Expand to include all media?: Port Town

Right now, Port Town is written as a video-games-only trope. However, it seems that the trope of "city with a focus on its good-sized seaport" would work just as well as an all-media trope. Especially since the only thing that might be videogame-exclusive is "This is where you can find a boat to a new area", and even that is doubtful, since it could also apply to any story in which the main characters need to find sea-transportation to get somewhere.

It's not just "city with a good size seaport". If it was just that, any movie, book or show set in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, etc, would technically qualify. It's about a city's place in a story and in game-play progression.

("City with a good size seaport" would be correct to call People Sit On Chairs, right?)

edited 22nd Mar '11 4:07:57 PM by Elle

^Restrict to works where the seaport is important?

Probably.

The reason why a Port Town is important as a Video Game trope is because it's where the hero needs to Get on the Boat, signifying that this is where the plot really kicks into gear since now they're traveling far away from their home and in completely unfamiliar lands. As such, the Port Town is the last bit of familiar territory that the heroes get to see before the Big Bad is defeated or almost defeated. Unfortunately, the trope description fails to mention this, instead choosing to go the "examples of towns that happen to be ports."

Should it just be a seaport? Or do air ships count too? I remember a city in FFXII that fits this trope exactly, it's just a floating city with air ships.

That said, I do think it should be expanded. Even outside of video games a Port Town has a certain ambiance to it. It's often the start of a new leg of an adventure.

edited 22nd Mar '11 5:21:45 PM by shimaspawn

I'd say airship port counts.

I'd be fine with expanding it to other media if someone provides good, valid examples first. It might be better to tweak the name if that happens. (Port Of The Call?)

edited 22nd Mar '11 5:35:02 PM by Elle

Tortuga in Pirates Of The Caribbean serves the same purpose. It's the place they actually assemble a crew and set out on an adventure to find an island.

This is more of a stock location really. It's got it's own regular set of characters to it, and a certain expected ambiance no matter what the media in question.

edited 22nd Mar '11 5:54:43 PM by shimaspawn

Isn't that more of a Truce Zone between pirates and/or "den of thieves", in story terms? I'm presuming that the plot placement is the important part of this trope: places like Tortuga would be a different trope.

edited 22nd Mar '11 5:58:04 PM by Elle

It's a combination of the two, and that's common actually. The Port Town even in video games is often a den of thieves because well, pirates just fit better into Rule of Cool. That said, it still gives the same narrative role, of the place you go to get ready for and set out for an adventure.

It's been a while since I've seen the movies, but I don't exactly buy that. Tortuga in my recollection was more like a place of refuge than a gateway to adventure...like Rivendell in Lord Of The Rings.

(Hmmph, I wrote this yesterday from work, went home and forgot to hit "send".)

I think, if Rivendell would be a port, it would still be an example of a town on the threshold of adventure.

Yeah, Rivendell had the same threshold of adventure feel. It just wasn't a port so it's close to the trope, but not quite. Maybe part of a supertrope? It's not really the first place that you go to, but it's the first place where you really feel we have all our people together. We're going to go on adventures now. Everything before that mark is really just exposition. You've been confined. Now you have the whole world in front of you.

edited 23rd Mar '11 12:35:40 PM by shimaspawn

I think it's fine that Port Town is more specific than that. There's enough examples of this specific trope that even if the larger trope exists as a supertrope, this is a valid subtrope of whatever that is.

and .....yeah. I actually did think of that, and was trying really hard to convince myself otherwise.

Sounds like we're looking at a split:

Port Town: A location trope about the usual aesthetics of such places, like Tortuga (which I still don't think is the other trope nearly as much...or maybe it is, but only in the third film with the Brethren court. I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the first and I don't remember enough about the second.)

Port Of The Call: The gathering place where you leave known territory and the adventure really kicks into gear.

Oh, I agree. It's fine if Port Town is more specific than what Rivendell would be part of. I just think it should be broader than just Video Games.

Why?

Because the same trope shows up in other media as we've demonstrated in this thread already.

But its not the same trope. Its a similar trope, but like a lot of videogame tropes, the very nature of it being a videogame just makes it different.

I would say that the Videogame Trope is a subtrope/sister trope of the other one though.

Some video game tropes are different. Some of them were just noticed first in video games. This one seems to be the same trope used everywhere else In Video Games.

I don't see anything that makes this unique to video games. Another classic Port Town would be Mos Eisley, that infamous "wretched hive of scum and villainy" from Star Wars.

I agree, Mos Eisley serves the same purpose storyline-wise as the Port Town in video games. We need to be very careful with this trope though, especially with the name. Too much potential for adding any port town as an example, regardless of where it places in the storyline.

Not that the Wretched Hive bit is related to this trope in any way, of course.

edited 23rd Mar '11 4:19:49 PM by troacctid

I agree with that. Even some of the video game examples seem bad for that.

The laconic version also says "Generic Video Game boat town." Overall the article suffers from a lack of focus.

Yeah, the definition needs some serious tightening up.