Needs Help (new crowner 9/23/13): America Wins The War

"Doing it quickly" never pays off. At the least, rereading always helps.

edited 29th May '13 10:55:27 AM by MorganWick

I read what I said, but I knew what I meant, so I didn't see a misinterpretation. :(

Don't the British take a lot of credit for winning the Napoleonic Wars and World War I? Those could be two non-American, non-WWII examples.

edited 2nd Jun '13 8:36:09 PM by SantosLHalper

An example would be where this happens in a work. I'm sure there have to be some movies out there that use this for these wars, but I'd have no idea which.

I made a crowner on possible courses of action. Could someone hook this, please?

edited 6th Jun '13 10:26:34 PM by Rethkir

I'll holler to get it hooked.

Also, I voted on it this way:

• Yes to a rename, although I do not have strong feelings about it.
• Yes to not doing anything.
• No to a merge, because even if people ignore this it's still apples and oranges.
• No to an expansion, because nobody has justified it.

Crowner's hooked.

I voted yes to rename and no to merge, am neutral towards the other two options.

In my opinion "Saves the Day" needs to include all the fictional examples, where the good old US of A singlehandedly defeats the enemy of the day (Russians, Chinese, Terrorists, Aliens...). "Wins the War" (as of now) should really be about how many works present the second world war as being between Germany and Japan on the one side being defeated by the US alone on the other. The distinction is that "Wins the War" has to be compared against a real historical set of facts, "Saves the Day" doesn't have to.

I guess there could be an expansion to other countries/wars, but due to the fact that WW II stories are so ubiquitous this really stands out, and as long as we do not have enough examples, we should not include this definition "for fairness' sake". Also I think the problem is not so much overstating your own country's part but completely and conveniently forgetting about others who significantly helped (after all it is doubtful whether the US alone could have won the war, but this is speculation here). When we get mention of other participants like the French Resistance, the UK, Canada, ANZ, the Polish exilees they only exist as helpers to the US effort, don't even start about the Soviet Union.

Yep. That pretty much sums it all up.

Okay, so what exactly is going to happen to all the other examples/references to works in which apply the same attitude about winning World War II single-handedly to other countries?

In response to Leaper on the first page, who claimed that "Only Americans are arrogant enough to do it! Hee hee hee! " Baloney! I have seen multiple examples of the British treating the United States' participation in World War II as coming in at the last moment and doing nothing of substance, or (worse) accusing America of being an economic vampire, feeding on Britain's vitality with unfair "aid" policies.

I don't think forcing this trope to refocus back on American examples is the right way to go about fixing it. To me, this a lot like the crap involving the (thankfully depreciated) Americanitis trope. Things like this encourage people to believe that a particular unsavory treatment of works is solely in the purview of Americans, when it's actually more widespread. And that has Unfortunate Implications, especially when you see people taking great delight at the idea.

If you can come up with three examples, I'd say that's good enough for a supertrope of "this country downplays the involvement of every other country in WWII". It isn't the definition we have a problem with; it's the merger.

There's three in the article right now:

• The (Peoples' Republic of) Chinese equivalent appears in Ip Man, which is set during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The concluding captions mention China's defeat of Japan without mentioning the Guomindang or the international Allied forces that had pushed Imperial Japan back and blockaded the Home Islands in preparation for an amphibious invasion. In reality, the Guomindang and their warlord allies acted as a huge punching bag, losing battle after battle until The United States, Britain, and later the Soviet Union entered the conflict. The importance of US Lend-lease - which was critical to propping the Guomindang with things like massive loans and anti-tank weaponry - also goes unmentioned, naturally.
• British comics set in World War 2 tended to concentrate on the Desert War up until El Alamein, the last major battle won by the British and Empire forces without the involvement of American troops.
• Operation Darkness mixes this trope up a bit, by instead using Britain Wins The War. Both the plot of the game and its brief historical asides emphasize the British contribution to the war effort in the same way this trope does for the US. The funny thing? It's a Japanese game.

There were more examples on this page that had been removed in the past, as well, which I found just by checking the Wayback Machine:

• Featured in Chicken Run, when the RAF veteran rants about everything wrong with Americans, including the fact that they come in late to every war. Probably more of a case of Britain Wins The War.
• In examples of Britain Wins the War, the Doctor seems to have gotten his WW 2 history exclusively from British documentaries.

That one about Doctor Who, I remember being longer, with a quote to go with it. I looked and found out it's from the 2005 episode "The Empty Child."

The Doctor: 1941. Right now, not very far from here the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like Dominoes. Nothing can stop it, nothing until one tiny, damp little island says "no". No, not here. A mouse in front of a lion. You're amazing. The lot of you. Don't know what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the hell out of me. Off you go, then. Do what you got to do. Save the world.

There may be more that I've overlooked, but those were the ones that popped out to me.

EDIT: You can find other examples from other works all over the wiki, too. There's a few in Cultural Posturing. And there's this note I came across, from The Beautiful Game:

Supporters of the England national team like to serenade their opponents (especially France) with "If it wasn't for the British you'd be Krauts" to the tune of "If You're Happy And You Know It". When England played Israel the chant "If it wasn't for the British you'd be dead!" was heard, to much displeasure.

At this point I have to look back at Leaper's post and ask, "Only Americans are arrogant enough to do this, huh?"

edited 13th Jun '13 5:00:28 PM by TrevMUN

So what is stopping you? Make the supertrope.

What's stopping me? Might be the possibility that, I dunno, we can change this trope to reflect that "Winning World War 2 Alone" is hardly a uniquely American phenomenon.

Septimus Heap said that no one has justified expanding the trope to cover other countries . Apparently I'm the only one who's pointed out that yes, there is evidence other countries do this that have been listed as trope examples this whole time, as well as other cases strewn across the wiki.

edited 14th Jun '13 7:34:31 AM by TrevMUN

I do not always have time for running a high-grade search and didn't know of any other examples before you posted them.

Anyhow, I've flipped the vote.

edited 14th Jun '13 8:21:03 AM by SeptimusHeap

I added an option for this to be about all countries, but still about WWII.

That option doesn't include a rename, and it needs a rename if we expand.

I'd down with expanding this to all countries.

I'm very much down with expanding this to any country, but I would point out that if we restrict it to WWII specifically, we're inevitably going to get some Square Peg Round Trope examples of the "not WWII, but..." variety unless we have an "any country, any war" supertrope as well.

For the record, I downvoted all the expand motions as none of them predicts a rename, which would be necessary.

You downvoted them again because no one came up with trope name suggestions? Well fine, how about these?

• "My Country Punched Out Hitler" (WWII only)
• "Patriotic Myopia" (All wars or WWII-only)
• "Victor's Myopia" (All wars or WWII-only)
• "Won the War Alone" (All wars or WWII-only)

edited 15th Jun '13 2:33:24 PM by TrevMUN

No, because these crowner options redefine, but don't rename the trope. We can't do that. And we can't edit the crowner options either.

Isn't it possible to have a second crowner after a decision is made on what to do with this one, that focuses on possible trope renames?

But none of the options say to rename.

Yet if options specifically saying to rename the trope while expanding it are added for both the "all nations, WWII only" and "all nations, all wars" variants, you guys would downvote them anyway because the options would still lack a specific suggestion for a trope rename. Am I right on this?

I'm not trying to be snide. I'm seriously asking here. Because that's the feeling I'm getting from the way you two are responding to this, and to me, it would make more sense to vote on a general course of action first, and then vote on a list of potential new names for the trope if that course of action called for it.

edited 15th Jun '13 9:43:55 PM by TrevMUN