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swallowfeather Destroyer of Weeds Since: Oct, 2011
Destroyer of Weeds
Feb 5th 2014 at 12:26:35 AM •••

Is this meant *only* as contaminating a water source, not blocking it up? If so, can that be clarified in the text? (And why not call it Water Source Contamination, to be more specific... or maybe just Poisoning the Well?)

I ask b/c I was going to put down the French movie Jean de Florette as an example, in which the villains screw over a farmer by blocking up the spring that's on his land so they can drive him out of business & buy him out. But it seems that doesn't apply, yet that's not completely clear. Or of course if you want to expand the trope to mean *either* contaminating *or* blocking the water source (after all, blocking it can be pretty fatal too!) you might end up with more examples on the page.

"God created man because God likes stories." - Elie Wiesel Hide / Show Replies
SeptimusHeap MOD (Edited uphill both ways)
Feb 5th 2014 at 1:52:00 AM •••

This trope as-is is only about contaminating. And "tampering" covers that well enough in my mind. "Poisoning the well" has several unrelated meanings that make it ill-suited as a trope name in my mind.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Fanra Fanra Since: Jan, 2001
Fanra
Apr 9th 2012 at 8:12:42 PM •••

Removed:

"At various points in history, people have proposed introducing sterilizers into the drinking water to alleviate population pressures. Thankfully, saner heads prevail."

Considering that modern science knows of no substance or chemical that can be placed into drinking water to act as birth control (unless you are counting poisons) this makes no sense. If you placed certain chemicals in drinking water you could cause miscarriages, I suppose, but that isn't what that sentence implies. There is no "safe" method of birth control that can be done to mass populations. Any attempts would just be poisoning people.

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