Misused: Peoples Republic Of Tyranny

According to the definition, this is a trope about authoritarian governments picking democratic-sounding names to make themselves look better.

According to the list of total wicks (yeah, I know I should have sorted them, but that was too much work and too much work wasted if I had redone it) about 50% of all wicks are generic "dictatorship" links

Opening.

Description's clear. I didn't think there was a problem with the name, but apparently, I'm wrong. I guess the pattern is so similar to a few real-life states that it's ignored.

Tyrannical Government With Democratic Name?

Maybe we could clean up the wicks and add a note clarifying what this trope is about on the page?

Makes me wonder if we're missing a supertrope here for fictional dictatorships. I mean, misuse like this often happens if we're missing a closer fitting trope.

We have a lot of Politics Tropes in the folder "Rebellious and repressive politics". Those might be more useful than a straight-dictatorship trope.

Maybe that's true. I'm sure there's plenty of other tropes that the misuse could be directed to.

Now why in Beyonce's internet is this a thing people use to talk about real-life countries...

Looking through Politics Tropes we don't appear to have a Generic Fictional Dictatorship trope. Would it be worth making one and renaming this?

Might run into trouble with what "generic" means, but that's a problem for whoever takes the concept to TLP. Septimus's sandbox will be helpful for the proposed draft.

Possible actions for People's Republic of Tyranny include renaming + cleaning up, cleaning up but keeping the name, and (shudder) expanding to fit misuse

Now why in Beyonce's internet is this a thing people use to talk about real-life countries...

Because it's not only inspired by the naming pattern of communist countries (e.g People's Republic of China) but a very common propaganda technique employed by many if not most dictatorships in history.

nvm wrong thread

EDIT: While I'm here, it seems like the kind of thing that should be made IUEO posthaste, because it's offputting that the first wick in the sandbox is a PRC sinkhole and so on.

Edited by Synchronicity on May 12th 2021 at 2:43:14 PM

Yes, make this trope In-Universe Examples Only and cut the Real Life subpage.

Edited by AmourMitts on May 20th 2021 at 5:59:49 AM

I'm in favor of making this In-Universe Examples Only and No Real Life Examples, Please! and renaming it to something that better indicates that it's a Naming Convention.

Edit: If there's Missing Supertrope situation, fixing it by TLPing a trope for fictional dictatorships would be fine. Otherwise, misuse might have a home with other Politics Tropes.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 20th 2021 at 8:53:00 AM

Maybe we could simply call it "The Dictatorship", in the vein of The Empire, The Republic, The Federation, The Theocracy, etc.

What do you mean? Are you suggesting we expand People's Republic of Tyranny into The Dictatorship, or are you suggesting launching The Dictatorship to solve the Missing Supertrope problem?

The latter.

I'm not sure if cutting the Real Life examples is the best idea since this is a trope that has prominently featured in Real Life and is the main reason we have the trope, to begin with. It would be really weird not having any Real Life examples on here.

Also, there haven't been any mentioned problems with the Real Life subpage this is just about the trope being misused for dictatorships.

Edited by Ordeaux26 on May 20th 2021 at 10:16:11 AM

Yeah, the Real Life examples aren't the primary issue here and as said before the trope is heavily inspired by them anyway. The shoehorning is.

The description of Commie Land is very Eastern Europe-centric with only a brief mention of Cuba. Maybe we could fold that into The Dictatorship?

I am not denying that the trope (or what it's supposed to be, anyway) is inspired by names like "People's Republic of China", but I disagree that it's a separate issue from the shoehorning. Like I said, there are many wicks in the sandbox that just have these countries' names sinkholed to People's Republic of Tyranny, giving the impression that it's not about the name and more how they are perceived as authoritarian quicksand pits. I see "PRC", "Burma", and "North Korea" from a quick once-over. The whole Banana Republic wick is about how the Philippines (shout out to the fans back home) is a "downplayed version" of what is not the naming convention, but The Dictatorship (name tbd).

Edited by Synchronicity on May 21st 2021 at 11:31:29 AM

Could a lot of misuse be moved to Banana Republic? The page says it's about Latin America, but I think a lot of non-Latin American tropical post-colonial dictatorships could probably apply under Tropes Are Flexible.

I agree that people pot-holing real life countries to People's Republic of Tyranny is a problem, but I'm not sure that banning on-page real life examples is the solution. As others have said, this trope is heavily inspired by real life, and we should already have license to remove those bad potholes as it is.

Edited by naturalironist on May 21st 2021 at 4:02:07 AM

Don't forget that the Dominion of Canada is listed as a real life example of People's Republic of Tyranny (albeit as an inversion)!

Crowner options?

• Rename
• Make In-Universe Examples Only
• Split off examples to a "dictatorship" trope (if this option is downvoted, examples could go into various Politics Tropes subtropes?)

Honestly we're probably better off creating a trope like The Dictatorship (or something like Devilish Dictatorship, if we're feeling a little less boring), since it is a common form of dystopic setting and/or villain that the heroes have to face. I'm kinda surprised we don't have it already.