All right, so the official description for General Ripper is "general who constantly rails against Enemy X". However, a cursory look at this trope seems that it's been almost universally misused to mean "Cynical/Corrupt/Insane/Evil General" in, well, general. As a cursory 10-example look through the 1 466 related pages:

Misused:

• The Atoner: Misused as "Evil General"
• Hope Crusher: "Akainu is the poster boy of this trope. His very FIRST appearance was to blow up a ship full of evacuees". Evil General.
• Lensman: Crazy General
• Big Bad/Fanfiction: Pothole. Appears to be "Evil General"
• Slashed Throat: Pothole to Pinochet, dictator of Chile and assassinations of opposition to his regime.

Used Correctly:

Other

• Utopia Justifies the Means: Pothole. Context unclear
• GuildWars: Zero Context Example
• Field Promotion: Unclear context
• Evil Genius: Pothole.
• Military Maverick

It looks like absolutely none of these examples use the trope. Heck, even its own Laconic Wiki entry lists it as " A high-ranking military leader who is a warmonger consumed with paranoia and hate." as opposed to "general obsessed with one enemy". Does anyone else agree that this is a serious example of Trope Decay that needs to be addressed?

Bumping.

I agree. Something needs to be done here, whether it's cleaning up the misuse or changing the definition to fit the misuse.

Seeing how we already have Insane Admiral for "crazy military leader" archetypes, I'd suggest either changing the more generalised (no pun intended) General Ripper examples to Insane Admiral, or merging the two tropes into one.

Given the number of wicks, I don't think 10 examples is a representative sample number.

Also, how were those examples chosen? They're not alphabetical or in any order I can see.

Though his point stands... alecdotally, I see this more as "warmongering general" rather than "general warmongers against one specific foe"... though I'm not sure if the distinction is necessary, since most works only have one foe at any given time.

I think General Ripper is supposed to blame Enemy X for everything even when there's no evidence Enemy X is actually involved or even if Enemy X isn't antagonistic at all.

Oldest Internet Archive copy with multiple examples. In the one older copy from 2006, the DCAU example is the only one on the page.

edited 1st Jun '16 7:37:08 PM by MorganWick

I looked over the examples on the page. The few I recognised were proper uses.

OTOH, I can't remember a single wick using this correctly. Hell, I didn't even realize that was the definition until this thread.

I don't think I've seen any wick misusing it either, though.

The example may not have made it clear, but the vast majority of works really have only one "enemy force" at any given time. Thus any war-mongering general is going to be saying that one enemy always anyway.

Uh, I disagree.

Yeah, that would be misuse. If the general is realistically angry at an enemy, it is not a General Ripper. Usually, but not always, the general must have a paranoid raving dislike for an enemy. Therefore, the enemy they dislike is probably, if not definitely, someone other than the main antagonist in the story.

edited 8th Jun '16 3:15:19 AM by war877

I'm thinking more along the lines of "I stubbed my toe! THE COMMUNISTS DID IT!" not "We were attacked! The Communists did it!"

So what is the actual proposal to fix this?

The big important thing I think that this trope needs is to make it clear that they go against the narrative of the work and are portrayed as such, most of the time in a very strawman manner.

Eventually they may have their time in the limelight but that's way after this trope happens.

The way you've put that makes no sense to me.

edited 19th Jun '16 1:18:37 PM by Prfnoff

That sounds like a detail that is not part of the trope. There is nothing in the description from what I remember that defines such a general as anything more that the guy who hates those [gosh darn evil people] and is also a ranking officer. Including what his relationship to the plot may or may not be.

At this point, would the trope namer actually be an example, or would he instead be an Insane Admiral? Jack D Ripper was nuts and intentionally tried to ignite World War 3, at least partly because of paranoia.

I don't remember the movie too well, but intentionally starting a war out of paranoia is textbook something a General Ripper would do. They may also be an insane admiral.

Aha, I didn't know about Insane Admiral. I think that's where most of the major misuse of General Ripper should be.

But only for the specific reason of their obsession with the particular enemy. Any other reason, and it's Insane Admiral.

edited 2nd Jul '16 1:24:10 AM by Leaper

The problem I think is the name. This is actually part of a cluster of tropes for evil soldiers based on their position and motivations:

• Armies Are Evil: Military forces in general are unhinged.
• Insane Admiral: Evil high-level officer who is just generally unhinged. I notice that Insane Admiral tends only to be used for naval officers, and General Ripper as the same definition but for army/air force officers, when it's broader than that. I think it also has Trope Namer Syndrome for Star Trek, which has so many loonies at Starfleet Command you'd think there was something in the water in San Francisco.
• General Ripper: Evil high-level officer who is motivated by his unhealthy obsession with a particular enemy, subtrope to Insane Admiral. I notice Trope Namer Syndrome to Dr. Strangelove: there are officers below the rank of general, or outside service branches that use the word "general" in the first place, who nevertheless apply (see Adm. Marcus in Star Trek Into Darkness, motivated by his worries of possible war with the Klingons, or Jack Nicholson's character in A Few Good Men who I think is a colonel rather than a general, motivated by fear of Castro's troops while serving at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay). I think it's also been misused as a ranking officer who is abusive to his subordinates.
• Colonel Kilgore: Evil CO who is motivated by sheer love of violence. Possibly can be merged into Blood Knight.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Principally an evil rank-and-file soldier, but it's got the Type Labels Are Not Examples problem and needs to be split further (some of the subtypes aren't really sociopaths, for one thing).

edited 2nd Aug '16 3:35:21 PM by StarSword

The names alone concern their positions. Position based discrimination here is clear misuse.

Also, I don't see the star trek trope namer syndrome for the admiral case at all. What episode was that phrase used in?

It's not one particular episode, it's most of the franchise: Starfleet seems to have an overabundance of flag officers who are corrupt, possessed by aliens, clueless, or otherwise insane or demented. Apart from Forrest in Star Trek: Enterprise I'm hard-pressed to think of one admiral who wasn't either an Insane Admiral or a featureless quest-giver (or in J.P. Hanson's case, killed off almost as soon as we meet him).

edited 2nd Aug '16 11:18:10 PM by StarSword

Yeah. But that doesn't make it a trope namer. Whose catchphrase is it? Who famously said it? Is there a specific insane admiral?

Okay, forget the Trope Namer thing; I think I was a little drunk when I made that post. The point is that this isn't just one trope with a problem: Insane Admiral and General Ripper in particular get misused for each other a lot. I'm also seeing Proud Warrior Race Guy examples on Colonel Kilgore and as stated I think it's basically the same as Blood Knight.