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It's misuse and a clear example of Ron the Death Eater. Kill it until it dies, and then some.
Edited by Brainulator9 Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!At this point is it worth creating a cleanup for The Sociopath? Or at least add an age limit (unless they show unrealistic maturity/intelligence for their age)?
Edited by Ferot_DreadnaughtSerene Specter 13
appears to be the troper who originally added that particular edit to the page, who was edited a lot of the other Arthur character pages before.
I haven't really looked at their edit history for any other edits that may be an overreach.
I know this topic is a year old now, but I'd like to point out that The Hacker and Ledge from Cyberchase are also under The Sociopath, so "It's an eduntainment show" is not a valid reason to say that a character isn't a Sociopath.
Edited by SereneSpecter13 I foolishly got myself bounced by adding bigotry to my troper page, so unless a miracle happens and I get unbounced someday like Ag Prov did way back when, don't expect any contributions from me anytime soon.^^ The question then becomes are those two characters valid entries for The Sociopath. The fact they're listed there doesn't mean anything except they're listed there. Further, the entries being valid for them doesn't equate to being valid for DW.
Also those two characters are listed as outright villains, which makes comparing then to a spoiled kindergartener iffy at best.
Edited by sgamer82Yeah, it's not that these tropes can't apply to kids shows- it's that they don't apply to Arthur.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallBut when you think about it, isn't D.W. basically the aardvark equivalent of Tara Webster (see https://goosebumps.fandom.com/wiki/Tara_Webster
for info about that character if you aren't familiar with her) from the Goosebumps book "The Cuckoo Clock of Doom"? (Who is a character intentionally designed to be and meant to be seen as a total Sociopath.) Both of them are very similar characters in that they exist to make their older brothers' lives more difficult just for the sake of it and with no empathy for it.
For fuck's sake. No.
Christ.
Have you even heard of children before?
Edited by Larkmarn Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.Yeah, they're just little kids who do bratty little kids things.
I can't believe we still need to explain this.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallChildren cannot be diagnosed with personality disorders as they're still developing, so I really disagree with applying tropes like The Sociopath to child characters... not that it even applies to this misuse.
^ I'd say in some cases (The Good Son, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, etc) you can do it, but that's if the narrative makes it very clear this child is evil and not just a brat. But applying real-life labels to someone who is just a dumb kid is stupid for the very reason you cite.
In other words, some works make it clear that the kid is indeed a sociopath (regardless of how possible it is in reality) and that's the only time this sort of example should be acceptable.
Edited by WarJay77 Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallYeah, if the story treats D.W. as a sociopath, that would be one thing, but I'm willing to bet that there's no such occurrence within Arthur, or one that's meant to be taken seriously by the audience, and more likely an episode or two that shows D.W. actually does care about those around her, which would automatically disqualify her from The Sociopath if nothing else would.
Otherwise, Spoiled Brat =/= The Sociopath
Edited by sgamer82I am removing the Ungrateful Bitch entry from DW's character trope list, as well. It's a misuse of the trope, for one thing, and way overblowing incidents that seem pretty normal for a four-year-old.

I've come across a rather frustrating series of edits over on one of Arthur's character page following a rather glaring misuse of The Sociopath. The page is choked with Word Cruft calling the four-year-old character D.W. a "borderline sociopath" for what appears to be child-friendly mischief.
Now, I'm not sure if someone has an agenda or what, but there's an inherent absurdity to me applying that term anywhere near an edutainment show. I've already struck both misuses of The Sociopath; I'm just wondering how to tackle the rest of the scrub.