15 wicks and duplicate to Call a Human a Meatbag: Son Of An Ape

I just noticed that Son Of An Ape is pretty much the exact same thing as Call a Human a "Meatbag", only more restricted. Sounds like an unnecesesary subtrope for me. I think ot should be nuked and have its examples moved to Call a Human a "Meatbag".

"Yeah, it's a shame. Here we are in an underground cave with all these lasers, and instead of having a rave we're using it for evil."

Actually, I think they're on the same level in their "trope level". Call a Human a "Meatbag" is when a non organic life form is insulting to organic life forms for being organic. Son of an Ape is when a non-human calls a human a monkey or ape like creature. They're both types of stock insults in Sci-Fi.

Fight smart, not fair.

I remember Call a Human a "Meatbag" being in the Repair Shop before—like, immediately after the page left YKTTW. The thread must have died out, but last I remember it was still unresolved.

If I remember correctly, the story went that Son of an Ape was already existing (and had a fair bit more than just 15 wicks at the time, too), and then Call a Human a "Meatbag" came around and absorbed Son of an Ape's entire premise in an even larger focus that created a number of other problems, most notably being that the "meatbag" insult doesn't even have to be directed at a human (as the page image shows), despite being written to focus exclusively on humans.

edited 6th Jan '12 11:30:27 PM by SeanMurrayI

Link to the prior topic on this trope : https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1305706213097621200&page=1

I think it was in TRS for being a "stock phrase".

Fight smart, not fair.

I wana say rename Call a Human a "Meatbag" to Racist Toward Organics. (or "Organic Lifeforms")

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

No, that wasn't even an issue on the wiki yet at the time.

The OP thought Call a Human a "Meatbag" was identical to Humans by Any Other Name. The real discussion turned into whether or not it's fair for a trope like this to collect examples on a topic that already had its own page and why a Fantastic Slur that can apply to more than just humans is being limited to humans.

Support for that. I play Vampire The Masquerade and I inevitably made the connection between "juicebags" and the name. And the actual example is there in the page, though I somehow suspect it doesn't fit if it's only about robots.

There are no heroes left in Man.

The distinction between the two that Deboss mentioned seems legitimate to me, but I think that if we are to keep the two tropes separate, there is going to need to be some example cleanup. A good number of the Call a Human a "Meatbag" examples on the page itself are monkey insults and Call a Human a "Meatbag"'s description does not seem to indicate that the monkey/ape insults are actually another trope.

Basically, this is a possible plan we might want to follow if we want to keep the two tropes separate.

• Edit Call a Human a "Meatbag"'s description to make it clear that Son of an Ape is a separate trope and make Call a Human a "Meatbag" only apply to organic lifeforms being insulted by inorganic ones.
• Move all of the monkey examples in Call a Human a "Meatbag" to Son of an Ape.

"irhgT nm0w tehre might b ea lotof th1nmgs i dont udarstannd, ubt oim ujst goinjg to keepfollowing this pazth i belieove iN !!!!!1 d

No qualms with that.

Where would the Vampire The Masquerade example fit there?

Apart from that, ok.

edited 7th Jan '12 8:56:22 AM by DrMcNinja

There are no heroes left in Man.

I see a lot of examples on Call a Human a "Meatbag" where the namecaller isn't actually a robot.

I think both tropes are the same, really. Non-humans having a slur word for humans. Whether the non-humans are robots, aliens, vampires, or alien vampire robots doesn't make a difference.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

Should we really need 2 different tropes for this? I think it would be better if we had just one trope for insults from non-humans to humans, either intentional or unintentional, like Spark 9 said.

edited 7th Jan '12 10:27:55 AM by Elbruno

"Yeah, it's a shame. Here we are in an underground cave with all these lasers, and instead of having a rave we're using it for evil."

There are also examples where the insulted party isn't actually a human. That's why I favor Louie W's way of describing this as "organic lifeforms being insulted by inorganic ones".

Again, some of the insults detailed on Call a Human a "Meatbag" (namely, the "meatbag" and "fleshy one" talk inherent in the trope name) don't even have to be directed at humans.

At its broadest, Call a Human a "Meatbag" involves a member of a fantastic race or species derisively referring to a given trait of another race/species which isn't also characteristic of whomever is making the insult.

edited 7th Jan '12 1:42:44 PM by SeanMurrayI

Dr Mc Ninja,

Well, you could broaden Call a Human a "Meatbag" to include supernatural beings with significantly different anatomies as well as inorganic ones. Another option would be to create a separate trope. Personally, I feel like that example is probably not worth including in Call a Human a "Meatbag" since the "meatbag" aspect of the name suggests something about being organic.

We could make Call a Human a "Meatbag" broad enough to include all examples of non-humans having a slur for humans. I think that the inorganic/organic and descendants of apes insults are distinct enough to be different tropes though, partly because I think the former can include organic life forms that are non-human while the latter would have to only include humans.

By the way, is it alright to make a page action crowner for these tropes or should we wait for a little more discussion?

edited 7th Jan '12 9:56:18 PM by LouieW

"irhgT nm0w tehre might b ea lotof th1nmgs i dont udarstannd, ubt oim ujst goinjg to keepfollowing this pazth i belieove iN !!!!!1 d

I used Organic Vs Non-Organic since it allows for both robots and energy being to insult anything that is of an organic nature, see Young Justice, Red Volcano @ 2.00, where it is specifically used because several members of the team are aliens. It's just that the trope is more commonly named after humans, since that's one of the most common variants.

Metal On Flesh Slurs?

Fight smart, not fair.

As the examples show, there's also cases of an organic non-human calling humans literal meatbags, or a remarkably close term. So I suppose the name isn't quite as "non-organic" as it seems.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

I think the "calling humans apes as an insult" is very wide spread and specific enough for its own trope. I'm iffy on the meat-bag thing. Do we have enough examples for that? Like at least ten.

And I think the Vampire The Masquerade example can just go on Fantastic Slur, we don't need a trope for every single fantasy slur ever, just those that are very common and specific.

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

There is now a page action crowner here with the option mentioned earlier. Feel free to add other options as you see fit.

"irhgT nm0w tehre might b ea lotof th1nmgs i dont udarstannd, ubt oim ujst goinjg to keepfollowing this pazth i belieove iN !!!!!1 d

Crowner hooked.

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Maybe we just need one trope for robots having a slur for organic life (meatbags), and then a supertrope for everything else? (aliens, vampires, etc.)

There's several examples on the page of a vampiure calling a human a meatbag. As in, literally using the word "meatbag". And yet according to the proposed definition, these aren't an example of the trope (since vampires aren't robots).

How do we deal with that?

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

No, there aren't. There closest any examples with vampires come to this is actually "juicebag".

Move them to Fantastic Slur, which is what should be treated as the true Super-Trope for the general concept—not Call a Human a "Meatbag"? Hell, how exactly do we deal with the examples where the insulted party isn't even a human being?

edited 4th Mar '12 7:18:24 AM by SeanMurrayI

Incorrect. Straight from Call a Human a "Meatbag", Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spike on more than one occasion referred to living humans as "walking Happy Meals." Glory has a tendency to actually refer to humans as 'meatbags'. as well as An additional variation which may or may not warrant its own subtrope involves vampires and similar creatures referring to humans derogatorily as a food source

It is a problem if a non-human character literally calling a human a "meatbag" would somehow not be an example of Call a Human a "Meatbag".

edited 4th Mar '12 7:39:30 AM by Spark9

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

Vampires are undead, so I dunno if they count as "organic".

Rhymes with "Protracted."