Longest examples

I know I'm going to sound like a complete nerd, but what's the longest description of a trope on a media page? I think it's Faux Action Girl under Naruto. It says,

"Most of the plot's Fighting Series aspect has been dealt with in full-length, fair and square one-on-one confrontations and statements of hype, which established an "asskicking pyramid" of sorts. In the framework of that setup, the series heroines' performance had been almost uniformly miserable; despite varying amounts of hype as competent fighters, a girl did not get to outright defeat a guy alone even once. At some point the author was made aware of this and started trying to round it out; the plot became much more chaotic, with the calculated machinations of the Big Bad giving way to an all-out war, and the above setup was largely abandoned in favor of ongoing chaotic skirmishes - in which the girls have performed much more impressively. Most importantly, the author finally remembered- even if momentarily- to put female lead Sakura on the forefront and make her an effective combatant, able to make a difference even when fighting alongside the likes of Naruto and Sasuke. Still, it should be noted that most of the above was done towards the last arcs, with all the issues that entails. For almost all of the series' run the real powerhouses, who are consequently the plot movers and shakers, are nigh uniformly male. Powerful female characters are few and far between, with a tendency of being afflicted with Faux Action Girl syndrome (e.g. Kurenai - the only female Jonin- who is conspicuously the weakest Jonin, suffers from a total lack of combat feats and at some point becomes pregnant and is sent to Stay in the Kitchen). As mentioned above, perhaps the character who suffered the most from this is Sakura; while she does get to act her part eventually, she spends a lot of the plot - and some would say, too much of the plot - being Out of Focus, lapsing in her character development, failing to catch up to her two teammates' endless stream of impossibly powerful upgrades and generally being a heroine in name only. The three quotes below neatly sum up this whole sad affair: (Jump festa interview 2010) Kishimoto Masashi: "Honestly, from the standpoint of showing a female-like disposition, [Sakura] hasn't been much of a heroine. You could even say that Hinata's more of a heroine than her. But since, as we know, Sakura is a heroine deep inside, she'll show that side of hers from now on."

(Jump festa interview 2012) Kishimoto Masashi: “Next year [2013] I’ll write about Kakashi first, then about Sasuke and then about Naruto."

Sakura's Voice Actor: "What about Sakura?!"

Kishimoto Masashi: "Sakura, well... well, she slipped my mind."

(Comments on Twitter by Kishimoto's assistant regarding the Naruto: The Last Movie, posted 2014 and quickly deleted to no avail) Assistant: "Why are people making a racket and asking if Hinata is going to be the heroine in this movie? Maybe because until now there hasn't been a heroine. [..] Sakura isn't the heroine! That's what I've been saying since a long time ago. I've been hearing the man himself [Kishimoto] say that Naruto doesn't have a heroine from before 2010." (515 words)

And what's the longest thing under a spoiler tag? I think it's Rousing Speech under Gaara. It says, ""Three times now, we've fought world wars for our own nations, our own villages. We've hurt one another. We've hated one another. That hatred bred a lust for power, and that lust for power created me. I was a jinchūriki, the embodiment of hatred and power. And I hated this world, and all the people in it. I wanted to destroy it with my own hands. The exact same thing Akatsuki is trying to do today. But one man, one ninja from Konohagakure stopped me. ...I was his enemy, yet he wept for me! I hurt him, yet he called me his friend! He saved me! My enemy, my fellow jinchūriki... He suffered the same pain as me, yet bore no ill will! There are no enemies here because we've all suffered at Akatsuki's hand! So there is no Suna, no Iwa, no Konoha, no Kiri, and no Kumo! There are only 'shinobi!' And if you still hold a grudge against Suna, when this war is over, come and take my head instead! Our enemies are after the friend who saved my life! If they take him, if we hand him over, our world is finished! I want to protect him! I want to protect our world! But I'm too young to protect it all on my own! All of you, lend me your aid! Everyone who's with me, let's go!" (231 words)

By chance were they added by the same editor?

Being concise is our second guideline for a good example. If nothing else, the direct interview quotes could be removed and "the author admitted this issue in interviews" added. If the example needs to discuss separate characters they could be sub-bullets under it. So' for example I'd rewrite it as:

• Naruto uses this trope a lot, context, Sasuke, context. The author stated this in interviews.
  • Sakura, context, Sasuke. Context.
  • Hinata, context, context.

Something like that. Nothing wrong with being in-depth if there's a lot to discuss, from what I remember of Naruto there was a lot of Faux Action Girl to discuss . Breaking up the wall of text would be great.

As for the other one, summarize it for the example.

Rousing Speech could use a good cleaning too. Is there any way to make a pothole to a location on the wiki? Because of the very nature of this trope people are inclined to want to share the full speech, cross-wicking with quotes sub-pages would probably help...or maybe liberal use of note markup?

edited 20th May '15 5:02:01 PM by Rotpar

I'd also like to add that there are analysis pages. If an example is really long, I don't think it would be that much of a problem to move the wall of text to the analysis page and put it under a folder heading, and then put a more concise example on the main page that mentions that the full example is on the analysis page.

that... Violates Example Indentation In Trope Lists.

Does it? Because I've done those before, for example the following I'm going to add for The Secret World later.

• Fun with Acronyms: Orochi's Anansi Alpha is working on the AEGIS system project and is filled with living scientists thanking you for the data they've gained. They're also brainstorming what the hell "AEGIS" means:
  • Anima Enhancement Global Integration System
  • Actualized Extreme Guided Immunity Support. Somebody adds that it's horrible and includes a frowny face.
  • Armor Enhancement Guidance Intelligence System
  • Agency X Enhancing Guarded Impenetrable Shield
  • Finally, somebody got fed up and created an acronym for "acronym"—Assholes Creating Ridiculous Obtuse Nonsense Yowling Meaninglessly—with an underlined notice to quit fucking around.

The first line with the example is some added context and introduction before launching into the specific examples. The thing we're definitely not supposed to do is add sub-examples after a first, like:

• Fun with Acronyms: Orochi's Anansi Alpha is working on the AEGIS system project and is filled with living scientists thanking you for the data they've gained. They're also brainstorming what the hell "AEGIS" means: Anima Enhancement Global Integration System
  • Actualized Extreme Guided Immunity Support. Somebody adds that it's horrible and includes a frowny face.
  • Etc.

Because otherwise, by the strictest interpretation of the rule, you'd have to format it like this:

• Fun with Acronyms:
  • Orochi's Anansi Alpha is working on the AEGIS system project and is filled with living scientists thanking you for the data they've gained. They're also brainstorming what the hell "AEGIS" means:
  • Anima Enhancement Global Integration System
  • Etc.

And it doesn't make much sense to include that first bit as a separate example. Especially because if you don't include it you just have a list of acronyms for the term "AEGIS" without any rhyme or reason for when they're seen or why:

• Fun with Acronyms:
  • Anima Enhancement Global Integration System
  • Etc.

edited 26th May '15 5:23:49 PM by Rotpar

What you wrote included "Sasuke, context", "Sakura, context", "Sasuke. Context", and "Hinata, context, context.", which would be four examples. One of which would be a duplicate.

Each example is supposed to be discrete. For the Fun with Acronyms, if a second acronym occurred, you'd have to move the current one down to a second-level bullet, and all the sub-examples to third-level bullets, before adding the new example as another second-level bullet.

But Sakura and Hinata are not sub-examples to Sausuke.

Ah, well that's a bad joke on my part. Sasuke is the Character Who Hijacked The Fucking Story, whatever the proper trope is. So call it context, context, "that idiot Sasuke is probably involved somehow context".

The point standing, it's a pretty obvious problem in Naruto so "this happens quite a bit, the author said so in interviews" feels like an appropriate introduction before going into examples concerning the individual characters.

As for my example, yeah, if other examples popped up then the individual sub-examples for Ananasi Alpha would be the rare three-bullet level examples.

edited 26th May '15 6:30:59 PM by Rotpar