Needs Help: Civilian Villain

This was pointed out in this Image Pickin' thread for Civilian Villain.

Reformed Criminal is about criminals who perform a Heel–Face Turn and become good. Retired Outlaw is about criminals who decide to stop being outlaws, whether they're reformed or not. Retired Monster is about retired villains who are not reformed and very much still evil, they just decided to retire, usually due to age. The issue of Retired Outlaw and Reformed Criminal being duplicates was raised in the Image Pickin' thread, as one seems to be The Same, but More Specific. I'm thinking Retired Outlaw might work as a supertrope for someone who retires from a life of crime, whether they're reformed or just tired/too old.

Civilian Villain is an opaque name. The trope is about a villain who pretends to be reformed as part of their latest evil plan, but the name suggests it's a villain who is not a General Ripper, Evil Chancellor, President Evil or any other character type with a position of authority to abuse. One of the redirects is Falsely Reformed Villain, which might better fit the trope, but I think Faux Reformed Criminal might work even better.

I would support a rename for Civilian Villain to its redirect Falsely Reformed Villain.

Not sure about repurposing Retired Outlaw as a Super-Trope for all of these though. Outlaw is specifically a stock bandit character in The Western, not criminals in general. Retired Criminal might be better.

Good point. Retired Criminal would make a good supertrope to the concept of a villain going into retirement.

Uh, 2 topics in one? Since when this is allowed? (If only I knew earlier I'd do this kinda thing too...)

Anyways yeah Falsely Reformed Criminal is better. And a supertrope Retired Criminal is good too.

The TRS creation page says it can be about several tropes and to leave the trope line blank. If it's against the rules, I'm sure a moderator can split it into two threads.

Personally, I think Faux Reformed Villain would work best to emphasize it's about a villain pretending to be reformed.

I like Faux Reformed Villain.

Because seriously, Civilian Villain was clearly problematic since literally every single suggestion in that Image Pickin thread was for "a reformed villain." That's a bad sign.

So it sounds like no one has issue with renaming Civilian Villain. But what about Retired Outlaw? Do we really need a supertrope when every possible example is covered by the two subtropes?

Good point. A supertrope probably isn't necessary, since there is a difference between Retired Outlaw and Retired Monster, mainly in the severity of their actions.

Since there doesn't seem to be any issues with Retired Outlaw, this thread can be renamed Ambiguous Name: Civilian Villain.

Just click on the blue icon above the opening post.

Done. Thanks.

There should be a crowner to decide between Falsely Reformed Villain and Faux Reformed Villain.

Also, maybe Civilian Villain should be transplanted to an index/indexing supertrope for tropes about villains who are, well, civilians.

Crowner is up

I sent a holler to have the above crowner attached.

Thanks!

Civilian Villain found in: 121 articles, excluding discussions.

Since January 1, 2012 this article has brought 363 people to the wiki from non-search engine links

Obviously it will need a cleanup effort, but 120 wicks and 363 inbounds isn't particularly huge.

If we can't cut that name due to inbounds we can just make that into the redirect and use Falsely Reformed Villain as the main trope name.

edited 31st Jan '17 10:12:50 PM by Adept

The question before us is: is this name working? If it's working, we don't get to rename it no matter how much we dislike the name. To rename it, we need to find either a pattern of misuse, or signs of underuse.

I'd aim for the latter. Given the number of wicks...I'm still neutral, but could easily be persuaded that this needs a rename.

edited 1st Feb '17 1:45:29 AM by Xtifr

I'll send a second holler, since the first wasn't responded to after more than a week.

Again, I'm pretty sure we need to establish a valid reason for renaming before hooking up a rename crowner.

(And again, I suspect underuse might fit—just how common should this trope be, anyway? I don't think it's rare, but I don't think it's super-common either.)

A wick check should be done, but I think a damn good sign of misuse comes from the fact that in the Image Pickin' thread that inspired this thread, we had two people in four posts suggesting images that don't illustrate this trope at all.

That's... a red flag.

Looking at Renamed Tropes, at least half of the tropes on the list were renamed because they were unclear or confusing as hell, like this one. As I said earlier, "civilian villain" sounds like a villain who is not in a government position of power to abuse, like The Joker or Lex Luthor, rather than a villain who pretends to be a Reformed Criminal as part of his latest scheme.

The second last bullet for common reasons for a rename is:

• Names that simply don't indicate what the trope is all about. Especially if it suggests something unrelated to most people.

Also, regarding turning Civilian Villain into a redirect to Falsely Reformed Villain, I just assumed making the original name a redirect was standard.

Looking through the examples, several seem to confuse this trope with the related Reformed Criminal, Retired Monster and Reformed, but Rejected.