Trope Misuse Cleanup In General

There are a number of tropes out there that are pretty easy to misuse.

Here's a couple for starters:

• Affably Evil vs. Faux Affably Evil: I've noticed that some pages start out with one listed, but then it gets switched to the other. Clearly, it's hard to tell the difference between the two.
• Unfortunate Implications: It's tempting to put down what you consider to be UI. But the page itself says that you can't add this without proof that it's not just one person thinking.

What other trope misuse can you think up?

So this is like Shoehorning in the ensembles but without the ensembles?

I've noticed in Brains and Brawn that some are weak to non-existent on the brawn. Specifically The Simpsons, Pirates Of The Caribbean, and Pinky And The Brain. There are probably more.

I took away the Aladdin example in Deadpan Snarker because Iago is as far from deadpan as possible. I wouldn't be surprised if there are others that ignore the "deadpan" part.

There are Complete Monster and Five-Man Band, which are apparently so big and widespread that they required their own threads for cleaning them up.

Interestingly enough, some tropers apparently think Expy and Spiritual Licensee are the same thing. I can tell you that they're not, because Expy is about a character and Spiritual Licensee is about an entire story. Two different things.

As was brought up by troper Westrim at Ask the Tropers. Ensemble Dark Horse is misused, with many entries missing that the character must be unexpectedly popular. Fans like to mention any characters from ensemble casts. It could use its own clean-up thread.

Deadpan Snarker seems to suffer from a great many people who do not know what "deadpan" means. Then again, the description never says the Deadpan Snarker actually has to deadpan, so maybe that is not actually misuse.

edited 29th Apr '13 9:34:46 AM by willthiswork

I agree with both your points. I'm not sure why people don't consult the snark index more. There is a great variety of snarkers: Oh Great, a Snark Index.

edited 29th Apr '13 9:39:33 AM by XFllo

Deadpan Snarker doesn't specifically talk about being deadpan but it does say bitter and whimsical. I'd say that implies the deadpan part. We don't seem to have a trope for a loud snarker but there is a YKTTW for one here.

Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped is heavily misused. People assume that if a work has a moral, then it's automatically considered an anvil. An example from the page regarding Persona 4:

"Another, far more subtle one: Enjoy the time you have with your friends now; because there will come a time when life will pull you apart.Another, far more subtle one: Enjoy the time you have with your friends now; because there will come a time when life will pull you apart."

So wait, if it's subtle, why should it be considered an anvil?

There are definitely examples that fit such as the Spec Ops The Line examples, but honestly this definitely needs cleanup.

edited 29th Apr '13 9:44:44 PM by MrTerrorFace

I need to bring up Killed Off for Real. This is a trope that contains massive misuse.

The laconic description says, "Character dies and doesn't ever come back, not even when the other characters have been brought back to life." Sounds like a good description.

Despite this, it hasn't stopped misuse from popping up, like in these examples:

• Revolution: The trope doesn't really apply to that one, because no character in the series has been brought back to life once they're killed off. In other words, similar to Real Life.
• Avengers Vs X-Men: Professor Xavier killed off for real? Ah, no-no-no! These are comic books, remember? Death Is Cheap in that medium, and there's no reason to think that he won't come back eventually.

Also, the KOFR page has a Trope Repair Shop Discussion going into the issues with the trope.

If it has a TRS, then all issues should be dealt with in the TRS thread.

The trope page for Death By Sex describes it as the tendency for characters who have nonmarital sex (especially in horror movies) to die disproportionately often. Actual cause of death being irrelevant, i.e. it's not always the sex itself that does them in but it happens too often to be a coincidence.

However, I frequently see it used as a wick for examples of people dying during sex, which we have a specific trope for: Out with a Bang. And Out with a Bang's page lists it as "a type of Death By Sex"...

The terms shouldn't be able to be used interchangeably as easily as people are doing, should they? It's probably the titles. Without reading the pages, I'd assume they were both about death during or directly caused by getting it on.

Oh, yes, there's also Hannibal Lecture. The trope is supposed to be about attempting to interrogate a particular villain, who turns the tables on the interrogator with talking. But a lot of tropers have confused it with Break Them by Talking...which has little to do with interrogation. Oops!

I'm confused; is this thread supposed to be a discussion on whether cleanup threads, TRS threads, or other threads are necessary for specific tropes and articles? Or is this a thread about "Hey, I've noticed some misuse, can someone do something?"

edited 4th May '13 1:37:56 PM by DunDun

As far as I understand, it's for tropes that have a clear title and description but have examples listed that don't fit that were put there by people who probably weren't paying attention.

Here's another one I've noticed: apparently people have had difficulty making distinctions between Magnificent Bastard and Guile Hero.

For instance, Legend Of The Dragon list Master Chin as a Magnificent Bastard, but I think Guile Hero would be the more appropriate trope to apply to him. MB is a Villain Trope, and Chin is not a villain.

Magnificent Bastard is not a villain-only trope. It's morality-neutral; it's just more frequent with villains than with heroes.

edited 10th May '13 11:26:36 AM by Nocturna

I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this, but is there some particular reason why The Cowl has a section for "Questionable Examples"?

It seems to be "people who almost but not quite fit the trope." I would support cutting it.

Seems like shoehorning to me. Wouldn't object to that getting cut.

Looking through Tranquil Fury, it seems some examples ignore the fury part. Specifically I found Queen Elinor of Brave when she breaks up the fighting and Wash of Firefly. If the character isn't fighting or clearly angry then it's just being calm in a tense situation, not Tranquil Fury.

Need help cleaning up Dude Looks Like a Lady, especially the zero context examples which may or may not fit this trope. It's hard to tell considering a good portion of the examples with context actually belong under other tropes the description specific says Dude Looks Like a Lady not.

Family-Unfriendly Death is riddled with confusion for Cruel and Unusual Death to the point that I intend to take it to TRS as soon as a slot opens up. In the meantime, though, it would be nice to have some help cleaning examples from works that obviously wouldn't qualify as "family friendly" (Game of Thrones? Are you out of your frelling mind, nameless troper?), as well as the all-but-mandatory hyperbolic tone of some of the examples that do count.

edited 31st Jul '13 2:24:33 AM by nrjxll

It would be nice to have a clear distinction between the two, as an aside.

Well, that's what the TRS would be for. For the moment, though, I just want to remove the examples that are obviously not from family-friendly works (which is the one distinction that Family-Unfriendly Death does make clear).

The anime tropes seem to have a lot of misuse. Bifauxnen is not just a woman who looks like a nice man. That would be Attractive Bent-Gender. This is a woman who has the elegance, style, and charm of a man. Misuse includes Mulan, Gilmore Girls and The Dark Knight. Reading through the context of the examples it looks like it's just a list of Dude Looks Like a Lady.

The ZCE problem on Dude Looks Like a Lady should be taken to Projects: Long Term/Perpetual: Fixing zero context examples.