No, the other one.
It's not an inversion. They're essentially two points on a scale. A Pragmatic Hero is on the whiter side of an Anti-Hero (and doesn't always cross into that), while an Unscrupulous Hero is more in the middle of what an Anti-Hero is.
Check out Analysis.Anti Hero, as that explains the difference reasonably well.
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Simplest way is that a Pragmatic Hero is willing to make hard choices so long as the job gets done, such as killing mooks in a race to reach the Big Bad. An Unscrupulous Hero would leave a trail of bodies regardless, they wouldn't consider that to be a hard choice.
Unscupulous Hero are also more commonly heroes that have unexpectedly darkly personality traits or approaches, they may be more vengeful, smug, aggressive, petty or cutthroat, usually because it's what the bad guy completely deserves, though not always so.
A Pragmatic Hero is generally a hero who, while willing to make less scrupulous methods if they think it's necessary, tends to avoid letting those impulses seep into things, they just want to get the job done, no matter what.
For example an Unscupulous Hero will often gladly commit Disproportionate Retribution for the sheer amusement of it all, a Pragmatic Hero wouldn't dare unless they think it has safer consequences than just letting it pass (eg. the villain being less likely to commit evil from suffering a harsher punishment).
An Unscrupulous Hero runs on cold impulses, a Pragmatic Hero runs on cold logic.
See also Pragmatic Villainy, a villain who maybe isn't sympathetic, but knows that being Stupid Evil or stopping to gloat/cheat isn't worth botching the plan.
Edited by Psi001 on Jan 12th 2019 at 10:57:45 AM
Can somebody explain the difference to me? The Played With pages list Unscrupulous Hero as an inversion of Pragmatic Hero and Pragmatic Hero as a downplayed version of a Unscrupulous Hero which seems contradictory. The trope page for Unscrupulous Hero states that they lack the positive outlook of a Pragmatic Hero, but that's really vague and doesn't say much, at least not for me.
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