Needs Help: Broken Heel

This one and Dramatic Slip got a "what's the difference" query in the Lost And Found recently, and it brought to light some serious issues here. "Needs help" doesn't even begin to cover it: Unclear Description- check. Misuse- high probability, if the examples are any indication. Ambiguous Name- Triple Check. Complaining- a bit of this in the description. Sour crude, does it ever need help.

Poor Broken Heel can't decide if its...

1. a supertrope to "the simple and obvious escape method suffering a Plot-Driven Breakdown" (as the first line seems to indicate, and does not limit to leg-related injuries)
2. a trope specifically about justifying the inability to outrun a zombie with a bad limp by giving Alice a bad limp(as most of the description indicates)
3. a trope about keeping the heroes isolated and justifying Offscreen Teleportation(third paragraph)
4. or a trope about heels/ankles literally breaking during escape attempts

The incredibly Non-Indicative Name lead all commenters thus far in the lost and found to assume option #4 until reading the trope description closely. Judging by the examples in the trope, this seems to be a chronic problem. And, to top it all off, we still can't agree on what the difference between this and Dramatic Slip should be in the ideal scenario (and remember that we in the lost and found are people who waste free time doing that for other people).

Figured ya'll could have a field day with this one. X3

edited 17th Dec '14 12:40:45 PM by Scorpion451

Opening.

My 2ct:

• Broken Heel is a suspense trope and should ideally cover all excuses to delay characters during an on-foot chase scene. This can be a broken heel, a Twisted Ankle, slippery ground or just general clumsiness. We could even include variants like getting stuck between tracks. I would limit it to leg-related issues though. The question is how to handle the different break-down scenarios. Broken heels and twisted ankles are already nicely covered and could remain as subtropes. Then we need a new name for the super trope. And should examples of slippery ground and clumsiness remain with the supertrope? Also, the trope should have a bonus point section for the tendency of characters to take an extremely long time to get up again or they scream instead of getting up.
• Dramatic Slip focuses on the inability of the stumbled character to get up by themselves which prompts a moral dilemma for the other members of the group and it may either lead to some sort of heroic rescue action or the opposite (everybody for himself). So it can be seen as a characterization trope. If the fallen character is alone or able to get up by themselves, this trope doesn't apply. Problem: The trope name focuses on the falling but it should be about the getting up. Confusion with Broken Heel is to be expected. Renaming the trope?

Suggestion:

• We use the name Dramatic Slip for the supertrope formerly known as Broken Heel and make Broken Heel and Twisted Ankle a subtrope (or soft-split examples on the main page?).
• The trope formerly known as Dramatic Slip gets a new name which better fits the idea of the trope (as described above). Alternatively, we get rid of this trope altogether because if you think about it, the moral dilemma/rescue part can be covered with other existing tropes (No Man Left Behind, Screw This, I'm Outta Here, Sadistic Choice, etc.). There isn't much left to base a trope upon. If you take a look at the examples, most fall into the "falling/delayed escape" category rather than "rescue/abandon action".
• The good news: we don't have to do much cross-wiki fixing. Even after this name swapping, the examples will still link to the correct trope in 80% of cases or more, unless we go with the idea of soft-splitting.

If we keep both tropes, there might still be a problem with overlap. Oftentimes, when character fall they will be assisted or abandoned. Then both tropes apply in sequence.

edited 27th Dec '14 8:58:40 PM by eroock

Clock is set.

Huh. And I was thinking this was related to Heel–Face Turn...

Clock is up with no progress; closing.