What the hell is this?: Universal Tropes

From what I can gather, this is a page for tropes aren't restricted to any one type of media format that don't fit in any existing indexes.

I can't be entirely sure, but there's something in there about if anything on the page could fit into any other indexes on the wiki then it doesn't belong on the index... only many of the tropes listed appear in other indexes.

The first index on this wiki. Do nothing. Lock this.

Do nothing? Hardly anything listed in this index meets it's ONE qualification.

edited 26th Feb '11 12:34:00 PM by SeanMurrayI

I would say give a free pass to the indexes that are just about the name of the trope rather than the trope itself, or things like Discredited Trope, or Omnipresent Trope which are more about how often we see them now rather than saw them before.

edited 26th Feb '11 12:38:03 PM by shimaspawn

That still leaves several pages also appearing on indexes based on trope themes.

Such as?

If they can't appear in all kinds of media, take them off and leave a note in the edit history explaining it.

• Actually, I Am Him—Identity Index
• All Is Well That Ends Well—Happiness Tropes, Improbable Behavior Tropes
• Appeal to Obscurity—Logic Tropes, You Fail Logic Forever
• Because I'm Jonesy—Identity Index
• The Big Board—Furniture Tropes, should also be in Spectacle, and probably Military and Warfare Tropes
• The Blind Leading the Blind—Comedy Tropes
• Bonus Material—Paratext

And that's only 7 out of the first 10 on the list.

edited 26th Feb '11 12:46:43 PM by SeanMurrayI

I do have a problem as several of these tropes DO belong on other indexes. For example:

• You Can't Go Home Again: That should be a Plots trope. It's a basic premise.
• Appeal to Obscurity: You Fail Logic Forever with all the Appeal to __ tropes.
• Wrong Turn at Albuquerque: Plots, it's a set up for an episode.
• Jumping Out of a Cake: Have Your Cake and Trope It Too. Birthday Tropes.

I don't mind the index, except most of the tropes on it DO NOT MEET IT'S DEFINITION

EDIT: Ninja'd

edited 26th Feb '11 12:46:11 PM by Ghilz

Paratext is another one that I don't think should disqualify. It just means that something happens outside the media as well. You can have universal tropes that occur in packaging.

That said, it does look there were a lot of people just chucking things they couldn't think of an index for on here.

edited 26th Feb '11 12:47:41 PM by shimaspawn

Fine, pick and choose whatever indexes you want to disqualify. You're still left with a ton of tropes on this index that don't meet its single qualification to be on this list again.

edited 26th Feb '11 12:50:01 PM by SeanMurrayI

Do you really want Randall to change this pages link?

edited 26th Feb '11 12:57:42 PM by nuclearneo577

What in the world are you talking about?

The webcomic is a link to this page, making Universal Tropes one of our largest source of inbounds.

Okay, well, nobody ever said anything about wanting to change the page name.

Now, what are so many tropes on this index doing in other indexes when that's apparently a strict no-no explicitly outlined on the page, and what are we going to do about that problem entirely?

edited 26th Feb '11 1:25:34 PM by SeanMurrayI

Because it's not strictly and explicitly outlined. That line is a legacy of days when we had fewer tropes and fewer indexes. This is an index for tropes that can be found in every sort of media. It's not just a dumping ground for unindexed tropes.

So then the description needs to be fixed.

This is an index for tropes that can be found in every sort of media. It's not just a dumping ground for unindexed tropes.

When you put it like that, it just sounds like a dumping ground for a much more sizable portion of tropes that isn't exactly related by anything then.

Well, the original idea for it was more the idea of tropes like The Protagonist, The Antagonist, The Hero. The original building blocks of stories. The highest level of tropes. The tropes that build stories.

Now that's something that's worth indexing.

i agree

This title has brought 213,269 people to the wiki

OW MAI GOOOOD!

This is the page that XKCD 619 links to.

I like that tightening. `Making it about the basic building blocks of stories:

• The Antagonist
• The Hero
• Ensemble Cast
• The Protagonist
• The Reveal
• The Climax
• Dénouement

edited 26th Feb '11 7:20:04 PM by Ghilz

Omnipresent Tropes