This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Cromage: Removed the following example:
- Ugly Betty: When Betty stops trying to imitate the florid writing style of Mode magazine and writes from her own perspective when given a hotel review assignment, the editor-in-chief Daniel rejects the article because it's too different in style from the rest of the magazine. Frenemy editor Sophia picks up the article and runs it in her own magazine instead. Thus, Betty remains true to herself and gets published in a glossy.
Because by the trope description, it doesn't cover people who've been rewarded in other ways for choosing to give up something. Haven't seen the show though, so I'm leaving the example here.
Danel: And I took it back out again - if it really fits, it needs to be adjusted to make it clear how this is so. Also removed:
- In Breaking Dawn, turns out you can be a vampire and still have a baby after all! Or close enough, anyway.
Because it has nothing to do with the trope!
- In the movie How To Marry A Millionaire,, well...take a guess how that works out.
I don't want to guess. Explain, please.
Actually, this trope isn't really that good at all. Just because someone chooses one thing over another doesn't mean they wouldn't prefer both, and I don't see how it's a Broken Aesop. More narrowly defined, as in the Beauty and the Beast example, yes, but say... Honest Axe is a different matter - the guy never decides he doesn't want to be rich or whatever, he just values being honest as more important than lying for personal gain. Getting rewarded for this is in no possible way a Broken Aesop.
Falcon Pain: When you abandon your desire for A so that you can have B, it typically means that you have made a decision to go without A. Otherwise it's not much of a sacrifice, is it?
Why is this broken? Consider this. In the Honest Axe story, the person has a chance to try to claim a gold or silver axe. He sticks to his principles and is honest; they aren't his. Thus, can't it be a perfectly reasonable outcome that he simply gets his axe back and leaves? (This is how it works in Dragon Warrior 3, and yet I've heard players complain about it. They only threw their item in to be rewarded, after all!
I don't see the problem with the Ugly Betty example, assuming her goal was to be published. She decided to be herself when writing, even though it meant the magazine wouldn't publish her. Then someone published her anyway.
Goldfritha: Removing this:
- This is a stock ending of Fairy Tales and folk tales. You know the one: there are three siblings, two are awful people and the third is lovely and humble and thoughtful and everything, and the third one gets all the gold, because they're not just out for themselves, trying to increase their own wealth.
This is about accepting something and then finding out you don't have to accept it after all. It does not cover all rewards for goodness that are not sought out.
Falcon Pain: We have categories for Ballads, Fairy Tales, Folk Lore (actually links to a video game), and Myth And Legend. Are these really four different things?
