Trope Clean-Up: Dark Chick

Okay, let's face it. For such a common character, the Dark Chick is sort of a messily-written article. That bit about the "Scot in an otherwise English group" is really odd. Is that supposedly to be about Fat Bastard from Austin Powers?

We need to set some ground rules when it comes to what defines the Dark Chick, their motives, and their personality. I think there are some definite patterns we can see in Dark Chick-type characters. For one thing, they're definitely "quirky". Just take a look at characters like Batman's Harley Quinn and Ty Lee from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

It's supposedly Always Female, but let's face it, there are quite a lot of male examples, too. I think with a little work, this article could be really well-done.

Okay what is this article
This confused me so thoroughly it's not even funny
It seems like...the person's supposed to be the odd man out in a team
I think
But then that means the name is completely wrong

The Dark Chick is supposed to be The Chick for the Five Bad Band. Basically The Chick but evil.

edited 21st Aug '11 6:31:38 PM by NoirGrimoir

Considering all the issues The Chick has had, that really doesn't help much.

True

The thing is, this trope can basically be divided into several different elements. First we have the fact that the Dark Chick is basically the Chick, but evil.

Okay, we have Dark Action Girl, The Baroness, Dark Mistress, Perky Female Minion, and even Lady Macbeth to cover those parts.

Basically we can deduce that the Dark Chick is the villain team's emotional member and the wild card. While other members of the group might do it for power or wealth, the Dark Chick is usually doing it For the Evulz.

The Dark chick can also just be 'the one female'

But there are more than enough male Dark Chicks to disprove this. And that fits more under Smurfette Principle.

Frankly, the "classic" version of The Chick is pretty much indistinguishable from The Smurfette Principle anyway.

I think we should divide it, the evil vilianess is very different to a strange evil man. I think the Five Bad Band should have a Dark Chick OR a Creepy Warlock to list all the male examples.

But Dark Chick doesn't divide up between an evil villainess and a creepy warlock. In fact it's more like: Evil Villainess/Ineffectual Villain/Weird-Happy-Crazy Guy. Creepy warlock as nothing to do with it in my opinion.

edited 28th Aug '11 8:50:06 PM by NoirGrimoir

Great, the actual name doesn't matter. It just needs to be divided, it's ridiculous to have 2 or 3 tropes in one. One could say The Chick needs this as well.

They both pull a humanizing or emotional element into a Five-Man Band, Five Bad Band.

It's how they fit into the larger group that is the really important part.

edited 29th Aug '11 10:39:33 PM by Raso

The other night I was deep in thought about this trope, and tried to figure out its main points, but the thing is, we already have better written tropes for those points, like Dark Mistress and Perky Female Minion.

Dark Chick suffers because there's nothing completely unique to it that isn't covered by other tropes. Saying that the Dark Chick is important to a villain group's dynamic is easy, but then demonstrating why exactly is just a mess.

I would start listing the things that would make Dark Chick more stable. For one thing, the Dark Chick is the most emotionally involved villain within a group. How they do this depends on the villains' gender. A female Dark Chick usually serves as either a daughter figure or a lover to the Big Bad. A male Dark Chick is unique in that the heroes will usually underestimate them. The Dark Chick's modus operandi is much less about being a brute and deals a lot with psychological or emotional manipulation. A female Dark Chick might be sent to kidnap a heroes' family members or act as a seductress to one of the main heroes.

Another thing that would help is establishing some important and notable Dark Chicks. There are about three that come to my mind immediately: X-Men's Emma Frost (during her time as in the Hellfire Club), Avatar: The Last Airbender's Ty Lee, and Final Fantasy VI's Kefka.

Dark Chick is not just the villain version of Smurfette Principle. There are more than enough male examples to prove that. Ty Lee in particular is drastically different than the other female villains on the show. Despite being the least physically threatening member of her group, Ty Lee manages to have a profound psychological effect on Katara, mainly because Katara is afraid of having her powers blocked by her. She's also perfectly fine with flirting with Sokka in the middle of battle, demonstrating her easy-going personality.

Villainous Emma Frost is, I think, another great example because she was incredibly adept at psychological manipulation and striking fear into her enemies.

I picked Kefka as a great example of a male Dark Chick, particularly amongst a group of other villains because he is seen as the "wild card" or emotionally unstable member. In Dissidia, he's vastly different from his fellow villains because of his visible insanity.

I think that is a really good explanation. We can have on the page a sort of list of character-types that often end up being the Dark Chick.

I think in that case the name should be changed. At the moment it doesn't define any of that.

Basically the same issue with The Chick.

I sort of think that The Chick itself should be melded and renamed with The Heart but I don't know about the name for a Dark Chick, maybe we'll come to a vote.

It's basically Smurfette Principle for villains. Non-female examples are the odd man out in their villain group. Without waxing on specific characters and etc., this trope needs to be simplified otherwise it's just a broad collection of elements from other tropes. I think we should just rebuild this trope with only the villains that fit into either of those categories.

And yeah The Heart should be merged with The Chick. They basically fulfill the same role.

Alright, this has died down...Any good names in mind?

Honestly I do like the name Dark Chick, now that the definition's been sorted out, since even the male examples may tend towards being feminine and more flamboyant (to my knowledge). This trope had been bothering me for a long time, especially with the description being all over the place. I think the name should reflect whatever The Heart and/or The Chick become, since it's the evil version of that. Also, I really think the examples should be cleaned-up. I mean, it's got Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in there.

As a side question, what were the distinctions between The Heart and The Chick supposed to be again?

EDIT: Nevermind, think Ifigured out what the difference is supposed to be, maybe.

edited 21st Sep '11 12:05:31 PM by Gillespie

Well I think no matter what, it can't stay as Dark Chick, because people adding examples only see the Smurfette Principle. It needs to have something about emotion and evil. The Dark Heart may work.

Not so sure I like The Dark Heart, it feels too general, could mean about anything. I agree that it should have something to do with emotion.

Just gonna throw some out there: The Deranged Heart, The Feral Heart, The Chaotic Heart, The Manic Heart, The Unsound Heart Feel free to switch out Heart with Chick, if you prefer.

I don't think Heart as a name works for this. They all sounds like they're talking about the states of people's hearts and souls. Not about The Heart. There are a lot of tropes that just don't snowclone well.

Emotional Villain? Darkly Emotional?