Basic Trope: Literature that is viewed as undermining morals and/or authority gets destroyed.
- Straight: Leaders of the Church of Crystal Dragon Jesus find secular books immoral and a distraction from reading its holy book. So they have an event where members of their church can bring in secular books to be destroyed in a bonfire.
- Exaggerated:
- The church leaders who lead fascist Right-Wing Militia Fanatic organizations actually torch the local library.
- They burn non-print media, too, such as VHS tapes, DVDs, CDs, etc.
- Downplayed:
- A publishing company refuses to publish a book because it's too controversial, doesn't fit with their public image, etc.
- The Culture Police make sure only "appropriate" books are ever released to the public.
- Bob burns Alice's favorite book because he's angry and wants to spite her.
- A single page is deliberately burned.
- Justified:
- The group wants to enforce its authority
- The story is set in The Theocracy, People's Republic of Tyranny, One Nation Under Copyright or some other such Dystopia.
- The books were genuinely horrible for various reasons besides their iconoclastic contents. Their lack of quality is why the Church burns them... as does literally everyone else.
- In this culture, the books are sacrificial offerings to a deity, like food and flowers.
- In another culture, they burn damaged books as a sort of "cremation", by giving it the same respect as a deceased, respected person.
- The books contain dangerous information that could cause incalculable damage, so they're destroyed to keep that information out of the wrong hands.
- The books are copies of a religious text that contain mistakes (or, if printed, all contain the same mistake), and all copies that contain such errors are to be destroyed so they won't confuse the faithful.
- The group needed some kindling: these books were deemed to be the least valuable and thus the least objectionable to be used as such. note
- Inverted:
- Members of the Church of Crystal Dragon Jesus help to put out a fire at the local library, out of fear that lots of valuable literature might be lost.
- The books are destroyed by being thrown into the water or frozen.
- Everyone gathers around a bonfire in the middle of town as books are created out of it.
- Sentient books end up burning people alive in revenge for them being censored for so long.
- Subverted:
- The "inappropriate" books aren't burned.
- The books are not burned for censorship, but because they are ritual sacrifices to a god.
- The books are burned because they are treated with so much respect, they are "cremated" in a lavish ceremony like they would to a dead person, especially if they are too damaged.
- The books call out the Corrupt Church as heretics of the worst kind who abuse religion to gain power while betraying all of its principles. The resulting rebellion leads to the theocratic leadership being burnt at stake like they did to so many books and writers..
- Double Subverted: They are thrown in a body of water, or dumped in the trash with much fanfare.
- Parodied: Fumes from burning tablets with ebooks on them cause the congregation to suffocate.
- Zig Zagged: Some secular books (or books having to do with other faiths) are condemned and destroyed by the Church of Crystal Dragon Jesus, others are not.
- Averted: The Church of Crystal Dragon Jesus does not destroy any books or other media.
- Enforced: "We need to show what a Crapsack World (or Crapsaccharine World) this is."
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: A dictator rises to power, and sets up a committee of Culture Police to make sure that the people don't read or watch anything that might potentially get them to question his authority, or go against what he believes is morally correct.
- Exploited: The church leaders invite other religious groups to participate, in a protest against secularism, pornography, etc.
- Defied:
- The Church of Crystal Dragon Jesus actively prohibit book burning, seeing value in all literature, even that which goes against their values. (Although they might still discourage people from looking at certain things.)
- The Church of Crystal Dragon Jesus gather a pile of books to be burned — but just as they light the match, the Church of Tropology fights them off and rescues the books.
- The contents of the book are kept in a digital format or the text is written on a material that cannot easily burn or melt, such as tungsten.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
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