Possible rename suggestion: Bolivian Army Ending

It has come to my attention that there has been some confusion over when to refer to the trope in question. The trope-specific discussion page makes mention of this as well.

In addition, the article does refer to a specific work in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"

For these reasons, I propose a name change to

"Uncertain Doom"

With its massive inbounds, I'd be hesitant to rename this, but you're certainly right about the misuse. I doubt your proposed name would do much to help prevent it, though - the problem is that this is about a type of Downer Ending of an entire work that is frequently misused for any scenario in which the plot cuts away right as our heroes face apparently-certain death.

Anyone for a Wick Check?

Just because an example isn't a Downer Ending doesn't mean its wrong.

Downer Ending isn't the important part - the important part is that this has to be the of the work as a whole, when it's being frequently used as something more general then that.

Do you have a Wick Check? Is there any misuse? Can you pinpoint a specific problem with the name aside from "It has a Trope Namer"?

You shouldn't start a rename thread if all you've got to go on is "It confused one person."

I'll do the wick check later tonight or tomorrow. There is misuse, but I don't know how much.

Bump for more discussion. It's certainly an opaque name, considering the trope has absolutely nothing to do with Bolivia, nor generally with Armies. It is an ending trope, so at least the title got one word out of three correct

Google shows that this is not a commonly accepted term outside T Vtropes. It does get a mention in the Urban Dictionary, but they use a much narrower definition for the term than we do.

The "army" part is also right, at least for many examples. Two out of three correct works, with "Bolivian" just being there for flavor. I don't see a need to change it.

Of course, there's never any harm in adding redirects.

So you mean we should cut all examples that don't involve an army? Because there's quite a lot of those, such as Watchmen, My Immortal, Thelma And Louise, and several others.

Also, the description makes clear that an army (or indeed, a group of angry fighting people) is really not necessary for this trope: the name is much narrower than the description.

Or you could just not take the title completely literally.

The examples all support the idea of "ends on a tense note". Nothing more than that. It's used for mid-work and end-work.

Which is essentially a problem. That's not what the description implies. Redirects would be better.

There's also the issue of it spoiling Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, but maybe It Was His Sled renders that issue pointless.

Does it actually have to be an ending? The "fight against overwhelming odds with ambiguous outcome" can happen at any time in a story — Star Craft, for example, has a Bad Boss abandoning his Action Girl minion to a (literal) Zerg Rush about two thirds of the way through the first campaign (of three), and her fate isn't known until part way through the second campaign.

If it doesn't have to be an ending (which I don't think it does), then I think it's worth pointing out that none of the three words comprising the trope name are actually necessary to the trope. If we're going to do a rename, I like Uncertain Doom.

Odd, I've only vaguely heard of it before.

Uncertain Doom is really a good name for this.

Too many kinds of "Doom".

@ post 14- I thought it DID have to be an ending to be this trope. I always understood this as a trope about a certain kind of ambiguous ending to a story, where the odds are good that the protagonists die, but you can't be sure (unless a sequel is made, but that's a different issue!).

It's true that you can have a situation with Uncertain Doom that isn't an ending, but I'm not sure that we should really broaden this trope to include all different situations in which you can have uncertainty. Uncertain Doom in the middle of a story isn't nearly as striking/memorable as when a work ENDS with the protagonist left facing a dragon/army/army of dragons, etc. In other words, I think there'd be some value in restricting this to an ending trope, and cleaning up examples that aren't from endings.

How is a more specific version tropeable when we don't have another trope for the mid-work version?

I'm not seeing how that's a problem. If this kind of ending is tropeable, then it's tropeable, regardless of what other tropes we may have overlooked. As I'm sure you know, we do sometimes launch a related trope (a sistertrope, subtrope, or supertrope) after a specific trope has already been in existence for awhile. If the two tropes (the ending version and the mid-work version) are sufficiently distinct, there's no reason we couldn't create a separate trope for the mid-work version.

It's probably important to note that we already have Bolivian Army Cliffhanger, for season finales. If you want to change Bolivian Army Ending apart from just changing the title, we're going to have to figure out what to do with that one as well, since it also currently exists as a distinct trope.

It might be the case that lumping all the "Uncertain Doom" situations into one trope is the best solution, but I'm skeptical. I do think this works differently when it's an ending to an entire work than when it's the end of an episode (see Our Hero Is Dead, which is similar but not identical) or the end to a season (see Bolivian Army Cliffhanger).

edited 1st Jan '12 10:11:44 PM by TTurtle

The Bolivian Army Ending examples have not limited themselves to 1) the heroes, 2) the end of a work, and 3) the end of a story arc.

One Piece has one befall a certain character at the end of the Impel Down Story Arc. Mr. 2 stays behind in the eponymous prison to imitate the warden Magellan, in order to open the Gates of Justice, allowing the prison breakout to be a success. Mr. 2's deceit is discovered, and Magellan, a powerful Devil Fruit user, unleashes all his fury on him. A lot's happened since then, including a second breakout that left Magellan defeated,but there has been no word of Mr. 2's exact fate yet. Magellan: Do you have any last words? Mr. 2: I have no regrets.

Firefly begins with a BAE for the "browncoat" rebels, with their revolution soundly demolished by The Evil Empire. The rest of the series follows two of the survivors in the aftermath.

Chess always ends with a Bolivian Army Ending. The game ends when one player moves a piece into a position that makes it impossible for the other player's king to escape, even though it would still take one more move by each player to actually capture the king.

What I'm saying fits the usage best is to transplant the trope. This page is Uncertain Doom. Supertrope to episode cliffhanger and season cliffhanger. The last season episode endings can go in Bolivian Army Cliffhanger, because you can't tell if one season will be the last or not. (Executive Meddling can kill it, or popularity can rescue it.)

I agree with you that many of the examples display Trope Decay. And I could see the wisdom in making a supertrope of Uncertain Doom as a way of dealing with Trope Decay, but if so, I think it should be a separate trope. I think we should preserve the correct examples as examples of whatever we rename Bolivian Army Ending. And no, I don't think that Bolivian Army Cliffhanger is the reasonable place to put all endings. For one thing, this kind of ending is not just for television: it's also for one-shot film and books that don't necessarily employ cliffhangers that way.

More importantly, there is a difference between using an ending like this as the end of a season, where it is intended to increase audience anticipation for the upcoming season, and using it as the ending for a work. When it is the ending of a work, the audience is left to decide for themselves what happened. As the description says, this is sometimes a way of avoiding a Downer Ending: you leave it vague whether the hero dies precisely so the audience can be optimistic if they want. (See, for instance, Charlotte Bronte's Villette, though God knows the ending there ought to be clear enough for a smart reader!) That's very different from just forcing your audience to wait for a few weeks or months to find out what happened next. That's why I'm reluctant to lump the season finales together with the ends of works. I really do think that a Bolivian Army Ending serves a different purpose when it is being used as the final ending than it does when it is used as a cliffhanger at the end of a season, volume, episode, etc.

So where do the three examples I gave go?

Then, where do the examples for Un-Cancelled shows go? Where do the examples for shows that ended the season on a cliffhanger, but never made another season go?

If you reread my post, I did not say the movies should be moved to Bolivian Army Cliffhanger. Only the examples where it was the end of a season, which would be television-only. I said that, because you can't always know if there will be another season.

These tropes are invoking the Tethercat Principle; you don't actually know what happens.... In Uncertain Doom, you may never find out what happens. In Bolivian Army Cliffhanger, you will find out when the creator is able to make a sequel. In Our Hero Is Dead, you find out after the commercial break, or next episode.

edited 2nd Jan '12 9:39:53 AM by crazysamaritan

I could see Uncertain Doom being a supertrope with Uncertain Doom Ending as a subtrope for when a work ends that way. I don't think that Bolivian Army Cliffhanger is splittable in that case, though — either Uncertain Doom Ending would only apply to the end of the entire work (so Bolivian Army Cliffhanger would be lumped with Uncertain Doom), or Uncertain Doom Ending would apply to the end of any part of the work (a single chapter or an individual book in a novel series, an episode or a season for a TV series, etc) in addition to the Grand Finale. I don't see the point of having a separate "Uncertain Doom Ending, but for the end of season of a TV series".

Schodingers Downer Ending? Or maybe Heisenberg Downer Ending?

edited 2nd Jan '12 10:12:54 AM by DracMonster