Line #35 Main/ObstructionistPacifist


1	->'''Magistrate:''' The treasury supplies the expenses of the War.\
2	'''Lysistrata:''' That's our first principle – no War!
3	-->--Creator/{{Aristophanes}}, ''Theatre/{{Lysistrata}}''
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5	When a character or group is too utterly swept up in their own need of being a pacifist or making sure that everyone/anyone else is pacifist, to the point where it slightly or completely prevents the hero/party/group in progressing to their goal or weighs them down immensely.
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7	SubTrope of HonorBeforeReason. Compare SuicidalPacifism and WeHaveBecomeComplacent. Similar to ThouShaltNotKill. May lead to TooDumbToLive.
8	----
9	!!Examples:
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11	[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
12	* Despite being the Sin of Wrath, Meliodas from ''Manga/TheSevenDeadlySins'' is a TechnicalPacifist who chooses to be WillfullyWeak and not kill his opponents. While this mindset works out early on in the manga as he and his fellow Sins are vastly more powerful than their opponents, it becomes a deterrent when they encounter the Armored Giant. Not only is this demon so strong that only using their full strength and killing it is the only way to stop it, but killing it is also the [[MercyKill only merciful thing]] to relieve its suffering. Meliodas initially doesn't want to go this route and even hinders comrades of his that want to. It's only when the gravity of the whole matter is apparent to him that he [[TheGlovesComeOff decides to actually]] [[IAmNotLeftHanded stop holding back.]]
13	* ''Literature/HeavyObject'': {{Defied}} in the anime-only finale. Klondike is a prominent religious scholar committed to a creed of "non-violence, non-compliance, and non-resistance", and leads an antiwar movement with a considerable number of followers. He's too inconvenient for the {{realpolitik}}-driven super-nations to keep around, but too popular and too innocuous to simply imprison or assassinate, so they resort to repeatedly deporting him to each other like a hot potato to disrupt his peace movement.
14	* ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'': Lynn Kaifun promotes pacifism, but in his case it mostly just comes across as blind hatred of the military and everything they do or are involved in. This gets to the point that when peace talks are finally opened with the Zentraedi, he initially refuses to participate ''because the military has representatives at these peace talks'', and Minmay of all people has to call him on this.
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16	[[AC:ComicBook]]
17	* ''ComicBook/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': In the ''War'' miniseries, Zayne Carrick gets drafted and is forced to fight on the frontlines of the Mandalorian Wars. He not only refuses to kill, but he refuses to let anyone ''else'' kill anyone either: he limits himself to disarming enemies by destroying their weapons and goes out of his way to stop people on either side from gunning down defeated/retreating combatants. Naturally, this frustrates the hell out of his commanding officers.
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20	[[AC:FanFiction]]
21	* Padme Amidala in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/series/1755124 Saga of Tanya the Jedi]]'' opposes the idea of a galactic military force and armies in general, believing that each planet should maintain a small defense force. Not only does she forget/ignore that Naboo was so easily invaded ''because'' they had no standing army, but Padme doesn't consider that many planets (such as Tatooine) are too poor to maintain their own military forces.
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23	[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
24	* In ''Literature/{{Deathworld}} 2'', Mikah Samon is a "pacifist" who opposes Jason's plan to foment revolution (and later a war of consolidation) on the planet they've crashed on, even though in the existing political system most people are slaves and all the factions are too busy keeping a tight grip on their own technological monopolies for anyone to actually make any progress. His "principled resistance" led him to betray Jason twice (once to the gang he was undermining and again later to his chosen victors' enemies), the second time causing Jason to take a wound he [[NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow wouldn't have survived if rescuers from his homeworld hadn't found them.]]
25	* In ''Literature/TheSwordOfTruth'' the beliefs of the culture that produced evil pacifists are absurd to the point where they won't fight back or even try to get out of the way when people with weapons are nearby and trying to kill each other. Indeed, they are TooDumbToLive.
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27	[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
28	* ''Series/StargateSG1'' has the Nox. The Nox practice a philosophy of absolute pacifism and non-violence that is so strict that they refuse even to [[SuicidalPacifism defend themselves when threatened.]] This policy is so strict that others within their domain are [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules forced to obey their rules of policy of pacifism when necessary.]] Should visitors attempt to employ violence against one another, the Nox remove their weapons as part of their rules. Of course, they can afford to be pacifist, considering they can avoid most conflicts by turning themselves and other objects invisible with no apparent effort, and even bring their dead back to life if a conflict can't be avoided with outsiders. Jack tells them it doesn't work that way for humans.
29	* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'':
30	** A famous example is Edith Keeler from "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E28TheCityOnTheEdgeOfForever The City on the Edge of Forever]]". A [[TimeTravel time-traveling]] Dr. [=McCoy=] saves her, and because she lives, she leads a pacifist movement that prevents the US entry into UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, causing the Nazis to win the war. [[BittersweetEnding Kirk has to let her die to reset the timeline.]]
31	** Subverted in "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E26ErrandOfMercy Errand of Mercy]]", in that the Organians look like this for most of the episode. Spock describes the planet as a stagnant culture and the planet seems to be populated by amiable old men who placidly allow the Klingons to conquer them, rebuking Kirk and Spock's efforts to inspire a resistance because they abhor violence so much they'd [[WouldRatherSuffer rather allow arbitrary executions than fight back.]] It's only at the end that we learn the Organians have simply ''pretended'' to be harmless (and executed, and humanoid) to make their [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith visitors feel at ease]]. When tensions come to a head, they revert to their luminous true forms and make both sides sit in the corner.
32	* An episode of Gene Roddenberry's ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' involves Dylan and his crew trying to save a pacifist colony from SpacePirates. When one of the pacifists deliberately blows up the crate of Smart Lances that the crew brought along (and he justifies it as [[SuicidalPacifism better off dying than allowing the colony to be "tainted" with violence]]), Dylan has to do a TrainingThePeacefulVillagers montage and play guerrilla.
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34	[[AC:TabletopGames]]
35	* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 3[[superscript:rd]] Edition: The "Vow of Nonviolence" and "Vow of Peace" IntrinsicVow feats make this a game mechanic -- both require the PlayerCharacter to police their allies' behavior, and the former also inflicts mechanical penalties on nearby allies who commit violent acts. However, there are a few loopholes - the vows only cover ''living'' beings (constructs and undead are fair game), and if the enemies try to pull an ISurrenderSuckers then their lives are forfeit (the book explicitly states that the vow-swearer's allies are allowed to kill enemies under that condition without breaking the vow or suffering penalties).
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37	[[AC:VideoGames]]
38	* The community of Fisherman's Horizon in ''Videogame/FinalFantasyVIII'' has a large proportion of pacifists amongst its citizens, and the Mayor, Dobe, tries to stop [[PrivateMilitaryContractor SeeD]] from fighting to defend the town from invading Galbadians in favour of attempting negotiation. He has no idea how to react when he learns the Galbadians are under orders to raze the town, nor when [=SeeD=] fights on his behalf and ends up saving his life.
39	* A series of sidequests in ''VideoGame/FistOfTheNorthStarLostParadise'' has Kenshiro facing interference from a group of sworn pacifists within Eden. Each time, they try to settle the current issue peacefully. Each time, they fail miserably and Kenshiro has to save them. [[spoiler:The group ultimately disbands after bandits brutally murder their leader for trying to negotiate with them.]] Kenshiro sympathizes with them, but is well aware this isn't a world where peace is an option.
40	* Hochi from ''Videogame/GhostOfTsushima''. While not a coward, his insistence of being a pacifist essentially makes him TheLoad, giving Jin and Norio the unnecessary extra work of covering his ass. [[spoiler:He proves his bravery by ultimately throwing himself in front of a Mongol trying to ambush Norio, dying in a HeroicSacrifice.]]
41	* ''Franchise/MassEffect:'' A common tactic the Reapers use is to indoctrinate high-ranking politicians into this, luring them in with promises of negotiation and then making them sabotage any attempt to fight the Reapers, who have no interest in negotiation, often penalizing anyone who tries to fight back.
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43	[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
44	* ''WesternAnimation/WanderOverYonder'': In "The Robomechabotatron", Wander and Sylvia [[EnemyMine team up with Lord Hater and Commander Peepers]] to pilot the eponymous HumongousMecha, but Wander stubbornly refuses to pilot it into battle against Lord Dominator, even though she's an OmnicidalManiac out to destroy every planet in the galaxy ForTheEvulz. [[spoiler: The Robomechabotatron [[ShaggyDogStory ends up getting destroyed]] in the ensuing struggle between our heroes, and the only thing they accomplish is distracting Lord Dominator and allowing the Cluckons to fully evacuate their homeworld.]]
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46	[[AC:RealLife]]
47	* Many pacifists who would be Conscientious Objectors to military service are also opposed to paying taxes to [[NoBudget fund the military]]. In the United States, The National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund works to pass a national law to allow conscientious objectors to redirect their tax money to be used only for non-military purposes[[note]]As any rational person will immediately see, this would accomplish approximately nothing unless more than about 80% of the people did it, since the government would just say "Fine, YOUR money goes to pay farmers not to grow crops (or whatever), we'll just take a little more for the DOD out of EVERYBODY ELSE'S taxes to compensate." There's also the question of what exactly constitutes "non-military purposes": a significant fraction of research grants to universities in the United States are funneled through the Department of Defense somehow, through agencies like the Office of Naval Research or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (which is largely responsible for the very existence of the Internet), and these should arguably be considered non-military purposes: most of the grants are not for things that are actually directly useful to the military, they tend to be for basic research ("Find out more about how polymers adhere to ceramics") instead of more applied projects ("Figure out how to detect enemy submarines better").[[/note]]

Context Main / ObstructionistPacifist