Stop Right There, Criminal Scum

About

"Stop Right There, Criminal Scum" is a memorable quote uttered by the Imperial Guard in the 2006 video game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblvion. The guard's various sayings have inspired a number of different memes, including "Then Pay With Your Blood" and "Stop You've Violated the Law." Online, people use the phrases to express issues with another's conduct. The phrase is thus used frequently on sites like LawlForKids.com. In addition, there is some evidence that the phrase is used as an interruption-type meme.

Origin

On March 20th, 2006, the video game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released in the United States.^[1] In the game, the Imperial Guard interacts with the player by delivering a variety of lines of dialogue when the player makes infraction against the laws in the game (clip below).

Spread

On March 18th, 2007, YouTuber Alex Cottrell published the video "The Imperial Guard Song," which remixes moments from the game that involve the guard. The post received more than 3 million views as November 2019.

The following year, on March 27th, 2008, YouTuber Spas Man shared a supercut of moments from the game. The post received more than 1.6 million views in less than 12 years (shown below, right).

Other lines of dialogue uttered by the guard have also been meme'd. For example, on December 23rd, 2010, Urban Dictionary ^[2] user Emporer Septim defined the line "Stop! You have violated the law!" They wrote, "PAY THE COURT A FINE OR SERVE YOUR SENTENCE!" The post received more than 725 upvotes in less than a decade (shown below).

The following year, YouTuber hankmecrankme shared a video of the line "Then Pay With Your Blood." The post received more than 40,000 views in less than 10 years (shown below, left). This phrase has also been the subject of various reaction image macros. On December 18th, 2018, Tumblr ^[3] user danishbuttercookies posted a distorted variation of the image macro in response to a post about the Tumblr Adult Content Ban. The post received more than 51,000 notes in less than one year (shown below, center).

The lines have been added to a variety of contexts outside of the game, as well. For example, on Januay 17th, 2019, Redditor ^[4] AlpacaPunch999 used the lines in a Raimiposting featuring moments from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References