Misused: White Knighting

Didn't bother with a wick check, because the description is completely at odds with the examples on the page. With this much misuse on the page, it's obvious that something needs to be done.

The trope described in the description is purely about male forum-goers defending a female user. However, the examples are almost entirely about Always Save the Girl, or keeping girls away from danger, or just protecting girls. Only the Web Comics examples, one Western Animation, and most of the Web Original examples actually fit the description at all. The rest don't even mention the internet at all.

Honestly, I say we make this an example-less definition page, or at least redefine it as In-Universe-only (as the Web Comics, Western Animation, and a couple of the Web Original examples are) and cut the rest. Most of the other examples can go to Condescending Compassion (as most of the examples are about women claiming they don't need protection), or another appropriate trope about protecting girls.

I'm against expanding it to "self-appointed defender" to fit the misuse due to the exceptional number of inbounds (over 7,700), and I feel like it'd be covered by other tropes we have.

edited 6th Mar '15 1:11:50 PM by Larkmarn

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Opening.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

This is not a trope. As the first post notes, the definition is all about how people talk on forums, which is not a storytelling device, and the examples are all about totally different things in fiction.

In this case, I'm not sure we need this as a Useful Notes even.

Ignore the inbound count: Can anyone present a good case for why/what this concept should be for our website?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Well I have seen a few in universe examples of Internet White Knighting I think. Such as in Negima Chisame's defense of the Extra-Strength Masquerade on 2ch is completely Internet White Knighting for Negi.

However I don't see why this couldn't be solely about the White Knighting stereotype of the damsel in distress or really anyone and the white knight goody goody jumps to her aid and many times he doesn't know a thing about the girl or the issue at hand. It is kinda related to The Bodyguard but is also a way for spies to get close to a party get trusted. It happens A LOT in JRP Gs as a character introduction of the White Knight or the Damsel in Distress, both Tales Of Hearts R and Tales Of Xillia introduce a character this way.

edited 8th Mar '15 8:18:13 AM by Memers

What's frustrating is that Always Save the Girl is often misused to describe any character that puts themselves at risk to save a female character as well.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Well the first line of that trope is "The hero makes it uncomfortably plain that they value the life of their Love Interest over those of everyone else" I not sure we could make that trope more clear without a rename to something like "The Love Interest Is More Important To The Hero Than Saving The World!" or Save The Girl Over The World although that might get correct usage.

Well anyway my idea would be rename this to Internet White Knighting or Fan Club White Knighting as that would be the form pre-internet with the other being the redirect. With in-universe examples only other wise this would attract the whole SJW crowd.

And make White Knighting about exactly that a trope about a stranger who intervenes on a situation with seemingly no real knowledge of the person in trouble, the situation or possibly if they did it or not. The reason could be they think she is hot if its a girl, a spy attempting to gain trust, in it for the money or they just have a Chronic Hero Syndrome. They just want to play the white knight. If the rescuee happens to actually be a villain then it could be a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.

edited 8th Mar '15 9:33:09 AM by Memers

I see no reason that this needs to be split into "Internet" and "non-internet". It's not like this behavior only started with the internet.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Internet White Knighting is a completely different form compared normal White Knighting elsewhere in fiction. Internet white Knighting is more of a sticking up vs Internet Trolls type thing.

edited 8th Mar '15 9:51:24 AM by Memers

@ gallium and crazysamaritan: We do have the Online Personas index for similar concepts, and there are a handful of In-Universe examples of the trope as described on the page.

@ Memers: How is your redefinition related to The Dulcinea Effect?

So our options thus far:

• Cut.
• Leave as an exampleless definition page.
• Keep the definition, but make it In-Universe only.
• Expand the definition to fit misuse

I miss any?

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Here's my understanding:

1. The Dulcinea Effect: Guy seeks to protect woman he just met beyond reasonable expectations.
2. White Knighting: Guy seeks to protect woman because this somehow validates his esteem.
3. Always Save the Girl: A man protects (or is expected to) a person he has personal connection to.

The antitheses of the above tropes would be:

1. A man who would save anyone in that position—not specifically a girl.
2. A person who helps wome (or others) for reasons other than self-validation.
3. A person who would save the world over the person they know.

That isn't what is written on Always Saves The Girl's page though. That trope is where the hero chooses to save the girl over doing something greater. Like a king unwisely abandon's his people to go save the girl and such.

That's also not what's on the page for White Knighting at all, which is solely about defending female forum goers.

That's actually part of the frequent misuse for Always Save the Girl

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Always Save the Girl is a specific version of Sadistic Choice, where a character easily makes the choice in favour of their Love Interest, regardless of what the other option was.

Usage of Always Save the Girl is much looser. Previous Wick Check established primary usage appears to be Character will risk any danger to rescue female character, to the point where 40% of the usage did not refer to a Sadistic Choice.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I'm aware that's not what the tropes specifically say, but that's the spirit under which they're used, as well as the cleanest distinction between the three.

In fact, White Knighting says: "The accusation being that they are only doing so because they have a crush on the lady, and are acting whether she needs a defender or not". Which ties into the "validation" thing.

edited 10th Mar '15 8:35:10 AM by KingZeal

That wasn't clear in the previous post. Thank you for sharing how you think the three tropes should be redefined.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Bump.

One of the other things is that when I do see it wicked, usually it's basically accusing a work or creator of White Knighting someone on a meta-level, rather than someone in the work doing it.

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So if there's a non-internet definition of White Knighting, then it would be "(acting tough to) defending a girl you meet from danger", right?

That sounds like The Dulcinea Effect or Always Save the Girl.

As for the internet definition itself, well, dunno if that's a trope. Then again, dunno if things in Online Personas are tropes, with the exception of T Roll cuz it can apply in non-internet cases as well.

MAX POWER KILL JEEEEEEEEWWWWW

Always Save the Girl is completely different (accourding to the definition).

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

As of now, this page just describes a common meme regarding certain types of internet behavior. I'd expect such an article on Knowyourmeme or ED, but not TV Tropes.

If we try to salvage this trope, I'd agree with the definition of "A man defends a woman because of a selfish need (love, good publicity, feeling superior, etc.) rather than a genuine desire to help or bring justice".

This is a term I have only ever seen used by misogynists looking to insult those calling them out. But it is a valid trope. The internet persona seems too rare to trope, but many of the entries could be kept if we redefined it to "Vainglorious Heroism", where someone plays the role of hero to protect someone but it is brought up in-universe that they might be more motivated by wanting that person's regard, or something internal like self-validation.

Also Always Save The Girl needs a rename, and I would favor redefining it to be about this type of sadistic choice, and the sort of hero who would consider saving only the girl. Something like Save Your Girl Or Everyone Else.

Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.

Whether the person who uses this term is a misogynist or not is irrelevant to whether the term is misused or not. Opposing a misogynist doesn't absolve one of being a White Knight. ^note For what it's worth, I've personally never seen anyone call men who criticize real or perceived misogyny "white knights"; they're usually called "SJW" in that case.

It's supposed to denote a specific type of behavior that does exist in Real Life, especially in small close-knit groups like niche internet forums or roleplaying groups. Once in a while you'll encounter this type of delusional guy who rushes to the defence of a certain woman (or several women), believing that she deserves extra protection "because she's a girl" (and quite possibly, because he personally fancies her). But yeah, I've seen it misused often, especially by new internet users, who seem to think it means "anyone who said I'm dumb when I tried to troll a girl". It's misused a lot nowadays ^note as is the term "misogyny".

Agreed. And I like the name (Vainglorious Heroism, or maybe Vainglorious Hero).

As for Always Save the Girl, I think it's not necessarily a Sadistic Choice. E.g. the hero might save the girl, and then save everyone else. The important thing is that the girl always comes first.

edited 9th Apr '15 8:17:18 AM by Rjinswand

Yeah. This isn't Know Your Meme; I don't see the need for a page describing an internet meme. While a gender-neutral Vainglorious Defender or Vainglorious Hero or Vainglorious Heroism sounds like it might be a trope, I don't see how this trope could ever be salvaged under its current name, since it would continuously clash with the internet meme.

(In this case I don't see the huge number of inbounds as a good thing. We named a trope after a mostly-unrelated internet meme, which works to attract attention from the rest of the internet, but which dooms the trope to never having its usage, name, and description line up — even if we changed the description, the meme would cause constant pressure towards misuse. That is, I suspect that most of the inbounds are linking to it as a meme, which we don't actually want when that meme doesn't really line up with a trope.)

I don't feel it would work as a Useful Notes page, since the term doesn't come up with any meaningful frequency in fiction; if we have a useful notes page for this, we're inviting useful notes pages for every internet meme or random concept people encounter anywhere, which isn't really what T Vtropes is for.

edited 27th Apr '15 1:25:51 AM by Aquillion

Having reread the page, I now think there are actually several different meanings that could be salvaged out of it:

• Vainglorious Hero, who does it for fame/sex/etc
• Gender Specific Hero, who always chooses to protect women first.
• Obsession Hero, who only protects a specific person (the JLU example, the Homestuck example)
• Unwanted Hero, who protects someone who doesn't really need protecting (the Nostalgia Chick example)

But I agree, it'd be better to cut the White Knight title to avoid misuse.

Bump. At this point, I'm thinking just expand the trope to fit the misuse (person defends someone who never asked for it for their own pride/sake rather than hers), though I question if the overlap with Stay in the Kitchen might be an issue).

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