Discussion Characters / Overwatch

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic does that for its main characters.

On an unrelated note, do you think Blizzard will ever get round to fully telling the story of Overwatch, specifically the main plot point about them getting back together to hit Talon where it really hurts? Also will players even be allowed to play the story itself? Cause I feel like they've spent the last three years beating around the bush.

^ That's the sort of thing that should be discussed on the forums. The discussion pages are for discussing the articles.

Agreed. Let's cut that stuff.

Second. Though i would still mention she having some shady business with the omnics

This is something that I have been getting at since the whole Vishkar discussion way back before. So basically, being a hypocritical liar is now worse than racism or terrorism? I mean, in the case of Vishkar, maybe you guys have a point because they DO slavery and that's not as good. But the thing I get (and got carried over) is that being a liar makes you the worst scum there is, that's how I think Volskaya gets the big blame.

We have to set the standards on what is considered heinous and what's not. To prevent future villifying like this again. Let's just start with 'lying': How heinous it is that it is considered worse than terrorism?

No, we DO NOT have to set standards. We trope things as they are presented, not what we guess or what we believe.

We trope what we know AND see.

We don't trope what we don't know. Nobody likes guesswork taken as a fact.

So, while Katya has some shady business going on, we don't know why is she doing this

And in the same time, people like to mistake about 'what is presented' and 'what we guess/believe from what's presented'. All I'm saying is to make the line between those clear. Let's use this incident as an example. Which one is 'fact'? Which one is 'guesswork'? And what would need to be shown so it is no longer a guesswork but fact (that deserves addition to the page)?

The above example as Faso said is a good example. Katya has shady business. That's... OK. Maybe we don't know the context yes, but it's still just that: Katya has shady business. But apparently to these guys, 'having shady business' is apparently enough for them to mark her 'Corrupt'. If this is a guesswork, explain how, because it felt more like 'jumping to conclusions', and I thought the way to prevent this, is to regulate the standards so people don't just happily jump the gun, but see the context first before they hit the edit button.

I'm actually fine with whatever good actions taken, but I'd like to know if there's a flaw in my methods.

Nubian Satyress, I saw you added the Fantastic Racism trope back under Volskaya Industry. I'll explain why I think the trope doesn't fit, or at least why we don't have enough info to make a definite call.

First of all, Russia - and by extension Volskaya Industries - isn't at war with Omnics in general. The Second Omnic Crisis was triggered by the Siberian Omnium reactivating for unknown reasons and resuming its assault on the Russian population; It's likely that the Russian population in general holds varying degrees of prejudice against all Omnics - as shown clearly with Zarya - as a consequence, but I don't think they're going around killing every single Omnic they see, even those with no stake in the conflict.

Secondly, the posters we see in Volskaya don't actually express anti-Omnics sentiment - one salutes the work of the Volskaya workers, one shows the giant robots as protectors, and the third one, while more ambiguous, could be a generic "beware of spies" message.

Lastly, while it's made clear that Sombra leaking information about the origin of Volskaya's technology would lead to a huge scandal and a significant hit to the company's reputation - most likely due to the Russian populations prejudice towards Omnics -, this in itself doesn't show racism on the company's part.

I won't remove your edit before you've had a chance to answer, and ultimately it doesn't matter much, but I feel we should aim to be both as extensive and as respectful of what has actually been stated in canon in our covering of tropes.

Again, the fact that they're not at war with Omnics "in general" isn't the issue. Like most groups that are at war, their propaganda serves to demonize the entire group of people, whether they're combatants or not. Like the Japanese during World War II, and Arabs during the War on Terrorism.

The giant robots are human-piloted mechs, so that's not really relevant.

Lastly, the fact that the company has to maintain its image to correspond with national racism is itself racist. It's basically no different than a business that publicly or implicitly denies black people entry because most of their paying customers are racists. It's part of the system of racism.

This argument is stemming from a misconception of what racism actually is: it's not a foaming-at-the-mouth murderous rage at the targeted group(s). It's a system of behavior, some of which may seem benign without context, that continues to foster, or profit from, the harm or mistreatment of those groups. The trope itself doesn't state it has to be foaming-at-the-mouth rage, either. Simply a fictional allegory of real life racism which, as I mentioned with two examples above, it does.

Zenyatta isn't a therapist, really. His relationship with Genji seems more like a master/student relationship based on personal enlightenment. Like, if someone went to talk to a preacher to deal with their problems, it wouldn't be therapy.

So I'd say There Are No Therapists is simply played straight. The characters are expected to just deal with their issues.

Widowmaker fits that description too, to be fair. She proudly announces who she works for and what they sent her to do.

"The enemies of Talon will be eliminated."

I don't completely disagree with you, but you're a bit oversimplifying things, and your Ask The Tropers inquiry was slightly inaccurate.

Well this more or less stems of how apparently the fandom hates Vishkar for their dishonesty and shenanigans.

Maybe i haven't taken my time to research this, but i'm pretty sure that people don't consider Vishkar The Scrappy just because they aren't a Card-Carrying Villain.

And my apologies, but i hadn't had the time to expand too much on the ATT inquiry. I was kind of doing something else at the time and i wanted to bring up this subject.

I believe this more or less could've stemmed from how the fandom views that dishonesty is one of the worst things that a character could do, you can be a terrorist or a doombringer, but if you're honest about it, you can be liked. This is not something contained in Overwatch only. Unless we debunk about how this kind of mindset is... well, bullshit, this is going to continue, even when we leave it.

How bad is it does the fandom have with Vishkar? Well, they were actually listed in Nightmare Fuel to be more nightmarish than Talon. Make that on your own will. That's just how badly the fandom viewed Vishkar as.

Well they are not exactly nice but again, that's jumping to conclusions.

Fandom interpretation are meant to be YMMV things and Talon right now is not a Card-Carrying Villain.

Well you can also look at how it is in the CHARACTERS page and see which ones are sympathizing them and which ones doesn't paint them as lying monsters. Chances are, at best, it's just 10% or lower. The thing is, Blizzard isn't even helping.

Chris, that's still jumping to conclusions. If we're supposed to trope that the "fandom" feels a certain way, then we can't be our own source.

So, what do you suggest, Nubian? Just accept that Vishkar is the fandom punching bag and Hate Sink, and let every of their entries filled with negative facts and every of their positive traits get undermined? Even in non-YMMV sections?

I tend to think that such mindset will perpetuate 'playing favorites' mentality or not so much neutral anymore. And I don't think it will lead to good things.

Or, you know, clean up the entries?

How is it you seem to think the only options are "let the page be run by the haters" and "add to the hate"?

And what "positive traits" (again, that we're actually shown in the story) are you talking about?

Since when did Vishkar became the fandom's punching bag?

No seriously, why are they The Scrappy? What differentiates them from Talon?

Okay, lots of things needing answer. One by one. And I apologize for this. This is just how I am, in a debate, I tend to type. A LOT.

First, Larkman. Clean up the entries, oh I'd so love to do that. Just dunno 'how'. What I said about "let the page run by the haters" and "add to the hate" is meant to point out that most people can't seem to just add an entry without damning Vishkar in one way or another. Look at the Nightmare Fuel entry really. Saying that they could be more nightmarish (not necessarily worse) than Talon? That's a sign of people taking it to the hatred, because while it's supposed to be more neutral in 'liked', Nightmare Fuel tends to get used to make people think "This is not meant to be liked."

I believe there should be other options, and I should be looking to it. But most editors seems to be on a tunnel vision that when it comes to Vishkar, all they want is adding negativity, on them.

Second, Nubian. This is why I said Blizzard isn't helping, they don't show a visible Pet the Dog scene by Vishkar. The only thing we could do is to list what things Talon does, while Vishkar doesn't. Yes, there's a few, the Fantastic Racism thing is one of those things. I don't think Vishkar discriminates Omnics when it comes to work force or have anything to say about the whole racism on Omnics, whereas Talon perpetuates it. Perpetuating racism would've been a bad thing, but Vishkar didn't do it, Talon does.

This led to my answer to faso: How, after all those, they're more disliked than Talon when the latter does worse things? I believe it also originated from a recent trend of audience reaction: Honesty is greatly valued. A Hypocrite is far likely to become The Scrappy than a Card-Carrying Villain. Talon did really really bad things, but because they're honest about it, not hiding the fact that they're evil villains, they are more welcomed and less likely to become the 'punching bag'. Vishkar, on the other hand, exemplifies Hypocrite that doesn't repent, and instead continues to perpetuate 'self-righteous' lies and that is why they're accepted even less than Talon. As in, Talon gets the Love to Hate treatment more (it should be kind of a 'positive' style of Hate) whereas if people hate on Vishkar, it's not that trope. The lines that goes somewhere along the line "If this was a real world, they'd be caught by the law already, but they don't." .... I felt that this has some sort of undertones that someone DOESN'T LIKE how Vishkar was portrayed, in a biased way. (personally, I think that there are corporations like Vishkar in real world, they don't get caught in public, that's kinda how the world runs...)

Until people ease up on 'hypocrisy' or how honesty will affect even villain values... (that is, it doesn't matter if they're being hypocritical or honest, if the reason behind the villainy is inadequate, they're equal in evilness) I don't think things will change. It all rooted in the trend of fandom.

And here's also a short answer to another thing faso said. I just didn't edit to avoid not getting drowned with the above's wall of text.

A reason why I kind of think that Vishkar is close enough as a Scrappy organization is that they are built up to be less Obviously Evil than Talon and could be an attempt for a grey-area organization, doing unscrupulous things in order to improve the lives of others. Unfortunately... it's like the message didn't get conveyed properly, the audience did not buy about 'people's lives improving', and Vishkar ends up coming off like a hypocritical money-grubbing company who lied to others.

I thought that's how it fits to be The Scrappy: Intended to be a gray area group, comes off hated and not even having the Love to Hate stuff.

Nightmare Fuel is an opinion trope that can be added by ONE person. It doesn't reflect any universal fanbase opinion, and is very easily abused. It's really baffling to say that you don't know how to clean up a page and then give an example of trope misuse right after. That RIGHT THERE is where we start cleaning up, by removing a bad example.

Vishkar doesn't need to pet the dog. WE need tropers to stop exaggerating when they trope things.

Also, every single instance of when you said "I felt" or "I believe" is followed by things that SHOULD NOT BE added to the page. Those are guesses and leaps in logic. Even worse, in this particular case, it's guessing whose only purpose is to invent a reason why a bad trope example is true instead of just removing the bad example.

It would be like if I added an example that said "Pharah looks like a cat" and then you or someone else then based all their tropes on making up reasons why that's true instead of just deleting it.

Why does Vishkar need a Pet the Dog moment when Talon, the supposed more "well received" organization, hasn't got one?

And you still keep saying Talon is a Card-Carrying Villain. WHERE WAS IT STATED? Talon is a Obviously Evil organization sure, but there is nothing that would prove they are the former as of yet.

AFAIK, Talon isn't publicly stating "Hey, we are going to start the second omnic crisis, because we are super evil and stuff. K bye". I'm pretty sure the average civilian isn't even aware of their existance.

The requirement of Pet the Dog is to finally signify that they really are the 'Grey' morality organization instead of the 'hypocritical stuff'. As in, you know, not touted as the lying assholes. Or am I putting up a different expectation? That Blizzard's intention was really "This is a corrupt asshole company, no need for grey morality!"

Yes, Talon didn't say that. But I was speaking from the perspective of Audience Reaction, Talon doesn't hide from the audience, not the civilian in-universe that they're evil. You're right that it could mean Obviously Evil, but they make it pretty blatant to the audience instead of spewing hypocritical stuffs...

Of course, the things after 'I believe/felt' aren't meant to be added to the page, it was just me guessing the mentality of the tropers that caused these exaggerations. Even I know it wasn't proper (but if I made that mistake by accident... my bad, I missed a spot. Feel free to remove them)

Both organizations have different approachs at what they do.

Talon has a more direct approach. Like assassinating important targets, doing terrorist attacks on certain places, etc. Vishkar prefers to go by deceiving people and, if that doesn't work, they also try to force their way into the targets they desire (Like how it was shown in the Symmetra comic)

So it's pretty clear that both act different, and are really fucking bad. What i don't understand is why the fandom supposedly hates Vishkar more.

And all explanations i hear about this issue sounds like, again, jumping to conclusions

Whether they're added to the page or not, the things after believe/felt are your reasons for adding them, which still isn't permissible on this site.

Also Vishkar are clearly meant to be villains. Your mistake is believing that a villain that doesn't pet a dog is a Hate Sink, which isn't the case. That's really what this seems to be about—you think that they're a Hate Sink because they haven't petted any dogs, thus you think that they're the Scrappy because the audience sees nothing but bad, thus you think Talon is more liked because they're obvious bad guys.

That seems to be the train of logic you're going with, and absolutely NONE of it is right. Those tropes don't work that way.

Um, now I think you're the one jumping into conclusion about my mindset (I'm sorry. I kinda get this a lot.)

It's not about 'a villain is a Hate Sink if they're not having a Pet the Dog'. What I think could be a mistake in my mindset is more about "Vishkar is probably the more grey-zone villain than blatant villains.", as in an attempt to make the setting not too much getting like a Black-and-White Morality. When that didn't hit the mark, I ended up thinking they're The Scrappy. It didn't help that Blizzard presented Talon in the most blatant evil way possible that I thought they wanted the audience to direct their 'villain' designation to Talon, making Vishkar look more low-key (most of the stories so far revolve around Omnic Crisis or Overwatch vs Talon, the struggle on Lucio-Symmetra/Vishkar was rather underused these days).

This, compounded with my experience in other fandoms where certain villains are praised because they don't lie, made me think that lying villains are more abhorred than honest villains in the fandom. But it's OK, if this is unhealthy, next time I'll try to not bring my personal hatred to common volatile fandom taste (and I'm sure you won't be interested to hear it anyway).

Um...you just confirmed exactly my point.

You thought Vishkar was a more gray type of villain, but they didn't have any Pet the Dog moments to lighten them up, so you assumed that they were the Scrappy, and then assumed that Talon was better because they're overtly bad guys.

That's EXACTLY what I said!

But yeah, chill out with that next time.

"and then assumed that Talon was better because they're overtly bad guys."

.... Do I really sound like that or adhering to that mindset?

Because I think that is what the majority would think judging from how some texts were written here (before I intervened). But what the majority think isn't exactly what I think. If you want me to be honest, I think that just because of a villain being more 'honest' about their crimes to the audience, doesn't mean it becomes a 'better' or 'Love to Hate' point. So I'm probably quite baffled that Talon was the only one who gets Love to Hate status while Vishkar did not.

(The rest of your assumption fits, however. My bad, I got the bad habit of getting my words easily misunderstood)

I'm not saying you agreed with the opinion. I'm saying you assumed the opinion should be troped.

But it's all water under the bridge now, so it's not like it matters.

I should point this out - I was the one that added Vishkar to the nightmare fuel page in the first place.

Not because I hate them to such an extent, mind. I just thought "Oh, wow. The shit these people can get away with is terrifying."

THANK YOU.

Foil is probably the most grossly overused trope on the damn site. I applaud any cleanup.

First name, last name, since this is an English wiki.