Split: Third Person Person

Ok Third-Person Person is really two tropes here

1. Talking in the third person is cute, childish, Moe etc. A strictly Japanese thing as it's how most children refer to themselves when learning Japanese. (ages like 2-5ish.) mostly a girl thing, Mafuya in Seitokai No Ichizon would be a big example.

2. The western view where doing this is seen as egotistical used mainly by men.

I'd support a soft split.

Those are two very different views, but they don't even cover all the examples. There are also the examples of alien cultures who do it for various reasons. Or characters that do it in order to highlight madness. Or to deal with multiple personality issues.

I think we should split off the two subtropes mentioned and keep the main for other reasons. Do mind that the two subtropes aren't going to be split pure East/West though. The One Piece example looks like it's pure Ego, and there are a few western examples of doing it to be cutesy.

edited 29th Jul '11 7:31:34 AM by shimaspawn

Should we split it up in foreign languages?

Looking at the examples there are only a few western examples. The cutsey version would still be a Stock Japanese Characters trope.

And Rare in Japanese works on the egotistical side.

edited 2nd Aug '11 1:59:14 AM by Raso

Um, I would keep the page as it is. If there are Stock Character types that always use the Third-Person Person gimmick, it'd be okay for them to get their own page, but there are a lot of different reasons a character might refer to themselves in the third person, not just two. (One other I haven't even seen mentioned is to denote a lack of personhood entirely — utterly submissive or enslaved.) So it's a characterization thing that can be used to denote multiple archetypes.

If there are only a few western examples, it's probably because people working on western works aren't as aware of the existence of the trope page. It's actually fairly common in western works.

Oh, right, gotcha. Yes, the western cutesy version is rare. But Zoidberg probably qualifies (if he doesn't end up getting left out altogether in a split like this).

edited 2nd Aug '11 4:19:58 AM by Xtifr

Egotistical Third Person Person is common in western works and the page reflects that... The cutesy girly No Personal Pronouns version is not. As well as these being near polor opposite uses of one style of speaking they should be split.

No Personal Identity would be another trope.

edited 2nd Aug '11 4:21:53 AM by Raso

There seem to be dozens of reasons reading through this trope. Not just the two. Perhaps what would be better is to split off common subtropes and then leave the rest here on the supertrope.

I agree.