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Peace Was Never An Option
Part of a series on X-Men. [View Related Entries]
About
"Peace Was Never An Option" is a memorable quote spoken by the fictional character Erik Lehnsherr, better known as the villain Magneto, as played by Michael Fassbender in the movie X-Men: First Class.
Origin
On February 10 2011, 20th Century Fox released the first trailer for X-Men: First Class, which was viewed over 15 million times on YouTube.[1]
Towards the end of the trailer, the following piece of dialogue is spoken:
[Charles Xavier]: Listen to me very carefully, my friend: killing Shaw will not bring you peace.
[Erik Lehnsherr]: Peace was never an option.
Spread
The line, as well as Fassbender's overall performance, were considered by critics to be one of the strong points of First Class; in an article on the popular blog Comics Alliance, David Brothers considered the line to be a crucial key to understanding Magneto's character in the film.[4] The line is a quote often used by fans when making references to Magneto.
The first use as a caption for an image macro happened two years after the release. An image of a cockatiel atop a tank toy captioned with the line was posted to the meme aggregator MemeCenter in 2013, where it gained over 3,000 likes.[3]
Untitled Goose Versions
On September 24th, 2019, Twitter user @erkshnrt posted an image of the Goose from the Untitled Goose Game standing on a handle of an axe, captioned with the quote (shown below, left).[6] The post received over 8,100 retweets and 19,000 likes in two weeks and referenced a popular "Peace Was Never an Option" reaction image of a white chicken standing on an axe handle (shown below, right).
On September 28th, 2019, Twitter user @CampbellxEmma tweeted another image of the Goose holding a butter knife in its beak, based on a close-up of a promotional image for the game,[7] captioned with the quote.[8] The tweet received over 20,600 retweets and 71,600 likes in one week (shown below, left). In the following days, multiple users on Twitter used both images as reactions.[9][10] On October 2nd, 2019, Redditor Happinss-Noise posted a meme based on the image to /r/dankmemes subreddit,[11] where it gained over 43,000 upvotes in five days (shown below, right), prompting popularity of the format on Reddit in the following days.
Various Examples
Search Interest
Note: The rise in late 2013 is due to the release of an album of the same name by the metal band Man Must Die.[2]
External References
[1] YouTube – X-Men: First Class – Official Trailer
[2] Encyclopaedia Mettalum – Man Must Die – Peace Was Never An Option
[3] MemeCenter – Peace Was Never An Option
[4] Comics Alliance – The Best and Worst of ‘X-Men: First Class’ -- Moral Complexity and Depressing Racial Politics
[5] Tumblr – "Search: peace was never an option
[6] Twitter – @erkshnrt's Tweet
[7] Twitter – @CampbellxEmma's Tweet
[8] Epic Games – Untitled Goose Game
[9] Twitter – @halaIboy's Tweet
[10] Twitter – @Katy_mo's Tweet
[11] Reddit – Sorry it’s not spooky
Top Comments
lisalombs
Jun 10, 2015 at 01:00PM EDT
Tupolev Tu-22M Backfire
Jun 11, 2015 at 08:39AM EDT