Comic Books
Captain America: Nothing justifies terrorism... or murder!
Wolverine: Terrorists—! That's what the big army calls the little army!
Wolverine: Terrorists—! That's what the big army calls the little army!
Black Widow: Is that what you consider yourself now? A terrorist?
Maria Hill: Well, I'd go with "freedom fighter" or just "person who didn't close their eyes and let the damn world get taken over", but hey, I don't write the headlines.
Maria Hill: Well, I'd go with "freedom fighter" or just "person who didn't close their eyes and let the damn world get taken over", but hey, I don't write the headlines.
— Secret Empire #3
Fan Works
The sound of angry shouting and fists banging against iron bars rung loudly in her ears, turning the throbbing pain into ringing agony. It had all happened so fast, too fast. Her brothers and sisters had been rallying against the gates, protests falling on deaf ears, shouting for justice, for equality.
It had only taken a few angry words, an angry push, a heated insult.
"Get back in line you dogs!"
From there it had become a ripple, a shocked wave of anger and confusion, spreading. The crowd had moved as one, forming a line of defense, curling into an arc ("protect our own").
It had only taken a few angry words, an angry push, a heated insult.
"Get back in line you dogs!"
From there it had become a ripple, a shocked wave of anger and confusion, spreading. The crowd had moved as one, forming a line of defense, curling into an arc ("protect our own").
Tifa: How was destroying a factory that was sucking the life out of the planet "terrorism"?
Cloud: EVERY PART OF IT WAS TERRORISM!
Cloud: EVERY PART OF IT WAS TERRORISM!
Ange: So, who are you people anyway?
Hilda: Isn't it obvious Princess? They're terrorists.
Momoka: Terrorists!
Kat: We like to think of ourselves as 'independent thinkers.'
Hilda: Isn't it obvious Princess? They're terrorists.
Momoka: Terrorists!
Kat: We like to think of ourselves as 'independent thinkers.'
Films
"We'll be branded as traitors, the gravest capital crime, punishable by death. A couple hundred years ago, a few guys named Washington, Jefferson and Adams were branded as traitors by the British, and now they're called patriots. In time, so shall we."
— General Francis X. Hummel, The Rock
Mahree: I still don't know what all the craziness was about.
Piper: Stephen Biko.
Mahree: Yeah, Biko. Who cares? Just some crazy terrorist who killed himself.
Piper: Anyone who knows right from wrong would care! And Biko didn't kill himself! The police killed him!
Mahree: Who told you that?
Piper: The whole world knows it! Just turn on the news! The South African police beat him and tried to hide it when he died! PIGS!
Mahree: The police are not pigs! My father is not a pig!
Piper: Oh, yeah? Then why don't you ask him how Biko died?
Mahree: I don't have to ask him! This Biko was a common criminal! You Americans would call him a thug!
Piper: Well, whatever you want to call him, he was a man fighting for justice! Just like my father.
Now take Sir Francis Drake: The Spanish all despise him.
But to the British he's a hero, and they idolize him.
It's how you look at buccaneers that makes them bad or good
And I see us as members of a noble brotherhood.
But to the British he's a hero, and they idolize him.
It's how you look at buccaneers that makes them bad or good
And I see us as members of a noble brotherhood.
— Long John Silver, Muppet Treasure Island
Literature
Boh Da Thone was a warrior bold:
His sword and his Snider were bossed with gold.
And the Peacock Banner his henchmen bore
Was stiff with bullion but stiffer with gore.
He shot at the strong and he slashed at the weak.
From the Salween scrub to the Chidwin teak;
He crucified noble, he sacrificed meek:
He filled old ladies with kerosine:
While over the water the papers cried,
"The patriot fights for his countryside."
His sword and his Snider were bossed with gold.
And the Peacock Banner his henchmen bore
Was stiff with bullion but stiffer with gore.
He shot at the strong and he slashed at the weak.
From the Salween scrub to the Chidwin teak;
He crucified noble, he sacrificed meek:
He filled old ladies with kerosine:
While over the water the papers cried,
"The patriot fights for his countryside."
—Rudyard Kipling, The Ballad of Boh Da Thone.
"To summon Sparrow back from the dead would mean sacrificing Dorcas."
"The terrorist?"
"The freedom fighter. Should I condemn her to death to give birth to a shadow? Let her live, Mallory."
"The terrorist?"
"The freedom fighter. Should I condemn her to death to give birth to a shadow? Let her live, Mallory."
— Grail
Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, "What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor."
— Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, "How like kingdoms without justice are to robberies"
Live-Action TV
"The difference between generals and terrorists, Doctor, is only the difference between winners and losers. You win, you're called a 'general'."
— Kyril Finn, Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The High Ground"
Billy: [Zarek's] colony was exploited by the other eleven for centuries. His people were marginalized, brutalized...
Dee: I'm from Saggitaron, and that man does not speak for all of us. He blew up a government building and there's no excuse for that!
Dee: I'm from Saggitaron, and that man does not speak for all of us. He blew up a government building and there's no excuse for that!
Video Games
''It's not like [Machina]'s the only person who's lost someone they love. Even the bad-guys we're making go bye-bye are somebody else's good guys.
—Cinque, Final Fantasy Type-0
Sam Fisher: You're a murderer, and a war criminal.
Doug Shetland: Those're the only names the state has for the revolutionaries, Sam. You only become a hero after the war is over.
Doug Shetland: Those're the only names the state has for the revolutionaries, Sam. You only become a hero after the war is over.
Web Animation
Blake: The White Fang is hardly a bunch of psychopaths. They're a collection of misguided Faunus.
Weiss: Misguided?! They want to wipe humanity off the face of the planet!
Blake: So, then they're very misguided!
Weiss: Misguided?! They want to wipe humanity off the face of the planet!
Blake: So, then they're very misguided!
—RWBY
Web Original
58% of those arrested in connection with the riots came from the poorest 20% of areas of England. This fact speaks volumes about the causes of the riots. And perhaps more to the point, it is not necessarily reasonable to expect people’s howl of outrage at the apparent and hopeless dead end that is their life to be orderly and productive.
—Dr. El Sandifer
on the 2011 England riots
on the 2011 England riotsV: I'm the good kind of terrorist, the kind that tortures people and blows things up...wait...
Alan Moore: I'm a bloody genius!
Alan Moore: I'm a bloody genius!
—Lewis "Linkara" Lovhaug, summarizing V for Vendetta
"But what are we to make of the fact that the two thieves between whom Christ was nailed have suddenly been transformed into "insurgents"?... When the modern ear hears "insurgents," the mind thinks of Vietcong, mujahedin, contras, Shining Path, Kurds, a half-dozen jumbled and bloody acronyms. What's next? 'And they crucified Him between two freedom fighters....'"
— Christopher Buckley, reviewing the New American Bible
"In two hundred years will people remember us as traitors or heroes? That is the question we must ask."
— Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson
"Like when a group of thirty Bloods walks up on a group of thirty Crips and everybody salutes and hugs and shakes hands, and starts to take pictures. But then the pictures that they take, they say 'Oh now they uniting to kill cops.'"
— April 28th, 2015, WBAL TV 11, Baltimore, interview with Black Men United.
"Everybody is worried about stopping terrorism...there is a simple solution: stop participating in it."
— Noam Chomsky
"Treason doth never prosper. What's the reason? For if it prosper, nor dare call it treason."
— Sir John Harington, 16th century English poet
"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
— Nelson Mandela, resistance leader against apartheid, later South African President, the Trope Namer (since he was called both of these)
"I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists. I tell them that I was also a terrorist yesterday, but, today, I am admired by the very people who said I was one."
— Nelson Mandela, Larry King Live
"When the Israelis pick up guns, or the Poles, or the Irish, or any white man in the world says 'give me liberty, or give me death,' the entire white world applauds. When a black man says exactly the same thing, word for word, he is judged a criminal and treated like one and everything possible is done to make an example of this bad nigger so there won't be any more like him."
— James Baldwin, The Dick Cavett Show
