Evil Reactionary

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Ah, nostalgia. The thing that drives salmon to go back to the river where they were born (yeah, it's not nostalgia, but bear with me), drives people to walk 20 miles in snow to get a slice of pizza of a beloved pizzeria that's about to close down for good, and drives salmon-people to remember the good old days when the snow pizza in the river was... You get the idea.

Now. Some people take this a bit too far. Still, they are benign, right? I mean, they are ridiculous and all, but they don't harm anyone in their quest to relive their youths, childhoods or more innocent times. So, harmless. Right? Riiiight?

WRONG!

Enter this guy. He loves that time/place. A lot. Enough, indeed, that he will do his very best to recreate it. Whether the society around him wants it recreated or not. Usually it doesn't, if only because, if it did, it would recreate said times itself.

Sometimes, this guy will also be fixated on some other place, as well, and will try to recreate it on the world around him (so that, say, instead of going to Italy and trying to recreate the Roman times, they will try to recreate the Roman times in New York).

Compare Evil Luddite, who resents technological changes rather than societal changes.

No real life examples, please; calling real-life people "evil" is an extremely bad idea.

Examples of Evil Reactionary include:

Anime and Manga

  • The world of One Piece is strongly hinted at to be one where such forces, now known as the World Government, had become victorious. The "Void Century" refers to a hundred years of the world's history that has seemingly gone missing. Bits and pieces of what happened during this time have popped up as the series has gone on, including the existence of robot armies, space travel, and technological superweapons. (By contrast, One Piece's modern day weaponry is restricted to cannons, swords, and flintlock pistols, and strongly resembles the 17th and 18th century days of high seas piracy.) The World Government actively hunts down and kills anyone with knowledge of the Void Century.
  • Nishida from Gasaraki can be seen as the Japanese version of this, ready and willing to cause a world-wide economic crisis and plunge Japan in particular into years of poverty just to "restore Japan's honor" and return its society to its "proper" form.

Comic Books

  • Turner D. Century from Marvel Comics, who wanted to change society back to that of the 1890s.
  • There was an issue of Batman where a mad bomber was demolishing newer skyscrapers in order to restore Gotham's '30s-era skyline.

Literature

  • In the Young Bond novel Blood Fever, Bond fights a secret society dedicated to recreating the Roman Empire.
  • Discworld:
    • In Men at Arms, Edward D'Eath wants to bring Ankh-Morpork back to the days of aristocracy.
    • The villain in The Fifth Elephant, who tries to force the new king of the dwarves of Überwald into civil war because she views him as too sympathetic to modern mores.

Tabletop Games

  • In Dungeons and Dragons Yeenoghu the Butcher, the Demon Lord of Beasts. He takes this to a far-extreme view, believing all cultures and societies are burdens. If he had his way, mortal races would do away with all forms of civilization and surrender to base primal instincts. His worshippers (mostly gnolls) are just as bad.

Web Original

  • SCP Foundation:
    • Tufto's Proposal for SCP-001 describes the Scarlet King, who is more or less the Big Bad of the series and the embodiment of this Trope, representing all hate towards the modern world. This is in fact the claim made by Dipesh Spivak, the leader of the most notorious cult that worships it.
    • It is theorized that SCP-953 is this, and the reason why, after escaping a Foundation facility, she crashed a Furry Fandom convention and murdered several convention-goers. SCP-953 is a kumiho, a Korean Yokai[please verify] fox-spirit who seduces men in order to kill them and eat their livers. Many researchers believe her hatred for furry cosplayers and otaku stems from her past, where spirits like her were worshipped and feared by humans. She seems to view modern humans who attend these conventions as mocking and insulting her.

Western Animation

  • Mad Mod, from Teen Titans, wants to impose England on everyone else. Specifically, a historical, romanticized England. He also wants to reclaim America for England. As of this writing, there's been no word from Betty on whether or not they will accept it.
  • In Jackie Chan Adventures, The Royal Magisters want the UK to revert back to some vaguely Victorian time via magic and alchemy.
  • There was a New Orleans ghost like this in The Real Ghostbusters.
  • Stan from American Dad is always a bigot, but at his worst can qualify as this; he even has a musical number where he expresses it.