Initiation Ceremony

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So you've really wanted to get into this cool organization. You've asked the leader really nicely.

Now you have to be initiated in their own particular manner.

This will be in one of several basic forms:

  • Rather pleasant and jolly, in front of all your family and friends.
  • Solemn and dignified
  • Disgustingly humiliating.
  • Disturbingly horrific.

Snipe Hunt may be involved in more humorous versions of hazing.

See also Rite of Passage, a catalog of initiation ceremonies into adulthood. Deadly Graduation is a subtrope that involves killing (real or faked).

Examples of Initiation Ceremony include:

Pleasant

General

  • Knighting, of course.
    • Mostly pleasant. There is the Vigil, which is at least intensely uncomfortable.
      • And god help you if you want to become a Knight in Tortall. The Chamber of Ordeal is not nice.

Literature

  • In Warrior Cats, becoming an apprentice has the leader give a speech while you are surrounded by your Clanmates. Becoming a warrior requires a vigil.

Live-Action TV

Video Games

  • Being initiated as a Spectre is pretty nice, you just get a vote of confidence from the Citadel Council followed by a speech. With kickass music, of course.

Western Animation

  • Finding Nemo: When Gill invites Nemo to join the Tank Gang, Nemo must first swim through the "Ring of Fire"(a stream of bubbles over a fake volcano). Initially scary, but ultimately pleasant.


Humiliating

Film

"Thank you, sir! May I have another?"

Literature

Live-Action TV

  • In Ashes to Ashes, Alex is initiated into CID by having her rear stamped with their official stamp. This is Truth in Television for that period, by the way.
  • The show Phantom Investigators had an episode with an abandoned fraternity, where the two remaining members did all sorts of humiliating things in order to be accepted, such as drinking tea brewed with their own sweat socks... yuck.

Video Games

  • Most of the story in Spellcasting 201 is trying to get through pledge week with the Hu Delta Phart fraternity. In addition to the daily flogging of the pledges with a rubber chicken, each pledge has to do a task every day to prove their worthiness. The tasks given to most of the pledges are fairly simple (and amusing to watch), but the ones assigned to the player get increasingly dangerous as the week goes on (Mainly because the Pledgemaster doesn't like you).

Real Life

  • Line-crossing ceremonies are conducted in a fair number of navies when one crosses the Equator, Arctic Circle, International Date Line or whatever for the first time. Historically a bit brutal, but they've been reined in recently after several reports of things going, to use the naval term, overboard
    • A tamer version is done on cruise ships.
    • A fictional one is depicted in the Larry Bond novel Dangerous Ground.
    • Happens in The Sarah Connor Chronicles where its still going even in the distant future in human controlled submarines.
      • Russian submariners have one when you first must drink a whole emergency lantern of seawater (that's about a liter BTW), and then kiss a sledgehammer suspended from the ceiling. It's usually calm under the surface... theoretically. So broken teeth and torn lips aren't really uncommon.
    • The Royal Navy version involves batter, a tank of water and a mixture involving chilli sauce. In 1953, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip watched one of these. Her Majesty did not take part. Prince Philip, though, having been a sailor in the Second World War, did. There's one shown on the second series of the documentary series Warship.
  • Check out the gimmicks from this 1930 "Fraternal Supply Catalog."

Web Comics

  • The way to become a member of a hobgoblin tribe in Order of the Stick involves dancing, uncomfortable piercings, beatings, and doing the same things over again but slower, while singing. Or, you can kill their leader.
  • The Omega fraternity in Talesof Gnosis College has one that features both nudity and humiliation. And that's before things spin out of control.

Western Animation

  • Parodied in Undergrads, where there is no hazing ritual. Rocko refuses to believe and so hazes himself.
  • These were parodied in The Simpsons during the initiation for the Stonecutters. First, there was "Crossing the Desert" (where a blindfolded Homer was struck repeatedly in the behind with wooden paddles) and then, "The Unblinking Eye"...

Homer: Hey, did you ever notice that Crossing the Desert is a lot like The Unblinking Eye? And it's exactly like The Wreck of the Hesperus.

    • And then the final trial: "The Paddling of the Swollen Ass... with Paddles!"
    • There was also a five-story plunge, which was really only supposed to be a laugh when the new initiate fell about two feet, but Homer of course went through five stories, breaking through the floor each time.

Homer: I think I have to do it again... my blindfold came off.


Horrific

Anime and Manga

Film

  • Once Were Warriors has a young Maori gangster getting his ass kicked in the worst way possible. Afterwards? "Congratulations man, you're now one of us!".

Literature

  • In Tamora Pierce's Tortall books, aspiring knights (usually teenagers) and kings have to spend a night in the Chamber of the Ordeal, which is a room inhabited by some kind of godlike spirit that gives you very realistic halluciations of your worst fears. As one character describes it, it's "like a cutter of gemstones. It finds your flaws and hammers them." With people who aren't ready for hardcore introspection, it can permanently damage or kill them. In one special case, a guy who likes to beat and rape women is forced to feel the physical effects of every assault he ever committed. Our main characters see more typical things, like their loved ones being slaughtered because they're too incompetent to protect them. Oh, and they're also not allowed to scream or make any sound at all.

Live-Action TV

  • In Angel, when Angel joins the Circle of the Black Thorn, he has to leap through a flaming doorway (he's a vampire) and feed off of Drogyn, a friend of his. Afterwards, the members have a friendly cocktail party.
  • Going insane is a fairly common side effect of the revelations given to a candidate in a Millennium Group initiation ceremony. Recurring character Laura Means completely loses her shit... and to Patti Smith, no less.
  • In Lost Girl every Fae must undergo a test which is a fight to the death against one or more opponents. If you live, you get to choose whether you get initiated into the Light Fae or Dark Fae factions.
    • When Kenzi infiltrates a soriority she comes to belief that the final initiation is going to be some sort of Human Sacrifice with her the likely victim. Turns out it's just a suprise party for the new members and the soriority is actually treats their pledges quite nicely.

Real Life

  • Some high school and college hazings have a nasty habit of turning into sexual assault, such as this Las Vegas (New Mexico, not Nevada) high school football incident.
    • If this Rolling Stone story on Dartmouth hazing is to be believed, it's less sexual assault and more Nausea Fuel. (One word: vomlet.)
  • The egoge of Sparta if tales are to be believed (and given their shortage of warriors there is probably at least something to them). They included being beaten as a child. Forced to live on one's own to prove one's ability to endure hunger. Killing a Hellot to prove one's ability to kill, and by the way keep them in terrorized subjection. Regularly brawling over who was strongest which was of course encouraged. How much is true and how much was made up for an entertaining story one could argue. But well, That Was Sparta!

Tabletop Games

  • Initiation into the Space Marines in Warhammer 40,000. Initiation into the more formal Chaos Legions and the Grey Knights goes beyond horrific.
    • Especially so in the former case because you've already been initiated as a Space Marine.
  • In Transformers Animated, joining the Decepticons involves being branded (literally) with their sigil; it's apparently very painful.
  • The various Vampire covenants in White Wolf's Vampire: The Requiem have initiation ceremonies that are both solemn and horrific. Since the ritual involves the applicant, well, dying and then feeding off of his first human, y'know...
    • In Vampire: The Masquerade, the Baali bloodline initated its childer by draining them, then throwing them in a pit of human hearts. The dying human was expected to find the one heart with Vitae in it and drink it, completing the Embrace themselves. In the same game, the Sabbat were notorious for knocking would-be childer out with a shovel, Embracing them, and burying them alive to dig their own way out... but in a subversion, that's not the initiation rite, it's just a quick way to break a subject's humanity. The actual initiation is much more solemn (and only given if the "shovelhead" survives whatever siege they needed cannon fodder for).
    • The Sabbat version can get even worse: occasionally they'll bury your dead relatives over you, forcing you to dig through their corpses.
    • The Via Hyron Baali would embrace their childer, not by the oragn pit methodoloy of the 'normal' Baali, but by force-feeding them blood-fed insects.
  • The initiation rite known as "The Blooding" for Clan MechWarriors in BattleTech involves a cadet in his/her BattleMechs dueling with live weapons, against active duty warriors, with their initial rank depending on how many (usually a maximum of three, if they fail to defeat even one they are demoted to a civilian caste) they defeat. These battles usually end with the Cadet's Mech disabled (achieving three kills is a rare occurrence and the Trial goes until the Cadet is unable to fight on) and in many cases the cadet and/or the opponent(s) dies, and no one cares.

Video Games

  • In the Sword of the Stars backstory, Liir who become Black Swimmers go through a twofold initiation of horrid. First, a funeral arranged by their friends and family, as becoming a Black Swimmer means abandoning whoever you were before. The actual initiation involves the recruit being held down and 'drowned' in liquid oxygen by their peers until they stop struggling and abandon all hope, which prepares them for an existence of being able to kill other beings—this being basically the worst sort of insanity to the pacifistic Liir, who nonetheless recognize that some of them must be able to kill for the species to survive.
  • In Dragon Age Origins, becoming a Grey Warden involves drinking a mixture including the blood of darkspawn and of an Archdemon. Most people who do this do not survive.
    • Mages must undergo the Harrowing, which basically tests their ability to resist demonic possession by throwing them unprepared right into the Fade.
    • And all Dalish Elves must be tattooed all over their faces to be considered adults. Screaming, crying, or otherwise expressing pain during the process is considered a sign that you're a wimp.
  • The story of the original Ao Oni has Takuro and his Gang of Bullies forcing new students Hiroshi and Kazuya to visit the manor with them as part of a 'welcoming ceremony' to their new school. While they just intended to scare them, things start going wrong when they all find themselves locked inside...


Funny

Film

  • Accepted brings a guy wearing a hot-dog costume shouting "Ask me about my wiener!"

Literature

  • Played for laughs in at least one of Keith Laumer's Retief short stories, "Ballots and Bandits". To join an alien organization Interstellar Diplomat Retief must perform various tasks that the aliens find almost impossible.
    • Hold his breath for very quick count of ten.
    • Smell various inoffensive odors.
      • "I believe what you have there is the authentic smell of sanctity."
      • His alien companion nearly gives in, but takes heart from Retief's example.
    • Jump over an obstacle less than a six inches tall for the final test.
      • After jumping he grandstands by turning and jumping it again, to a standing ovation.
  • When Mallory and Jessi join the Babysitters Club, Kristy makes them swear on the club notebook with an oath that Dawn suspects she's made up on the spot. Mary Anne cries. Dawn and Claudia both think it's ridiculous, but that doesn't stop Dawn from wondering why she didn't get an initiation ceremony. (Answer: Kristy is massively jealous of her friendship with Mary Anne.)

Live-Action TV

  • Wiseguy. When Vinnie Terranova becomes a made man, all the old mafioso get into an argument over the correct initiation. "I've done this a hundred times!" "Then you're done it wrong a hundred times!"
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus: graduating village idiots receive a diploma, a handful of mud and a kick on the head.
  • The Legend of Dick and Dom: a fight with jam-soaked sticks while standing in a trough of custard; followed by a promise to kick yourself up the bum every day before breakfast; then a kiss on both cheeks from a guy who dribbles so much, a man with a sponge follows him around. Congratulations! You are initiated into the Loopy Tribe!

Western Animation

  • In Teen Titans, apparently the initiation for the H.I.V.E. academy is eating a unicycle and carrying a female student's books while wearing a pink tutu.
  • Family Guy: Apparently, if you want to become a Supreme Court Justice, you have to stick a cherry in between your buttcheeks, run through a set of cones, and drop the cherry in a beer.
    • Judge Souter even drinks the beer when he finishes the obstacle course!
  • On the Ren and Stimpy show, you, the viewer, can gain the trust of the two by putting your hand on the tv screen and reciting the secret oath. Repeat after me - "I do hereby promise only to watch the Ren and Stimpy show. To make underleg noises during the good scenes. To wear unwashed Lederhosen every single day of the rest of my life!" That's it! You're in the secret club!


Other

Live-Action TV

Western Animation

Wanna be a member? Wanna be a member?

Real Life

  • As written up by William Poundstone in his book Big Secrets, the initiation ceremonies of the Knights of Columbus can mix all of these, depending on how much the pledges are taking the events at face value. It includes solemn oathtakings, a quiz in which the initiates are meant to learn humility (and start studying Scripture) through failure, some rough and potentially humiliating treatment (the worst aimed at members playing candidates), which is intended to lead into a series of increasingly stress-filled events culminating in (the simulation of) a federal agent accidentally shooting a lodge officer. Presumably, after the reveal that everything was scripted and the candidates' original faith in the organization was justified, there's a pleasant period of socialization.
  • The initiation into the Israeli Paratroop Corps involves "ascending to Jerusalem"-that is doing a forced march up the Temple Mount to the spot where they receive their berets.
  • Basic training for any branch of the armed forces probably covers all four bases; a long period of extreme physical and mental exhaustion with occasional bouts of ritual humiliation by your instructors if you screw up, relieved by the odd moment of comedy as you and everyone else in the same predicament bands together to make the best of it, with a solemn and dignified ceremony at the end when you join your unit.
  • For some Evangelicals it is simply the first time you repent your sins to God.This can be done privately or in a come-to-the-altar-and-kneel session. Baptism or Communion are separate ceremonies. Joining the Church politically (allowing the taking part in mundane business) is done by signing on a line. Which admittedly all sounds pretty boring compared to the solemnity of other denominations.
  • Converting to Judaiism can take an awful long time for a gentile and apparently differing sects disagree on how to go about it. Male circumcision, and first ritual bath are required. Sacrifice once was but there is no longer a Temple.
  • The first Sikh Army according to legend, had a theatrical performance of an allegorical human sacrifice (when the volunteers had displayed their willingness an animal was slain and presumably eaten). Following that was a feast that included confectionary in which the Guru's consort had personally helped in the making.
  • Feudal or military service is usually initiated by an oathtaking at minimum. The initiation ceremony is likely to be elaborate and include a lot of other things. Sometimes it is more elaborate and includes hearing tales, taking part in political fosterings, martial arts training, etc. But oathtaking is likely to be the culmination. This is likely to be to the head of state or in America, the Constitution. In times past, breaking an oath could at minimum shame one's family and it could possibly bring down divine wrath.
    • Organized Crime imitates this (or, for the cynic, rulers are a more respectable elaboration of organized crime making this come full circle). One can often see this in cop shows.
  • The Mithraic mystery cult popular among soldiers in the later days of Ancient Rome had a series of ranks including Crow, Bridegroom, Soldier, Lion, Persian, Sunrunner, and Father. It is odd that Persians were so appreciated when they were after all the enemy. Perhaps they were thought to be a worthy one. Not much else is known about them as they were very secretive (they were mysteries in the normal sense as well as the religious), but it is known they met underground and carved chambers for themselves.
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