History Main / TheWarOnStraw

* HeteronormativeCrusader: Can either crop up in [[SlashFic Slash Fics]] where a character is hit by RonTheDeathEater or CureYourGays stories where this character is the one who's right.

It is also important to note that ''caricature'', [[TropesAreTools itself, can be a perfectly valid way to make an argument]]; Voltaire, Swift, and many other writers have used it effectively and incisively against their opponents. The distinction is that valid caricatures use exaggeration and hyperbole as rhetorical devices to present nonetheless legitimate arguments, exposing the victim's failings and flaws without misrepresenting them. But the line between the two can be extremely thin, especially in unskilled hands or when the author does not truly understand what they are trying to caricature; many authors have produced strawmen that were painfully obvious to others while believing themselves to be penning biting Swiftian satire.

* StrawAffiliation: In the same vein as CategoryTraitor, people who are a part of a certain group are portrayed as not being allowed to endorse things that are typically not associated with them(e.g. gays and women can't be conservative).

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: When used portray someone who has a point as a evil bigot for the heroes to destroy.

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillian: When used portray someone who has a point as a evil bigot for the heroes to destroy.

The flip side (where a position is so off-the-wall that it's impossible to distinguish between a genuine statement and an exaggeration/parody) is PoesLaw. The actual inverse is sometimes referred to as "Steelmanning," where a debater attacks the ''strongest'' possible interpretation of their opponent's argument, even if it is not the argument they necessarily made. This is often used against evasive "guerrilla debaters" who attempt to avoid actually presenting their own arguments, in the hope of constantly taking shots at their opponent without having to defend their own position.

* AllIssuesArePoliticalIssues: Can be used against either side of the political spectrum.

* BerserkButton: When the opponent is easily offended by something.

* CorruptChurch & PathOfInspiration: If that trope is used to portray a real-world religion, or an {{Expy}} of one.

* MadonnaWhoreComplex: The idea that virginal, modest women are perfect and deserving of a HappilyEverAfter with TheProtagonist, and women who aren't virgins or don't dress or behave a certain way are irredeemably awful and deserving of violence.

* StrawFeminist: Assumes that feminists are hostile towards men.

* StrawNihilist: Those with nihilistic views get [[{{Flanderization}} Flanderized]] as using this to justify acts of villainy.

* TheoryTunnelvision: When the writer is convinced that his/her opponents won't accept their views even when they're proven to be correct.

* NewMediaAreEvil: Portraying newer technologies as inherently evil, even though [[FullCircleRevolution Old Media started out as a NEW media in its time]].

* AgentScully: Used to portray skeptics, scientists and other people who don't believe in god(s)/magic/the paranormal/as closed-minded and dogmatic.

* HolierThanThou: Being a Christian (or in some cases religious more generally) means a character is a jerk, if not an outright evil hypocrite.

* GreedyJew: When Jews are conspiring against Western Civilization. Or if not that, then at least amoral, greedy and generally unpleasant people.

** CrapSaccharineWorld: In a similar vein but instead everyone except the characters who are in the right benefit from this setting.

* LadyLand: When a land is ruled, or only populated by women, you can usually expect vast amounts of strawmen or strawwomen (which depends on the author's views on feminism) in the story.

* LadyLand: Used by more anti-feminist writers.

You've set out making your latest work with the intention to speak your piece on some contested issue, but you've found it's harder than you expected. You have to write both sides of the issue, after all, and what do you do when you can't bring yourself to fairly represent the other side of the argument. What if you're not entirely clear on what the other side ''is''?

Some of the tropes here are not strawmen every time they appear; for instance, a CorruptChurch, AnimalWrongsGroup, or AmoralAttorney can sometimes be used as a villain a la AcceptableTargets [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic without any (deliberate) intention]] of making a larger political statement. Sometimes people use those things with the justification that [[PoesLaw they do exist in reality]] to a limited extent -- but they are still strawmen when used, implicitly or explicitly, to try to make a larger argument against anyone who shares their beliefs (especially if they happen to be particularly extreme and/or alienating to even other people who ''do'' share them but are decidedly more moderate about the topic in question).

* TheAggressiveDrugDealer: The writer demonizes drug dealers, and even advocates, portraying them as monsters who want too get your children addicted, through intimidation or violence if necessary.

* TheAggressiveDrugDealer: The writer demonizes drug dealers, and even advocates, portraying them as monsters who want to get your children addicted, by violent force if necessary.

* AgentScully: Used to portray skeptics, scientists and other people who don't believe in magic/the paranormal/higher powers as closed-minded and dogmatic.

* StrawNihilist: Those with nihilistic views get [[{{Flanderization}} Flanderized]] as believing that life has no meaning and use this to justify acts of villainy.

* HollywoodAtheist: Portrays people who don't believe in a higher power as immoral, miserable, or venomous towards believers.