Well, he is now. (Trope Namer will no longer be an example.): I Am Not Shazam

The thing is that the Trope Namer is not really doing anything that harms the trope. You can get the meaning "People call me X when that's not my name", with X being Shazam, Frankenstein, Peter, John, enter whatever you want. But I think that a strange word like Shazam is one of the best alternatives. The guy is named Shazam now? What does it matter to the title? "It will cause confusion", you say, but that's why we have an explanation in the definition about him having his name changed.

Now, on the other hand there is misuse. That's a better reason to rename, but I don't buy the "there might be misuse someday" reason, or the "the Trope Namer helps getting the purpose of the trope but it doesn't anymore" explanation. Shazam right now is a placeholder, one that I find better than almost any other for two reasons: it's a strange word that catches the eye and it's been an example for 70 years.

If we're gonna rename let's do it for better reasons than the ones exposed before the misuse checks.

Again, those were NOT my words. I said that the present-day status of the trope namer already does make things needlessly more confusing than they should be.

"The trope is named for a character not named Shazam, except he is named Shazam," is a terrible state for a trope namer, one that could easily be avoided and rectified if the title of the article is changed to one that has nothing to do with the name Shazam.

edited 4th Feb '12 5:23:03 AM by SeanMurrayI

Right, ignore where I talk about the function of "Shazam" in the title. I love when people just answer to one of my lines ignoring the rest of the post. It makes me feel that I write for the walls to read, instead of people.

Because your talk on function of "Shazam" in the title is irrelevant and based on your personal opinion; it wouldn't carry objective weight.

Your position is dependent on everyone already knowing as much as what you've already stated about the character before coming across the trope title (unlikely) and associating "Shazam" with a previous 70 years of comic history when it could mean something completely different (with the character's name now actually being Shazam and all) to anyone who chooses to interpret the title's meaning based on more recent events and not take into account a comic's full history. Your defense on these lines is flawed.

edited 4th Feb '12 6:39:41 AM by SeanMurrayI

"You can get the meaning "People call me X when that's not my name", with X being Shazam, Frankenstein, Peter, John, enter whatever you want. Shazam right now is a placeholder".

Said by me. But you prefer not to adress those lines, instead just saying that it's my opinion. Are you claiming that you can't get the meaning I said before with the current name?

Now, Shazam can work as well as any other name you want to put in that place. In my opinion better for the reasons that I stated, yeah, but that doesn't change that the current name is clear enough to an average person, who will probably never heard about the hero. And for those who do know him we already addressed the problem by explaining it very clearly in the definition and in the image.

I don't agree with your opinion about "it's confusing", because you are assuming that Captain Marvel is as well known as Superman and therefore almost no one will understand the trope because of the new name. And you claim that his present status erases all his history being called by another name and therefore will confuse people even more. Ignoring at the same time everyone who does know the character, of course. Well, if my claims are just opinions then yours are the same.

On the other hand there is misuse, which IS an actual reason to rename and one I support. But renaming a trope because of "potential misuse", which is what your argument boils down to, is ridiculous and I refuse to having it as a precedent for everyone who wants to rename anything.

EDIT: And there's also the fact that they already tried to rename him back in 2006 and DIDN'T work. But that doesn't count to you, I guess.

edited 4th Feb '12 7:35:44 AM by DrMcNinja

Yeah, for all we know, the character will be un-renamed in the next retcon cycle. As I said on the first page, this trope should not be renamed in response to whatever DC is trying to pull this time.

The whole Frankenstein thing has its own problems. The monster is Victor's 'son' in some sense, so couldn't you say he is Frankenstein? Plus, he's now a public domain character who is referred to as Frankenstein in many of his appearances. So isn't he, in several ways, named Frankenstein just as much as Captain Marvel is (potentially) named Shazam?

Yeah, it's a whole 'nother can of worms, but calling the monster "Frankenstein" isn't totally out of whack. Dr. Frankenstein is often referred to as the creature's metaphorical "father," and at least in the Mitteleuropan culture that they were part of, sons inherit the surname of their father.

I agree that the need for a rename is questionable, and questionable renames are bad ones... but "he's now a public domain character who is referred to as Frankenstein in many of his appearances" is not a good argument against it, the fact that the monster is actually named Frankenstein in some adaptations is stronger evidence that the trope applies, and is indirect support that would be a good name. The title of Mary Shelley's book definitely refers to the human mad scientist.

edited 4th Feb '12 3:15:04 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Strongly voting against a name change.

Captain Marvel is one of the best examples of this trope, and the fact that DC is trying to rename him only proves that.

There is enough misuse to justify a rename.

And I am pretty sure that the name is a reason for this misuse. Mostly people understood that the trope is about name confusion, but fail at understanding what confusion is meant.

Shazam is not well kown enough to clarify this point. Frankenstein is a bit better. But I think a name without reference to a specific work would work the best.

Titel Protagonist Confusion?

This name confused me a lot when I first saw it, but I assume I'm in the minority here.

However, instead of a rename, I propose we merge this with Protagonist Title Fallacy, making Protagonist Title Fallacy the main name. There seems to exist little distinction between the two tropes, and examples tend to overlap a lot. Just the other day, there was an argument about whether The Legend Of Zelda falls under PTF or I Am Not Shazam.

That article seems like a really egregious example of The Same But More Specific.

It really should be "confusion between the title of the work and the name of any character in the work".

edited 4th Feb '12 3:51:17 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Exactly. But I think it has the better and clearer name, and therefore we should merge them.

edited 4th Feb '12 3:52:45 PM by lu127

There is a difference between this tropes PTF is when people assume a minor character to be the main character because the show is named after them. The proper name is given to the right people.

IANS is when people belive that the main charcters name is in the works title.

The Legend of Zelda is IANS, people don't think the princess is the protagonist, they think the protagonist is named Zelda.

...That distinction is so insignificant it hurts. Not to mention that we have Secondary Character Title for when a work is named after a minor character. This is unnecessarily specific, or even The Same But More. There would be no harm in merging the two, and I don't see why they merit separate tropes.

edited 4th Feb '12 4:04:35 PM by lu127

There is a clear difference between beliving this little man in green is named Zelda, or the main protagonist something completly differet.

I think the difference is dramatically exaggerated by the phrasing of that sentence.

??? Please explain what is wrong with this sentence.

I meant the phrasing accentuates the difference, but it could easily instead accentuate the similarity; a better choice of phrasing wouldn't do either. But: Oh wait! I misunderstood... thought one was "title of work is confused for name of protagonist" and the other was "title of work is confused for name of supporting character" (which is too fine a distinction I think). You are saying one trope is about confusion over the name of the protagonist (based on title), and the other trope is about confusion over which character is the protagonist (based on title)? Hm. That is extremely unclear.

edited 4th Feb '12 4:59:11 PM by rodneyAnonymous

I support a merge into PTF.

I think the current name is fine, and works just as well as Frankenstein does (because the same thing that is true with Captain Marvel recently has been true for Frankenstein for decades). If a troper doesn't read a description and misuses the trope, then the fault is with the troper, not the name.

As for the other names suggested, they either do a worse job at explaining what this trope is about, or in the case of "I am not Frankenstien" can suffer the same misues (for example, I could look at that and interpret that as a varaiant of That Man Is Dead, or think that it's when someone denies their own identity because of their greatest failure, or when someone in story is mistaken for someone else).

It doesn't bode well that this entire TRS was started when the original troper saw that DC was changing Captain Marvel's name and nothing else.

I like I Am Not Frankenstein better, but it's still a dialogue-like title which is still no good.

true, the TRS was started for a lousy reason, but along the way, some legitimate reasons to change the name came up. I think the current name stinks of Fan Myopia, which will probably stay true if we keep it named after a character.

I don't think Frankenstein is Fan Myopia, though. It's one of the most famous monsters in fiction, period.

Which ironically makes it a horrible replacement name; he's so famous people who don't read the trope descriptions could get the trope wrong even more. At least with Shazam he's not as popular, so it's harder to have misconceptions about what the trope is about.