Unclear Description: Disney Villain Death

This came up during a discussion on Trope Talk but it staled so I want to take things here in hope of clarification.

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IMO, Disney Villain Death suffers from an unclear definition regarding the cause of the villain's fall. The obvious definition is "Karmic/self-disposed/not caused by the hero" (the description notes Self-Disposing Villain as the supertrope) but there is conflicting information given as well. The description notes that:

• "the death is often invoked to be karmic" (hence not always?)
• "sometimes, a fatal wound will be inflicted upon the villain just before taking the plunge" (so shooting the villain is okay?)
• The alternative trope titles Falling To Their Death, Death By Falling ignore this aspect altogether

I analysed the 68 Disney examples on the page. Following categories emerged on a (quite polarized) sliding scale between "self-disposed" and "pushed by hero":

1. Fall by suicide: 1
2. The villain slips off/falls while trying to push the hero: 17 (example, spoiler for Peter Pan)
3. Diving force/outside force: 4 (example, spoiler for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs)
4. The hero pushes the villain off accidentally: 3 (example, spoiler for Toy Story 2)
5. The villain gets shot/stabbed and falls to his death: 2 (example, spoiler for Sleeping Beauty)
6. The villain gets pushed off by the hero: 18 (example, spoiler for The Hand That Rocks the Cradle)
7. Cause of fall unknown: 23

A page search for "kick", "toss", "push", "knock", "throw", "shove" and "shot" results in 146 matches.

It would seem that a good portion of users don't care much for a self-inflicted cause of the fall and that's where my question comes in: How important is the morality part for the trope to apply? The question whom to blame makes up only a fraction of the whole set piece and is not always clear-cut. Aren't there more important cues to determine if a situation plays out like a villain death from a Disney movie? Isn't a villain being kicked off and going into an epic Slow-Motion Fall screaming "noooooo" already what this trope tries to cover? If yes, the description needs some changes to account for the broader use. If not, where would these examples go?

Edited by eroock on Oct 28th 2018 at 12:24:31 PM

To me, the name implies "Child-friendly death", where a death is implied but not shown and the hero isn't directly responsible. This could include falling deaths as well as things like Exit, Pursued by a Bear. Do we have a trope that covers this?

Edited by naturalironist on Oct 30th 2018 at 1:03:26 PM

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

As I've written in the initial thread, my understanding of the trope was this: A character dies from a very long fall with no gore shown on screen to make the death children-friendly. "Disney", because Disney started to use it in their films for children, "Villan" because usually it's villains who are killed this way (Disney doesn't normally kill its heroes). Regardless of whether the victim falls themselves or is pushed/shot down/whatever.

I never thought of it as a subtrope/sister trope of a Self-Disposing Villain or Karmic Death (though they may overlap), but rather as a convenient way to avert Family-Unfriendly Death. Judging from the number of examples, I was not alone in that, so I'd change the description to:

A children-friendly/non-gory death from a very long fall

And keep all the current examples.

Edited by Asherinka on Oct 30th 2018 at 8:16:34 PM

Anybody else having an opinion about this?

Not sure whether hero examples should be allowed, but regardless of that, it shouldn't matter whether the character was pushed or falls accidentally. Tropes Are Flexible.

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Does it have to be from a fall, or could it apply to any death that's implied but not shown?

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Anybody for or against removing the "self-disposal" aspect from the trope?

I'd remove it.

Yes.

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Just to throw gasoline on the fire, there's also a separate trope called Disney Death, which ostensibly is when a character is apparently killed off as far as the viewer is concerned, but is revealed to be alive at the end of the story (e.g. Centauri in The Last Starfighter, who dies of a Frickin' Laser Beam wound halfway through the film, is said to be dead, but then turns up alive at the end with the story that he was "merely dormant while my body repaired itself"). I'm pretty sure I've seen it misused for "death from falling off of things, impact not shown", which is what I understood this trope to be.

Edited by StarSword on Jan 9th 2019 at 10:05:47 AM

That's what I thought the trope was, too. Until I read this thread, of course...

And yeah, I'm cool with removing the self-termination part.

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Yeah, both tropes sound like each other and also like Never Say "Die" (the definition, not the name).

Disney Death, Disney Villain Death

Edited by naturalironist on Jan 10th 2019 at 12:41:07 PM

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Which tropes?

Anybody else for or against the inclusion of "self-disposing" as a corner stone of the trope?

Remove the self-disposing part.

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Consensus is that we want this trope to be "character killed by falling" (subversions excepted)? If so, the current name is getting more nonindicative.

Edited by crazysamaritan on Feb 12th 2019 at 12:57:48 PM

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

If I am not mistaken the initial idea of the trope was "character killed by falling into nowhere in order to avoid showing the death directly" which is in line with Disneyfication and hence the trope name is fine by me. We are here to question if "self-disposal" is an essential part of the trope, an aspect which was not present on the page before 2010.

Edited by eroock on Feb 13th 2019 at 2:18:12 PM

The URL doesn't work.

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Another thing that I thought was an integral part of the trope was "and the hero isn't directly responsible."

I don't think "self-disposing" is necessary, but I did believe that keeping the hero's hands clean is a major part of it.

Edited by Larkmarn on Feb 13th 2019 at 3:23:13 PM

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

Self-Disposing Villain is both of those.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Fixed the link.

Fair enough. The implication of this would be that 40-50% of examples will have to be cut according to my wick check in OP. In the least, it would mean to check on all 2,800 examples for correct use. I am always tempted to ask those who vote for such dramatic changes on TRS to step up as volunteers. ...And That Would Be Wrong.

Edited by eroock on Feb 16th 2019 at 1:48:46 PM

I would suggest a renaming.

Crowner?

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