Page description sounds like Black and Grey Morality.: Evil Versus Evil

From reading the trope description, the page sounds like it's describing a case of Black-and-Grey Morality, which is being overly narrow in my opinion, and not really describing what this trope is about, which is specifically two villains, or evil factions fighting against one another. Should we do a new page description?

edited 27th Aug '11 3:29:46 AM by tropetown

I think it's only the third paragraph that needs reworking.

Even the first paragraph, though, makes it seem like this has to be exclusive to Villain Protagonists, when it sounds like it should simply be about any instance where evil fights evil - regardless of if either group is the protagonists or not.

Bump after seeing a recent Trope Talk discussion on the idea of Black And Black Morality (which should not be a redirect to this page). I maintain that this should be expanded to be Exactly What It Says on the Tin rather then focusing on the Villain Protagonist stuff.

Agree.

Hello!

Is this the proper venue to suggest a new trope image? The current one seems to me to be heavily caption-reliant and the shot is too far away for details of the battle to show prominently. I recommend David Hillman's awesome image of Darth Vader battling xenomorphs, which needs little introduction even for those not familiar with Star Wars and Alien, thanks to the dark, visceral, Obviously Evil nature of the characters involved.

I'm a new account and am therefore not allowed to post images, but the picture is easily viewed at Hillman's Deviant Art page, or by Googling "Darth Vader vs Alien."

What do you think? :-)

Antonio Calavera

edited 5th Oct '11 10:55:59 PM by AntonioCalavera

PM me the link (click the

symbol) and I'll post it for you.

Edit: also, if you want to suggest an image, you do so by making a thread over here.

edited 5th Oct '11 10:56:49 PM by Deboss

Thank you very much!

No problem. Okay, back to the discussion of the TRS.

Wow, I completely forgot about this thread. Yeah, Evil Versus Evil is definitely not the same thing as Black-and-Black Morality, and the description is describing Black-and-Grey Morality, anyway. I was having this conversation in a different thread when I made this one; if only I could remember which one...

Anyways, point is, the two tropes could be split, but I'm just not sure that Black-and-Black Morality would be common enough as a trope to warrant that. At the very least, the description needs reworking.

edited 5th Oct '11 11:05:58 PM by tropetown

As I see it, the thing that absolutely needs to be done with the trope is eliminating the Villain Protagonist stuff from the description.

While it may be misleading, the fate of the Black-and-Black Morality redirect is a much lower priority.

Is there even such thing as true Black and Black morality? Even Warhammer 40000, one of the pages most frequently held up examples is a fairly clear case of Grey-and-Black Morality. I've never seen a story in which both sides of the conflict are completely villainous, one side will pretty much always be the "right" side by virtue of the other side being worse.

The Page Image. The Forces of Hell and the Forces of Abyss are both pure evil.

Aliens vs Predators

Aliens aren't sentient (as far as the movies show. Expanded universe stuff I dunno about), therefore not evil less you can ascribe morality to something that's incapable of making moral choices (because they are too dumb to do that) like a dog.

edited 2nd Nov '11 12:19:56 PM by Ghilz

A conflict where both sides are equally evil is possible; Black-and-Black Morality would preclude any characters who weren't pure evil, though.

All the tropes are a mess. Since I don't know most of the examples I can't say if they should go in Grey-and-Gray Morality, Black-and-Black Morality or Black-and-Gray Morality. What I know is that some examples can be found in two or even the three tropes. My proposal about what to do is the following: completely cut black/gray and gray/grey, and redefine Black/black. We can have Good vs Evil, or Evil vs Evil, but if we start arguing about things like "no, this bad guy has redeeming traits therefore he's grey" (Anti-Villain, Noble Demon) or "the heroes are no saints" (I used to call that an Anti-Hero, not a "morally gray character") then all we can get is a mess like the one we have here.

Also, Draco in Leather Pants / Ron the Death Eater / Your Mileage May Vary don't help when people have to decide if their example is black or gray.

I can see some flaws to my proposal right now, such as "what happens when we don't have enough info about the character" or "what about Crapsack World, some actions are morally justified there", but it's the best idea I could think of right now. To solve that we might have to broaden what is good to accept A Lighter Shade of Grey in it. That makes me remember: A Lighter Shade of Grey and A Lighter Shade of Black will need some editing too no matter how we solve the problem.

edited 15th Dec '11 3:07:12 PM by DrMcNinja

Bump.

Any thoughts about my proposal?

In a word, terrible. This is the page that's really messed up, not Grey-and-Grey Morality or Black-and-Grey Morality, and I simply cannot understand why you want to cut them. We need to purge the weird Villain Protagonist stuff from the description, then figure out whether Black-and-Black Morality is possible. Not drag perfectly healthy tropes into this.

The problem is that how do you define "grey morality"? As I see it either it's evil or it's not, but if we leave "grey" then people will confuse it. Some people will think a character is grey while others will think it's a Complete Monster, or even a hero, depending on the point of view.

And the tropes aren't healthy if their examples can be found in other supposedly different tropes.

I said "cut them" because I want only Good vs Evil and Evil vs Evil. We move the examples where they fit and eliminate all that grey crap.

edited 23rd Dec '11 4:27:58 AM by DrMcNinja

It depends of the portrayal. If both the sides are portrayed as pure evil, both the sides are pure evil outside Alternate Character Interpretation.

The description could use some cleanup, but I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with the trope. It's about two sides fighting, where both of them are evil. Nothing too difficult about that.

That still leaves the issue of defining grey and people actually knowing the difference between white and A Lighter Shade of Grey, and black and A Lighter Shade of Black. It's impossible to do that, because moral is very difficult to define. Is a hero grey if he kills soldiers of the Evil Empire? Or he is grey only if it's discussed in the work? Is he grey if there is collateral damage?

On the other hand, is a Noble Demon less evil or bent in conquering the world if he honors a deal he made with the hero? Is he grey if he spares the hero's life and throws him to his dungeon instead of just killing him?

Evil is evil and good is good. Grey just makes things messy. An Anti-Hero is still good even if he regularly kills his enemies, and the Affably Evil guy is still a guy who must be stopped for the good of everyone else.

edited 23rd Dec '11 7:30:13 AM by DrMcNinja

We're not going to cut these tropes because you've somehow convinced yourself that fiction can't have moral ambiguity and/or our editors are too stupid to properly understand it. You keep throwing around trope names to justify it, but half of them don't even have anything to do with morality (like Affably Evil), and the rest don't have any conflict with the trope other then in your mind. The pages don't share many examples with each other, if any - they (or at least Black-and-Gray Morality) do share examples with this page, because this page is the one that needs help.

How do you define "grey morality"? Come on, tell me. I want to hear the exact distinction between a gray and a black character. I'm eager to know, really.

Also, have you checked all those wiks to see if they are correct? Because I could quote you then, saying that you throw numbers without checking them just because it helps your not wanting to cut the grey part.

The problem I have is that moral ambiguity can be discussed. I can accept Gray and Grey, if anything, but Black and Grey should be cut.

edited 23rd Dec '11 11:05:38 AM by DrMcNinja