Complaining: Flanderization

We have more specific tropes for that, though. Depending on the Writer, Running the Asylum, and such.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Flanderization is not always an accident, ie the result of lazy writing, and while we can speculate as to the reasons a character may be written differently trying to make a distinction based on behind-the-scenes info is normally irrelevant. It's about what happens on screen and in universe, anything else is just Reality Subtext.

1. @Mr. Movie im pretty sure you can always remove clearly bad examples, but dont go wholesale example-gutting on this cause were still discussing it :)

2. agree that it doesnt matter who the writer is, in fact this might even be more common in multiwriter works because a flanderized exaggerated character is easier for different writers to keep in character than a subtle rounded one

While we're at it, I wonder if we could make Known Only For Their Quirk as a redirect...

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

^ but isnt that an audience reaction? after all this is about the quirk becoming more prominent, not about the quirk being what the audience remembers

I think we should either replace the image or change the definition to match the way it is being used, because imo the image is part of whats causing the misuse: the image shows a very clear and easy to understand example of "character becomes and exagerated caricature of themselves" while the description is long and meandering and says something different. i know i assumed when i saw this first that the trope was what the image showed because i didnt feel like reading all of it.

I was going to say that. I think part of the problem is the way the trope is being presented. Firstly, that image looks like a bad parody, and it's highlighting the character's negative traits, and making him appear more shallow. That is partly fueling the negative connotation. I also think the description needs some rewriting. Namely,

Well, that paragraph makes it sound like a bad thing. Of course, since Ned Flanders is the Trope Namer, he needs to be presented in a more neutral light. On the bad, his character's become an idiot compared to how he was introduced; on the good, it's a huge source of comedy and has made him to be a far more memoral character than he would have been otherwise. So, some work needs to be taken into addressing the Ned Flanders example better.

Now, I see that the following paragraph says: "Flanderization doesn't have to be a bad thing." But the tone of the article on a whole should reflect this. Of course, this trope has heavy overlap with Early-Installment Weirdness, where the change is rarely seen as a bad thing. More work needs to be taken to give this trope a more neutral connotation, and for starters, the Ned Flanders example and the image don't help with that.

edited 8th May '14 7:14:22 PM by Rethkir

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I actually made a thread in trope talk about that general train of thought. Tropes Are Tools but Sturgeon's Law still applies, with some tropes more ripe for complaining than others. I think it is always important to note the upside to the use of any trope, but Flanderization typically IS writing character comparatively broader and more shallow.

I actually don't think the problem is specifically the complaining, but straight up misuse and misrepresentation of the trope. We've already brought up flanderization of non-characters as a problem (setting, running gags, etc), as well as comments that are just about a character changing personalities over time and not one quirk becoming their entire shtick. Hell, I'm pretty sure Characterization Marches On was created specifically as a counterpoint to Flanderization.

I think first thing is first, take out examples that ignore comparing the the quirk in earlier seasons versus later seasons. After that, look at media in question you are familiar with and see if the example is accurate or exaggerating. If we were to eliminate the complaining in the trope, might as well nuke the examples and start over. #donottakeseriously

I heavily disagree with that. Ultimately, "Canon" is more of a legal concept than a creative one.

A person writing My Little Pony novels and exaggerating Pinkie Pie's mannerisms in it, is going through the same process as a person writing Star Wars EU novels and exaggerating Han Solo's mannerisms. An overwhelming majority of "canon" works categorized on this site are derivative works in terms of changing writers and other staff members. "The James Bond franchise" or "The Pirates of the Carribean series" is as much of a bundle of works written by many artists derivatively imitating each other, as many fanfictions are, even if the latter are outside of the canon as the IP holder determines it.

The key with fanfiction is that technically, it should follow the "over time" aspect in the description from the very first paragraph.

Well, if I just exaggerated a character's traits in a fanfic I write, it really doesn't count, unless that character's personality becomes flatter and more defined by that trait over the course of the story. Though that's not even what this trope was intended for, of course. For example, let's take the My Little Unicorn example,a shining staple of bad writing: That is not flanderization under the current definition at all, since their personalities never devolved into this simplicity over time. That's just Out of Character. They were written that way from the beginning because of bad writing. I agree that this is some trope, but it's not a gradual process as the definition defines it as so. So, we need to be clear on what the definition of this trope is.

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Edit A few hours later: Aha! The trope is Character Derailment. I just stumbled on it by accident, but this seems to be the one to which fanfiction would apply.

edited 10th May '14 10:47:43 PM by Rethkir

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Then are you saying that neither can whole franchises such as James Bond or Pirates of the Carribean apply?

You say the MLP characters in your example "were written that way from the beginning"... of My Little Unicorn. But they weren't written that way in the biginning of Friendship is Magic.

You could also say, that Octopussy didn't have a flanderization of James Bond, because he was "written that way from the beginning"... of Octopussy. But he wasn't written that way in Dr. No, or From Russia With Love.

We could say that the trope only applies inside of single works, like a continous TV show, and not to separate works in the same "universe". But then what about movies, which are often written in franchise without being a continous projects? Does a literary series only count as long as it is by the same person? What about old mythology, where the same trope can be observed through oral tradition?

There could be many places to draw that line, but the creator's IP control is a remarkably arbitrary one, that has little effect on the trope's functioning.

edited 11th May '14 3:40:59 AM by Ever9

To treat fanfic as a part of the universe in which it is set is a gross mistake. Otherwise we have to count every slash fic, every porn fic, every dark fic, every Mary Sue fic as a part of their franchise, which is balls-out absurd. I'll cut this trope myself before I let you do that.

edited 11th May '14 6:10:15 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Yeah, fanfic examples should be cut unless they actually apply. As I said, those examples are really character derailment within their own canons. With film franchises, a progression can occur over a series of films. But by its nature, fanfic usually cannot apply.

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It is not so much an issue of "What is canon?" as the trope is about continuity in the main product, and the definition of "main product" is never in question. For Star Wars it is the live action movies, for Buffy The Vampire Slayer it is the TV show, for Halo it is the games.

The expanded universe is exactly that, additional stories done in a different medium. This is a huge difference to a notable change in the same product, spin-offs and sequels. For adaptations it is subject to the rules it set for itself, as we have other tropes for that like Character Exaggeration, and as such is subject to its own internal characterization and not the parent story.

Of course it's balls-out absurd, because "franchise" means "licensed intellectual property". It is a legal concept. To treat this synonymously with "universe" which is a creative concept, is a gross mistake.

Friendship Is Magic is in the same franchise as Rescue From Midnight Castle, even if not in the same universe. But it is not in the same franchise as My Little Unicorn which is in the same universe (Equestria).

Then again, the Odyssey is not in the same franchise as the Iliad, (because franchising laws didn't exist back then).

What to count as part of a franchise is not in question, the question is why this particular legal categorization should determine which writers are employing Flanderisation, why franchised ones can, and unfranchised ones can't.

I see that there are some Literary Tropes that inherently don't apply to fanfics based on their own nature, like Contemptible Cover or Young Adult fiction, because that's how they are published, and fanfics are not published.

But how is the process through which a derivative writer determines how to characterize pre-existing figures, one of those that is inherently done differently based on publishing?

At best that is something that just tends not to happen, but those tropes we still list outside their most common genre, when they do happen.

Let The Walt Disney Company care about what is it's "main product", we are supposed to be categorizing stories, not products.

If there are some ways in which the existence corporate publishing tends to influence the stories, let's take note of that. If there are some narratives which it makes conceptually impossible, let's note that too. But let's not mix up the two.

edited 12th May '14 5:38:04 AM by Ever9

As much as some people would like to think otherwise, most fictional 'verses are not open sandboxes where anyone can write for them and expect others to count what they've done as something that's really a part of that 'verse.

Call it canon, call it continuity, call it franchise — all you're really doing is stating that authors aren't allowed to exert any kind of ownership of their creative product. That some teenage girl writing slashfic in her bedroom is every bit as much a part of a fictional universe as its original creator and deserves equal consideration for tropes that have to do specifically with continuity and character development.

This is absurd on its face. As far as it has to do with this trope (which is the topic), Flanderization as defined cannot occur between main work and derivative; that's Character Derailment instead. It can occur within a work, though.

edited 12th May '14 6:44:58 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

The main point of Flanderization, is that it's an organic, gradual evolution of a character, as the page itself points out repeatedly, related to Character Exaggeration and to Lost in Imitation. It's about more than just Character Derailment happening overnight.

First Ned Flanders gets recognized by the viewers as a religious man, then the writers use this to establish more and more future gags, which means that Ned gets known as a fundie, which leads to more gags like that, and eventually Ned is being viewed and written by people who weren't even even born when he was still just a Nice Guy wholesome Christian everyman. It's all about the feedback loop, the self-strenghtening of the stereotypes as perceived by public reaction. Mythmaking.

If anything, Fanfiction can be perfect examples of Flanderization, because they have that most organic development like the oral tradition of old, where the audience is also the storyteller, each unit gradually shaping the universe by it's own addition to the audience's collective consciousness perception of it. In a way, all the sequence of specific works inside of it are closer to organically shaping characterization, than when an executive decides that, say, grim and gritty superheroes are in, so that aspect of their franchise should be exaggerated in the next derivative work, or when a sitcom is getting new showrunners specifically with the command to make the show a bit whackier. Maybe the latter is in "continuity" or a "canon", while the former is a messier, self-contradictory set of works, yet they are both doing the same thing, exaggerating a pre-existing character's well-known features.

This is not a legal issue. You say that authors are allowed to exert ownership of their creative product. Evidently, you are right because that's exactly what they are doing. But whether or not they are, should not influence how we categorize the end results, unless they themselves are objectively influenced by that legal "ownership". If copyright would suddenly be shortened back to 28 years and ponies would be as Public Domain as Alice in Wonderland, would that make stories based on them more subjectable to landerization than now? And vice versa if somehow the Caroll Estate would regain it's old IP, and they could just declare all the latest openly created works to actually be illegal fanfiction, would that force us to change any of their Flanderization tags that we use right now to Character Derailment?

Are we supposed to categorize the ways stories are told, or the legal statuses that they can have?

edited 12th May '14 7:48:03 AM by Ever9

Very good points. The fanfiction issue brought us off topic. The key is gradual evolution. That can happen in fanfics if a character changes within the fic itself, but merely simplifying a character from the beginning doesn't count. It must be within the context of the story itself.

edited 12th May '14 8:05:52 AM by Rethkir

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Our problem seems to be how to define the borders of "the story". Should it be the character's overall existence, or only the version inside a specific unit with tangible edges?

With things like TV series and Webcomics it is easy, because there is a single long-runner work, with it's own work page and trope list, where we can note how the character evolved over the years "inside the story".

But what about my previous example? Can we say that for the purposes of this trope, the subject is James Bond, the character, in the context of how his portrayal and public perception both changed over the course of decades, several individual works? By your logic, we can't because if I watch Octopussy, I can merely say that the character was "simplified from the biginning" of Octopussy. By my own logic, we can, because the trope isn't really about Octopussy, it's an observation about Bond the character, in the context of his past usage.

And if we can indeed decide that about long-running sequelized franchises, about multimedia franchises, then why not about Public Domain characters' usages, and fanfiction? These are all, one way or another, derivative works.

If James Bond can be flanderized accross several movies, then so can Sherlock Holmes through several stories, even if they were written after the Public Domain passage, we should still make a comment about how Watson becoming The Watson has been exaggerated by certain writers in their own takes on him.

And if Watson can be flanderized without a canon IP holder, then so can ponies in spite of an IP holder. The subject of he trope is Rarity's character, and how she came to be associated largely with fashion, and how it ended up reflected in My Little Unicorn, but that is just the end result of the trope's happening, that is depending on the wider audience perception, not on Hasbro's presence.

We are always talking about the same thing, "character ends up getting written more exeggareted in newer stories", whether these new stories are written as episodes under the same single work title, or multiple works written under the same trademarked franchise, or works written beyond such a franchise thanks to Public Domain, or works written in spite of such a franchise in fanfiction.

edited 12th May '14 9:12:05 AM by Ever9

You're playing with Death of the Author to a frankly absurd degree, and I must inform you that your view is not the wiki's official view. You are welcome to think that way but we will not use it as criteria for tropes.

There are two continuities within the James Bond film series; the original and the reboot with Daniel Craig. Each would count separately, as would the novels.

Fanfic cannot rationally be considered part of a series' continuity, in part because there's so much of it that assembling any kind of coherent story would be impossible, and in part because of the ownership factor. If I want to write my own personal story about My Little Unicorn or whatever, I'm not under any obligation to pay respect to your collection of slash fic, nor do I have any right to demand that my story be considered canonical within the official series.

In cases of public domain characters, each work (or series of works) using them would count as its own continuity, separate from all others.

edited 12th May '14 9:19:53 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

This has nothing to do with Death of the Author, which is about interpreting the original work's content, or with how wiki policy counts continuity.

You say that Sherlock is in a separate continuity from Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories? Sure, let's go with that, I can see some cases in which such a distinction can be useful. Flanderization is not one of them. It's a one way thing. The show doesn't need to be in the books' canon, or oblige their writer any way, for us to interpret how the show has employed the novels' existence.

Plenty of tropes overstep continuities. Greg House is an Expy of Holmes. That doesn't mean that Doyle's continuity "gets expied" by House and that changes the original canon. It's a one way thing where we explain how the latter work came to be.

Or to give another example inside a legal franchise, if that's what you are so concerned about: you just said that the Craig Bond movies count separately from the previous ones. In that case, how can we call them Darker and Edgier? If there is nothing to compare them to, aren't they just... dark and edgy?

Ad absurdum, we couldn't collect fanfiction tropes at all if them being a separate continuity means that we can't observe how they are based on pre-existing characters. There is no such thing as A Day in the Limelight as a fanfic genre, just random stories that's protagonist happens to be someone else than in some other continuity to which we can't compare it because it's another continuity. Kingsley Shacklebolt is the protagonist of this novel... but it's not in continuity with another novel, so we can't make any observation about how this relates to Kingsley Shacklebolt's pre-existence.

Continuity is not the end all of explaining trope usages. If we can make observations about how characters are being reinterpreted across several continuities, then Flanderization is a perfect trope to observe that with. Just like with A Day in the Limelight, it's used by artists with the exact same thought process whether it happens as a sidetrack inside a series' continuity, or outside of it.

edited 12th May '14 10:12:59 AM by Ever9

For all intents and purposes all derivative works should be treated as though they are an adaptation, maybe extremely close to the parent work but an adaptation nonetheless. Because it does matter what is considered the Prime Canon as any licensed/unlicensed are not even trying to be in continuity with each other. An example that talks about a common character being flanderized between unconnected works is pretty much irrelevant and pointless.

edited 12th May '14 10:26:08 AM by KJMackley

@Ever 9: You're using an idea of Flanderization that is not what the trope is about, and that would open it to any instance where any character is simplified from their "original" version in a derivative work. That sort of misuse is exactly the problem that we're seeing with it now.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Flanderization must:
A) Be gradual.
B) Be over a course of a single continuity. Sequels count. Reebots don't. A reinterpretation of a character like Sherlock Holmes does not count eithet.
This definition is clear. Why are we still debating over it?

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agree. and either way, it doesnt matter if derivative works are part of canon or not: this isnt about derivative works.

This was mentioned a while ago, but I still think the picture is a problem. The most common form of misuse is the idea that flanderization is any trait which becomes more exaggerated over time, even if it doesnt overwhelm the other traits. By the official definition, only one trait can be flanderized, with al other traits being left by the wayside. However the picture shows many traits being flanderized, and none of them becoming the characters sole trait.

I actually think that is a better definition, since thats how its used, but either way the picture isnt showing what the definition says.

edited 14th May '14 9:40:50 AM by PistolsAtDawn

I say pull the pic for those reasons.

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