Ambiguous Name (Alt Names crowner 21th Feb 2015): Vampire Invitation

The name Vampire Invitation is misleading because the trope applies to any number of mythological beings, such as The Fair Folk and Demons. There are some non-vampire examples on the page, but it's hard to tell how many more were never added because of a misleading title and the vast majority of examples are vampire related. I propose renaming the trope to Must Be Invited. In fact, it is already potholed as Must Be Invited on The Fair Folk.

I am making Must Be Invited a redirect for the meantime.

EDIT: Never mind, someone got to it first.

edited 4th Dec '14 10:17:32 PM by shimaspawn

I think it could go either way. The current sounds better as a trope name, but if the other works better it might, you know, work better.

Current's fine. Any evidence of misuse or anything? "It might apply to other creatures" may be the case, but vampires are far and away the most common one.

See, that's the thing. They aren't. Oh, yes, they're the single most common type of example, but they should be maybe half the page, not three quarters. Maybe what we need to do instead is make Vampire Invitation a clear subtrope so that the supertrope of Must Be Invited actually gets some use. There are enough examples right now that the split would be easy and it doesn't need any YKTT Wing.

edited 5th Dec '14 6:53:35 AM by shimaspawn

Naming Conventions (snowclones or their close relatives) can be used well; this is a case where I think sticking with one would work.

The supertrope is "Must Be Invited": "A creature/entity/power cannot initiate interaction without being invited or asked to do so." The subtropes could be clearly named as Invite In The Vampire, Invite The Fae, Summon The Demon, Invite In The<whatever> as they are spun off. The subtrope names would make it clear that these are closely related to each other, as well as to the supertrope.

edited 5th Dec '14 7:20:02 AM by Madrugada

They... are, though. Plus, I've seen several works that specifically reference the Vampire Invitation where someone mills about outside and the person inside goes "What are you, a vampire? Come in!"

Yes, vampires tend to be used as the reference, but fae and demons actually use the trope more often, but less consistently. It also shows up for a lot of other supernatural entities. Vampires are the first one to pop into people's heads because it's almost always a property of vampires. It doesn't mean they're the most common. Just the most consistent.

I think that making Must Be Invited a supertrope will long term bare that out as other examples that the current name tacitly excludes are added.

edited 5th Dec '14 7:20:37 AM by shimaspawn

I don't think that disputing what sort of creature is "the most common" really serves a useful purpose here. It's established that it isn't only vampires that require an invitation, so let's concentrate on fixing the page so that it dosn't sound like anything not a vampire being subject to it is a variant.

Ok, and I think splitting the page will fix everything, so I hooked a crowner to do just that.

That I can get behind.

But is this split really justified? I actually think it makes more sense to rename the trope as-is and not to split it up. The type of supernatural being to which this limitation applies does not change the trope; vampire, demon, witch or fairy, it's still the same trope. Seems to me the 'creature type' is essentially an irrelevant aspect.

The cultural norms of the vampires being associated with this trope make it a recognizable subtrope to the Invitation trope.

There is very much a cultural inertia behind vampires and this trope. While other supernatural creatures might get it maybe 25% of the time, vampires have it 90% of the time and are almost memetically associated with it to the point that other things that do it are described as being like vampires.

I think they're very much a valid subtrope, but I think their validity as a subtrope is crowding out all the other examples of the trope and I think a supertrope/subtrope split will let everything get collected better.

What distinguishes the variants is usually one or more of a number of things, related to the invitation, rather than related to the creature/entity :

• What happens if they try to enter uninvited (they just can't? they can come in but are damaged? they can enter but can't do anything? can enter but are weakened?)
• How explicit does the invitation have to be? (Verbal only? gestures count? a "Welcome" mat is enough? Simply opening the door is enough?)
• Is it "once invited, can enter from then on"? or does each entry require a fresh invitation?
• Who can make a valid invitation? (Anyone? anyone who lives there? only the owner?)
• Can an invitation be revoked? if so, what happens?
• How much leeway does the creature/entity have in defining "invited"?

edited 5th Dec '14 9:22:31 AM by Madrugada

It may be true that Must Be Invited is nowadays most often connected to/associated with vampires. But I do not think that this makes it a different trope. To be a proper subtrope that warrants splitting from the supertrope, there would have to be other characteristics that are specific to the "vampire variant" of Must Be Invited. I am not aware of any such characteristics.

@crazysamaritan: Does that mean that because people tend to connect this trope with vampires, it is a subtrope? I disagree with that reasoning.

@Madrugada, I am not sure whether you are arguing for a split or not, but from the fact that the variants of this trope are not dependent on the creatures involved, I would actually deduce that a split according to creature is arbitrary.

Is it okay if I add the option "rename, don't split" to the crowner?

Nope. This is a Single Proposition crowner. That means it has one, yes-or-no question. We could replace it with a Page Action crowner, which allows multiple options.

I'm not seeing how "vampires cannot enter unless invited" is a different trope from "faeries cannot enter unless invited" or indeed "any other dangerous supernatural creature cannot enter unless invited". It strikes me that falls under Tropes Are Not Narrow.

I'm not saying that "Vampire Invitation" is the best name for this, but splitting the trope doesn't strike me as necessary here.

I replaced the crowner with a multiprop.

Tropes Are Flexible isn't relevant in a debate between trope and Sub-Trope. Any example of a Sub-Trope is always an example of the Super-Trope. Some tropes can be pretty broad. Some can be so broad that even a specific form of them can be tropes by themselves. What makes a sub trope can vary, a trope can have several possible variations built in, and once examples of any of those variations are common enough, they form a sub trope.

In this case, the fact that Vampyres are commonly known to be restrained by the Super-Trope, enough that the trope is Subverted by some vampire writers, makes this variation unusual enough to count as a Sub-Trope.

Yeah, I do think that the fact that vampires are assumed to follow this trope unless stated otherwise is a big distinction that other supernatural types don't have.

That doesn't appear to be the case. The page shows several works about vampires (e.g. Moonlight, Forever Knight, and the whole Castle Vania franchise) that simply don't have this trope and don't even bother pointing that out.

So there's no such distinction. Just like other supernaturals, vampires sometimes follow this trope and sometimes they don't. They clearly don't automatically follow it unless explicitly stated otherwise.

I don't understand; are you saying that if a trope is Averted, it can't be a trope? Setting the trope up and not using it is a Subverted Trope.

No, I'm saying that when a work uses vampires, it often will not use the invitation trope or even bother pointing out that it didn't. Therefore "vampires can't enter without invitation" is not the default for vampires, and this is not a special case, and so it's the same trope as "fairies or other supernatural creatures cannot enter without invitation". There's no need for a split here.

Another point of evidence - Twilight lampshades the sunlight thing but never even mentions invitations.

P.S. The crowner seems to be broken for me. As soon as I vote on it, all the options disappear and I have to refresh the page before I can vote on another option.

edited 6th Dec '14 3:17:24 PM by storyyeller