Needs Help: Hidden Heart Of Gold

Should we discuss individual cases of dispute here or open a short-term cleanup thread and deal with the complaints there?

If enough people are complaining it may be worth revisiting the argument.

Put any arguments here, just to keep the discussion together.

Arguments for separation:

1. Jerkass Façade is about pretending to be a jerk. Hidden Heart of Gold is about actually being a good person deep down, but the surface jerkiness isn't really fake or anything. Not much overlap there. HHOG is more like Jerk with a Heart of Gold. I honestly cannot tell the difference.
2. HHOG implies better character than is necessarily required, I think? I'm not sure I entirely stand eroock's argument.

I'm more concerned about the first argument, personally, because I genuinely don't understand why people decided to merge the two tropes. Which I suppose is partly on me for not being willing to read the actual discussion.

Edited by Arha on Feb 23rd 2019 at 1:56:27 PM

I honestly don't quite understand the distinction between all three tropes. They all seem the same to me, with very minor variations. And Jerkass Façade seems the most indicative name out of the three.

Also, I don't believe there is such thing as "actually being a good person deep down, but the surface jerkiness isn't really fake or anything". A person has an inner self and a public mask. Those three tropes are about a person who is good (or neutral) deep down below but wears a mask of a Jerkass. Concious or subconsions, it is still a mask.

Edited by Asherinka on Feb 23rd 2019 at 1:26:52 PM

Ignoring (for the moment) what name the merged trope should be, the difference between the three tropes (as they currently are) is this:

• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A genuine jerk who also has kinder/redeemable personality traits as well. The redeemable traits are not hidden. People can clearly see that the character is made up of both sets of traits.
  • If the person is a genuine jerk, but is hiding their redeemable traits, they are Hidden Heart of Gold.
  • If the person is a fake jerk, but is hiding their redeemable traits, they are Jerkass Façade.
• Jerkass Façade: A fake jerk who is hiding their redeemable personality. They are faking jerkassery to hide redeemable or vulnerable traits. People clearly see that the person is a 'jerk' but cannot see their softer traits because the person is actively trying to prevent people from seeing those traits for <insert narrative reason here>.
  • If the person is a genuine jerk who is hiding their redeemable personality, they will be Hidden Heart of Gold instead.
  • If the person is genuinely a jerk and also not hiding their redeemable traits, they are Jerk with a Heart of Gold instead.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: A genuine jerk who is hiding their redeemable personality. While they are actively hiding their redeemable or vulnerable traits, they are not faking the jerkassery — they really are a jerk. So, people can see the jerkassery but they can't see the softer traits because the person is preventing others from seeing it for <insert narrative reason here>.
  • If they are a fake jerk who is hiding their redeemable personality, they are Jerkass Façade instead.
  • If they are not hiding their redeemable/softer traits (so people can see those traits), they are Jerk with a Heart of Gold instead.

The original reason why people discussed merging Jerkass Façade and Hidden Heart of Gold is because the sole difference between the two tropes is whether the person is a fake jerk or a genuine jerk. That requires the audience/readers to actually be able to learn from the work which one the character is. The trouble is, works are often not clear on whether such a character is a fake jerk, a genuine jerk, or someone who has crossed the line from one to the other (in either direction). If it's not clear, which of the two tropes is the correct one to use? And will tropers agree or constantly debate the point?

The problem with struggling to identify this point (whether the jerkassery is genuine or fake) is that the narrative point (that there's a reason to hide the softer personality traits) gets lost in favour of arguing about whether the character is really a jerk or not. By combining the two tropes, it no longer matters whether the jerkassery is genuine or fake. The focus can stick to what matters: that this is a character who has a narrative reason to hide their redeemable traits, leaving the rest of their world thinking of them as just jerks.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 23rd 2019 at 10:53:35 AM

Asherinka: I don't think there is a difference between Jerk with a Heart of Gold and Hidden Heart of Gold. Those two are basically just the person is naturally abrasive but is fundamentally a decent person. Like maybe they're rude to you but will still choose to do the right thing. The character probably isn't acting more abrasive than they actually are, though they might try to hide it.

Jerkass Façade is intentionally acting antagonistic, often to drive people away. They don't have to be the nicest person on Earth or anything, but the point is that they're covering up their true personality.

HHOG and JWAHOG are naturally mean attitude, nice inner self. JF is intentional attempt to drive others away.

Edited by Arha on Feb 23rd 2019 at 5:10:22 AM

I think I agree with this analysis of the three tropes.

However, I'm not sure how to proceed next. A new crowner?

Not quite.

JWAHOG doesn't have the outer/inner self dichotomy. There is no 'inner self' involved. The character is both mean and softer on the outside. It's not mean outside and softer inside. It's mean outside and softer outside. There is nothing hidden. They're both and they don't hide it. This is a 'What You See Is What You Get' trope. There is no Beneath the Mask involved.

HHOG and JF have the dichotomy. They're both mean outside, softer inside. They're both about characters that don't want people to know they've got a softer side. They're both about someone whose jerkassery is used to obscure the inner self, and who don't like revealing their true inner self and having that inner self revealed to others. The sole difference between them is whether the jerkassery is genuine or faked. Both HHOG and JF are Beneath the Mask tropes, where the mask is jerkassery.

The problem with there being two separate tropes for 'jerk on the outside, softer on the inside' is the fact that audiences very often can't actually tell (and are never really told) whether the character is a genuine or fake jerk. Since works don't always reveal or explore whether the jerkassery is fake or genuine (because the point is always about the secret softer side), there's no point in having two separate tropes that require the audience to actually know whether the outer shell is fake or genuine.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Mar 31st 2019 at 8:31:39 PM

Should Jerkass Façade be made into a redirect to Hidden Heart of Gold, or a disambiguation page that links to Hidden Heart of Gold, Beneath the Mask, and Jerk with a Heart of Gold? If wick migration is already being done, is there any point in keeping the deprecated page as-is? If the on-page examples need to be examined, they could be moved to a sandbox (such as Sandbox.Jerkass Facade or Sandbox.Hidden Heart Of Gold).

Edit: Also, why is this discussion happening? The crowner was already called on the previous page (not to mention that was two years ago), and no mods have objected to the outcome. The only potential crowners I could see being approved would be a Single Proposition for if Hidden Heart of Gold should be renamed, and an Alternate Names crowner if it's decided that a rename is happening. If "recall election" crowners are even possible on TRS, some evidence would be nice.

Another edit: I should probably add that I don't recall having any involvement in the decision (the thread started in 2016, before I was even active on TRS), so that's not a factor in my previous edit. My argument is that the decision was already made, so this thread's current purpose is intended to be for carrying out the decision (hence the Pending Final Action icon in the list of threads). The current issue is sorting the high amount of wicks; the main discussion ended in 2017.

Update: Main wicks should be taken care of. One wick featured Jerkass being invoked for the sake of Obfuscating Insanity, while another is a ghost wick that I posted a request for in the Locked Pages thread.

Update: Posted a notice on the discussion page, moved examples to Sandbox.Jerkass Facade, and turned Main.Jerkass Facade into a redirect to Main.Hidden Heart Of Gold. If anyone has any ideas for a disambiguation page, then I won't object to someone turning it into a disambiguation page.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 30th 2019 at 7:58:59 AM

Thank you for catching that for me.

I'm not opposed to a disambiguation page. Now, what to do with the French page?

Edited by Brainulator9 on May 30th 2019 at 9:32:47 AM

If there's a French translation project thread, it would be worth posting there.

Anyway, I just noticed that the crowner specifically says the deprecated name would be a redirect (I think I previously ignored the crowner because the options have been overwritten), so I'm leaving Jerkass Façade as-is. I think if the redirect and discussion page notice had been made right away, that would have cleared up the confusion that came up in this ATT query.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 30th 2019 at 9:00:23 AM

So, we are changing / removing the Jerkass Façade wicks, right?

1431 wicks left.

Edited by Malady on May 30th 2019 at 8:22:24 AM

Hidden Heart of Gold is the primary trope here, hence the decision to merge Jerkass Façade into it, but there are other tropes that could apply to wicks:

• Jerk with a Heart of Gold
• Beneath the Mask or a subtrope thereof
• Invoked examples for Jerkass or a subtrope thereof (preferably the latter, as pointed out before)

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 30th 2019 at 10:47:07 AM

I didn't even know a discussion about this was going on until I saw people changing wicks. Since the decision doesn't really make any sense I don't see why I shouldn't bring it up. Jerkass Façade and Hidden Heart of Gold really are not the same trope at all.

- What do you think the differences are?

'cause "Jerk hiding his Heart Of Gold", and "Heart Of Gold pretending to be a Jerk", both produce the same effect of "Heart Of Gold under Jerk", and we, the viewers can't tell which it is, so we put them under the same page.

Also, 1432 wicks now. Why?!

Edited by Malady on May 31st 2019 at 3:57:05 AM

Because HHOG is 'is usually mean, but deep down is actually nice' while JF is 'pretends to be mean for some reason.' It's like the difference between The Cutie and The Fake Cutie in that the apparent behavior is the same but the meaning behind it and usage is totally different.

What I don't get is how HHOG and JWAHOG are distinct.

I thought Jerk with a Heart of Gold is "character is both genuinely a jerk and genuinely kind, depending on the situation" whereas Hidden Heart of Gold and Jerkass Façade have a genuinely kind character who puts up a false jerk front. The confusion is the distinction between JF and HHoG, for me.

Edited by Libraryseraph on May 31st 2019 at 12:26:09 PM

HHOG isn't about a front. It's just that the jerk is nice sometimes. Which is not Jerkass Façade, which is someone pretending to be a jerk.

HHOG sounds like JF going by the title alone but the trope is very different.

That makes more sense to me, but the box at the bottom says JF and HHoG are being merged, so I'm confused.

Because this thread proved that audiences cannot determine the difference between "jerk is nice sometimes" and "nice person pretends to be a jerk". Nobody had a wand that makes the first one appear blue without making the second type appear blue as well.

I decided to come and bring this up here because I also don't understand this decision. I've asked but I don't really think there's been a satisfactory answer so far. The four tropes involved here are Jerkass, Jerk with a Heart of Gold, Hidden Heart of Gold and Jerkass Façade. As I understand it, they are defined like this:

1. Jerkass: Character is a dickhead, full stop. Any acts of kindness, which would be rare at best, are vastly overshadowed by normal behavior. Something like a supertrope to the other three, but not quite. They're like variations on the jerkass behavior.
2. Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Character typically acts abrasive, but will consistently do the right thing and really aren't so bad when you get to know them.
3. Hidden Heart of Gold: Character is a dick, but sometimes you can see a nicer side, so maybe they aren't really so bad.
4. Jerkass Façade: Character has a bad attitude, but further inspection shows that it's nothing but a front they put up for one reason or another.

Now, Jerkass is obviously it's own thing. The difference between JWAHOG and HHOG seems to be a difference of degree, so some people might argue for merging them. I personally don't see much of a difference. Not really the point here, though, so I don't want to get sidetracked with that if possible.

However, the difference between HHOG and JF is that HHOG is about the character genuinely being a jerk, though how much so can vary. There's no faking it, that's really what their personality is like. A JF, however, is a mask the character wears for one reason or another. Maybe it's defense mechanism, maybe they're protecting their image, whatever. The point is that it's not their real personality. As such, it serves a totally different purpose.

^ In my experience, a jerkass facade is usually explicitly called out.

Edit: As an example, a Jerkass Façade entry was just changed to Hidden Heart of Gold on the Disgaea 4 character page. Knowing this example, I can tell you that the character in question is literally a saint who became an angel after death and just pretends to be greedy to do her job. There's no 'she's nice deep down' angle here, she's nice from top to bottom but pretends otherwise.

Edited by Arha on May 31st 2019 at 4:37:19 AM

Merging them was decided on two years ago. The process has just been slow and hasn't been completed yet.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 31st 2019 at 5:10:06 AM

@Arha:

1. Jerkass: We agree.
2. Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A person who is both a genuine jerk and genuinely nice. They are openly a jerk and they are openly nice. Usually, the characters around them will know both, but the audience will be introduced to the jerkassery first and the niceness later — not because the niceness is hidden but because the jerkassery and niceness are situational. If a character has to learn about the niceness, it's usually because they're the Audience Surrogate. However, that reveal doesn't change the fact the character is openly a jerk and openly nice and doesn't care whether people know about the niceness. He is What You See Is What You Get. No hidden side.
3. Hidden Heart of Gold: A person is both a genuine jerk and genuinely nice. They are openly a jerk but secretly nice. Again, the jerkassery is revealed first, but this time the niceness is usually a secret from most of the characters as well as the audience. This character actively doesn't want people to know he has a nice side. The point of the character is this secret side, a secrecy that does not exist for JWAHOG.
4. Jerkass Façade: A person who is a fake jerk and genuinely nice. They are openly a jerk but secretly nice. Again, they're trying to keep their niceness a secret but this time their method of hiding the niceness is by faking jerkassery. It differs from JWAHOG because it's fake jerk and secret nice, and it differs from HHOG only in that the jerkassery is fake.

The problem with HHOG and JF is that the audience is often never told whether or not the mask of jerkassery is fake or genuine, leaving it up the fans to argue it out among them. Since it's often not possible to tell, and fans will often disagree on whether it is or isn't, there's not point in those two tropes being separate, hence merging them together into Hidden Heart of Gold.

That therefore just leaves us with JWAHOG and HHOG, which is that JWAHOG is visibly both a jerk and nice whereas HHOG is visibly a jerk but secretly nice.

So, in short:

1. Jerkass: Genuinely, openly jerk. No niceness.
2. Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Genuinely, openly jerk. Genuinely, openly nice. Plot-point: the guy's an open book.
3. Hidden Heart of Gold: Genuinely, openly jerk. Genuinely, secretly nice. Plot-point: there's a reason why the character hides his niceness and he finds jerkassery is useful for that.
4. Jerkass Façade: Fake, openly jerk. Genuinely, secretly nice. Plot-point: there's a reason why the character hides his niceness and he finds jerkassery is useful for that.
5. HHOG and JF are the same trope. The only difference is for the audience to know whether the jerkassery is fake or genuine, but stories often don't confirm that with any certainty, leaving fans arguing without resolution over whether they think it's fake or genuine. Since it's commonly not possible for audiences confirm with certainty whether the jerkass mask is fake or genuine, there's no point in it being required of the audience to know. In both cases, the plot point is the secret niceness, not whether the jerkassery is fake or genuine (which is why stories are often not clear on that point).

Therefore, merging the two tropes removes the requirement for the audience to know with certainty something stories rarely confirm with certainty.

Edited by Wyldchyld on May 31st 2019 at 4:42:44 PM

The description of HHOG says the character isn't hiding it. What I get from the description is that they're a jerk who does something nice on very rare occasions and will admit to it. That's JWAHOG tilted towards the jerk end of the spectrum.