Trope Decay: Automatic Crossbows

The description for Automatic Crossbow describes, essentially, whenever Guns And Gunplay tropes are used with crossbow rather than guns. But MANY (if not MOST) of the examples refer to Repeating Crossbows / Semi-Automatic Crossbows, or any other form of fast-firing crossbows.

Misuse? Well, about 75% of the examples on the very page have more to do with the later definition than the actual page definition. For example:

• In Gladiator, when Maximus and his fellow gladiators are fighting the re-enactment of the Battle of Zama, one of the enemy fighters is shown using a repeating crossbow.
• An historically accurate model is seen in use by Sun Quan's army in Red Cliff.
• Dungeons & Dragons features a repeating crossbow, which can fire 5 bolts before needing a reload.

There's also a THIRD type of misuse, consisting of people just listing a character who happens to use a crossbow. For example:

• In 9, 5's weapon of choice is a crossbow made of a clock key and a spring. He used it to crack the Seamstresses eye, which was a Crowning Moment of Awesome for a previously timid character.

Again, those are on the very page itself, where the definition is. I shudder to think how bad the wicks must be.

Also, why is the page title plural?

edited 10th Sep '11 4:05:36 PM by Ghilz

Bump

Maybe something should be done for repeating cross bows but the gushing should just be cut. That doesn't need to be asked about in repair shop.

The trope, as written, isn't really a trope.

Consider: "The simplest solution to this dilemma is to treat crossbows as the ancient/medieval/Renaissance version of firearms. This doesn't imply that crossbows are portrayed inaccurately (although that can happen), just that, as a pre-industrial form of point-and-shoot weapons"

Yet crossbows WERE the ancient/medieval/Renaissance version of firearms, and an accurate portrayal crossbows as pre-industrial ranged weapons is not really deserving the name "automatic crossbow" or really trope worthy.

I say redefine the trope to meet the title and how it has been used.

This is at least take 2 of this in TRS for about the same reason. I don't remember if/what it was resolved last time but I suspect a split, redefinition and/or rename is in order.

edited 10th Sep '11 6:02:50 PM by Elle

Automatic/Repeating crossbows are a legit trope, and this page seems to have done a very good job at collecting examples of such weapons in both on-page examples and wicks. It would be a real shame to have to create a new page to accomplish what this apparently has already done.

The problem is that the definition is junk to begin with. All it really says is "People can use Gunplay tropes with crossbows". Yet we don't need separate page for listing every time that More Dakka, Laser Sight, Pistol-Whipping etc is used with a crossbow instead of a gun. If someone is using More Dakka with a crossbow, use the More Dakka trope.

edited 10th Sep '11 6:16:31 PM by Auxdarastrix

That does make sense, there probably shouldn't be a page for Pistol Whip WITH BOWS after all. Change definition to meet examples.

There's been a call to lock this thread. Is there still work to be done?

Yes. None of the problems that have been raised have been addressed, at all.

Edit: I tried to get a crowner for redefining a the trope to match the name, but I can't seem to make it work. I must be doing something wrong.

edited 19th Nov '11 2:54:23 PM by Auxdarastrix

Will they be adressed? I asked to close it because after 2 months nobody posted anything. There hasn't been even a bump. If you cared about it being discussed you would have bumped it at least.

Keeping open a thread just for the sake of it only makes we have more than 600 threads open when there's a limit of 500. And I can't open another to deal with a trope I'm actively trying to improve.

We have threads that have been sitting around without action for much longer. If you want to bring something to a close, do something that will move it toward a resolution, such as bumping it to create a crowner or ask permission to implement a particular plan of action. Don't just try close thread that haven't solved the problem they were created to address.

Crowner here

edited 19th Nov '11 3:13:39 PM by Auxdarastrix

Crowner hooked.

I can't deal with every trope that has been abandoned. I'm already trying to improve The Ditz that was abandoned too but nobody tries to help. I bumped it and created a YKTTW, just so it hadn't got to be closed.

But that, different from this one, already had a crowner and a decision had been taken. This one had just a few messages and nothing else. It's not me who had to bump it, it was you, the one who was in the original discussion, who had to care about it.

While we're at it, can somebody explain the image caption to me? Why is that not a regular bow?

That cylindrical object on the crossbow is a machine gun-style magazine of arrows.

It is worth noting that both the one line in the description about repeating crossbows and the picture are late additions, from people that apparently took the title at face value.

The trope dates back to 2008 at least, and without any YKTTW to go by, it is hard to say exactly what the original thought process was behind the name and description. I happen to think that the description should be cleared up to to clearly match the title. Normally I wouldn't support this, and I would say go with the original intent of the trope, but in this case I'm not sure the original intent of the trope is really worth its own page.

The crowner seems to have a definite lead here.

And 13:1 sure seems like consensus to me.

Who is allowed to call crowners? You holler for a mod, right?

edited 20th Nov '11 4:20:37 PM by ArcadesSabboth

Calling the crowner. Let the madness begin.

I edited the description the best I could, however I wasn't really sure of how the trope is supposed to be now so maybe I screwed up. Please check and reedit if there's something wrong, and when you finish send a holler to close the thread.

Since the crowner has been disattached I'll copy the winner proposition just so anyone can check it.

The trope description appears to define the trope as the use of Guns And Gunplay Tropes tropes with crossbows. The name suggests that it is about rapidly firing crossbows. The overwhelming amount of examples on the page and in the wicks are rapidly firing crossbows.

Winner proposition: Redefine to match the title and how it is being used.

I've rehooked the crowner so that it's attached to the thread. Locking.