Fixing zero context examples

At a glance, about a quarter of the examples on Coming of Age Story are completely devoid of context. We're talking quite a few entries; should all of them be commented out?

edited 24th Apr '13 10:16:22 AM by Whitecroc

This happened because Tim had made a mistake.

Yes.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

If you're willing to put more work into it, check the wicks on the work's pages. Perhaps you can find some context there and copy it.

I did some clean up on the first folder for Coming of Age Story, but even with crosswicking, I could only add context for a couple.

edited 25th Apr '13 5:05:07 AM by nemui10pm

A genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker

Blithe Spirit has a lot of Zero Context.

Gonna work on Happily Married. Is there more to this trope than a couple in a working relationship? because that sounds like chairs.

edited 25th Apr '13 11:16:19 PM by captainpat

Not really chairs, given that fiction runs on Rule of Drama. Not having a ton of drama in a relationship is therefore significant.

A lot of the examples on Happily Married are "these parents seem to apply." I agree that's chairs and if that's all it is then is should be cut. I think if you say how the two characters stick together through thick and thin or how they gently show each other that they love each other that would give it context.

Happily Married is definitely not People Sit On Chairs. However, many examples might be plain shoehorning or they may sound like shoehorning because lack of context.

The trope here seems to two characters who are happy and in love and stable in their marriage despite all the crazy crap that happens around them that would tear most other couples apart. This is really rare in fiction land.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

x4: real life persons sitting in chairs is not dramatic.

I'm all for cutting the Real Life examples (this issue has its own thread). However, people being a happy couple is important for the story and is significant for the narration. It's not Chairs. If you want to argue about this, you may want to take it to Trope Repair Shop, but I doubt it will gain support. Arguing whether a recurring pattern is tropeworthy doesn't belong to this discussion.

edited 26th Apr '13 10:19:56 AM by XFllo

H Beam Piper is maybe half ZC Es.

My alignment is Chaotic Cute.

Urban Fantasy. Oh boy.

Do genre title lists really need "context"? They're not examples the way tropes are examples.

My alignment is Chaotic Cute.

Innocent Blue Eyes article has some. Not many, but considering that it has gone through clean-up and that appearance tropes are often misused, I thought I should mention it. I will work on commenting them out if nobody adds context.

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EDIT: These were commented out:

Anime and Manga

• Videl from Dragon Ball as shown here.◊
  • Could fit, but I didn't find context on the work's page or its character sheet. Characters.Dragon Ball Supporting Cast
• Belldandy of Ah! My Goddess fits quite well — complete with blond hair (usually)
  • the entry should describe the character
• Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Duo Maxwell.

Comic Books

• Captain America has blue eyes, along with golden hair.
• Superman has these, too.
• Typically not seen but when Archie Comics characters are shown with an eye color it's typically blue, especially on Archie and Betty.

Literature

• Derek Huntsman in Domina.
• Peeta Mellark, the Nice Guy of The Hunger Games.

Music

• Elton John's "Blue Eyes".

Video Games

• Kirby, of course.
  • Does this one count when he's a a pink fluffy blobby thing that can suck enemies into his mouth — to borrow a phrase from our page on it?
• Slippy, Fay and Tricky from the Star Fox series.
• Sora, Roxas, Xion and Ventus from the Kingdom Hearts series. Although Xion is also depicted with Kairi's purple-ish blue eyes on some artworks.
• Polka has them in Eternal Sonata.
• Several Pokémon protagonists, such as May and Hilda.
• Teddie's human form in Persona4 has these.
• Lip from Panel de Pon has big cute blue eyes.

Western Animation

• The Renand Stimpy Show: Stimpy.

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Please feel free to purge it more. I'm sometimes less hard on shows I know... Or put the examples back — I might as well be too hard on examples I'm not familiar with.

Comics examples need adding context. Of course I know Superman, but I'm just not familiar enough with the mythology of the comics.

edited 29th Apr '13 9:26:56 AM by XFllo

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends just got cleaned out by me. I feel kinda bad, because I know nothing of the show, and an astounding amount of tropes were simply listed. I even left some in because I felt it was getting silly.

This happened because Tim had made a mistake.

That's an index.

Knight Errant has a lot of examples without context. One even says, "X is often seen as one." A knight either wanders the land or doesn't.

If I'm not mistaken, the list is not indexed. But very well could be. I think that such a list appeared here at least once and we were told that was ok. They really don't need context the way examples do.

edited 27th Apr '13 5:22:46 AM by XFllo

Gundam SEED The Long War has lots of ZCE examples.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Then that begets the question, is Coming of Age Story a pure index, or just a description of a genre or trope? I'm worried I screwed things up by commenting out all those examples.

This happened because Tim had made a mistake.

Coming of Age Story is a trope about how, "Main character matures into adulthood throughout story." It's not an index, or just a description of a genre. You were right to comment out examples without context.

Edit: I noticed you cut The Royal Diaries example. It says how in the story she has a coming of age ceremony. I think that should count for something.

edited 27th Apr '13 11:42:27 AM by lexicon

I felt the motivation for its inclusion was spurious, as the description made it seem like it was just a one-off scene. However, I'll freely admit that I didn't manage to remain consistent with my cuts, as there was quite a lot of zero or near zero context stuff there. Just put it back in if you want, but consider a slight rewording.

This happened because Tim had made a mistake.

If Coming of Age Story isn't a genre, it's the next best thing. Works that fit are often described much as one might describe a work belonging to a genre. "Such-and-Such is a science fiction novel by Joe Author". "This-and-That is a coming-of-age novel by Mary Jane Writer".

In any case, while we don't want a ZCE, we also want as many valid examples as possible, and if you can glance at the work page and tell, yes, this is a coming-of-age story, it's better for everyone to just go ahead and write a quick sentence saying so, rather than merely purging/hiding the examples. This is one that should be obvious in most cases, unlike a lot of tropes that require knowledge of the work. It should be almost as obvious as confirming, yes, this is a science fiction novel, if, say, Science Fiction Literature weren't an index.

edited 27th Apr '13 11:19:35 PM by Xtifr

Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.