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

Wallabies aren't kangaroos.

Wait, what? All examples of Everything's Cuter with Kittens are getting renamed to Cute Kitten (which is really idiotic as a trope; what kittens aren't cute?) even when they clearly were actual examples of kittens being included for no other reason than for extra cuteness? That's removing a lot of nuance from the legitimate examples.

Kangaroos Represent Australia sounds good to me.

Some here don't seem to realize that, thinking that these are just about puppies and kitten, when the tropes explicitly are not about those.

Unfortunately, Cute Kitten is, in fact, just about cute kittens, anywhere. We'll discuss whether to cut it once were done with the renames.

Everythings Better With Kittens was supposed to be about something quite different, but it mutated horribly. Once we're done figuring out what all the other Everthings Better tropes have mutated to, we'll do a proper wick cleanup. Examples of cute animals inserted to pander to the audience (not characters fawning over cute animals or any other distinct animal trope) should get its own page, but it'd be one for kitten, puppy, panda or whatever. Kittens-thrown-in-just-for-cuteness also appears to have fewer examples than I'd thought - the page itself has only half a dozen in film, TV and literature, and four of those are comedy talk shows mocking the idea.

Of course it doesn't help that someone keeps adding the name back to Everythings Better With index...

But we do need to edit the wicks so that they at lest all make sense and are alphabetized. There are more than 500 of them, so I'd love some help (search-and-replace takes hardly any time, but looking at each wick takes a lot of time).

edited 19th Dec '11 7:31:19 PM by Routerie

Mutating into something bad means we revert the trope to what it was supposed to be, not just cut it without trying to fix it.

And going for a new name that just supports the mutation isn't any better.

As for why it's to remain on that index, it was decided on an older thread about these tropes that all the animal tropes were to be about the animals appearing in a way that was strictly there just for the hell of it, with no other major reason for the inclusion. So far, no reason has been given why the other animal tropes on there can stay but somehow the dog and cat one won't.

edited 19th Dec '11 7:31:05 PM by DragonQuestZ

(Oh, was it you who readded the tropes to the index? I thought maybe someone who's not on this thread.)

The other animal tropes will all go too. We've just begun with the puppies and kittens.

We don't have a trope about kittens thrown in just for the hell of it". We never have. We made a page about kittens that are included for no reason but their cuteness. But cuteness is still a reason. We don't have any page for kittens thrown in just because it's so damn random. We could, but I can't think of any examples of it.

Where was it decided by most of the users here that all the animal tropes are going to go, and that it was arbitrarily decided that the dog and cat trope would start?

And just because I phrased my point poorly doesn't mean it doesn't stand.

We decided in the crowner below. It says: "elements that follow storytelling conventions. (e.g. Everythings Messier With Pigs lists messy pigs.)" misuse the snowclone. We will now fix those. If you think the trope covers such a concept, and the new name covers that, vote to rename.

And about your point - I don't think you worded anything poorly. Didn't I understand you?

edited 19th Dec '11 8:30:10 PM by Routerie

No, renaming is not redefining. And if you're basing worthiness of an index based on name format, you are making the fallacy that any index is even allowed to be about name formats (those are search duplications).

There was a holler to move a bunch of discussions for tropes that were renamed. Just posting to say that it's been done.

Thanks! Could you close this crowner, which decided those renames, and attach the other one I linked to?

We didn't redefine anything. We chose a new name to suit the page's definition. Perhaps someone once intended the page to cover a certain trope, or, as seems increasingly likely, perhaps in retrospect we choose to imagine the page sought to cover a certain trope, but the description, page examples and some 95+ percent of wicks are simply about cute kittens. I can find hardly any examples of kittens sent in to pander to the audience with cuteness - I've gone through the page itself and like a third of the 500+ wicks, and the only examples I've found are two or three advertising examples and late-night comedy shows that mock real-life cute cat obsession.

I'm not trying to base the index on name format. Cute Kitten doesn't belong there, and neither did Everything's Cuter with Kittens.

Here's the apparent history of the index (exact order uncertain):

1. We made a page called Everythings Better With Monkeys whose works inserted monkeys for the sake of wacky randomness.
2. We made other, similar pages for cows, chickens and llamas. Each took the form of Everythings Betwe With.
3. We made an index for these related tropes.
4. We made pages for animals unconnected with randomness, but we used the same snowclone base. Everythings Smellier With Skunks! Everything's Wetter with Otters! These ended up on the index just because of the shared name format.
5. We made snowclones unconnected with animals - Everything's Better with Rainbows. We made snowclones unconnected with anything, just lists of item appearances - Everything's Better With Bunnies. These too ended up on the index.
6. We stepped back and wondered what this index was. Seeing that the names took the the form of Everthings Better With X, we decided to emphasize how the collected tropes all made things better in some way.
7. Other tropes that had to do with things existing and being good hopped on to the index - Troperrific, Rule Of Sean Connery.
8. Other pages that collected item appearances without declaring a trope hopped on to the index - Eenie Meenie Miny Moai, Panthera Awesome.

See what happened? We reached the point where the index has no meaning, let alone the original meaning.

The cat one still fit better. It's about putting in cats to take advantage of their cuteness. See the picture caption on the dog trope, which is also about that.

That explains why it belongs on an index about cats. That explains why it belongs on an index about cuteness. But why would it belong on an index for randomness? A cute kitten thrown it for cuteness is not random. It's there for a very specific and definable purpose. We could have a page for totally random kittens, if that's a trope, but we don't.

(How many examples of Random Kitten can you think of? Feel free to use any of Cute Kitten's 500+ wicks, if they apply.)

edited 20th Dec '11 11:23:10 AM by Routerie

"But why would it belong on an index for randomness?"

It is NOT about randomness (that would be probability tropes). It's about including something because these tropes have certain elements that are thought to enhance a work. That has been the point of this index from the beginning (aside from including The Power of Index, which later split off).

That means that if no plot necessary reason is there for an element inclusion (or even if there is a plot reason, like the element is a MacGuffin), then it's very likely these elements were included for the purposes of enhancement (like Friendship Is Magic being Enforced to have Celestia be a Princess, because the ExecutiveS thought that princesses are better than queens).

And it doesn't matter if we don't know author intent, as any element in a work that actually is random tends to stick out and be disjointed, and most instances of this trope are meant to fit in.

Tropes that "have certain elements that are thought to enhance a work"? Is that honestly a definition you'd like to apply to an index? How does that not cover every trope in existence? (It excludes audience reactions, and some complaining pages maybe, but seriously, that definition applies to every actual trope.)

This index, as I described in my last post but one, sought to cover tropes containing elements that are thought to enhance a work through their randomness. Not random "like let's debate the probability of this occurring." I mean random: out-of-nowhere, arbitrary, weird, unexplained... and — here's the key — its randomness drives the trope. A Cute Kitten might be random, but the trope isn't "randomness makes a kitten cute" like "randomness makes a monkey funny." It's "a kitten is cute, though, when you think about it, its kind of random."

We could apply that latter, flawed "random" concept to many things. Hey, that guy taking his shirt off is so random. Hey, that moral is so random. But we don't put those on an index with other random stuff (and we certainly don't call them Everythings Sexier With Chests and Everythings Moral With Endings). Because the point is the fanservice, or the moral, and the randomness is just something we note, often angrily.

"Tropes that "have certain elements that are thought to enhance a work"? Is that honestly a definition you'd like to apply to an index? How does that not cover every trope in existence? (It excludes audience reactions, and some complaining pages maybe, but seriously, that definition applies to every actual trope.)"

No, you're confusing enhancement to mean any kind of addition to a work. I admit this should be in the description, but it's about enhancements not necessary to the story, like plot or characterization. This actually excludes A LOT of tropes.

"This index, as I described in my last post but one, sought to cover tropes containing elements that are thought to enhance a work through their randomness."

No, it did not. Just because you claim it was does not mean it did. I know it didn't, because I made the index, and the common theme is that putting these in a work makes the work better by their inclusion. Such a thing cannot be random.

Pahahaa... okay, if you made the index, I don't really have a leg to stand on. Leave the tropes there.

I'd still argue that this is a poor basis for an index, but let's drop that discussion. And let's clarify the definition on the index page, adding the "improves works independent of characterization and plot" bit.

Well some still don't fit. Those that don't should be dropped. And yes, we should work to clarify the definition to sort out what fits and what doesn't.

You know, we may be able to merge some of the animal tropes into Cute Animal Inclusion, or at least make that a Super-Trope.

Thinking about it, wouldn't Cute Animal Inclusion pretty much just be a subtrope of Rule of Cute? If they're included for added cuteness, that's pretty much just Rule of Cute. The one example of Everything's Cuter with Kittens that I've added to a page is pretty much interchangeable with Rule of Cute, at least (but completely ceases to be meaningful when renamed to "Cute Kitten").

Not all Everything's Better With Animals tropes work like that, but for kittens/puppies/etc. being included for cuteness specifically, I think Rule of Cute encompasses the real meaning we're going for just fine.

No, because we don't actually have a "Rule Of Cute" trope.

We have a Cute Index which we named "Rule of Cute" for some reason. It allows no examples. And though the page starts with the line "If it's adorable enough, then it doesn't have to make sense," not one of its dozens of tropes have to do with that. Instead, the tropes on the page are all simply relate to cuteness.

People still regularly pothole to Rule of Cute though, aiming for "cute" or "cuteness is good."

Well even if it was a Super-Trope, that still falls under accepting things because they are cute more than including things.

Yeah, it'd be good to have a trope like And Heres An Adorable Animal or something.

Actually, you can make one on ykttw if you like.

EDIT: Well I brought that up first. You want me to make it?

edited 20th Dec '11 10:06:32 PM by DragonQuestZ