Hmm. At the present, the distinction made between the Gilded Cage and the Luxury Prison Suite is that A happens to innocents and heroes and B happens to villains.
It'd probably be easier to rework Gilded Cage to be the metaphorical version, referencing the stock phrase "like a bird in a gilded cage" and the supposed situation wherein famous people feel trapped in their luxurious surroundings by their hordes of rabid fans. And then expand Luxury Prison Suite to cover all instances of involuntary confinement in luxurious or comfortable living quarters, regardless of to whom they occur.
Oh, and I'd disagree on the Flushed Away thing - making the cage or the chains out of precious metals should be considered an invocation of the trope. "Shackles of gold are still shackles." After all, we derive the whole idea of the gilded cage from exactly that, prettifying the cage of a songbird to draw our attention away from the cage. That specific example isn't the best, though.
edited 16th Apr '12 6:24:09 AM by troublegum
The Other Troper
"making the cage or the chains out of precious metals should be considered an invocation of the trope"
1. That's a misuse of Invoked Trope. Someone would have to try to get locked up in a nice prison to count as invoking.
2. The make of the prison doesn't make it nice to live in if it's otherwise a normal prison.
I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.
Sorry, I was using invocation in it's general english use meaning, rather than the definition of Invoked Trope. I.e, invoke; to reference or cite, to call upon. Evocation or Lampshaded, if you prefer.
It's a literal gilded cage. The whole point of having such a thing is call attention to it and make your audience think of the trope of the luxurious prison being still a prison. If, in a work, the imprisoner has gone to the effort of gold-plating the cage or the chains, then that's definitely playing on the concept of the Gilded Cage.
Tweety Pie singing "I'm only a bird in a gilded cage,", Cacofonix singing "I'm only a bard in a gilded cage" in Asterix The Gladiator, the M:TG enchantment "Shackles" (card qoute: shackles of gold are still shackles); they're all drawing from the same reference pool as Dr. No's actually luxurious prison - the idea that making the prison seem less of one with artificial luxury disguises it's true nature.
The Other Troper
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
But just making it out of gold when it looks like a prison is not this trope if it otherwise is clearly a prison.
Plus just calling the cage gilded doesn't make either trope. Name dropping a term is Discussed Trope at best.
I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.
Either way, I'd still say that it would be better to rework Luxury Prison Suite to not be exclusive to villains and leave Gilded Cage for metaphorically being trapped in luxury. There's no particularly compelling reason, to my mind, to divide the luxurious imprisonment industry into those for villains and those for innocents / heroes.
edited 19th Apr '12 8:46:14 AM by troublegum
Ravenous Sophovore
Clocking due to lack of activity.
Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.
I think Luxury Prison Suite looks narrower than it really is because of the Example as a Thesis. It's not actually restricted to villains.
Rhymes with "Protracted."
No, they're two different tropes. Gilded Cage is confining someone in a deliberately unprisonlike environment. Luxury Prison Suite is when someone in an actual prison uses connections to buy himself extravagant comforts.
Yeah, Gilded Cage is metaphorical and Luxury Prison Suite is literal. But there's no villain-only restriction.
Rhymes with "Protracted."
Ravenous Sophovore
So what are we doing here?
Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.
I rewrote the "Compare" line on Luxury Prison Suite to reflect my understanding of the difference. I hope it helps reduce confusion.
Ravenous Sophovore
Looks like this is done. Locking up.
Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.
First of all, the self demonstrating article gets in the way of the information.
Second of all, the term outside this wiki often means a metaphorical prison even though it's a lovely one (a form of Implicit Prison), and yes there is a difference, even if they are often treated the same. For one thing, the "escape" for the metaphorical prison is treated as a lot easier, and being outside is a lot harder due to being Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense (what happened with Jasmine in Aladdin).
Third of all, the above point means this is effectively two tropes in one, metaphorical prisons and literal ones. So I propose splitting, with the name referring to the metaphorical one, and a new name for a literal prison. But the latter would still have to be distinct from Luxury Prison Suite (which so far doesn't seem to have much misuse, so that's fine).
Fourth of all, posting a wick check just for completeness (30 out of 159 wicks, and 39 inbounds):
Actual Prison
Metaphorical Prison
Misuse
Not Sure
- Adult Fear
- Chronicles of Chaos
- Clover
- Characters.Dragon Quest V
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: This is a tough call, since Rapunzel was kidnapped, but she wasn't told that she was actually a prisoner, so it's actually both tropes, one for the reality, and one for how Rapunzel sees it.
- Fly Tales
- Just Between You and Me
I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.