This seems far too convoluted: Dying Like Animals

This trope is unwieldy and overwrought, and could be made much simpler. In particular, the current organization of this trope into "animal archetypes" really distracts from the core of the trope (average people ignore or impede the protagonist even in the face of great danger.) I don't think that particular trope, which is valid and useful, requires 22 paragraphs on different animals, many of which still, after previous clean-up attempts, bear no relation to common speech. (When was the last time you heard an action hero say, "Why can't we make these reindeer believe in us?") Many of these animals simply don't have an anthropomorphic personality stereotype, so giving the character type an animal name does us no favors in terms of comprehension: whose first thought upon hearing someone called a "mule" is "Of course - a mad scientist!"?

The fact that each animal links to a trope of its own demonstrates, to me anyway, that the description currently isn't actually talking about the core trope, but rather is serving as a really complicated index to a bunch of things that sort of relate to the trope. Meanwhile, plenty of examples skip over all this animal nonsense altogether and just talk about the core of the trope, and make perfect sense: the Melody Of Oblivion example explains the situation and how the trope applies perfectly (even to me, someone who has never heard of this work anywhere else.) It would not benefit from adding in "and these people were reindeer, and these people were jackals..."

My point is that this is a simple trope, and could be adequately explained in just a couple of paragraphs. It doesn't need all this artifice; there's no reason why we should need to keep glancing back up at the list, looking for the subtle distinctions between Sheep and Lambs. (Much less having to go sort through the 22-paragraph-long list of animals when someone insists that all the townspeople are Bats on a work's page.)

I'm okay with the name, although it's a little misleading (people don't necessarily have to be killed to qualify for this trope.) But this whole thing could be made a lot simpler, and it would result in clearer references to this trope across the wiki.

edited 23rd Aug '11 6:01:42 PM by Aldheim

Agreement.

I agree with this so much that if I agreed with it any more, I would loop over to vehemently disagree with it due to bit overflow.

I'm glad someone finally said it.

Agreement.

Completely agree. This page is clever at the expense of clear and useful.

The opposite trope (Fighting For Survival) has the same issue, except it makes even less sense, since it doesn't have the animals reference in the title. Oi...

Anyway, here's a quick rewrite of the Dying Like Animals description:

When it becomes clear that a major threat to people's lives exist, you would expect them to drop everything else and deal with it, right? Well, not necessarily. After all, if the huddled masses were capable of saving themselves, then what would they need heroes for? People are Dying Like Animals when they're actively working against their own best interest — sometimes even their literal survival — during a crisis situation. Instead of an asset, helping out the heroes to counter the threat, they're a liability at best and a hindrance at worst.

They may refuse to accept that anything is wrong in the first place, or else believe that it's Somebody Else's Problem and nothing that they have to worry about. On the other hand, they may believe that the threat is being blown out of proportion, and go out to end it themselves — getting themselves slaughtered in the process. Maybe they think that the threat is too powerful to resist, giving up even when they could help. The more devious version of this are those that seek to profit from the threat, either by joining it or by using it as an excuse to pick fights with the people they should be teaming up with.

Depending on the tone of the work, these people may be dealt with in a few different ways. More optimistic works will have the hero convince them to get over their problems and start Fighting For Survival. Otherwise, they'll be forced to save the people in spite of themselves — only the most cynical Anti-Hero will declare the masses Too Dumb to Live and leave them to their fate.

See also: Apathetic Citizens. Opposite of Fighting For Survival.

edited 23rd Aug '11 9:03:32 AM by NativeJovian

Looks good except I'd change "they're a liability at best and a hindrance at worst. " to something a bit clearer, since "liability" and "hindrance" are pretty much the same thing.

Liability: something disadvantageous

Hindrance: a person or thing that hinders (hinder: to cause delay, interruption, or difficulty in; hamper; impede)

"A hindrance at best, and an outright barrier at worst..." maybe?

"I'm glad someone finally said it."

I brought this up a while ago, but the thread got lost in the old archive purge.

I was thinking of "liability" as "needing to be protected because they're too useless to help themselves" and "hindrance" as "actively opposing the hero". Maybe "they're a liability at best and outright opposition at worst"?

Just a heads-up: if we scrap the convoluted animal metaphors, the title should probably go as well, since Dying Like Animals is already pretty opaque as a title for this trope.

edited 23rd Aug '11 12:27:40 PM by DoktorvonEurotrash

Dying Like Animals found in: 298 articles, excluding discussions.

This title has brought 307 people to the wiki from non-search engine links since 20th FEB '09.

I'm almost too scared to see what any of the wicks look like!

^^^ That would work.

Dying Like Animals is also a well-established term off the wiki for "not putting up any resistance at all, and being killed in large numbers".

Dying Like Animals is pre-existing. The animal metaphors are just torturing the name trying wring wit from it like water from a rock.

So far there don't seem to be any calls for the trope to remain as-is. Native Jovian's new write-up seems perfectly fine to me.

Yeah, when I hear the term Dying Like Animals I also think of the phrase "dropping like flies". And yes, if we're axing the animal metaphors then we need to axe the current name and give it a new one.

edited 23rd Aug '11 8:36:37 PM by Stratadrake

Currently working on rewriting the page, pretty much using the proposed rewrite above. The examples are going to take some doing, though.

Thought: While I hate them on the main page, it's obvious people put a lot of work into the animal archetypes. Could we shunt that off into an Analysis space?

edited 24th Aug '11 3:52:38 PM by Aldheim

I'm glad you finally said this, and now that you have, all I have to say about the page is, "TL;DR".

Yeah, I was about to say the animal metaphors should go somewhere, even though I agree they'd be better off not on the main page.

We probably could.

Seems to be consensus here, but no action has been taken. For the old "animal" entries... is there a Just for Fun namespace? And if not, could we make one for this? If not, I'd say put it on the Analysis subpage would be the best solution.

I think it would be better off on analysis. It's not really fun enough for Just for Fun.

Just my opinion, mind.

It's not there for fun. Most of the animal archetypes and comparations presented there have a good basis (bats, lambs, etc), but some others are stretching it beyond the point of insanity. Since what the page does is describe and analyze a plot ecosystem, it's far better suited for Analysis.

What it does is strain a metaphor until it snaps and spends the rest of its life banging its head against a padded white wall and weeping pitiful, lobotomized tears.

Ah, yes, I remember when there was a huge project to put these up in the first place. Yeah, they're pretty unnecessary and I don't think anyone actually reads them.