"Come see the violence Inherent in the System! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"
— Dennis the Peasant, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
When you live under the thumb of The Evil Empire or a Dystopian government, they have several ways to keep you there. This is a list of the many ways.
Named for a line in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which may have its origins in a Norman legal proceeding called the clameur de haro
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Now we see the Tropes inherent in the Index!
Categories:
- 2 + Torture = 5: Forcing people to believe in a lie.
- Airstrip One: Your country no longer has a name.
- All Crimes Are Equal: Whoever tells a white lie or thinks of perverted thoughts is just as bad as a mass murderer and a child rapist, and all must be punished within the same degree.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Being unassimilated from the majority risks severe punishment.
- Ban on A.I.: Not a good place to be an engineer, even worse to be an intelligent robot.
- Ban on Magic: Sucks to be you if you're a wizard of some kind.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: If they don't like you, torture them 'till they do.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Intruding in all aspects of private life.
- Book Burning: Destroying literature and art that dissents against the powers that be.
- Canned Orders over Loudspeaker: Broadcasting propaganda everywhere.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: When used as a method for oppression.
- Conscription: Refusing to join the army is illegal.
- Crushing the Populace: When an empire decides that an area it has gained or regained a hold on must be punished, rather than rebuilt.
- Culture Police: Censoring all forms of art that seem subversive.
- Dystopian Edict: If you break the edict, you suffer the government's wrath.
- Emergency Authority: If Martial Law sets up a Police State.
- Evil Colonialist: A foreign oppressor against the natives.
- The Evils of Free Will: We can't have everyone making up their own minds, now can we?
- Exalted Torturer: Those people being tortured had it coming.
- The Exile: You're no longer welcome in your homeland.
- Fascists' Bed Time: Forced curfews.
- Forbidden Holiday: Even holidays are against the law.
- Force Feeding: When the victim won't eat, or just to torture them.
- Forced to Watch: Cold-Blooded Torture is so passe. Better to make the victim watch their loved ones suffer!
- Full-Circle Revolution: Leaders change, but things stay the same.
- Government Drug Enforcement: Forcing everybody to take mind-controlling drugs.
- Happiness is Mandatory: Show how wonderful the regime makes you feel, on pain of death.
- Icon of Rebellion: The symbol of freedom fighters opposing the government.
- Illegal Religion: Forbidding people from following their own religion, usually in favor of the religion of those in power or devotion to the state.
- Individuality Is Illegal: You cannot have any personality that is different from others.
- Lady Land: Sucks to be a guy.
- Love Is a Crime: Romance of any kind is forbidden.
- Mandatory Motherhood: Citizens are obligated to have children whether they like it or not!
- No Sex Allowed: The government tries to make everybody celibate.
- No Woman's Land: Sucks to be a girl.
- Oppressive States of America: America being the exact polar opposite of the "Land of the Free".
- People's Republic of Tyranny: Masquerading as a democracy.
- Persecuted Intellectuals: Scholars are considered a threat to the regime, and dealt with accordingly.
- Police Brutality: Police are given free rein to get brutal on those who don't toe the line.
- Police State: Keeping a close watch over the citizens.
- Population Control: In order to have a manageable population, the government takes measure to keep the population within certain limits, either by sterilization or punishing dissenters. Alternatively, if the government needs labor or armies, they will mandate or encourage more babies.
- The Presents Were Never from Santa: Used as an excuse to justify oppressive power.
- President for Life: Wanted to vote the guy out of office? You're outta luck.
- Propaganda Machine: Hiding the truth from the people, feeding them lies instead.
- Quiet Cry for Help: Subtly asking another person for help.
- Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Sending soldiers to do exactly that (maybe without the rape) to wipe your hometown off the map as an example.
- Reign of Terror: Causing panic to turn the population docile and easily manipulable.
- Released to Elsewhere: Executions are covered up with lies by the powers that be.
- Secret Police: A stealth repressive arm that secretly abducts troublemakers.
- The Stateless: Dissenters are stripped of their citizenship or nationality.
- State Sec: Thought Police Brutality and the Secret Police were bad? Well, now they have an entire army backing them, just so you know a direct confrontation is hopeless.
- Straw Angst: Character flaws taken to oppressive extremes.
- Super Registration Act: Keeping all the individuals with superpowers under the government's thumb.
- Teach Him Anger: Enforcing shyness and hatred to specific subjects that are considered irrational.
- Thoughtcrime: You're not allowed to even think against the establishment.
- Unperson: Erasing someone from existence, when used as a method for oppression.
- You Are Number 6: Numbering people as a means of dehumanization and oppression.
