Unclear Description: The Heavy

Okay, here's the exact section from Administrivia.How Crowners Work:

So I didn't go through with the merge according to my own whims, I followed Administrivia as best as I could.

Sorry for triple post, but...

So Eddie, why did you revert the renaming of the trope despite it clearly saying in the crowner below that we were going rename after we got through with this issue, and after that crowner where we agreed on what to rename and after the crowner from before that where we agreed to rename?

I imagine it is because it is giving a new name to a widespread outside concept. I personally feel that The Heavy is not the same as Villain Makes The Plot, it's a supertrope with a lot of different ideas behind it. And just because there is a consensus in the crowner doesn't mean it is the thing we should do.

Now that I think about it, "Playing The Heavy" is really the term that people use. It has a relationship with the story but it is more of a role that is being played within the story, not that they are the core of the story.

"Playing the Heavy" is actor jargon. Hence, the name is subject to myopia from actors especially when, as mentioned far early in the thread, the word "Heavy" has gained a lot of meanings over the years. Knowledge of the concept is not widespread.

[Wall Of Text:] This is the reason why we built up a pretty good consensus to rename the trope. After that, we brainstormed ideas and voted on potential names for the replacement.

We settled on Plot Driving Villain. When we reached a consensus on that, I asked everyone if it was okay if I renamed it, then some tropers brought up that it sounded like The Villain Makes the Plot. We argued back and forth on whether the two tropes were separable or not, so we voted on that, noting the fact that this issue was brought about by the previous name picking issue. Then we built up a consensus to merge the two. I asked if everyone was okay with this, so I went and merged the trope and simultaneously renamed it as warned by the crowner.

Then Fast Eddie renamed it back to The Heavy, which rendered the whole issue of merging The Villain Makes the Plot into The Heavy worthless, but they're still merged. In doing so, he brought up that it's a preexisting term; we already argued about this issue in the first place, but now that it's back in the issue, that means after all this work and arguing, we're back to square one and we've effectively gone nowhere. [/Wall of Text]

But alright, if we're going to start back at square one, let's set the crowner back to square one, but with a little modification.

Renaming The Heavy, take 2; if this crowner gets enough consensus to rename, we'll go through with renaming. If it doesn't, we will keep the name The Heavy.

Er, are we sure that's a popular term? I've checked for '"the heavy",' '"The heavy" acting' and checked Wikipedia and didn't get any mention of it being the primary villain on the first page of results. Something called memidex defines it as the person playing villainous roles, which is a broader definition than we use. Didn't show up until my third or fourth google search, each of which had more specific keywords than the last. I really don't think that's a popular enough term to justify keeping it.

edited 8th May '13 6:53:21 PM by Arha

Is it of any value to do anything even remotely resembling renaming The Heavy without finding out if Fast Eddie will undo it first?

edited 8th May '13 7:01:34 PM by Leaper

That's my point, making The Heavy a redirect to a trope that has nothing to do with any of its' definitions is a bad thing to do regardless if there was a crowner and consensus. If that was made clear before the crowner I doubt that would have even been an option. Worst case scenario might be a disambig page and then offering a list of tropes like Playing The Heavy and Villain Drives the Plot.

As for Fast Eddie, he isn't hanging around this thread enough to clarify what he meant.

So would the solution be to not make it a redirect yet still rename it anyway?

Crowner reminder

edited 9th May '13 12:26:40 PM by WaxingName

Rename the trope (as in the bad guy who drives the plot), yes. But the classical term for The Heavy has other connotations and I imagine is really an Omnipresent Trope (the simplest definition comes down to being the most prominent villain of the story). So maybe leave it as an example-less term definition and redirect Playing The Heavy into The Heavy as well.

So you're saying that we should make an entirely new trope but with the name "The Heavy" that has the proper meaning of The Heavy in theatre jargon, while naming the current The Heavy something else.

Just start a YKTTW and we'll be good.

I'm with KJ on this one. If it is actor jargon, it is an established term. It's not different than the Face, Heel, and other terms from Professional Wrestling. Sure, they're subject to myopia within their communities, but they're still well-established terms.

Whenever people claim something is an established term, I look over the internet to see if this is actually the case. Here, I have found that "The Heavy" commonly refers to (1) an English rock band, (2) a film starring Christopher Lee, (3) an enforcer for the mafia, and (4) that dude with the huge gun from Team Fortress.

So yes, it is clearly an established term, but for something very different than this trope.

Come to think of it, this shares the name of a work, i.e. this film. I believe that by itself is grounds for renaming.

The film title refers, of course, to a mafia-style enforcer, not a plot-driving villain.

(sorry for triple posting but the edit button doesn't currently work)

By making more and more specific searches I eventually did manage to find one site that used the definition of the heavy being the role of villain for an actor.

I think it's more used as "playing the heavy" rather than just "the heavy". In this case, it doesn't help that "heavy" is a very common word with several meanings. As a noun, this does show up as a definition early from what I can see. Also, I find that on search engines, names (especially film titles and band names) usually outrank terminology.

Even if you're entirely right, that would make this trivia and leave us with a new trope to write, wouldn't it?

Casting tropes are trivia, right?

I think the part of prominence in the plot here refers to screentime rather than plot significance, or at least the way I understand it.

So far as I can tell the heavy is the term for the role the actor gets rather than anything he does. That would make it a casting trope and trivia, yes. So, yeah, cleanup and relabeling the page plus launching 'the villain who actually moves the story along' would be another way of addressing the issue. Probably the proper way to do it and, assuming Fast Eddie's word is final, the way we'll end up having to do it.

Unless everyone just gets bored of it, the thread expires and we never do anything.

edited 9th May '13 7:29:06 PM by Arha

I've set up a YKTTW for Playing The Heavy here. I chose the title to be "Playing The Heavy" instead of just "The Heavy" since the full phrase is the real use in actor jargon, while simply "The Heavy" refers to way too many things. It's Up For Grabs so that all of us can work on it together.

Yeah, the main problem is "The Heavy" requires proper context. If you talk to an actor about the heavy they will understand but other people are going to think of the band or the movie.

But the truth is that it is a little more than a casting trope, it does have some significance when it comes to the story. The idea is someone who takes on the role of the bad guy because someone has to. Thus it has spread to ideas like being the one to fire someone even if it wasn't your decision.

I started a YKTTW on Playing The Heavy

EDIT: Whoops, lack of communication there. We can decide on which is the direction we want to go.

edited 9th May '13 7:53:20 PM by KJMackley

I'll delete the one I made.

For what it's worth: when I first saw "The Heavy" my immediate thought went to the huge, burly Polish bodyguard of the OAS chief in Frederick Forsyth's The Day Of The Jackal. The French secret service captures him, and tortures him to learn what the OAS is up to. The book mentions that, because of his size and strength, he's the OAS chief's favorite mook.

Also, the Heavy seems embodied by the manservant Max, who works for scheming Darla Dimple in Cats Don't Dance. This man is enormous, and does most of the dirty work in oppressing all others so that Darla alone is Mammoth Studios' prima donna.

The Big Bad will likely have The Dragon as a second-in-command, somewhat like a colonel or a major. The Heavy is closer to Chief Mook, not trusted with strategy but rather with mission specifics, much like a sergeant or lieutenant. Come to think of it, Oddjob from Goldfinger is such a fellow: he can eliminate all obstacles to the Master Plan, but he can't take over if anything happens to Auric Goldfinger. At least, that's how I interpret the term.

So how about this.

We move the current content of this page to Plot Driving Villain as discussed earlier. The YKTTW for Playing The Heavy covers the meaning of the term. And The Heavy itself becomes a disambig for the two of these as well as the several works and creators by that name.

Yep, that sounds about right.