Topic on Forum:Trope Talk

Hello there. After much deliberation, I had decided to join you. However, there are a number of questionable tropes that are either unnecessary or offensive, so here is a list of tropes which I've found questionable. I'm going to find more if I have enough time.

• Action Girl: This trope is inviting sexism, since there's no need to list down strong women in media.
  • Affirmative Action Girl
  • Dark Action Girl
  • Faux Action Girl
• Affably Evil: There's no need to list down which villain is nice and which one is not.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Same as above. Albeit there's no need to list down sadistic villains who's pretending to be nice to their victims.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: There's no need for listings of two-dimensional judgements about characters.
• Ambiguous Disorder: There's no need to judge whether or not fictional characters are mentally ill or not.
• Angry Black Man: Racism. What with it being a stereotype of listing African-Americans as easily angered.
• Badass: The cleanup of the example list and from the work pages is needed, since it would take an entire wiki to list down every badass in action shows.
• Complete Monster: Unnecessary lists of who is the baddest villains in shows.
• Dead Little Sister: Dead relatives in shows happens, therefore it's not even a good example of a trope itself.
• Deconstruction and it's subtropes: Even though not all shows are presenting their topics positively, not only is the word (read Jacques Derrida's definition of it) used wrongly, it's also used to shoehorn bad examples in articles.
  • Ascended Fridge Horror (or at least some varieties of it)
  • Genre Deconstruction
  • Deconstructed Trope
  • Deconstructor Fleet
  • Deconstruction Fic (When a Deconstruction takes place in a Fanfic)
  • Deconstructive Parody
  • Deconstruction Crossover
  • Deconstruction Game
  • Decon Recon Switch
  • Indecisive Deconstruction
  • Not a Deconstruction
  • Reconstruction (the inverse of Deconstruction)
  • Unbuilt Trope (for when the Trope was Deconstructed at the time it was made)
• Good Is Not Nice: It doesn't matter if a hero from a certain show is nice or not. It would take an entire wiki to list down who's mean and who's not.
• Hot-Blooded: It would take an entire wiki listing down hot-headed characters, since characters' personalities are something that happens.
• Sassy Black Woman: There's no need for a stereotype about African-American women being snarky and all.
• Scary Black Man: Similar to Angry Black Man, it's stereotypical and racist to list down which African-American is scary and which one is not.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: It would take a long time listing down fictional characters with PTSD.
• Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes: There's no need to list down anti-heroes by type.
• Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains: Same as above. It's also unnecessary to list down anti-villains by type.
• The Woobie and it's subtropes: Unnecessary listing of sympathetic characters. It would take an entire wiki to list down which character is sympathetic and which one is not.
  • Iron Woobie
  • Jerkass Woobie
  • Stoic Woobie
  • Wheelchair Woobie
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds
  • World of Woobie

First, welcome to All The Tropes! :)

As to the topic at hand, while I'm not sure I support an unilateral cutting of examples on "offensiveness" alone, I can agree many of these need a cleanup and examples that are written in an offensive manner or do not address the trope well enough need fixed.

For instance, I believe one can objectively quantify an "Action Girl". For instance, while Princess Toadstool is the Damsel in Distress in many mainline Mario games, she has taken on an action role in others, such as some of the roleplaying games and crossovers like Super Smash Brothers.

In that regard, I don't see an issue with tropes being used to describe these characters and their roles, though I concur simply making lists without context or explanation is a bad idea, and any obvious sexism (as in, personal opinion, not supported by the work itself) should be removed from examples.

Something like Scary Black Man is certainly a trope. Just because it's a kind of trope that is used in bad ways doesn't mean it's not a trope.

Now, such things *do* often get misused; people get tempted to include every example of a black man who is scary, which is not right. Typically, though, I find that this happens when people who *oppose* racism or sexism or whatever try to name as many examples as they can of a trope in order to prove that racism and sexism is widespread. For instance, tropes like Black Guy Dies First have this problem--some black people are going to die first even if there's no racism at all and you need to distinguish between examples used as a trope and examples that just happen to exist.

I'm not convinced that the solution is to get rid of the tropes, though. This is ultimately a misuse problem, not a "because this trope is racist we shouldn't mention it" problem.

It would take an entire wiki listing down hot-headed characters

This is true. But some tropes are just used a lot. It would take an entire wiki to list every Action Hero. And if I wanted to expand Ho Yay I could easily go to fanfiction.net and name a couple of thousand Gundam Wing fanfics. We rely on the fact that people don't do that--they add works they are concerned with; nobody actually tries to list every example of a trope.

For that matter, if you're really worried that we don't have room for every example of something, tropes are the least of your worries. We don't have room for a page on every work of fiction that exists, let alone room for every hotheaded character. But we shouldn't stop listing works of fiction just because of that.

Tropes can be offensive; if we're documenting things properly, some can't help but be. But that doesn't make them not tropes or unworthy of examination. And the write-ups shouldn't be in and of themselves offensive.

If we nuke a page because the very idea it tries to analyze and explore is considered offensive by someone, though, then we've entered the realm of Newspeak and are doing the intellectual equivalent of putting fingers in our ears and shouting "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Not to mention violating our own policies -- as policy 6 explicitly states

We will not censor for politics, prudery or prejudice. Period.

If we purge an article outright for because someone comes along and takes offense at its very existence, we're putting ourselves right on the slippery slope that TVT has firmly staked out as their territory -- it only takes a tiny increment each time in what is considered "offensive" until we're lopping things left, right, and center that wouldn't have even come under consideration at the beginning. We're not going to do that.

You think a trope is offensive? Fine, your privilege. But we won't disappear it for you, and we won't let you disappear it, either. That's not acceptable.

You think the write-up of a trope is offensive? Rewrite it. That's always acceptable. I just did that very thing when recreating Lickspittle yesterday. The original TVT article, deleted shortly before the fork, was about 90% Take Thats at various web communities. I rewrote it to be specifically about a character type/behavior. That's how you address an "offensive" entry. (Just remember, someone who disagrees with you is equally welcome to revert your changes. No one gets the final word, not even us admins most of the time.)

Okay, I'll evaluate some of your suggestions.

• Dead Little Sister: Dead relatives in shows happens, therefore it's not even a good example of a trope itself.

Yeah, so that would be pretty much the definition of a trope right there -- a common pattern used across media to serve a specific role in a story -- in this case, to build characterization.

• Deconstruction and it's subtropes: Even though not all shows are presenting their topics positively, not only is the word (read Jacques Derrida's definition of it) used wrongly, it's also used to shoehorn bad examples in articles.

Agreed in principle that it's used incorrectly a lot of the time, but you shouldn't rely on some guy's definition of it (which you didn't even link to). The meaning of language can change over time, so these concepts are not fixed. Even if they were, this website has a lot of jargon that overrides the common meanings of words (much like the social justice community has a nonstandard definition of "gender"). Not saying that's good or bad; it just is.

• Sassy Black Woman: There's no need for a stereotype about African-American women being snarky and all.

Agreed that there's no need for it, but it is a character archetype used in fiction, and should be studied.

• Good Is Not Nice: It doesn't matter if a hero from a certain show is nice or not. It would take an entire wiki to list down who's mean and who's not.

I just happen to know of such a wiki. ಠ_ಠ

You seem to have missed the point of this wiki entirely. We want to analyze works of fiction and patterns within them as they are, now as how we want the world to be. And then list the commonalities between these works.

I'm going to just shoot this whole thing down by knocking down the suggestion's premise (sorry). The tropes that we cover aren't really up to us. They're about what is present in popular culture. We could limit what could be discussed, but that violates our strong belief in academic freedom and aversion to censorship.

Hello there, people. Sorry if I'm away from this website for months.

Before we continue the discussion, let me take the time to reply to your feedback.

Firstly, you were right about the fact that I'm missing the point of the wiki by making a fuss out of some of those "offensive" tropes. My sincere apologies.

Secondly, regarding the black tropes I'm talking about, you were right about the fact that they are useful, as long as we don't keep listing down every black person in fiction as scary or angry. On the other hand, just as peace and racial harmony is one of the most important things in society, the same thing can be said about an internet community.

Thirdly, I'm sorry for acting so offended (again, my apologies). I just had the feeling that the TVT website that I used to frequent had gone too far with its behavior for me to tolerate. To be precise, I'm not saying that you should censor some things, I'm saying that there is a line that has to be drawn when it comes to tropes.

Lastly, I congratulate you people for making a substitute of TVT that is isn't too strict. So keep up the good work and this website will be popular in no time.

Glad to have you with us, Miller215.

In all seriousness, I do think your position does have merit. Not every black person who has gotten remotely angry should be characterized as an Angry Black Man, but it would be a fair description for one who is predisposed to act that way as a default character trait. Applying it unilaterally does come off as racist or at the very least very ignorantly stereotypical.

Also, I agree, some tropes are very much misused, and I've even been guilty of that, so I happily concede you have a point we should be more careful what tropes we apply, lest our troping come off as us just trying to fill a badly shoehorned quota rather than accurately summing up characters and the patterns in media.

Finally, I do have one request, though: While the page moves are very much appreciated, please go back over the category tags and correct them (page moves do not correct category tags) to the new page name. Don't worry if this leaves red links, I run a bot every so often to fill in the blanks. (I also recommend use of the HotCat gadget, enabled in your user preferences, to speed things up).

Hello there, Geth N7. It's been a busy week for me.

Yes, apologies for forgetting the category tags when I made the page moves. It's just that I'm in a rush.

Back to topic. If you were saying that I should acknowledge/accept the existence of some of the tropes, whether I like it or not, where do you suggest that I take this discussion to? I just don't want to make myself out to be an oversensitive fool.

You can discuss them on our Trope Talk forum.

FYI, some tropes drive me up the wall too, don't feel bad, and we aren't going to ban anyone for not liking a trope, and if you can demonstrate any reasons why it's objectively terrible, we are willing to make changes.

Hello there, again. Let me explain to you why I find some of the tropes problematic, I'll just exclude some of those which I realize that doesn't seems to be as problematic as I made them out to be.

• Affably Evil: Seriously, I'm wondering why do people on TVT keep calling the villains nice people. Are people really that naive/irresponsible/gullible fools who keep wishing that they could eat dinner with criminals, when in reality, they're a menace to society who would kill them?
• Alternative Character Interpretation: I don't know, but I think there's basically just a lot of pointless self-arguments like "Is Character A from Show X this and this?" and "Is Character B from Show Y that and that?" Forget about it. Just accept the characters as the way they are.
• Ambiguous Disorder: There's too many arguments about what mental illnesses do characters with strange behavior have. Think about it. If you have a mental illness, then how would you feel if people keep making unnecessary judgements about what disorder you have and what not?
• Complete Monster: I know this trope is about which villains are pure evil, but I'm getting the feeling that this trope is now no longer worth the trouble, since there's going to be a lot of disagreements about the examples, like what happened in TVT.
• Dead Little Sister: The trope is all about a certain disillusioning event that puts a character into cynicism, not necessarily about dead relatives. If there is something useful about this trope, then you at least rename it in order for the trope to make sense.
• Hot-Blooded: I don't know how is this going to sounds like a useful trope, it sounds the same as Hair-Trigger Temper to me. Plus I feel like this trope seems to be as if the characters are badasses for acting all hot-headed when it's the complete opposite. Only a smart person would be badass enough to think things through and not charging into fights with the villains.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: PTSD is one of the most serious medical disorders and therefore, is a sensitive topic to talk about. If there is something useful about this trope, then at least remove the villainous examples. War criminals, or rather, war veterans who turned to a life of crime are a disgrace to the military.
• Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes and Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains: Because type labels (this Type I to Type V thing) are unnecessary when it comes to anti-heroes and anti-villains examples.
• The Woobie and it's subtropes: I don't know. But I think this trope seems to be taken too far on TVT, and it invites a lot of unnecessary character apologism.

My take:

• Affably Evil: I see it this way: Let's say you know a guy shows perfect manners to you whenever you meet them. They also happen to be a shady prick who tricks people into buying crappy cars at high prices, but outside of that, they are otherwise a pleasant person and they genuinely mean it. To me, this trope is for people who are unarguably villainous but can show genuine decency regardless of whatever makes them unlikeable otherwise.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Afraid I disagree. You can show ten people the same event, then take them off one by one and ask their opinion, and you can get ten different reactions. Basically, reactions on characters can vary from person to person, especially if the character in question has murky enough motives you can't really tell just what their actual motivation is.
• Ambiguous Disorder: Granted, as someone with autism, I would find this insulting, but before autism was diagnosed, this trope would have been the best way to consider autism since it was so poorly defined people knew I had something mentally wrong upstairs (or at least different and socially limiting in a mental capacity), but they didn't know exactly what, and for all they knew, it could have been conscious character quirks.
• Complete Monster: Agreed. This wiki has several tropers hoping to vet this trope and its examples more carefully, maybe you'd like to join their effort?
• Dead Little Sister: Maybe something like "Fallen Family Member"? I do agree it could use a better name if it is so generally defined, so I'm open to ideas.
• Hot-Blooded: Yeah, this sees a lot of hyperbolic nonsense, and I don't entirely disagree, as being Hot Blooded does not equal badass, just tends to be something badasses are quite a bit, but the correlation equals causation fallacy that results in the trope being conflated with Badass is rather bad, and any cleanup you want to do would be great.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Having relatives who served, I can understand your feelings, but do keep in mind PTSD can affect anyone, good or bad, and a character who is evil who had wartime experience prior to becoming a villain or it made the villainy more profound would have this trope apply, just like it would to a good guy. It doesn't excuse any evil on their part of course, though it would explain it's origins.
• Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes and Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains: YMMV. I find the type labels useful, some don't.
• The Woobie and it's subtropes: Yeah, this one sees a far bit of abuse, almost certainly does need cleanup to some degree.

Okay. Bear with me a little bit, because there is going to be a debate here.

• Affably Evil: Yes, but still. Why would you associate yourself with someone who do bad things? Regardless on how you look at it, villains aren't good friends to be around, due to them being a bad influence to others.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Okay. But I think this trope requires some cleanup of bad examples if people on the internet don't really discuss that much about the characters as the examples made them out to be.
• Ambiguous Disorder: Agreed. Although I noticed some villainous examples in this trope. I think it's better off for villains to be considered psychopaths rather than be interpreted as mentally ill.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: I do see your point. But PTSD cannot be assoicated with criminal behavior. By saying that PTSD is the reason behind someone doing bad things, it will feed into the myth that eveyone with PTSD is going to become a psychopath who shoots everyone in sight.
• The Woobie and it's subtropes: Agreed. At best, this trope would requires cleanup and at worst, better off completely deleted together.
  • Jerkass Woobie: This particular subtrope irks me the most. Why would you empathize with a jerk who's clearly written to be unlikable? It seems strange that some stories these days have certain characters written to be deeply flawed, and yet, still goes out of its way to make the audiences sympathize with them.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Same as above. We're not supposed to feel pity for the villains just because of their tragic pasts. We're supposed to held them accountable for their inexcusable actions.

By the way, if I wanted to discuss more tropes, do I continue in this thread, or do I start a new one?

We can continue here. If the threads start getting too small to read, just reply to the top thread and continue.

Anyway, my responses:

• Affably Evil: Granted, but think of it this way: You know a guy who goes around and roughs up drug dealers and tries to get kids into drug treatment programs because Drugs Are Bad and he'll do anything to stop them. He's an asshole thug to the dealers and does not apologize for any pain he inflicts on them (and even admits getting pleasure from hurting them), but respects your right to disagree with his actions even though you sympathize with his motives, and he does genuinely care about those harmed by drugs.

That suggests to me that while his company is poisonous despite his good intentions, you can still respect the person and their goals even if their actions and attitudes in pursuit of those goals repulse you about him otherwise. FYI, wouldn't stop me from trying to get the authorities to stop him, but I'd still respect him as a person and the facts he's trying to remedy the drug problem even while being disgusted by his means of stopping the drugs trade.

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Agreed, this could use cleanup.

• Ambiguous Disorder: I disagree on medical grounds. Mental illness manifiests in many forms, such as schizophrenia, sociopathy, paranoid delusions, etc. Labeling all criminals as generic psychopaths would be wholly inaccurate.

• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Fair point. All non military examples should probably be culled from the trope and put under something more fitting then.

• The Woobie: Agreed entirely on the cleanup.

• • Jerkass Woobie: Let's put it this way: Someone is a jerk to everyone because of a medical condition that makes him suffer pain 24/7. His being a jerk to others is not justified, but you still can sympathize with his pain and feel pity for them regardless due to their suffering, which they clearly never asked for.

• • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Let's put it this way: You have been crapped on since birth. Everyone who ever cared about has been murdered or died in various horrible ways. You are slowly dying due to radiation poisoning, and a bomb was put in your body that could destroy the world, and since you are dying and your whole life has been miserable, you decide to detonate that bomb and take the world down with you.

In that case, that act would be supremely genocidal and monstrous, but given the circumstances, I could sympathize with your motives even if the act itself is unforgivable.