Misused: Hero Killer

Syndrome is still the Hero Killer. It's his machine that killed the Supers, so Syndrome is responsible for their deaths (there's also the fact that he manipulated them into coming via Mirage).

I disagree. Syndrome's secondary desire is to kill Supers - primarily he's interested in fulfilling his childhood dream of becoming a Super. His robot, on the other hand, kills mercilessly, intently, with every fibre of his existence and for the sake of his existence; the only time his personality changes is when a Super defeats him, after which he learns his lesson and goes right back to killing the Super that killed him.

Syndrome is the Villain Antagonist - the Big Bad - but his bot is what creates the willing, participative fear of the Incredibles, Frozone, and the Audience as he makes decisions with intent to achieve his goal: his bot is the Hero Killer.

EDIT: a thing to consider is that both Kuradeel and Syndrome are cowards: are they both Hero Killers? Is one and the other not? Are neither?

edited 27th Nov '14 4:55:50 AM by Az_Tech341

Kuradeel and Syndrome are both cowardly Smug Snakes, but what makes them different in terms of qualifications for Hero Killer is their actions.

As stated, Syndrome's hatred of Mr. Incredible extended to all other heroes, and he proceeded to lure the greatest and most famed superheroes to his island one by one to perfect his hero-killing machine; whether the robot was just a tool in his designs or the robot itself is the actual Hero Killer is open to interpretation, what matters is that many heroes were exterminated ruthlessly and efficiently by one entity. When Mr. Incredible does find out about it, he has very serious Oh, Crap! moment, because he knows that this guy has killed most of his old friends and knows how tough that makes him.

Kuradeel, on the other hand, is simply a psychotic murderer. In his initial appearance he is publicly humiliated by Kirito, the lead protagonist; later, after Kirito joins the Knights of the Blood Oath, he goes on a scouting mission with Godfrey, a Knights of Blood higher-up we just met, and Kuradeel. When they break for lunch Kuradeel gives them water laced with paralysis poison, and once they are helpless turns into a Giggling Villain, murders Godfrey, and reveals his intent to get revenge on Kirito and cover up the incident as an attack by a group of player killers. Kirito is saved by the timely arrival of Asuna, the secondary protagonist, and in the face of defeat Kuradeel breaks down. Does Kuradeel kill heroes with skill alone? No, he makes them helpless and tortures them for giggles. Has he killed many heroes? No, he killed Godfrey and almost killed Kirito. Is he feared for his acts? Kirito only fears him because Kirito is in immediate danger and completely helpless, not because of Kuradeel's reputation. Kuradeel is certainly not a Hero Killer just because he killed Godfrey.

edited 27th Nov '14 5:21:35 AM by SignSeeker7

I changed the description so it says "Closely related to The Dreaded," which I think better acknowledges the way they are connected without constricting it to a subtrope. Feel free to expand upon it.

The Dreaded is always meant to be feared by the characters, if not necessarily the audience.

The Hero Killer is meant to be feared by the audience, if not necessarily the heroes until it's too late. That's where the fail in overlap comes from.

Thiiiiiiis

I found the scene from Star Wars Clone Wars where Grievous proves his Hero Killer cred, watch it here.

Thinks to note include: his confidence; his use of strategy to push his prey into a corner; the Jedis' discussion of his power and ability and their reactions; his use of suspense, anticipation, and fear to score an easy kill; his ability to handle multiple skilled heroes not just competently, but with finesse; when he is fighting one hero at a time, they are easily overpowered; the hero shown to be the most experienced and competent is almost defeated; Grievous is forced to retreat by superior numbers, but comes out of the encounter unscathed; and finally, his collection of lightsabers displayed, a testament to his ability to kill Jedi.

Would it be best to have the fight scene as the Page Image? I've seen that Psycho Ex-Girlfriend has a seven minute video as its image. The danger with that, I suppose, is brevity - we sacrifice instant recognition for thorough presentation.

What do you all think?

EDIT: Isn't he still dreaded, even if only by the audience? Are we saying that Hero Killer is more dreaded than The Dreaded, because we the audience will always dread his appearance? Are we saying that The Dreaded is a Hero Killer wannabe?

Also, we cannot disqualify the thrilling nature of the final conflict between The Incredibles and Syndrome's bot, and where was Syndrome when that almost ten minute action sequence occurred? It's important to acknowledge that part of that thrill is coming from audience awareness that the bot has killed many Supers before this family of four and their neighbourly friend. In fact, the bot - independently - attempts to kill Syndrome, in compliance with its nature.

I submit that both Syndrome and his bot are Hero Killers, and serve as fine examples of how Hero Killer can have personality within his categorization as such.

edited 28th Nov '14 5:33:05 AM by Az_Tech341

We only do videos for page images if they're made by TV Tropes.

Whether or not the audience dreads a character is something of a YMMV thing, and I don't think we can make audience reactions a definitive part of the Hero Killer. The Dreaded is a character that is feared greatly in-universe, but the audience might find the character intriguing, awesome, or even hilarious if the trope is used for comedy. Consider the Thrilling Adventure Hour, in which Frank and Sadie Doyle frequently go against vampires, demons, and all kinds of monsters without fear, but speak in hushed tones and with horror about the time a bee, a terrifying, monstrous and perfectly normal bumblebee, got into their apartment through an open window; the bee is Dreaded in-universe but is not intended to be so by the audience. While a Hero Killer is rarely (if ever) used comically, the same disparity between character reaction and audience reaction — as in Dreaded in-universe and less so on the outside — is just as probable as the opposite.

edited 28th Nov '14 7:47:37 AM by SignSeeker7

I changed that last line of the description so it's a bit more clear about what we're looking for as examples; it now says, "When adding examples, keep in mind that a character does not necessarily qualify just because they happened to kill one or two heroic characters; they have to have a reputation for killing heroes, or have killed many heroes, or both, to qualify." Is this agreeable?

that bee is not Dreaded, the two guys just had Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? reaction

edited 28th Nov '14 4:55:54 PM by DAN004

The Dreaded and Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? can overlap pretty easily. Obviously it's just a bee phobia, but it's presented and dealt with in a manner similar to The Dreaded, thus creating comedy.

Obviously not a perfect example, but the point I was trying to make is that a trope doesn't uniformly result in a single audience reaction, unless the trope is an audience reaction.

edited 28th Nov '14 6:32:40 PM by SignSeeker7

It's treated like The Dreaded because it's a specific, singular bee, not plural - subsequently generalizing it - like "snakes".

P.S. Are there any disagreements as to including both Syndrome and his bot as Hero Killers? If there is, we need to discuss why, and help specify the definition of the trope.

edited 29th Nov '14 2:07:58 AM by Az_Tech341

So, if the description is solid enough, we can start tackling the misuse, right? I imagine as we're doing that we can iron out any wrinkles or inconsistencies.

Man, I hope so. Surely the idea of the trope will solidify as we move beyond this point. Your description is remarkable, by the way.

We might be able to locate the ideal Page Image on the way! Squee!!

edited 30th Nov '14 10:25:14 PM by Az_Tech341

I think the main way we can judge the description and name is to step back and ask ourselves, "if someone wants to add an example to a trope named Hero Killer, and does not read the description, how likely is it that he'll add something that matches the description's most important points anyway?"

Solid idea, but that's not really a way to judge the description, just the title; in said scenario, the troper isn't reading the description at all and is judging their example by what they think the trope is about, presumably through the title and/or image. The title and image are meant to be secondary and supplementary to the description, not the other way around.

That said, if there are any concerns over the title, now seems as good a time as any to bring them up. One of the causes of misuse I can see is that people see the title and assume any character killing another heroic character qualifies. The description used to be vague enough to support this, and I'd like to think that that's been fixed, but if anyone has ideas for a better title it would be good to hear them.

edited 1st Dec '14 8:27:26 AM by SignSeeker7

Am I too idealistic to say that tropers must read descriptions before adding examples?

Let's put it this way: I clearly remember a case in this forum where a longstanding mod made it clear that they didn't read the trope description before making their argument, instead making an assumption based on the name.

If mods do it...

ETA: To be fair, the same assumption was the entire reason that name was later changed.

edited 1st Dec '14 4:49:50 PM by Leaper

It doesn't even take a moderator, really. As thousands of TRS topics have shown, most people don't read the trope before linking to it.

Making assumptions based on the title is a fairly easy thing to do, especially with our title, which is just vague enough to result in this fairly often, so changing it would (unfortunately) probably be beneficial. The best way to do this would be to find a title that so perfectly embodies this trope that the majority of tropers can understand the basic meaning from it, as Leaper discussed @92.

Since that isn't the easiest thing to accomplish, another route would be to pick a title that only makes sense in the context of the definition. For example, "The Grievous," after our favorite lean mean hero-killing machine, isn't easily recognized as this trope, but it isn't easily recognized as anything else either; people would see the title, think "what on earth is a Grievous?", and be more or less forced to read the description to know what the trope is.

Aren't trope names derived from a particular character frowned upon? For example, wasn't The Wesley renamed to Creator's Pet to make it understandable to people who weren't familiar with ST:TNG?

Apart from that, The Grievous would be a particularly bad name since "grievous" is a perfeclty good English word in its own right, and outside of Star Wars it has no connotations of killing heroes.

edited 2nd Dec '14 8:40:37 AM by GnomeTitan

It was just an example, not really a suggestion. While we generally trend away from character names as trope names, there are a couple examples of such that stay effective, like The Starscream, and if following suit helps prevent misuse, it isn't the worst idea we could have.

edited 2nd Dec '14 9:09:42 AM by SignSeeker7

Grievous is the worst person however to name a trope after because his name is an adjective that means something completely different than the trope definition.