This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Dark Sasami: Guh. That took longer than I intended. Hope people are willing to read all that.
Some noteworthy examples besides the one case study would be appreciated. It would be beneficial to examine the characters that are most egregiously affected.
Ununnilium: Edited the AMG! example, because if they have a good reason for smacking someone around, it's not sociopathy.
- True enough, though I still think Belldandy is getting a undeserved bad rap.
I'm not sure if this fits here or not, but: A recurring theme on Schlock Mercenary is the complete lack of remorse any of the characters have for their enemies. The current storyline frequently jokes about how badly the characters wanted to kill a recurring villain who's now dead, or even a clone of him (see http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20070921.html
for an example). —Document N
Dark Sasami: Moved the Cleese bit someone added to where it's not interrupting the middle of a point with an immediate referent in the previous paragraph.
Dark Sasami: Removed these non-examples:
- Aylee from Sluggy Freelance, being a parody of the xenomorphs from Alien, ate quite a few people even after she became friends with Torg and the gang. This was always played for laughs, and she did eventually grow out of it.
- I wonder if Mike from Shortpacked falls into this. He's certainly a sociopath, and his often cruel actions do have hillarious results...
I totally get that this is a confusing trope, though. It was hard enough to pin down in writing that I couldn't do it without an example.
KJMackley: I don't think this is too complicated of a trope, simply put it is the laughter you get at someones misfortune, which is along the lines of Dude, Not Funny!. But I think the description needs to be cut back severely, it is just too long and it doesn't get the point across too well.
Dark Sasami: That is, in fact, not what it is at all. It is cruel behavior exhibited by characters who might otherwise be kind in order to maintain a protagonist's comic misfortune.
Black-Velvet: This seems to have a rather American basis. A lot of contemporary British comedies have begun incorporating elements of it (and of course the Monty Python is saturated in it, which might go some way to explaining its popularity with younger generations), but they traditionally derived more humour from absurdity, something generally not emphasised in American comedy. Bleh, this is too open-ended, sorry. I am probably speaking out of my arse. Just an observation.
Out of interest, why is it always "comedic" rather than "comic" on this website? I ask because I remember being corrected on my use of the word in an essay once, and have assumed since then that it was incorrect (or at the very least, that the "ed" part was pointlessly superfluous (Yes, that's deliberate)). If it's correct and there's a reason to use it above 'comic' then of course it's fine, but it's so widespread here (and nowhere else on the inner nets) and It Just Bugs Me.
