Misused: Arc Villain

The thing is that they are different though. The villain of one arc is not the same as the villain of the entire franchise.

The trope is just too broad as it is. Plus, the thing about the Big Bad possibly being a situational thing indicates that trope is just supposed to be 'the conflict of the story' which doesn't really make much sense. Why is that even there?

edited 3rd May '13 8:14:08 PM by Arha

Well gee, do you guys really want to redefine a Trope Of Legend and clean up Over Nine Thousand wicks about it?

edited 4th May '13 8:35:35 AM by Spark9

I agree with Spark 9. This hasn't really convinced me that we need to go through such a cleanup route.

I find it funny how much of an understatement "1000+ wicks" is.

I'm not convinced it's misused or needs any redefinition at all. Cleaning, sure, but nothing that require TRS attention.

It would be silly to redefine Big Bad as requiring Joker Immunity or to suggest that a Big Bad in a story suddenly stops being the Big Bad if a sequel is made that doesn't feature him.

Arc Villain is just a Big Bad with no Joker Immunity.

^^ Yeah, Spark, it looks like you forgot a zero.

Fixed

By adding a meme *frowns*

Anyhow, I see a swing towards not doing anything with Big Bad and instead looking towards Arc Villain. I move to change this topic to be about Arc Villain instead of Big Bad.

I concur.

Time to do some Arc Welding?

I'm not going to oppose that shift, but I do want to plant the thought in everyone's mind, is Big Bad so wildly popular for the right reasons?

The way it's currently used includes the way it's used in that series, but it seems to now be far broader than that when I don't think it should be. In other news, I don't think "misused" is an accurate term to describe Arc Villain, maybe "duplicate trope".

edited 4th May '13 10:05:58 AM by MorganWick

As far as I know, this wiki was initially about Buffy. Buffy also happens to be the Trope Namer of the Big Bad, and the way the trope is currently used matches the way the term is used in that series. So yes, it is popular for the right reasons.

I believe Arc Villain isn't a subtrope of Big Bad, but rather a subtrope of The Heavy, considering the way that that trope goes, the Arc Villain tends to drive the plot with his/her actions.

Of course The Heavy currently has its own issues, which may or may not tie into this very issue.

It was either I or Sledgesaul who launched that trope.

Arc Villain was supposed to be the Super-Trope to Filler Villain and Starter Villain, while separating itself from the "Main Conflict Driver" with the "Plot Driver" by essentially being a Monster of the Week.

But Monster of the Week is only around for an episode while Arc Villain is around for several. The Heavy overlaps with Big Bad in most cases, so therefore, there will be a lot of overlap with Arc Villain with Big Bad. But there are also several cases where the Big Bad is behind the Arc Villain instead, so Arc Villain is still separable.

If we've turned this thread into targeting Arc Villain instead then the only thing to do is just merge it into Big Bad and just accept that it actually contains at least two tropes.

First, we need to argue whether Arc Villain and Big Bad are separable.

"Arc Villain was supposed to be separate from Main Conflict Driver, i.e. Big Bad". Well there you go. The person who wrote Arc Villain was unaware that a villain who's only around for one season, or part of a season, can still be the Big Bad and clearly fits within the definition of Big Bad. Thus the trope was created as the result of a misunderstanding, and has no compelling reason to exist separately. The examples on both pages bear this out.

I think the truth is that a Big Bad has a certain "tone" to them that makes them different than just a "main bad guy," something that is difficult to explain but very much a "know it when you see it" concept. We often run into troubles with tropes that are based on complex characterization and story details, which is why Magnificent Bastard is YMMV when it really shouldn't be. In addition some terms tend to overlap greatly but both have professional usage which is why there is some uncertainty about Big Bad vs. The Heavy. Arc Villain has a much more concrete definition because it is so simple and it doesn't really matter on the complexities of the story.

Take Kuro, Krieg and Arlong from One Piece.

When you say Big Bad for any of those guys, I automatically assume that they're the ones causing the conflict for most of the series, when they're actually just the villains for one-off arcs.

That is an Arc Villain.

edited 5th May '13 4:10:58 PM by Serocco

Yes, that's my view of the distinction as well. They were bad guys for an arc, maybe they continue to influence the plot later but in the end they're just not that important. A Big Bad isn't that easily cut from the story.

Same here.

That's one case in which an Arc Villain is simply The Heavy instead of the Big Bad.

That's actually a good idea. Arlong, Krieg and such are the ones driving the plot for their specific story arc.

The thing you guys are missing is that the tropes don't need to exist in a way that there's no overlap ever. Big Bad is a high level supertrope. Yes, things like Arc Villain are covered under it, but that just means that Arc Villain is a subtrope where a character only serves as the primary bad guy for part of a larger work. Big Bad on the other hand is the supertrope for Primary Bad Guy who drives the story. One is a supertrope of the other. It's that easy.

And there is such a thing as a Venn Diagram of the tropes, any given example may fit both or just one. I really don't think this is an inter-trope dispute but cleaning up the examples list.