Split: Total Eclipse Of The Plot

There appears to be two tropes in Total Eclipse of the Plot.

Unrealistic Eclipse - An eclipse that lasts longer than a real eclipse, can be viewed from multiple geographic locations and still be a total eclipse, or otherwise unrealistic eclipse behavior.

Race Against The Eclipse - An eclipse where the characters must accomplish something before the eclipse is over. May or may not be realistically portrayed.

The second is really close to Race Against the Clock. I'm not sure it needs to be its own trope, but if it is it really doesn't belong smooshed in here.

edited 13th Feb '12 2:37:48 PM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

The description does read like 2 different tropes smoshed together.

How about this for a solution: Make an "Eclipse" section in the examples for Artistic License - Astronomy, and put all the "Unrealistic Eclipse" examples there. Then put all the rest in When the Planets Align (which this trope is a subtrope of already) or Celestial Deadline if that's more appropriate.

I think our goal with the Artistic License tropes is the opposite—we want to identify commonly-reoccurring subtropes and give them their own separate trope pages.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Well, Artistic License - Astronomy is supposed to be a catching ground for new tropes, not a trope itself. If it has enough examples to be a trope, it's supposed to be moved off that page onto its own.

However, I'm uncertain there are enough examples of just an "unrealistic eclipse" on its own. Checking now.

EDIT: Ninjas! Ninjas everywhere!

EDIT EDIT: Oh, hey, there's a third trope in the examples: Eclipse marks important, usually supernatural event. So three tropes in one.

Total Eclipse of the Plot sounds more like the third trope to me - eclipse marks important plot event and is maybe supernatural.

The first could be Unnatural Eclipse or Eclipse Of Physics or something.

The second does seem surprising common ("deadline is an eclipse or end of an eclipse"), but I'm not convinced it's common enough to be its own trope.

EDIT EDIT EDIT: There are approximately a dozen examples of "unrealistic eclipse". There are a bunch of examples of "an eclipse happened", which isn't a trope.

edited 13th Feb '12 3:54:40 PM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

How about "Eclipse signifies [insert plot event here]. The eclipse may be weird as well."

edited 13th Feb '12 3:55:29 PM by Ekuran

edit: ignore me.

edited 13th Feb '12 5:39:44 PM by abk0100

This is what I assumed the trope was without actually opening the page. Do we have a page for this?

According to the first 2 sentences, of the description, that's what Total Eclipse of the Plot is.

What if we do 2 tropes, Artistic License Eclipses (or whatever it would be named) and then leave Total Eclipse of the Plot for being about important, dramatic, sometimes magical eclipses.

edited 13th Feb '12 7:43:58 PM by abk0100

That was my suggestion. :P

Are we generally agreeing that Race Against The Eclipse is too specific to be a trope? The examples can be moved to Race Against the Clock, if they aren't already there.

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

I see no need to split this trope. Total Eclipse of the Plot can function perfectly fine as an overall trope for the use of eclipses as storytelling devices in fiction. One could note in the definition that eclipses often aren't rendered accurately, and, within the list of examples, note those which show signs of You Fail Astronomy Forever.

And whatever decision is reached, Race Against The Eclipse is definitely too narrow to merit its own page.

edited 13th Feb '12 7:52:48 PM by Vidor

It just seems wrong to have such a common Artistic License - Astronomy trope not included under it.

what about if the 2 tropes are "inaccurate eclipse" and "magical eclipse." I think everything that's left would fit on Celestial Deadline.

Edit: I'm going to move everything to Celestial Deadline that fits there. The distinction seems kind of confusing.

...or not, because it's way too confusing to figure out.

edited 13th Feb '12 8:21:00 PM by abk0100

Eclipses are often used in fiction as plot devices of various sorts. Sometimes they are portrayed accurately and sometimes they aren't. Why do we need two separate tropes for that? The intro as currently composed seems to sum up the use of eclipses in fiction pretty accurately, other than failing to mention that total eclipses of the moon actually last for quite a bit longer than solar eclipses. Not that lunar eclipses are used very much in fiction.

Celestial Deadline is not the trope people are thinking it is. It's about magical deadlines, specifically.

"All eclipses in fiction" is not a trope, and "all the ways eclipses are used in fiction" is too broad to be a trope, especially when those ways aren't even spelled out, leading to a list of the former instead of something meaningful.

Furthermore, many of the examples are either focusing more on the "unrealistic" aspect far more than the "plot important" aspect, some are only about the "unrealistic" aspect, and some just seem to be "an eclipse happened."

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

We also need to compare this against Convenient Eclipse, which I can't figure out.

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

Convenient Eclipse needs a separate TRS. As near as I can figure, it's "an improbable but not impossible event happens to be scheduled for today, resolving a problem". An eclipse is only one possible event that could happen.

Bad name, bad description, and bad examples. Bleh, that trope needs a lot of help.

edited 14th Feb '12 10:14:28 AM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

Yeah, the to-do note I made for it essentially boiled down to "egad".

edited 14th Feb '12 10:33:56 AM by Stratadrake

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

• "All eclipses in fiction" is not a trope, and "all the ways eclipses are used in fiction" is too broad to be a trope****

Well, saying it does not make it so. Especially since, as the trope as defined already points out, and folks in this thread have pointed out, eclipses are generally used to punctuate dramatic events, to add an air of the supernatural or mystic, or in a Race Against The Clock scenario. And it would not seem like an overly broad trope, since the list of examples isn't all that long.

To me this really seems like fixing something that isn't broken.