Repairing: Face Heel Turn

Was this trope always about "Good guys join bad guys" or "Heroes join villains"? If I remember right, Face was more about inciting cheers, yays and sympathy, while Heel was more about inciting boos and "You Bastard!!"s, rather than 'who's the good guy, who's the bad guys'. However, especially in many examples, some would include good guys turned a very sympathetic bad guys, and said sympathetic bad guys is said to have a Face–Heel Turn, thereby saying that 'he/she deserves no cheers and sympathy because he/she is on the antagonist side!'

If a Good guy/Hero joins the Bad guy/Villain, wouldn't it be the same as the reverse of Defector from Decadence?

Perhaps we need to re-define this trope... AND Heel–Face Turn

Good guys join bad guys. And vice versa, for Heel–Face Turn.

These terms are not precisely the same as they're used in Pro Wrestling, just similar. See TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary.

Can we at least make a difference? Were you really supposed to make it as if the Good Guys-turned-Anti-Villain really look unsympathetic just because they oppose the good guys? Wasn't Anti-Villain's meaning is a villain who is at least sympathetic and can make people root for them?

This get really egregious if the type of Anti Villainy this Face–Heel Turn-ing guy is Type IV.

I'm not sure I see your problem. Yes, sometimes the good guys are treated unsympathetically, and sometimes the bad guys are treated sympathetically. That's not what these two tropes are about: It's just about switching sides.

Then perhaps we need to not use wrestling stuffs for name. Face–Heel Turn gives implications about 'you switch sides and become LESS sympathetic (though not on Complete Monster level at times)'. For instance:

A character switched sides. From Hero to Villain. But this 'Villain' didn't do anything particularly evil with no remorse, thus making him sympathetic and still rooted by the fans (though not in the way of trouncing the real heroes). Would you still call this new 'villain' a Heel?

edited 29th Jun '11 4:36:54 PM by ChrisX

There is no such implication for most of the people who will read this site, as most people are not wrestling fans familiar with wrestling terminology. To me, and probably many many others, Face–Heel Turn just means Face–Heel Turn. While having a trope mean something different from the pre-existing phrase that its based on is generally a bad thing, I'm pretty sure this one has the grandfather clause on its side, what with 3000 inbound links and all.

Edit: By contrast, the page Heel itself only has about 160. Relatively unpopular.

edited 29th Jun '11 4:48:28 PM by Clarste

Not knowing wrestling, these terms always made sense to me as someone spinning around and doing a 180 in terms of behaviour.

That is close to the origin of the terms. "About Face" to Face Turn, "Turn On Your Heels" to Heel Turn. But he's right about the morality thing. Face, doesn't mean "Do good", "Nice Guy" or "Hero" it means anyone the fans are supposed to cheer for.

When Vladimir Kozlov ruins William Regal's chance to be ECW champion then falsely accuses Ezekiel Jackson, they feud. You'd think Ezekiel, being framed, would be the good guy in this feud but he's still the heel and Vladimir's turning face.

Randy Savage turns on and attacks Hulk Hogan for trying to seduce his wife. That would make Hulk Hogan the instigator and the bad guy but Randy Savage is the one turning heel.

But that's what you get for highjacking professional wrestling terms to other media, people understand it, so unless a better name can be found I suppose it should stay.

Turn To Villain for Face–Heel Turn? Turn To Hero for Heel–Face Turn?

Chris X, we're not going to rename these unless they're being misused. "I don't like it" is not adequate reason for you to rename.

So if a good guy turned to a villain, but still sympathetic as in Anti-Villain and didn't exactly turn 180 on his/her attitude (only on the bad side)... that's still Face–Heel Turn, and said good guy-turned-villain deserves no cheers and support, that what you're saying?

Well if we're not going to rename it, I think it's fine. Because in that case, we're in for renaming Heel–Face Revolving Door and Heel–Face Door-Slam and many more as well. Just that... perhaps there needs to be a clarification about 'deserving cheers and yays' or 'deserving boos or not'

Why? This is a much broader trope about what you're making it out to be.

The tropes each have thousands of wicks and thousands of inbounds, the majority of which have nothing to do with Professional Wrestling. Conducting Trope Transplants on tropes that are this popular and don't seem to be being misused just isn't going to happen. And besides, "turning evil" and "turning hissably evil" are not sufficiently different to get separate tropes anyway.

So how do we explain a Face–Heel Turn where the said turning character still remain sympathetic and pitiable?

For instance, in Soul Calibur IV, Sophitia has gone to serving the Gods to helping Soul Edge to save her kids from its clutches. Traditionally, this will be a Face–Heel Turn. However, her circumstances made her really sympathetic and pitiful you can't really curse at her so I think it wouldn't be right to call her Heel, because it implies that she lost every little sympathy she has cumulated thus far...

Maybe the trope wouldn't be renamed, but perhaps this could use YKTTW about those who remain sympathetic despite a Face–Heel Turn?

That's just called a Face–Heel Turn. All it means is "good guy turns bad". Whether they're sympathetic doesn't enter into the question.

Talking about misuse doesn't help when the claim is that TV Tropes' very definition is wrong.

These pages predate TV Tropes' wrestling coverage. The oldest version of either page the Internet Archive has reads as follows:

Sadly, the oldest version of Face–Heel Turn is from an entire year later, by which point the pro-wrestling coverage had gotten started. Still, it reads:

People more familiar with the examples on those old versions can go through them, but if, even at these early states, people were using the tropes to include good guys who join the bad guys but remain unambiguously sympathetic (and vice versa), then in my opinion they should continue to do so, regardless of the exact connotations of "face" and "heel" in their original context.

However, this line on Face–Heel Turn suggests otherwise:

Neither of these are exactly the same as what the OP is worried about, but I'm not sure what the OP is concerned about has an exact Heel–Face Turn analogue. It is possible for a good guy to join the bad guys without necessarily agreeing with their ideas for whatever reason (it's even happened in Professional Wrestling - think CM Punk joining the New Breed in WWECW). I think that's worthy of a trope, but maybe as a subtrope of Face–Heel Turn. However, I think it's considerably rarer for a bad guy to join the good guys in the same fashion - would the good guys accept someone in their midst so opposed to their ideals? Why would the bad guy switch to work against his former bosses anyway? Would he really switch sides just because Even Evil Has Standards? (Part of this is that good guys who join the bad guys without actually converting tend to be coerced, which would provoke a What the Hell, Hero? reaction when reversed...)

I think I could see where the OP is coming from if there's a case where the goal that the former hero or former villain is working for, and the ideals they uphold to pursue that goal, remain completely unchanged, and they're just shifting with the prevailing winds - if they're a "free agent" who doesn't have any real loyalties to either side. But I can't form a firm opinion on this issue without seeing some examples of what the OP is talking about (and I have a feeling this was provoked by one or two specific examples that made him go WTF).

Well it's mostly scattered throughout pages that you may not find in the actual Face–Heel Turn page. But here's a few I knew, mostly from games:

• Sophitia Alexandra (as above). Her only crime thus far is 'bar the righteous heroes to destroy Soul Edge'. But when her kids' life were on the line, does she deserve boo-ing?
  • Ideals of Sophitia: Preserve her kids
  • Ideals of Soul Edge: Spread chaos throughout the world -> Sophitia used to be fighting against this very being.
• Rock Howard in Garou: Mark of the Wolves. He is the frigging hero of the title, but in his ending, he joined Kain R. Heinlein just because he has information about his mother. Rock probably still have his good compassion and all... but if it wasn't for that information about his mother, he wouldn't have joined Kain. But they still count him turn villainous, even if Terry himself approved Rock's choice!
  • Ideals of Rock: Find out about his missing mom.
  • Ideals of Kain: Ensuring that Geese Howard's legacy continues -> Rock hates Geese and his blood within him.
• Litchi Faye-Ling in Blaz Blue. She's as nice as she could be, kind hearted and compassionate to everyone. But then, her body corruption started to influence her more directly, then Hazama offered her to join NOL to solve that corruption before her time is up and enables her to save her lover. Litchi was completely hesitant at first because Hazama is really suspicious but after realizing everyone else refused her and there's no other choice, she accepted it. The result? Her being derided as a selfish, obsessed villainous bitch... what you would do to Heels usually. Even if she hasn't committed the evils done by NOL.
  • Ideals of Litchi: Prevent her corruption and save Arakune.
  • Ideals of NOL/Hazama: Grip the world in their absolute tyrannical rule/Cut down the lies of the world and leave only DESPAIR as the only truth -> Litchi's characteristics are the very antithesis of these, and she hadn't had high opinion about them.
• Anji Mito in Guilty Gear. He starts out neutral, but jovial and cheerful. Until he joins That Man, and instantly he's pegged as a Heel. Never mind he hadn't gone into doing atrocity befitting of a Heel, his mission from That Man as of current is just 'Stop I-No' from doing major harm, and he's still as friendly as ever to mostly everyone, including That Man's nemesis Sol, and a little girl like May. But the consensus has been 'Those who joined That Man shall be a Heel / Villain!'
  • Ideals of Anji: Find out information about That Man, and a lot of knowledge about Japanese and Gears.
  • Ideals of That Man: Very unknown, but may be related to 'Playing God' -> Unknown.

I guess a subtrope is in order...

edited 1st Jul '11 12:11:12 AM by ChrisX

That's not how you check misuse. You grab 50 random wicks and check them.

And we have subtropes for this. Billions of them.

Bump.

Three day deadline clock put on this thread. If its still has made any progress when the clock expires, it will be locked without any decision and no action is to be taken on the bsis of this thread.

edited 4th Aug '11 8:04:09 PM by Madrugada

I'm fine with the page, but if you want to be technical. Face doesn't mean hero or good guy. Face means "we want him cheered by the audience." nothing more, nothing less.

A villain can indiscriminately burn down houses, but if the character is "interesting" and the author expects you to root for him as he burns people to death, then he is the face. He only turns heel when the author says it is no longer okay to cheer for this guy. That can involve becoming less interesting and trying to stop other interesting arsonists from starting fires.

Similarly, Heel doesn't mean evil, it means boo this guy. The turn is about turning your back on the crowd(or the crowd turning their backs on you) not morality. TV Tropes definition doesn't match Professional Wrestling's definition. I'm only fine with keeping it because people seem to understand TV Trope's definition well enough, but if you really wanted to change it, there is a reasonable case for doing so.

For "heel", at least, the wrestling version is almost certainly based on the standard English meaning of "dishonorable person or cad". Which is closer to what we use it for. That really only leaves one word that is used in a wrestling-specific sense, and, frankly we're not using it in that sense — not any more than wrestling uses the standard English meaning of "heel".

If they can mess with language, so can we. :)

Bump. I think this thread is done. Any opposition to a lock?

Also, I added Good Turns Evil and Evil Turns Good as redirects to Face–Heel Turn and Heel–Face Turn.

I say we lock this one up.