Refuge In Audacity Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

Seth: This encroaches on Cassandra Truth a little, but the examples are all a little different. Might just need a link to it. What say ye dudes?

What was wrong with 300? I really don't think it fits here. Taken seriously it is pretty historically accurate if you don't include the uniforms and the oracle.

Morgan Wick: Cassandra Truth describes what here is put under the "characters" heading, while this seems to have a place more along the lines of the "works" heading. I think the Matilda example could stand to be moved.

J Random User: About the only thing historically accurate about 300 is that there actually was a battle between Greeks and Persians at Thermopylae. But Persian Immortals were not orcs, the Spartans were the gay ones, not Xerxes, the Spartans had heavy armor, not speedos and red capes, and there sure as heck weren't any pig-men running around with sword hands.

Roland: Not even mentioning that until the final days many of the other Greek cities had many troops there, and only when they were flanked by Persians led by Ehpialtes (a common goatherd, not a deformed Spartan outcast) did the Spartans under Leonidas order the other Greeks to withdraw and decide to buy them some time. Or that the Spartans had support from Thebans (who refused to leave), as well as serf troops from their own city. Or that the Spartan kings (they had 2) were military leader, not civil leaders, and the ephors were secular leaders elected from among the council of elders...

Kizor: ...or that Sparta very definitely wasn't a bastion of freedom and liberty, that the Persians didn't have war elephants, war rhinos or grenadiers and I'm a bit suspicious about the twelve-foot Chernobylians, etc. etc. Face it - 300 depicts photoshopped-to-perfection Aryans fearlessly defending the cradle of Western civilization against a monstrous horde of negros, mongoloids and other subhumans. It would've been in record-breaking amounts of trouble had it not overblown things into the realm of epic heroic fantasy with only the most tenuous links to reality.

Phartman: So Mediterraneans are Aryan now? Oh, I get it; you don't know what Aryan means.

Tricksterson: That's okay, neither do most people who call themselves Aryans. Hint: They were in the movie but they weren't Spartans.

Space Ace: There were about three black Persians in the entire movie, as far as I can recall (the messenger, the guy at the Oracle temple and Xerxes), not withstanding one or two concubines. The rest seemed Arabic (which the Persians were), so this hardly makes this movie anything close to what you describe it as. It was a movie about dudes fighting in spectacular fashion, loosely based on reality. So stop whining (I consider this to be beyond simple nitpicking). Although I would love to see a realistic movie about Spartans, or any ancient people.

Duckluck: Persians were not and are not Arabs. They are totally different people with different cultures, different traditions, and different histories. They even look a bit different. Basically, just from the trailer you see enough breaks with history to safely throw the movie into "bullshit" territory, and the hyper-conservative proto-fascist Subtext doesn't exactly help. This isn't whining, it's just being honest.

Phartman: Oh, you know many Persians, Duckluck? Because it's been Iran since 1935. Not to undercut your obvious hypersensitivity, but I don't think anyone who throws the term fascist around so liberally has any business claiming to be impartial and honest.

Duckluck You have no idea what the hell you're talking about do you? I have met some people from Iran and Southern Afghanistan, and do you know what they told me their ethnicity was? Persian! Some people like to use the ancient and still perfectly legitimate name for their ethnic group instead of nationality, fancy that! Also, I said the film had "proto-Fascist Subtext" because the people it is so intent on lionizing were (gasp!) proto-Fascists! Seriously, they were the most brutal, oppressive, and viscious rulers in the Aegean (arguably worse than the Persians even), add to that their insanely militaristic brand of nationalism and the fact that Hitler thought they were seriously cool dudes (yes really) and you'd have to be a moron not to see them as being connected to modern Fascists. Frank Miller must have known that had he done any research at all, so it's not even like this slipped in by accident. There was an intentional effort to show these terrible people as the saviors of civilization. That's Squicky to the core if you ask me. Hence its inclusion here.

Phartman: You're not very good at this "sarcasm" thing. You were very offended by the movie, I caught that. You're very easily upset, that's pretty clear too. But no matter how offended you get, one point remains: An Iranian is Persian the same way an Irishman is a Celt and a German is a Goth. Those civilizations have been gone for years, along with their respective cultures and ethnicities, so even if someone wants to identify as such, they only can do so in name only.

And Hitler admired the Spartans? Big deal, anyone who fancies themselves a tactician has to. He also admired Charles Darwin, should we throw evolution out of the classroom? What it all boils down to is that Frank Miller thought the story of a extremely small contingent of soldiers holding off 30,000 enemies made for a good story, so he dropped about 1400 participants, adapted it into a comic book -a medium not renowned for factual accuracy- then adapted that into a movie. Unless Miller himself comes out and says otherwise, any sinister intent assigned to the man is considered conjecture, not canon. Anyone who goes to a blockbuster picture based on a comic book expecting a history lesson can be written off as an acceptable loss. Dry it up and move on; I promise you'll feel better in the morning.

Duckluck: Again, you don't have a clue what you're talking about. If you tell an Irish person they aren't allowed to call themselves Celts, they aren't going to be terribly happy with you, and an Iranian person being barred from the using the word "Persian" is going to be even more pissed. "Persian" is the correct term for the ethnic group and includes more than just Iranians. Iranian is a nationality that includes people who aren't Persian. They're totally different things that happen to overlap somewhat.

Also, this may surprise you, but Spartans were terrible tacticians. All they ever used were Hoplites and poorly-trained helots. They didn't even use cavalry or archers. In fact, the only reason they were even vaguely successful was good equipment and their legendary discipline. That's pretty impressive, I guess, but their entire society payed the price for that discipline. And, since they were so depended on their ultra gung-ho mentality, when they finally did turn and run during a battle against the Thebans, their entire society collapsed. Also, perhaps I wasn't clear. Hitler admired the Spartans' whole society (including their oppressiveness, rampant imperialism, and active policy of Eugenics), not just their commitment to war making.

What I'm saying is, intent or no, these are people who should never be idolized (not in a democratic society, anyway), and basic research will show that. If Miller did any research at all (and I think he did), then he would have clearly seen just how awful the Spartans were. I think the fact that despite their many, many horrible traits, he chose to idealize them anyway says a lot about him. More than you'd like to admit.

Ununnilium: Guys?

This is not the place.

Seth: As much as i agree this has gone on a bit too long - it is the discussion page.

Phartman: Oh no, I just got into another stupid, impertinent arguement with a sanctimonious fruitcake, didn't I? Curse you and your blanket of anonymity, internet!

Kizor: Thank you for the deliberately sought Made Of Win mention. To give credit where it's due, Lale wrote the first two lines in place of a note of writer's block, and YYZ tweaked the radar comparison to include Motorhead.

Andyroid: Air Of Mystery, I removed the links from the 300 entry. I'm sure most of the people on this site can work it out for themselves. TV Tropes Are Not Morons. There's such a thing as subtlety, ya know.

Man Called True: And I wrote the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment for a reason.

Air Of Mystery: I don't think TV Tropes Are Not Morons; I was doing it for a joke. Ah, 300 has caused such splits amongst our ranks!

Kizor: The description could use a tune-up, most things I write could, so I'm going to think aloud for a bit in untranslateable native-language thoughts for later use. Kikka tuntuu olevan siinä että nämä (tai ainakin tapahtuma- ja vörkkipohjaiset, eivät hahmot niinkään) ovat samalla vakavia ja naurettavasti liioiteltuja. Se toimii, koska se on niin täydellisen pokkana. Mahdottomuutensa vuoksi. Oikeutus tai seeeeeeeelittely rikkoisi koko homman. Toimintaperiaate tuntuu olevan sama kuin rule of coolissa - vai haluaako jengi todella sen toimivan? No, mieti vielä läpi Lagann ja erityisesti gainaxointi, joka on selkeä vitsi. Moi teille jenkeille, sahatavarasatama. Jos delfiini on suostuvainen, se hankaa valkoista vatsaansa jalkojasi vasten, jolloin voit laskeutua veteen kokonaan.

Deus Ex Biotica: Lorem Ipsum.

Tulling: Try "Mitä helvettiä?" instead.

Sean Tucker: Nice, we have a Finnish editor.

32_Footsteps: For the record, Apple Jacks do contain apples - both dried apples and apple juice concentrate are listed as ingredients (consequently, that's why they're called Apple Jacks). And yes, part of the reason I caught this is because a bowl of Apple Jacks was my breakfast this morning, and I regularly reread the ingredients list. Yes, I am that much of a geek.
- A breakfast geek? I think that's a new fandom we have yet to record.

Peteman: Would Weasel Stomping Day by Weird Al count?

Willy Four Eyes: Probably. The music video did show up on Robot Chicken, after all.

Willy Four Eyes: Transplanting most of the text of the old Black Lagoon entry from Guilty Pleasures:

Black Lagoon — It's a recreation of several big, very dumb action flicks, filtered through one manga-ka's/anime director's thoughts of "Wouldn't it be great if...:
- ...one of the characters was a psycho serial-killing Action Girl that only ever wore Daisy Dukes and a tank top? We'll give her a tragic past, of course."
- ...a torpedo boat faces off against a helicopter gunship... with torpedoes! And wins?"
- ...we had lots of swearing and 'authentic' accents and they'd occasionally speak in their own language?"
- Of particular note is the English dub. Not that it's badly done — it's well-observed and well-acted. It's just that 1) accents are not as authentic as they could be (e.g. the Irish/Chinese assassin duo are made of Begorrah and Chinglish), and 2) when you switch back to subtitles and the Japanese soundtrack "because it sounds like a cheesy action flick now" — the dialogue is the same.
- ...they'd fight Nazis? We could go to town with the body count!"
- ...there's this maid, right? Exceeept...she's a badass maid. Like, The Terminator badass. I loved those films! We could do the walking-out-of-the-fire thing, the theme tune, everything... it'd be so cool."

Feel free to add/delete the excess.

Patsy: This troper may be grossly insensative, but he must admit that he doesn't see anything crazily audacious about the treatment of race in Scrubs. What's so crazily out-there about two friends affectionately making reference to the fact that their skin is a different colour?

Uknown Troper: Removing Code Geass — ok, they've got retro dress codes... And the mecha are on roller-skates. Other than that the anime takes it self far too seriously to be refuge in audacity — not to mention it doesn't have that much ridiculus or suspect subject matter it needs to demolish the radar station to get through. Comparing it to Tengen Toppa or Black Lagoon I find it lacking in qualification.

Charred Knight: so you're saying that Gorō Taniguchi xenophobic racist who hate Americans and British? It's a story in which the Briticans invade Japan, take it over, and generally behave like Nazis. The Refuge In Audacity is that if it wasn't so over the top than they would be accused of Racism. If you take Code Geass serious than the only conclusion is that Goro is in fact a racist xenophobe. If his trying to prove a point, than the point is that Americans and British are evil.

Uknown Troper: Er? Of course the brittanians are racist bastards; they're villains — they're supposed to be. They're no more outlandish in that fashion than many real-life dictatorships up through the ages, and the series invites you to treat them as serious villains. Having your villains acting like nazi germany is hardly refuge in audacity — it, after all, happened in real life. Well, unless you tried to play it for comedy. Like, a sitcom placed in nazi germany, filled with holocaust jokes, that'd be refuge in audacity. (And Dead Baby Comedy, of course, and likely Crossing The Line Twice. But my point stands.)

Charred Knight: So you're saying that in the 1940's every single German was an evil racist? Until recently every single member of the Iraq Military was evil? Compare the way the common soldier in Code Geass to the common soldier in Fullmetal Alchemist or Mobile Suit Gundam. Hell compare the common soldier to even something mediocre like Wing Gundam. Its either Refuge In Audacity, Racist, or badly written.

Large Blunt Object: What's this strawman bullshit? Uknown Troper's historical views have absolutely nothing to do with this argument.

A show portraying a nation - any nation - as unpleasant fascist bastards does not Refuge In Audacity make, nor does being racist. Villains doing mean things has nothing to do with this trope.

Charred Knight: Strawman? I am not talking about the leaders, I am not talking about the specially chosen elite soldiers. I am talking about the common soldier which is protrayed as an evil racist being in Code Geass. Compare the way the average Britannian is protrayed and compare it to the protrayal of the Zeon (also based off of Nazi Germany), and the Amestris army in Fullmetal Alchemist(once again based off of Nazi Germany). Also if Code Geass was meant to be serious then they wouldn't have made an advertisment deal with Pizza Hut that in one episode rivals The Wizard.

Large Blunt Object: Because they're the fucking villains, and mooks being unpleasant bastards or societies being portrayed as racist has NOTHING TO DO with Refuge In Audacity, regardless of whether it's supposed to be an alternate history (and I remind you this is a setting with fucking ROLLER-SKATING MECHA). The examples you quote mean nothing. There are dozens of counter-examples - I could call in Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 (alternate history; Confederate mooks are unthinkingly racist, but fair enough), Dune (Harkonnen mooks are psychopathic rapist/racists) - but that's missing the point entirely. The point is, simply having nasty villains and a few Pizza Hut ads does not involve this trope in any way.

Charred Knight: No Harry Turtledove does not protray all Confederate characters as evil. In fact, he does the exact opposite, and protrays them as sympathetic people who get caught up in a movement. He doesn't even protray Featherstone that way. Have you even read a summary of the Timeline 191. Take a look at these character summary, and show me one that compares to the way that the Britannians are shown. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_in_the_Southern_Victory_series#Confederate_States

Large Blunt Object: I NEVER SAID THEY WERE EVIL. Go back and actually read what I said, since you are apparently so big on correct analysis: Timeline-191 portrays the majority of Confederate characters as unthinkingly racist (while carefully managing to avoid such childish ideas as good and evil), the exact same blind racism and oppression which you seem to think qualifies Geass Britannians as being somehow audacious. I've read every one of the books and know exactly what I am talking about. Comparatively, you seem to have forgotten the subject you were originally debating and gone straight to "so you're saying..." strawman bullshit and futile point-scoring. Well done.

Since you seem utterly incapable of anything but stupid quibbling over the minor details of other people's statements, I'm going to simply ignore your opinions regarding Code Geass being removed and will go on to remove it if you post it again. You have nothing more to say that can interest me, good day.

Charred Knight: Childish ideas of Good and evil? What the hell does that mean? I have never read Harry Turtledove, but I question the fact that Harry Turtledove does not protray the murder of an entire race of people as not evil. Jake Featherstone takes his misfortunes which where caused by two white people, and one black person, out on an entire race of people. He blames people's misfortune caused by things beyond anyone's control on one race. What I am talking about is that if you take Code Geass at face value it comes off as Racist.

Specialist290: Nothing to contribute to the above discussion, but just noting that I added my examples to the page before reading this discussion and am more than willing to remove them if they happen to be in error.

Some Guy: Why does this page have characters as separate from examples? I mean, what's the difference?

Specialist290: All right, after doing some reading, it seems my interpretation of Refuge In Audacity seems to be at odds with everyone else's.

From what I've read, the most important thing that everyone seems to be considering seems to be the portrayal of the work itself: Whether or not it can "get away with" blatant portrayals such as racism, classism, sexism, etc. In other words, to slip into Tropespeak, the series itself and its creators / producers pull a Karma Houdini. The main body of the article seems to support this.

On the other hand, the term seems to also be able to be interpreted to cover character actions; in other words, that, by being dramatically over-the-top or outrageous, a character within a series is able to get away with more than he could if he approached the same situation in a much more reasonable manner. This is supported by the cross-references with Sarcastic Confession and Bavarian Fire Drill.

It seems we have something of a dilemma here.

Would, perhaps, the best way to solve this be to split this page into two separate tropes, one covering each?

Kizor: No, not really. That distinction is explicitly spelled out and the page has two sections: "Characters and "Works." Your interpretation is in line with everyone else's, and I see no dilemma here.

Charred Knight: I don't know how you would call Lelouch Refuge In Audacity, some of his plans only work because no one just shoots the douchebag. Some only work because he geassed someone, and the only one that I think counts is the Black Knights one. Since it would be Refuge In Audacity, that someone wouldn't just shoot Lelouch for being a hypocrite. In terms of his plans he has nothing on people like Aizen, Light, or Emperor Palpatine. Those three are much smarter than Lelouch.

Large Blunt Object: Cut

One brief aside before we get to what you all wanted to see; To whoever wrote that bit about Getting Crap Past The Radar, that was one of the most beautiful sentences this troper has ever read this side of Hunter S. Thompson, you are permanently my favorite person, and I think I'm in love with you. Well, now that that's out of the way...

lovely, but please take it to Made Of Win.

KJMackley: I cut this beside the joker because it is a Wall Of Text. Spoilers are fine if you cannot explain your point without them, but I think for the most part just being "The Joker" explains it all.

The best example has to be a scene late in the movie that is (like many scenes) at the same time incredibly awesome, evil, and hilarious: The Joker finds a horribly scarred Harvey Dent, and gives him a Hannibal Lecture convincing him to not avenge Rachel's death by killing him, the guy that is actually responsible for killing her, but rather the people that failed to save her (which was again, Joker's, fault) and who had a supporting role in her death. (He even claims that it "wasn't personal".) Then he blows up the hospital, but in a subversion of the Unflinching Walk some of the explosives don't go off until he presses the trigger a couple more times, and then he starts running from the delayed explosions. What makes it even funnier is that he was running in high heels, because he spent the entirety of said scene dressed up as a nurse complete with wig, which does not detract from the drama of the scene at all. You really need to go over all of it in your head a couple times to truly comprehend it, and I repeat, that's just the best example, and far from the only one.

Removed the following entry, because "being silly" is not what Refuge In Audacity is about:
The games by Artix Entertainment probably fall under this, the very person who goes under the alter ego name Artix having said in an interview that they don't take themselves too seriously and called their games of a 'campy style'... and it shows, with weird weapons, monsters, character-interactions (There are food-zombies in a few instances, a Humongous Mecha designed to look like a Jester, a penguin with a top hat that aids you by throwing fish at your foes and a mace with a pig at the end, which does bacon damage and is called the Unsqueakable Farce to be a Shout Out to a World of Warcraft item... among other things).

Charred Knight: Pilomotor, how did you find out my password and hack into my account?

Pilomotor: I'd just like to point out that regardless of whether or not Lelouch is a moron, your example doesn't really demonstrate his schemes backfiring (he probably expected that to happen) and it doesn't really belong in the Refuge In Audacity article.

Charred Knight: He expected Kallen to leave him becasuse was evil and corrupt? His plan backfired, he traded in his Black Knights for some Britannian Grunts and Suzaku, his plan was idiotic. Instead of secretly Geassing him, he makes a spectacle of it for no reason. Also Lelouch didn't Geass God, he geassed the subconscious of mankind which Charles claimed was God. Obviously it was a whole lot different than what most people consider God or even a god like being.

Milly: Hey. I just found the perfect picture to add to this article. Unfortunately, I don't know whether anyone else would agree that it'd fit. Here it is, and feel free to add it in if you think it's good. http://www.mycathatesyou.com/cats/2007/12/19

Charred Knight: I rewrote the Lelouch example to remove any event that was caused by him using his Magic Eye which is Genre Saavy and not Refuge In Audacity. Lelouch knows that Britannians are idiots who never shoot so he can give his speech and geass them. I instead replaced them with the event of the last episode.

Robin Zimm: Removed this example for being less this than straightforward

In one Questionable Content strip, Marten and Dora walk into the coffee shop, and Faye thinks that they have had sex, listing several reasons behind this conclusion such as Marten wearing different pants. Both Marten and Dora claim that they were attacked by monks. Faye initially does not believe them, until the monks actually walk into the coffee shop. I'm not making this up.

Arivne: I deleted this from the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann example: the video has been removed from YouTube for a Terms of Use violation.

In a very different (and NSFW) way, they do it with the fifth parallel works video.

Vekter: I don't know if you'd count this, but wouldn't Jack Sparrow get Refuge In Audacity just for how insanely wild some of his stunts are? The man uses a cannonball to not only knock out the mast of Beckett's ship but to also catapult himself back onto his ship, all without so much as breaking a sweat.

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