You have before you three series. The first, Series A, was the first known use of a trope, but it may or may not have been intentional. The second, Series B, was the first well known, intentional, use of the trope. The third, Series C, does not claim originality, and in fact ripped off series B, but is the template that all later uses of this trope follow.

Series A is the UrExample.

Series B is the TropeMaker.

Series C is the TropeCodifier.

The TropeMaker is frequently also the TropeCodifier, but not always. In particular, when the TropeMaker is a work of outstanding quality, the TropeCodifier will be the story that shows how lesser authors can do a good imitation. Conversely, a great writer may gather up many old tropes and polish them to a shine, codifying them for later generations.

The TropeCodifier may be [[TheThemeParkVersion the first theme park version]] or PragmaticAdaptation. If the trope is OlderThanTheyThink, the Codifier is usually ''mistaken'' for the TropeMaker. [[OlderThanDirt Really old tropes]] may have been codified every couple of centuries for millennia, as successive codifiers show how to adapt the age-old trope to their times.

Examples should be of {{Trope Codifier}}s that aren't TropeMakers themselves.

Related to OlderThanTheyThink. If a TropeCodifier is particularly influential, and the TropeMaker a little twisted you may have an UnbuiltTrope.

Also see MostTriumphantExample.

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!!Examples

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[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* ''{{Tetsujin 28}}'' was the first giant robot anime made, but the one everyone copied and still references today is ''MazingerZ''.
** Of course, this depends on whether you consider the genre in question to be "giant robots" or "giant robots piloted by humans". The former is only ''slightly'' larger.
* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' is notable for reusing elements from several previous anime and manga that was influential to the creators while they were younger, including Go Nagai's ''Devilman'' and Tomino's ''SpaceRunawayIdeon''.
* ''SailorMoon'' is frequently cited as the first user of the MagicWarrior subset of MagicalGirl shows. ''CuteyHoney'' used some of the tropes, but was usually seen as a straight-up SuperHero, especially since at the time "MagicalGirl" meant CuteWitch.
* [[RanmaOneHalf Ranma Saotome and Akane Tendo]] aren't even RumikoTakahashi's first TakahashiCouple. But they're the standard by which all others are measured.
** Ranma is also the most likely codifier for MartialArtsAndCrafts unless someone who knows their kung-fu flicks can dethrone it - it's probably harder to think of a pursuit they ''didn't'' use in the series than one they did.
* ''LoveHina'' essentially defined the current style of {{Unwanted Harem}}s, though it was far from the first anime to use the setup.

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[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* {{Watchmen}} and TheDarkKnightReturns are co-codifiers of DarkerAndEdgier.

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[[folder: Films ]]

* ''{{Halloween}}'' was the TropeMaker for the Slasher genre, but ''FridayTheThirteenth'' was the Trope Codifier. In particular, ''Friday'' was the actual TropeMaker for DeathBySex rather than Death By Not Paying Attention (Including Having Sex) for all the imitators that followed.
* ''StarWars'' is the Trope Codifier for Joseph Campbell's [[TheHerosJourney Hero's Journey]] (as well as a heck of a lot of other ideas). Campbell described the pattern based on a range of heroic myths, but today, any good story that follows the Hero's Journey pattern is accused of ripping off ''StarWars'' -- and any ''bad'' story that follows the Hero's Journey pattern actually ''does''.
* The 1931 movie version of ''{{Dracula}}'' codified most modern VampireTropes.
** And the Trope Codifier for OurVampiresAreDifferent would be ''{{Nosferatu}}'', which was where vampires being weak to sunlight originated from.
* And in the same way, the 1940 film ''The Wolf Man'' codified the tropes for [[WolfMan werewolves]].
** Okay, created most of them out of whole cloth.
* ''BirthOfANation'' pulled together all of the little camera tricks and editing techniques that were tried in the early years of film into a coherent set of storytelling tools. It was also horrendously racist. The gymnastics film history classes have to go through because of this are quite amusing.
* ''ThisIsSpinalTap'': The Codifier for the filmed {{Mockumentary}} genre.
* ''EvilDead 2'' is probably the TropeCodifier for ChainsawGood, especially once the protagonist replaces his hand with one.

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[[folder: Literature ]]

* The StandardFantasySetting's TropeMaker was ''TheLordOfTheRings''; the Trope Codifier was ''DungeonsAndDragons''.
** Except for VancianMagic, which was [[TropeMaker made by]] ''DyingEarth'' and codified by ''D&D''.
*** ''D&D'' can also be seen as the Trope Maker of Fantastic Miniatures War Games (Chainmail was the UrExample of a Mini's games featuring fantastic elements, and D&D was originally just the "small warbands" variant of it), but {{Warhammer}} and {{Warhammer40000}} are the Trope Codifiers.
** Another Trope Codifier was Terry Books's novel ''The Sword of {{Shannara}}'', which showed that {{Doorstopper}} fantasy novels that weren't written by Tolkien could also go on to sell zillions of copies.
* ''SherlockHolmes'' is the Trope Codifier for many detective tropes; EdgarAllanPoe's ''Dupin'' stories were the TropeMaker, including such tropes as the less astute [[TheWatson Watson figure as narrator]] and the far-reaching deductions based on attention to seemingly trivial details.
* ''{{Medea}}'' is the Trope Codifier for the WomanScorned, although Ishtar from ''TheEpicOfGilgamesh'' is the oldest known example. The problem with being the first heroic epic ''ever'' is that you're the Trope Maker for every trope you use but the Trope Codifier for nothing.
* RaymondChandler is considered the Trope Codifier of hard-boiled crime fiction, following Carroll John Daly (who TheOtherWiki considers to be the UrExample) and DashiellHammett (the TropeMaker).
** An alternate way of thinking has Hammett as the UrExample, Chandler as the TropeMaker and Mickey Spillane (author of the Mike Hammer novels) as the Trope Codifier. It's probably just as valid; Chandler appropriated as many tropes from Hammett as Spillane did from Chandler.
* The earliest use of AncientAstronauts is ''Edison's Conquest of Mars'' from 1898, but the first popular story to use the concept was ''[[HPLovecraft At the Mountains of Madness]]'' from 1931.
* ''The Red Badge of Courage'' did this for {{War Is Hell}}. For some reason, it's particularly likely to be mistakenly identified as the {{Trope Maker}}.
* While ''{{Dracula}}'' was the first modern codifier for [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampiric tropes]], TheVampireChronicles by AnneRice was a [[SubvertedTrope subversion]] that served to codify the current template used by everyone from [[VampireTheRequiem White Wolf]] to ''{{Twilight}}'' and ''{{Underworld}}''. [[UndeadHorseTrope Both kinds of vampire are in active use, of course.]]
* Contrary to [[OlderThanTheyThink what some fans believe]], ''{{Harry Potter}}'' didn't originate the WizardingSchool trope -- but it is such a prominent codifying example that everything that comes after it will have to either FollowTheLeader or strenuously differentiate itself from Hogwarts.
* ''SnowCrash'' is widely recognized as the codifier for TheMetaverse and the DigitalAvatar but WilliamGibson did them first.

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[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* In {{Reverse Whodunnit}}s, the Trope Codifier is ''{{Columbo}}'', TropeMaker being R. Austin Freeman's ''Dr. Thorndyke''.
* Despite the name, DawsonCasting was neither made nor codified by ''DawsonsCreek''; ''BeverlyHills90210'' does the codifying honors there. Possible Trope Makers include ''ByeByeBirdie'', in which 21-year-old Ann-Margaret played the 16-year-old-lead, and the ''many'' 1960s beach movies in which Annette Funicello, in her ''late thirties'' by the time the last ones were made, played ostensibly fresh-faced debutantes.
* ''StarTrek'' did not ''invent'' modern science-fiction television; but it made many science-fiction tropes commonplace on television, so much so that it is its own franchise and has influenced almost every subsequent speculative fiction series since, up to and including ''{{Heroes}}''.
* Mork from ''MorkAndMindy'' is the most prominent example of an AmusingAlien.

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[[folder: Music ]]

* By the time of MichaelJackson, music videos were evolving beyond just shots of the band, but he set the standard for everything that came after him.

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[[folder: Theatre ]]

* {{Shakespeare}} is another example; he used almost entirely unoriginal plots (with his fame coming from ''executing'' them brilliantly), so anybody harkening back to Shakespeare for a basic plot is going to the TropeCodifier, rather than the TropeMaker.
* "Laurey Makes Up Her Mind" from ''{{Oklahoma}}!'' was the TropeCodifier for {{Dream Ballet}}s in musicals.

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[[folder: Video Games ]]

* ''{{Doom}}'' wasn't the first FirstPersonShooter, but it is the game that all others ''will'' be called clones of simply for being {{First Person Shooter}}s.
** Considering how old Doom is, now you're just as likely, perhaps even more than likely, to see whatever FPS title being called a "ripoff of {{Halo}}".
* ''SuperMarioBrothers'' was the Codifier for {{Platform Game}}s (see TheOtherWiki's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/platformer#Scrolling_era article on platform games]]).
** And ''{{Super Mario 64}}'' was definitely not the TropeMaker for 3D Platformers (see TheOtherWiki's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platformer#Third_dimension article on platform games]]), but was definitely what all later games imitated.
** Who codified PlatformHell? ''[[KaizoMarioWorld Kaizo]] '''[[KaizoMarioWorld Mario]]''' [[KaizoMarioWorld World]]!''
* ''EverQuest'' is the Trope Codifier for just about every single MMO trope of today. While it wasn't the first of its kind ([=MUDs=] and ''Ultima Online'' get that title), it was the first to establish the model that other [=MMOs=] would follow, up to and including ''WorldOfWarcraft''.
** Arguably, EverQuest was the MMO codifier v.1.0, with World of Warcraft setting the target higher, v.2.0 if you will.
* When it comes to {{Match Three Game}}s: ''Columns'' is the TropeMaker, ''{{Bejeweled}}'' is the codifier.
* ''{{Pong}}'' is usually considered the first VideoGame by the general public. The ''actual'' first VideoGame is a bit debatable depending on how you define VideoGame, ranging from an unnamed cathode-ray based game in 1947 to the 1972-released Magnavox Odyssey game console (the strongest contender turning out to lie smack in the middle, 1962's ''[[SpaceWar SpaceWar!]]''), but the consensus is that Pong is the Trope Codifier rather than the true TropeMaker.
* The RTS is anybody's guess. The best this troper can come up with is ''Stonkers'' as the Ur Example, ''DuneII'' as the Trope Maker, and ''[[WarCraft WarCraft II]]'' as the Trope Codifier. (''WCII'' was the first one to formalise the RPG aspects, including clearly visible hit point counters and HeroUnits.)
** I always thought it was ''Sun Tzu's Art Of War'', ''DuneII'' and ''CommandAndConquer''.
*** For the record, C&C didn't push things forward that far - not for nothing was it described at the time as ''Dune III'' (although this troper does view it as the game that killed the floppy disk). As for ''The Ancient Art Of War''... ''Stonkers'' came first, which means [[{{Americanitis}} this is a regional dispute.]]
*** For once, [[CatchPhrase it definitely is Stonkers]] — 1983 IIRC.
* Although it definitely was not the first, the first ''DevilMayCry'' is widely seen as the key inspiration for similar "Stylish Action" games like ''GodOfWar''.
** Chaining on that previous point, ''God of War'' is one for ActionCommands.
* ''StreetFighter II'' for {{Fighting Game}}s.
** CapcomVsWhatever games for the concept of "tag battle" fighters (discounting wresting games, which have wildly different gameplay.)
* Broadly speaking, nothing in any Blizzard game is new or original. They just introduce and tweak the successful elements of previous games to make ones that are quite good.

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[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

* It's unclear whether or not ''DungeonsAndDragons'' was the first to present an alignment system beyond good/neutral/evil, but it was definitely the most prominent, and its nine-point alignment system comprises all of the CharacterAlignment tropes today. Ironically, the most recent version of the game has done away with the alignment system, for the most part.
** The OrderVersusChaos aspect was borrowed from MichaelMoorcock, for what that's worth.
* The Zerg of Starcraft may have been the namers for ZergRush, but the Tyranids of ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'', whom the Zerg were heavily inspired by/based on, were infamous for the tactic long before the Swarm came around, thus presenting an odd case where the Namer came after the Codifier.
** Of course, both are based on the Bugs from StarshipTroopers, which is strange because the Bugs were not mindless, rush-y drones like either the Zerg or the Tyranids.
***The bugs of the Movies as well as the Starship troopers are actually stolen from the Tyranids and cadian shock troopers respectively. Therefore making Warhammer the Ur example in this case being overshadowed and seen as a rip off.
****Starship Troopers was released in 1959, far before even Warhammer Fantasy came out, let alone 40K or the Tyranids.
*****Yes, but the movie is what they were referring to.
* ''{{GURPS}}'' quite literally defined the WeirdnessMagnet trope.

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[[folder: Other ]]

* An earlier work by WilliamGibson [[TropeNamer coined]] the term "{{Cyberspace}}". Both ''{{Neuromancer}}'' and ''{{Tron}}'' set the standards for what we think of it.
*Acorn Computers' Arthur OS had the Ur-Example. NEXTSTEP had the original and the user-interface trope namer. But if you've got a dock in your operating system, the OS you're inevitably accused of copying is Apple's Mac OSX. So of course it's also {{Older Than They Think}}.
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