Misused: Put Them All Out Of My Misery

The page for Put Them All Out of My Misery states that it is about a character who is suffering and harms others out of the belief that it will end/reduce their suffering. However, it is more commonly used to describe a character who suffers and then harms others out of spite/revenge, even though lashing out against others won't actually help them alleviate their own suffering. This misuse seems to have no difference from Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, which is about a character who hurts everyone as response to their suffering without having any expectation of ending that suffering.

So you would think that this is simple, move any example where the character isn't motivated by alleviating their own suffering in any way to Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds; but for some reason, that isn't the canonical distinction between the tropes according to the pages. According to the Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds page, Put Them All Out of My Misery "is the trope for characters who rationalize their destructive behavior by insisting that society, or the earth, must be somehow cleansed or punished for some past injustice, making it the inverse of this trope." The page for Put Them All Out of My Misery similarly states that "The key to this trope is that they rationalize their actions due to self-pity, or contempt for the setting that they view as harmful." which makes it seem like a Put Them All Out of My Misery character doesn't have to benefit from their actions at all, they are just rational about pursuing vengeance while the Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds is emotional (and this distinction doesn't seem to be followed in practice either, since a lot of the examples I found in my wick check seem to be very emotionally driven). This makes it seem like Put Them All Out of My Misery is describing two tropes put together; one where a character hurts others to end their suffering, the other where a character hurts others just because they hate them but rationalizes them rather than acting out of unadulterated fury like the Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, and this second trope seems like too subtle a distinction to really be worthy of being a different trope since any character can have different degrees of rationalizing and emotions. I also worry that in practice the distinction is just being made by how sympathetic the trope writing the example thinks the character is, despite Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds not supposed to be YMMV like the other Woobie tropes; this seems to be reinforced by how Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds is described on its page with very sympathetic terms and being low on the Sliding Scale Of Villain Vileness while Put Them All Out of My Misery is described in more critical terms and as being high on the scale (which seems backward to me based on the first definition of the trope, I would expect someone who hurts others to save themselves from suffering would be more sympathetic than someone who suffers and hurting others won't do anything to fix it but they do it anyway out of pure spite). Despite not being YMMV, Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds puts a lot of emphasis on how the audience is sympathetic to the character and doesn't want them to be killed, which might lead to people putting examples that fit the trope but they find unsympathetic on Put Them All Out of My Misery instead.

Possible Solutions: I think the most obvious solution is to clearly require that a Put Them All Out of My Misery character must genuinely believe their actions will alleviate their suffering (as already seems to be the case according to the main trope definition, but not the trope distinctions), remove the "rationality" distinction, and remove any examples that are just motivated by revenge against the world and put them on Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. This would also require removing or altering the third and fourth "types" listed on the page, as type 3 doesn't involve the character reducing their own suffering in any way and while type 4 might if you interpret it as the society continuing to hurt them and them wanting to be free at all costs even if that means getting rid of everyone, but not if you interpret it as the hurt being in the past and them just wanting revenge, it's not really clear.

Wick Check is in molokai198.

Opening. Maybe I had this trope all wrong — I would think the selfishness requirement was an absolute must. It's not just punishing or revenge on wrongdoers but It's All About Me decision to inflict harm on others for gratification.

to rewrite and cleanup, even though it doesn't feel like something that requires TRS.

I don't think selfishness is required here.

I wonder if Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds's naming is affecting this trope, but that'll have to wait for its own TRS.

We could as well consider if Put Them All Out of My Misery name is clear or is surfacely confusing with Out Of Its Misery.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

to rewrite and cleanup

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Rewrite/clean

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

@Amonimus regarding the name of Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, yeah, that is inextricably linked up with the problems with Put Them All Out of My Misery and its usage as "Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds but it's YMMV considered less sympathetic", but I don't know if there's a way to TRS two tropes at once even if their misuses are connected, so I just did one. If there is a way to TRS two related tropes at once I would have done it had I known about it, but now maybe it's too late...

And regarding selfishness - I mean yeah there is selfishness, both making others suffer to reduce your own suffering and making others suffer because you are lashing out against the world for your suffering without hoping to reduce it are selfish, all Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds characters are selfish, too, so I don't think that's really a distinction. Most villains in general are going to be selfish except the Well-Intentioned Extremist, My Country, Right or Wrong and sometimes Love Makes You Evil types.

TBH, I don't think the rewrite suggestion is actually helping in distinguishing this trope with Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. At least, not in a way that needs a hard-split.

Both tropes basically boil down to "character is suffering, and lashes out against the world because of it", and I'm not sure what the "genuinely believes this lashing out will alleviate their suffering" really adds to the trope.

Personally, I wouldn't mind to see the two merged.

Edited by Adept on Nov 17th 2023 at 12:23:24 AM

I'm changing my vote to merging now that this has been pointed out.

Edit: More specifically, merging Put Them All Out of My Misery into Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds and not vice versa. The former has 502 wicks and 4,434 inbounds, while the latter has 5525 wicks and 32,274 inbounds, so the latter is clearly a lot healthier onsite, and getting more attention offsite. We could probably have a crowner for deciding which one to do if necessary, if there still ends up being disagreement.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Nov 16th 2023 at 11:47:07 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

• Put Them All Out of My Misery: A character believes they'll feel better if everyone else suffers, either because they caused it or because the world needs a purge in general.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Depair-induced insanity leads to irrational mass murder.

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds states it's an inversion of Put Them All Out of My Misery and it makes sense to me, so I'm not feeling merging.

Edited by Amonimus on Nov 16th 2023 at 10:35:35 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

I understand, I just don't think the character's rationality is really important to the events and outcome, since that's not always made explicit in the work, and might rely on subjective Alternative Character Interpretation,.

The objective trope is that (1) "the character suffers", then (2) "strikes back against the world in response". Whether they respond in such a manner because they genuinely believe it's going to make them feel better, because they find the need to "fix/cleanse" the world that caused their suffering, or because it's a rage/insanity-filled rampage, to me, is something that can be filed under Tropes Are Flexible.

Edited by Adept on Nov 17th 2023 at 2:48:49 AM

We have multiple-trope threads all the time, we just can't put multiple tropes in the header, and we prefer threads to involve as few pages as possible (not just because of technical limitations). But we'd need usage checks for every trope involved in the thread, so someone would need to check 75 references to Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.

The original YKTTW claims it spun off from a forum thread but it's old enough it's no longer in the database and isn't preserved on the Internet Archive; it appears to be the same one referred to in Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds' archived discussion (Ctrl+F "the adversary"), but maybe not the same as the spun-off trope referenced there (as far as I can tell the distinction being talked about there has to do with scale, not motivation/sympathetic-ness). The draft originally said this:

It then breaks it down into four types: Someone complained that type 4 was too close to Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, but someone else said it was distinct because "this takes a clear villain and gives him backstory 'excuses' that seem Woobie-ish", rather than them actually being a Woobie. Later, after a couple of bumps, someone made their own attempt at understanding the difference and, based on that, edited the OP to claim that a WDOW "was mistreated, snaps, and lashes out on the world", and that type 4 is when "the villain experienced injustice, and plans to rid the world of the society that caused it." (This same person also claimed the proposed split on the WDOW archived discussion was reading the trope name too literally, and I think I agree that it would have been The Same, but More.)

Take all of that into consideration when determining how, if at all, the two tropes should be distinguished.

@Adept I see your point, but to me "character is suffering and the only way (or at least the only way they believe) to alleviate it is to hurt a lot of other people" (i.e the character can't kill themselves without killing the world and they want to die, or they are in pain and killing people temporarily relieves the pain so they feel they have to keep killing people, or a technology used by the world is hurting them so they have to destroy society) is really different from "character is suffering and lashes out against the world for some kind of revenge/punishment/anger". The former being suggested by the line on Put Them All Out of My Misery of "This person is simply trying to cure an ailment, and are willing to go to any length to do it", though the whole page isn't consistent on if this is what it is supposed to be (for instance the last two types, the page image and the page quote all fall into the second category despite some parts of the description implying the trope only refers to the first). I feel like those could work fine as two different tropes and the only problem is that while Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds is always the latter, Put Them All Out of My Misery is inconsistently listed as either of the two.

Edited by molokai198 on Nov 17th 2023 at 11:49:04 AM

After coming back to this one (I wasn't reading TRS earlier today), maybe one thing we could possibly do is leave Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds out of this (not counting transplanting misuse that fits that trope better than this one), and rename Put Them All Out of My Misery to something clearer, clarify the description, and move the misuse that better fits Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds accordingly. I'm not 100% sure about this one, though, but Morgan's post on the history of the trope is probably relevant when it comes to figuring out what to do.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Nov 17th 2023 at 4:28:21 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

My impression is that editors are treating WDoW as child-like beings who have no moral agency or rational thoughts, while PTAOoMM are more like teenagers who understand their situation but cannot see beyond it. A WDoW knows only suffering, a PTAOoMM guy shows more obvious anger and resentment.

If there is a distinction, I would say that a WDoW acts by instinct or subconsciously, while a PTAOoMM villain plans out their killing. However this does not seem to be followed: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED has a villain who carefully schemes for everyone to die, but has WDoW and not PTAOoMM on the character sheet.

Another related trope is Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum; this is meant to be an action rather than the 'motivation'', but I see it used interchangeably.

I'm not sure what to do, but I lean towards merging not because there is way to distinguish them, but because editors have applied different understandings and there seems little hope of disentangling them.

Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.

I agree using a definition like that wouldn't work, because it would inevitably descend into very YMMV Draco in Leather Pants like "my favorite character had no choice but to kill everyone feel bad for them, but that other character I don't like as much so they are a horrible person for doing the same thing".

I've brought up several times the idea of separating the tropes not by how sympathetic or rational they are but whether then character is trying to end their own suffering or just lashing out (which some parts of the Put Them All Out of My Misery page imply is how it is), but no one has really responded to that positively so I get the sense that that's not a very well-liked idea here and I'm basically the only one in favor of it? If anyone else actually likes the idea I'd be interesting to hear about it.

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds in my experience is used for ANY villain with a tragic backstory, even ones that compose themselves like adults. The main thing is the tragic backstory part.

One of these days, all of you will accept me as your supreme overlord.

If Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds would be used like this that would definitely be misuse, the description says the character has to have omnicidal or Ax-Crazy tendencies or want to destroy everyone in the story, on a small or large scale, so someone with a tragic backstory who is doing something other than killing and hurting indiscriminately would not count.

Then it looks like that trope is in severe need of TRS and should get a wick check…

One of these days, all of you will accept me as your supreme overlord.

merge. The distinction I think is in the selfish aspect of Put Them All Out of My Misery. Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds to me is more horrible backstory + audience sympathy + villainy/destruction (hence YMMV), whereas Put Them All Out of My Misery has a level of Disproportionate Retribution to it and is audience sympathy neutral.

Oissu!

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds isn't YMMV

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

My mistake, every other Woobie trope is and I thought it was converted along with the others in the big Woobie cleanup. Why isn't that one? It probably should be since Woobie is YMMV.

Edited by PhiSat on Nov 24th 2023 at 4:07:50 AM

Oissu!

A reminder that the thread is about what to do with Put Them All Out of My Misery and Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds has to be left untouched for now unless someone makes a wick check for it.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

to cleanup and rewrite for Put Them All Out of My Misery.