Rewrite or fix examples: Hot Chick With A Sword

The description essentially states that this trope is not just a sword-wielding Action Girl / Hot Amazon, using Kaoru Kamiya from Rurouni Kenshin as a counter-example. To quote the main article...

Yet...

1. Said counter-example is listed in the examples list.
2. The laconic entry defies the main article's assertations by describing the trope as "An Action Girl with a sword as her Weapon Of Choice".
3. A lot of the times that I encounter the trope on the wiki, it's being used in the same sense of "sword-wielding Action Girl", and not as Hot Chick with a Sword's main article describes the trope as.
4. Even on the trope's own example list, the only common factor between a majority of the examples appears to be "Action Girl" and "wields a sword".

edited 15th May '11 10:19:45 AM by MarqFJA

Sounds like a clear case of an overly-specific description, and that Action Girl With A Sword has overrun that specific definition almost completely. I'd rewrite the description to conform with how it's actually used.

This trope does appear badly broken (and I personally don't like the name either, but I seem to recall we agreed against a rename).

Is there a point to changing it to match the examples, though? That would seem to make it little more than Action Girl / Lady of War but with a sword.

Care to apply that logic to Girls with Guns and other similar Sub Tropes of Action Girl?

Action Girl has serious problems of its own, so I am not in favor of trying to make this Action Girl with a sword until we decide just what Action Girl actually is.

Fair enough, I wasn't aware of that trope. (Though Girls with Guns describes both a genre and a character type, so it's not just "Action Girl but with a gun".)

> Said counter-example is listed in the examples list.

Some problems with some tropes are just hilarious.

The trope's description is bad, though. The bloody laconic title says that it's any Action Girl (shitty trope itself) with a sword!

edited 16th May '11 12:01:37 AM by Aminatep

I have a suspicion that the laconic definition was made long after the main article was made, and whoever wrote it apparently did not bother reading the description.

Most laconics are bad. It's a wide spread wiki issue.

Do we really need a set of "Action Girl with a <weapon>" tropes?

No, absolutely not.

I don't think you're going to be able to really fix this one. I think you'd be better off splitting the original trope into a trope with a better name. As for the whole 'action girl just having a sword, not a trope' thing? I think I disagree. It may just be Heroes Prefer Swords or whatever, but most girl fighters seem to use them if the series isn't big on guns.

The title, that's the problem

It's not Heroes Prefer Swords. Heroes Prefer Swords is a trope that exists as an aggregate, it's basically saying that the main character of an RPG, or games with those elements is always going to use a sword. Heroes Prefer Swords is only supposed with be used for exceptions to that rule.

Hot Chick with a Sword is not a rule, it is just -well being used as anyway, for specific instances where an Action Girl uses a sword. Which doesn't really feel like a trope considering that's the only thing most of these examples an in common.

If its just about people holding swords, it shouldn't even be a page. There has to something else.

I agree with the title needing changing at least. "Hot Chick" just sounds like a fourteen year old boy drooling.

Oh, I agree. Although I'd rather just kill the thing altogether - The Same But More Specific doesn't come any more blatant then this.

Wasn't it originally a fanservice trope? Like Girl With Guns. So the name kinda was supposed to sound like it was invented by a drooling 14-year old. EDIT: Okay, so Girls with Guns isn't explicitly a fanservice trope, but maybe it (and this) should be.

edited 24th May '11 7:36:07 PM by Discar

Well, Girls with Guns is claiming itself as a sub-genre.

I dislike the title for the same reason as emeriin. There is nothing belittling or objectifying about the trope itself as defined in the article, so why give it a title that sounds like a Beavis And Butthead line?

"girl with a sword" is too far too broad and "girl with a sword and passionate single-mindedness towards a goal" sounds incredibly specific. Just cut it.

Could somebody explain what "girl with a sword and passionate single-mindedness towards a goal" even means. Also, a few examples wouldn't hurt either.

I'm not really against that premise, I just can't put my finger on what exactly it's entailing.

edited 25th May '11 3:18:04 PM by captainpat

Cutting is out of the question. Too early to make that extreme of a call.

It might be best to read the current description of the trope, as that line is basically an somewhat-oversimplied summary of it.

edited 25th May '11 3:40:35 PM by MarqFJA

For the record, it's brought in over 5000 inbound links. It's a terrible name, terrible trope, and I'm 90% okay with cutlisting it myself - but in terms of how widely used it is alone it's extremely healthy.

edited 25th May '11 7:20:10 PM by nrjxll

That's because it's attracting people who think it's just about hot female characters who use swords.

Yes, it brings plenty of inbounds, but I don't think it's policy to let misuse go because the misuse brings in eyeballs.

edited 25th May '11 7:22:04 PM by Leaper