The Quest for the Good Guys
When I first planned this issue, I thought it would be easy to find exemplary tropes and characters for each of the three categories: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Alas, after a lot of research, it turns out this really isn’t the case. Of course, I haven’t read all the webfiction there is, neither have I plummeted through all the available tropes on TvTropes. Still, I didn’t think it would be so hard to find some Good Guys. So I ended up turning my basic research into a quest, and not just any quest: The Quest for the Good Guys.
But before I explain my Quest, I’m going to explain what a trope is, for any of you unfamiliar with the term. A trope is a common motif, theme, or pattern in fiction. This can go from characteristics to plot devices and settings. A trope is not necessarily a cliché, and is definitely not a bad thing. TVtropes.org is the internet’s El Dorado for all tropes in fiction. It’s a wiki, written by fans of TV shows and all kinds of fiction, from poetry, to comics and even webfiction. And it’s one of the most dangerous places on the internet, because once you start reading, you keep clicking for more.
Back to my Quest.
So here I was, looking for tropes about the Good Guys, and it turns out there aren’t very many. There are, of course, the Alignment Tropes and the Plot Devices Tropes, but there aren’t very many good character tropes. Sure, you’ve got tropes like The Aragorn, a “secondary character who leads the forces of good in their struggle against the Big Bad,” but the good guy tropes are very few compared to the million of bad guy tropes.
Why are there more bad tropes than good? I asked one of my favorite webfiction authors this question, and we ended up having a discussion on what exactly makes a character good.
Jan Oda: When I was starting this article I thought that there would be a lot of tropes for good guys too, but good guys are always defined by their less good traits. There must be more then one way to be good, no?
MCM: I don’t think so, though. Well, I mean, you COULD be defined by your good traits, but it’s not as easy. Take one fragment of good away, and you have flawed. Take one fragment of bad away, and you have less bad.
I think this might be the reason why the Good Guys are harder to find on TV Tropes. Not that there are less of them, but because their goodness doesn’t define them, whereas the fact that the bad guys are bad is often the biggest part of what defines them.
MCM: Perfect people slip past conflict too easily. It’s hard to get mad at them, and they never get in trouble on their own. The exact opposite of drama. A lack of conflict.
Jan Oda: But good doesn’t necessarily have to mean perfect.
MCM: No, but it tends to. If they’re MOSTLY good, a writer tends to take the flaws and amplify them. You find the weakness in their Good Armour, and you exploit it until they crack.
Jan Oda: Maybe. People can be flawed and still be good. I believe all people are a bit grey at least.
I still think Good Guys don’t have to be perfect, but I do agree that perfect people tend to be boring in fiction, and I can see why writers would want to avoid this at all cost. However, it’s not because you are flawed, and have done something bad, that you’re one of the bad guys per se.
Jan Oda: It’s about neighing to a side. it’s a scale thing.
MCM: It’s about motivations vs the morality of the character, I think. It depends on how he does what he does.
Jan Oda: It’s about honor too, maybe.
MCM: That would be… actually, almost perfect. The world’s appreciation of your personal morality.
So the Good Guys are the ones who are on the Good side of the scale. Personally I think to be really Good, you need to be a lot more than 50% on the Good side, maybe even 75%. Otherwise you’re just a well rounded Grey character (not as in uninteresting, but as in mixed traits).
So as final defining traits we came up with motivation, morality, and honor, and it’s all a matter of scale. Which brings me back to Tv Tropes, and to the wonderful world of Character Alignment. It’s an axis between good and evil, and lawful and chaotic.
In the Good Alignment section, this gives us Lawful good, Neutral Good and Chaotic Good. Through these alignment tropes I finally found some different Good Guys tropes, but by no means as many as there are for types of Bad Guys. Which still seems silly to me. After all, in general we tend to root for the Good Guys.
So I am now on a Quest. A Quest to find more types of Good Guys, more funny tropes about Good Guys, and stories where the main characters are very high on the Good side of the Alignment Scale, and yet are still interesting. And preferably, find all of this in webfiction, too.
Maybe I’m asking for too much, but in the end most quests are tricky, full of dangers, and almost impossible to succeed in, and besides, the Good Guys deserve the attention.
Please help me in my Quest to honor the Good Guys, and tell me: what Good Guys tropes or characters have you come across in webfiction?