I see the Awesomeness.
Suggest cutting RL section as with all "evilness" tropes. Add a line about What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous? in the description. Might need a good scrubbing.
Fight smart, not fair.
Gentleman Troper!
I Thought It Meant when the villain's acts aren't actually evil, but the writing calls them out as such anyway - a way of Informed Evilness, really.
If my assumption here is incorrect (and it seems to be) then I suggest that the page image needs changing - stealing pastry does not really fit the definition of "heinous".
Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!
^ Lex Luthor is stealing 40 pies. Saying that much is enough to already suggest that Luthor is doing something villainous (in this case, stealing) before outright calling it a terrible action. The image on the page is perfectly fine.
edited 5th Jun '11 4:54:08 PM by SeanMurrayI
Gentleman Troper!
Stealing is chaotic, not evil 
Seriously though, if the definition has to start with "the bad guy's acts are unquestionably evil", then that sounds like it refers to Rape The Dog moments, not to petty theft.
Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!
Drop-Dead Cynical
I always took the "unquestionably" in that sentence to mean, "You shouldn't have to be told that what this person is doing is a Bad Thing" - not necessarily a Moral Event Horizon, but still not very nice. (Lying and stealing, for instance.) And That's Terrible happens when a character or the narration tells you anyway.
I'm not trying to argue for the validity of the page image, or lack thereof. That's just what I thought the sentence meant.
Lost in Space
I'd suggest broadening this a bit to incorporate uses of the stock phrase; otherwise people will just shoehorn them in regardless of applicability. However, I think the point of the trope is someone pointing out the badness of a thing no matter how bad that thing is.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
^ Looking over the wicks, I do feel it's worth noting that I haven't found any of the current wicks for And That's Terrible that are using it as a stock phrase found in fiction and media.
All the questionable wicks I've found tend to involve either (1) "pointing out the badness of a thing" where "badness" was interpreted by an editor to mean "unfortunate events" or "undesirability," instead of "evil" or "amorality," or (2) Word Cruft.
edited 8th Jun '11 7:47:27 AM by SeanMurrayI
Lost in Space
Well, what about the Portal 2 example that was removed
? That's a very deliberate use of the phrase, in a work even, and yet it was cut for "not being an example".
edited 8th Jun '11 7:39:00 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Well, it was removed. That explains why I didn't find it.
And if the phrase wasn't highlighting the inherent evil in a given action, then it would probably fall under one of the two forms of misuse I already pointed out, anyway.
Drop-Dead Cynical
It falls under the former.
Lost in Space
Except it's not an editor interpreting a thing as badness, it's an actual phrase spoken in the game. No interpretation here. GLaDOS clearly intends the player to believe that she was adopted, and adoption is bad. It's Informed Wrongness of a comedic nature, when the thing actually isn't wrong but the character pretends that it is.
In short, if And That's Terrible is not able to accept examples of someone actually saying those exact words, then it's going to be severely misused no matter what we do.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Well, naturally, the current name is likely a source of a lot of the page's problems at present; And That's Terrible has nothing to do with any particular set of words at all, and a name for the concept on this page itself both could be and should be a lot more clear.
However, the mere presence of those three words and any variations of it (including, "that's bad," "that's not good," "that is horrible," etc.) isn't much of a trope on its own, anyway. It would be akin to troping occurrences and variations of a phrase such as I Like This or I Like That in fiction an media. It's far too meaningless and insignificant to trope.
edited 8th Jun '11 8:53:19 AM by SeanMurrayI
Lost in Space
By that logic, most Stock Phrases shouldn't be tropes. They are tropes, precisely because they're a recurring pattern. We have ...And That Would Be Wrong, after all.
edited 8th Jun '11 9:03:41 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
By that logic, People Sitting On Chairs is a valid trope just for being a "recurring pattern".
Stock Phrases are not just oft repeated phrases; they generally show up in specific situations or carry very specific meanings within the narrative language or consequences when they are spoken. Having a character simply describing something as "terrible" or "bad" for any reason does not mean he is using a Stock Phrase.
...And That Would Be Wrong isn't just occurrences of those words being spoken, it comes specifically after another character makes a dubious suggestion for a plan of action. Hence, it is unique. Making And That's Terrible about any instances of characters calling anything "terrible" or "bad" is not unique.
edited 8th Jun '11 9:13:16 AM by SeanMurrayI
Lost in Space
It is, if it means something to the story. Anyway, I claim there is a valid tropable pattern to uses of And That's Terrible as a stock phrase implying Informed Wrongness. Anyone else have an opinion?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Such as...
Lost in Space
Read my second sentence above.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I did read it, and it doesn't answer my question.
How can a character calling something "terrible" or "bad" for any general reason "mean something to a story"? Can you give examples?
The Portal 2 "example" you cited earlier couldn't even properly be called Informed Wrongness, and this was exactly the kind of thing you were pushing for And That's Terrible to cover.
The current Trope Namer for And That's Terrible can't even be called Informed Wrongness, either, because it's already established that Lex Luthor is doing something that's clearly wrong and amoral (stealing) before we're told that this is terrible.
edited 8th Jun '11 10:10:38 AM by SeanMurrayI
Lost in Space
Hmm, well, unless someone else chimes in one way or the other, I don't feel that it's worth arguing, so I'll accept your interpretation. That still leaves removal of examples (and wicks!) that are not actually examples of the trope.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I can't figure out how it doesn't add something to the story. It tells you where the character's moral stances are and how they view the events unfolding around them.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
^ Neither would apply to the afformentioned Portal 2 "example", which has nothing to do with conveying a character's moral stance or describing events unfolding around the character. Nor would the current Trope Namer fit, which is not an opinion expressed by a character.
More importantly, though, I think we should consider putting this one up for rename. As I said earlier, whatever this particular page is supposed to be about, the title And That's Terrible doesn't do the best job at conveying it.
edited 8th Jun '11 11:33:47 AM by SeanMurrayI
The current Trope Namer conveys the morals of the book's narrator. The narrator is condemning the pie stealing and thus attempting to instil their own morality into the audience.
The Portal example shows Galdos' moral stance by her careless disregard for the feeling of others and her desire to crush people by calling their origins disreputable.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
These are two separate things. In one example, you're highlighting the use of the word "terrible" to convey a belief that a specific action is amoral. In the second, it's a Jerkass using the word "terrible" to insult another character, in keeping with the character's established Jerkass behavior.
edited 8th Jun '11 11:46:18 AM by SeanMurrayI
He is insulting the other character with morality though. Both acts are calling out the fact that "this is morally wrong and you should be ashamed because of it."
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
The way And That's Terrible is being used doesn't always match its description. The description is extremely narrow: "When the bad guy's acts are unquestionably evil, but the show's writers feel the need to have characters say this out loud. Frequently a sign of a Designated Villain."
The examples (particularly further down the page, for some reason) cover a huge range beyond that. Pretty much any time anyone calls anything terrible, it seems to go in there. Random examples of people calling things terrible, too (I just removed one example from Portal 2, where a sorta-villain calls a hero terrible for being an orphan — doesn't exactly fit the trope.) It seems to get confused for What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous? a lot, too. The real life section is hit worst.
Also, is the trope namer really the best example? While I guess, yeah, it's emphasizing the fact that stealing cakes is bad, that's not really what the image is famous for — this is Lex Luthor stealing cakes, so it really feels more like What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous? instead. The name itself doesn't seem terrible, but perhaps its origin could be de-emphasized.
Not sure what the best way to deal with this is, just pointing it out.