Rename (alt titles crowner 6/6): You Must Be This Tall To Enter

The name for this one is rather clunky, and doesn't really give much of an idea as to what the trope is about. For reference it is about points in video games where you need a certain item or skill to get past. While there doesn't seem to be much misuse, I suspect it is only because there isn't any use at all (14 wicks and 8 inbounds is far too little for such a ubiquitous trope).

So not only is the name not very indicative, it's totally Not Thriving. The article's old as August 2010 but has only a dozen actual wikilinks (the other two are indexes). All of which are from videogame articles save one, Characters.John Quest, though the Main article is a Roleplay the link itself has Zero Context.

edited 27th May '12 2:57:56 PM by Stratadrake

I see 2 different meanings:

• The one the trope is about.
• This: Kid wants to enter ride. Kid learns he's too short to go on ride. Kid tries to get on ride anyway. Could be under a different name, plus those signs are common on rides and are a stock plot.

Former is almost the same as Insurmountable Waist-High Fence, and maybe be a duplicate. Latter doesn't have an entry on this site.

I propose we merge the current trope into Insurmountable Waist-High Fence as best we can. Maybe some sort of Railroad Plot or the like.

With the current page, we transplant it into 'Kid is too young to do X / too short to ride Y'. If we already have this trope by a different name, we can either rename the current trope or cut this page.

Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence is about barriers in general. You may or may not be able to pass by them later. It's actually relatively rare for it to overlap with You Must Be This Tall to Enter—most of the time it's just impassable, period.

I would contend that Insurmountable Waist-High Fence is most frequently intended to be a permanent barrier, and thus not the same thing as You Must Be This Tall to Enter, which involves initially inaccessible areas that become accessible as the player acquires new capabilities. It's really a fairly common trope, especially in certain genres and [[Metroidvania subgenres]]. Maybe with a better name, the statistics would reflect that.

I think it's not exactly the same as Insurmountable Waist-High Fence. That trope is about things you absolutely cannot pass. This trope is about obstacles you need a specific power-up or item to pass. They're sufficently different.

That said, I think a rename may be in order due to its lack of use.

edited 27th May '12 3:43:15 PM by Feather7603

The former is any barrier that can't be crossed. The latter is any barrier that can't be crossed, without a Plot Coupon. What's so different between them?

Let's say you have a solid wall. It's smooth, so you can't climb it. It's also too tall to jump up on. It goes all around a tower you want to get into. That's not an Insurmountable Waist-High Fence. However, if there is a jump upgrade you can get so you can pass said wall, it's a clear case of You Must Be This Tall to Enter.

edited 27th May '12 3:47:32 PM by Feather7603

Start with the fact that one of them can be crossed and the other can't. Then move on to the fact that one of them is about a specific way to unlock the ability to cross it.

Well, it seems like there's a pretty clear consensus to at least rename this trope, if not necessarily merge into "This Tall to Enter". At the very least, to do something

Anyone want to put it to formal vote, or should we continue to discuss different alternatives for fixing this? It's clearly in Not Thriving territory, so I don't think doing nothing is a good idea.

edited 27th May '12 3:50:24 PM by DarkConfidant

Yeah, trope transplant. The current name should be something related to fun park rides.

Note, however, there is literally no wiki usage for it in that context. We'd normally be YKTTW'ing that, right?

I'll do the YKTTW myself. My current one (Rock of Limitless Water) is just about finished, having five hats and just needing maybe three to four more examples before I launch it.

I can easily take one more at this time.

Alright, here's the first draft of it here. I can't think of offhand examples, so I need youguys to help come up with them.

I was directed here, so here goes. I'd like this one renamed. The current title is unnecessarily long and violates the "no dialogue-like titles" rule. I'd propose Too Small To Ride.

I don't really see how this is different from Broken Bridge.

There are several similar tropes at work here:

Broken Bridge: something blocks you from proceeding for now.

You Must Be This Tall to Enter: Something blocks you from proceeding until you get the capability required to get past it.

Plot Lock: something blocks you from proceeding that you should logically be able to get past, but can't because the plot says so.

Cash Gate: something blocks you from proceeding until you have enough cash to get past it.

Beef Gate: a fight blocks you from proceeding until you can win it (legitimately or otherwise).

Judging by this, it would seem that Broken Bridge should be the supertrope for the others, all of which are already on This Index Is in the Way (along with various other tropes). This thread, however, is for dealing with this trope.

edited 28th May '12 3:13:50 PM by EnragedFilia

Well, I'm already making a trope (in YKTTW) to transplant for "Roller Coasters won't let kids ride on them until they're old/tall/large enough"

There is also Cardboard Obstacle, which right now is basically You Must Be This Tall to Enter Done Badly, although it has its own repair shop thread.

Can we do something about this soon? The YKTTW I'm doing is going to be ready for launch in just a few days, so I'd like to figure out what we're doing here sooner rather than later.

Apologies for seeming pushy about it, but there' not really been anything going on here in a couple of days.

The way I see it, we can either merge this into Insurmountable Waist-High Fence and Broken Bridge and the like, or rename it to something like Progress Based Gate, and keep it as is. Either way, we need to do something.

edited 31st May '12 7:53:44 PM by CompletelyNormalGuy

It shouldn't be merged with Insurmountable Waist-High Fence, since those are usually never passable. Broken Bridge might be an appropriate merge, though.

And if kept, the name needs to change. It's completely unintuitive.

I don't mind the analogy in the current title, but I'm thinking a name like You Must Be This Far In The Game To Enter would work better.

Also, I feel like we should split off more subtropes along the lines of You Have to Burn the Web.

So, something like "merge the relevant examples into Broken Bridge. Then, see if any particular subtropes stand out. If so, spin them off."