Here we go again- what to do about all the unexplained cuts?: Heroic Sociopath

I've noticed that tons of examples have been cut from the page without explanation. That might mean the meaning of this trope is still unclear (I don't think so though, seems pretty good) and/or someone should tell whoever's cutting everything to explain why.

If some examples are contentious, I don't want to go ahead and re-add everything yet.

Just some person going on a deletion spree. He's been banned. Repairs should keep.

Thanks. Btw, I like the new avatar.

I thought the deletion spree was someone fixing up the trope. Heroic Sociopath means a over-the-top Anti-Hero Played for Laughs, but many people thought it meant any over-the-top Anti-Hero and added serious characters like Rorschach. The deletion spree largely cleaned up this trope by eliminating examples who didn't match the definition.

Could you unban the banned troper (unless he had a history of trolling)?

The deleted items all seem to not be actual examples of the trope, so it looks like someone was just banned for doing clean up.

Edit ban lifted.

I'd just like to say that yes, I was the one who went on the deletion spree. I apologize for not telling anyone about this sooner, for not clearing it with anyone's permission first and for erasing many's hard work in the first place. But, I'd like to think that I've at least helped the trope shift more into it's own kind rather than a Type V anti-hero by personally removing the Lady Gaga example and that I was justified in doing so.

edited 13th Jan '11 1:15:21 PM by GentlemanCambrioleur

Next time just put in an edit reason. It would have stopped this whole mess from happening in the first place.

Will do! Again, I apologize for not doing so in the first place.

To be entirely honest... I'm not entirely sure why the trope is only for comedic examples, or that we have a better place for otherwise similar characters that aren't played for laughs, except maybe the broad Anti-Hero.

Anti-hero type IV or V would cover the serious ones.

First, I'm sorry that you got temporarily banned on account of my starting this topic. I did think many/most of the deletions seemed right, I just wasn't quite sure about the mass deletion.

Personally, I don't think a character has to be strictly comedic to qualify so much as "over-the-top".

Heroic Sociopath doesn't sound like a name for a trope that's played for laughs though. People probably just read the part about being over the top vicious or whatever and think that it's supposed to be serious.

Because the trope is/was actually about the Comedic Sociopath but decayed by name. It was launched for the Token Evil Teammate whose evil acts indicate that the primary motivator for other characters keeping them around is Rule of Funny. The YKTTW examples were Brock Samson from...something and Black Mage from Eight Bit Theatre.

It's a simple trope, even if the title doesn't describe it perfectly. I don't think we need anything as drastic as a rename; we just need to make sure the description is cleaned up. Currently, it seems good, since it mentions that its comic relief as soon as possible. Honestly, I think we're good here. I don't like the image, but that's what I get for ignoring the Image Pickin' discussion.

I was just going to suggest that this trope be renamed when I saw the discussion of someone having been banned for removing examples.

I have indeed come across tons and tons and TONS of instances of this trope being applied to characters who are not an instance of the trope but rather type IV or type V Anti Heroes played seriously (e.g. the aforementioned Rorschach). Part of the problem, I'd guess, is that the current trope name does not make it clear that this trope refers only to characters played for laughs. People see the trope name somewhere, then without reading the page, think of a similar character in another work and go to that work's page to list it there. If the trope were given a more precise name it might help eliminate the problem.

Agreed. Comedic Sociopath?

The problem there is that that's a redirect to an existing trope. Not an insurmountable problem, only it's almost identical to the trope's actual name.

Point.

I don't have any better suggestions, just that the current name is sorely lacking.

Hilariously Psychotic?

Maybe something like Insanely Funny? You know, because "insanely" can also mean "in an insane manner?"

It's not about them being insane as such, it's about them being "evil". Insanity also covers non-evil kinds of irrational behavior while this trope does not.

I think it should be broadened to include Rorschach-type figures. True, it is partially covered by Anti-Hero, and it covers certain types of Anti-Hero, but it's not quite the same thing.

@Clarste: Well, true. I don't know, then.

@Eternal September: Can you explain why, exactly, Rorschach should be this trope instead of a very dark Anti-Hero? There's nothing comedic about him (the trope's original meaning, or so I was lead to believe), and he's actually a deconstruction of the typical anti-hero, anyway. I'm not so sure if serious, meaningful deconstructions of anti-heroes are so common that they should be combined with the over-the-top parody of them that this trope is. I am, however, very sure that Sam And Max have very little in common with Rorschach both in portrayal and personality. I mean, generally, Rorschach is fighting for what he believes is good through extreme ways, and his motivation is, actually, justice. Twisted justice, but justice. Sam And Max, however, aren't so dogmatic about good and evil and, while they still fall under Anti-Hero, the trope isn't deconstructed to where their actions often have serious, negative repercussions on the world they live in.

In other words, where Rorschach can cross the line and make the reader lose all respect for him, Heroic Sociopaths never cross it less than twice.

edited 30th Jan '11 1:35:47 AM by GentlemanCambrioleur

Chiming in late, I'm actually the guilty party who created this, although it's changed a lot since I wrote the initial entry. It actually predates YKTTW — this was in the days when there were so few tropers that it was considered okay to just create a trope and Wiki Magic would either improve (or delete) such entries. And unfortunately, it shows — I'm not sure if it would pass YKTTW by today's standards.

I created it at the same time as Badass, and it was originally intended as "the Badass character who is such a nasty Karma Houdini that they're a villain in all but name, but we're supposed to root for them on the heroes' side, and we're able to do it because they're played for laughs." (If they were played seriously, they'd be a disgusting mix of God-Mode Sue and Jerkass Stu, although those trope names didn't exist yet...neither did Token Evil Teammate.)

The original inspirations were cartoon characters like Brock Sampson from The Venture Brothers, Gaz from Invader Zim, and Mandy from The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy. Shortly after, someone else added Dogbert, and (when I saw Drake And Josh for the first time) I added Megan from that show.

When I created it, I had never seen a webcomic, but people who had quickly added Bun-Bun, Black Mage, and Belkar Bitterleaf, and these three soon became the "standard" examples used to show what the trope was about (and their style is exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote the initial entry).

Of course, once troper mass became big enough that it was no longer possible for tropers to self-police (and YKTTW had to be invented), Trope Decay set in. It went through a period of being "your favorite character here" (Magnificent Bastard had the same decay at the exact same time), until the Troper hive-mind dealt with the problem by ruthlessly pruning the entries and rewriting the intro. (My initial naming choice was probably not the best, and attracted a lot of the bloat; it was kept by reason of Grandfather Clause — people were too used to it.)

Tl;dr: the reason the current entry is so strict about being comic examples only is that when serious examples were allowed, it turned the entry into a bloated, Gushing About Shows You Like mess.

edited 30th Jan '11 10:43:37 AM by Tzintzuntzan