History Main / MonumentOfHumiliationAndDefeat

Humans love winning, and then [[UnsportsmanlikeGloating gloating about it]]. Whenever we win we need to rub our victory in the loser's face and call him out. From the Crusades[[note]]turning mosques into churches and vice-versa[[/note]] to the Nazis,[[note]][]UsefulNotes/AdolphHitler Hitler]] made it a point to sign France's surrender on the same railroad car the Germans did in the First World War, and then took it back to Germany as a trophy, then blew it up just to make sure France couldn't get it back when Germany was about to lose the war[[/note]] the Spanish[[note]]after the [] UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar Civil War]], [[UsefulNotes/FranciscoFranco Franco]] built a mausoleum for himself, an abbey and a graveyard with the labour work of the republican soldiers[[/note]] and the Conquistadors[[note]]after the [[UsefulNotes/SpanishConquestOfTheAztecEmpire Fall of Tenochtitlan]], the conquerors built churches on top of the temples with the very same stones they were built with[[/note]] and even the ''Olympic Games'';[[note]]after the student protests of 1968, president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz opened up the Olympic Games in Mexico City in the stadium of the university many students came from[[/note]] history is full of people who just ''had'' to do it. So you got a story where the BigBad [[TheBadGuyWins has won]]. His armies swarm the entire country and LaResistance is forced to retreat, flee or go into hiding. That's pretty bad, but the bad guy has yet one last thing to do: ensure his rule. So he makes something to honour his victory: he sends his people to make him a giant statue of Our Glorious Leader over the remains of the rebel base, [[{{Egopolis}} renames the former rebel city stronghold in his name]], sets a yearly military Victory Parade on V-Day, or all of them (and/or many many more). His purpose is both to exalt his ego and gloat to ensure no one dares question his authority by taking a former symbol of LaResistance and using it against them. If there are still members of LaResistance hiding around somewhere, the monuments serve to mock them and remind them of their defeat, lower their morale and prevent them from rising against the Leader again. Forcing the defeated enemies to KneelBeforeZod is often part of it as well. Usually invoked in {{Dystopia}}n worlds.

Humans love winning, and then [[UnsportsmanlikeGloating gloating about it]]. Whenever we win we need to rub our victory in the loser's face and call him out. From the Crusades[[note]]turning mosques into churches and vice-versa[[/note]] to the Nazis,[[note]]Hitler made it a point to sign France's surrender on the same railroad car the Germans did in the First World War, and then took it back to Germany as a trophy, then blew it up just to make sure France couldn't get it back when Germany was about to lose the war[[/note]] the Spanish[[note]]after the Civil War, Franco built a mausoleum for himself, an abbey and a graveyard with the labour work of the republican soldiers[[/note]] and the Conquistadors[[note]]after the fall of Tenochtitlan, the conquerors built churches on top of the temples with the very same stones they were built with[[/note]] and even the ''Olympic Games'';[[note]]after the student protests of 1968, president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz opened up the Olympic Games in Mexico City in the stadium of the university many students came from[[/note]] history is full of people who just ''had'' to do it. So you got a story where the BigBad [[TheBadGuyWins has won]]. His armies swarm the entire country and LaResistance is forced to retreat, flee or go into hiding. That's pretty bad, but the bad guy has yet one last thing to do: ensure his rule. So he makes something to honour his victory: he sends his people to make him a giant statue of Our Glorious Leader over the remains of the rebel base, [[{{Egopolis}} renames the former rebel city stronghold in his name]], sets a yearly military Victory Parade on V-Day, or all of them (and/or many many more). His purpose is both to exalt his ego and gloat to ensure no one dares question his authority by taking a former symbol of LaResistance and using it against them. If there are still members of LaResistance hiding around somewhere, the monuments serve to mock them and remind them of their defeat, lower their morale and prevent them from rising against the Leader again. Forcing the defeated enemies to KneelBeforeZod is often part of it as well. Usually invoked in {{Dystopia}}n worlds.

* The Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse has ''Star Wars Infinities: A New Hope'' which depicts the Sith taking over the Republic and turning the Jedi Temple into Palpatine's residence.

->''"The great Atrium seemed darker than Harry remembered it. Previously a golden fountain had filled the center of the hall, casting shimmering spots of light over the polished wooden floor and walls. Now a gigantic statue of black stone dominated the scene. It was rather frightening, this was a {{sculpture|s}} of a witch and a wizard sitting on ornately carved thrones, looking down at the Ministry workers toppling out of fireplaces below them. Engraved in foot-high letters at the base of the statue were the words MAGIC IS MIGHT. ... Harry looked more closely and realised that what he had thought were decoratively carved thrones were actually mounds of carved humans: hundreds and hundreds of naked bodies, men, women, and children, all with rather stupid, ugly faces, twisted and pressed together to support the weight of the handsomely robed wizards."''
-->-- Description of the "Magic Is Might" statue" in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows''

* Season 3 of ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'' shows the Nazis initiating a plan to purge American history. This includes melting down the Liberty Bell into a giant swastika and [[spoiler:blowing up the Statue of Liberty]].

* In Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''Literature/Timeline191'', the United States has the Statue of Remembrance, who wields a sword and shield, instead of the Statue of Liberty with her torch and tablet. In this case, it's self-inflicted: the United States lost UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar and a subsequent war in the 1880s to the Confederates (who are allies with France), so they received the statue from Germany and it serves as an intentional reminder of the humiliation the country suffered in defeat and their desire to one day get vengeance on the Southerners.

->''"The great Atrium seemed darker than Harry remembered it. Previously a golden fountain had filled the center of the hall, casting shimmering spots of light over the polished wooden floor and walls. Now a gigantic statue of black stone dominated the scene. It was rather frightening, this was a sculpture of a witch and a wizard sitting on ornately carved thrones, looking down at the Ministry workers toppling out of fireplaces below them. Engraved in foot-high letters at the base of the statue were the words MAGIC IS MIGHT. ... Harry looked more closely and realised that what he had thought were decoratively carved thrones were actually mounds of carved humans: hundreds and hundreds of naked bodies, men, women, and children, all with rather stupid, ugly faces, twisted and pressed together to support the weight of the handsomely robed wizards."''

* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': The village of Tirharad is sprinkled with totems and relief carvings in wood, which serve as a constant reminder of the shameful defeat of their ancestors who allied themselves with {{GodOfEvil Morgoth}}. The bas-reliefs show images of people getting killed by the Great Eagles.

* Season 3 of ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'' shows the Nazis initiating a plan to purge American history. This includes melting down the Liberty Bell into a giant swastika and [[spoiler:blowing up the Statue of Liberty]].
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In one episode, an astronaut terrorizes a civilization of microscopic aliens into making a 1-1 statue of him. [[spoiler:Eventually, they kill him in response to his iron-booted tyranny and pull the statue down]].

* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations'', Masyaf, the former Assassin stronghold and home to the first game's protagonist Altaïr, had decayed so much that Templars, the Assassins' sworn enemies, took over what was once the main headquarters of the most important branch of the brotherhood.

* In ''VideoGame/MarioParty: Island Tour'', Bowser builds a huge tower as a monument to his awesome power and locks all the fun of the other Party Islands away.

* In ''VideoGame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder'', the majority of London (Big Ben being one of the few exceptions) has been demolished and replaced with monuments to the Nazis' victory, surrounded by "quarantine blocks": Disease-ridden ghettos that house (imprison) the lower class without power or running water. To top it off, the furious, brutal resistance movement has been destroyed completely by a giant mech, the London Monitor.

* ''The Two-Headed Eagle'' by John Biggins. Otto Prohaska isn't pleased to return to his home town on leave during World War One to find the statue of "Old Austria", a silly but undeniably attractive statue of a naked maiden holding a broadsword, has been melted down to make artillery shells and its place taken by a gross wooden column to "Greater Germany" topped with a bust of Field Marshall von Hindenberg.

* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows''. After Voldemort takes over the Ministry of Magic through his puppet leader, he destroys the old fountain in the atrium (which depicted a witch, a wizard, a centaur, a house elf and a goblin as a symbol of magical cooperation) and replaces it with a wizard and a witch sitting on thrones made of (or carried by, in the movies) hundreds of suffering Muggles. The words "MAGIC IS MIGHT" are inscribed on it to make its claim clear that wizards are superior to non-magical creatures. (The first time Harry saw the Fountain of Magical Brethren, if it comes to that, he noticed that "co-operation" seemed to involve the non-humans "looking up adoringly" at the witch and wizard.)

Humans love winning, and then [[UnsportsmanlikeGloating gloating about it]]. Whenever we win we need to rub our victory in the loser's face and call him out. From the Crusades[[note]]turning mosques into churches and vice-versa[[/note]] to the Nazis,[[note]]Hitler made it a point to sign France's surrender on the same railroad car the Germans did in the First World War, and then took it back to Germany as a trophy, then blew it up just to make sure France couldn't get it back when Germany was about to lose the war[[/note]] the Spanish[[note]]after the Civil War, Franco built a mausoleum for himself, an abbey and a graveyard with the labour work of the republican soldiers[[/note]] and the Conquistadors[[note]]after the fall of Tenochtitlan, the conquerors built churches on top of the temples with the very same stones they were built with[[/note]] and even the ''Olympic Games''[[note]]after the student protests of 1968, president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz opened up the Olympic Games in Mexico City in the stadium of the university many students came from[[/note]]; history is full of people who just ''had'' to do it. So you got a story where the BigBad [[TheBadGuyWins has won]]. His armies swarm the entire country and LaResistance is forced to retreat, flee or go into hiding. That's pretty bad, but the bad guy has yet one last thing to do: ensure his rule. So he makes something to honour his victory: he sends his people to make him a giant statue of Our Glorious Leader over the remains of the rebel base, [[{{Egopolis}} renames the former rebel city stronghold in his name]], sets a yearly military Victory Parade on V-Day, or all of them (and/or many many more). His purpose is both to exalt his ego and gloat to ensure no one dares question his authority by taking a former symbol of LaResistance and using it against them. If there are still members of LaResistance hiding around somewhere, the monuments serve to mock them and remind them of their defeat, lower their morale and prevent them from rising against the Leader again. Forcing the defeated enemies to KneelBeforeZod is often part of it as well. Usually invoked in {{Dystopia}}n worlds.

* In DC Comics' Great Darkness Saga, after conquering the planet Daxam and mind controlling its inhabitants, ComicBook/{{Darkseid}} forced them to use their superpowers to carve the entire planet into a giant bust of his head.

** The crossroads on the road to Minas Morgul was originally guarded by the statue of a former king. By the time Frodo and Sam pass that way, the statue's original head has been replaced with a rock painted as a grinning cyclops, presumably intended to represent Sauron and with body is cover with foul orc scribbling. The Army of the West on its way to the Black Gate, makes a point to restore the statue's old head and cleanse the stone to affirm Gondor's reclamation of its ancient lands.

* In DC Comics' Great Darkness Saga, after conquering the planet Daxam and mind controlling its inhabitants, ComicBook/Darkseid forced them to use their superpowers to carve the entire planet into a giant bust of his head.

-->-- Description of the "Magic is Might Statue" in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows''

[[caption-width-right:285:[[VideoGame/EarthwormJim EAT]] [[WesternAnimation/EarthwormJim DIRT]], [[ActorAllusion CHARACTER WHO WAS ALSO VOICED BY]] [[Creator/DanCastellaneta DAN CASTELLANETA]]!]]

** The crossroads on the road to Minas Morgul was originally guarded by the statue of a former king. By the time Frodo and Sam pass that way, the statue's original head has been replaced with a rock painted as a grinning cyclops, presumably intended to represent Sauron.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone'': In one episode, an astronaut terrorizes a civilization of microscopic aliens into making a 1-1 statue of him. [[spoiler:Eventually, they kill him in response to his iron-booted tyranny and pull the statue down]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'', the Mewmans have a floating eyeball float around to remind and rub in the faces of the monsters of the Great Monster Massacre, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin which was a massacre]] of unarmed monsters by heavily armed Mewman soldiers.

** In Season 4, Kings Landing is shown to have a statue of King Joffrey holding a crossbow and standing on [[spoiler: a dead direwolf, House Stark's symbolic animal]], symbolizing victory [[spoiler: over the Starks (as well as a reference to the circumstances of Robb Stark's death at the Red Wedding)]]. It's also a hilarious example of the kind of arrogant MilesGloriosus the boy-king is that he would be depicted personally, when he had absolutely nothing to do with [[spoiler:the massacre]][[note]][[DragonInChief his grandfather]] having been the true orchestrator[[/note]], or any victory his family had orchestrated beforehand, really... and then there was his dwarf reenactment of the War of the Five Kings.

Humans love winning, and then [[UnsportsmanlikeGloating gloating about it]]. Whenever we win we need to rub our victory in the loser's face and call him out. From the Crusades[[note]]turning mosques into churches and vice-versa[[/note]] to the Nazis[[note]]Hitler made it a point to sign France's surrender on the same railroad car the Germans did in the First World War, and then took it back to Germany as a trophy then blew it up just to make sure France couldn't get it back when Germany was about to lose the war[[/note]], the Spanish[[note]]after the Civil War, Franco built a mausoleum for himself, an abbey and a graveyard with the labour work of the republican soldiers[[/note]] and the Conquistadors[[note]]after the fall of Tenochtitlan, the conquerors built churches on top of the temples with the very same stones they were built with[[/note]] and even the ''Olympic Games''[[note]]after the student protests of 1968, president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz opened up the Olympic Games in Mexico City in the stadium of the university many students came from[[/note]]; history is full of people who just ''had'' to do it. So you got a story where the BigBad [[TheBadGuyWins has won]]. His armies swarm the entire country and LaResistance is forced to retreat, flee or go into hiding. That's pretty bad, but the bad guy has yet one last thing to do: ensure his rule. So he makes something to honour his victory: he sends his people to make him a giant statue of Our Glorious Leader over the remains of the rebel base, [[{{Egopolis}} renames the former rebel city stronghold in his name]], sets a yearly military Victory Parade on V-Day, or all of them (and/or many many more). His purpose is both to exalt his ego and gloat to ensure no one dares question his authority by taking a former symbol of LaResistance and using it against them. If there are still members of LaResistance hiding around somewhere, the monuments serve to mock them and remind them of their defeat, lower their morale and prevent them from rising against the Leader again. Forcing the defeated enemies to KneelBeforeZod is often part of it as well. Usually invoked in {{Dystopia}}n worlds.

[[quoteright:286:[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/worms_are_better.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:286:[[VideoGame/EarthwormJim EAT]] [[WesternAnimation/EarthwormJim DIRT]], [[ActorAllusion CHARACTER WHO WAS ALSO VOICED BY]] [[Creator/DanCastellaneta DAN CASTELLANETA]]!]]

[[quoteright:290:[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/074.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:290:[[VideoGame/EarthwormJim EAT]] [[WesternAnimation/EarthwormJim DIRT]], [[ActorAllusion CHARACTER WHO WAS ALSO VOICED BY]] [[Creator/DanCastellaneta DAN CASTELLANETA]]!]]

* The ''Series/StargateSG1'' fic ''Fanfic/WhatYouAlreadyKnow: Heroes'' features a metaphorical version of this; after Ba’al is defeated and captured by a Jaffa army led by ‘Dan’yar’ (Daniel Jackson with powerful psychic abilities), Daniel not only takes Ba’al prisoner, but forces him to walk out in front of his enemies and Jaffa soldiers completely naked barring a red bow tied around his waist, reasoning that public humiliation on this scale will forever destroy the image of Ba'al as a god. The story of this defeat inspires further doubt among the Jaffa who hear it that the Goa’uld as a whole are gods; Bra'tac observes that every Jaffa he has spoken to who was present at the battle laughed at the memory, and his only regret is that he wasn't there to see it himself.

* ''Literature/TianGuanCiFu:'' Poor Xie Lian was so reviled by (what remained of) his kingdom after he was kicked out of Heaven that they made thousands of kneeling statues of him, which people spat on as they walked by. Eight hundred years later, Qi Rong still uses one as a footrest. Unsurprisingly, [[LoveInterest Hua Cheng]] is ''not pleased'' by this practice.

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* In DC Comics' Great Darkness Saga, after conquering the planet Daxam and mind controlling its inhabitants, Darkseid forced them to use their superpowers to carve the entire planet into a giant bust of his head.

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->''"The great Atrium seemed darker than Harry remembered it. Previously a golden fountain had filled the center of the hall, casting shimmering spots of light over the polished wooden floor and walls. Now a gigantic statue of black stone dominated the scene. It was rather frightening, this was sculpture of a witch and a wizard sitting on ornately carved thrones, looking down at the Ministry workers toppling out of fireplaces below them. Engraved in foot-high letters at the base of the statue were the words MAGIC IS MIGHT. ... Harry looked more closely and realised that what he had thought were decoratively carved thrones were actually mounds of carved humans: hundreds and hundreds of naked bodies, men, women, and children, all with rather stupid, ugly faces, twisted and pressed together to support the weight of the handsomely robed wizards."''