About: Badass Decay   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

The process by which a Badass becomes less of a badass. A belief persists among many writers that if the audience takes a liking to a real Badass who fears nothing, has infinite confidence and even carries off defeat with panache, it must mean that what they most want to see is that character reveal a vulnerable side and all manner of inner demons. It is either that belief or the natural result of Character Development, where extra dimensions are added to an existing character to flesh them out and keep them fresh. Either way, the character starts out badass, and becomes less so over time.

AttributesValues
rdfs:label
  • Badass Decay
rdfs:comment
  • The process by which a Badass becomes less of a badass. A belief persists among many writers that if the audience takes a liking to a real Badass who fears nothing, has infinite confidence and even carries off defeat with panache, it must mean that what they most want to see is that character reveal a vulnerable side and all manner of inner demons. It is either that belief or the natural result of Character Development, where extra dimensions are added to an existing character to flesh them out and keep them fresh. Either way, the character starts out badass, and becomes less so over time.
dcterms:subject
dbkwik:all-the-tro...iPageUsesTemplate
dbkwik:allthetrope...iPageUsesTemplate
abstract
  • The process by which a Badass becomes less of a badass. A belief persists among many writers that if the audience takes a liking to a real Badass who fears nothing, has infinite confidence and even carries off defeat with panache, it must mean that what they most want to see is that character reveal a vulnerable side and all manner of inner demons. It is either that belief or the natural result of Character Development, where extra dimensions are added to an existing character to flesh them out and keep them fresh. Either way, the character starts out badass, and becomes less so over time. Most often this happens through Ensemble Darkhorse tendencies, they appear so often and are so popular that any attempt to give them greater depths results in them losing what made them so effective in the first place. Contrast with Took a Level In Badass. Compare with Menace Decay, Motive Decay, Villain Decay, and The Worf Effect. Compare and contrast Bait the Dog and Moral Event Horizon, where a Badass character loses their cool as a result of dog kicking. Chickification is a gender-specific variant. Wimpification is a Boys Love and Slash specific variant. Someone who undergoes physical Badass Decay may become a Perilous Old Fool. Also note that this trope applies when a badass decays within a single continuity. If an absolute badass in your favorite book is portrayed as somewhat less awesome in The Film of the Book, that's not this trope. A reminder from your friendly neighborhood watch: Tropes Are Not Bad. In fact many of the characters on this page Took a Level In Badass as a result of their Badass Decay, such as Vegeta and Bowser. Examples of Badass Decay include:
Alternative Linked Data Views: ODE     Raw Data in: CXML | CSV | RDF ( N-Triples N3/Turtle JSON XML ) | OData ( Atom JSON ) | Microdata ( JSON HTML) | JSON-LD    About   
This material is Open Knowledge   W3C Semantic Web Technology [RDF Data] Valid XHTML + RDFa
OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3217, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu), Standard Edition
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2012 OpenLink Software