Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Probably used wrong more often than right.
, started by HiddenFacedMatt on Nov 6th 2011 at 4:48:54 AM
I suggest we move the current page quote to the quotes section and use Zero's "I never cared about justice" one as the front runner. It works as a front runner for multiple reasons:
1. A very good example of the trope. 2. A major Crowning Moment Of Awesome in the series and is one of the only good parts of the stinker known as Zero 4. 3. Epic "World of Cardboard" Speech 4. A speech that epically summarizes Chaotic Good. 5. The speech and what follows is actually Fridge Brilliance as its ironic that a robot that wasn't built with the three laws is in fact obeying the obscure zeroth law when killing Weil.
I don't really like the second quote. It doesn't seem to capture the idea of Shut Up, Hannibal! very well.
I mean, I never read the book the quote is from, so maybe I misunderstood it, but it seems to boil down to the hero saying "Even if you are right and I am wrong, I am going to pretend I'm right anyways, because I would rather live in a made-up fantasy land where everything is great than a reality where things suck."
The quote gives the impression that the hero is simply locked onto his own position, not that he is actually refuting what the villain is saying. Since Shut Up, Hannibal! is all about the hero countering what the villain is saying, the quote doesn't fit. Can we find something better?
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Although I haven't read the book in question either, the quote in question seems to be saying "even if there's not some shining kingdom out there, I'm not going to stand by and allow this world to continue to suck." It's saying that even if an ideal is not physically real it can still be worth working for, that the lack of concrete evidence of things like justice and wonder and the basic decency of humanity does not remove their significance.
That said, it remains a fairly shite example of the trope without further context like the villain it's addressed to.
EDIT: And context is provided by the wonderful Fred Clarke. (The Puddleglum bit.)
This says that Harry gives these quite often to Johnny Marcone. Was Marcone disassembling Harry in these exchanges, because Harry telling a villain to go fuck himself is not necessarily Shut Up, Hannibal!.
To the people who for whatever reason feel that this trope demonizes debate:
You don't get away with mass murder just because you know about the hero's daddy issues.
There is no "debate" going on — the villain is almost universally attempting to demoralize the hero or deflect from his own transgressions. If the villain has done wrong and everybody knows, it is not up for discussion and the fact that the heroes have doubted themselves does not alter this. It would be like if I tried to get out of a speeding ticket by psychoanalyzing the officer's word choice.
Edited by WonSab
Austin: Good lord, people. Just because it's a trope about cool moments does not mean you have to designate every frickin' one as a "crowning moment". Is there something wrong with letting the example speak for itself?
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Needs clean up
, started by shimaspawn on Nov 6th 2010 at 11:53:05 PM
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