Duplicate Trope: Discredited Trope

What is the difference between a Discredited Trope and an Undead Horse Trope? If the difference is that a Discredited Trope is evolving into a Dead Horse Trope while an Undead Horse Trope is stable then that should be made clearer.

The way I'd say:

• Discredited Trope: The trope is considered a tired cliché, or made obsolete by advances in science or society, but may on occasion still be used. This is when subversions become more popular.
• Dead Horse Trope: The trope isn't used anymore, and even subversions are sparse, or have evolved into their own tropes.
• Undead Horse Trope: The trope is generally but not completely discredited, mocked, or subverted, but still sees a fair amount of straight use in new works, and just refuses to die. This usually means it's effective at what it aims to accomplish.

The differences are enough, though actually classifying where the tropes fit can be harder. I see a greater similarity between Discredited Trope and Dead Horse Trope than either with Undead Horse Trope, though.

edited 22nd May '12 7:34:56 PM by Feather7603

I see no good reason to call this a duplicate.

It seems like a lot of people misunderstand Undead Horse Trope. Is the description not clear for some reason?

A good example is the Big "NO!". Due to it being a massive source of Narm, it gets endlessly mocked and parodied, but good actors can (and do) still pull it off effectively. It's not going to die anytime soon, and it still get used strait along with the subversions and parodies.

edited 21st May '12 4:32:11 PM by TropeEater

Do you mean that an Undead Horse Trope is less discredited than a Discredited Trope? Can we rename them to clarify the scale?

These are way too established to rename. I can see there are problems, though. Check out the retirony article. A sentence which seems to refers to a dead horse trope is potholed to undead horse instead.

It seems to me that we may have one too many tropes here. It's the kind of situation where the distinctions between the three tropes are so fine as to elude the average troper, so you often wind up with people putting the exact same examples into each trope.

When I see that phenomenon happening, I always think either there's one trope too many, or the trope descriptions need a really good rewrite for clarity.

I agree. There are some other Playing With variations that I personally feel are nearly duplicates of each other...

Here's how I read them:

Discredited Trope: You play this trope straight poorly and the audience sighs "so lame." If you play it straight very very well the audience goes, "cliche, but well done." You subvert it or twist it and the audience goes "Oh... nice twist."

Dead Horse Trope: You play this trope straight poorly and the audience gags, and changes the channel. If you play it straight very very well the audience sighs, and declares a Discontinuity. You subvert it or twist it and the audience goes "Okay, at least they didn't play it straight"

Maybe we should rename Discredited Trope to Lame Horse Trope to match the format of the other trope pages. That way it's clearer the difference as well. A Discredited Trope still has a little life in it, and if you beat it enough you can still get something from it (unless that just causes it to keel over and die).

They seem distinct to me. They might just need clearer and shorter descriptions.

@6: Yes, more or less. An Undead Horse Trope is one that manages to be both tired and clichéd, as well as popular and useful. Sort of like a Discredited Trope that just won't get less popular, since people still think it's a good trope. Well, maybe a little, but not much.

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