibility, having their own kind of beauty) and/or the negative qualities of flowers (fragile and mostly useless), or argue that both weeds and flowers, and indeed all plants, have their place in nature and the world.
Related to Black-and-White Morality, and the diametric opposite of the Caring Gardener. A villain who makes such a comparison may be a Social Darwinist, believing that weak and ugly lifeforms deserve to die in order for the strong ones to thrive. Not to be confused with Flowery Insults. If people are literally being called "weeds" in a disparaging manner, that may be a Fantastic Slur. This trope may (metaphorically) overlap with Foul Flower if the "flowers" are actively discriminating against the "weeds." For a more literal interpretation, see Garden of Evil. Compare, contrast, and also see Tall Poppy Syndrome, one of the most famous analogies for budding resentment against high achievers. And expect a That Poor Plant moment if the villain is a Bad Boss.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Dragon Ball Super: In the English dub, Gowasu describes the mortal realms of the universe as a garden that the Kais must watch over, but never interfere with. Zamasu uses this metaphor in his criticsm of said non-interference policy.
Zamasu: Gardens are tended, not merely watched. Should the gardener not pluck the weed?
- Kill la Kill: "Blumenkranz", the theme for Ragyo Kiryuin, has a line in the chorus about throwing away dead flowers and wondering why the listener would have any problem with it. It alludes to how she dumped a then-newborn Ryuko down a garbage chute when she seemingly died from Ragyo's Life Fiber experiments.
- Petite Princess Yucie: A man estranged from his daughter shows how he trims his rose bush, removing any blossoms that aren't satisfactory to make stronger, better blossoms grow. This is connected to his overly-strict parenting style that ultimately led to his daughter leaving, convinced she would never see a smile on his face or hear any pride from him.
Fan Works
- Cheerilee's Garden: Cheerilee, a schoolteacher, becomes fed up with her students because they always get into trouble, never seem to learn anything, and won't listen to her. While looking at her garden, she realizes she hasn't taken care of it for a while, allowing it to be overrun with vines and weeds that are choking the flowers. This causes her to see her students as weeds that she needs to prune in order for the flowers to grow...and by "prune," we mean "murder."
- The Rigel Black Chronicles: Adrian Pucey tries to make an argument for the separation of pureblood witches and wizards from others, by comparing them to plants. "Let the weeds grow in the wild if they must, but they ought not be brought in to infect the garden." However, Rigel and Hermione turn it around on him by pointing out that that's not how gardening works; cross-breeding tame and wild plants is actually a very useful exercise that can produce better and hardier offspring, and every plant in the garden is descended from something that was originally wild.
Rigel: You think a lot of gardens. In truth, most garden flowers are fairly useless, though, aren't they? Pretty, but poisonous to eat and utterly without redeeming qualities that excuse their delicate constitutions and the extra care required to tend them. Then there are those 'garden plants' that, if grown unchecked, can strangle the garden entirely despite 'belonging' there. No, Pucey, I don't think this is what you're trying to say at all.
- In A.A. Pessimal's Murder Most Orrible, botanist-cum-Assassin Davinia Bellamy refers to her work in murdering abusive husbands as "deadheading" (a word for removing dead flowers from ornamental plants).
- In the RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse, Duke Greengrass is a consummate politician, Chessmaster, and ruthless schemer. What special talent does his cutie-mark, a mysterious red 'X', represent? Weeding.
Films — Animated
- Alice in Wonderland: Parodied when the talking flowers realize that Alice is not a flower, and immediately declare that she is a "common weed" and kick her out of the garden, declaring, "We don't want weeds in our bed!"
- In The Angry Birds Movie, Judge Peckinpah compares Red's excessive anger to a weed in the bird community that must be plucked out before sentencing him to anger management.
- Encanto: One scene has a subtle, downplayed example. When Isabela is startled by the revelation that her soon-to-be-fiancé Mariano wants five babies, she accidentally makes many pink flowers, along with a single white one, sprout on her head. Abuela plucks the only white flower, symbolizing her obsession with maintaining the perfect image of the family as well as the pressure that is being placed on Isabela's shoulders to get married and continue the family's lineage.
Films — Live-Action
- Implied in The Hunger Games, where President Snow aggressively prunes his prize roses while talking about the "underdog" Tributes from the poorer districts.
- Where The Spirit Lives: After witnessing the cruel treatment of the Aboriginal children at the residential school she was hired to teach at, Kathleen expresses her misgivings to the headmaster Reverend Buckley. Tending to the garden at the time, Buckley "sternly" speaks of needing to cut down and remove weeds or else the garden will grow wild and out of control; implying the insults, beatings, and forbidding of anything to do with Aboriginal culture are necessary to make the children "civilised".
Literature
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:
- While working for the Voldemort-controlled Ministry, Dolores Umbridge produces and distributes a pro-pureblood, anti-Muggle-born-wizard propaganda pamphlet, the cover of which features an illustration of a scowling weed strangling a beautiful rose.
- In the first chapter, Bellatrix Lestrange is the subject of some mockery from her fellow Death Eaters over the fact that her niece, Nymphadora Tonks, has married the werewolf Remus Lupin. Voldemort non-too-subtly instructs Bellatrix to murder Tonks, telling her that even the mightiest trees sometimes get diseased branches that need to be pruned.
- In The Irregular at Magic High School, First High School separates its students into Course 1 and Course 2 categories based on their magical aptitude. Students are distinguished by the presence of a flower (Course 1) or the lack thereof (Course 2) on the sleeve of their uniforms. This leads Course 1 students to call themselves "Blooms" for having superior magical powers and look down upon the "Weeds" of Course 2.
- Jade City: After uncovering two traitors in his clan, Kaul Hilo tells Ayt Mada that he's "pulled two of your weeds from my garden," and the rest will soon follow.
- In Kirlian Quest, the Local Cluster of galaxies, and their native sapient species, face invasion by an immensely powerful fleet from somewhere else. The invaders are seeking to make the Cluster's star systems suitable for the development of what they call "soul sapience", and part of doing so is to exterminate any "weed-species" that shows intelligence but doesn't show "soul sapience."
- New Jedi Order: Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon has a personal garden that he enjoys keeping in order, removing the weaker plants and nursing the stronger ones. This is a euphemism for the militaristic law of the New Order. He even debates the finer points of fascism with Han and Leia by using this as a metaphor.
- The Worst Witch: In A Bad Spell for the Worst Witch, Mildred upsets Sybil, the little sister of her worst enemy Ethel Hallow, by impulsively telling her a made-up tale about the frog in the school pond being a poor first-year who was two seconds late for a lesson, and turned into a frog by a teacher. When Ethel calls her out, Mildred refers to Sybil as "a bit of a weed", and then recklessly retorts to the angry Ethel "Weeds! All you Hallows are weeds, weeds, weeds!" Ethel's revenge is to turn Mildred into a frog, and leave a clump of weeds on her pillow.
Live-Action TV
- Babylon 5: In "A Day In The Strife" when an alien probe arrives at the station which promises cures to every known disease and centuries worth of technological advances if they correctly answer a series of question that will determine their level of technology. If they fail, it blows them up. Sheridan speculates that it comes from a race that considers knowledge the ultimate commodity, and only those who have it are worth existing and this probe would be to "prune" those it considers not worthy. Ivanova completes the metaphor by comparing it to a gardener, then quips she hopes Earth gets the required information in time, "Otherwise we're going to be hit with a five-hundred-thousand-megaton weed-whacker." Eventually Sheridan realizes it's the opposite, the probe is intended to destroy races that are advanced enough to pose a threat to its creators.
- Dalziel and Pascoe: In "Deadheads", Dalziel and Pascoe investigate Patrick Aldermann. Over the course of thirty years, six people in relation to Aldermann have all died suspiciously, and that each time, Aldermann benefited from their death. Aldermann is a keen rose gardener and the title refers "deadheading": the practice of cutting off the dead blooms from rose bushes to encourage new blooms.
- Once Upon a Time: In season 7, main antagonist Mother Gothel or Eloise Gardener refers to humanity by using gardening metaphors, greatly revealing her despise towards them. This is justified; Gothel is a nymph and daughter to Flora/Mother Nature, and humans killed her family and burnt her meadow.
Eloise Gardener: I've been a gardener my whole life, and I can honestly say there's no greater pest than humanity.Mother Gothel: It's rare to find a flower that can grow amongst the weeds of human nature.
- Parker Lewis Can't Lose: Norman Pankow is fond of his bonsai tree for similar reasons, pruning it and molding it into shape as fit his control freak tendencies.
Music
- Evillious Chronicles: In the song "Daughter of Evil," the vicious tyrant princess Riliane Lucifen d'Autriche is compared to a beautiful flower, while the peasants are compared to "pitiful weeds" that only exist to die and be turned into sources of nutrients (i.e. money) for her.
- The song "Weeds" by Marina Diamandis likens her current relationship to a flower garden, and the baggage from her ex-boyfriend as weeds: no matter how much she tries and focus ("cut [him] out at the root") she keeps thinking of him, like how weeds tend to grow back.
- Miracle of Sound's "Mother of Flame," a Game of Thrones-inspired Filk Song, contains a rare heroic example. The lyric "Planting the seeds through my cities of gold / Rip out the weeds by the roots" refers to Daenerys destroying the slaveholding families of Meereen and the Sons of the Harpy that seek to restore them to power.
Mythology & Religion
- The Four Gospels: In the Parable of the Tares, Jesus tells a story about a man who sowed wheat seed in his field, but an enemy came in the night and planted weeds. When the man's servants learned what had happened, they offered to pull out the weeds, but the man refused as the weeds and wheat look similar and thus the servants might accidentally pull out the wheat as well. He thus orders the men to leave both types of plants to grow together, and when the harvest time comes they will separate the wheat from the weeds and take one for harvest and another to be burned. When Jesus's disciples ask for an explanation, he explains that this is a metaphor for the coexistence of good and evil people in the world and the judgment that will come at the end of time.
Theatre
- In Richard II, Act 3 Scene 4, the Queen and her ladies-in-waiting overhear Richard's deposition being discussed by a head gardener, who talks about Richard's fall and the mistakes he made in dealing with the nobility with gardening similes and metaphors.
Video Games
- Fire Emblem Fates: The Conquest route has King Garon using this analogy when discussing dealing with rebellions, claiming that "one must salt the earth before they sprout."
- Mafia II: Invoked by Tommy Angelo during the trial of Ennio Salieri.
Tommy Angelo: I witnessed at least fifteen occasions where murders were sanctioned by Ennio Salieri himself. He orders the deaths of his employees and clients in the same way that a gardener pulls weeds from his flower bed.
- Mass Effect 2: During Mordin's loyalty mission, he describes how the re-engineered genophage was aiming to keep the krogan population level rather than just wiping them out, keeping it at a specific level of births, "Like gardening."
- In Mystic Messenger's Ray route, one conversation with Ray has him explain a metaphor about two flowers, one of which is growing taller and healthier because it is 'stealing' nutrients from the smaller flower, and that to save the weaker flower, the bigger one needs to be removed. While on a general level, this ties into him being The Social Darwinist, it is also used to explain his feelings towards his brother Saeyong/Seven, who he resents for growing up to become much more successful despite their mutual bad childhood, believing that Seven abandoned him.
Western Animation
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "Beat Your Greens", a race of aliens called the Broccoloids plant mind control spores in a broccoli field to incapacitate anyone who eats them, so they can take over the Earth.
Broccoloid Leader: Now the Earth’s barbaric mammal people shall be hypnotized into a vegetable state, allowing my warriors to reap through the Earth’s animal population and weed out all the human beings. Leaving we, the Broccoloid Empire, to harvest the fruits of the earth...and plant the seeds of a new empire! (Evil Laugh)
- The Ren & Stimpy Show: In "The Last Temptation", when Ren temporarily dies and goes to "The Big Guy"'s house, he meets Wilbur Cobb, whom he assumes is the so-called "Big Man". Wilbur shows Ren weeds and a bug that represent his various vices, which are a spiky flower that represents his transgression (which he rips out of the ground), crabgrass that represents his evil ways (that he poisons), and his greedy cigar beetle (which he kicks away).
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: After Shadow Weaver is taken prisoner by the Rebellion, she takes up gardening, and uses the chance to try to manipulate Adora and Glimmer into sharing their magical power with her. Word of God states this came about because it was considered the funniest hobby an Evil Sorcerer could pick up in captivity. To add to her sinister, yet well-spoken tone, she is always seen pruning her plants with scissors but never planting anything. As pointed out in this post
, her gardening style is a good metaphor for how she treats people: she raises them to serve her purposes, sculpts their growth, and cuts away the parts that aren't useful to her, like Catra's self-esteem or Glimmer's relationship with Adora.
