Merge and Rename (Alt Titles Crowner 2013-01-15): I Will Definitely Protect You

The thing is that this statement does not just have one meaning. It has three separate meanings, and the listener can't tell the difference except from context.

I personally think that the trope is in the misunderstanding, not the individual meanings.

From King Zeal's description, this doesn't really sound like the kind of concept that would easily cross culture lines. But I'll concede the point that the examples should speak for themselves if the description is clarified (and the trope is renamed).

I'd say that if we are gonna have a trope page, we shouldn't have all those meanings together like this. When it comes to dialogue, tropes are what the line means, not the line itself.

Well... not exactly. I think the earlier point that a significant part of the trope is the aptitude for confusion of the meanings is important.

Well, the whole "this thing can have multiple meanings depending on context" has led to people putting any instance of this line of dialogue. It's just a stock phrase because of that.

Really, many, many things can have different meanings based on context. We shouldn't lump together things simply because they contain the same phrase. That's not what this site is for.

I don't think that the individual meanings of the phrase are a trope rather than a stock phrase any more than the phrase itself is a trope rather than a stock phrase, though.

Um... wha?

I think he means, "I don't think the individual meanings of the phrase are more of actual tropes than the phrase itself is an actual trope (as opposed to just a Stock Phrase)." Basically comparing the individual meanings to the phrase itself, and not in favour of the individual meanings.

edited 8th Oct '12 10:08:02 PM by AnotherDuck

Right. To my understanding, meanings A, B, and C are three stock phrases (which happen to all be the same sentence) rather than tropes, in much the same way as the sentence is a stock phrase (albeit one with three possible interpretations) rather than a trope.

I don't know if those are "meanings" so much as methods of delivering the line. The A/B/C variations seem to be otherwise pointless to the overall trope.

What the trope is, from what I've gathered from Japanese media, is that it's romantic undertones that arise from someone declaring that they will protect someone else, whether or not said undertones were intentional or reciprocated.

So, you agree with the "Not Tropeworthy" description?

Well, if you write it about the romantic connotations of the line, it basically becomes "the JAPANESE way of saying something romantic", and that's... uh...

edited 10th Oct '12 6:26:34 PM by ThatHuman

Not really.

As I already said, the description can be about the incident and not the line. The line itself really doesn't matter.

As the arguments stand right now, yes.

I'm sure we have a trope on Mixed Signals or something along those lines that such examples can be added to.

Master of the Mixed Message doesn't apply here.

That's like saying Anguished Declaration of Love, Dying Declaration of Love and Aborted Declaration of Love is pretty much covered by Love Confession.

Perhaps. I'm not sure that the proposed three tropes herein are as distinct from each other as your analogy, though.

I'm not proposing three tropes, though. Just one. I agree that there's not really an distinction between the delivery of the line.

If anybody intends to make the page about the specific romantic misunderstanding: are there even enough examples of that specifically occuring? The example list doesn't have much of that.

I counted at least 8 examples just this morning, including this one I made for a page image:

That's more than enough to trope with.

Unless there's something to tie those examples together besides the choice of words, I'm not seeing anything here. It's not exactly hard to find instances of people saying "I will protect you" and so on.

Again:

It's not the words. The words have nothing to do with it. The point to the trope is that vowing to protect a woman has romantic connotations in Japan.

Then it needs a rename, since as current it's a Stock Phrase.

Are we sure it's a Japanese trope?

I'm fairly sure. It may have counterparts elsewhere, but it's more of a "thing" in Japan by far.

I would definitely support a rename, though.

edited 27th Nov '12 1:36:00 PM by KingZeal

Romantic Protectorate Declaration?

We should probably do a page action crowner before we start thinking of names.

So far we have:

• Cut: Not tropeworthy or too similar to I Will Protect Her.
• Redefine: Redefine the trope to be primarily about the romantic connotations of declaring to protect someone. Must be validated in-universe by the receiving party or another witness.
• Rename: Not exclusive to second option. Rename to sound less like a Stock Phrase.

In all cases, move any examples without the romantic undertones to I Will Protect Her if they are not there already.

edited 7th Dec '12 12:06:57 PM by KingZeal

Rename definitely to avoid Zero Context Example of a stock phrase. A redefinition will help hammer this point in

edited 1st Dec '12 11:00:22 PM by ChaoticNovelist