Misuse: Priceless Ming Vase

This is the comedy trope about how, when a fragile expensive object is introduced, someone will invariably break it by accident. However, even a cursory glance at the examples on the page show that some people are using it for any appearance of Ming vases, whether or not it's a case of the trope. (Check out the Real Life section, for one.)

Think it needs a rename? Anyone want to check for usage on works pages?

edited 10th Jun '11 6:49:28 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

Having read through every single example on the page, I don't see where you are getting the idea that people are using it for "any appearance of Ming vases, whether or not it's a case of the trope."

With the sole exception of the first Real Life entry, the only one that I can't verify as a correct usage is Duplex (and that one is probably valid).

Ok, perhaps The Glass Menagerie should be cut from the list since it is done for Dramatic effect instead of Comedic.

There were several that were basically "a Ming vase is present or referred to":

• Cats: During Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer's number, the lyrics tell you that they're the ones responsible for breaking, among other things, "a vase which was commonly said to be Ming."
• In Worms, if you find one in a crate, you can break a Priceless Ming Vase... the pieces of which then blow up. Like everything else in the game.
• In The Legend Of Zelda Wind Waker, Link can break some of these, but if he breaks too many, he has to pay 10 rupees each.
• In Colossal Cave / Adventure, one of the cave treasures is a delicate Ming vase. If you put it down, "the vase drops with a delicate crash" and the item is destroyed (leaving worthless fragments behind). One of the game's many puzzles is figuring out how to collect it safely. Drop the soft pillow first, then put the vase on the pillow.
• The Batman: When Bennett arrives at Wayne Manor and tells Bruce "I know you are the Batman," Alfred knocks over a vase, then brushes it off with "It's only a Ming."
• Batman The Animated Series: Strangely, Alfred deliberately smashed a Ming (he had been driven mad by one of The Joker's poisons) and afterward felt ashamed, and was even prepared to accept docked pay from Bruce Wayne as punishment.

and a couple of others where

^ Every single one of these refers to a vase either being or having been broken.

They would all certainly have a better relation to this trope than instances of "a Ming vase merely being present or referred to."

edited 10th Jun '11 3:03:50 PM by SeanMurrayI

But not to "An expensive or precious item which is called to the audience's attention will be broken before the end of the work."

This trope is a sibling trope to Carrying a Cake. "When a big, fancy or expensive cake is called to the audience's attention, something disastrous will happen to it." Not just "somebody carried a cake". Or even "somebody dropped a cake". Priceless Ming Vase is not simply "a vase got broken" or even "an expensive item got broken"

edited 10th Jun '11 3:22:24 PM by Madrugada

Agree with Mad, the reason being that the examples she gave are references to the trope not examples of the trope itself.

With Worms for example, the Priceless Ming Vase weapon is basically a combination of the functions of the Dynamite (one of the most dangerous standard weapons in the game) and the Cluster Bonb (weak but with a useful splash damage effect). Since everything from bananas to sheep to old ladies explode in the game, and since the PMV is a well known comedy staple, it's naturally going to appear.

But despite being a light hearted reference to the trope, it's not using it straight in any way. Deliberately smashing the vase is not this trope, it's when it happens accidentally but inevitably because it's valuable (making it's loss funny).

I think the Cats and The Batman examples are funny, and I can think, depending on context, that the Worms and Colossal Cave examples could be as well. So I don't know if the misuse is as bad as being suggested.

That just makes them a way of Playing with a Trope. Unless I am mistaken, such cases would properly belong on the main page; though what I am certain of is that this should not be called "misuse".

edited 10th Jun '11 8:40:48 PM by SeanMurrayI

I think you're splitting hairs over the supposed "misuse." Maybe it should be noted in the description that a variant is for an object to be conspicuously broken and then have it be revealed to be extremely expensive, but it hardly seems worth splitting off.

^^ They may be uproariously funny, but they aren't examples of the trope. Putting in an example that doesn't fit has a name. It's called "shoehorning" and it's bad.

edited 10th Jun '11 8:03:58 PM by Madrugada

So, there're two definitions, one wrong, being used for this trope:

1. If an expensive or personal item appears, it will be broken by the end of the episode for laughs.
2. A Ming Vase or an expensive object is broken.

I think we should rename it.

^^ Only this isn't a case where examples don't fit. As one other person put it already, these are "references to the trope." References to a trope would fit a trope and get mentioned all over the wiki all the time.

The problem as I see it isn't shoehorned examples but a far too rigid description. I believe this trope is more flexible than what is being argued.

edited 10th Jun '11 8:47:48 PM by SeanMurrayI

They are not references to the trope. They're references to one part of the trope.

^ Two parts: Ming vase and it getting destroyed.

edited 10th Jun '11 8:50:30 PM by SeanMurrayI

And the trope is about one of them inevitably leading to the other, à la Chekhov's Gun.

I would like to suggest that most videogame examples simply don't qualify, the ability for the player to smash an otherwise insignificant PMV falls somewhere between Die, Chair, Die! and Rewarding Vandalism.

edited 10th Jun '11 10:29:53 PM by Stratadrake

I think the Colossal Cave example still fits. You pick up a valuable vase, which will break unless you figure out how to defy the trope.

edited 10th Jun '11 11:16:55 PM by jebuz

I think Chihuahua hit the nail on the head. In one case, an object is stated to be very expensive, and subsequently broken; in the other case, an object is broken, and afterwards stated to have been very expensive. In both cases, the object is commonly a vase.

That said, I'm not seeing significant misuse; just a trope with two types. I'm not sure if this necessitates splitting, as there are several other tropes that define a "type A" and a "type B". If we just clean up the header, it would be clearer.

I agree, that it shouldn't matter when the broken object is identified as a Ming vase.

edited 11th Jun '11 9:49:12 AM by EternalSeptember

Is it still a Checkhov's Gun if the audience's attention isn't brought to it until after it's been used? Because that's what your argument amounts to: "It doesn't matter when the audience is told that the item is important."

When the audience is told matters for some tropes but not necessarily for all tropes. Clearly it matters for Chehkovs Gun; I do not believe it matters for Ming vases.

Not even when the whole gag is based on "That vase is expensive, I bet it will get broken"??

That's type A. Type B is casually breaking something, and then have someone bemoan how expensive it was.

But those aren't the same. The order makes a difference. One is a setup for a gag (or a whole plot,) the other is something that happens. It's like saying that a sausage-and-cheese omelet is the same as a Sausage [=Mc Muffin-] with Egg because they both contain the same three ingredients, or that a Ferrari is the same as a pick-up truck because they both have wheels, a motor and seats.

Well, if there's not much misuse, I can just remove the bad examples.

And I'd agree with Eternal September that it doesn't matter if the object is identified as precious before or after it's broken. What I wanted to draw attention to was the entries that were just "in show X, Alice owns a Priceless Ming Vase" without any mention of it being broken.

If the trope now only refers to a Chekhov's Gun where an expensive fragile thing is drawn attention to and then later destroyed, that's just Chekhov's Gun, But More Specific, isn't it?

These things have a tendency to be Ming vases, and they have a tendency to be broken, whether or not it's foreshadowed, to the extent that it seems that the reason Ming vases are so expensive is because the rest have all been broken by characters in media.