Could use a better title: Snowlems

When I was thinking of how I could recall the "evil snowman" parody of the living snowman from at least South Park, VG Cats, and Calvin And Hobbes, I was considering proposing a YKTTW about it, and then looked up "snow goons" (for which Calvin And Hobbes would be a hypothetical Trope Namer) and got Snowlems, which "evil snowman" turned out to be a subcategory of them.

I very briefly wondered why I had not come across this by now, adn what quickly came to mind was the title. It just seems like such a vague, strange title. At least Living Snowman would be clearer and less vague.

Also, the list could probably use a soft split too, unless there are examples that blur the lines between categories.

Let's see guessing Snow Golem. And I was right, the name is fine.

edited 16th Apr '11 10:35:33 AM by Raso

I'm also guessing snow + golem, but only because I'm familiar with a few golem-based puns. Otherwise I'd have guessed snow + lemmings.

How common a term is Golem though? I heard it referenced in Sonic Adventure 2 but that's about it.

Ah, I remember this trope. Back then, when I wanted to add Tabaluga 's Arktos in the An Ice Suit example list, I did a search to see if the trope already existed: the name was non-intuitive to me, I had to search with the key word "snowman" to find it, and read the page to get the pun.

It's a good pun, but I can see why people can be confused with it. Maybe go with a more standard name like Living Snowman, like the OP suggested?

edited 16th Apr '11 11:27:12 AM by AceNoctali

Living Snowman, Animated Snowman?

Redirects Are Free.

Noting for the record: 54 wicks and 99 inbounds at this time.

@Neo: Well, the term "golem" is old. Very old.

...But that still doesn't change that it's a horrible portmanteau.

edited 16th Apr '11 12:46:11 PM by Stratadrake

Guessed the trope easily enough on my first try. Really, how often do you even run across living snowmen anyway?

Golem is a very common term. It's used frequently in fantasy media. That said, the current name seems to have good numbers based on the fact that living snowmen aren't all that common. Some redirects might do it some good though.

I guessed, but I'm a big fantasy reader. I still have that burning hatred for portmanteaus though.

Whether the term is old or not, it is not very common. Fantasy contexts aside, I am familiar with three instances of Snowlems and only one of the term Golem. I am inclined to doubt I am the only one more familiar with the former than the latter.

That and the criticism of it not being a very good portmanteau anyway. I would suggest Living Snowman since that is exactly what the trope is about anyway.

EDIT: That or Sentient Snowman, for the Added Alliterative Appeal.

edited 16th Apr '11 7:11:40 PM by neoYTPism

The meaning of the current name was obvious to me, for what it's worth.

Anyway, I don't see any need for a rename. Several people have said they immediately understood it and it seems to have decent use. The problem with searchability could easily be fixed with a redirect. Is there a specific reason that this needs to be renamed instead of just getting a redirect?

Why do people keep saying they get the name -> trope connection, when the problem is the trope -> name connection?

If it weren't for the link in the thread title, I'd propose a new game: Guess That Trope Name.

(Then again, I'm guessing Redirect Farming is the preferred solution in this situation.)

I thought Snow Lemmings too. :P

I'm well aware of Golems, but I usually don't consider living snowmen to be Golems. Elementals, maybe, but usually I just consider them living snowmen.

I didn't have any problem figuring out what it meant, but I won't oppose a rename either.

"Whether the term is old or not, it is not very common. Fantasy contexts aside, I am familiar with three instances of Snowlems and only one of the term Golem. I am inclined to doubt I am the only one more familiar with the former than the latter."

... If the word for a fantasy concept is common in fantasy contexts, and on top of that has been long-established in mythology, then it stands to reason that it's not the term that is the issue. If you refer to actual Golem article, you'll see that there are about 288 wicks and 105 inbounds for it throughout the wiki as opposed to the 99 wicks and 54 inbounds to Snowlem. Given that the sample size of well... everyone who uses tvtropes is enormous, of course you're not the only one who's more familiar with snowlems than golems, but the numbers show that you are in a minority. At any rate, it'd be best to drop this line of reasoning since it has little to do with the actual shittiness of the current portmanteau and your main point still stands.

Looking at the list there, most of the entries on the Snowlem page aren't golems or golem-like anyway, like Jokubas noted. Living Snowman is a pretty good suggestion, and since Redirects Are Free zerky'd suggest that at the very least Snow Golem would redirect to the page/new name... and in fact zerky is in the process making a redirect right now.

Is there misuse? The name seems to be working. It's got good number for how obscure it is. I admit, it's not the name I would have chosen, but we don't rename because the name sounds silly. We rename if something isn't working. Right now, redirects would fix all our issues.

Redirects, then. I would suggest at least Sentient Snowman.

(Though really, there are several tropes in one, here; I expected to see these things in separate articles, though at the same time I guess it is a good thing they are in the same one, if only for the potential for overlap and/or transition between categories. Sort of like my Window Staring Moment YKTTW.)

My only complaint against the name is essentially that it's a portmanteau of a portmanteau (okay, compound word). Snowman (snow + man) + golem. The "man" part got lost in the combination, making it look more like snow + golem, which isn't entirely inaccurate, but straying a little farther from the source.

Well, zerky's just gonna pimp out the redirects to this article with stuff from this thread since it seems to be the consensus. As for splitting that's a whole 'nother bucket of giraffe cock, but as a natural splitter, zerky supposes it couldn't hurt.

I'm all for terrible puns, but gyah!

I mean, yeah, the name is fine, but there comes a point where bad puns become legitimately physically painful!

For the sake of comedy everywhere we ought to do something about this!

Seriously, though, leave it where it is as it's fine, though I shall wince every time I hear it.

This name seems pretty much ideal: it's short, descriptive, moderately amusing and probably accessible to a general audience. "Golem" gets ~10,400,000 hits on Google(m).

edited 18th Apr '11 7:04:10 PM by Camacan

Clocking as requested

Can I play the underuse card? (I can't exactly document "expected prevelance in media" to back it up, but...)

Article currently stands at 66 wikilinks and 118 inbounds, a.k.a. +8 links and +20 inbounds in ... 5 months or so.

Now for that Google test: "Snowlems" (with quotes) -tropes shows me exactly 8 results. Snowlems by itself has < 1,000, over half of which are various TV Tropes pages (since excluding site:tvtropes.org reduces hits to <200).

edited 14th Sep '11 7:11:40 PM by Stratadrake