Split, Refine and/or Redefine: Evil Counterpart

In the TRS discussion for Dark Magical Girl we identified the need for a Dark Counterpart trope as YKTT Wed here.

Now, we have Evil Counterpart, which Dark Counterpart overlaps with. However, although Evil Counterpart carries a similar component in its description to Dark Counterpart ("Frequently, the Evil Counterpart is the character equivalent of For Want of a Nail: he represents what our hero could have become as a result of a very small change in his backstory. "), in practice, it's examples include anything that's "looks like the heroes, BUT EVIL." Now, I think this is actually correct in terms of how the term is actually used.

So here's my proposal:

• Adjust Evil Counterpart to the broader definition.
• Spin off Dark Counterpart as a member of the trope family, which includes the matching characters from Evil Counterpart's current definition plus Dark Is Not Evil characters that also fit.
• Consider any other tropes that might be spinable from Evil Counterpart that I haven't considered yet.

edited 17th Oct '11 11:16:05 AM by Elle

Bump?

There are also issues with the very very badly named The Psycho Rangers which seems to identify itself with every single one of those tropes however it shouldn't be. (Related to the dark counter part yes.)

edited 24th Oct '11 3:01:04 PM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

Psycho Rangers means "Evil Counterpart group"

That's what I understood as well.

The "frequently" tells me this is just a common element, not actually part of the definition. I could see a split being viable.

edited 3rd Nov '11 12:53:42 PM by MorganWick

The first paragraph, pre-frequently: "A character who chose to do evil, and have/had abilities and obstacles similar to the protagonist's. Sometimes, but not always, a Big Bad. "

edited 3rd Nov '11 1:16:40 PM by MagBas

Bumping.

I feel that Dark Counterpart is a very good trope. I agree to split it from Evil Counterpart and Shadow Archetype (as a subtrope of this), where many of the examples can be found right now since they lack a trope of their own.

There are no heroes left in Man.

What I always figured was:

• Evil Counterpart: A character who is similar and/or has a similar role and abilities as good characters, but evil. When they are just this and not also one of the lower tropes, they are straight up evil and basically there to challenge the hero in whatever he's good at. They may be one-offs that don't get a lot of character development, may be cartoonish and not especially explored, acting as a straight up opponent.

• Dark Counterpart: Basically a character who is 'the hero' (or other good guy) if they had taken a different path/hadn't had the same opportunities, usually evil, but not always. Gets a lot of character development and has their past explored. Usually an Anti-Villain because of this. More of a 'what if?' character. Often the hero tries to 'reform him'.

• Shadow Archetype: A character who is the 'dark side' of the hero, usually not evil, but may be. It's a character who has embraced all the 'bad' or 'dangerous' personality traits of the other character and is usually there to be an example of what the character would turn out to be if they didn't hold themselves back, and may act as a temptation for the character to take that path. Often a major character, though usually more of an enigma. Often this guy tries to turn the hero 'evil' or just generally distract or tempt them from the right path.

edited 31st Dec '11 10:51:41 PM by NoirGrimoir

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

Shadow Archetype doesn't have such definition. The page is a supertrope for various tropes dealing with a evil/dark counterpart.

Besides, most times the Dark Counterpart doesn't have to evil. They usually pull a Heel–Face Turn and become The Lancer. Many examples don't fit the Evil Counterpart after a while, so Dark Counterpart would be a nice addition.

The YKTTW it has seems quite good, I support it's launching. We can move the examples from Shadow Archetype, as it isn't really the place where they should be.

There are no heroes left in Man.

Sounds like it to me, and if it isn't, it should have that definition since that's what it is, pretty much. The list are characters who commonly act as Shadow Archetypes. I feel like these tropes are all overlapping and closely related but none is the supertrope.

And I didn't say the Dark Counterpart character always had to be evil and I said the hero often tried to reform them.

edited 1st Jan '12 2:16:56 PM by NoirGrimoir

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

It doesn't to me, as most dark counterparts are fine with themselves, they are pretty content with their personality. Wario for example has always been greedy, and he never thought that was a bad thing to be.

And I didn't say you said blah blah blah. I just said that they become trope-orphaned when they don't fit Evil Counterpart, and that's a reason I thought Dark Counterpart would be a good trope.

There are no heroes left in Man.

That was what I got from your second paragraph. And that definition is for Shadow Archetype. I'm not even sure what you're trying to say/argue.

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

You said "it's the parts of the personality a character doesn't like about himself". Well, I said that Dark Counterparts usually like the way they are, so I don't see the parts of the personality that they don't like about themselves.

The second paragraph wasn't aimed at you, it's just my opinions about why I support the creation of the Dark Counterpart trope.

And the only thing I'm trying to accomplish is making people notice the thread and support the YKTTW so we can move to new things.

There are no heroes left in Man.

That pertains to what the shadow archetype, not Dark Counterpart (by my def). The Shadow Archetype character is the parts of the hero they don't like about themselves. Whether the character himself likes themselves doesn't matter.

I support that thread. They need to Just Launch It Already.

edited 1st Jan '12 2:54:29 PM by NoirGrimoir

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

Evil Counterpart is used for way more than just characters, and I think the description should reflect that. It should probably just be a supertrope or index for good/evil versions of the same thing (ie, the whole folder of tropes that are evil counterparts of each other). Given that, I'd say that the Shadow Archetype is the "Evil Counterpart character" trope, and Dark Counterpart is the Anti-Villain version of Shadow Archetype.

In convenient bullet point form:

• Evil Counterpart: The evil version of a good thing (trope, setting, character, whatever).
• Shadow Archetype: The Evil Counterpart of a character.
• Dark Counterpart: The Anti-Villain counterpart of a character; likely to be Not So Different and prime Heel–Face Turn fodder.

If we go with that, then we might want to call Dark Counterpart something else in order to avoid confusion with Evil Counterpart. (Alternatively, make Shadow Archetype the "evil version of this other thing" supertrope, but that'd require more effort to clean up usage.)

edited 1st Jan '12 7:02:15 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

By that definition, Evil Counterpart and Shadow Archetype are the same thing. That's a completely pointless way of differentiating them. I do not approve.

edited 1st Jan '12 7:08:43 PM by NoirGrimoir

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

One is a subtrope of the other. One is about the evil version of anything (eg, Evil Is Sexy vs Beauty Equals Goodness; the Evil Tower of Ominousness vs the Bright Castle), while the other is specifically about characters (eg, Spider Man vs Venom, Sonic The Hedgehog vs Metal Sonic).

edited 1st Jan '12 7:16:45 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

You guys do realize that 'Shadow Archetype' is a real term we didn't make up and your proposed definition isn't the definition for it, right? It comes from Carl Jung's theory of the 'shadow self' which was in tern applied to literature and mythology by Joseph Campbell. You know, that famous guy who wrote about The Hero's Journey? It is not "evil version of another character" it's more specific than that, it is literally "the character that represents the things the hero doesn't like about himself" and the character isn't always evil.

edited 1st Jan '12 7:28:39 PM by NoirGrimoir

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

We're already not using it the same way the pre-existing term is defined, so I'm not sure how that makes much of a difference. If we want to call it something other than "shadow archetype", then I've got no problem with that. The organization I outlined above is what I think we should be using, even if we have to use something other than Shadow Archetype to do it.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Um, no we don't. The definition on the trope page matches the Jung interpretation, it's in my previous post. The page's problem is that it gives the definition and nothing else. Anything on the page that isn't that is misuse. As a real trope, I don't think changing it is a good idea. We already have Shadowland for Evil Counterpart places, just spin off different one's for characters and items. Don't cannibalize and bastardize an existing trope. Though I still think soft splitting Evil Counterpart is better. I think 'this but for characters' and 'this but for items' is kind of a pointless split.

edited 1st Jan '12 9:11:39 PM by NoirGrimoir

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

The definition to Dark Counterpart given by Elle is not necessarily evil.

Noir, please don't edit your posts in a way that completely reverses the meaning. You'd originally said "sure, that's fine as long as you don't want to call it Shadow Archetype". Imagine my surprise when I check back and now it says "No, you're wrong and we shouldn't do that".

The definition you give in your previous post doesn't fit the definition given in the Shadow Archetype description. You said " It is not 'evil version of another character' it's more specific than that, it is literally 'the character that represents the things the hero doesn't like about himself' ", while the article says "Note that in Jungian psychology, the Shadow Archetype includes positive as well as negative things, anything suppressed or denied in the personality. You seldom have such manifestations in fiction, which sticks to Shadow Is Dark, and Dark Is Evil". Both you and the trope description agree that the Jungian shadow archetype isn't always evil, but the trope description goes on to say that the TV Tropes usage of Shadow Archetype is always an Evil Counterpart. If you want to change the definition of Shadow Archetype to match the Jungian term, then that's fine, but that's not what it says now.

One is a type of character foil. The other is a type of Playing with a Trope. They're not the same thing at all, so they shouldn't be in the same article.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I read the trope description of Shadow Archetype and in no moment it mentions this "always evil" requisite: "Shadow Archetype has to do with two elements of writing; characters and settings. In this part of the wiki we're talking about character archetypes. For the settings viewpoint, see Shadowland.

Character-wise, it's the part of the personality that embodies everything a character, called the 'Self', doesn't like about himself, the things he denies and projects on to others. To show these things to the reader/viewer we need an embodiment of some sort. Around here, we call some of those embodiments things like:

The Dark Magical Girl to the Magical Girl heroine The Cowl to The Cape Enemy Within Enemy Without Evil Counterpart Evil Twin Jekyll and Hyde Some Psycho Rangers to the Five-Man Band Some, but not all Superpowered Evil Sides Anti Heroic Shadows also tend to be cast as The Lancer or The Rival to The Hero. More villainous Shadows often become The Dragon, though rarely the Big Bad. Naturally, not all Lancers, Rivals, and Dragons are Shadows.

Those tropes have examples listed of characters playing those more-precise Shadow roles.

A common theme involves the Self accepting his Shadow, metaphorically coming to terms with his flaws. That is, The Hero refuses to kill the Shadow, given the opportunity, or outright refuses to fight it. In Enemy Within, Enemy Without, and Evil Twin situations, the Self and Shadow sometimes even merge towards the end for an endgame powerup, further emphasizing the symbolism.

Note that in Jungian psychology, the Shadow Archetype includes positive as well as negative things, anything suppressed or denied in the personality. You seldom have such manifestations in fiction, which sticks to Shadow Is Dark, and Dark is Evil. " Edit: sorry, i only noted the last phrase now. In either case the second paragraph says: "it's the part of the personality that embodies everything a character, called the 'Self', doesn't like about himself, the things he denies and projects on to others."

edited 2nd Jan '12 11:19:14 AM by MagBas

I like how Noir Grimoir broke down the three tropes. I am a bit concerned that Evil Counterpart and Dark Counterpart will be confused because of their incredibly similar names though. Does anyone think there may be another name for Dark Counterpart that could set it apart more?

By the way, there is now a page action crowner for this trope here. Feel free to add options as you see fit.

edited 2nd Jan '12 11:43:19 AM by LouieW

"irhgT nm0w tehre might b ea lotof th1nmgs i dont udarstannd, ubt oim ujst goinjg to keepfollowing this pazth i belieove iN !!!!!1 d