Complaining: The Vamp

How does "completely evil" indicate that hedonism alone is enough?

Because "completely evil seductress", in that format, only concerns itself with whether the seductress is a villainess or not, and ignores what she does with her seduction.

edited 1st Nov '12 3:57:03 PM by MarqFJA

And judging from the results of me consulting various definition sites (including but not limited to Wikipedia), we are using the word "vamp" wrong, compared to the pre-existing definition of "a seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to entrap and exploit men (or women, if she's lesbian)". Oh, and according to Wikipedia, the "vamp" arose as a subtype of Femme Fatale (whose actual definition seems somewhat more flexible/broader than ours), meaning that it should be a Sub-Trope rather than being a Sister Trope.

edited 6th Nov '12 5:29:57 AM by MarqFJA

Marq, how is what we're using wrong, according to that dictionary definition?

Ours is "the beauty who uses her feminine wiles to undermine a moral and upright man, for evil purposes. She's evil and sexy, a liar and a sneak, and uses the good guy's sympathy against him... Unlike the Femme Fatale and the Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter, she is rotten to the core, and will never be swayed from the path of darkness by love. "

How is that substantially different from "a seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to entrap and exploit men (or women, if she's lesbian)"?

If you're going to a dictionary you're almost always going to find a wider definition anyway, especially if you consult multiple sources, considering how language is used. However, dictionaries are about words, while we're about tropes.

Besides, having a trope name as "The Vamp" is different from the dictionary definition of "vamp".

edited 6th Nov '12 7:41:28 AM by AnotherDuck

Because almost everything after the first period in that quote — i.e. "She's evil and sexy, a liar and a sneak (...) Unlike the Femme Fatale and the Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter, she is rotten to the core, and will never be swayed from the path of darkness by love." — is tacked on to the actual definition of "vamp" (which itself leaves considerable room for morally-grey/ambiguous examples), since it does not arise as an automatic consequence from it.

# The problem with that approach is that such tropes easily fall into Trope Decay; believe me when I say that from what've seen there are a lot more contributors who clearly meant the dictionary definition when they used The Vamp in work page examples, character sheet entries, and potholes in general than those who are following the page description. I would've glady done a wick to conclusively prove that if I was as familiar with most of the works involved.

1. Even putting the previous point aside, it doesn't make sense to for us to tack on a new meaning to the original word's definition instead of using a qualifier. What's so difficult about naming it Evil Vamp or something like that? "Vamp" used to be US-American slang for "femme fatale"!

edited 6th Nov '12 7:58:58 AM by MarqFJA

"Evil Vamp" implies that there can be good vamps, and that's simply not the case. Vamp was never neutral or positive. Vamp was always negative. Calling a woman a vamp was not a compliment. It did not simply mean "sexy woman". It meant "predatory, amoral (or immoral), sexy woman".

edited 6th Nov '12 8:10:34 AM by Madrugada

I did not say nor imply that either "vamp" or "femme fatale" equated to "sexy woman". That is the province of Hello Nurse and Ms. Fanservice.

The trope can not apply to anyone who is not evilish. The word can not apply to anyone who is not at least dark grey morally. Evil Vamp is just redundant.

That is what I've been trying to say, and yet the trope's description, laconic definition, and almost everyone else here are saying otherwise.

Well, in that case there's nothing to be done there and we should lock the thread because you have no objection to the trope being confined to evil and villainous characters.

I fail to see how "evilish" and "dark grey morally" equate to "confined to evil and villainous characters".

Evilish is evil to me. Dark Grey Morally also sounds more like evil to me. Villainous? Don't think it's required; except for Villain Protagonist shows and the like, "evil" is usually also "villain".

edited 6th Nov '12 9:31:09 AM by SeptimusHeap

Automatically equating "evil" or "evilish" to "villain" ignores the fact that tropes like Sociopathic Hero, Unscrupulous Hero and Nominal Hero exist.

Evilish = at least part evil. Therefore evil. Dark Grey Morality = Evil if not the darkest evil. And villainous characters need not be 100% evil to be villains. You're still talking about evil and villainous characters.

You are pointlessly nitpicking. I'm locking this thread.

edited 6th Nov '12 9:33:10 AM by shimaspawn