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Who Watches the Watchmen?

265 statements
50 feature instances
54 referencing feature instances

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Who Watches the Watchmen?	label	Who Watches the Watchmen?
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Who Watches the Watchmen?	comment	Who watches the watchmen? is a popular translation of Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?, from the writings of Juvenal, and which may be more literally translated as Who will guard the guards themselves?. It was quoted as an epigraph in the Tower Commission Report into the Iran-Contra scandal and many, many, many other places. This is about what happens when the police are in need of some policing. Perhaps there's a Serial Killer preying on the cops. Maybe the civilians are turning on the police, allowing the criminals to win. Or perhaps the cops themselves have become the criminals, and need to be brought back in line. Note that it isn't specifically about police; any group with power and/or responsibility for the lives and well-being of others can qualify, as long as the story concerns the events and repercussions when this group needs the kind of oversight and attention they normally bring to others. Internal Affairs is a division within the main group whose specific purpose is indeed to watch the watchmen. A work with such a division may still bring in the trope if internal affairs itself becomes corrupt and needs some investigation. Ironically, the original quote concerned the problem of hiring guards to prevent your promiscuous wife from cheating on you, with the implication that she would try to seduce or bribe the guards, or that the guards would do the same or worse to her. See also One of Our Own and Screw the Rules, I Make Them!. Can lead to Super Registration Act in superhero comics. A big reason why legislating Thoughtcrime is a very bad idea.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_12300cc3	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_12300cc3	comment	As its name suggests, this is a prominent theme in Watchmen. If superheroes really exist, who can police them? The phrase itself appears as graffiti throughout the comic, though is never seen in its entirety. The backstory includes police frustration with costumed vigilantes, which leads to cops striking in protest. Public sentiment turns against the superheroes, resulting in a new federal law banning vigilante activity by costumed adventurers (unless they are willing to work for the government).
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_13665790	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_13665790	comment	Thud! reveals that Vimes has created his own mental watchman for this duty, so that even when alone with only villains, he does not give in to his dark impulses. It was so powerful that even an ancient dwarven spirit of vengeance feared it.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_14aec085	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_14aec085	comment	Enemy of the State: At the end of the film, Robert and Carla are watching a TV news interview with Congressman Albert and this trope is discussed both on the TV and then by them.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_18d31711	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_18d31711	comment	The "Return of Hawkman" arc of JSA ends with a discussion of this trope, seen on this article's Quotes page.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_2107ed05	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_2107ed05	comment	The Apprentice Rogue: Artamos' job is to prevent Leona from coming to harm on her way to her wedding. This includes preventing physical harm and threats to her virginity. In the classical meaning of the phrase, he is the one that has sex with her.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_247422c7	comment	In the Honor Harrington books, the People's Republic of Haven employs Internal Security (during the Harris regime) and State Sec (after the Comittee for Public Safety takes power) as a means of monitoring for dissidents and disloyalty. Notably, State Sec officers fill the roles of Political Officer and Praetorian Guard in order to keep the Navy from turning on their government. Both governments fall in part due to supposedly loyal agents in their own ranks turning on them for various reasons while in positions that made them above suspicion.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_261c8d3f	comment	The Simpsons referenced this in the episode 'Homer the Vigilante', when Homer becomes the leader of a neighborhood watch group.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_295048d5	comment	The city of Yharnam in Bloodborne is cyclically subjected to the scourge of beasts, a lycanthropic plague that turns the Yharnamites into grotesque werewolves. To combat the outbreak of the scourge, the Hunters were formed; at the first sign of an individual being afflicted with the scourge, the Hunters set out to eliminate them. So what happens when a Hunter goes off the deep end and starts killing people before they start showing signs of being infected? What happens if a Hunter starts showing early signs of the scourge? That's when Eileen the Crow, the Hunter of Hunters, enters the frame. The game also somewhat addresses the fact that there's not really any contingency plan in case the Hunter of Hunters becomes a threat: If you botch up Eileen's quest, she'll go mad and begin hunting down Hunters before they have started to show signs of losing it or being infected. This forces you to kill her in self-defense once she sets her sights on you.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_2cefd55d	comment	One of the biggest issues in Heroes Reborn (2021) is that there isn't anybody who can keep the Squadron Supreme in line because they're just too goddamn powerful to stop, which is less than ideal given that they're all a bunch of nationalistic Blood Knights.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_2dab4fef	comment	Suggested of Snopes in this xkcd strip.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_39fe00f1	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_39fe00f1	comment	And in Dragon Age: Inquisition, they're duped into summoning a demon army for one of the magisters who caused the elder gods to go insane in the first place, all because nobody was watching them when they were tricked into believing that their order would go extinct from a special disease before they could kill the remaining elder gods.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_41b0198a	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_41b0198a	comment	In The Dresden Files, the Winter Fae guard reality against the Outsiders. The Summer Fae protect everyone else from Winter.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_468bebb0	comment	Discworld: Watch Commander Sam Vimes has the answer: "We all keep an eye on each other". Thud! reveals that Vimes has created his own mental watchman for this duty, so that even when alone with only villains, he does not give in to his dark impulses. It was so powerful that even an ancient dwarven spirit of vengeance feared it. This (as well as to maintain The Hecate Sisters) is also why witches form covens, despite their natural inclination to work alone. A witch left on her own tends to go bad, and the others are there to watch for signs of it and prevent it if they can. Something similar to the witches comes up with the Auditors, albeit of the more paranoid flavor. They're all completely interchangeable and share all memories and experience, but need at least three of them to make any decision, so that each of them is watched by two.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_49ad83ee	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_49ad83ee	comment	World of Warcraft gives a variant in the Cataclysm expansion. Garrosh Hellscream, the new Warchief, has made it well-known he will watch for any dissent in the Horde, leading to the common saying among Orcs that "Hellscream's eyes are upon us". At the same time, Vol'jin is watching Garrosh and will kill him when it is clear to all members of the Horde he is not fit to lead. This ends badly.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_4d8e5ec	comment	In a Daily Show segment from June 2001, Jon Stewart highlighted a story about someone who created an edible wrapper for food items (such as sandwiches and other things one might typically order from a delicatessen) with Stewart having to point out that if a wrapper is supposed to protect food from dirt, bacteria, and germs, making it edible would mean having to wrap the wrapper.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_53684a3f	comment	Thief: Deadly Shadows: The faction known as "The Keepers" has tasked themselves since before recorded history to keep balance in The City, yet they have very little internal policing and don't record their own history. This allowed one of their number to become an unchecked abomination, who became the Big Bad of that game. A note in the game even asks the question: "Who keeps the Keepers?"
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_53f9a9e	comment	In Trunk Music, an exchange between Bosch and Internal Affairs Detective Chastain ends with the two of them arguing over this trope.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_5d2be66d	comment	The Barrier: A government official is shown to be wary of the police being given too much power because he's worried about the lack of entities that would be able to protect people from an all-powerful police. Since the country he lives in is already a Police State in practice in the eyes of the average citizen, the man has a point.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_60156176	comment	Vorkosigan Saga: The Imperial Auditors are the Barrayarran answer to this question. They are handpicked by the Emperor to investigate any matter he thinks needs special attention, and are chosen for two qualities; incorruptibility and the ability to stand up to very dangerous people without flinching. There are measures in place to control them should they cross the line themselves: There are never more than nine of them at a time, the Emperor can reclaim their seal at any time, and they can be impeached by the Council of Counts. In Mirror Dance, Mark wonders who psychoanalyzes Cordelia, who psychoanalyzes everyone, pondering "Who shaves the barber?" He later gets his answer: Emperor Gregor.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_62570927	comment	A very similar question is posed in the title of one of the comics in Marvel's "What If..." series: What If No One Was Watching The Watcher?◊ In this case, though, it's meant more in the "people do funny things when they think nobody is looking" sense.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_629cd094	comment	Dragon Age: Origins: The Grey Wardens are a contingency plan for all seven inevitable darkspawn apocalypses (There are seven elder gods who were buried in the earth, and two are still asleep). During the apocalypse they have overriding authority over all kingdoms, and they can conscript anyone from slaves to kings and even convicted serial killers. In theory, they're kept in check by the general lack of political power they normally have during peacetime, but they can still flex their conscription power and they stay isolated from society, honing their combat skills every day and even participating in subterfuge to ensure the kings on the thrones will favor sponsoring them continuously. This makes most kingdoms afraid of how much influence they actually have. And in Dragon Age: Inquisition, they're duped into summoning a demon army for one of the magisters who caused the elder gods to go insane in the first place, all because nobody was watching them when they were tricked into believing that their order would go extinct from a special disease before they could kill the remaining elder gods.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_699dbb95	comment	Door Monster's The Guards Themselves is named after this trope. It's fittingly about a group of so-called anarchists who are in actuality trying to take down The Oligarchs who secretly rule the city.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_6b338f0	comment	The live-action Thunderbirds movie used a variant of this in a remark by The Hood: "Who will rescue the rescuers?" (Answer: the kids on the island whose presence he wasn't aware of.)
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_7f39a041	comment	Gintama: After a war over phlebtonium ravaged the galaxy, one of the winning organizations founded an organization dedicated to regulating the use and ownership of said phlebtonium. Unfortunately, with no policing over the organization, they quickly used their control over all fuel sources for FTL to buy the galaxy. Sometime during the manga, they were usurped by Utsuro, who then abused his power undetected to destroy several homeworlds just to incite enough rage to destroy his homeworld Earth in retaliation - which is what he primarily wants.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_831698a6	comment	In one of the stories in Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? by Dr. Seuss, the people of the town of Hawtch-Hawtch discover that the town bee works harder and makes more honey if someone watches it. Then they figure that the bee-watcher will do a better job if someone watches him, so they hire a bee-watcher-watcher....
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_9233c51d	comment	A big question asked in Miraculous: The Phoenix Rises. On the one hand, Morgan and the rest of Team Arctic are a bunch of untrained vigilantes in charge of fighting a villain that seems to home in on their very location at least once a week. Numerous characters in the story such as Director D. point out how no one oversees their antics. On the other side, the Z Squadron has this worse. They have oversight, albeit very shitty oversight. They're more or less used as enforcers for the government in the War on Drugs and routinely abuse their authority using their status as a shield.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_959f1374	comment	The Naruto fanfic Man of Dreams contains a comedic example when Madara is acting as Hokage:
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_960062b7	comment	My Hero Academia: Ochako voices a variation of this, as she realizes that heroes need people to fall back on if they need help, or "Who will protect those who protect us?".
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_a993be1f	comment	Referenced in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords in regards to the handmaidens supposedly policing Jedi while serving directly under one.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_b84973a9	comment	In Digital Fortress, it's one of the main themes.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_bcadd7cb	comment	In Warhammer 40,000, it's noted that the only people policing the Inquisition are other members of the Inquisition. Which often results in Right Hand Versus Left Hand situations, where one enclave of Inquisitors is trying to get another declared as heretics or traitors, while the other is doing the exact same thing (and may actually be right).
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_bff78dfe	comment	Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The Latin quote is seen graffitied in an abandoned building during the Batman/Superman battle, and in an article critical of Batman branding criminals who are later murdered in jail, to which the Gotham police are turning a blind eye. An In-Universe theme is whether Superman is accountable to anyone but himself.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_c007e9c8	comment	An episode of Space: Above and Beyond, called "Who Monitors The Birds?" focused on an InVitro Marine going about on some special mission, while his childhood (such as it was; InVitros are born fully-grown) was explored via Flash Back. Every action they take during their training is supervised by a group of humans known as "Monitors", who monitor them for undesirable tendencies and traits. At one point, he asks of a Monitor: "Who monitors the birds?" and the monitor responded with "I monitor the birds." Then he asks "Who monitors you?" This question is taken as indication that he lacks the proper blind obedience to continue his training and should be euthanized. (He escapes, then later ends up in the Marines anyway by different means).
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_c06c3e0d	comment	Discussed in the LoadingReadyRun sketch Watchmen Watching. The Watchmen are watched by the Neighborhood Watchmen Watching Organization, who are in turn watched by the Watching the Neighborhood Watchmen Watching Organization Organization, who are watched by a guy named Jeff, who is watched by someone in the background.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_c0718cfb	comment	Guard of Honor: On the next-to-last page, Gen. Beal asks Col. Ross to "pick up after Pop," that is, look after the mistake-prone, dumb Col. Mowbray. Col. Ross, amused, quotes the Latin, "sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes." When the less bookish Gen. Beal asks what that means, Col. Ross wonders "who's going to pick up after me?"
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_c2297a9c	comment	Judge Dredd: "Who judges the Judges" cropped up as graffiti throughout the "America" storyline. The issue of who judges the Judges is a recurring theme in the comic, most particularly in the democracy arc. Meanwhile, the SJS has found itself in need of judgment in such stories as "The Day the Law Died!", when SJS head Judge Cal assassinates the Chief Judge to take over and turns into an insane despot, and "The Pit", where the SJS in a specific sector have become so corrupt that Dredd is sent in to clean house. In "Trifecta" it's revealed that after Cal's misrule the former head of Black Ops, Judge Smiley, went undercover in case a new threat may arise from within the department. As he put it, he's a Judge to judge the Judges who judge the Judges. The "Sector Zero" was a proposed special cadre of elite judges with the power to judge even the SJS. Chief Judge Goodman rejected it on the basis that it'd start an infinite loop: if even SJS can't be trusted, who's to say this Sector Zero can? The judge proposing it, Hubert Badger, disappeared to begin his project in secret.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_c62995ba	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_c62995ba	comment	Child of the Storm has Peter Wisdom more or less invoke this in the finale when he more or less gives Tony Stark license to install backdoors into MI13's super-sized vibranium-armoured helicarrier, on the grounds that he's aware that he's not totally sane and he might need stopping some day. Equally, he's suggested to know that a number of his senior staff, particularly Sean Cassidy, are mainly around to keep him in check, and is fine with that, too. This turns out to be the White Council's problem with Doctor Strange (and they aren't the only ones). He wields extraordinary power, acting more or less as he pleases, and answering to absolutely no one. The White Council, by contrast, are The Fettered for Wandless Wizards by design.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_c692db8d	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_c692db8d	comment	The Last Days of Krypton: Zod is in charge of confiscating and destroying potentially dangerous inventions, but keeps them for his own ends. Zod himself discusses this trope when he confiscates the Phantom Zone projector. Jor-El says that it could be kept under guard to prevent misuse, but Zod replies that the guards could succumb to temptation as easily as anyone else.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_c72c2d06	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_c72c2d06	comment	Star Wars Rebels: The Imperial Security Bureau is responsible for, among other things, rooting out traitors and spies in the Imperial ranks. So when Agent Kallus has a Heel–Face Turn and becomes a Fulcrum informant, his position as the highest-ranking member of the ISB in the Lothal Sector means that most Imperials wouldn't even remotely suspect him of being a traitor, even after they find out there is one. The exception, or rather the answer to that problem is Grand Admiral Thrawn, and even then Kallus manages to go months under Thrawn's eye without being caught, which is far longer than most people could manage.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_cf3e7a82	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_cf3e7a82	comment	Superman's criticism of the Linear Men in "Time Ryders" from the Time and Time Again collected edition after Waverider is admitted as a new member.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_db96ded4	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_db96ded4	comment	In The Legend of Korra, this occurs with the truth-seer of Zaofu, Aiwei. when the Red Lotus attempts to kidnap Korra, he was their inside man. When the investigation into the traitor is carried out, he is free to point the finger at an innocent guard with only minor evidence. Varrick and Mako see through this, however, as this is exactly what Varrick tried to do to Mako previously.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_e7e37776	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_e7e37776	comment	Invoked in the Firefly episode "War Stories": "Governments are made of men, usually notably ungoverned."
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_e91422c9	comment	Countdown to Final Crisis attempted this with Donna Troy saying "Who Monitors the Monitors?" It went over about as well as the rest of the comic. It was only two monitors who actually screwed up. The rest did absolutely nothing the entire time. Not only that, but as Linkara says, the term basically translates to "who looks at the people who look at stuff and don't do anything but look."
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_ecba79f	comment	A theme of Panopticon Quest. Panopticon are the latest incarnation of the Technocratic Union's Internal Affairs, given unlimited remit by Control to defend the Technocracy against all threats internal and external, but by the first time they appear onscreen, it's anyone's guess whether they're really doing their job or merely Control's pet murderers and the threats they allegedly curtail are just those who have fallen out of favour or earnt the personal ire of a member of Control rather than genuinely being an enemy of the Technocracy.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_f0c816fb	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_f0c816fb	comment	Breaking Bad features a variant: as Walt assures a fearful Skyler (who's just begun to take measure of how much her husband has changed) that every action he takes is to protect his family, she confronts him on the brand new Dodge Challenger he bought his son on a whim, telling him they have to send it back to the dealership, even though she knows Walt Jr. will blame her for it, because "someone has to protect this family from the man who protects this family".
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_f74b5f80	comment	Ivanova asks Bester "Who watches the watchmen" in the Babylon 5 episode which introduces the Psi-Cops. Over the course of the series, it becomes obvious that nobody watches the Psi-Cops. The Psi-Cops themselves are responsible for watching the Psi-Corps and enforcing the Earth Alliance's Mutant Draft Board on telepaths. When he reorganized the Minbari government, Valen reorganized military assets specifically to answer this question: warships are made three at time with one going to each of the three castes (Warrior crews are generally considered better), the Anla'shok (a fourth caste de facto if not by law) have their own fleet (smaller than any of the caste fleets and slanted toward smaller ships but better crewed. And, with the introduction of the White Star-class, technologically superior), and effectively all the non-Anla'shok fighters being piloted by members of the Fire Wings clan of the Warrior caste but depending on support crews from other clans or even different castes depending on the assignment. Considering that Valen was a formidable Rules Lawyer and, actually being Sinclair, was educated in a Catholic school and thus was likely familiar with Juvenal in the first place, it was only to be expected.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_f82c136e	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_f82c136e	comment	In M.C.A. Hogarth's Kherishdar how does the Emperor make sure he himself doesn't abuse his own power? He assigns a casteless servant to the post of The Exception, whose job it is to tell him when his actions might be harmful to his people.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_fbfcd9a1	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_fbfcd9a1	comment	In The Annals of the Chosen the role of Wizard Lord was created by the Immortal Council to deal with rogue wizards. Eventually a Wizard Lord went rogue and the Council created the Chosen to deal with any Dark Lords, adding a new Chosen with each defeated Dark Lord. Inevitably the Chosen themselves face this issue when Farash makes a deal with a Dark Lord. In the final novel Sword concludes that with magic fading and wizards almost extinct there's no need for a Wizard Lord or Chosen; the people can police themselves.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_fd7de151	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_fd7de151	comment	Psycho-Pass: This is the core theme of season 2: if your government is extremely effective in regular policy, yet utterly corrupt and borderline insane when it comes to dealing with escalated situations, should it regulate itself even if that causes major infighting in an otherwise unified rulership? When you're dealing with a government specifically composed entirely of pathological criminals who are psychologically immune to detection by future-age criminology techniques, apparently the answer is yes.
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Who Watches the Watchmen? / int_ff0bf83f	comment	At the end of the second season of Justice League Unlimited, the Justice League was under suspicion of taking extremes in the interest of protecting the world. Superman finally recognized this, and in a public speech given after the defeat of Luthor and Brainiac, believed they were guilty of hubris and decided to disband the Justice League. Green Arrow interrupted him from the crowd and managed to talk him out of it, fulfilling the role Batman had designed for him when he cajoled Arrow into joining: keeping the League honest. After the speech, Batman and Green Arrow had this exchange: If anything this is one of the main reasons the Justice League has non-super super heroes to keep them in check. Cadmus tried to be this, pretty much be there if the Justice League ever crossed that line and used their powers to conquer instead of protect. However, in order to be ready for the League if they crossed the line, Cadmus itself started jumping across them (mass murder and brainwashing of clones, allying with Lex Luthor, etc). Eventually, when they activated their attack on the JL they could not abort it. Batman mentions this to Waller, wondering who is watching them. Waller acknowledges they crossed too many lines in the next season, and admits that she and the others who were in charge of Cadmus are lucky they weren't sent to prison.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Who Watches the Watchmen?	processingCategory2	Cops and Detectives
Who Watches the Watchmen?	processingCategory2	Crime and Punishment Tropes
Ghost in the Shell / int_4503f7d4	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
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Ant-Man / int_4503f7d4	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice / int_4503f7d4	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
Casino / int_4503f7d4	type	Who Watches the Watchmen?
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