Duplicate Trope (single prop 12 March 2020): Infidelitytropes

I'm not aware of any common ways cuckolds are characterized. Unless someone can think of any, I'd say probably go ahead and cut it too?

Cuckold is an actual thing, as mentioned, though I think it may be better covered by Cuckold Horns.

Cuckold is an actual word, yes, but I think the question as to weather it's a distinct trope has yet to be answered.

Like I said, I think the more meaningful trope is Cuckold Horns.

I don't think anyone was suggesting Cuckold Horns be cut. What I am suggesting is Good Adultery, Bad Adultery, Sympathetic Adulterer, and Cuckold be cut unless someone has an argument for keeping any of the.

Regarding Good Adultery, Bad Adultery and Sympathetic Adulterer, may I ask why you think they should be cut?

• Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: my argument for it staying is for works where several characters cheat on others, but cheating on someone is treated differently depending on who cheats on whom with whom in a double standard-like fashion.

• Sympathetic Adulterer: my argument in favor for it is there are works that indeed treat the person cheating on someone as sympathetic, regardless of whether there are others cheating on someone else in the same work.

Er, I know. I was pointing out any meaning Cuckold might have is already covered.

"Number of characters cheating in this work" is not enough to make a distinction. The work either treats the cheating character as sympathetic, not sympathetic, or maybe neither (the neither option is not tropeworthy).

Why is cutting Good Adultery, Bad Adultery and Sympathetic Adulterer suddenly on the table; I thought the argument was whether or not they should be merged? Documenting how a work treats someone who cheats seems tropeworthy in my book. (To go with the previous murder analogy, we have Sympathetic Murderer.)

Reading through the Good Adultery, Bad Adultery page, it almost seems...YMMV? Or at least, a lot of it is left to audience interpretation, which will naturally lead to decay. I think they can potentially be kept separate if Good Adultery, Bad Adultery is redefined as a double standard that is present in the work (so there are explicitly at least two characters who cheat and are treated differently) OR there is an explicit, In-Universe debate or discussion about whether or not any adultery that happens is "justified", and Sympathetic Adulterer is a Characterization Trope exploring motivations and psychological fallout. It is noteworthy because adultery is considered a "bad" action committed by bad or morally ambiguous people; for a story to characterize an adulterer as sympathetic is a deviation from the norm.

"The same work treats adultery differently depending on who's doing it" might be tropeworthy, but that's not how Good Adultery, Bad Adultery is defined right now.

Edit:

Edited by HighCrate on Feb 18th 2020 at 9:17:13 AM

OK, scratch what I said above. So the differences should be(?)

• Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: narrative trope: a double standard edit: multiple portrayals within the work, where for someone it's presented as good/permissible and for someone else's it's bad or otherwise the sympathy level differs
• Sympathetic Adulterer: character trope: shows someone's justified reasons for cheating, thus eliciting sympathy from the audience

Edited by Tabs on Feb 18th 2020 at 12:58:34 PM

Re: Good Adultery, Bad Adultery, I don't think it necessarily needs to be a "double" standard, which implies that the standard is being unfairly applied (for example, if the only difference is that one cheater is male and the other female, but the male is treated unsympathetically and the female is treated sympathetically). Cases in which there is a legitimate reason for the difference in sympathy (e.g., in one case the cheater is in an arranged, loveless marriage with an abusive partner, whereas in another case the cheater betrays a loving, devoted partner for short-term gratification) could still count, I think.

But I do agree that there's an argument for redefining it to include only cases where there are multiple instances of infidelity in the same work, some treated as "good," some treated as "bad." Otherwise it boils down too easily to "adultery happens," and we already have Your Cheating Heart for that.

Edited by HighCrate on Feb 18th 2020 at 12:31:05 PM

Yeah, that's my mistake — I didn't mean double standard, but rather two characters whose adultery is portrayed differently.

If we do end up keeping one, the obvious choice would be Sympathetic Adulterer, in a parallel to Sympathetic Murderer. Good Adultery, Bad Adultery is literally every possible variation. It could be turned into a Sliding Scale, I guess, if someone really thinks it needs to be held on to?

The key to cuckold being a trope is the emasculation involved- the man involved can’t control his wife and feels less like a man.

Do we have a trope for a character in a long term relationship who cheats out of boredom with the relationship/a general sense of malaise? These characters are often given a somewhat sympathetic POV but it’s usually too ambiguous to fit Sympathetic Adulterer, and it’s usually a plot in service of larger themes related to midlife crises, disillusionment with modernity, etc.

Edit: ok this is actually mentioned on Sympathetic Adulterer but I’m not sure it fits the name. A lot of times the cheater gets a sympathetic POV but also an Aesop about why they shouldn’t have done it...

Edited by naturalironist on Feb 20th 2020 at 2:01:23 PM

No new Sliding Scales, per mod comment. I'll try to do a wick check to see if there's some merit in retooling the definition as suggested sometime soon.

I can definitely see it being retooled into Emasculated Cuckold or similar. This can also cover feelings of insecurity and wondering if the wife is cheating.

As promised, the wick check for Good Adultery, Bad Adultery:

Bad news: no one really knows how this trope is supposed to be used. Heavy overlap with Sympathetic Adulterer as well. The good news is that there is enough in here for a retool to "different value judgements for different affairs" (and that this isn't a ZCE magnet, which is always nice to know).

I propose to clean up Good Adultery, Bad Adultery and redefine it to that, with misuse being moved to Sympathetic Adulterer. With 416 wicks this should not be a huge task.

Edited by Synchronicity on Feb 21st 2020 at 8:52:07 AM

I second the motion.

Going back to Cuckold, am I the only one who thinks the description is contradictory?

At one point, it states the victim may not even be aware of the infidelity. Then it goes on to talk about how he may be sexually aroused by it or otherwise hurt, impossible when the man is unaware. The laconic goes further and says it's a "usually willing" victim of infidelity.

I noticed this because I wanted to add an example, but the description makes me unsure of what the trope is meant to be.

I can get behind Emasculated Cuckold, but currently, it's too broad to be useful.

Do we have access to the original pre-launch version?

Mhmm.

If Good Adultery, Bad Adultery is "different value judgements for different affairs," wouldn't that just fall under Double Standard, or maybe The Unfair Sex depending on the context? Is that its takes place in the context of infidelity really enough enough to make it a full distinct trope?

I'm fine with Synchrocity's proposal for Good Adultery, Bad Adultery.

As a side note, I think the description is too long-winded, so maybe parts of it could probably be moved to Analysis.Good Adultery Bad Adultery (which doesn't currently exist).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 23rd 2020 at 3:43:16 AM

^^As noted above it is not a "double standard" if the standard is not unfairly applied. A man in a loveless abusive marriage who cheats will invariably be portrayed as having "better" reasons to cheat than a maneater Gold Digger Femme Fatale.

Edited by Synchronicity on Feb 24th 2020 at 6:02:31 AM

Yeah, it's only a Double Standard if the trope was something like "Men are always portrayed badly for cheating, when women in the same series never are".