Conflicting Description: High Heel Face Turn

High-Heel–Face Turn has a few problems. First, the main description doesn't agree with the Laconic. If you can make it through all the exposition, it seems to be saying that it's for when a female villain has a Heel–Face Turn that's induced by the hero's manliness. The laconic, however, says that when there's a single female villain, she's always the one to have the Heel–Face Turn. These are difficult to reconcile and the examples seem to be a mishmash of both cases.

Further, the description wanders a somewhat meandering course after the initial thesis where it starts discussing why female villains are more likely to turn and how to avert it.

So, which is this, exactly, or is it both?

• Female villain has a Heel–Face Turn induced by The Hero's manliness.
• In any cast of villains, the lone female is always the one who has the Heel–Face Turn.

I should add that if it's just any female villain who changes sides, then it's a gender-segregated version of Heel–Face Turn which doesn't need to exist.

edited 21st Apr '11 2:24:13 PM by Fighteer

Hmm...I would say that, especially when she's the only female on the villain side, female villains are statistically more likely to switch sides. That by itself is almost certainly a trope.

The reasons for this however..."falling for the hero" is certainly a major one, though this is also a common trope in Magical Girl shows, where thats (somewhat) less of a possibility.

edited 21st Apr '11 3:21:05 PM by SakurazakiSetsuna

In my experience, it tends to be used as the second one. I never really quite got the sense of the first, and I would have been much more understanding of the trope's existence if I did.

For me, it's the opposite. I normally see it used to describe the female villain that falls for the hero and switches sides. Or tries.

I would agree with Morgan. I usually see it as "the betrayal on the villain side comes from the female minion". Falling for the hero is option, although common.

edited 21st Apr '11 4:16:20 PM by Heatth

So, we now have a great illustration of the problem.

I should add that my second definition is slightly incorrect; it should read: "If there is a female villain among male villains, she is the most likely to have a Heel–Face Turn." This would then be a Sister Trope to Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter for obvious reasons.

If we make it into this, which is fine, we need to fix the description so that "the hero's manliness" is just one of the reasons she turns and not the focus of the trope.

I'll be honest, most of the time this tends to be used as - and the second definition would basically amount to - Heel–Face Turn But Female. It's the same problem with any trope that relies on a statistical analysis of the aggregate (see: Most Common Superpower) - it's impossible to keep it from decaying into the Not A Trope form without limiting examples to aversions and other played-with examples.

Although the pun is brilliant, I honestly wonder whether the title would ever work for an actual trope.

edited 24th Apr '11 1:06:35 AM by MorganWick

I don't agree that this is The Same But More Specific of Heel–Face Turn. If the 'lone female villain is the one who turns' factor is a common enough factor (and I'd certainly argue it is) I believe it is a legitimate Sub-Trope.

(I have to admit I really don't want to loose that wonderful trope title.)

Heel–Face Turn meets The Smurfette Principle in this fashion might be doable, but I'm not entirely certain it's used that way. I could be wrong.

It most certainly is.

This happens all the time in anime, still.

That would be the perfect laconic, and must be in the description as well. Very good summation.

I've been wanting to fix this for a while. The trope isn't just The Same But More Specific to Heel–Face Turn - it's a particular Double Standard-caused situation that tends to stem from a mixture of Most Writers Are Male and Beauty Equals Goodness.

The problem with that, as someone pointed out in a Trope Talk thread, is that's it's hard to pin down any objective way to determine when this happens - some people will assume that this is the case when any female villain makes a Heel–Face Turn - and we already have the trope for when the High-Heel–Face Turn is explicitly caused by attraction to the hero.

The X Meets Y idea proposed here is easily the best solution to the problem I've seen. I'd suggest reworking the description to something similar as well.

edited 28th Apr '11 8:31:21 PM by nrjxll

I want to add in that the "assumption" behind this is twofold: both a) that the female minion is attractive enough to the hero to get more of their attention/attempted conversions over other minions, and b) that the female of the group, compared to the other minions, is somehow weak-willed (i.e. less likely to stick to her principles), which makes her "more easily persuaded".

THIS is why just turning a lone (or even leading!) female villain isn't suitable for this trope — the High-Heel–Face Turn is both a traitor to the cause and a metaphorical chink in the armor of evil, which is distinct from the lady in charge changing her mind.

I'm unsure if turning a female minion (when the group is majority female) qualifies or not, unless it's made explicitly clear that the targeted minion is obviously more feminine than the rest.

edited 5th Aug '11 1:36:18 PM by Jekkal

That's one heck of a bump. Somehow I forgot about this one.

Since I see no objections, I'm going to go ahead and rework the description to be primarily about The Smurfette Principle aspect rather than the Manly Hero aspect.

I sandboxed a new description here. Please examine and critique. Is it still too much about the turn and not about being the only girl?

The one change I really want to make there is to put that warning at the bottom in Bold Inflation, as I'm still concerned that it may be misused as "female Heel–Face Turn", especially with the current name. Should we consider a rename?

I also want to do a wick check just to see what it's most used as currently.

I really don't think we should rename the trope, at least if we are making clear it isn't just any case of a female Face–Heel Turn. The current name is amusing, eyecatching and understandable (well in context of the 'Face' and 'Heel' terminology anyway).

The trouble is, though, that it sounds like "female Heel–Face Turn". Nothing in the name suggests the Smurfette Principle aspect of how it's been rewritten.

I like the pun too. But it's definitely one that I can see causing misuse.

Sole High Heel Face Turn then?

Sole High Heel Turn is awful, just awful.

And the trope is "female Heel–Face Turn" - by defintion this trope is Always Female. So long as we make it clear in the trope description that it doesn't apply to every female Heel–Face Turn I don't see that much potential for misuse - especially if as you suggested we go with a Bold Inflation warning.

High-Heel–Face Turn has the added benefit (besides being an amusing pun) of highlighing the beauty (as in Beauty Equals Goodness) aspect of the trope as heels (of the shoe rather than wrestling kind) are certainly symbolic of physical attractiveness.

edited 5th Aug '11 6:20:57 PM by RossN

But again, the trope isn't just female Heel–Face Turn - it's more specific then that. The name isn't. I want to check the wicks first, but I just don't think this is a very clear name with Fighteer's rewrite.

And I agree that that's one sanity-crushingly bad pun (at least I think it was a pun).

Alot of us were under the impression Heel–Face Turn wasn't gender specific and that High-Heel–Face Turn was about the "sole" female in the group doing a Heel–Face Turn.

Yes, it was a pun, I'm highly intoxicated at the moment and couldn't resist, sorry. How about Only High Heel Face Turn?

On a serious note, Ross N seems you created or helped in creating the page(and really like the name), what was your original intent?

"Hero turns female member" or "sole female members more likely to turn"?

edited 5th Aug '11 7:05:43 PM by No9

I don't think anyone is claiming that Heel–Face Turn is gender specific - what Ross N meant is that this as this is an Always Female trope, it can truthfully be said that the trope is about a female Heel–Face Turn. There's more to it then that (which is my problem with the name) but that is a true statement.

I'm aware, I'm not questioning that part, I'm more interested in the points post1 made, is this trope 1, 2 or both? Ross N who created or helped in creating the page has posted a few times and seems more concerned with keeping the name (he might have come up with) than clarifying.

I'm guessing it's 2 "sole female members more likely to turn" but the description, Playing With and examples are all over the place. The only thing we are 100% on is that they are female.

edited 5th Aug '11 8:31:15 PM by No9

I did create the trope though I can take credit for the name as such - it was suggested by another troper in the YKTTW stage, I absolutely loved it and ran with it.

The original intent was that in a villainous group it was nearly always the lone female who turned good (indeed the choice of page picture was based on exactly that.) The confusion was that point 1 ("the heroes manliness causing the villainess to turn good") is closely related to and very frequently part of this trope.

So the trope is "sole female members more likely to turn" but a note has to be made that this end is very frequently accomplished via the means of "Hero turns female member".