Complaining: Eight Deadly Words

Given that the entire article has delved into little more than Complaining About Shows You Don't Like, and what isn't complaining is too similar in structure to Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy, I would like to propose that the article only defines the term and history behind the Eight Deadly Words, while removing the examples and locking the article.

I can see what you're getting at, but my vote would be to restrict it to reviews that specifically cite that as an issue and eliminate all the examples that don't fit that mold, as there are a few like that on the page.

So I assume that the problem is that tropers are considering themselves as a sufficient "I" in "I don't care what happens to these people", and that we want to make that not so?

There are some In-Universe examples; it may be worth making In-Universe Examples Only.

Yup.

Clock is set.

I see only these examples that don't mention a specific reviewer or work who had the reaction.

In Film:

• Some people responded to Cloverfield this way. Apparently, that long, monster-free stretch of character development at the beginning just made some viewers decide the characters are neither nice enough to sympathize with nor bad enough to want to see eaten by a giant monster from the deep.

• Applies to Big Top Pee-Wee: with the exception of the circus performers themselves, everyone in the film is a selfish jackass who displays varying degrees of crookedness and bigotry during the story. This includes the protagonist of the story, Pee-Wee Herman, who is presented as the good guy, despite starting the movie by being a general annoyance to the store clerk (himself a jackass) in his town, and spends most of the movie trying to win the heart of the woman he cheated on his fiance with after falling head over heels in love with her, 2 seconds after he lays eyes on her. The rest of the cast doesn't fare much better either. At the beginning of the movie, the store clerk seems like a decent, if long suffering fellow, who brings up a good point about needing to respect other customers and their places in line. Later on, he's morphed into one of the bigots at a 60's restaurant sitin, refusing to serve circus people even though they were at the counter first, and refusing to do any business with them at all in the general store, even though it's apparent that they are a greater cash source than the entire town put together. The circus performers are decent people, but they wind up being a plot device more than participants in the story. This leaves a movie with no one to actually root for.

In Live Action TV:

• One criticism of American Horror Story: Murder House was that the characters were too nasty to be likable but not unlikable enough that you enjoyed seeing them get killed off.
  • This was also a common criticism of American Horror Story: Coven - almost every character was a borderline sociopath who was willing to screw everyone else over to get what they wanted.

• Stargate Universe fell victim to this, with many early reviews stating something to the effect of "the only one of these characters worth caring about is Dr. Rush," who was by all accounts a bastard in his own right. They got better in season two, but proved to have happened too late as the series was not picked up after its second season.

In Web Original:

• A sentiment expressed by some readers of Drow Tales, since the majority of characters are deeply unpleasant.

In Western Animaton:

• Post-movie episodes of Sponge Bob Square Pants that try to make the treatment of Squidward, Mrs. Puff and Plankton justified by having them act like assholes but do nothing to make Sponge Bob, Patrick or Mr. Krabs sympathetic.

• Given the nature of Family Guy and its main characters, the show is frequently subject to this reaction.

All but two of them (the Pee Wee's Big Adventure" and Spongebob ones) refer to Multiple people having the reaction or that it was a common reaction. If it was, it should be easy enough to find a critic or reviewer saying it and make the example specific. I certainly see no reason to make it "No Examples." or "In-Universe Only."

edited 15th Nov '14 4:33:19 AM by Madrugada

Given shit like this, we need some criteria there or else it's just open to be a free-for-all bitchfest.

If it's a complaining magnet, then it's eligible for the Permanent Red Link Club. To hell with complaining tropes.

edited 19th Nov '14 7:42:46 AM by AnoBakaDesu

^^ That apppears to be a misuse of the trope. Note that the trope page says

"Note that "not caring about" a character is not the same as "not liking" them ...In other words, even if you hate the character, you still care about what happens to them (because you want to see them get their comeuppance) so you'll still follow the story. This trope comes into play when even that fails to arouse sufficient interest. "

while the Las Lindas YMMV page seems to be about the characters being nasty people,unlikeable rather than uninteresting. The presence of so many other YMMV tropes ther, like Alternate Character Interpretation, Draco in Leather Pants, and Canon Sue also indicate that the characters in Las Lindas are not subject to Eight Deadly Words.

edited 19th Nov '14 7:59:38 AM by Madrugada

- I don't think that's necessary. I think that it's a valid thing for reviewers to state, but any yahoo on the site shouldn't be able to say that.

- I suppose "wanting them to die in a fire" (his words, not mine) is caring. So yeah, gonna axe that.

Already got it. When there's so much passion put into explaining how horrible they are, "Not caring about them" doesn't appear to apply.

The problem lies in the phrasing. Colloquially, "I don't care about X" is generally seen as a polite way of saying "I thoroughly loathe X"; and therefore people think that a passionate dislike of characters is still this trope.

So we should tweak the description. Perhaps "these characters bore me" or "I'm not interested in these characters" or something would get the point across better.

Spark9, the original reason this was brought to the TRS was "complaining". But most of the examples on the page are not "complaining; of 31 listed examples, only 7 are not about specific critics or reviewers making the statement.

If you are going to suggest that it needs to be renamed, you'll need to present some very solid evidence that it's being misused in a way that points to the name as the problem. This page has 100 wicks, and 25,630 inbound links.

Additionally, it's not "I don't care for these people" (which you are correct, could be taken to mean "I don't like these people"); it's "I don't care what happens to these people"; as the definition points out, it's quite possible to dislike a character and still care what happens to them.

I'm not suggesting anything about renaming, and I'm not sure where you get that from. The trope description is about the words "not caring", we should edit that.

The problem there, is, we didn't write the sentence that the trope is. And again, the words referred to are not "I don't care for these people." They're "I don't care what happens to these people." It's stated quite clearly in the description that loathing, dislike, or hatred of characters is not this trope.

I don't think it needs a rename. Just a clear minimum requirement (being used by a critic, not an editor's opinion, for example).

Are we done here? I only see reviews on the main page so I'm not sure. Anyway, I like the idea of "reviewer" only. It's a solid criteria to prevent, as earlier stated, "a free for all bitchfest".

Reviewer only is a form of In-Universe Examples Only. Do we want to extend that to wicks?

I think so. Does that take it off the YMMV list, since YM will no longer V? — whether they said it or they didn't is an objective, verifiable fact.

IUEO in both wicks and on-page examples means that the article is no longer YMMV, yes.

Bumping, rather than clocking, to see if someone has opinions on the wicks. Make 'em in-universe only as well?

In Universe Examples Only plz. Otherwise this is an Audience Reaction - bad reaction at that.

Do we have a consensus on this? I prefer IUEO as well.

yes, make the wicks IUEO