Motive Decay: Rewrite or split?

The summary of Motive Decay is very clear that it's about villains who start out having a clear, often (but not always) sympathetic motive for what they do and then veer into evil-for-evil's-sake territory. The examples, both on the trope page and in its wicks, refer to any character (or group) that starts out with a particular motivation for their actions and then proceeds to ignore it.

Is this one trope (in which case the description needs an overhaul) or a splitting situation?

I don't see any need to split it. Motive Decay is Motive Decay, why bother splitting into villain/neutral/hero categories?

Agreed, if we need to make one specifically for the villainous variant, we can.

Agree. There is no reason that this must be villain specific. I say rewrite the article.

A rewrite should be fine. A character is a character, regardless of their alignment.

I think just a minor rewrite should be fine, like, add one paragraph that says 'This can also apply to heroes who blah blah blah"

Especially since occasionally Motive Decay can be a gradual process of moving from hero to villian or vice-Versa

But if there are examples where the character depth decays instead of motive, that could be split off.

EDIT: I honestly don't know if there are. That just occurred to me as a Sister Trope.

edited 3rd Jun '10 8:13:29 AM by DragonQuestZ

Flanderisation, well maybe more the flanderised version of flanderisation, by which we mean flanderised by the newer interpretation of flanderisation. Sure that made sense...

Still, sounds a lot like the original Flanderisation anyway.

edited 3rd Jun '10 9:41:38 AM by SomeSortOfTroper

The page has been rewritten. As all that the page talked about was villainy, it turned out to be a pretty big rewrite.

Just to clarify, the way I wrote it and how I think we have to look at this trope like this: Any motive that for no reason (aka character development) is simplified to the point of a stock character.

"Motive Decay can be a gradual process of moving from hero to villain or vice-Versa" No, because any turn, must have at least some reason. It could be a mixed bag of motive decay and character development, but motive decay never has a reason beyond simplification.

"But if there are examples where the character depth decays instead of motive" But a new motive is character development. Depth decay of an existing motive is exactly what I think motive decay is.

If I may be brief , think about it like this: Motive decay is anti-characterization. Motivation breaks down to its simplest form, robbing the character of dimension.

Forgot to say that if there is anything I have got wrong or failed to grasp, please tell.

edited 15th Nov '10 8:28:27 AM by Ergoogre