Too restrictive: Comically Missing The Point

I'm just going to begin by saying I am not doing this just because I think TV Tropes is Ruined FOREVER because of the name change.

Now that that's out of the way, I feel the name should be changed to accomodate for other uses of the trope. For example, in Marble Hornets entry 38, ( Alex tells Jay a story that is clearly an origin for the Slenderman. Jay thinks it's simply a "spooky ghost story".) this happened and it wasn't Played for Laughs. It was just.... there. Comically Missing the Point isn't always used comically.

edited 5th Jul '11 2:31:49 PM by Kexruct

Could you give more information about the Marble Hornets example?

Not without spoilers. I figured that wouldn't look to good on something like this.

Use spoiler text if you must. It's explained if you click the "show markup help" button on the page for adding a post.

It it's not played for laughs, it's probably an example What An Idiot.

No it isn't.

I know spoiler markup, I just figured it wouldn't look very good on this.

Do you know any other examples that wouldn't be spoilers?

Not off the top of my head. This is more or less just in case a work comes along that doesn't play it for laughs.

"No it isn't." - Kexruct

Gee, what a perfectly specific counterargument.

I admit that "No, it isn't" wasn't a very good rebuttal, but I think I agree. What An Idiot is about being stupid. Missing the point isn't necessarily a sign of stupidity; it can be a sign of cultural or social incompatibility or narrow-mindedness.

That said, I think I'd probably either go ahead and add the example with an explanation, like, "In a rare, non-comedic example, blah-blah", or, if I really thought there were lots more examples of the non-comedic form, go to YKTTW (with a better name than the original) to see if I could collect examples.

The reason it was limited to comedy is that it was being widely misuded for any type of missing the point, not the specific manner of missing the point it was intended to be: nitpicking the warning.

If we don't have a supertrope that we should have, then make it, don't remake a valid subtrope into it by removing all the particulars that make it a subtrope.

Problem is, there aren't enough examples of it not being played for laughs to turn it into another trope, but there are too many examples of it not being played for laughs to keep the title. We could just edit the page with a warning that says something along the lines of "don't use this in an argument as a Take That!".

See, the point of this thread was to change the name of a trope I found to be too specific. If you don't have anything to say that is constructive, don't post.

edited 8th Jul '11 3:07:46 PM by Kexruct

There aren't three examples?

Well still, it often over laps, so a new trope is probably not needed.

Kexruct, this would be a heck of a lot more productive if you could actually tell us some of these examples that you feel are being excluded by the current definition.

I can't think of any other examples. It's more or less just in case something comes along that isn't played for laughs *

I don't see how you can't just say "Played for Drama in X" and add it in anyways.

It should be changed to a more neutral title to accommodate to that.

Why, though? It's a comedy trope.

Not always. That's why I made this.

You're arguing in circles. This trope is a comedy trope. If you want to argue that a supertrope exists which isn't limited to comedy, you're welcome to do so, but this trope is still a comedy trope. If you want to create the supertrope, you need examples. If you can't come up with examples, the place to go is YKTTW.

If you want to argue that this trope is The Same But More Specific to your proposed supertrope, you can do that as well, but first you have to establish that your supertrope is a valid trope, which requires examples, and possibly YKTTW, and even then, people may disagree about the merge, so it's a separate proposition.

Basically, you're trying to combine two arguments into one, without having established the first (and more important) proposition. I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm simply saying that you need to come armed with facts that you currently lack.

If your proposed supertrope turns out to be Too Rare To Trope, then we can simply include your lone example in the existing trope with a disclaimer, as I and Red Lunch Box both pointed out.

edited 9th Jul '11 2:26:26 PM by Xtifr

I understand perfectly: This trope used to be completely missing the point. Now that it is comically missing the point, there are examples that are not specific enough to fit in: i.e not comedic. He is suggesting a name change that will allow it to accommodate those examples again, because you cannot really say "played for drama" for a trope that has "comically" in it's title. Basically, the trope was made more specific and it needs to be made less specific again. And if you're against reformatting a logical subtrope into a supertrope, this was a logical supertrope made into a logical subtrope. I hope this clears things up.

PS. okay, removing unnecessary examples was probably the whole reason for the name change, but we should still add at least a new supertrope.

edited 10th Jul '11 12:58:19 AM by esnipplee

In other words, either wait for new examples to pop up and then YKTTW it,or (gasp) actually DO the research on this matter before creating a discussion about it? Crazy talk. Anyway, I think I'm going to scope out the page for Comically Missing the Point and see if I can find any non-comedic examples.

edited 10th Jul '11 1:36:01 AM by Kexruct

No, no, no, no. I was trying to suggest YKTTW as a source for examples!

So, in other words, having other people find examples for me?