Does Not Illustrate: Archer Archetype

Archer Archetype was recently renamed from The Archer for the latter being too broad and inviting examples of anyone who holds a bow.

Looking at the page, the image falls right into the same issue. It's a guy with a bow. As a representation of what archers, guys who just have bows, have looked like, it's probably fair and historically accurate but it isn't the trope. In fact it links to a work that seems to not have any archer characters, just as a unit type.

My suggestion is to change the Laconic from "Skilled, long-range fighter," to "A skilled long range fighter who doesn't let emotions get in her way." That isn't easy to show but I think the picture does an okay job of it. He's prepared for battle, has a calm expression on his face and appears to be focusing on his arrow and the space in front of him where he'll shot it.

He looks calm, focused, and his age hints of significant skill.

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I agree with Lexicon and Duck; although technically it's Just A Face And A Caption, there are subtler points and I'd like to see a concrete suggestion for replacement.

Plus, I happen to rather like the game.

That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.

Even a depiction of a unit type is better than nothing, I think. Suggestion for improvement?

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

Keep Until Better Image Suggested

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Well, I know the next place to come when I want somebody to compare pictures of Joe Biden eating a sandwich...

Isn't even as something as possibly trite as Legolas still a massive improvement? He's the trope maker for the rpg and video game cliches of the bow user being the calm, slight guy/elf in a band of Weapon Of Choice wielding stock characters. He's easily identifiable so we get some meta-image bonuses of the trick shots and attitude. He wears green which harkens back to the classic Robin Hood costume also associated with archers.

No idea what the sandwich thing means.

Suggest an image, not an idea, please. That might be a great idea but it's really hard to tell; it's a hypothetical picture.

Note that most of the "pro" points about the current image would not be obvious from a simple description of its subject; likewise, a description of a picture of Legolas does not "beat" them. Also "easily identifiable" and "meta-image bonuses" are not usually points in the plus column.

edited 29th Sep '12 6:35:48 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

It's a reference to this.

Moon◊

What the sandwich thing means is that Duck could have written:

"He looks frightened, intense, like he's been surprised in the middle of loading his bow."

"He looks clean, overly pompous, and his age suggests he's too weak to handle a sword."

"He looks bug-eyed, paranoid, and his age suggests he would have been at woodstock."

because when you try to look for something, it's easy to find it when there's nothing to confirm or deny. (Although the odd caption "The Archer is watching you..." does actually seem to fit with bug-eyed and paranoid best.) But to be fair to Another Duck, it's common and I expected it. I've done it a few times but also, often there is something there ( I mean i genuinely think that the eyes look weird, I just think it's a case of an artist's mistake). I was just making a little sarcastic comment because I was hoping for some more creative suggestions that could be tailored towards helping with the issue raised in the TRS thread.

So for example, "Even a depiction of a unit type is better than nothing, I think. " is in fact completely wrong for my needs because we need to stop people from thinking that a video game unit type is a valid example.

This disappointment lead to me being a bit mean. I would like to apologise to Another Duck because I don't want to diminish a genuine attempt to help. But I do think they failed to look at it from a functional viewpoint of what a person thinks when they see it for the first time.

I don't care about this any more. There's no point to this thread. I don't feel like you genuinely want to help, I think you're just happy to play with your own tally of pro and con that you've felt no need to justify to me. I'm not going to bother pushing for any change. Since everyone else is fine with leaving it, we can just close this thread and leave it for later when somebody else has an image.

No, I don't feel the need to justify IP standards: most are described in the articles How To Pick A Good Image and Just A Face And A Caption. I don't think you'd feel compelled to explain why natter is bad, unless someone asks. If you have any questions about any of those points, I am sure anyone would be happy to discuss it.

Duck's observations seem legitimate to me, especially "calm, focused". Those other examples don't seem like they are actually part of the image, or otherwise don't make sense. (Intense, maybe, but not frightened. Cleanliness is irrelevant; he also looks male, and lots of other things that are similarly irrelevant. And his attire suggests that regardless of his age, he lived way before Woodstock.)

The fact that it's a video game unit type only barely matters. If it was a picture of Legolas, the identity of the subject would barely matter. Both are relevant, but what it looks like it is is more important than what it actually is. That picture might also be of just "a guy with a bow". Look at it from a functional viewpoint of what a person thinks when they see it for the first time, and assume they are unfamiliar with the source.

I did make the mistake of basing that judgement ("a unit type is okay") on the title Archer Archetype rather than its description; sorry.

Don't understand what you want different, or what's up with the tone. Whether you agree with their reasoning or not, everyone here is genuinely trying to help. Please don't assume or imply otherwise. Nobody is "fine with leaving it", exactly, unless you mean leaving it in preference to having no image at all, in which case that's true: it's fine. There is no suggested alternative in this thread, though. Any image (except a few, by admin fiat) can be replaced by an improvement. You are underestimating the importance of making an actual suggestion.

edited 30th Sep '12 2:49:38 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

wow, that was uncalled for. Assuming you're the only person here who's trying to help improve a page or that once you feel you're done with a thread there's no further point to it is really offensive. (Though I agree you should probably leave.)

Current is Keep Until Better Image Suggested for me. Here are some suggestions: [1]◊ [2]◊

sorry, wrong link. Check it again, should be Hawkeye now.

edited 30th Sep '12 12:02:35 AM by bananasloth

please don't capitalize my handle. I just don't like it.

What exactly in the God-Emperor thread am I looking at...?

Moon◊

Well, you're right. I could have written that. But then I'd be flat-out lying. He's got his bow quite low, which suggests he's not fightened. Intense is one way to say focused, though. His lower eyelids are raised, but surprise is shown with open eyes, unless it's of a less alarmed and more inquiring form, where you can just raise your brow. His age doesn't suggest he's too weak to handle a sword, because he has one strapped to his front. If he was overly pompous, I figure he'd use the sword instead of he bow, since a sword has a much higher status. He doesn't look bug-eyed, and paranoia is impossible to justify, since you don't know if his situation is legitimate or not. What's Woodstock got to do with it?

That's true. What's that got to do with me? I came, I quickly scanned the first post, and I wrote down what I thought about the picture. Since you wrote that there's been a redefinition of the trope, I wasn't sure exactly what the image was supposed to illustrate, so I just wrote down what I saw, and didn't write down my opinion about what to actually do with the image. I didn't read the trope, nor the second post of the thread, so I didn't know what to look for.

This is a place to be constructive. This is a place for people who genuinely want to help. So I don't mind if you leave.

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It came to my thoughts that I had not assumed good faith*

. I wish to apologies and explain that this came from a temporary feeling of frustration. I'm seeing the same sentiments in Another Duck's very last sentence so I can see I've squandered my quota of good faith assumption. I hope to get it back.

Because what you did, what most people do, I think falls into sort of like a confirmation bias. I looked at it and I thought the guy had this weird look of concern on his face. But then when posting and thinking about it some more, I figured the problem was that it wasn't that good, it's not really an image meant to portray a character or suggest an emotion. He's not calm, he's "not another emotion"; he's not "focused", he's just not doing absolutely nothing.

But even aside from that, I don't think that what you described would necessarily make the trope because it's a page about archetypes and archetypes have visual aspects. The page actually has a problem in that there's more than one archetype and the TRS thread didn't really reconcile them-it seemed like going for a "Our Monsters Are Different" type of page was the deal-so there are actually several archetypes that usually have "calm, focused" in common but it's not the identifying trait of all of them.

Rodney Anonymous: I don't have a big file full of images we can use. I have google, as do we all. So I'm not going to suggest an image right away because I need ideas to search around for and I need discussion to do that best. It used to be that most posts on this forum was people coming up with alternative ideas and it worked fine without an image, if someone else could find something that fitted. Eventually we got some and we compared. All I was trying to do was stimulate some more ideas by coming up with one of my own. Also, I think you overestimate what the IP standard and guidelines explicitly include.

I consider the "unit type" thing to be fairly important because it makes it Not An Example and I assume that if a work is presented on the page in the image, it should be an example too. Otherwise people will associate something that is not an example with the page even if the resulting image, out of context, does seem like it.

edited 3rd Oct '12 11:20:01 AM by SomeSortOfTroper

I feel like the current image is lacking something. I think one problem is that the person in the image is just standing there, looking at his arrow, like he is not really sure what to do with it.

Looking at bananasloth images I think a image of someone drawing and aiming a bow is better. The posture of the body and focused eyes people tend to have in this situation give the impression of calmness and grace the trope is about.

But it's not a confirmation bias if I have nothing to confirm. That's just an assumption on your side, not unlikely because of a confirmation bias on your part to explain why I think like I do. I have no problem tossing images I don't feel are contructive to the trope in any way. I don't have any particular feelings with regards to this image. I want a good image, yes, but I can't say I really want it from this image in particular. It's kind of dull, really. However, I still think of it like I did before. It's subtle, and not necessarily what the artist wanted to portray, but it's my interpretation of it with no thoughts given to the actual trope it's supposed to represent here. I can explain in more detail as well, if you really want me to.

As for the two images suggested in #12, the first is a Trick Arrow, so I don't want it for that reason, but otherwise it's not bad. In the second her right hand is very tense, and it kind of ruins the image for me.

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I'm of two minds about including a trick shot- generally, I think that it shows that the character is really specialising in being an archer so it might be useful. On the other hand, in that picture, the focus is on the Trick Shot. The dialogue is about what it is, the way it is framed makes it look like the butler is reacting to it.

I have a picture of Legolas, with two arrows◊. Two arrows is a sign of mastery but it's not an arrow with a boxing glove on the end.

Then I had a thought- the archetype is similar to the Cold Sniper and I was thinking of looking for bows which had scopes- modern bows that are basically sniper bows and I found this [1]◊ and I thought "So the guy has the full gilly suit so he's a sniper, he's stealthy, he emerges from the forest; you can't see his face so the focus is just on him (or her) as an archer; the modern bow has all those modern details that show the enthusiasm for bows."

Compound bow = not archetypal. It is kind of like an assault rifle where bolt action is more appropriate. There are modern recurve bows (no pulleys etc); many archers disdain complex machinery.

edited 6th Oct '12 1:56:59 AM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

Here's a classic image◊. Or if you must have color, there's this◊.

(I'm a big fan of the work behind the current image, but I admit that it's not the best illustration of the archetype.)

Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.

I think it looks too much like Robin Hood to make me think of the archetype of the typical archer. How about Katniss◊?

Katniss from 21 is pretty good. Definitely the best suggestion so far.

please don't capitalize my handle. I just don't like it.

I like Errol Flynn better than Katniss, but I'm not fully aware of all the changes so I don't know what TRS got up to, but I think Robin Hood is about as archetypal an archer as it gets.

Weren't we going to have something that was a little less "just an archer" and much more clearly illustrating the archertype?

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I like Robin Hood (in colour). He is (one of) the archetype(s) of the archer and- he has a bow:Check; he's dressed like a woodsman: check; he's in the forest: check.

Katniss looks like a modern girl, wearing the leather jacket she bought at the mall, in the forest.