KnightOfCerebus and related tropes cleanup

Bumping for more input. Any objections to removing ^^?

e: reposting for pagetop

Edited by Synchronicity on Apr 5th 2023 at 12:49:31 PM

No objections

Back with a new childhood subject: LEGO Batman. Starting with Lex Luthor:

• Knight of Cerebus: When Lex shows up, things get a lot darker and a lot of people come very close to death. The Batcave is destroyed, Superman nearly dies twice, Gotham nearly ends up perma-mind controlled and Wayne Tower suffers substantial damage, with all its employees nearly being murdered as it almost collapses. To top things off, Lex's humour is more low-key than the Joker's. This doesn't apply as much in Beyond Gotham due to Brainiac's presence and the ensuing chaos, but when Lex is behaving normally things take a darker turn again.

I really don't see it. It heavily exaggerates the potential death toll his plan has (There is zero indication that there's even anyone in Wayne Tower and the mind control is portrayed as incredibly G-rated), and even when Lex is around the game never stops being a wacky parody game. By the later games he becomes even less serious and just becomes The Comically Serious who's frequently the butt of jokes from his zanier collegues.

I agree with you that it's misuse for the reasons you gave.

Found on Characters.Beast Wars Megatron

• Knight of Cerebus: Megatron had multiple Laughably Evil tendencies and wasn't introduced as such at first, however, Megatron progressively much more darker and when he becomes more darker, the show's tone also becomes more darker. Moment he became more darker, characters are Killed Off for Real, especially by his hand in which multiple heroes end up dying trying to stop him, with both Optimus dying by his hand ending the first two seasons in chilling notes. His transformation into a Transmetal II dragon brought the Beast Wars to its endgame phase when he attempted to destroy the Ark and ultimately, the very reason Beast machines is much darker than its predecessor cements on the very fact that the premise is based on Megatron winning and ruling Cybertron and performed a virtual genocide against the Transformer race, even killing off most of the Maximals in the penultimate episode and forced Primal to make a permanent Heroic Sacrifice to finish off Megatron. This is all while in this series, Megatron's iconic Large Ham Laughably Evil tendencies were downplayed than before until the end.

The example itself notes how Megatron's appearance didn't initially cause a shift in the show's tone, since he was there from the beginning. I don't think a villain becoming darker and more dangerous is the trope, and a Knight of Cerebus should create a shift in the work's atmosphere soon after they arrive. The example sounds more like just an example of Cerebus Syndrome.

Edited by antenna_ears on Jul 3rd 2023 at 11:17:56 AM

So i found this on Godzilla regarding SpaceGodzilla:

• Knight of Cerebus: In his first film, which wasn't all that light-hearted to begin with, he kidnaps Little Godzilla and imprisons him.

Not sure if he counts himself having not seen the film, but otherwise this is pretty much a very underdeveloped example.

I agree it doesn't count for the reasons you stated.

I think at best it lacks context, so I'd hide it. EDIT: Sorry for responding late, by the way.

Edited by RandomTroper123 on Jan 6th 2024 at 9:47:21 AM