The Dreaded's Scope and Definition Issues

Yes, I'm aware, haha. I'm talking about if the trope gets expanded or the misuse is spun off into its own trope. The trope most likely won't be left as-is without some change (hopefully, that is).

Maybe we can make a new trope called "Feared By All" or something, which would be similar to Hated by All except that it'd be about characters who are feared by most characters in the work rather than hated?

Edited by Mimic45 on Jun 3rd 2023 at 7:12:46 PM

(and Loved by All) Probably a good idea, though maybe TRS can just rename The Dreaded if the "intended" use and description are similar enough.

You mean, for multiple characters? Hmm, this only fixes part of the issue but not all of them.

Regardless, I'll add it to the wick check.

It does feel like the trope could use either being split or at least having more subtropes. Stuff like a light-hearted "sitcom" version (similar to Sitcom Archenemy), or something like "Feared by enemies, Beloved by allies" for some heroic versions.

In my experience, the narrative tends to make it clear which characters are dreaded by all others, and they're usually dreaded by villains and heroes (and everything in between). The trope seems to be for those characters that even those who are scary in their own right are afraid of. It's that "he who watches the watchers" type character, except with fear. It's not that uncommon to see in works that there is a character even the scary characters fear. One example of a method I've seen is for there to be some kind of fear-based "worf effect" moment where the scariest character so far seen becomes unnerved or even bails from the mention or introduction of a new character, thereby telling the audience/reader that this new character is on another level entirely.

I do think a "Feared by All" option might be worth considering if we end up going down a rename route for the trope's true intention.

Regarding the wick check, I wonder if it's worth us splitting the misuse folder into two sub-categories: "Heroic example that otherwise correctly uses The Dreaded" and the rest of the misuse (which isn't using The Dreaded correctly). That might help us see how much of the misuse would disappear if we expanded the trope to be any character that's the most feared, rather than just anti-heroic/villain examples (and I use villain there as a catch-all for anti-villain, too).

I don't mind doing the work to split the folder if people think that's worth doing.

Edited to add: I just did a quick by-eye look through the misuse folder, and a very, very rough count only gives about 6-7 Heroic examples; by far the most misuse appears to be "character is feared by one or just a couple of characters and not everyone" or "the work lists multiple examples of the trope". It's worth observing that in an awful lot of the multi-examples, the entries are usually poor quality and partial or even no context, which suggests to me that expanding the trope to allow multiple examples will degrade the quality of the trope's use and therefore cause new problems rather than genuinely solving anything.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jun 8th 2023 at 10:06:31 AM

Sure, you can divide the misuse into more folders if you want, but please adjust the percentage of the wicks in both folders.

I wanted to do so from the beginning, but some examples had both misuses, so I figured it'd be easier to combine the two misuse categories into one folder. I think you might need to create three folders: 1) those involving pure heroic examples, 2) those listing multiple characters, and 3) both misuse categories.

I tend to agree that "most feared" is a bad way to define it.

Tropewise, The Dreaded is a villain or anti-hero whose defining attribute (or one of their key defining attributes) is that they're dreaded. Whether or not there's someone scarier than them in the setting doesn't matter.

In particular, Star Wars lists both Vader and The Emperor as The Dreaded. Is that axiomatically never allowed? Especially in long-running works with loads and loads of characters or things like comics with porous continuity, defining someone as the most dreaded person in the entire canon or entire stories is tricky and doesn't really relate to the trope.

I would say that, instead, The Dreaded is very often far and away the most feared person in scenes they're in, in a way that plays up an establishes that it's part of a larger reputation. (Though, maybe an even better indicator that they're The Dreaded is that the story emphasizes how feared they are even in scenes they're not present in.)

The Heavy can be The Dreaded if they regularly appear in that role in scenes, even if it's made clear that their boss is actually more terrifying, and even if there's other characters who might qualify as The Dreaded in their story or continuity.

The trope isn't World's Scariest Man and shouldn't attempt to be - the heart of this trope is a villain or anti-hero who is defined by the dread people feel for them, not that they be literally the most terrifying person to ever exist.

I think that it's pretty rare to have multiple characters be The Dreaded (because the entire nature of the trope means that there shouldn't be too many like them, and because constantly reusing this trope in the same story weakens it; if everyone is dreaded then nobody is dreaded.) But I don't think it should be defined as impossible as part of the trope definition. A story can have eg. a terrifying bounty-hunter who is The Dreaded, and also have a horrifying lich-king who is The Dreaded; it seems silly to say that a bounty-hunter who otherwise fits all the trope's points doesn't qualify just because the lich-king is more dreaded.

Edited by Aquillion on Jun 8th 2023 at 3:12:16 AM

If the trope isn't expanded, then having two feared characters would just not count. As in if there's no objectively singular most dreaded character, then it's invalid.

At the very least, if it's expanded, it should be expanded to like gangs and crews, a.k.a people who are affiliated to the same entity/group, than completely unrelated individuals.

If some characters get slightly anxious in the presence of character A, then they aren't The Dreaded, but if everyone mass panics the moment they see character B/mafia gang X, then they're The Dreaded.

I definitely think the definition should be narrowed significantly. I still can't get over the One Piece example listing 40+ separate characters as The Dreaded. Maybe one per setting is too narrow, but it does help stop blatant abuse like that.

Currently it's just "any character who any other character is scared of".

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 8th 2023 at 8:12:43 AM

The thing is "most feared character in the story" is specific without adding clarity. Serial storytelling gets very abstract and arbitrary about when one encounter ends and another begins.

I'm reminded a little of some clean-up on the difference between Sacrificial Lamb and Sacrificial Lion, initially it was "Lion has more screentime before killed" which just didn't work. It became a much stronger trope when it was clarified that a Sacrificial Lion carries weight on the story past their death while a Sacrificial Lamb their death is used for immediate drama but nothing further.

An example of The Dreaded that comes to mind is the Dragonball Z Namek Arc, Vegeta knows Frieza is not to be messed with but feels confident he can stay one step ahead. But when the Ginyu Force is called in this drives him to an Enemy Mine situation with Krillin and Gohan. Everyone is afraid of both Frieza and the Ginyu Force, and Frieza is vastly stronger foe, but the impact the Ginyu Force have impacts the story just by their reputation. A "Their Legend Precedes Them" deal.

So that's where I'm at regarding The Dreaded. It's not enough to have a reputation for being badass, but if it doesn't inspire anyone to run away rather than seek a challenge then their name means nothing.

Speaking of Dragon Ball, that write-up is:

• Frieza.
• The Saiyan race as a whole.
• Majin Buu.
• The Ginyu Force to Vegeta.
• Broly.
• Beerus.
• Vegeta on Namek.
• Nappa and Vegeta.
• Future 17 and 18.
• King Piccolo and Piccolo Jr.
• Taopaipai.
  • Goku, to Taopaipai.
• The Red Ribbon Army.
• Cell.
• Goku, to the Red Ribbon Army.
• Goku, to the Pilaf Gang.
• Goku, to the Freeza Force.
• The Legendary Super Saiyan, to Freeza.
• Zen'Oh.

When you have tons of entries for tons of characters, one entry for a whole species, and 4 entries for one character, the Main Character, that seems like abuse to me.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 8th 2023 at 9:11:04 AM

To be fair, One Piece has like a gazillion characters, and many of them are dangerous pirates. It's not so surprising that there are many examples.

But 40+ is still too many, though. Many of them are not at all afraid of many others on the list. If The Dreaded was narrowed down to one character per series, One Piece has a clear example: Big Mom.

Though if one character per series is too narrow, maybe instead one character per setting? Like, one character per major location or group. For One Piece, that would essentially be one character per arc.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 9th 2023 at 3:44:23 AM

I disagree with you on Big Mom here. I feel Kaido or Whitebeard (if we count more heroic characters) are better quandidates for the most feared here.

Limiting to one by setting might be a better idea.

Edited by TotemGenitor on Jun 9th 2023 at 2:48:19 PM

Regardless of happens, we may later need a similar cleanup thread as Hate Sink to discuss who counts.

Definitly.

Nah, Kaido mostly just sticks to Wano and Whitebeard is loved as much as he's feared. Big Mom's power, influence, and intelligence network spreads all over the world and she kills the relatives of people who don't do what she wants. She has an explicit fear-based superpower and has been stated in-universe to be the scariest Emperor. Even Roger, the Pirate King, avoided confronting her directly. People stronger than her are afraid of antagonizing her, Big Mom is definitely The Dreaded.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 9th 2023 at 6:42:48 AM

I think that this dispute shows one reason why limiting it strictly to one person was a mistake - it turns it into a "most X" trope that doesn't actually require that the work unambiguously state they're the most X, which tends to result in disputes between editors.

When two characters meet every other criteria for the trope, and the work provides no clear guidance on which of them is the MOST feared, and two editors disagree on which one is more feared than the other... what do we do? I mean there are theoretical ways to resolve it but I think the basic fact that it would put us in that position shows that it's a bad idea.

I guess we could notionally take it to mean "the work must unambiguously and clearly indicate that person X is the most feared person in the story" but that would definitely exclude a lot of otherwise valid examples, since almost no works actually indicate that... and the fact that so few works indicate it says, to me, that it's not actually a valid part of the trope, it's just something that was tossed in randomly in a vain attempt to get people to add characters who aren't dreaded enough.

People adding characters who aren't dreaded enough is a problem, but "must clearly be the most dreaded person in the entire setting" doesn't seem like a good answer. Which means we should probably focus, instead, on useful alternative guidelines to gauge if a character is "dreaded enough."

Like I said, if the trope stays as is and doesn't get expanded, then if there are no clear single dreaded character then the example doesn't count/the work doesn't have a valid example.

If there are multiple characters who are dreaded then no one is really dreaded and we're listing every character some other characters got scared of ever. This weakens the impact of a most dreaded character, who singlehandedly manages to scare everyone in the setting, and no one compares to them.

What if the trope is adjusted in a different direction, any character who intentionally builds up a reputation of a fearful evil-doer and can back it up.

Reads like an invoked version of The Dreaded.

Yes, for example Accelerator from A Certain Magical Index, invokes this so no one would dare mess with him (not like that stops them from trying) and many characters fear him except the protagonist and his friends. But he's not a straight example.

I agree that this is already a form of The Dreaded as it currently exists. It's effectively "Character X is this trope because they worked hard to become it". That's an invoked example.

Is an (in-universe) invoked version not an example? For this particular trope, it doesn't seem relevant whether the character intentionally seeks to be feared or not; they're feared either way. It might be something to note in a trope description but it doesn't really change whether the trope applies - I would say that Accelerator is absolutely a straight example, because The Dreaded doesn't require that the character in question not seek to be feared or anything like that.

Edited by Aquillion on Jun 11th 2023 at 3:20:00 AM