Needs Help: Well Intentioned Extremist Vs Not So Well Intentioned Extremist

Hi Guys,

This is my first time making one of these posts, so please let me know if there are any critical details I'm missing.

I believe that currently, the tropes Well-Intentioned Extremist and Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist are currently too broad, which has allowed the latter to become a potential magnet to YMMV and stealth-complaining - especially in regards to Base Breaking Characters.

The broad scale of the Well-Intentioned Extremist trope isn't an issue in of itself, as it seems to have been deliberately designed to cover as many possible variations as possible. Where the issue arises is when Well-Intentioned Extremist placed against an equally broad trope, like the Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist, that has been created to act as it's foil (the page itself describe it as "the Faux Affably Evil subversion of the Well-Intentioned Extremist"). In doing so, this creates a significant amount of overlap that allows the categorisation of those characters who do not cleanly fit into either category subject to debate.

The reason why I believe that this makes the Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist trope a magnet for stealth-complaints is that, while the existence of Draco in Leather Pants can act as enough of an impetus to discourage or counteract attempts to shoehorn characters into it's counterpart, no such deterrent exists for the trope in question. Furthermore any such attempts to counteract those stealth complaints can be quickly negated claims of pushing a DLP agenda.

In regards to fixing this problem, I have a couple of propositions:

(1) Narrow the definition of what makes a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist to mean "A character who commits horrid acts supposedly for a good cause, but secretly isn't" to remove overlap with Well-Intentioned Extremist

(2) Take a Third Option

• Narrow down the definition of what makes a Well-Intentioned Extremist and Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist tropes to "A character who commits horrid acts for a universally good cause" and "A character who commits horrid acts supposedly for a good cause, but actually possesses ulterior motives." respectively to remove overlap between the two tropes.
• Create a third trope to act as a "middle-ground" (Initially created a proposition for "Esoterically Well-Intended Extremist" trope in the TLP before learning about the TRS).

I'm not too sure what else to add, but hope that this is at least adequate.

Cheers.

Edited by vidkid on Dec 10th 2020 at 12:04:16 PM

~vidkid: Greetings and welcome to the Trope Repair Shop.

The way things work here is that we expect tropers proposing threads to have evidence of a problem, such as a large amount of shoehorned or complainy examples taken from the page or from an Wick Check. Experience has shown that otherwise, threads stall.

I'll decline this thread as it doesn't meet this criterium, but feel free to repropose it with the evidence I described above. You can ask in this thread for help if you need it.