TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Police State - Unclear Definition

Go To

desdendelle Hooded Crow from Land of Milk and Honey (Sergeant) Relationship Status: Hiding
Hooded Crow
#1: Mar 26th 2025 at 4:45:48 PM

Police State's description is,

The stereotypical enemy of La Résistance, and a must have for any self-respecting Dystopia that is not in total anarchy.

Police Brutality is the standard operating procedure here and they are most likely incredibly corrupt. One popular portrayal is having them dressed perpetually as SWAT Teams (or other Gas Mask Mooks). If they need a vehicle, they'll favor (in addition to the usual armored cars and helicopters) gunships and tanks. Fascists' Bed Time will be enforced.

Truth in Television, of course, but we won't list such situations. It's not always obvious when a country is one of these.

Variants: Culture Police, Secret Police, State Sec. Sub-Trope of The Dictatorship and Dystopia. An America that has become one of these is an Oppressive States of America.

To the best of my understanding, the description talks about a brutal, oppressive police force. Most (but not all) of the examples, however, are about police states as the term is usually understood (oppressive states where the government strictly, overbearingly and oppressively polices its citizens).

As far as I can tell the description's been like this since before 2011. Is the trope about the police force or the kind of oppressive state? If it's the former, the trope needs cleanup; if it's the latter hopefully a trip to TDID would suffice.

Edited by desdendelle on Mar 27th 2025 at 2:41:05 PM

On empty crossroads, seek the eclipse -- for when Sol and Lua align, the lost shall find their way home.
MorganWick (Elder Troper)
#2: Mar 27th 2025 at 4:06:09 AM

Oldest Internet Archive copy if it helps. This is one of those cases where what would have become the archived discussion got blanked at some point, losing the link to an original YKTTW; unfortunately, that draft isn't preserved in the database (the link where it should be just redirects to the main TLP page) or in the Internet Archive.

I think it's trying to talk about the oppressive state ("Police Brutality is the standard operating procedure here" implies that it's supposed to be about a location, not a group of people, plus there's the reference to Fascists' Bed Time though that's not on the original Internet Archive copy) but whoever wrote the description didn't have a good grasp of what "police state" actually means or that it's broader than just the presence of an oppressive police force.

Edited by MorganWick on Mar 27th 2025 at 4:13:00 AM

Add Post

Total posts: 2
Top