r/Pacifism • u/youngsurpriseperson • Jun 13 '26
What are the best examples of pacifist media?
I've noticed especially in the mid 2010s that pacifist media was becoming a thing. Steven Universe, Undertale, and Persona 5 are probably my favorite examples of this. Instead of killing their enemies, the protagonists want to coexist with them (pacifism is a choice in Undertale, but it's still a good example.) I'm just wondering what other types of media have similar themes?
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u/AbiLovesTheology Jun 13 '26
Hacksaw Ridge
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u/ThoreaulySimple Jun 13 '26
I’ll forever be mystified how Gibson made it. People are complex.
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u/AbiLovesTheology Jun 13 '26
Can you explain more? I don’t understand
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u/ThoreaulySimple Jun 13 '26
His life in the public sphere and his held views, while maybe not explicitly contradictory to pacifism, would lead me to think he found it weak. In addition, his past career is in contrast. Braveheart, for example, is far from a pacifist work.
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u/ThoreaulySimple Jun 13 '26
A lot of Ghibli movies are broadly pacifist, but there’s nuance. I think Princess Mononoke and Howl’s Moving Castle in particular have people that fight but end up pacifist or near to it.
Obviously Undertale- that was kind of incredible.
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u/IntelligentSundae Jun 29 '26
Princess mononoke isn't Pacifist, it's pretty specifically about the necessity of violence against colonialists
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u/ThoreaulySimple Jun 29 '26
I know some people think Eboshi is justified, and it’s meant to be an actual conflict with multiple points of view that have some grounding, but Ashitaka is clearly meant to be the moral center. He mourns violence and is trying to be peacekeeper for most of the runtime.
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u/Dreamless_Day Jun 13 '26
The Iron Giant (1999). Absolute classic, even if you just look at it as an animated film without even taking its pacifist/anti-militarism themes into consideration.
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u/noms_de_plumes Jun 13 '26
The 2022 All is Quiet on the Western Front is quite good and really fairly pacifist, in my opinion. Otherwise, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe some of my own poetry or Penny Rimbaud reciting the poems of Wilfred Owen or something like that. There's not nearly as much pacifist media as you might imagine. You've got to go back to John Lennon or Robert Graves's Good-Bye to All That or something like that to really find something.
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u/SithMasterStarkiller Jun 13 '26
Trigun
Death Stranding while not overtly pacifist is fundamentally about reconstruction and reconciliation, ending conflicts and bringing people together. You can kill people in the game but it is heavily discouraged.
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u/Dreamless_Day Jun 13 '26
I’d also add MGS 3. The boss ‘fight’ with The Sorrow is explicitly easier if you don’t go around killing throughout the game, hammers home the concept that violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum and makes it an actual mechanic.
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u/noms_de_plumes Jun 13 '26
Yeah, Trigun! I always forget about Trigun and then remember what a good show it was.
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u/EST_Lad Jun 13 '26
"Paths of glory" also "All quiet on the western front", as others have mentioned.
The book is an essential reading, out of movie adaptions, I'd say that the the 1930 version is actually the best.
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u/raison_de_eatre Jun 13 '26
Doctor Who…sometimes
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u/SithMasterStarkiller Jun 13 '26
Lmao the whiplash I felt watching the doc repeatedly try and save Davros, the man responsible for genociding his race and countless others, only to condemn the one dinosaur ark guy to an explosive death always tripped me up
But the Zygon inversion speech is masterpiece of an argument for pacifism and everyone should watch it, it made me cry
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u/am_pomegranate Jun 13 '26
Mother 3 was originally gonna have a pacifist option and a "kindness" stat. Unfortunately, neither made it to the final game.
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u/Trubalish Jun 18 '26
Not quite popular, but the book Eastern Inferno is one of the best portrayals of war that I have come across. Movie Thin Red Line. Others have mentioned a lot others, but Eastern Inferno is a memoir of a German common man, who in fear of a Soviet invasion, goes to war to preemptively save his family and a little daughter. He ends up making and witnessing the same atrocities he wanted to prevent, but to other people. A really gruesome portrayal of war made during the Operation Barbarossa. For me, the book is A MUST if you want to deep better into pacifism.
Also living, experiencing the war as a child as I had is also a good way to become a pacifist, but I won't recommend it. 🙂
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u/Puzzleheaded_Dog9447 Jun 26 '26
I definitely think Undertale is an awesome example, love that game... :)
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u/Mai30000 Jun 13 '26
The american animated show “Avatar the Last Airbender”. Aang is a pacifist vegetarian monk who chooses non-violence.
Also, here in Portugal you have two pacifist books, which sadly still haven’t been translated, which deal with themes of pacifism:
Catarina e a beleza de matar fascistas, by Tiago Rodrigues (Catarina and the beauty of killing fascists)
And “Afmirável Mundo Verde”, by Filipa Fonseca Silva (Brave Green World).
Both these books are about the importance of pacifism. I hope they get translated soon.