The Woobie Cleanup

Can the Jerkass Woobie go into a specified series Woobie page? I assumed that they could be grouped in there as Woobie includes Iron Jerkass Stoic and destroyer of Worlds Woobie if it pertains to a particular work. I asked because someone erased Jason from the Stranger Things page with the reason being that Jason is a Jerkass Woobie which I find to be very pedantic.

Edited by Furygildeman on Oct 10th 2022 at 12:36:17 PM

To my knowledge, yes, though I believe JWs are supposed to have their own section to separate them from regular Woobies. I also checked the history of the page you linked, and I feel he's an example.

Also, I'd hate to get off-topic, however Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds (despite the title) is no longer YMMV.

Edited by RandomTroper123 on Oct 16th 2022 at 1:27:11 AM

I think Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds has never been YMMV. It's always been an objective trope... which is a bit odd since it's a subtrope of a YMMV trope.

The bottom of said page states, "This trope is no longer considered YMMV because not all examples here need to be sympathetic to the audience.".

What about the inverse though? e.g. Can an Omnicidal Maniac that the narrative doesn't portray as sympathetic, but is sympathized by the audience, qualify as Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds?

Edited by Adept on Oct 11th 2022 at 12:00:45 AM

It just said they don't have to be sympathetic to the audience.

I had a similar question about RWBY a while back. The ATT advice I was given was to split out to their correct Woobie pages. Don't lump them all together under The Woobie. (See the conversation here.)

There isn't a formal policy for this, however, so it might be worth coming up with one if it's happening on multiple works. As I said in the ATT thread, it's very much a Lumper versus Splitter question, but it does have consequences for how entries are being indexed (for example, a JW or IW entry on a Woobie page will never show up under JW or IW, so people might just add the entries there anyway, thinking it's been missed, and that leads to duplication).

Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 16th 2022 at 6:18:36 AM

I just added the following to Woobie.Anime And Manga and later it occurred to me this is the kind of trope likely to have a cleanup thread. I'm not particularly worried about it not qualifying bit since it's not atrope I work with much and the thread is here, I figure no harm in vetting the entry, see if there's anywhere to trim the fat or if I missed something that should be present.

• Negative Yuusha To Maougun Kanbu: Rene is a woobie both In-Universe and out. She is the destined hero meant to fight the demon lord, but her parents were killed by humans who blamed them because demons attacked their village looking for Rene. She was then taken in by the kingdom who turned her into a Child Soldier, enforcing a ten hour a day training schedule before setting her loose on the castle of Hyudor, one of the demon army's generals. When Hyudor threatens the twelve year-old would-be hero with death, Rene's response is relief because she has no desire to actually fight. In response, Hyudor changes tracks completely, taking in Rene and making her his assistant in magic study. When his various demon soldiers learn of her presence, they also learn why she's there and each and every one of them welcome her with open arms. Despite this warm welcome, Rene's self-esteem is so shot that she deliberately bathes in an ice cold river rather than the castle's luxurious bath because she feels she doesn't deserve to use it. In the same vein it's shown that, early on, Hyudor and his head maid had to basically force-feed Rene because she didn't think she should eat the delicious food she was being given.

Edited by sgamer82 on Oct 28th 2022 at 11:44:03 AM

I think it fits, though it IS kinda long.

It looks good, though the only thing I can think of to trim to is changing this line:

I tend to go "better too much than too little on context". My benchmark for too long tends to be "do I have to scroll to read the entry on mobile". This came close but falls under. I can probably trim the second half some.

Minor, but I think you're right it reads a little better

Edited by sgamer82 on Oct 28th 2022 at 1:31:20 AM

Thanks. Nitpitcking is what I do I guess.

Here's a slightly shorter version taking length and suggestions into account.

Edited by sgamer82 on Oct 28th 2022 at 1:39:19 AM

Someone from Is This An Example brought me here. So I found the YMMV example of Barbarian where I think it's misused. Do you think I should moved to Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds or not ?

• Jerkass Woobie: Despite being a kidnapper and vicious, monstrous murderer, it's implied that the Mother legitimately wants to keep her "children" safe, and is the victim of years of abuse from Frank.

There's nothing in that example that tells us how the character functions on the scale necessary to be a "destroyer of worlds". At minimum (for small-scale examples), this kind of Woobie needs to be trying to destroy all the other characters in the story. So, if she's after everyone, then yeah, rewrite to clarify that and move her. I agree the wording suggests it's more an objective example than a subjective one, however.

I found someone who is a dire misuse of the trope. From Silent Hill 2's YMMV page.

• The Woobie:
  • Eddie is revealed to have been mercilessly and viciously tormented for his weight and his apparent mental slowness. While he certainly didn't deserve to be treated that way, he ends up blowing his audience sympathy with how he deals with his issues: The end to his arc, unlike Angela's quiet, suicidal desperation, involves him gloating about slaughtering a dog and crippling a bully that was mean to him, blaming all of his cruelty on being bullied without any Silent Hill-induced self reflection and ignoring the lesson he needed to learn, which was that causing pain to others would never soothe his own. James is ultimately forced to kill him in self-defense because he refuses to accept that truth.

And this is coming from someone who sympathizes with people being bullied for their weight. No, this guy is just not someone who fits the trope.

I mean, any example that outright says "yeah the audience don't actually sympathize" is an immediate cut since, well, that's the whole point of The Woobie.

He might count as Unintentionally Unsympathetic if the audience is meant to feel sorry for him. Regardless, I agree he doesn't count.

Want to move The Monarch from The Venture Bros. to "Jerkass Woobie" because, let's face it, he's a pretty big jerkass. Any objections?

No; that sounds like a reasonable change to me (assuming context is added for the "Jerkass" part).

The Woobie is No Real Life Examples, Please!, and Reality TV is always a grey area on that (events featured on the show within an edited narrative don't always count as RL), but I think these two for real people may be crossing a line and/or misuse...?

• The Woobie:
  • Clive from the Brownstone Bistro. After his 14-year-old son was killed in a drive-by shooting, he threw himself into his work as owner of the restaurant in an attempt to cope with his grief, only for the quality of the food and service to deteriorate until the restaurant was on the brink of closing. His Workaholic tendencies were also causing him to not have any time for his family, to the point that his wife was considering a divorce. Needless to say, watching him and the restaurant's staff pull themselves together with Gordon's help is beautiful to watch, and brings a tear to the eye.
  • Logan from Seafear’s Family Restaurant. Logan is a kind person who not only has to put up with his Aunt Autumn’s harsh words, he’s also trying to recover from a drug addiction and keep the place afloat. It doesn’t help that Autumn treats Logan’s issues with disgust half the time she’s onscreen.

Edited by Mrph1 on Aug 6th 2023 at 12:13:11 PM

I agree. It may be Reality TV and the question of whether Ramsey might be crafting a persona for rating might occur, but the people on the show tend not to be acting. I think these two entries are very much troping real life.

Cut. I've signposted to this thread for anyone who wants to bring it back.

Reality TV is a touchy subject with some people. To some it's scripted enough that it's not entirely real life people so we tend to only trope the characters the edit portrays them as. So we allow certain Tropes just not ones like Magnificent Bastard or Complete Monster.

There's a thread on that wider topic here. The starting point was The Scrappy, though, and it's not got yet consensus on that, or started discussing The Woobie.

(Which feels like a candidate)