Jupiterian Local
The question is, why does it matter?
- Alice has Super-Strength. She uses it to punch bad guys in the face until they fall down. However, she's none too tough herself, so she's a Glass Cannon.
- Bob has Telekinesis. He uses it to smash bad guys in the face until they fall down. However, he's none too tough himself, so he's a Glass Cannon.
What's the functional difference, there?
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
No, it's not magic, it's superpowers. When I say "magic", I mean more along the lines of Functional Magic, the Squishy Wizard type stuff. That's why I said that it doesn't matter where the superpowers come from.
If it really is that confusing, then we can just leave Fragile Speedster and Lightning Bruiser alone, and just define Mighty Glacier based on physical attributes only, without superpowers, while two new tropes are made for all other examples.
edited 3rd Oct '13 2:50:52 PM by shiro_okami
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
Well, why is it being changed in the first place? What's wrong with it that it needs to be changed?
Maybe it will make more sense if I put it this way. My view of the tropes have to do with Necessary Drawback; that a Mighty Glacier isn't just somebody who is strong and tough but slow, but someone who's mastery in strength and toughness either causes them to neglect their speed or actively prevents them from being fast; that a Fragile Speedster isn't just somebody who is fast but weak, but someone who's mastery in speed either causes them to neglect their building strength and durability or actively prevents them from being strong and tough.
Jupiterian Local
You're correct vis-a-vis Necessary Drawback; we're defining each of the tropes as one strength and one weakness (Mighty Glacier being strong but slow). The question is what does the source of those strengths and weaknesses — physically attributes or superpowers or magic or technology or whatever — have to do with the definition of the trope? We're saying "nothing", and you've yet to really articulate why segregating things that way is a good idea.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
I'm trying to brainstorm projectile-based Mighty Glaciers...I guess if your cannon has a really slow firing rate? Or if you have, like, a tank that rolls really slowly, maybe?
But are they really the same archetype, or just a Sister Trope based on similar principles? And if we interpret the trope more loosely, how strict do we need to be on the offense and defense requirements? Because if we step back to the general, the trope looks less like "slow, but with high offense and defense" and more like a broader "slow, but powerful," with "power" being closer to the more generic sense of, like, Power.
I can see some room for debate—but if we're looking at the fuzzy edges of exactly what counts and what doesn't, then we might be straying into Trope Talk territory.
Rhymes with "Protracted."
Because superpowers and magic are usually the sources of strengths only, not weaknesses. There are usually no rules that prevent a wizard who has specialized in offense to suddenly start specializing in speed. The processes of building offense, defense, and speed based on magic or superpowers may be completely unrelated to each other. Regarding physical attributes, building up one attribute may have a direct negatively impact on another, and it takes careful training for mastery in all attributes and/or a lot of raw power to be a true Lightning Bruiser.
Magic and powers also adds in another dynamic in addition to physical attributes that can actually negate Necessary Drawback. For instance, a lightweight person who is granted Super-Strength without increasing their muscle size can easily pass for a Lightning Bruiser simply because they have less mass to move around, while someone who gained the same amount of strength by building up their muscles, whether naturally or some other way, might be stuck as a Mighty Glacier if their strength attribute is too imbalanced. Generally the only way superpowers can count as Necessary Drawback is if Required Secondary Powers is averted.
This also works the other way in the case of the Squishy Wizard. Said wizard may be capable of spamming huge fireballs, putting up impenetrable barriers, and flying past the sound barrier. But at the same time, he's a 90 lb weakling with asthma who can't run and can't physically take a hit once his barrier comes down. So is he a Lightning Bruiser, or not? Now consider a boxing champion who can run a 4-minute mile, and is as quick as he is strong; obvious Lightning Bruiser, right? Only thing is, he can't even scratch the above wizard's barrier. So could he really be considered a Lightning Bruiser in that setting? If both are characters in the same universe, which is the Lightning Bruiser and which is the weaking? One, the other, or both?
edited 4th Oct '13 4:06:06 PM by shiro_okami
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
A normal human is unaffected by Kyrptonite.
The Quote for Squishy Wizard cites the study of magic (the source of their power) as the reason for the Wizard's weakness.
And yes, these tropes are Universe-Dependant. A boxer is only a Lightning Bruiser while inside the ring. Not on the streets of New York.
Dealing with your LB issue with wizards specifically, You're thinking of a specific type of Wizard. The one you describe is not a Lightning Bruiser under the current definition. It would be a Lightning Bruiser under the redefinition proposed in the Crowner. The style of Wizard you describe is Squishy Wizard, and fits none of the Trifecta.
edited 4th Oct '13 4:16:46 PM by crazysamaritan
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
But that weakness isn't caused by Superman's powers. Doesn't count.
That's nothing more than a Handwave.
What crowner?
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
Re: Superman-
- you're splitting hairs; Supes gets his powers because he's an alien from Krypton. Kryptonite kills Superman. That's a weakness that comes directly from his power.
Re: Wizards-
- You can call it a Handwave, but that excuse has been used since OED (D&D, the Trope Codifier for many Wizard tropes) for the Necessary Drawback of Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards.
Re: Crowner-
- The Crowner running right now.
edited 4th Oct '13 5:40:40 PM by crazysamaritan
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
No, Superman does not get his powers from Krypton. He gets his powers from Earth's sun reacting with his alien physiology. The Kryptonite weakness does not exist because of his powers but in spite of them. If his weakness instead came from a rock native to Earth, then his powers could be considered the source of his weakness. Not to mention that the reason why Kryptonite is lethal to Superman, or even exists at all, is completely arbitrary. If the voice actor for the Superman radio show had never wanted/needed vacation time, Kryptonite might have never existed, and Superman would not have a weakness.
Why is it a Handwave? In the Nasuverse you have an example of a magus, when faced against a legendary magus Medea far above her rank, who simply defeats said magus by abandoning her magic and using martial arts instead while Medea's physical protector is distracted. Same universe features a magus who can break a tree in half using palm pressure alone. In Mahou Sensei Negima, one of the strongest magi is a huge, muscular, former gladiator who is as accomplished in physical fighting as he is in magic. It's a Handwave because there is no hard rule that says a wizard absolutely has to be squishy, and as long as Squishy Wizard is a fictional and avertable trope it will always be a Handwave. It's a Handwave because it falls under the "unless noted" part of Like Reality, Unless Noted.
edited 4th Oct '13 9:49:35 PM by shiro_okami
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
You were asked to explain what "the source of those strengths and weaknesses have to do with the definition of the trope". You haven't done that. You've argued that they negate the idea of Necessary Drawback, which features "Characters such as Superman and Vampires will have these weaknesses automatically or else there is no drama involved, just an unstoppable force." as a part of the definition to the trope.
So I am still unsatisfied with why +Tough -Speed (or +Power -Speed) should be split based on if they are "mundane" examples or Handwaved examples.
edited 4th Oct '13 10:21:56 PM by crazysamaritan
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
I did not say that aversions negate the Squishy Wizard trope itself, I said that they negate the trope as an example of Necessary Drawback.
It seems I haven't been clear enough. When I referred to "weaknesses", I meant LOGICAL weaknesses, not Weaksauce Weakness. Is Kryptonite a weaknesss, YES. Is it a logical weakness, NO. ONLY logical weaknesses should count in the character archetypes. If a weakness does not logically result from an attribute or ability, then there is no relationship between the weakness and the power, or a reason for the weakness to even exist in the first place. If there is no good reason for the weakness to exist, then the drawback is only necessary in order to preserve drama, nothing more. Drama Preserving Handicaps are often not logical weaknesses, but plot devices. And even if a weakness does have a direct relationship with or is caused by a superpower, it is only a logical weakness if said weakness would occur naturally if someone with that superpower existed in real life.
Even if the Necessary Drawback trope itself includes all kinds of weaknesses, including Weaksauce Weakness, including all kinds of weaknesses in the character archetype tropes would just be too convoluted, as would including many different types of attributes and ways to obtain such attributes. Physically speaking, in the case of a person who has strength and toughness built up through brawn which negatively impacts speed, not only do the strength and toughness have a direct relationship with their speed, but their strength and toughness have a direct relationship with each other, as a person who is at peak physical strength does not go down with one punch to the gut and a person who's bulk and brawn makes them really tough will also give them the ability to dish out as much damage as they can take. That alone should justify leaving Mighty Glacier as it is even if two separate tropes are made that cover +offense/-speed and +defense/-speed.
I am basically making a differentiation between weaknesses that do exist or would exist in real life and weaknesses that only exist because the author says so.
edited 5th Oct '13 11:35:05 AM by shiro_okami
Jupiterian Local
...what? You're saying that some examples of +offense -speed also have +defense -speed, therefore we should have a +offense +defense -speed trope? That's just The Same But More Specific (of the "trope X and trope Y at the same time" type) — the proper thing to do would just be to list any +offense +defense -speed examples on both the +offense -speed and +defense -speed pages.
Anyway, we've wandered way off topic. Ultimately, the tropes are about character abilities. Whether they can move fast, use powerful attacks, or take a lot of punishment and keep going. I've yet to see anyone make a clear argument why we should segregate by source of the ability in question — "+speed -defense from physical training" or "+speed -defense from superpowers" or "+speed -defense from magic" are all functionally identical (not to mention difficult to distinguish at times, given things like Charles Atlas Superpower and Supernatural Martial Arts). Tropes Are Flexible; there's no real benefit to splitting the tropes between "mundane" and "with powers" versions, even if the execution of doing so wouldn't be a nightmare.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Yes, considering that, y'know, we already have a trope like that, and considering that since +offense -speed and +defense -speed tropes don't exist yet, it's less like "some" examples and more like all examples.
Jupiterian Local
We already have crowners that are solidly in support of both a) redefining existing tropes like Mighty Glacier to "one good, one bad attribute", and b) creating tropes for the missing attribute combos like +defense -speed. So we won't have a +offense +defense -speed trope but we will have +offense -speed and +defense -speed tropes once we get around to implementing those crowners.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Also, these look more like stat combos than character archetypes.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanCan't we just call Mighty Glacier -speed +might (/power/brawn/buffness/etc.) and save some splitting? It's a widely-used archetype; we don't need to chain ourselves to video game stats.
edited 5th Oct '13 12:40:35 PM by troacctid
Rhymes with "Protracted."
Jupiterian Local
At this point we're officially rehashing discussion that we had weeks ago.
We're using things like "+speed -defense" as shorthand. The tropes are about archetypes of certain character attributes — a Fragile Speedster is a character that's quick but can't take many hits, a Glass Cannon is a character with a powerful offense but a weak defense, etc. It's not inherently about video game stats, though there will be a lot of video game examples.
That's what its current definition is. A previous round of TRS for these tropes decided to go with "offense vs defense" (for Glass Cannon and Stone Wall) and "speed vs power" (for Mighty Glacier and Fragile Speedster) — "power" meaning both offense and defense in this case. In this thread, we've already decided to use speed, offense, and defense as the three attributes we're looking at, and have the series of tropes each be "one attribute they're good at, one they're bad at", with examples that fit more than one archetype (eg, a character that's fast and has a strong offense at the cost of a weak defense) simply be listed in more than one trope (eg, they'd be both a Fragile Speedster and a Glass Cannon). That's what the current crowner (which has been around for weeks and has pretty clear results) is all about.
Really, at this point, we've already decided what to do, we just need to do it. The topic is large and complex enough that people keep entering the conversation after we've more or less reached consensus and we end up rehashing decisions that have already been made until someone else enters the conversation and we end up rehashing something else. If we're ever going to get anywhere with this, we need to officially close down discussion of what we're going to do and move on to doing it.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
Redefining the four tropes is at 13:6
Votes are still coming in, and it could still go either way.
Shiro has a proposal that none of us are yet in agreement with. After the name crowner for Stone Wall, the next multi option crowner can include further splitting the tropes based on if the example overlaps with Logical Weakness or not.
edited 6th Oct '13 7:04:21 AM by crazysamaritan
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Posting for the record that the current crowner is at 16:6, 14:7, and 4:12.
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
Redefining the four tropes went down to 13:8 today.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
I'm sort of confused about who is voting "yea" on starting two new tropes to cover the missing strength / weakness pairings but "nay" on redefining each trope in the family as one strength / one weakness. It seems to me that the one is sort of contingent on the other. It doesn't really make sense to start a "strong defense / weak speed" trope if Mighty Glacier is still defined as "strong offense / strong defense / weak speed," for example.
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
By "is contingent upon", it means if the four tropes are not redefined, then we will not make the two other tropes.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Crown Description:
The current name is misleading, implying as it does that a Stone Wall is either stationary or very slow. In fact, the trope description specifies that a Stone Wall is strong defensively and weak offensively. This has lead to rampant misuse. As such, the name should be changed. See discussion here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1375910344098917700&page=4
particularly the wick check on Page 4. Excluding Zero Context Examples, we're looking at a roughly 60% misuse rate.
It's physical speed. He is physically moving. With his body. That's physical.
I'm not seeing the ambiguity here. As already described
, things that wouldn't count would be like magic (e.g. fireballs, turning people into frogs) and non-physical superpowers (e.g. heat vision, telekinesis). Super-Speed and Super-Strength are obviously physical superpowers.
edited 3rd Oct '13 11:36:20 AM by troacctid
Rhymes with "Protracted."