Misused: Hazy Feel Turn

because Hazy-Feel Turn is more than that: it's when you can't be sure which side is face or heel.

We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.

^ I was referring to the misuse stated in the wick check in OP. The trope is fine as is, but certain examples have to be moved elsewhere and I was providing a possible solutions for those cases of "character changes sides without changing alignment".

I see.

We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.

I like that. Hazy-Feel Turn is a valide trope and there are others out there which are better suited for those cases that misuse it. I'm for cleaning it up and adding mentions of Fake Defector, Heel Face Mole etc., to the description, as I suspect a portion of the misuse is due to not knowing that alternatives exist.

I am also in agreement. Just clean out any examples where the side changes, be it for general morality or in regards to a particular group, are very well defined. If an event occurs that likely changed the character's position in the cast, but it is clearly for evil or good, or if it's obvious who they're siding with now (if anyone), then the example probably has a better alternative. The trope itself is perfectly viable and really shouldn't be messed with.

edited 10th Mar '17 4:08:58 PM by TimG5

General consensus seems to say...

1. Go to TLP for a Switching Sides supertrope for betrayal/conversion.
2. Clean up Hazy-Feel Turn to remove misuse.
3. Adjust Turncoat to indicate the English language connotations.

...is that right?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Nope, I am with 29.

I'm with 29 and I'm explicitly against making Switching Sides supertrope if we can just edit Heel/Face Index as necessary.

Dunno about Turn Coat tho, it sounds like "whenever characters switches sides". Which technically makes it a supertrope to the entire Heel/Face Index. IRL "turn coat" is usually used in a military context and has bad connotations, right?

We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.

You're not clear on how post 31 opposes 29.

You're at least clear that you disagree with the need for point 1, in support of point 2, and undecided on point 3.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

We don't really need a Switch Sides super trope. We just need to get rid of all the Hazy Feel Turn examples where an event has a very clear affect on their morality or clearly shows who they're aligned with now for the foreseeable long term.

Gave this a little more thought. Sifting throug the examples in OP there are different scenarios which we are dealing with:

• Hazy-Feel Turn: The ambiguity lies with the alignment of the party a character joins and not the character's motivation to join.
• Ambiguous Side Switch: We are not sure about the true motivation why a character switches sides. ^note Examples:
  • Nine Knackered Souls: The Meta is reverted back to Agent Maine by the Elements of Harmony, and joins up with Trixie. It's unknown how reformed he actually is, but he seems to be having fun being a showpony.
  • Little Fighter 2: Bat and Louis-Ex will join you if you beat them in stage 5, but due to game's complete lack of plot it's impossible to tell if they become good or bad guys.
  • Mindlink Mates: ... turned kind of sensible again.
  • The Walking Dead TV Show: Other Survivors (ambiguous in-universe): As of season 6, he's trying to atone for all the horrible things he did in his past, but nobody is willing to give him a chance. Very likely because they don't feel safe with him.
• Pragmatic Side Switch: A character switches sides/moves to a differently aligned employee simply because they fare better this way. Their alignment hasn't changed.
  ^note Examples:
  • Farscape Main Characters: He joins the crew of Moya in Season 4, but he's very upfront about the fact that his goals and motivations haven't changed one bit, only his circumstances.
  • Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin: He leaves Sniper at one point and tries to get on good terms with Ben's pack again, however, it's implied to just be out of fear for Sniper, and he remains a Dirty Coward that runs away when the dogs are about to face Akakabuto's guard bears.
  • MSF High IRC: Basically has given up on going back home and settled down. She plans on concentrating on something less illegal when it comes to evil. Being a lawyer.
  • Noob: Since he was already plotting against the Noob guild in Season 2 (during which he was part of the Empire), the switch to the Order didn't change a single thing when it came to his intentions towards them. All it really did was give him the liberty to implement a plan that had an impact the whole Empire without being part of the collateral damage. (may double as Fake Defector)
  • Mr. Robot: Main Characters: Accepts a job offer from Terry Colby to work for E Corp. While not overtly evil yet, she's now working at cross-purposes with our heroes who want to bring down Evil Corp. Likewise, it has awakened some of her darker instincts, though she's still in touch with what she believes is right. In the second season finale, though, it appears that she's become involved in Tyrell's and Whiterose's plan, and reacts rather calmly to the news that Elliot has been shot.
• Fake Defector / Heel Face Mole: A character changes sides without changing alignment for deceptive purposes.
• Miscellaneous: Cases where both the character motivation and the new party's alignment are clear but it's not a black/white or grey/grey turn.
  • Avatar: Character switches from dark neutral to dark
  • X files: Character switches from one dark to another dark.

Where do we go from here?

edited 15th Apr '17 6:36:40 AM by eroock

Maybe a rename? Like Switched From Gray Side To Gray Side or something?

The trope is clearly about there is no heel (bad) or face(good) sides in the work, only maybe protagonist side and antagonist side at most. Reasons why they did it do not really matter for this one and would likely fit into other tropes like Did It For The Money or Ambiguous Side Turn.

edited 15th Apr '17 6:28:08 AM by Memers

^ You mean cases of Pragmatic Side Switch to go under Only in It for the Money? Hmm, that trope doesn't have "switching between parties" at its core.

edited 15th Apr '17 6:34:12 AM by eroock

Well Only in It for the Money, did it for love or Honey Traped, Wanted to be famous, etc. which we have some tropes for already

There are many possible reasons but that is neither here nor there. the sides are not Good vs. Evil so they can't be a Heel–Face Turn or Face–Heel Turn, that imo is the important thing with this trope.

edited 15th Apr '17 6:48:15 AM by Memers

@ eroock: Those two red links sound like they could make good tropes.

Although, Ambiguous Side Switch sounds like it can count changing sides to an explicit good guy side or bad guy side, just without a clear reason.

By the way, do we have a trope for someone who turns evil while still on the good guys' side? Or someone who turns good while still on the bad guys' side?

We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.

We could potentially make a new trope but I don't think Hazy-Feel Turn should be renamed in the process.

While I would agree, there's also the problem of, well, the misuse because of the name... people follow what they think from the title, i.e "this guy changes sides, but due to its circumstances, my feeling's got hazy somehow."

We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.

^^^

What would be their reason for remaining on the side of their old alignment?

^^ You know, I have come to believe that most of the misuse didn't come from the Nonindicative Name but from the fact that there are missing sister tropes (Ambiguous Side Switch / Pragmatic Side Switch etc.) and users just dumped their examples in the Closest Thing We Got. Hazy-Feel Turn is a punny name and we can run with it as long as we can provide clearly defined alternatives.

edited 16th Apr '17 5:10:53 AM by eroock

Perhaps because they know they can't go against their allies (for now) or they're staying for pragmatic reasons? Somebody turning into a Token Evil Teammate or Token Good Teammate, I'm thinking.

Ah, okay.

We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.

Agreed.

Also, while a name should be indicativee of the trope, it's impossible to put all its aspects and the full meaning into a short name, so you'd expect people to at least cursory read the description, non?

edited 19th Apr '17 1:36:17 PM by Derkhan

I'm thinking of calling it "Gray-Gray Turn".

Well, there's no such thing as "neutral" in wrestling parlance, yeah?

We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.

Grey-Gray Turn would probably be better since we already have Grey-and-Gray Morality.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

What about cases of Grey/Black, Black/Gray, Grey/White, White/Grey?

Typically, Heel–Face Turn covers anytime characters go to a "lighter shade" side (so Black/Grey and Grey/White counts there), and Face–Heel Turn covers anytime characters go to a "darker shade" side (so Grey/Black and White/Grey counts there).

We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.