Power. It’s seductive, addictive, and just a little bit homicidal. One minute, you’re preaching democracy and kissing babies; the next, you’re sending your closest allies to the guillotine (or, if you’re Frank Underwood, pushing them in front of a train). Welcome to the big leagues, where the game is power, the rules are made up, and losing is never an option. The French Revolution and House of Cards might seem like polar opposites—one drenched in blood-soaked cobblestones, the other unfolding in the sleek, shadowy halls of Washington, D.C.—but strip away the aesthetics, and you’re left with the same grim reality: politics is a bloodsport, and the house always wins. The Jacobins had their revolution, their big moment, promising liberty and justice for all… right before they turned on each other like a pack of starving wolves. And the Underwoods? Well, they never even pretended to play fair.
Both regimes thrived on fear, propaganda, and a total disregard for human life. Whether it’s Robespierre deciding who lives and who loses their head or Frank and Claire Underwood pulling the ultimate power moves in the Oval Office, one thing is clear: if you want the crown, you had better be willing to bury a few bodies.
So buckle up, because we’re about to dissect just how eerily similar these two reigns of terror really were. Spoiler alert: history doesn’t repeat itself—it simply upgrades its methods. Please don’t make me give you a SPOILER ALERT—we all know this article is just a random epiphany, inspired by a particular scene.
House of Cards & Revolutionary Ambitions: the Pursuit of Power
Ah, power. The forbidden fruit, the golden chalice, the thing that makes good men go bad and bad men go worse. Whether you’re marching through the blood-soaked streets of 1793 Paris or slithering through the backrooms of Washington, D.C., one thing remains true: the throne is never empty for long. And if you want to sit on it, you had better be ready to kill, lie, and gaslight your way to the top—because history is written by the ones who sharpen their knives first.
So, what do the Jacobins and the Underwoods have in common? Simple: both saw power not as a means, but as the end. They weren’t here to govern. They weren’t here to serve. They were here to conquer.
Terror is nothing but prompt, severe, inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue.
Maximilien Robespierre
Revolution: A Fancy Word for a Power Grab
Let’s talk about the Jacobins first. They started as the cool kids of the French Revolution, whispering sweet nothings about liberty and equality—until they decided that democracy was so last season and chopping heads was in. Robespierre, their poster boy, sold himself as the man of the people. The voice of the revolution. The one who would cleanse France of corruption and build a utopia from the ashes of monarchy.
Sounds noble, right? Wrong.
Beneath all the Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité was something darker—the obsession with control. Robespierre didn’t just want to free France. He wanted to own it. So, he did what all power-hungry rulers do: eliminate competition. One by one, enemies (both real and imaginary) were sent to the guillotine until even his own allies started sweating. Turns out, when your entire brand is built on “destroying traitors,” people start wondering if they might be next.
Now, let’s teleport a couple of centuries forward to Washington, D.C., where Frank and Claire Underwood are essentially doing the same thing—except with less guillotining and more… pushing people in front of trains. (Justice for Zoe Barnes.)
For those of us climbing to the top of the food chain, there can be no mercy. There is but one rule: hunt or be hunted.
Frank Underwood
The Underwood Playbook: Promise Change, Deliver Chaos
Frank and Claire Underwood didn’t want power to change America. They wanted power because it made them invincible. Every speech, every act of charity, every “for the good of the country” moment? Pure theatre. Beneath the carefully curated facade, they were playing a zero-sum game of thrones, where the only rule was never lose.
Frank, much like Robespierre, sold himself as a man of the people. He spoke with conviction, he played the part of the wise leader, and he made sure that every betrayal, every backstab, every “You are but a means to my end” moment was wrapped up in just enough moral ambiguity to make you second-guess-was actually the villain? (Spoiler: he was.)
Claire, on the other hand? She took one look at Lady Macbeth and said, “Hold my wine.” Ruthless, strategic, and chillingly composed, she understood the ultimate truth of power: it is not given. It is taken.
Every revolution devours its own children.
Jacques Mallet du Pan
Political Ideology vs. Personal Ambition: Who Wins?
At the end of the day, power is a game of masks. The Jacobins wore the mask of revolutionaries; the Underwoods wore the mask of democratic leaders. But take the masks off, and what do you see? People who wanted control, no matter the cost.
Ideology was just the sugar coating on the poison. Revolution? Democracy? Justice? Cute words. Great for speeches. But deep down, neither Robespierre nor the Underwoods cared about the cause. They cared about winning. And they would burn the world down before they let someone else take their throne.
And if history has taught us anything? It’s that the ones who fight the hardest for power always fall the hardest.
Just ask Robespierre. Or Frank.
Heads Will Roll—Literally or Politically
In revolutionary France, the guillotine wasn’t just a method of execution—it was a statement. A grand, theatrical mic-drop moment, except instead of a mic, it was someone’s actual head hitting the basket. Robespierre and his fellow Jacobins had a simple philosophy: if you disagree, you die. No debates, no negotiations—just a sharp blade and a public spectacle.
Meanwhile, over in the Underwood administration, Frank didn’t have the luxury of a guillotine in the White House (unfortunately), but that didn’t stop him from conducting his own political executions. The only difference? His blade was betrayal. His executions? Not in the streets of Paris, but in the cold, calculated corridors of Washington, D.C.
The king must die so the country can live.
Maximilien Robespierre
Off With Their Heads (or Careers, or Lives…)
Robespierre’s Reign of Terror wasn’t some exaggerated name dreamed up by historians—it was a bloodbath of paranoia and power plays. He started off preaching about liberty and justice, but once he got a taste of real power, he turned France into a high-stakes reality show where elimination was literal. Political enemies? Gone. Former allies? Gone. Anyone who even breathed too close to the wrong ideology? Gone.
Frank Underwood wasn’t spilling blood in the streets, but he was just as ruthless. He understood that dead men tell no tales—but disgraced, powerless ones don’t either. Instead of a guillotine, he used blackmail, coercion, and good old-fashioned murder (we still haven’t recovered from that subway scene). He silenced opponents through scandal, destroyed careers with whispered lies, and when all else failed? Well, let’s just say he wasn’t above “removing” obstacles in a more… permanent way.
If you don’t like how the table is set, turn over the table.
Frank Underwood
The Justification Game: “It’s For the Greater Good”
The real kicker? Both Robespierre and Underwood justified every single thing they did. Robespierre wasn’t executing people; he was ‘protecting the revolution. The guillotine was a necessary evil, a way to cleanse France of traitors and ensure that liberty, equality, and fraternity weren’t just fancy words. Never mind that, in the process, he executed some of the very people who helped him rise to power.
Frank? Same energy. Every lie, every betrayal, every backstab (or literal murder) was framed as a strategic move for the greater good—whether that “greater good” was America or just his own presidency. He didn’t just eliminate threats; he crafted narratives. You don’t just destroy an enemy, you rewrite history so they were never a hero to begin with.
Death is the solution to all problems. No man—no problem.
Attributed to Stalin
When the Executioner Becomes the Executed
Here’s the real plot twist: both men fell victim to the very game they played. Robespierre, once the untouchable architect of the Revolution, became its final victim. The same fear that kept him in power turned against him, and before he knew it, he was the one dragged to the guillotine—screaming, jaw shattered, on a one-way ticket to history’s greatest ironies.
And Frank? Well, Claire made sure his reign didn’t end with dignity, either.
In the end, the guillotine—literal or metaphorical—never stops at just one head. Power demands blood, and sooner or later, it comes for its own.
Manipulating the Masses: Propaganda, Fear, and Public Perception
The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.
Maximilien Robespierre
Fear is the Ultimate Ruler
Robespierre didn’t just wield power—he convinced people to beg for their own oppression. With the guillotine as his PR stunt, he framed executions as a necessary evil. The Jacobins sold the Reign of Terror as a temporary sacrifice for permanent stability. Sound familiar? Because Frank Underwood did the same thing—just without the bloodstains. Instead of chopping heads, he chopped away at truth itself. A new war? A new surveillance policy? A new manufactured crisis? All in the name of “security,” baby.
Both regimes thrived on a common enemy. Robespierre called them: traitors to the Republic; Frank called them: threats to democracy. In both cases? You either obeyed or you disappeared.
You don’t have to mean it. You just have to say it.
Claire Underwood
Controlling the Message, Controlling the Masses
You don’t need truth to rule—you just need a convincing lie. The Jacobins knew this when they used pamphlets, speeches, and staged public trials to turn paranoia into patriotism. They painted themselves as the only protectors of France, so questioning them was like questioning the Revolution itself.
Frank and Claire Underwood? Same deal, different medium. Their tool of choice? The modern media.
- If a story didn’t fit their narrative, it got buried.
- If the truth wasn’t convenient, they edited it.
- If a scandal came too close, they created a bigger distraction.
The Underwoods didn’t just influence the news. They became the news. And just like the Jacobins, they made sure the public only ever saw what they wanted them to see.
The people, when deceived, will always demand more deception.
Anonymous Revolutionary pamphlet
The Art of Rewriting Reality
Here’s the thing about power: once you own the story, you own the people. Robespierre mastered this by making terror seem like justice. The Underwoods? They turned victimhood into strategy, using sympathy when it suited them and fear when it didn’t.
Claire Underwood took it a step further—she didn’t just control the message, she became the message. Feminist icon? Check. First female president? Check. Power-hungry strategist? Double check. Every public move was a performance, designed to make her untouchable. Because when you’re both the hero and the victim, who’s going to question you?
In the end, both the Jacobins and the Underwoods didn’t just survive by controlling the narrative. They became the only narrative that mattered. And if you weren’t with them? You weren’t just against them—you were erased.
The Role of Women in Revolutionary Politics: Claire Underwood and Female Jacobins
Women have the right to mount the scaffold; they must equally have the right to mount the rostrum.
Olympe de Gouges
Women Who Wield Power: Unseen, Unforgiving, Unstoppable
Women in revolution? They weren’t just playing supporting roles; they were making game-changing, blood-stained moves. Claire Underwood didn’t just exist in Frank’s shadow—she became the shadow, lurking in the halls of power until it was hers alone. Meanwhile, Charlotte Corday, the woman who assassinated Jean-Paul Marat, didn’t wait for permission to rewrite history. Both understood that in a world that ignored female ambition, a knife or a well-placed lie spoke louder than words.
In House of Cards, Claire’s rise to power wasn’t built on brute force but on manipulation, patience, and cold, calculated precision. She knew when to strike and when to wait, understanding that in a man’s world, a woman’s power often lies in being underestimated. Female Jacobins, too, had to navigate a revolution that championed “equality” while keeping them in the kitchen. They found power through salons, political pamphlets, and—when necessary—assassination. Claire and Corday understood the most important lesson: power is not given; it is taken.
You don’t want to be equals, do you? You want to be powerful.
Claire Underwood
Breaking the Glass Ceiling… with a Guillotine
The French Revolution promised “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité,” but let’s be real—the “fraternité” part was doing too much heavy lifting. When women tried to claim political space, the revolutionaries (aka the men in charge) slammed the door in their faces. Olympe de Gouges wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, demanding equal rights. The Jacobins responded with their favorite problem-solving method: the guillotine.
Claire, on the other hand, played the system instead of fighting it outright. She didn’t demand equality—she took power and molded the world to fit her ambition. Instead of trying to make room at the table, she became the table. By the end of House of Cards, Frank wasn’t just gone—he was irrelevant. And that? That’s a level of dominance the female Jacobins never got to taste.
I killed one man to save a hundred thousand.
Charlotte Corday
The Femme Fatale Effect: Politics as a Performance
Women in revolution had to outthink, outmaneuver, and outperform in a political sphere that wasn’t built for them. Claire, like many female Jacobins, knew that perception was everything—so she crafted her image with razor-sharp precision. Soft when necessary, steel when required. Charlotte Corday played the innocent visitor before stabbing Marat in his bathtub. Same game, different weapons.
Claire mastered the political stage with an icy elegance, weaponizing her femininity when it served her and discarding it when it didn’t. The female Jacobins, whether they were assassins, writers, or activists, had to do the same. But while the revolution left many of them as tragic footnotes, Claire? She rewrote the entire damn book.
The Road to Ruin: Paranoia, Isolation, and Self-Destruction
To punish the oppressors of humanity is clemency; to forgive them is barbarity.
Robespierre
Kings of the Ashes: When Power Becomes a Cage
There’s a fine line between control and chaos, and both Robespierre and the Underwoods sprinted past it with blindfolds on. They climbed to the top by eliminating threats, silencing dissent, and making enemies disappear—but what happens when there’s no one left to destroy except yourself?
Robespierre, once the architect of the French Revolution, became its greatest victim. The guillotine, his weapon of choice, started craving new victims—and eventually, it came for him. Frank and Claire Underwood? Same story, different century. Frank backstabbed, manipulated, and literally killed to stay in the Oval Office, but in the end, the throne he built was nothing but a self-imposed prison. The paranoia took over. The walls closed in. And Claire? Well, she made sure she wasn’t going to be collateral damage in his downfall.
Every kitten grows up to be a cat. They seem so harmless at first—small, quiet, lapping up their milk. But once their claws get long enough, they draw blood, sometimes from the hand that feeds them.
Frank Underwood
Paranoia and Power: The Self-Destruction Speedrun
If you spend all your time watching your back, you’ll never see the real threat coming. Robespierre was so obsessed with keeping control that he started executing his own allies—turning the revolution against itself. He believed in virtue, but he used fear and blood to enforce it. In the end, his paranoia made him weak. When he was finally arrested, his attempt to unalive himself only resulted in a shattered jaw—a poetically tragic way for a man who lived by his words to go out.
Frank, too, built a kingdom of secrets and lies, but the stronger his grip, the more everything slipped through his fingers. He alienated everyone—Doug, Stamper, even Claire. He thought he could control her, but she was playing the long game. When the time came, Claire didn’t hesitate. Frank’s paranoia led him to destruction. Claire’s? Well, she took a page from history and made sure she was the last one standing.
You have to be willing to die for the idea.
Claire Underwood
The Throne of One: Isolation as the Final Sentence
At the end of their respective reigns, both Robespierre and the Underwoods found themselves in a kingdom of ghosts. Absolute control only works if you have people to control, and they had burned through everyone. No allies. No loyalty. Just empty halls echoing with their own ambition.
Robespierre, bleeding out, broken, and abandoned, was dragged to the guillotine. Claire, sitting alone in the White House, pregnant with a child she intended to raise in her own shadow, wasn’t much better off. Her enemies were gone, her husband was dead, but was she truly free? Or had she simply inherited his curse?
The lesson? When you rule through fear, you never get to rest. And eventually, the only person left to fear… is yourself.
Legacy of Tyranny: What Happens When the Reign Ends?
Power is a game of musical chairs, and when the music stops, there’s always someone left standing—alone, vulnerable, and moments away from being tossed into the abyss. For Robespierre, that abyss came in the form of the Thermidorian Reaction, a swift and brutal rejection of his reign. For the Underwoods, it was the slow, agonizing collapse of their empire, a house of cards finally crushed under its own weight.
They built their legacies on fear, on manipulation, on the singular belief that they were untouchable. But the truth? Power doesn’t make you invincible—it makes you a target.
Tyrants rarely die in bed. The blade they sharpen for others is always waiting for them in the dark.
Inspired by Voltaire
The Guillotine Swings Both Ways
Robespierre, the so-called Incorruptible, met the same fate as the enemies he so ruthlessly silenced. One day, he was the executioner; the next, he was dragged to the guillotine with a bullet wound in his jaw and no final words to save him. His own Committee of Public Safety—once his loyal enforcers—turned on him the moment he became a liability. He spent years ensuring that no one could challenge him, only to learn the hard way that absolute power creates absolute enemies.
Frank and Claire? Theirs was a slower execution, but no less brutal. Frank’s death—ambiguous, shrouded in secrecy—was more of a whisper than a bang, but it was clear: the empire he built rejected him. And Claire? She may have survived, but at what cost? Surrounded by ghosts, paranoia, and a throne no one respected, her rule was nothing but a kingdom of ashes.
You can rule by fear, but fear is a fickle god—once it turns on you, there is no salvation.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Fear Works… Until It Doesn’t
The Jacobins believed in terror as justice. Keep the people afraid, and they’ll stay in line. The Underwoods played the same game—manufacturing crises, controlling narratives, eliminating threats before they could even breathe rebellion. And for a while, it worked.
But here’s the thing about fear: it’s a volatile currency. It buys loyalty fast, but the moment it stops being the scariest thing in the room, it loses all value. Robespierre thought he could keep the revolution burning forever, but even his most devoted allies eventually realized that if the guillotine never stops, everyone’s head is up next. The people turned on him, not because they suddenly believed in mercy, but because they feared him more than they feared the monarchy he had destroyed.
The Underwoods operated on the same principle—ruthless pragmatism, control at all costs. But the thing about wielding power like a weapon is that it only works if no one else learns how to use it against you. Claire was always the more calculating of the two, but even she couldn’t stop the inevitable. When fear is your only foundation, the second people stop trembling, they start plotting.
The problem with building an empire on blood is that someday, it will demand yours as payment.
Maximilien Robespierre (paraphrased from his belief in virtue and terror)
History Doesn’t Remember Tyrants Kindly—But It Never Forgets Them
Robespierre is remembered, not as the savior of the revolution, but as its executioner. The man who fought for liberty and then strangled it with his own hands. The Underwoods? Their story became just another footnote in the long, bloody history of power-hungry leaders who mistook fear for respect.
Sure, there are always defenders, revisionists, people who argue that maybe the ends justified the means. But deep down, history always answers the same way: tyranny only ever ends one way—badly.
History Repeats Itself: Why Power Always Corrupts
If there’s one universal truth, it’s this: give someone power, and they will do anything to keep it. The faces change, the methods evolve, but the hunger? That never goes away.
The road to power is paved with hypocrisy. And casualties. Never regret.
Frank Underwood
The Cycle of Power and Paranoia
The French Revolution was meant to be about democracy, about giving the people a voice. But once the blood started flowing, it never stopped. One tyrant replaced another, and the guillotine that was meant to liberate became the very symbol of oppression.
The Underwoods’ rise mirrored that same cycle—ruthless ambition disguised as progress. They took what they wanted, built their empire through coercion, backstabbing, and the occasional murder. And in the end? The paranoia consumed them. Just like Robespierre, they thought they could control everything—until they couldn’t.
Every revolution is just a throne waiting for a new occupant. The banners change, but the ambition never does.
George Orwell
The Thin Line Between Hero and Villain
Every revolution, every political upheaval, starts with the same delusion: that this time, the right person is in charge. That this leader won’t fall victim to the same greed, the same corruption, the same desperate need to hold onto power at any cost.
But power doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t matter if you start out with noble intentions—the second you believe you’re the exception, you’ve already lost. Robespierre thought he was the revolution itself, that without him, the movement would crumble. The Underwoods believed the same. But power is fickle—it doesn’t belong to anyone, not really. It’s borrowed, and eventually, the debt comes due.
No one starts as a villain. But power whispers, tempts, erodes—until one day, you look in the mirror and see the monster you once swore to destroy.
Claire Underwood
The Legacy of Fear vs. The Legacy of Influence
The real question isn’t whether power corrupts (it does). The question is: what do you leave behind? Robespierre left a legacy of blood, of paranoia, of a revolution that devoured itself. The Underwoods left behind nothing but destruction—a dynasty built on sand, washed away the second the tide changed.
But here’s the twist: history doesn’t just punish tyrants—it repeats them. Because there’s always another Robespierre waiting in the wings. Another Underwood, whispering in the dark. Another leader who thinks they can do it differently—that this time, power won’t consume them.
They’re always wrong.
The Last Throne is Always a Grave
Power is a funny thing. It turns men into gods, then drags them down to hell before they even realise the fall has begun. Robespierre and the Underwoods weren’t anomalies—they were inevitabilities. They stepped onto the stage thinking they could outplay history, bend fear to their will, and carve out a legacy immune to time. But history has never been kind to those who rule by the blade. It merely waits for them to slip.
Because the thing about fear? It doesn’t build monuments—it digs graves. It keeps people in line, sure, but only long enough for them to learn how to sharpen their own knives. Robespierre wasn’t overthrown because he was weak—he was overthrown because he taught everyone exactly how power works. And when it was his turn to be afraid, no one offered him mercy. The guillotine doesn’t play favourites.
Frank and Claire? They climbed, they crushed, they connived. They built a kingdom with no foundation, a castle in the clouds made of manipulation, deception, and raw, ruthless ambition. But power that only serves itself is nothing but a mirage. It vanishes the second the curtain falls. And when it did? Frank was erased. Claire was left alone, ruling over nothing but ghosts.
So what’s the lesson here? That power always corrupts? That tyranny always ends in ruin? Maybe. But maybe the real lesson is simpler:
If you choose to wear the crown, don’t be surprised when it tightens into a noose.
Democracy is so overrated.
President Frank Underwood
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