BeyondRedemption vs. MoralEventHorizon

Beyond Redemption describes itself as the in-universe version of a Moral Event Horizon... but it clearly isn't, based on usage. There's a subtle but extremely important difference between the two that seems hard to avoid as long as they have those names.

Moral Event Horizon clearly refers to the specific moment, action, or event that renders a villain beyond redemption.

By comparison, no matter how much the bulk of its description might insist otherwise, Beyond Redemption is always going to be read, and used, as a trope for villains that are beyond redemption - it refers to the fact that a villain is described as beyond redemption, not a specific moment, and regardless of whether the work concretely identifies such a moment. Lots of in-universe Moral Event Horizon incidents are going to get mentioned there because crossing the moral event horizon renders someone beyond redemption, but there's also a ton of examples in the article that lack that moment, because many, many works describe villains as beyond redemption without giving them a clearly-defined in-universe Moral Event Horizon.

Trying to tell people "yes, the villain is described as Beyond Redemption but you can't use that trope because it requires you define a specific moment on account of being split off from Moral Event Horizon" isn't going to work.

The top part of the list of examples in Beyond Redemption seems to reflect the description at first glance... but I suspect that that's because a bunch of in-universe Moral Event Horizon examples were dumped into it when the trope was split off. If you scroll further down and look at what's been added in the five years since then, the majority of them make no mention of a specific moment or of the hero trying to redeem the villain before - they're just "this villain is clearly described as beyond redemption in-universe" or something of that nature, since that's obviously what the name implies.

I'm also a bit confused about why Beyond Redemption tries to insist that it's the "invoked" / "in-universe" version of Moral Event Horizon; we already have a standard mechanism for when a YMMV trope is unambiguously invoked in-universe, we don't usually create two tropes for it. Is it a legacy thing from before the current standard of just stating "invoked" in the trope description? Is it because in-universe usage is so common?

Edited by Aquillion on Feb 1st 2024 at 9:45:21 AM

The major difference is that Moral Event Horizon is an Audience Reaction: it's a scene that causes the audience to view a villain as irredeemable. Beyond Redemption is a character reaction: it's when the heroes decide that a villain is irredeemable.

Well, MEH does require the character to be seen as irredeemable according to the narrative. It's a result of the TRS that fought to hammer down an actual definition that people could agree on.

That sounds troublesome because it would make the trope not YMMV.

Yup. It certainly could.

You may want to read the TRS. I had actually wanted to make it objective.

Yes, but the problem is:

Because it was conceptualized as an in-universe variation of Moral Event Horizon, the description for Beyond Redemption requires a specific, concrete event where the character goes from "redeemable" to "irredeemable", and actually as-written requires that someone was trying to redeem them and then gave up.

As written, if you have a Laughing Mad Card-Carrying Villain whose backstory is never brought up and who the heroes just offhandedly say is "beyond redemption", they wouldn't count, because that concrete event - they were just always this evil. Likewise, you wouldn't list them as having a Moral Event Horizon even on the YMMV tab, because that trope is about there being a specific line that they cross, not just about them being so generally evil that people consider them irredeemable.

The name and examples for Beyond Redemption don't fit this, though. And I doubt it would be possible to force them to fit it as long as it has that name, since Beyond Redemption seems like an obvious straightforward term for an obvious, straightforward, and real trope that doesn't require a specific moment where they become beyond redemption.

As a result, Beyond Redemption's use doesn't line up with its description.

And it's also odd in that if someone writes an example like this on a work's main page, say:

• Moral Event Horizon: Occurs In-Universe when Doctor Devious blows up a hospital full of innocents, which makes the heroes declare that he's gone too far to ever redeem himself now.

...that would normally be an appropriate way to use an in-universe example of a YMMV trope, right? Why is this one different in the sense of having its own "in-universe" variant using a different name?

Edited by Aquillion on Feb 1st 2024 at 3:16:07 AM

When the page describes Beyond Redemption as the In-Universe equivalent of Moral Event Horizon, I don't think it means "Beyond Redemption is Moral Event Horizon, but In-Universe". I think what's being said that In-Universe examples of Moral Event Horizon would go under Beyond Redemption.

So basically what makes an evil villain Beyond Redemption is someone in-universe saying "They're beyond redemption"? That's a pretty small reason to separate this trope from the Moral Event Horizon.

I definitely agree with Aquillion on this . I don't even understand why there's a line a villain has to cross to be considered irredeemable. If the trope requires the work to present a villain as irredeemable, why does it focus so much on a single specific event?

Edited by SoyValdo7 on Feb 1st 2024 at 6:29:24 AM

...Because that's the concept? The moment a character does something so bad they can't go back? It's not "this character is bad" since that'd just make it redundant with things like Complete Monster or other specific villain tropes.

If you're arguing for MEH not being needed, that's a different story. I don't feel that strongly personally but the "specific action in the story thing" was one of the things that got discussed to death on that 22 page TRS thread. Seriously, we went way in depth.

Moral Event Horizon is when a character is dancing on the edge of true villainy versus Anti-Hero or Anti-Villain, then makes a decision that commits themselves to true evil. It's ymmv because the switch moment was impossible to track, stealing ten dollars from charity vs pressing the Planet Killer button were being equated as the same thing (and might be depending on the work). It's also that the premise of the trope had a finality to it, a place of no escape, and thus we would have characters turn evil in season three and season fifteen becomes good again. It made for conflicting examples when the trope is invalidated by canon.

Beyond Redemption is when it's assumed an evil character has the capacity to return to the good side only to affirm they are committed to evil. This does not demand a specific evil action take place, only that the narrative frames them as having no remorse for their actions. It may be from witnessing their fall from grace and they engage in Redemption Rejection, but they could also start the story evil and the hero merely assumes a sympathetic backstory gives them a chance to become good.

According to the requirements set in the TRS, it is basically the work itself that determines when that switch occurs. The only reason it is YMMV is because the crown to decide if to move it failed.

Edited by SoyValdo7 on Feb 2nd 2024 at 2:20:43 PM