Misused: Asshole Victim

So, credit to Warjay for doing the check. These are Warjay’s words as well, until a certain point I will indicate.

Asshole Victim is a trope about unsympathetic characters dying, to give the killers a victim the audience won't care about, with the caveat that they're still innocent and didn't bring their deaths upon themselves. Too many examples use the trope to be about assholes who deserve to die, or are targeted out of revenge. Note that downplayed examples, wherein the asshole doesn't die but gets hurt or otherwise abused, won't be separated from death examples for the purposes of this check.

Sandbox.Asshole Victim Wick Check

Now, N here. So a prevailing opinion seems to be that the definition can be expanded to cover some of the misuse. I agree, on account that “Asshole who is innocent and attacked for irrelevant reasons” is kinda a duplicate of Kick The Son Of A Bitch (which has its own problems), while “murder-mystery victim is unsympathetic and targeted for revenge so you won’t feel sorry for them” is VERY common.

But, to make it clear, I don’t want to expand this to meet ALL the misuse- just the cases where the person doling out the punishment is clearly the “aggressor”, or would be defined as such by most legal systems. Because I have seen cases of this used when the Big Bad dies or suffers in any way even if they are clearly the aggressor and the hero was defending themselves, which isn’t really a trope, so I wanna draw that distinction. To demonstrate what I mean:

• Abusive Parents try Offing the Offspring and the child violently kills them in self-defense: NOT AV.
• Abusive Parents are victim of gruesome and premeditated murder by child: AV.

Or this:

• Villain is killed by hero in combat/self-defense/defense of the hero’s people: just villain getting killed, NOT AV.
• Villain is kidnapped, brutally tortured, and killed by hero as revenge for burning down hero’s hometown: AV.

Basically, if the aggressor would be declared guilty in a court of law, even if the victim was a jerk and the aggression was retaliation for it, then it counts.

Edited by MasterN on Apr 4th 2022 at 12:50:12 PM

Opening

Yay, thanks for making this one, N.

Now, something that has come up since we've finished this wick check is that the description is actually very ambiguous about what this trope actually is. So ambiguous, in fact, that there are lines that imply the jerk could be responsible for getting victimized, just as there are lines that say the exact opposite. My point is, the description doesn't stick to one interpretation, and anyone can read it to suit their own perspective of the trope. My whole basis was based on paragraph two, but there's other bits on the page that directly contradict the fact that the asshole should be victimized for things "beyond their control".

So, whatever we do, we'll have to rewrite the description to be way more clear about what the definition is- whatever definition we end up choosing for this thing.

Now, I still think broadening it is a good idea, especially because of that ambiguity issue.

Ideas so far:

• Diambig between Karmic Death, Catharsis Factor, Kick The Son Of A Bitch, Laser-Guided Karma, Who Murdered the Asshole and The Dog Bites Back.
• e: Make it a Super-Trope.
• Redefine as characters who aren't "villains", but are such Jerkasses, dying/suffering (through Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work or accident) makes it better for everyone (possible And There Was Much Rejoicing).
• Redefine as minor villains who died before or in the middle through the story, to introduce a problem that is quickly resolved (similar to Generic Doomsday Villain).
• Broadening the defenition (decide to what later).

Edited by Amonimus on Apr 5th 2022 at 10:19:15 PM

I do not suppose we should already disambiguate it just yet. After all, it's a pretty well-established phrase on the wiki, even if it is misused.

We could maybe split off alternate possible meanings into other tropes.

We've disambiguated even most popular tropes for being ambiguous, like Darth Vader Clone, so nothing would prevent it technically if voted for.

Ditto with Adult Fear, which was pretty old if I'm not mistaken (I'm too lazy to check the article's timestamp; I just got up from a nap).

Anyway, I'm in favor of disambiguating because of how few valid examples came up. Maybe we could Yard the current definition if someone wants to start over with a better name.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 4th 2022 at 6:03:16 AM

I would prefer avoiding any sort of disambiguating or name-changing. It's already unfun to watch happen, and seeing as though some of the misuse can be salvaged, I think changing the name or disambiguating it is even more pointless.

One question I have about this trope, in regards to the relationship to Abusive Parents. If a parent is an abusive person to their kids, but then somehow causes their own death by accident (i.e: drinking and driving), does that count as an example of Asshole Victim?

No, that’s just Too Dumb to Live. An Asshole Victim has to be a victim of a crime or general aggression.

IIRC, this trope actually was expanded in a previous TRS to cover any instances an unpleasant character get victimised for whatever reason. The original, narrower definition was split off to Who Murdered the Asshole.

Mmm, do you mean this thread from 8 years ago? It might be another instance of "technically got altered but the work wasn't done", especially as the description itself is so inconsistent about it.

Plus, Who Murdered the Asshole is for a mystery and requires murder.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 4th 2022 at 9:20:45 AM

OK, yeah, in that case, it looks like the wick check may have used an overly narrow interpretation of the definition. That's what previously happened with the Impaled with Extreme Prejudice thread, which was closed for that reason. It seems like we can just rewrite the definition and be done with everything, though that could probably be deferred to the description improvement thread.

I'm retracting my previous vote and I'm actually questioning whether this thread should stay open.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 4th 2022 at 8:25:34 AM

Like I said in my first post, the wick check was made based on information I collected from the description itself. However, that same description is extremely inconsistent with the definition and can be read in contradictory ways. Paragraph 2, for example, says:

"In other words, when a victim-shaped hole in the plot is filled with a character who is sufficiently repugnant, the audience feeling bad about what happened to them is unlikely. The character doesn't have to die or be brutalized, just that they suffer in some way beyond their control. In some cases, "victim-shaped hole" can mean "victim of non-violent theft". If able to confront their attacker, there is a high likelihood they have no idea what earned their ire."

"Beyond their control" being the operative words here, and bolded in the actual text.

I'm no longer sure that this is misuse, however I am positive that the definition is extremely vague, the description needs a serious overhaul, and I'm also unconvinced that "Jerkass who becomes a victim" is inherently tropeworthy on its own.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 4th 2022 at 9:24:04 AM

Well, I'll wait for more input regarding the description, since, as I said, it looks like the previous thread didn't update it properly.

I'm still keeping my previous vote retracted for now, but I'm not going to smash the lock button since this is yet another case of a page having problems due to a previous TRS thread leaving unfinished business behind (Foe Yay is another recent case).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 4th 2022 at 8:31:12 AM

Those Two Bad Guys too, albeit in that case it was more that the wicks weren't cleaned.

I agree with Jay that the description/definition are very vague, and I think that "Jerkass who becomes a victim" is already covered IMO by other, more specific tropes (such as the ones Amonimus mentioned).

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Apr 4th 2022 at 9:35:44 AM

Double posting because as I said to the other mods, it seems like there is a definition-related problem here, but instead of it being the definition being misinterpreted, it's that the previous TRS thread left it open to misinterpretation because the description wasn't updated to reflect the modified definition (if it was updated at all).

Edit: Well, I guess it ended up not being a double post since I got ninja'd.

Edit: Now that I think of it, maybe the previous TRS thread resulted in a situation similar to what happened with The The Title being renamed to Definite Article Title, that being that the definition was broadened in a way that made it less tropeworthy.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 4th 2022 at 8:38:48 AM

I already described my opinion in the recent Trope Talk thread.

Yeah, that discussion is what made me realize that the true problem was the description, not the usage. If two people can read the same description and get different interpretations, something's wrong.

Okay so, skimming through the previous thread again, and checking the page's history, it seems that this is what happened:

• The trope was originally meant to be a Murder Mystery-specific trope that was "misused" to cover victims of other type of crimes (e.g. mugging, scams, etc.).
• The 2014 thread voted to expand the trope to cover any instances of "Jerkass crime victim — death optional" and transplanted the original Murder Mystery-specific definition into Who Murdered the Asshole.
• In Apr 28th 2016 at 3:34:52 PM, KJ Mackley changed the first paragraph of the description, from this:

to this:

That change made the trope even broader than what was actually agreed upon, since it no longer covers only victims of a criminal act, but any kind of misfortune.

I mentioned in that previous thread that I've seen the trope used for victims of other non-crime incidents as well, such as a natural disaster or other accidents, but the discussion never really got around addressing whether or not those can count. That thread didn't have a proper wick check, so we don't have a clear picture on the usage stats of the trope back then.

I think Asshole Victim can serve as a super-trope for the other related tropes:

• Asshole Victim: Bad things (crime, accident, natural disaster, etc.) happens to this person, but because they're such an asshole, the audience (and other characters) don't really feel sorry for them.
• Who Murdered the Asshole: An asshole is murdered, and since he's wronged so many people in life, every single suspect has the motive to kill them.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: A character targets the asshole specifically to get back at them for their past misdeeds.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: A jerk/villain kills or otherwise harms a character for Kick the Dog reasons, but that character is such an asshole that they don't get much audience sympathy.

Edited by Adept on Apr 5th 2022 at 9:55:56 PM

...Huh. Yeah, that's definitely an issue that goes deeper than "thread didn't do cleanup". It actively obscures the meaning of the trope.

There's definitely a bigger issue here. I just checked the history for the trope's laconic, and it too has been increasingly watered down and broadened.

Making it a supertrope seems like the best solution, the definition is so loose now that it is hardly a trope on its own and is better served as the supertrope to the more specific ones you mentioned.

That seems like a good idea. Still, I'm baffled at the previous threads' decisions on the matter.

Well, the previous thread was eight years ago and used a different definition... but yeah, old TRS also had a nasty habit of not finishing work.