Needs Help (New Crowner 11 May 2021): Mister X And Mister Y

Mister X And Mister Y has a bare-bones description that seems to define it as any pair of characters who refer to each other as Mr. X and Mr. Y. It's only accumulated 35 wicks (10 of which are indexes/redirects/other non-usages) since 2010. Despite this not being mentioned in the description, the majority of on-page examples are villainous. Absent this or any other context, the current definition strikes me as redundant with Overly Polite Pals.

Those Two Bad Guys recently underwent TRS due to misuse and ZC Es. Examples are being moved to Bumbling Henchman Duo and the page will be cut following cleanup. But the description begins with a huge Self-Demonstrating section that explains Mister X And Mister Y as well or better than Mister X And Mister Y does, while implying additional requirements as well. This may have contributed to Those Two Bad Guys' ZCE problem, as simply listing characters' names seems like enough context for Mister X And Mister Y but certainly isn't enough for Those Two Bad Guys.

During cleanup of Those Two Bad Guys it's come up that there's a gem of a trope that seems to be covered by both pages currently: A pair of Wicked Cultured villains (often criminals, hitmen, or other Hired Guns) who engage in witty banter with each other while doing crimes.

Many wicks to Mister X And Mister Y co-occur with wicks or references to Those Two Bad Guys. Of the 25 wicks with any context whatsoever, 100% refer to a group of villains (not always stated in example context but easily available on the page). 20 involved characters referred to as Mister X And Mister Y, while 5 did not state this, and 16 also count as Those Two Bad Guys.

While the wick check does not indicate much misuse, the trope's underusage and heavy overlap with Those Two Bad Guys (which has 1553 wicks and an ongoing cleanup effort) suggests this is simply a less common variant of the larger trope. I propose that Mister X And Mister Y and the old definition of Those Two Bad Guys be merged under a new name.

Wick Check (all wicks):

Edited by naturalironist on Jan 13th 2021 at 5:56:23 AM

Opened.

Agreed, merge under a title like... Wacky Villainous Duo. I considered Wacky Criminal Duo as well, since many of these examples seem to be criminals.

Sounds a little too much like Bumbling Henchman Duo, minus the boss. Do we want the title to highlight “inseparable”, or “bantering”?

Bantering Bad Guy Duo?

That's even better.

Edited by Snicka on Feb 6th 2021 at 8:38:10 PM

Bantering Baddie Buddies?

I like it.

Should we salvage the Self-Demonstrating part from Those Two Bad Guys to Bantering Baddie Buddies or whatever the new trope will be called? If so, should it be on the Main page or a separate Self-Demonstrating page?

Edited by Snicka on Feb 7th 2021 at 7:16:07 PM

While cleaning up the wicks for Those Two Bad Guys, I thought that the Finito brothers from Max Payne sound like a good example of this trope.

Probably best to move to a self demonstrating page. It makes this seem more like a dialogue trope than a characterization trope.

I agree.

I suspect part of the reason why Those Two Bad Guys was misused so often was exactly the self-demonstrating description, so yes, having it on the main page is indeed not a good idea.

How much substance is left for Those Two Bad Guys if the bantering portion gets moved away to its own page?

Well, none, because Those Two Bad Guys as we know it is no longer a trope. Most of it was kicked to Bumbling Henchman Duo, and the proposal for this thread is to absorb the "bantering villains" thing that made up the bulk of TTBG's description and contributed to usage.

(I'm in favor of it btw.)

Edited by Synchronicity on Feb 13th 2021 at 12:40:27 PM

Yeah, the point of this is to salvage Those Two Bad Guys, otherwise most examples of the bantering villains trope will just be cut during cleanup.

Then I don't understand Snicka's reason why he would move the Bantering Baddie Buddies-demonstrating description away. If it resonated with users we should keep it on the new page.

The self-demonstrating description most likely did not resonate that well with users, as the bulk of examples on Those Two Bad Guys was not "bantering, Faux Affably Evil pair of villains", it was just the very chairs-y "pair of villains". During the cleanup, I removed hundreds of "Those Two Bad Guys: Name 1 and Name 2" type ZCE-s.

Edited by Snicka on Feb 14th 2021 at 11:26:34 AM

You said the self demonstration let to misuse. Misuse as what trope? Or did you mean ZCE?

Misuse as "pair of villains". When there was context, it was "they are always together", "they do crime together" and so forth - no mention of clever banter. And I think the self-demonstrating part played into that because it was just witty dialogue instead of outright telling the readers what the trope is.

I know it's an odd reasoning - logically, showing the clever banter should make tropers think the clever banter is part of the trope. But the actual wicks showed the exact opposite. Though I think the very non-indicative trope name was a more important factor.

Edited by Snicka on Feb 14th 2021 at 9:54:36 PM

Got it.

So, do you think the idea posted by OP is tropable? If yes, should we create it in a Sandbox or should we send it through Trope Launch Pad?

Edited by Snicka on Feb 24th 2021 at 10:08:32 AM

Should we have a crowner? Not much of this discussion has focused on whether people support/oppose actions proposed in OP.

Options could include:

• Create a new trope for the "bantering hired goons" concept
• Cut Mister X And Mister Y
• Keep Mister X And Mister Y, rewrite description to reflect usage
• Do nothing

Agreed, let's make a Crowner.

Here's a crowner.

For the "make a new page" option I think we can directly make the page rather than going through the TLP.

Hollered a mod regarding the Crowner.