Badass tropes - now on: Action Girl

Didn't think of that before... you're right. Action Survivor s are often badasses, but they aren't always this. Therefore, they don't belong in this index.

It just felt like The Everyman thrown in a situation that kills off mooks, and that making them badass. If a character is an everyman and rises to the occasion, they're not an Action Survivor, that sounds more like a Badass In The Rough type of situation. My experience with Action Survivor is that they're still an everyman at the end of the story, they've just been through a traumatic experience.

I fear that we may need to go back to the very foundation of this set of tropes: What exactly do we mean by "badass"?

I think that there are at least three definitions being used:

• Kicks ass physically at the drop of a hat
• "Awesome" (I have grown to hate that word. It's become so broadly applied as to be meaningless.) or "cool" (And ditto for that one.)
• Someone who is not to be messed with or taken lightly, even though they don't go around being threatening or imposing all the time.

I've always been bothered by the vagueness of what a badass is as well. The page implies it's a character who runs off Rule of Cool but that isn't exactly how it's used here. Usually it's used as 'someone who kicks-ass in some particular field, be it literal ass-kicking or being a really good doctor or driver or scientist, etc."

Badass is even looser defined than that. Honestly, the common factor seems to be 'This person is present in a fight and I like them.'

Badass was originally described to me as "The guy who can handle a fight." Usually that means he's a good fighter, but there are some exceptions. For example, Lelouch of Code Geass is a Squishy Wizard, but he doesn't blink in the face of gunfire.

Should we open that whole mess up of what exactly badass means, or put that on the back burner for now?

I would argue Lelouch is not a badass because he's more of a chessmaster than that. If he's on the battlefield, he has probably messed up somehow. I think two things a badass needs are confidence and competence.

edited 8th Jan '12 3:58:34 PM by Arha

I'm personally willing to restrict it to the ability to handle themselves in a fight, as that's among the most common trait I can see.

I'd say put it on the backburner.

Anyway, do we at least have consensus on Action Hero, Agent Peacock, and Adaptational Badass?

This isn't the same trope as Ambadassador, though.

Action Hero, yes, Agent Peacock, yes, Adaptational Badass, Possible rename.

Right. Do we all agree on this?

^^^ Yeah. When going forward, anything we don't agree on should get put onto a second list rather than us sitting around and arguing about it. We can deal with them later.

Yup, making the move.

Edit: Maddie, can you do the thing where you force this into TRS, attach it to the page, and then move it back so we have a clickable link at the top?

edited 8th Jan '12 4:50:58 PM by Deboss

Tropes moved. Action Hero, Ageant Peacock and Adaptational Badass all move to the "leave alone" section. Other two moved to a "look at again section".

Next batch:

• Almighty Janitor: He may have the lowest rank but can kick more ass than his superiors. (remove, this doesn't belong here)
• Ass-Kicking Pose: Awesome and sometimes flashy, by the way did we mention that you're probably about to get your ass kicked afterwards. (keep as is, it's a pose designed to show how badass a character is)
  • Badass Arm-Fold: A particularly badass pose. (subtrope of above)
• Awesome Aussie: The coolest thing to come from down under. (standard stereotype for an Australian badass, or at least it should be)
• Badass Adorable: Okay, they're cute. Don't think they can't turn you into a pool of your blood. (contrast)

I'd question whether Ass-Kicking Pose and Badass Arm-Fold should really be considered Badass tropes as such. I kind of want to limited the tropes listed under Badass to actual subtropes.

Agree on the rest.

Almighty Janitor is not a badass trope. Aussie and Adorable tropes both fit by being a common character type and a specific contrast.

The poses would probably go on the same kind of index that Badass Longcoat would: Something that is not a person but is used to indicate that someone is a badass.

edited 8th Jan '12 5:01:31 PM by Arha

That's just a result of Badass being used as both a noun and an adjective. In most cases, the tropes will be a "this trait/prop shows this character is the badass". For instance, a Batman Cold Open or something where the very first thing we see a character do is destroy a corkwood of mooks.

So are you suggesting that Batman Cold Open be added to the Badass tropes, then?

Whoops, I was thinking of Action Prologue, my bad.

Action Prologue, then. The point is, I feel like all these Establishing Badassery tropes should be treated the same - so if things like Ass-Kicking Pose belong on this list, so too does Action Prologue.

We could launch it as a subindex?

I like the idea of a subindex for Badass Establishing Markers or whatever we want to call it. I've been fighting a holding action on Badass Longcoat for over a year now, and I'm still regularly cleaning out new examples that are all about what a Badass the character is, and then conclude with "He has one." That should be where Ass-Kicking Pose and Badass Armfold should go.

Otherwise: Almighty Janitor is not a badass trope. He has clout within whatever organization is involved, but that doesn't make him a badass.

Awesome Aussie and Badass Adorable can stay, but both need to be clarified that they're character types that are badass in a particular way, not simply Badasss and "from Australia" or Badass and "adorable in some way".

And we should have a clickable link and a page tag now.

edited 8th Jan '12 7:00:04 PM by Madrugada

So, all in favor of creating a "Badass Indicators" index?

I like someone's suggestion that all the props indicating a badass be turned into X Of Badass rather than Badass X.

Agree that Almighty Janitor doesn't belong on the list. Ass-Kicking Pose and Badass Arm-Fold are proper tropes but should be in a subindex or soft split from the characters. Agree Awesome Aussie is a specific character type that is obligated to be badass and Badass Adorable is a subversion tropes. I'm iffy on their current names, but I won't push for a rename on them unless someone else has similar feelings about them.

edited 8th Jan '12 6:43:41 PM by NoirGrimoir

Yah.