The "Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?" wick hunt

Per this thread, Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? has been retooled.

As now defined, Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? is an example-less supertrope encompassing:

• Bond Villain Stupidity: The villain could kill the hero but chooses not to.
• Complexity Addiction: The villain does try to kill the hero, but does so in an overly elaborate and thus easily-foiled manner.
• Stating the Simple Solution: A Lampshade Hanging where someone else wonders why the villain isn't taking the direct approach. (This is the definition that Why Don't You Just Shoot Him used to be attached to.)

This means I now have the unenviable task of going through the 1900+ wicks for Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? and changing them to point at the appropriate subtrope. (Because even before the trope was retooled, tropers were using it synonymously for Bond Villain Stupidity, Complexity Addiction, and just about any other What An Idiot situation.)

{Madrugada's note: I'm transplanting the full list up to this post so that it's handy:}

When people write, "Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?", the actual trope they're trying to get across can include any of the following:

• Bond Villain Stupidity
• Complexity Addiction
• Stating the Simple Solution
• Villain Ball
• Idiot Ball
• Mundane Solution
• Combat Pragmatist
• Evil Gloating
• Doesn't Like Guns
• I Want Them Alive!
• Let's Fight Like Gentlemen
• Get It Over With
• Mercy Kill
• Shut Up, Hannibal!
• Immune to Bullets
• Curb-Stomp Battle
• You Can't Thwart Stage One
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?
• Cruel and Unusual Death
• Boom, Headshot!
• Left for Dead
• Take That, Scrappy!
• Joker Immunity
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself

Here are the wicks. Any help you can offer in changing them would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: I'm also finding wicks to this trope where Mundane Solution or Evil Gloating would be more appropriate.

Current total wicks:

778 for Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?

Cleaned so far:

Punctuated Titles:

• A-O
• R-Z

Unpunctuated Titles:

• A & B
• C as far as Condemned

350 for Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him?

Unpunctuated Titles:

• A
• X-Z

{Note 1: 708 wicks left on the main name as of 4:45 Friday, November 18. Progress is being made.}

edited 21st Nov '11 1:24:21 PM by Madrugada

Shit, that's a lot of wiks. I'll do the ptitles.

Okay, already got a problem, what if the hero is the one who does it?

edited 8th Jul '11 9:27:58 PM by Deboss

Stating the Simple Solution also applies to people telling the hero to just shoot a troublesome villain. No-Nonsense Nemesis also seems to apply to heroes.

Arthur is the hero.

Fargo is the hero. I think.

Would Idiot Ball be better?

edited 8th Jul '11 9:57:04 PM by Deboss

Yep.

I'm finding a bunch of pages with multiple wicks.

If it's on a trope, it's likely to come up twice, simply because they overlap in some instances.

I've gone through the wicks to Just Shoot Him and both the ptitle redirects. I need to take a break now.

I've got work in a few hours, so I'm going to sleep and I'll take another crack at it tomorrow. It would have been much smarter to start this on Monday morning than Friday night.

A question: where do wicks where the character in question actually does shoot their enemy go? Aversions of Bond Villain Stupidity?

I believe that's a Combat Pragmatist, or Pragmatic Villainy if it's a Villian.

Yes, exactly. If they say it's something a character does consistently, then it can also be No-Nonsense Nemesis.

Thanks. I've added that example back under Combat Pragmatist.

Ugh. Someone used it as a synonym for I Want Them Alive!.

I Want Them Alive! needs a rename. It's dialog. Hence the problems.

I've been using Combat Pragmatist.

^^I want them alive isn't the problem here. Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? is the problem. Which is why it got renamed.

edited 9th Jul '11 8:24:32 PM by MetaFour

Alright, for my own amusement I'm keeping a list of different misuses. When people write, "Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?", the actual trope they're trying to get across can include any of the following:

• Bond Villain Stupidity
• Complexity Addiction
• Stating the Simple Solution
• Villain Ball
• Idiot Ball
• Mundane Solution
• Combat Pragmatist
• Evil Gloating
• Doesn't Like Guns
• I Want Them Alive!
• Let's Fight Like Gentlemen
• Get It Over With
• Mercy Kill
• Shut Up, Hannibal!
• Immune to Bullets
• Curb-Stomp Battle
• You Can't Thwart Stage One
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?
• Cruel and Unusual Death
• Boom, Headshot!
• Left for Dead
• Take That, Scrappy!
• Joker Immunity
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself

I'm not going to say that Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? was the worst names for a trope, ever, but it's definitely in the top five.

edited 13th Jul '11 5:46:25 PM by MetaFour

Idiot Ball as well, if it was the hero doing it.

Alright, I tackled another chunk tonight.

Axed a few.

And people are already readding them. I wonder how we can stop it effectively.

@Fighteer: Maybe put something in the Wiki Headlines?

@18: also Leave Him to Me!

How about we make this into a proper index? Or alternatively, create another page for the index, and leave this for lampshadings as per the page image.

Bumping this thread to make it the next Maddie-led wick Hunt. I'll be editing the OP to bring us up to date, but considering how long the thread has been moribund, I suspect that simply starting at the top of the wick lists is probably going to be the best way to go.