Misused: Hellfire

As the name implies, the trope is about supernatural fire coming from hell. Yet the page has a section of Real Life examples, with the examples being of various kinds of unusual fire that is simply hotter than normal or hard to put out. Now, hellfire may have all of these properties, but real life fire is still not hellfire. I believe that the page must be on the No Real Life Examples Please list.

edited 30th Jun '15 8:13:33 AM by PRH

Please provide a wick check or this thread will be locked.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Do you mean the name of the trope I was referring to? It's in the topic's title, Hellfire.

edited 30th Jun '15 12:30:12 PM by PRH

No, what she means is that to prove your case, you need to do a check of the wicks on the page and provide a detailed list of which ones are using the trope incorrectly and how, along with the ones that are using it correctly. This is standard procedure for TRS threads of this nature.

edited 30th Jun '15 12:25:58 PM by Willbyr

I was referring mainly to the real life examples on the trope's own page, Hellfire. However, there is in fact a reference to the Real Life use of the trope (referring to napalm fire and so on) on Tropes G to M, at Kill It with Fire. Fictional examples do generally use the trope correctly, although I have not done an extensive analysis yet.

edited 30th Jun '15 12:32:16 PM by PRH

So here are the examples:

These ones appear to be correct:

• Anti-Cliché and Mary-Sue Elimination Society (1 example)
• City of Heroes (1 example)
• Dungeon Crawl (1 example)
• Comic Book/Etrigan (1 example)
• GUAG Superhero Division (1 example)
• Heroic RRoD (1 marked example, 1 unmarked example for World Of Warcraft)
• Made of Indestructium (Literature section, 1 example)
• Cassandra Truth (1 example)
• Consequences of Unoriginality (1 example)
• Dept Heaven Apocrypha (1 example)
• Characters/Eberron (1 example)
• Henshin Heroes (2 examples)
• Mega Man Star Force (5 instances, seemingly referring to the same example)
• Motorcycle Jousting (Literature section, 1 example)
• Phantom Dust (1 example)
• Pay Evil unto Evil (Fanfiction section, 1 example)
• Pony POV Series Epilogue Timeline Other (3 examples)
• Pyromaniac (1 example)
• The Collector (1 example)
• Twilit Overture (1 example)
• The Chase (1 example)
• Video Game/Terraria (seem to be 5 instances of the same example)
• Dangerously Chloe (1 example)
• Dawn of War (2 examples, 2 instances of one of these examples)
• Digimon No Level (1 example)
• Dragon Cave (1 example)
• Main/Golem (Video Games section, 1 example)
• Freedom City Play By Post (1 example)
• Characters/Gantz (1 example)
• Half-Human Hybrid (Tabletop Games section, 1 example)
• Kamen Rider Wizard Phantoms (1 example)

No idea whether these examples are correct:

• Anime & Manga (1 example)
• Boundless World of Danmaku (1 example)
• Dystopian Edict (Literature section, 1 example)
• Energy Bow (Anime & Manga section, 1 example): no idea how much this "Amaterasu fire" corresponds to hellfire
• The Sixth Gun (1 example): Zero Context Example
• Steel Mill (1 example): technically incorrect, but the article does compare the setting with hell
• Der Freischütz (1 example)
• Instant Expert (trope description, 1 example)

These examples seem to be misused:

• Main/Hellfire: the entire Real Life section, as it seems to describe types of fire fully within the bounds of natural laws, just ones that are simply hotter than normal or hard to put out
• Tropes G to M (1 example): only describes natural or manmade fire
• Akame ga Kill! (1 example): the page only says that "even water can't extinguish it"
• Nightmare Fuel/Futurama (1 example): "It can't be extinguished at all!" Also, the page says that it comes from the sun.
• 5 Elementos (1 example): This is what the Dusk Virus causes on fire elementals. It can burn without oxygen, and even burn fireproof materials. Crisol hypothezises that it works like a mini nuclear fusion, chewing the elemental's energy away.
• The Fall of Lord Frieza (1 example): The technique isn't actually evil in any way, but they act just like your usual cut-and-dried example.
• The Gloves Come Off (1 example): Thermite and any other technological means of creating fire are not hellfire

edited 30th Jun '15 2:12:12 PM by PRH

There might be room for a Waterproof Fire trope, looking at the misuse it seems more like that.

If you want to argue for putting the trope on No Real Life Examples, Please!, please head over to our thread specifically for handling real life examples.

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I looked over the page and I see a split: examples of genuine hellfire (fire that comes from hell, or an equivalent) and fire that is somehow "special" (it burns non-material objects like souls, it can't be put out with water, burns without oxygen etc.) Should we split along these lines?

I agree.

Something like

• Hellfire
• Soulfire
• Waterproof Fire
• Fire Without Oxygen (might go on the Artistic License index)

I think just:

• Magic Fire
  • Hellfire
  • Soul Fire
  • Inextinguishable Fire

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Is Soul Fire common enough to trope? I can only think of two examples, and one of them is a subversion (the angels were evil, so their "holy power" acted exactly like Hellfire).

I mean, it's a trope, but if it doesn't have enough examples they can just be listed as moral inversions.

I'm not sure. We can always just have it as part of the supertrope of Magic Fire.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

I can think of a few including World Of Warcraft.

Cold Fire is also another magic fire trope I can think of.

Also I think Waterproof Fire and Oxygen Less Fire are pretty different.

edited 2nd Jul '15 7:12:59 PM by Memers

I think they can potentially be defined differently on paper, but as tropes, they're basically identical in use and it's often vague why the fire can't be extinguished.

Cold Fire is a trope though.

edited 2nd Jul '15 10:53:15 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Cold Flames we already have.

Not really many Waterproof Fires are put out by smothering it and cutting off its O2. The tropes themselves are pretty exclusive.

Heck putting water on grease fires only makes it worse, you put a lid on it and such to put it out. An Oil Rig fire will use explosives to push the O2 away and put it out like blowing out a candle.

Ahh, Cold Fire might serve as a good redirect to that.

edited 3rd Jul '15 2:03:44 AM by Memers

It is now.

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Oxygen Less Fire would be about fires in environments that would not allow for it (i.e. a vacuum or underwater (tropes can overlap)) while Waterproof Fire would be about fire you can't put out with water.

edited 3rd Jul '15 5:08:24 AM by Karxrida

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

Requiring it to literally come from Hell sounds like a bad idea to me. I mean then you'd be excluding things like Fiendfyre, which definitely seems in the spirit of the trope. What if it's never clearly stated whether it comes from Hell or not?

It's pitch-black, almost impossible to put out, normally the only way to gain access to it is to kill your best friend, and using it causes you to weep Tears of Blood (which will eventually drive you blind unless you kill another person who can use it and steal their eyes). It's definitely sinister at least.

On the Real Life section I'd argue that chlorine trifluoride should be left in, because it's incredibly dangerous in so many ways that it feels like it's actively trying to kill you. Most of the other examples are just really hot flames.

Yes, personally I think limiting it to the fires of hell seems odd. Any sort of superpowerful fire serves the same purpose, narratively.

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Disagree; you can limit this to fires that come from or reference the eternal punishment of fire.

Fiendfyre (the word fiend) means "devil/demon fire". It is an invoked example: This spell has flames so hot, they must come from hell itself. Whatever castor invented/discovered that spell was invoking the trope of "fire from hell".

The cracks of Doom, from Lot R is superpowered fire, but not hellfire.

edited 9th Jul '15 9:23:46 AM by crazysamaritan

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

So "fiend" words, but not "doom"? A place you can only reach by traversing a land that can accurately be described as hell on Middle-Earth where one of the greatest Evils of the world dwells?

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I agree with the Mordor == Hell parallel, but Mordor had more than one volcano. Only Mt. Doom would work because that's where the ring was forged. That's like "The fire of Asmodeus, and only Asmodeus." None of the other demon lords having the right sort of flame, even if they're more powerful.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

And at that point the distinction is so arbitrary and subjective it's meaningless.

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