Needs Help: The Extremist Was Right

This trope was renamed a while back (and I think it was a good rename.) The problem is that, in retrospect, the new name and description make it subjective; I feel it should be a YMMV trope.

Most of the examples in that page are things that the fandoms for those respective works argues about constantly (and several seem to have attracted edits saying "well, this is debatable" or "this is only a partial example because it's not clear that..." etc etc.) Characters like Lordgenome, Doctor Doom, or the Big Bad from Watchmen are very very far from being unambiguously 'right'. (And I can only conclude that the Superman: Red Son example was added by someone who never finished the series, since it definitely doesn't canonically take the position that he was right.) Beyond that, several examples seem to be fans shilling an Alternate Character Interpretation of their favorite villains. Even for the better examples, there are almost none that I recognize on the page which I would say are *unarguably* a situation where an extremist's actions were correct; often these are situations where writers portray their actions with more nuance or depth than you might expect, but that's not quite the same as "they were definitely, absolutely right", which is what this trope implies.

While in theory the trope list could be cleaned up, ultimately any cleanup would involve going over the list and saying "was this extremist, as portrayed by the author, actually right? Was the author trying to portray them as unambiguously right?" That's going to almost always be a subjective judgment, and no matter what is done with it the page is going to always be a magnet for people with subjective opinions on whether a particular extremist was right or not.

Anyway, I think that this should be a YMMV trope. The problem is that unlike The Cuckoolander Was Right, this trope implies a degree of moral correctness (or, often, that a character's actions were correct as opposed to some hypothetical other option), which is something the vast majority of works leave ambiguous. Like the line in Watchmen implies, you can never really say that someone made the right choice "in the end".

(The alternative would be to write it to mean "an extremist portrayed with nuance, so that their position makes sense and is defensible, without necessarily being definitely unambiguously right" — which I think fits the current examples much more closely than saying "they were definitely right." But changing that aspect of the definition would probably require another rename.)

Repressive, but Efficient might be a better trope to use as an example (it implies that they were successful at something without the implication of absolute moral correctness or the statement that their actions were absolutely definitely the best way to deal with the situation.) That page gives the impression that The Extremist Was Right is 'Repressive But Efficient, but for characters', buit that's definitely not how The Extremist Was Right is currently written and not what's implied by its current title.

EDIT: Going over the examples. Spoilers follow for obvious reasons. I'm touching on every one that I know enough about to comment about in depth.

Lelouch Lamperouge: My recollection is that it was explicitly revealed that his plan was not necessary, although he only found this out when it was too late to go back on it.

Death Note: The example itself has a comment pointing out that the manga questions the rightness of Light's actions; overall I think it'd be difficult to come away from it saying "yeah, Light definitely did the right thing."

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: This seems like editorializing by an editor; at no point are Lordgenome's actions presented as necessary, appropriate, or correct, and in fact once he's overthrown the heroes manage to Take a Third Option. That's before you get into the fact that the reason humanity was in immediate danger was entirely because of him. The broader question of the Spiral Nemesis is left ambiguous, but it's pretty clear that the series feels that he made the wrong choice (and he does, too, at the end.)

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood: This seems like a subjective hypothetical.

Attack on Titan: Their extremism is wrong, though (and this example even says that, so I'm not sure why it's here.) It feels like this example is confused with The Cuckoolander Was Right (in that they were technically right about a particular point of fact, but wrong in terms of their actions and extremism.)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion: Explicitly describes a fan-reaction. Also, they're confusing it with The Cuckoolander Was Right (in that they're pointing to a situation where something the extremist said turned out to be right, not their methods.)

V for Vendetta: Listed as an aversion, but I'll point out that it's not really clear enough to call it one; it's deliberately left ambiguous.

Watchmen: Completely ambiguous (with lines and scenes in the comic obviously intended to make it ambiguous) and a constant source of fandom arguments.

Doctor Doom: Depending on the Writer to an extent, but his way of running his country is almost never portrayed as unambiguously right in any sense of the word, nor is generally implied that it's necessary or correct compared to any hypothetical alternative.

Lex Luthor: Not an example at all (nothing here says anything about his methods or goals, only his intelligence; in fact, the point is that his intelligence is constantly misapplied.) Beyond that, the only thing he's an "extremist" about is wanting to kill Superman, which is unambiguously portrayed as wrong in every version of the character.

Magneto: This seems like confusion with The Cuckoolander Was Right again; the point is that Magneto has sometime said crazy things that turned out to be accurate, not that his methods or goals are appropriate or desirable.

Superman: Like I said above, I'm not sure they finished reading Superman: Red Son. This is one of those situations where the extremist is shown with nuance (in that their actions do accomplish something), but it's definitely not portrayed as the correct thing to do. ("Why don't you just put the whole world in a bottle, Superman?")

Birth of a Nation: No no no no no. The racial equality that the author identifies as 'extremism' in the film is (in the film) portrayed as monstrously wrong, so listing it here is explicitly an audience reaction.

Lord Vetinari: As the example explicitly says, his methods are called out as wrong several times by Vimes.

A Song of Ice and Fire: Seems to be listed here just to say "yeah it's not an example."

Worm: Skitter herself explicitly disagrees. When asked if it was worth it, she answers that "some-somewhere along way, it became no."

Mage: The Ascension: "The Technocracy was right!" is another one of those things that's a constant source of fandom arguments, but it's definitely not canon.

Vampire: The Masquerade: The example here doesn't seem to actually reach the point where it explains how it's right; to the extent that it seems to be trying to imply it, it's a fanon argument.

Exalted: No no no. These are all common sources of arguments in the fandom (because they are deliberately ambiguous), but none of them can unambiguously be said to have made the right choice.

Suikoden: Both the examples here are ambiguous (and I'm not sure they actually qualify as 'extremism', really.)

Bio Shock Infinite: This is a fan's observation, not something that's clear in the story. The context of the two situations is very different (starting with the fact that one involves someone sacrificing themselves, rather than someone else.) Nothing in the original game remotely implies that she was doing the right thing, and as I recall Burial at Sea later retcons it entirely by changing the context (so it's no longer 'extreme', just part of an extensive plan.)

Girl Genius: It looks like people are arguing over this one even in the example (eg. there's one edit saying "but look, his dictatorship is collapsing, showing he was unable to forge a lasting peace!" and another saying "no wait, it isn't!"), which shows that it's basically subjective. Particularly noteworthy since based on the old name and the page quote, this is the example that the trope was originally built around.

...anyway that took longer than I thought, but those are all the examples I know anything about; I'd qualify all of them as either not an example or at least somewhat subjective.

As an aside, I think that there is a small amount of confusion with The Cuckoolander Was Right, which this trope is now a snowclone of; people are occasionally using it for "the villain / extemist says something that turns out to be correct" rather than "the extremist's methods are correct." It's not too common, so that part of the problem can probably be fixed with a tweak to the description or something; I just thought I'd point it out since it leaped out at me at a few points while I was reviewing the examples.

edited 24th Apr '15 7:14:29 PM by Aquillion

Poking this one to see if it shall get bites.

I don't support making it YMMV (since I feel it'll just amount to legalizing all the already existing misuse instead of solving the problem).

I see two possible solutions here:

1. Make the trope in-universe only. E.g. when the heroes or the public say that the extremist is right. Watchmen and some Doctor Doom examples could fit that, even though the authors leave the readers to wonder whether the extremists were actually right.
2. Turn the trope to The Extremist Might Be Right. As in, when the extremist isn't portrayed as completely wrong, but actually might be right (though it's usually left ambiguous).

edited 24th Aug '15 10:24:34 AM by Rjinswand

I like that first option of making it In-Universe only. That should keep it as objective as possible. Making it YMMV could invite more misuse, and leaving it as-is seems to imply a moral judgement.

In Universe Only makes sense to me considering the mess.

+1 to make it In Universe Only.

I'm supporting the In-Universe Only option as well. Though I'd also potentially put in a bit more detail about what is and isn't an example of the trope.

The way I see is a bit different from "The extremist is morally right" and more "The point/goal/threat the extremist was trying to point out wound up being the actual problem" for whatever sense that makes to anyone else. The Digimon Tamers example is one I'd point to as a good example: The objective here being "The extremist antagonist's plan wound up being the only one that worked against the Bigger Bad in the end." Another, but slightly more ambiguous example could be Behlen in Dragon Age: Origins, whose methods are most assuredly underhanded and views considered extreme by Dwarven standards but ultimately creates a better Orzammar by doing so.

I was going to suggest renaming Extremist Has A Point (to mirror Jerkass Has a Point and Dumbass Has a Point), as the core of the trope seems to be about characters who at legitimate cause for their extremism whether or not it was actually "right"... but we already have Villain Has a Point, and there's actually a lot of overlap between the two. So it seems like The Extremist Was Right seems entirely redundant.

Of course, it has 400 wicks and almost 700 inbounds, so...

The standard for this one doesn't seem to be merely having a point, but actually succeeding with their extreme methods in making the world a better place during the course of the work.

edited 31st Aug '15 8:36:14 AM by shimaspawn

"Making the world a better place" is a pretty ambiguous standard, though. If an extremist sacrifices 90% of humanity and rules over the remaining 10% with an iron fist in order to avoid complete extinction of the human race, does that count as making the world a better place? What about if it turns out that there was a third option and it turns out to be a Senseless Sacrifice, even if well-intentioned?

I feel like most of this trope's problems stem from the fact that we don't have much of anything in the way of hard standards for any of its criteria. Who counts as an extremist? What counts as being right? Does it count if it only staves off the inevitable (see: Girl Genius)? What if the extremist is taking the least-bad choice as far as they have any reason to believe, but they turn out to be wrong through no fault of their own (see: Gurren Lagann)? What exactly differentiates this trope from Well-Intentioned Extremist?

If we make it in-universe only, how many examples will be left?

The difference is that this is the trope where the Well-Intentioned Extremist succeeds. That's the "extremist" of the name. Well-Intentioned Extremist is an antagonist trope; they're not expected to win in the end. That's why the exception is tropable.

As for in-universe only... I'm on the fence. On the one hand, I see some people use "in-universe only" as "I'm going to delete any example that doesn't mention people in-universe explicitly talking about how this trope applies." On the other hand, this trope definitely isn't "I agree with an extreme point of view that came up in the story."

Show, Don't Tell. A trope can be present in-universe without one of the characters taking the time to say "Gee, this guy is extreme, but I guess he was proven right in the end."

Then it would be us, the readers, deciding that the extremist was right.

It's either stated by characters in-universe, or decided by readers out-of-universe. Is there a third option?

Bob The Extremist says "The only way to stop X from happening is if we do otherwise terrible thing Y"

Our Hero(tm) stops Bob from doing Y.

X happens.

Our Hero spends the next 2/3 of the Movie/Episode/Book/whatever trying alternate plans to no avail.

Our Hero then enacts what is essentially Y with at most a minor variation.

Nobody comments on how Bob was right all along, and maybe terrible suffering could have been avoided if they had just listened to him in the first place.

But none of the examples on the page fit that description.

What this trope's supposed to be about is that the Well-Intentioned Extremist really did make things better like what he intended to happen once he had managed to succeed in the goal (or variations of this concept like what Zyffyr mentioned).

I believe that the problem could be the way the description's currently phrased makes it sound like it's a subjective trope (whereabout the trope's not supposed to be like that). The fact that people are misinterpreting as if it's such doesn't help in this case. Therefore, at minimum, we may need at a description rewrite (and clear away the misuse).

The trope name could also be change, but to me, it's not unlike trope names such as "Lamarck Was Right", "Rousseau Was Right", "Freud Was Right", "The Cuckoolander Was Right", etc. If everyone else agrees that it's a Bad Snowclone, however, then I don't mind.

edited 7th Sep '15 7:06:41 AM by KarjamP

What about The Extremist Succeeded?

I still think the problem with this trope isn't the name, but rather that the definition is rather loose. If we could come up with some succinct criteria for what constitutes "being right", then I think that would help a lot without needing a rename, or making it in-universe only, or making it YMMV, etc.

Locking per New Year Purge.