Should this be subjective?: Jerkass Woobie

At one point Jerkass Woobie was subjective (or so someone thought), now it isn't. Should it be? Discuss.

It was marked as subjective as a subtrope of the (then "subjective") The Woobie. Shortly thereafter, someone decided that The Woobie itself wasn't subjective, which of course removed the reason why the individual subtropes were marked.

I don't get why The Woobie itself wouldn't be subjective. A character who suffers a lot is just a Butt-Monkey. A woobie is a character who suffers in a way pleasing to the audience. The article goes out of its way to point that out, calling it an "audience-driven phenomenon" and all.

But if any of 'em would be most qualified to have that banner, it's Jerkass Woobie. One person's Draco in Leather Pants is another's Jerkass Woobie.

edited 15th Dec '10 5:24:58 PM by Tyoria

Butt-Monkey is when suffering is Played for Laughs.

Woobie is when suffering is Played for Drama.

It's not out-and-out subjective.

From the Butt-Monkey page: "if the audience sympathizes with them, they become The Woobie. If, however, the character's suffering is Played for Laughs and the reason the audience loves them is because of all the crap they get put through, they're generally The Chew Toy."

Few of the subjective pages are entirely subjective.

I agree with King Zeal here. I believe one, while not even liking the character, could objectively say that the torment they've been through marks them as a Woobie.

I see a strong difference between the Woobie that is Played for Drama and the Butt-Monkey that's Played for Drama. I think we should be careful about what we mark as subjective or not. It seems like a lot of tropes can be subjective if you think hard enough about it.

Well, I think it's good to talk about it, and not just slap subjective banners on anything you that it seems there could be any margin of subjectivity for. But I feel like pointing out, there's nothing wrong with the subjective tropes. They're not put in that category because they are bad or weak or undesirable. Some of those tropes are, but that does not encompass everything subjectivity is about.

If the Woobie trope isn't subjective, I think it's in need of some serious rewriting, because the article is strongly geared towards "you feel this way about the character," even going out of its way to state it's often a YMMV thing.

edited 15th Dec '10 8:51:31 PM by Tyoria

I always thought that The Woobie depended largely on an audience reaction.

The first sentence on The Woobie page even defines this as, "that character you want to give a big hug."

"You," of course, being the key word and obviously referring directly to the reader. Once we're getting into language like that (in the first sentence, no less), we're dealing with an opinionated concept because not every reader thinks the same things about the same characters. If this isn't supposed to be a subjective page, then surely we can rewrite the description to not have words like "You" in it, unless it's from a direct quote, because this page shouldn't have anything to do with "you" (or me, for that matter) or be describing any kind of audience reaction.

edited 15th Dec '10 9:33:13 PM by SeanMurrayI

We could compromise and say that it's the character "you want to give a big hug, as intended by the author(s)."

The author intention is what makes this trope objective. I think most works make it clear when suffering is meant to be dramatic and when it's meant to be comedic. In the former, there's Wall-E. In the latter, there's RodneyDangerfield. In the middle, there's Eminem.

edited 15th Dec '10 11:54:42 PM by KingZeal

Let's not get into the authorial intent derail again. I'll condense it down for those of you who haven't seen it before: determining authorial intent is generally difficult, and no one can agree just how much evidence is required to establish it.

So to sum it up yes, this trope should be subjective as it depends on people feeling sorry for them. I mean can you give me one reaon why it shouldn't be?

edited 25th Dec '10 12:35:26 PM by KSonik

(Just an aside on the author intent thing, yes sometimes it is easier to tell, but sometimes it's not, that is a bad measuring stick.)

No just, no seriously all tropes are somewhat subjective we can't be removing examples from every single trope.

Who said anything about removing examples?

^^And what exactly do you mean by, "...[A]ll tropes are somewhat subjective"? They're not.

However, The Woobie and all its subtropes depend largely on an audience reaction, which is an entirely subjective matter.

edited 25th Dec '10 8:17:09 PM by SeanMurrayI

The trope his a YMMV Banner (again), so this seems to have been resolved. Can someone please lock this topic?

Thanks.