Duplicate Trope: Lucky Bastard

While going through the cutlist, this was remarked as having been covered already under Born Lucky. I examined it further, and it appears to be "Rival/villain has luck on their side", making it seem The Same But More Specific.

Due to inbound count being over 500, and since it wasn't brought up in TRS yet, I have declined the request, and am bringing it up here. Is there anything worth keeping? If not, anyone in favor of cut?

Considering how the Born Lucky trope is never limited to "good guys" in the first place, this trope seem redundant. The only distinction in this trope seem to be that the villains' luck allow them to pull a Karma Houdini, but again that seems a needless tack-on.

Cut or turn into a redirect if the inbounds are that important.

Most of the examples are not even luck, they are just 'they win not because of skill but because the heroes have the Idiot Ball strapped to them'.

edited 31st May '16 7:02:31 AM by Memers

I thought based on the title this had something to do with sex.

Me too!

I vote for redirect.

So I'm going to play devil's advocate here. I do think that there's definitely something to this, basically that "the villian/rival isn't as good as the hero, but wins anyway because we need drama" is positively a trope.

Works want their hero to be the best! But they don't want a Boring Invincible Hero. So they have to create artificial ways for the villain to keep up to keep it interesting, either in the form of luck or outside intervention. It's a classic trope that exists in everything from war movies to sports movie or hell, even romantic comedies.

Now, the name? Rubbish. The description? A bit too anemic and devoid of meaning. The examples? Kind of weak.

But there's something here. If no one wants to turn this into the proper trope than I'd settle for the redirect, but I don't think we should discard everything without consideration.

Redacted.

edited 8th Jun '16 5:01:38 AM by Adept

That would be an entirely new YKTTW, probably YMMV, and most certainly not this or this name.

Agreed on the name, disagreeing on YMMV. It's something writers do to make it look like the deck is stacked against the heroes while still making them seem more competent. Kind of like how villains are more likely to have infinite armies of mooks while heroes tend to have a core squad of elites.

I suspect that's what this was supposed to be initially, but the weak description and trope decay led to it turning into "Born Lucky, but eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil" which isn't a trope.

While I think "creating artificial ways for the villain to win" sounds tropeable, I have to wonder to what extent that is already covered by Villain Sue. The way I've seen that one applied (before that page and the rest of its ilk were moved to Flame Bait) is for villains who can be both extremely competent and extremely lucky to the point that it strains credibility.

Potentially, but that's moot since it's not just YMMV, but Flame Bait.

Let's narrow the definition down then look at it again. Is this trope:

1. The villain should have lost, but didn't because the author wanted them to survive another round or...
2. This is a luck based villain. They always win no matter how much it doesn't make sense, because it is their superpower.

I've never seen the latter. But the former happens occasionally.

The former is similar to Diabolus ex Machina, except Diabolus ex Machina is about things getting worse for the protagonist, not the villain escaping.

edited 4th Jun '16 12:26:27 AM by war877

The first definition sounds like it would be covered by Joker Immunity, while the second is basically "villains who are Born Lucky".

edited 8th Jun '16 5:05:05 AM by Adept

Bump. I do sort of feel like this trope is bit redundant, and could be cut, or at least changed quite a bit.

I vore for cut the trope.

Of course, don't forget to add examples pf LB to BL when this is all done.

the winner is clear.

Yep, might as well call it in favor of changing Lucky Bastard into a redirect.

We'll also need to move any examples not listed in Born Lucky to there, and clean up wicks.

Any examples are good for Born Lucky or some need to be cut?

If the character tends to be lucky, then it qualifies as Born Lucky. If it's just one instance of luck, then it can be safely cut.

Of course, we'll need to check to see if it's not listed already.

Ok, i have moved all the examples (i just cut Frozen example that is wrong and full of natter).

Now need just the redirect.

And redirect made.

We got some wicks to convert/remove before we declare this done. Courtesy link.