Badass tropes - now on: Action Girl

I think one of the major problems with Badass is that it uses a pre-existing word as its name. Here's what online dictionaries have to say about what "badass" means:

• Wiktionary: (n) A mean or belligerent person; a person with extreme attitudes, behavior or appearance.
• Wiktionary: (a) Having extreme appearance, attitude, or behavior that is considered admirable. Synonyms (admirable): cool, awesome
• Urban Dictionary: Ultra-cool motherfucker. (top definition)
• Urban Dictionary: [...] He radiates confidence in everything he does, whether it's ordering a drink, buying a set of wheels, or dealing with women. He's slow to anger, brutally efficient when fighting back. [...] He wears, drives, drinks, watches, and listens to what he chooses, when he chooses, where he chooses, uninfluenced by fads or advertising campaigns. [...]
• Urban Dictionary: [...] He does what he wants, when he wants, where he wants. [...] He feels no obligation whatsoever to justify his beliefs, values, convictions, morals et cetera with anyone. [...] Genuinely intriguing and intrigued by others, he radiates confidence in everything he does and fears nobody. He won't pick a fight but DO NOT fuck with him, because he will beat the shit out of you with his bare hands. [...]
• Urban Dictionary: A person who defines supreme confidance, nearly divine abilty, and a frequent disregard for authority. [...] Take James Bond, for example. He is not a badass. He acts out of loyalty, he is not particularly capeble, and he is just a tad bit too perfect to be a badass. Dirty Harry is a badass. He has absolutely no loyalty to anone except his own version of justice. He kills anyone who even bends said rules, and does it without anything even resembling restraint. He is also completely devoid of fear. Villans can be badass, but it works differently for them. Take Darth Vader, for instance. He is not particularly badass, because he has this complex loyalty thing going on. However, Vicous from cowboy bebop is a badass, because he doesn't care if its his own mother who's crossing him, he'll kill him/her anyway. [...]

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There we have it. People seem to think "badass" means:

• Being super confident in yourself. I always thought it's called "being cool".
• Not trying to look badass. Not being influenced by authority or popular trends. Or alternatively, completely disregarding authority.
• Being considered awesome and cool. Having traits and behavior that people consider admirable.
• Being able to defeat most opponents in a fight.
• Being belligerent. Or alternatively, not being belligerent, and only picking up fights when angered.
• Being mean and having "extreme attitudes or behavior", whatever that means.

And that's where I think most of the misuse stems from.

edited 23rd Apr '15 3:55:11 AM by Rjinswand

The Fonz was cool without being a badass, I thought.

Your search for definitions correlate to the Rule of Cool trope, as well. Things like "extreme" can violate Willing Suspension of Disbelief except when it is "cool enough".

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Continuing.

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1. Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Seems to be about someone who kicks ass.
2. Absurdly Sharp Blade: Kicking ass.
3. A Butterfly Effect: Kicking ass.
4. Accel World: Saying Kicking ass is getting tiresome. I should have more variety. Don't think I care enough enough.
5. Accel World: All about fighting including the subtropes.
6. Acceptable Ethnic Targets: Both, I think.
7. Acceptable Lifestyle Targets: Cool.
8. Acceptable Professional Targets: Wow, this one might actually be about someone being cool, though it's pretty vague.
9. Accidental Aiming Skills: Both.
10. Accidental Hero: Kicking ass.
11. Accidental Hero of the Galaxy: Kicking ass.
12. Ace Combat: Clearly about combat. Shocker.
13. Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War: Yeah, fighting.
14. Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War: Both.
15. Ace Combat: Equestria Chronicles: Fighting.
16. Ace Combat: Equestria Chronicles: Both given the subpage its on, but primarily fighting.
17. Ace Lightning: Fighting.
18. Ace Pilot: Fighting.
19. A Certain Magical Index: Pretty much every individual page here is about fighting but that's hardly going to be the best representative sample, so let's only count it once.
20. A Certain Magical Index: Fighting.
21. A Certain Magical Index: Fighting.
22. A Certain Magical Index: Both.
23. A Certain Scientific Railgun: Fighting.
24. WMG/Achewood: Both.
25. Webcomic/Achewood: Fighting. 25
26. Achievements in Ignorance: One example is solely about being cool. Another is solely about fighting. Going to split the difference and say both.
27. A Child Shall Lead Them: Fighting.
28. A Chinese Ghost Story: Fighting.
29. A Clockwork Orange: Street thugs, right? I never did get around to watching this. I'm going to say it must be macrame skills.
30. Acquired Poison Immunity: Both, I think.
31. A Crack in the Ice: Cool again, though I'll note that this does involve physical prowess.
32. Acrofatic: Fighting.
33. Across the Galaxy in Search of Ale: Fighting.
34. Across The Second Dimension: Going by tropes around it, I'm saying fighting.
35. Action Chatroom: Fighting?

I skipped over some Ace Attorney subpages because I didn't know what to do with them^note It's hard to tell how to count it given the er portrayal of the legal system in Ace Attorney. It's definitely going for the cool factor, but I'm not sure if that's all given the way the series is all about courtroom confrontations. Some of the other Ace Attorney examples are solely about physical confrontations as well..

Combined with my fifteen wick check earlier, with these 35 we seem to have at least 47/50 about fighting in some capacity (can't really tell with one of the ones about cool) and three about being super cool, one of which involves being cool by virtue of not dying in a dangerous situation. That is a 94%+ usage involving fighting, often in conjunction with being cool. With that, I've changed my mind and genuinely think that's part of it instead of just supporting the position as a compromise.

Before doing a Wick Check, you should read the rules: How to Do a Wick Check explains the rule is the greater of 50 or the square root (which is 125), and you're judging a Super-Trope here, which throws an additional wrench. You are effectively saying tropes like Badass in Charge, Submissive Badass, and Badass on Paper don't count as Badass because if the wicks are done correctly, examples of those subtropes won't show up in any of the 15871 wicks of Badass.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

"I think one of the major problems with Badass is that it uses a pre-existing word as its name."

I can see your point, just that it's about the inconsistency of its use elsewhere, not merely that it's used elsewhere. We've have plenty of other pre-existing terms that have been consistent enough to use (like Heel–Face Turn).

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

Can we please stop moving the goalposts? I was asked for fifty, I provided fifty. I really don't think a 94% rate of use is going to be overturned that easily. I mean, you don't really expect more wicks to make anything different, do you?

Also? I was taking into account the supertrope thing. I didn't just look at Badass itself when used, but also noted things like Handicapped Badass, Badass Normal and Badass Adorable. Apart from Badass Pacifist, they overwhelming indicated prowess in battle.

Arha, you've been around TRS long enough to know what constitutes a valid wick check. The goalposts aren't being moved: the standard has been "50 randomly-chosen wicks or the square root of the number of total wicks, also randomly chosen, whichever is greater," for several years now. (If the total number of wicks is less than 50, all of them should be included.) Using fewer wicks than that is not statistically valid.

Randomly chosen is also important for validity; your list of 50 includes multiple subpages for the same works, where the use is much more likely to be consistent across several pages.

It's very easy to skew a wick check, either deliberately or accidentally. That's why we have a page explaining how to do one with the least skewing.

edited 23rd Apr '15 11:42:58 AM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Hey, when I wrote about 50, I made it clear I wasn't certain that was the rule. When the mods brought up the actual rule, that wasn't moving anything. It was clarifying.

Plus as others pointed out, when there are sub tropes, you can't just exclude them as though they aren't relevant to the definition.

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

That How To Do A Wick Check thing is an approximation, and more to the point, statistical minutiae are really pointless to discuss. This is not lawmaking, we can afford an inexact process.

I'll ask (again I think): Does someone have a description draft?

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

I haven't really hung around the TRS in years and I don't really remember that part because tropes with 2500+ wicks rarely come up, but okay, I can check more wicks. And I guess eight of the wicks I checked were invalid. Current tally, thirty nine wicks including fighting ability and three that do not. And I'm just going to note if fighting is involved since I don't contest the cool part anymore.

1. Action Girlfriend: Fighting.
2. Action Hero: Fighting.
3. Action-Hero Babysitter: Judging by related tropes in the description, fighting, I guess, since it's the contrast between big cool action hero and taking care of a kid.
4. Actionized Sequel: Fighting.
5. Action Mom: Fighting.
6. Action Pet: Soldiers, secret agents and heroics. Fighting.
7. Action Philosophers!: Fighting. And weird sounding.
8. Action Survivor: Fighting. Back up to fifty.
9. Act of Valor: Soldiers. Fighting.
10. Actor/Role Confusion: Fighting.
11. Acts of the Apostles: Fighting.
12. Actual Pacifist: Mixed results here. Some stuff about being cool via Badass Pacifist, some stuff about fighting, including with Badass Preacher. Going to mark this down as fighting, I guess, since it at least comes up. And apparently Gandhi served in the military. Noted in case someone wants to disagree.
13. A Cure for Love: Fighting
14. A.C.X. - WARPED!: Fighting, judging by the other related tropes.
15. Action Fashionista: Fighting. Also clearly a subtrope of badass, for what it's worth.
16. Action Duo: Fighting.
17. Action Girl: Fighting.
18. Adamant Ditto: Cool... I guess? Not Rule of Cool level cool, though. Up to sixty!
19. Adam Baldwin: Fighting.
20. A Dance with Rogues: Fighting.
21. Adaptational Badass: Fighting.
22. Adaptational Wimp: Fighting.
23. Adaptation Displacement: Fighting.
24. Adaptation Expansion: Fighting, mostly.
25. A Dark Knight over Sin City: Fighting.
26. A Day With Bowser Jr: Fighting.
27. A Dead World: Fighting.
28. Manga/Adekan: Fighting. Seventy! Kind of easy to lose track when doing this.
29. A Demon Among Devils: Going to say fighting.
30. Adjusting Your Glasses: Fighting.
31. Adolf: WWII manga. I'm going to guess fighting is involved somehow.
32. Adorkable: Fighting.
33. A Dragon in Shining Armour: Fighting.

Seventy five wicks with seventy one involving fighting. 94.6% repeating now.

Edit: Wait, is this okay then? I was going to do fifty more at some point but I'd really rather not if I don't have to. Even if every single one said it meant cool and only cool, over half our examples would be saying fighting is involved.

edited 23rd Apr '15 12:24:34 PM by Arha

Again, that's too small a sample, and being alphabetical isn't exactly the best way to randomize. Furthermore you seem to be arbitrarily applying the context to some examples, which is not cool.

Plus are you using just straight badass wicks? Super tropes tend to branch off variations into their own wicks (but not always).

edited 23rd Apr '15 12:51:51 PM by DragonQuestZ

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

I said I wasn't done. Well, unless Septimus says I've made my point. I just didn't do them all at once because I am a terrible person and my attention span is too short to comb through a hundred pages at a time.

Okay, I'll pick random wicks from now on.

What do you mean by arbitrarily applying context? Looking at the page?

And no, I'm not just looking at badass wicks. Things like Badass Normal come up pretty frequently as well. I actually wrote comments for a few of those but mostly deleted them on second consideration because I didn't feel it was strictly relevant.

edited 23rd Apr '15 1:05:44 PM by Arha

When you kept writing that you decided examples were about fighting, even when you stated you didn't actually know the context.

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

Action-Hero Babysitter? "Tough guy Action Hero or macho guy type put in a position of responsibility for children" seemed pretty clear. The Actual Pacifist example? Because there was definitely stuff in there about fighting being badass, even when talking about Gandhi. ACX Warped? If Badass Grandpa and Action Girl are listed while Badass says "Just about everybody" I think it's a safe bet.

I thought wick checks were 50 or the square root of the total wicks, whichever is lesser.

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

No, larger. Otherwise most wick checks would be five-ten wicks.

Okay, fifty more wicks to check. Current tally, 71/75 include fighting. This time I scrolled down in between picking each one, though there are so many wicks that I only got to the Ds. And hey, I'll even skip pages where any inference is required.

1. Adventure Time: Main: Fighting.
2. Agent Carter: Fighting.
3. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. HYDRA: Fighting.
4. Airborn: Fighting is involved
5. Akame ga Kill!: Fighting.
6. A Land Fit for Heroes: Fighting.
7. Alex Rider: Fighting.
8. All Falling Down: Fighting.
9. Alouette: Fighting.
10. A Man Is Not A Virgin: Fighting.
11. Action Girl/Anime: Fighting.
12. Anime & Manga: Fighting.
13. Asleep: Fighting.
14. Assassin Outclassin': Fighting.
15. Astral Disaster: Fighting.
16. Attack of the Clones: Fighting.
17. Avatar: The Last Airbender - Mentors: Fighting.
18. Azure Dreams: Fighting.
19. Bakemonogatari: Fighting.
20. Batman: Arkham City: Fighting.
21. Ben 10: Omniverse: Fighting.
22. Big Trouble in Little China: Fighting.
23. Black Jewels: Fighting.
24. Bleach: Wandenreich: Fighting.
25. Blue Dragon: Fighting.
26. Bound Destinies Trilogy: Recurring Characters: Fighting.
27. Break the Badass: Fighting.
28. Cal Leandros: Fighting.
29. Captain Harlock: Fighting.
30. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Fighting.
31. Chaos Marauders: Fighting.
32. Ciaphas Cain: Fighting.
33. Comic Books: Fighting.
34. Competence Zone: Fighting.
35. Cover-Blowing Superpower: Fighting.
36. Cybersix: Fighting.
37. Dark Action Girl: Fighting.
38. Dark Souls II: Enemy NPCs and Bosses: Fighting.
39. Deadliest Warrior: Fighting.
40. DEATH BATTLE! (Season Two): Fighting.
41. Defiant to the End: Fighting, cool and tough in various different examples.
42. Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: Fighting. Indirectly.
43. Destrega: Fighting.
44. Diagonal Cut: Fighting.
45. Digimon Adventure 02: Fighting.
46. Dino Crisis: Fighting.
47. Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories: Fighting.
48. Doctor Who Sorcerers Apprentice: Fighting.
49. Donkey Kong 64: Fighting.
50. Dragon Age II – Companions: Fighting.

I was expecting to get at least a few more 'cool' examples, but guess not! That's 121/125 meaning cool, so 96.8%.

edited 23rd Apr '15 3:49:31 PM by Arha

Just because most of the wicks for the super trope are about that doesn't mean it can only be that. Otherwise by that logic Pimped-Out Dress can't have a Christmas themed variation since most of those examples are under Happy Holidays Dress instead.

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

I don't see the problem with saying firefighters don't fit the TVT definition of Badass.

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

^^ I don't know what you're talking about. Are you saying the 'cool fighter guy' is a subtrope to what you've been saying Badass is? That doesn't work because not every example of a badass has been super cool. Are you saying there's a supertrope to badass that is about being Rule of Cool personified? In that case, same issue, plus kind of unrelated to what we're doing right now. Are you saying that the vast majority of examples including fighting ability is irrelevant? The evidence doesn't really support that position. Are you saying Rule Of Cool Personified is a trope and this just isn't it? That's not really relevant right now.

If you mean something else, please explain.

edited 23rd Apr '15 4:05:56 PM by Arha

Yes, that's what I meant.

If in Real Life "badass" can mean anything from "wow, he's cool and awesome, man" to "belligerent meanie" to "just a chill guy who's confident in himself" to "tough dude who can kick major ass" to "rule-defying anarchist", it just invites misuse and lengthy arguments.

Yeah that does seem to be an issue. Although I don't think that means we can't come up with a definition. It just shouldn't be narrow (including limiting it to ass kicking) due to the varied uses.

edited 23rd Apr '15 4:40:25 PM by DragonQuestZ

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

I actually think it should be narrow (I'm just not sure exactly what narrow definition we should choose) for the exact same reason: if we make it too wide, it'll invite more misuse by people who would just use it as any of the word's real life meanings.

edited 23rd Apr '15 4:49:17 PM by Rjinswand

Making a trope narrow when the use is wide will invite misuse. The problem was the lack of parameters, not the width of them.

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

The use isn't wide at all. I just showed that it's used over 95% of the time to mean fighting.