This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Colin: How is The Sentinel example a subversion? That sounds like a character using the existence of a trope to their advantage.
Krid: Since I'm 99% certain that Catwoman didn't die in Batman The Animated Series, I went ahead and swapped that entry with the one for Fire Fly.
Paul A: You moved the entry saying "Unlike above, he's unable to save him." from under the entry in which the target is saved, and reinserted it under an entry in which the target isn't saved? What?
Phartman: What about the example in Twilight Princess? There's no Laser Sight reticle to purchase anywhere in the game. Did that user mean the Hawkeye, or is this some item unique to the Wii version?
Radioactive Zombie: I want to ask why this article is basically Complaining About Things You Dont Like. Seriously. It's fiction, it can be ridiculous.
Kalaong: Anybody realize that it's primarily a threat? Somebody sees a guy point a gun a them they figure they might get shot - the little red dot tells them precisely where they're gonna get it. Excellent for intimidation.
Evil_Tim: Not at all. They have to notice the dot first, and then just stand there staring at it like a slackjawed idiot instead of diving behind something. Besides, knowing where you're going to be shot isn't really much of a difference if you know you're going to get shot, that's rather intimidating in itself.
Shan G: A comment on the use of Laser Sights in computer and video games (mostly first-person shooters). Because of how games work, necessarily being different from real life, a laser sight can actually be beneficial even if it doesn't help your aiming. If, for example, the player is trying to shoot past an object where they hit-box differs slightly from the visible model, having a red dot appear where the bullet is going to stop is pretty nice.
Evil_Tim: That's more normally dealt with by having the reticle turn red when you have a valid shot, though.
Evilest_Tim: 82.94.180.240, let's run through this a little more clearly. Certainly in some games it's necessary for the player to have some visual cue that a sniper is present, due to the power of sniper weapons to damage the player. This might justify some method of warning, but it does not justify any particular method, unless that is the only one.
A laser sight is not the only method of warning the player of a sniper's presence; there's also cues like scope glint, NP Cs giving warnings to the player, scenery showing signs of a sniper's presence (eg Call of Duty World At War, where they hide in trees, and the trees they hide in have visible ropes dangling down), giving them slow-moving projectiles so the player hears the shot in time to dodge, using a "sound radar" system like Far Cry to show direction, giving the player high-contrast vision that picks out enemies easily (thermal, for example), etc. As a result, it is not justified simply because there needs to be something there to cue the player.
I direct your attention to Justified Trope; note "applying to the story." It would be justified if there was some good reason for the sniper to want to put a laser sight on their weapon, not for the player to want them to do so. Using it to make them easier to kill is a straight use of the trope with no attempt at justification in-story; it's essentially a gameplay Deus ex Machina, with the location of the sniper handed down from on high in a completely arbitrary manner. Under the reasoning you're applying to this article, all examples of certain tropes would have to be declared "justified," such as this trope's father Crosshair Aware, and almost all instances of actual deus ex machina plot devices; they are, after all, required by the story.
See also Justifying Edit, noting point two: "The troper misunderstands the meaning of Justified Trope as we use it, and tries to "justify" it by arguing that the use of the trope was a good idea [...]" This is precisely what you're doing here.
As for the other examples; Dead Space uses the trope completely straight and the idea that it's "justified somewhat" by the guns being handwaved as mining tools that work like guns is ludicrous. The laser sights are there because Resident Evil 4 had laser sights, and mining equipment is even less likely to be laser sighted than firearms. Let's not even get on to the laser-sighted flamethrower and point defence guns.
The Crysis example is an ad-hoc, made-up-on-the-spot explanation that has no basis in anything the game tells you; fanon does not count as justification.
