Expand definition?: Broken Pedestal

See discussion between me an The Dead Mans Life starting here. The article itself focuses strictly on mentors, even though it's used for anyone the person idolizes. And honestly, the character has the same or similar reactions in both cases. We don't need 2 tropes for "hero's idol turns out to be an asshole" and "hero's mentor turns out to be an asshole." especially considering that the first usually encompasses the second anyway.

...I admit I thought the trope was about "Hero looks up to and idolizes someone, only to find out that person isn't as good as they thought." I don't really see the difference between "mentor" and "idol/personal role model" either, in terms of the end result.

I tend to agree that the distinction between "Hero's idol" and "Hero's mentor" tends to be really fuzzy in practice. And the phrase that gave birth to the trope name (putting someone on a pedestal" isn't restricted to mentors; it can be used for anyone that the person looks up to.

I'm also questioning whether limiting Broken Pedestal to mentors rather than role models or idols doesn't run it into a lot of collisions with Treacherous Advisor.

Thank you for informing me of the TRS thread.

We have a trope about people the hero idolizes who turn out not to be perfect. Warts and All. What Broken Pedestal also has is that the Hero already knows the Mentor in question.

An Idol is just someone the hero looks up to and they don't know each other in anyway. A mentor is someone you spend a significant amount of time with, who you take lessons from, and who shapes your life.

None of this has to do with the dispute in the other thread, but eh.

Warts and All is not about a person going from hero to shattered perceptions. It's about a hero they meet turning out not perfect. They can still be idolized, they can still be heroic, but they're not just this pure shining beacon of justice. They're a person. It's showing someone that their idol is a three dimensional character. Not shattering their view of that person.

edited 12th Sep '11 10:20:35 AM by shimaspawn

Plus, depending on how much the hero idolizes their, er, idol, that can also shape their life. They may choose their training path, their career, their dreams all based on their worship of their idol. So it ends up with similar effects as a mentor would, just with the idolized person having less direct contact with the hero.

edited 12th Sep '11 10:43:54 AM by Jeysie

Warts and All is also about accepting that your idol/mentor has flaws, while Broken Pedestal is about the idol/mentor being so flawed that you don't like them anymore.

edited 12th Sep '11 2:05:09 PM by SalFishFin

Actually I take that back, Warts and All is about the flaws of a great man(woman, thing?) that aren't known to people. Broken Pedestal is when the person you look up too turns out to be the scum of the Earth. They either changed or they were always like that and you didn't know better.

Is that hard to grasp? Okay let me put it like this.

If the man who wrote the book that inspired you to become a peace maker and teach the values of love, respect and cooperation turns out to be a Jerkass who you can't have a pleasant conversation with to save your life but you can still agree that relief work is a good thing then that's Warts and All.

If the guy who wrote that inspirational book turns out to be a murderous warlord who just claimed someone else's work as his own to make more money to buy firearms, that's Broken Pedestal. Different tropes.

edited 25th Oct '11 8:37:06 AM by Cider

Makes sense to me, and very clear. However, there have still be good points raised about the blurred line between 'mentor' and 'idol'. To continue your example,

1.We have the book writer and the book reader spending time together over years. The writer teaches the reader about his book and points him toward opportunities to do relief work and helps him do the work. Then the reader finds about shadier activities of his mentor.

That's the 'knowing and sustained contact' of the mentor part

2. The book reader and book writer never met before the story. The book reader has read the book 55 times. He sleeps with it by his bedside. He recites it when feeling down. Then, years later, he mets the book writer who turns out to be less than he imagined.

Here the Book writer is an idol, never a mentor, but still fills the same role. A less personal relationship, but the reader would still be shocked and disgusted.

The problem is that these are pre-existing terms.

Warts and All means accepting that a person has flaws.

Broken Pedestal means someone that you used to admire, but now that you've learned his flaws, you can no longer admire him.

If we are going to use these terms we need to match common usage.

edited 9th Oct '11 8:55:47 AM by Sackett

And the tropes already match the common usage in theory. In practice, people are confusing one for the other.

edited 9th Oct '11 12:24:18 PM by SalFishFin

Support lumping. The difference between "idol" and "mentor" here doesn't make any difference in how the trope plays out.

That's not the difference between the tropes though.

I meant that I support lumping "idol turns out to be an evil jerk" and "mentor turns out to be an evil jerk" under Broken Pedestal, not that I support lumping Broken Pedestal with Warts and All.

That's the lumping I'd support. There's no real difference in how it's handled or what the effect on the story is, whether the person who falls off the pedestal is a mentor or an idol or a role model of some other stripe.

Oh, yeah. That's fine. That's incidental to the core tropes anyway.

I'm not sure if they're the same thing. With a fallen idol, they're much more likely to be a Jerkass or some such. Fallen mentors tend to have gone fully evil, not to mention that you don't usually get the "you taught me that" bit in idol situations. Just something to think about.

Made a crowner here.

Wow, Warts and All needs some good redirects at the very least.

So let me get this straight, what I'm seeing is:

• Warts and All: You find out someone you admire isn't perfect, they have some bad habits or annoying traits, etc. Usually ends well, the admirer comes to accept them as people and continue to admire them, or continues to admire what they've done but acknowledges their bad traits.
• Broken Pedestal: You find out someone you admire isn't worth admiring at all, they've done something terrible that negates their admirable qualities, or perhaps their admirable qualities were a lie to begin with. Usually ends badly, the admirer feels betrayed and can't forgive their horrible actions, although occasionally the mentor has a chance to redeem himself.

If this is the case, I think they're both separate but they definitely need new descriptions and Honestly I think at least Warts and All needs renamed. The name Warts and All doesn't indicate it's about mentors/idols, it's non descriptive. The phrase "Warts And All" refers to accepting anyone not just mentors/idols.

edited 13th Jan '12 8:34:51 PM by NoirGrimoir

The crowner seems to have stabilized; time to call it?

Called it. It's been long enough and there's no dissent. Make it so.

I tweaked the definition a bit so that it includes idols additionally to mentors, but I am not sure if it isn't too close to Warts and All - source.