This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Some Sort Of Troper: It is an Analysis page and thus the essays within it are allowed to make an analysis on any point from any position on an aspect of the series. There is a reason the icon for the namespace is a magnifying glass - we take a look at details of the work and scruntise them more closely. Here we take the name, acting in a way as the High Concept and look at it further. If Fast Eddie was fine with it the first time round, I don't think he's going to cut it now and I really don't think the Cut List is meant to take the place of Wiki Magic and am kind of fed up of the people who put slightly flawed pages up for cutting without taking it to the forums or YKTTW first.
Also it's allowed to be long, it's not that badly written and boy if everything can be summarised in just it's title (and there are lot of people in the Trope Repair forum who would have an argument on that), we'd better scrub the entire Laconic namespace.
Shrikesnest: Saying that the title of a television show sums up its premise is silly on its face. Stating that the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer sums up its premise in its title is self parody. I can't imagine anyone needing it summed up for them in five or six paragraphs.
As for my not having brought this up, I put it on the discussion for the page a good month ago. I didn't realize there was some kind of etiquette that mandated that I discuss the cutting of the page before putting it on the cutlist more than that; I kind of thought that's what this discussion was for.
Of course everything can't be summarized by just it's title, especially if the purpose of the thing's title is to be flavorful or a pun, or, in the case of many tropes, an obscure example of the thing itself. But a television show really has to be succinct, for marketing purposes. Look, if we were examining the title of The Grapes of Wrath, that would be fine. The analysis article boils down to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer is about on person, named Buffy, who slays vampires. Isn't that an amazing coincidence!?" We don't need the article.
Some Sort Of Troper: But that's not what the article's about. Half of it is about how the title can be taken as emblematic of the central conceit of the show (naturally) and how as the show went along it explored ways in which that conceit might be invalidated while the finale had invalidated the basis of the show by rendering the thing we have been told since the beginning ( ...into every generation a slayer will be born. She alone...) untrue. The second part is about how each thing embodied in the title ends up affecting several aspects in the show later on and run throughout. Your boil down is not only trite and erroneous but also neglects that the really rather simple idea is the starting point not the conclusion.
Now it shouldn't matter if you get it or not, it shouldn't matter if you feel it is needed or not (I repeat: it's an analysis page so it doesn't matter how obvious the issue is, the point is to look at it in depth), it only matters that the essay sticks to the envisioned idea of the analysis pages. Since I'm one of the two people who came up with the idea and wrote the page and it's was seen and accepted by the administrator who makes up the other half, we can be assured of that.
Shrikesnest: Ah, clearly the central issue is that I don't get it. Sorry if I touched a nerve. You and your massive space brain can revel in the whole thing, then.
- I'm a random Troper who found this page from the main Buffy The Vampire Slayer entry, so perhaps it would be helpful to get a comment from a previously uninvolved individual such as myself, yes? Well here it is: The article is not stating the obvious. And I am rather surprised that you do not, indeed, "get" the fact that it analyzes the significance of the title to the point of overanalysis. Which, you know, is nowhere near "stating the obvious", kind of by default. "Stating the obvious" would have been saying "It's about a girl named Buffy who kills some vampires. Oh, and it's action-packed and funny!" and then stopping there. But they don't in fact stop there; they analyze it right down to the implications of a definite article being used in front of the world "Slayer", right down to Buffy's name being emblematic not of the silly side of the show, but of the show's theme which they interpret as being New vs. Old or Youth vs. Elders. Seriously, I'm not saying you have to like this analysis or agree that it's worth reading, but to argue that "it just states the obvious" is indeed Completely Missing The Point and yes, you don't get it, to the extent that your snark reads to this random passerby as Complaining About Articles You Don't Like.
