Not Tropeworthy: Every Car Is Rear Wheel Drive

Because as it is currently written, it's a rant about creators not doing the research. We need to rewrite the description for it to be a trope about the media convention.

We have Artistic License – Ships and Artistic License Trains and a couple of other vehicle types; any reason we shouldn't have Artistic License – Cars? The handful of legitimate examples on this page could go there, with a possibility of being split off later if enough specific examples accumulate.

I also think the thing where somebody hits the gas and goes nowhere, only to discover that some strong person has lifted the back of the car, should be a trope unto itself. (Unless we have that already?) With no more than a brief note in the description about how it's always the rear side, even in stories set somewhere like the US where front wheel drive is actually much more common.

I can think of many reasons we shouldn't have an Artistic License – Cars page, but those also argue against Artisitic License Trains and Artistic License – Ships.

Sure, YKTTW's that trope you suggested.

Artistic License – Cars would be a good supertrope for Every Car Is a Pinto.

It would.

What are the reasons against an Artistic License – Cars trope, exactly?

It isn't a trope. It would be a collection of independent inaccuracies, not a trend.

Multiple works featuring cars blowing up? That's a trend, that's a trope. Multiple works featuring cars driving well on ice? That's a trend, that's a trope. A work features a car blowing up, and a second work features a car driving well on ice? That's not a trope or a trend. Those are just two inaccuracies.

For the record, AL-I pages are proto-tropes. They are there to provide examples for actual tropes.

I'm also curious as to why there can't simply be a trope for lifting the drive end of a car and stopping it from driving away.

As it is, Every Car Is Rear Wheel Drive encompasses two tropes, an artistic license showing a FWD car being RWD (spinning the rear wheels, etc.) and lifting the rear of a car and stopping it from moving.

The only example of both that I can think of would be in the book Christine, about a 1958 Plymouth Fury, wherein Christine's rear end is lifted while at a drive in, and set on jack stands. The main character then drives away (it's a Stephen King novel, it doesn't need to make sense). John Carpenter left that out of the movie, however.

If you're wondering, the book has plenty more inaccuracies, but that one is hand waved as Christine being magical.

edited 15th Aug '12 9:01:55 PM by maxwellsilver

Perhaps there should be a No Real Life Examples Please note, since there really isn't any real-world application for this trope? That would be a start.

I have another idea: A Cars Do Not Work That Way page.

It would work, since front wheel drive cars do not spin their rear wheels, or handle like rear wheel drive cars, plus plenty of other things that do not apply to a trope called Every Car Is Rear Wheel Drive.

Cars Do Not Work That Way / You Fail Auto Shop Forever / Somewhere A Mechanic Is Crying / Artistic License – Cars?

Over in the thread discussing these tropes in general, we've decided to give them all a common name clarifying that they are not tropes. The index will be called something like "Media Inaccuracies" and it will receive subpages like Media Inaccuracies.Geography and Media Inaccuracies.Physics. The point of these pages will be to collect examples that we can use to build tropes - for example, if we see a whole lot of examples on Media Inaccuracies.Space about vehicles traveling in a flat plane, we can launch a trope page called 2-D Space about that trend. But Stories Get Various Things Wrong About Subject X is not a trope, and work pages won't list it as such.

edited 27th Aug '12 10:33:20 PM by Routerie

But, if we find enough examples about cars, it may be a good idea to start a trope about that.

We could put those on Inaccuracies Index.Cars, but it still wouldn't be a trope. There's no trend there. Stories get things wrong about cars, but stories get things wrong about everything. We could equally well make a "trope" from inaccuracies to do with words starting with the letter C.

I like the idea of an Media Inaccuracies index as well as those pages you suggested.

Something like You Fail Auto Shop Forever, Cars Do Not Work That Way and Somewhere A Mechanic Is Crying become sub pages of Artistic License – Cars, which is a further sub page of Media Inaccuracies / Inaccuracies Index.

edited 6th Sep '12 2:06:07 PM by maxwellsilver

This was just cut by the admin. Think we can close this.

Locking per request.