Everything's confusing with "EverythingsBetterWith" tropes NEW CROWNER 06/20/13: Everythings Better With Indexes

Update: Cleaned up Related links for Playful Otter. Specifically, deleted the trope's misuse on Blacksad, EverQuest, Federation Of The Hub, Happy Tree Friends, Happy Tree Friends, Magical Vacation, PB And J Otter, Surfs Up, The Mistmantle Chronicles, The Life And Times Of Juniper Lee. Please correct me if I was wrong with those.

Also: I require your assistance with some of the Related links. The problem is, my browser, for some reason, doesn't let me edit especially long articles (e.g., the Pokemon pages). It would be great if someone took their time to browse through the remaining Related links for Playful Otter, and take care of the rest of misuse. Thanks in advance!

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In other news, I'd advise everyone to please wait with cleaning up the Messy Pig related links. I'm YKTTW'ing 3 new pig tropes at the moment, so maybe some examples from those related pages could be moved to those new tropes' pages, if they'll be launched.

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@Oreochan: So you suggest something along the lines of "Roaches are always stereotyped to be villains"? Hm... Not sure if this is tropeable... What do other tropers think?

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RE: "Unexpected". Bravo! That word desribes the point of these tropes pretty well! Thanks a lot for your suggestion!

One small comment though: We should probably specify, what exactly do we mean by "unexpected" (definitely on the index page; maybe on the subtrope pages as well), to prevent even the smallest threat of misuse.

In my understanding, e.g., "walking through modern London, see a wolf pack" is this trope, since no one expects the Spa— ahem, a wolf pack in modern London. However, "Lalala, I'm a naive medieval boy, I wandered into the woods, I don't expect any danger — oh no! A wolf pack! I didn't expect this!" is not this trope, since a wolf pack in the middle of woods in olden times is quite expected, it's just this specific character is naive.

In short: "unexpected" in our case means "unexpected to be encountered in this setting", not "unexpected by a ditz character or something like that".

More something like associated with ones, like Fat Bastard and the like than them not actually being villainous cockroaches which are not that common. But, I'm starting to wonder if that's considered a trope...

What about using them to basically to show not tell us a place is filthy? Is that tropable?

edited 12th Jan '12 8:22:32 AM by Oreochan

"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

Ah, I see. Well, let's wait other tropers' opinions on this matter.

As for the "roaches as a symbol of a filthy place", I think it may be tropeable. But are there enough fictional examples?

I'll try to find some that are under Creepy Cockroach, but then again there are not many of them are put there.

edited 12th Jan '12 8:41:55 AM by Oreochan

"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

Btw, just added a YKTTW for a new trope about Stock National Animal Symbols. The Kangaroos Represent Australia idea is listed there as one of its subsections, along with Russian Bears, Chinese Pandas and Middle Eastern Camels.

Yes to stock national animals.

And the more I think about it, the more I like Unexpected Animal. Except... it's not an index or a snowclone. It's a trope. Out of nowhere bear, wolf, shark? They're all the same thing, tropewise.

Maybe two tropes - Unexpected Funny Animal and Unexpected Scary Animal. (And with better names if someone has them.)

@Routerie: Hmmm... I think that you're right. Unexpected Scary Animal and Unexpected Funny Animal seem like solid enough tropes to not warrant any smaller subtropes. Maybe Unexpected Cute Animal as well? (E.g., a News program showing a random cute kitten at the end of the news segment, to distract viewers)

Btw, I thought a bit more about different connotations of the word "unexpected". Here's what it can mean:

• A pack of wolves can't be expected to be encountered in a modern city. But here it is!
• A naive character goes into the forest and is surprised to see a wolf pack. He didn't expect it because he's naive.
• A non-naive character is wandering through the woods, and suddenly he is ambushed by a pack of wolves! He didn't expect it because it was too sudden.

I think only the first meaning is our trope. We need some way to address this in the trope descriptions.

But, maybe some of the Everything's Better With X tropes won't fit into the "unexpected" pattern. E.g., Everything's Better with Spinning. What should we do about those?

In my opinion Everything Is Better With Spinning should probably become maybe exampless (I'm not sure if we should do this though) and an index since it is a supertrope and many examples may be covered by a lot of spinning tropes we have. Although, I could be wrong about kind of action.

Edit: I just found out it is already trope+index. What could we make to?

edited 12th Jan '12 11:14:41 AM by Oreochan

"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

@Oreochan: You're right! Heh. I know what we should do. After we go through all the rest of the EBWX tropes, and possibly rename them, we should leave Everything's Better with Spinning as the last remaining EBW trope. It's the (somewhat) source for the snowclone's name, after all.

I agree that it should be left as an index, but maybe not entirely exampleless — if there are more examples like the page quote (that is, related to spinning in general), they could remain. More specific examples, though, should definitely go into the subtropes.

edited 12th Jan '12 11:38:58 AM by Zulfiqar

Yes, we should have this trope cover only examples that are not covered by the spinning tropes it's super trope to. We also might have to check the wicks and change them to the subtropes if they fit there.

edited 12th Jan '12 12:20:41 PM by Oreochan

"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

You're 1) wrong about spinning being the first (monkeys came first, followed by princesses), and 2) assuming we are just going to get rid of them all without even a crowner to decide that.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

1) Oh well :) TV Tropes history is not really my forte

2) I never said "without a crowner". We're just planning some possible future actions at the moment. If we decide to follow these plans, we'll surely make a crowner for every serious decision.

Well what to do with the index in general really should be the next crowner. We just need to take action on the items that got enough votes on this crowner.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

Actually, I'd suggest that the next thing to do should be to take all those recently renamed tropes (we could start with the animal ones), and try to see, if they are actually tropes. Since there are too many "list all examples of animal X" among them :(. If an article isn't a trope as it is now, we should try to find a trope hidden there underneath the mess, and salvage it (like we did with Rascally Raccoon). Of course, crowners a plenty and all that :)

Sound like a plan?

Why can't we do both?

Or, to streamline it, any non-trait animal tropes could be lumped into including a type of animal because it's cute, scary, etc. So puppies, bunnies, kittens, and such, would make a single trope about including some animals for cuteness. Sharks, wolves, bears, and such would make a trope about stock danger animals.

And these tropes would still fall under "Enhancing a work by their inclusion".

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

And I've let Dragon stick with that definition since he wrote the index, but really, that's not a standard for an index. One expects authors include every element in their work in order to enhance it...

But just, plain enhancement has not really been a trope so far. And that is important, as there are several reasons for including a trope: narrative importance, characterization, worldbuilding, necessary weasels, author appeal, etc. So we could make this a Super-Trope / index about including things just because they enhance a work in some way.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

Sulfiqar: "A naive character goes into the forest and is surprised to see a wolf pack. He didn't expect it because he's naive."

If that type isn't going to be included in the tropes, I suggest we make a new trope, where they can be moved to. Naive Person Meets Wildlife or something like that. Simply about persons who goes into the forest/mountains/country/ocean, where he/she meets wildlife (wolf, bear, otter, whatever), he/she should have known about but didn't and therefor get a nasty or hilarious surprise.

Regarding the examples which are just "there is an X in it", I am not sure whether or not renaming will prevent the tropes from being used to that. People simply don't read the descriptions that close, if at all, and no one can remember what 20,000 tropes are about. People look at the names instead and think, that if it says something which X, then it must be about X. Renaming may lower the number of misunderstandings, but I fear other will just come instead.

English is an international language, but it doesn't mean that everyone speak it on a daily basis.

Everything's Spoonier With Spoons.

[deep breath, count to ten]

Thoughts?

EDIT: ignore this.

edited 17th Jan '12 3:01:20 AM by johnnye

Because it's a supertrope to all tropes?

Cut.

Idunno, I think "spoons are funny" might be a trope. There seems to be something inherently bathetic and stupid about spoons. I was reminded of General James Lindsay wanting to rename Operation Blue Spoon (the invasion of Panama) because "Do you want your grandchildren to say you were in Blue Spoon?" (the operation ended up being named "Just Cause").

The trope name is awful, though.

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

Are spoons funny? Or is it just an inherently funny word?

I'm sure we can list some spoon jokes and memes that go beyond, inherently funny word, but we can also do that for every object in the universe.

Spoons are Funny is a trope. (Reminds me of the Spoon vs Spork thing in The Tick.... hell SPOOOOON was The Tick's catchphrase.)

Also gratuitous usage of spoons like say the Cardassians in Star Trek DS 9 (who had spoons on their foreheads) and such could be it as well.

Rename yes.

edited 17th Jan '12 4:49:20 AM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

I don't think Everything's Cooler With Lava should go to Lava Adds Drama. That trope is really more for lava making things look cooler. There's no real drama element to the trope.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick