Objective or Subjective?: Informed Attractiveness

Playing With pages are generally stupid.

From the trope page:

The page description just needs serious trimming. It's picked up so much discussion about the trope that it's hard to find it any more.

edited 23rd Jul '11 7:36:28 PM by shimaspawn

Well, the YTKTTW says

So I dunno what happened to this trope.

I really think the obsessive In-Universe gushing over how attractive a character is is more tropable than that + an Audience Reaction.

Informed implies that it is only spoken of, never seen. The "told, not shown". Simply speaking of a character's great beauty probably is within the realms of several other tropes.

There's mentioning it. And then there's In-Universe gushing. This is the later, but I can't find any tropes for either.

Given the nature of the Informed family, it would most likely take the form of having the character described as incredibly attractive, but without applying actual descriptions of what is attractive. "Chiseled abs" is a description you could use, that is normally considered attractive.

Supporting what others have said, characters saying that a person is exceptionally beautiful is that the trope is about and is evident within the work. The reason Hollywood Homely is YMMV is because the "Informed X" tropes is about how the writing is handled and the "Hollywood X" tropes is expecting the audience to believe something is considered normal (in this case, that a gorgeous woman with no make-up is somehow unnattractive). That doesn't mean all "Hollywood X" is subjective, but in this case the "supposedly normal" thing involves the subjective standards of beauty.

Sorry, I'm not understanding what you're saying at all. Hollywood Homely is YMMV because no objective criteria for what makes someone attractive.

Anyway, was there a was a trs description about changing the definition this page? Because the YKTTW and the description, regardless of how objective it tries to make it seem defines this as an Audience Reaction. However if you guys wanna change this to an actual trope then put a crowner up or something.

I'm having trouble seeing the trope here.

"Character A says that character B is attractive" is People Sit On Chairs, not a trope. Adding the audience reaction to that just makes it worse, because of the same reason as all the pages with "troper X thinks that character Y is hot".

And yet most of the examples are that. Narrowing the definition to in-character gushing about somebody's attractiveness would eliminate most of the examples, as this is usually a one-time gag.

The only trope I'm really seeing here is "some cartoons and webcomics have a style in which most characters look alike".

There's a difference between People Sit On Chairs and Omnipresent Tropes. Right up near the top of PSOC it says, "Tropes are conventions used in storytelling to convey some sort of information across to the audience." (Emphasis mine.) I'd have to say that one character saying that another is attractive is definitely intended to convey some sort of information.

The "Informed" tropes are all supposed to be failures of Show, Don't Tell. Ergo, this is a trope where "attractiveness" is told to the audience, rather than shown. I mean, at least pornos manage to mention specific characters they like, even if it's just about tits and dicks.

In this case, the trope is informing us that a subjective attribute is possessed regardless of what we are shown.

Maybe I'm over thinking this but what exactly are we defining as "attractive"? because when I think of the word attractive, that just means to me that other characters in a story like or are attracted to a specific character.

Generally, if a character says "That guy is hot/sexy/attractive/I love his eyes." If you have to guess that the character finds the other character attractive, it's not this trope. We need to be told by the narrative or the characters that so and so is hot.

edited 24th Jul '11 4:50:24 PM by shimaspawn

Well ok, but it's still a redefinition of this page, so unless I missed a previous TRS discussion we need a crowner.

Any work that has an attractive person in it will have people saying they are attractive. I think we need to make it where if it is shown and told, it doesn't count, either. Because there is almost always going to be some telling.

We'll also need to define what is excessive in the non-literature examples. How many characters have to do it? How many times can it be mentioned? If we don't, we'll just have all the fights from before.

My point is that this really isn't a subtrope of Show, Don't Tell: as soon as a character is shown on screen, its attractiveness (or lack thereof) is shown.

Basically, you can only do Show, Don't Tell about a character if said character is The Unseen, or if the work is e.g. a radio play.

I seriously think this trope is subjective.

Seeing as we have a trope like Hollywood Homely, I think if we don't get some clue that a character is supposed to be attractive, we're supposed to see them as average.

What do you consider "some clue" then? A character in-show stating "she's attractive"?

That would be the "telling" rather than showing. I'm talking about: slow motion with hair blowing in the wind, sparkles, shirtless scenes, and that sort of thing.

Ahh, so basically when a character is just pointed out by dialogue or text that they're attractive instead of Male Gaze and camera focus.

Ah, well should this really be under Bad Writing then?

That's how I see the trope. I would also count character reaction as long as it's not of an I Feel Angry sense. A guy who sees a girl and goes all dumb and manages to stumble out "yur purrdy" is characterization that shows the reaction instead of just stating it.

Most things on Bad Writing shouldn't be on there but that's a whole different thread.

That makes sense. I think that's a fairly clear distinction and one we can make objective.