Basic Trope: If you ever show any sign of rebellion, "they" will come for you. Unfortunately, they are real.
- Straight: The reigning power wipes out any opposition by using thoughtcrime policies.
- Exaggerated:
- The reigning power accidentally killed itself by thoughtcrime policies, and the policies themselves live on despite clearly having nobody to back them.
- Even just thinking anything illegal without saying it out loud is enough to get you killed.
- Downplayed: Thoughtcrime isn't punished as often as you would expect.
- Justified:
- The thoughtcrime was required to stop a Mind Virus and used for no other purpose, with no torture or death involved in curing the Mind Virus.
- Your Mind Makes It Real, and criminalizing the procreation and propagation of erroneous thoughts is key to stopping the birth of vile Eldritch Abominations.
- Inverted: The thoughtcrime policies are only towards the reigning power themselves, to eliminate corruption, and only result in being kicked from office.
- Subverted: The thoughtcrime policies are successfully ended by La Résistance... only to discover that a Mind Virus was being held back by them.
- Double Subverted: The Mind Virus is an example of Taking You with Me, or is a good thing left by the now-dead old guard or a previously failed rebellion in order to have what is right destroy all that is evil once and for all but still highly contagious.
- Parodied: The attempts at enforcing thoughtcrime are clearly visible and ridiculed by the public, despite otherwise working.
- Zig Zagged: The attempts at enforcing thoughtcrime are clearly visible and ridiculed by the public... because it's the only form of dissent allowed... because the Well-Intentioned Extremists who started them in the name of good soon discovered that not doing so leads to widespread insanity.
- Averted: A world where Big Brother Is Watching decided that thoughtcrime policies themselves are both illegal and allowed to be discussed openly despite the agreed immorality of implementing them.
- Enforced: The network or the ratings board had the writers implement this to prevent a work that otherwise endorses freedom from having characters speaking ill of the ones who enforced the trope.
- Lampshaded: A setting with Black Comedy points it out, either as it happens, or it doesn't happen afterward as a direct consequence.
- Invoked: The antagonist does this to result in a Downer Ending, or the protagonist turns it on the reigning power to bring them down.
- Exploited: Invoked, or prevented from being enacted by pointing out that thoughtcrime is a form of corruption.
- Defied: Despite thoughtcrime existing in the law of a Dystopia, it is never or hardly ever used because the Streisand Effect bested it and caused the reigning power to use other options. Or, thoughtcrime results in mass suicide to escape the possibility of torture or an undefeatable despot, until the only ones left are those who enacted the policy... alone... with only fellow backstabbers, selfish jerks and/or sadists... for the rest of their lives...
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: A character undergoes Chuck Cunningham Syndrome. Someone lampshades it by offhandedly mentioning them having displayed "undesirable traits".
- Deconstructed: The thoughtcrime policy falls apart for one or more reasons.
- Reconstructed: The thoughtcrime policy was enacted by a Physical God or The Powers That Be, or is a feature of Hell, and results in Ret-Gone in some form rather than Un-person.
- Played For Laughs: Used for Black Comedy.
- Played For Drama: La Resistance must get past newly-enacted or newly-discovered (by the rebellion) thoughtcrime policies.
Back to Thoughtcrime
