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Ambiguous Name: Kick The Son Of A Bitch

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Note: This thread was proposed by StarSword.

Kick The Son Of A Bitch is supposed to be when an evil act inadvertently screws over somebody who had it coming. E.g. The description example is of a scenario where violent bank robbers kill somebody who just happened to be an extraordinarily cruel pimp because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is specifically contrasted with Pay Evil unto Evil, where the bank robbers kill the pimp specifically as payback for his cruelty.

Despite the description, I keep seeing it misused on work pages for Pay Evil unto Evil and related tropes. On top of that it's a Pothole Magnet.

Personally I think the title is a Bad Snowclone of Kick the Dog and the trope is probably redundant to Asshole Victim and Karmic Death; I suggest disambiguating the page as a solution.

Sandbox.Kick The Son Of A Bitch Wick Check came back with 14% correct use, 52% misuse, 19% sinkholes, 10% ZCE or PCE, and 3% unclear.

Wick check:

Kick The Son Of A Bitch is supposed to be when an evil act inadvertently screws over somebody who had it coming. E.g. The description example is of a scenario where violent bank robbers kill somebody who just happened to be an extraordinarily cruel pimp because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is specifically contrasted with Pay Evil unto Evil, where the bank robbers kill the pimp specifically as payback for his cruelty.

Despite the description, I keep seeing it misused on work pages for Pay Evil unto Evil and related tropes. On top of that it's a Pothole Magnet.

Personally I think the title is a Bad Snowclone of Kick the Dog and the trope is probably redundant to Asshole Victim and Karmic Death; I suggest disambiguating the page as a solution.

50 pages checked, 15 main space and 35 work pages. 63 total examples. I've boldfaced uses of the trope, added my comments in parentheses at the end.

    open/close all folders 

    Correct Use (9/63, 14.3%) 

Trope Pages

  • Good Is Not Nice (index): ""Kick The Son Of A Bitch: When the hero's cruel act isn't that bad because the one receiving it isn't sympathetic"
  • Unscrupulous Hero: "Veronica Mars: The title character's intent is always to catch the bad guy, but her methods can range from manipulating an officer in order to steal evidence or eavesdropping on therapy sessions. Her motivation is almost always revenge rather than justice. She certainly enjoys her Kick the Dog moments, but her targets are always REALLY terrible people so the audience doesn't flinch too much."
  • Wardens Are Evil: "Edwin James, the warden of Alcatraz. He has been shown to resort to psychological torture in order to learn crucial information about prisoners, such as manipulating Ernest Cobb's attempts to be placed in solitary confinement or threatening to leave Kit Nelson in a small dark room until Nelson admits the truth about his first crime (although Kit Nelson really had it coming, having been sent to Alcatraz for being a child killer). His deputy Tiller is corrupt and more open in his cruelty towards the inmates."

Work Pages

    Misuse (33/63, 52.4%) 

Trope Pages

Work Pages

    Sinkhole (12/63, 19.0%) 

Trope Pages

  • Back for the Dead: "Captain Ginyu of all people returns in Dragon Ball Super in the Freeza Revival arc, stealing Tagoma's body and making a grand spectacle of his return to a proper body. Then Vegeta shows up and finishes what he started back on Namek."
  • Blamed for Being Railroaded: "In Dude, Stop, the narrator tells you not to touch anything while he's on the phone during the tutorial. Of course, he takes so long to make the call that the only way to progress is to ignore his instructions and deliberately fail all the puzzles. This leads to the narrator getting irrationally angry and threatening to ban you from playing the rest of the game. Though the main point of this exercise is to make it harder for you to feel sorry for the guy when you deliberately fail later puzzles. In fact, some of the packs require you to fail in order to progress, which of course still makes the narrator angry." (no idea)
  • Hope Bringer: "Shin Megami Tensei IVs Main Character becomes this in the Neutral Route by helping as many people and demons as he can both in Tokyo and the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado, to the point of recreating one third of a divine entity's power by the sheer amount of hope he inspires. Then he proves why he can generate so much hope by taking back the other two thirds from the Seraph Merkabah and the Demon Lord Lucifer. At the end of the Neutral Route, the people of Mikado believe so much in him that they are ready to evacuate their kingdom at his command. The Hope Crusher White are utterly furious at him, as they wanted to break his spirit so he would never again seek any form of renewal or continuity, and keep throwing divine monsters and even Alternate Timelines in his path — fat lot of good it did to them.'"

Work Pages

  • Locke & Key (2020) Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: "Also, how Dodge got his hands on the Gender/Identity Key: in the comic books, Ellie accidentally dropped her Keys in the Wellhouse after her mom hit her in the face; then, when Dodge's freshly-summoned Echo snapped Candice Whedon's neck, Ellie fled in a blind panic without picking them up. In the show, Ellie's first meeting with Dodge was conducted quite peacefully with no murders, with Ellie still being totally clueless about the fact that Lucas's Echo was possessed, even when he began demanding the Keys with open aggression, to the point that when asked, she just... handed over the Identity Key - which, unlike the Gender Key, offers literally unlimited opportunities for disguise."
  • Awesome.The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim:
    • "While most players who do "The Taste of Death" may complete it, there’s an option to save the priest of Arkay by killing every cannibal in Markarth gathered there and robbing Namira of a follower. Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?? For bonus points, if you've done a few small quests for Lisbet and Banning, killing them and Eola with the Ebony Blade will count as charges for it. Who says betrayal and murder has to leave you feeling guilty?" (Pay Evil unto Evil)
    • "Storming through the Thalmor embassy on your own feels incredibly satisfying, particularly as you may not be a high level, but in any case you're not only holding your own against the Thalmor, you're utterly handing their arses to them. Then, after you've recovered the military intelligence, you and Malborn both flee via the dungeons, with any of the hostages you've rescued- and bump straight into a Frost Troll. If you have a follower, he'll show up to save you all, meaning it's about five people versus one Frost Troll. Talk about an epic escape." (no argument that the Thalmor have it coming but this isn't really portrayed as a villainous act by the Player Character)
  • Characters.A New Hope Danganronpa Penjar: "Quick Draw: Is quite fast with his gun, and plugging Monokuma."
  • Characters.Star Wars Darth Vader And Servants: "Pet the Dog: He rewards Firmus Piett for finding the rebel base, by promoting him to admiral. After Force choking the incompetent and arrogant Admiral Ozzel to death. (more chained sinkholes, and that was the archetypical You Have Failed Me)
  • Exalted.Tropes A To H: "Card-Carrying Villain: In 2nd Edition the Yozi reward the Infernal Exalted for playing the role of villains, such as monologuing about their evil schemes, leaving their heroic foes in cunning deathtraps, or other cliched acts of villainy. One can be rewarded for going through said cliches...against people worse than they are... with deliberate flaws... the Green Sun Princes can become Noble Demons if they want." (dependent on tabletop RPG player actions so too ambiguous to classify)
  • Fate/Zero Sense: "Cerebus Syndrome: The fic takes a very dark turn with the death of Caster at the hands of Berserker in chapter eleven. Not that Caster and Uryuu don't deserve it, but their deaths do begin the darkening of the plot." (ambiguous pothole)
  • FinalFantasyXIV.Tropes S To U: "Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In "The Parting Glass" and its immediate aftermath, the culprit's plot goes off more or less without a hitch. The Sultana is dead, as is Lord Lolorito's peer/rival Teledji Adeledji, Raubahn is in prison awaiting execution for murdering Teledji, and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn have been broken and branded as regicides. Afterwards, however, the culprit runs into the problem of trying to run a Frame-Up on someone with a Hundred Percent Adoration Rating like the Warrior of Light. Most of the public only knows rumors about what happened, and almost nobody believes the accusations against the Warrior, so the False Flag Operation fails. The few that do believe that the Warrior is guilty decide they'd rather just turn a blind eye to the Warrior's presence, handily handwaving the fact that they can move around more or less freely despite supposedly being Eorzea's Most Wanted. The other leaders of the Eorzean Alliance further made it clear to the Ul'dahn Syndicate that they are not to go public with the charges against the Warrior until they can present concrete evidence, ostensibly because of the unrest that would occur if the realm's beloved hero and primal slayer were accused of something like what the culprit intended. Then Heavensward comes around, and reveals that things didn't go so smoothly after all. Very little of what happened at the Bloody Banquet was intended by Lolorito. Teledji Adeledji may have wanted to overthrow the Sultanate and install himself and his fellow Monetarists as the rulers of Ul'dah, but Lolorito recognized that he was already running the show in all but name. He stood to lose far too much and gain too little by going along with Teledji's plan. As such, Lolorito had the poison intended for Sultana Nanamo replaced with a sleeping potion, and had intended to use his influence to publicly acquit the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, including the Warrior of Light, of all charges. But the Scions' refusal to stand down and be brought in by guards — who, for all they knew, intended to simply execute them all on the spot — spoiled that part of the plan."
  • Manga.Blade Of The Immortal: "Curb-Stomp Battle: Any time Makie get serious. Also, in a great Kick The Son Of A Bitch moment, Rin VS Burando."

    Zero/Partial Context (6/63, 9.52%) 

    Unclear (2/63, 3.17%) 
  • Characters.TNO Germany: Five different examples, all of which have to do with Martin Bormann neutralizing other Nazis while the player is playing as Nazi Germany in a total conversion mod for a 4X game.
  • Glass (2019): "Kick The Son Of A Bitch: A complicated example when the Beast finds out that Kevin's father was killed on the train that Mr. Glass blew up. The Beast is understandably furious and brutalizes Mr. Glass for doing this, but on the other hand, Mr. Glass is the lesser of two evils when you factor in the Ancient Conspiracy."

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 20th 2023 at 3:01:08 AM

StarSword Captain of USS Bajor from somewhere in deep space Since: Sep, 2011
Captain of USS Bajor
#26: Mar 23rd 2023 at 2:45:31 PM

All right, so are we good to proceed with disambiguating the page?

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#27: Mar 23rd 2023 at 3:17:19 PM

I'll do that since we need to cut the subpages as well.

Edit: And done. Here are the wicks.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 23rd 2023 at 5:27:53 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
StarSword Captain of USS Bajor from somewhere in deep space Since: Sep, 2011
Captain of USS Bajor
#28: Mar 23rd 2023 at 5:00:31 PM

Dewicked what was in the wick check.

RandomTroper123 She / Her from I'll let you guess... (Not-So-Newbie) Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
She / Her
#29: Mar 25th 2023 at 12:37:58 AM

So, I was cleaning some wicks and I've been wondering, does KTSOB have enough wicks for us to set up a notice to help us dewick it? I'm asking because, if I remember correctly, Bare Your Midriff had roughly as many wicks and it got that treatment.

I'm personally fine with either though.

Edited by RandomTroper123 on Mar 25th 2023 at 12:43:19 PM

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#30: Mar 25th 2023 at 1:07:07 AM

[up]We only use bulletins for simple projects, which usually means meaningless concepts that we'll have to remove most references for. We're mostly moving examples of Kick The Son Of A Bitch to other tropes instead of removing them outright, as opposed to how we removed most wicks of the likes of Bare Your Midriff and Names The Same, so the complexity (rather than the wick count) keeps it from being bulletin material.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 25th 2023 at 3:07:39 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
RandomTroper123 She / Her from I'll let you guess... (Not-So-Newbie) Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
She / Her
#31: Mar 25th 2023 at 1:08:35 AM

[up]I see, and I understand now. Thanks.

StarSword Captain of USS Bajor from somewhere in deep space Since: Sep, 2011
Captain of USS Bajor
#32: Mar 25th 2023 at 11:33:12 AM

[up][up]I see your point, but to play Devil's Advocate for a minute, Kick the SOB has well over 5000 wicks, so it might be useful to have the help. We could just say "if you're not sure where to move the example, feel free to delete". I had to do that several times earlier, and not just with ZCEs I didn't know enough about to explain properly.

Yindee Just stoic wisdom. from New England Since: Jul, 2016
Just stoic wisdom.
#33: Mar 25th 2023 at 11:36:32 AM

Meh, I think we can keep at it by ourselves for now. If this stagnates over a long period of time, maybe we can bulletin it, but it's okay for this to take a bit and be more thorough.

Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker Mail
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#34: Mar 25th 2023 at 3:32:16 PM

[up][up]Bulletins didn't work for The Chick or Bonus Boss when it was tried for those, so I doubt it would work for this. That's part of what I was getting at when I said it works best for Chairs-y concepts, but I neglected to mention that.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 25th 2023 at 5:33:05 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Yindee Just stoic wisdom. from New England Since: Jul, 2016
Just stoic wisdom.
#35: Mar 25th 2023 at 6:22:35 PM

[up] While I'm not necessarily in favor of bulletining KTSOB at this time, I wouldn't consider those bulletins to be black-and-white failures. They weren't 100% successful, but taking any chunk out is a win in my book.

Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker Mail
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#36: Mar 25th 2023 at 7:41:11 PM

I don't think they really made a dent, though. Either way, this is off-topic between the fact that I already said no multiple times and the fact that I was planning to post a bulletin for A Date With Rosie Palms (which is the sort of Chairs-y project I was saying we reserve bulletins for) at the beginning of April if that thread isn't done by then (which it probably won't be, but that's the plan) since I got feedback from the other mods on the matter (since I prefer not to make dewicking bulletins unilaterally).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 25th 2023 at 10:46:46 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
molokai198 Since: Oct, 2012
#37: May 5th 2023 at 2:30:17 PM

I don't see this as redundant with Asshole Victim and Karmic Death - The suffering or death of Asshole Victim may or may not be a direct result of them being bad people, while this trope specifically refers to cases where it is not intentional (just as Pay Evil unto Evil is specifically cases where it is intentional), I feel like there is room for a trope specifically about the in-universe coincidental examples if it's given a rename that isn't so ambiguous. As for Karmic Death, that requires the victim to, well, die, while none of these other tropes do.

Yindee Just stoic wisdom. from New England Since: Jul, 2016
Just stoic wisdom.
#38: May 5th 2023 at 3:04:11 PM

[up] This trope was disambiguated in March, so there's no decision left to be made at this point.

Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker Mail
StarSword Captain of USS Bajor from somewhere in deep space Since: Sep, 2011
Captain of USS Bajor
#39: Jun 1st 2023 at 6:15:24 PM

I cleared out the Main namespace this evening.

StarSword Captain of USS Bajor from somewhere in deep space Since: Sep, 2011
Captain of USS Bajor
#40: Jul 9th 2023 at 1:34:31 PM

Now <4000 wicks. Though in the process I had to send a "not a trope" notifier to a somebody who added a new wick in an example about The Batman (2022).

RandomTroper123 She / Her from I'll let you guess... (Not-So-Newbie) Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
She / Her
#41: Jul 18th 2023 at 7:29:13 PM

Me and other tropers have gotten this down to 3680 wicks. (Granted, I need to go back to wick cleaning.)

Coachpill Can shapeshift (probably) from Washington State, grew up on Long Island Since: Aug, 2022 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
Can shapeshift (probably)
#42: Jul 24th 2023 at 2:34:45 PM

In regards to getting rid of examples one-by-one (haven't found the trope twice on the same page unless it's a pothole, with the exception of the Samurai Jack character sheet), would be alright if I formatted the notes like this? (potholing to Ambiguity Index):


Or should I always cite TRS/write "now is a disambiguation page"? I really only intend to do this with Kick the Son of a Bitch and not other DA'd tropes because I feel like tropers that add it as an example are more encouraged to not neglect to pass on notifiers this way. Plus it was a (moderately) Overdosed Trope.

Silver and gold, silver and gold
WarJay77 Big Catch, Sparkle Edition from The Void (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
#43: Jul 24th 2023 at 2:36:38 PM

I usually just say "disambig" or something. You don't have to be super specific, but you also shouldn't be too snarky about it.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
StarSword Captain of USS Bajor from somewhere in deep space Since: Sep, 2011
Captain of USS Bajor
#44: Jul 24th 2023 at 2:41:13 PM

Personally I've done enough of these myself that a few common variations on "Kick The Son Of A Bitch is no longer a trope" now show up in my edit reason autocomplete suggestions.

RandomTroper123 She / Her from I'll let you guess... (Not-So-Newbie) Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
She / Her
#45: Jul 24th 2023 at 2:57:46 PM

[up](x3) Usually, when cleaning up disambiguated tropes, I tend to say something like "[Insert trope here] is no longer a trope/has been disambiguated."

AudioSpeaks2 He/Him (Greenhorn) Relationship Status: Oh my word! I'm gay!
He/Him
#46: Jul 24th 2023 at 4:20:15 PM

I honestly think the difficult part about this one for me definitely isn't the ones removing the examples.

It's the one's where Kick The Son Of A Bitch is inserted into the middle of a sentence. For example:

"It serves as a Kick The Son Of A Bitch moment to the scummy..."

Edited by AudioSpeaks2 on Jul 24th 2023 at 7:26:30 PM

Art Museum Curator and frequent helper of the Web Original deprecation project
StarSword Captain of USS Bajor from somewhere in deep space Since: Sep, 2011
Captain of USS Bajor
#47: Jul 24th 2023 at 4:24:43 PM

[up]Yeah, I just tend to delete those sentences altogether.

RandomTroper123 She / Her from I'll let you guess... (Not-So-Newbie) Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
She / Her
#48: Jul 24th 2023 at 4:51:03 PM

I often delete them too, though it can depend on the sentence/the context.

themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
#49: Jul 24th 2023 at 8:52:30 PM

When I do TRS wick cleaning, it usually follows the following formula:

[[ TRS wick cleanup]] — TropeName has been (whatever happened to the trope)

With an enclosed link to the TRS thread in question in the start.

TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
Coachpill Can shapeshift (probably) from Washington State, grew up on Long Island Since: Aug, 2022 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
Can shapeshift (probably)
#50: Jul 24th 2023 at 8:57:11 PM

[up] (x4) Those ones are definitely annoying. If it's any consolation, sentences like that are typically easiest to find in Awesome pages, and wicks to those pages are my main priority to completely get rid of (the wicks themselves are even more daunting to me, since I feel like there's always way too much context for the event surrounding Kick The Son Of A Bitch being used, enough that I have to double-check to make sure it's not a Karmic Death example where I specifically need to know enough of the irony for the edit).

Edited by Coachpill on Jul 24th 2023 at 11:58:32 AM

Silver and gold, silver and gold

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