Scales of Justice

Fire has weight?

Steven Grant: She's weighing our hearts on the Scales of Justice and the Feather of Truth. You see, the ancient Egyptians believed that the heart was the sign of who you really were in life. If the Scales balance by the time you end the journey, then a soul is permitted to pass into the Field of Reeds.
Marc Spector: ...What if they don't balance?

— Moon Knight (2022), "Asylum"

The weighing of a case's support and opposition can be tricky. In fact this has been exemplified with using scales as a symbol. This trope is also Older Than Dirt having existed since the ancient Semitic religion with their god of justice Shamash to whom the scales were held sacred. Along with Shamash the scales were also affiliated with Osiris, Anubis, Maat, Isis, Thoth, Themis^note Along with Lady Justice she owned theTrope Namer., Dike, Astraea, Nemesis/Invidia, Adrestia, Justitia^note Justitia's Greek counterpart is either Themis or Dike., Archangel Raguel and Lady Justice^note Along with Themis she owned the Trope Namer., who was more or less a Allegorical Character heavily based off of Justitia with some modern influences.

This trope actually has nothing to do with the Sliding Scale of Law Enforcement, though they can meet.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Frieren: Beyond Journey's End: Invoked by the demon general Aura. She uses a set of scales that weighs her target's mana against hers, whichever is found wanting gets their head cut off. It backfires when she runs into Frieren, who's been learning how to hide her mana (something unthinkable for demons) for millennia and costs her her head.
• Oh, Suddenly Egyptian God: Parodied, as instead of a set of scales, in this anime Anubis judges people's souls using a seesaw. He sits on one end, and he has the souls he judges jump on the other end to weigh against him.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Millennium Scale judges people's souls.

Asian Animation

• Simple Samosa: In the episode "Samosa Mama", a Courtroom Episode where Samosa is accused by Cham Cham of committing a kidnapping, Mayor Royal Falooda has both (along with Samosa's friends) stand on opposite sides of a giant scale to determine who is being truthful about the crime. Cham Cham is the heavier of the two... until he has his pockets checked and is found to have a bunch of heavy objects in them, shifting the weight to Samosa. Despite this, Samosa is not the culprit. The actual perpetrator of the alleged kidnapping, Special Samosa, didn't even intend to kidnap them to begin with. Probably Samosa's friends joining him on the scales threw the whole thing off with their added weight.

Comic Books

• Batman: In Batman And Robin 2011's Requiem For Damian, there's a page with Batgirl blindfolded and holding a set of scales, with Batman on one and Robin on the other.
• Doctor Fate: In the New 52 a misled Osiris attacks Doctor Fate and uses his scales as a weapon against him.
• Justice League of America: The villain Libra has a staff with scales that doubles as a weapon and has scales on his costume as his logo.
• Red Robin: One cover had Red Robin holding the scales on which were perched various Batman characters to symbolize the judgement Tim and Gotham would be experiencing in the issue.
• Y: The Last Man: Discussed or Conversed by Victoria to help justify her attempt in killing Yorick.

Films — Live-Action

• Gods of Egypt: As to be expected they are seen with Anubis.
• Harry Potter: The Wizengamot ^note Wizard court of law. seal in the Harry Potter films posses a set of scales with what appears to be a wand as the beam.
• Liliom: The trial in Heaven at which Liliom's eternal fate will be decided uses giant scales. A demon piles weights on the bad scale when Liliom does bad stuff like smack his daughter's hand, and an angel weighs down the good side when Liliom does good stuff, like try to give her a star.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail: In a scene a suspected witch is put on the scales to see if she weighs the same as a duck (and therefore floats, is made of wood, is flammable, and hence a witch).
• The Nasty Girl: When Sonya has to appear in court to defend herself against a libel suit, there is an actually woman dressed as Justice holding scales behind the judge. She has dozed off but wakes up and holds her scales as the judge delivers a pro-Sonya ruling.
• The Ten Commandments (1956): Early on, when Sethi questions Moses about raiding temple granaries and other acts of his that the Pharaoh finds too indulgent toward the Hebrew slaves, Ramses begins placing weights on a scale for each thing Moses confesses to. Moses then drops a brick on the opposite scale, outweighing all the weights, to make his point that what he did was justified because the well-fed and rested slaves make far more bricks to build the city.
  Seti: You raided the temple granaries?
  Moses: Yes. (Rameses adds a weight to the scale on "his" side)
  Seti: You gave the grain to the slaves?
  Moses: Yes. (Rameses adds another weight)
  Rameses: You gave them one day in seven to rest.
  Moses: Yes. (Rameses adds another weight, making it seem impossible that Moses can win)
  Seti: Did you do all this to gain their favor?
  Moses: A city is built of brick, Pharaoh. The strong make many. The starving make few. (drops a brick on his side of the scale, tipping it in HIS favor) The dead make none. So much for accusations.

Literature

• The Confession: Scales are present on the book's cover along with Lady Justice, which makes sense since the book is a legal thriller.
• Dark Justice: Scales are present on the books' covers, being held by an eagle. The book is about attorney Ben Kincaid after a courtroom burnout.
• Discworld: Subverted twice in the novels, in keeping with Ankh-Morpork's ... complex views on justice and law enforcement:
  • The coat of arms of the Guild of Lawyers shows a set of scales ... with a bag of gold in each pannier.
  • There's a statue of Justice bearing a sword and scales on the roof of what used to be the Ankh-Morpork Courthouse, but which was abandoned decades ago in favour of a courtroom in the Patrician's Palace. Since the rise of Vetinari, the building has become the headquarters of the Thieves' Guild, with many people saying it's nice that it's been reclaimed by, broadly speaking, the legal profession.
• Eve Was Shamed: The cover of the book has Lady Justice holding her sword and scales, with her face marked off. This makes sense since the book is about how the British justice system is failing woman.
• The Good Fight 2018: Some of the books' covers have Lady Justice holding her scales. This makes sense since the book is about a woman named Meredith McKenzie who's inspired by her grandfather; a Supreme Court Justice, to become a social activist and civil rights warrior.
• Health Justice Now: The cover of the book has a picture of the Caduceus; a well-known medical symbol, fused with the scales. This makes sense since this playbook is about social justice linked arm-in-arm with health justice for us all.
• Hexwood: The image of the Balance crops up all through the book, as the sign of the House of Balance, the corporation that rules the Galaxy — though it should be a little worrying that it's always shown with its pans not balanced at all...
• Homo Juridicus: A emblem of a woman^note  Presumably Lady Justice. has a pair of scales on the book's cover.
• The Kane Chronicles: When the Kane siblings enter the Hall Of Judgement for the feather of truth Anubis's scales are seen, but are broken since Osiris has been trapped by Set. They get fixed by the end of the first book.
• Mistrial: The book cover◊ has a picture of your standard pan balance, but with one of it's scales missing.
• Out Law: Has a picture of Lady Justice holding the scales, which themselves are holding a rainbow, on the book's cover. This makes sense since the book is about the legal rights of the LGBT.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Ethan Nakamura's burial shroud has a set of scales on it. This is because Nemesis is his mother.
• Perfect Justice: Present on some of the book's covers.
• Sisterhood Series: Some covers of Lethal Justice have Lady Justice holding scales in the middle of the cover.
• The Triumph Of Injustice: Scales are present on the books' covers. The book is largely about tax rates between the working class and the rich and how unfair it is.
• The War Gods: In the series by David Weber, Tomanak is the God of War and Justice, and is frequently referred to as "Scale Balancer" in his latter role.
• The Weight Of Souls: An Invoked Trope in this paranormal murder mystery.

Live-Action TV

• Better Call Saul: Stylized scales appear in the logo; one Title Sequence shows someone using a set of scales as an ashtray, befitting the titular Amoral Attorney.
• Community: The episode Introduction to Finality has Shirley and Pierce in a court case over ownership of Shirley's sandwich shop. The case is tried at the college and Dean Pelton dresses as Lady Justice at one point, complete with scales. Unfortunately, he also wears the blindfold which causes him to walk into a table crotch first.
• The Equalizer: The title montage included a shot of the title character placing a weight on a pair of scales.
• Judge Rinder: The scales are part of the title◊.
• Moon Knight (2022): The Scales of Justice are a recurring motif throughout the show, based around Egyptian Mythology's Judgement of the Dead belief where hearts are weighed against a feather to determine if someone was worthy to enter the realm of the dead. Harrow's cult members bear scale tattoos; they are used to see if a person is good enough by Ammit's standards to live (if not, they are killed). This method of judgement doesn't work on Steven likely due to his fractured mind; indeed, when Steven/Marc are shot dead; Taweret tries to balance their hearts on the gods' Scale of Justice and eventually concludes that they are unbalanced...at least until Steven is killed.
• Night Court: Judge Harry Stone has a set of scales behind his desk.
• Noel's Saturday Roadshow: The "Clown Court" segment opened with a cartoon showing the statue of Lady Justice, then zooming in on her scales to show two clowns sitting in the trays tossing balls to each other.
• Rumpole of the Bailey: The cartoon opening titles feature the statute of Lady Justice atop the Old Bailey (sword in one hand, scales in the other) prominently, including a closing shot of a bewigged Rumpole with his umbrella in a side-hug with Her Ladyship.
• The Scales Of Justice: A series based on actual criminal cases that was named after the Trope Namer.

Mythology & Religion

• Classical Mythology: Themis, Dike, Astraea, Nemesis/Invidia, Adrestia and Justitia all use them since all of them are at least affiliated with justice, law, judgment or order if not an outright goddess of it. Themis and Dike (one of them or both are the Greek equivalents to Justitia) are the providers of the Trope Namer.
• Egyptian Mythology: Osiris and Anubis famously used scales to judge the dead to see if they would ultimately have an afterlife by weighing the deceased's heart against Maat^note Usually depicted as a feather.. Maat^note Maat owns the feather. and Isis are also sometimes depicted helping in this as well.
• Islam: It is believed that on the day of judgement, everyone will have all the deeds they had committed in life weighed on a set of scales, with all of one's good deeds weighed on one end and all of their bad deeds weighed on the other. If the good deeds outweigh the bad, the person will be allowed into Heaven, and if the opposite is true, the person will be cast into Hell.
• Judaism/Christianity: The Archangel Raguel is sometimes portrayed with them since he's the angel of justice. The metaphor also appears in the Book of Daniel, where Belshazzar is "weighed in the balance and found wanting."
• Mesopotamian Mythology: Shamash a god of justice was affiliated with them.

Video Games

• Crusader Kings II: The symbol of the "Just" trait is a pair of scales.
• Dragon City:
  • A dragon called the Zodiac Libra Dragon can be found in the Epic Dragon Pack, said dragon has scales hanging off its horns and the constellation has long since been associated with law.
  • A dragon called the Justice Dragon exists emulating Lady Justice with her blindfold, though instead of having actual scales it just has an emblem on it's chest and egg with the scales on it.
• Final Fantasy XIV:
  • Sophia the Goddess is a primal worshiped for her guidance to ensure balance in life. She channels her power through a set of magic scales. As a primal, though, her judgment is warped and she seeks balance and equilibrium through extreme methods.
  Sophia: Sin must be balanced with suffering.
  • Nald'thal the Traders are twin brothers existing as one god within the Twelve. Nald is the God of Commerce and Thal is the God of the Dead. Both brothers use a divine scale to weigh the worth of a soul in life to decide which heaven or hell they belong in.
• Genshin Impact: The Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale is a machine resembling a giant pair of scales inside the Opera Epiclese, the courthouse of Fontaine. In addition to passing judgment on cases, it is the power source for much of the country's technology, generated through Indemnitium gathered from the audience's belief in Focalors, the Hydro Archon and god of justice.
• Get Amped: As part of the Tarot-themed gears, the Arcana VIII (aka Justice Balance) takes form of a sword and a pair of scales.
• Granblue Fantasy: The Tarot-inspired Justice Arcarum is clearly based on Lady Justice having the appearance, balance, and the sword. However, this version does not have her eyes covered with a blindfold, and she has large feathers acting like hair decorations.
• King's Quest: Mask of Eternity: A giant set of Scales of Justice appear in the Dimension of Death. As the hero Connor you have to weigh yourself against the Feather of Truth to prove your worth to the ruler of the underworld. Finding the Feather and accessing the Scales are separate quests.
• Lobotomy Corporation: Deconstructed, as the abnormality Judgement Bird used to have such a scale to measure between guilty and not guilty. When asked what it'd do should the scale tip in neither direction, it had a minor breakdown — and made a new scale that would always point to guilty.
• RuneScape: Several examples exist.
  • A pair of scales fuzed to a sword is apparently the symbol of the Seers' Village Courthouse.
  • Law Runes have a blue pair of scales painted on them.
• Smite: Nemesis is seen with them in her splash art and game play; such as when she's defeated. Two of her abilities also play with this trope "Scales Of Fate" and "Divine Judgement" with the scales seen in the abilities icon^note It's harder to see in the Divine Judgement icon..
• Splatoon: The first Splatoon's fourth Sunken Scroll◊ appears to depict an ancient form of the Turf War sport, with Judd the Combat Referee perched atop these scales.
• Stellaris: The scales themselves are the symbol of the Egalitarian Ethics.
• Toontown Online: To defeat the Court Justice boss, you have to tip the scales into the Toons' favor. Literally. There is a giant scale in the center of the room where you have to throw evidence into your side while the Cogs are trying to throw evidence into their side. The cogs side is so slow though that it's difficult to fail. If you somehow manage to fail, the entire group of eight will go sad.
• Touhou Project: Eiki Shiki is the resident judge of the dead, and is represented in one of the in-character databooks with a sigil of a scale◊.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney: Considering the series is about attorneys and many scenes take place in a courtroom, it's unsurprising to see scales appear numerous times in the series.
  • The scales adorn the standard Judge's bench.
  • Closer examination of the protagonists' attorney's badges (in HD) show they have scales engraved in the center.
  • Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: The attorney Calisto Yew has a pair of scales as earrings.
  • In The Great Ace Attorney, a scale is seen in the background of the British courtroom. The jurors use it to vote by throwing fire into the scale they currently support.
• Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law: The bear is on the game's box art, dressed as Lady Justice complete with her scales. (For the TV series see Western Animation above.)

Web Animation

• DC Super Hero Girls: Fittingly the courtyard of Super Hero High has a statue of Lady Justice, complete with her scales.

Webcomics

• Homestuck: Terezi is based on the zodiac sign Libra, which is symbolised by scales. Her dream is to be a legislacerator (the mix of elite detective and attorney on her planet — Alternia has no defence in the judicial sense and thus no lawyers as the very word is sacrilegious in a courtblock...er, courtroom.), her favourite hobby is to host court cases for her plush dragons, which usually end with said dragons hanged. She's also legally blind... as in, she cannot see with her eyes but was taught to use her tongue and nose to make up for it.

Western Animation

• American Dad!: The courtroom seen in the episode "Hayley Smith, SEAL Team Six" uses a seal of scales.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: In "The Fate of Equinox!" a balance-obsessed supervillain named Equinox set up a scales-themed death trap. Equinox planned to use the scales to kill one hero and one villain to balance the universe, but Batman stopped him before he could carry out his skewed sense of justice.
• Futurama: In the movie Into The Wild Green Yonder or season 5 episode 16^note Which is part 4 of the after-mentioned movie. a statue of Lady Justice appears with her scales. Funny enough a smaller statue of her is seen in one of her scales with the other being tipped over with a bag of money showing corruption.
• Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law: Lady Justice appears with her scales Pin Up style.
• Justice League: In the season 3 episode "This Little Piggy" Batman and Zatana need to get information on where the demi-goddess Circe might be. So, they seek out Lady Justice, who provides them a meeting with Medusa on the River Styx. In compensation for her good information, Lady Justice's balanced scales tipped one way and she tells Medusa she has shaved three hundred years off her sentence.
• Pluto's Judgement Day: Pluto is judged by a Joker Jury made up of cats. The statue of Lady Justice, appropriately enough, is peeking through the blindfold and carrying a lopsided scale.
• The Simpsons: Episode "The Parent Rap" has a statue of Lady Justice as a little girl in front of the Juvenile Courthouse complete with her scales.
• South Park: The courtroom seen in the episode "Sexual Harassment Panda" uses a seal of Lady Justice's face complete with her blindfold and scales.
• Teen Titans Go!: In the episode "A Farce" Lady Justice briefly appears with her scales right before the trial of the episode.
• Tutenstein: The episode "Curse of the Pharaoh" has Tutenstein go through the weighing of his heart^note For obvious reasons he couldn't use his original heart so he used a Heart Scarab, which is described as some sort of spare heart. again in order to get rid of Ammut.

Real Life

• Lady Justice who is heavily based off of Justitia has them. A popular feature for sculpture around courthouses; probably the most famous (in the English-speaking world at least) is the rendition atop the dome of the Central Criminal Court◊ (better known as the Old Bailey) in London.
• Many courtrooms around the world have scales or at least an image of one because of this trope.
• In Tarot, the Justice card shows a figure holding a scale in their left hand.
• Some Country and US state flags have it depicted on it.
• The Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen is a fountain that has a statue of Lady Justice complete with her scales. Below her are busts of a Pope, an Emperor, a Sultan and a Schultheiss with their eyes closed in submission. This was meant to show the supremacy of Justice over all forms of authority.
• As part of the 3rd issue of United States fractional currency a 50 cent fractional currency depicts Lady Justice holding scales.
• On the Western Zodiac we have the constellation Libra which is usually depicted as set of weighing scales^note Sometimes it's scorpion claws. associated with law, fairness and civility.
• Downplayed, with the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) which use a set of scales to symbolize their Ethics. Though technically not the law or justice, it is the ethics of found in a group that creates and influences them.

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