Split?: Butt Monkey

Butt-Monkey (and Iron Butt Monkey) is currently for all ones that get in some way Played for Comedy and Drama.

The title and description itself implies Comedy (and the examples imply that as well.)

Split between

• Played for Comedy
• Played for Drama

EDIT: Shouldnt The Chew Toy be YMMV?

edited 29th Jul '11 8:32:52 PM by Raso

Seconded — it would certainly define the trope better, and maybe filter out some of the more subjective and inaccurate examples.

I think The Chew Toy is more obvious in canon than The Woobie. Woobies are people the audience feels sorry for in general, regardless of their position in the story, but chew toys are there to be masticated. As it were.

The Chew Toy is not YMMV - what happens to them is objective, regardless of how the audience feels about it.

Going to bump this... Everyone seems to have ignored it.

And having gotten into another Butt-Monkey is only for comedy debate again we really should split.

edited 25th Sep '11 9:08:24 PM by Raso

I'm going to admit that I've always had trouble distinguishing Butt-Monkey from The Chew Toy. What makes them different from each other and from The Woobie?

The Chew Toy is when the audience is supposed to agree with the abuse, which I always thought was a dumb distinction.

I don't think the distinction between Butt-Monkey and The Chew Toy is that big, so I would be in support of a merge if it comes to that.

I do think that Played for Drama examples of Butt-Monkey should exist. The Woobie might be a good choice to redefine as "This character has bad things happen to them, you're not supposed to laugh at it". And I personally always disliked the trope anyway, since I find it unfavorable and nigh-impossible to laugh at the constant misfortune of others unless they deserve it. It would be nice to have a trope to gravitate towards when bad things happen to a character, and that the audience is not supposed to laugh at.

The difference between Butt-Monkey and The Chew Toy is indeed really slim. Even the descriptions are practically paraphrases. Could you guess which one is which without looking?

The Chew Toy is really just the (supposed to be) funny subtype. I'd favor a merge.

I'd also support created a Played for Drama version. The Woobie has trope decayed into virtual meaninglessness, so I'd also be in favor of reworking that into the objective Played for Drama version that people have proposed.

Yeah, they should be merged.

The Woobie does seem considerably distinct from both though.

The Woobie is supposed to be the character who evokes the urge to comfort them. Some Butt Monkeys fit this trope, particularly Designated Monkeys. However, I don't think The Woobie really is the Butt-Monkey Played for Drama, since it's an Audience Reaction trope.

The Chew Toy and Butt-Monkey should probably be merged.

I reckon the Chew Toy and Butt Monkey distinctions could be changed. The Butt Monkey at the moment is used for both people with bad luck and the guys that everyone abuses for fun, who's a bit pathetic. I think the latter may better fit the Chew Toy description if we don't want to get rid of it.

Um, people? I did a wick check, and it turns out that Butt-Monkey is found in six. Thousand. Two hundred and forty-eight articles, and The Woobie in even more if you count the redirects from Woobie.

I agree that the difference between Butt-Monkey and The Chew Toy is vanishingly small, but we're going to need some spectacularly good arguments if we want to make a change more radical than, say, redirect The Chew Toy to Butt-Monkey. And that's not even going into the twenty thousand inbounds (12,141 for The Woobie, 5,843 for Butt-Monkey and 1,101 for The Chew Toy) in the past year.

edited 24th Jan '12 5:07:55 AM by Myra

How about it doesn't work. That should be enough. Really, I thought chew toy was renamed Cosmic Plaything ages ago, I did not realize it was still their. The Same But More Specific? Redirect sounds good.

Or if you want this split, uh, make Butt Monkey for Drama and Chew Toy for comedy, or Chew Toy for drama and Butt Monkey for Comedy. I don't really care which way it goes but it would fix two tropes in one action.

I always thought Butt-Monkey was for comedy and The Chew Toy was for drama or neutral, just going off the names. The Butt-Monkey is the butt of jokes, and Everything's Funnier With Monkeys, whereas there's nothing inherently funny about chew toys— they just get slobbered on.

edited 8th Feb '12 12:35:33 PM by Twiddler