Discussion Main / AscendedDemon

How would you suggest drawing a distinct line between the two?

Based off this here in the text:

"The demon looking to ascend has a few avenues to explore. The most common are to go on a literal or metaphorical quest to Find the Cure!. If their "evil nature" is biologically based, like viral vampirism or hereditary lycanthropy, finding the recipe for an ancient cure or researching a new one is one possibility."

And the distinction would be this line here:

"What really sucks about it is that those that want to give Good Feels Good a try often find it near impossible to fully pull a Heel–Face Turn."

From this it seems that the Ascended Demon is not simple a demonic character who makes a decision to turn away from evil and fighting on the good side but a demon who is seeking a way to rid themselves of their inherently evil nature. So based off the description from the main trope, it seems to be describing an inherently evil character who is seeking to achieve ascension by somehow physically or mentally/spiritually ridding themselves of their evil nature. It should not inherently evil character who turn to side of good for arbitrary reasons like Defeat Means Friendship, Morality Pet, and Defectingfor Love.

The words "most common" says to me that the creator of the trope did not intend that to be the only interpretation of an Ascended Demon, so I don't think it's that cut and dry.

I think it's a rough hair to split trying define an "arbitrary" reason. Especially since "evil" is relative. For example, let's say we have a story in which evil or adversarial creatures like to torture, rape, pollute and defile on sight. Compared to them, a demon that just decides to go and live on his own for no particular reason can reasonably be argued as "ascended". In the meantime, if the demons are just lazy, greedy, and like to stew in their own vices, then a demon that sits around doing nothing seems much less "Ascended", because they're basically doing the same thing that other demons do.

So even with that explanation, I think there's a major problem splitting hairs here.

“ This isn't for lack of trying, but because they're a demon, vampire, or other Always Chaotic Evil critter whose very body is Made of Evil.”

Right here to me says that this is not a character that has chosen evil or good but a character that is evil by nature, not action. Otherwise this would just be a case of Heel–Face Turn if the “evil” is not inherent to the characters naturally.

Based on what I got from this is the goal of the demonic character seem to be beyond a desire to not act on their evil urges. The goal of this type of character is to be cured of the inborn desire of these urges and their demonic nature to reach ascension.

Another important distinction should be born a demon vs turned into one. If they are turned into a demon for being an evil human and wish to become human again by turning to side of good then that sounds like an example of The Atoner. Compare to a character who was born a demon or belongs to an Always Chaotic Evil species (Vampire, Goblin, Orc, etc.) with an inapt nature for evil but are seeking a cure to rid them of their evil desires. I think this is more so an example of what this Trope is supposed to represent.