La Résistance: Difference between revisions

''[[Heroic Sacrifice|Though you die]], [[Trope Namer|La Resistance lives on!]]''|'''Gregory of Yardale,''' ''[[South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut]]''}}

{{quote|''Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons, marchons! Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!'' <ref>To arms, citizens! Form your ranks! March, March! Let the impure blood water our fields!</ref>|'''"La Marseillaise"'''}}

Inevitably, the hero will join '''La Résistance''' while the battle is already underway, and will grow to become a great champion in the fight against [[The Empire]]. Alternatively, '''La Résistance''' will be utterly incompetent and little more than an annoyance until the hero gets in there and shows them how it's done. Sometimes [[We ARE Struggling Together!|their inner dissensions render them nearly unable to get anything done.]] In an interesting twist, if the resistance is as unscrupulous as [[The Empire]], then the hero will end up doing a bit of [[Conspiracy Redemption]] or [[Take a Third Option|forming a third faction]].

[[Hollywood History|Hollywood in general]] portrays resistance fighters sympathetically because America's revolutionary history has created romantic notions about rebels. In real life, [[The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized|most revolutions are brutal affairs]] and [[Meet the New Boss|the new government]] [[Full-Circle Revolution|is often worse than the old.]] Alternatively, '''La Résistance''' may represent the last remnants of the reactionary or counter-revolutionary cronies of the old regime fighting against the Revolutionary Progressive Forces.

When '''La Résistance''' form the main ensemble of the show, or one of them, they'll frequently exhibit a mix of characters similar to [[The Squad]]. However, they'll usually have [[Spy Speak|sneakier methods]], they tend to be more morally pragmatic and ruthless than most [[The Squad|Squads]], and in series like ''[[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|Battlestar Galactica]]'' members becoming [[Shell Shocked Senior]]s. Expect at least one member of La Resistance to be [[The Mole]], or a homegrown [[Les Collaborateurs]] sabotaging their efforts from the inside. '''La Résistance''' may even be defeated without the assistance of its enemy: when the only thing uniting it is opposition to [[The Empire]], they may end up [[We ARE Struggling Together!|struggling together]] thanks to some point of ideology (generally portrayed stupid) or method (generally portrayed as worthwhile).

Eventually, '''La Résistance''' will either die out, or grow into [[The Alliance]] as it gains power, allies, and sympathizers. This trope usually overlaps with [[The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified]]. For the [[Darker and Edgier]] version, see [[The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized]].

For the villainous equivalent, see [[The Remnant]]. For the opposite of La ResistanceRésistance, see [[Les Collaborateurs]]. Sometimes La Resistance may not be heroes but ''villains'', as happens in an [[Enemy Civil War]]. When '''La Résistance''' is heroic, but nevertheless uses terrorism, see [[Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters]]. This may be deliberately ironic, perhaps inviting a "we are [[Not So Different]]" moment. Or, the author might simply assume that the audience will always sympathize with rebel protagonists against [[The Empire]], therefore moral justification of the rebellion is unnecessary and the rebels can get away with whatever is expedient. This could be averted if the [[Evil Empire]] really is evil and the rebels exercise chivalry and restraint.

== Anime &and Manga ==

* The People's Army in ''[[Glass Fleet]]'' serves as La ResistanceRésistance against [[The Empire|the Holy Empire]].

* [[Hero|Otonashi]] from ''[[Angel Beats!]]'' if you consider a bunch of dead highschoolers ''"La Résistance''" and if you consider [[One-Man Army|Angel]] an empire.

* Magneto's [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]] during the [[Age of Apocalypse]] is this to a T.

* ''[[Demolition Man]]'' features a resistance which is all about, amongstamong other things, the "choice to run naked down the street covered in lime jello."

* Unusually for this trope, the movie ''[[Valkyrie (film)|Valkyrie]]'' focuses on the ''German'' resistance to the Nazi regime during [[World War II]] rather than that of the occupied countries.

* The revolutionary cell "The Red Army" in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld/Interesting Times|Interesting Times]]'' is far too polite to do anything other than put up slightly incendiary posters. Rincewind, the erstwhile hero, subverts the "Hero becomes its champion" aspect: not only does he make it clear he wants ''nothing'' to do with them, he points out how they're far more likely to get themselves killed than they are to change anything and that a coup isn't going to affect the life of the average peasant, anyways. It probably counts as a subversion, since {{spoiler|it is [[Running Both Sides|organized by the main villain]]. He discovers this is harder than it sounds}}.

** ''[[Discworld/Night Watch (Discworld)|Night Watch]]'' contains a very interesting take on La Résistance - initially it's pretty standard, with a small portion of the city taking up arms and building barricades against the corrupt government. But as the barricades expand, a character brings up the interesting point of what would happen should the barricades and the ranks of La Résistance expand until they contained a larger portion of the city than the entrenched government. It never quite happens, but it's still an intriguing thought.

* Steven Brust's ''Teckla'' and ''Phoenix'' from the [[Dragaera|Vlad Taltos]] series have Cawti involved in [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|a resistance movement of the lower classes]]. In fact, Dragaeran society, which goes through a pre-determined cycle of leadership, is designed to have a period of time in which the peasant Tecklas rise up and convert the Empire into a Republic. Vlad is upset because this particular resistance movement isn't occuringoccurring during the correct time in the cycle, and thus he believes it is doomed to fsilfail.

* In ''[[Les Misérables]]'', Les Amis pretty much epitomize this trope in both [[Les Misérables|the book]] and [[Les Misérables (theatre)|the musical]].

* In [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s short ''[[Vorkosigan Saga]]'' story "The Borders of Infinity", Miles has been dropped into a Cetagandan POW camp in order to find the man who, in his boss's words, is just the right person to give La Résistance of the Cetaganda-occupied Marilac "a shot in the arm." Unfortunately, he finds the man just in time for him to die. So he breaks out the entire prison camp ''en masse''. Ten thousand new recruits with plenty of reason to hate the oppressors? That'll do. We learn in a later book that Cetaganda pulled out of Marilac entirely.

* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Gaunt's Ghosts]]'' novel ''Traitor General'', Gaunt and his team join with the Gereon resistance to carry out their mission and, because of their sacrifices, stay to help reorganize and strengthen them after it is done. They are briefly reunited in ''The Armor of Contempt'', but the Inquisition comes down hard on the resistance, and they vanish. Gaunt declares he will not help them find them again.

* In the ''[[Legacy of the Force]]'' series, the galactic government that replaced [[The Empire]]<ref>Well, the [[Spiritual Successor]] of the government that replaced [[The Empire]], but let's not quibble. Much.</ref> has become another [[The Empire]], complete with another Vader. The inevitable result is a fresh La Résistance, with plenty of reference made to the circularity. (Especially because the new La Résistance has many of the same central people as the original.)

* In [[Graham McNeill]]'s ''[[Warhammer 40,000]] [[Ultramarines (novel)|Ultramarines]]'' novel ''The Killing Ground'', the Sons of Salinas. The Imperial forces had invaded their planet as if it had been Chaos-tainted, and they are fighting back.

** In the book[[Book of Revelation]], Satan mounts a resistance force against "the beloved city" at the end of the Millennium, which ends up [[Curb Stomp Battle|being smoked by God,]].

* ''[[Dragonlance]]''. In ''Dragons of the Hourglass Mage'' {{spoiler|Raistlin works with a secretive group within Neraka working to bring down the Dark Queen Takhisis, called the Hidden Light.}}

* In [[Timothy Zahn]]'s largely-unknown ''[[Blackcollar]]'' series, humanity has been [[Curb Stomp Battle|curbstomped]] by the Ryqril, a very aggressive race whose idea of a war is to ''bomb entire worlds'' if that's what's needed to subjugate their enemies. Even the elite of the elite, the genetically-enhanced [[Ninja|Blackcollar warriors]], couldn't stop the massacre. But when defeat is officially signed the Blackcollars don't take it very well, declare themselves La Résistance and embark in a long guerillaguerrilla-like battle against their conquerors. They are ultimately forced to face the futility of their actions on the grand scale of things, and they more or less surrender and turn to a pathetic, sad life of drunkenly remembering the good old days. {{spoiler|This is, of course, merely a ruse to throw their enemies off their tracks; when the opportunity presents itself they go back to their former selves, and epic asskicking results.}}

* In the ''[[Bolo]]'' novel ''The Road to Damascus'', a resistance against a corrupt planetary government is put up against a Bolo, faring better against it than one would expect, due in part to the wife of the Bolo's former commander advising them on how to conduct guerillaguerrilla warfare against a [[Tank Goodness|supertank]] that nominally requires ''another'' supertank to stop.

* In Andy Hoare's ''[[White Scars]]'' novel ''Hunt for Voldorius'', on Quintus.

* [[Robert E. Howard]]'s ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'' story "[[Rogues in the House]]," "Petreus and his ardent young nationalists "

* Subverted with the Brotherhood in ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]]'', in that it is implied to {{spoiler|be a trap set by the Party to capture dissidents}}.

* The Tribulation Force in the ''[[Left Behind]]'' book series becomes this as they oppose Nicolae Carpathia and his Global Community during the Tribulation, earning the perjorativepejorative "Judah-ite" once the converted rabbi Tsion Ben-Judah becomes the main mouthpiece of the resistance.

* The Wizards in ''[[Septimus Heap]]'' secretelysecretly plot the overthrow of the Supreme Custodian and the return of Princess Jenna Heap. It doesn't all go according to plan.

* Matteo, Ruth, Asher, Otto, Eliza, and Panga in ''[[Someone Else's War|Someone Elses War]]'' make up the core group trying to dismantle the LRA and send all the captive [[Child Soldiers]] home.

* [[Andre Norton]]'s ''The Sword is Drawn'' featured the Dutch Resistance in World War II. After a sequel in the East Indies just after the end of the war, third book ''[[Spy Fiction|At Swords' Points]]'' returned to [[The Netherlands]] in 1952 with indications that many of the Resistance were now preparing to possibly resist a '''Soviet''' invasion next.

* In the show ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'', this applies, surprisingly well, to the main villains of the series.

** In ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S15/E06 The Invasion of Time|The Invasion Of Time]]'', Andred tries to organize one—and assasinateassassinate the doctor as part of it.

* The French Resistance (two of them, reflecting the political divisions in the group) in ''[['Allo 'Allo!|Allo Allo]]''. They're virtually all female and the Communist leader wants to sleep with Rene.

* ''[[V (TV series)|V]]: The Miniseries]]''- Alien fascists invade and humanity fights back... those who don't collaborate or do nothing, anyway.

* In Volume Four of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', Micah organizes a resistance against the government roundup efforts under the name "Rebel". It isn't quite La Résistance yet{{when}}, but it's getting there. He currently has Claire, Hiro, and Ando working for him.

* ''[[Battlestar Galactica]] (2004 TV series)|The 2004 reboot of ''Battlestar Galactica'']] had two examples of this trope: the resistance on Caprica which consisted of [[The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified|handsome, well-scrubbed athletes fighting in beautiful irradiated pine forests]], and the resistance on New Caprica which consisted of [[The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized|unshaven tent-dwellers fighting a dirty war of suicide bombers and no razor blades]]. Although the Caprica resistance were quite willing to blow up civilians in bars, in a way that was only relatively less morally ambiguous than the second example.

* ''[[Blake's 7|Blakes Seven]]'' revolves around the adventures of a resistance force composed of such characters as [[The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized|a cowardly thief, a computer hacker who only wants to get rich, a smuggler, a murderer, and so on]].

* From ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' - Several thousand years ago, a group of Go'auld decided to put down the [[Villain Ball]] and reject the [[Large Ham]], [[Body Snatching]] ways of their race and its leader Ra and actually, *gasp* co-exist peacefully with voluntary hosts. They formed a resistance known as the Tok'Ra, literally meaning, "Against Ra". They join up with two other resistance movmentsmovements, a network of Jaffa slaves secretly working to overthrow the Go'auld, and [[Stargate Command]], which can be considered the primary Tau'ri resistance. These then form an Alliance, which defeats the Go'auld once and for all (with help from allies like the Asgard; of course, it's [[Big Damn Villains|the Replicators]] who actually end up killing the last Goa'uld off).

* The Resistance is a reoccuringreoccurring faction in [[Kaizers Orchestra]]'s song universe, especially in ''Ompa Til Du Dør'', which is set during [[WW 2]].

* In all of Paradoxes[[Paradox Interactive]]'s grand strategy games you face the problem of revolution and rebellion, most notably by taking someone elseselse's land and enforcing your rule on them but revolts can happen in your own country if you push the people to far.

* The last Free Radical Design game, ''HAZE'' ([[Play Station 3]] exclusive), revolves around this very trope. You start out as a sergeant in Mantel Global Industries' PMC (Private Military Corporation) with the purpose to fight against a rebel group, La Mano de la Promesa (or Promise Hand), that has taken over the fictional south-american region of Boa, and has been wreaking havok by ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and the like. In the end, it turns out that Mantel are the bad guys and you, the hero, end up joining La Resistance. (This has not been hidden as a spoiler because this, the main plot-twist in the game, is given away in all advertisements/reviews/THE''the BACKback OFof THEthe FREAKINGfreaking BOXbox''.)

* The entire premise of the ''[[Red Faction]]'' series.

* In ''[[Crusader: No Remorse|Crusader]]'', La Résistance is actually called the Resistance, by both sides—they claim to have no need for a flashy, "formal" name. At most, they are referred to as the Global Resistance, which actually undersells it because there are cells offworldoff-world, too.

* Lucy Flathead in ''[[Zork: Grand Inquisitor]]'' claims to be part of the magic resistance. However, the cutscenecut scene just shows her using spraypaintspray paint on an Inquisition poster.

** ''[[Fire Emblem]]: Path of Radiance'' also has it, though it happens offscreenoff-screen and is only mentioned when members of the Resistance join up the Liberation army.

*** Granted, both resistance movements were good at their core - the Resistance, which X aligns himself with over the course of the game, seeks to protect the people of Giga City from the Rebellion, which has [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] faculty and simply wished for a Reploid-only domain independent of Federation politics. The latter are only seen as evil due to the fact that a few amongstamong the Federation unjustly branded them as Mavericks, forcing them to develop weapons in order to be heard and acknowledged. Not like the Mavericks Hunters haven't dealt with internal corruption before, though...

* In the second ''[[Quest for Glory]]'' game, there's supposedly an underground group opposing the totalitarian regime in Raseir, whose offscreenoff-screen help you receive at the climax.

* ''[[Yggdra Union]]'' deconstructs this trope; Cruz plays it straight.

* The ''[[Iron Grip]]'' games have you playing as various guerillasguerrillas and resistance groups fighting [[The Empire|militaristic empires]]. [[Badass]] [[Last Stand]] included...

* [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0511.html The Resistance] in ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' is composed of two of the main characters and a bunch of Azurites whose main goal is to fight Xykon's troops who are {{spoiler|currently occupying Azure City after having won a huge battle and taken over the city}}. Eventually, {{spoiler|Haley and Belkar}} leave the group, leaving the paladin Thanh in charge of the Resistance.

* In ''[[Squid Row]]'', [http://squidrowcomics.com/?p=2890 one of the elderly they go carollingcaroling for belonged to the French Resistance].

* The ''[[Chaos Timeline]]'' has various. Spaniards against Republican France, Germans against Russians and Italians, (again) various against the Socialists.

** The Freedom Fighters (no, not [[Name's the Same|the Sonic ones]]) fit this, even if they are a bunch of [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned Extremists]]s.

* The Great Rebellion in ''[[She-Ra: Princess of Power|She Ra Princess of Power]]''.

* Lampshaded in the ''[[Justice League]]'' by Green Lantern in "Hearts and Minds." ''There's always a resistance isn't there?'':

** The Greek National Liberation Front was also heavy organized, with its own govermentgovernment, polls, and a popular army of thousands essentially controlling almost all the rural areas of Greece by the end of the war, and had already set up infrastactureinfrastructure like schools and health care for the places they freed BEFORE the war was over, and did heavy fighting with the Germans holding essential reinforcements from the East Lines.

* The Spanish Civil War serves as both an example and a subversion. The Nationalists thought of themselves as La Résistance to the leftist government, but were much better organized and prepared for war than the leftists (Loyalists). This makes sense considering that the Nationalists controlled most of the army, and had the direct backing of Hitler and Mussolini. As a result, the Loyalist government itself was reduced to a [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]] who frequently fought amongstamong themselves (in some cases, particularly for the Stalinists, the faction fighting was actually ''more'' important than fighting the Nationalists—many Loyalist offensives never got off the ground because important officers were detained and sometimes executed by the Stalinists in the name of ideological purity).

* Finnish Civil War 1918 - ''both'' sides. The Whites considered themselves as the representantsrepresentatives of the legitimate government resisting the Communist Imperialism, while the Reds considered themselves as the sole defendant of the small guy against Capitalist oppressors. Needless to say, the Finnish Civil War was ''extremely'' bloody.