I think this trope needs a different name, it seems that a lot of tropers get confused and use it instead of Villainous Rescue, like A LOT. I see it misused more often than not
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I'm not sure the name is the problem, but there does seem to be a lot of confusion. Just regarding the Blackest Night examples, one seems to be more of a Godzilla Threshold, and the other (as noted) seems to be more of an Enemy Mine.
Edited by GreatLimmick
What would we change it to? The trope is, after all, about villains bailing out the heroes. Sure, they're bailing them out by doing the necessary evils the heroes refuse to do themselves, but I'm not sure how we'd make that clear in just one short phrase.
I guess, since it's a morality-based trope, we could go with the old standby of putting a dog in the title. Designated Dog-Shooter? Dog-Shooter for Hire?
These tropes should be split off rather than alt-titled. There's a difference between a Villain resolving an issue in a way that a Hero couldn't remain Heroic by doing, and a Villain coming in for a climactic rescue in the nick of time ala Big Damn Heros. For example, Why Dont You Just Shoot Them may fall under the former without ever approaching the latter.
Removed:
- The Ultimates had Captain America unleashing The Hulk on the alien invasion, who kills the Big Bad by eating him.
Cap was perfectly *willing* to kill the Big Bad. He just wasn't able; he basically used The Hulk as a super-human gun and aimed at at the badguys.
Would Axel from Kingdom Hearts fit in here? I like to think he would in some form, because he clearly references the trope by his "Why do I always get stuck with the icky jobs?" line but at the same time it was the bad guys who were sending him (an anti-villain/anti-hero) to do these things at the time and he's certainly been the one to kill off others.
Would that make this an inversion?
But then, it's not like the other Organization members wouldn't have done it if they had to. Axel was just best poised to do it.