Needs Help: Horned Humanoid

Right now, Horned Humanoid is more or less a listing of various characters that happen to have horns, for one reason or another. It has a lot of ZC Es and examples that are descriptive of the horns themselves but say little else, and it feels like it has the same problem as a lot of the Eye Tropes, namely a lack of explanation for many examples as to why a character's horns are significant. I'd initially started a YKTTW for Horns of Villainy, but now I'm wondering now if there should be more divisions for circumstances that involve a character having or gaining horns as a sign of something besides evil.

Perhaps it's cuz human normlly don't have horns. Dunno.

Yep, humans don't have horns, ever. The only reason why humans would have them is because of authors giving them horns. Which makes it a trope by default.

I agree, but at the same time I do think that a Horns Of Villiany subtrope would be a welcome addition, and if anyone can think of additional subtropes that would be fine with me.

I think that YKTTW would be an appropriate place for brainstorming subtropes.

edited 29th Jul '14 6:19:23 AM by Catbert

Horns Of Otherness might be a good one to have, to show that someone or something is not like a normal example of that species/race/whatever because they are horned.

There's also something like Fae Horns, a lot of magical critters have them. Usually dovetails into Hoary Horns, where especially ancient creatures (fantasy or sci fi) have the horns grow huge and maybe a little "unkempt".

Then there's Shorn Horns, where a horned character cuts them off in a kind of But Your Wings Are Beautiful type of self disgust.

If it is Horn Of Villainy then examples doesn't have to be humanoid.

I don't see why Horned Humanoid can't be just a list of humanoids with horns. Little Bit Beastly is just a list of humanoids with animal ears/tails. Humans don't normally have horns in real life, so "humanoids with horns" is a trope in itself. If you need the horns to mean something, that's what subtropes would be for.

edited 30th Jul '14 11:44:01 PM by Pig_catapult

"This other thing is also bad" is not a point in favor of the first thing. "Just a list of humanoids with <trait>" is not a trope at all. It should mean something.

Except he didn't say the other thing is bad. He said another similar thing is just fine.

Yes he did. Implied, anyway. He said Little Bit Beastly suffers from similar problems as this article. It should be fixed too. It is not "just fine".

Saying that another page is similar to this one is not a good case against making changes to this one; if anything it is a case for making changes to both, although I doubt that was the intended message. I am surprised you are defending that argument.

edited 31st Jul '14 6:30:41 PM by rodneyAnonymous

The basis of his argument was basically, "if this other, similar thing is fine then this should be too, and if this has a problem then you should go after this other, similar thing", and using the other, similar thing to defend the tropeworthiness of this thing, implying that he felt both of them were fine.

This sort of argument is a common enough problem on That Other Wiki that they split off an entire article for it off of this.

(I wrote an earlier version of this post before seeing the one , substantially rewrote it but didn't submit it before the first version of the one appeared, and... To make it clear, I'm not defending this sort of argument, only explaining its structure in this case.)

edited 31st Jul '14 6:37:53 PM by MorganWick

That is an extremely generous interpretation.

Saying that another page is similar to this one is not a good case against making changes to this one. Do you disagree?

ETA: I don't need an explanation. I understand. Note that The Other Wiki article was split off from an article named "Arguments to avoid..." Heh. Their pithy summation of the this type of argument, "other stuff exists", is very similar to my "this other thing is also bad" summation. It's a bad argument there too :P

edited 31st Jul '14 8:31:24 PM by rodneyAnonymous

So I think Horned Humanoid should stay that way. Again, that ykttw Horns Of Evil can work on non-humanoid as well.

If anything, the examples need to be improved with context about why the character has horns or what they symbolise. And the description may need some rewriting to encourage that, rather than using obscure and difficult to read words starting with 'h'.

Perhaps including a few different common types of horns would help. Most common is probably to indicate that the character is some kind of demon (which may or may not mean evilness), but there are also those large, multi-pointed horns like in the image, which usually means it's a nature beast of some kind, and those small ram horns twisted almost into a bun that are more cute than intimidating.

In comparison to Little Bit Beastly, those characteristics are also almost always used for a specific characterisation or other meaning, considering most animals have personality stereotypes.

edited 31st Jul '14 8:19:16 PM by AnotherDuck

I think Horned Humanoids is a legit trope, but needs a description rewrite. Compared Winged Humanoid — both are about "human characters with specific nonhuman feature", but while Winged Humanoid describes reasons a creator might give a character wings and lists other tropes that go along with it, Horned Humanoid attempts to be clever with the continuous "H" alliteration and only succeeds in being unhelpful. Horns on a humanoid can be used to show wild, evil (or specifically hellish), or otherwise other nature, whether through heritage, magic, or as part of a Curse. They can also act as Spikes of Villainy that are permanently attached to someone's head, and may (or may not) be useful for a Horn Attack.

edited 31st Jul '14 9:56:30 PM by NativeJovian

Our Horned Humanoids Are Different.

I agree, this is a trope. It's just one of those tropes where the meaning can differ and it should be context in the examples.

edited 31st Jul '14 10:41:50 PM by m8e

Seconded

Little Bit Beastly is animal traits added for cuteness with some specific sub-tropes dealing with animal bits reflecting on personality. It is not just people with animal bits.

At it's core I would say horns on a human demonstrate otherness, that could be the supertrope with particular types of horns with particular meanings coming out from that as subtropes.

edited 13th Aug '14 1:00:21 PM by rexpensive

Clocking; I need to make time to work on the example list soon and figure out what's what.

Or maybe I'll come back to it. Locking for inactivity.