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Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
Paging ~amathieu13 as the OP of this thread
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Just stoic wisdom.
The recommendations make sense. (Are they distinct options or co-existing? Post-nap brain foggy rn.)
Also kinda tangential but the past tense in the name makes me think of more of a situation where someone's attacked and killed an "enemy" already only to learn after the fact that the enemy was…actually friendly, rather than what the definition is. But again that's just an irrelevant aside!
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Was Actually Friendly describes itself as a subtrope of Good All Along, while Not Always Evil says:
NAE seems to be a subversion of Always Chaotic Evil that describes itself as applying specifically to mooks and not necessarily an entire race, only specific people within it, while WAF, near as I can tell from its confusingly-written Example as a Thesis, is about a race that reaches out and convinces someone that hates them specifically, for whatever reason, to stop persecuting them. The race in question might not have done anything bad at all, and might well be the protagonists we always knew were good guys convincing a villain to defect, but conversely, the page also claims that the race could, in fact, turn out to be evil all along and turn the character in question to the dark side; the emphasis is supposed to be more on the "friendly" part than necessarily being "good". (Note that the last couple points seemingly contradict WAF's claim to be a subtrope of Good All Along.)
I don't know if any of this adds up to a useful distinction (especially if the examples really do effectively fall under either NAE or Good All Along) or even a well-defined trope.
Edited by MorganWick on Jun 22nd 2022 at 4:45:22 AM
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I think we should disambiguate between Not Always Evil and Good All Along and move examples accordingly, but redirecting to just the former would also be fine.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 22nd 2022 at 6:58:47 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
the Retromancer
Was Actually Friendly seems to be a human version of Not Always Evil (which talks about Mooks and spieces a lot). If merged, I suggest reviewing Not Always Evil to allow stuff like "not fully evil evil cult" or "not fully evil thieves den".
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
The The Pact example on-page is actually Otherworldly Communication Failure.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
We can expand Not Always Evil's definition to be applicable to any species if that isn't already the case, similarly to how the TRS thread that merged Reverse Mole into The Mole made the merged trope applicable to both heroes and villains rather than just one or the other.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 22nd 2022 at 8:23:11 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
I believe we also did something similar with Diary and Epistolary Novel, where the tropeworthy usage of the former was what the latter was expanded to include.
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jun 22nd 2022 at 9:27:46 AM
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Sounds good on paper (he/him)
That's true. I think I actually made the tweaks to Epistolary Novel now that you mention it, but I kind of forgot about that page despite otherwise not forgetting that Diary was disambiguated.
That said, the changes to Epistolary Novel were more because it's a preexisting term with an established definition, but our page defined it more narrowly than the definition everyone else was using.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 22nd 2022 at 8:34:10 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Amonimus
: The difference isn't that clear. Technically you have it slightly backwards since WAF is about species and race, where as NAE is more about mooks. But mooks can also be of a specific race anyways.
Responding to Morgan Wick's comment: This to me reads like a Distinction Without a Difference both in concept and in use on the site, but I decided to re-sort the wick check using your definitions to see if doing so revealed a clear and unique use of Was Actually Friendly. I tacked the results to the end of the first wick check and you can click here to see. The summary of results:
Total: 28
- Correct - 1 (4%)
- Not Always Evil - 2 (7%)
- Good All Along - 15 (54%)
- Otherworldly Communication Failure - 2 (7%)
- Unclear - 8 (29%)
The result is that while those definitions do remove the severe conflation between WAF and NAE, most examples still don't fit the definition provided specifically for WAF and they actually end up being ambiguous or not fitting any of the definitions. Also the conflation between GAA remains.
Basically, if those definitions are true, no one is following them. And going along those lines, NAE likely needs a separate wick check and thread to clarify it's meaning and see if it's being misused based on that
Edited by amathieu13 on Jun 23rd 2022 at 1:56:14 PM
So I just looked at the description for Good All Along and it actually tries to draw distinctions between both other tropes:
...which doesn't help the argument that WAF is in any way distinct from NAE, since it seems to describe WAF as "GAA but without the main thing distinguishing it from NAE".
The first two "unclear" examples, from Disgaea and She-Ra, seem to have a common theme of someone being fed a misleading view of a group, then encountering the group themselves and getting a very different picture. WAF's description mentions a group potentially being the victim of Demonization, so it seems like classifying them under that trope is at least vaguely justifiable, so long as the "reaching out" part isn't completely necessary, merely that firsthand experience with a group puts the lie to one's preconceived notions of them. (Though, perhaps proving your Distinction Without a Difference point, my first instinct before re-checking the descriptions was to classify Disgaea under NAE and She-Ra under WAF.)
The Hobbit examples don't seem to fit any of the tropes (depending on whether there's missing context) because nothing happens to change anyone's opinion, at least as described, although the elves/dwarves conflict has been listed under it since it was in YKTTW. Same with Blutengel because, as described, there's no baseline opinion that's being changed (which might not be a good sign for the viability of Was Actually Friendly as a trope since they provide the WAF page quote, and as with the Hobbit that goes back to its time in YKTTW).
I would say the Outer Limits example could fit my reading of WAF (perhaps with a sprinkling of Otherworldly Communication Failure) because the humans did end up getting a negative opinion of the aliens through misinterpreting their actions, even if what changed their mind was technically sent before any of that, but it does require a bit of a Tropes Are Flexible reading (as it's a very different example from the Disgaea/She-Ra examples even though it too requires the "reaching out" part to be optional). Frankly what it suggests is that Not Always Evil is misleadingly named, since it fits the last bullet point on that page's list of ways that trope could manifest and probably is the best fit overall, even though the aliens were never evil. In any case, I think the Outer Limits example categorized under Good All Along should be put in the same category as this one, whichever one that is (see below).
Having seen these examples and re-read the descriptions, if I had to draw distinctions between the tropes it would be:
- Was Actually Friendly is when a character improves their opinion of a group upon gaining experience with them first-hand, possibly taking the audience along with them.
- Not Always Evil is when the audience learns that a race or seemingly villainous group contains some good or honorable members or otherwise is more complex than we might have originally been led to believe, or maybe always had good intentions, possibly in line with a character learning the same.
- Good All Along is specifically about characters turning out to be good (in the view of the audience); if they were thought to be evil in part because of their race or group affiliation, particularly if this changes how the race or group is viewed by characters (WAF) or the audience (NAE), they may be classified as NAE or WAF. This applies to the Outer Limits example in that folder, and I want to say the First Try Series example is a valid case of WAF even though the Kyuubi itself has little or nothing to do with it.
(It's a shame WAF's original sponsor doesn't seem to have been active since 2018...)
^I still don't really think there's a difference in practice between those two proposed WAF and NAE descriptions, but that's kind of moot since few examples actually fit the redefine as they are currently written.
I would not be opposed to yarding that concept (or since you seem to have a good handle on it, you can take it to the TLP and draft the idea / collect examples), but in terms of what can be done to this trope now, I'm still in favor of either a merge or disambiguation.
It's been 3 days since the thread opened. Outside of merging vs disambiguating and yarding, are there any other options to put on a crowner?
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I made a crowner for the two ways to merge this. Yarding is a free action, so I left it off.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Calling in favor of merging with and redirecting to Not Always Evil, moving wicks between Not Always Evil and Good All Along.
Edit: I added a to-do list to the opening post and pinned it.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 28th 2022 at 12:45:40 PM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
I've started working on the wicks. Should we redirect, or since there are two tropes disambiguate?
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Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Disambiguating was downvoted, so we're redirecting this to Not Always Evil.
I'll go ahead and move the examples to a sandbox so the redirect can be made.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 29th 2022 at 11:38:16 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
I moved examples to Sandbox.Was Actually Friendly Examples in case anyone needs them, and the main page is now a redirect.
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
I'm sorting the wicks by the wick check I did since it included every wick. So I'm moving some to NAE and others to GAA since there was misuse of WAF towards both
I finished up the remaining wicks. Only one left is for the wick check which I'll send to the cutlist. this thread can be closed
(she/her)
Locking as resolved.
Wick check
Definitions:- Not Always Evil: A race isn't as Always Chaotic Evil as it seems at first glance.
- Was Actually Friendly: A group of people that appears scary and/or evil is actually nice.
- Good All Along: A character that is thought to be one of the bad guys turns out to have always been on the side of good.
Wicks 38 - 12 (indices, laconics, etc) = 26 + 3 (multiple entries, same wick) = 29
- Not Always Evil - 14 (48%)
- Good All Along - 13 (46%)
- Can't Categorize - 1 (3%)
- ZCE - 1 (3%)
- Disgaea: Hour of Darkness - Fionne: Flonne finds out that demons are not as bad as the other angels would have her believe, though she had her doubts to begin with.
- Log Horizon Akihabara - Rezarick: Most of the younger players thought that he was scary and unsympathetic towards them because of their negative impression of the Black Sword Knights until he actually started talking, which revealed that he was actually rather kind and caring. It probably extends to the rest of the guild, considering that some other guild members also went to the Training Camp to help out.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power — Adora: Adora begins to rethink the Horde's teachings when she's captured by two members of the Rebellion, and they not only choose to take her back to Bright Moon nonviolently, but make conversation with her and, in Bow's case, are downright friendly. She's genuinely taken aback when she sees that the "savage" rebels she's been raised to hate and fear (Was Actually Friendly) are actually good people.
- The Hobbit:
- The Wood Elves. Elves and dwarves have a mixed history, so they mutually distrust each other to begin with. When the starving Dwarves of Thorin's Company disturb the Elves' forest banquets they assume they are attacking, and then the dwarves' presence stirs up the spiders, who are the enemies of the Elves. For their part, when they are captured by the elves they refuse to say why they're in the wood, making the Elves more suspicious. The Elves turn out to be a lot nicer later on, helping the Lake men to build shelters and find food after the destruction of their city by the dragon. During the Battle of the Five Armies, Bilbo decides he had rather make his Last Stand with the Elves than anywhere else.
- The men of the lake gave aid to the Dwarves when they first showed up but later sent an army to take their gold. But when the orc and wolf armies show up, they immediately join forces with the Dwarves again.
- Blutengel: Several songs run on this theme, with the cool vampires inviting the humans to hang out with them and maybe becoming immortal themselves.
- The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: It turns out that the Duplo aliens, General Mayhem, Queen Watevra, and every other member of the Systar system were actually just trying to become friends with the Bricksburg citizens. Watevra's Suspiciously Specific Denial about not being evil is genuine, and her wedding to Batman is an effort to prevent Armamageddon, not bring it on.
- Tropes Q to Z:
- In "Trial by Fire", a newly-inaugurated President is taken to a bunker after an object is detected on the way to Earth. It is eventually revealed that alien ships are about to enter Earth's orbit. They send a message in, apparently, their own language, which linguists are trying to translate. Meanwhile, several of their actions are perceived as hostile by the US and, especially, by Russia. Faced with the possibility of an Alien Invasion and the threat of a nuclear exchange with Russia (who claims that anyone who doesn't fight the aliens will be seen as a collaborator), the President orders a strike on the aliens. It utterly fails due to the aliens' advanced technology. Furthermore, the aliens launch powerful missiles against Washington, D.C., and Moscow. Right before they hit, an advisor tells the President that the alien message was in English all along, just garbled due to their aquatic environment, offering friendship to humans.
- In "The Second Soul", an alien race arrives on Earth. This time, they're openly asking to be allowed to live on Earth by possessing dead humans. Throughout the episode, several characters get increasingly paranoid about the aliens' agenda on Earth. It is revealed, though, that the aliens have no evil agenda and are merely building a museum to their race, as all their children are 100% human.
- The Outer Limits 1995 S 1 E 12 Dark Matters: The aliens appear menacing, but they're actually trying to get the humans to help them escape, only they can't speak their language so can't communicate directly.
- The Outer Limits 1995 S 2 E 9 Trial By Fire: In "Trial by Fire", a newly-inaugurated President is taken to a bunker after an object is detected on the way to Earth. It is eventually revealed that alien ships are about to enter Earth's orbit. They send a message in, apparently, their own language, which linguists are trying to translate. Meanwhile, several of their actions are perceived as hostile by the US and, especially, by Russia. Faced with the possibility of an Alien Invasion and the threat of a nuclear exchange with Russia (who claims that anyone who doesn't fight the aliens will be seen as a collaborator), the President orders a strike on the aliens. It utterly fails due to the aliens' advanced technology. Furthermore, the aliens launch powerful missiles against Washington, D.C., and Moscow. Right before they hit, an advisor tells the President that the alien message was in English all along, just garbled due to their aquatic environment, offering friendship to humans.
- The Outer Limits 1995 S 1 E 5 The Second Soul: The N'Tal arrive on Earth. This time, they're openly asking to be allowed to live on Earth by possessing dead humans. Throughout the episode, several characters get increasingly paranoid about the N'Tal's agenda on Earth. It is revealed, though, that they have no evil agenda and are merely building a museum to their race, as all their children are 100% human.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Adora begins to rethink the Horde's teachings when she's captured by two members of the Rebellion, and they not only choose to take her back to Bright Moon nonviolently, but make conversation with her and, in Bow's case, are downright friendly. She's genuinely taken aback when she sees that the "savage" rebels she's been raised to hate and fear are (Was Actually Friendly) are actually good people.
- Spiders Are Scary: They are robots, each fitted with a Brain in a Jar, but the brain spiders in Galaxy of Fear unsettle and frighten Zak, especially since they seem to be stalking him. When they finally corner him, (Was Actually Friendly) they turn out to be on his side and trying to tell him something, which is hard to do when you're a meter-tall metal spider that can't talk.
- The Pact: Jennifer Glick's ghost is actually trying to alert Annie that there's a serial killer living in the basement. During her acrobatic struggle with the ghost, Annie embeds her kitchen knife in what she later realizes is a false wall covering the door to a secret extra room.
- Ask Fluffle Puff: The Necromorph pony that terrorizes Queen Chrysalis on Nightmare Night turns out to be Fluffle Puff's sister who decided to visit.
- Characters/Duskwood - Phil: Comes off this way, once the player starts talking to him. Despite his extremely harsh texts to Jessy (his own sister) and borderline threatening text to Richy, as well as the things he said about Hannah to Cleo, he's very friendly and polite with the player. He makes good points that he's simply fed up with the group's antics affecting his work and has no reason to be mad at the player, who has had nothing to do with interfering with his business. That said, the player can tell the group that they suspect he's too nice and cooperative, and it doesn't excuse what he said about Hannah — something he doesn't apologize for if it's brought up and pointed out that he should have called out Cleo if he was mad at her, not insulted a girl who is missing and possibly dead.
- It's Curtains - Jean Valjean: While Javert initially warns everyone that he's dangerous, Valjean is harmless and cares for everyone.
- The (Not So) Cynical Creators Guild - Anti Brony Ben Swolo: One might think he's an unpleasant troll based off of his name, especially given that he's on a My Little Pony fanfiction website, but he's actually one of the friendliest and most agreeable people in the group.
- Vresun Ciraian Ruins - Pteri: It turns out that Pteri isn't all that bad. Once King of Despair buries the hatchet, Pteri is even willing to help him solve the Vresun Conspiracy.
- Ed, Edd, Eddy, n Edna: the way the Eds feel about May once she befriends them.
- First Try Series: At first, Tetsuo hates Naruto for the Kyuubi, mentally referring to him as "the Demon"/"Demon child"/etc. in his head. Then he finds out that Naruto is a Kyuubi orphan and that he knew Naruto's mother. The nail in the coffin is when he actually gets to test Naruto one-on-one and realizes that he's really just a kid.
- Futari Wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon: Yoko herself — she just needed to get out more and be more honest with herself before she could show it.
- Pokémon: A Marvelous Journey: Caiseal is a genuinely nice kid. But years of being treated like dirt by his parents and having to deal with The Reveal that he has Vanishing Twin Syndrome have made him become guarded and distrusting of others. He does warm up to Perrine and Julia later on, becoming an important ally and friend.
- Easy A: Marianne really hated Olive. But when Olive showed her a bit of kindness and support, she quickly changed her attitude and wanted to be friends instead. It didn't last long, but that's for entirely different reasons; Marianne's boyfriend cheated on her and got a venereal disease, then lied and pretended he got it from Olive.
- The Last Ship: "Warlord" Thorwald is set up as a villain, complete with creepy music, a raggedy group of supporters, and is given an introduction where he guns down an infected woman and appears to be consolidating his territory. It turns out that the apparent villain is actually a resistance fighter and former Baltimore Police detective who opposes Amy Granderson's plan to save only those those she considers worthy of the new world and is trying to set up a refuge for those who'd be cast out of Baltimore to die from the Red Flu.
- Steven Universe S 1 E 10 Steven's Lion: Steven thinks Lion is going to attack him, but it doesn't.
- Preaching to the Perverted: The film runs both ways on this trope, with the protagonist finding some (though not all) of the BDSM club members to be rather friendly to him, and being friendly to them in turn even as he's gathering evidence against them.
- KHR Nuova RP: Some of the antagonists are this, the primary example being Dispetto. They'e just a little... off...
Re-sort based on MorganWick
's definitions.
- Not Always Evil: a subversion of Always Chaotic Evil that describes itself as applying specifically to mooks and not necessarily an entire race, only specific people within it
- Always Chaotic Evil: A common concept of the sci-fi and fantasy genres (and especially games of those genres) is the notion of not an organization, not a clan, not a city, but an entire race of bad guys who brag about how Evil they are (are inherently evil as a whole).
- Was Actually Friendly: a race that reaches out and convinces someone that hates them specifically, for whatever reason, to stop persecuting them.
- Good All Along: A character that is thought to be one of the bad guys turns out to have always been on the side of good.
Total: 28
- Correct - 1 (4%)
- Not Always Evil - 2 (7%)
- Good All Along - 15 (54%)
- Otherworldly Communication Failure - 2 (7%)
- Unclear - 8 (29%)
- The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: It turns out that the Duplo aliens, General Mayhem, Queen Watevra, and every other member of the Systar system were actually just trying to become friends with the Bricksburg citizens. Watevra's Suspiciously Specific Denial about not being evil is genuine, and her wedding to Batman is an effort to prevent Armamageddon, not bring it on.
- Log Horizon Akihabara - Rezarick: Most of the younger players thought that he was scary and unsympathetic towards them because of their negative impression of the Black Sword Knights until he actually started talking, which revealed that he was actually rather kind and caring. It probably extends to the rest of the guild, considering that some other guild members also went to the Training Camp to help out. — adding that what constitutes a mook in this situation is blurry
- Preaching to the Perverted: The film runs both ways on this trope, with the protagonist finding some (though not all) of the BDSM club members to be rather friendly to him, and being friendly to them in turn even as he's gathering evidence against them. — whether BDSM members are considered mooks or a race is debatable but it fits here otherwise, as no special convincing or persecution happens and it's unclear whether or not the BDSM club is portrayed as actually evil
- Tropes Q to Z: In "The Second Soul", an alien race arrives on Earth. This time, they're openly asking to be allowed to live on Earth by possessing dead humans. Throughout the episode, several characters get increasingly paranoid about the aliens' agenda on Earth. It is revealed, though, that the aliens have no evil agenda and are merely building a museum to their race, as all their children are 100% human. — reading this as the episode makes the idea of human possession sinister to the humans but it's revealed that they're trying to help humanity. Can't be WAF since there's no targeted convincing happening
- The Outer Limits 1995 S 1 E 5 The Second Soul: The N'Tal arrive on Earth. This time, they're openly asking to be allowed to live on Earth by possessing dead humans. Throughout the episode, several characters get increasingly paranoid about the N'Tal's agenda on Earth. It is revealed, though, that they have no evil agenda and are merely building a museum to their race, as all their children are 100% human. — see above
- The Pact: Jennifer Glick's ghost is actually trying to alert Annie that there's a serial killer living in the basement. During her acrobatic struggle with the ghost, Annie embeds her kitchen knife in what she later realizes is a false wall covering the door to a secret extra room. — the ghost is presented as and thought to be malevolent before the reveal so it's both this and Other Worldly Communication failure
- Ask Fluffle Puff: The Necromorph pony that terrorizes Queen Chrysalis on Nightmare Night turns out to be Fluffle Puff's sister who decided to visit. — no persecution, no convincing
- Characters/Duskwood - Phil: Comes off this way, once the player starts talking to him. Despite his extremely harsh texts to Jessy (his own sister) and borderline threatening text to Richy, as well as the things he said about Hannah to Cleo, he's very friendly and polite with the player. He makes good points that he's simply fed up with the group's antics affecting his work and has no reason to be mad at the player, who has had nothing to do with interfering with his business. That said, the player can tell the group that they suspect he's too nice and cooperative, and it doesn't excuse what he said about Hannah — something he doesn't apologize for if it's brought up and pointed out that he should have called out Cleo if he was mad at her, not insulted a girl who is missing and possibly dead. — no persecution, no convincing
- It's Curtains - Jean Valjean: While Javert initially warns everyone that he's dangerous, Valjean is harmless and cares for everyone. — no persecution, no convincing
- The (Not So) Cynical Creators Guild - Anti Brony Ben Swolo: One might think he's an unpleasant troll based off of his name, especially given that he's on a My Little Pony fanfiction website, but he's actually one of the friendliest and most agreeable people in the group. — no persecution, no convincing
- Vresun Ciraian Ruins - Pteri: It turns out that Pteri isn't all that bad. Once King of Despair buries the hatchet, Pteri is even willing to help him solve the Vresun Conspiracy. — no persecution, no convincing
- Ed, Edd, Eddy, n Edna: the way the Eds feel about May once she befriends them. — no persecution, no convincing
- First Try Series: At first, Tetsuo hates Naruto for the Kyuubi, mentally referring to him as "the Demon"/"Demon child"/etc. in his head. Then he finds out that Naruto is a Kyuubi orphan and that he knew Naruto's mother. The nail in the coffin is when he actually gets to test Naruto one-on-one and realizes that he's really just a kid. — no persecution, no convincing
- Futari Wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon: Yoko herself — she just needed to get out more and be more honest with herself before she could show it. — no persecution, no convincing
- Pokémon: A Marvelous Journey: Caiseal is a genuinely nice kid. But years of being treated like dirt by his parents and having to deal with The Reveal that he has Vanishing Twin Syndrome have made him become guarded and distrusting of others. He does warm up to Perrine and Julia later on, becoming an important ally and friend. — no persecution, no convincing
- Easy A: Marianne really hated Olive. But when Olive showed her a bit of kindness and support, she quickly changed her attitude and wanted to be friends instead. It didn't last long, but that's for entirely different reasons; Marianne's boyfriend cheated on her and got a venereal disease, then lied and pretended he got it from Olive. — no persecution of a race (both are human and Olive is hated specifically, no convincing of goodness
- The Last Ship: "Warlord" Thorwald is set up as a villain, complete with creepy music, a raggedy group of supporters, and is given an introduction where he guns down an infected woman and appears to be consolidating his territory. It turns out that the apparent villain is actually a resistance fighter and former Baltimore Police detective who opposes Amy Granderson's plan to save only those those she considers worthy of the new world and is trying to set up a refuge for those who'd be cast out of Baltimore to die from the Red Flu. — no persecution, no convincing
- Steven Universe S 1 E 10 Steven's Lion: Steven thinks Lion is going to attack him, but it doesn't. — no persecution, no convincing
- The Outer Limits 1995 S 1 E 12 Dark Matters: The aliens appear menacing, but they're actually trying to get the humans to help them escape, only they can't speak their language so can't communicate directly. — not about a single alien trying to convince humanity of their friendliness so can't be NAE. focus isn't on persecution so can't be WAF. Not about a specific alien character turning out to be on the side of good and not working with the bad guys, so can't be GAA
- Spiders Are Scary: They are robots, each fitted with a Brain in a Jar, but the brain spiders in Galaxy of Fear unsettle and frighten Zak, especially since they seem to be stalking him. When they finally corner him, (Was Actually Friendly) they turn out to be on his side and trying to tell him something, which is hard to do when you're a meter-tall metal spider that can't talk. — no persecution going on, not done by individuals to specifically change the other person's mind, so can't be the other 3
- Disgaea: Hour of Darkness - Fionne: Flonne finds out that demons are not as bad as the other angels would have her believe, though she had her doubts to begin with. — doesn't say that anyone reached out to her specifically. seems like it was just a lesson she learned from interacting with demons?
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power — Adora: Adora begins to rethink the Horde's teachings when she's captured by two members of the Rebellion, and they not only choose to take her back to Bright Moon nonviolently, but make conversation with her and, in Bow's case, are downright friendly. She's genuinely taken aback when she sees that the "savage" rebels she's been raised to hate and fear (Was Actually Friendly) are actually good people. — same issue as above. written from the perspective of the person who had their mind changed and not from the perspective of the misjudged race, so the intentionality of the change that is part of WAF's def is ambiguous
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Adora begins to rethink the Horde's teachings when she's captured by two members of the Rebellion, and they not only choose to take her back to Bright Moon nonviolently, but make conversation with her and, in Bow's case, are downright friendly. She's genuinely taken aback when she sees that the "savage" rebels she's been raised to hate and fear (Was Actually Friendly) are actually good people. — see above
- The Hobbit: The Wood Elves. Elves and dwarves have a mixed history, so they mutually distrust each other to begin with. When the starving Dwarves of Thorin's Company disturb the Elves' forest banquets they assume they are attacking, and then the dwarves' presence stirs up the spiders, who are the enemies of the Elves. For their part, when they are captured by the elves they refuse to say why they're in the wood, making the Elves more suspicious. The Elves turn out to be a lot nicer later on, helping the Lake men to build shelters and find food after the destruction of their city by the dragon. During the Battle of the Five Armies, Bilbo decides he had rather make his Last Stand with the Elves than anywhere else. — no specific convincing occuring so can't be WAF, but also not about a specific character/is about the perception of an entire race so can't be NAE are GAA either
- The Hobbit: The men of the lake gave aid to the Dwarves when they first showed up but later sent an army to take their gold. But when the orc and wolf armies show up, they immediately join forces with the Dwarves again. — same issue as above
- Blutengel: Several songs run on this theme, with the cool vampires inviting the humans to hang out with them and maybe becoming immortal themselves.
- Tropes Q to Z: In "Trial by Fire", a newly-inaugurated President is taken to a bunker after an object is detected on the way to Earth. It is eventually revealed that alien ships are about to enter Earth's orbit. They send a message in, apparently, their own language, which linguists are trying to translate. Meanwhile, several of their actions are perceived as hostile by the US and, especially, by Russia. Faced with the possibility of an Alien Invasion and the threat of a nuclear exchange with Russia (who claims that anyone who doesn't fight the aliens will be seen as a collaborator), the President orders a strike on the aliens. It utterly fails due to the aliens' advanced technology. Furthermore, the aliens launch powerful missiles against Washington, D.C., and Moscow. Right before they hit, an advisor tells the President that the alien message was in English all along, just garbled due to their aquatic environment, offering friendship to humans. — the humans don't start off as hating the aliens because they have never met before and no convincing on the part of the aliens seems to take place, so can't be WAF. Can't be NAE or GAA either because not about a specific individual, though it is probs closest to GAA.
- The Outer Limits 1995 S 2 E 9 Trial By Fire: In "Trial by Fire", a newly-inaugurated President is taken to a bunker after an object is detected on the way to Earth. It is eventually revealed that alien ships are about to enter Earth's orbit. They send a message in, apparently, their own language, which linguists are trying to translate. Meanwhile, several of their actions are perceived as hostile by the US and, especially, by Russia. Faced with the possibility of an Alien Invasion and the threat of a nuclear exchange with Russia (who claims that anyone who doesn't fight the aliens will be seen as a collaborator), the President orders a strike on the aliens. It utterly fails due to the aliens' advanced technology. Furthermore, the aliens launch powerful missiles against Washington, D.C., and Moscow. Right before they hit, an advisor tells the President that the alien message was in English all along, just garbled due to their aquatic environment, offering friendship to humans. — see above
Edited by MacronNotes on Jun 30th 2022 at 8:19:56 AM
Macron's notes
Crown Description:
What should be done with Was Actually Friendly? Concerns have been raised that it's redundant with Good All Along and Not Always Evil.
To-do list:
First some definitions (taken from the laconics, but I double checked that they were accurate to the descriptions)
This trope is the same as Not Always Evil as defined.
This is corroborated via the wick check which shows when the wicks are correct and not ZCE or misuse, all but one of them are the same as Not Always Evil (a total of 48% of the wicks).
When the wicks are misuse, almost all of them fall under Good All Along (46% of total wicks)
Recs:
Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 29th 2022 at 11:43:38 AM
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