Lost in Space
Subversion and inversion are always tropeworthy, as long as people take care to understand what is and is not a subversion.
Aversions are only notable with regards to omnipresent tropes because otherwise they would just be lists of every time a trope is not used, which is meaningless.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
By "tropeworthy" i mean worthy of their own trope page(ex- No Antagonist).
Lost in Space
When an aversion, subversion, or inversion of a trope is prevalent enough to become a trope in and of itself, then it can have an article. The only requirement is that it be sufficiently distinct.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I think the question is whether there can ever be an example of Averted Trope on its own.
I would point out Space Is Noisy, where it is almost painfully obvious when you lack sound in space.
Overall all trope types are ways of playing with a trope, with playing it straight as the default. So no, you can't have a trope that is inherently an aversion as default, no more than having a trope that is inherently a subversion or exaggeration as default. When a trope is sufficiently played with in a certain manner it ceases to be played with and becomes its own trope, complete with its own playing with types.
edited 4th Feb '14 10:03:48 PM by KJMackley
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
I think KJ and Fighteer have nailed this one on the head. If it ever reaches a point to be so common it is very likely a separate trope in and of itself.
Who watches the watchmen?![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Reading the description(and the name), No Antagonist sounds merely as "aversion to The Antagonist". And this is not the only trope page that starts their description describing a really common trope, and mentions that this averts said trope.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
I have to disagree with that assumption. It is made quite clear by the description that is not the case. It is definitely more complex then a "simple aversion".
Who watches the watchmen?Based in the description in the main page, this is "The central conflict of the plot is not caused by The Antagonist"
The laconic is: "Antagonist not appearing in conflict-less stories."
In either case, both the definitions are inherently aversions to The Antagonist .
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Except that it is not a simple aversion going by said description. Aversion doesn't even show up the on the tropes page. Calling it an aversion would be incorrect as in this case it is trope not a simple aversion. This would be a case of what at first looks like an aversion not really being an aversion and instead is a trope.
If the story does not have protagonist then it is that trope not an aversion. It also takes a bit more then being different to another trope to be an aversion.
Right from our page on Aversions.
edited 7th Feb '14 7:56:07 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?The first paragraph to Averted Trope is:
"Tropes have exceptions. Sometimes a writer uses a situation that seems indelibly married to a trope, but the trope never appears. It's not a Subverted Trope, because the lack of trope is never pointed out. Nor is it a Lampshade Hanging, because the presence of trope is never pointed out. The trope just isn't there."
Their entry in Playing with a Trope is:
" Averted: The trope is simply absent from the work. It is not used, mentioned, or implied at all. As there are literally thousands of tropes, and many, many possible uses for most of those tropes, Aversions are generally not worth noting unless they are especially surprising, such as for a nearly universally-used trope or a trope that is very common in the genre.
The butler didn't do it. Or the victim does not have a butler at all. The weapons do not glow. Or there are no weapons at all. "
The first paragraph in Inverted Trope is:
"A particular form of creatively reusing an existing trope: The trope is turned exactly on its head. For example, a trope that typically applies to heroes is applied to a villain, or a trope that typically applies to males is applied to a female character, or the other way around (Gender-Inverted Trope). Some good examples are also in Genre Blindness, where rather than being blind to the conventions of the story-type they are in, the characters are presented as being hyper-aware of the conventions. A trope can often be inverted in more than one way. Indicative of Post Modernism."
Their description in Playing with a Trope is:
" Inverted: The trope (or its elements) are reversed and then used. Some tropes have more than one possible inversion.
The butler is the victim. Or the butler solved the crime. Or every suspect except the butler was part of the crime. Only weak weapons glow. Or powerful weapons absorb light, creating darkness around them. "
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
And the bolded part still seals the deal and makes your point moot. It is not an aversion it is a different trope.
Still fully applies. It is not an aversion it is a different trope entirely. It is both clear and rather simple.
edited 8th Feb '14 2:22:47 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
No, the other one.
It's still possible for it to be an aversion of one trope and a different trope. There is no mutually exclusive or constant bond here, unless maybe if the tropes are explicitly defined as such.
For instance, if you have a No Antagonist story about soul searching, it doesn't really have to be an aversion of The Antagonist. On the ther hand, if you have a Super Hero story with no antagonist, it's much more likely to be an aversion of The Antagonist, since that's a genre known for its villains.
edited 8th Feb '14 11:56:10 PM by AnotherDuck
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While creators are not aware of every trope they are using I tend to think that they are still aware of most. It's a wise idea to think that the tropes you are seeing in a story are being consciously used by whoever created it, even a Jackson Pollock painting is done with a purpose.
So whenever you see a trope being played with, assume it is done on purpose and view it from the perspective of how it was created. Thus an averted trope is when the creator is aware of the convention and purposefully avoids it (it is not 100% true but that's irrelevant for the purposes of the argument). As I said, you don't avert Space Is Noisy by accident.
If they avert it with another trope, that's another trope and not a natural aversion. If there happens to be an entire subgenre of works that purposefully avert Space Is Noisy by doing Space Is Silent, they've created a new trope. Space Is Silent is the aversion of Space Is Noisy but Space Is Silent itself is played straight.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Tiny problem with all of that. No Antagonist is the problem.
Part of being a proper aversion is it is not common. If you can fill a page with nothing but aversions you are either using aversion wrong or you have a different trope altogether.
This is why the Aversion to Space Is Noisy works. The Aversion is uncommon. No Antagonist is so common that it is a trope. And when something is just a different trope it is not an aversion.
If an author leaves out the Antagonist deliberately it is almost certain to be No Antagonist unless there is a lack of conflict.
Even a superhero work with out an Antognist would be Antagonist unless there is no conflict. And a Genre being known for its villain characters doesn't automatically make it an aversion if an example in said genre lacks villains. If the super hero has conflict without it being caused by another character its No Antagonist .
If you stripped out all the villains from superman and all he did was stop natural disasters it would be No Antagonist not an Aversion.
edited 9th Feb '14 4:43:42 AM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
No, the other one.
No one said anything about "automatically". You're speaking in absolutes. That's specifically against what I said.
If you have someone who wants to be a super hero so she can fight villains, and she gets powers, but then find that there are no villains to fight, you have an aversion of The Antagonist. You also have No Antagonist. It could be a subversion of The Antagonist, if the story plays it up as if there will be one, but there isn't.
Space Is Silent isn't a trope because it's People Sit On Chairs. It doesn't have a point in itself. There could be related tropes in play, like using silence for dramatic effect, but Space Is Silent, in itself, isn't a trope.
You don't need an entire subgenre to make a trope. You need a few examples. That's it.
Check out my fanfiction!
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
"No Antagonist" doesn't seem like an aversion specifically to "The Antagonist". What it seems more like to me is an aversion of a trope we don't currently have, but is perfectly summed up in The Grand List of Console RPG Cliches: the fictional idea that every Conflict in the setting is caused or rooted in the persons who oppose the hero.
This is different from simply saying that No Antagonist is an "aversion" of The Antagonist, because this means you can actually have both. For example, a Disaster Film in which one or more other characters impede the hero's aim to prevent or escape said disaster. It has antagonists, in that it has people that provide conflict and oppose the hero—but the primary conflict of the story is still the disaster.
For this reason, I say it's inaccurate to call No Antagonist an "aversion" of The Antagonist—it's more like making The Antagonist a Downplayed Trope.
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
^^ That would be "also", not "instead".
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.{{16}}The tropes with listed aversions in Omnipresent Tropes are, currently:
The Law of Conservation of Detail, Missing Backblast, Most Writers Are Adults, Most Writers Are Human, Nobody Poops, Perfect Health, Third-Person Flashback and Three-Month-Old Newborn. In other words, 8 tropes out of 51.
Beyond this, two of the tropes in question belong to Acceptable Breaks from Reality, one to Artistic License – Physics (both the indexes have a similar "problem" than Space Is Noisy) and one of the Acceptable Breaks from Reality says "The page lists lampshades of the phenomenon; straight examples and aversions are too many to count." in their fifth paragraph.
edited 20th Feb '14 2:58:24 AM by MagBas
Well, a lot of times i read that if a trope is sufficiently common, their aversion, subversion and inversion are automatically tropeworthy. If this is the case, this not turns Averted Trope redundant? After all, examples to Averted Trope are only allowed if the trope in question is more common than their aversion.
edited 4th Feb '14 1:17:52 PM by MagBas