Chastise/Wrest The Mind and The Operative

I remember seeing a rules clarification that because she's not a Villain Character card, Fanatic's Chastise works on the Operative. But Visionary's Wrest the Mind won't work, because she's still a Character card. But they both have the same wording, "next to a target, other than a character card." And in the digital version, neither card works on the Operative.

So what gives? If Chastise works on The Operative and Wrest the Mind does not, what is the distinction, give the cards have the same wording? Or do neither work?

Neither work on The Operative.

The Operative is a villain character card.

The Operative is a villain card and a Character Card, but not a Villain Character Card. Villain Character Cards are character cards with the keyword "villain" on it.

That seems unnecessarily confusing.

Fortunately, the only cards that care about the distinction are Dr. Tremata, Tony Taurus, Scum and Villany, and Neutralizing Resonator.

Villain card: any card from the villain deck. Even unusual cards, like "Safe House", "Bloodsworn Arena", or "Shrine of the Ennead", which don't actually spend any time in the deck, count. The Title Deck... doesn't? 

Character card: a double-sided card. Notable oddities include Kismet's Talisman and The Operative, both "character" cards and "villain" cards, but not "Villain Character" cards. 

Villain Character card: a double-sided card with the "Villain" keyword. The nine members of the Ennead are each Villain Character cards, as are all the Vengeance-style villains. 

I think the distinction of Villain Character card vs character card vs villain card is necessary, given the cards/card text we have, though my guess is that the need for that distinction is resultant rather than planned. From that standpoint, my guess is that given the opportunity to do it over, the card text might be tweaked such that the distinction weren't necessary.

Or maybe not. I think there's an interesting story element to be contrived (and maybe intended?) from the fact that The Operative didn't get the villain keyword.

It occurs to me that The Operative is not the only villain, character card that is not a Villain character card. Kismet's talisman is as well.

I understand, mechanically, why the distinction needs to be made between two-sided Big Bads, two-sided bad guy helpers, and one-sided bad guy helpers.

I'm just stating that the nomenclature is counterintuitive; there's too much overlapping of terms (which, as you stated, might be emergent rather than planned). It is not at all obvious that villain card + character card != Villain Character Card; quite the opposite, in fact. I would give Villain Character Cards a different label than Villain to clarify.

Take a look at the bottom paragraph of Bloodsworn Colesseum. It's not a villain card.

For those who don't immediately have the cards to hand - 

Incidentally, it bothers me that Bloodsworn Colesseum and Crowd's Favor have Kaargra Warfang backs, rather than Title deck backs.

Yeah, that must have been what threw me. That, and not reading Bloodsworn Colosseum before posting. 

Incidentally, what are the setup cards for the Ennead and The Sentinels classified as? Character cards? 

Yes, they are Character Cards.

By colosseum and favor being in Warfang's deck you avoid having to explain putting cards from a different deck into play, which saves a ton of space on Warfang's character card.

Huh…really? The talisman’s a character card? I always figured the character card was the card representing the character themself, and the rule card that would have been part of the oversized character card.

Are we getting an oversized Talisman with Villains?

A character card is any card in the deck that doesn’t have the same back. The Talisman fits that criteria.

EDIT: Not the best description, but it is too annoying to copy and paste from the rulebook on my phone.

All right, then someone needs to poke the writer of this: http://www.spiffworld.com/sotm/files/sotm_rules_and_clarifications.pdf

Roundabout page 40:

 

villain character cards

Villain character cards are character cards with the “villain” keyword on them.

The Operative, for example, is not a villain character card because even though she’s a character card in a villain’s deck, her only keyword is “assassin”,   not “villain”. this can be important when determining targets for certain cards such as fanatic’s “chastise”, which cannot be played on the villain character card. “Chastise” could be legally played on the operative.

Chastise was reworded.

You are more than welcome to poke Spiff and tell him that his document is using an out-of-date example..

What do we have to sacrifice to summon Spiff? A small cat?

Nah, you have to sacrifice Ronway - don't worry, he'll come back as a zombie so I'm sure he won't mind ;).

Specifically, a stuffed tiger.

I'll admit I'm not paying as much attention here lately (about as much attention as GtG seems to be paying attention to SotM - ooh, sick burn).

What do I need to do now?

Your example of cards that interact with "villain character cards" in the FAQ uses Chastise as an example, but Chastise has since been reworded to not work as described.

I recommend replacing it with Neutralizing Resonator, which to my understanding can't be played on the Operative (which only matters if the Chairman has already been destroyed, but still should work for the example).

OK, I'll dig out the FAQ and see about updating that part.

EDIT: done.