Alt Titles (24/9/12): Where Is Deado

This article is old enough to have an archived discussion, but it has only 5 wicks and 1 inbound. Since Everything's Worse with dialog trope names, I'd not be surprised if the name plays a role.

It's also a bit unclear what this trope or Audience Reaction is. A form of audience participation in a whodunnit?

Rename, cut or do nothing are the options. Opinions?

I'm not a fan of the genre - is that really what they call it? I would have named this Spot The Future Murder Victim, but I bet that would get a bunch of complaints about being too dull.

One question - how often does this happen in a work itself? Since it's something the audience does, I'd throw it under Fanspeak or the like.

Spot the Victim doesn't sound too bad

Support Spot the Victim. Also, this "game" or so is played by the audience, right?

and : I agree.

It's a game played by the audience, but the writers can participate too if they want, by throwing in red-herrings and trying to subvert the viewer's expectations.

Seems like something you'd find in a mystery novel- 'can you guess who will be killed next?" The author usually sets it up that way since it's more fun that way

I'm not sure how this is a trope. It's not even a reaction, really. It's... something an audience does?

Spot the Victim may help in making the trope more popular.

If the writer is deliberately playing with peoples expectations as to who will be the victim, then that surely is a trope?

Does that happen (much)? I'm not sure what it would look like. Can you give a few examples?

I mean, the vast majority of murder mysteries open with the murder in progress or already done. Unless we're talking about a story where the body count keeps going up and we're guessing who'll get offed next?

I would object to the idea that most mysteries start with the murder having already happened. There is a huge section of mysteries that start by introducing a set of characters, puting them together in a Closed Circle, and then having one of them end up being killed by another person. The classic example is a group of characters that are at a dinner party, and a chapter or two in, one of them suddenly drops dead. Agatha Christie is famous for these types of stories, where all the players, including the victim to be, and the murderer to be, are alive and given a thorough introduction before the murder takes place. Detective Conan does that sort of thing a lot too.

Therefore, during such a setup, the audience member will probably probably be asking himself not just who the murder is, but who will be the murder victim.

However... as the trope is written right now, not only does it have a confusing name, but it just really isn't something that inspires a lot of use, as what it describes is not an objective thing that can be pointed to in a story, but a personal audience reaction that lacks the punch of "tropes" like Crowning Moment Of Awesome and such.

Also, there is the fact that our mystery section in general has been sadly negelected. Not enough ponies, I guess.

edited 12th Jul '12 5:04:04 AM by Catbert

But we could tweak the description and give it a sensible name. You probably get this in crime serials too.

I agree that anyone who thinks this isn't common probably doesn't read/watch that many mysteries. The name definitely has to go, though. The current name is pretty seriously obscure and bizarre. Spot the Victim could work.

(Of course, a rename will mandate a rewrite, since a big chunk of the description is talking about the name.)

I may or may not know how often it happens regarding when the audience takes in the media. That said, from the sound of it, it's an Audience Reaction - it's not the characters wondering which one will die, it's those taking the story in. It should get treated like similar tropes (such as Ho Yay).

Crowner's hooked.

One could argue that, like Whodunnit, that while the term refers the question the audience is asking, what it is ultimatly describing is a storytelling device.

edited 16th Jul '12 12:54:55 PM by Catbert

What's going on here?

Calling crowner in favour of a rename.

We seem to have unanimous support for Spot the Victim as the replacement name. Unless someone objects, I move that we just go with it.

As I mentioned earlier, though, renaming this will require some rewriting of the description, too much of which is about the name.

There seems to be an open question about whether this is purely audience-reaction or not. Should we discuss that? That'll let us keep this going for a couple of days, while we see if anyone minds the sole proposed name.

Eh, there's been a request for a crowner, so let's roll with it. In the meantime, let's rewrite the description.

Both leading options suggest to me that this is a game played after the murder has already occurred - like some kind of subtrope of Meaningful Background Event. (Spot The Stiff in particular sounds easy to mistake for Peekaboo Corpse.)

I suggest Predict The Victim as an alternative.

Spot the Victim? Pick The Victim? Find The Victim?

The first and last of those have the same issue I mentioned before; the middle sounds like a CYOA trope. :P

Crowner called.