Needs Help: Dangerously Genre Savvy

A while ago, Genre Savvy was put through TRS, which decided it only applied to familiarity with in-universe fiction, and now it seems we are applying a stricter definition to Dangerously Genre-Savvy as well. Examples of villains just being smart are being cut in favor of example of... what exactly?

If this trope is about Genre Savvy (familiarity with in-universe fiction), but for villains, why does it warrant a separate trope? This discussion failed to come up with any meaningful distinction.

The definition of Dangerously Genre-Savvy says it involves "An aversion or defiance of the Idiot Ball." Aversions aren't usually notable, hence I think the issue. if it covered subversions (when it is an surprise within the narrative), that might be notable enough to warrant a trope.

Another definition is "the action is only superior if one assumes that the world runs on narrative logic rather than reality" (like fighting the hero one-on-one without support), that sounds noteworthy enough to be a trope.

Here are some examples from Dangerously Genre-Savvy and its subpages:

• In Watchmen, the "Villain" famously demonstrates this in a scene that was formerly the Trope Namer for You Are Too Late.
  Ozymandias: "Do it?" Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my masterstroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago.

The exact same thing is listed under Genre Savvy, leading to my questioning what about it deserves a separate trope.

• Villains who are chessmasters in The DCU and Marvel Universe can often have a good amount of overlap here, depending on the writer. For example, Incredible Hulk villain The Leader set a bomb to destroy a town at midnight. The Hulk managed to locate said bomb and defeat the mooks guarding it with over two hours to spare - at which point The Leader revealed he also had a remote detonator, and blew the town sky-high.
• During Grant Morrison's run on JLA, issues eight and nine had the villain "The Key" put the entire JLA into a Virtual Reality set up which he counted on them overcoming - at which point he'd use the energy of their victory to obtain Ultimate Power. He was stopped by a boxing glove arrow from Green Arrow's kid.

The former doesn't offer a clear subversion of any stupidity, the latter is just a plan having nothing to do with genre conventions.

• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW): The Nightmares were previously beaten by the combined power of the Elements of Harmony. To make sure this doesn't happen again, the first thing the Nightmares do is kidnap Rarity, then make her their new queen to make absolutely sure they can't be beaten the same way. Nightmare Rarity almost immediately tries to turn the Mane 5 against Luna, and when that fails has them captured and imprisoned in separate, magic-nullifying cells. She also stopped Spike's rescue attempt before he even had a chance to implement it.

Part Taught by Experience, part Out-Gambitted, no connections to genre.

• Sombra in My Little Pony: Fiendship Is Magic #1, just like in the show—he knows Celestia and Luna will beat him, so he pre-emptively prepares to curse the Empire.

Knowing that you will lose to a superior foe might be this if it subverts villain's usual arrogance.

• The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic Whispers: Nightmare Moon interrupts Celestia's first attempt to activate the Elements of Harmony by charging her.
• Subverts Talking Is a Free Action, good example, but should it note what is being subverted?
• The Stars Will Aid Their Escape: Herald, aside from managing to manipulate the entire story to his favor, also admits that the Elements of Harmony might actually work on him, and so states that he will kill the Bearers if they so much as try to use them. In the end this backfires on him.

Manipulation does not equal genre savvy, the latter might qualify as a subversion of arrogance.

• Friendship is Optimal: The artificial intelligence Celest-A.I., who is not only aware of how humanity would expect an evil A.I. to act and deliberately avoids this, but also knows how those trying to stop her would react and takes precautions against them, such as moving her servers deep within Earth's crust where they can't be attacked, and convincing the one person who can force her to shut down to emigrate to her virtual world.

The first part (subverting expectations of A.I.) is a perfect example, the others might qualify if they flow from this.

• Voldemort in the one-shot How to Win Friends and Take Over the World. Instead of killing Lily, he upholds his promise to Severus and simply stuns her (negating the trap she laid) and uses a curse that suffocates Harry instead of the Killing Curse (thinking a quick painless death was too good for him).

Unless he knew this would work out better for him then canon no.

• Frozen gives us Hans, a villain savvy enough to even fake Love at First Sight, do a romantic duet with the heroine, stand up to the oily Duke of Wessleton to look like the good guy, and come off overall as an entirely reasonable young prince. He only slips up when Anna thinks she can get True Love's Kiss from him to save her from a curse and he decides to explain how that won't work since he was just using her and leaves her to die. The Reveal of all this is as chilling as the movie's title, because this villain made sure no one saw it coming…except perhaps fans who were expecting the plot twist where the true villain is never obvious.

Great exploration of a trope other villains would disregard. Good example.

• The killers in the Scream series, who murder people using the horror genre tropes and cliches.
• Scott Evil from Austin Powers was very smart. When dad wants to use the overly complicated death trap of doom, Scott offers to shoot Austin. Needless to say, Doctor Evil was pissed that his son didn't want to play by the villain's handbook.
• Dogma:
  Serendipity: How? That's the only thing I couldn't figure out.
  Azrael: Oh no, I've seen way too many Bond movies to know that you never reveal all the details of your plan, no matter how close you may think you are to winning.

Both are under genre savvy, no distinction.

• Joker in The Dark Knight is almost ludicrously self-aware... and uses his knowledge to kill a lot of people, making him very dangerous. To elaborate:
  • During the heist on one of the mobs' banks, he does not tell the goons he hires that they're robbing the mafia, sets them up to kill each other with the promise of a bigger share of the money and disguises himself as one of them in order to make sure that he's the only one left among the robbers.
  • He offers to help the increasingly desperate mafia in dealing with Harvey Dent's aggressive and successful campaign to remove Gotham's criminal elements, while wearing explosives strapped inside his coat in case they decided to decline and just kill him right there (he did rob one of their banks earlier, after all). After getting rewarded for completing said task, he promptly burns his share of the money and removes them from play when they're at their weakest.
  • After kidnapping both Harvey Dent and Rachel, he has them placed in two separate locations rigged with bombs set to explode on a time limit short enough that only one of them can be rescued. To make the choice even more sadistic, the locations are mixed up, meaning if they went after Harvey, they'll find Rachel and vice-versa.
  • Pays the emotionally devastated Harvey Dent a visit at the hospital, convinces him that society is to blame for Rachel's death and sets him loose to enact vengeance upon the corrupt officials responsible for allowing the kidnapping to happen. This solidifies Harvey's change into Two-Face, irreversibly ruining his reputation as Gotham's white knight.
  • He even exploits the Gang of Hats trope. The Joker's Mooks have been committing crimes in cheap rubber clown masks, so for the climactic finale at the construction site his men (nearly) fool Batman and the GCPD by simply wearing street clothes and pretending they're Bound and Gagged, while the hostages are the ones in clown masks and - even though they're also bound and gagged - have guns taped to their hands so they appear threatening!
• In the 3rd film, The Dark Knight Rises,
  • Talia ensures there are no loose ends when detonating the nuclear bomb. She attempts to trigger the bomb before the timer hits, refuses to drive towards the fusion reactor location, and activates the flooding of the reactor to ensure the heroes never succeed in stopping the bomb.
  • Bane is also this for almost the entire movie, with only one major slip-up, though he certainly learned from it in the end, deciding to defy her request and kill Batman realizing he's too dangerous to be left alive. Only Catwoman's timely arrival saves him.

Save the Gang of Hats trope, the Joker is just The Chessmaster as opposes to operating on narrative logic, ditto for Talia. Bane is a Zero Context Example save for the latter, which is a surprise subversion of a trope and can qualify.

• The Fallen, from Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen. Upon learning of the living prime (Optimus), the only one who can kill him, he refuses to leave his lair until Prime is eliminated, sends his three best Decepticons to accomplish said feat, waits for them to succeed and puts his plan into motion. Later, when Prime is revived, he immediately teleports in, rips the matrix out of Prime's chest, and gets out. If it weren't for Jetfire, he probably would've won.
  • The Decepticons in Transformers: Dark of the Moon learned their lesson from the last film. Instead of falling to Earth as protoforms and causing a worldwide scene, they travelled to Earth via Sentinel's space bridge, then scanned alternate forms before disappearing into the night.

The Fallen waiting millions of years would seem crazy unless accounting for narrative logic, good example, latter part, not so sure. Example after that is Taught by Experience.

• TRON: Legacy: Clu proves he had all of his User's intelligence and then some. First, he uses Flynn's frequent absences and the Programs' resentment of the Isos to gather support. Then, he ambushes Flynn and Tron with intent to kill both. Flynn gets away, but making sure Tron was out of the picture not only left Flynn grieving a friend, but took out the guy capable of rallying any opposing Programs against him. And since it would be a real shame to let a fallen enemy go to waste, he pulls the Reforged into a Minion trope and turns the Grid's champion into The Dragon and executioner! Follow it up with coordinated attacks on the Iso cities that the User can't stop, a viral outbreak that can be blamed on the Isos, and making damn sure the portal back to analog flickers out, leaving Flynn unable to get help from the User world. Who says it's not a "Perfect System?" Twenty years of this doesn't dull it a bit. When a Mook informs him that the heroes must have been killed (remember, no one leaves a body behind in cyberspace), Clu's response is to increase the patrols.

Only the latter part qualifies as subverting a trope.

• Tarquin may as well be the Greek God of this trope. He tops them all by deducing the fact that he MUST be able to run an evil empire successfully because heroes need something to thwart. From #763:
  Tarquin: You're a bard, right? How many stories have you heard in which a single hero vanquishes a wicked empire?
  Elan: I dunno... dozens, I guess.
  Tarquin: What is the one thing they all have in common? The one fact they all share?
  Elan: The hero always wins!
  Tarquin: Arguable. No, the one thing they all have in common is this: the wicked empire exists. It has existed for some time, and will continue to exist if no heroes intervene. Don't you see, Elan? The rules of drama to which you subscribe as a bard tell us that such tyrannies can exist — indeed, must exist — and persist long enough that no one realistically thinks that they can be defeated. Else, where's the drama in a hero opposing them? And if such kingdoms are necessary, why shouldn't I rule one?
• He takes it even further when he points out that if Elan defeats him, it will be the greatest story ever and he'll become a legend, making it clear to Elan that no matter whether he's overthrown or not, Tarquin wins.
  Tarquin: That's the beauty of it all, my son. If I win, I get to be a king. If I lose, I get to be a legend.
  • Elan then turns this back on him by simply dropping the plotline entirely.
• Tarquin even wrote a manual for his prison guards, "We do not have surprise inspections. Ever." Likely the guards of the entire fortress, not just the prison, have these too going by how thorough Tarquin is.
• Tarquin is so savvy that he can figure out what the heroes know about his team based on how his team are all talking about their secrets. I.e. the fact that Malack is a vampire has been revealed because they're openly talking about it instead of obliquely referring to it as a "condition" or something otherwise vague.
• Ultimately, Tarquin could be viewed as a deconstruction of the idea. He tends to treat people like plot elements or narrative pieces instead of like people, and thus is cruel and vengeful to people who don't fit the "story structure." He even kills his son Nale, commenting that he was just cluttering up the narrative (though his main reason for killing him was unrelated) and almost immediately afterwards tries to turn Elan into the main protagonist by ordering his army to kill the rest of the Order except for Haley.

The Order of the Stick example are all subversions or awareness of narrative tropes. This example is a much more detailed example of whats under genre savvy, plenty to be its own trope.

• The Anti-Spiral in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann knows that the protagonists gain their power from being Hot-Blooded and through spirit, so they make sure to attack specifically in ways that are designed to break the heroes' morale before destroying them.

Tries to thwart a trope, good example.

• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Azula isn't convinced when she notices a large dust cloud and is told that It's Probably Nothing. In the second season finale she attacks and nearly kills Aang in the middle of his Transformation Sequence! Upon hearing No One Could Survive That!, she assumes he did survive. In the Grand Finale, Zuko attempts to pull a Batman Gambit on Azula to get her to shoot lightning at him; even in her insanity, she instead shoots the lightning at Katara, causing Zuko to take the blow for her. She has had occasional moments of genre-blindness but always learns from them. She initially had a Redshirt Army, but instead traded it for a Quirky Miniboss Squad after one screws up her plan, and after she tried to go after Aang alone, her next attempt was accompanied by her brother and a squad of secret police. Yet, for all her intelligence, she never learns not to Kick the Dog or not to trust the smirking Evil Overlord who's screwed over your sibling. Mai and Ty Lee make this clear to her after it's too late for her to do anything about it.
  • Long Feng is Dangerously Genre-Savvy in his own right. He has the entire Earth Kingdom wrapped around his finger by manipulating the incredibly sheltered Earth King. He also has control over the Dai Li police force, which comes in very handy when he is reminded in prison that they are still loyal to him, allowing him to make his escape. Unfortunately for him, he makes the mistake of believing that he can achieve absolute power on his own... which leaves an opening in his master plan for conquering Ba Sing Se that Azula takes full advantage of.
  Long Feng: You have beaten me at my own game.
  Azula: Don't flatter yourself. You were never even a player.
  • The Avatar comic book series The Search reveals Azula inherited/learned this from her father. When Ozai's hired hitman tells him his target was last seen disappearing in a dangerous, haunted forest and must be dead already since No One Could Survive That!, Ozai doesn't agree even for a second.
  • In the Sequel Series The Legend of Korra, Amon is this for the whole first season. The only mistakes that he made came from his lack of experience with airbending and basic survival instincts.
  • Then we have Sato, who in his Face–Heel Turn, created an army of Mechas for Amon, making sure that they were Metalbender proof. He also led Tenzin, Lin, and Korra into a trap. This led to putting up a solid platinum wall, which was also Metalbender proof.
  • Varrick is incredibly savvy, and puts it to good effect to manipulate the Krew and get Mako thrown in jail. When he's eventually arrested, it's revealed that he planned for that too (he knew he might end up in jail someday, so he had a very nice prison cell made so he can continue to live in comfort and escape if the opportunity arose.)
  • Similarly, Season 4 gives us Kuvira, who like Amon, manages to outmaneuver the heroes for most of the season. As a Villain with Good Publicity, her schemes are centered on finding ways to achieve her goals without losing that status such as setting up a Batman Gambit to capture Suyin and the twins when she invaded Zaofu, anticipating she would strike first. Thus, it seemed that Suyin was the agressors and Kuvira was defending herself. And as the season progresses and she forgoes all pretense of benevolence, she still shows remarkable smarts. In "Kuvira's Gambit", Kuvira knows that Republic City has been warned of her coming attack, so she moves up the schedule to one week instead of two. In addition, they believe that she is transporting the cannon by rail, so they attempt to disable rail transport; anticipating this, she deploys the cannon on a Colossus instead. Finally, she knows that the UR is evacuating, so her attempt to capture the city will only involve military, with little civilian casualties.

Only Azula and Ozai show trope awareness, Amon is a ZCE, the rest are just good planning. And from the character page for Nines (FN-2199):

• Dangerously Genre-Savvy: When he spots Finn with a lightsaber rather than trying to shoot him or calling in backup, he elects to cast aside his blaster and shield in favor of fighting mano-a-mano with Finn and almost wins.

Note he played tropes that would be illogical in real life to good effect, good example.

If we want to clean Dangerously Genre-Savvy up, I think a clearer definition and distinction from Genre Savvy is required.

I think the answer is simple. Since Genre Savvy had its description changed to be about familiarity with works of the same type as the story they are in, Dangerously Genre-Savvy, as the villainous counterpart must be changed in the exact same way.

Currently, the description just says the villain behaves practically, instead of in a clichéd manner. This is not enough. The villain must act in a manner that takes advantage of the presumed genre, not in a manner that simply subverts the Villain Ball or the Idiot Ball, although there is probably tons of overlap.

Instead the preferred definition is reduced to bonus points. <.<

Yeah I support changing Dangerously Genre-Savvy to match its regular counterparts.

'Villains who are aware of genre conventions and actively exploit them or avoid them to suit their villainous needs.'

Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? is basically the opposite of that and it also explains why doing this is rare and potentially bad for the story, leading to a potential Villain Sue.

Most of the misuse are just the Chess Master, The Strategist, Mary Tzu, and the like which already exist.

edited 2nd Jul '16 2:15:54 AM by Memers

This trope is a mess. Its improper launch through YKTTW^note Apparently there *was* a shortlived YKTTW, but the resultant trope was launched without any discussion about its definition or tropeworthiness getting off the ground, next to no examples, and not a single hat explains a lot of its problems, but more specifically I think Dangerously Genre-Savvy has always been a mash-up of two different ideas.

• The first definition of "taking advantage of tropes [to deadly effect or otherwise]" is already a part of Genre Savvy, making it The Same But More Specific. Quoting from the description for Genre Savvy:

• The second one is "Genre Savvy, but for villains", which is also The Same But More Specific. Nothing in the description for Genre Savvy limits it to non-villains, and I have no idea where this idea that Dangerously Genre-Savvy is a villain-exclusive trope even comes from. The main description is at odds with the laconic and playing with pages in this regard, suggesting it's an ad-hoc attempt to establish it as a distinct trope from Genre Savvy after already failing to establish that through Exploited Trope.

So not only does this trope have an identity crisis, but both uses that are awkwardly mashed together here are The Same But More Specific because of its direct relation to Genre Savvy, which has its own set of problems. There is also a strong argument that the trope as commonly (mis)used is a mash-up of Magnificent Bastard and No-Nonsense Nemesis. Because of this in practice it becomes a collection of gushy "This villain is super awesome because they did something smart/non-stupid!"

edited 2nd Jul '16 6:15:40 AM by Morgenthaler

You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"

Option 2 not really Same But More Specific so much as it goes against the Doylist Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? problem with villains.

If they become Genre Savvy and know the genre conventions to their advantage it places a problem where they become too good to the point where the heroes can't do anything as well as Villain Sue accusations and other things.

edited 2nd Jul '16 6:29:48 AM by Memers

This is not salvageable due to redundancy and its use being The Same But More Specific of Genre Savvy. Kill the entire thing.

edited 2nd Jul '16 8:38:50 AM by Karxrida

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

Seconded. It is now and has always been redundant. Kill it.

I'll third it for killing. Every example I've ever seen has either been a Genre Savvy example, an example of a completely different trope (usually No-Nonsense Nemesis) or complete misuse.

I suspect we'll have this problem with Wrong Genre Savvy or Genre Blindness as well, unless they were cleaned up at the same time Genre Savvy was.

edited 2nd Jul '16 4:57:22 PM by Wyldchyld

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Genre Savvy itself says that this trope is "When a person decides to weaponize [Genre Savviness]". Which actually sounds like it might be a valid subtrope.

Unfortunately, I checked the Wayback Machine, and this trope has always just been Genre Savvy + Villain. Which, I agree, is the-same-but-more-specific.

Still, the name is good enough that we might want to consider recycling it for the subtrope suggested above.

Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.

I still don't think "Genre Savvy" vs. "Genre Savvy but actually does something about it" is a very splittable distinction. Besides, isn't the first one (Genre Savvy but sticks to commenting on it as opposed to acting on it) just Meta Guy?

"Weaponizing Genre Savvy" doesn't sound like a good enough reason to keep this, especially when the name still screams The Same But More Specific and will continue to attract misuse.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

If you want to make a brand new trope, we have the Trope Launcher. You can go there.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

I want to save this Subtrope of Genre Savvy. So I will make a second proposal.

• Normally, Genre Savvy is about surviving the hostile world by playing into the right tropes and sometimes avoiding the right tropes. This one requires the savvy to believe in Narrative Causality to a degree

• Normally, Dangerously Genre-Savvy is about winning the conflict in the end by avoiding the right tropes and sometimes playing into the right tropes. This one must intentionally seek to avoid common mistakes people make in fiction.

Both require that the Savvy person be taking lessons from works they read. Wrong Genre Savvy is either trope where the works the person read are different than the actual genre of the story. Whether or not that ends in disaster or not.

How would "surviving the hostile world" and "winning the conflict in the end" be different enough to be worth a distention? Especially since we would have to clean up use of Genre Savvy while we are still cleaning up the original misuses.

What would constitute as "Weaponizing Genre Savvy"? Is there an example of how it would be different from normal Genre Savvy.

I'd say the only way to save this is to limit examples to those that cite the Villain Ball/Idiot Ball tropes that are being subverted or defied.

I've just realized "the action is only superior if one assumes that the world runs on narrative logic rather than reality" works out to narrative actions obeying narrative logic, which is only meaningful if they knowingly apply narrative logic, which had no worthwhile designation from Genre Savvy. Rule of Cool would cover any examples of this use.

Now I've just realized my former suggestion could be done by listing examples of trope subversions and defiances under said tropes. Most of what this trope covers falls under:

• The Chessmaster
• Combat Pragmatist
• Crazy-Prepared
• No-Nonsense Nemesis
• Properly Paranoid
• Taught by Experience

I'm for cutting now.

edited 2nd Jul '16 6:16:24 PM by Ferot_Dreadnaught

Here are some ideas for a eventual crowner:

• Cut the trope
• Cut examples that don't deal with familiarity with in-universe fiction.
• Merge/redirect to Genre Savvy and cut misuses
• Make it an example-less page that redirects to a list of subtropes (like Badass).

edited 2nd Jul '16 9:29:02 PM by Ferot_Dreadnaught

I agree with cutting.

But on the topic of Wrong Genre Savvy, it is listed on The Terminator as the police making smart, but ultimately wrong choices and would have fared well against someone not Immune to Bullets, like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees.

Would this really be an example, or is it just an aversion of Police Are Useless/Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop (and thus not worth listing)?

Those look majorly different to me. To the extent that I would have trouble showing why they are at least slightly different.

The reason why Dangerously Genre Savvy would usually happen to villains and not heroes and Genre Savvy happens to heroes and not villains is that Villains Act, Heroes React. The villain has a plan, and he is going to subvert tropes all day, to make it much harder for the heroes to win than normal. The hero keeps meeting mortal threats from a smart villain, and she has to play into tropes just to stay alive and minimise casualties.

I thought The Same But More Specific was insufficient reason to cut a trope. Otherwise, subtropes would be banned from the site.

edited 2nd Jul '16 7:05:28 PM by war877

Just gonna leave this here.

Subtypes have something different enough going for them that they are worth having. We are deciding here if such a difference exists here.

Is what you're saying the difference between Dangerously Genre-Savvy and Genre Savvy is that the former is villains doing it preemptively while heroes improvise?

What's to stop a hero from using narrative tropes to plan ahead? Or a villain from using them to improvise?

But it's agreed that familiarity with in-universe fiction is a prerequisite for Dangerously Genre-Savvy so examples that aren't that, if nothing else, should be cut, right?

What about renaming it Genre Savvy Villain, making Dangerously Genre-Savvy a redirect and cutting any non-villain examples?

How would Genre Savvy Villain be defined? How would it avoid the misuses present in Dangerously Genre-Savvy?

For starters, it makes it clear it's about villains using genre conventions to their advantage.

edited 2nd Jul '16 9:22:44 PM by maxwellsilver

How is that different enough from Genre Savvy to warrant its own trope?

The main issue is not if Dangerously Genre-Savvy only applies to villains, but how and if it is different enough to warrant its own trope.

edited 2nd Jul '16 9:27:44 PM by Ferot_Dreadnaught

No, cutting it completely isn't on the table because of the amount of inbounds we'd lose. Purge the wicks and redirect it to Genre Savvy, sure.

You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"

Well, I for one, am not convinced that genre savvy but for villains is sufficiently pointless to go with The Same But More Specific. (See my first post)

In addition, I am doubly not convinced that a slight definition tweak that brings the trope more in line with the spirit of the trope wouldn't solve the entire problem. (See my second post)

If a crowner arrives, I would like to see tweaking the definition on the crowner. I don't know why this is being seen as a bad idea.

edited 3rd Jul '16 12:29:48 AM by war877