Trope Decay: Plot Tumor

Plot Tumor is supposed to be "A single plot element enjoyed by fans or writers swells in importance, crowding out everything else in its story."

A lot of the examples however seem to confuse this for Flanderization, Power Creep Seep or whatever Bad Writing the editor could not find a page to fit it in. And I am not even going to cover the natter problems.

Some examples of bad examples on the very page itself:

Neither strike me as valid examples.

Pretty sure the two race examples are either race-wide flanderization or Villain Decay / Motive Decay.

I could go on, but there's clearly a problem with this page.

Unfortunately, people named the trope after an illness.

Bump. Is there still a problem with this?

As a wise man once said "When the trope description doesn't match the examples, you expand the description".

I edited the description to make it more clear its about the plot growing in size rather than "crowding out other plots" since that seemed way too negative and its why the other plot tumor tropes are subjective.

Sometimes examples that don't fit the definition are just bad examples, nothing more. If there's some sort of consistent pattern to the examples that don't fit, then maybe they're a sign that the description should be changed. Or maybe they're a sign that the trope in question has a supertrope and we lack an article describing it.

^^ Hell, no. When the description starts chasing the examples, the loop goes 'round and 'round, never stopping.

Clarify the description to eliminate a class of examples. Never expand the description to include more.

^^^When did any wise man ever say that?

It tends to very greatly, namely if someone builds a trope that is A) a specific subset of a trope we don't have B) given a too broad name C) collecting examples of the name, we expand the trope, because the original writer was most likely building the trope page around some examples they had in their head (but aren't actually important to the trope itself).

Routerie, that was hyperbole/sarcasm.

Are there any examples in the trope where the plot specifically "crowds out other plots"? The vast majority of examples I can find relate to overarching stories of a series or fictional universe, which means it would be hard to find examples where it "crowded out other plots" since, unless it became the basis of every new story in the series, there's always going to be room for whatever plots are available. That's why I retooled the definition to suggest the aspect is something that gets linked to other plots it wasn't conceived for instead of crowding them out. The Yu-Gi-Oh example would be one where duel monsters become the entire premise but even that one never specifically illustrates what plots got sidelined to make room for it.

For my money, I'm not sure if "crowding out other plots" is the best way to phrase it. It's more like "a minor element of the story expands in importance until it dominates the plot". The element in question doesn't necessarily need to be a plotline itself.

Well, when it crowds out other plots, wouldn't it be either Tone Shift or Genre Shift?

Where exactly would the line be? A good number of the examples are about minor plot points that got turned into major fixtures of the work in question but they didn't necessarily become the focus of the main plots, although they might get "iterations" in the work (especially if its Expanded Universe material) where it is the focus of the plot.

edited 4th Nov '11 6:04:32 PM by DarkNemesis

Not if it's the same tone and genre as the other plots which a good number of them are. It's just a shift in focus. Not a shift in the tone or genre.

edited 5th Nov '11 3:14:11 PM by shimaspawn

Wouldn't a shift toward romance be a genre shift if it wasn't a romance to begin with?

I agree that the examples and possibly wicks need cleaning up, but otherwise there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the trope.

Is that a Romantic Plot Tumor you're hinting at?

I don't think the trope is wrong, nor the name. Cleanup is all that's needed.

I agree.

Plot and genre aren't quite the same thing.

I wasn't sure if you meant an overall shift of the entire series towards romance, or just for a certain prominent couple.