Aye, that looks questionable. Plus it's more like "the military is glorified" which is not this trope.
I've removed it.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Thank you for removing it. (Also, "thugs"? Nice coded language there, guy.)
Edited by ElegantVamp You watch me, just watch me. I'm calling- I'm calling. And one day all will know...
I think this trope would benefit from stronger language clarifying that it only applies when both (or all) sides' armies are evil, not just one. Having trouble coming up with the exact wording to convey what I'm thinking; any suggestions or thoughts?
The movies "Small Soldiers" and "Ant Z" are all constructed on this trope. In the first one the soldiers, who are meant to be the good guys toys, a sort of J.I. Joes, turns out as the real bad guys because of real military chip implanted in their processors, like in the movie "Evolver". In the second one the chief of the military class turns out to be a sort of hitler that want to get rid of the "useless" civilian class to construct a superior society. In the same movie thought it's subverted when one of his subofficials, the same one that he indicated for being less kind than himself, realized the orrible things they were doing and sided with the civilians.
Am I the only one a little disturbed how unfairly against the military this seems. I mean, come on, a few "to be fair" comments would be very nice, especially for tropes (like me) who have family in the military.
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf Hide / Show Replies
It's an anti-military trope, so there's not really much can be done about that. You could modify the description so it follows the standard write-up rubric-
- What this trope is about.
- Why this trope is used.
- How it does or does not dovetail with reality.
...But in terms of general form it can't really be changed.
See you in the discussion pages.
Yeah, unfortunately, it really can't be changed that much... If we don't already have something saying that (At least hopefully) armies are not like how they're portrayed, we should though.
When I made it, I tried to be specific with The Evil Army. Others came along later and changed it to imply all armies are evil. While part of me agrees that it implies the existence of a Good Army, at the same time, the Good Army should be the default of armies.
(Also, incidentaly, the Howls Moving Castle quote is a little bit nasty and idealistic when you think about it. Armies are necessary. Not a necessary evil, but necessary. There will always be threats or circumstances where a rigidly-defined chain of command and disciplined troops are required. At least until everybody is Omniscient and Omnipotent. Since people generally don't like living in a Police State, people who volunteer to shoulder said responsibilities are required.)
PS: In case anybody accuses me of 'supporting war' or 'Not supporting the troops' or anything stupidly partisan, I don't care. I will report anybody who tries to hijack this into an anti-whatever rant, regardless of sides, philosophies, grammar, spelling, or shoe size!
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. (Sorry to everybody who had no intentions of doing so. Pre-emptive damage control.)
Edited by KendraKirai
"All Armies are Evil" fits the trope definition on the main page.
When I saw the trope-name "Evil Army", I assumed it refered to Sauron's Orcs, Palpatine's Stormtroopers, Those Wacky Nazis, Xerxes' Persian, Santa Ana's Mexicans. All of these tyrants led to the Good guys organizing their own militia.
Umm. It's a trope about how armies might be portrayed in works. I mean, we have a number of tropes titled "Rape Is Okay/Funny When...", but that (hopefully) doesn't mean most of us on this wiki agree with that statement. We have one called "True Art Is Angsty", but I'm sure many people would say that no, it isn't. We have a trope titled "I Want My Jet Pack", but that doesn't mean every troper here has a desire to own a jet pack. It doesn't matter what the people writing the articles believe, it's about what's displayed in the convention described.
This article is not overtly anti-army; the fact that it is a page about how armies are shown as inherently evil is the sole source of its apparent bias. To add disclaimers everywhere stating that "no, this isn't how we see things" would change it from a descriptive page into an opinionated one, which, despite the fact that the majority would probably agree, is still wrong. (And it's not a good idea to allow for arguments of "oh, everyone believes this, so it's okay to make the article say so"; despite the fact that the majority may well think the same way, there is always the possibility that there are, or will be in the future, people here who do believe the opposite and are afraid to say so for fear of the backlash, or simply aren't even heard because they're in such a minority.)
I will admit, despite said fear of backlash, that I do hold an opinion on this particular issue contrary to what many of you believe; my profile says so, after all, and I figure if I'm going to be going on about this, I should be open about it when I do so. But I honestly don't find the article to be opinionated at all, except for the bias provided by its nature alone, which is to depict a certain opinion that shows up in media. I receive no grateful, relieved sense of "oh wow, finally someone agrees with me!" from reading the page, which is what normally happens when I encounter a diatribe along some persuasion that I happen to espouse. I like to think I have the ability to be objective when necessary, and from where I'm standing, the article doesn't read like "this trope is right". And since TV Tropes aims for some degree of neutrality (at least on non-subjective pages), I think it would be a bad thing to change it so that it gives a sense of "this trope is wrong".
I'm all for a single disclaimer or some minor tweaks if it is deemed the best action, but in my honest opinion, the page doesn't need a total rehaul or any sort of Verbal Tic amounting to "...but YMMV."
Kendra Kirai
Why was the name changed from The Evil Army? (Which doesn't redirect properly, by the way)
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The Howls Moving Castle quote sums it up, really- if there's an Evil Army, then that implies the existence of a Good Army. This trope is about how all armies are evil.
See you in the discussion pages.
I really think this part should be cut. It seems like untrue America-bashing to me:
Generally not regarded as Truth in Television, although it probably should be. American cable television is saturated with pro-military and police propaganda, such as constant coverage of World War 2 on the History Channel, and investigative series and reality shows which glorify the police. As a result, Americans tend to reflexively feel an overwhelming degree of love and reverence towards heavily armed thugs of all kinds, regardless of the level of brutality with which said thugs often behave.
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