Needs Help: Acceptable Targets

"By ridiculing the group, the work gives their opinion that the group is a member of Acceptable Targets, but the opinion is not present within the work." You're saying that the heart of this trope/article is that the opinion is wholly outside the work. Furthermore, you say "Poe's Law makes it difficult to say that the creators always intend the ridicule to be seen as acceptable by their culture, but that's why Acceptable Targets is an Audience Reaction rather than an aspect of the work itself." So you are saying that Acceptable Targets is an Audeince Reaction rather than an aspect of the work itself because of either (a) Poe's Law or (b) whether "the creators always intend the ridicule to be seen as acceptable by their culture" or not is impossible to determine. I say either one or the other because Poe's Law applies only to satire and parodies but we aren't talking strictly about satire or parodies.

You are also saying that, because "morals are always subjective," this ought to be a subjective article (i.e. YMMV).

You say "The distinction between Acceptable Targets and Unacceptable Targets comes from if you are of the opinion that the targets of ridicule are acceptable or not." Remember that if Acceptable Targets is YMMV, then so should Unacceptable Targets — and vice versa. This is why we're discussing both. For that same reason, when you argue about making or not making AT an IUEO trope, you're also talking about Unacceptable Targets. Mentioning this because you also say "My post was about the proposed definition of IUEO for Acceptable Targets."

Your most recent response to me directly says that I was correct about the first bullet informing the second one. You also say that "the opinion is part of what defines the universe [the work]" "unless the opinion is expressed by characters within the fictional universe [In-Universe]." So you're saying that the opinion informs the work of some salient element unless the characters are the ones expressing that opinion.

• Clearly I disagree.
• You're saying that the ridicule the work gives is there in the work ("the work gives their opinion that the group is a member of Acceptable Targets"), but at the same time it is impossible to determine if the creator intended that ridicule to apply to an Acceptable Target because their culture may think it is fine to treat people like that.
  • Response to "because of Poe's Law": Ridicule is not so gray as to be impossible to determine if it was intentional or not. Moreover, Poe's Law is not YMMV, so if you're saying that PL is the reason AT is or ought to be YMMV, there seems to be a contradiction there. If PL can be IUEO, then this could also be IUEO.
  • Response to "because of creator's culture": This seems like a contradiction. If the ridicule is in the work, then it is in the work regardless of what the creator intended. If they intended to treat a character well, then they would have done so. And again I cite the Kick the Dog example. For a more specific example, take anti-Semitism. If Culture-A says ridiculing Jews is okay but Culture-B says it is not okay, then that would still have no bearing on whether Jews are considered Acceptable Targets by Work-1. Which culture is Work-1 from? Let's say either.
    • If Work-1 is from Culture-A: The work ridicules Jews and considers them to be Acceptable Targets In-Universe. The creator intended them to be ridiculed and was hypercritical about anything related to Jewish people. They would in fact mistreat a person based on religion, and the creator continues to make similar works throughout their career. The example is Acceptable Targets.
    • If Work-1 is from Culture-B: The work ridicules Jews and considers them to be Acceptable Targets In-Universe. The creator intended the ridicule to be a joke but the joke went so far as to be indistinguishable between parody or derision. They would never mistreat a person based on religion, and the creator considers the work to be an Old Shame later in their career (assuming they still have one at the time). The example is Acceptable Targets.
• Moral Relativism isn't addressing the point. In lieu of repeating the example I just gave, I'll repeat what I said before: "The bigger take-away point is that this does not concern 'society' or 'the audience's opinion.' It's about what is posited by the work, what the work presents. What is in the work."
• Your distinction between Acceptable Targets and Unacceptable Targets seems inconsistent with what you've said before.
  • If I — the hypothetical troper or audience member — am the one making the distinction between "acceptable or not," then the creator's culture doesn't matter at all.
  • But you also said that whether "the creators always intend the ridicule to be seen as acceptable by their culture" or not is impossible to determine, making this YMMV.
  • So are you saying it's the creator's culture or the audience's perspective?
  • Either way, I disagree on the point that this would make these tropes YMMV, since the ridicule and opinion are present in the work either way. I'm asking because I don't think you intended to say both or I'm missing something else.
• Your final response to me seems to be saying that the creator's opinion informs the work unless the opinion is expressed by characters within that work. I see that you agree with my assessment of what you were saying, but I honestly don't see the connection between the words of my assessment and the words you're saying in comment #25. Characters need to express themselves — verbally or physically, etc. — in order for the thing to be In-Universe. However, I'd argue that it does not need to be so strict; I don't think it needs to be a character but also the overall treatment by the work (e.g. the progression of the plot, etc.).