Duplicate Trope: Riddle Of The Sphinx

But the second riddle ("There are two sisters") is extremely obscure and has no representations is other fiction that I have ever seen. I don't think it deserves equal billing, maybe a mention on Riddle of the Sphinx.

"Any works called Riddle of the Sphinx are named after this trope, not the other way around" is incorrect. The game Riddle of the Sphinx is based on the Sphinx of Giza (the huge building in Egypt), not on the "four legs" riddle.

Okay, to recap, the name "Riddle of the Sphinx"

(1) shares the title with a work that is NOT named after this trope (but after the Sphinx of Giza).

(2) does not automatically refer to the "four legs" riddle in classic mythology, since the myth has two riddles.

(3) does not automatically refer to the "four legs" riddle in pop culture, since there are dozens of sphinx stories featuring other riddles.

(4) is used in archaeology to refer to the question "who built the Sphinx of Giza".

edited 14th Mar '12 12:48:00 PM by Spark9

So...

What's your proposed solution?

Rename that trope. It's not indicative.

To what?

Well we can discuss that of course. But the current name doesn't work.

Then again, why make a trope about one specific riddle anyway?

EDIT: Okay, if it's common enough, that could be enough reason.

edited 14th Mar '12 2:41:24 PM by DragonQuestZ

The second riddle never developed into a trope because it was lost in translation and never caught on. Other riddles aren't tropes because they don't reoccur; they're just Riddle Me This. The daily-leg-schedule riddle is a trope—there are lots of examples to prove it—and it is linked to the Sphinx in popular culture—there are plenty of lampshaded examples to prove that as well. And that archaeologist quote is clearly building off of the Riddling Sphinx trope—it's not breaking that association. So the arguments in [1] are not very strong.

"quite clearly building off" is an assumption.

A fair assumption.

Fair? Where's the evidence that is what they mean. That's not being fair. That's being weaselly, as it's just going "Well this statement they are making, that is unlike the trope, has to be based off the trope anyway. That way I can magically discount it as an argument against the name based solely off this claim, just because I said so."

I mean if we're having some kind of competitive debate, then no, we can't prove any connection. But if we just answer the question honestly, then yeah, we all know there's a connection. Archaeologists don't call the question of the monument's history "The Riddle of the Sphinx" apropos of nothing. That would be dumb because it's not actually a riddle at all. A mystery, possibly even wrapped in an enigma, but not a riddle. You wouldn't call an unknown origin of a structure a riddle. English doesn't work that way. The title only makes sense as a Shout-Out.

It's like how there are 500 unrelated travel articles out there that take the form Have X Will Travel. All are based on the phrase "Have Gun Will Travel," or they wouldn't exist.

Calling after a riddle is not the same as calling it after the trope in question.

The title is problematic... but I honestly can't think of a better title. Something like "Legs of Man Riddle" would be clearer, but is awkward and doesn't sound like it's actually about anything without the description.

The Answer Is Man?

Single prop hooked as requested.

Crowner called. Lack of consensus to rename.

Only thing that really needs to be done is tranfering the bad examples to Riddling Sphinx.

Clocking due to lack of activity.

This thread's clock has expired, and the crowner has shown lack of consensus to rename. Is there anything left to do here?

I don't think so.