Just a picture of the trope namer.: Shoo Out The New Guy

And it's part character trope, but the distinction is how the show gets rid of the character, which isn't even really shown by the caption.

The first two panels of this strip show the trope much better.

The current picture is Fan Myopia, and I like as a replacement.

Yeah, verticalize it and we have a winner

I think it might be better to keep it horizontal to retain the left-to-right cause-effect dealio. Seems like a clearer take on the trope. To my mind it's a pity the character is killed; lots of less extreme ways of suddenly getting written out. It would be even better if there was more on how the character was a big deal when they were introduced.

I agree The Simpsons example doesn't illustrate the trope. I guess we've been banking on the great market coverage they have.

New proposal, horizontal:

Nobody ever seems to agree with my reasoning on this, but I'll put it out there just in case.

We have a general rule of thumb that Character Named Tropes are a Bad Thing. Thus, tropes like The Mario tend to get renamed to something more generic. However, for whatever reason (Grandfather Clause, patterns of usage, inertia?), some of these tropes retain their names.

IMO, in those specific cases, picturing the Trope Namer (accompanied by a clear outline of who the Trope Namer is and why it provided the trope name, in the Trope Description) is actually a good thing, promoting clarity and enlightenment.

Readers can go from "The Poochie? What the heck is that?" to "Ah, that's what The Poochie is and why the trope has that name. Now I get it" from a brief scan of the article.

Personally, I'd either:

• 1. Rename The Poochie to something generic, OR
• 2. Keep the current image, but move the The Simpsons Trope Namer example up to the Trope Description area, to highlight and clarify the otherwise unusual situation of a Character Named Trope that we're keeping.

edited 11th Dec '11 9:10:26 AM by suedenim

We HAVE a rename discussion up (see the link on the trope page).

And that reasoning still assumes people always read the articles, which is a vain hope, that a lot of misuses over the years has made clear.

We could always pair a picture of the Trope Namer with this◊.

That has too little context.

@suedenim: I really don't see the reasoning behind allowing a non-illustrative image just because it's the trope namer, when it would never fly for another character. The Poochie image is just a Totally Radical cartoon dog hitching a lift.

But a character named trope would ALSO never fly under normal conditions. We're already basically breaking a rule by allowing a trope named The Poochie, so in my mind, we might as well explain why we're doing that as clearly as possible, and showing the exception helps.

No, that would only make sense if the page was made after that guideline was set down. It was made BEFORE.

And even if we did allow a page, that would STILL likely get changed in TRS eventually.

Your argument boils down to two bad data make good data.

Yeah, this name got in via Grandfather Clause; either there was too much difficulty coming up with a good name, or it has too many wicks and incoming links to be worth renaming.

Either way, the name of the trope shouldn't have any bearing on the picture, and isn't a matter for this thread anyway.

The current pic is an obvious pull on grounds of JAFAAC. Whether or not the name of this page is breaking our naming guidelines is really not relevant, the point is that its image is breaking our image guidelines.

Support switching the current out for post #4's pic.

Anyone else?

Seconding the switch.

Great.

Opposed.

As long as it's still called The Poochie, the image should be the Trope Namer.

That character appears in one episode out of hundreds.

That's not how images work. If a picture must illustrate the trope regardless of whether or not it's the Trope Namer.

Ningiad.

edited 18th Jan '12 4:12:33 PM by FinalStarman

You should probably check out the How To Pick A Good Image page; being the Trope Namer is not a valid reason to use an image.

Still support switching out for the comic

Yeah, the comic is way better.

Uh guys.

We have a bad image. And a good replacement.

What are we gonna do?

The pics are swapped and the page is tagged. Do we have a page for the source yet? Caption or no?