Yes, that's correct. I am using a definition that involves someone who has sufficient emotional range for them to decide, even involuntarily, to be nice vs. mean. Otherwise it's a different trope.
There are several elements that combine in this discussion.
- Always seek the best trope to fit an example rather than casting a wide net and snaring as many tropes as possible. (This advice alone would cut these sorts of misuse threads by at least half.)
- Being generally polite is not a trope in and of itself, it's just normal behavior.
- Personality tropes like Nice Guy necessarily exist in contrast with something. Without that, they're chairs, tropes in aggregate, or some other meta concept.
- To qualify for an example, the work must establish that contrast in-universe, such as by having other characters remark on it or having it create a conflict.
"Wow, I can't believe that Bob didn't call the police when that homeless guy smashed his car window. He just hugged him and gave him some money to buy food."
Edited by Fighteer on Nov 24th 2022 at 12:49:16 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Then what's the distinction from All-Loving Hero, The Heart, or (for cases where nice means 'polite, diplomatic, always knows the right thing to say') The Social Expert?
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I guess the best thing to say would be that Nice Guy is about characters who don't fall into those other tropes, but defining it by exclusion is obviously problematic.
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From the way we've been defining it, Nice Guy seems like it would be a Super-Trope to All-Loving Hero and The Heart, right?
It might be helpful to list other tropes Nice Guy would be / is a Super-Trope to just so we can see if there are aspects of Nice Guy that aren't already covered by subtropes that we can point to.
The most obvious ones to me (in addition to the two already listed) are The Cutie, The Ingenue, Incorruptible Pure Pureness, The Pollyanna, Friend to All Living Things, Purity Personified (which is a Super-Trope itself to The Ingenue, The Pollyanna, Incorruptible Pure Pureness, and Friend to All Living Things already).
any others?
Edited by amathieu13 on Nov 25th 2022 at 1:16:01 PM
re: All-Loving Hero— while both would apply to many characters, I can see some differences. To illustrate with examples:
- Thor (in later films) is a clear Nice Guy. he's a friendly Lovable Jock type, genial, easy to have a beer with, a little bumbling but makes a genuine effort to understand others point of view. Would not really say he's distinctly more forgiving, merciful or All Loving than the other superheroes. Alternatively, you could have a genuinely Affably Evil Nice Guy
- An All-Loving Hero could be a Knight in Sour Armor and still always be merciful and loving. Or they could be cold, isolated, or distant, but still be kind to everyone. (can think of a few examples but their all fairly obscure)
The bigger point, I think, is what I was saying earlier about Nice Guy referring to a more shallow type of "nice"— friendly, easy-going, a pleasant attitude on the surface. Deeper love for humanity/ a saintlike heart, etc is neither required nor sufficient to qualify
Edited by Tremmor19 on Nov 25th 2022 at 1:41:36 PM
There's also Mellow Fellow, which seems to have significant overlap with a lot of the definitions here
ok now that ... is actually way closer to what i was thinking. nice guy possibly a tiny bit broader? i can think of a few characters that are nice without being precisely "mellow", but the descriptions are super close. would be worth checking examples to see if they're used differently
actually nvm that clarifies the distinction better, thanks
Edited by Tremmor19 on Nov 27th 2022 at 5:45:01 AM
The concepts are very similar but IDK if they're the exact same. Being easy-going and chill could tie into being nice, but it could also just mean that they're laid-back to the point of apathy.
Nice Guy characters have to be shown actually doing nice things, and they're allowed to be emotional, the key is that they just have to be going out of their way to be nice even in situations where they wouldn't be expected to be.
A Mellow Fellow could just be a lazy stoner who isn't outright rude to anyone, but also isn't outright nice. A Nice Guy could be emotional or anxious, as long as they are outright and consistently nice.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall

And I never said Fighteer was being inconsistent. The conversation at the start of the thread is different from the one we're currently having. Then the convo focused on the nature of Nice Guy and what it was intended to define [3]
. Now the convo is about into defining what niceness even means so we can better limit/place scopes on the trope to avoid the misuse. Fighteer's first comment was made in the context of that initial convo, not this one, so I wanted to clarify how they were connecting their earlier conceptualiztion to this convo on emotions since that earlier description doesn't include a discussion of emotions.
ETA: Oh I see. fighteer's inclusion of "expected to get upset" automatically assumes emotions and that's what you were pointing to. That didn't click in my head earlier.
Edited by amathieu13 on Nov 23rd 2022 at 10:47:28 AM