Archived Discussion Main / EvilVersusEvil

LiquidUranium: Removed the following example: "Don't forget Imperial Japan vs the United States. That's right, even the USA was evil in that scenario. Except, they won so nobody talks about that." Yes, the U.S. made some nasty decisions during that war, but that hardly implies moral equivalency. For comparison: during World War II, the U.S. had regular elections, relocated about 112,000 Japanese-American citizens (and ultimately apologized/paid compensation for it) treated prisoners fairly humanely (though they did often refuse to take surrenders after they heard reports of Japanese atrocities). The Japanese were ruled by a military dictatorship, "relocated" millions of Chinese, and treated prisoners... Understatement somewhat harshly, to say the least. (See: Rape of Nanking, Corregidor Death March.) There's a reason that That Other Wiki has an entire page devoted to Imperial Japan's war crimes. Even the 300,000 (the high estimate; the low estimate is half of that) Japanese civilians killed by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which, keep in mind, were performed to avoid an invasion with projected casualties in the millions) pales in comparison to the 7 million Chinese civilians (the low estimate; the high estimate is 16 million) killed - primarily by the Japanese. This example might be Black-and-Grey Morality at a stretch (after all, Your Mileage May Vary), but it's nowhere near the level of evil needed for this trope.

• People love to point out To be fair the invasion could've been avoided without the nuking as Japan was more than willing to get rid of the imperial government if it means ending the war. Of course that would've ended the war without giving the US a chance to demonstrate their new secret weapon and establishing themselves as the most powerful nation on the planet.
  • To be fair? That's simplistic reasoning as well as ignorance of history. People keep going, "Oh, the Atomic Bomb was so horibble, Americans are Complete Monsters" while purposely ignoring actual historical factors. Here are most of the major reasons those bombs were used. Don't take my word for it, research the backgrounds to confirm it if you have to instead of sticking with your own "expertise"
  • Reason 1: The Japanese plan at that point was to make a complete victory as costly as possible to the Allies so that they'd get terms more favorable to them rather than the unconditional surrender the Allies demanded in the Postdam Declaration (which was drafted by United States President Harry S. Truman, United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek, not just the US). The same plans they already done in Iwo Jima and Okinawa, except on the scale of All of the Japanese Home Islands and including their own civilians. That's right, part of the plan included garrisoning the Home Islands with whatever they had left to make life sheer hell on any Allied invaders. Part of that plan was training their own women and children to be guerrillas and die for the Emperor and Japan if the Americans invaded The Home Islands to supplement their already massively shrunken Army. This included telling them stories of how the Americans were monsters who were gonna rape and kill all of them, to make them fight the Americans to the death. THEIR OWN WOMEN AND CHILDREN. And this plan isn't some bullshit propaganda, it was an actual plan drawn up and turned over to the Allies by the Japanese government after the surrendered to the US.
  • Reason 2: Had the bombs not been used, the Americans would have had to invade the Japanese Home Islands, the Imperial Japanese military would've went with the above mentioned plan. Had the conventional invasion gone ahead, the Americans would have had to DEPOPULATE MOST OF JAPAN, causing deaths in the DOZENS OF MILLIONS. Not including their own dead. Contrast the figures for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs which were, at the highest possible estimates, aout 300,000. Total Japanese dead, civilians and military, throughout the war was 2,700,000.
  • Reason 3:Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both selected because both were legit military targets. They weren't just chosen For the Evulz as you seem to think. Hiroshima had the Second Army and Chugoku Regional Army headquartered there, and the Army Marine Headquarters in a nearby port. The city also had large depots of military supplies, and was a key center for shipping. Nagasaki was also a huge port city and was involved in the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials. This made them valid military targets the way Pearl Harbor and the civilian areas around became valid military targets.
  • Reason 4: After the first bomb was dropped, the Japanese still did not surrender as the military leaders thought the Americans only had one. They still wanted to fight on and go ahead with their plan to turn the Japanese Home Islands. into a guerrilla warfare scenario that would've made Vietnam look like a joke. ONE ATOMIC BOMB WAS NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE THEM SURRENDER. THEY WANTED TO FIGHT ON. They were so willing to fight on that they tried a coup against the Emperor to prevent any thought of surrendering AFTER THE SECOND BOMB HAD BEEN DROPPED. The deaths of everyone in Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't enough for them, they wanted the entire country to die in a blaze of glory!
  • Reason 5: They were not willing to "get rid of the Imperial government to make peace". As mentioned, they wanted terms more favorable to Japan than unconditional surrender, and wanted to get rid of the Emperor toward the end for accepting surrender!. This was advocated not by the Emperor, but by his military leaders and council. THEY WERE WILLING TO SACRIFICE MORE OF THEIR OWN PEOPLE, CIVILIANS INCLUDED, SO AS NOT TO LOSE FACE.
  • Outstanding claims require outstanding proof and actual historical research. Your claim shows a lack of knowledge of the above factors, which shows you have nothing more backing you other than an unsupported blind hatred for America.
• For one, weren't the people trying to get rig of the Emperor, the ones who wanted to continue the war? That means the Emperor was willing to go along with ending the war to prevent further bloodshed. The unconditional surrender was issued to make sure this doesn't happen and they will keep on fighting.
• Regardless I find it more then amusing how people single out Japan and especially the nukes when I talk of the US' crimes, and immediately jump to the US' defense. Quote the exact line where I mentioned Japan and the nukes BEFORE you brought it up. I was talking about what they did in Transylvania. Among other things, there's the bombing of Kolozsvár, which was a civilian target, or turning a blind eye on the massacre's committed by the Romanian army, just because they were allied.
  • You mentioned US versus Imperial Japan, so of course people are going to assume you were talking about the Evils of the Us as compared to Japan, not something that happened all the way over in the European Front. And, so what? They turned a blind eye on an allied unit that attacked a civilian target. In case you hadn't read your history, every single side did that in WW 2. That still does not constitue Evil Versus Evil because, as mentioned, the Japanese and the Nazis (hey, since your justification for calling the US "evil" is all the way over in Transylvania, why not bring the other evil side in Europe) did FAR WORSE. Ignoring their allies killing innocent civilians still does not put them on par with the Evils of the Nazis and Imperial Japan since the US, for all its faults and wrongdoings, still did not do as much evil as the Japanese did. If you were paying attention, that was the entire point of all the rebuffs. Evil Versus Evil is for WHEN BOTH SIDES HAVE EQUAL LEVELS OF EVILNESS. For the trope where a side that commits bad acts versus a side that commits worse acts, that's Black-and-Grey Morality — and in fact, that was Liquid Uranium's suggestion, and he was right. For all the bad things the US allowed their soldiers to do, they still did not systematically collect an ethnic group and slaughter them in factories by the millions like the Nazis just because they hated them, they still did not kill anywhere close to the number of civilians the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese, they did not force large groups of women into sexual slavery like the Japanese, they did not murder huge numbers of political prisoners like the USSR, and so on. So even if they allowed something like Kolozsvár to happen, they are still NOT AS ROTTEN AS MOST OF THE OTHERS. As has been repeated to the point of frustration, Evil Versus Evil requires an equal amount of evilness. If you must persist on your example, then the page it belongs to is Black-and-Grey Morality. No matter what examples you bring up, your insistence of elevating the US to the level of evil as Imperial Japan is STILL WRONG unless you can find proof they did stuff as bad as the Imperial Japanese for about as much.

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Malchus: And that above reasoning was handily ignored by BTIsaac, who keeps insisting that America was as evil as Imperial Japan. If he keeps on doing it, I'll nuke the Real Life page. Dammit, why the hell do real life pages dealing with less-than-stellar, history-related Truth in Television stuff always end up like this and have to be deleted to prevent more Edit Wars? I have my own example here I don't wanna see go just because some guy hates the US so much. and I don't even like having to defend the US historically or politically.

BT Isaac: The edit war could've easily been prevented if someone simply posts a counterpoint. I don't see the paragraph about the Spanish civil war cause this much controversy, nor the one about the two football leagues. Yet people single this one out because it says something bad about Eagle Land.

Malchus: Didn't post a counterpoint? I spent the entire edit reasoning presenting counterpoint after counterpoint after counterpoint. Before me was Liquid Uranium's counterpoint. YOU failed to present a valid point in the first place. You kept saying that America was as evil as Imperial Japan with no explanation as to how they were as evil at all. I kept presenting how America, while in no way perfect and saintly as propaganda makes them out to be, weren't as bad as Japan. If you meant counterpoints on the examples page in the first place, those constitute justifying Edits and Natter—which gets examples nuked anyway. It's not about saying something bad about Eagle Land — damn if I hadn't said bad things about it before on this wiki, but I always put any critical points as objectively as possible — it's because they way you presented your point was completely unsupported and obviously biased bullshit. America as bad as Japan? Please. Now that we're on the discussion page, please, do go ahead and present your points about how America is as evil as Japan. because, as mentioned, we didn't fail to present counterpoints. You failed to support your original point.

• You could've posted a short and concise subparagraph saying why you disagree, like someone did for the spanish civil war line. Problem solved. What YOU did was abusing the Edit Reason tag. I've seen people getting edit banned for smaller things.
  • Small and concise subparagraph? Look at Liquid Uranium's reasoning. That's the short and quick version of the exact reasons why moral equivalency does not apply to the US versus Japan. The real life factors are even longer and more complex. Not everything in real life is summarized in quick and easy sound bites. Real life is complex, who figured? About the only reason people can get away with USSR versus Nazis without any further explanation is because the atrocities of both are well-documented. That does not apply to the US versus Japan because while Japan's atorcities ARE well-documented, the US doing atrocities as evil as the Japanese ARE NOT THERE. Even your bringing up of Kolozsvár is NOT ENOUGH to equate the US with Japan because the Japanese still did far worse things which the US did not. And the Spanish Civil War addition was not counterpoint, that was just a clarification of the sides being democratic and communist. It didn't say the Spanish Civil War isn't an example, unlike your US versus Japan example. When two people argue over an example, that counts as Natter if it's in the main page.
• The reason I didn't support my original point is because, obviously, nobody would care. My original point was nothing more then calling the US evil. Just like you don't need any points to support claims of other factions being evil, because it's self evident, I don't need to support my claims, because they are self evident where I live. Look up what the US did in Transylvania, and what they refused to do. Provided you can find it on the internet, because of people like you censoring it.
  • So you still admit that you didn't support the point. Of course people are gonna call you out on it. As mentioned, the US being as evil as Japan is NOT SELF-EVIDENT. That is your own personal bias. Again, name examples where the US did forced sexual slavery, brutally tortured and underfed ALL of prisoners then forced them to work, and all of the other atrocities I've repeatedly mentioned — that's self-evident proof. Do you have proof the US did those things? NO. Which means they weren't as bad as Japan, so they don't belong as an example.

Malchus: Oh, and thanks to your little Edit War vendetta, now no one can make Real Life examples. Even valid, objective ones. . Because that's TV Tropes policy for all Real Life pages people hijack just for childish Take Thats, which was want your entry was.

• Well, if I can't have things my way... besides, this wasn't a childish 'Take That' but I doubt I can get you to see that. After all, I insulted the great US of A by calling them evil. The horror.
  • And there you go again with your strawman of me being a US supporter. Here's the thing, genius. I'm from the Philippines. My country got invaded by the US just as it was declaring its own independence. I have repeatedly said I don't like all of the crap things they did in history, especially. HOWEVER, that does not mean I won't object to people saying things that are grossly untrue. You accused the US of being as evil as Japan, even though historical proof has consistently shown that they never committed the same heinous atrocities as Japan did in WW 2. So, yes, you are childish because you automatically assume that just because I defended the US I love it with all my heart. It is a childish way of thinking that just because someone disagrees with you, he must immediately like the things you hate. Notice how I never, NOT ONCE, said the you approved of Imperial Japan or the Nazis just because you disagreed with me on a WW 2 topic. You, on the other hand, jumped to conclusions. Reality is more nuanced than that. It's called being FAIR. I'd defend a thief who was accused of rape if there was clear evidence that he did not do the rape, even if I don't like him for his thievery. Because that's what being fair is. Every time someone points out what's wrong with your argument, you automatically assume that that's because of the GREAT USA, OHNOES. Please. The US has a lot to answer for, and I will call them out on that IF IT'S SOMETHING THAT THEY ACTUALLY DID, not if it's something based on the clearly BIASED AND UNFAIR OPINION OF SOMEONE IGNORING HISTORICAL PROOF. You have yet to prove the US is as bad as Imperial Japan. Again, I repeat, because you always ignore it: Did they systematically collect an ethnic group and slaughter them in factories by the millions like the Nazis just because they hated them? Did they kill anywhere close to the number of civilians the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese? Did they force large groups of women into sexual slavery like the Japanese? Did they murder huge numbers of political prisoners like the USSR?

Malchus:Oh, and now you're actually sending P Ms to me in deviantart, BT Isaac? Can't keep your arguments in TV Tropes and you just have to take it somewhere, eh? I'd appreciate it if you kept you childish vendetta on TV Tropes and not take it somewhere else, because that's just sad. If you must force the issue, then do it right here in the discussions page. The only reason I even bothered writing all those long edit reasons was because of your willful ignoring of Liquid Uranium's original reasons.

• I didn't ignore them, his reasoning had nothing to do with mine.
  • His reasoning had everything to do with yours. You were arguing moral equivalency of the US and Imperial Japan, which is what all arguments of X versu B are in Evil Versus Evil. As repeatedly stated, you have no proof that the US was as equally evil as Japan. You even acknowledged yourself in the edit reasons when you said " It never specifies that both sides have to be EQUALLY evil. " To which I responded with examples from the trope description that said that, for this trope to apply, they HAVE TO BE EQUALLY EVIL. n case you still didn't get it, let's break down the parts of the trope description saying that, hm?

Trope Description Breakdown:

The solution? Pit the Villain Protagonist against another villain. Someone so rotten that no matter how low you go on the Karma Meter, you'll still want to kick his ass.

• Malchus: A Villain Protagonist is still a villain. Making this villain versus villain, two people just as bad as each other.

You don't have to do really rotten things like kicking puppies, you can kick fire-breathing demon puppies instead. It's kind of hard to Take Over the World when another Evil Overlord is already ruling it; or wants to destroy it.

• Malchus: Evil Overlord versus Evil Overlord or Evil Overlord versus Omnicidal Maniac. Both sides have explicitly evil intentions for the world without a care for how many innocents die in the process. Both are still rotten to the core.

For a Gentleman Thief who wants the best loot, what better target than other thieves?

• Malchus: Milder example this time. Gentleman Thief versus other thieves. Both are still thieves. in other words, about as equally rotten. And, no, being a "gentleman" does not lessen how evil one is. For example, Hannibal Lecter is a suave and cultured serial killer, but he's still a fucking serial killer.

The Starscream has to have someone to overthrow, right?

• Malchus: A villain plotting to overthrown another villain. Self-explanatory.

And even the most vicious Knight Templar is right once in a while.

• Malchus: Knight Templars, as per the trope, are extremists against enemy forces they perceive are extremists. If their perceptions are actually right, then it's extremist versus extremist.

Malchus: In conclusion, as repeated again and again. Both sides need to be evil in about equal amounts in order to apply for this trope. You, yourself, acknowledge that the US and Imperial Japan were not equally evil (again, I quote YOUR edit reason " It never specifies that both sides have to be EQUALLY evil. "). The break down above shows that it does say that both have to be equivalent evils. The atrocities the US did not do compared to the atrocities their enemies did do in WW 2 show that they weren't as evil as said enemies. Hence, Black-and-Gray Morality (from the page description itself: This is the essence of Black and Gray Morality'; the only choices are between kinda evil and soul-crushingly evil) not Evil Versus Evil.