Work to be done, possible split: Unlucky Childhood Friend

I posted a topic about this earlier, but it was deleted due to basically dying off without resolution. Anyway, the problems as I see are this.

1. There's some serious decay going on. It's come to mean at least two things apart from what the trope is about, a specific characterization type. One, there are frequently examples about how it turns out the lead and the girl in question knew each other a long time ago, but don't really remember each other and don't have a relationship as friends. Example, Kotori and Tomoya in Clannad. Two, it's also been taken to mean friendzoning, such as with Satsuki and Shiki in Tsukihime. I've cleaned the page out before, so examples I knew were wrong were purged, such as the Tsukihime example.
2. This seems to be because there appears to be at least two and possibly three tropes here. One, friendzoning. Two, the genuine unlucky childhood friend. Three, when it turns out that they'd known each other years ago, but fell out of touch.
3. On my original check of wicks, they generally fell into these three categories. The only one that is actually what the trope is about is the second. The third seems like it should count, but if you're familiar with the presentation it really doesn't play out the same way at all and is distinct enough and has enough examples for its own trope.

What I suggest is a two or three way split into Unlucky Childhood Friend, which keeps the current meaning, plus moving the other examples into Friendzoned or something similar and a third trope that I haven't really thought of a name for.

On a somewhat different note: what's the difference between Victorious Childhood Friend and First Girl Wins where the girl in the latter trope was a childhood friend? The pages mention that the two overlap, but don't get much clearer.

First girl wins doesn't necessarily refer to the first girl known to the protagonist. It can also be the first girl that we actually see. Using Clannad again as an example, the main heroine Nagisa was actually met after Kyou, Ryou and Kotomi, but she's the first one that the audience itself sees.

What's the difference between the "genuinely unlucky" childhood friend and friend zoning?

I think there's some overlap but... I hope you don't mind all the examples coming from anime and stuff like that, but they've got some of the easier examples of these tropes. In Clannad, a girl named Kotomi has loved the lead since she was a little girl. However, she hasn't seen him in years, and he doesn't remember her. She is not an unlucky childhood friend. Under my proposed split, she would be a type three. She's often considered an unlucky childhood friend but actually is not.

Kyou from the same work has known the lead for about two years and is also in love. Popular guy, huh. However, she's too scared to open up and admit it, so he never thinks of her like that. She actually comes closer to the real trope, but instead she friendzoned herself out of fear of breaking their relationship.

In a work by the same company, Kanon, most of the heroines knew the lead years ago and were friends with him. However, the only one that is a true unlucky childhood friend is the cousin that he more or less grew up with. An unlucky childhood friend character generally grows up with the guy (always female trope) falling in love with him while he's always thought of her as a friend. Mariya in Otome Wa Boku Ni Koishiteru, Sumika of that horrible Muv Luv, Chie in Kira Kira and Torta in Symphonic Rain are all clear, unambiguous examples. It can be blurred with step sisters such as in Da Capo and Ef A Fairy Tale Of The Two, but the defining characteristic is they've always been friends even though after time went by one of them began to feel differently.

Friendzone would be a super trope of "lets just be friends" (I think we already have this one, but I can't remember the name).

Unlucky Childhood Friend would be a subtrope: a girl/guy who is in the friend zone because they grew up together and so one of the friends sees the other as just Like Brother and Sister.

Forgotten Childhood Friend would cover a guy/girl who was a childhood friend but they fell out of touch.

I'm not so certain that the Forgotten Childhood Friend should be excluded from Unlucky Childhood Friend though.

Edit: Woah, ouch, that is a horrible name for the trope currently under Forgotten Childhood Friend.

edited 7th Jan '11 12:46:30 PM by Sackett

Exactly. That's the name the third trope should have, but it's taken. If anyone knows what the proper friendzoning trope is, I'll withdraw that.

As for including the characters that didn't know they were old friends, I have to disagree with you. They're definitely presented differently and the unlucky childhood friend as defined above is a definite character type that writers aim for. If along those lines, it should be a subtrope or a related trope. I know you're on the manga forums somewhat, but have you seen Clannad? Kotomi definitely doesn't fit the mold, which is so common that lampshades and invocations are quite common in the more genre savvy works.

Arha, I think I understand what you are talking about when it comes to there being multiple tropes within the trope in question. I do not think that Kotomi fits the current trope for example because she is neither the first girl introduced nor is she actually thought of as a childhood friend by Tomoya until way later in the story.

I am not sure if this is the best idea, but I would recommend making another topic here to rename Forgotten Childhood Friend and then going to YKTTW with the trope that Kotomi fits because I agree that there is a significant difference between Unlucky Childhood Friend and Forgotten Childhood Friend. I wish I could come up with more examples that show that difference, but the CLANNAD one is the only example I can think of, sorry.

Also, I think that friendzoning in general could just be part of Just Friends, but I do not think that is all that Unlucky Childhood Friend is about.

Please tell me if I am not making sense here by the way.

edited 7th Jan '11 6:54:58 PM by LouieW

Yeah, that's it. Just Friends covers the Friend Zoning

Forgotten Childhood Friend should be renamed anyway, that will free that namespace up for the new trope about forgotten childhood friends.

I think that trope needs to at least mention that Unlucky Childhood Friend is a related idea, and that they can sometimes be mixed. Because I think they are sometimes.

In fact, it can also be mixed with Victorious Childhood Friend to sometimes.

edited 7th Jan '11 10:13:11 PM by Sackett

I'll bring that up in a separate topic then to try and free up the name so we can have a proper split.

Ok, I think I get what you people are talking about. Basically, what you want is a split. I think this is the proposed structure. The trope names need work, and are just place holders.

• Forgotten Childhood Friend - Supertrope. Covers all childhood friends who are forgotten and come back into the story later.
  • Forgotten Childhood Friend Becomes Enemy - Subtrope of the above. Covers the situation of a childhood friend showing up later as an enemy.
  • Forgotten Childhood Friend Becomes Love Interest - Subtrope of Forgotten Childhood Friend. Covers the scenario common in romances of Childhood Marriage Proposals and the like.

Yes, that's what I was thinking for the third point in the split trope. I think if we're going to consider Just Friends to include friendzoning it ought to be added as a redirect, because it's not quite what I think of as meaning Just Friends and I doubt I'm the only one.

Friend Zone is a redirect for Just Friends.

Crowner time? I'm not letting this one die off a second time.

I made a crowner here. I made it a page action crowner because I was not quite sure if other people had suggestions for what should be done here and I did not know if I accurately described Arha's idea. Please edit and add to the crowner as you see fit.

That looks about right.

An unlucky childhood friend character generally grows up with the guy (always female trope) falling in love with him while he's always thought of her as a friend.

Not quite Always Female; I've definitely seen some male examples here and there.

I can think of two things off the top of my head, so you're not wrong, but it is almost always female. At least in the stuff I'm familiar with.

edited 15th Jan '11 5:39:26 PM by Arha

It does seem like it's that way, doesn't it?

Anyways, I personally think that there should be a general Childhood Friend supertrope that covers all the various types (victorious, unlucky, forgotten, The Straight Will And Grace), as well as possibly being a place for those characters who, due to their series' never quite resolving its romantic plots, can't quite be classified as either unlucky or victorious.

Might be a good idea to send through ykttw.

This would be a good idea. I saw several pages that were written this way:

• Unlucky Childhood Friend / Victorious Childhood Friend: Alice, depending on how it will turn out.

• Victorious Childhood Friend: Alice, in her own route of the game.
  • Unlucky Childhood Friend: Alice, in every other route.

Unfortunately, I already have twenty YKTTW of my own waiting to be finished, so I'm not going to adopt this project. Anyone else?

edited 8th Feb '11 5:13:48 AM by EternalSeptember

You know, thing is, I don't think Victorious Childhood Friend and Unlucky Childhood Friend are exactly opposites, though people think they are. Or rather, the latter is more like Childhood Friend Love Interest that was named and described a long time ago under the assumption that the character type usually loses. Which they don't, they're actually one of the most successful. The way people view the distinction between the two is that the former trope is the latter, only that they win.

And now I've half convinced myself that those two tropes should be merged... Bleh... Not what I was trying to say.

Yeah, it has the same problem as Unwanted Harem, that was also used as a needlessly overspecified description of the of the "harem genre", so Harem Seeker needed to be added for harem protagonists who aren't hesitant.

Bump

^ This thread has reached consensus, it's the other thread going on about Forgotten Childhood Friend that needs to be resolved before this thread can do anything. That one needs a new name so that this one can take that name.