Victoria Cleanup

It's definitely the best option for disambiguation.

Agreed with moving the page, hopefully most people looking for "Victoria" are either looking for the British queen or the Paradox video game.

(x4,2,&1)

OK, so it seems like you fellas are in agreement on moving Literature.Victoria to Literature.Victoria A Novel Of Fourth Generation War.

So . . . should I be the one to move the page, or is that somebody else's job?

Edited by m-95 on Jan 28th 2023 at 10:55:06 AM

At the very least, it shouldn't be moved until the current discussion is resolved.

I've been reading some of this book and I've noticed that some of these examples tiptoe around the book's more controversial elements. Should I leave them alone or provide more honest context?

He's not an Innocent Bigot, he actively disdains female Marines not because he's been sheltered in some traditional enclave or something. He's a modern man serving in the modern Marines who doesn't like women in the military simply because of prejudice. "Gradually becomes political" is also stretching it when one of the first thing him and his militia do is organize mob actions that quickly result in literal tar and feathering.

That last sentence is also weirdly written. I think I understand what was supposed to be intended, but it sounds like the main characters are fighting against racism, sexism, and homophobia," despite having racist, sexist, and homophobic elements. In the text he's explicitly fighting on for the racists, sexists, and homophobes and sees them as the victims.

I had to reread the Anti-Hero page a few times to see if any of the typical understanding of an Anti-Hero applied and as far as I can tell they don't. Kraft and Rumford engage in hostage taking, human shields, lynching, kangaroo courts, executing POWs, and much more, but these are treated as brilliant and flawless. They're cheered on in all this by the rest of the characters and the book clearly wants you to think these are clever and just actions.

This is leaving out that the division is created specifically to be a Black division by the Secretary because she believes "Black people have been the only warriors in history," and white people's noses are too small for them to be brave. That they're deputized gang members is secondary to them being African-American.

And that's just the A's.

Well, if the tropes are to remain listed, the honest context is a must.

Yeah, if we're keeping the page we have to make it objective.

(x3)

Just out of curiosity, do you have access to the full book or are you just reading a preview or selection of it?

Provide more honest context. Namely for Angry White Man and Army of Thieves and Whores. But on the Anti-Hero one, see below.

Did you see Analysis.Anti Hero too? Knowing what I do about the book, I'd say they fall under (or at least are meant to fall under) what that the page calls a "Pragmatic Anti-Hero," as their actions are considered just mostly based on who they're doing them too (I think). Correct me if I'm wrong.

Someone linked to a Space Battles thread where the book was being liveblogged earlier, and I checked it out pure Bile Fascination.

I think Kraft might fall under Pragmatic Anti-Hero based on what's there, but Rumford doesn't. I haven't gotten to the point where they nuke all the Black people of Atlanta though, so I'm not sure what the book is trying to convey there yet.

im also reading that mock thread on spacebattles, but id like to get through the whole thing before i start going over the page. probably this weekend or sometime next week.

Might be sooner than you think. Turns out the book isn't very long.

Made the alterations from above except for the Anti-Hero one.

Coming back, seeing Parable's posts...

Jesus. I knew the book was bad, but I didn't think it was... quite that open with its racism?

Yes, please provide more honest context. Entries like that Army of Thieves and Whores one are exactly what I'd skim over and leave as they were, since I haven't read the work. Whoever made these entries has literally white-washed the work beyond recognition.

For the record, I've checked tropes I-K. Though now I wonder how much use that has been, given how much context has been left out of the entries...

At this point, would it be easier to work on a rewrite in a sandbox?

I'm not familiar with the process. What would that entail exactly?

We're introduced to our first Black character specifically so the author could write this, which I'm spoiling because it feel dirty to show unsuspecting people.

This is the main character's thoughts, by the way.

I think we should rewrite it in a sandbox, if only because it looks like any acceptable writeup is going to be the wiki article version of the ship of theseus

It wouldn't entail anything beyond creating Sandbox.Victoria or Sandbox.Victoria Cleanup, and using it as a drafting space to edit the work page as we please until it's ready to go.

Seems like a good idea to me then.

Okay, I've read the above mentioned nuking scene and I really do not think Pragmatic Anti Hero applies to either of the characters mentioned now. The trope entry describes someone who acts in an unheroic, even borderline villainous, manner for the greater good and doesn't care that others judge them negatively for it.

But Kraft murdering college professors for teaching subjects that don't conform to the state ideology and Rumford nuking Atlanta to kill the Black population because they've all suddenly decided to genocide white people are never treated as "I Did What I Had to Do" moments. They're met with approval by other characters and the narration treats them as unambiguously good actions. Kraft makes a point of putting on a show with Crusader costumes and music when he kills the teachers, and Rumford has a token moment of shock at the idea before he and his friends becomes positively giddy at the prospect.

I think the example should be cut altogether.

^Sounds like Protagonist-Centered Morality to me.

It's also Designated Hero, which is already on the YMMV page. I agree that Anti-Hero doesn't seem to fit.

I hate remembering that we have a page for this, but a cleanup is better than nothing.

These entries for Common Knowledge on the YMMV page reeks of defending the work, which I don't think "Common Knowledge" is for.

• Common Knowledge:
  • It is commonly believed that Rumford had Atlanta nuked in order to quell a riot, just to demonstrate how hardcore he is. Actually, it's a bit more reasonable than that, though still brutal: a group of Dirty Communists had taken over the city, wiped out the lawful authorities and launched a full-scale genocide on the innocent citizens. By quickly wiping out the inner city, where they had their headquarters, with a small nuke, Rumford tried to (and arguably did) save a lot of people out in the suburbs, who didn't get massacred because of this.
  • Some also believe that the term "orcs" is used by the protagonists as a racial slur against blacks and Hispanics. In fact, it refers specifically to violent criminals and other persons of similarly worthless moral character; there's even a bit in one chapter that discusses in so many words how the local blacks are at war with the local orcs. In-story, Father Dmitri is the first to use the term and defines it as "soldiers of the Evil One." In practice, the term is usually used to refer to criminals belonging to ethnic minorities, since these generally play a larger role in the book than White Gangbangers (who make only occasional appearances).

Wondering "Ew, who wrote that?" and of course it was the same user who made the page so gushy, shoehorned it onto 600 other trope pages, and then left. The 'orcs' thing sounds like it was taken verbatim from someone trying to justify why it isn't racist to use the N-word.

It is kind of amusing that they justify it by saying 'Oh no, they only use this word to describe violent criminals and similarly worthless moral characters,' which is already a weird way to phrase the point... and they say this directly beneath the entry where they justify the protagonists dropping a nuke on Atlanta. Very violent. Much criminal. I'd say cut both.

From the previews of the book's contents that I have, both of those points are technically accurate albiet very biased. To clarify:

• The book does mention that the Atlanta communists planned to "kill all the whites and Asians" (Chapter 34). However my preview cuts short literally right after one character mentions the nuclear option. So I don't know the aftermath of the nuke, but if it really was to stop a genocide located entirely within the city, I would still say that response is overkill.
• That bullet is correct in saying that "orcs" refers specifically to criminals and not to all black or Hispanic people. There is indeed a line mentioning that "By midnight, it was full-scale war, blacks against orcs" (Chapter 20), and Fr. Dimitri does say "In his Lord of the Rings, which is Christian analogy, orcs are soldiers of the Evil One. Those creatures your government wants to move in to Bangor are orcs, believe me" (Chapter 13). However, (at least from what I can see with my previews) the only criminals called "orcs" are black or Hispanic criminals. I don't believe there are any times that white villains are described as "orcs" in the book, and if there are, I don't know about them.

Though this does raise another interesting point: In order for something to be Common Knowledge, doesn't it need to be, y'know, common? I have seen a bullet on Our Orcs Are Different (which I edited after finding it) that said "orcs" in Victoria refers to blacks and Hispanics, but that is pretty much the only time I've seen these misconceptions anywhere. I don't know if this book is well-known enough for there to be widespread misconceptions about it's contents.

Edited by m-95 on Feb 6th 2023 at 9:19:52 AM

There is a cleanup thread for the trope, though it hasn't been active since September of last year.

Again, a lot of context is left out. This is our first description of the people who want to establish "the Commune" in the book:

The conspiracy involves the gang leaders, some local politicians, some members of Congress, all black. To put it simply, they plan to take over the city, kill all the whites and Asians, and proclaim something they call 'The Commune.'"

I'll also point out that Rumford goes out of his way to paint almost every Black person in the South as some angry gangster one second away from going savage if they haven't already done so. His waiter at a diner is described as "menacing."

Actually, that bit about the lawful authorities being wiped out is a lie. By their own admission, the (white) cops were preparing to run away when the insurrection started and they promptly proceed to do so. The civilian federal government (well, one of them) is still in Atlanta. Besieged, but alive. Killing the members of Congress is itself almost as much a reason for nuking the city as wiping out the Commune is.

And yes, the police knew the massacre was coming. They, under Rumford's direction, intentionally make the plotters act early by leaking the fact that the police know of the plan to all the Commune leaders. The idea is to shock the South's president into taking action, and when they realize he's too dithering to do so, they decide nuking Atlanta will be a sufficient motivator.

This wasn't a desperate act to stop a massacre, this was a premediated massacre of their own. This was part of what I mentioned above when I was arguing for removing the Anti-Hero example. Rumford, the police, the military, everyone involved in this is absolutely thrilled to kill everyone in downtown Atlanta before the Commune has actually done anything:

"You can nuke Dallas too, as far as I'm concerned," a first sergeant added. "We're all country boys here. We don't like cities much."

When the nuke hits, the first description of it is when it kills Jane Fonda and CNN's Atlanta studio. Which tells you what the author is prioritizing here and it's not the Commune killing people. Rumford and company celebrate this with the Rebel Yell, the old Confederate battle cry.