Duplicate Trope: Best Her To Bed Her

Best Her to Bed Her^note "She's strong, but he has to be stronger to win her", to quote Men Are Tough. is identical in definition to All Amazons Want Hercules^note "No matter how strong she is, she always wants a stronger man", to quote Men Are Tough., only it's character-specific — that is, the first is about one strong woman only accepting a stronger man as her husband/boyfriend/mate, while the latter is about having strong women want only stronger men as husbands/boyfriends/mates by default in a given work.

Does that really merit having the two as distinct tropes? Seems like a case of The Same But More Specific to me.

edited 14th Dec '13 3:41:40 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I'm not seeing it.

First of all, Best Her to Bed Her isn't necessarily about physical strength, and All Amazons Want Hercules is.

Secondly, Best Her to Bed Her necessitates some sort of competition. The man can't just surpass her from afar, he has to emerge victorious directly against her.

edited 13th Dec '13 6:55:46 PM by David7204

To highlight this distinction, there's the Quantum Leap episode "How the Tess Was Won". Sam leaps into "Doc" Daniel Young, a veterinarian working on a Texas ranch. Sam is convinced that his mission is to win over the ranch owner's daughter, Tess, by competing in a "cowboy" contest against her.

The "Doc" is weak. Sam is unused to the skills needed to function as a cowhand, and "wins" by demonstrating better judgement, rather than superior power.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I agree with @2, for the record.

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

OK, that implies that the latter is a subtrope of the former.

First, that seems to run counter to the second half of Best Her to Bed Her's first paragraph, about winning a metaphorical battle, and all the uses of "can conquer", "can take charge", etc., which imply that he doesn't have to actually "conquer" her or "take charge", just demonstrate the potential ability to (admittedly, that may be pedantic, but it is there; if it's wrong phrasing, then we have to fix it).

Second, I can't see where you got the impression that Best Her to Bed Her and All Amazons Want Hercules differ on this matter. They seem equal to each other in this regard.

edited 14th Dec '13 3:41:55 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

A metaphorical battle is like a game of poker.

You can't just play against other people and expect her to fall in love with you. You have to demonstrate being better than her. I can see the argument for making All Amazons Want Hercules a subtrope of this one. That one requires proof the male is stronger than the woman, and any indirect proof is really just Women Prefer Strong Men.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Yes, but proof that the man is stronger than her isn't always done by fighting or competing against her. Often times it's done by fighting besides her in All Amazons Want Heracles. His strength is shown by working along side, not in direct opposition to.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

OK, just to recap what we've gathered so far:

1. Best Her to Bed Her isn't always about physical strength, while All Amazons Want Hercules is.
2. All Amazons Want Hercules is not a Setting Gimmicks or Tropes in Aggregate kind of trope — i.e. it can be character-specific.
3. Neither trope requires that the woman be directly defeated; the superiority can be demonstrated indirectly, e.g. via fighting alongside the woman.

Conclusion #1 runs into the problem that Best Her to Bed Her's description might not be clear enough on the "not necessarily physical" aspect of the superiorty element; this is demonstrated by how the examples seem overwhelmingly biased in favor of physical strength-type ones (I'm fairly certain there a lot more intellect-type versions of the trope out there, but I don't remember any at the moment).

Similarly, conclusion #2 faces the dual problem of a somewhat misleading title (every "All X Are/Verb Y" that I know are "X are by default Y" tropes) and a description that is, in hindsight, rather ambiguous on whether or not it allows for character-specific trope.

edited 15th Dec '13 2:59:06 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Isn't Best Her to Bed Her just the renamed Red Sonja?

In that case they are not duplicates at all.

Yes.

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

Ah, good point, I forgot that bit of the trope. Best Her to Bed Her requires that the woman can't sleep with any man who can't best her. Normally because of some oath, or boast, or curse.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

AFAIK, yes, The Red Sonja was renamed to Best Her to Bed Her, but I'm not sure whether or not the rename also involved a definition tweak; I do know that The Red Sonja focused too much on a single aspect of the character, which is what was used for Best Her to Bed Her's definition.

... And All Amazons Want Hercules doesn't have that requirement? That doesn't make sense.

edited 15th Dec '13 12:08:07 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

No, it doesn't. All Amazons Want Hercules does not have the binding oath requirement.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

I meant the "can't sleep with any man who can't best her" part (though in All Amazons Want Hercules, it's probably "won't" instead), not why it is so.

edited 15th Dec '13 1:29:26 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

In my understanding, Best Her to Bed Her is an imposed requirement for the man to prove himself worthy of the woman by defeating her in something. All Amazons Want Hercules is the tendency for strong women find attraction in even stronger men.

edited 16th Dec '13 6:25:39 PM by theAdeptrogue

That would be the distinction.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

OK. Where does that leave the two problems that I've brought up in this post?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I don't see the problem. The distinction is this:

All Amazons Want Hercules: Strong women are attracted to strong men. (Strong = physically strong here).

Best Her to Bed Her: A woman must be defeated by a man before he can bed/marry her. Implying some oath or somewhat that she won't bed down with a man who can't beat her. Also implied is that bedding her is a prize for the man who can beat her.

edited 1st Jan '14 12:43:29 AM by Sackett

Uh, no, All Amazons Want Hercules requires men who are stronger than the already strong women. And you missed the "isn't clear enough on not requiring physical superiority" problem that I pointed out about Best Her to Bed Her.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Well, maybe the description of that page doesn't really make it clear enough, but doesn't the "metaphorical sort of battle" part imply such?

Anyway, what distinguish this trope from All Amazons Want Hercules is "the presence of some rule or custom" that prevents the woman from being with a man who can't "master" her - that's the focus of the trope. Whether or not anyone actually manage to accomplish this, or whether the woman would actually fall in love with the guy who did is irrelevant to this. All Amazons Want Hercules is simply about the woman having preference on stronger man.

I wonder if All Amazons Want Hercules needs a rename to emphasize the "stronger" part. Part of the distinction seems to be desiring a stronger man versus sleeping with a man as a reward for being stronger, if that makes sense. It's like one is an enforced version of the other.

edited 1st Jan '14 2:47:41 PM by MorganWick

Exactly that. I personally think the current name is clear enough, though, but maybe not for some others. Strong Women Prefer Stronger Men? Or is that too direct?

I there some evidence of misuse?

All I've seen in this thread is a claim that they are the same trope, which I believe we have concluded is incorrect.

They are obviously closely related, so I suppose there could be misuse, as well as legitimately overlapping examples. But I haven't seen anyone claim that yet.

Well, everything we've talked about since your last post was because you yourself goofed up the distinction, or so Marq FJA claimed...

edited 5th Jan '14 9:20:23 PM by MorganWick

Okay... so I forgot to put the "er" after one of the strongs.

Instead of "Strong women like strong men" I should have said "Strong women like stronger men".

I don't think that is a significant error and not relevant to the question. Is there any evidence of misuse in the examples?