Discussion Main / CompassionateCritic

Anyone else think the tone of the title, which sounds like a fairly straightforward good thing, is at odds with the description?

This material doesn't seems to quite line up with the trope as written: the focus needs to be specifically on Susan being a compassionate critic rather than a general hard-ass-teacher-with-her-heart-in-the-right-place.

(From Discworld)

• Subverted, I think: being honest to kids under her tuition and demanding that they behave sensibly i.e. not lisping to attract attention resulted in remarkably self-sufficient kids. Of course, when told about monsters under beds or in closets she issues out Monster Bashing Sticks, so perhaps it's more of her tendency to draw straight lines between starting points and goal points, punching straight through everything inbetween.
• It was definitely more of a characteristic when she was a kid herself. The example given is that she couldn't understand why explaining that it was stupid for the other girls not to pick her for the hockey team made her less likely to be picked.

This material from the Twilight example seems to be getting off-topic from the trope into a general discussion of the dynamic between the lead characters.

• It probably helped him win her heart. Bella is hypercritical towards everybody, including herself, and so when Edward started insulting her she interpreted it as him being honest and possessing good judgment. When he later displays romantic interest in him, she sees the kind things he says and does as being excessively flattering, since he was so critical beforehand. She thinks she has earned them, rather than them being the result of hormones or Edward's complete lack of good judgment. Sadly, this type of thing sometimes happens IRL too: men who work with and date models find that insulting the model's weight and personal appearance helps the man seem like a better catch ( as it confirms the model's preexisting beliefs and makes the man seem like he could afford to be a lot more picky than he usually can). So yeah......