Need a clear description: Holier Than Thou

Well, to put it simply, it's not evident to know what this trope is about:

• the name suggest a battle between two people over religion, as in Eviler than Thou or More Hero than Thou
• the description can be three trope
  • a world when everyone who is religious is a saint or an evil strawman
  • a character who is a saint or an evil strawman
  • a religious character who is an hypocrite

I have a YKTTW for that third one: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=vj5htq0bjeszvl7yt4ojjcga

I know, it's because of it that I want clarification with this trope. I think that there is two tropes: yours, and the one suggested by the name.

Yeah, I'd say mine is distinct enough. It's the same reason I distinguished it from The Fundamentalist.

edited 6th May '11 9:24:10 AM by neoYTPism

Bumping because this did not quite seem to get addressed.

Crowner time ? Options

1: modify the description so that she match her name.

2: ?

"Holier Than Thou" is a common phrase in English, basically a synonym for "self-righteousness". The other two (Eviler and More Hero) are Snowclones of this one.

So I don't think a rename is necessary.

If no one complains in the following weeks against it, the description will be rewritten in accordance with the name

I just did complain. The name doesn't mean what you think it does: it's a turn of speech.

I am not sure I understand you: are you against that we rewrite the description of Holier Than You as "a battle between two people over religion, as in Eviler than Thou or More Hero than Thou" ?

It's not a rename: the trope description is a mess and should be rewritten.

Yes, because that's not what the trope means.

The trope is about characters who are (1) deeply religious, and (2) deeply immoral, which obviously makes them big hypocrites. There doesn't have to be a big battle, nor anyone calling that out, nor a different religious figure to contrast them with.

"Eviler than Thou" is different. Its name is a Snow Clone of this one, but that doesn't mean that the two are identical in concept. They're not. That's why it says "contrast Eviler than Thou" instead of "compare". Once again, the phrase "Holier Than Thou" does not mean what you think it means.

So the solution to your issue is to rename either trope.

edited 17th May '11 11:01:25 AM by Spark9

If I make a crowner, the options are
1: modify the description so that she match her name.
2: modify the name of Eviler than Thou and More Hero than Thou, and clean up the description of this trope so that it match [[this]] definition.

Hello, original creator of the trope page here. Personally, I think the Snow Clone variants of this suck (seriously, those titles are really awkward) but that's neither here nor there and shouldn't affect this trope.

This trope is about religious hypocrites, specifically characters whose hypocrisy centers around their religion. They don't practice what they preach, literally. This may be either because the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak (the self-loathing variant), or because they're genuine non-believers who just fake religion because it suits their plans (the evil variant). The latter being especially popular in stories. Judge Frollo from the Disney version of Notre Dame is a great example: he likes to think of himself as religious, but it's the kind of religion where other people need to obey the rules — he has no capacity for living according to the spirit of Christianity, and he carefully avoids applying its tenets to himself.

The description has deteriorated a bit with time from people tacking on special cases, but that's the gist of it.

... okay, so do we agree that Holier Than Thou refers specifically to unwarranted religious self-righteousness, rather than unwarranted self-righteousness in general?

edited 22nd May '11 11:40:54 AM by neoYTPism

Yes, obviously. This trope was created back when we didn't use mundane titles, but poetic ones expressing the intent in some clever way.

If this page was created today, it would get some utterly uninspiring title like "Religious Hypocrite". Perish the thought.

In common English, someone can be accused of being "holier than thou" without religion having to do anything with it, but that's not what this page is about, since that's not a trope, plain and simple. Characters who pose as religious but aren't (by intent or by deed alone) is a trope.

Wait a second, I don't think we're agreed to that. Since "holier than thou" has a clear meaning in real life, it would make sense to expand this trope to what its name means. Looking over the page, it seems to me that this has already happened.

ho·li·er-than-thou, adjective: Obnoxiously pious; sanctimonious; self-righteous.

This contradicts the trope in two ways:

• The name is a Snow Clone of Eviler than Thou (or maybe it's the original and Eviler than Thou is the snowclone, I don't know) and that associates the two tropes. This creates a discrepancy because Eviler than Thou is about competition between two characters and this one involves no competition whatsoever.
• The name "holier than thou", by definition of the English phrase, suggests nothing about an immoral person. It only means a self-centered or pushy person.

A rename would be good—-and the new name doesn't have to be dry and boring. Maybe even snowclone it with Hollywood X? It seems like the opposite of Hollywood Atheist to me, because it has similar stereotypical treatment of a religious view. Hollywood Churchgoer? Hollywood Believer? Hollywood Piety? Or not. I feel like with the many aspects of religion there is a good pun lurking somewhere.

Holier Than Thou is a pre-existing term. It's a common English phrase and it does in fact mean that the character is immoral. It's typically used to describe a person that believes that their faith makes them better than everyone else. This leads them to they feel like they can discriminate against anyone who doesn't believe like they do. It also means that they believe that they can do anything because they have faith and thus can do nothing wrong.

Eviler than Thou is just a bad snowclone.

edited 24th Aug '11 8:19:43 PM by shimaspawn

Bump. So should we rename Eviler than Thou and More Herothan Thou ? And delete every example that isn't a person that believes that their faith makes them better than everyone else (which means two examples will survive the purge in the Anime, Comic Book and Film section)

We don't need to change the names. Especially not this one, the original 'than thou' trope. This one is already clear. If the description is a problem than it should be cleaned up

Holier than thou, as a pre-existing term, if not necessarily about religion, but this trope is.

We do still need to establish how we want to define this.

Regarding the examples, we have almost every kind of religious people : tolerant, good, evil, intolerant, faithful, unfaithful... You name a combination, you can find it. So I don't know what the description should be.