Badass tropes - now on: Action Girl

Yes, I misremembered the spelling of the word.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Okay. So what you're saying is that you think the definition of Badass is, in short, abnormally cool and tough? I can work with that. People do tend to gush over the characters they consider badass and are more likely to ignore characters who are in theory tough but mostly uninteresting, such as the stormtroopers mentioned earlier.

"Cool" is subjective.

As for "tough", that could result in a huge list of all remotely tough or strong characters in media. I don't think we want that.

I do not see a problem, really.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I see a problem with having a YMMV page outside of the YMMV zone, and a Trivia list outside of the Trivia zone.

Yeah, cool is kind of subjective, but I don't think we can really avoid that. Having a qualifier like being tough makes it better. Maybe it would be better to use a world like competent or effective instead to avoid the inclusion of mooks, but I just wanted to get a basic definition down that we can agree on.

What does this have to do with trivia?

edited 20th Apr '15 2:00:36 PM by Arha

"I don't know, the Nobel Prize committee and various academicians would argue with you"

If they can show something done with math (either as a constant action or a singular event) that would make a typical viewer go "woah, that's awesome", then it would count as badass.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

So, "All non-background fighter-ish characters that existed, ever"?

"What an typical viewer would consider awesome" is highly subjective.

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To clarify, I have nothing against subjective tropes. I just hope everyone realizes that they should go to the YMMV zone.

edited 20th Apr '15 2:37:28 PM by Rjinswand

"average" isn't really subjective. You can't go "well I think the average". A mean is a hard notion.

This even applies to people when taken as an aggregate. That makes the notion of an average person (depending on the group chosen) an "uncertainty", not "subjective".

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

Not "average" is subjective, "awesome" is.

Okay, I'll give that.

Well if people do things with math that fall under Rule of Cool then that would fall under badass. I think that's how Gun Kata is supposed to work. Or how in The Great Mouse Detective Basil used math to defeat a death trap that required precise timing.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

No, that would probably fall under Awesomeness by Analysis. Badass isn't a catchall term for doing something cool.

"Badass isn't a catchall term for doing something cool."

I did not write "cool". I wrote "Rule of Cool".

edited 20th Apr '15 4:22:32 PM by DragonQuestZ

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

Rule of Cool just states that a viewer will disregard their Suspension of Disbelief if they see something cool happen. It doesn't say it needs to be used in a specific way, e.g., to defeat foes or death traps. E.g. the trope page image depicts Death playing a guitar, not fighting or defeating anyone or anything, just playing a guitar.

Where did I claim it had to be used in a specific way?

edited 20th Apr '15 8:00:56 PM by DragonQuestZ

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

I'm just confused now. Is Badass about doing any unlikely feat (in general or given the character), or just certain types of unlikely feats?

It's "unlikely (impossible or highly improbable) and makes one look extra tough"

So we have the page image for badass, where a guy slams through a wall on a motorcycle, and neither the guy nor the cycle are damaged in any way. That's almost impossible, and makes them look extra tough.

In Real Life we have Audie Murphy getting into a fierce battle in WWII, leaping into a burning tank (as in could blow up at any moment), and successfully holding off enemy troops for an hour, and only getting a leg wound from the whole ordeal. Very improbable, but also very tough.

Or another Real Life, but Badass Pacifist, example we have Alvin York in WWI walking into the fire of enemy soldiers and talking them down and into surrendering. That's also extra tough, without even resorting to violence.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

The trope image is "a fighter performs improbable stunts in battle". Audie Murphy is "a person is extraordinarily, almost suicidally brave" + "one fighter defeats an improbably large number of enemies". Alvin York is "a person is extraordinarily, almost suicidally brave" + "accomplishing a mission with a low success probability".

So it seems like we have at least 4 different tropes here:

• "A fighter performs improbable stunts in battle". All examples of e.g. crashing through walls on jet-powered motorcycles, defusing grenades with teeth, killing enemies by ricocheting sharks off swords, etc. go in there.
• "One fighter defeats an improbably large number of enemies". One Samson, one donkey's jawbone, thousands of dead Philistines.
• "A person is extraordinarily, almost suicidally brave". The person might not do any crazy stunts or defeat hordes of enemies, but they'll jump through enemy mortar fire into a burning building without hesitation.
• "Accomplishing a mission with a low success probability". The missions this character gets have one chance in a million to succeed, but somehow this character succeeds nine times out of ten.

Badass is a very broad trope.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Point 3 is also One-Man Army or Conservation of Ninjutsu.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Badass is a Super-Trope, not a specific trope. It doesn't limit itself to just how the tough-and-incredibly-cool is done, only that an action be tough-and-incredibly-cool.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

I just think the root of the problem is that many people use Badass to mean "something really cool and awesome". And that's YMMV at best. I think the way to deal with this problem would be to define one or several specific trope meanings, or either we'll be invariably stuck with "something really cool and awesome" no matter how we try.

Is being ridiculously brave "cool and awesome"? Yes. Is one man defeating thousands of enemies "cool and awesome"? Yes. Is a fighter using improbable and flashy stunts to defeat his enemies "cool and awesome"? Yes. But I think those are different narrative elements, and it'd be best to determine them rather than combine them under a unified "cool and awesome" banner.

Lumper Vs Splitter debate.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Okay, you seem to be assuming that such a character has to be seen that way by the audience. It's how the story portrays the character that matters, which is not ymmv.

For example, even if you personally aren't impressed by an Outrun the Fireball scene, that doesn't make it not fall under Rule of Cool. Same applies to badass. It doesn't matter if you out of universe find something badass to count as an example. It has to be shown as such in the story (either directly stated by a character or within other context). That is the common element that makes all those sub tropes still fit under badass.

Now I admit that does make real life examples really iffy, so perhaps this may end up as a no real life examples trope.

edited 22nd Apr '15 2:48:02 PM by DragonQuestZ

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

I'm not really a "splitter", I think both a supertrope and subtropes can coexist peacefully :) I just tried to give my two cents on how to possibly avoid misuse and YMMV.

Hm, you make a good point! If it's strictly in-universe, then I guess it would work. It should be made very apparent, though, to avoid further misuse. And yeah, maybe the real life examples did throw me off a bit (after all, Audie Murphy wasn't created by a narrator to look as badass as possible, that's just how he was).

But then, there's another thing that confuses me. What's the difference between Badass and Rule of Cool then? Is Badass a subtrope of Rule of Cool? What's the difference between a e.g. Badass fighting scene and a RuleOfCool fighting scene, for example?

edited 22nd Apr '15 3:18:06 PM by Rjinswand