Not Tropeworthy: Ambiguously Brown

I did my best to take out the bad examples.

Now, I'm actually considering making a separate trope for when characters in-universe don't know someone's race. I see that many of the examples on the page are of this type, and I personally believe that's a separable concept from Ambiguously Brown.

Wouldn't it be a case of Invoked Trope, or something like that?

And I suppose this would be covered by a different trope, then?

Actually, the reason I'm leaning towards making a trope for that is because Ambiguously Brown serves a purely aesthetic purpose, while characters not knowing the nationality of a character serves a narrative purpose.

The trope description definitely gonna need more than just a list of what it's not.

It's a list of what it's not because this trope is defined by what it's not. That's why it's called Ambiguously Brown.

I changed the first part a bit to remove the references to animation (since it doesn't seem to be a central part of the trope) and make sure that it's defined right at the start of the page.

Also, shouldn't we put the "checklist" in comments, so that people reading-but-not-editing the page don't have to see it?

We'll only comment it out once misuse dies down. Currently it needs to be at this level of visibility. Also, it's a good sum-up for those who are reading anyway.

Even if you are not an editor it helps to have such definitive guidelines to show what does and does not count as the trope. Now there is a difference between that and the taboo against notices that explicitly say "There has been significant misuse of this trope so for editors remember..." because it draws you into the wiki politics rather than keeping it about the trope.

With only a little rewriting you can remove the current "subject to misuse" line and everything works fine... which I think I will go ahead and do.

edited 16th Dec '12 6:41:38 PM by KJMackley

Because Ambiguously Brown only covers non-white characters, I looked around for a trope about ambiguously white characters, and found Non-Specifically Foreign. That trope contrasts itself with But Not Too Foreign, a trope for characters who are part native, part foreign.

I would like to declare that Ambiguously Brown is a subtrope of Non-Specifically Foreign. Am I correct?

You are incorrect. It is a sister trope. Non-Specifically Foreign requires that the character be foreign. If the work is set somewhere that the Ambiguously Brown person is from, they aren't foreign.

edited 19th Dec '12 10:15:04 PM by shimaspawn