Alright, so in TRS Badass Gay came up for discussion and it was agreed that there appears to big problem with the Badass X tropes in general, which needs to be sorted out until something can be ruled on for Badass Gay.
Here's a courtesy link: TRS page
. And Badass page with its subtropes. You can also visit the sandbox page here.
Noted Problems include:
- Tropes are just listings of characters people thing are badass who happen to have a certain trait. (The Badass + Trait Problem)
- Badass X as a naming scheme is actually very vague and doesn't give a lot of insight into what the character trope actually is, assuming it is a trope.
- Badass X as a naming scheme proliferates the use of Badass + Trait 'tropes'.
Suggested things to do include:
- Make it a requirement that a badass character trope means a character is "badass because of a trait", or "badass in spite of a trait".
- Renaming away from the Badass X naming scheme as much as possible.
- Cut, redefine or re-purpose things that are just Badass + trait.
There are also a lot of tropes that seem to be valid character-types, but have the naming scheme 'Badass X', when there's more to the trope than that. There are also a lot of prop or event or whatever tropes that need to be gone through as well.
Edited by Berrenta on May 15th 2020 at 7:39:14 AM
The Unknown Unknown
Thanks for the clarity. I'll see to it that "Badass" is excised from works I frequent.
Though I'm a little hesitant to do the same to character sheets from Naruto, One Piece, Fairy Tail, etc... Those series seem to pride themselves with that.
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Well, what about retaining them for characters that are frequently described by other characters using this specific term (or its rough equivalents in foreign languagesnote ?
edited 2nd Apr '16 8:07:32 AM by MarqFJA
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No, the other one.
I find that tropes used In-Universe or are otherwise excplicitly called out much more often work even if those tropes are otherwise problematic to use. That is, if it's a trope in the first place.
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I say that a character who is widely regarded as "badass" In-Universe would fit in with Living Legend or The Dreaded etc.
^^^ What's the meaning behind it though? Do those other characters call the character "badass" because they're fearsome and scary? Because they can solve every problem with their fists? Because they win at everything, implausibility be damned? The word itself is Not A Trope; that's why No New Stock Phrases became a rule.
edited 4th Apr '16 10:16:34 AM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
Here's a suggestion. Instead of just seeing Badass and axing it. Look to see if it has any qualifiers, and then look to see if we have tropes for those qualifiers, and then put it under the qualifying trope.
For instance Naruto's character page almost does it for you
- Badass: In Part I, he's a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass more than anything, but come Shippuden he´s developed into a weapons-grade full-fledged badass.
Then cut Badass and add
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: In Part I but come Shippuden he´s developed into a weapons-grade full-fledged badass.
and same for Sasuke's
Badass: Despite what you think of him, he is nothing short of this due to how much Naruto invests himself to reach his level. Even the most talented and elite shinobi of the entire world admit he's a genius with potential beyond theirs. Even the resurrected Second Hokage states that Sasuke is as prodigious as Madara. Orochimaru also confidently states that Sasuke's power has yet to reach its peak and that he would eventually surpass Madara himself.
Sounds like you'd rephrase the first sentence under Always Some One Better and put the rest under Child Prodigy or The Gift.
edited 4th Apr '16 11:43:20 AM by acrobox
The Unknown Unknown
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I approve of that, but my concern is 'what if there isn't any qualifers?'
No, the other one.
If there aren't any qualifiers, why is it an example?
edited 4th Apr '16 9:14:21 PM by AnotherDuck
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@acrobox, I agree with you in general principle, but that particular example is a bad one; you're left with a Zero Context Example. If one were familiar enough with the source material to flesh it out, then great, but if not, I think one could be forgiven for cutting it or at the very least leaving it commented out in case someone else comes along with better context.
Agreed. If the context of "Badass" can be moved to a new trope, then that's what we should do, but only if that doesn't lead to Zero Context Example.
I thought that was the base assumption. Of course, if depending on the context it's clearly an example of Badass Grandpa or Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass or any other trope, we should move it there. The thing is that most examples I've seen of Badass itself (when it's not simply used in zero context terribad supertrope-subtrope indentation) either boil down to "this character is awesome" or "this character can fight really well", the former of which is gushing or The Ace by any other name, the latter of which is probably an Omnipresent Trope and thus doesn't require examples.
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
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I was just about to ask that. Are we about ready to declare a verdict on this one?
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I think we can call it
Hi
Calling it. Purge away.
"In distress", my ass.
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Yeah, a lot of them are probably not used as examples in and of themselves but in descriptions and example text, but that's gonna need a lot of work.
(And on that subject, as a fanspeak term does it get cut from descriptions and such, or only removed when it's used as an entry, in and of itself, on a trope list? I don't think I've done any fanspeak cleaning in the past.)
edited 13th Apr '16 9:36:13 PM by Nohbody
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Queen of Good Things, Honest
Badbutt, like Badass Bookworm or World of Badass, has a pretty clear definition. There are a variety of ways the Work might communicate that the character is a Badbutt but it's not difficult to judge whether or not a character qualifies, as the entire concept is basically a child-friendly parody of the badass.
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For Badass examples that have sufficient context, don't forget to move them to their proper subtrope if you can. I know the vast majority will be ZCEs and thus can be cut without trouble, but some people were using it correctly as a supertrope.
And what about placing Bad Ass as an example on YMMV or Awesome subpages, or wicking to it in a troper's personal CMOA entry?
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YMMV is only for items with the " Your Mileage May Vary" tag. Regular items don't get added with an subjective addendum. Awesome subpages aren't for listing tropes either; they're moments.
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
the question still stands for Awesome. Could a trooper, theoretically, call an action or other Bad Ass without (or with) the character performing it (if there is one) being any kind of badass sub-trope? E.g. "it was pretty badass" - or even a real life element with, e.g. "props to the CGI guys because that sequence looked so badass". (written more professionally, of course, and explicitly)
That's what Nohbody was saying a few posts up. So, yes, they can.
I'm having a little trouble moving some Badass examples to subtropes. There has to be an alternative for "really really good fighter," because I'm seeing a lot of examples of those, without anywhere to really put them. Sometimes they can be moved to One-Man Army or The Dreaded, or maybe Badass Normal in a supernatural show, but not always. For example, here's one I'm having trouble with from Literature.The Stormlight Archive:
- Badass: Many. Any Shardbearer is guaranteed to be awesome by the nature of the armaments. Kaladin and Szeth stand out in particular, and Kaladin isn't even a Shardbearer. Dalinar, on the other hand, is acknowledged as badass even for a Shardbearer — at least, when he's not holding back.
Szeth and Kaladin mostly fit under One-Man Army (though it feels like a bit of shoehorning, since their most impressive feats are dueling One Man Armies), but then there's Dalinar. His most impressive feat is catching a kaiju. I'm just not sure where to put that. It's not an example of One-Man Army or The Dreaded or really anything else I can think of. It's just an example of "really good at fighting," and I can't find a trope for that anymore. I mean, he's old enough that I guess it could be tossed under Badass Grandpa, but the subtropes won't cover everything.
It shouldn't be added, because it's not a trope. The whole issue here is that, as we've established, there is no defined meaning for Badass, only different ways people use that word. Is it a character who is Rule of Cool incarnate? A Marty Stu? A competent fighter? The best fighter in the world? Someone with superpowers? A "manly" character? A brave or courageous character? "Character who did that totally awesome thing that one time"?
In other words, it's a "trope clump"; an ambiguously defined collection of various tropes and non-tropes. Some of them are in fact already covered. For instance, a character who's brave in the face of danger might have Nerves of Steel or be a Fearless Fool.
edited 2nd Apr '16 6:51:25 AM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"