Needs Cleaning Up: Humans Are Bastards

So let's have some more options. Want to make sure I understand what people are saying before adding them.

• Rename to Humans Are Bastards Compared To Anyone Else  ^*
  ^{placeholder name}
  , delete all other examples.

• Split Humans Are Bastards Compared To Anyone Else from Humans Are Bastards In General  ^*
  ^ditto
  .

• Accept that Humans Are Bastards to every and any one and leave alone.

edited 9th Dec '10 10:17:59 AM by Daremo

That last option seems to mean "redefine to encompass animals and whatever else besides aliens." True?

Bump, because I just saw another misuse.

Frankly, I'd be open to opening up the trope to mean "humans are bastards in general, not necessarily in comparison to anyone or anything." If the trope isn't going to be renamed, that definition is pretty much Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Redefining to practically anything else is just screaming for more misuse and a return to Trope Repair sooner rather than later.

^^Technically, the trope should already cover fantasy races, like Elves, Dwarfs, or what have you. Humans being cruel to communities populated by talking animals is already its own separate trope.

^I still say that "Humans being bastards in general without being compared to any other civilizations" isn't a valid trope worth cataloging. In any general story about good guys and bad guys, anyone who thinks some human characters are being particularly cruel could just pothole this trope, and works like Die Hard, The Professional, A Clockwork Orange, and even The Green Mile could all become examples just because there's at least one person in particular in each of those movies who's an asshole. And that would be complete and utter bullshit.

If this is going to stay a trope, this should be a comparison trope, and if we're worried about it potentially being misused again, then we should give it a clearer name to suggest that this is trope about comparisons.

edited 16th Dec '10 9:57:04 AM by SeanMurrayI

It makes sense as a trope among the Family-Unfriendly Aesop cluster.

Sean Murray: That's why I said "if the trope isn't going to be renamed." I know there are plenty of folks who want to keep the name and keep the strict definition, and I was hoping to point out why that just wouldn't work.

^Still, any proposals to expand the trope definition or to create any kind of separate page to cover "people being jerks" just isn't a good, novel, or creative idea.

Well, then, everyone should vote the rename up, shouldn't they? :)

Besides, if this doesn't get renamed, we have a "humans are generally bastards" trope anyway!

^No, we wouldn't have that; we'd have a trope about humans being bastards compared to other sentient, nonhuman civilizations with numerous examples that need to be cut from the page and hundreds of wicks that need to be sorted through.

In fact, we'd have that regardless of whatever may happen.

edited 16th Dec '10 4:26:41 PM by SeanMurrayI

Only 16 votes? Surely we can do better than that.

Especially if the "no" voters could suggest alternate courses of action, or promise to personally canvass this site for misuse. :)

There's still a ton that needs cleaning up and sorting through on the trope page alone no matter what.

Given how vocal most people in this discussion are for one thing, it is rather surprising to see this crowner have such a close vote, especially when the trope has been recently erroneously filed in the You Hate What You Are index.

edited 19th Dec '10 7:39:55 PM by SeanMurrayI

I'd love to know what the defense of the current name is. Yes, it's popular, but it can't be as entrenched as Xanatos Gambit (another trope name that brings in tons of links and tons of outright abuse). Hell, I'd argue that one of the reasons it's so popular is because of the misuse. It wouldn't be nearly as popular if people realized that it doesn't mean "humans are bastards in general all the time."

I dislike that it's a single option rather than a multi option crowner. I'd rather to a trope transplant.

To/into what? What would that leave Humans Are Bastards as?

I'd rather use Humans Are Bastards the way people link it: as a general Family-Unfriendly Aesop about how you can't trust your fellow man.

The current trope can go somewhere else, but even the name Humans Are Bastards isn't a comparative statement, it's a flat statement, which leads to the current misuse.

I thought so. But as you can see from this very thread, there's already a lot of opposition to having a "humans are bastards in general" trope at all, so really, you're voting for the status quo.

And I still argue that much of the "people being jerks to each other and no one being able to trust one another" concept that some really are looking to trope is already covered by Crapsack World; anyway, though it's still pretty much a generally dull concept, especially when people are misusing the misused definition.

And, again, someone is still mistaking both Humans Are Bastards and Aliens Are Bastards for "hating ones own race."

edited 20th Dec '10 7:40:50 AM by SeanMurrayI

Crapsack World is too broad in it's horribleness.

So what? "A world being populated by unfriendly jerks who can't count on one another" would still count as that trope.

EDIT: Most works we'd be looking to include under a separate "People are jerks to each other" trope would probably already be filed under Crapsack World, anyway.

edited 20th Dec '10 8:49:24 AM by SeanMurrayI

Usage difference. Crapsack World is a setting or background, "people are jerks and you can't trust anyone" is an Aesop.

Only "People are untrustworthy" could be taken as An Aesop; though I can't think of an actual work that concludes with "don't trust anyone" as an explicit lesson to be learned.

"People being jerks to each other" would not be important to defining that Aesop.

edited 20th Dec '10 12:02:22 PM by SeanMurrayI

People are jerks and will take advantage of you given a chance is. I can't think of an example right now. Probably overlap with a lot of the Humans Are Bastards examples, but I've seen a few that were very nihilistic overall.

^The point you're trying to make is that there may be a trope in people having competing interests with one another and not being trusted to ever work together or cooperate towards a single goal because people only look after their own self interests.

My point is that you can express the Aesop you're tying to form without having to call anybody jerks.

edited 20th Dec '10 1:16:28 PM by SeanMurrayI

Aaaand now it's in negatives. I can't believe there are this many people who don't mind all the misuse... I guess it's a Xanatos Gambit like thing... "Everyone" knows what it means, even though they're wrong, and no one cares (or has had their care overwhelmed by all the misuse)...