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Chewbacca Defense
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A Chewbacca Defense is a way of "winning" a debate through methods other than logic and reasoned argument. The essence of it is that if you get your opponent to give up, then you "win". Even if you just spout patent nonsense — in fact, especially if you spout patent nonsense, because there's just no way to argue against it. The sad part is that it works. Even in Real Life. Most politicians are quite adept at it. Indeed, they need to be, given how often they have to defend the indefensible. As such, the Chewbacca Defense commonly relies on Logical Fallacies and insane rhetorical techniques, like: The False Dichotomy: If the other side is wrong about anything, no matter how irrelevant, they're wrong about everything — and you're right about everything. The Ad Hominem: If you can do anything to make the other side look bad, you win. This is usually accomplished by misrepresenting their side entirely. Extra effective if you can compare them to Hitler. The Red Herring: If you can get your opponent to talk about something other than the key points, you win. It can be easily combined with the Ad Hominem attack by accusing your opponent of supporting or opposing something totally irrelevant to the argument, in such a way that they have to address it. Quality by Popular Vote: If you can show that your side is the more popular argument, you win, regardless of whether your side is the correct argument. The Shouting Free-for-All: If you win it, you win the argument. If you don't win it, you still win the argument, because you've forced your opponent into a screaming match rather than a real debate. Easily combined with Quality by Popular Vote, because people often side with the more charismatic debater, and they often equate that with the loudest debater. The Broken Record: If you repeat the same point over and over again, you win — because obviously, the other side didn't address it if you won't shut up about it. Extra effective if you keep repeating a catchy soundbite or buzzword. The "Gish Gallop": Hit your opponent with as many arguments as you can in as short a timespan as you can. If they don't address every single one to your satisfaction, you win. And it's practically impossible for them to do that because they have no time to prepare and are not going to pay attention to everything you're vomiting out there. Holding the Floor: If your opponent can't talk at all, you win. It's usually employed as the filibuster, which can be done even in formal debates in certain legislative chambers (most famously the U.S. Senate) — you don't have to actually advance an argument, just delay the proceedings. And the tried-and-tested Insane Troll Logic: If it's impossible for the other side to even address your "argument", you win. Even if that's because your argument makes no sense and is impossible to respond to. This includes cases where you exhaust your opponent and they just give up on trying to convince you. Even accusing your opponent of using a Chewbacca Defense is itself a form of Chewbacca Defense. This means it's bad form to make such an accusation, which in turn leads to what's known as "Chewbacca's Dilemma" — first, you can't defend yourself from an actual Chewbacca Defense, and second, no matter how intelligently and clearly you make your point, certain opponents will always perceive your argument as a Chewbacca Defense. The trope is named after the "Chef Aid" episode of South Park, in which Johnnie Cochran — famous for his Unconventional Courtroom Tactics in defending O. J. Simpson in his famous murder trialnote Indeed, this scene was inspired by his antics in that trial, in which it was commonly believed that he and his team successfully did this for real. But it's not likely — most legal analysis of the Simpson case suggests that O.J. was acquitted because the prosecution pretty much botched the case (jury selection, mishandling DNA evidence, having Simpson try on the glove). The closest thing Cochran did to the Chewbacca Defense was repeating his line, "If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit!" — heavy on the "buzzword" strategy, and directly parodied by this South Park episode — defends his client by arguing that Chewbacca does not live on Endor, when not only did no one claim he did, it has nothing to do with the case. He then yells that the very fact that he's talking about Chewbacca shows the absurdity of the proceedings and the weakness of the case against his client. And it works! Indeed, many Real Life lawyers and politicians have spoken of the "Chewbacca Defense", even though in the context of the South Park episode itself, there were a lot of inaccuracies, as more than one lawyer has pointed out.note The biggest is that "Chef Aid" involves a civil case, in this case copyright law. Any attempt to confuse the jury into ruling contrary to law risks the judge throwing out the verdict and ruling otherwise (a "Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict", or JNOV). The evidence was so clear-cut that they shouldn't have needed a jury to resolve it. A common Unconventional Courtroom Tactic (even though Real Life courts are wise to this and will nip it in the bud pretty quickly); if it works too easily, you might be looking at a Kangaroo Court. Also a possibility for a Simple Country Lawyer using his Obfuscating Stupidity. Compare Confusion Fu, Passive-Aggressive Kombat, Refuge in Audacity, and Abomination Accusation Attack. |
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Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: In one episode, Detective Benson investigates the role of an Army-administered medication in triggering assaults committed by veterans. During the trial, the military officer defending the Army accuses the detective of hating American soldiers, rather than challenging her on the evidence. | |
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In the Batman episode "Dizzoner the Penguin", which is part two of a two parter where Batman and the Penguin are running for mayor of Gotham City, the Penguin points out that Batman is often seen in the company of criminals, while he himself is often surrounded by police. He argues from these (technically true) facts that Batman is probably a criminal, while he himself is an associate of the law. This is after he pointedly declares that he won't engage in mudslinging. | |
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In the Coach episode "Van Damn (sic) vs. Fox", Luther burns his tongue at a barbecue at Hayden's after he takes a still hot sausage off the grill and bites into it, and decides to sue him for $12.5 million. Both men represent themselves and Luther's whole defense is trying paint Hayden's barbecue as being unsafe (noting that he served alcoholic beverages, for example), while Hayden's hinges on Luther being Too Dumb to Live. Ultimately, the judge sides with Luther, but, when Hayden explains that he doesn't actually own his house, Doris, (his team's owner and Luther's girlfriend) does, the judge orders her to pay the damages, causing Luther to immediately drop the lawsuit. | |
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An episode of L.A. Law saw attorney Michael Kuzak in a civil suit, contending with an opposing lawyer who kept interrupting testimony by stopping to do magic tricks, a tap dance and other antics. Since the judge was doing nothing to stop it, Kuzak had to fight fire with fire: he delivered his closing argument wearing a gorilla mask, and point-blank told the jury that the other side was doing this to keep them from noticing that they had no case. He won. | |
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In Equestria: A History Revealed, this was done in Chapter 4, in which the narrator purposely attempts to confuse you with confusingly similar terms and insane logic, and practically tells the reader that they just have the accept the confusion and move on, despite it not making a lick of sense. | |
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Stardestroyer Dot Net refers to this as "the O.J. Simpson defense", claiming it to be a three-part arrangement: make a ton of unsupported claims, treat all your claims as true until proven otherwise, and challenge your opponent to disprove every single one or lose completely. It alludes to this being used in Who Would Win debates - namely, a Star Trek fan rattling off the names of dozens of technologies, and demanding the other side demonstrate a counter for each one. | |
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Used offensively in Umineko: When They Cry during the third arc. Battler has to prove that magic wasn't used to do something and rather than preparing actual logical arguments he just rushes on ahead and declares his victory before his opponent has any idea how the logic game even works. She turns out to be really good at it when she's given a chance to think, however. | |
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The Simpsons: When Marge is being prosecuted for shoplifting in "Marge in Chains": During Homer's dispute with the phone company in "A Tale of Two Springfields": In "To Surveil with Love", Lisa joins the school's debate team. In her first debate, her opponent, a brunette girl, immediately circumvents the subject in favor of breaking down Lisa's argument on the grounds that Lisa is a Dumb Blonde. Much to the chagrin of anyone with half a brain, it works. |
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The Vinyl Scratch Tapes: | |
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Justice League: In the episode "In Blackest Night: Part II", the Flash becomes Green Lantern's attorney during his trial. The former doesn't have a clue what to use to turn the case around, so he uses a Chewbacca defense. He ends his speech with "If the ring wasn't lit, you must acquit!" Both of them end up getting sentenced to death. The use of the defense is justified in this case, since Flash wasn't really trying to win, just slow the trial down so that Superman and Martian Manhunter would have enough time to find proof that GL was innocent, which they did. In "Eclipsed: Part I", talk show host Glorious Godfrey accuses the League of causing more crimes than they solve. Proof? White collar crime, which the League doesn't cover, went up 3%. The real kicker is when he claims that thanks to the League, half of marriages end in divorce, while the other half in death. |
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Referred to as a "unicorn defense" in an episode of The Good Wife, in the context that the proprietor of a Wikileaks-like website has been accused of murdering his business partner and is instead trying to finger the NSA. The judge ropes in Alicia as his backup after he decides to represent himself, and it very nearly works with her assistance: the murder weapon is found, but Alicia rests her case to keep it from being introduced into evidence and negotiates a plea deal for five years. | |
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Linkara, of Atop the Fourth Wall uses this in the form of 'because the kool-aid man is red' as an excuse for poor writing. | |
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From the original radio show The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978): | |
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Community: This is Amoral Attorney Jeff Winger's go to strategy as a lawyer. He particularly seems to like invoking 9/11. Subverted when he uses it in debate: his team loses, 50-8 (and the 8 were to Annie). In the Darkest Timeline, Evil!Jeff uses this to get Evil!Annie out of the sanatorium. He claims that while she robbed multiple pharmacies and killed everyone who tried to stop her, clearly the real crime is someone so beautiful being locked up. Somehow this works. |
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Discussed in the All in the Family episode "Gloria the Victim." After Gloria is nearly raped while out for a walk, she's torn between either pressing charges or trying to put the whole incident out of her mind. A police inspector comes over and warns her, along with Mike and Archie, that if she does go to court, the suspect's lawyer will use this defense on her by dragging up unrelated subjects, such as the fact that she wears miniskirts or once posed nude for a portrait. Gloria protests that those incidents have nothing to do with the case at hand, and the detective explains that he's aware of that—the whole point is to distract the jury and convince them that Gloria somehow brought the assault on herself. After Edith shares her own story about nearly being assaulted as a young woman, Gloria decides to try to put the criminal away only for Mike and Archie to shout her down and insist on not pressing charges, leading to a Downer Ending. This in itself is an example of Hollywood Law since in real life a victim does not "press charges," but simply files a complaint. | |
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Cracked: Cracked's take on how Mt. Rushmore got approval had the proponent of carving three Presidents' heads (Lincoln was added to seal the deal) using this to leverage his position. Discussed in this article. Most of the argument techniques mentioned fall into this territory. |
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The Dick Tracy Show: Mumbles and Stooge Viller are on trial for forgery, but Stooge has taken it on the lam. Go-Go Gomez is tasked with bringing him in as without him to translate Mumbles' mumbling, the case may be thrown out. | |
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The WordGirl villain Ms. Question was able to get out of a jail sentence the first time this way. It helps that confusing people is her gimmick and she causes people to suffer short-term amnesia. | |
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The short film The Flying Car from The View Askewniverse features Randal asking Dante what he would do to get a flying car. He mentions cutting his foot off without anesthesia and having a German man fondle him, which Dante eventually agrees to. Randal then calls him out for agreeing with that. | |
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While still on The Daily Show, the Even Stevens bits which he performed along with Steve Carell were excellent parodies of this. The bits would begin with one of the Stevens saying the question under debate, followed by both alternating YES! or NO! as loudly as possible. | |
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Used in Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere by Pope Innocentius when he's debating against Masazumi. Masazumi has just accused the Testament Union of abusing the system of History Recreation to benefit themselves at the cost of an innocent person's life. She then proposes an alternative course of action that requires no deaths and benefits not just the far east but ultimately the whole world. The Pope's response? He reveals to everyone listening that Masazumi (who presents herself as male) is actually a girl and then accuses her of just using the situation to take power for herself. It was totally irrelevant, did nothing to counter her arguments, and it almost worked. | |
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The protagonist of Melody, when he’s distracting Steve so Melody can slip out of his dorm room window, makes up a story that his daughter must be in Steve’s room, and when Steve says he must have the wrong room, he yells for his “daughter.� This one gets bonus points for the protagonist describing his “daughter� as a particularly crass college boy would describe a girl. | |
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The entire purpose of Newspeak grammar B in Nineteen Eighty-Four was to make a Chewbacca Defense easier - that is, to throw so many arguments at the opponent that he won't be able to answer, and leave people with no words to use anyway. | |
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Erasmus Montanus features a very early example of the Insane Troll Logic-type, albeit unintentionally on the part of the character. When the titular character returns to his backwater hometown after studying in Denmark, he tries to demonstrate his newfound skill in debate by challenging deacon Peer, the only other person in town with an education. Peer either lied about his education, or has forgotten most of it, so his "arguments" are just a rambling stream of nonsense, leaving Erasmus completely baffled and unable to respond. To the uneducated townsfolk, however, it looks like Peer is running circles around Erasmus. | |
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The Nostalgia Critic review of Suburban Commando suggests using the line "I was FROZEN today!" randomly in an argument to "watch what happens". He demonstrates it by acting out an argument with himself, in which the person who is yelled at with the line stares with a confused and slightly horrified look before slowly backing out of the room. | |
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During Young Thug's racketeering trial, a defense attorney for one of the rapper's co-conspirators said in her opening statement that the trial reminded her of the Bount arc from Bleach. Her rationale was that her client is like a character in a Filler arc, who exists solely to take up pages in the court filings, thereby making the charges against the ringleader seem more substantial. She then declared the trial a circus, arguably the most salient part of the entire statement. | |
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In the Mermaidman and Barnacle Boy cartoon within SpongeBob SquarePants: Lights, Camera, Pants!, Mermaidman is convinced that the choir performance they're watching is a football game. When Barnacle Boy tries to set him straight, Mermaidman responds, "Oh, you're only saying that because your team's losing!". Barnacle Boy tries to argue further but is completely unable to respond to this and just gives up. | |
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Though this doesn't really happen in the "Apprentice Games" episode of Chowder, unless you count the awkward singing that drives everyone the hell out of the stadium, it is outright explained by Mung Dal in these words: "Winning isn't about being the best. It's about being so incredibly bad that the world can't possibly ignore you!" | |
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Mass Effect 2: Earning a discount, Renegade style: During Tali's trial, if you don't bother speaking to the admirals but still have a high enough score to persuade them, you can convince them to let her off by pointing out that she did good some other time and you're shouting loud enough to get her out of trouble, dammit! |
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Parodied in The Colbert Report, who uses several variations of this when arguing with his guests, asking them foolish and emotionally provocative questions like "Why do you hate America?" and (back when George W. Bush was still president of the United States) "Bush: great president, or the greatest president?" He's even done this when arguing with himself, creating circular arguments along the lines of the following: If you were sent to Gitmo unfairly, you'd be angry enough at the government to want to overthrow it, and hence you'd deserve to be sent to Gitmo. | |
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In Escape from Monkey Island, amoral real-estate developer Ozzie Mandrill nearly succeeds in taking over the Caribbean with this method. All pirate disputes are settled with Insult Swordfighting and other insult-based games, but no one can understand Ozzie's Australian slang. Since no one who fights Ozzie can come up with the counter to his insults, he wins by default. | |
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Claire Huxtable uses this in an episode of A Different World where she takes Vanessa to visit Hillman and is "caught" having dinner with an old boyfriend. Vanessa questions Claire about her behavior; Claire simply responds that Vanessa can ask questions when she's "had five children and can still fit into a size six dress." This shuts Vanessa up pretty well. It helps that Vanessa was already in trouble for sneaking out to go on a date with Dwayne which is how they ran into each other. | |
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Michael of The Office does this in the episode "China" at the end of his debate with Oscar on China's role in global politics. Oscar knows much more about the situation than Michael does, so Michael launches into a completely irrelevant speech about freedom and the American way. Everyone applauds, while Oscar vainly tries to remind them that it had nothing to do with the original argument. | |
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A Bit of Fry and Laurie has a deliberately ridiculous example in the sketch "Judge Not". It starts: | |
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Kaeloo: In one episode where Kaeloo and Mr. Cat are having a debate where Quack Quack must decide the winner, Mr. Cat's only "argument" is to repeatedly Kaeloo a liar, which convinces Quack Quack to choose Mr. Cat. Kaeloo even lampshades the fact that his victory made absolutely no sense and he never said anything in defense of the subject he was arguing about. | |
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The musical Chicago has a song titled "Razzle Dazzle" that explains the trope quite thoroughly. It includes the line, "How can they see [the truth] with sequins in their eyes?" | |
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America (The Book) lampshades this process with one of the most interesting moments in Senate history: | |
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Used within Monk in the episode "Mr. Monk Takes the Stand" by attorney Harrison Powell. The defendant, Evan Gildea, was accused of murdering his wife, and his alibi is based on the existence of a large slab of marble that Gildea smashed apart and scattered across his driveway. Powell brings in the pieces and declares that, if Monk is right about the marble being a single piece which Gildea broke apart, then he should be able to put it back together, like a puzzle. So, Powell picks up a few random pieces and tries to fit them together. Of course, the odds of a few randomly selected pieces of a puzzle just happening to fit are very small, and so they don't. Powell asserts that this is proof of his argument. Powell ends up winning the case, though to be fair it's assumed that this is more because of Monk's severe mental condition shedding doubts on his testimony than Powell's performance. | |
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This happens a couple of times on Law & Order. In one episode, a Jewish man is charged with murdering another man who happens to be Muslim over a gambling debt. The Jewish man is represented by a Jewish lawyer who claims his client killed him in self-defense and uses the attacks on the Jews in Israel by Muslim countries as proof that the Muslim victim was the aggressor. Jack McCoy is able to win his case by reminding the jury that the case isn't about Muslims vs. Jews, but about money, one of the oldest motivations for murder. Afterwards, the Jewish lawyer admits he was using this type of defense, just to see if it would work and doesn't feel bad from losing the case. | |
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Danganronpa turns this into a gameplay mechanic in the way of Bullet Time Battle and its variants, where the opposing side (usually in a last ditch effort to defend themselves) tries to throw a combination of random insults and nonsensical arguments at the Player Character with a loud noise at rapid succession. To counter this, the player has to destroy the opponent's assertions and eventually counter their final statement with the truth. True to this trope, losing these debates leads into an instant Game Over. One of the most blatant cases of this is in the 4th trial in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, where Gundham Tanaka rapidly fires off an insane argument devoid of any logic or real connection to the subject at hand. |
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Liar Liar: In a deleted scene, Fletcher defends an incredibly guilty mugger, somehow spinning his robbing an old man at the ATM and beating up a cop who tried to arrest him into his trying to help the man pick up dropped coins, being mistaken for a mugger, then attacked by the police. It's truly epic to watch. And it works. | |
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In Farce of the Three Kingdoms, this is Zhuge Liang's preferred debate tactic. | |
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A witness actually pulls this off in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies. Hugh O'Conner's testimony about his body double in the mock trial is so unbelievable, so illogical, and so transparent that the prosecutor, Simon Blackquill, ragequits the questioning to "go for a stroll." It's actually pretty effective, since the defense eventually does get the truth out of Hugh, and Blackquill isn't there to hinder the proceedings. | |
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In The Spectacular Spider-Man episode "Identity Crisis", Venom leaks Peter Parker's Secret Identity to the press. When Spider-Man denies being Peter, Venom tells the press that Spider-Man has to be Peter, since Spider-Man would have to unmask himself to prove he wasn't Peter. Spider-Man stops mid-battle to tell Venom how little sense it would make for him to reveal his secret identity to the world just to prove who that identity isn't. | |
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Used often, sometimes by both sides at once, on The Debaters. | |
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The Boondocks: "The Trial of R. Kelly" features R. Kelly on trial for urinating on a minor. Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, he wins the case due to his popularity and because his lawyer used manipulative Logical Fallacies such as comparing R. Kelly's perversions to the Founding Fathers', in an inversion of Hitler Ate Sugar, and accuses the staggering evidence of being "really" based on racism. The defense lawyer also makes an issue out of the fact that the DA in the case, Tom Dubois, has a white wife (Sarah). Huey Freeman calls the entire court out on their stupidity afterwards: In "Return of the King", Huey and Martin Luther King, Jr. are on a Fox News-type show, and the host responds to King by saying "Do you love America?", implying that King is simply anti-American. What's worse is that the way he asked it seemed to imply that it's a standard question that he asks everybody in the hopes of sparking conflict. And what's even worse is that a political pundit (Sean Hannity) has said these very words verbatim multiple times. It also didn't help that the height of this line's popularity was during the lead-up to the Iraq War. Though he doesn't really get anywhere with this dialogue, because he promptly gets assaulted with a projectile folding chair and beaten up by a child. |
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LegalEagle discusses the South Park episode and the defense as it appears in the court sequences within the episode in this video. | |
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In the court scene of Oklahoma!, this happens: | |
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In The Trial Of Tim Heidecker (a spinoff of On Cinema), Tim is on trial for twenty counts of Felony Murder from passing out toxic vape pens at his illegally organized music festival. His defense includes claims such as: One of the twenty victims actually died of a heroin overdose, so who's to say the other nineteen didn't die that way as well? The San Bernardino police never investigated the shady company in Shanghai Tim sourced his chemicals from, which means it's the company's fault and the police are covering it up for reasons of Political Overcorrectness. He refers to this so-called "China connection" multiple times throughout the trial. Disproving prosecution witness Gregg Turkington's skills as a movie buff by proving he confuses the plots of Star Trek II and IV is enough to invalidate the entirety of his testimony. Just because the prosecution has Tim's evidence dismissed for being obviously forged doesn't mean the jury can't rely on it anyway. |
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Keyrock the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer from Saturday Night Live abused this constantly. Every sketch would have him beginning his statements with lengthy monologues about how he's "just a caveman", frightened and confused in a modern world he doesn't comprehend, to establish himself as a complete outsider to humankind — and then rattling off his argument and desired verdict as if it's a universal truth even he can understand. Despite being an obvious slimeball attorney who's adapted extremely well to the 20th century, he always wins his case. | |
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In Animal House, Otter somehow turns the charges against the Deltas for having sex with their drunk party guests into an attack on the fraternity system, which is an attack on college, which is an attack on America. Then all the Deltas march out humming "The Star-Spangled Banner". This does not help in the least. But the Deltas don't really care. | |
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In Gormenghast, Steerpike uses this method to manipulate two mentally retarded sisters into doing his bidding and keeping quiet about it—after all, he must know what he's talking about if he uses so many long words. There are also hints that the reason the entire population, including its ruler, go along with the pointless rituals enacted by Sourdust, Barquentine and then Steerpike is that they are so portentous and complex that it is assumed they must be really important and necessary. | |
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In the Duckman episode "Inherit the Judgment: The Dope's Trial", Duckman insists on using this despite having just been proven not guilty by virtue of the fact that he's in the one town in America where ignorance of the law is an excuse...because he wants to infuriate King Chicken so much that the latter confesses to setting him up in the first place. And it works: | |
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Yuugai Shitei Doukyuusei: Reika is adept at countering Miyako's tirades against her "immorality". | |
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In Chernobyl, Chief Engineer Fomin insists that anyone claiming that the reactor exploded explain how it did, and since they can't, it must not have exploded. Day shift supervisor Sitnikov can't answer because he doesn't know (only that it did, as evidenced by the core's graphite innards lying around everywhere). Professor Legasov can't answer for the same reason,note although he's aware of the RBMK's design flaws, he hasn't yet made the connection between that and the explosion and he's stalled until Shcherbina cuts through the bullshit by suggesting Fomin disprove the claim. | |
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In the webcomic Elf Only Inn, April uses the "silence means consent/defeat" strategy in this discussion with Percy the sarcastic paladin: | |
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Inverted in the Black Adder episode "Witchsmeller Pursivent". The evidence that Edmund is a witch includes that he was heard speaking to his cat (a witch's familiar), and that he feeds his horse carrots (the Devil's favorite "fruit"). It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context. | |
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One of the most blatant cases of this is in the 4th trial in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, where Gundham Tanaka rapidly fires off an insane argument devoid of any logic or real connection to the subject at hand. | |
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Parodied in Asterix and the Laurel Wreath, where both opposing lawyers on a case attempt to use the same Chewbacca Defence (specifically quoting Cato the Elder's catchphrase "Carthago delenda est", see below). | |
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An episode of Martha Speaks has the titular talking dog taking part in a trial. To sum up the story so far, the cranky old lady next door had her lawn furniture wrecked by a guy who was clearly talking on his phone while driving and running a red light, almost running other Martha and the lady. Martha, being a talking dog and all, is brought in as a witness. Then the driver tries to discredit Martha's testimony by bringing in a dog expert who says that Martha can talk because she doesn't know that she shouldn't be able to speak, and thus is a poorly trained dog (she isn't). True, the reason why she speaks only seems to work on her (and the letters from alphabet soup ending up in the brain is a little...impossible) but still. Around that point, the plot starts to get a little confusing, with the old lady, for no really explained reason, siding with the guy who almost ran her over. | |
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During a sketch of Monty Python's Flying Circus, the lawyer calls in several unrelated "witnesses", including a "dead" man in a coffin who knocks once for "yes" and twice for "no": | |
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Isaac and Miria from Baccano!. The argument referenced in the quote? It wasn't even an argument at all, but rather a Shrinking Violet trying to introduce himself to them. | |
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The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard: Don "The Goods" Ready quickly establishes what kind of a salesman he is and how good he is at it by swindling a stewardess into letting him smoke on an airplane with a spiel about how when smoking was allowed on airplanes America put a man on the Moon and thus Americans should be given back that freedom and improve the country (he even gets "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" as background music as he says it). | |
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In Youngblood: Judgment Day, defense attorney Skipper calls several witnesses to testify about a seemingly irrelevant detail of Riptide's murder (a book missing from her shelf), completely derailing the trial. Subverted when the alternate sequence of events he proposes, that the theft of the book was the real motive for the murder and the perpetrator was Youngblood teammate Sentinel, actually turns out to be true. | |
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In Kill la Kill, Mako Mankanshoku is a master of using this. A side effect of being the local Cloudcuckoolander is that she often makes completely nonsensical speeches that reduce most villains to stunned silence. For instance: When Ryuko is about to be disqualified from a tennis match she didn't know she was in, Mako steps in and argues that Ryuko won because she entered the match by rescuing her: One of the first episodes has Ryuko losing a fight horribly because of her modesty interfering with Senketsu's ability to bond with her. Mako's response? GET NAKED! Mako then goes into a long-winded speech about how Ryuko has the best bust she and her family have ever seen, and she should have no problem showing it off to her opponent. Weirder still, it actually works! Ryuko gets over her modesty and proceeds to win the fight. |
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In Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, the Amoral Attorney tries to get his cyborg client off for murdering his girlfriend by trying to have the trial focus on the supposed (read: completely fabricated) technophobic beliefs of the officer who shot him. | |
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"He Is An Englishman" from H.M.S. Pinafore is used as a defense of the leading couple's actions (of which the captain disapproves because their ranks differ). The captain is so confused by how this does or does not relate to the situation — especially because everyone on the Pinafore is English — that he ends up swearing, for which he is confined to his cabin. | |
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Although South Park named the trope, it's Older Than Feudalism: The Ancient Greeks called this "sophistry". And they weren't particularly put off by it; they felt that logic and wisdom were just tools to get what you want and had no inherent value beyond that. Indeed, "sophistry" comes from "sophist," which was essentially a neutral term for a wise man. However, over time the word "sophistry" drifted to refer to underhanded or fallacious debate tactics (evident in other languages; for instance, the French term for a logical fallacy is sophisme). Perhaps this was the case even back then; after all, all we know about the Greek opinion of debating comes from their political rivals, who might have had a bone to pick. Cato the Elder is famous, among other things, for ending his senate speeches with "Carthago delenda est," which translates to "Carthage must be destroyed." He did this in every single speech he gave, regardless of whether it had anything to do with Carthage. He believed that strongly that it had to go. But he also invoked Carthage as an Appeal to Worse Problems; whatever the senate was debating was likely not as critical to the existence of the Roman state than the Punic Wars. Cato continued the practice until the day he died, shortly before Carthage was razed to the ground, as he had wanted for years. Cicero was quite adept at this tactic: His "Pro Caelio" saw him get his client Caelius, who was most probably guilty, off on all charges by doing pretty much every trick in the book — from Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness to pretending to channel a certain woman's dead father for the purpose of calling her a slut. This threw the judges off so badly that they could never actually analyze the case at hand. Said woman was the sister of Cicero's Arch-Enemy Publius Clodius Pulcher, who similarly didn't have very much to do with the case. He was so good at it that he was able to pull off the most glorious subversion of it in Roman history in his successful prosecution of Gaius Verres, the super-corrupt governor of Sicily. Verres hired Quintus Hortensius, widely regarded as the finest Roman lawyer and a master of the florid rhetoric that often swung trials. Hortensius deployed not just a Chewbacca defense, but a battery of procedural tricks to delay the trial (including giving Cicero only nine days to present his case, in an era when opening speeches usually lasted five), which would allow him to install his own Hanging Judge and make Cicero's job impossible. Cicero, however, had spent the previous year shuttling between Rome and Sicily gathering evidencenote at one point he summoned a mob to break into the Sicilian archives and carried the whole damn thing off to Rome, and chose to simply outline all of the defense's tricks, forgo making any speeches, and call the witnesses one by one. It took less than three days before Verres fled in exile (Disguised in Drag, no less) to Masillia, where he stayed until his death. |
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In The Cocoanuts, when Mr. Hammer is confronted by his hotel staff demanding their wages, Hammer argues that they're "wage-slaves" for expecting to be paid for the work they do — and that they should be "free" to work for free instead. Amazingly, his argument works. | |
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Hello, Dolly! climaxes with an argument that winds up getting almost the entire cast arrested for disturbing the peace. Dolly appoints herself their defense attorney and gives a rousing speech for the defense which consists mostly of flattering the judge with a few words of gratuitous Latin thrown in. | |
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Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright is accused of doing this in the second game's final case by his long lost rival, Edgeworth. It's arguable that Phoenix did so in that case to stall for time, as well as in the second case of the third game in order to make the guilty party point out a detail of a piece of incriminating evidence introduced for the first time a few minutes ago, when he was out of the room - something he couldn't have known unless he was the killer. Edgeworth himself does this if he presents wrong evidences when under player control, only to be called out on it by Franziska Von Karma. This is the perennial strategy of his protégé, Apollo Justice. In the third case of his game, it turns out to be impossible to do because Apollo doesn't have the necessary evidence. He only wins the case because he threatens to call a decisive witness. The true killer had to be a Borginian cocoon smuggler as was previously proven. So, Apollo says that if the witness admits he's a smuggler, thus proving that Daryan is his accomplice, it in turn decisively proves that the only one who could be the killer is Daryan himself, as he is the only smuggler with no alibi for the murder. On top of this, considering that Borginian cocoon smuggling is punished with the death sentence in Borginia, if he admits he smuggled the cocoons during the current trial, the duty of punishment would fall on the American (Japanese in original version) courts instead of those of Borginia, meaning he would not be killed. So in other words, the killer must testify about his crimes, otherwise he will die, which means that there is no escape for the true killer. A witness actually pulls this off in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies. Hugh O'Conner's testimony about his body double in the mock trial is so unbelievable, so illogical, and so transparent that the prosecutor, Simon Blackquill, ragequits the questioning to "go for a stroll." It's actually pretty effective, since the defense eventually does get the truth out of Hugh, and Blackquill isn't there to hinder the proceedings. |
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A rare heroic example is featured in the Paperinik New Adventures story "Fragments of Autumn", a Courtroom Episode. While Lyla's lawyer Photomas can't win the case just yet, he ends up rambling a list of legal citations and references so long that the judge gives a 24 hour extension on the case, giving PK the time to find new evidence. | |
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In the Family Guy episode "It Takes a Village Idiot and I Married One", Mayor West uses this when Lois is running against him. Lois then wins the election by taking Brian's advice to do the same thing:note She answers every question with "9/11". | |
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In LazyTown, on the rare occasion Robbie Rotten's disguises are doubted he often resorts to saying things like "Have you ever been to [x] school" and other badgering questions that the characters can't refute. | |
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Thank You for Smoking: The protagonist uses this in the opening scene of the film, arguing that anti-smoking activists are the ones who want The Littlest Cancer Patient to die, since they would benefit from it, while Big Tobacco would be losing a valued customer. The protagonist does it again when he demonstrates this to his son: |
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An utterly horrifying example in Durarara!!. After inviting two women to kill themselves with him, Izaya asks them if they think there is anything after death. After saying they do, Izaya proceeds to mock them, and tells them that killing themselves yet still believing in the afterlife is stupid since they're just trying to escape their problems. It's stated that his arguments are flawed and that there are many loopholes to exploit. The reason the women do not challenge him is that they believe Izaya is too twisted to reason with and nothing they said would get through to him. | |
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In Listen to Me, the protagonists win a debate on abortion through use of the appeal to consequences fallacy. Not only that, but their debating coach explicitly instructs them to use stories that sway people in using these. This is treated as completely fine, however underhanded they are as tactics (that wouldn't be allowed in most real formal debates). | |
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.
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