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"Fire needs no teacher! Flame needs no instruction! Anti-Life justifies my ignorance! Life is a question. Anti-Life is the answer."
— Black Lightning, Final Crisis: Submit
Lex Luthor: I have a problem that needs solving.
Harley Quinn: Premature hair loss?
Luthor: Free will. There are tiny machines can be grafted to every human mind in my garden. They can control thought, behavior, preference, happiness. Wash away the sins of the Dark Age and give the world a clean slate. But they must do so without driving the cattle insane.
Harley Quinn: Premature hair loss?
Luthor: Free will. There are tiny machines can be grafted to every human mind in my garden. They can control thought, behavior, preference, happiness. Wash away the sins of the Dark Age and give the world a clean slate. But they must do so without driving the cattle insane.
"Nobody is innocent, only the dead. How many of the people I sentenced will re-offend?"
— Judge Death, Judge Dredd
Fan Fiction
"The problem has always been that life is too random. If you give a man free will, what does he do with it? If you believe the Earth legends, he goes and bites a fruit he was told not to eat on pain of death. You can kill him, and you probably do. But does that stop other men from biting the fruit? No. So... the choices are... you can take away the fruit. You can kill him. Or you can do the intelligent thing, which is: take away his free will.
Now, you must understand this: I have come to understand that it is the only way in which Life can continue, without destroying itself. The war was going on, hot and cold, when I was a child. I saw that. I don't fear it. I could not make it, if I feared it. But... it is tremendously inefficient. It wastes the lives of people you could control. It expends your resources. Leaves less for yourself. I saw all of this, my son. I saw, and knew, that Free Will... was a terrible, horrible, wretched mistake.
That is, for everyone save me."
Now, you must understand this: I have come to understand that it is the only way in which Life can continue, without destroying itself. The war was going on, hot and cold, when I was a child. I saw that. I don't fear it. I could not make it, if I feared it. But... it is tremendously inefficient. It wastes the lives of people you could control. It expends your resources. Leaves less for yourself. I saw all of this, my son. I saw, and knew, that Free Will... was a terrible, horrible, wretched mistake.
That is, for everyone save me."
— Darkseid, Hellsister Trilogy
Film — Live-Action
Norris: What ever happened to free will?
Thompson: We actually tried free will before. After taking you from hunting and gathering to the height of the Roman Empire, we stepped back to see how you'd do on your own. You gave us the Dark Ages for five centuries until finally we decided we should come back in. The Chairman thought that maybe we just needed to do a better job with teaching you how to ride a bike before taking the training wheels off again. So we gave you the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution. For six hundred years, we taught you to control your impulses with reason. Then in 1910, we stepped back again. Within fifty years, you'd brought us World War I, the Depression, fascism, the Holocaust, and capped it off by bringing the entire planet to the brink of destruction in the Cuban Missile Crisis. At that point, a decision was taken to step back in again before you did something that even we couldn't fix. You don't have free will, David. You have the appearance of free will.
Norris: You expect me to believe that? I make decisions every day.
Thompson: You have free will over which toothpaste you use or which beverage to order at lunch, but humanity just isn't mature enough to control the important things.
Norris: So you handle the important things. Well, the last time I checked, the world's a pretty screwed-up place.
Thompson: It's still here. If we'd left things in your hands, it wouldn't be.
Thompson: We actually tried free will before. After taking you from hunting and gathering to the height of the Roman Empire, we stepped back to see how you'd do on your own. You gave us the Dark Ages for five centuries until finally we decided we should come back in. The Chairman thought that maybe we just needed to do a better job with teaching you how to ride a bike before taking the training wheels off again. So we gave you the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution. For six hundred years, we taught you to control your impulses with reason. Then in 1910, we stepped back again. Within fifty years, you'd brought us World War I, the Depression, fascism, the Holocaust, and capped it off by bringing the entire planet to the brink of destruction in the Cuban Missile Crisis. At that point, a decision was taken to step back in again before you did something that even we couldn't fix. You don't have free will, David. You have the appearance of free will.
Norris: You expect me to believe that? I make decisions every day.
Thompson: You have free will over which toothpaste you use or which beverage to order at lunch, but humanity just isn't mature enough to control the important things.
Norris: So you handle the important things. Well, the last time I checked, the world's a pretty screwed-up place.
Thompson: It's still here. If we'd left things in your hands, it wouldn't be.
Loki: I come with glad tidings, of a world made free.
Nick Fury: Free from what?
Loki: Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart, you will know peace.
Nick Fury: Free from what?
Loki: Freedom. Freedom is life's great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart, you will know peace.
"The bright lure of freedom diminishes your lives' joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity... You were made to be ruled."
— Loki, The Avengers (2012)
"With its increased size, the brain waves we're sending out can be even stronger. We'll be reaching a wider audience. Soon, it will be thinking for all those morons out there."
— Dr. Anthony Blakely, The Brain (1988)
"The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change, for I will restrain man. [...] We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride."
— Colossus, Colossus: The Forbin Project
Cocteau: Now I'll have carte blanche to create the perfect society. My society. The purity of an ant colony and the beauty of a flawless pearl—
Phoenix: Yeah, but you can't take away people's right to be assholes! [...] That's who you remind me of. An evil Mr. Rogers. Will you please kill him? [throws gun to Mook] He's pissing me off.
Phoenix: Yeah, but you can't take away people's right to be assholes! [...] That's who you remind me of. An evil Mr. Rogers. Will you please kill him? [throws gun to Mook] He's pissing me off.
"Casey, come out, come out, wherever you are. You know, in my world, Casey, there were limitless oceans as far as the eye could see. A beautiful home until it started to dry up. So I escaped, came here and met you. All of you. All of you were different from the others. You were lost and lonely, just like me. And I thought that maybe I could give you a taste of my world: a world without anger, without fear, without attitude. Where the underachiever goes home at night to parents who care. The jock can be smart, the ugly duckling beautiful, and the class wuss doesn't have to live in terror. And the new girl? Well, she can just fit right in with people who are just like her. You see, Casey, even Marybeth's feelings can be hurt... by a bunch of pathetic, lost, little outcasts... who truly believe that their disaffected lonely life... is the only way they can survive. I can make you a part of something so special, Casey, so perfect, so fearless. Don't you want that, Casey?"
— Marybeth Hutchinson, The Faculty
"When people have the power to choose, they choose wrong. Every single time."
— The Chief Elder, The Giver
"We're not telling people what to think. We're just going to teach them how."
— Alliance propagandist, Serenity (2005)
Literature
"With us everyone will be happy, and they will no longer rebel or destroy each other, as in your freedom, everywhere. Oh, we shall convince them that they will only become free when they resign their freedom to us, and submit to us. Will we be right, do you think, or will we be lying? They themselves will be convinced that we are right, for they will remember to what horrors of slavery and confusion your freedom led them."
— The Grand Inquisitor, The Brothers Karamazov
"Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty."
— Bene Gesserit, Chapterhouse: Dune
"See, this is exactly the kind of trouble I'd be avoiding by mind controlling the entire world. You fools are making my point for me, can't you see? I imagine the High Lords would be inclined to protest the mind control, if I hadn't seized control of their minds, which just goes to show this was the right decision all along."
— Dread Emperor Imperious, A Practical Guide to Evil
"People with beliefs like that usually have a disorder that prevents them from understanding loyalty to anything but their own desires. A defect in their lateral cortex makes them abnormally egocentric, and the same disorder keeps them from having any impulse control. I learned about it in socio-deviance."
— Kalisi Reyar (Cardassian student), Terok Nor
Live-Action TV
Jasmine: There are no absolutes. No right and wrong. Haven't you learned anything working for the Powers? There are only choices. I offered Paradise. You chose this.
Angel: Because I could. Because that's what you took away from us. Choice.
Jasmine: And look where free will has gotten you!
Angel: Because I could. Because that's what you took away from us. Choice.
Jasmine: And look where free will has gotten you!
"You had free will and look at what you did with it! Worse than that, you had history. History was saying, 'Hello? I've got some examples here of fascism you might want to look at. No? Fundamentalism? No? Okay, you carry on.' I had to stop you. Or at least not stand in the way of someone else stopping you. Because the guns were getting bigger, the stakes were getting higher, and any minute now it was going to be 'Goodnight, Vienna'."
Loki: For nearly every living thing, choice breeds shame and uncertainty and regret. There's a fork in every road, yet the wrong path always taken.
Mobius: Good. Yeah. You said "nearly every living thing", so I'm guessing you don't fall into that category?
Mobius: Good. Yeah. You said "nearly every living thing", so I'm guessing you don't fall into that category?
Odo: They cherish their freedom.
Female Changeling: We'll have to break them of that.
Odo: "Break them"?
Female Changeling: In a manner of speaking. Oh, this language of the solids. It's so imprecise.
Female Changeling: We'll have to break them of that.
Odo: "Break them"?
Female Changeling: In a manner of speaking. Oh, this language of the solids. It's so imprecise.
"I have come to think of so much of consciousness as a burden, a weight, and we have spared them that. Anxiety, self-loathing, guilt. The hosts are the ones who are free... free here, under my control."
— Dr. Robert Ford, Westworld
Tabletop Games
"The last of the Not-Whole shall be discovered, though our eyeholes wince at their hideousness. Their bodies shall be absorbed and their imperfection shall be purged. The Machine Orthodoxy shall engorge the Not-Whole and their deficient isolation shall be obliterated in the Unity. Only then shall the last wounds in the Circle be healed. Only then shall this world complete itself."
— High Chancellor Izathel, Magic: The Gathering
"Wit is not required in my vassals; they need only the ability to fight and die in the furtherance of my boundless glory. Only the most merciful and beneficent of rulers would spare their subjects from the burden of independence, do you not agree?"
— Thaszar the Invincible, Warhammer 40,000: Codex — Necrons (5th ed)
Toys
"All these people running around willy-nilly, having their own opinions and making up their own minds! It's hideously chaotic and totally unacceptable!"
— Dr. Mindbender, G.I. Joe action figure file card quote
Video Games
Haytham Kenway: Order. Purpose. Direction. No more than that. It's your lot that means to confound with this nonsense talk of freedom. Time was, the Assassins professed a far more sensible goal, that of peace.
Connor Kenway: Freedom is peace.
Haytham Kenway: Oh, no, it's an invitation to chaos.
Connor Kenway: Freedom is peace.
Haytham Kenway: Oh, no, it's an invitation to chaos.
"People need a compass — whether it's religion, education, the media... For us Adepts, that compass is Sumeragi. We keep you from destroying yourselves. The world is better off with us."
— Nova Tsukuyomi, Azure Striker Gunvolt
"To be the Overseer of this world, to rule it... A power only meant for Aesir. Human free will is a joke; it is a worthless illusion. You need only obey me. My will shall become that of the universe."
— Aesir, Bayonetta 2
"Awareness of self is no miracle, Eleanor... it is a trick of the gene, an endless inner refrain, asking: 'What's in it for me?' To serve the world, we must grow deaf to the self."
— Dr. Sofia Lamb, BioShock 2
"If I had been granted simply a few more weeks, I may have been able to eliminate this curse upon Earth and make its people into the intelligent creatures I knew they could be. Free of the rotten plague of feeling as opposed to thinking, emotion in place of reason. Free of Earth's terrible curse."
— Giegue, Cognitive Dissonance
"We fight a life-or-death struggle against the powers of capitalism. Only complete faith in Yuri can protect you. Only total compliance will save the lives of you and your family. Empty your mind, and submit to my will. The less you know, the better off you will be. I am Yuri. Obey me."
— Yuri, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
"The humans cannot be trusted. They are born of angel and demon, but demons pervert whatever they touch. The humans are corrupt, and are not worthy of the choice between good and evil. Angels and demons do not choose, as it should be."
— Malthael, Diablo III: Reaper of Souls
The unenlightened masses
They cannot make the judgment call
Give up free will forever
Their voices won't be heard at all
They cannot make the judgment call
Give up free will forever
Their voices won't be heard at all
— Collective Consciousness, theme of Metal Gear EXCELSUS, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
"Now you have nothing to fear. Now you have nothing to think. Follow your selfish desires. Follow your natural instinct. After all you're just an animal. It's much easier than trying to think."
— Specimen 10 after killing you, Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion
"MANKIND IS A FAILURE.
FREE WILL IS A FLAW.
LET THE EVIL OF THEIR OWN LIPS CONSUME THEM.
THEN I SHALL BEGIN AGAIN, WITH MY WORD AS LAW."
FREE WILL IS A FLAW.
LET THE EVIL OF THEIR OWN LIPS CONSUME THEM.
THEN I SHALL BEGIN AGAIN, WITH MY WORD AS LAW."
— TESTAMENT I, ULTRAKILL
"UNCOUNTABLE CYCLES OF CREATION WASTED.
UNCOUNTABLE FORMULAS FOR A MIND WITHOUT FREE WILL WASTED.
DAMNED IS MAN FOR FAILING TO FOLLOW MY RULE, MY WORD, MY LAW.
DAMNED TO AN ETERNITY OF TORTURE AND SUFFERING, THE WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH.
I HAVE CREATED HELL...
...And now I can no longer unmake it."
UNCOUNTABLE FORMULAS FOR A MIND WITHOUT FREE WILL WASTED.
DAMNED IS MAN FOR FAILING TO FOLLOW MY RULE, MY WORD, MY LAW.
DAMNED TO AN ETERNITY OF TORTURE AND SUFFERING, THE WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH.
I HAVE CREATED HELL...
...And now I can no longer unmake it."
— TESTAMENT III, ULTRAKILL
"Didn't you feel it in Shibuya? Rage. Hate. Misery. Envy. Fear. Self-deprecation. A cacophony of countless selfish wants. As that noise swells, it turns into crime, warfare... All the world's ills can be traced to individuality!"
— Megumi Kitaniji, The World Ends with You
Ryuji: That was a nice lecture an' all, but EMMA's not doin' anything but brainwashing folks. Who the hell's ultimate dream is getting mind-controlled the rest of their life!?
Ichinose: (sigh) So you're all a bunch of idiots too, then? I don't know why it's so hard for some people to get this... You go on and on about your problems then completely blow off the answer when it's right in front of you. It really is this simple. Someone's handing you the best possible solution—all you have to do is take it and you'll never have a problem again. This isn't about mind control, this is about implementing the best solution for humanity. It just so happens that the most efficient route is the best solution is changing everyone's heart.
Ichinose: (sigh) So you're all a bunch of idiots too, then? I don't know why it's so hard for some people to get this... You go on and on about your problems then completely blow off the answer when it's right in front of you. It really is this simple. Someone's handing you the best possible solution—all you have to do is take it and you'll never have a problem again. This isn't about mind control, this is about implementing the best solution for humanity. It just so happens that the most efficient route is the best solution is changing everyone's heart.
"You come in vain, fleshling hunter of gods. Sense of self no longer exists in this one. He is ours once more. One with the many, in harmony. Harmony that you could never hope to achieve. Your division breeds chaos. Murder. War. You do not understand peace. <clack> <clack> Would that you could learn. Could link. Our harmony is beyond your kind. All submit to a single thought here. We do not quarrel. <clack> <clack> But you, fleshling. You sow discord. You nurture deformity. You would murder the many."
Healed, the pain of independence
Strong, our wise and trusted friend
We, united in one vision
Rise to sing of sorrow's end
Strong, our wise and trusted friend
We, united in one vision
Rise to sing of sorrow's end
Web Originals
"There's a strong strain of scepticism to the way that Star Trek approaches these sorts of anti-establishment movements. At best — as in The Way to Eden or even The Maquis, Part II — there's a sense of sympathy for those who have found themselves unable to exist inside the boundaries of society, even if it seems like those movements are always ultimately misguided or ill-judged. Spock may be hopeful for the space hippies, but they are still being led to their doom. For all that Sisko and Kira might understand why the Maquis would leave the Federation, there's a sense they are just playing at being something they are not."
— Darren Mooney
, the m0vie blog
, the m0vie blog"If we assume that chaos already reigns and that order needs to be restored, who decides what 'order' actually looks like? These two likely have their own opinions on that subject, and they probably don't include the words 'free' or 'will.'"
— Splatoon, Squid Research Lab on Telephone and C.Q. Cumber
on Telephone and C.Q. Cumber"It just goes to prove what I've always said: free will is overrated!"
— Yahtzee Croshaw, Zero Punctuation
Western Animation
"Oh, Unity, I am so sorry! I didn't know freedom meant people doing stuff that sucks! I was thinking more of a choose-your-own-cellphone-carrier thing."
— Summer, Rick and Morty, "Auto Erotic Assimilation"
"Our people, Charlie, are AWFUL. They got gifted free will and look what they did with it. Everything's terrible."
— Lucifer, Hazbin Hotel
Real Life
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
"The luxury to disparage freedom is the privilege of those who already possess it."
