Duplicate Trope: War On Cops

This trope seems to date back to 2011 at least. No YKTTW, 9 wicks and 11 inbounds.

This is about "when a criminal goes out of his/her way to fight police, whether in pursuit of a larger goal or not". This combines two different ideas in one: a criminal whose primary goal is to fight the police, and a criminal whose plans (like assassinate a president or rob a federal bank or whatever) means that cops will be among the likely victims. What distinguishes a criminal in the second category "going out of their way" to target cops from a criminal who simply accepts them as collateral is left rather nebulous and ill-defined.

This also directly contradicts the first paragraph, which all but states that the criminal who declares a War on Cops cannot have a logical goal beyond that such as financial gain or ideology. It doesn't even make much sense, since conceivably someone like a terrorist group could specifically target state apparatuses such as the police for ideological reasons.

Additionally, we seem to have both of these tropes already. Rage Against the Legal System already covers most instances of criminals who specifically target the justice system (including police), in this case out of a desire for revenge. Cop Killer is about a criminal who has no qualms with killing cops despite the immediate crackdown that results from this.

edited 20th May '16 4:37:00 AM by Morgenthaler

Opened.

I think we can cut if there's nothing worth salvaging.

I don't think we really need this one either.

Definitely a cut worthy duplicate.

Seems redundant, cut.

Agreed. Cut it.

Cut.

snippety snip, cut and a bad snowclone of War On Terror no less. This article gets from me.

edited 21st May '16 11:48:34 AM by TheOneWhoTropes

I'm not seeing the similarity between Rage Against the Legal System and this. They could overlap (a convicted felon declares revenge, not against the specific people who convicted or arrested them, but against the entire justice apparatus), but generally don't.

^ In that case, how would you define the trope or determine when a character goes out of their way to target cops in a way that distinguishes it from Cop Killer?

edited 22nd May '16 9:18:18 AM by Morgenthaler

I'd scrub the bit about "whether in pursuit of a larger goal or not", as it muddies the definition. This should be just for people who target the police (or people in similar roles) just because they're the police.

(Comparing to Cop Killer is tricky, because Cop Killer has its own issues. The name would make you think it's about anybody who kills a cop, which would make this almost but not quite a subtrope. The actual description, though, says that it's a plot trope about somebody having killed a cop and the protagonists being out to avenge their comrade. The examples on the page seem to be broader than the definition while still being more specific to the name: they make it seem to be about the fact that cop-killing elicits a strong response from other cops. If we follow the definition or the examples, it's tangential to this trope.)

I realize that doesn't leave an enormous number of examples. Prometheus and The Wrath are the only ones I can personally think of. Looking at the page, the Nemesis and Criminal Minds examples seem legit, but none of the rest do. What's the rule of thumb for when something is too rare to trope?

Too Rare To Trope

Seems like Cop Killer should be renamed to better match the description. How about Kill The Cop Killer?

Obviously Cop Killer would need a new description.

I don't think there is an issue with Cop Killer; eliciting a strong response from police is inherent to the trope. For comparison, Killer Cop talks about what the cop's motivations may be for killing people, such as vigilante justice. Stripping Cop Killer down to just "person who kills a cop" without adding any further meaning to it leaves us with something that's pretty chairs-y.

Unless there are more arguments to be had, I think we're right for a crowner. If someone wants to fix War On Cops, it's better to take it to YKTTW than try to fix this poorly launched effort.

edited 30th Jun '16 11:29:19 AM by Morgenthaler

-[snip]-

Edit: Might as well just make the crowner now.

edited 30th Jun '16 7:30:58 PM by war877

I don't even know why Cop Killer is coming into this. It's really not pertinent.

Cop Killer is about how, for cops, one of their own dying means It's Personal, but it can be done by anyone whether they're targeting cops or not.

But War On Cops is just Rage Against the Legal System where a criminal is targeting cops. I'd consider keeping it, but it's so anemic I don't think we should bother.

Ok, so how about two options for:

• Cut, send to YKTTW if someone wants to salvage it;
• Rewrite the description

I think those were the only two solutions offered.

Did someone un-index or was this trope ever even put on an index?

Because if the latter, then let's just cut the sumbitch. We're clearly giving this more thought than the creator ever did.

Morganthaler:

"Cop Killer" is a pre-existing, pre-defined term for someone who murders a police officer. The trope as written is about the reaction by police.

My suggestion is to take the trope as-is and rename it Kill the Cop Killer (or something along those lines), then rewrite Cop Killer to match the pre-existing term.

This TRS is not about Cop Killer. Create a new TRS for that.

The trope in question needs to be cut now for multiple reasons. I say no vote. Everyone, pick your reason: terrible description, duplicate, no indexes, not a trope.

If there is a vote, let's restrict it to a cut or no cut.

edited 7th Jul '16 4:57:16 AM by war877

I already did. It just hasn't been opened yet.

But for this trope, I say cut for being a duplicate of Rage Against the Legal System.

edited 2nd Jul '16 6:03:48 PM by maxwellsilver

Ok, so to get this over with, here's a crowner for cutting this or not.

It's hooked, thanks.

I still don't understand the argument that this is a duplicate of Rage Against the Legal System. The names sound like they'd be similar, but the actual descriptions are quite distinct.

If we look past the overly-specific focus of the description of Rage Against the Legal System and just focus one the definitions of it and Cop Killer, it's not that they include every case of War On Cops, it's that the leftover bits aren't tropeable by themselves.

Part of the problem of War On Cops is that by being defined so broadly, it's a bit of characterization that doesn't lead to anything beyond itself. The person wants to kill cops. In the future, they . . . might try to kill cops again, or they might not have an opportunity. This is in contrast to Rage Against the Legal System or Cop Killer, which both set up plots with expected beats along the way. It's also in contrast to characterization tropes where certain traits are used as shorthand for other traits, or which promise payoff down the line.

Cop Killer and Rage Against the Legal System cover the actual interesting parts of War On Cops. Maybe there are additional specific pieces that are tropeable, but those can be launched themselves. What's left here is flat and useless.