Merge HeroicNeutral and NeutralNoLonger?: Heroic Neutral

I really don't see any difference between the two tropes Heroic Neutral and Neutral No Longer. The first describes a character or faction that just wants to be left alone or remain uninvolved, but is forced by the plot to get involved on the side of the heroes against the villains. The second describes a character or faction that is uninvolved or does not want to take sides at the beginning of the story, but is ultimately forced by plot developments to get involved on the side of the heroes against the villains. I really don't see the difference.

Furthermore, the title of Heroic Neutral is a pun on Dungeons And Dragons character alignments, as are tropes like Chaotic Stupid, Lawful Selfish, etc., but unlike these, it is not any sort of alignment, it is a plot development. That title, as such, is not immediately clear in its meaning. Neutral No Longer, by contrast, seems to me to be immediately self-explanatory: a character or faction in a story is No Longer Neutral; they were neutral, but now they're not.

As such, I propose that Heroic Neutral be merged into Neutral No Longer; I also propose that we discuss this for one week before voting, if that is agreeable. I would also like to request that a mod create the necessary crowners for this. Thank you.

I believe that Heroic Neutral was a supertrope yes? Neutral No Longer (last time I read it) entailed that it occurred because the villain attacked or in some way pissed off the neutral party.

Fight smart, not fair.

If that was so once, it either is no longer, or it is very unclear that that is the case. Both trope descriptions have a reference to the other, but neither seems to be a supertrope of the other, at least as far as I can tell. And Neutral No Longer doesn't seem to specify why the faction in question is no longer neutral: it offers as possibilities that the villains might have desecrated some Crystal Dragon Jesus or Kicked The Dog, or that the heroes might have come across as self-righteous jerkasses. As it is now, it really seems to be a trope about a neutral party ceasing to be neutral, not about why. Or I really need to work on my reading comprehension.

edited 5th Sep '11 11:53:33 AM by RTanker

Possible, it's been years since I've read it. We've always had a real problem with building the proper amount of supertropes for various things.

Anyway, possible tropes that the names could apply to:

Heroic Neutral: The Hero is a neutral third party arbitrator to two warring factions, a hero who is neutral, a character that is forced to be neutral (or appears so) but helps the hero anyway stealthily.

Neutral No Longer: a character is no longer neutral (could apply to either side really), a mercenary or other neutral type character is won over to one side by an impassioned speech, bribery, or something that pisses them off about the opposite side.

So, it's likely that we're missing a supertrope somewhere that both of these belong to.

Fight smart, not fair.

Personally, I have to agree that Heroic Neutral sounds much more like it's about a heroic character who is in some fashion "neutral". Neutral No Longer makes more sense as the title for the trope described in Heroic Neutral.

One week having passed, I move that we now put the matter to a vote.

Okay, Heroic Neutral should be about a neutral hero who isn't fighting in the name of good or evil but because they're being messed with. If it wasn't for the plot, they wouldn't care about the battle between the heroes and the villain. Neutral No Longer should be about when they finally decide to fight for one side or the other because someone pushed them too far.

edited 12th Sep '11 9:22:05 AM by redlar

I laugh in the face of suffering.

I'm not convinced that would be a separate trope either. You're still describing a character or faction who gets into the fight or contest, whatever it may be, once he or they were sufficiently provoked.

Well, Neutral No Longer strikes me as a broader trope than just the result of Heroic Neutral.

Fight smart, not fair.

Hello all. I am the creator of the Neutral No Longer trope. I am not opposed to having the Neutral No Longer trope merged with Heroic Neutral. For the pure purpose of vanity though I'd like to point out that not only is the NNL trope more concise and straightforward but was also created first. The person or persons who created "Heroic Neutral" apparently didn't do a sufficient job of differentiating between the two. Furthermore seeing as how Neutral No Longer spawned several subtropes in and of itself it would have to be the one that remains.

Heroic Neutral did go through YKTTW. If NNL did, it didn't make the archived discussion page.

Neutral No Longer is for when any previously neutral character becomes involved. Heroic Neutral is reserved for when a Neutral No Longer character goes onto the side of the heroes. Or am I missing something?

edited 20th Sep '11 2:24:44 AM by tropetown

Heroic neutral seems to me, to be any character who is characterized by (at first, anyway) being a good person (ala a retired hero) that no longer wants to be a part of the struggle. Neutral No Longer is the moment when that character chooses to become involved again.

There's an overlap but it's not the same. For example, what happens if the Neutral character doesn't get actively involved again? Or does for one moment, then goes back to being neutral? (Such as the Ents from Lord of the Rings, who act against Saruman because he's destroying the woods, but don't get involved in the rest of Middle Earth's wars).

Seems to me that merging the two would be overlooking those subtle differences, and creating room for examples to slide through the cracks.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |

I agree with The Wanderer. Neutral No Longer is when they actually get involved, but Heroic Neutral is a good person who is currently neutral (To me, it's not necessarily a retired hero). I think that we should just change the Heroic Neutral page to reflect that instead of combining the two tropes.

Sounds good to me. If presented correctly in the descriptions, the two tropes are different.

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I also agree with The Wanderer. There's a difference here between a neutral party that joins the entire fight, and a neutral party that only joins a specific fight like the Ent example.

edited 4th Dec '11 9:41:56 PM by ChaoticNovelist

My understanding was that the Heroic Neutral didn't have to be a "good" character. For instance, Hank in Indefensible Positions helps the heroes when and only when the bad guys inconvenience him. (In theory, it could be merged with a trope about neutral characters helping evil characters when inconvenienced by good, but I don't think that's a very common occurrence.)

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

I understand your proposed distinction, but I think it's a bit too subtle to work. I would argue that as long as the character stays neutral they're True Neutral (which has its own badly-needed cleanup thread here) and if they get involved (temporarily or permanently) they're Neutral No Longer.

Crowner here.

Bump

edited 15th Feb '12 5:52:21 AM by Myra

Bump again

The crowner seems fairly definite. New suggestions?

If nobody has anything more to say, I'm going to holler to have the thread closed.

I think this falls under "nobody cares", but 13 votes really isn't much. That could easily swing either way if a bunch more people pile in.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

True, but the problem here is that the thread is nothing but bumps since early December.

I just don't know how to fix it. I made one suggestion earlier, but that apparently wasn't practical, so . . .

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