Should unintentional Asshole Victim examples be cleaned up?

Would it be okay if I removed all Asshole Victim (as well as its subtropes, Pay Evil unto Evil and Kick The Son Of A Bitch) examples that say something along the lines of "the audience is supposed to feel bad for what happened to this character because [reason], but it's hard to actually feel that way" or "The author excepts the audience to see the character victimizing this character as the bad one but the audience feels otherwise"? Because according to this thread, an Asshole Victim always has to be portrayed by the work itself as deservingly victimized, regardless of what the audience feels.

Edited by SereneSpecter13 on Dec 23rd 2019 at 1:46:41 AM

The line between "The audience is supposed to feel this way" and "the work is trying to convey this feeling" is so small as to be irrelevant. The core of the Asshole Victim is that they are not directly responsible for their misfortune, the things they have done that make them an asshole don't correlate with how they became a victim. If it did, that would be along the lines of Laser-Guided Karma or Karmic Death.

Edited by KJMackley on Dec 23rd 2019 at 2:02:06 AM

Which means the viewer's actual feelings towards the character in question is irrelevant, right? We're talking about how the story itself frames the guy.

Right, if it's all about how the audience feels about the character it would be more Take That, Scrappy!.

The point of my question was actually whether the Asshole has to be made out as deserving of their fate by the work itself, or if it's sufficient for just the audience to feel that way. For example, the Western Animation subpage recently had an example removed from it that had D.W. from Arthur get hit in the face with a swing by the Tibbles, which was removed because although some people thought she deserved it for how much of a jerk she is in most other episodes, she wasn't portrayed as deserving of that story-wise (according to the troper TV Lubber).

Edit: Never mind, this question was already answered while I was writing this.

Edited by SereneSpecter13 on Dec 23rd 2019 at 2:22:53 AM

What about characters who are Jerkasses and/or Hate Sinks in their original works and are victimized in some way beyond their control in fanfics? Do they count?

That sounds more like Ron the Death Eater. But the character would also have to be depicted as an asshole in the fanfic and not just exist to be trounced by the writer.

How is it Ron the Death Eater if the character was already an asshole in the original work??? That trope means making a good or neutral character into a bad/mean one in a fanfic.

A character who is an asshole can still have good qualities, or otherwise not be villainous. Ron the Death Eater is an exaggeration of negative traits, often with the intention of inflicting pain on the character and framing it as deserving it in canon. The traits are sometimes invented whole cloth but not always, which means instead of Asshole Victim you may run into Disproportionate Retribution.

Should I remove Diamond Tiara and Gilda from Asshole Victim on the Cupcakes main page, then?

I'm also wondering if D.W. Read would count in How to Break a Family and the Massive Multiplayer Crossover webcomic AGENCY, both of which feature her as a kidnapping victim. After all, she is a widely hated character in her origin show (and not without good reason), but the former actually has Arthur wanting to save her, so that one's probably out, but what about AGENCY? In that one, while the main characters (who are investigators) are willing to save her, they don't actually know D.W. at all in person and thus, have no idea about her horrible behavior. It is unknown if they would still be willing to save her if they knew.

(I've actually already asked this question, but it seems I'm not getting any replies on that thread.)

Not familiar with the examples. This subforum is for general questions, any desire for help with examples would be better in short term projects.