Am I the only one confused by this trope?: What Measure Is A Mook

Generally, the "common perception" of this trope seems to be "Heroes slaughter Mooks without remorse". Sounds simple enough.

However, the description seems to take a very aggressive stance that this is wrong and bad. While I've always considered various tropes of this nature offensive myself, it's a value judgment our articles are not supposed to make. Needless to say, this leads to a great deal of natter and justifying edits as to why it was OK for someone's favorite characters to slaughter some Faceless Goons and not blink an eye.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of it. Some of the discussion on the discussion page indicates that what the trope is really about is cases where the heroes spare the villain, but not his minions. And the Laconic makes it sound like an Audience Reaction - "Empathy is projected onto expendable enemies" - that is, audience members feel sorry for the mooks.

I don't know quite what to do here, but something sure needs to be done, as we have three different definitions for the trope and a description that actively asks for Natter.

edited 27th Feb '11 4:45:15 PM by nrjxll

The name What Measure Is a Mook? doesn't seem to mean anything. I'm going to assume it was snowcloned from What Measure Is A Nonhuman. While that page is about assigning different values to humans and various groups of humanoids, What Measure Is a Mook? is about... I'm not sure what. If it's the fact that mooks are expendable, that's part of the definition of mook.

However: What Measure Is a Mook? found in: 265 articles, excluding discussions.

This title has brought 1,721 people to the wiki from non-search engine links since 20th FEB '09.

edited 27th Feb '11 5:06:04 PM by vilefile

I know it's an entrenched name, and I'm not suggesting a rename, but the trope does need fixing - especially clarification.

It's missing something. It's missing..."why". Like, "why are Mooks treated as disposable by the heroes and readers"? It explains how the author handwaves it (making them clones, etc.), and the page's tone feels like it's setting up for that elaboration  ^*

, but it never comes.

edited 27th Feb '11 5:49:37 PM by Redhead

The new It Just Bugs Me!

At the very least, it needs to reflect the fact that Tropes Are Not Bad.

Can we do that without clashing with the subject matter tone-wise?

edited 27th Feb '11 6:12:26 PM by Redhead

The new It Just Bugs Me!

What Measure Is a Mook? is talking about when a series treats Mooks as less than human, as if they were nonhumans in What Measure Is A Nonhuman. That may be part of the definition of Mook, but this trope is pointing out how there can be some major Fridge Logic associated with the morality of that.

Most series have at least some discussion or acknowledgement of the morality of killing or not killing a Big Bad. However, these same series will often completely ignore the depth of that when it comes to Mooks, leading to some potentially massive What the Hell, Hero? Fridge Logic.

For instance, in Walker Texas Ranger. The show has some pretty anvilicious morality messages. It's inconsistent about it, but usually boils down to Walker not killing the Big Bad because the justice system has to take care of them. However, these villains are quite often complete monsters. On the other hand, their henchmen, which are sometimes shown to be normal people fallen on hard times or forced into it by the Bad Boss, are usually gunned down mercilessly by Walker and his friends. In one case, Walker grinned as he caused some guy's bomb to kill himself, before continuing on to spare the Complete Monster at the end.

It's the problem that morality is usually not applied to Mooks, even when it's a major plot point that it's applied to the Big Bad, who may clearly be on nearly the opposite end of the evil spectrum.

At least that's how I've understood it. Some of the stuff about the connection to the Big Bad is extrapolating a bit, but I think it's kind of necessary. It's hard to say Mooks are being treated differently if you don't compare it to something else.

edited 27th Feb '11 7:49:17 PM by Jokubas

So that's one vote for meaning #2. The problem is that meaning #1 - characters in the work show no remorse for killing Mooks - seems to be just as widespread and is the strongest impression I get from the description as to what this is actually supposed to be. There is some overlap between the two, but given that the description seems to focus more on attacking the trope then defining it, they don't quite seem to be the same.

Does anyone support meaning #3 - that this is an Audience Reaction about the viewers feeling sorry/sympathetic towards the mooks? This is the one the Laconic states.

Incidentally, #2 is the one I personally favor for the trope's meaning, as it relates more closely towards the other What Measure Is an Index? tropes.

Edit: And most of the potholes I've seen for this support the idea that it's seen as inherently bad. I happen to agree, but it still comes across as complaining natter that could be curbed with a less negative description.

edited 27th Feb '11 10:19:56 PM by nrjxll

Now that we have YMMV we need to be careful about classifying as Audience Reaction anything that has even a tiny bit of audience involvement. Most tropes have some degree of audience reaction yet aren't considered audience reaction tropes.

What Measure Is A Nonhuman: nonhumans are not always fully treated as people.

What Measure Is A Mook: mooks are not always fully treated as people.

At its core it's not an audience reaction trope. And that Laconic was written at a point in time when misclassifying something as an audience reaction has no consequence—which is no longer true.

I think if the audience is meant to see it from the mooks' perspective, it's probably a Mook Horror Show.

edited 28th Feb '11 7:54:14 AM by troacctid

Rhymes with "Protracted."

So the definition just needs to say "Some works apply different rules of morality to mooks than they do to more important villains," or something to that effect.

There's no need for it to say anything like "Isn't it horrible?" or "How can the characters not have a problem with this?" or even "This is a common problem in fiction." Just take out any judgmental language.

I still think the name is bad and doesn't really mean anything, but it's probably too late for a change.

Yes, get rid of the "this is horrible" stuff. You can mention that it's Moral Dissonance, but don't write the page about it.

Fight smart, not fair.

Well I'm late to the party but I'll point out that some of the potholes that lead to this trope involve a specific situation (or character) bringing up this trope, e.g. the page quote for Not So Different. So, maybe this trope is if the show puts the humanity of its mooks in the spotlight, contrary to the usual drill?

Mind, under this definition a lot of the page examples would have to go since they'd just be defining Mooks as expendable.

EDIT: The Laconic entry seems to agree.

edited 9th Apr '11 4:33:26 PM by LordBojangles

You may fire when ready, Mr. Gridley.

But I think at least some of those potholes don't have to do with the work calling out this out all - it's fans objecting to the Moral Dissonance of the hero's (or "hero's") actions. Things like that page quote seem more like a version of What the Hell, Hero?.

A trope about mook's-eye stories and the like might be valuable, but it's not this trope.

Edit: As troacctid said earlier, one of the tropes where the emphasis is on the mooks is Mook Horror Show. Other cases are just Lampshade Hanging or Deconstructive Parody. We don't need to redefine this trope - right now, I think the main thing is to clean up that description.

edited 9th Apr '11 5:18:28 PM by nrjxll

The And That's Terrible stuff definitely needs to go. While you can find examples of heroes sparing the Big Bad but slaughtering Mooks, that's usually because the Big Bad has been disarmed/subdued/incapacitated and so no longer poses a threat, while almost all Mook killing is done while they're actively trying to kill the hero.

edited 9th Apr '11 6:05:59 PM by RavenWilder

I see this has been quiet for a while. Was there any desire to try and work stuff out on the page or was it already done?

Who watches the watchmen?

I don't think it's had any real work done yet.