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| - A Straw Nihilist is an extreme form of the Cynic and the type of philosopher who always delivers lectures -- Despair Speeches and Breaking Lectures -- about how hope, morality, the universe, and/or the general goodness and value of life are all meaningless things to fight for. Such a Nietzsche Wannabe often Chews the Scenery about how the hero/audience lives on an Insignificant Little Blue Planet and morality never existed. Often Above Good and Evil, due to this nihilist's Armor-Piercing Questions about "What Is Evil?". This can even be mixed with a belief in a higher meaning in life, where the nihilist claims that the higher meaning is a reason to treat with disregard the life that he has. The basis for the Straw Nihilist is usually extreme scientific empirical materialism -- that we're all nothing but matter and energy, and eventually the universe will die as if we never existed, defeating every purpose of trying to hope and fantasize in a world full of suffering and destruction where morality is dictated by force. Your consciousness is merely an electrochemical reaction inside a dying chemical reaction called the brain which, out of animalistic instincts to protect itself from pain, creates the illusion of meaning and significance in a reality that has none. Good, evil, morality and thought are apparently nothing but illusions, with no absolute standard in the universe by which to prove their absolute existence as immutable physical laws. These are among the inhabitants of the "cynicism" side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism. Their great talent for playing existential mind games and force the audience into ethical dilemmas makes them a popularly-used sage in the Ontological Mystery genre and in amoral Crapsack Worlds. Sometimes they serve as Mr. Exposition, while other times, everything they say is a Fauxlosophic Narration or even a Red Herring, or they're a mix of all of them. If done badly, however, they can end up looking like a gratuitous scene of Wangst, making people only get puzzled on why they haven't killed themselves yet. The Straw Nihilist's behavior is often expected to be like that of the Hedonist or the Sociopath, since if he doesn't subscribe in morality, then he has no restraint in pursuing his instinctual desires. Said hedonism can serve as a justification on why he has not killed himself yet, because he's having too much fun. In more straightforward Science Fiction and Fantasy stories, they are usually villains who are always preaching hate and plotting destruction, and can get really over the top in their behavior. They also often use No Good Deed Goes Unpunished and Being Good Sucks as Freudian Excuses for justifying their nihilistic outlook on life. Note that nihilism is simply the belief that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. This trope adds the word "Straw" because it's a stereotype that rarely applies to real nihilists. Also note that this trope mostly applies to a negative portrayal of existential nihilism. For an approximation of moral nihilism, see Above Good and Evil and Blue-and-Orange Morality. Compare the Übermensch, the Social Darwinist and the Fatalist. Contrast The Anti-Nihilist, who also thinks life has no inherent meaning yet reaches inverse conclusions about morality and the value of life. It should be noted however that while nothing may be "true", that doesn't necessarily entail the rejection of things that are subjectively acknowledged as "valid." In other words, a nihilist appears to some characters as one who is very contradictory in their outlook especially when they may share a difference in definitions on what appears to many as "commonly understood" terms, such as when one person thinks there is no difference between the words "Believing" and "Thinking." Examples of Straw Nihilist include:
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