One trope, or two or more?: Good Is Not Nice

To me there seem to be at least two separate tropes

• A character happens to be both good and not nice; kindness and morality are treated as separate.
• A character is not nice precisely BECAUSE that character is good; kindness and morality are contrasted.

To clarify, the latter refers to situations for which doing the right thing is not nice; Brutal Honesty and Break His Heart to Save Him situations, (though not all of either, granted) strike me as examples of this. The idea is that the "good" would do the right thing even if it is cruel, while the merely "nice" would not.

Would this warrant a split?

I don't think it's worth a split. Maybe give it a paragraph in the description noting the contrast, but otherwise leave it alone.

I only think that is really worth a split if you think there are enough examples of that to support a trope. I honestly do not think there are and I believe that the multiple justifications for Good is Not Nice in its trope description are enough.

edited 10th Jun '11 7:41:51 PM by LouieW

Multiple justifications do not imply multiple forms. The imply that good characters can be mean or unfriendly in similar ways, even if for different reasons.

I think there is a significant difference between doing the right thing even when it is mean (some actions from Dirty Harry, or the Dark Knight Trilogy version of Batman, come to mind) and a character who happens to be both good and obnoxious. (Basil from The Great Mouse Detective comes to mind.)

Also, which variety were you suggesting there were not enough examples of?

I think the title should be swapped with the redirect. Mean Is Not Evil, goes well with Dark Is Not Evil.

Similarly, Affably Evil should be Nice Is Not Good and Evilly Affable well that last one can stay just so long as the titles aren't so confusing. Make sure the common English speaking net dweller can understand a naming convention.

edited 27th Jul '11 10:15:57 AM by Cider

I don't see a problem. Someone can be 'good' I.E. a hero and still be a mean person. Brutal Honesty and Break Their heart to save them, are not mean. Not neccesarily the former and definitely not the latter.

"Not nice BECAUSE they're good"? I don't get that. I'd like to see some examples.

I don't think they should be swapped. Swapping names around just to fit with one other trope doesn't make sense. If it was part of a huge family like the Hollywood Style tropes, it would make some sense.

I recently came across this article (while exploring online debates about the All Girls Want Bad Boys stereotype, actually) and it seems like one part would make a good page quote...

edited 27th Sep '11 5:57:06 PM by HiddenFacedMatt

Yes. All Morality Tropes should be, really.

I don't think they should all be, since many of them have the real life examples reflect the most interestingly on them. The idea should be to look at the tropes one by one, and weigh the benefits (such as interesting demonstration of the concept behind the trope) against the drawbacks. (Such as potential for controversy.) That would make sense of having real-life examples for Pay Evil unto Evil, which has potential for mild controversy but interesting reflection on the trope, while also making sense of prohibiting real-life examples of Complete Monster, since referring to real-life people as heinously, disturbingly, inexcusably, remorselessly and irredeemably evil has a lot more potential for controversy than it's probably worth.

As for this trope in particular, I think discussing cases where what's right isn't nice would reflect very interestingly on... what I assume is its fundamental concept. *

But barring the change to that rule, another page quote suggestion from the Lean on Me portrayal of Joe Clark:

edited 4th Oct '11 10:32:00 AM by HiddenFacedMatt

... though come to think of it, it could instead be used for Shoot the Dog, a similar concept which doesn't exactly have an ideal page quote now either.

edited 4th Oct '11 1:40:41 PM by HiddenFacedMatt

I think the current page quote is fine. Add yours to the quotes subpage, if you like.

The problem with the current one is that it doesn't address the concept of contrasting doing the right thing with doing the nice one. It just lists various traits that moral goodness should not be equated with, and niceness is just one of them.

edited 4th Oct '11 1:53:34 PM by HiddenFacedMatt

That's okay with me. The trope isn't really about situations when doing the right thing requires you to be a jerk — it's just about good characters who are not nice.

I already addressed that; so long as it isn't because they're good that they're not nice, it could just as easily be a coincidence, in which case all it's saying is that "niceness is not directly proportional to goodness by the same universal constant" which is pretty much obvious anyway.

That, and the "sometimes being mean is justified" theme strikes me as much more interesting than that of "characters who happen to have more goodness than kindness."

edited 8th Oct '11 6:15:38 PM by NativeJovian

Shoot the Dog is more about specific actions than about it being the theme of stories overall. That, and it's about the actions being portrayed as "morally ambiguous" rather than "good but not nice." (Granted, it can be a very blurry distinction.)

As for Good is Not Nice... well, how do we confirm this one way or another? I looked up the YKTTW and found this; is this the one from which the trope was launched? If so it seems ambiguous; one of the replies said it seems like someone who has to Shoot the Dog a lot. Perhaps mods could pitch in and confirm one way or another as to what this trope is?

Shoot the Dog is about an act. When a character does something not-nice for good reason, then that's shooting the dog. Good is Not Nice is about a character. When a character is both a good person and not a nice person, then that's Good is Not Nice.

... perhaps mods could pitch in to confirm this one way or another?

I can see this trope being split the way the OP described. I don't think it needs to be.

This is the YKTTW the trope was launched from. You can verify that on this page.

Okay, so the YKTTW seems to be more about treating niceness and goodness as separate. Still though, Tropes Are Flexible, and I think something about characters who put goodness over niceness would be more meaningful than something about, as I mentioned before, the obvious idea that goodness and niceness are not always proportional to each other to the same extent.

EDITED IN: And Shoot the Dog, aside from being for actions while Good is Not Nice is for characters, (like Moral Event Horizon is to Complete Monster, including the bit about the former not always implying the latter) is also more about acts portrayed as morally ambiguous rather than clearly justified yet not very nice.

edited 30th Oct '11 1:49:24 PM by HiddenFacedMatt

"Clearly justified" tends to mean "it was the right thing to do", doesn't it?

While it is "obvious" (or maybe "demonstrable?") in Real Life, it's different in fiction. Often in fictional works, good characters tend to be good as a whole, including traits that have no effect on how morally good they are, like looks. Evil characters likewise tend to be bad as a whole again using criteria that have no real effect on your moral stance. In fiction there is a tendency to make good people polite, friendly and charismatic, while evil people tend to be rude, unsocial, or socially awkward.

edited 30th Oct '11 4:05:01 PM by arks