Question about this example:
- Another aspect of the Central Theme. The heroes avert this, especially when Max hands off a sniper rifle to Furiosa when he realizes he's not as good a shot. On the other hand, Immortan Joe's empire has a heavy focus on masculinity and male dominance, but this is damaging to everyone as the women are used as breeders and cattle while the men are little more than Mooks. When Angharad accuses Nux of having "killed the world", she's not blaming him in particular, but what he serves; an ideology of glorifying endless war, monopolization of resources by a small elite, the domination and exploitation of the weak by the strong - is what killed the world, and if you participate in continuing that behavior, you bear some moral responsibility.
Granted, High Crate is right that it isn't Testosterone Poisoning and (in my opinion), it needs to prune out some soapboxing. However, it does seem to work as description for Macho Masochism.
Edited by KingZeal Hide / Show Replies
Okay, let's discuss Nux and Easy Evangelism. Let me bring back my bullet points:
- He's going to die soon anyway. Nux's primary motivation, as established early in the film, is to die historic and earn a place in Valhalla. He knows he doesn't have long to live and so wants to find A Good Way to Die.
- He failed Immortan Joe while in full view of him, which led to the death of his favorite wife. As stated by both the character and the actor who portrayed him, Nux's Despair Event Horizon is the moment he fails to kill Furiosa, as directly ordered by Immortan Joe, and his favorite wife dies shortly thereafter. At this point, Valhalla is denied to him, he's still dying, and he has nothing else to live for. Cheeto showing him compassion and sympathy at that point was the first time anyone gave his life worth outside of being cannon fodder.
- They all know the Citadel plan is a gamble, and he himself says that it seems like hope. All of the heroes know that returning to the Citadel is a huge gamble that may cost them their lives. Nux, I'll remind you wants to die a good death and says himself that this "sounds like hope". This is a cause he can get behind—there is no longer a place for him with Joe or his "Valhalla".
- He is very much trying to live up until the moment he has to either die or cause the plan to fail. Despite his condition, Nux very much tried to survive the battle. However, the second the engine was ripped out of the War Rig, he had a choice: either he sacrifices himself to bottle up the canyon, or the rest of the War Boys catch up with the surviving heroes and either kill them or turn the Citadel against them. Nux, whose entire motivation is to find a good death, comes to a split decision that this is as good as it gets.
ALL of this explains why he "suddenly" turns away from Immortan Joe's warrior cult. Valhalla is no longer an option, he's met people who treat him with kindness, and lastly, he's given a chance to die a better death than merely fading away.
Edited by KingZeal Hide / Show Replies
Nux is suicidal. Agreed. That's his entire motivation: he's dying anyway, and he's been raised from birth to believe that he's expendable. That's not being debated.
But to him, his fellow War Boys are his brothers, and Immortan Joe is quite literally God. There's a big gulf between "I've failed the only family and God I've ever known" and "therefore, I should kill the only family and God I've ever known."
It's not strictly impossible to bridge that gulf, but realistically, it's going to take more than a pat on the head from a pretty girl. It's going to take some long deep hard soul-searching and a long time being confused and hurt and angry, and we don't see that. His conversion is immediate, complete, and above all, easy. He goes from suicide soldier in Joe's army to full convert against Joe to suicide soldier in the Wives' army in, what? Twelve hours? And with no apparent internal conflict after the point that Cheedo says, paraphrased, "Guess it was your destiny to not go to War Boy Heaven like you've always thought you would for literally your entire life, doesn't that cheer you up, hur hur?" No soul-searching, no wondering whether he's doing the right thing. Just, "well, guess I'll kill a bunch of my brothers and God now."
I'll remind you that Tropes Are Not Bad. Showing Nux going through the full journey that it would actually take to get him to where the film needs him to go would slow down a film that's characterized by its very tight pacing. But the trope still applies.
After rereading the trope definition of Easy Evangelism, I'd say this example indeed stray from this, for all the above-mentioned reasons. I'd add that Nux comes of as an easily influence-able young man, but it's not a surprising character trait for the Warboys.
From Easy Evangelism: "Somehow, they just haven't heard of the author's point of view until then. For example, this tends to manifest itself in Christian tracts with phrases such as 'Who's Jesus?'"
Replace "who's Jesus" with "you mean maybe women aren't things and Immortan Joe isn't God?" and this is almost exactly what happens.
It's the textbook definition of Easy Evangelism.
No that is NOT what happens. From Nux's point of view, he is now marked for death by Joe and the War Boys as much as Furiosa and Max. Furiosa convinces Max that he's a dead man if he turns the Wives in and Nux is no stranger to how Joe is works either. He didn't just convert to another belief out of the blue, either—he was STILL trying to find a way into Valhalla (evidenced by his Famous Last Words) but he knew that since Joe saw everything that happened, he was totally fucked.
Also: Nux did not immediately jump to trying to kill his God and "brothers". Nux didn't kill a single person. All he did, at first, was help them get out of the bog. Even when they turn the rig around, he still doesn't. All he does is drive, do repairs, and boost the speed. In fact, when the Wives hell that Joe is dead, Nux literally has an episode where the where the weight and significance of his actions bear down on him.
The very first time Nux kills anybody is when he crashes the Rig, and even that wasn't direct. As I said, he had a split second to make that decision and decide that it was A Good Way to Die.
This is not textbook case, but a serious case of Square Peg Round Trope.
And finally, I know Tropes Are Not Bad. I have no idea why you are trying to tell me that.
Edited by KingZeal
Helping them get out of the bog makes some kind of sense; he was there, it was a kind thing to do, and we'd already seen that he's capable of kindness, when he believes he's going to get a big reward from Joe and tries to convince Max to share in that reward. I mean, it doesn't make all that much logical sense either— he could just as easily have sabotaged them to try to get back in Joe's good graces— but let's take it as given that he's not exactly thinking logically in that moment and go with it.
From the moment when Max, the Vuvalini, and the Wives turn back around for the Citadel, though, Nux is no longer helping them escape Joe, he's helping them wage war against him, and that's a crucial distinction. Even if he's come to the conclusion that he no longer has any place in Joe's army, he could have hopped on a bike and ridden as far and fast as he could have in the opposite direction. Instead, he makes a decision that is diametrically opposed to everything he's ever believed for his entire life: that Joe— which is to say God— must be overthrown. Saying "all he did was drive" is just silly: he was driving a war vehicle filled with gun-toting soldiers intent on visiting violence upon his home, family, and godhead.
If that's not Easy Evangelism, I don't know what is.
Edited by HighCrate
Except the plan (at the time) wouldn't work without him. Capable said that Nux would be bringing back the wives "as he's meant to", indicating that the original idea was to kind of fake out the Citadel when they returned. That part became unnecessary because by killing Joe, they proved he was no god.
My point, though, is that Nux wasn't happily slaughtering other War Boys. He may have been contributing to a situation where they'd die, but he didn't go beyond that and might not have been able to. When one yells "you filth, you traitored him!", Nux doesn't defend himself or yell back. He kept focused on what he was doing, but given that Nux had a witty retort before now every time someone challenged him, his disquiet there shows something.
Next, War Boys are designed to desensitize death—even one of their own. They don't mourn each other, but merely cheer. Even when one dies a bad death, they just boo and mock them. If anything, Nux suddenly giving a shit about them dying would have been a bigger change. I think a good middle ground, which the story used, is him not killing them with the same glee while not exactly crying over it either.
Point is, the idea that he made a complete 180 is wrong. It's more like a 100-degree turn—enough to clearly be on the other side, but not to the same extreme.
Edited by KingZeal
Quibbles over the exact number of degrees he pivoted aside, the point remains that he makes an extreme pivot— from "my life has meaning only insofar as I can sacrifice it for the sake of my god" to "I no longer have any place in Immortan Joe's society" all the way to "Immortan Joe's society should not be allowed to exist; I will help to overthrow it" very quickly. He's abandoned everything he ever believed in and exchanged it for a new and diametrically opposed cause.
I think we've effectively reached a deadlock at this point; we've each explained our point to the other and neither of us is budging. I'm going to take this to the Is This An Example? thread at this point to try and get some fresh perspectives into the conversation.
There is no deadlock considering the prevailing rule is that Examples Are Not Arguable. When a given example results in arguments whether it applies or not, the result is that it get dropped by precaution.
As opposed to what, High Crate? He's going to die soon no matter what he does. Should he take off by himself into a wasteland that a more experienced traveler has flat out said is empty and desolate? Should he go with them and sit out the battles, basically denying both a good death AND doing nothing to prevent the deaths of he and his new lady friend? Should he just lay down and die instead of finding a higher destiny?
Edited by KingZeal
Should I give Mad Max: Fury Road a mention as a Box Office Bomb? It wasn't completely successful, but it's one of the most noteworthy films of the year.
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A Box Office Bomb is described as "a film whose production and marketing cost greatly exceed its gross revenue." According to The Other Wiki, Fury Road cost $200 million and made about $375, which it categorizes as a "modest hit." I'd say that definitely doesn't count as a Box Office Bomb.
I object to the notion that Nux's death was less sad than Angharad's presented under Men Are The Expendable Gender. It's true that the characters have a lot more time to react to Angharad's death since it happens earlier in the movie, but because it's so early the viewer has time to move on and we didn't know her that long, while Nux dies in the climax after we've had time to get attached to him and there isn't time in-movie to mourn properly.
I will say though that the movie still exemplifies the trope, inasmuch as the ratio of male to female deaths is still skewed largely towards the male, even if it is because Joe and the other two big guys make their armies up purely of men.
It's also evident in how Joe reacts to healthy or at least physically fit young people: women? wives, kept safe for breeding. men? tool to expend when you need to throw violence at a problem. Neither view is very good but one is certainly more expendable than the other.
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Angharad's death, in my opinion, was more of a "senseless waste of life" for three reasons: One, getting her and the other wives to safety was the entire point of the escape, meaning that the moment she died, there was no golden outcome. Two, Nux is at the end of his "half-life" while Angharad was a young and healthy woman with a child. Three, IIRC, Nux died as a sacrifice while Angharad's death was purely accidental and not meant to be a sacrifice in any way.
While Men Are the Expendable Gender is how Joe thinks, it's not really supported by the movie itself. Once we are introduced to some full-fledged female combatants (the Vulvalini) they die left and right just like the War Boys.
I agree with King Zeal above. To add to that, when Angharad died two people died not just one; Angharad and her unborn son within her womb.
Nux is a Mauve Shirt; he dies towards the end of a the film in a Heroic Sacrifice, where a Sacrificial Lamb is killed early on.
Edited by quirkygenius
I have a controversial topic I would like some help clearing up. While some have said Mad Max: Fury Road is misogynist, I get the impression that this movie could be misandrist as well. There are several reasons for this. 1) Every man except for Max and post Heel-Face-Turn-Nux is portrayed as evil, savage, greedy, sadistic or any combination of the four. 2) There are no villainous or even mean women in the movie, not even from Bullet Town or serving the People Eater; if an evil, megalomaniacal chauvinist like Joe could acknowledge Furiosa’s abilities by awarding a high rank, then you’d think they could too (despite, or because of, their rough edges the vuvalini are portrayed in a noble and sympathetic light). 3) That Furiosa, rather than Max, is (arguably) the main protagonist despite Max being the main protagonist in the previous films as well as the title character. 4) There's the little tidbit of Angharad's "who killed the world?" question. 5) Also, by the end of the film, what do Max and Nux get for being the only decent men in the movie? Nux dies and Max doesn’t even get offered a place to live in the (soon-to-be-paradise) society he helped liberate. 6) There’s the reveal about what those...things walking around on sticks in the swamps that used to be the Green Place are; according to production designer Colin Gibson , those things are the boys the vuvalini left behind when they fled the Green Place with their daughters. Now imagine what those boys had to go through, and ask yourself why the vuvalini couldn’t take the boys as well as the girls.
Misandry is an issue that’s as equally abhorrent as misogyny, but it is much more overlooked. Case in point; I added this to the YMMV section and my entry was erased. NOTE: I apologize if this turned into a gender politics rant; relevant issues aside, I just mean misandrist overtones in this movie. Does anyone have thoughts on this?
Edited by quirkygenius
Is there a particular reason why all the instances of "Hell" and "Bastard" have been censored?
censoring "shells" into "S****s" is ridiculous.
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supermariofan64 was problably using one of the browser plugins that automatically changes words on pages, in this case censoring swears.
It is a bit of problem since the TvTropes site can't block the plugins.
Edited by jormis29
I've called them in for a talk.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Why the Be Careful of What You Wish for are included on the main page? Nux wanted to die historic and he wanted to drive the War Rig, and he got both of them no less
dn ǝpıs sıɥ⊥
I considered adding Whole-Plot Reference, but wasn't sure if it counts, since it's (most likely) unintentional. Let's see: former serviceman is providing assistance to a group of women, former Royal Harem of a certain gang leader, who is now actively pursuing them through the desert. Are we speaking about Mad Max: Fury Road or White Sun of the Desert here?
Edited by sidestep
Under Rated M for Manly: "the actual movie is mainly women taking down the patriarchy in an interesting inversion of this". This sounds a bit too political for the purposes of the page, Max is still the title character, and Rated M for Manly doesn't have to necessarily involve men, so I changed it to: "The actual movie features a largely female team abolishing male-dominated tyranny in very violent, hardcore ways in an interesting variation of this". Is this better?
{{CharacterInWhite}}
Contributors to the page have been saying that Joe's breeders are being "cared for." Can we just take a moment to really assess that phrasing? The breeders aren't being pampered in a palace. They're being "cared for" in the same way you take your car to the shop—to keep it running for a purpose. The "care" that the breeders receive is not benevolence or special treatment. It's maintenance.
I think we can all agree that starving and dying of thirst is unpleasant. Radiation is unpleasant. Living with terminal conditions is unpleasant. Indoctrination and societal pressure to be violent is unpleasant. Having no medicine is unpleasant. Getting routinely raped and carrying the resulting children to term is unpleasant. No sane person is going to dispute any of that, so how about instead of playing "oppression olympics" and comparing apples to oranges, we err on the side of "Golly, anyone whose not at the top has it rough, and everyone has it rough for different reasons."
This sentiment has been reflected in most of the page. But there are still a few unsettling comparisons which imply being an underling male or female in Joe's society would be preferable over the other. It just reeks of violating the Cautious Editing that allegedly governs TV Tropes.
People ask why I'm such a twisted man. I reply that I have the heart of a young boy; in a jar, right next to his brain. Hide / Show Replies
Reading the No Woman's Land page, it specifies that "it's a Crapsack World if you're a woman" (emphasis mine). The implication being that it's a setting in which it's pretty bad to be a woman, but pretty good to be a man.
The thing is, under Immortan Joe's regime, it's a Crapsack World for everyone except for Immortan Joe and a handful of favored lieutenants, Furiosa among them until she (admirably) decides that her life of relative privilege isn't worth it when the other women are slaves.
Given that, does it really count as a No Woman's Land? The specifics of slavery are gendered— women made into sex slaves or milk machines, men made into suicide soldiers or bloodbags— but the fact of it isn't.
In order to avoid "oppression Olympics" and adhere to the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment, I wonder if the safer move isn't to omit the No Woman's Land entry altogether.
Edited by HighCrate
Can we please agree to not delete No Woman's Land? All it does is state information about the woman under Joe's reign. Nothing else.
Seriously, if you won't allow this information to be presented about Joe's way of controlling people (specifically women) I wonder why you won't delete the "Equal-Opportunity Evil" trope, when it essentially states the same type of information, but for men.
It's not a matter of "information being presented," it's a matter of whether it fits the definition of this particular trope. Calling Immortan Joe's regime a No Woman's Land implies that things are generally good for men and generally bad for women (or, at least, generally much better for men than for women) and that's simply not the case. Things are generally good (or as good as things can be considering they're just as deformed and terminal as anyone else) for Joe and a handful of his most favored lieutenants (including pre-rebellion Furiosa) and really, really bad for everyone else.
The fact that @H.Torrance Griffin immediately jumped in with a Justifying Edit as soon as the entry was restored should be proof enough that we really need to have a conversation about this instead of an edit war.
As for Equal-Opportunity Evil, the trope might arguably apply, but for different reasons than are given in the example text. EOE is about the bad guys welcoming anyone to be a bad guy with them regardless of race/creed/sex/whatever, which Joe does insofar as he apparently regards Furiosa as at least the equal of his male lieutenants.
Edited by HighCrate
Uh, yeah. That's really bad trope misuse. Cut No Woman's Land.
Women are treated badly, but so are men. It's a Crapsack World for everyone, not just for women (and as Furiosa proves, women can be in that upper 1%).
Edited by Larkmarn Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Any particular reason this page insists the kid Max hallucinates is his daughter? Especially given that the only kid we know for a fact he has was way younger than her when it died.
Edited by Wackd Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies. Hide / Show Replies
The girl he hallucinates calls him "Pa" at one point, just before he rides out onto the salt flats to tell the new plan to Furiosa and the wives.
Edited by pollenruins
Wereboar
Does This Remind You Of Anything is definitely an YMMV candidate. In the quoted interview, Miller says that "parallel, although hard to miss, was accidental". The problem is that Immortan Joe is definitely NOT a terrorist. He is a leader of one of the thriving remnant communities, makes normal (as far as the post-apoc goes) business with other towns, is the center figure in the cult of personality (instead of being an ideologist), does not use terrorist tactics but rather organizes plunder raids and does not stay in the background but rather rides in front of his war party. So, definitely more Temujin than any known terrorist leader (I believe the author of an entry meant Osama Bin Laden).
Seriously, it is only the desert that brings these associations. Immortan Joe's people are re-imagined Vikings or Mongols (original ones, not their romanticized versions) who plunder out of necessity rather than modern terrorists.
Also, the War Boys are keen to die because they know they would soon die anyway, because of the prevalent diseases and degeneration.
Angharad looks like she has some faint scars on her face, on her cheek below her right eye and on her forehead. Good Scars, Evil Scars? Faint aversion of Beauty Is Never Tarnished?
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Seems very much not worth noting to me.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Anyone read the comics?
Anything interesting?
Edited by jormis29