Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Shima: Looks good.
Who watches the watchmen?
Cool. I'll get a little more feedback and then I'll swap them. It's really hard to ID a trope when it rambles off topic.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Ah, that is more clear. And a huge improvement over the current description. I guess it is worth including that archers are often depicted as weaker than melee fighters and very briefly saying that "in real life archery still requires strength."
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Ok, so to make this crystal clear: Examples that are just "This person uses a bow" can be chainsawed? I can't really help without an answer to this question.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Correct. Axe them all.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Axing those examples should make wick clean up go quicker.
What would be a good edit reason to leave behind so no one thinks it is someone being nitpicky or arbitrary.
Who watches the watchmen?
This is finally done - got 765 wicks removed just today.
Is there any cleaning on the page to do?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Jupiterian Local
So I got here from one of Septimus's edits of a page on my watchlist, and I have to admit I'm confused. The new Archer Archetype description basically turns out to be "Cold Sniper with a bow" with a few Guys Smash, Girls Shoot traits thrown in (like "stealthy and graceful" or "tends to have a more slender build"), which seems rather... limited? The old definition was basically "calm and collected under pressure" (as opposed to characters using melee weapons, who can actually benefit from a bit of adrenaline rush). The new description seems to disqualify a lot of characters that were legitimate examples under the old one.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Yes. This is what I grab from the current one.
That said, it was 700+ wicks and most of these were just "people with bows" so it might have been a mistake on my part.
That, and there are probably some examples that are good but were written only as "people with bows"
edited 6th Jan '13 11:04:30 AM by SeptimusHeap
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I don't think it's changed too much at all. It's been changed from "calm, self-possessed, and analytical," to stealthy and has "an analytical and calculating nature." Both are calm and collected under pressure.
edited 6th Jan '13 12:43:21 PM by lexicon
Well, I took a huge axing at the page. Too many of the examples were just about archers.
They are now at Archer Archetype Examples for these who want to add them back. Remember that they need to be rewritten to be about the trope.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
This actually looks even narrower than what Shima described earlier (several examples I wrote specifically for that definition just got axed). I'm not saying this is a bad or good thing, as I favor a narrower definition anyway, but just asking if that's intentional.
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
I went with the idea "If it's just about the archery, it goes". Feel free to fixit (and point it out) if it was bad.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
But what personality traits are you associating with the definition? Cold and calculating, and delete all else? Shima's definition included a ton of other stuff — ranger, tracker, go-it-alone-wilderness-man, graceful in a fight, weak in melee or avoids melee. Examples I had written that included those, but not cold and calculating, have been cut.
I'm asking again — what is the actual definition of this trope? Either it has been changed again, or you and Shima disagree and need to work it out before doing any more cleanup, or I misinterpreted Shima. One of the three.
I'm not concerned about the individual examples (though I hope you cut the crosswicks too) but I am concerned that cleanup is happening while the definition apparently lacks consensus.
edited 14th Jan '13 2:48:35 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
The definition of the trope is Archer Archetype. I aimed at removing examples that were just about archery prowess.
Also, that description is not written in a OR fashion. "Ranger that is good at archery" isn't an example.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
That current definition reads quite ambiguous to me. It's full of "generally" and "often" and "usually" and so forth. None of that says "always." It reads like a list of symptoms some or all of which may be present, not a list of required traits.
If it's supposed to be "always" then I think it still needs more tweaking.
edited 14th Jan '13 2:55:07 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Can you point out specific problem examples? I tried to keep all the good ones on the page but with so many examples it was difficult.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
The one that you removed that surprised me the most was:
- Beleg Strongbow (The Silmarillion, The Children of Húrin) favors his bow and is a famous archer and border-ranger captain, and quite capable of taking care of himself alone in the wilderness. His training in woodcraft is excellent, and he demonstrates his stealth several times, such as sneaking up on the outlaw band and tracking them through the wild. Later he sneaks into the orc camp and rescues Túrin without alerting the orcs, after silently sniping the wolf guards one by one in the dark.
He's not cold or analytical, but the definition only says the Archer Archetype "can share traits with Cold Sniper," not that they must. The "Cold Sniper with a bow" definition seems at odds with the page description. As it is, the description lists various traits that are vaguely "generally" or "often" or "tend to" be present, but makes nothing actually required except the bow itself. Which confuses me and may confuse others. At worst it will invite more zero context examples. It reads to me like it is trying to be narrower than the old definition while avoiding having to actually require any narrowness.
tl;dr: the current definition is still too broad and ambiguous. The old ZC Es aren't actually outside the current definition, as written. It should be narrower/more rigorous.
edited 14th Jan '13 3:02:12 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Ah yes. That one got removed 'coz the "stealth" bit was drowned out in all the other bad examples on the page. It should be added back.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Alright then, I will restore it.
But I still think the definition needs to require more than just the bow. Some of the "generally" and "usually" need to become "always."
Edit: Zapped the non-example from Older Than Dirt.
edited 14th Jan '13 3:06:25 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
I think that would make the trope too narrow. Also, by mentioning "skilled bowsman" in only one sentence and the new name I think we'll be able to keep off most "archer" misuse.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
How about saying a character needs to exhibit at least one of the mentioned traits, in addition to being an archer?
Also, here're 2 more removed example that I think should be restored:
- Tortall Universe: In Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen, Sarai is portrayed as headstrong and careless, and uses a sword, while Dove is quiet and clever, and uses a bow and arrow.
- In Ragnar Lodbrok and His Sons Ivar the Boneless has crippled legs which make him unsuited for melee combat, but he is a good archer. He is cunning, prefers stratagems over blunt force, and is described as emotionally cold.
Also either you or somebody else already restored the Tortall Universe example.
edited 14th Jan '13 3:36:29 PM by ArcadesSabboth
Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Jupiterian Local
I'm generally with Arcades. The trope is simultaneously too narrow (lots of "usually this" and "generally that") and too broad (not enough, or at least not clear enough, "THIS is the heart of the trope").
My understanding of The Archer was that it was a subtrope of Weapon Of Choice where a character that uses a bow is likely to be calm, composed, and cool under pressure, because the bow is (supposedly) a weapon of finesse and skill rather than brute strength. Archer Archetype has added a lot of stuff that just makes things less clear.
I agree that the trope is more than just "uses a bow", and that zero content examples deserve to be axed, but I think the description needs to be rewritten to make it clear what exactly is the core of the trope and what's incidental to it. At this point, I'm honestly unsure if the trope has been redefined from what it was as The Archer or not.
Incidentally, the picture is pretty much just "a guy with a bow", so if we're trying to discourage that usage we should probably toss it over the Image Pickin'.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
The core of the trope is that we have a preconceived notion of the basic way an archer will look and act. Appearance-wise, they're more lean and lithe than bulky or stout. Behavior-wise, they're more calm and quiet than rowdy and impulsive. Gear-wise, they'll be wearing lighter armor like leather or chainmail with a hood or a cowl for headgear, as opposed to a melee fighter who might be in a big suit of plate armor with a full helm.
Essentially, if I showed you two characters who looked like this
◊ and this
◊, you wouldn't need to look at the weapons in their hands to know which one is going to hold a bow and which is going to hold an axe. Does that make sense?
edited 15th Jan '13 9:13:16 PM by troacctid
Rhymes with "Protracted."
Crown Description:
"The Archer" is frequently mistaken to mean "archer." Actually, the trope is about a specific character type common among archers.
Tweaked it.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick