Friedrich Nietzsche

/wiki/Friedrich Nietzschecreator
Der Überstachenmensch.
Despite the resemblance, not Jamie Hyneman.
"Gods, too, decompose. God Is Dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."
—Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Aphorism 125 ("The Madman"), 1882[1]

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche[2] was an eccentric German author who wrote lots of books, laden with extremely provocative and controversial ideas for his time, and they made him famous. Nowadays, he is often placed among the most influential philosophers of all time. It didn't end well for him back in his day, though, as he went nuts and soon died in his fifties.

What made his books so popular? Good question. Probably, his writing style. In any event, his aphorisms can be quoted often; whatever one thinks of his ideas, he is one of the unquestionable masters of the German Language. Nietzsche is one of the few philosophical writers one might conceivably read simply for the joy of reading his prose. Of course, that could very well be part of his intellectual trap. One never knows with Nietzsche. See the Analysis tab for more.

Nietzsche's influence is hard to calculate, but is indisputably immense. He founded the modern philosophical position of Existentialism along with Søren Kierkegaard, laid the groundwork for the later philosophical position of Phenomenology, and became a precursor for the philosophical position of Post Modernism. His criticism of Christianity had a profound influence on 20th century theology, especially the work of Paul Tillich. He is also famous for predicting World War I (down to the decade, and while insane, no less), the destruction of the German empire, and the role that antisemitism would have in its demise. After his death, his estate went to his sister, who later became a stout supporter of the National Socialists and the provocative tone and controversial subjects of his writing made it easy to subvert them for Nazi propaganda. Even today, many of his famous quotes lend themselves to be used for all manner of extremist views, as well as their opposites.

He is also one of the mostly unsung heroes of psychology, along with the American, William James. They contemporaneously (but separately) started treating the contents of the human mind with the nuance and seriousness we have come to expect, and in being the first to do so helped to make psychology a respectable and popular area of academic study that would later fully take off with Sigmund Freud, who particularly read Nietzsche as a student,[3] and his contemporaries.

Fittingly for his view that "all is art," he also wrote a fair amount of decent Romantic classical music.

Books by Nietzsche

Any discussion of Nietzsche's legacy tends to get really long (look no further than That Other Wiki's entries on it), as it is wonderfully lends itself to wild theorizing and rabid interpretation, so please, please keep this list as brief as possible.

  • The Birth of Tragedy (1872): Nietzsche's first book, it deals with the philosophy of art, and many other things as well. Nietzsche critiques Socrates for killing Greek Tragedy by demanding that the search for truth take primacy over art, resulting in a society that hates the creative and loves death, with the prospect of starting of a new Renaissance of tragedy through Opera, particularly Richard Wagner's opera. He presents as his solution the concept of a "music-making Socrates" who embraces art even as he philosophizes.
  • "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" (1873): The quote in Nietzsche Wannabe comes from this one. Not actually a book (although it's as likely as any of his books to find its way into an anthology - I'm looking at you, Norton!), but a fragment that Nietzsche himself did not publish.
  • Untimely Meditations (1876): A collection of four essays, as follows:
    • "David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer" (1873)
    • "On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life" (1874). Also translated "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life." This one is fairly often published on its own, as it condenses into a single, fairly short essay (less than 80 pages) one of Nietzsche's fundamental concepts: the idea that while Hegel was right about the dialectic, he was wrong about the "absolute moment" at which humanity discovers the fundamental truth, because there is no fundamental truth other than constant change.
    • "Schopenhauer as Educator" (1874)
    • "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" (1876): One of Nietzsche's earliest critiques of Wagner, even though he and Wagner were still friends at the time.
  • Human, All Too Human (1878): His first book written in an aphoristic style. A few years later, Nietzsche decided that it wasn't entirely complete, and added to it...
    • The Wanderer and His Shadow (1880): Unusual for Nietzsche, comes the closest to touching on matters of political philosophy, with meditations on armament and war (he doesn't like them, and thinks the first leads to the second), the state (it sucks), and economics (capitalism and socialism both dehumanize people).
  • Daybreak (1881): Also translated as The Dawn. One of Nietzsche's more neglected works, overshadowed as it was by the works before and after it.
  • The Gay Science (1882): No, it's not about what you think. It's possible that the term "gay" refers more to the original definition (happiness) than homosexuality. The source of the quote in Stealth Parody, and the first work in which he explicitly says that God Is Dead.
  • Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883): Arguably his most popular work. Unusually for a post-Platonic Western philosophical work, this is actually a work of fiction; specifically, it is a novel, complete with plot (although you might not notice). It features as its main character Zarathustra, a former hermit philosopher who, despite having the same name as the prophet of ancient Zoroastrianism, is really an almost-but-not-quite Author Avatar for Nietzsche himself. Thus Spoke Zarathustra popularized the concept of the Ubermensch. Sadly, it does not play epic music when opened.
  • Beyond Good and Evil (1886): The quote "He Who Fights Monsters" is from here, as does the concept of being Above Good and Evil. The game is not related. Nor the other game. As far as the actual work goes, it's his attempt to explain Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
  • On the Genealogy of Morality (1887): Finding that even his smarter friends found Beyond Good and Evil too difficult to understand, he wrote On the Genealogy of Morality as an explanation for Beyond Good and Evil, composed of three sections ("'Good and Evil', 'Good and Bad'," "'Guilt,' 'Bad Conscience,' and Related Matters," and "What do Ascetic Ideals Mean?"). It is one of Nietzsche's few mature works written in essay/treatise form (rather than as aphorisms). So essentially, it's the explanation of the explanation to Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
  • The Case of Wagner (1888): A polemic against Richard Wagner, or rather what Wagner stood for in the minds of Germans, both in Nietzsche's own lifetime and later.
  • Twilight of the Idols (1888): Starts with a collection of bare, pithy, one-line aphorisms, and then goes into more detail. Source of the quote "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." In the original German, the title is Götzen-Dämmerung, making the pun on Wagner's Götterdämmerung (meaning "Twilight of the Gods") that much more obvious.
  • The Anti-Christ (1888): Not The Antichrist itself, but an extended polemic against Christianity. The title can also be translated as The Antichristian, but that would overlook Nietzsche's desire to be as provocative as possible.
  • Ecce Homo (1888): An autobiographical work, albeit a highly-stylized one (Rule of Literary?), in the manner of Plato's Apology (Plato). Get your mind out of the gutter, it's a reference to John 19:5.
  • Nietzsche contra Wagner (1888): A selection of passages from Nietzsche's earlier books, designed to show that The Case of Wagner was the culmination of ideas the author had ruminated upon for some time, rather than the product of a momentary malice.
  • The Will to Power: Again, not actually one of his books, but a collection of his notes; scholars to this day have serious debates whether he had intended to finish this work at all. Either way, the work covers Nietzsche's ideas about the history of nihilism in the West. The subtitle, An Attempt at the Revaluation of All Values, points at the middle part of the work, in which he begins to try to point the way for anyone who might become a proper Ubermensch. Recent editions take pains to note that The Will to Power is hardly complete, and really isn't supposed to exist. See above, about his wacky sister, for details.

This section is still under construction. If you've read any of the missing books on the list, please help us by writing a short summary!

Friedrich Nietzsche is the Trope Namer for:
Friedrich Nietzsche provides examples of the following tropes:
  • Above Good and Evil/What Is Evil?/The Unfettered: Ethics (what is "moral") is pretty much his strong point in philosophy (His contributions on other fields like metaphysics is very inconsistent on the other hand). And his criticism of conventional "good and evil" morality reaches a point where he unashamedly call the very concept of good and evil "slave morality," which is why he was not so fond of Christianity.
    • He also accuses most Western philosophers of blindly trying to rehash good and evil in a secular society (e.g., Immanuel Kant's Categorial Imperative, and Utilitarianism).
  • The Anti-Nihilist/Knight in Sour Armor: His philosophy can be said as a hammier, Blue and Orange version of this.
  • Apathetic Citizens: He thinks humanity is becoming this ever since Plato, and modern science is making it even worse: see Science Is Bad below. He called such a citizen the "Last Man".
  • Author Existence Failure: Ecce Homo, which he tried to publish but failed to.
  • Badass Mustache: There is no way you can argue with it. Although, most of the pictures of it were taken while he was in a comma.
  • Bedlam House: Which he said is an easy way to show that faith proves nothing. He himself was eventually thrown into a mental asylum, and we know that Psychology wasn't ethically developed yet.
  • Be Yourself/Desperately Looking for a Purpose In Life: A major theme in his philosophy.
  • Blue and Orange Morality
  • Broken Pedestal: Nietzsche started his writing career as a big fan of Richard Wagner's music and the messages embedded in them, and wrote effusive praise. As time went on, however, Nietzsche became disillusioned with Wagner's bombast and lack of subtlety, and eventually broke with him on Wagner's growing anti-Semitism and German Nationalism. One of his later works is a brutal deconstruction of Wagner's works, both their aesthetic and political qualities.
    • Perhaps not as sharp a break, but Nietzsche's views on Schopenhauer, who he looked on with some fondness early in his career, turned quite negative by Nietzsche's middle period.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: The Antichrist. How could it be more obvious?[4] Also, in Beyond Good and Evil:

And it is only for your AFTERNOON, you, my written and painted thoughts, for which alone I have colours, many colours, perhaps, many variegated softenings, and fifty yellows and browns and greens and reds;—but nobody will divine thereby how ye looked in your morning, you sudden sparks and marvels of my solitude, you, my old, beloved—EVIL thoughts!

  • Caustic Critic/Accentuate the Negative: Not even his former best friend Richard Wagner is safe.
  • Contemplate Our Navels: Averted. One of his most important contributions to what would later become Psychology was the observation that introspection and self-analysis are extremely poor tools for figuring out what is actually going on in our heads. This was a complete break with the accumulated wisdom up to that point, and opened up space for Freud's idea of the unconscious mind.
  • Creator Breakdown: See below, but the syphilis certainly didn't help his mental state.
    • It's unlikely that he had syphilis as knowledge of mental disorders were not as advanced in Nietzsche's time as they are today. The Other Wiki expands on the possible causes of his insanity.
    • Even when the disease does cause madness, it does it progressively over a very long time. Nietzsche went mad almost suddenly.
  • Darker and Edgier: Nietzsche is considered to be among the Darkest and Edgiest of philosophers, thus dark and edgy works tend to have gratuitous Nietzsche quotes and philosophy in them ("that which does not kill me makes me... stranger", "The Abyss Gazes Also", etc.), and pretentious people are prone to quoting Nietzsche and imitating his philosophical style to look dark and edgy (see also: Nietzsche Wannabe). Subverted on the author's part, since while Nietzsche himself had a worldview that combined strong fatalism with one's own insignificance, he actually made a Lighter and Softer response to the depressing worldviews of Arthur Schopenhauer along with a lot of Nihilists in his time; see Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers.
  • Dark Is Not Evil
  • Dead Artists Are Better/Vindicated by History: He predicted that he would be "born posthumously." He was right.
  • Did Not Do the Research: Evolution and natural selection do not work the way Friedrich though they did, and he did a poor job at attempting to criticize it. It is clear that he mostly grasped the "Survival of the Fittest" part and never actually read up on Charles Darwin's actual works.
    • Part of the problem was that Darwin was not a hugely famous scientist of Nietzsche's time. Nietzsche were both influenced by geology and Malthus. Nietzsche is more of a proto-Darwinist than a bad Darwinist.
  • Either or Title: Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer
  • The Fatalist/You Can't Fight Fate: His preaching of amor fati is one of the major reasons why he is bashed as a nihilist. Psychologically speaking, ordinary people usually react to fatalism, such as deaths caused by terminal illnesses (like genetic disorders, or the syphilis and mental illnesses he himself suffered), with the perception of life as just one big pointless And I Must Scream, hence causing depression, apathy and/or rage. However, those extraordinary few should reject this suicidal perception, instead both accepting this fatalistic outlook, loving it and living it as if it was an art form (hence a possible wordplay on "Übermensch"). His thought experiment on Eternal Recurrence boils down to how confident people with strong enough willpower can accept the challenge of life over and over again, fully appreciating this And I Must Scream existence and making it joyful without any regrets. This also comes hand-in-hand with appreciating the Ancient Greeks's view on a fatalistic life (e.g., expressing it in the art form of Tragedy), and condemning modern Enlightenment philosophy because of their too much optimism in free will (despite masking it under Greek ideas).
  • The Gadfly
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: "The Madman" in The Gay Science who announces the death of God seems to have done this, although it's not altogether clear. This is also one of the more poetic ways to explain what happened to Nietzsche himself for the last eleven years of his life.
  • Gratuitous Foreign Language: Frequently Latin or sometimes Greek, as was common with most intellectual fields at that time, although he was just as likely to use Gratuitous French or Gratuitous English when quoting something or other. In fairness, it usually wasn't terribly gratuitous; he probably had some philosophical purpose in every instance. Indeed, his purpose could, at times, be downright practical: his use of the French word ressentiment (resentment) in On the Genealogy of Morality and afterward was basically because German doesn't have a word that could really translate to "resentment."
  • Hedonism Tropes: Subverted hard. He starts his career in philosophy with the description of the Apollonian (cerebral, classicist, logical, restrained) and Dionysian (wild, visceral, hammy, Hot-Blooded, hedonistic) archetypes in the Birth of Tragedy (and recommending a Dionysian lifestyle), but ends it by condemning utilitarianism and other hedonistic lifestyles.

Man does not strive for pleasure; only the Englishman does.

  • He Who Fights Monsters: His reaction to Socrates. Before Socrates the proper way to prevail in any enterprise is to just *do* things. After Socrates, the proper way to win was to *talk* (or more accurately, argue and Wangst) about doing things. Once arguing became the way business is done, bad arguments become unavoidable, and equally bad arguments tend to spur from their opponents. And it was all a waste of time. This shift was profound and, in Nietzsche's mind, devastating.
  • Insistent Terminology: Sort of. As he gradually grew disillusioned of German culture, he started emphasizing his descent from Polish nobility; by the end of his (sane) life, he insisted that he was entirely Polish.
  • Irony: He was fond of this, to the point that his works made no sense. Also forms the basis of He Who Fights Monsters.
  • Koan: One of the great Western practitioners of the art.
  • Large Ham: Particularly in his Author Avatar Zarathustra.
  • Mind Screw
  • Misery Builds Character
  • Monster Clown: THE JESTER!!
  • Not So Different: His view on religion and science, at least insofar as they both attempt to calculate a metaphysical framework to explain how and why the world functions; the latter is simply secular. See also the part on Science Is Bad below.
  • One of Us: Quite literally. "Tropes are not something that can be added or abstracted from language at will—-they are its truest nature. There is no real knowing apart from metaphor, and the drive toward the formation of such is the fundamental human drive."
  • Post Modernism: One of the great precursors for the movement.
  • Preacher's Kid/The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: His father was a Lutheran minister, as was his maternal grandfather. He grew up to be an atheist and a critic of Christianity.
  • Real Men Eat Meat: He very clearly believed that vegetarianism was bad for the human spirit (which of course did not just include men, but his philosophy definitely emphasized manliness); he specifically calls vegetarianism a cause of "physiological inhibition" in On the Genealogy of Morality.
  • Reconstruction: Now that Nihilism deconstructed the idealistic and rationalist philosophies of his time, he deconstructed the nihilistic lifestyle and created The Übermensch as a response.
  • Retraux/In the Style Of: Some of his works were deliberately written in Biblical style, possibly for additional irony. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a particularly good example.
  • Romanticism/Science Is Bad: Not exactly. While his poetic, hammy and caustic criticism of modernity heavily influenced Postmodernism, he did understand the importance of modern science, and the unquestionable truth of its discoveries, and definitely approved of its methods as superior to religious or philosophical ones for investigation of reality. However, he regarded scientists's (and Enlightenment philosophers in general) relentless obsession for objective truth--and in particular, the extension of the scientific method to the study of human beings--as a dangerous development which makes people too dependent on objective truth while downplaying or outright destroying individuals's own perspectives, and obscures important elements of the human condition that cannot be quantified, that which will eventually lead to a Dystopian future.
  • Shrug of God: Many of works make it clear that the reader is urged to make up their own mind on certain things, most obviously when there are self-contradictory statements. Too bad they didn't have pot holes back then.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The cynical part is obvious to everyone: he certainly believed that it's a meaningless Crapsack World and that Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids. However, he also did manage to strike both extreme sides of the Sliding Scale by also believing that Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers, calling out people going back to apathetic hedonistic nihilism in response to idealistic lies as "going back to the beasts rather than overcome man." He wrote extensively against being a life hating cynic (and was ignored hence his image in the academic world as Darker and Edgier), and instead proposed to just to love life despite being a meaningless pain. That's right, he deconstructed the character archetype most associated with him.
  • Social Darwinist/Might Makes Right: Whenever the terms "Übermensch," "Will-To-Power," "Master-slave morality," Nietzsche's rejection of egalitarianism/democracy and such comes up, distinctions between Nietzsche and Social Darwinism are severely blurred, hence Nietzsche's frequent misassociation with notable Social Darwinists like Those Wacky Nazis. Note that Nietzsche wasn't really that much of a social Darwinist; his philosophy is rather different.
    • While he can be excused as going insane, he almost went overboard and took a stance to Kill the Poor when he wrote The Antichrist.
      The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.
    • He did try to criticize (evolutionary) Darwinism, although what he criticized was actually The Theme Park Version rather than Darwin's actual theory (see Did Not Do the Research above).
  • The Sociopath: Not himself, of course, but he predicted some of the Sociopath's personality traits, like Lack of Empathy, incapability to feel remorse/guilt, unfettered behaviour, and occasional inhuman charisma. Also, if understood badly, Nietzsche's philosophy can look like it was praising a self-centered version of Moral Sociopathy. Especially The Anti-Christ, where he actually goes on to condemn empathy itself.
  • Tempting Fate/What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: In Ecce Homo, Nietzsche wrote about his fear that he would be pronounced holy by future readers, therefore he wanted to publish the book before anyone would make the mistake. Due to his mental breakdown, his book was published years after his death. You can guess what happened on the day of his funeral.
  • The Theme Park Version: Sadly very common.
  • The Ubermensch: While this character was originally his idea (and it's actually even more complex than what could be described in that trope page), it's subverted because Nietzsche never considered himself as this, even considering himself to be more of the Last Man, because in his original works the Ubermensch is supposed to be "healthy" and his sickliness rendered him incapable of doing anything truly Ubermensch-related. He did not even bother defining this character archetype well, thus the flame wars here on the internet and in the academic world.
    • He did, however, point out a few historical figures who were either Ubermenschen or very close; for the most part, they tend to be prophet-lawgivers and the founders of influential schools of thought. Chief among them were Socrates and Jesus. He regarded them both as something of a mixed bag: the former started a trend in Western culture that Nietzsche did not like but on the other hand did have some good ideas; he regarded what he considered to be the original teaching of Christianity (which he understood to be rather like Buddhism) to be excellent to apply for the poor, sheepish masses in a healthy society, but also considered Jesus an "idiot" (by which he meant "Cloudcuckoolander"), and didn't like that Jesus's teaching was so easily twisted by the Apostle Paul (whom he despised). He also seemed to regard both Gautama Buddha and Muhammad as Ubermenschen or near-Ubermenschen. He liked what he saw in Buddhism (having studied it fairly extensively), but has little to say about Islam (although what he does have to say is quite complimentary), as it seems he hadn't really gotten around to a detailed treatment of the subject.
  • War Is Glorious: Inverted, subverted, deconstructed, played straight, zigzagged and played with relentlessly. As mentioned above he is critical of war in one sense, and especially for how it was used and abused by the state for petty reasons, but he regards conflict (in a general sense) as the great mover of history and ideas, and the fount of creativity. He also saw war as a way that a broken society might find renewed purpose, though he notes that a healthy society has no need for war. He admires numerous men who were soldiers and conquerors like Julius Caesar, Cesare Borgia, Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander the Great, and frequently invoked war imagery in his writings especially when he was attacking someone (ie. more often than not). He is strongly opposed to pacifism and after forming The Ubermensch he changed his mind about war, praising it. In his insane period he declared that Germany would fall shortly due to its war-making; he was dead on right. In other words- inconclusive.
  • Worthy Opponent: Jesus and Socrates. He regarded both as Ubermenschen who changed the course of history, although he didn't like where they went with it, or even more sharply what other people did with it after they died. On the other hand, in The Antichrist he tried to describe St. Paul (the actual saint, not the capital of Minnesota, of which he was dimly aware at best) as a contemptible Nietzsche Wannabe who encouraged Happiness in Slavery.
References to Nietzsche in media:

Nietzsche and his books are mostly used in media to convey metaphysical connotations where they could have easily been avoided.

Anime and Manga

  • Rare non-symbolic reference to Nietzsche in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, where one of Caro's dragons is named Friedrich as part of their Theme Naming. Her other dragon is named Voltaire.
  • The new opening of Suzumiya Haruhi contains the phrase "Gott ist tot." You may now take this in whichever way you want.
    • Some people have pointed out that Haruhi going to all the clubs and then leaving when they're empty of what she wants happens to be almost exactly what The Madman does in Nietzsche's The Gay Science, which is where "Gott ist tot" comes from.
  • Arai Chie's name is a direct Nietzsche reference...for some reason.
    • It's possible that it was suppose to foreshadow her personality (you can just feel faint traces of it, sort of) but the author never got around to it being a gag series and all.
  • In the Yu-Gi-Oh anime, Seto Kaiba is seen reading Also Sprach Zarathustra in the very first scene we meet him in. This may be subtle Lampshade Hanging to his personality type.


Comic Books

  • Nietzschean philosophy is flirted with all throughout Watchmen, but it's especially evident in the Rorschach-centric chapter, which is titled "The Abyss Gazes Also" and ends with the rest of the quote.
    • Moore used the concept of the real 'superman' on one of his most famous (and darkest) works, his reintepretation of Miracleman. At the end of the first chapter, on issue one, a chilling page which shows us a close up of Miracleman's face and eye, quotes "Behold... I teach you the superman! He is this lightning! He is this madness!".
  • Garth Ennis's Preacher has a lot of Nietzschean influenced ideas sprinkled around in it. This becomes most obvious at the end of the series, when the "God Is Dead philosophy" is taken literally.
  • Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster named their character Superman after the Nietzschean term coined in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Film

  • In The Day After Tomorrow by Roland Emmerich, the people who were trapped in the New York Central Library start burning books in the fire pit (as New York is experiencing in an ice storm). Not long after an argument breaks loose whether to burn Nietzsche's collected works (who was, as one person argues, a chauvinist and an Incestier). They soon decide to burn the tax payers's rights registry instead.
  • In The Dark Knight, Joker uses the variation of that which does not kill me can only make me stronger quote, by replacing stronger with stranger, although the quote probably wasn't an intentional reference.
  • "That which does not kill you, makes you stronger" was also quoted at the beginning of the Conan the Barbarian film.
  • Otto, the Bombastic Jerkass Nietzsche Wannabe American psychopath in A Fish Called Wanda. He does not really understand Nietzsche's, or anyone else's, philosophy.

Wanda: But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?
Otto: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it.

  • Although Nietzsche himself wasn't a nihilist, that philosophy has been associated with him. The scene in The Big Lebowski where Walter misconstrues German nihilists as Nazis probably alludes to Nietzsche's undeserved reputation in that area.
    • He doesn't misconstrue them as Nazis at all. He confuses them for Nazis because they are German and says that they can take them because they have done it before. When the Dude corrects him and clarifies that they are nihilists, explaining that means they don't believe in anything, he has an Oh Crap moment and realizes this could make them worse than Nazis, because at least Nazism was an ethos. Of course, once Walter finds out these nihilists had not actually kidnapped, harmed or killed anyone, and were basically a bunch of Nietszche Wannabes of the Harmless Villain variety, he loses his respect for them.
  • In the Live Action Adaptation of Death Note Light Yagami reads Beyond Good and Evil in German.

Literature

  • If you know what to look for, you can sometimes spot alterations of the book titles in Perry Rhodan novels. There's no philosophical and/or thematic connection but apparently, at least one author is a Nietzsche fan.
  • Reversed by the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky: Nietzsche was a huge Dostoevsky fan (although they couldn't be more different on their views on Christianity), reading Dostoevsky's novels as soon as they came out in French or German (Nietzsche didn't speak Russian). The influence of Dostoevsky's ideas shows up in Nietzsche's work. To give you an idea how similarly they analyzed the problem of nihilism, Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov is remarkably like (though not identical to) the Nietzschean Ubermensch...but Nietzsche hadn't read Crime and Punishment when he wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and Crime and Punishment predates Zarathustra by fifteen years.
    • Of course, one need only to reach the end of the works to realize that the two then came to very different conclusions. A little wild to think about.
  • Francis is a fan of Nietzsche in Felidae and Felidae on the Road.


Live Action TV

  • Andromeda has a whole alien race named after him, the Nietzscheans, who wholeheartedly adhere to a particular vision of his beliefs.
  • The Bruces from Monty Python's Flying Circus know "there's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'bout the raising of the wrist."
  • There is a quote at the beginning and the ending of every Criminal Minds episode. At least six of the quotes have been from Friedrich Nietzsche. The "He Who Fights Monsters" quote was used in the first episode and the one hundredth episode and is a central theme throughout the whole show. It was also referenced in the season four finale:

Hotch: (final voiceover) ...And what about my team? How many more times will they be able to look into the abyss? How many more times before they won’t ever recover the pieces of themselves that this job takes?...


Music

  • The Blind Guardian song "Punishment Divine" is about Nietzsche going insane.
  • Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss of course.
  • The song What Doesn't Kill You(Stronger) by Kelly Clarkson, who ironically, is very Christian, with a tattoo of a cross on her wrist.


Video Games

  • Xenosaga just runneth over with Nietzsche symbolism. Not to mention every game in the series is named after one of his books (except Der Wille zur Macht - The Will to Power - which, as mentioned above, is a collection of unpublished scribblings from his notebooks).
  • Lucas Kane in Fahrenheit (2005 video game) is especially fond of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a copy of which he keeps near his bed.
  • The original Baldur's Gate opens with the "He Who Fights Monsters" quote, hinting at the dangers of Bhaal's legacy (probably).
  • He Who Fights Monsters was used in the advertising for Too Human. Which, as you might have guessed, is also named after one of his books.
  • Despite its title, Beyond Good and Evil really has nothing to do with Nietzsche. That Literary Allusion Title was a product of Executive Meddling.
  • In The Nameless Mod, an insane AI running the player through an obstacle course (sounds familiar) refers to one room as "The Nietzsche Room" because "it makes you realize" that there is "no god". If the correct alliance and reasons choices are given, Kashue will use He Who Fights Monsters in the final level.
  • Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic 2 provides us with a Cliff Notes version of some part of Nietzsche's philosophy every time she opens her mouth. Just replace 'God' with 'The Force' and 'Jedi/Sith' with 'priest', and Kreia basically becomes an Ubermensch, or (even more likely) she fills the role of Nietzsche trying to mold the main character into one.
  • Far Cry 2 Big Bad The Jackal quotes from Beyond Good and Evil quite a bit in the game, from the first time you meet him and through his audio diaries.
  • The recent Persona games of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise - that is, Persona 3 and Persona 4 - seem to be based on Nietzschean philosophy... actual Nietzschean philosophy, and not the stuff people usually try to pin on him.
    • Persona 3 seems to ape quite a bit from Thus Spake Zarathustra' (particularly the idea of the Protagonist becoming a proper Ubermensch, unafraid to face death, and someone worthy of being an actual Messiah to humanity).
    • Persona 4 more or less cribs On Truth And Lies In A Nonmoral Sense wholesale; the entire concept of a "fog of pride and thinking you know something" is lifted from the book, and the game hammers home the idea that you must look beyond yourself to understand the objective nature of things (going so far as to attempt to trick you with several fake ending sequences, the second of which will actively attempt to dissuade you from the true ending to the game.) Nearly all of the playable characters also are forced to face down the fact that they've been lying to themselves about certain aspects of their psyches.
  • Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri makes several references to Nietzsche, the most obvious of which are the technologies "Homo Superior" (which is essentially Latin for Ubermensch) and "The Will to Power" (which is straight from Nietzsche). The blurbs read out upon acquiring these technologies are both from the prologue to Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The bit of Encyclopedia Exposita attached to them indicates that they involve creating and using Cyborgs who are both perfectly human and perfectly machine (and thus capable, potentially, of being actual Ubermenschen), and "The Will to Power" enables the Thought Control social choice.


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  1. ↑ Fun fact: the quote "God is dead" already appears in a text of G.W.F. Hegel from 1802, eighty years before Nietzsche's book was published.
  2. ↑ It's pronounced roughly as "Neat-chuh", though the French (who tend to be bigger-than-average fans) monosyllabically pronounce it "Neache". "Nee-chee" is generally also an acceptable pronunciation, often used by English speakers. Just, whatever you do, do not try to pronounce the "Z" and you should be all right.
  3. ↑ although Freud denied this despite evidence on the contrary
  4. ↑ Although he might be going for shock value in this one.
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