Rename proposed: Inspector Javert

Since when?

All the wicks where you claimed misuse were mostly things you wanted to argue were mistaking Inspector Javert for Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist, which is a page marred by bogus qualifiers that many aren't even willing to support. What wicks for Inspector Javert have mistaken the trope for just "chases criminals"?

You should read over the first two sentences of Inspector Javert. Not listening to reason has nothing at all to do with the character; one simply just has to be unaware of circumstances regarding his/her prey (mainly, either that a fugitive Wrongly Accused or a legit criminal who has "redeemed himself"—interpret that last one as broadly as you want, I see it as including "law breaker who also did a good deed").

Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist misrepresents this by making it sound like an Inspector Javert deliberately chases individuals that the character even knows don't deserve to be chased when the truth is that they don't know and are just doing their job all the same.

edited 29th Feb '12 9:47:58 AM by SeanMurrayI

Since when is "cop chasing a criminal" trope decay? Ever since "guy doing his job" was People Sit On Chairs. One of the duties of policemen is to capture criminals. No definition is given in those examples for if the character getting chased is Wrongly Accused, an unrepentant murderer, or anything in-between.

So you're saying that an Inspector Javert will listen to reason? Then the protagonist can simply stop running, explain what happened, and not get chased. No drama whatsoever, then. What was the point in sending the cop to chase them down, then?

Doing "a good deed" does not legally redeem criminal acts. The character of Les Mis did not give a little boy a lollipop and suddenly finish with his criminal past. He spent years in prison, at hard labor, was legally released, and became an authority figure for a town. But still, the Trope Namer chased him, in order to put him behind bars. Even saving the cop's life did not deter the obsession.

You're right; the Inspector Javert does not know the person he is chasing is an innocent. In contrast, the Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist does know his quarry's guilt. You need to read the trope because you're missing this line: If he does know it, he's just a jerk.

Hey, congratulations. You just stumbled across the conclusion of The Fugitive. As the Inspector Javert realizes there was more at play in Kimble's case and that he truly is innocent of his wife's murder, he makes it clear that he doesn't want to arrest Kimble, the two of them resolve a bigger problem together, and the fugitive stops running.

However, you're twisting my words. I did not write that an Inspector Javert will listen to reason. I only said that the entire business of "not listening to reason" is irrelevant to the character itself, which does not mean the opposite must be relevant. The whole premise is that a dedicated law enforcer is filling the antagonist role as one hunting down a criminal that is either wrongly accused or partially sympathetic while simply being unaware of those details about the criminal (again, nothing to do with "listening to reason").

But that doesn't mean the character ALWAYS has to be unaware of those details. One can become aware as a story unfolds, and this can help a story reach one of dozens of possible conclusions. To quote the trope description, "At some point, however, the officer and accused have to team up to fight a common enemy, or the movie or series ends with them discovering that their entire campaign to bring the hero to justice was in vain, or he is innocent and find evidence to prove it or they decide to just let them go with a 'five minute head start', or something to that effect."

It's perfectly okay for an Inspector Javert to uncover evidence of his prey's innocence and give up a chase because of it or have some of the criminal's sympathy rub off on the inspector giving chase. It's also perfectly okay, giving this and what I just quoted, for the Inspector Javert to be a sympathetic antagonist.

The trope description does not say redemption must come strictly through the legal system.

So what? Not every trope example has to be an exact copy of the Trope Namer. Tropes Are Flexible (the description for Inspector Javert is, in fact, very flexible), and most examples of this trope don't even operate like this by any stretch. If anything, this gives grounds for another argument as to why naming tropes after specific characters is wrong.

In cases where Inspector Javerts chase actual criminals who are also sympathetic or have "redeemed themselves", the Inspector Javerts would know of their fugitive's guilt, too (they've committed real crimes, after all). In fact, that detail was true of the Trope Namer (haw haw) who merely didn't know about his quarry's sympathy and redemption.

I don't see this line anywhere in Inspector Javert's description, nor do I think that line is an entirely accurate detail of the trope.

If you are, in fact, referring to something on Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist, then I'm not going to read it on general principle. Nobody should ever have to read a page that isn't Inspector Javert to understand important details about Inspector Javert, and if it's not on the Inspector Javert page, then it's not important. Moreover, what you're quoting about Inspector Javert from a different trope page appears to be wrong, anyway, and if the premise of Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist is relying on this kind of stuff, then I'm sure that makes the premise for Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist very suspect. If a trope is either being redefined (or deliberately misrepresented) on a different page so as to justify the existence of that different page then something is very, very wrong with that different page.

edited 12th Mar '12 3:23:40 PM by SeanMurrayI

Given that we are arguing in circles here, should we ask for another crowner or just let this die?

We have a crowner, it's been running for a while, and there's no consensus. So if we're done arguing, we should just lock this up.

Calling the crowner. No consensus to do anything.

Is a wick cleanup needed here, or are we done?

edited 14th Mar '12 5:59:24 AM by ccoa

Bump

edited 18th Mar '12 7:06:36 AM by Ramidel

No consensus to act. Locking.