http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleAbidingRebel

These urban renewal murals are going too far.



We drive with just one hand on the wheel

Danger's in our soul, we're going out of control

Swimming right after a big heavy meal" "Weird Al" Yankovic, " , " Young, Dumb & Ugly "We're wild, reckless men, we're on a rampage againWe drive with just one hand on the wheelDanger's in our soul, we're going out of controlSwimming right after a big heavy meal"

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Someone who is going for being a Rebellious Spirit but whose rebellion is mildly inconvenient at best, or so minor to be unnoticed at worst. This may be a fumble on the writer's part where they genuinely think the act is impressively rebellious but due to Values Dissonance the audience doesn't think so. However, usually it's used as a characterization trope to show that the character himself is either so out-of-touch or self-important that they believe they're edgy and pushing the envelope even when it's unimpressive. They may also be too timid to really commit to a truly rebellious act. Maybe they don't even really believe in their cause, but just want to fit in with "cool" modern culture.

Overlaps heavily with Small Name, Big Ego. Compare Poke the Poodle, where someone's attempt at doing evil is similarly unimpressive. Also compare The Man Is Sticking It to the Man, where a company encourages rebellion by following their own rules and buying their products. Someone who is portrayed as a real rebel but never actually crosses this line is a Bad Butt. If they pretend to be a political radical but never actually do anything worthwhile, that's Revolutionaries Who Don't Do Anything.

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Contrast with an Internal Reformist, who never poses as a rebel outwardly yet invests efforts to change the status quo. Also contrast with Zeroth Law Rebellion, which occurs when a character violates the spirit of the rules but stays in technical compliance with them.

Examples:

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Comic Books

Played for Drama with Tailgate in Transformers: More than Meets the Eye. He's constantly singing praises about his time in the Primal Vanguard that depict him as a rebellious badass and adventurer who didn't take shit from anyone. Outside of those stories however he's a childish, Lovable Coward who never breaks the rules and freaks out under pressure. It's eventually revealed that he's not actually a Primal Vanguard member . He's actually a young, nobody waste disposal bot who accidentally fell into a pit during a work shift. Nobody seemed to notice he was gone, so he became convinced that nobody cared about him and exploited the fact that none of the Lost Light crewmembers knew him to try and forge a rebel identity, all out of a desperate desire to be loved.

Film

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Folklore

It's believed that this trope was the reason for Robin Hood's exploits being nailed down as happening during the Third Crusade. Prior to that point, he had mostly just been a straight-up Loveable Rogue, who saw no problem with stealing from powerful authority figures and had little-if-any stated loyalty to the king. The general consensus then was that King John, who ran England during that period, was an illegitimate ruler who was trying to take the throne from his heroic-but-absent brother, and therefore Robin Hood's whole "steal from the rich" mantra could be framed as actually supportive of the monarchy since he was fighting a fake king on behalf of the real one.

Literature

Live-Action TV

Music

The poem and song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott-Heron accuses the hippies of using the language and fashion of rebellion without actually doing anything other than drugs, claiming that, when the real revolution comes, they would "plug in, turn on, and cop out."

The Phil Ochs song "Love Me I'm A Liberal" is about people who espouse left-wing causes until it becomes personally inconvenient or dangerous for them.

Spray's I Always Wanted to Say "I Always Wanted to Say That" lampshades this with phrases like "quite restrained mayhem" and "sanctioned anarchy."

lampshades this with phrases like "quite restrained mayhem" and "sanctioned anarchy." The TISM song "Dazed And Confucius" is a lament that, while the singer does want to be a rebel, he just can't stay up late enough to do any rebellious things. In the end the police search his house and find his stash of H omework . Week night discos, late-night movies

Are indispensable to be called groovy.

My friends, they go out at 11 pm

I'm meant to be in bed an hour before then.

Newspaper Comics

Calvin and Hobbes would often explore the hypocrisy of pop-culture rebellion - and in at least one instance, in a more gentle and wistful way that focused on the "conformist" rather than the "rebel." In an early series of strips from 1987, Calvin got it into his head to rebel - but he was determined to rebel only in a "cool" way that (he thought) wouldn't get him actually mocked. Hobbes finds him leaning against a tree with a smug, world-weary expression on his face and claiming to be "cool"; Hobbes points out that Calvin doesn't look very happy, whereupon Calvin tells him that that's the whole point of being cool. Hobbes disagrees, and when he comes back he's wearing a sombrero simply because he likes the look and says this makes him cool. Calvin tells him that not only do "cool" people not wear sombreros, but nobody wears sombreros. Annoyed, Hobbes leaves and then comes back wearing some "cool" Mickey Mouse pants - again, simply because he likes how they look on him. Again Calvin mocks him...but Hobbes does not care. note The joke here is that Calvin thinks Hobbes is the Rule-Abiding Rebel, but that it's clear from the overall strip that that person is Calvin himself

Garfield: Jon Arbuckle's attempts to be unconventional come off as this. Jon: I'm wearing knee pads on my elbows!

Garfield: You're a wild man, Jon Arbuckle!

Professional Wrestling

When he teamed up with Randy Orton to battle D-Generation X in the fall of 2006, Edge accused Shawn Michaels and Triple H of being this. Certainly, compared with their overtly offensive incarnation during The '90s, DX's second coming in 2006 looked pretty Badbutt.

CM Punk: After he gained notoriety for his worked shoot promo in the summer of 2011 and won the WWE Championship, many fans felt that he had turned into a typical face. Problem solved almost exactly one year later when he turned heel again and the fans continued to cheer him. His original heel turn after cashing in the Money in the Bank briefcase on Jeff Hardy, was primarily based around his Straight Edge lifestyle vs. Hardy's drug use. Yes, the bad guy was the one who didn't smoke, drink, or do drugs note Though he was heel because of his Holier Than Thou attitude



Roleplay

Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues: Daigo wants to stage a revolution against the upper class but is also a hypocrite who doesn't want to sacrifice the comforts of his own upper-class upbringing. While he presents himself as a leader and a revolutionary, he'd rather have others carry out his rebellion for him. Carlie likes the aesthetic of punk despite otherwise being a very clean and sweet girl, so her rebellious look and role as a bully in Nadine's girl gang fall a little short of the mark.



Tabletop Games

Paranoia: While all secret societies are officially treasonous (doubly so for the Communists), their actual threat to Alpha Complex varies a lot (FCCCP and the Trekkies in particular are identified as mostly harmless). The XP edition introduces a secret three-tier classification system and reveals that some societies were deliberately created to draw in potential traitors and turn them into Rule Abiding Rebels (for every Commie and PURGEr blowing stuff up, there's ten Death Leopards who think they're badass for putting up some graffiti).

Theatre

Video Games

Webcomics

Web Original

Western Animation