Rename: Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead

It's Guess That Trope time!

This trope is about how killing the commander defeats the army—a valid trope, most definitely. The name brought up celebration over the death of the bad guy. Singing, merriment. Perhaps the celebration from a subjugated people over the death of their overlord. Maybe. But definitely not this.

Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead found in: 63 articles, excluding discussions.

This title has brought 39 people to the wiki

edited 14th Feb '11 9:00:52 PM by helterskelter

Hrmmm, very bad name for this one. I could definitely support a rename.

Hm, I can't help but think we've got this elsewhere. It's probably on Keystone Army somewhere.

IMHO, part of the problem with this name is it's named after a song. A catchy number from a well-known musical film, but still.

Kill The Head For Victory? Kill The General For Victory?

edited 14th Feb '11 11:35:18 PM by Raso

Checkmate The General?

I really like.

Any misuse?

In this case, even the overpresence of the celebration variety should be enough proof that the title is misunderstood.

Honestly, I would be totally fine just calling it The Checkmate. Dictionary.com lists "checkmate" as "an act or instance of maneuvering the opponent's king into a check from which it cannot escape, thus bringing the game to a victorious conclusion," which is pretty much this trope. Beat the king, win the game. Checkmate.

Hm, I can't help but think we've got this elsewhere. It's probably on Keystone Army somewhere.

Keystone army is any army that is defeated if a singe thing (it's keystone) is destroyed. This would be a subtrope of this, where the keystone is also the leader

Many of the examples in Keystone Army include killing the leader of the army. Dynasty Warriors describes that killing the enemy general instantly destroys troop moral and causes subordinates to flee.

How about Cut Off The Snakes Head ?

It's a pretty commonly used simile for these kinds of situations, especially in-universe. "We have to go after the leader. If you want to kill a snake, you cut of its head."

As for The Checkmate... I agree that theoretically, it describes the trope correctly. However, in practice most people understand a "checkmate" as "maneuvering somebody in such a position that (s)he can't get out of it." It sounds more like the expected result of a Xanatos Gambit.

Also, due to chess being an intellectual sport, I guess that most people would associate The Checkmate with an intellectual victory, not a physical one. It would work as the end of a military strategy though.

Cutting off the snake's head is also a good pre-existing phrase. I could get behind that too.

^ That would require a Ptitle though, right?

While clunky, you could go with the other form of the snake quote: Cut Off The Head And The Body Dies. Bit long, though, but at least it avoids the need to ptitle.

edited 15th Feb '11 5:51:42 PM by nrjxll

Decapitated Army?

edited 15th Feb '11 6:40:54 PM by Deboss

Or maybe just Cut Off The Head? Though that might be confused with Off with His Head!.

I like the Cut Off The Head And The Body Dies/ Cut Off The Snakes Head pair. I can't pick between them yet.

Cut Off The Head by itself is too close to Off with His Head!.

Load Bearing General?

Killing Hitler Ends The War?

I think Deboss' Checkmate The General works. That implies killing or capturing the general wins you the game.

edited 16th Feb '11 2:47:58 PM by helterskelter

Check Mate fits the trope definition. "Ding Dong" is a more interesting name.

Hollywood Morality = a million is a statistic. Executives insist that The Hero is only entitled to kill Mooks. The commandment "Thou shalt do no murder" is interpreted as "thou shalt not kill the Big Bad because if you kill the Big Bad, then you are worse than him."

The opposite morality is Hassan i Sabah's grand-motherly loving-kindness. Hassan wanted an ethical alternative to War. He organized the Assassins to kill Generals and rescue the soldiers.

1965 Robin Hood killed Mooks but refused to kill the Sheriff purely for the sake of Hollywood morality. 2006 Robin Hood had an In-Universe reason not to kill the Sheriff.

What does most of that have to do with... anything?

I still feel that Checkmate The General sounds more like a more general (pun intended) strategic/tactical victory, not the specific case of "kill the leader and you win".

And thanks to Fast Eddie Cut Off The Snake's Head no longer suffers from the ptitle-problem.