Shut Up, Kirk

Lloyd: How can your world be ideal when you've killed countless innocent people?
Yggdrassil: Human, don't tell me what's right and wrong.

—Tales of Symphonia

So The Hero has finally penetrated the Big Bad's fortress, defeated his Mooks, made his Dynamic Entry into the inner sanctum, and the final confrontation is about to begin. Of course, being The Hero, he sums up all that is wrong about what the villain is doing and offers him one last chance to cease his evil-doing and repent. The villain, of course, will have none of it, and rather than wasting time with We Can Rule Together and the like, gives a resounding "Shut Up Kirk!" and the battle is joined.

The Kirk Summation equivalent of Shut UP, Hannibal, Shut Up Kirk is when the villain/antagonist on the receiving end of The Summation (Kirk or otherwise), Patrick Stewart Speech, or some other goody-goody life affirming lecture rejects what the hero has said and reaffirms his motives and actions. When the hero spells out how his plan to destroy all life on the planet is wrong, the villain usually will respond with this trope with something like "They don't deserve to live!" or "Silence! How dare you question my judgment?" or "Fool, only those with strength such as mine are fit to survive!"

There are even some cases where the villain will deny the charges against him and will instead take this opportunity to reveal completely different (but equally villainous) motives:

The Kirk: Spreading The Virus across the planet to kill 90% of humanity won't help save the planet from ecological disaster! Humans are part of nature, too! And if we all work together, we can still stop the pollution, and...
The Villain: What are you talking about? I was just going to spread the virus so that my Evil Incorporate would be able to sell the vaccine -- and name our own price! That whole "save the planet" line was just something I fed those silly eco-terrorists so they'd work for me for free.
The Kirk: Oh... well... well, that's bad too!

Then again, the antagonist may reject the last chance offered him and order The Hero to kill him, especially if the hero's a Worthy Opponent.

Of course, the Shut Up, Kirk need not be verbal; the No Nonsense Villain can just as well respond by shooting The Hero point blank to shut him up, or some variation thereof.

Pretty much a staple when it comes to final showdowns, and can often double as a Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner. Compare Sedgwick Speech, Talk to the Fist.

Compare with Shut UP, Hannibal.

Examples of Shut Up, Kirk include:

Anime and Manga

  • In Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Big Bad Miyo Takano shoots Keiichi point blank during his Kirk Summation to shut him up. It's a bit complicated how only the identity of the villain is a spoiler.
  • When, Johnathan, Zeppeli, and Speedwagon confront the vampire Dio in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1, Zeppeli notices Dio has healed his wounds from his previous fight with Johnathan and asks him how many lives he's "sucked away" to heal his wounds. Dio coolly asks Zeppeli if he's remembered every piece of bread he's ever eaten.
  • In Pokémon Special, a pissed off Cyrus tells Dia that a stupid kid could never understand the concepts of time and space. Dia responds with a small but heartfelt speech about what time and space mean to him. Cyrus doesn't like Dia's answer (not to mention pissed that Dialga and Palkia seem to like the kid's answer over his), so he smacks the boy across the face with the Red Chain.
  • Wrath/Fuhrer Bradly of Fullmetal Alchemist gives one of this as he lies dying and Lan Fan asks if he has any dying words. He dies content with the life he had led, no matter how horrid his enemies found it.
    • Kimblee has his moment of this too, listening to Al's declaration that he will Take a Third Option that will allow them to save everyone and regain their bodies. Kimblee then reasons there must exist a fourth option where both brothers fail completely.

Comic Books

High Evolutionary: Warren was no "friend" of mine. He had potential, but once I saw his true intentions, I banished him from Wungadore.
Spider-Man: If he was your student using your research, aren't you at least partially responsible for this?
High Evolutionary: Enough, I have no desire to discuss this further with you.
Spider-Man: You have to take some responsibility for this! You have to - (Cut off as a device teleports him back to New York.)

    • However, the High Evolutionary would change his mind by the climax because he realized Spidey had a point there.

Films -- Live-Action

Reverend Shooter: Stop! Please stop this mindless violence! Nicholas, I know that you're not a man of God, but surely you're a man of peace.
Nicholas Angel: I may not be a man of God, Reverend. But I know right, and I know wrong. And I have the good grace to know which is which.
Reverend Shooter: Oh, fuck off, grasshopper. (draws two guns and shoots at him)

Monk: Citizens of the Five Points! Mr Bill Cutting is attempting to draw me into an argument that would no doubt end in bloodshed and the compromising of my office! What do ya think? Should I engage and silence this relic of the ancient law? Or shall I be your chosen voice, in a new testament, in the New World! (a long pause) There you are, Bill. The people have spoken: the very notion of violent reprisal benumbs them. Come on up; let's see if we can resolve our differences the democratic way.
(Bill begins climbing the hill towards the barbershop, and Monk turns his back to enter; a split second later, Bill's cleaver lands square in Monk's back; he goes crashing to the ground, dropping his club in the process)
Bill: That, my friends, is the minority vote. (to Monk) Now you've tasted my mutton, how d'you like it, huh? Look. I want you to see this...
(he takes up Monk's club, carves another notch into it and shows it to him)
Bill: This is you, right here: notch forty-five, you Irish bog bastard.
(he brings the club down on Monk's head with a sickening thud)

  • Magneto delivers a very effective one to Xavier at the climax of X-Men: First Class. It probably didn't help that Xavier tried to finish off his speech by invoking the Nuremberg Defence on a Holocaust survivor.

Charles Xavier: "There are thousands of men on those ships! Good, honest, innocent men! They're just following orders!"
Magneto: (frowns and turns) "I've been at the mercy of men 'just following orders'. Never again."

Chekhov: We do believe all planets have a sovereign claim to inalienable human rights.
Azetbur: Inalien... If only you could hear yourselves? Human rights. Why the very name is racist. The Federation is no more than a 'homo sapiens' only club.

Live-Action TV

The Doctor: You want dominion over the living, but all you do is kill.
The Master: Life is wasted on the living!

Doctor: Count, do you realize what would happen if you try to go back to a time before history began?
Scarlioni: Yes, yes I do. And I don't care one jot.

    • And done by Davros in "Genesis of the Daleks":

The Doctor: Davros, if you had created a virus in your laboratory, something contagious and infectious that killed on contact, a virus that would destroy all other forms of life; would you allow its use?
Davros: It is an interesting conjecture.
The Doctor: Would you do it?
Davros: The only living thing... The microscopic organism... reigning supreme... A fascinating idea.
The Doctor: But would you do it?
Davros: Yes; yes. To hold in my hand, a capsule that contained such power. To know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure on my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything. Yes! I would do it! That power would set me up above the gods! And through the Daleks I shall have that power!

  • Star Trek: The Borg have a tendency to do this, deeming pretty much anything that opposes them and their philosophy "irrelevant" out of hand. Though they never got to tell it to Kirk, ironically.
    • Kirk is irrelevant. You will be assimilated.
    • Q does perhaps the pithiest version of this ever in "Q Who?", when Riker takes him to task for throwing them to the Borg: "Oh, please."
      • An even better example from Q Who:

Picard: I understand what you've done here, Q. But I think the lesson could have been learned without the loss of 18 members of my crew.
Q: (darkly) If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid.

    • In the Next Generation episode "The Ensigns of Command", the Sheliak - a group of non-humanoid and very aloof aliens - do this to Picard via cutting the communication feed several times as he tries to reason with them. Riker compares it to a rude person "hanging up on" them. Eventually, Picard is able to find a loophole in the treaty the Federation has with them and give them his own Shut UP Hannibal to teach them some manners.
  • In the series finale of Angel:

Angel: People who don't care about anything will never understand the people who do.
Hamilton: Yeah, but we won't care.

  • In Game of Thrones, Jaime Lannister gets a totally ruthless one against Catelyn Stark:

Catelyn: My son,Bran, how did he come to fall from that tower?
Jaime: I pushed him out a window.
Catelyn: (*after several utterly shocked moments) Why?
Jaime: (*In a "duh" voice) I hoped the fall would kill him.

Literature

  • Older Than Print: In the 11th century Chanson de Roland, Charlemagne calls on the Pagan leader Baligant to repent and be baptized, and then the Emperor his "first friend will be." Baligant tells him, "Your sermon's but ill preached." Of course, the medieval belief that being non-Christian necessarily makes Baligant the villian of the piece hits modern Values Dissonance.
  • Done in Nineteen Eighty-Four by O'Brien to Winston: when torturing Winston at the end, O'Brien asks why the Party goes to the lengths it does to keep power. Winston says that it's for the good of the people. O'Brien rebukes him and tells him flat out, the Party seeks and keeps power for power's sake.
  • Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows has Harry warn Voldemort that he's about to be Hoist by His Own Petard. Voldemort naturally refuses to listens to anything Harry has to say.

"You know, this is precisely why I loathed being a teacher! Young people are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely right about everything! Has it never occurred to you, my poor, puffed-up popinjay, that there might be an excellent reason why the Headmaster of Hogwarts is not confiding every tiny detail of his plans to you? Have you never paused, while feeling hard-done-by, to note that following Dumbledore's orders has never yet led you into harm? No. No, like all young people you're quite sure that you alone feel and think. You alone recognize danger. You alone are the only one clever enough to realize what the Dark Lord may be planning... Now, if you will excuse me, I have better things to do than listen to adolescent agonizing. Good-day to you."

      • However, this scene is flawed in that Headmaster Black is talking out his ass—following Dumbledore's orders has led Harry into harm on several occasions, most noteworthy among them being the previous year where going along with Dumbledore's injunction to stay and compete in the Tri-Wizard Tournament led directly to the resurrection of Voldemort. Admittedly, Harry does not actually think to make this or any other rebuttal.
  • In A Song of Ice and Fire, Jaime Lannister gives several of these to Catelyn Stark in a conversation that is basically a Shut Up, Kirk / Shut UP, Hannibal tennis match:

Jaime: What Gods are those? The trees your husband prayed to? How well did they serve him when my sister took his head off? If your Gods are real, and they are just, why is the world so full of injustice?
Catelyn: Because of men like you.
Jaime: There are no men like me. Only me.

    • Later on in the same conversation:

Catelyn: How did my son Bran come to fall?
Jaime: I flung him from a window.

    • He follows this up with:

Catelyn: You meant for him to die
Jaime: I rarely push children from towers to improve their health. Yes, I meant for him to die.

  • As The Hobbit goes on, Bilbo gets progressively more fed up with the dwarves' selfishness and complaining and delivers a number of these speeches to them. And they are all awesome.

Newspaper Comics

  • Peanuts:
    • Lampshaded in one strip, when Charlie Brown is being attacked by Violet, and he begins to explain to her how violence is never the answer to anything. Violet just slugs him and says "I had to hit him quick-- he was starting to make sense!"
    • In this strip, Lucy is not in the mood to hear Linus psychoanalyze why she is bored on a rainy day. Linus wisely shuts up.

Video Games

Manny: Is this where you tell me all about your secret plan, Hector? How you stole Double N tickets from innocent souls, pretended to sell them but secretly hoarded them all to yourself in a desperate attempt to get out of the Land of the Dead?
Hector: No.
(BLAM!)
Hector: This is where you writhe around in excruciating pain because that idiot Bowsley ran off with the quick-acting sproutella. This slow stuff will sprout you, but it'll take a long time, I'm sorry to say.

Kefka: Sickening! You all sound like chapters from a SELF-HELP BOOKLET!

    • He does it again in Dissidia Final Fantasy, casually brushing off Terra's assertion that the meaning of existence can be found when one has something to protect:

Kefka: Meaning, schmeaning. This whole world's going bye-bye, you included!

Lecture me again when you are on the verge of death!

  • Mass Effect. Don't complain to Executor Pallin that humans have to fight for everything they need.

Pallin: Then fight for it, but don't expect the rest of us to just sit back and let you take it.

Ash: You're wrong! Though this world may be wicked, life itself is precious! Good and evil, love and hate. Each man contains the potential for both. You would exterminate mankind for their sins? I would fight the gods themselves to save them!
Dolf: Sanctimonious whelp! How many souls have you yourself released from their corporeal bondage?

  • Done amusingly in the first Baldur's Gate. Having defeated a group of evil cultists, you burst in to try and stop their leader from summoning a demon, at which point this exchange can take place:

Charname: By all that is right and holy, you will not succeed!
Cult Leader: By all that is loud and windy, will you please shut up!

    • The player character also has the option to respond to nearly every attempt to appeal to their better nature or call them out on the deaths they've caused with a response of this sort.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics: Just about everyone in the Crapsack World that is Ivalice have accepted the status quo and just want to be at the top of the heap. For daring to express a different opinion, Ramza is called variants of naive and foolish. (For example, in the battle against Gafgarion when he makes his Face Heel Turn, one of the things he can say to Ramza is: "Stop being such a child!")
  • In the original Ratchet & Clank, Clank is telling Chairman Drek that he does not have to go about destroying other planets in order to save the Blarg's. Drek laughs it off, revealing that he was going to pollute his people's next planet and so-on because they pay him to do so.
  • From Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Dracula responds to Richter's Shut UP, Hannibal with this:

Dracula: What is a man?! A miserable little pile of secrets! But enough talk, have at you!

  • As shown in the pageqoute, in Tales of Symphonia, Lloyd tries to convince Yggdrasil to give up his insane scheme, but Yggdrasil simply spits back that Lloyd, as a human, has no right to tell him what's right or wrong after everything humanity has done to both himself and his people (half elves).
  • In Dragon Age II, during the final confrontation with the Qunari Arishock, Hawke can call him out for being willing to start a bloody and ultimately pointless war purely out of principle. The Arishock simply calmly replies that principle is exactly what defines a Qunari.
  • Travis Touchdown of No More Heroes is on the receiving end of this just before his fight with Bad Girl:

Travis: You're no assassin. You're just a perverted killing maniac.
Bad Girl: In essence, they're the same. Don't go on thinking you're better than me. You think you're hot shit! Who the fuck do you think you are?!

Starkiller: (on Juno Eclipse's death) You've taken everything from me!
Darth Vader: Your feelings for her are not real.

Starkiller: They are real to me!

  • During Soul Nomad and The World Eaters, the assembled heroes attempt to deliver a speech on unification, hope and justice to a villain who is trying to destroy the world, and even offer a Last Second Chance which you can't take even if you choose the option indicating you are willing. And if you choose to take the other option: The response?

The Devourlord: Screw you, this is fun.

Web Comics

Lirian: You may defeat me, you may even kill me, but you will never succeed in releasing the Snarl.
Xykon: Blah blah blah evil will never win blah blah.

Xykon: Well now, hold on. Is this about beating me because I'm evil and dangerous and yadda yadda yadda... or is it about beating me because Daddy will be proud of you if you do?

And the way Xykon actually finishes that fight probably counts as well.

Torg: You've lost sight of the fact that it is our weenieness that makes us human!
Cloney (nonhuman): The defense rests!
Torg: OK, I totally didn't think that one through.

Web Original

  • While the person being shut up is not exactly a hero, it may count in an episode of Happy Hour where the Joker electrocuted the Green Goblin when the latter is lecturing him on why his plan on turning every superhero Darker and Edgier is not a good thing.

Western Animation

  • This happens in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Question Authority". Question goes to kill Lex Luthor to prevent him from becoming President and creating a Stable Time Loop which causes Superman and the Justice League to become totalitarians. Long story short, Luthor laughs at him, beats him up, and tells him he has no intention of being president, because his real goal is to get superpowers by putting himself in another Amazo body that he designed after seeing the blueprints for the original.
  • A rare good-guy-on-good-guy version occurs in Avatar: The Last Airbender, when Master Pakku is refusing to teach Katara Waterbending because she's a girl:

Katara: What do you mean you won't teach me? I didn't come all this way so you could tell me no!
Master Pakku: No.

    • Also, as tensions mount, Katara drops a challenge to Pakku. After she walks outside, with Pakku following a moment after, he just brushes her off, pissing Katara off enough to whip him.

Master Pakku: Fine. You want to learn so bad? Study closely.

Hego: No, I don't believe it. You may be a cranky smart mouth, prone to excessive violence, but deep down, you are still a member of Team Go... a hero.
Shego: Hego, I quit your stupid team years ago and after I quit, I went to work for a guy who wants to Take Over the World.
Kim: It's true.
Hego: But deep down...
Shego: I. Am. Evil. Have I made myself clear?

Batman: If we're really alike, you know this is wrong. You must have been a good man once.
Owlman: No. Not good. Never good. After all, I'm only human.

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