Aw, you can't complete your 500-count push-ups in this sweltering heat, without water or Gatorade? TOUGH LUCK! YOU CAN ADD 100 MORE TO THAT!
Sapient beings (humans, for the sake of argument) have a lot of politics mixed in with their willpower. They push themselves to a limit and make a tremendous effort because it is needed for a broader purpose. This trope, on the other hand, is when that effort is ignored in favor of a sharp judgement on an individual's character, because of either the individual's self-criticism or the distorted viewpoint of the authority in charge. For an authority, if their expectations are too high when compared to the abilities of those under their thumb, unfortunately, this leaves the situation open to abuse and subjective standards. Barring both Pathetically Weak as a comedic parallel and a particular character's visible lack of self-health standards, what is one person's genuine extreme fatigue and dangerous exertion is another's "barely breaking a sweat" and "lounging around".
The individual-in-question can't do anymore, even though they've already done so, and are obviously capable of pushing themselves further? Tough luck! If they're still breathing, they're still able to work! It's not that they can't! It's obviously that they won't! They're not working hard enough! They're obviously undisciplined and nonchalant about what they're being asked to do! This is despite the expectations given for a physical task not making sensenote , the force used to drive the individuals is blatant overkillnote , or their outward appearance and behavior during or after the task is very much the opposite of being unfocused.
The victim may:
- Be injured and physically or mentally unable to do what they're told, and is in danger of further trauma, or even loss of life, if they continue.
- Have lost something important for their safety or their purpose in the effort, making it not just difficult, but impossible to continue.
- Show blatant signs of being overworked (such as being drenched in their own sweat or something from a harsh environment), lacking nutrition, slowing down, or at worst, losing consciousness, all from a lengthy effort that hasn't seemed/won't seem to stop.
- Indeed be able to do what they're told at the time, but that over-exertion catches up with them, creating a dangerous after-effect. (e.g. They will need genuine medical attention after their effort.)
Again, they obviously need to be taught a harsh lesson in not meeting that expectation! The beatings will continue until morale (and effort) improves, despite them being pushed to, or over, their limit? Indeed.
The victim may be of a weaker disposition (i.e. young or elderly) and/or the authority is stronger and is expecting the same initiative they themselves had with their own tasks, the authority has seen/experienced the lack of initiative from other individuals in the past and made broad assumptions in the present, the authority is just plain nasty and trying to be large-and-in-charge, or something within them has snapped and is trying to project onto their underlings.
On the other side of the coin, an individual will beat up on themselves because they cannot meet expectations, despite involving the same problems. Others, such as friends and family, may become concerned because of this and may intervene or attempt to help to save the individual.
Usually part of a fictional military setting, in the form of Drill Sergeant Nastynote , and both The Neidermeyernote and General Ripper.note Unfortunately, on the darker side of this, during World War I and World War II, "shell shock" or "battle fatigue", what we now call "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder", was viewed as simply an objectively gutless inability to toughen up and push onward for the sake and safety of their country, rather than a natural stress reaction from a horrific event, to be approached with psychological care and prudence. Lack of Moral Fibre
was a term used by the British forces to condemn affected men who refused to fly, as cowards with no worth in future work, combative or not, thinking it'd be less problematic than a full court-martial.
Sub-Trope of Bad Bossnote , Detrimental Determinationnote , and Blaming the Victimnote . Can compare with the Hard Work Fallacy, which is about believing that hard work and determination alone is the most important factor in achieving any goal, if not the only one. Could overlap with Misery Builds Character if it is claimed that bad things will ultimately be good for you. Can cross over with Clap Your Hands If You Believe if the trope delves into faith healing.
Expect Disproportionate Retribution and Insane Troll Logic if, should the underling fail to meet expectations, the individual in charge keeps adding more exertion and expectation to their underlings' list of tasks. (Again, the beatings will continue until morale improves.) May cross over with Moving the Goalposts if the charge keeps piling on the tasks, and would be impossible to complete them in a timely manner otherwise. Also may cross over with Never My Fault, if the authority is the problem at all, blaming incompetence on others rather than their own poor command; this may also happen should the underling keel over from exertion in trying to meet the abusive charge's extreme expectation. In their eyes it's the victim's fault for not having the fortitude to do what they're asked/forced to do! Should the charge have to deal with multiple individuals, they will usually proclaim that they're Surrounded by Idiots.
Usually part of the viewpoint of a Social Darwinist, as well as someone with Nerves of Steel. Should the character in charge be an insane villain, and holding others hostage with a gun, then they're a Pushy Gun-Toting Villain.
See also Hanlon's Razor for stupidity attributed to deliberate intent.note See also Unsatisfiable Customer for possible retail versions of this trope. See also There Is No Try, a tough-love speech that assumes the hero will succeed when they stop holding back.
Examples
- In Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Kosugi, Akira's Pointy-Haired Boss, constantly browbeat Akira and his co-workers into submission with confusing, contradictory demands and endless lists of tasks that often forced Akira to stay in the office for days at a time. Kosugi would then blame the resulting drop in productivity on a lack of motivation, guilt-tripping anyone who wanted to take some much-needed time off into staying in the office even though the workers are pissing blood from overwork.
- In Pokémon: The Original Series, in the Japanese version Damien claims his Charmander, a Fire-type Pokèmon, was a weakling for being unable to beat a Poliwag, a Water-type, despite type advantages being an important factor in Pokèmon battles.
- In The Lion King (1994), Scar accuses the lionesses of not looking hard enough when his negligence in controlling the Hyenas results in the Pride Lands becoming deprived of food.
- A Few Good Men: Marine Col. Nathan Jessep has rationalized that the tough atmosphere in his platoon is because "[they're] in the business of saving lives" and can't afford to have anyone lose their integrity. Unfortunately, his soldiers have taken the axiom too far, and their hazing to toughen up Pvt. William Santiago leads to his death. Jessep and the other Marines saw Santiago as weak and incompetent, when it was actually and provably impossible, in a medical sense, for him to keep up with the rest of the troop.
Weinberg: They beat up on a weakling; that's all they did. The rest is just smoke-filled, coffee-house crap. They tortured and tormented a weaker kid. They didn't like him. So, they killed him. And why? Because he couldn't run very fast.
- Heavyweights: Fat-camp owner Tony Perkis believes the only thing keeping his campers from losing weight is lack of motivation, so when his methods fail to show results, he turns to increasingly grueling workouts and punishments, like denying meals, to change their attitude. The final straw for the campers is when he makes a bunch of overweight kids do a 20-mile hike in spite of the camp nurse and counselors' protests.
"Attention campers: Lunch has been canceled today due to lack of hustle. Deal with it."
- Animal Farm: One of Boxer's Catch Phrases is "I will work harder," which he uses whenever there is some kind of setback on the farm. After his death, Squealer decides to use this motto to motivate the other animals into working harder, despite the fact that not only do the pigs overwork the animals, they also feed them only the bare minimum of food in order to hoard it for themselves.
- Call Of The Wild: The dog team is sold to inexperienced prospectors who are insistent the dogs are just lazy, ignoring the advice of more experienced men who keep telling them the dogs are exhausted.
- Doctor Who, "The Sun Makers": In the far future, Humanity's last bastion is Pluto. There, the workers of The Company have been conditioned to think this way, if the main character of the serial, Cordo, is any indication. However, the mysterious Collector, who runs the whole operation on the planet, along with his boot-licking right-hand man, Hade, is deliberately and metaphorically choking humanity of every last ounce of livelihood and money, placing heavy taxes on basic living conditions, and outrageous fines for simple transgressions, along with grueling and long work days. Plus, these taxes and fines increase often, meaning whatever money the population makes can never pay off the debt, even if they were able to reach the proper amount when the Company last reported it, which means that some have to constantly work, without sleep! As for Cordo, when he, the Doctor, and Leela all meet the rebellion fighting against the Company, he wrongfully blames himself for not being able to meet the debts placed on him:
Cordo: (constantly nervous) I'm a foundry work unit, your honour. Always respectable. All my life I've met the production quotas, paid my dues and taxes, praise the Company.Mandrell: Stuff the Company. Mouth those mindless parties down here, Citizen Cordo, and you'll get your throat slit. So, you're in trouble with the Gatherer, eh?Cordo: Yes. I couldn't meet my father's death taxes. It was more than I was told, and I—Mandrell: It's always more than they tell you. I've heard the story a thousand times. You stay with us, you'll have to earn your keep.
- The Rifleman, "The Deserter": An army deserter, Ben Haskell, ends up on Lucas McCain's ranch, wounded and exhausted. Unfortunately, the Major, Damler, who oversaw Haskell's regiment, was not only emotionally abusive, but also very strict and uncaring about the troops under his command, as he not only did not have the regiment doctor tend to Haskell's wound (causing it to get infected), but Damler also arrests, judges, and sentences Haskell to a firing squad without reasonable charge. Haskell's only "crime"? He stole some water out of desperation, of which he was denied in the arid climate of New Mexico, and was shot for it, while escaping. When Damler tries to strike up a somewhat friendly conversation with Lucas at the saloon, Damler starts to talk about how his previous regiment lost him a promotion, for cracking under pressure during an attack on a rebel cell. Lucas sharply retorts that in actuality, the regiment lost their lives from being brutally shot, and those who could escape only turned and ran to save themselves from a lost cause. Later, one of Damler's other soldiers keeping watch on the jail collapses from heat exhaustion after pacing back and forth in an already-grueling four hour duty shift in the hot daytime sun, as punishment for not being forceful enough in not letting McCain into the jail (to check on Haskell). Damler harshly calls the soldier out for "resting" and tacks on another hour, which starts to change the mind of the Major's right-hand-man lieutenant. (So much so that the lieutenant gives the soldier some water behind the Major's back.)
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Field of Fire": Played with, with a singular individual rather than an individual imposing their judgement of fitness on another. When a series of murders occurs on the station, Ezri Dax is forced to exhume the dark personality of Joran Dax, a previous host to the Dax symbiont, to discover the culprit. As they investigate, they find that all the murders were connected by the victims' photographs of delightful emotion. What would be the one kind of race that would dislike emotions? As it turns out, the culprit they are looking for is a Vulcan who served on a ship of 1250 that was destroyed by the Jem'Hadar, of which he was one of only six survivors. The Vulcan attempted to bury his Survivor Guilt and PTSD under his logic, to keep himself stable and move on, but he cracked under the strain and those emotions eventually contaminated his personality without his awareness, and he started targeting anyone he thought was mocking him. Thankfully, Ezri is able to bring the Vulcan to justice.
- Transformers:
- Grimlock is generally portrayed as being fairly competent leading the Dinobots, but completely worthless as a higher ranking commander. Part of it is because the Dinobots are a Badass Crew and he fully expects everyone to live up to those standards, willfully ignoring that there are plenty of Autobots who are simply not physically capable of those feats (e.g. Bumblebee is the weakest of the Autobots physically, but one of the most courageous). An even more significant part is his own arrogance often causing him to underestimate enemies or overestimate himself, quite often to his own regret.
- Played with with Power Punch of the Decepticon Battle Squad. He's convinced that the only reason his friend and commander Direct Hit's plans don't work out is because the rest of the team aren't pulling their weight or giving their all. Unfortunately, everyone else (Direct Hit himself included) recognises the truth Power Punch won't: Direct Hit is just not a very good leader, strategist, or tactician, having been promoted beyond his skills.
- Implied in Transformers: The Game (DS) (Decepticon story), where the severely wounded Create-A-Bot reports to Megatron that the other Decepticons (Blackout, Scorponok, Bonecrusher, Barricade) were all dead. Megatron sneers that the dead were all weak and so deserved to die... just as the Create-A-Bot is similarly weak. The Create-A-Bot protests that he'd been badly damaged weakening the All-Spark-empowered Starscream and could be repaired, but Megatron simply crushes him and devours his Spark, declaring that anyone who allowed themselves to be so badly damaged was weak-willed and undeserving to live.
- Transformers: War for Cybertron
- This version of Megatron repeatedly berates Decepticons for what he views as a lack of will. During the very first level, he responds to a report of "They're putting up a good fight!" with an angry, "Then put up a better one!", and when he happens upon a triage station where wounded Decepticons are receiving treatment, he's outraged and growls that they should either be fighting or dead.
- In the sequel Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, Starscream demonstrates a similar lack of leadership ability by ordering a full-scale aerial assault on an Autobot transport that is heavily armed and armoured, especially against attacks from the air. As the Combaticons slowly work their way through the transport, Starscream orders the Decepticons to continue pushing the attack, demanding that they push through through sheer force of will.
- Also from Fall Of Cybertron, Grimlock despises Optimus Prime for being "weak" and opting to abandon Cybertron rather than fight to the bitter end, refusing to see that Optimus' primary concern is the safety of his troops rather than fighting for a lost cause. He's portrayed as believing that if the Autobots simply fought as ferociously as his Lightning Strike Coalition team, they could win. He finally gets it through his thick skull that this line of thinking isn't useful for a leader only long after Sludge is killed and the others blame him for everything that's gone wrong.
- Warhammer 40K: One of the (many) problems with the Imperial Guard working with the Space Marines is that the Astartes tend to work the Badass Normal Guardsmen as harshly as their Super-Soldier Space Marines without regard for the difference in strength, resulting in unnecessary losses.
- In Baldur's Gate II, when the team enters the drow city, they see a male cursing at a slave for not working properly. The slave answers that he hasn't eaten in a week, but the drow simply cuts him down. Then the drow's mother kills him in turn... slaves, unlike sons, must be paid for.
- God of War: Ascension: The Establishing Character Moment for Castor and Pollux is when they appear to confront a bunch of slaves who are busy trying to wheel a massive wooden frame carrying the upper half of a marble statue of the younger Dioscuri through a doorway in the Oracle's temple:
Slave captain: (to his men) Hurry! Before the master approaches...
Castor: (entering the scene via a lift) You! (the slave captain turns to face him) We have given you all you need for success, and yet you still fail us! The statues were to be completed by now.
Slave Captain: (nervously approaches Castor) It is a massive task you have set before us, Master. My brothers, they- they need food and rest.
Castor: YOU HAVE NOT BEEN ASKED TO SPEAK!! (stabs the Slave Captain through the head with his golden staff/spear, then turns to the rest of the slaves) And who will be next?! (the slaves nervously resume pushing the statue, then one of them jumps down to the floor after removing a plank) You! You, you there! You are now charged with the task of completing the statues...
New Slave Captain: As you wish...
Castor: We hope your work is better than that of your friend here. We can no longer bear the sight of you. You make us sick.
(the new Slave Captain carries his dead friend away, and Castor descends out of sight via the lift again)
Castor: (muttering to Pollux under his breath) Worthless lot. Pathetic! Every last one of them. - In The Outer Worlds, the Company Town of Edgewater is being ravaged by a plague (which is actually caused by malnutrition, due to citizens only being allowed to eat the Spacer's Choice Saltuna they produce, which contains no actual saltuna and mostly filler ingredients including sawdust and dirt). Reed Tobson, the leader of the town, argues that the cause of the plague is laziness, and that ill workers should just work harder until they get better.
- My Dragon Girlfriend: In comic 666, an already-contemptuous and untrusting Dani gets upset at Louie (both of them being human-to-creature shapeshifters) when Louie loses the stamina to keep her human shape, transforming back into wolf form in nearly-full-view of the public.
Dani: Explain yourself!Louie: I got tired!Dani: What kind of excuse is that!?Louie: I have been in human form for this long like... ever.Louie: I don't work out these muscles.Dani: THAT'S TOO DAMN BAD!
- Superman: The Animated Series: In the episode "Ghost in the Machine," Brainiac traps Lex Luthor in a research laboratory so that he can rebuild Brainiac's body. After working nonstop to rebuild Brainiac, Luthor collapses from exhaustion, and Brainiac uses a robot to threaten him with an electric shock if he doesn't keep working. However, Luthor angrily responds that as a human he needs food and rest, but Brainiac only gives him enough time to eat some chocolate bars from a busted candy machine.
- Unfortunately, eating disorders are this both ways. The individual sees themselves as being physically unfit and overweight. In actuality, their state of mind is so distorted that they are unable to see that they are wasting away from the harsh routines they are putting themselves through, to purge themselves of a perceived lack of appearance and health initiative.
