- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was redirect to Villain#Sympathetic villain. KTC (talk) 12:24, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
Antivillain
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- Antivillain (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Appears to be a non-notable neologism. The book cited is a thesis, not a normal published book. I see occasional uses of the word "antivillain" but no literature about what it means. The search "antihero is" OR "anti-hero is" gets >9,000 hits in Google Books; the search "antivillain is" OR "anti-villain is" gets 33. Another article on the same topic (different content) was deleted in 2008 for essentially the same reason. This was recently discussed (but without discussion of possible sources) at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2015_October_17#Antivillain. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:12, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
- Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Human3015TALK 23:41, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
- Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Human3015TALK 23:41, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
- Comment There also appears to have been a 2007 deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anti-villain (not sure how to add it to the box on the right). Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:16, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
- Redirect to Villain#Sympathetic villain. I commented on the source used here during the RfD. The reason why I said it's probably not reliable is because it's someone's M.A. thesis. WP:SCHOLARSHIP says: Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence. I originally advocated a redirect to antihero, but now I think maybe Villain#Sympathetic villain is a better choice. I think "antivillain" is mostly a TV Tropes neologism, and while I think it's a legitimate concept, reliable sources are lagging behind my trailblazing opinions. There are many sources for discussions of sympathetic villains, such as [1] (requires JSTOR subscription to read), but there just isn't enough for an article on antivillains. It does get used occasionally in reliable sources: this article from The Philadelphia Inquirer, this article from Philadelphia Weekly, and this article from Collider.com. However, this is not enough to pass WP:NEO. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:08, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
- Just a note about that JSTOR source I mentioned above: it's basically a passing mention about the use of sympathetic villains in popular culture. I forgot to say this. I brought it up as an example of how the underlying concept is discussed in academic papers, not as any kind of proof of notability of anything. I wanted to make that clear, since it's not freely accessible. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:39, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
- Redirect to Villain#Sympathetic villain, as per NinjaRobotPirate's excellent analysis. Onel5969 TT me 13:57, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.