Duplicate Trope: The Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer

The only difference I can see between Like a Fish Takes to Water and The Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer is that the latter seems to explicitly require said "Cave Man Lawyer" to adjust for a bit before he fits in well, yet many people seem seem to ignore the requirement, effectively turning the former into a duplicate of the latter, for the purpose of how everyone sees the trope.

Anyway, wick check attempt on the main page, stopping at literature:

Doesn't explain the character's adjustment phrase/character seems to have little-to-no adjustment phrase^note I'm counting "adapting very quickly" as the latter.:

• Fate/Zero and Fate Night on the same line
• El-Hazard: The Magnificent World
• Conan the Barbarian (and the misused sub bullets stating that The Hulk became a barbarian king).
• The Warlord
• Age of the Sentury
• Kaang the Conqueror
• Fantastic Four
• Encino Man
• Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
• Blast from the Past
• Never Been Kissed
• The Last Starfighter
• Back To The Future
• Mom and Dad Save the World
• Timeline
• The Cave of Time
• Glory Lane and its sub-bullet Spellsinger
• Buck Rogers
• The Dancers at the End of Time
• Her Majesty's Wizard
• Yorick, the telepathic Neanderthal
• Discworld (Not Carrot Ironfoundersson)
• The People That Time Forgot
• Guns, Germs, and Steel
• Time Scout
• The Cross Time Engineer

Seems to be correct:

• Booster Gold
• Vandal Savage
• Battlefield Earth
• A Fire Upon The Deep and A Deepness In The Sky (via implications - one simply doesn't become a programmer overnight)
• Discworld (Only Carrot Ironfoundersson)
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Doesn't seem to be this trope:

• "Poul Anderson's short story"

---

As you can see, just about most of the examples that I checked are Like a Fish Takes to Water and not this trope, if this trope's really about someone adjusting to life outside their ponds and getting comfortable to the point of seemingly being born for that environment.

edited 3rd Sep '14 11:54:23 AM by KarjamP

Hm. I was under the impression that Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer was a subtrope specific to a person going from the past or an alternate universe with less technolagy to the modern day (or other high tech setting) and adejusting easily to the more modern or futuristic setting. (Whether thats a valid subtrope or not... eh) But it looks like thats not actually in the description.

Most of the examples I see are of that version, anyway.

And I do think thats a valid subtype. Someone adjusting easily to the fast pace and tech of modern world is a notably different thing than someone adjusting easily to, say, battling wizards and being a farmer or whatever.

Ok one reason I want to keep it is because it separates out the Ludd Was Right examples and I hate thatr trope w/e

(Also i wish someone would open my TRS thread for Forgotten Trope. Just sayin'. cause im sad its not open)

edited 3rd Sep '14 8:20:38 PM by PistolsAtDawn

There are thirteen unopened discussions on the first page right now. Thirteen!

Anyway—yeah, this trope is a duplicate. Merge?

I agree.

The only supposed difference I can see between these two tropes is that The Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer requires an "adapting period" before they get used to their new environment.

I guess, still seems like hairsplitting, not worthy of a separate page.

Well, we're done! Let's go open one of those other thirteen threads!

yea having looked over it i agree: they pretty much are the same thing. I had thought they were different but it looks like they actually arent

Any more who agrees with the merge?

Man, there's still a lot of unopened discussions...

Anyway, I was under the impression that Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer was about someone in a strange place whose unique values and skills from their own place make them more suited to this new place than even the locals, while Like a Fish Takes to Water is simply the person fits in in the new place quite well.

For example, say two people get sent to the past, Benny and Jet. Benny never fit in in the present, and winds up living a salt of the earth lifestyle that fits him much better. Jet, however, uses future knowledge and training to become a duke and everyone keeps talking about the strange future man. In Benny's case, he winds up fitting in better than he did in the present. In Jet's case, he doesn't fit in, but he prospers.

Now, from the description they're definitely exactly the same. But that's the way I always saw the tropes.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

Clock is set.

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

Are we in agreement to merge the tropes?

Not enough votes for me, at least.

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

Extending clock.

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

Can we get more opinions, please?

Going by the name, The Unfrozen Cave Man Lawyer sounds like Like a Fish Takes to Water being Played for Laughs, as it's completely illogical for the character to be able to fit in. I think it could be salvaged into its own trope via a rewrite.

edited 18th Jan '15 11:06:37 AM by Karxrida

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

Support this idea.

Any more opinions?

Being Played for Laughs isn't enough to make it a separate trope, though, is it?

If there's enough examples of it being played for laughs, then yes.

Subtropes are, by definition, The Same But More Specific to another trope.

The difference is that, conceptually, a subtrope is its own concept while TSBMS is simply the same concept with an additional irrelevant qualifier attached.

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

Extending clock.

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

Can we please come to a conclusion instead of leaving this discussion to rot?

So, do we agree that they're duplicates of each other and that we must do something about it?

Perhaps making Frozen Caveman Lawyer being about people from the past fitting in, while Like a Fish Takes to Water can be about something else.

Why is it that I seem to be the only one posting, here?

There seems to be consensus that they are, as written, duplicates.

Thus, at the very least, one should be turned into a redirect for the other.

Now, if someone does a wick check and sees if they're used differently, we can figure out if one of them should get a redefinition to match its use. I stated earlier how I previously saw them as different, but I understand that it's not how it's written and I'm not sure that's how they're actually used.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

Chiming in in favor of a merge. Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer is probably the more indicative title of the two, since "like a fish takes to water" doesn't get across the idea that it's someone adapting well to a strange (for them) setting.

edited 2nd Mar '15 11:03:01 AM by hbi2k

Merge.