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

"Because it's a supertrope to all tropes?"

Wrong. The top super tropes are Characters, Plots, and Conflict either at that level or just below.

And you're missing the point I stated. I didn't state this should be about tropes that are enhancing a work, but that enhancing the work is practically the only point of the inclusion, not for narrative, characterization, or world-building purposes.

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

Bumping for more votes.

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

Are we still working on this?

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

Well the rename options with 2:00 plus ratio have been that way for a wile, so I think we can go through with them.

After that, I want to make a page action crowner about renaming and redefining this as a Super-Trope for including something just because it enhances a work (by being cool, cute, glamorous, etc.) by its inclusion.

edited 6th Apr '12 2:41:56 PM by DragonQuestZ

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

Like A Field Of Fireflies to make a scene innocence,romantic, celebratory or sorrowful? I think the crowner should be called too.

edited 6th Apr '12 5:04:10 PM by Oreochan

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

Yeah, and Stuff Blowing Up makes works more awesome, and Princesses make works more glamorous.

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

We were ready to call the crowner ages ago, but then comes the actual renaming, which takes tons of labor. I did a sloppy job last time and got banned for it, and no one else seems too interested.

I'll happily though go on arguing against this "Tropes That Enhance Works" idea. All tropes enhance works, so such an index makes no sense.

(Dragon Quest Z: "No! I mean tropes that enhance works except for the tropes related to plot, characterization or world building!")

That's... every trope, minus three large arbitrary categories. We could equally well call it "tropes that enhance works, except for tropes related to plot, characterization or aesthetics." Or "tropes that enhance works, except for tropes related to characterization, humor or plot."

I'm basically against any index where the criteria is "miscellany."

"All tropes enhance works"

And you're still forgetting the "simply by its inclusion" qualifier.

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

"Simply by their inclusion"? As opposed to...?

Well The Hero has a narrative and story purpose. Sure it enhances the work, but performs another task. Worldbuilding and characterization tropes enhance a work, but also have the task of fleshing things out.

Now what does Everything's Better with Sparkles do other than just look pretty? Sure there might be some instances where more is done, but the core definition of the trope is that it's included "just because".

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

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your definition of "enhances a work." Because The Hero doesn't enhance a work in addition to its purpose. It enhances a work through its purpose. As do characterization tropes. As do sparkles - adding sparkles serves a purpose, though not a narrative purpose.

There. You've hit on my objection to your proposed index, my objection to the current index and my objection to many of their relevant pages.

They claim some tropes' core definitions are that they're there "just because." That's not true. Tropes never exist "just because." If something exists "just because," it is Not A Trope. It's chairs. Tropes need purpose.

So if sparkles are there "just because," we shouldn't document it anywhere. But if sparkles decorate something, then they do serve a purpose, and we can make a Decorative Sparkles page.

And when we properly document tropes' purposes, we see the way they relate and the way they don't. Sparkles decorate. Monkeys make us laugh. Those are unrelated purposes. The tropes are unrelated - and we need not group them together just because we have a third purpose ("narrative") or several more purposes ("narrative," "characterization," "world-building") that neither happen to serve.

Now, if you want to group them together because defy the narrative or defy logic, then we might have something. But we already have indexes for that.

Okay, what you mean by "just because" isn't what I mean.

I meant that there is no narrative, story, or worldbuilding reason to have tropes like sparkles (in most cases). But they look pretty.

Actually, I think I can put this better. These tropes are to work as garnishes are to food. They're just there to make it look nicer, cool, etc.

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

Not getting into this discussion... but I agree with DQZ, these Everythings X With Y tropes are like seasoning to works. Can we proceed renaming the tropes now?

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

Although once those renames are done, your comment does help open up a few more possibilities for a new name for the index.

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

Yes, please, start with the renaming! This discussion has no bearing on that.

I understand a little better with the "garnish" analogy. Maybe a clearer way of describing what you're suggesting is an index of tropes that embellish works, rather than enhance them?

Even so, I imagine a lot of potential for twisting that definition into "miscellaneous." We should define the index by what its tropes do, rather than what they don't do. So "these tropes make things looks nicer"? Sure. "These tropes ramp up the action"? Great. "These tropes make things look nicer or add action, but don't add to the narrative"? Um, that's when I we start to lose the clear meaning we were otherwise aiming for.

To go back to the food example - suppose we were compiling an encyclopedia of food rather than tropes. Should we make an index of garnishes? Yes, of course. Would we put ketchup on that list? No. Ketchup embellishes food, like garnishes, but it's different. Garnishes are chosen for their appearance, and they're sometimes not even eaten. If you want to add a strong new flavor to the dish, as with ketchup, that's something distinct. Would we put garlic on that list? Again, no. Garlic embellishes food, but not through appearance, and it's different from ketchup too, because you add it while the food's still being prepared.

If we created three different indexes for the embellishments - Garnishes, Condiments and Spices - we'd have some overlap, but we'd be able to hammer out firm definitions for each, which is a good thing. Far better that one index labeled "things that enhance food without adding protein, carbohydrates or fat." Cause then you just know This Foodie will add vitamins, and someone else will put Our Fiber Is Different, not to mention Antioxidant Panties, until no one can remember what the index was supposed to be.

Work steak dinner breakdown:

• Plot,Character Development and other meaty stuff: Steak
• Protagonists,Antagonists and other characters:Peas
• Motifs, themes,elements:Steak sauce
• Plot fluidity and Three-Act Structure: Mashed potatoes (sometimes runny)
• Everthings X With Y and additional elements thrown in for flavor: salt, pepper and other spices.
• What is in every (or at least most) part of the meal:Tropes
• Where people debate about every trope species name and taxonomic rank in the meal needlessly to the end of time: At TABLE with FORKS,SPOON and KNIVES, truely an epic battle to have before meal time.
• What people feel after each and every meal: Joy, Dry and , unsatisfied and anything in between.

• Where dinner can be found
  • The restaurant where, waiters/waitresses (mods), cooks (YKTTW buffs), Busboys/Busgirls (misuse cleaners and curators like me who doubles as a cook), the head chefs (admins) and everyone else who works there, work away to prepare and monitor tropes for customers (readers): At TV Tropes.

Something like this?

edited 9th Apr '12 2:13:16 AM by Oreochan

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

I so want that to be in the description.

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

Everything's Prettier With Butterflies—> Pretty Butterflies

edited 9th Apr '12 2:18:28 AM by Oreochan

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

Everything's Better Deep Fried is now Deep-Fried Whatever. Moving wicks, adding note to sticky and renames page.

edited 9th Apr '12 6:48:22 PM by Oreochan

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

Good work!

Thanks!

Everything's Funkier with Disco —> Gratuitous Disco Sequence.

edited 11th Apr '12 5:47:48 PM by Oreochan

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

I see new options are still being added to the Round Two crowner. I think it may be better to close that crowner and start a new one for Round Three. Everything's Louder with Bagpipes was brought up as an example in another thread.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

Hey, I already called dibs on doing a page action crowner, and I did so in multiple posts.

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

By all means go ahead.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

I still have to wait for this crowner to finish getting done though. Then after fixing the page proper, we should have a better focus on what to do with the rest of the pages.

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