"start of darkness" definition: Start Of Darkness

Of course not, because the villain didn't exist before that work.

However, with an episodic show this all gets really ambiguous and weird.

edited 25th Mar '11 6:02:02 AM by Kerrah

And if the movie with the flashback-in-the-climax is a sequel or a remake of a series which introduced the Big Bad?

edited 25th Mar '11 8:03:06 AM by Servbot

Um...give me a second to work that out...

Yes. That would count.

Here's my two cents.

->Prequel movies count

->A flashback/time travel episode near the season 1 finale, or sometime after that counts

->A series of flashbacks, so long they occur deep in the series, count.

->Someone mentioning that an evil character used to be good, does not count

-> A story whose point is showing a good character turning evil, does not count

edited 30th Sep '11 9:51:03 PM by ChaoticNovelist

The High Octane Nightmare Fuel: Music page refers to the song "Man That You Fear" as being about "a Complete Monster confronting someone who loved him before his start of darkness." It sounds like they're referring to the moment when he turned evil as his "start of darkness" rather than a prequel to the song. The Kim Possible page also potholes part of Shego's backstory to "Start of Darkness" and the A Christmas Carol page says Scrooge's backstory could also count. I admit I can't find a ton of what I konw are examples of people misdefining the trope, but that's because I haven't watched/read/played/otherwise consumed most of the stories that this wiki refers to as having this trope. And honestly, the trope name sounds like it just means "any villain origin story" anyway. Anyone besides me still think we should change the trope name? I'm gonna try putting up a YKTTW proposal for a different trope that's specifically for prequels.

The OP has made a YKTTW for a proposed split of the original definition from this trope, which has largely attracted comments saying it's not splittable. Comments?

As I said in that thread, I think we should rename Start of Darkness to Start Of Darkness Prequel. That will eliminate misuse and eliminate the need for a second thread.

And I don't think there'll be anything left for Start of Darkness if we move all the proper examples to a different prequel page.

That YKTTW is proposing a Trope Transplant. I'm not convinced that's necessary.

Ditto. I don't see why some people are upset by, say, a movie spending 10 minutes on a flashback to establish the background of its villain. In practice it's the exact same trope, I don't see why we need to to create one trope to be for prequels, and a different trope for flashbacks or any other means of revealing background info showing why the villain became a villain.

If we do that, we're going to have an awfully difficult time keeping people to using the correct trope, and even if they do it's a matter of time before someone pops in here and asks why we have two different tropes for the same function.

Just rewrite the article a touch to make SURE that people see it can only apply to prequels and flashbacks, (if there's a markup for big flashing letters, and that's what it takes for people it get it through their skulls, then break it out) prominently link to Protagonist Journey to Villain for stuff where an entire work shows a basically good character turning into a villain.

If we need to create a trope anything that slips through the cracks and isn't a Start of Darkness or a Protagonist Journey to Villain, then put it in YKTTW. Offhand I can think of relatively few scenarios where that would come up, however.

edited 7th Dec '11 9:51:17 AM by TheWanderer

I tweaked the description a little to underline the "prequels and flashbacks only" part, and moved one paragraph to the Analysis subpage.

Since the YKTTW didn't really work out, and hasn't attracted any attention since the beginning of October 2011, I'd recommend discarding it.

Locking as requested.