{"id":7258,"date":"2012-05-08T10:23:06","date_gmt":"2012-05-08T15:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=7258"},"modified":"2012-05-08T10:23:06","modified_gmt":"2012-05-08T15:23:06","slug":"trope-tuesday-hoist-by-his-own-petard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/trope-tuesday-hoist-by-his-own-petard\/","title":{"rendered":"Trope Tuesday: Hoist By His Own Petard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/okvnUzTRwU0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>One of the most satisfying ways to defeat the villain is to have his own nefarious scheme bring about his downfall. \u00a0In Hamlet, Shakespeare described this as &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/HoistByHisOwnPetard\" target=\"_blank\">hoist by his own petard<\/a>,&#8221; or blown up by his own bomb. \u00a0Basically, it&#8217;s a <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/Self-DisposingVillain\" target=\"_blank\">self-deposing villain<\/a> whose evil plans have\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/GoneHorriblyRight\" target=\"_blank\">gone horribly right<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Not only is this a delicious form of <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/DeathByIrony\" target=\"_blank\">death by irony<\/a>, it&#8217;s also a satisfying way to show <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/KarmicDeath\" target=\"_blank\">cosmic justice<\/a>\u00a0in action while allowing the heroes to <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/ThouShaltNotKill\" target=\"_blank\">keep their hands clean<\/a>. \u00a0When done best, the villain keeps the tension <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/UpToEleven\" target=\"_blank\">notched up to eleven<\/a> and only commits his fatal mistake after the heroes have\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/LastStand\" target=\"_blank\">made their last stand<\/a>. \u00a0Bonus points if the petard takes the form of a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/Mooks\" target=\"_blank\">minion<\/a> who <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/TheDogBitesBack\" target=\"_blank\">decides to switch sides<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps unsurprisingly, you&#8217;ll often find this trope in stories geared towards a younger audience, which generally try to avoid <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim\" target=\"_blank\">messy endings<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/GreyAndGrayMorality\" target=\"_blank\">shades of gray<\/a>. \u00a0In some ways, it almost resembles a <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/DisneyVillainDeath\" target=\"_blank\">Disney Villain Death<\/a>, in that the heroes often come out with clean hands and an unambiguously clear conscience.<\/p>\n<p>However, this isn&#8217;t always the case&#8211;sometimes, it&#8217;s precisely <em>because<\/em>\u00a0of the shades of gray that the villain&#8217;s plans become self-defeating. \u00a0Case in point, <span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">Pride and Kimblee<\/span> from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. \u00a0You&#8217;d think that both characters are totally evil&#8211;and perhaps they are&#8211;but that doesn&#8217;t stop the one from undermining the other at just the right moment.<\/p>\n<p>When done right, this is an incredibly satisfying way to defeat a bad guy. \u00a0When done poorly, however, it <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/VillainDecay\" target=\"_blank\">undermines the villain<\/a> altogether, or turns the story into <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/AnAesop\" target=\"_blank\">just another Aesop<\/a>. \u00a0As always, <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/YMMV\" target=\"_blank\">your mileage may vary<\/a>, so when writing one of these stories it&#8217;s important to keep your audience in mind.<\/p>\n<p>In my own books, it&#8217;s probably more common for this to happen to the heroes, which probably makes it a form of <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/TwoRightsMakeAWrong\" target=\"_blank\">Two Rights Make A Wrong<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Main\/NiceJobBreakingItHero\" target=\"_blank\">Nice Job Breaking It, Hero<\/a>. \u00a0I do enjoy hoisting the villains as well, though, and will almost certainly use this trope in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most satisfying ways to defeat the villain is to have his own nefarious scheme bring about his downfall. \u00a0In Hamlet, Shakespeare described this as &#8220;hoist by his own petard,&#8221; or blown up by his own bomb. \u00a0Basically, it&#8217;s a self-deposing villain whose evil plans have\u00a0gone horribly right. Not only is this a&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/trope-tuesday-hoist-by-his-own-petard\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Trope Tuesday: Hoist By His Own Petard<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[403,222,693,458,87,485,641,565,626,522],"class_list":["post-7258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-death","tag-endings","tag-fullmetal-alchemist","tag-good-and-evil","tag-heroism","tag-shades-of-gray","tag-trope-tuesday","tag-tropes-and-cliches","tag-tvtropes","tag-villains","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-1T4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7260,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7258\/revisions\/7260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}