13 wicks, and redundant to Necessarily Evil: Pelagian Villain

We've proposed nuking this trope before, but Fighteer wanted it to go through Trope Repair Shop first. Well, here it is. Does anyone think it's worth keeping or changing?

I don't see any real difference, and while I believe Pelagian Villain is a preexisting term, it's terribly opaque. So I see no reason not to merge them.

As I'm reading it, Necessarily Evil is a type of villain who knows what he's doing is evil, but believes that it will lead to a greater good (I believe it's a subtrope of Well-Intentioned Extremist); a Pelagian Villain knows what he's doing is evil, but believes he has no other choice.

Some examples of Pelagian Villain that wouldn't fall under Necessarily Evil could be the guy who's being blackmailed into doing Dirty Business, the Punch-Clock Villain Mook who's just trying to feed his family, the victim of a Heel–Face Door-Slam who says "Then Let Me Be Evil", or the guy who's under the control of a Puppet Master but retains his mental faculties.

Pelagian Villain does seem to have an adequate number of examples, and just giving them a brief skim, I'm not seeing a lot of duplicates between the two, which leads me to believe they're distinct. But the descriptions aren't very clear on the difference, it's true.

edited 20th Dec '11 2:12:09 AM by troacctid

I've checked Google, That Other Wiki, and the Urban Dictionary, and they all show that this is not an established term.

And I think the difference between this and Necessary Evil is technical at best, so a merge would be a good idea.

So a Pelagian Villain is someone forced into evil?

Hey, that sounds like a good title for it. Forced Into Evil.

Yeah, if we keep this, that's a better name. I wouldn't be against cutting this, though.

Forced into Evil or Forced Into Villainy would make a decent subtrope to Necessarily Evil, but I'm not sure it would be quite the same as Pelagian Villain. Maybe cut this trope, but create a YKTTW for Forced into Evil?

If Pelagian Villain is common term I think any names we think of should actually be redirects instead.

edited 23rd Dec '11 11:33:37 PM by NoirGrimoir

According to someone above, this is not a common term. I'm sure we can do better.

Forced into Evil could be a good YKTTW.

But it's not a common term (nor even an uncommon one).

I strongly doubt that this term is common in any way.

Pelagian Villain is obviously not a common term; we invented it. What it is an established term that corresponds to this trope is Pelagianism, ie. more or less, depending on interpretation: "human did/does evil because of an external element / not because of an inherent evilness". It is supposed to be the counter to Absolute Depravity.

The problem is, that is not the only belief associated with the name or the name is associated with other, somewhat opposite beliefs as well (apparently the guy tried to correct himself once or twice in his life). If we keep the trope, it could keep the present name but I'd still strongly suggest an Adjectivy Noun redirect or rename. Due to difference in contexts and execution, I don't think a merge is in order, although perhaps a subtroping is.

That's good to know.

From the description alone, all I can really tell is that it's poorly written and similar to several other villainy tropes. As mentioned, It overlaps with Punch-Clock Villain, Necessarily Evil, Then Let Me Be Evil, and probably Puppet Master and/or various other forms of mind control as well. I think I could also make a case for overlap with I Did What I Had to Do, Nietzsche Wannabe, those with a Freudian Excuse, and so forth. Maybe a better description could save it, but it's not clear to me that there's a lot of room in Pelagianism that isn't already covered by the above trops. Most or all of the examples could probably go on other pages as well.

I vote delete.

Edit: It just occurred to me that this type of villain is also the defining characteristic of a Rousseau Was Right setting, and that the setting has more to do with Pelagian philosophy than the resulting character does.

edited 25th Dec '11 2:12:27 PM by EnragedFilia

Bumping, because I really want this page deleted. If there's anything on it actually worth saving, it's probably best saved in a Forced into Evil YKTTW.

I think there's a legit trope here. If I'm reading it right, this trope is about people who are evil — knowing that they're evil, not wanting to be evil, because they don't think they can be anything but evil. This is as opposed to Well-Intentioned Extremist (who does evil thinking he's doing good) and Necessary Evil (who does evil knowing they're doing evil, but for a good cause).

Definitely needs a rename, though. Unwilling Evil?

This. May as well scrap the current form and start over.

edited 6th Jan '12 6:01:38 AM by HiddenFacedMatt

I think it's legit also, although it might need to be renamed. I'm not sure Unwilling Evil or Forced To Be Evil quite cover it though.

I spent a bit of time thinking about this and the key difference is that the "Pelagian Villain's" underlying motivation is still selfish, but it is selfish in such a way and under such circumstances that viewers will likely sympathise. It's selfish, but it's the same selfishness that means we don't feel guilty for eating food while Ethiopians starve.

For example, if someone tells you to kill 2 people or they will kill everyone in the city, that's Necessarily Evil. It's clearly morally better for 2 people to die than several hundred; net, you're saving lives. But if someone tells you to kill 3 people or they'll kill your SO, you're a Pelagian Villain. From a purely moral point of view, it is better for 1 person to die than 3, and so shifting the death away from someone you know is a purely selfish act. But at the same time, most people would find it uncomfortable to suggest that a person in that situation should be expected to let their loved one die because it's morally optimal.

Likewise, if you wake up and find that you've been bitten by a vampire in the night and will now be condemned to drink blood from humans to live - although not killing them in the process - then, assuming you're not a researcher who's going to discover the cure for cancer tomorrow or something, from a strict point of view it's better for everyone if you just die. But the implication - that if your survival becomes morally "in the red" then you have a duty to destroy yourself - is horribly uncomfortable and not what most people would believe.

The example I added, Zero from 999, is a similar case - although discussing it in detail would be spoileriffic, but the point is the same.

That said, Pelagian Villain is certainly the wrong name in that case, because the basis is that mankind IS intrinsically very-slightly-evil.

If people want to save this it's better IMO to throw it back to YKTTW and work there, and for the time cut this.

So... Sympathetic Evil?

fwiw also vote cut... the description is kind of all over the place, and there are already several "sympathetic villain" tropes that every example would also fall into, I don't see the point of this

Cut it. If you really want to, you can YKTTW later and make a passable trope.

Seems pretty unnecessary to me. It is so similar to so many other evil tropes that anything you see here could probably fit into at least two others. I vote delete.

Bumping. Does anyone care enough to YKTTW Forced into Evil? If so, I'll wait for them to do so before adding this to the cutlist.