Nice Job Snowcloning It, Hero (Alt Title crowner 2/28/12): Painting The Medium

Well if we are renaming this to something other than fourth wall, I don't think we should, but lets be hypothetical, it should have a simple name. Nothing too narrow or too confusing.

For The Audience But Not The Characters, the gets the spot lights, weird text, leitmotifs and all else in one go.

"It's usually in the text itself."

Typography and font choices are part of paratext. SO IF A GOD SPEAKS IN ALL CAPS or a telepathic character communicates in italics that would be part of paratext, and would also be an example of this trope, if I'm understanding this correctly.

edited 20th Feb '12 8:59:00 PM by Catbert

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafiction

Paratext requires some torture to be correct, but metatext is pretty straightforward. By coloring speech bubbles, etc., the author is speaking directly to the fact that they know you are looking at speech bubbles. In something like the Oot S cartoon, the metafiction is called out directly.

I don't think that metafiction really works for this.

Typography and font choices are not paratext if they are supplied by the author. Then they're just text.

Metafiction is not the same thing as metatext, and this trope isn't about either of them.

I am under the impression it is the same thing. Metatext can also mean hypertext, but hypertext has pretty much become the term for that. Metatext is just a different phrasing of metafiction, just as many postmodernists talk about texts rather than stories or specific types of media.

Presentation Modification?

You may be right.

Either way, I agree with "Typography and font choices are not paratext if they are supplied by the author."

Maybe Presentation Hints or Presentation Clues?

edited 21st Feb '12 12:02:43 AM by abk0100

I like the assonance of "modification".

"Presentation" is pretty ambiguous. Not very effective at carrying the meaning of the trope.

Different direction, Change Of Theme?

Symbolic Interface?

This trope has nothing to do with themes or symbols.

Yes it does. The text is , the spotlight is presentation and leitmotifs are themes. The only problem Presentation Modification is that it doesn't hint the divide between characters and audience. You know, like fourth wall does, yet somehow this trope has nothing to do with the fourth wall, nothing at all. I'm not convinced.

"Theme" or "scheme", yes it does. Someone might have an "evil themed" speech bubble, or a level has a "candy land themed" interface.

Not about the divide, it is about changes to "our" side of the divide to say stuff about "their" side of the divide. Speech bubbles and UI and etc aren't on the fourth wall.

edited 21st Feb '12 10:44:31 AM by rodneyAnonymous

I actually kind of like Symbolic Interface. "Interface" is a much better way to refer to the wall between the audience and the story than "fourth wall."

Just going down the list of subtropes - Splashof Color, Unconventional Formatting, Wall of Blather, Wingding Eyes - they all seem to fit that name.

By the way, does anyone else agree that Fourth-Wall Portrait shouldn't be a subtrope?

edited 21st Feb '12 1:25:25 PM by abk0100

Symbols no, symbolism yes. I also like Symbolic Interface.

"Interface" implies interaction, and this trope almost never involves interaction. "Symbolic" implies symbolism, and this trope is not about symbolism.

How is it not about symbolism? Black-and-red speech bubbles are symbolic of an evil deep voice, etc.

In film, "non-diegetic" covers things that are not part of the "fictional world", like narration, theme music, etc., that the characters can't perceive. So Non Diegetic Narrative Conventions or something?

I think it's a bit of a stretch to call Wall of Blather (for example) a symbol.

I wouldn't. It is symbolism, though.

Gui Text? Kind of a pun, I guess.

I think Troacctid is right about this not technically being about "interfaces," since that involves interaction, so that would mean GUI is out too.

I think it kind of is symbolism, but I can at least agree with the word not applying perfectly.

I think the most accurate name would be something like Presentation Hints. Secondary information is being hinted at by the way the primary information is presented. Not that exact name, I but something like that might work.

edited 21st Feb '12 3:03:55 PM by abk0100