The Other Troper
It would be nice if a proper name for this could be self demonstrating, but that might not be reasonable.
Something like List Ends With A Weak Entry, or something like that, would at least be clear.
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Is this trope exclusively for patterns of "bad, bad, horrible" or can it also be extended to patterns of "good, good, great"? I know that question came up a few times in YKTTW.
edited 23rd Dec '11 6:01:10 PM by HiddenFacedMatt
"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart
It's more of a "major, major, trivial" pattern. The main point, as the trope description almost immediately makes clear, is that a list doesn't finish strong.
The Other Troper
So the description is fine. The wicks show people are just going by the name.
I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.
Some of the examples I've seen are a group of things, arranged by the troper to put the most minor part last. Those should not count: the point of the trope is when the items are listed, in-universe, with the weakest/least important/most trivial part last. If the list isn't in-universe, it shouldn't be on there.
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Dragon Writer
I could've sworn I had already posted in this topic with a quick (but complete) check across the Z range. Did I misplace that post or did something eat it?
An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.
Rabid Fujoshi
It looks like most of the actual thread was eaten.
SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)
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Why can't this wiki lampshade its own usage of tropes?
The Other Troper
Got locked, so I started this one with a proper wick check. If you want, go to the Repair shop morgue, find the thread and your post, and repost that list here.
Those potholes are not TV Tropes itself, or its members, doing this trope. It's tropers applying this trope to works, when they aren't actually done that way in those works.
edited 24th Dec '11 6:40:17 AM by DragonQuestZ
I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.
Dragon Writer
Aha, that explains it.
Yeah, representative or otherwise I specifically picked an easy range of links that time.
There is one form of absolute misuse: Lists of items where the last item isn't noticeably different from the others. For the trope isn't about "any list of three or more things", or "any list of three or more crimes" (like the Zippy Ziggy example I quoted in that check).
edited 24th Dec '11 12:26:25 PM by Stratadrake
An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.
The Other Troper
One possible self demonstrating title would be List Strong List Well End Weakly.
Not much, but it's something.
I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.
So suppose I was writing an example for Kick the Dog that went:
Villain X does a host of bad deeds before getting on to the main plot. He taunts people at their loved one's funerals, tampers with his sister's birth control, decides to invest only in companies that brutally exploit Third World workers, and he cheats at solitaire.
x4
Consider the example from the Bad Boss page:
Grahame Coates of Anansi Boys. His key failings as a boss: he always fires employees before they've been employed long enough to qualify for the severance package, saving him considerable money in having to pay it; the one employee who didn't get this treatment ended up being the patsy for his corporate corruption; and he actively revels in speaking in cliches.
The pothole used here is applied to the last item of a list in describing a character. The list, however, does not appear to be taken from the work itself but was more likely created solely by the troper who wrote the entry. Thus I would have to conclude that the troper is in fact 'doing the trope' and not 'applying it to the work'. The latter would only be the case if, as Arcades described earlier, the list appeared in the work but in a different order. By creating the list entirely, the example uses a trope that does not appear in the work described.
This trope is a popular pothole, and probably a Pothole Magnet. As such the trope transplant idea may be a good way, if properly implemented, to split the memetic potholing from the actual usages in works. We should just be clear that the common problem, unless I'm mistaken, is in fact one of the wiki 'lampshading its own useage of tropes' and the resulting terminology collision.
Okay Guy
How will a rename solve the problem.
Put me in motion, drink the potion, use the lotion, drain the ocean, cause commotion, fake devotion, entertain a notion, be Nova Scotian
A new name wouldn't be as likely (initially, anyway) to be abused as a Pothole Magnet and would discourage people from using the old name.
Yeah, this looks like a case of needing to repair the misuse, not changing the name. If the misuse can be categorized, a trope can be written that is better suited to the use.
By the way, I'm not sure what "Troper pothole" is supposed to mean. I checked a few on the list above and they seemed pertinent.
By the way, this name has been cited in LA Times as an example of what we do that's cool.
edited 25th Dec '11 1:18:32 PM by FastEddie
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
I disagree that anyone would be discouraged from using the old name. On the contrary, those interested in potholing their own gags will continue to do so with the current name, while those interested in pointing out examples of a work using the trope will gradually begin to use the new name. I see this as a viable outcome because I do not see troper potholes as a bad thing
Here's an archetypical example of a troper pothole: the first line on the Final Fantasy XI page:
The ninth entry into the rib-rendingly popular Final Fantasy series.
As You Know, every Final Fantasy article opens with the above running gag and a pothole to Running Gag. This gag is created by tropers and potholed by tropers, and thus it is a troper pothole. It is funny, and it is a significant part of this wiki's style, one which I happen to enjoy. As per , it would appear the LA Times agrees with that opinion.
Now personally, I'm not convinced that the messyness of this page's wicks is a problem, but insofar as there might be confusion between troper-created instances of Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking and work-based instances of same, a rename would at least clarify the matter.
Okay Guy
Making two versions of the exact same trope but for two different purposes sounds like a headache.
Put me in motion, drink the potion, use the lotion, drain the ocean, cause commotion, fake devotion, entertain a notion, be Nova Scotian
That One Guy
Yeah, I really don't see what having two tropes with the same meaning would accomplish.
edited 25th Dec '11 8:06:00 PM by Firebert
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, it would appear the LA Times agrees with that opinion.If anything, from the context of Eddie's post, I would have thought the reference to the LA Times pointing to Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking "as an example of what we do that's cool" was in reference to our primary goal and purpose of cataloging conventions in fiction and media—not praise for an Internet community coming up with a term and using it as a colloquial phrase or in-joke amongst themselves, which I wouldn't think is very worthy of being reported in a major newspaper (or was it just a slow news day?).
The fact is Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking isn't supposed to be a "gag"; it's a trope. The primary purpose of a trope name is to be used to refer to a trope; if a trope name becomes a "gag" amongst ourselves that we pothole just for the sake of making our own "jokes", then something is gonna get warped out of focus at some point down the line. No. Just... No was another popular name intended to refer to a trope that became one such "troper pothole", and now it's flagged as a redlink to discourage any further use of it.
If anything, I thought this wiki has been aiming to cut out the "troper pothole" stuff as a way of appealing to a broader, more casual base. Sure, we could be a small group of guys coining new terms, then incorporate them into our 'insider' lingo and make a bunch of 'gags' and references to them all the time when we talk to one another (or when we explain things to ourselves on the main articles), but how does that appeal to anyone on the outside looking in at those kind of antics?
We can still have fun and be informal without needlessly potholing tropes as "gags".
edited 25th Dec '11 8:37:52 PM by SeanMurrayI
We reach people by being funny. This is funny on its own merits, not on the merits of in-speak.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Dragon Writer
Compare "If You Know What I Mean". Getting used as a troper meta-joke is not the same thing as an actual trope actually appearing in said work.
An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.But again, I don't see a rename helping in that regard.
Rhymes with "Protracted."
Did a wick check, slightly higher than the square root of the wicks, and it's even worse than I thought.
This trope means to list things, and end with something on the list that is far lesser than compared to the others.
Instead, tropers think it's about some heinous things, and a lesser thing, whether or not it's a list. And it's often not even stated in-universe. It's just a troper pothole.
I think there should be a Trope Transplant, so we keep the name for what the trope seems like (thus keeping the massive inbound links intact), and of course make an indicative name for the current trope.
Here's the wick check. More can be done if asked.
edited 23rd Dec '11 4:05:17 PM by DragonQuestZ
I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.