On a sidenote, I remember when the description used to be "this is not for villains who are funny, or tragic, or just so awesome that you can't help but root for them. This is for villains who are so despicable that the only satisfying end to their role in the story is a death just as horrible as they are... or worse."
That kind of thing seems to be what the second description is implying; a contrast between heinous evil Played for Laughs and heinous evil Played for Drama; and that's what I interpreted the trope to be about when first reading said earlier description. Perhaps a new trope could be formed to separate that from the extent of heinous evil?
Yeah, honestly I think a CM should be a CM even if they are played for laughs, example would be Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove, if played straight she'd be a CM for sure, but I guess people ignore her because the story was more comical than, say, Hunchback.
On an unrelated note, in The Emperor's New Groove, the main character nearly crossed the Moral Event Horizon himself when he was all set to callously destroy that peasant village just to make a pleasure palace for himself, what do you guys think
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
To be fair, Yzma has reasons not to be a Complete Monsters other than being Played for Laughs. She does attempt murder, but against someone who fired her for doing his job the exact same way he did, despite that she taught him much of what he knew. Not really justified, of course, but at the same time the excuse does seem to make her too mild a villain to belong on the Complete Monster list.
As for her relation to the second criterion... it is probably not so much that her evil is Played for Laughs MORE as that she is Played for Drama LESS. I think that is the relevant aspect here; characters like Eric Cartman can have their evil played sometimes for laughs, sometimes for drama, and often for a combination of the two. The evil of Yzma is played almost exclusively for laughs.
EDIT: And it's not a Moral Event Horizon if you come back from it. What you described would be more along the lines of Kick the Dog.
edited 8th May '11 8:15:26 AM by neoYTPism
I considered her firing more of a Kick The Son Of A Bitch i.e. he was doing it out of callous disregard, but she was clearly an evil witch for a long time before that.
And yes, I said it was nearly an MEH, if he had actually done it he would have crossed it.
$50 a day, plus expenses
I think the big thing about being Played for Laughs is that they can be humorous, but their atrocities can't be laughed off.
If the big bad kills a hundred children, and makes a snide, darkly hilarious comment about it, he's still a Complete Monster.
If the big bad kills a hundred children, and everyone gets a good laugh out of the action, then that probably doesn't qualify.
So the villain can be humorous, but his actions can't be.
Still think there's a few holes in this, but it's something that came to mind.
Don't take life too seriously. It's only a temporary situation.
Now, how to keep "regular evil" 1D/2D villains off the lists? Ban Freudian Excuse? Expect crossing of Moral Event Horizon?
Also, suggest cutting Parlor Games subsection. It holds only the Mafia game, which relies completely on the interpretation of the role. Sure, the role could be a Complete Monster, but it could also not be one.
edited 8th May '11 3:35:37 PM by peccantis
Lost in Space
We already have a TRS thread for this trope. Running two at once is stupid. Locking - go here
to discuss further.
Is it just me, or does something seem vague about this description to anyone else? There seem to be multiple aspects to this:
And even those aspects, as noted above, do not seem that consistently approached even in their own descriptions.