Basic Trope: Somebody lashes out against the government in retaliation for some way in which the justice system hurt him.
- Straight: Bob was convicted of robbery and sent to prison for twenty years. When he gets out he murders his lawyer.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob was wrongly convicted during a blatantly unfair trial and was sentenced to death. He escaped prison, formed a terrorist cell with the intention of bringing down the entire government, and sets off a nuke during a Supreme Court Session.
- Bob got arrested doing the morally correct thing in a Police State, despite that the legal system allowed what Bob was trying to stop and expected people to not interfere, even if said actions were immoral. After getting out, he becomes a Rebel Leader that declares the legal system evil and corrupt, openly fighting against it.
- Downplayed:
- Bob is a criminal who resents the government for giving him an unfair sentence, but instead of murdering cops and lawyers he writes treatises and memoirs decrying what he sees as injustices in the legal system. This turns the public in favor of more lenient criminal sentences and it utterly ruins the careers of those responsible for Bob's imprisonment.
- Bob becomes a defense attorney after being wrongly convicted in his youth and funds the defenses of others.
- Justified:
- Bob is innocent of the crime he was convicted of, and everybody involved in his conviction knew that.
- The "Crime" for which Bob was convicted is something that shouldn't have even been illegal to begin with (such as belonging to an Illegal Religion, or being attracted to the wrong gender, or so on).
- The legal system, and by extension the entire government, is utterly tyrannical and oppressive.
- Bob has a Never My Fault mindset.
- Bob is The Sociopath who doesn't respect the legal system.
- Several people performed a great injustice upon Bob and walked away clean, and Bob will see to it that they don't. The fact that they are members of the justice system is a major inconvenience.
- What the Law was allowing was clearly unethical, and because Bob got arrested refusing to allow it to happen, he felt the legal system couldn't stay the way it was after getting out and decided to go after the officials who allowed it to happen.
- Inverted:
- Bob is imprisoned for a crime, and upon release he devotes himself to upholding and enforcing the law.
- Bob lashes out at the system as a sick joke because he managed to get away with heinous crimes.
- Subverted: Bob claims to be lashing out against the legal system as justification. It turns out to be a lie. He grew up privileged and never got in trouble with the law. He was just engaged in demagoguery.
- Double Subverted: Except the followers were sincere in their beliefs who weren't so lucky.
- Parodied: Bob was convicted and tried for his Long List of Transgressions, had irrefutable, peer reviewed evidence that 100% confirms he did that crime, Judge sentenced him guilty, Jury found him guilty beyond any reasonable doubt... And he still goes on a rampage against the legal system for allegedly "wronging" him worse than he wronged the people he hurt and killed from his crimes.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: ???
- Enforced: Author Tract against the legal system.
- Lampshaded: "The legal system is fair and just, and you want revenge against them for exacting justice?! You're a complete piece of shit who deserves to burn in hell!"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: A terrorist cell hoping to overthrow the government recruits its members from prison populations, specifically picking out prisoners who resent the legal system.
- Defied:
- The law is written so that taking revenge against the legal system is an aggravating factor in a crime.
- The Justice System works hard to be fair and reasonable. Prisons are geared towards rehabilitation, prisoners are given ample rights and protections, corruption in the legal system is punished swiftly (for instance, a judge caught abusing his power is barred from ever practicing law again), and the state is quick to rectify and admit mistakes. In other words, there is no reason to feel rage against the legal system.
- All Crimes Are Equal and all crimes are punishable by death. Can't have people wishing revenge against the legal system if they are all dead, right?
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Supervillain Bob has a petty criminal record. He is an Omnicidal Maniac but he never mentions his motivations.
- Played for Laughs: Bob gets his revenge via petty pranks.
- Played for Drama: Bob has killed hundreds of lawmen, and will gleefully exterminate millions more, because some idiot Hanging Judge felt he had to do time over stealing a pack of chewing gum.
- Played for Horror: Bob's campaign of revenge against the law is a genocidal massacre of everybody who has ever been a cop or connected to a cop even in the farthest branches of their genealogical trees, using terrorist methods like bombing churches and poisoning water reservoirs.
Back to Rage Against the Legal System
