Doesn't seem to know what it is: Charm Point

The description meanders all over the place, and both the Laconic and Playing With pages seem to have missed the point of this trope. They both think it's a Magic Feather, while most of the examples are just cute decorations specific to the character, sort of a cross between Every Girl Is Cuter With Hair Decs and Limited Wardrobe. So what, exactly, is this trope? Either way, there will need to be a little bit of cleanup.

It's the feature that someone thinks is attractive or iconic about themselves.

edited 23rd Apr '11 5:39:14 PM by Clarste

I'm not sure why magic feather enters the description.

Well the person might consider it one. But yeah not really needed.

edited 23rd Apr '11 6:00:39 PM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

Well, it's not unreasonable that they'd lose confidence if they believed they no longer had whatever made them attractive. I think it at least deserves a mention in the description.

It's a subtrope of Magic Feather, where the magic feather only affects the character's attractiveness to other characters: "that makes him attractive or at least interesting to other characters,..."

The Laconic is bad, but the Playing With is horrible — virtually every item says the item actually does something and most of them are using superpowers of some nature.

edited 23rd Apr '11 6:02:09 PM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

I'm inclined to rewrite the laconic and cut the playing with altogether. How often does Charm Point get played with, anyway?

edited 24th Apr '11 8:23:03 PM by Discar

I'm still not certain this trope even knows what it is. I don't see many examples that fit Madrugada's description.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

The trope is about a signature item that a character always has/wears, which gives the character one of their signature abilities — not because it actually does anything, but because it has a psychological importance to the character. The reason that it's compared to Magic Feather is because like that trope, it's just a psychological confidence booster, but while Magic Feather is given to the character be someone else (and usually discarded after it's nature as a Magic Feather is discovered), a Charm Point is chosen by the character and usually recovered if it goes missing.

• Magic Feather: Bob gives Alice a Nice Hat, telling her it has magic powers that will make her brave. Alice uses it to get over her fears. Bob reveals that it's just a normal hat. Alice learns An Aesop about self-confidence.
• Charm Point: Alice has a Nice Hat that she always wears. She's usually brave, but when she loses her hat, she feels vulnerable and afraid until it's recovered/replaced.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

But the current page examples don't fit that definition. They are all over the place as far as what they seem to be talking about.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Sure, there's misuse, but that seems to be the general thrust of it. The incorrect examples seem to be either something about themselves that the characters place great importance on, but are never actually lost, or something that is explicitly called a charm point of the character's design. Maybe a name change would help, at least with the latter?

Quick rundown of examples:

• Correct: Lupin III, Sgt Frog (the first one), Detective School, Columbo, Seinfeld, Cheers, Glee, Rocket Power, Rugrats, Avatar The Last Airbender, My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic
• Incorrect: Sgt Frog (second example), Ouran High School Host Club, Prince Of Tennis, Fullmetal Alchemist, Hunter X Hunter, Mahou Sensei Negima, Card Captor Sakura, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, We Love Katamari, Ace Attorney, Riviera The Promised Land, Okamiden
• Unclear: The Adventures Of Doctor Mc Ninja, Extreme Ghostbusters, Chowder.

That's 11 correct, 12 incorrect, and 3 unclear. About half the incorrect ones (Prince Of Tennis, Hunter X Hunter, Mahou Sensei Negima, Card Captor Sakura, Riviera The Promised Land, Okamiden) are references to the name Charm Point rather than the described trope, though, so a rename would fix that sort of misuse.

edited 2nd Oct '11 7:37:56 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

That might help. There does tend to be misuse associated with us redefining vague pre-existing terms.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Yeah, I Thought It Meant the "charm" stat in some role-playing games.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And even if it is broke, just ignore it and maybe it'll be sort of OK — like the environment."

The Negima example certainly seems correct Asuna wears bells to tie her Twin Tails and in the Negima Second Season she has the nickname "Bells" by her Vitriolic Best Buds Ayaka. Later we find they were a gift from her Schoolgirl Crush when she was a kid and are her most treasured possession and said person likes them. (Why they arnt constantly ringing every time she moves instead of only when it's important I will never know.)

Anyways on a rename what about Signature Accessory?

edited 3rd Oct '11 11:46:20 AM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

Because none of that is the trope. It's being misused for signature accessory, but that actually has nothing to do with the trope.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

I don't know, I think that works as its own trope. Maybe the intended trope can be transplanted to a new name, while Charm Point (and most of the examples) can become a new trope about signature accessories, a character's "point of charm."

Take, for example, the Ouran entry. Tamaki explains to the other characters very specifically that Honey is used to make the intimidating Mori easier to approach. Is that a valid trope of its own, or already covered by a rather broad interpretation of Every Girl Is Cuter With Hair Decs (gender flipped, obviously)? I think the former.

Charm Point and/or Signature Accessory are probably legitimate tropes, though I think there's danger of it becoming uselessly broad. We'd have to restrict it to things that are mentioned in-universe or else everyone would just start adding whatever they think is most memorable about the character's design.

Throwing some random new names for Charm Point's current definition out there: Motivational Accessory, Psychological Accessory, Psychological Accessory Boost, Achilles Accessory, Accessory Power, Accessory Dependency

edited 3rd Oct '11 4:45:56 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Reading the description... that's exactly what this comes off as though. Everything else seems incidental and just might happen to it / the item.

edited 3rd Oct '11 9:53:20 PM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

I really don't see how you got that from the trope description, but I suppose that's why we're rewriting it.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Bumping this, because something needs to happen. Once we've worked out what the trope is about, it probably still needs a rename. As someone already said, it sounds like it means the "charisma" stat in an RPG.

As for the trope definition, if it isn't meant to be what we're calling Signature Accessory, the only other option seems to be some kind of subtrope of Magic Feather, but I cant say the distinction people have described is very clear to me.

I can't even tell what kind of trope this is - is it a plot, like Magic Feather? A costume trope, like Every Girl Is Cuter With Hair Decs? A characterisation trope, like Security Blanket?

EDIT: Aaand the existence of Iconic Item seems to make even the Signature Accessory meaning redundant.

edited 2nd Dec '11 3:22:01 AM by johnnye

I recommend both a rewrite and a rename.

What is this "sleep" you speak of?

It's a characterization trope. Security Blanket is closely related, though probably distinct. It might be a subtrope, actually.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Discar,

Your approach sounds like the best one to me. I think the Magic Feather part of the trope seems like it belongs elsewhere.

In any event, there is now a page action crowner for this trope here. I am not totally sure about what options to include, so feel free to add other ones or edit the options already attached to the crowner.

edited 2nd Dec '11 1:24:57 PM by LouieW

"irhgT nm0w tehre might b ea lotof th1nmgs i dont udarstannd, ubt oim ujst goinjg to keepfollowing this pazth i belieove iN !!!!!1 d

We have a trope about signature items. That's Iconic Item. We have a trope about items that a character has as a security blanket. That's Magic Feather. Is there anything of this trope not covered elsewhere?

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

The part about the Iconic Item not necessarily being an item. Some of the examples include another character, an odd character tic, or a physical trait (though that's probably technically an "item").

I'd say just expand Iconic Item, but it seems to be doing pretty well, I don't want to mess with it. Any other suggestions?