This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Void: Removed a bad example, a justifying edit and some chatter. Also removed a large chunk of the Real life section that consisted of little more than chatter, vague misspelled anecdotes and a dead link.
A lurker: Hey, just wanted to point out this really funny article on the subject by the Onion. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43963
I'm not exactly up to speed on how to add things properly, so, I'm just informing you guys.
Silent Hunter: Anyone Raised by Wolves in real life probably won't be able to speak an identifiable language.
Solandra: Aliens speak English in TV land. What else do you expect?
Duckluck: Has anyone else noticed that there seem to be two versions of this trope? The usually male feral wildman who has no concept of social niceties and can get violent at the drop of a hat, and the usually female one who acts normally or even culturedly but is absurdly (and selectively) naive, especially when it comes to relationship matters. This becomes especially aparant as the characters progress. The male version tends to go straight from Fish out of Water to Bad Ass, but the female tends to have a prolonged stay in Jungle Princess style naiviete and rarely get to advance beyond Fish out of Water and if they do it's so they can become a viable love interest to the main character.
Gattsuru: I think there's a bit too much interplay to really call it like that. Mowgli and Tarzan were male but stayed more toward Fish out of Water than feral. The same goes for Goku in Dragon Ball. Princess Mononoke is violent and feral, female, remarkably cynical, and plays the main character's love interest without learning much about human culture. Most of the females do end up falling for a main character when they're not obviously the Amazon, but I think that tends to happen regardless of who or what raised them.
Looney Toons: Movie Tarzan was Fish out of Water. Not the original literary Tarzan, who was literate and well-spoken in several languages, took up his Earldom back in England, and in general turned into a British aristocrat, yet still got to be the Jungle King when he needed to.
Space Ace: Just in case no-one thought of it yet, here's the wiki-entry on the actual phenomenon. Quite interesting, if you ask me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child
Edit: Turns out I pasted the wrong link. Stupid me.
Morgan Wick: Bolted this: Named for the situation of Romulus and Remus, who were abandoned by their parents and raised by wolves before founding the Roman Empire. Guess what that makes it. as it's a bit unnecessary, not needed to enjoy the entry. "Raised by wolves" is a very common English idiom/joke for this sort of thing and there are plenty of literal examples. It goes well beyond Romulus or Remus.
Haven: Yes, but that's probably where the idiom/joke comes from.
Tabby: Anyone got an attribution for the page quote?
Gambrinus: Google attributes it to...tvtropes.org. Anyone have any clue?
Ronnie: I found it.
Nornagest: I wouldn't mind an attribution for the girl claiming to be a wolf under "Real Life". None of the case studies on Wikipedia seem to fit.
I saw a video about that in psych class... i think it was a 60 minutes episode, but im not sure. She was raised by the family dogs and claimed to be a dog, i believe, but it sounds like the same person otherwise.
What's with the point about the real life romeo and juliet story? it sounds totally irrelevant
Erica MZDM: What's the difference between this and Cloud Cuckoolander and Wild Child? A lot of the examples seem like they'd fit equally well into one of those tropes.
das: Note the rather immense difference between the Real Life examples and most fictional examples given. Are you sure they are covered by the same trope?
This might answer the above question, by the way. Wild Child is a human (or equivalent) who acts like an animal being literally raised by animals; Raised by Wolves are much more human (or what have you) in their behaviour, just extremelly out of touch with society and social conventions due to their upbringing; ye Cloud Cuckoolander has been raised in relatively normal conditions, but just acts weird. All three tropes are valid, but examples might need to be redistributed between them both per exact circumstances (the Real Life examples mostly go to Wild Child; L and Near sound more like they would go to Cloud Cuckoolander, though I'm not 100% sure about Near... Can we perhaps agree that if someone is an orphan and is highly asocial on account of how they were raised, they go to this trope?) and also depending on exactly how weird and asocial the characters are.
Some Sort Of Troper: Well it seems we have a little bit of an edit war over the image. I think this new one will be far clearer in how it connects to the trope, albeit by the obvious method of literal interpretation, though I think I have a caption idea that will help with that.
