Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
NMF page had several entries rewritten and others removed as part of the Nightmare Fuel clean up project.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=15046601260A53602600&page=1
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
I am putting this one here after discussing it with another troper. While the troper in question doesn't think the trope doesn't count because it is not a perfect match the bigger issue seems to come from the tropes write up which honestly needs to be more clear. Until that is possibly addressed I am just leaving the entry in question here instead of adding it back.
- "Die Hard" on an X: Die Hard in a skyscraper, no less. Ma-Ma traps Dredd and Rookie Anderson not realizing just who it is she has trapped in her building until it is too late.
Note: when Dredd fired incendiary round and Ma-Ma watches as her mooks are burning to death, she (while being sad on losing human resourses) actually enjoyed the show. So: 1) in Oh Crap! section could remove part about incendiary shot dealing 'psychological blow' 2) could add some tropes about Ma-Ma being concealed psychopath
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Preeeeeeeeeeeetty sure there's nothing "concealed" about Ma-Ma being a psychopath.
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Yeah there is nothing covert about her. She is noted as overtly violent and vicious to a fault. This is the same villain who had a whole section of the block cut down with larger caliber Gatling guns to kill two judges and no fucks were given about the obvious collateral casualties.
Who watches the watchmen?
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
This entry is not what the trope is about. The trope is generally about more then a simple cruel and unusual death which is coincidentally already have an entry for. And I Must Scream is aimed at a fate worse then death scenario with little or no hope of relief by death or any means. It may or may not involve someone unable to scream.
The three pushers from their perception are dying slowly and painfully their deaths even from their altered perspectives as demonstrated by the in movie perspective of slow mo users is not really all that long or protracted and clearly are heading for messy death. Mama herself when she is dosed rather then appearing to be suffering despite a non-lethal gunshot wound instead looks rather high as she falls to her death.
Finally Mama emasculating the offending pimp is a shoe horned example. While nasty and cruel his suffering will eventually stop. Any other problems that relate to being mangled would fall under a different trope. The film itslef does not mention her dosing him with slomo first just simply "emasculating him with her teeth" according the medic talking to Dredd and Anderson.
If it is in the companion media ie additional media put out to add background story and stir up interest in the primary work that should be placed into a folder on the works primary page provided the companion work has not become a spin off work.
- And I Must Scream: Ma-Ma doses the rival drug dealers with Slo-Mo before hurling them off the balcony, prolonging the agony of having being skinned and the fear of their own deaths from the high fall. Dredd does the same thing to Ma-Ma when he throws her out the window. In Ma-Ma's backstory where she bit of her pimp's penis, she persuades him to take a hit of Slo-Mo first to make the pain seem like it lasts longer.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Ok first I am not entirely sure this is a proper use of the trope. Anderson maybe a lighter touch compared to Dredd but Dredd is almost at an extreme. Anderson is also a rookie and does not lapse into rage but behaves like she is expected to as a Street Judge whose job is to act as judge, jury, and sometimes even as executioner.
The rest of the trope is written like the editor is taking this kind of personally and out of context. Both Anderson and Dredd show moments of mercy and restraint in the film. Anderson has a key scene where she stands up to Dredd about her call to let Clan Techie go.
Despite seeming brutal every person that Dredd and Anderson shoot in the tower are part of Ma-Ma's gang whose hall mark is solving nearly every issue with violence. Even the one perp Anderson initially hesitates to execute is picking up a gun and trying to it aim at Anderson. Every perp that gets cut down over the course of the movie is in someway trying to actively kill both of them. Ma-Ma and her gang demonstrate a willingness to go to extremes to try and kill the judges.
The only reason Anderson wasn't raped and tortured to death is because Ma-Ma needed things done a specific way to cover up her operations. Kay himself is shown to be a rather nasty person directly involved in the trio of murders that brought them to Peach Trees in the first place.
From locking down the entire tower and threatening everyone in it with the extermination of their families, the use of heavy weaponry killing many bystanders, hiring a team of four corrupt judges to assassinate them, and even rigging the top 50 floors of the building with a large number of explosives wired to a dead man's switch to protect Ma-Ma from paying the price for her crimes. They are dealing a violent and extreme group of criminals that we would more likely associate with a fanatical terrorist cell rather than simple law breakers.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Anderson is a cute blonde, very sympathetic in nature. It's easy to forget that she has volunteered to become a cold-blooded, merciless killer.
Yeah... she's still a law enforcement officer, and she happens to be not quite ineffective. It's not like she has a surprising hidden side where she's impressive and dangerous, she just happened to be a decent person and decent at conflict.
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Pretty much the same way I see it. She is just now getting a baptism by fire and getting her combat chops. By the end of the film its like her training has kicked in and she had accepted the facts of life that a lot of the bad guys are pretty bad and likely won't hesitate to kill her given the opportunity.
Who watches the watchmen?
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
The following is a Zero Context Example. It is possible it could be salvaged but specifics are needed.
- I Need No Ladders: Judge Dredd.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Brought in for discussion.
- Coming of Age Story: It's Anderson's assessment, and her evaluator is Judge Dredd.
There is a difference between an adult being tested for a position like a judge in Mega City One and a coming of age story which focusses on someone growing up. The film most definitely does not reflect a coming of age story. It is a Dredd film with a few light touches of buddy cop thrown in. The film doesn't even focus on the test itself but does bring it up at a few key points. Instead it rapidly shifts from Andersons test to the over arching conflict with Mama and her gang. While elements of Andersons test are still shown the focus of the movie is aimed at the bigger conflict.
To top it off Anderson has no trouble with combat in general just with her first execution. Her backstory already has her having grown up in a slum block. She is not making the leap from from Child to Adult,she is making the leap from Rookie in Training to a full ledged keeper of law.
Who watches the watchmen?
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: The crime rate Dredd mentions isn't actually that bad when you consider it is in proportion to a population of 800 million. If we equate "serious crimes" as Dredd calls them to what is classified "violent crime" in modern U.S. law, there is less crime per capita in Mega-City One than New York City had in the 1980s by a clear margin.
Someone in the movie thread mentioned this entry seemed a bit odd and also pointed out a cracked article that possibly inspired the statement.
In the film during a lecture to Rookie Anderson at the start of the film. Dredd rattles off statistics about Crime and Law Enforcement in Mega City 1.
" 12 serious crimes reported every minute, 17,000 everyday. We can respond to around 6%"
Earlier Dredd mentions that rookies have 1 in 5 chance of dying on their first day. Those are stats you see more commonly a battlefield not a urban center.
There is no available definition of what constitutes a serious crime in the Dredd film vs the modern U.S. The media franchise the movie comes from has a vastly different set of legal codes and laws to the U.S. Some examples of crimes include ownership of sugar or coffee as illegal. Possessing unlicensed Goldfish or other small pets is illegal. There are a myriad of examples from the various media and include crimes that simply do not exist in the U.S.
Also in the US Serous Crime typically refers to Felonies in general not violent crime alone.
Even if you interpret Serious Crime to mean violent crime Mega city one is still worse off.
386.00 per 100,000 U.S. 2011 Per Capita.
788.4 per 100,000 Mega City 1 Per Capita
To top it off the Judges have a very limited capacity only able to respond to roughly 6% of that crime. U.S. now has much better response and police coverage.
It looks more like Tropers can't do math or draw a clear distinction in a lack of information needed to make a comparison for that entry in the first place.
Edited by 208.77.174.14 Who watches the watchmen? Hide / Show Replies
People need to remember that Cracked is, first and foremost, a humor and entertainment website. As a result they make lots of factual errors and occasionally actually alter or stretch statistics and facts for the sake of humor. Trying to use them as a source for actual facts is an exercise in futility.
Agreed. It also wouldn't hurt to sit down and do the simple math for entries like this. The math for per capita is actually pretty easy, plus all the info given by Dredd gives you all you need even if you make assumptions that Serious Crime=Violent Crime.
Edited by 98.168.240.129 Who watches the watchmen?
Because I am expecting the person who put the entry up in the first place and then placed it back without coming here into discussion to show up and deal with it here like they should have.
The highest violent crime rate for the entire US in the 80's topped out at 1,646,040 in 1989. It also only accounted for about 16% of all crime in that time frame. Apply the same math to Mega City one and you get a very very high crime rate.
The worst period for crime in the US is in 90's. The crime rate is higher and comprable to a time when the nation was considered to have a very serious crime issue.
Not only is crime higher but it is proportional to the population of Mega City One. It is further compouned by the extremely close quarters of the living conditions and lack of sufficient Law Enforcement Coverage.
The total yearly number of serious crime in Mega City one is 6,307,200 per year, with far fewer police, a population notably larger, and in a space about 1/5th as large.
The population tripled from the worst point in the 80's and the serious/violent crime alone nearly quadrupled. If by comparison to the worst of the 80s from the US as a whole violent crime is only 16% of the total crime.
You start applying the same numbers to Mega City one with reduced Police Coverage, a totaltarian government, and the judge system with the street judges and Mega City One is in fact very bad off.
No matter how you slice it Mega City One is worse then any modern day city or state by very appreciable degrees.
The trope cannot be reasonably applied in any way shape or form to the movie or any of the other works in the Dredd verse.
At the highest rate of crime for Newyork in the 1980's crime topped out at 203,042 for the entire year that works out to a measely 113.1 per capita in 1989. That by the way is for the entire state not just the city. Megacity Ones Crime total is over 6 million with 788 per capita.
Even at the worst point in US history today of highest per capita Violent Crime for the entire nation. Megacity one still has a higher per capita violent crime alone in a far smaller space with less police and higher population density in built up areas.
Oh and all the information from the US is drawn from official US reporting sources.
Edited by 208.77.174.14 Who watches the watchmen?
My apologies for posting the entry up again without thinking to check here. Upon further inspection, the source I was using to calculate the crime rates in 1980s New York had the numbers for the entire state of New York, not just the metropolitan area. I feel that drawing comparisons to the total crime rate in an entire country is misleading, since urban areas tend to have the highest crime rates. As for how much crime goes unreported either in Mega-City One or in the real world is difficult to tell.
However, I do still uphold that comparing the 788,4 per 100 000 to the real world is not bad. I tried looking up what I could consider a reliable official source online, and one which was easily accessible. The NYPD website has statistics going back to 2000 here: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/analysis_and_planning/historical_nyc_crime_data.shtml
Under the top link on that page, "Citywide Seven Major Felony Offenses 2000-2012" the first four felonies listed, murder, rape, robbery and assault, are to my knowledge classified as violent crime. Adding those together from 2000 gives the number of 61 227. Now, the page says consistently that this is for New York City, not the entire state for New York. In 2000 the city had very close to exactly eight million residents. So to get crimes per 100 000 people, we can divide the total number by eighty. That gives 765,5 violent crimes per 100 000 people.
The source I used for my original calculations is http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/nycrime.htm It states as its sources FBI and Uniform Crime Reports. That page does give the same number for violent crime in 1989 as you do, 203 042. The total population of the state at that time was 17,95 million, so let's divide that number of crimes by 179,5, since 179,5 x 100 000 = 17 950 000. That 1131 violent crimes per 100 000 residents. I think you might have divided the numbers by one digit too many.
Also, I am still curious about what Cracked article relates to this. I tried searching their website with the keywords "Dredd" and "crime", but nothing relevant seemed to pop up.
I think you may be right on the new york bit dropped it a decimal place probably added in one too many zeros. As for the cracked article if you didn't get that info from it don't worry about it. I would have to unbury the link from somewhere else. Once we are done here I can dig that up for you.
Mega City 1 is effectively an entire country contained to the remains of the Eastern Seaboard and a bit inland. They are autonomous from any other Megacities on the planet. Each Mega City is a different country. They are for all intents and purposes Massive Psuedo-Arcology like structures. For the Dredd verse we would need the stats for the various sectors the city is divided into to do a proper comparison with the state of New York. However we are never given that info. We just have the Entirety of Mega City one. The sectors are then divided into blocks.
Now if you wanted to pick a particularly high crime part of the world to compare to I would suggest South American or Southern Africa regions. I recall some of the countries have some shockingly high crime rates. Look for militarized Police who can only operate at small scale and high density population centers with a lot of slum space.
I know the Formula goes like this. Total Population divided by 100,000. The violent crime rate then divided by result from 100,000
Disaster Center is a good source.
2011
311,587,816 Total Population Total Violent Crime Rate as the US defines Violent Crime 1,206,031.
With the Per Capita Formula for the US.
311,587,816 divided by 1000,000=3115.87
Take total violent crime. 1,206,031 divide that by 3115.87
That gives us 387.06 per capita. The official per capita is 386.9. Statistical formulas like this usually have other small modifiers factored in or take it out more decimal places. But as you can see the results are very close with a difference of .16.
Lets take the highest violent crime rate in the US to date. It peaked in 1992 during the big Crack Epidemic in the US. It peaked then started to fall and has been falling since.
total population 255,082,000 total violent crime 1,932,270
255,082,000/100000=2550.82 1,932,270/2550.82=757.50 Official source 757.5. Right on the money this time.
So the math is good.
Even the worst of the entire country at it's height and Mega City One still has it beat on a Per-capita basis.
If you wanted to compare Newyork and Megacity one in the same light you need to figure out what percentage of the Total population Newyork is of the US total at that time and the same percentage for its share of the total US crime. Apply those percentages to the totals from Mega City One for your comparison then. You have to compare them at comparable levels to get comparable data. I will do the math for this in a second. Might not be the most accurate but its the best we got.
Tell you what. You can find a country that is more comparable we can work out a better wording of the example. There are other factors we can discuss but we can wait on that later.
Edited by 98.168.240.129 Who watches the watchmen?
Did the Percentage Solution from New York's highest Violent Crime
New York 1990 Pop 17,990,455 Violent Crime 212,458
US 1990 Pop 248,709,873 Violent Crime 1,820,130
Population Percent
New York 17,990,455/ US 248,709,873=.0723x100=7.23%.
Violent Crime Percent
New York 212,485/ US 1820130=.1167x100=11.67%
Mega City One
Total Pop 800,000,000 x .0723=57,840,000
Crime total 6307200 x .1167=736,050.24
Now plug that into Per Capita
57,840,000/100,000=578
736,050.24/578.4= Mega 1,272.56 New York 1,180.9. NY is slightly lower at its most violent with a difference of 91.66.
The downside is like mentioned not the best comparison because we don't have data from Mega City One at the same level as the state.
Edited by 98.168.240.129 Who watches the watchmen?
Fair enough. From a quick gander El Salvador and Honduras would be good candidates for an entire crime-ridden real country, but it's hard to come by statistics for those beyond murder online. I'll look around and see what I can find.
This has been interesting. I found crime statistics worldwide collected here: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/statistics/data.html
However, there is a great deal of variance. According to those numbers, for example Honduras and El Salvador have roughly a measly 50 assaults per 100 000 people, while freaking Sweden is almost to 950 as of 2011. Apparently there are other factors at work here such as the legal definitions and what exactly gets reported, both by the people to the police and by the governments to UN. However, trying to come up with something that seems both reliable and comparable in legal definitions, I calculated the rate for violent crime (homicide, assault, rape and robbery) in the entirety of UK, and reached a number of 804 per 100 000 people.
The UK also defines violent crime differently then the US.
From this Article
But of the 871,000 crimes against the person, less than half (401,000) involved any actual injury. The remainder were mostly crimes like simple assault without injury, harassment, “possession of an article with a blade or point,” and causing “public fear, alarm, or distress.”
Edited by 98.168.240.129 Who watches the watchmen?
I'm not surprised. I am having doubts about how useful any of this information might be with different laws in different countries. How about Mexico? The rate for violent crime I got is 849,7. Certainly the country has problems with crime, but overall it's far from being a lawless hellhole.
Mexico has some serious issues with cartels and government clashes with them. The cartels are running rampant in certain states.
Are they defining the info at least roughly close to the US? If it is close it is useful.
Mega City one isn't quite lawless either just has a rather nasty crime problem.
Politifact did a more accurate comparison using US defintions for England and Wales because apparently other parts of the UK are recorded seperately, they got 775 per capita.
We are getting close to the Mega City total but some hellhole currently in the world has to exist that is reasonably comprable or worse. Sounds like Mexico may be our nation.
Edited by 208.77.174.14 Who watches the watchmen?
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Ok someone spoilered the trope entry which is not how spoilers are used. IF merely listing a trope is a serious spoiler it should not be put on the page.
In my opinion dirty cop with the specifics spoilered is vague enough to be on the page. The entry alone does not detail how the cops are dirty, how many, and what they are doing that makes them dirty. Someone with spoilers enabled would simply know somewhere in the film there is at least one dirty cop of some sort.
- [[Spoiler:Dirty Cop: Four corrupt Judges are called in by Ma-Ma when Dredd proves too formidable an opponent to take down on her own, pretending to be Dredd's backup.]]
Agreed. It's not so terrible that it needs to be totally spoilered. Some people just really don't understand how spoiler tags are supposed to be used.
As was stated by the mods, if a person has to read the spoiler to find out whether or not they want to read it, then it's not really serving its purpose.
Maybe tweak the end of the original entry a bit, though, to "pretending to be on official business", but otherwise IMO yeah it was fine as-is.
All your safe space are belong to Trump
I don't think it even needs a spoiler at all. The judges were never presented as being legitimate. Their first mention is when Ma-Ma says "we call the police," then it cuts to them. And then they get in the building and relieve the good cops. At no point is their being dirty a secret to the audience.
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Part of the point of spoilers is to keep folks who haven't consumed the media yet from having it spoiled for them not to conceal it from those who have already seen it. The details would indeed spoil that plot point if you haven't seen the movie. While leaving just the entry details spoiled keeps the majority of the entries ambiguity.
The scene where we discover that all four are crooked involves all four talking to mama about money for the deed and their plans to carry it out.
The point where they are riding in and send the other judges away while definetly suspicious doesn't automatically mark all four of them as Dirty Cops. Until we see them meeting with and negotiating with Mama over a price for their services is that made quite plain.
The line about them pretending to be Dredd's backup is accurate though. Unless you were talking about making the entry a bit less spoilerific.
At this point we agree that the entry can be ont he page and have 3 out of 4 for hiding the details behind the tag with maybe a modification. We have one who thinks it doesn't need to be spoiled at all.
Who watches the watchmen?
Unless someone objects or presents something different tomorrow I am going to put the entry back with the just body of the example spoilered tomorrow.
Who watches the watchmen?
Put it in like this:
Dirty Cop: Four corrupt Judges pretending to be Dredd's backup are called in by Ma-Ma when Dredd proves too formidable an opponent to take down on her own.
Examples when the entire context are spoiled are also frowned upon, and it certainly isn't a spoiler that Dredd is a dangerous opponent. I still don't think a spoiler is strictly necessary, but I'm fine with this.
Edited by 108.48.88.58 Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
They may be frowned upon but they are accepted when it is better to spoil the whole example. But your example covers that well enough.
It works. I will put that one up.
Who watches the watchmen?
Where is there any indication that none of the guns that the gangers in Peach Tree were using armour-piercing ammo? I recently edited Armouris Useless, because it states "Judge armor doesn't actually seem capable of stopping bullets, even from guns that it rightfully should. An MP 5 sub-machine gun goes through the armor like paper, and Anderson (by all appearances) takes a hit from a pistol. The only time an armor-piercing round was needed was to shoot through a wall." It was reverted back to what it stated earlier.
Maybe it's just me, but if I knew that the Judges were packing some pretty serious body armour, I'd be finding ways to obtain armour-piercing ammo. It may not be the same material as what the Judges are using in their Lawgivers for their AP Rs, but hey, it's better then nothing.
Also, unless they're making the body armour worn by Judges out of something incredible, ballistic fiber, especially Kevlar; can be breached at a close range by subguns like the MP 5. If they are using AP Rs, then that definitely reinforces that occurrence.
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Speaking about real life body armor, there are plenty of things that can pierce the average kevlar vest. A .45 caliber round can easily pierce it at close range, and there's no reason to believe gang bangers in Mega City 1 wouldn't be packing .45 cal pistols, or even .50's.
From a distance, even the best bulletproof armor isn't going to be perfect. Each hit fractures the plating and creates a weakpoint, which a second hit to the same spot can pierce with ease.
Point is, armor isn't useless, but it's not all-powerful either. That's why SWAT officers carry shields instead of just counting on their armor to save them.
Edited by 24.254.0.40
.45 caliber pistols can be stopped by a variety of armors. In real life there is a whole armor rating system that involves varying levels of protection. There are guys who make body armor who will shoot themselves muzzle touching the armor surface with mangnum handguns to demonstrate the effectiveness of their armor. Even hard inserts have their own sort of rating.
But other points like armor not necessarily having full coverage or same level of coverage is a good point. Early US hard plate armor ie the early variants of Ranger Armor only had the rifle plates on the front. First use was Somalia on the mission depicted in Black Hawk Down. Several of the rangers were injured or killed when they got shot in the back.
Again given the setting there is no telling what the judges body wear is made of or what the armor is made from. Never mind things like coverage, ammo usage of criminals etc.
Who watches the watchmen?
If I recall correctly, there's five relevant times a judge gets shot:
Dredd shrugs off a bullet in the opening.
Anderson takes a hit somewhere in the middle. Doesn't seem to affect her that much (this is the one I remember the worst)
Female judge gets mowed down by Anderson.
Dredd gets hit by the armor-piercing round.
Lex gets mowed down by Anderson.
So it seems pretty inconsistent, unless Anderson's gun has armor piercing rounds (which it might, given she took it from Kay, who's high-ranking and at that point it was clear they were going up against judges). In any case, it's not quite Armor Is Useless. I think the current entry for it is very good.
Edited by 156.33.241.3 Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Sounds more like the Armor is only as good as the plot demands.
Who watches the watchmen?
"In distress", my ass.
Moved Anti-Climax Boss to YMMV.
Also, fixed Example Indentation, and deleted misuse of tropes, in particular:
- Ironic Nickname: There's no irony about "Ma Ma" as a nickname, unless you're using the Alanis Morissette definition of "irony".
- X Meets Y: Dredd was in production before The Raid came out, it just didn't make it out before Raid due to Development Hell.
I don't get why some people are criticising Dredd for not trying to shoot the guys manning the 3 Gatling guns aiming at him. The guns were already spinning up. He had time to take down at most a couple of them. Other people could have taken over. And even if he tried to switch to his incendiary round, he'd have no time to aim and fire before getting ripped to shreds. Looks like a case of unrealistic superhero expectations meeting tactical reality.
Anyone else think the Slo-Mo drug/related effects served mostly to add ten minutes of padding and a chance to show off some decent SFX?
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I would disagree with the padding. Most people think Slo-Mo fits within the Dredd universe.
And yeah it gives a chnace to show off some cool SFX.
Does anyone have any links or info to the companion comic?
Edited by TuefelHundenIV Who watches the watchmen?