A different defintion seems widespread: Hannibal Lecture

"A captured or cornered villain psychologically deconstructs the hero."

This trope doesn't seem to be about what it's supposed to be about. It seems who has the advantage has no bearing on it in many people's minds. And anyway, if it's really only about someone in a disadvantaged position deconstructing the other guy, then some interesting mind-rapey speeches now dumped here are left without a trope. (If it's not a prisoner doing the talking, it's not this, and if it's not deconstructing the other party specifically, it's not even "The Reason You Suck" Speech.) What a lot of people seem to have in mind about this is any speech that is at least an attempt to break someone down psychologically. It's used that way in lots of places, to pick a random example in The Tropeless Tale.

I can't evaluate all the examples on the trope page, but looking at them from the beginning, most do not say the one doing the talking was captured or cornered, and some make it explicit they weren't. Here's a quick list from the start listing whether it was mentioned they were captured or cornered:

X1999 - no Monster - no Berserk - yes Slayers NEXT - no? Chrono Crusade - no Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha - no Gundam Wing Endless Waltz - no Gundam SEED - yes Kemonozume - yes Fullmetal Alchemist - yes/maybe/no/no/no/no Drago N Ball Z - no Rurouni Kenshin - no Mahou Sensei Negima - no One Piece - no Bleach - no/? Chars Counterattack - no Hokuto No Ken - no Durarara - no Watchmen - yes

I don't know most of these, so I don't know that all the ones that left it vague actually fit the trope, but I have a suspicion most didn't.

Personally I would prefer it if Hannibal Lecture was just redefined as "a speech at least intended to break someone down" (and "The Reason You Suck" Speech as aimed at expressing your opinion about the other party, obviously with some small unavoidable overlap), but at any rate there is something of an issue there.

(Sorry my writing seems to be a bit messy and poorly organised, I can't seem to focus on this much right now.)

edited 20th Jun '11 6:08:37 AM by VVK

Wait, you mean this trope isn't about teaching somebody how to have a bunch of elephants cross the Alps?

I've said it in Repair Shop threads for Shut Up, Hannibal!. I've said it in Repair Shop threads for "The Reason You Suck" Speech. I'll say it again here.

The Hannibal Lecture is supposed to be a monologue delivered by a villain when placed in a situation that appears to give the good guys an advantage (i.e. catching the bad guy, having him in police custody, etc.). The monologue's purpose is to demoralize the good guys who are otherwise in a position to believe that they have won or are about to win.

I know what it's supposed to be about. The suggestion was that we change what it's supposed to be about, because there seems to be more demand for the other definition, which isn't covered wholly by anything else either.

Another random example I happened to come across: Look at how it's used in defining Warrior Therapist. That would be just fine if it was defined to mean what it there is assumed to mean. As far as I can see, this trope is barely correctly referenced anywhere at all, but constantly used as if it meant what I suggest it be made to mean.

edited 1st Sep '11 5:48:48 AM by VVK

I generally consider widespread misuse to be an indication that something is wrong with a trope. In this case, we seem to have an arbitrary restriction that serves no real purpose I can see, except that it matches the trope namer. And confuses people. I definitely support broadening the definition to remove the pointless restriction. Whether the current definition is a valid trope or The Same But More Specific, I'm not sure, but I'm inclined to suspect the latter. If that's not the case, it is at least a subtrope. Thus, broadening the current definition of Hannibal Lecture will make it match what most people seem to believe it means, and eliminate misuse because all current correct examples will still be correct. Someone who thinks the restriction makes a valid subtrope can take it to YKTTW if they really want.

Hm...

edited 1st Sep '11 3:53:55 PM by Spark9

I agree, but this is an old issue with vocal rhetoric on both sides that will probably need a page action crowner to settle.

If we're still seeing rampant misuse after a previous cleanup, I think that only reinforces the idea that the trope is too narrowly defined for most people, despite what a vocal minority on TRS might think. I'm perfectly fine with a crowner, but I suspect the case for broadening is stronger than ever now.

Well, I'm all for that, but I don't really know how it all works yet, so if anyone else wants to go ahead and do whatever exactly comes next...

What exactly are we picturing when we talk about broadening this page?

I only ask because we have other tropes that already cover other aspects of villains "monologuing" (or "lecturing", as it were), including "The Reason You Suck" Speech and Evil Gloating / Monologuing and others. When Hannibal Lecture is misused, the misuse is often suitable for another trope, and expanding this trope can lead to some nasty overlap with these other existing tropes.

Personally, I'd be willing to consider renaming Hannibal Lecture and giving that trope a clearer title. Unless a proposed broadened definition doesn't encroach upon the domain of any other tropes in this field, I think we could come up with a better solution.

edited 19th Sep '11 6:51:35 AM by SeanMurrayI

Evil Gloating / Monologuing is about the villain, this is about the hero.

"The Reason You Suck" Speech has itself been to TRS in the past, if I recall, with at least one person arguing that it either was or should be restricted to heroes delivering it.

Yet both Evil Gloating / Monologuing and Hannibal Lecture involve speeches being delivered by the villain. And a Monologuing rant could be as much about the hero as it could be about the villain, so this wouldn't be much of a distinction, anyway. "The Reason You Suck" Speech, after all, is a subtrope of Evil Gloating / Monologuing, and when being delivered by the villain, such a speech would certainly never be about the villain, too.

edited 19th Sep '11 7:39:43 AM by SeanMurrayI

The definition as described does seem a bit narrow in making the trope only apply to interrogation situations. The bigger problem, though, is probably that the first paragraph seems to describe the trope as one thing ... and then, in the next paragraph, the description basically turns But Thats Not This Thing and goes on to describe the actual intended trope. Or so it seems, until we get to the third paragraph, which states that it's not enough to have the villain turn the table on the hero (which the first two paragraphs would have had you believe) — it's not this trope until the villain has gone into a full-blown lecture. So the description is a mess, frankly, and that may have contributed to the misuse.

Still, with all the misuse, this may have to be redefined. If it is, I'm considering taking the "cornered person, usually a villain, turns the table on their adversaries by psychologically deconstructing them" trope to YKTTW, though. I have a feeling it's common enough in works with Serial Killers to be a subtrope.

That concept is what I thought a Hannibal Lecture was supposed to represent at present time. This path would be closer to reaffirming the already intended definition, not redefining it, wouldn't it?

As you also pointed out, however, the page description is a complete mess. That's probably the biggest problem with this trope, by far. So many paragraphs are incredibly misleading and completely useless that the description may as well be completely rewritten.

edited 19th Sep '11 9:15:38 AM by SeanMurrayI

Lots of people in this thread are talking about redefining the trope to the current usage. Actually, I'd love to keep the intended definition (as you seem to suggest), not least because the name fits it so well, and create a supertrope for the misuse version. I'm just not sure it would be practical, considering we have a ton of incorrect wicks and bad examples on the page.

I agree about the page description, by the way. I'd suggest starting a sandbox at once, but I guess we have to figure out what should be described first ...

edited 19th Sep '11 9:29:07 AM by Antheia

But are we sure that the incorrectly attributed examples wouldn't fit in any tropes that are closely related to Hannibal Lecture (Evil Gloating / Monologuing, "The Reason You Suck" Speech, etc.)? Would broadening this trope's definition create too much overlap or redundancy with other tropes?

If we go about preserving the intended definition though, I certainly wouldn't rule out renaming this. Hannibal Lecture may be a fitting name, but it's not a very indicative one. Punny trope titles are fun and all, but when they get misused, it's generally a sign that a more straight-forward name might be more suitable.

What I was saying in the first post was that the definition that seems to be used in practice and that isn't entirely covered by other tropes is a speech that at least attempts to break down the hearer. (Break down as in make shaken, desperate, furious, or to turn evil, or maybe something else too, by hitting home hard somehow.) This has obvious overlap with "The Reason You Suck" Speech, but neither covers the other. First, not all "Hannibal Lectures" by the new definition I'm proposing are actually about how the other character sucks. (For example, in The Dark Knight, the Joker talks to Harvey Dent about how the world works.) Secondly, TRYSS could just be someone blowing off steam or something with no actual attempt to crush the other guy. I don't see any other trope covering this proposed meaning, either, even though it may frequently overlap with others too. And if I wanted to convey just this meaning, I could just say "Hannibal Lecture" already and most people would probably understand it that way.

edited 19th Sep '11 1:15:39 PM by VVK

So we're really missing a supertrope, then. I think a page action crowner (the kind with multiple propositions) might be useful for deciding what to do with this page: Create the missing supertrope and/or rewrite the definition of Hannibal Lecture and/or redefine Hannibal Lecture (and to what)?

I figured Evil Gloating / Monologuing was already Hannibal Lecture's supertrope. If any new trope comes of this, it would likely be a new subtrope of that.

edited 19th Sep '11 6:24:07 PM by SeanMurrayI

Most likely, it would be a Sister Trope to Evil Gloating and a supertrope of Hannibal Lecture.

Going by VVK's description of "a speech that at least attempts to break down the hearer" and his mention of a speech from The Dark Knight as an example, I get the impression of this new concept being the kind of speech a Nietzsche Wannabe would give to explain/justify their worldview/actions*

If that sounds right, then that should be called a Subtrope of Evil Gloating / Monologuing and a Sister Trope to Hannibal Lecture (and the rest of Evil Gloating's / Monologuing's subtropes).

No, that's not why The Dark Knight example is an example. It's an example because of the effect it has (intentionally) on Harvey Dent, and also because it has that effect by saying things he can't deny even though they go against his former world view. A more typical example would probably be a kind of "The Reason You Suck" Speech; I only mentioned this as an example of something that isn't one of those as well to show that's possible.

This isn't always Evil Gloating, at least for the reason that it doesn't even have to be spoken by the evil character, though the Mind Rape like quality probably makes that much more likely. (That's another good approximation; it's something like Mind Rape done by just talking, although not necessarily extreme enough to quite count for Mind Rape. Surprise, surprise, that trope already links to Hannibal Lecture in a way that doesn't work by the current definition.) It would be possible in principle, say, for a good character to point out how wrong an evil character is and break them by bringing about a My God, What Have I Done?. That could still be this trope if it were done enough like an attack.

The "psychologically deconstructs" part in the current laconic description comes pretty close to this, with only the difference being that the spoken deconstruction doesn't have to be aimed at the character's personality directly, which is what I was showing with the Dark Knight example.

edited 20th Sep '11 2:18:06 AM by VVK

Well, the sole example given from The Dark Knight touches on Evil Gloating / Monologuing *

Are there further examples you can provide that don't touch on that theme?

Joker's monologue to Dent doesn't have any characteristics of a Mind Rape at all—not even some mild, non-extreme variant that is related to it but not quite the trope, either.

Except the monologue in The Dark Knight you keep talking about isn't a psychological deconstruction at all. At best, it could be described as an explanation of Joker's philosophy and why his worldview is better (or preferable).

edited 20th Sep '11 8:56:00 AM by SeanMurrayI

That's because, if I understand the trope well enough, that wasn't actually a Hannibal Lecture. It was manipulative, yes, and it was deconstructing the other heroes, but it wasn't doing so to Harvey, nor was it meant to break Harvey down. The time where The Joker tells the cop guarding him in the cell how he killed all of his friends is much closer to an example, and whenever he talks to Batman, it's meant to be this.

edited 20th Sep '11 7:11:39 AM by tropetown

There was no deconstruction of anything in that scene—only Joker explaining and affirming his worldview and philosophy.

This wouldn't already be fully covered by Would You Like to Hear How They Died??

I described this a few posts back as a "Nietzsche Wannabe explaining/justifying their worldview/actions", which I do think is good enough for its own trope (if it isn't already), but whatever VVK is trying to formulate here, he said it's not that.

edited 20th Sep '11 8:57:14 AM by SeanMurrayI