"Real Life" removal: Even Evil Has Standards

I want to remove "Real Life" from Even Evil Has Standards. In addition to being extremely subjective, a few of them are actually Pet the Dog type villains. Here are some examples that really bug me:

"J. Edgar Hoover, the racist head of the FBI, was opposed to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's decision to place Japanese-Americans in internment camps."

J. Edgar Hoover wasn't "evil", he was a competent FBI official with flaws.

Or "Osama bin Laden, the most wanted terrorist in the world, now wants America to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

That one doesn't even make sense. So greenhouse gas emissions are worst than murdering thousands of people? Give me a break.

"The main witch-hunting manual of the Middle Ages, The Malleus Malificarum, claims that there are things even demons won't do in their quest for souls. While they'll "fornicate" with men in women's form or women in men's form - and though they have no true gender themselves - the authors claim that even demons won't stoop to homosexuality. Don't you love the smell of Values Dissonance in the morning?"

In this case, since shape-shifting demons are purely theory (not even The Bible has anything on demons that can be in the form of man), it's not "Real Life".

I think it would be best if "Real Life" was removed as a whole, just like Complete Monster has no "Real Life". Some examples can move to Pet the Dog, if needed.

Just remove the examples that aren't examples, like the bin Laden one, and move ones like the transcript on demons to literature or religion.

edited 28th Apr '11 8:04:53 AM by neoYTPism

The ones that are "nasty guy does something nice" aren't examples either . They're Pet the Dog if they're any trope. This trope is "Nasty guy says something is too nasty for him to do."

Also: the Yakuza example is probably more of a Villain with Good Publicity.

Secondly, a LOT of the examples have sub-bulletins.

Thirdly, some "The Imageboard That Must Not Be Named" examples, don't count. Sending a crazy woman's kid porn doesn't count.

George Metesky not making bombs after Pearl Harbor WOULD count, but since he resumed it after WWII was over, it doesn't count.

If the Real Life examples are kept, I would say that the bin Laden one does count. It's a very strange sort of standards, granted, but it is a legitimate example: a mass-murdering terrorist considers endangering the environment bad.

Or at least that's how I read it. On second thought, it probably should be cut unless it gets some elaboration.

But who are we to say that being a mass-murdering terrorist is a bad thing?

^^ You're kidding, right?

^^Exactly. I mean, for one thing the guy is not a plain "mass-murderer", if that was the case he'd kill chinese, czesch and cambodians too. He goes specifically against the US (and for a good reason I have to say). And if you adscribe to the view that it is growing population and energy demands that are killing the environment, then supporting killing people but not hurting the environment makes sense.

edited 29th Apr '11 9:08:19 AM by SilentReverence

The problem with Real Life examples isn't that it's hard to judge whether they qualify for the trope, but that by adding someone to it you're calling them evil. We don't put Real Life people in Complete Monster for this exact reason. Morality is only absolute enough to call people evil in fiction.

I'd support cutting it. As it stands it is a selection of bitchiness, take thats, and urban myths. At the very least put in "historical only" clause. Nothing more recent than 60 years ago, no living examples.

edited 29th Apr '11 9:19:42 AM by CrypticMirror

Would this also entail removing the page quote from the KKK?

Also, that demons example would be a better fit in the "Mythology and Religion" section.

edited 29th Apr '11 10:44:19 AM by petrie911

"The problem with Real Life examples isn't that it's hard to judge whether they qualify for the trope, but that by adding someone to it you're calling them evil. We don't put Real Life people in Complete Monster for this exact reason." - Fighteer

Not quite. There's a difference between calling someone evil (which is done in real-life all the time) and calling someone heinously, inexcusably, remorselessly and irredeemably evil. (A little rarer.)

Complete Monster has Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment because it is simply so extreme. (That and it's hard to prove that someone's never felt remorse or is incapable of redemption.) Plenty of tropes that label people evil have real-life sections; they just aren't as extreme.

edited 29th Apr '11 10:45:29 AM by neoYTPism

What you said.

"Plenty of tropes that label people evil have real-life sections; they just aren't as extreme."

Examples?

The problem with Real Life examples for this page should be restricted to "Widely-Known Evil Person/Organization would never do Heinous Thing X". This works with Aryan Brotherhood and the Soviets not doing lobotomies.

What it became "Widely-Known Evil Person/Organization has Pet the Dog moment" or "Widely-Known Evil Person/Organization won't associate with other Widely-Known Evil Person/Organization" (like the page quote) or "Some Random Bad Person I Found on the Internet Did Something Good" (including the pimp reporting child molesters, robbers returning the veteran's wallet).

Firstly, regardless of any cleanup it needs, the 4Chan, Something Awful, and Game FA Qs stuff should go to Web Original. Also, the demons thing needs to go to Mythology and Religion, as I said before.

Now, a lot of the section consists of criminals who think that other crimes are crossing the line. For example, the pimp who turned in the man who asked for a 10-year-old girl clearly considers prostitution OK, but child prostitution not. This seems in-line with the trope at hand.

There's also a fair bit of Values Dissonance that is going on in a lot of examples, but I suppose that's to be expected.

I wouldn't have a problem with cutting the Real Life section entirely, but if it is kept, the random robber examples seem like a pretty good fit.

Also, I think that the Bin Laden one is a quite good example. Having standards doesn't mean having consistent standards/standards that compensate for wrongdoing. I could very easily imagine a fictional terrorist who worried about global warming.

Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters. We can't objectively classify Real Life people as good or evil. Morality doesn't work that way.

edited 29th Apr '11 4:18:03 PM by troacctid

Exactly.

Evil Tropes lists a variety of tropes relating to evil, but I'm already familiar with Evil Cannot Comprehend Good and Evil Is Cool having real-life sections. Perhaps the idea of real-life examples of evil should be taken to another thread, maybe here or Trope Talk?

I agree with the Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters point though; which kind of evil deed is more heinous is at the very least technically subjective.

edited 29th Apr '11 6:45:49 PM by neoYTPism

Evil Cannot Comprehend Good contains one real example: the Soviet Union cannot believing that the President could resign. It, however, is fairly agreeable that the Soviet Union is often classified as "evil" in Real Life alignments. But it can be controversial, and in a way, it doesn't even fit the trope that well. Communists can't understand democracy, but is that necessarily a bad thing?

Evil Is Cool mostly contains actors wanting to be villains, a Roman Catholic thing on rejecting the "glamour of evil", a YMMV, some stupid You Tube video, something on Charles Manson, and Man of Wealth and Taste.

Examples regarding ambiguity should be removed. There's no need to eliminate an entire subpage only because of the controversy arising due to the most heated cases.

Everyone thinks they're doing something good (that's why Heel Realization is a trope), and everyone whose examples wouldn't go in Troper Tales has people who agree with them. Bin Laden has (well, had, now) a large network of followers who would most strenuously object to his being called "evil". Hitler also had a large network of quite devoted followers.

Evil is not an objective concept in Real Life. This has even been deconstructed in fiction (it's a major theme of Order Of The Stick, especially Start of Darkness).

There is no reason for this page to have Real Life examples. None.

Voting to cutlist the Real Life subpage.

Neo YT Pism and Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters (a trope I didn't know of) have convinced me to favour cutting RL section completely.

Fix'd. I blame a kitteh.

edited 1st Jun '11 9:26:48 AM by SilentReverence

It's actually neoYTPism, copied from my Youtube username, which in turn was picked as a random portmanteau of "neo-X-ism" labels (for ideologies) and of YTP. (If such a portmanteau sounds silly to you... I don't blame you.)

I'm not saying real-life examples should necessarily be cut, but I do think it should be left to the most apparent examples, and even then, one should be reminded that YMMV applies to such examples.

edited 5th May '11 10:55:47 AM by neoYTPism