Ask The Tropers

No need to give up on humanity. But yeah, this is kind of silly. From what I gathered from Pop-Cultural Osmosis, the season ended and apparently the character did something very obviously villainous, so I assume this is even less valid than it was last month. Do we need to lock the page, or just leave a note?

I'm pretty sure a note is already there - I can't double check since someone's in the page

I would say trying to shoot Wanda’s sons makes Hayward a villain.

Has the same person been making all of these Designated Villain edits?

Well they definitely added it at least one prior time (in a blatantly complainy edit that justifies literal infanticide as well) - so they're in an Edit War to boot

^^^ There's 2: one about about tropes with a 6-month waiting period, and another—which is a mod note—about Unintentionally Unsympathetic and Unintentionally Sympathetic requiring the approval of a forum thread. I know this by clicking "Page Source" under "More."

^^That’s not good.

What I meant is people keep trying to paint Hayward as a hero. I’m wondering if there’s a Single-Issue Wonk somewhere.

Here's the thing: it's a different Troper from last time who is edit warring. That's what's annoying.

^^^^^^There should be an option to check the page source without editing the page, unless it's different on mobile.

The note on the page:

Do not add Base-Breaking Character, Broken Base, or Overshadowed by Controversy examples until 6 months after the works release.

Doesn't mention Designated Villain

The history:

• Strange Dog added it initially on 2/13
• Storygirl 000 modified it on 2/13
• Strange Dog changed it back to his version on 2/13
• Michael Katsuro deleted it per edit-warring on 2/13
• Spectre Agent added it back 3/5
• Satoshi Bakura then deleted, 3/5
• Spectre Agent readded just now

^^^That’s... a little weird.

I hate saying this, but maybe Hayward falls under Draco in Leather Pants or something similar?

^ I think firmly that he does. The series itself lays out firmly why he's not a good guy and outright eliminates the possibility of him being a Well-Intentioned Extremist in one episode alone

Do you think it’d be okay to add it?

I think so. There's been Edit Wars over it, but I am not the best judge at this so more criteria would be good

I think it counts. Here’s a draft for the trope entry.

Draco in Leather Pants: Hayward is occasionally painted as being justified in his actions. The main argument is Wanda Mind Raped a whole town, and he did not.

^ Also mention how a lot of his supporters tend to forget: he's only initially interested in obtaining means to power up Vision, rather than de-escalating the conflict and saving the citizens of Westview. Which all in all shows that he cares more about the weapons and good image than the actual well-being of the townsfolk

Okay! I will add it and pray to god someone doesn’t delete it for a selfish reason.

Here, I'll throw my hat in the ring:

• Draco in Leather Pants: Director Hayward has many fans who paint him as a Designated Villain, with the main argument being that Wanda put an entire town under her control and he didn't. This argument conveniently ignores the fact that it was Hayward's selfish desire to keep Vision's corpse for his own purposes that drove Wanda mad with grief in the first place, and that his response to the situation was not to protect the citizens of Westview, but to attempt to murder Wanda alongside her two children all while keeping Vision for himself.

↓ The person who added it is in an Edit War anyway, I'd support a cut on principle even if they weren't... we'll call it "slightly inaccurate".

But what about the Designated Villain entry? Should it be removed again?

^It’d be an edit war, so I’d wait to hear from the mods.

^^Love the wording! Added it with a link to this thread as the edit reason.

^^^The one disagreement I have with that is someone will inevitably readd it and we’ll be right back where we started.

I asked the mod Berrenta about this. They said it's pretty late at they're neck of the woods, so they're gonna relay my message to the rest of the staff.

@Starcrusher: That's better but will probably inevitably get hit with "well he thought that killing her would save the town", "keeping vision for himself was the right call because wanda is crazy", and "you're downplaying what wanda did". Throwing in some edits of my own to make it less likely to illicit that reaction:

• Draco in Leather Pants: Director Hayward has many fans who paint him as a Designated Villain, with the main argument being that Wanda took Westview hostage due to a mental breakdown and he is trying to stop her. This argument conveniently ignores the fact that Hayward's attempts to repurpose Vision's corpse as a weapon for Project Cataract against his wishes, and his refusal to let Wanda give him a funeral, are what caused her mental breakdown in the first place. Furthermore, his main priority upon learning of the situation in Westview is not rescuing the townsfolk, but taking advantage of the anomaly to complete Project Cataract and killing Wanda so that the world thinks she was the one who revived Vision against his wishes.

Is there a way to make it slightly less... wordy? The clarifications are good, it just feels like a wall of text.

↑↑ Good calls - edited it with a link to that post as the reason

↑ That's honestly a decent sized edit, nowhere near the biggest ones on the rest of the page

↓ Unless you did something to that entry in the past, you should be good.

Hope this doesn't count as edit warring but I decided to dumb down the Designated Villain entry for now. If the person just re-adds it again, I'm staying out of it until the mods take care of it.

^^^ Fair, though in my defense the show presents Hayward's motives in a really convoluted way that takes some explaining for them to make sense. I'll see about cutting it down in the future.

This whole thing really strikes me as an excellent demonstration of why people need to calm the hell down with troping ongoing works.

I've never watched the show, but how about this:

• Draco in Leather Pants: Director Hayward has many fans who paint him as a Designated Villain because Wanda took Westview hostage due to a mental breakdown while he tried to stop her. This argument conveniently ignores that Hayward's repurposing Vision's corpse as a weapon, and his refusal to let Wanda hold a funeral, are what caused her mental breakdown in the first place. Furthermore, his priority is not rescuing the townsfolk, but taking advantage of the anomaly to complete Project Cataract and killing Wanda to claim she was the one who revived Vision against his wishes.

^ I do think the "against his wishes" part is important to keep in mostly because that's one of his more dickish acts: Vision's will specified he didn't want to be used as a weapon, and Hayward ignored that because he didn't see Vision as a person.

So what do we do about Strange Dog and his Edit War

I believe there's a discussion about Draco in Leather Pants where it specifically refers to portrayals in fan works.

Got no input from the rest of the staff, so I'll go ahead and investigate. I'll update if suspensions are needed.

Edit: Suspensions given to Strange Dog and Spectre Agent.

Thank you for letting us know. Should Designated Villain be removed from the page?

There was also a Rooting for the Empire entry added for him, though it seems to be less the entry itself supporting him as much as stating why others do.

If it’s not trying to paint him as a hero, Rooting for the Empire can probably stay.

The entry still seems a little questionable to me, since it is still trying to whitewash Hayward by saying that anyone would have done the same thing if they were in Hayward's position.

It was also added by Damian Wayne after he asked about making the Rft E entry in the discussion. One person disagreed with him and noone agreed, but he still added the entry. He did the same thing with a Narm entry.

The discussion/debate is still going on as we speak. The troper ovskii suggested the addition of Broken Base and, I'm sorry, but it sounds like they only want to add that trope for the sake of complaining about Hayward ending up being an unambiguous villain as opposed to being an Anti-Villain or something.

To my understanding, for a trope to be added to the YMMV page, it has to be something that the general audience agrees with or debates about. Personally, I have yet to see those who tend to be split about Hayward outside of this wiki. And even then, only about four people seemed to side with Hayward while everyone else disagreed and consistently debated with them while taking down their pro-Hayward YMMV entries.

I feel it's also worth noting that ovskii used the same "anyone would’ve done what Hayward did" argument to say he shouldn’t have been portrayed as a villain and to call the writing lazy. Damian Wayne also suggested Fridge Horror, Narm, and Unintentionally Unsympathetic entries that seemed to paint Agatha Harkness as better than she was actually portrayed.

The amount of discussions going on is honestly concerning to me. I noticed a misuse of the They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character trope that nobody bothered to take down because they were too busy debating about the inclusion or removal other tropes with the same person who put up that misused entry in the first place.

Which entry under They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character is misuse?

The one about Hayward, which Sugarp1e 1 deleted

Discussion is continuing in Locked Pages, locking this query because the first post has been addressed.