Not sociopathic enough - : Heroic Sociopath

Hm, a shot of the other characters in a heroic pose might help.

Perhaps the last panel of this comic?

It definitely says PC sociopathy.

I much prefer the Looking For Group comic, because I at least get a sense of heroic-ness from it. There's a sunset being walked into, a group of travelers, a pretty standard heroic line uttered, and sociopathy. Having never read the comic and not understanding the context, it seems to sum up the trope pretty well. The Belkar ones, however, all seem to require context that I don't have. I guess from the mention of XP, I could deduce he's an RPG hero, but I think the Looking For Group comic works better.

LFG pic is good. It has more heroic looking people, doing what is often done by heroes(walking into sun) and "heroic" speech. And then it has Richard doing what he does best.

However, I think main problem with this thing is that Heroic Sociopath, by definition is an evil character fighting for good, unlike Villain Protagonist who is also evil but fights for evil reasons.

So, is it truly neccesary to show character as "heroic"? Wouldn't be enough showing Heroic Sociopath among heroic people, showing the contrast between him and rest of the group.

The LFG one seems more dependant on text though. The recent Belkar one shows Belkar with a grin on his face, stabbing creatures as they run away. That is probably better.

EDIT: Managed to find a way to make isolate the last panel. Alternatively we could try stacking the last three panels to explain the context of Belkar's remark about surrender...

edited 26th Nov '10 2:57:28 PM by neoYTPism

I can infer that he is scoffing at their attempt to surrender, but, I read the comic also.

Just looking at it now, it occurs to me that you COULD interpret it as "The goblins asked Belkar to surrender."

edited 26th Nov '10 5:53:45 PM by suedenim

But like I said earlier, it shows him grinning while chasing green creatures as they run away. Even putting aside the bit about surrender, that kind of suggests sociopathy, or at least better than the other candidates seem to...

He's clearly a PC, but is he a hero?

... what do you mean by PC? o.o

The Heroic Sociopath is a gleefully wicked character who works toward a positive, morally affirming goal whilst being as evil as possible along the way

I don't think "the character is obviously heroic" is critical. Maybe the character is normally a villain, but in this work, their sociopathy is painted as heroic. "Obviously a PC" or even just "obviously a protagonist" is enough, imo.

He means player character.

edited 26th Nov '10 6:49:34 PM by rodneyAnonymous

To me I look at Heroic Sociopath as like Anti-Hero in that it is about having a heroic role but not necessarily heroic traits. (Essentially, it is a specific variety of Anti-Hero; or two, if you are going by the Sliding Scale Of Anti Heroes.)

In this case he is attacking strange green not-quite-human-looking creatures. I would think it reasonable to assume such creatures typically portrayed as the enemy to the heroes, and the Heroic Sociopath enjoying chasing them as they run away is the kind of thing that implies doing the right thing for the wrong reasons...

There have been suggestions throughout this topic of using Rorschach from Watchmen. I for one think he's an excellent example of the "Heroic Sociopath" trope and don't consider the lack of an image demonstrating this aspect of the character a problem. Numerous images used on this site seem to have been chosen for their value as a representation of a character many, many of us recognise at first sight. The pop cultural roots of this entire website run so deep, I believe disqualifying the character mentioned above because there isn't a handy image anywhere is invalid. Another character that comes to mind from pop culture that would be readily recognisable is Khyron the Backstabber from the first 'Robotech' series I suppose it could be argued that he's light on the 'Heroic' and heavy on the 'Sociopath,' but I still consider him a contender for these purposes.

Bring the images.

I was not able to find an image of the character Khyron that was not copyright-protected. This Rorscach image is supposedly in the public domain and though it doesn't contain any action specifically heroic OR sociopathic, anyone who recognises him will realise the way he was written encompasses both of these traits quite nicely.

edited 4th Dec '10 11:31:39 PM by Hexslinger

I'm going to go with no.

edited 4th Dec '10 11:27:49 PM by GiantSpaceChinchilla

Hard to read, and might as well be a quote.

I do like Belkar chasing down the goblins.

edited 4th Dec '10 11:33:23 PM by Ghilz

Made a crowner.

Yeah the only good one in the crowner is Belkar and the goblins. All the other ones are just speech bubbles. They may as well be quotes. The image adds nothing.

I like the city guards one, but I note that text is the article page quote already, so maybe nevermind. Hm, should Belkar be the page quote and the page image? Does that matter? Unless that image should replace the page quote?

edited 4th Dec '10 11:59:04 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Does it matter? Not really. and if it does. There's a whole Quotes wiki page... So switch one quote from there with the belkar quote.

That quote is awesome, though, perfectly apt to Heroic Sociopath. I don't think the other options are better.

Eitherway, it's not an issue now. Only if the image wins.

I do like the one from Saints Row, it's short and sweet

"Maybe we should be finding nonviolent solutions... hahahaha!"

— Boss, Saints Row 2

edited 5th Dec '10 12:06:17 AM by Ghilz

"Eitherway, it's not an issue now."

Well, no: If any image of Belkar wins (which seems likely), and in order to make the page image and page quote from a different source, we swapped in one of the other quotes, we would be replacing a strong quote so we can add a weak image. I would rather have that page quote and no image, than any Belkar image (except the city guards one, which is the same quote) and a different page quote.

(Or both, e.g. Belkar/goblins image, Belkar/guards quote, if that's okay.)

edited 5th Dec '10 12:25:08 AM by rodneyAnonymous