Named after a character: Al Bundy

I'm not entirely sure what this trope is supposed to be, something like an incompetent and disliked Every Man? At any rate, it is named after a character from a series that ended fourteen years ago, and that not every reader can be expected to be familiar with.

It's also pretty short and has a referral count of 61 people in the past two years. I would suggest a rename, but I'm not convinced it's sufficiently distinct from e.g. Loser Guy.

At the very least, I think the trope should be renamed The Al Bundy.

Anyway, I made a page action crowner here with the option to cut the trope included as well in case there is a consensus that the trope is too similar to other tropes.

Feel free to add other options as you come up with them.

I think a merge with Loser Guy could be a good idea for example.

edited 11th Jun '11 10:07:27 AM by LouieW

I agree that it should be renamed at least to The Al Bundy.

Neither of the Merge candidates make any sense at all.

Al Bundy = Cynical, jaded and world-weary, disrespected by family and friends, underpaid, struggling to achieve basic goals and recognition. Lives on past glories.

Loser Guy = He's the character that dates less frequently than other characters on the show — say, once every three episodes instead of every single episode.

The Every Man = A character who is mostly a blank slate stand in for the audience, made to be empathetic to all. They won't be exceptional, they won't be particularly unexceptional, either. They are decidedly average, and if you try to pin down the character traits of any one of them - you'll probably come up blank.

While a given character can fit under more than one heading, they are each quite distinct.

Please note that those are the opening sentences of the relevant tropes, not merely my interpretations.

edited 11th Jun '11 4:26:04 PM by Zyffyr

Willy Loman hits EVERY point on the description of Al Bundy. There's really no overlap at all with Loser Guy, but Loser Guy is mentioned as a 'compare' on the Al Bundy page... that bit probably should be cut from the description, there's nothing similar about them at all. Al Bundy has more in common with The Arthur Dent or This Loser Is You, being a Type I Antihero... maybe This Loser Is You is what Spark 9 (and possibly the person who added Loser Guy to the Al Bundy page) was -actually- thinking of?

Anyways, it's an established trope, and shouldn't be cut. 61 inbound over the last two years is possibly borderline, but I'm still voting rename because it should at least be The Al Bundy (though if we're renaming, we probably can do better than that).

edited 13th Jun '11 12:16:00 PM by savage

Jaded Has Been or Jaded Loser? The title should probably include the disrespect from the family/friends.

edited 12th Jun '11 12:50:33 AM by peccantis

Jaded Has Been hits clear and concise, at least. It doesn't exactly 'pop' though... but I can't think of anything better, at least not yet.

The Al Bundy would be very fitting, though a little unclear to anyone who hadn't seen Married With Children. Al Bundy at least passes the One Mario Limit (though sometimes I've heard people get him confused with TED Bundy, who is an entirely different can of worms).

Personally at the moment I'm leaning it should be The Al Bundy with Jaded Has Been as a redirect, that's just me though. Anyone come up with something really good to replace The Character Name here, I'm for it.

edited 13th Jun '11 12:23:34 PM by savage

Jaded Has Been is the only one that makes sense to me; "jaded" or "cynical" pretty much has to be in there, and I prefer the former due to liking shorter titles where possible. For the latter part of the name, is there any better name for a has-been besides "has-been"?

Just hit up thesaurus.com. How about Jaded Washout?

Hmm... thing is, I think of a wash-out as a "never was," not a "has been." The trope as it stands involves someone who had Glory Days, as opposed to someone who tried and utterly failed at even that. I think of a Loser Guy more than this trope when I hear "wash-out."

...okay. I'm seriously thinking of putting Loser Guy up for rename just based on this thread alone. Loser Guy has to do with dating, NOT being a loser in the general sense. I think you mean This Loser Is You.

That may be a good call, but the point still stands - "washout" indicates that they were always a loser, wheras "has been" indicates that they've fallen from their once-lofty position.

"The Al Bundy" has the same problem that "Al Bundy" has: it's a Fan Myopic name. He's a main character in a series that ended over a decade ago. Don't assume everybody will know what it means, people won't. This is exactly why e.g. The Umbridge was renamed - we're trying to get away from (most) character-named tropes for a good reason.

Also, If "Loser Guy" indeed doesn't mean "guy who is a loser", then please put it up for renaming.

Loser Guy sounds like it should be called or merged with Hollywood Dateless.

No to merging with Hollywood Dateless. The Loser guy does get fewer dates than his castmates. Hollywood Dateless is "we hear about how they can't get a date, but they date a lot on the show"

Given that around 84% of those who voted on the page action crowner supported a rename and no other options even received a majority of support, I made an alternative titles crowner here. Feel free to edit it and add titles as you wish.

This rename feels like we're also taking a rather unfocused trope and promoting a couple of elements from the grab-bag to give it a focus. Which seems like a good thing. But some examples may no longer fit, post rename.

edited 16th Jun '11 7:26:48 AM by Camacan

^ There is some truth to this.

Thing is, Al Bundy isn't a has-been. Scoring four touchdowns in a high school football game doesn't make someone a has-been. If that's the character's high point in life, then it would be more fitting to call Al Bundy a never-was because he never had been anybody who was all that great.

If we go forth with the name Jaded Has Been, Al Bundy wouldn't really fit what that name would actually represent because he doesn't really have any "past glories" to live on.

Yeah, I think the Never Was bit is important. These are people who had dreams and goals, but never met any of them.

Well, that'd be getting into hair-splitting. Was Al's high point of being a local high school football star and on top of the high school world really enough to make his current state being a "has-been" instead of a "never was"? I'm inclined to say he's the former and say YMMV as to whether he was (some places do treat high school football that seriously, after all... Texas and Ohio most famously).

Or maybe it'd be easier to simply say that the story treats them as a "has-been" (which Married With Children certainly does), whether or not they would be in Real Life.

Well the description says he likes to dwell on his past glory, that makes him a has-been for me. We shouldn't judge his opinion on what counts as past glory :)

edited 16th Jun '11 1:33:37 PM by peccantis

Jaded Never Was as well?

The description makes no mention of the Trope Namer either being an actual "star" on his high school football team or on top of the high school world, only that he scored four touchdowns in a single game.

As much as I can gather from that, he may have been on his high school team but only played well in that one game, making his one success more of a fluke—akin to the class nerd making the winning play in a gym class activity and doing nothing else of significance in athletic endeavors. This certainly wouldn't make somebody a "has-been" later down the line.

edited 16th Jun '11 8:37:26 PM by SeanMurrayI

While I'm familiar with the term "has been", I've never heard of the term "never was" before. It's easy to see what it means in the context of this discussion here, but I'm not convinced it makes a clear trope title.

If Never Was is to be understood like a Has Been (who once was cool but is now a loser), with the exception they never were cool to begin with... Wouldn't that just make it simply a Loser? I.e. a Jaded Loser?

edited 17th Jun '11 10:14:17 AM by peccantis