At least, it appears misused. The definition is so vague it could be anything. The descriptions are all going for this horoscope/Sigmund Freud shtick and it disguises the meaning of the trope. It seems like in any work where there are three or more characters, someone will attempt to tack on one of these meanings. And, strangely enough, even though it's vague, it's also rather specific. It describes specific motivations and feelings about The Hunter's situation, but at the same time doesn't make it clear exactly what sort of situation he's supposed to be in.

Looking at the examples, there doesn't seem to be any sort of agreed upon trait except age. I also don't see too much of a connection between any of these—whereas with the Eve trope, the three are commonly found ways of "representing" women, this can't be said of this trope. The Three Faces of Eve has a bit more clear of a definition, but it's misused the same way: if you can shoehorn a child, mother, and seductress in, goshdarnit, you will!

I'm pretty sure that the The Three Faces of Adam page was made in a misguided attempt to solve the problem of shoehorned "male examples" in Three Faces Of Eve. I don't think that there's really a trope here. And looking at the discussion page, I see the same belief, coming from a number of different tropers.

edited 24th Jan '12 6:32:36 AM by Madrugada

Yeah...the only "masculine" tropes I can think of is the Freudian Trio. And even then, it's not limited to men.

Cut?

And speaking of trios...it seems like the Power Trio tropes are experiencing a lot of misuse with people shoehorning in any three people they can possibly fit. I'm not even sure Knight, Knave and Squire is a trope.

edited 24th Jan '12 2:44:04 PM by helterskelter

The Three Faces of Adam is the Spear Counterpart to The Hecate Sisters. There is no Spear Counterpart to The Three Faces of Eve. Although I do think that it's a valid trope, just that perhaps the description may need some tweaking and possibly dropping "the three faces" part of the title it doesn't get confused with The Three Faces of Eve.

edited 24th Jan '12 6:18:54 PM by shiro_okami

Still, there doesn't seem to be much of a trope here. Reading the description for The Hecate Sisters, Three Faces Of Eve, or Beauty, Brains, and Brawn, I can immediately think of examples. Reading this, I just think "huh?".

edited 25th Jan '12 1:09:47 PM by petrie911

The name "three faces" could be tweaked to something more like "three phases". The trope is valid. The youthful, naive phase of life is governed by the pursuit of passions. Aspirations of "what I will be when I grow up" and "where I will find romance" run wild in this phase of life. It is the phase of seeking adventure and romance. Then as life goes on, the mind, consiously or subconsiously, submits to the ways of the world, partially or entirely. This is what separates the rougish shonen characters who break all the limits and the more beleivable characters who have to play by the rules of the world. Since the mind has subscribed to some truths or others, it is possible to become biased and possibly evil. As life coninues, and assuming the moral event horizon has not been crossed, retribution may come as wisdom is attained. Thus the third phase is embraced. Patience and humility would traditionally be attributed with wisdom, but a believable character has not "seen it all" and may be stubborn (like the crone).

So yes, this trope is comparable to the Hecate sisters instead of the three faces of Eve. It could use renaming, but it is a valid trope.

That doesn't seem like a gender-exclusive trope, though. It honestly doesn't seem exactly like a trope, either. It seems like three different (possibly existing) tropes, mashed into one.

The thing about the Three Faces Of Eve and The Hecate Sisters is that triad is commonly occurring paradigm often represented and also acknowledge in folklore and literature, whereas your proposed trope is, yes, talking about traits commonly displayed at certain ages, but there doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason for grouping them all together. It seems to me I could make a similar trope about of a number of different qualities any three, differently-aged people might have.

edited 1st Feb '12 10:18:18 AM by helterskelter

Reading the examples, I see this as more of a collection of three people than a specific trope. Lots of shoehorning.

Still, it is a trio of archetypes who fit well together in a story, much like The Three Faces of Eve.

The Three Faces of Eve is a specific triad that is often used and represented, though. These three individual people have these specific personality traits (in fact, there's a number of examples there where these traits are from some sort of multiple personality disorder or magical personality switch or something). As best I can tell, there's no particular pattern with these three. You could replace one of those traits with something else and it would be just as viable.

That's more or less what I said. Well, I said a lot less.

Well, I took you saying "Still, it is a trio..." as defending the existence. As far as I'm concerned, Eve trio has a reason to exist through pattern and acknowledgement in folklore and literature. The Adam one doesn't.

If The Three Faces of Adam is to remain a trope it needs a new title to separate it from The Three Faces of Eve as the first is about the stages in a man's life and the second is like Light Feminine and Dark Feminine and one in the middle.

Also (or added into it) there should be a trope for the feminine counterpart (not The Hecate Sisters), like from Gilmore Girls there's the hunter Rory, who harbours a long-held dream to study at Harvard University and become a journalist, The Lord Lorelai who's the mother of Rory and executive manager of the Independence Inn, and The Prophet Emily Gilmore who invests in Rory's education and seeks to bring her into their lifestyle.

edited 3rd Feb '12 12:25:03 AM by atheywa

Good point. Although, come to think of it, the reason why it's not a counterpoint to The Hecate Sisters is because it's NOT about the phases of a man's life, or at least not in the same way The Hecate Sisters is; some of the examples don't have anything to do with age. The Spear Counterpart of The Hecate Sisters would be probably something like Bachelor, Father, Old Man. If anything, The Three Faces of Adam is more about roles in a story and could be considered as a unisex trope.

edited 6th Feb '12 5:24:39 PM by shiro_okami

So should something feminine like Gilmore Girls be added on to The Three Faces of Adam?

Again, I think we're making a trope where there is none. You are essentially selecting three random, popular archetypes and putting them together and calling it a trope. You could do that with anything. There's needs to be evidence of this being a particular trio that is popular, the way the Eve and Hecate tropes are.

Maybe there is no trope here. The question is can we take the general trope description and come up with at least three examples (of either gender I say) that we can tie together by their explanations. I do agree that there is a lot of shoehorning, even when the example is explained.

I don't think that there is a trope here. I think this was made because someone decided that there needed to be a male version of Three Faces Of Eve/The Hecate Sisters so they could add their favorite work. There's no indication that it was ever YKTTW'd, which only increases my suspicions about its origins.

And if you look at the discussion page, virtually all of the discussion is the same thing: "Is this even a trope?"

edited 7th Feb '12 7:05:04 PM by Madrugada

Okay I checked. It did have a YKTTW. There was four examples with no description for any of them. There were no replies but it was launched anyway. I want to give it a chance by sending it back. If it doesn't accumulate examples with explanation that fits the idea then it should be cut.

I don't see a reason to send it back. I don't see a trope there.

edited 7th Feb '12 9:55:59 PM by Madrugada

Made a crowner; feel free to add to it.

I understand your options and respect them but I don't think it would hurt anything. Am I allowed to make a few little changes and send it back? If no one adds anything that fits then I won't post it.

It's not actually that it needs more examples. I haven't found a single one currently listed that works.

edited 9th Feb '12 4:10:17 PM by atheywa

Bump

You know, I never could understand what the holy hell this was supposed to describe. It seems like you could simplify all these tropes (The Three Faces of Eve, The Hecate Sisters) into either three phases of life (child, adult, elderly) or three worldviews (naive, hardened and tempered, bitter and cynical). Perhaps there are two simple tropes here, and we're making the concepts more complicated than they need to be? I'm don't know much on the subject, I'm just thinking out loud.

edited 24th Feb '12 2:03:43 PM by Robotnik

Well, as neither of those proposed trios has anything to do with The Three Faces of Eve, I would say, no, you can't.

The Hecate Sisters and well as the hunter, lord, and prophet, can be child, adult, and elderly but The Three Faces of Eve is not. It's more like Miss, Mrs, and Ms. The three world views you describe are more The Hecate Sisters than anything else. By two simple tropes you mean age and world views?