Could use a rename, or redirects, and some work on description: The Svengali

Okay, so this trope has a decent amount of examples but it seems underused to me, and doesn't have a lot of wicks. Also it's named after character I've never heard of, when a more descriptive name, like Manipulative Mentor, Scheming Mentor, Scamming Mentor, Parasitical Mentor or Mooching Mentor, occurred to me within about five seconds. I think it would be easy to find a good name for this, though even if we don't change the name, the trope has no redirects. The description isn't really that bad on this, but I think it could do with editing all this stuff about "The Trilby" and the story it's currently named for, assuming it's renamed.

"Svengali" is in dead-tree dictionaries, meaning exactly what we're using it for:

• "a person who manipulates or exerts excessive control over another "
• "(Psychology) a person who controls another's mind, usually with sinister intentions"
• "A person who, with evil intent, tries to persuade another to do what is desired"
• "someone (usually maleficent) who tries to persuade or force another person to do his bidding"

It's been a pre-existing term since the 1890s.

The description is the problem.

edited 2nd Sep '11 2:22:41 PM by Madrugada

And used in current news-media to mean the same thing too. Especially used by those in the entertainment industry, so we're using the tropes real name according to the people who use tropes professionally. Does need a bit of work on the write up though.

Well, it is technically named after a character, but it also gets descriptive articles in both the dictionary and That Other Wiki, not to mention over a million google hits. I suppose that's what you get with over a century of literary traction.

So I'd say the name is good, although I'm all in favor of adding a redirect or two.

I don't know the word, it's little obscure. Like I said, though, it has no redirects. Redirects would be good here.

I say keep the name, but use Manipulative Mentor as a(t least one) redirect.

If we're going to add a redirect, I like Manipulative Mentor. Personally, I think that any word that I first encountered twenty-four years ago in an entertainment context (to describe Edgardo Diaz, the man behind the formation of Menudo) has to be established enough to use.

That said, I have a question - I notice that most sections are about a Svengali in the work itself, but nearly all of the examples in Music are about real people said to be the Svengali behind the performer themselves. Should those be filtered out and placed in Real Life, unless it's brought up in a song (such as the Human League example)?

Redirects Are Free, so I made it.

I agree that most of the musical examples seem like they should be real life. I have to ask: do we even want a real life section here? It's a fairly negative trope, so it could be used for bashing. In fact....