BRUTALLY Subverted

That's the sort of example I always see from the phrase on the pages I curate.

My vote? Kill It with Fire. Regardless of any value it might have in theory, the phrase has become utterly meaningless and overused to a ludicrous extent, and uses are filled with cases of Not A Subversion. It has no redeeming value.

In theory, if the word hadn't lost all meaning to the point where it just means "in a way I thought was cool", I could care. As it stands, I've only ever seen it to mean "in a way I thought was cool" and never in a way that would actually help the example.

See, I'm not sure it ever had a meaning, and I'm not sure it's worth the effort to shoehorn one in. We're basically saying, "Hey, you know that cool phrase everyone uses all over the place? We've decided Sure, Why Not? and created a page for it! But we don't like the way you're using it, so we made up an entirely new definition out of whole cloth, defeating the purpose of appropriating the phrase in the first place!"

If the concern is that it's basically the new I Am Not Making This Up, I think I would rather put myself in the Kill It with Fire camp.

Yes, those examples need to be purged. That much is certain.

I was just trying to suggest that the phrase is not inherently faulty. Along the mass phrasecide we will demolish some few which are actually legit usage of the phrase, and, yes, that would be necessary evil at best.

Just don't go overboard and ban the usage of the word via editing tips or something. Personally I think it borders in the "Stop Having Fun" Guys territory.

I also stated before that I don't think it means anything right now, but logically it could have. It Just Bugs Me! if people dismiss it just like that. Of course, even if it does have meaning, it's better to show how it's brutal, rather than telling the readers it is. If a mother sauteed her baby, we all know it's brutal. If you say "Brutally subverted in Show A where the mother sauteed her baby," the "brutal" bit is redundant.

edited 9th Feb '11 2:28:19 AM by Catalogue

Some examples:

from Gantz Abridged:

• BFG: Brutally subverted.

That's literally all it says. WTF.

PlayingWith.Audience Surrogate has it listed there. It's not particularly brutal, just kind of mean-spirited.

Drifting Classroom:

• Hide Your Children: Brutally subverted.

Again, that's all it says. WTF. Not helping.

From Kurogane No Linebarrel:

• Instant Expert: Brutally subverted by Kouichi. His ass-kicking is totally contributed to the Linebarrels immense speed and power, but against experienced pilots he nearly always gets shamed. Moritsugu makes this a plot point, fending off his Super Mode and insulting his "Hero of Justice" rap, then threatening all his friends in order to cause an emotional reponse that can unlock Linebarrel's Machina-Killer True Form.

How is that brutal?

One more, from Quest For Fire:

• Gory Discretion Shot: Brutally subverted.

I...what...HOW!?!

As we agreed, Word Cruft-y.

If it's just Trope:subverted then it's X Just X. Dump it on the Discussion page.

thread hop. I think I am the only one here who is really against this. I think people should have the right to say when something is subverted or averted. The BRUTALLY / something else thing lets them express the particular feel of the scene. Subverted by itself sounds so bland and tasteless.

We are about clear, concise, witty. Word Cruft detracts from clear + concise, and is not usually as witty as people think it is.

edited 9th Feb '11 7:22:42 PM by Fighteer

I prefer to organize it like a library would. I expect the first part of the example to be the work, and how the trope is used. Or the trope and it's used. The actual content of the example can be silly or talk about how much it's a subversion, but I want the first part to be as clear and concise as possible.

The BRUTALLY / something else thing lets them express the particular feel of the scene. Subverted by itself sounds so bland and tasteless.

Brutally subverted when the pie was filled with peaches instead of apples!

That's what it usually reads like to me. I'd prefer to read about the situation and judge for myself whether or not it's particularly horrific. If the editor has to explicitly spell it out for me it's either redundant or just sounds stupid.

I agree strongly. In the majority of cases where I actually have read the work, it reads as a clear case of What Do You Mean It's Not Brutal.

Edit: In fact, the previous poster summed up another huge issue with this - it's both annoying and often narmtastic to read the various gushing-style entries that DEMAND you feel this way about! this! work! And not just with "brutally subverted", either: check out all the entries along the lines of The Woobie that say things like "If you do not feel sorry for Bob, you are a heartless monster". "Brutally subverted" is just the biggest offender of a larger phenomenon.

edited 9th Feb '11 8:33:16 PM by nrjxll

I don't think it's the biggest offender. It's just one kind of Word Cruft among many.

So. Brutally demolishing the brutallies:

Pros:

• Less Word Cruft.
• Doesn't really mean anything. Nothing of value is lost.
• If the example is brootal, show, don't tell. If the subversion includes a mother chopping her baby to little pieces and fried them in garlic, it is brutal, people will get it. No need to point that out.
• When combined with Bold Inflation and other diseases, can lead to Hype Aversion anyway.

Cons:

• A bit "Stop Having Fun" Guys-y.
• The phrase can actually mean something (although it's better to show instead of telling, see above), some legit examples may be sacrificed along the way.
• People will just come up with other Word Cruft buzzwords.
• Is arguably a mild annoyance when compared with "if you don't x you're a heartless monster" and other painfully written examples.

edited 9th Feb '11 9:46:44 PM by Catalogue

It's poor style, but I don't think we need a concerted effort to annihilate it—just fix it when you come across it (or set a to-do to fix it later) like any other Word Cruft.

People will just come up with other Word Cruft buzzwords.

Then we purge those too. I've never understood the "if we stop tropers from doing bad things one way, they'll just do it another way" mentality.

I agree that it doesn't necessarily need a concerted purge, but there really needs to be a way to let people know it's bad. Just deleting examples when you see them won't do that.

edited 10th Feb '11 3:14:46 PM by nrjxll

Agreed, but that's still a con in my book, however weak.

What else can we do about this but discourage it and go on a cleaning spree?

Purge purge and purge some more. I'd say we're just Stalin for time here, get to the purgin'!

joke had to be made.

But seriously, is that your answer? When word cruft comes up that you dislike, you purge it clean off?

Yep. Word Cruft can be deleted 99% of the time.

It's kinda like natter.

We could spend days cleaning it but it will never be gone.

Oh well. Never stoped me from taking it down when I see it.

'revs chainsaw'

So, we should also remove other "brutally X-ed" stuff like "brutally inverted" or "brutally deconstructed", right?

edited 12th Feb '11 5:35:52 AM by ThatHuman

Yup, that's Word Cruft as well.

I am deleting word cruft.

So how about all the examples for "played brutally straight"?