Misused: Affably Evil and Faux Affably Evil

Affably Evil and Faux Affably Evil need significant cleanup. The tropes are meant to be mutually exclusive (either you're a friendly, affable person who happens to be a villain, or you're a villain who affects friendliness and affability), and yet there are numerous characters who are listed as examples on both pages. Perhaps the descriptions are a bit too woolly and unclear on this point.

Opening, although I'd like to see a wick check.

I've always wondered where a character would fit who has a genuinely affable manner (pleasant and polite to talk with), but is otherwise mean or sadistic.

edited 6th Sep '14 7:43:51 AM by AnotherDuck

Me too. The distinction is pretty vague and hard to quantify. If Blofeld puts James Bond up in a nice fancy room in his lair, has a sexy maid send him a martini, then puts him on a conveyor belt to be sliced in half, is he being Affably Evil or Faux Affably Evil? I don't know.

Affably Evil is about people who are genuinely nice but also evil. They still have an Evil Plan to accomplish — they want to Take Over the World or whatever — and they won't hesitate to lie, steal, and kill in order to do it... but they won't lie/steal/kill more than they have to, and they certainly won't do things For the Evulz. It might help if you think about Affably Evil as the inverse to Good Is Not Nice. You can be a good guy without being nice? Well, you can be an evil guy without being mean, too. (Matter of fact, Evil Is Not Mean is a redirect for Affably Evil.)

Faux Affably Evil is about people who act nice, but are very much not. They're sadistic, vicious, and merciless; they'll Kick the Dog just for fun and For the Evulz is practically their stock in trade... but they're still polite, thoughtful, and courteous while they're doing all of that. They have the mannerisms of "niceness" down pat, but it's only skin deep.

Simple litmus test: if they could accomplish their goals without being evil at all, would they? If yes (ie, their evil actions are a means to an ends) then they're Affably Evil. If no (ie, they enjoy being evil in and of itself) then they're Faux Affably Evil.

Previous topic. And another preceding thread.

That's what I'd assume, but the description goes on an on about how it's just a mask and not something genuine. It's entirely possible for someone to actually be polite even while being sadistic.

I don't know, maybe part of the problem is that "affable" is not the same as "nice". The crux of the distinction as I'm understanding it is whether or not one's affability is genuine—but affability is affability. I mean, if you're genuinely a nice person, you won't harm others to achieve your goals.

Yeah, I think they both have bad names, personally. It'd probably best if we swapped Affably Evil with the Evil Is Not Mean redirect, and renamed Faux Affably Evil to something else entirely like Politely Evil or something.

Affably Evil in particular has very large usage statistics. It will need a wick check before a rename can be considered.

My reasoning whenever I found Affably Evil and Faux Affably Evil in the same page is simply that the bad guy in question was genuinely polite and civil at times, but whenever he switched gears to a sadistic fuck, he remained with a polite and civil tone, therefore fitting both tropes.

edited 6th Sep '14 2:27:38 PM by Gaon

Like I said in one of those earlier threads, the key is in the definition of "affable". It doesn't mean "good". It doesn't mean "honest". It doesn't mean "genuine" or "sincere". It doesn't mean "funny". It refers to a surface manner of behaving, not to whether the person is truly nice.

It means "friendly, good-natured, or easy to talk to". Synonyms include: friendly, amiable, genial, congenial, cordial, warm, pleasant, nice, likable, personable, charming, courteous, civil, gracious, sociable, hail-fellow-well-met, outgoing, and gregarious.

That's what I was trying to get at above. Consider that, and it doesn't seem like there's much of a meaningful difference between these tropes.

Someone who was Faux Affable would be someone who was acting pleasant and sociable while muttering under their breath about how much they hated being there, the person they were talking to, the host, other people present, the food, or whatever. In other words, the affability is clearly seen (by at least some people — those people may only be the audience) to be a mask because it keeps slipping.

I think there's a big meaningful difference. In the Blofeld example in #4, that is clearly Affably Evil I think. Regardless of the conveyor belt and other evil activities, the room and martini and the way he talks and so on is definitely friendly.

That still wouldn't include when they're saying those bad things while maintaining the same charming manner.

The difference is that one is genuine (they're a rotten person but still friendly, genuinely friendly) and the other is an act (they're a rotten person who only pretends to be friendly. It's forced, faked, in sarcasm, deceptive, mocking). The affably evil means it when he says You Will Be Spared. He will treat his troops well if they please him and not vaporize them with laser beams if their failures don't warrant it. She'll be appreciative of her fans. She may expect too much of them, she may not be nice, and in fact might be planning to extort them with a switch blade, but she'll acknowledge and appreciate the support anyway. Someone who isn't genuine won't just mistreat her fans, she'll actively antagonize them for making their existence known to her. He won't just punish employees for shortcomings but just because he can. If one of faux affably spares you, it's because they had no choice or because they have more use for you, not out of any sort of friendliness.

I guess it is to say a nice person will do something for you even when they don't need to, an affable one need only do it out of obligation or for expected return. Faux affable will only make you think they are doing something for you but are performing an action of pure self benefit. If someone is affable but not nice, you can measure it by What Have You Done for Me Lately?. If affability is more an act is probably What Have You Done To Me Lately?

Think Boisterous Weakling and Miles Gloriosus. Both have an overly inflated opinion of themselves but the weakling will at least try to back up his boasts, even if he is utterly incapable. Miles Gloriosus will stall, run and excuse himself from anything that might put him to the test. Yeah, there can be overlap, a character can display different aspects of both a different points, but characters are complex (or generally should be). Tropes Are Flexible.

edit:Miles Glorious is a red link? The more you know...

edited 14th Jan '15 10:21:35 PM by IndirectActiveTransport

Clock is set.

~Indirect Active Transport: that's a good contrast in personalities, but we need a good way to convey a clear distinction that is less subtle.

What if we remove the 'villain' requirement from Faux? If we make the trope about an obvious polite mask by a character in fiction? That way examples can overlap.

It requires changing the meaning of one trope, but strips the subjectivity of analyzing the personality of the character from both. Does the villain act polite and sociable? They're Affably Evil. Does the character hide behind a polite mask? Then it's the other trope.

Wow, my last post was wordy.

How about Affably Evil won't unnecessarily antagonize or do mean spirited things as they related to his goals, not as a matter of course anyway. Faux affably evil will go out of his way to be mean, destructive things but act nice about it. Is that a simple enough line?

Nope: both are subjective metrics, which means we'll have the same duplication problems.

@17: So basically Affably Evil is to Nice Girl as Faux Affably Evil is to Bitch in Sheep's Clothing?

Clock is set.

What if we just merge them together under Affably Evil or Evil Is Not Mean? Because I see Faux Affably Evil as subversion of Affably Evil.

The short version is that Affably Evil is the inverse of Good Is Not Nice. You can be friendly and evil at the same time, the same way you can be nice and a jerk at the same time.

Faux Affably Evil is like Affably Evil, except they're only acting nice rather than being nice. If you're Affably Evil, then you're a genuinely, legitimately nice person who happens to be evil. If you're Faux Affably Evil, then you're only nice on the surface — it's an act, a mask, a sham. Maybe they act nice because it gets people to lower their guard, because they think it's funnier that way, because it matches their sense of style, or because they're just crazy. Whatever the reason, the difference between the two is that Affably Evil people are nice, but Faux Affably Evil just act like it.