Moral Event Horizon cleanup

The fact that you are unable to differentiate normal bratty child behavior from honest to god evil does not make this character from a children's cartoon into a psychotic monster. I mean seriously, calling a 4 year old who thoughtlessly broke her brother's toy an "irredeemable bitch"? Seriously?

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Mar 23rd 2020 at 5:57:49 AM

The troper has been suspended, but this does bring me back to that question over whether heroes or redeemed characters can count (Star Wars with Darth Vader's Redemption Equals Death/protagonist role in the prequel trilogy or with it in mind, Red Zone Cuba's Designated Hero and the bashing thereof, Ratatoing under similar circumstances as Red Zone Cuba but without being listed as a Complete Monster). Noted, D.W. is a child acting as someone her age is expected to rather than an actual villain, but the fact that such examples can exist... concerns me.

This is why this trope is in desperate need of TRS, so we can figure out how to stop the misuse.

I feel as if this trope should only apply to works where there are significant stakes and tension (unless there is a rare exception, such as in a departure from the average level of tension of the work)- for example, the suggested Arthur example doesn’t fall under this trope because Arthur lacks any significant tension or drama, so there can’t really be any characters who can be considered truly evil.

Well there is a Moral Event Horizon entry on Arthur's YMMV page that sounds legit to me (one-shot character selling children radioactive products in the name of profit and going to jail at the end of the episode as a result) even with the show's usual tone in mind. What's should be the stance on that?

That entry seems fine, since the character in question stands out as being particularly evil in a lighter-hearted work.

For the examples mentioning children... Preschoolers and other children can't cross the moral event horizon. They're still developing their sense of morality. Even if you later showed them as an adult, I would suggest pointing to an event when they've actually developed enough to make moral determinations of right and wrong. Morality of actions isn't how children conceive of things. And works aimed at children certainly aren't showing children crossing the MEH.

Not necessarily true. It's context dependent. If a work claims that a child character is the epitome of evil, then it doesn't matter if it's impossible IRL. But that's the exception, not the rule.

Whoops, I might've gotten a teensy bit heated about that... step awaaay from the keyboard and what-not. Yeah, fictionally there are some depictions of absolutely hellish kids that have no IRL equivalent. Case-by-case and all that. It's seeing the MEH examples of child characters from children's shows, and calling child characters sociopaths, that really me and has me mentally readying citations.

The behaviour and psychology of children in fiction is often quite different from that of real children. So I would not consider real world psychology as an argument when discussing whether Moral Event Horizon applies to a fictional person. To say nothing of the fact that "child" is a heterogeneous category even in Real Life.

I'll just note that Stewie Griffin is a Brainy Baby, which may be one of the listed exceptions to the "children have little to no moral agency" rule and that MoralEventHorizon.Family Guy exists and is in desperate need of cleanup, seeing as the show attracts complaining and is a Dark Comedy to begin with.

I wrote this like a year or two ago and I'm wondering if I did it right:

• YMMV.Red Sadie: Bradshaw crosses it when he easily and causally allows Seraphinite to take Steven, Connie, and King, the former being two children and the latter being someone Seraphinite was perfectly willing to leave behind, in the "protection of humanity" - something he actually gets called out on, as not only is he actually endangering some of said humanity, but is doing so without even taking the feelings of the kidnappees or their friends and family into consideration. He crosses it even further - in the same chapter, no less - when he shoots Barb after she tries to go after Sadie, saying he doesn't want her to ruin his "negotiation" with Seraphinite.

Previously brought these up in ATT in the context of a particular troper's edits, now bringing here:

YMMV.A New Hope:

• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Captain Mod Terrik crosses it by ordering the Jawa massacre, the destruction of the Lars homestead, and especially the grisly murder of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru.
  • Dr. Cornelius Evazan is most definitely a beliggerent jerkass, but he crosses it by provoking a bar brawl with the intention of drawing Sandtroopers into the cantina and allowing Greedo an opening to locate and take out Han Solo. And that's before we learn what he'd been up to before and after the events of the film...
  • Tarkin well and truly crosses it with the Disaster, in which Alderaan is destroyed on his command. Certain versions make him look even worse after the fact by giving him a line of dialogue during his brief Villainous Breakdown that exposes him as an Omnicidal Maniac, swearing to find the Rebel base if he has to destroy every last star system in the sector in his search.

Captain Mod Terrik entry seems to be one of those old EU characters that got a backstory never actually depicted onscreen. IDK if there's a novelization or comic that shows the guy ordering this or if it's just one of those trading card details. We never see the character do this in the film.

The Dr. Evazan example...?!?!? It looks to be from From a Certain Point of View which is set during the film but isn't the film or an adaptation of the film's story, and a dick move isn't the same thing as irredeemably evil even though later stuff does show he's an evil maniac but none of that's apparent here...

My proposal is that Moral Event Horizon pages now have an “all spoilers unmarked” policy much like Complete Monster.

It’s hard to show a character’s most evil act without getting into spoilers, and that’s very apparent in our MEH pages.

I'm actually changing my stance here. If a villain has been redeemed in any way, shape or form, be it an Ass Pull or last minute Freudian Excuse, I don't think we should list them. If characters had redeeming qualities that are gone by the time of the work as in Sephiroth, and showed no desire to redeem themselves (unless the Remake has a different ending) they should be exempt. I also don't think Comedy works should have MEH crossing or Reality shows. Survivor has a truckload of examples over on the YMMV.Survivor page.

Since there's been so much controversy over this, I do want to take the page to TRS at some point, but that's for another time and place.

As for , I'm not opposed to that idea.

From She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:

• Catra is regularly guilty of this, only hesitating for a moment before leaping over any line. Her leaving Adora to die in the episode "Promise" is the first big moment of this, but season 3 has two events that even the character's biggest apologists recoil in disgust at: shocking Entrapta into unconsciousness and shipping her off to Beast Island, lying to Hordak that Entrapta betrayed them to the Alliance to cover it up, and knowingly attempting to destroy all of reality just so she could beat Adora at something, which is only fixed by another character's Heroic Sacrifice. The latter is also when Adora officially gives up on trying to reach out to Catra, or see her in any positive light, only giving her ex-friend a Death Glare once the situation is fixed.
• While it's not treated very seriously, Scorpia would have crossed it when she threw Bow at the ship turbine if Sea Hawk hadn't saved him before he fell in.

Both of these characters undergo a Heel–Face Turn by the end of the series, so that means they can't count, right?

For some reason, there exists an entry for Moral Event Horizon on YMMV.Jimmy Neutron Happy Family Happy Hour:

• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Hugh's sudden and unrepentant murder of his wife.
  • Hugh’s murder of Ebenezer Wheezer in A Neutron Family Christmas.

The original video is a nonsensical joke video, so there’s no actual Moral Event Horizon to be crossed, and while A Neutron Family Christmas is unexpectedly far more serious, I don’t think it counts either.

Probably not, based on your explanation.

Ehhh...we've been going back and forth for a while as to whether or not redeemed villains could've crossed the line at one point regardless. This is why we need TRS for Moral Event Horizon. But for now, I'd say remove them, as the current consensus is "must be irredeemable".

If characters who cross it can be redeemed then what does the title mean?

Well, it's a YMMV for a reason. It could be taken to mean the point when the audience finds the character irredeemable even if the narrative doesn't, also explaining why a character can cross the line at different times to different fans.

wouldn't that just be Unintentionally Unsympathetic?

Not necessarily; a character doesn't have to be intended as sympathetic to be intended as redeemable, and Unintentionally Unsympathetic characters don't have to be evil, just less sympathetic than the writers intended. All it takes to make a character "reedemable" in the narrative is for there to be a possibility of them maybe turning good one day; that doesn't mean they're meant to be sympathized with, just that they aren't hopeless.

But for a more detailed discussion on this, go back a few pages. We had an entire debate about it, with better written explanations than this post.

Can I remove this from YMMV.Golden Sun? It's something that didn't actually happen in the game.

• Moral Event Horizon: If it were not for Felix's intervention, Agatio and Karst would have arguably crossed this by killing Isaac and Ivan after they were separated from the rest of their group.

Edited by Serac on May 17th 2020 at 3:20:20 AM

Yes.