Needs Help: Dying Moment Of Awesome

I've brought this up before, but I think it deserves a fresh look.

This trope is specifically defined as being when a character's Moment Of Awesome is their last. Moment Of Awesome is a YMMV trope. Therefore, this should be YMMV too.

I do not see a flaw in this logic. Anyone care to argue?

I have two concerns about your logic:

1. YMMV status is not by default inherited by subtropes.
2. You already had this topic.

Can't speak of how it's used, though.

1) I don't understand how we can take a YMMV trope, put on a minor extra consideration, and it's suddenly objective. It just makes no sense to me. Why couldn't it be used as a backdoor to avoid being marked as YMMV? For that matter, what mechanism made "oh, but it happens as the character's last moment" the key to turn Moment Of Awesome objective?

2) I fully acknowledged that in my OP. As far as I'm concerned, no one in the original thread clearly and specifically explained (1).

3) As for "how it's used," how do we possibly determine that? This entire trope is built around a subjective trope. How do we look at examples and say, "oh, the majority of these use the character's objective Moment Of Awesome" when Moment Of Awesome is subjective?

edited 2nd Jan '15 1:25:38 PM by Leaper

A minor additional requirement can make a difference. Like, for example, a trope being invoked during someone's death, basically.

But that brings it back to a troper deciding that he thinks that that moment is the character's Moment Of Awesome just because it happened as his last. I mean, look at some of the characters listed: Jack Harkness, Bobby of Supernatural, "every main character of Halo Reach", fricking Superman and the Flash! Are you seriously trying to tell me that those decisions are objective and inarguable?

I cannot read the second paragraph of the description of Moment Of Awesome and see how it's negated by "oh, and it's the character's last."

edited 2nd Jan '15 1:38:13 PM by Leaper

I don't know, when you think about it like a character Going Out With A Bang so to speak it is pretty objective, the flashiness alone makes it stand out as objective, even if on rare cases exactly how flashy isn't found out till later.

So Captain Jack Harkness dying was a superlative moment worthy of note? Superman? Goku?

And every reasonable consumer of their adventures will agree to this?

I don't see how looking at the continuum of a character's acts, and deciding that point A in the middle is a peak is different from doing exactly the same thing and deciding that point B at the end is a peak. Or point C at the start. Or point D 2/3 of the way in.

(In fact, I think the use of characters with long and rich histories of antics, and universes where Death Is Cheap, help prove my point. I don't think anyone can demonstrate that the subjectivity is removed by this one factor. I could see it doing the opposite sometimes!)

edited 2nd Jan '15 1:56:58 PM by Leaper

Just because it has "Awesome" in the name doesn't mean it's YMMV. It's a broad supertrope that encompasses many different types of brave and/or badass deaths. Are you going to tell us that Last Stand is subjective? Is Jumping on a Grenade a matter of opinion? Is Defiant to the End an audience reaction?

It's not a matter of the names. The trope itself, right in the first sentence, specifically defines itself as a YMMV trope, except at a specific time in the character's story.

It's right there in black and white: this trope is defined as Moment Of Awesome right before dying, in those specific terms. Moment Of Awesome is a YMMV trope. QED. Nothing about names. I don't think this is difficult. The trope description is telling us this is a YMMV trope.

(Speaking of it being as supertrope, I don't see why some of the items on the subtrope list are even there.)

edited 2nd Jan '15 5:07:04 PM by Leaper

As the description stands, Leaper is 100% right... This is absolutely, undeniably YMMV. It is "YMMV trope at a specific time". If this isn't YMMV, then the description is wrong.

That strikes me more as a case of a poorly written description. Improperly using other tropes to define a trope is a frequent occurrence.

Indeed.

OP's primary complaint is the applicability to characters who come back and die again.

It's hard to be a character's last moment of awesome when they come back and do it again.

Well, the description does address it, but then dismisses it as irrelevant immediately. Kind of lazy, if you ask me.

As for rewriting the description, that's fine, but I'm interested in seeing how you make this an objective trope that's still able to keep most of the current examples.

edited 3rd Jan '15 3:09:06 PM by Leaper

The problem I see is this:

It's easy to spot where the intention is for the character to "go out with a bang", and that can be quite objective.

However, whether that "bang" is awesome or not is completely subjective. One fan's awesome death scene is another person's narm. They could both agree the intention was obviously to allow the character to go out with a bang without ever agreeing it was a dying moment of awesome.

edited 4th Jan '15 12:33:54 PM by Wyldchyld

The trope is objective because it doesn't require subjective awesomeness. The first part is enough to count.

It's named and categorically defined with subjective awesomeness in mind.

That is impossible to deny. It's all there for everyone to read.

The first part is Character Death.

Character Death doesn't care about the manner of death. Dying Moment of Awesome requires going out with a bang.

If all this trope is doing is recording whether a character goes out with a bang, and not whether people think the "bang" is awesome, narm, or whatever else, the trope doesn't appear to be well-named. The name is based on something subjective (whether people think the "bang" was awesome, narm, other) when it should be about something objective (that the creators/writers clearly intended the character to go out in a blaze of glory regardless of whether they actually succeed in implementing that intent).

Tell that to Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds that is no longer considered YMMV despite having Woobie in it.

(Not that I'm complaining; I'm in favor of keeping DMOA an objective trope.)

Because at least that trope is defined objectively (and in fact says that the character "may or may not be The Woobie"), though now that you point it out, the name does cause some mild discomfort.

Dan, I'm not a huge fan of the title of that trope either. But, I've got a thing against the word 'woobie' anyway.

The reason why that trope is objective is because it rests on in-universe character reactions to define whether or not the trope is in effect. DMOA seems to be relying on something the writers want and which the audience agrees the writers have successfully pulled off (as awesome, that is, rather than the writers/producers having got it horribly wrong and it turns into Narm or some kind of Dethroning Moment of Suck instead).

For an example, look at the trope image: yes, it very clearly depicts the intent of the objective part of the trope (the character is obviously going out with a bang) but I'd be citing that as an example of pure Narm not Awesome; whether the writers'/producers' handling of the big "bang" moment is awesome, silly or awful, is audience reaction, and that's subjective.

edited 5th Jan '15 4:16:51 PM by Wyldchyld

Done well or done poorly, the trope is still the trope. It doesn't matter what the audience's opinion of it is.

Done well or done poorly, the trope is still the trope. It doesn't matter what the audience's opinion of it is.