Rename needed for practical reasons: Was Once A Man

On the The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim character page, this trope was added in regards to a female antagonist. The entry basically looked like:

• Was Once a Man: It's speculated in-game that Potema has become... something else since her death. She's certainly no mere ghost.

Which is the trope used correctly. However, as pointed bout by Asgar when s/he edited the page, it sounds...very unfortunate when used in context with a female character.

Should we rename this one to something like: Was Once A Human?

edited 19th Feb '12 8:27:38 AM by KingZeal

(insert First Law of Gender Bending joke here)

Can we get a Wick Check first? I'm scanning some right now but so far, the big picture looks spot on.

edited 19th Feb '12 9:07:31 AM by Stratadrake

Misuse isn't really the issue here, though. Like I said, the example in use was perfect.

The problem is that any female examples of the trope will have either rely on an alternate title or a redirect. In fact, there seem to be hardly ANY female examples, possibly for that very reason.

edited 19th Feb '12 9:05:32 AM by KingZeal

Then for "practical reasons" it's not a problem that a Distaff Counterpart redirect cannot fix.

However, I am picking up some minor vibes where the trope is getting linked literally — a character struck by a Baleful Polymorph generally doesn't qualify as Was Once a Man because it lacks the horror/reveal aspect of the trope. Likewise, zombies generally don't count as Was Once a Man because it's ... rather obvious what and who they used to be.

edited 19th Feb '12 9:13:19 AM by Stratadrake

Right, and a redirect doesn't fix the problem I was describing. The entry itself would still sound like a Gender Bender.

edited 19th Feb '12 9:15:37 AM by KingZeal

May I suggest Was Once Of Man?

Then rewrite the example to remove the ambiguity.

Doesn't that presume that every person who sees the entry will know that? Wouldn't it make sense to avoid someone unfamiliar with the trope from being confused?

• New Troper: "Was Once A Man? Oh! I know a character that perfectly fits that!"
• Adds entry: "Captain Boobs used to be Captain Scrotum before the Noodle Incident."
• Second New Troper: "Oh, I know a character like that..."

And so on, and so on...

I'm still not finding any of that in the related pages.

Got it. Well, close this I suppose.

Oh, not just yet. I am finding a few cases of Was Once a Man being used literally when the given context lacks one or more ingredients of the trope:

• A horrible creature or monster,
• is later (and/or posthumously) revealed or implied to have been previously human,
• Which makes it even scarier.

I am finding a few things (see post 4) that are missing #1 or #3. So a bit of cleanup is needed, nothing major.

edited 19th Feb '12 10:33:58 AM by Stratadrake