Needs Help: Amazonian Beauty

That criteria has been there from the beginning. And it's basically the same as #1 on your list.

edited 17th Jun '12 9:56:42 AM by KingZeal

I thought a recent TRS discussion came up with the current guidelines?

And yes, it's the same as #1 on my list. Which is my I called #1 the current solution. But it's not the best solution. The current examples don't obey it. And we seem to have gone to some trouble to keep the examples from obeying it.

No, that criteria was there from the very beginning. Characters don't HAVE to be fanservicey to qualify (it works in-universe as well), but since the trope itself is visual (it's about a character that LOOKS strong, but doesn't particularly have to be strong) the only way to know if the character fits from visuals alone is if they look strong AND are fanservice/considered attractive.

If you make the trope strictly in-universe, then say hello to Trope Decay, because ANY character can be said to look strong as an Informed Attribute. If you make simply about visual muscle, then ANYBODY can claim they see muscle. For example, when the trope first launched, there was a debate over some characters, such as Grune.

edited 17th Jun '12 11:13:27 AM by KingZeal

If characters don't have to be fanservicey to qualify, then we should remove the requirement, as the OP suggested. For example, is this entry, from the current page, valid?

• Beth Halpern from the Michael Crichton novel The Sphere, was a very attractive weightlifter. One of the other characters described her as "Mother Nature with muscles".

Yes, that could be a problem, but how is that worse than now?

edited 17th Jun '12 11:16:16 AM by Routerie

No, again, that's besides the point. A character does not HAVE to be fanservicey, but removing fanservice removes the qualifier that a character's muscle is the titillation factor. And you can't get that across if there's no fanservice being played.

That one is borderline. I don't know exactly what "Mother Nature with muscles" means.

You haven't said what the problem is now, so right now, it appears to me like it's just creating a new problem.

edited 17th Jun '12 11:17:34 AM by KingZeal

I mean that problem seems to be there either way. If there's misuse sticking to in-universe, that's not more misuse than otherwise.

But go back to the thread's original point. There's a character, who's muscular, and other characters are attracted to her, physically. She never strips or wears spandex. Why shoudn't she qualify?

edited 17th Jun '12 11:24:28 AM by Routerie

No one said she didn't.

The problem is that we can't make a trope with ONLY straightforward examples in mind. The trope criteria has to neatly organize gray areas into the trope or not the trope, which is where the other criteria all come in.

edited 17th Jun '12 11:24:09 AM by KingZeal

Right now, the criteria say the character must be accompanied by fanservice tropes. That was the OP's complaint.

But the OP's assessment is off, because it's assuming that "Fanservice" means dressing like a hooker or posing seductively. The issue is that there has to be SOMETHING about her which is emphasizing the attraction. Remember, this is about a muscular woman that is attractive—not a tall woman or a strong woman. Essentially, this trope is about a female character that invokes Muscle Worship. If her muscles are showing, then logically, skin is being shown somewhere.

EDIT: For the record, I asked a long time ago what the Spear Counterpart of this trope would be, and I was told Rated M for Manly was sufficient.

edited 17th Jun '12 11:36:16 AM by KingZeal

What if she wears a tshirt, which shows off her biceps? Or loose shorts that show calves? Or what if we don't even see the muscles but are just told that they exist - say, in a book?

Then it's fanservice, if it shows off the part that's intended to be attractive. Even in written text, the narrative can't get across that the display of muscle is attractive without devoting some sort of description to it, which is the only way to do fanservice in text.

The shorts example in particular is part of the problem—without the "fanservice" qualifier, if the skin isn't being emphasized or a character doesn't draw attention to it, then how are we supposed to know they qualify for this trope?

From something else entirely. On one hand, there's the fact the character has muscles. Then, on top of that, we have a character attracted to the muscles, according to their own words or thoughts or reaction.

We can't say that any glimpse of muscle is fanservice. That's circular. This trope is a counterpoint to Delicacy Is Beautiful, right - exposed muscle is normally presumed not to be fanservice. It can be described or portrayed as attractive without seeking to turn on the audience.

edited 17th Jun '12 12:04:33 PM by Routerie

The problem is that (aside from strict lampshades/invocation) there's no way of knowing if a character's muscle is their main draw or not. For example, let's take She Hulk, who invokes so much Fetish Fuel it's crazy. She's green, she's an Action Girl, she wears a Leotard of Power (or invokes Clothing Damage), she has the biggest chest in the Marvel Universe, she Really Gets Around, she's a lawyer, she's tall, she's she's powerful, and she's muscular. Which one of these does any one man find attractive? Who can say? Especially since they're not mutually exclusive. In fact, some of those make the fact that she's muscular MORE Fetish Fuel.

But, She-Hulk is shown to be proud of her physique, and constantly emphasizes it with poses, flexing and wearing clothes that show it off. For some fans/characters, these tropes are fanservicey in SPITE of her muscle. For some, they're fanservice BECAUSE of or in ADDITION to her muscle. The problem is: how do you separate which is which? The only way that would be possible would be to exclude SOME fanservice tropes while permitting others, but which ones do you allow and which do you ban?

If you say (for example) "well, big breasts has nothing to do with muscle size", then that ignores the fact that one of the MAIN reasons guys tend to dislike amazons is because muscular chests automatically lower breast size. Thus, an Amazon that has BOTH is typically invoking Artistic License – Biology, just to make a character attractive.

edited 17th Jun '12 12:14:31 PM by KingZeal

So that proves fanservice is inadequate at covering all cases.

Again, if a character shows off no fanservice but is explicitly said to be attractive due to her muscles, shouldn't that be an example? (In fact, shouldn't that be the best kind of example?)

Again, no one said that is NOT an example. However, that would also mean that anyone with an Informed Attribute qualifies, which we ALSO want to prevent.

Once more, where is there a problem currently?

Yes, something does say that's not an example. The definition's current wording. Criterion 4. Hence the OP's complaint.

Now for that other issue - what's the problem with informed attributes? If a character is muscular, and someone tells us they're attractive, how's that not an example?

It shouldn't be defined by fanservice, but more something like an element of showing off the muscles, or drawing attention to them somehow.

It doesn't need to be fanservice, but it needs some attention to it. Without that, it's just there, like chairs. With it, you have the author making a point — a trope.

The Internet misuses, abuses, and overuses everything.

It is really that big of a deal to expand the criteria?

Here's the problem with what you're saying. Let's create a scenario that approximates what you're arguing:

Alice: Wow, you want to go out with me? I never knew you thought I was attractive.
Bob: Well, I happen to be attracted to women with lots of muscle.
Alice: How could you possibly know I have that? All my clothes are bulky and wooly because of the cold.
Bob: Regardless... believe me, I've noticed it.

This comes the closest to what you've suggested, because we know that Alice is muscular, but her clothes don't show it off. Yet, Bob is attracted to her. You argue that this means there was no fanservice. But there was.

Male Gaze. (Or, alternatively, Eating the Eye Candy.)

Bob could not know she was muscular unless he invoked this trope. If her clothes don't allow the trope to be demonstrated AT ALL, then the only way he could have figured it out was through ESP (which is still a type of "gaze"). Bottom line, this trope is visual (the character LOOKS muscular) and there is no way to invoke it unless there is some form of fanservice, even if we're just TOLD there was fanservice.

And the problem with an Informed Attribute is that when you get down to it, ANY character could qualify depending on how fans interpret the words. Again, when we first launched the trope, we had a harder problem with TOO MANY characters being included than too few.

edited 17th Jun '12 12:44:13 PM by KingZeal

Do we agree on the definition of fanservice?

Fanservice is not "sexualizing characters." It's the display of characters in skimpy clothing or no clothing at all to turn on the audience. If Bob says he noticed Alice's muscles, that's not fanservice. If Bob says he noticed Alice's muscles when he spied on her naked, that's also not fanservice.

Now back to informed attribute - could you give me a (hypothetical) example of misuse due to misinterpreting a character's words?

I already mentioned Grune above. We're told in the story that she's strong/muscular. And there is NO QUESTION that the men (and women) in the setting find her attractive.

And no, we don't agree on the definition of fanservice, because it's not limited to what you said.

edited 17th Jun '12 12:42:04 PM by KingZeal

Check the page. That's what fanservice means as a trope (regardless of how people use the term means outside the wiki).

With Grune - you say there's no question that people find her attractive. But does anyone claim to find her attractive for her muscular build? If so, she's an example. If not, we have no content for an example.

edited 17th Jun '12 12:47:27 PM by Routerie

If that's the case, then the list of tropes that follows below it are made of fail.

Fanservice, as a trope, used to simply be things that were used as titillation, regardless of how one dresses, and could be implied. The current trope does not match the list below it.

Thus, fixing Fanservice itself would come before fixing THIS trope.

No, but that's the problem. As I said, how do you argue that one trope does not emphasize the other trope? We know Grune is attractive, and we're told she's muscular. The trope does NOT require that another character specifically find her muscles attractive. Otherwise, Vanessa Lewis from VF doesn't count, but the entire REASON she was created was to invoke this trope.

For another example, we could have an issue of Black Widow where someone says she's got "gorgeous biceps". Then, this never comes up again. Is she this trope or not?

edited 17th Jun '12 12:55:35 PM by KingZeal

I think it's better to have a trope that defines itself, rather than lets other tropes define it.

edited 17th Jun '12 12:55:18 PM by Feather7603

The Internet misuses, abuses, and overuses everything.

That's not always possible, though.

Blue Eyes, for example, is a trope that can NOT define itself, because the eyes have to MEAN SOMETHING.