I think part of the problem may be that I see three separate tropes being put under Ron the Death Eater (Draco in Leather Pants has the same uses, but morality-inverted):
- Fans treat or interpret a character as being more evil than they actually are.
- Characters that are often demonized in fan-fiction; this may run afowl of Examples Are Not General.
- Adaptational Villainy, but for fanworks. Not sure if this is worth splitting.
Relevant RTDE (and Draco in Leather Pants) discussion in Trope Talk which was sent to the morgue. I think the last thing said there was something like "It's too much work to rewrite/fix".
Edited by Tabs on Dec 25th 2019 at 3:57:05 AM
Ron the Death Eater gets used as fan-work centric Adaptational Jerkass or Adaptational Villainy with a bias. Fans demonize a certain character for selfish/petty reasons, like Die for Our Ship or just disliking the character.
Despite this, that's misuse. I've seen it posted anywhere and intent doesn't matter for Ron the Death Eater. So, in essence, all fan-works that use Adaptational Jerkass or Adaptational Villainy are also Ron the Death Eater.
Are there examples of Ron the Death Eater that aren't Adaptational Jerkass or Adaptational Villainy?
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.^Only the non-sourced general ones under the original material noting the unfair vilification which is apparently misuse.
Here's a problem I noticed with this from RonTheDeathEater.My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic
- There's a lot of Celestia-abuse encoded in stories written under The Conversion Bureau umbrella, and while it's unintentional in the case of the pro-TCB fics (Celestia is usually presented as a benevolent god-queen, but Fridge Horror says otherwise), it is usually very much intentional in anti-TCB fics, because it's fairly hard to justify a Celestia who acts like she does in canon invading another world with the intent to commit genocide by Assimilation Plot.
I think the pro-TBC can't be examples because they're not intentionally vilifying her as they're trying to present her as heroic despite the implications (which sounds like the opposite of this trope, fans overlooking flaws). It's the anti-TBC ones, who accuse the pro of vilifying them, doing the vilifying by running with the worst of the unintentional implications as opposed to ignoring/fixing them. I believe most of this wiki are in the anti camp as we like the deconstruction and acknowledgment of the unintentional implications, thus we contribute to the problem by endorsing such if done for a narratively satisfying purpose. This is where I lost faith we can salvage this given the contentiousness.
When put under the official works, it's complaining about other fans vilifying them (I've found anything legit can be moved to Never Live It Down). When under the fan works it's complaining about the Adaptational Villainy/Jerkass treatment of them if it's intentional (so it shouldn't be YMMV), and if it's not intentional it the same problem as official works or redundant with other complaint tropes.
I now fear RTDH is like Mary Sue, the distinction (crossing the line from legitimate to illegitimate vilification) is too subjective and complaint prone to work as actual examples. RTDH is supposed to be unfair vilification, but unless we can define unfair as opposed to fair (justified though adaptational changes or Ascended Fridge Horror), I can't think of any other way to salvage is save not allowing examples. I hope we can think of something else.
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Dec 25th 2019 at 6:55:33 AM
Better question - can there logistically exist an actual, non-general example of Ron the Death Eater that isn't Adaptational Villainy or Adaptational Jerkass? Like, can we even make up a hypothetical one?
Cause if not, we can turn this into a fanspeak-definition page.
Edited by wingedcatgirl on Dec 25th 2019 at 7:10:09 AM
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.^The one I can find is this:
- Frigid Winds and Burning Hearts has Celestia banishing Luna to the Moon in order to protect her rule over Equestria and then spending a millennium cementing her control over ponykind. What makes this a particularly egregious case is that the author claims to be a fan of Celestia and that he intended the story to be a Grey-and-Gray Morality tale.
The fact that it's unintentional argues against this trope, as RTDH is about overly blatant vilification.
I'd making an Exampleless Supertrope like Mary Sue as the point where the vilification crosses into this trope is too subjective and hard to define even as a YMMV. As used under the original works, it violates examples are not general (unless they cite specific works, the only other way I can see this salvaged), used under the fan works it's not YMMV as it's intentional and is just complaining about Additional Villainy/Jerkass.
- I like finding objective criteria whenever possible, moving YMMV to Main tropes.
- I don't see a tropable difference between RTDE and Adaptational Villany.
- Changing from a trope page to a fanspeak Definition-Only Pages should probably be done in TRS. We could Hollar a mod to move this thread there. They might require a new thread instead.
Take this and Draco in Leather Pants to TRS.
I know this was supposed to be about cleanup, but I just wanted to give my thoughts.
Edited by Brainulator9 on Dec 27th 2019 at 10:23:32 AM
Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!I'm inclined to vote for Draco In Leather Pants and Ron The Death Eater to become definition only reactions. While it's not as debatable as Mary Sue, the fact the tropes are prone to general examples make it wonky to work with.
If anything, as long as there are sourced examples of Adaptational Heroism or Adaptational Villainy in the fanbase that make them think a character is different from the source material, I think it could count for a mention on YMMV, similar to Word of Dante on trivia.
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.Admittedly, I could be misunderstanding this, I feel that there is a difference between Ron the Death Eater and Adaptational Villainy. With the former, the fic treats the character is evil because the author hates the character and/or feels like they are evil in canon, while the latter is admitting the character is changed and is exploring them in a different context.
In essence, an AU where Bloom joins The Trix would be Adaptational Villainy, while a fic that has Bloom abandon the Winx for the Trix without any reason why would be Ron the Death Eater.
Illuminate!Except...
So no, Ron the Death Eater isn't always based in character-hatred.
Current Project: The TeamEven if it was, would that be an interesting thing to keep track of?
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.Thought. Death Eater and Leather Pants aren't about portrayals in fanworks (that’s where it crosses to Adaptational), but characters who are magnets for vilification and whitewashing respectively, hence the ymmv.
...Which leads to a lot of general "Bob is often vilified" examples...
Current Project: The TeamThis again leads to the argument as to whether RTDE/DILP are tied to the source work or the fan work. If it's the former, the examples are not general as they refer to a single character from a single work.
Listing "Bob is RTDE'd in Fanworks A, B, and C" on the source work page is also something we obviously shouldn't do, that's Adaptational Villainy as has been discussed already.
I think making the trope sourced to the source work could be best, as it's about what the fandom does to a specific character in a work.
I'm not sure how to work with the trope with the no general examples part, or if it even can be worked with.
Illuminate!Have all source examples cite works where it happens to prove it's widespread enough to be notable.
That doesn't make them not General...
Current Project: The TeamI don't normally post in threads like this, but whatever. I feel like the problem here is people thinking that not giving sources and just stating the character is vilified/herofied makes the example general is the problem here. Consider an example like this from DracoInLeatherPants.Video Games:
- Final Fantasy VII's post-meltdown Sephiroth (in the image on the main page) was a sociopathic madman who killed Aerith, burned down Cloud's hometown, betrayed his trust in a glorious way, and led him on a wild goose chase all across the Planet simply to manipulate him into bringing him a magical Doomsday Device, which he then used to attempt to destroy the world. There isn't even the faintest hint of sympathy portrayed for him by any of the game's characters. However, this doesn't stop the fandom declaring him to be a Hive Mind puppet of Jenova, and relegating him to the level of innocence commonly reserved for The Woobie — even though this theory was never implied in the game, and was blatantly disproven by Word of God and the supplemental materials.note This seems purely an effect of his good looks as similarly bad but creepy villains in the story get no such sympathy, though it might also be due to remembering the Pre-meltdown version and trying 'badly' to merge the two personas.
- Villains who don't understand the world tend to have their evil side ignored by fans who also feel like they don't understand the world.
- Mario from Super Mario Bros. is typically a friendly, helpful plumber. However, he is portrayed by fans as a psychopath.
- Mario from Super Mario Bros. is typically a friendly, helpful plumber. However, some fans take his moments like grinding his shoe onto Luigi's foot, his abusive behavior towards Donkey Kong and stomping on enemies with glee as signs of him being a psychopath.
I may be wrong here, but I feel like this whole "not using specific instances would make examples general" debacle is not a good thing, especially since There Is no Such Thing as Notability exists and these just don't seem like "general" examples. I also know that YMMV has specific criteria and not every single thing can be listed (which is why cleanups for The Scrappy and Ensemble Dark Horse exist), but in case of RTDI and DILP, maybe we're trying to make the rules for these YMMV items too restrictive and they should be made more relaxed.
Edited by Piterpicher on Dec 27th 2019 at 6:06:49 PM
Currently mostly inactive. An incremental game I tested: https://galaxy.click/play/176 (Gods of Incremental)I think the problem here is that "the fandom does this a lot" is a textbook case of a general non-example, and these tropes literally are "the fandom does X a lot".
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.Correct. One example, one bullet point. Works do not share bullet points unless they're smaller parts of a larger work (episodes of a TV show, installments in a franchise, etc.). Issues with Example Indentation in Trope Lists and Zero-Context Examples are largely why Examples Are Not General.
I really need to write up that page some time...
Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!Exactly.
The other pages get away with it because the examples are tied to the source, not the fanworks... But really, thinking about it, they could be general too...
Current Project: The Team
Inspired by this Ask The Tropers page.
Ron the Death Eater has many general examples, especially on YMMV pages. The trope's page was previously cleaned up to remove general examples but YMMV pages still misuse it.