Duplicate Trope: Locked Door

From Plot Lock: "Note that it's only a Plot Lock if you're supposed to eventually get the key to the door."

I don't see how that differs noticeably from Locked Door. And Locked Door is the better established, much healthier trope.

edited 15th Dec '12 3:50:25 PM by Xtifr

That's part of Broken Bridge. It doesn't include places you're not supposed to access at all, only the ones that you gain access to by advancing the plot. It could be a key, a bomb, a glass of lemonade, whatever.

My best guess is that Locked Door and Plot Lock are different tropes. I voted against the merge.

Locked Door makes this distinction: "May require the attention of a Master of Unlocking, but if even he can't get past it without the key then you've got a Plot Lock." That seems correct to me. If you don't know lockpicking (or another such skill), then it's not a Plot Lock. If you know lockpicking, then it's a Plot Lock. The key to a Plot Lock is, "the character should be able to overcome it, and yet they can't in this one arbitrary situation".

When Plot Lock says, "you're supposed to eventually get the key to the door", the key and door are metaphorical. The "door" might be a boulder blocking the path, and the "key" might be a bomb that destroys the boulder. It's a Plot Lock because I can fly, so why didn't I fly over the boulder?

Some examples of Locked Door don't fit on Plot Lock:

• In The Legend of Zelda series, every dungeon (except the first three of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) has several doors which can be locked by any one of several keys. There is also generally a "Boss Key" leading to the room which will contain the Boss Battle.

Some examples of Plot Lock don't fit on Locked Door:

• Pokemon uses NPCs and wild Pokemon to block your path in certain games until a plot point has been resolved. You can teach certain Pokemon the move Fly, which instantly flies you from one town to another (but only towns you've already been to). The Fridge Logic sets in when you can't fly ten feet over that guy's head.

edited 15th Dec '12 6:02:38 PM by Kernigh

Bumping this. So far the current merge opinion seems to be in the red. What are the arguments for or against a merge in the other direction?

Merging with what, anyway? Lock and Key Puzzle?

I vote we cut Plot Lock and move applicable examples to Locked Door.

Locked Door is far too broad of a name for such a limited trope!

However, I am pretty sure that all of the examples that match the description can go on another trope - Plot Lock, Broken Bridge, Lock and Key Puzzle, or Gameplay and Story Segregation. (The difference between Plot Lock and Broken Bridge is that, while you have to go do something else before you advance in that direction, what you have to do to repair the Broken Bridge is unrelated to the obstacle at hand while the Plot Lock requires you to find something to get rid of it personally, right?)

The first paragraph of the page basically screams Lock and Key Puzzle already....

Locked Door is much healthier than Lock and Key Puzzle, so if we merged there, it would probably still go in the other direction.

Even though as already mentioned Locked Door is a much broader name than the trope warrants?

^^ That could be a bad thing. As noted, there are several differences in scope between the available articles. Lock and Key Puzzle is ... well, a stock Video Game puzzle type ("retrieve item A (often a literal key) from somewhere to pass obstacle B (often a literal lock)"). Plot Lock is about the narrative. Locked Door is ... what?

has anyone done a Wick Check on it, anyway? Misuse gets priority over health when estimating overall numbers.

edited 27th Dec '12 5:29:58 PM by Stratadrake

• Lock and Key Puzzle: Stock Video Game Puzzle where you have to find an item in one place and bring it to another place.
• Locked Door: Subtrope of Lock and Key Puzzle where the obstacle is a literal lock that requires a key.

Plot Lock and Lock and Key Puzzle both use the lock metaphorically. Locked Door is the only one that's about literal locks.

Well it's being used metaphorically, so it's clearly not literal.

edited 28th Dec '12 1:19:38 PM by troacctid

I'm not sure that's a meaningful distinction, because the basis (i.e. Trope Namer) for the Lock and Key Puzzle is indeed literal.

Plot Lock is a misleading name. The trope isn't in any way exclusive to locked doors. Its a Broke Bridge over an ankle-deep stream, an Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence that eventually gets removed by the plot. If it should be merged to anything, it would have to be Broken Bridge not Locked Door.

Given the crowner results so far, I think we can safely say that merging this into Plot Lock is off the table (which is probably good, since this is the far more healthy trope). At the same time, there do seem to be problems here that we should certainly address somehow. I'm just not completely sure how. Maybe redefining to match the misuse?

edit: wrong word

edited 31st Dec '12 12:28:00 PM by Xtifr

What misuse?

I mean we're pretty much here because OP misread the tropes and thought they were the same. Which is an easy mistake to make, I guess.

I went ahead and trimmed the description on Locked Door to make it more clear. I dunno if we need to do anything else. Plot Lock and Lock and Key Puzzle aren't the names I personally would have liked for those tropes, but unless someone wants to go out and check them for misuse, I don't think we have cause to take repair action on them.

edited 31st Dec '12 4:02:36 PM by troacctid

Ok, does that mean we're done here? Certainly seems plausible to me.

Closed crowner. No action is to be taken. Locking.