Needs a better title: Bugger The Plot

But it isn't nesesserally that. It's broader. It includes all kinds of plot detours. In the example the man takes a Plot Detour to go do something else. Plot Detourss are not nesesserally physical!

edited 27th May '11 1:06:41 PM by Hadashi

^ Okay, this trope covers "all kinds of detours"—but that "Delay The Ending" article would not be a kind of detour... because it's not a detour. There's a difference between taking an indirect, longer, roundabout route to a goal (Plot Detour) and character procrastination and outright putting off important responsibilities (Delay The Ending).

edited 27th May '11 1:09:43 PM by SeanMurrayI

Not when you consider it sequentially. The man gets the envelope, he could open it there and then, but he doesn't, he takes a Plot Detour to go have lunch.

Remember it is the plot that is making the detour here, nothing else has to move. We aren't talking literally.

edited 27th May '11 1:11:16 PM by Hadashi

No, he doesn't take a Plot Detour; if he took a Plot Detour, he'd still open the envelope but would just do it in an indirect, roundabout way (i.e. search tirelessly for a letter opener and refuse to open the envelope without one or go find somebody else to open the letter for him).

Putting down the envelope and just looking to have lunch is merely a delay on the outcome. The character isn't doing anything in an indirect, roundabout way, they just brush off what they have to do for any period of time. That's not the same thing at all.

edited 27th May '11 1:19:25 PM by SeanMurrayI

Now I am starting to think your attempting to be confusing on purpose... pick something and stick with it please.

What your trying to make this into somewhat of a clone of Pacing Problems.

Now the "Plot Contunes After My Smoke Break" trope is perfectly trope worthy by itself but lumping it with different things.... no.

Set the different definitions of aspects of the trope and lay them out separately then YKTTW them.

edited 27th May '11 1:16:12 PM by Raso

Look, I am not trying to be confusing, I honestly don't see why you don't get what I'm talking about. And this isn't that Trope either!

The way it works is this. The character has the potential to either:

• Open the envelope

• Do something unrelated and (presumably) get back to the letter later on

By taking the second option he is going the long way round. I.e. taking a Plot Detour. I think you are being way to literal and semantic, the title does not have to cover every definition and secondary definition of the Trope, nor every possible usage of it inof itself! It is just supposed to be a snappy name.

edited 27th May '11 1:24:36 PM by Hadashi

That's not defined well enough.

You could say that Bilbo receiving the ring in The Hobbit then waiting 100 years and 4 books total for frodo to destroy the ring instead of Bilbo doing it himself back then is that trope.

"Doing something unrelated to a task at hand and coming back to it later" =/= "Completing the task in a roundabout fashion"

Stepping out to get lunch is completely irrelevant to the act of opening the envelope that it has nothing to do with how the character completes the task of opening the envelope. It's simply a delay tactic on the writer's part. And no matter how many times you try to call this a Plot Detour, that does not change the fact that what the character is doing in this example is not a detour.

Needlessly taking the envelope over to somebody else to open it, instead, would be a detour. Putting down the envelope to go do something entirely unrelated to the envelope would not.

edited 27th May '11 1:34:03 PM by SeanMurrayI

Not really. Bilbo had plenty of reasons for keeping the ring and was never told he had to throw it in Mount Doom. In fact, all of his aperences in LOTR specifically mention how he was consumed by the will of the ring. Before the beginning of LOTR there was no pressing need to embark on a very dangerous mission that could, quite easily, return the ring to its master when it was hidden in the Shire. There were very good reasons for doing nothing in that case and it followed the Main Plot.

A Plot detour would be if Bilbo was supposed to take the Ring to Mount Doom, but instead waited a a long long time (It wasn't a hundred years - Bilbo was around 111 at the beginning of LOTR) for no good reason. For example if he wasn't the Ring's thrall and instead just liked having it. Or couldn't be bothered. He had plenty of reasons, which is why I specifically say you shouldn't confuse this Trope with Reluctant Hero!

edited 27th May '11 1:35:41 PM by Hadashi

Sean, it's just a name. Please just let it go. I specifically include both those circumstances. I'll make it clearer in text if you want.

edited 27th May '11 1:36:58 PM by Hadashi

It's a bad name.

You have potential to assemble at least two distinct tropes here. There's no reason to lump separate ideas under one name that doesn't even properly cover half the trope. It would be like when Descending Ceiling also included examples of moving walls crushing characters from the sides.

edited 27th May '11 1:40:55 PM by SeanMurrayI

Yes, but a Plot Detour can also be a Plot Delay. They are fairly difficult to separate. And wouldn't the latter just be Filler or Padding?

edited 27th May '11 1:42:08 PM by Hadashi

Well then Frodo waited 6 months before starting his journey to Rivendell would that be this? Not a Reluctant Hero as well since he wanted to go right off the bat but was told not to and he got his affairs in order then left this might one of the two tropes.

The trek though Moria might be the other one of the two tropes the true Detour one. (which wasn't filler since there were plot related events that happened in there.)

edited 27th May '11 1:44:50 PM by Raso

^^ Not to refer to the same things.

"Detour" and "delay" are not synonyms; they mean entirely different things. Again, this is like when Descending Ceiling was also used to refer to crushing walls.

edited 27th May '11 1:44:04 PM by SeanMurrayI

Gandalf told him to wait because he had to go and poke around. Most of that period focuses on him. The Moria thing was a physical detour that had to happen because Saroman was raining avalanches on them, he was trying to make them take the more dangerous road because it was a trap.

Well, how do you propose to make it not about Filler? That's what you are proposing

edited 27th May '11 1:46:16 PM by Hadashi

^ Like I said previously (from around the bottom of the last page), "I'm willing to call that 'Delay The Ending' article a basis for a form of Padding that's so distinct and so egregious that it can possibly be deemed a subtrope."

The concept certainly sounds distinct enough and such examples of it are easy to tell apart from ones where characters focus on a goal or task at hand but just go about completing it in a longer, indirect way.

edited 27th May '11 1:50:24 PM by SeanMurrayI

I don't think you quite understand what this article is about: It's about a character seeing and knowing exactly what they must do, then going off and doing something else instead (including nothing at all). The presumption tends to be that they are going to get back to the plot later, ergo detour and not redirection. But wether or not they get back to it later is actually fairly irrelevant to this Trope.

edited 27th May '11 2:16:25 PM by Hadashi

I got that part, but "doing something else or nothing at all, instead" is not a detour. The word detour itself carries a specific meaning about not taking a direct route, and "not taking a direct route" is not the same thing as "doing something else entirely."

You have a legit trope (at least two, in fact) in your hands. Just call it by what it would be called according to the English dictionary. You are not using the word "detour" as it is intended to be defined. I believe that what you mean to say when you describe this trope, as I have just quoted it from you, you mean to call it a delay.

edited 27th May '11 2:20:51 PM by SeanMurrayI

In the context of a plot where the ultimate goal is fairly clear, yes it is since you are going off at a tangent that seems like it may intersect with the main plot again later. A detour is still a detour even if you get back on the motorway at the same junction (though they might not, as I said before).

And as I keep saying a delay is not nesesseraly the outcome of this Trope.

edited 27th May '11 2:22:12 PM by Hadashi

Which makes no sense.

I have a question for both of you guys.

Are you doing anything else productive on TV Tropes today? It's just that your agurment is quite heated.

^^^^ In the context of a plot where the ultimate goal is fairly clear, "doing something else entirely unrelated to that ultimate goal or nothing at all" is STILL something completely different from "going about completing the ultimate goal in an indirect, roundabout manner."

And unless you are trying to invent a completely new language in English, only the second concept ("going about completing the ultimate goal in an indirect, roundabout manner") is accurately called a "detour."

^ I'm not trying to have a heated argument (and to be completely fair, I don't feel this has been very "heated" at all). I'm trying to help someone who has a decent idea for a trope to model it in a clear, precise way.

edited 27th May '11 2:27:20 PM by SeanMurrayI

You might have to read an awful lot of tat before it does, sorry. The Detour can feed into anything, it's open ended, it can end up furthering the plot in a very round-about way.