To-do list:
- Disambiguate Kick The Son Of A Bitch between pages like Asshole Victim, Karmic Death, Pay Evil unto Evil, and possibly others, and move any examples that fit at least one other trope accordingly.
Kick The Son Of A Bitch is supposed to be when an evil act inadvertently screws over somebody who had it coming. E.g. The description example is of a scenario where violent bank robbers kill somebody who just happened to be an extraordinarily cruel pimp because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is specifically contrasted with Pay Evil unto Evil, where the bank robbers kill the pimp specifically as payback for his cruelty.
Despite the description, I keep seeing it misused on work pages for Pay Evil unto Evil and related tropes. On top of that it's a Pothole Magnet.
Personally I think the title is a Bad Snowclone of Kick the Dog and the trope is probably redundant to Asshole Victim and Karmic Death; I suggest disambiguating the page as a solution.
Sandbox.Kick The Son Of A Bitch Wick Check came back with 14% correct use, 52% misuse, 19% sinkholes, 10% ZCE or PCE, and 3% unclear.
Wick check:
Kick The Son Of A Bitch is supposed to be when an evil act inadvertently screws over somebody who had it coming. E.g. The description example is of a scenario where violent bank robbers kill somebody who just happened to be an extraordinarily cruel pimp because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is specifically contrasted with Pay Evil unto Evil, where the bank robbers kill the pimp specifically as payback for his cruelty.Despite the description, I keep seeing it misused on work pages for Pay Evil unto Evil and related tropes. On top of that it's a Pothole Magnet.
Personally I think the title is a Bad Snowclone of Kick the Dog and the trope is probably redundant to Asshole Victim and Karmic Death; I suggest disambiguating the page as a solution.
50 pages checked, 15 main space and 35 work pages. 63 total examples. I've boldfaced uses of the trope, added my comments in parentheses at the end.
Trope Pages
- Good Is Not Nice (index): ""Kick The Son Of A Bitch: When the hero's cruel act isn't that bad because the one receiving it isn't sympathetic"
- Unscrupulous Hero: "Veronica Mars: The title character's intent is always to catch the bad guy, but her methods can range from manipulating an officer in order to steal evidence or eavesdropping on therapy sessions. Her motivation is almost always revenge rather than justice. She certainly enjoys her Kick the Dog moments, but her targets are always REALLY terrible people so the audience doesn't flinch too much."
- Wardens Are Evil: "Edwin James, the warden of Alcatraz. He has been shown to resort to psychological torture in order to learn crucial information about prisoners, such as manipulating Ernest Cobb's attempts to be placed in solitary confinement or threatening to leave Kit Nelson in a small dark room until Nelson admits the truth about his first crime (although Kit Nelson really had it coming, having been sent to Alcatraz for being a child killer). His deputy Tiller is corrupt and more open in his cruelty towards the inmates."
Work Pages
- Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Charlotte breaks the defeated Saejima's hand by stomping it with her high heel after she lost to Mirei. Considering how cruel Saejima is to her Extar, it's kinda deserved."
- Revenge of the Sith: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch:
- Anakin's killing of Count Dooku, who had been subdued and was no longer an active threat. Before Anakin does it, he even says "I shouldn't", indicating he's clearly uncomfortable with the idea. Palpatine urges him to and he decapitates Dooku anyway.
- Vader's massacre of the Separatist Council, especially with the murder of Nute Gunray.
Rune Haako: STOP! NOOOOOOOO!!! (Vader cuts him down)" - High School DXD: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Shalba's murder of Diodora is bad enough, but since Diodora had been established as a sadistic Hope Crusher to nuns, and openly gloated about his plan to rape and murder Asia to Issei's face, he gets absolutely zero sympathy from the audience."
- Bob Lee Swagger: "Foregone Conclusion: The ever-treacherous state trooper turned CIA asset Frenchy Short (an antagonist in two of the Earl Swagger novels and novels and one Bob Lee Swagger one) is safe from being killed by the Swagger's.... because he's tortured to death by a blowtorch wielding KGB agent in connection with the events of the standalone novel ''The Second Saladin''." (pothole but used correctly)
- Music.Unleash The Archers: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: In "Cleanse the Bloodlines", the Matriarch commands the Immortal to slay her sons. She's doing it to slake her bloodlust and become immortal herself, but the succeeding songs show the first three sons kinda have it coming." (while it doesn't explain why they have it coming, the Matriarch wants them dead purely for her own benefit)
Trope Pages
- Adolf Hitlarious: "Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Hitler is 71 years old by the events of the game, and is a physical and mental wreck. Over the course of his appearance he forgets about the casting for a propaganda film he wrote, waves a gun in the actor's faces, pumps an entire clip into Ronald Reagan on the suspicion he's a Jewish spy, stops to take a leak in an ice bucket in full view of the actors, misses the bucket and pisses blood all over the floor while ranting about his books and Jewish infiltrators. Then he pukes. Then he mistakes the director for his mother and buries his head into her bosom for comfort. Then he demands B.J. at gunpoint to act as himself while completely failing to recognise him, and then chastises him for failing to properly capture B.J.'s personality. And then he stops halfway through a rant about his film to take a nap on the floor. Hitler shoots one of the other actors after he complains that the SS-Man in the acting room hit his nose too hard. At this point the player has a chance to go up to the sleeping Hitler and kill him with a single kick to the face - and there's even an achievement for it!note Proceeding normally, B.J. loses it and kills the SS-Man, emptying a clip into him and crushing his head in before throwing the rifle and cracking bulletproof plastic and shouting at Hitler. Hitler CONSIDERS THIS AN ACT AND CONGRATULATES HIM FOR BEING BETTER THAN PERFECT DESPITE THE FACT THAT HE KILLED ONE OF HIS GUARDS. He then shoots the other actor who just slumps over dead. That said, he's still the power-mad, paranoid, genocidal dictator of a world-spanning white supremacist regime which commits countless atrocities against innocent people and is absolutely not Played for Laughs." (literally kicking Adolf Hitler in the face which is classic Pay Evil unto Evil)
- Bullying a Dragon: "If the victim snaps, they will turn the tables (if not turn the table into a buzzsaw, set it spinning at hurricane-level speeds, and shove their tormentors' intestines into the spinning blades… literal tables need not be involved). Also, don't lie. It is very cathartically awesome when the bullies are finally killed off or subjected to a Fate Worse than Death as Revenge. (And, if they have not done anything remotely objectionable up to this point, this could well be taken as a case of Dark Is Not Evil.) Unfortunately, many of the times a bully attempts to go after someone of this ilk is because they are trying to elicit a response, which, in turn, would prove everyone's point about how much of a freak they truly are. Then again, in many cases, this makes them even stupider, as they don't seem to consider anything particularly awful happening to themselves as a result of their actions." (chained sinkhole involving both Asshole Victim and Karmic Death)
- Cynicism Catalyst: "Elfen Lied: Lucy's Kill All Humans mentality began because of the loss of her puppy at the hands of some very cruel kids. Her Start of Darkness was a lethal Unstoppable Rage you could almost root for." (misuse for Disproportionate Retribution)
- Dark Lord on Life Support: "During the Werewolf: The Apocalypse book Subsidiaries: A Guide To Pentex, it's revealed that Dexter King, founder and former president of King Breweries, is currently bedridden and dependent on a respirator. Ironically, he only ended up this way thanks to the only good deed he ever performed in his life: opposing his son's partnership with Pentex. Cursed with a degenerative lung condition by his son's new allies, he's been effective ousted from power and left to slowly die - slowly, so Jeremy can keep his father informed on how well the company's doing without him, and so Dexter's suffering can linger on for decades. Of course, the book notes that Dexter still has a few contacts within the company - and, if the player can stomach an alliance with him, a means of taking revenge." (misused for Jerkass I think)
- Excrement Statement: "The 1984 Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes film has Tarzan urinating on White Eyes, one of the Mangani, spitefully. It is worth noting that White Eyes had previously given Tarzan a beating and that among the Mangani White Eyes is Tarzan's archenemy, making this an example of Kick The Son Of A Bitch as well." (misuse for Pay Evil unto Evil)
- Finger Muzzle: "Deadpool. When Deadpool catches the man who recruited him for a Mad Science program (involving a sh*tload of torture and a disfigured face and body), he's more than willing to spill the beans on where the Mad Scientist is, but Deadpool shuts him up with this trope because he wants to torture him anyway." (misuse for Pay Evil unto Evil)
- Giving Radio to the Romans: "In Misfits an old Jewish man goes back in time to kill Hitler. He fails and drops his mobile phone, which enables the Nazis to develop better technology and win the war, taking over Britain. Kelly gets the time travel power and is able to get the mobile away from Hitler, along with beating him up." (beating up Hitler again)
- Revenge is Sweet: "Related to Asshole Victim and Kick The Son Of A Bitch, especially when the target in question is the one responsible for the revenge-seeker's misery." (compare/contrast section but I think in context it's misuse for Pay Evil unto Evil)
- Strawman Has a Point (under Rifts): Doc Reid's Rangers, from the sourcebook on the Vampire Kingdoms of Mexico. There's a lot wrong with most of the Rangers, especially Doc Reid himself, but when it comes down to the "Nazi concentration camp like" experiments on vampires, it's kind of hard to not see them as Kick The Son Of A Bitch. Wild Vampires are little more than mindless, blood-sucking animals whose bite is infectious; they are basically nothing more than a blood-drinking Zombie Apocalypse. A Master Vampire is a monster who willingly sold his or her soul to a Vampire Intelligence and then chose to create as many vampires as possible in order to let it manifest itself on Earth. The only arguably innocent vampires are Secondary Vampires, who were merely the victims of the Master Vampire... and even then, they're still ruthless blood-sucking predators whose bite spawns Wild Vampires, making them heralds of the swarm. (misuse for Pay Evil unto Evil)
- Wardens Are Evil:
- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End: Vargas, the warden of a Panamanian prison that Nathan and Samuel Drake and their ally Rafe Adler are staying in, is a greedy, corrupt Fat Bastard who's willing to break any number of the rules he's supposed to abide by- taking bribes, beating up the inmates, and showing Nate a vacant prison tower he wants him to explore for pirate treasure. Despite this, he's mostly on Nate's side, given that Rafe's bribing him to help them in their search for the pirate colony of Libertalia, but to him, Rafe's money is not enough- he wants a cut of Libertalia's treasure too. Eventually, after finding Nate unearthed a St. Dismas cross in the tower that he never informed Vargas about, the enraged warden contemplates shooting him- only for Rafe to successfully negotiate with him in exchange for 25% of the gold. This done, when it appears as though Bargas is threatening revenge on the Americans if they try cheating him again, Rafe stabs him to death- but that backfires too, because Vargas fires his gun into the air before he dies, alerting the rest of the guard, and forcing the Drakes and Rafe to attempt escape- which ends with Sam getting shot and seemingly dying. (Not sure what trope this pothole should be but Kick The Son Of A Bitch doesn't seem right.)
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: The warden in the two-parter Episode "The Boiling Rock" would rather die (and have prisoners killed as well) than tarnish his prison's record of zero escapes. Also, he tortures a prisoner into revealing escape plans. Though interestingly, he gets some Pet the Dog moments with his niece, Mai. (Misuse for Kick the Dog.)
Work Pages
- Cardfight!! Vanguard: Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Ren is implied to do so. It's complicated. After Kyou's loss to Kai after the guy had spent pretty much all his screentime being an obnoxious, arrogant brat, it's very implied that Ren does something to him which leaves the guy a trembling, speechless wreck cowering on a bench. And Tetsu later says that Kyou has been sent back to headquarters for 'retraining'. (probably Break the Haughty)
- A Different Lesson Tropes A to L: Family-Unfriendly Death: Every single one of the innocents killed by possessed Vachir is mutilated, eviscerated, castrated, or otherwise bloodily savaged in gruesome ways (including Chang's six-year-old son). Vachir himself gets impaled in the abdomen and spews out dark chi in lieu of blood, as does Zhuang (who is specifically noted to be holding his innards in with one hand), and each of the original class of kung fu masters at the Jade Palace are killed in similarly horrific ways, either by Chao or by each other (slicing the jugular, eye impalement, and smashing the nose back into the brain, among others). Finally Chao himself not only gets impaled, but burned to a crisp, and the reader is treated to a fairly detailed description of his skull and brains being exposed in the process. (misuse for Kick the Dog. I think. Dang sinkholes.)
- AdaptationalHeroism.Marvel Cinematic Universe: "Gorr the God Butcher in Thor: Love and Thunder gets a good deal of this. In Thor: God of Thunder (2012), while he starts off initially as a Tragic Villain with sympathetic rage at the Jerkass Gods of the Marvel Universe, he soon becomes a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist who kills happily innocent gods and in Dramatic Irony becomes a God of Evil himself who has reduced the universe to a hellhole where he rules supreme, ultimately showing he is no different from the gods he made out to be so vile. In the film, Gorr's hatred of the gods is very well founded as Rapu, the god of his own homeworld, was The Hedonist, making his conquest much more righteous. At the end of the movie, Gorr has a Heel–Face Turn after Thor proves that gods can indeed be good * , wishing for Eternity to bring his daughter back instead of wishing for all gods to die like he originally wanted. This not how Gorr's story ended in the comic, which was instead a massive Kick The Son Of A Bitch where after being beaten, he learns he was using a god weapon to kill other gods and gets decapitated mid-wailing Villainous Breakdown by a young Thor." (seems like My God, What Have I Done?)
- Berserk.Tropes I To P: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Of all the people he killed and/or maimed, Guts mostly takes on absolute bastards who totally deserved what they got." (It's Berserk for Pete's sake. This is Pay Evil unto Evil.)
- BurnNotice.Tropes I To P: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Maddie tries to retrieve a package from a nasty man and gets smacked around for her trouble (and remember, Madeline lived for years with an abusive husband and was shown in a previous episode to still have some psychological fallout from it). On her second attempt, she brings Michael, who strong-arms the guy into a submission hold, smacks his head on the fridge until he gives up the package, and breaks his freakin' arm." (misuse for Pay Evil unto Evil)
- Characters.Being Able To Edit Skills In Another World I Gained OP Waifus: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Literally. After being fired from the Iturna cult, before the contract magic makes her Nagi's slave, she gives a Literal Ass-Kicking to Bishop Argis and her former "noble" subordinates for slandering her and their heresy against Iturna's actual teachings." (probably Pay Evil unto Evil)
- Characters.Epic Rap Battles Of History: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: To Hitler. In their first rap battle he freezes him in carbonite. In their second, he thaws him out just to toy with him, then drops him into the Rancor pit. In their third, he tries feeding him to the Sarlaac beast, and after Hitler shoots Boba Fett he decides to cut him in half." (It's Darth Vader beating up Adolf Hitler, so Evil Versus Evil and/or Pay Evil unto Evil.)
- Characters.Mabinogi: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Cichol's first action upon being brought back to life is to taunt Nuadha over his newfound imprisonment." (one villain being a jerk to another villain)
- Characters.Northanger Abbey: "Ungrateful Bastard: As the narrator wryly points out, the General is grateful to John Thorpe for informing him about Catherine's circumstances as undoubtedly a very wealthy heiress, and then immediately sets about trying to put his own son in Thorpe's way. Given how Thorpe is, it might fall under Kick The Son Of A Bitch." (One protagonist's dad being a Shipper on Deck for the Official Couple against his son's romantic rival. I don't think this example is even using Ungrateful Bastard correctly.)
- Blood Ties (Marvel Comics): Three wicks, all related to Exodus killing Cortez. They all seem like a villain with standards killing a villain without, so probably Pay Evil unto Evil.
- Justice League: Cry for Justice: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Green Arrow killing Prometheus. The latter's actions are the final example of the characters of the story confusing "justice" for "revenge"." (I think this is Pay Evil unto Evil with a side of complaining.)
- CourageTheCowardlyDog.Tropes A To M: "Greater-Scope Villain: The evil veterinarian from "Remembrance of Courage's Past". Not only is he the first real threat that Courage had ever encountered in his life, he is thoroughly responsible for the loss of Courage's parents, thus resulting in the dog's paranoia (although it should be noted that if it weren't for him, Courage never would've met Muriel). Thankfully, he gets his comeuppance in the end." (Karmic something-or-other.)
- CriticalRole.Season One: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: After killing Sir Stonefell in Episode 29, the group decides to let his lackey Vook live — but not before Percy brands him with a red-hot gun barrel and Grog rips out his tongue. Vook was, by his own admission, part of the coup against the de Rolos, and Vox Machina first encounters him oppressing the peasantry on the Briarwoods' behalf, so it's really hard to feel sorry for him." (Pay Evil unto Evil)
- DragonAgeOrigins.Tropes F To K: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: There are some mods that allow players to eviscerate Arl Howe because some players feel his death taking place in a cutscene lets him get off too easy. And most players are more than happy to reject Vaughn's offer in the City Elf origin so they can kill him themselves. You can literally tell him you will enjoy kicking his ass." (Pay Evil unto Evil)
- Fate/Zero Sense: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: How Wade survived without the orphan farm from canon. He stored up prana by killing a bunch of two-bit tyrants, warlords, murderers, etc. Basically, he fed on the scum of humanity." (probably Pay Evil unto Evil)
- Principal Celestia Hunts the Undead: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: When Sunset needs to take down the brainwashed students of Crystal Prep, she enjoys being able to attack the students who bullied Sci-Twi." (Pay Evil unto Evil and/or Bully Hunter)
- ''Batman & Robin": "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: The two Arkham guards take the chance to ridicule and laugh at Freeze when he attempts to escape the cold beam." (making fun of an imprisoned villain)
- Literature.Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: "Would Hit a Girl: A non-lethal version involves Harry merely knocking Umbridge unconscious with a spell. Of course, this could also count as Kick The Son Of A Bitch." (Bigoted Torture Technician schoolmarm gets stunned by a protagonist she has previously tortured. Yawn.)
- Literature.Tales Of The Bounty Hunters: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: The last of the IG-88s uploads his personality into the Death Star II. Consequently, the Rebels inadvertently kill him when they blow it up." (At no point in the original trilogy or Star Wars Legends material associated with it are the Rebels ever meant to be unsympathetic.)
- MassEffect2.Tropes G To M: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: A major reason why Shepard's destruction of the colony in Arrival wasn't a bigger deal morally, because it happened to the batarians, who utilize slavery rings and People Farms, among other things. The effect, however, is very much mitigated in the third game when we discover that while the batarian establishment are a bunch of jerkasses, the regular ones actually aren't that bad." (Misrepresents what happened. In some plays, Shepard tries to stop this from happening and come up with another plan but is stopped by other characters, in others it's Shoot the Dog by way of The Needs of the Many, then she can try to warn the batarians to evacuate but is stopped, and she was facing a Court Martial for it in Mass Effect 3 except the Reapers showed up before her trial date.)
- Radio.The Frantics: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: The "boot to the head" that Jenny, Hank, Hedge and Ralston received are more or less literal examples. Subverted with Mrs. Mulroy, who did nothing to deserve it." (Zero-context but I can explain it. A decedent's will is being read and it commands basically everybody in the room to repeatedly have boots thrown at their heads, whether for past slights or because the decedent thought it would be funny.)
Trope Pages
- Back for the Dead: "Captain Ginyu of all people returns in Dragon Ball Super in the Freeza Revival arc, stealing Tagoma's body and making a grand spectacle of his return to a proper body. Then Vegeta shows up and finishes what he started back on Namek."
- Blamed for Being Railroaded: "In Dude, Stop, the narrator tells you not to touch anything while he's on the phone during the tutorial. Of course, he takes so long to make the call that the only way to progress is to ignore his instructions and deliberately fail all the puzzles. This leads to the narrator getting irrationally angry and threatening to ban you from playing the rest of the game. Though the main point of this exercise is to make it harder for you to feel sorry for the guy when you deliberately fail later puzzles. In fact, some of the packs require you to fail in order to progress, which of course still makes the narrator angry." (no idea)
- Hope Bringer: "Shin Megami Tensei IVs Main Character becomes this in the Neutral Route by helping as many people and demons as he can both in Tokyo and the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado, to the point of recreating one third of a divine entity's power by the sheer amount of hope he inspires. Then he proves why he can generate so much hope by taking back the other two thirds from the Seraph Merkabah and the Demon Lord Lucifer. At the end of the Neutral Route, the people of Mikado believe so much in him that they are ready to evacuate their kingdom at his command. The Hope Crusher White are utterly furious at him, as they wanted to break his spirit so he would never again seek any form of renewal or continuity, and keep throwing divine monsters and even Alternate Timelines in his path — fat lot of good it did to them.'"
Work Pages
- Locke & Key (2020) Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: "Also, how Dodge got his hands on the Gender/Identity Key: in the comic books, Ellie accidentally dropped her Keys in the Wellhouse after her mom hit her in the face; then, when Dodge's freshly-summoned Echo snapped Candice Whedon's neck, Ellie fled in a blind panic without picking them up. In the show, Ellie's first meeting with Dodge was conducted quite peacefully with no murders, with Ellie still being totally clueless about the fact that Lucas's Echo was possessed, even when he began demanding the Keys with open aggression, to the point that when asked, she just... handed over the Identity Key - which, unlike the Gender Key, offers literally unlimited opportunities for disguise."
- Awesome.The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim:
- "While most players who do "The Taste of Death" may complete it, there’s an option to save the priest of Arkay by killing every cannibal in Markarth gathered there and robbing Namira of a follower. Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?? For bonus points, if you've done a few small quests for Lisbet and Banning, killing them and Eola with the Ebony Blade will count as charges for it. Who says betrayal and murder has to leave you feeling guilty?" (Pay Evil unto Evil)
- "Storming through the Thalmor embassy on your own feels incredibly satisfying, particularly as you may not be a high level, but in any case you're not only holding your own against the Thalmor, you're utterly handing their arses to them. Then, after you've recovered the military intelligence, you and Malborn both flee via the dungeons, with any of the hostages you've rescued- and bump straight into a Frost Troll. If you have a follower, he'll show up to save you all, meaning it's about five people versus one Frost Troll. Talk about an epic escape." (no argument that the Thalmor have it coming but this isn't really portrayed as a villainous act by the Player Character)
- Characters.A New Hope Danganronpa Penjar: "Quick Draw: Is quite fast with his gun, and plugging Monokuma."
- Characters.Star Wars Darth Vader And Servants: "Pet the Dog: He rewards Firmus Piett for finding the rebel base, by promoting him to admiral. After Force choking the incompetent and arrogant Admiral Ozzel to death. (more chained sinkholes, and that was the archetypical You Have Failed Me)
- Exalted.Tropes A To H: "Card-Carrying Villain: In 2nd Edition the Yozi reward the Infernal Exalted for playing the role of villains, such as monologuing about their evil schemes, leaving their heroic foes in cunning deathtraps, or other cliched acts of villainy. One can be rewarded for going through said cliches...against people worse than they are... with deliberate flaws... the Green Sun Princes can become Noble Demons if they want." (dependent on tabletop RPG player actions so too ambiguous to classify)
- Fate/Zero Sense: "Cerebus Syndrome: The fic takes a very dark turn with the death of Caster at the hands of Berserker in chapter eleven. Not that Caster and Uryuu don't deserve it, but their deaths do begin the darkening of the plot." (ambiguous pothole)
- FinalFantasyXIV.Tropes S To U: "Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In "The Parting Glass" and its immediate aftermath, the culprit's plot goes off more or less without a hitch. The Sultana is dead, as is Lord Lolorito's peer/rival Teledji Adeledji, Raubahn is in prison awaiting execution for murdering Teledji, and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn have been broken and branded as regicides. Afterwards, however, the culprit runs into the problem of trying to run a Frame-Up on someone with a Hundred Percent Adoration Rating like the Warrior of Light. Most of the public only knows rumors about what happened, and almost nobody believes the accusations against the Warrior, so the False Flag Operation fails. The few that do believe that the Warrior is guilty decide they'd rather just turn a blind eye to the Warrior's presence, handily handwaving the fact that they can move around more or less freely despite supposedly being Eorzea's Most Wanted. The other leaders of the Eorzean Alliance further made it clear to the Ul'dahn Syndicate that they are not to go public with the charges against the Warrior until they can present concrete evidence, ostensibly because of the unrest that would occur if the realm's beloved hero and primal slayer were accused of something like what the culprit intended. Then Heavensward comes around, and reveals that things didn't go so smoothly after all. Very little of what happened at the Bloody Banquet was intended by Lolorito. Teledji Adeledji may have wanted to overthrow the Sultanate and install himself and his fellow Monetarists as the rulers of Ul'dah, but Lolorito recognized that he was already running the show in all but name. He stood to lose far too much and gain too little by going along with Teledji's plan. As such, Lolorito had the poison intended for Sultana Nanamo replaced with a sleeping potion, and had intended to use his influence to publicly acquit the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, including the Warrior of Light, of all charges. But the Scions' refusal to stand down and be brought in by guards — who, for all they knew, intended to simply execute them all on the spot — spoiled that part of the plan."
- Manga.Blade Of The Immortal: "Curb-Stomp Battle: Any time Makie get serious. Also, in a great Kick The Son Of A Bitch moment, Rin VS Burando."
- Cardfight!! Vanguard: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch:
- Kicked some more by Tetsu and Asaka. First Tetsu tells him Foo Fighter has no need for losers and revokes his membership, then Asaka tells him he lacks ability and to get out. (who "him"?)
- Kicked even more by Aichi, in episodes 41 and 42."
- Characters.A New Hope Danganronpa Penjar: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: When he finally dies, he kinda had it coming."
- CourageTheCowardlyDog.Tropes A To M: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: There are occasions where a bad person inflicts harm on someone who deserves it."
- Beyblade C-Square: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Since he was so much of a Smug Snake, maybe Appius shooting him in the foot is an enjoyable experience."
- Radio.The Frantics: "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Ed Gruberman is another literal example."
- Characters.TNO Germany: Five different examples, all of which have to do with Martin Bormann neutralizing other Nazis while the player is playing as Nazi Germany in a total conversion mod for a 4X game.
- Glass (2019): "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: A complicated example when the Beast finds out that Kevin's father was killed on the train that Mr. Glass blew up. The Beast is understandably furious and brutalizes Mr. Glass for doing this, but on the other hand, Mr. Glass is the lesser of two evils when you factor in the Ancient Conspiracy."
Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 20th 2023 at 3:01:08 AM
I'll do that since we need to cut the subpages as well.
Edit: And done. Here are the wicks.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 23rd 2023 at 5:27:53 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.Dewicked what was in the wick check.
So, I was cleaning some wicks and I've been wondering, does KTSOB have enough wicks for us to set up a notice to help us dewick it? I'm asking because, if I remember correctly, Bare Your Midriff had roughly as many wicks and it got that treatment.
I'm personally fine with either though.
Edited by RandomTroper123 on Mar 25th 2023 at 12:43:19 PM
We only use bulletins for simple projects, which usually means meaningless concepts that we'll have to remove most references for. We're mostly moving examples of Kick The Son Of A Bitch to other tropes instead of removing them outright, as opposed to how we removed most wicks of the likes of Bare Your Midriff and Names The Same, so the complexity (rather than the wick count) keeps it from being bulletin material.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 25th 2023 at 3:07:39 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.I see, and I understand now. Thanks.
I see your point, but to play Devil's Advocate for a minute, Kick the SOB has well over 5000 wicks, so it might be useful to have the help. We could just say "if you're not sure where to move the example, feel free to delete". I had to do that several times earlier, and not just with ZCEs I didn't know enough about to explain properly.
Meh, I think we can keep at it by ourselves for now. If this stagnates over a long period of time, maybe we can bulletin it, but it's okay for this to take a bit and be more thorough.
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker MailBulletins didn't work for The Chick or Bonus Boss when it was tried for those, so I doubt it would work for this. That's part of what I was getting at when I said it works best for Chairs-y concepts, but I neglected to mention that.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 25th 2023 at 5:33:05 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.While I'm not necessarily in favor of bulletining KTSOB at this time, I wouldn't consider those bulletins to be black-and-white failures. They weren't 100% successful, but taking any chunk out is a win in my book.
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker MailI don't think they really made a dent, though. Either way, this is off-topic between the fact that I already said no multiple times and the fact that I was planning to post a bulletin for A Date With Rosie Palms (which is the sort of Chairs-y project I was saying we reserve bulletins for) at the beginning of April if that thread isn't done by then (which it probably won't be, but that's the plan) since I got feedback from the other mods on the matter (since I prefer not to make dewicking bulletins unilaterally).
Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 25th 2023 at 10:46:46 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.I don't see this as redundant with Asshole Victim and Karmic Death - The suffering or death of Asshole Victim may or may not be a direct result of them being bad people, while this trope specifically refers to cases where it is not intentional (just as Pay Evil unto Evil is specifically cases where it is intentional), I feel like there is room for a trope specifically about the in-universe coincidental examples if it's given a rename that isn't so ambiguous. As for Karmic Death, that requires the victim to, well, die, while none of these other tropes do.
This trope was disambiguated in March, so there's no decision left to be made at this point.
Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker MailI cleared out the Main namespace this evening.
Now <4000 wicks. Though in the process I had to send a "not a trope" notifier to a somebody who added a new wick in an example about The Batman (2022).
Me and other tropers have gotten this down to 3680 wicks. (Granted, I need to go back to wick cleaning.)
In regards to getting rid of examples one-by-one (haven't found the trope twice on the same page unless it's a pothole, with the exception of the Samurai Jack character sheet), would be alright if I formatted the notes like this? (potholing to Ambiguity Index):
Or should I always cite TRS/write "now is a disambiguation page"? I really only intend to do this with Kick the Son of a Bitch and not other DA'd tropes because I feel like tropers that add it as an example are more encouraged to not neglect to pass on notifiers this way. Plus it was a (moderately) Overdosed Trope. Silver and gold, silver and gold
I usually just say "disambig" or something. You don't have to be super specific, but you also shouldn't be too snarky about it.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure PurenessPersonally I've done enough of these myself that a few common variations on "Kick The Son Of A Bitch is no longer a trope" now show up in my edit reason autocomplete suggestions.
(x3) Usually, when cleaning up disambiguated tropes, I tend to say something like "[Insert trope here] is no longer a trope/has been disambiguated."
I honestly think the difficult part about this one for me definitely isn't the ones removing the examples.
It's the one's where Kick The Son Of A Bitch is inserted into the middle of a sentence. For example:
"It serves as a Kick The Son Of A Bitch moment to the scummy..."
Edited by AudioSpeaks2 on Jul 24th 2023 at 7:26:30 PM
Art Museum Curator and frequent helper of the Web Original deprecation projectYeah, I just tend to delete those sentences altogether.
I often delete them too, though it can depend on the sentence/the context.
When I do TRS wick cleaning, it usually follows the following formula:
With an enclosed link to the TRS thread in question in the start.
TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall(x4) Those ones are definitely annoying. If it's any consolation, sentences like that are typically easiest to find in Awesome pages, and wicks to those pages are my main priority to completely get rid of (the wicks themselves are even more daunting to me, since I feel like there's always way too much context for the event surrounding Kick The Son Of A Bitch being used, enough that I have to double-check to make sure it's not a Karmic Death example where I specifically need to know enough of the irony for the edit).
Edited by Coachpill on Jul 24th 2023 at 11:58:32 AM
Silver and gold, silver and gold
All right, so are we good to proceed with disambiguating the page?