Impenetrable Trope Co nonsense - needs a rewrite: Karma Houdini Warranty

Seriously, what the heck is this? I can pick up the gist of it from the examples and laconic (although someone on the discussion page claims that the laconic is wrong), but the description itself is an utterly unreadable Trope Co Self-Demonstrating Article thing. There's nothing wrong with Trope Co entries for tropes that have real descriptions, such as Evil Hand and Evil Hand, but this has no real description at all.

It seems clear enough to me. I may not really like the style but it's hardly incomprehensible.

My impression was that there are certain tropes which, if invoked in a story, remove karmic protection from a previous Karma Houdini. I don't think the main article is very obscure on this point, and it definitely isn't ambiguous — the whole thing is written as a disclaimer naming things which cause the status of Karma Houdini to wear off.

There is some mismatch with the laconic, though, I think. Would "Certain tropes can undo a Karma Houdini's immunity" be a better description?

EDIT: There're also a lot of, by that definition, examples which don't belong on the page (The Chocolate Wars (which sounds simply like a villain getting their comeuppance in the movie version), Harry Potter (Voldemort???), and maybe the Simpsons) so maybe it's worth asking whether the page description fits the usage?

edited 21st Aug '11 5:08:40 PM by troldtog

Perhaps, although that definition doesn't really make sense - the idea of a Karma Houdini having karmic protection reads like an oxymoron. At any rate, I still argue that it should have a "real" description. I don't think there's any other tropes in Trope Co that have the Trope Co "ad" as their only description.

I really loathe Trope Co, for one.

I phrased that badly. The Houdini doesn't have karmic protection, they have protection/immunity from karma. The trope is, as I'm reading it, when you have a character who is a Karma Houdini and has a very established role in the story (villain, fun-loving prankster). That character then does something that suggests a shift to a different role (villain has a Heel–Face Turn, prankster tries something just too mean-spirited) and suddenly whatever kept Karma from catching up with them before is gone (villain gets Redemption Equals Death, prankster gets a particularly nasty What the Hell, Hero?). It might also cover Houdinis who begin actively Tempting Fate, with predictable results.

Does that make more sense? (And if it does, does it match up with what other people are getting from the current main page?)

But yeah, you have a point about needing an actual description. The Trope Co stuff on the main page at the moment is pretty long. Would it work to shorten it to "Thank you for buying Trope Co.'s Karma Houdini Insurance Plan. Policyholders are advised that the Karma Houdini Insurance Plan is voided by, inter alia, Heel Face Turns, efforts to tempt fate, and (one more trope here)." And put the real description below?

edited 22nd Aug '11 2:18:41 PM by troldtog

That's also my sense of the trope, although the weird Trope Co stuff makes it hard to tell.

Also kind of a problem is that Karma Houdini is defined as villain-only, but this trope suggests it could apply to heroes too. For instance, I've kind of thought V from Order Of The Stick could fit this, since ze kind of became a buttmonkey once they started feeling bad about their amoral tendencies and recent jump off of the slippery slpe.

For starters I think the Real Life section has no place here.

There's a Trope Co namespace. Unless I'm mistaken, Trope Co-style descriptions go there, but all articles should still have ordinary descriptions.

I was going to say, perhaps we need a whole tab just for Trope Co so that people keep it out of the main namespace, but I've been ninja'd rather badly.

Hm... maybe I'll take a crack at a rewrite in the sandbox.

Edit: wait, what is this trope? Is it even a trope at all...? I don't really get what it means...

edited 5th Sep '11 9:34:49 AM by USAF713

I think it's "a character who some viewers thought was a Karma Houdini turns out not to be one".

...so, a subversion of Karma Houdini? That sounds like People Sit On Chairs. I mean, the villain getting punished at the end is basically the de facto ending in fiction, regardless of whether it's a happy ending or not...

Based solely on the description, this looks to be a three-part trope:

1) A character is established as a Karma Houdini. 2) The character undergoes some kind of development that "voids the warranty" 3) Karma returns in full force.

The implication here is that receiving karmic consequences tend to be seen as a direct consequence of e.g. feeling remorse for your actions. Redemption Equals Death is one form of this.

Oh... that's confusing. Hm. I personally can't think of a way to rewrite that at the moment. Evil writer's block is evil...

I really like the write up — it sums up the trope well. Additionally, I can't see any confusion about the definition of the trope, since it's quite clearly set out:

The (imaginary) insurance policy prevents the villain/trickster/rogue from the consequesnces of his actions. However, the policy expires if: 1) He feels sorry for his actions and tries to make amends. 2) He meets someone who is a bigger bastard than he is. 3) The plot undergoes Cerebus Syndrome and the author realises that "deconstructing" the character makes for an easy angst-fest.

If one of these conditions is met, the Karma from his previous actions returns in full force and everyone turns on him...right at the moment when he doesn't really deserve it.

The only thing I can see that might throw some people off is the Point 2 on the trope page - it should be part of Point 1. And the Nebraska thing is clearly a joke. I don't think a trope's description has to be Exactly What It Says on the Tin to be effective — there's a real trend in "Fix the trope title/description because it isn't literal enough" right now. Yes, there are tropes that are in need of such measures (I don't get why Vetinari Paradox was changed to Vetinari Job Security...it still doesn't make sense if you don't have a working knowledge of Discworld!) but humour's always been part of TV Tropes — and given this particular trope's title, it fits well.

Still, I think I'll tweak the laconic definition, if people don't mind. That particular definition doesn't really fit the trope.

Wait, how did this not get swept up in the move to move all Trope Co entries into the namespace several YEARS ago, to the effect Trope Co is near-forgotten now?

Is that the explanation?

Yeah, the decription is a bit uncleaar. It tells how to avoid losing one's Karma Houdini-ness, while the examples are about characters who do lose it.

It looks the bulk of the usage is on other trope pages with related concepts. I don't think we would loose much by just declaring this a Trope Co page and making a regular version. Still, I personally don't mind the occasional eccentric write up style, as long as it makes sense.

Also, the laconic is useful (though not particularly laconic).

A Karma Houdini will suffer (badly timed) karmic payback if he regrets his actions, meets a bigger jerk than himself, or faces Cerebus Syndrome.

edited 16th Sep '11 9:25:49 AM by Auxdarastrix

Are we done here?

Might be a good idea to tack on something like "Exemption" to the title, but other than that it looks good.

I don't think so - this is currently a Trope Co page and should be moved there, which means it needs a "real" description to replace it.

Why? If there were still a lot of Trope Co pages around I might agree with reducing them as a sort of project to be undertaken, but as it stands I don't think it's really an issue.

I'm not trying to do anything about Trope Co pages - but I want them as Trope Co articles, not as the only page on that trope. There is no Karma Houdini Warranty page outside of the Trope Co one - that's a problem.

This needs a cut. There's nothing separate to Karma Houdini.