Lets take this out of Darth Wiki.: Darth Wiki.Narm

Narm. Its one of the oldest pages on this wiki. Its so legendary, its basically the subjective equivalent of Big Damn Heroes. Its supposed to mean when a show is trying to be dramatic and fails, but ends up sounding funny. But it is misused in two ways.

1. Something that is funny but has nothing to do with drama.
2. Something that fails a drama.

Eddie changed the subpage color to Darth Wiki and added the flame bait banner due to heavy misuse of the second type before we started the YMMV system. The page is Darth Wiki so that made more sense. When I made a thread to help kill the wicks like So Bad It's Horrible, I sent Eddie a PM asking if it was fine to put it in YMMV tabs. Here is his response. If Eddie thinks that it can be normal YMMV, we should make it that way. The page needs extreme cleaning. Does anyone want to help?

edited 8th Apr '11 11:51:53 PM by nuclearneo577

I can come back on Sunday and help. Got something money related planned for Saturday.

Okay, weird things keep happening today. Eddie himself said Narm belongs in Darth Wiki back in October. But if we are trying to rescue this one we should consider starting with a better name. Like something that is an actual word.

But the name works dosen't it? It's bacome an actuall word on our site.

Isn't the idea to use language that non-tropers can understand as well?

While, is Narm an existing term outside of the wiki?

Well, I support renames if the name has proven to not work. But I generally don't think people should clear-up name if it's being used correctly, ecspecially for something this old.

Maybe we should do wick check to see how bad the misuse is.

No, here is the trope namer.

The misuse in the wicks is mostly of the first type that I listed, something funny and not an attempt at drama. The complaining is mostly on the pages.

BTW, Eddie put it in Darth Wiki before we had YMMV so that it would stop cluttering up main pages. He said it would work great as normal YMMV, and now we should make it that way.

It's still the worst name we have that I can think of. Say what you want about Nakama, but at least it's a word in someone's language besides our own. And don't we have a rule against naming things after memes?

If there is misuse, and if the description is clear (haven't checked that, so it's still in play), then the name is non-indicative.

edited 9th Apr '11 12:47:54 PM by DragonQuestZ

I was under the impression that Narm was a Tropes Of Legend, which is why it wasn't renamed to Bathos.

It's apparently got almost four thousand wiks, but has less then a thousand inbound. Does redirect incoming count? I can't remember.

edited 9th Apr '11 3:05:02 PM by Deboss

The problem is that the name has acquired a subjective meaning. I don't see any way to remove that without either:

1. Renaming, which seems unlikely to happen, or,

2. Creating a new trope with a clearer name, and using 'narm' as a sub- or supertrope with the same name, or just as a subjective spin-off of the main trope.

(This is the same problem Xanatos Gambit has — the name has taken off big time, sure, but because it's an unclear name, it's largely taken off with the wrong meaning. Or, at least, with a meaning that doesn't match the way we originally used it. You could make the argument that we're the ones who are wrong now, I guess.)

edited 9th Apr '11 4:41:18 PM by Aquillion

I don't think Narm is used particularly incorrectly. Sometimes it's used as "drama fail" without the humor aspect, but I think the best solution to that is a separate trope (that would then probably need to be Darth-ified). And if I recall correctly, there was a thread that showed Xanatos Gambit is used more correctly outside the wiki than inside.

I don't get why of all names Narm is kept. It references a moment on an obscure tv series. People can look up Bathos in the dictionary. I agree with its placing either but Fast Eddie says its a negative opinion trope, so it belongs in Darth Wiki.

Maybe its just because I'm a professional wrestling fan, where creating bathos is more or less the job of the live audience and crowds who don't are referred to as "dead".

Bathos actually now exists separately to catch the area not covered by Narm: the juxtaposition of the serious and absurd to purposely create humor, such as by humorists like Douglas Adams.

edited 10th Apr '11 10:44:13 AM by ccoa

Why should it only be used for intentional cases? That's not how it's used off-wiki.

OK, I see.

edited 10th Apr '11 1:22:02 PM by DoktorvonEurotrash

Because unfortunately Narm already exists for unintentional uses. Bathos is defined as both, but only intentional examples are allowed for this reason.

EDIT: Also, intentional uses are far more objective, so we don't have to give it a subjective banner.

edited 10th Apr '11 12:31:51 PM by ccoa

There was a thread in Special Efforts about killing all Narm wicks, I asked and Fast Eddie said we could downgrade it to a YMMV trope.

edited 11th Apr '11 12:39:32 AM by Deboss

Hmmm...I wonder if renaming the page would improve it...title itself doesn't tell anything about the nature of the article.

I don't see how we could pick anything worse than Narm honestly.

I agree that this isn't a particularly negative trope. Narm is a factor that can turn what would have been a So OK, It's Average drama into a cheesy unintentional comedy. No Narm Charm and Mostly Narmless don't cover it but yes this is sibjective.

They don't? Then what do they cover?

Laconic Narm Charm: When Narm goes up against Ruleof Drama or Rule of Cool, and loses.

Essentially it means that the cheese fits in with the tone so well that it's accepted.

Mostly Narmless means that there is no Narm in a line which usually would be Narmy due to the actor's delivery.

Well, they're all Audience Reactions either way. And since the names are connected, if we change one, we'll have to change them all.

We kind of established that a while ago.

edited 17th Apr '11 8:54:14 AM by Killomatic

What I'm saying us that Narm isn't inherently negative. So subjective but not Darth Wiki material.