Discussion Characters / RWBYHistorical

I did think about that, then I got paranoid about what if other gods got introduced at some point which would mess up the idea behind the 'In General' section for the two brothers, which is why I didn't do that in the end. But I guess I was overthinking and we can cross that bridge if it ever crops up. I'm fine with the section being rearranged in the manner you suggest, but I would point out the interesting thing that, while the two brothers do share several trope names, the way the trope works for each brother can be surprisingly different.

Edited to add: I still had the version that was laid out with an In General section, so I've just copied it in to replace the folder that was there. Take a look, and if you want to make any changes, please feel free.

We cannot comment on whether or not the punishment was unnecessary because we don't know what the consequences are of bringing people back from the dead. Clearly, the God of Light appears to believe there is a consequence, but the audience doesn't know what it is. I also think it's inaccurate to say they resent immortality when the issue was with defying death. Indeed, the God of Light's problem with defying death was consistent, as he applied that rule to both humanity and gods alike.

That's not to say that I disagree with the trope; I suggested a rewrite in the thread below. I think the events that could be used to create an entry for Jerkass Gods are as follows:

• The reason they made Salem immortal was to prevent her from being reunited with her love in the afterlife. So, her punishment isn't to learn the value of life and death, it's to never be reunited with her lover until she's learned the value of life and death, which punishes the blameless (Ozma) in equal measure to the blamed (Salem).
• Their repeated killing and resurrecting of Ozma, right in front of a grieving woman's eyes, which is unfathomable to both Salem and the audience, as it does appear to contradict their demand for respect of both life and death.
• The God of Darkness destroying humanity on a whim of outrage, and the God of Light justifying his brother's impulsive action as humanity's own fault for not being the good little experiment the two gods originally created them to be.
• The God of Light pins all the responsibility for fixing the mistakes of both Salem and the gods onto Ozma's shoulders alone — the one person who has been not only blameless from the beginning, but actually the victim.
• The God of Light giving Ozma an impossible task: to unite humanity in peace while knowing that Salem has become an immortal force of destruction, the cost of Ozma's failure being the final destruction of the entire planet, not just humanity.
• The God of Light clearly having a very good idea of what will happen should Ozma and Salem reunite, but only giving Ozma a half-hearted, cryptic warning about Salem's state of being that serves only to pique Ozma's desire to see her again — thereby ensuring the consequences he warns about actually happen.
• Forcing Ozma to never be alone by inflicting random humans with the terrible burden he's inflicted upon Ozma — by forcing Ozma to reincarnate into the bodies of living humans, creating a Body Surf situation where Ozma either steals control of the body from the original owner, or (at best) the two have to learn how to share one body and one life together.

The Hypocrite trope can only be used if it's called out in-universe, it's not an audience reaction trope. So, no, the Hypocrite trope won't apply. I would argue against it anyway, as the God of Light applies the same rule on defying death to both gods and humans, and the whole point of humanity's creation is to bring the two gods together in unity. When the God of Light reveals Salem manipulated him, he immediately trusts his brother's word, apologises for his error, kills Ozma to correct his mistake, and then stands united with his brother for every remaining scene the pair are seen together in.

The closest thing we see to 'hypocrisy' is the resurrection of Ozma to save humanity after all the effort to prevent Ozma from being resurrected, but the way Ozma is resurrected smacks of Loophole Abuse to that mysterious rule about defying death that the gods aren't telling the audience about. I therefore suspect Ozma's resurrection is the Loophole Abuse trope, not hypocrisy. We can't trope Loophole Abuse, however, because that's just speculation for now.

I'm not sure if it can really apply when the gods clearly operate on Blue-and-Orange Morality. Plus, while getting rid of humanity was a dick move, it was only after the humanity openly rebeled against them. Dark God was willing to revive Oz with apparently no strings attached until he learned that Salem tricked him, so he can't be all that bad, and the Light god is obsessed with balance but other than that he didn't do anything actively malicious. I'd say Blue-and-Orange Morality applies better.

I'm not sure about that one either because they clearly wanted humanity to conform to a morality and set of values that they themselves adhered to, so it doesn't seem that their morality and humanity's morality are supposed to be wildly different.