Misused: Golden Snitch

The way I'm seeing it, the way the definitions are written, #2 seems to me to be The Same But More vs #1. The only way to differentiate it is, as in the Trope-Naming Example, if the "overriding" aspect is only such because of the focus on the Protagonist, leaving the more mundane aspects to be Out of Focus.

So, no, I don't think that we should split the Trope because the split is only in difference of degree, not two actually separate things.

EDIT: The rest of the misuse can go die, though. I'm also for Renaming due to Trope Namer Syndrome.

EDIT 2: There was also a 4th Definition stated by Jovian which reads "The Previous Rounds set up the conditions for the Winner-Takes-All Round." This can be split off as a Sub-Trope, as it varies in structure, not merely degree.

edited 6th Nov '14 10:14:12 PM by DonaldthePotholer

I'm thinking, "Previous rounds set up the conditions for the last round" may be a case of People Sit On Chairs.

As for renaming, I honestly didn't know tvtropes had an actual policy against naming tropes after tropenamers. As much as I like tropes that have reference titles, if we have to have something generic, we'll have to have something generic.

Somebody should probably get over to Chuck Cunningham Syndrome and get them to change that.

edited 7th Nov '14 1:43:18 AM by Hadjorim

1. "One objective nets you a disproportionate amount of points compared to all others, so it becomes the only one that matters."
2. "The last round in a game is worth so many points, previous rounds are unimportant in comparison."
3. "Achieving an objective instantly ends the conflict in your favour."

Number one does not Guarantee the event. It occured in the Triwizard Tournament book, that achieving the objective did not win the game. Whereas Number two does Guarantee conflict, because it is mathematically determined. Number two is based on game theory premises, and Number one isn't. Number two is only in use if a story utilizes rounds. Number one is never utilized in a tournament rounds format: It is utilized for open styles where more than one objective can be achieved.

There are a number of ways that the two differ. Can you please explain why they are the same?

If #1 is not supposed to guarantee victory, you should remove the "so it becomes the only one that matters" at the end.

I could see it being split over "one objective gives a huge advantage" vs "one objective guarantees victory". On the other hand it is kind of The Same But More, just a question of how huge an advantage it gives. Its a lumper vs splitter issue I guess.

Whether the objectives are played simultaneously or one at a time isn't a meaningful distinction.

At first you're talking about splitting the first definition into two based on degree. That hasn't gotten much discussion as yet.

Presumably you do not find the condition of whether the objectives are played simultaneously or one at a time meaningful because the end result is the same. If I am incorrect, this explanation is going to be useless.

A round structure and a free objective structure are different from a narrative perspective. Let's assume a three-round structure and assume a payoff of 1-1-3. If we remove the round structure, all of the teams are allowed to seek the 3pt objective first. Thus, none of the teams will attempt to achieve the two 1pt goals. If we replace the round structure with a timer, and the 3pt objective is harder to achieve, then we may see teams attempting the 1pt objective. It depends on how confident teams are at achieving the 3pt objective. Nevertheless, if the timer goes for 10 minutes, and a team achieves the 3pt objective in 2, there's no point in waiting the remaining 8 minutes.

Let's return to the round structure, only we'll change the order of points. First we'll assume a payoff of 3-1-1. The team who wins the first round wins everything, so there's no real point in watching the remaining two rounds. (very similar to the 10 minute timer) If the payoff is 1-3-1, then it becomes slightly more interesting, as the first round leads up to the second, but the third one doesn't matter. Neither does the first in terms of points, but at least it may give people reason for excitement over predicting which team succeeds at the second. The 1-1-3 payoff is the only one where the climax of the story and the points needed to win occur at the same time.

A less pure form of the tropes under debate, but more useful in game design, is the payoff of 1-2-3. The team that wins both the first and second round no longer needs to win the final round in order to progress. They have at least tied with the final round winner, and can expect to share or experience a sudden death match, however the game is designed. There is still tension, and winning the final round still means they win everything, but winning one or both of the first rounds is also important.

Note that the round structure provides several things:

1. It limits the number of possible points. Quidditch (or basketball) can, in theory, have an arbitrarily large number of points (eg, one million) at the end of the game. The given example had a maximum of 5 (or 6).
2. Pacing of the story: a three-round tournament can be viewed similar to a three-act story. Introduction - Rising Conflict - Climax.
3. A common framework of design. People can expect a familiar experience each time. This can be approximated in a round-free structure with a timer, and many Game Shows use both the rounds and the timer to control how much time is spent filming the show.

Those are things the round structure is doing without the points being skewed to favour the final round. For the purpose of my explanation, I did not change #1 when I went from a round-objective to a free-objective.

Okay, now I think I see where you're going. What I thought you were arguing was that "One Round To Rule Them All" was distinct from just "Unevenly Weighted Rounds". ORTRTA is an Exaggeration of "Uneven", hence why I called The Same But More.

But in that case, Quidditch is the only non-war-related usage of "One Objective" that I've seen. Essentially, what is portrayed as "Optional" is actually "Essential", and vice-versa; or what is "Essential" can vary based on the changing conditions of the battlefield. EDIT: So I think that you'll have some trouble finding other non-warfare examples. Warfare-based examples include The Lord of the Rings and the climax of The Corellian Trilogy: In both cases, there is a major objective which must be accomplished in order to destroy the Big Bad, but said Big Bad still has an army/Space Navy which must be addressed in the meantime, so the Supporting Leader has to lead his own army/fleet to fight it. The objective to destroy the Big Bad is the senior objective, but if the good guys lose the Army/Fleet Battle, then destroying the Big Bad only forces a draw.

You're wrong about the Tri-Wizard Tourney, though: That's an instance of #4: "Previous Rounds determine conditions for the Winner-Takes-All". By the way, Hadj, that's not People Sit On Chairs, it's a distinct tournament design choice versus a specific round format. Perhaps the best way to look at the difference between that, definition #2, and a equal-points tourney is to look at it from the perspective of You Can't Thwart Stage One:

• Preliminary Rounds Set Up The Final: The Opposing Sports Team wins most (if not all) of the Preliminaries, setting up what is essentially a Million to One Chance for the protagonist in the Winner-Takes-All.
• Unevenly Weighted Rounds: The teams are probably evenly matched early on, but the score going into the final round would be such that if the hero wins the final, then he does so by one point. "One Round To Rule Them All" would be a subtrope to this, as the previous sentence is as true in the 1-1-1-1-5 case as the 1-1-1-1-1 case (which is actually evenly weighted, see below).
• Evenly Weighted Rounds: Essentially requires the Heroes to win at least the last two consecutively. On one end of this scale are the seven needles from Mother3, i.e. noone gets an actual streak until the last 2 acts. On the other end, you get, oh, say, the 2004 ALDS, where the Boston Red Sox were two outs away from being swept.

edited 10th Nov '14 5:55:40 PM by DonaldthePotholer

A round structure can force contestants to play irrelevant objectives by not allowing them to forfeit rounds. A free objective game can do the same by ruling the game does not end until all objectives are resolved.

There is never any point in watching contestants go through the motions of irrelevant objectives, regardless of whether the One Objective that actually matters occurs before or after them. The climax of the story occurs when the contest is won. Irrelevant objectives are irrelevant filler.

On the other hand, if the One Objective doesn't guarantee victory but only gives a large but not insurmountable lead, then the other objectives do matter, again regarless of whether they are completed before or after the big one.

Clock re-started.

I'm glad I got through to you.

Clarification: I referenced the Triwizard Tournament book, not the tournament itself. During the big Quidditch game that the Weasleys brought Harry to, the losing team had caught the snitch. Catching the snitch did not guarantee the contest, despite still being the most important objective.

A few examples that remain on Golden Snitch:

• In Naruto we have the chunnin written exam where the final question simply comes down to "If you try to answer the final question and fail then you will never advance as a ninja for the rest of your life." and the trick is that just by accepting the question you pass the whole test by showing you're willing to take life threatening risks to succeed. The golden snitch nonsense comes in however in that by passing that last question, the entire rest of the test is ignored completely to the point that Naruto passes despite having a blank sheet and -2 points for being caught cheating (so if the 10th question counted, his final score was -1). So the only thing the first 9 questions matter for at all is to catch people so bad at cheating they do it poorly 5 times but anything short of that (get caught 4 times? answer everything wrong? don't back up your team? don't fill out any answers period? don't realize you're supposed to cheat in the first place?) and you can still pass with flying colors. It does say something when the golden snitch is so powerful you could succeed by taking a nap the moment you sat down (and frankly you'd have a higher score than what Naruto passed with).
• The Joker's Wild
  • Either contestant could immediately win the game by spinning three Jokers and correctly answering a question in the category of their choice. The champ would only get a last spin if the challenger reached the $500 mark first, as it evened up the number of turns each player got.
  • In the "Face the Devil" bonus round, a "natural triple" here (three of the same dollar amount) instantly awarded the player a prize package, plus either $1,000 or the amount in the pot plus the value of the triple, whichever was higher.
• Completing 9-Ball in Cue Ball Wizard gives an overwhelming 500 million points, or 1 Billion if DOUBLE is enabled. Offset somewhat in that 9-Ball is a Timed Mission that is not easily achieved.

The page would be greatly shrunk, but then that was the point.

The clock is up; has there been any progress at all?

So here's where we're at. We need to clean up the description of Golden Snitch to match the "One objective nets you a disproportionate amount of points compared to all others, so it becomes the only one that matters" definition, and then split off "The last round in a game is worth so many points, previous rounds are unimportant in comparison." The third one, "Achieving an objective instantly ends the conflict in your favour," is simply Instant-Win Condition.

Sandbox.Golden Snitch.

That looks more like a laconic.

Edit: I edited it so it doesn't look like a laconic. How's that?

edited 11th Jan '15 4:47:21 PM by troacctid

Much better. I'm no good at descriptions, but if somebody doesn't start the sandbox it just never gets done.

I removed the following paragraph, because that's a downplayed example from definition #2 we were discussing.

A common variant is having several rounds with points awarded in each round, but with the final round being worth more points than the preceding ones. For example, the first and second rounds are worth 1 point each, and the third round is worth 2 points (thus, if one contestant wins the first two rounds, there's still at least a chance that the game ends in a tie). This version of the trope shows up very frequently in Game Shows, because if the outcome of the game is a foregone conclusion as soon as anyone establishes a lead, all the tension is gone and the audience has no reason to continue watching. Increasing the stakes for the final round adds in enough uncertainty to keep viewers engaged.

This definition needs a name/YKTTW, it was the definition originally present on the page.

That's to accommodate the examples that are going to be hosted there before the split happens. Once the YKTTW is launched it should be replaced with a wick to the subtrope. In the meantime, it still needs representation.

Count me in favor of the new description currently in the sandbox.

It would be nice to have a better quote. Or an image. An image would be nice too.

Only The Final Round Counts makes sense; anything to indicate that what happens in the end game outweighs absolutely all other elements put together.

Extending clock.

Clock is way up with no progress; closing.