Opening.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Jupiterian Local
The Hunter should almost certainly be an exampleless supertrope for Egomaniac Hunter, Great White Hunter, Evil Poacher, etc, while the current definition under The Hunter should be changed to The Monster Hunter or something similar.
The only problem with this is that the current definition of The Hunter includes the hunting of non-monsters, as long as they're a specific group that the hunter in question has dedicated themselves to killing (eg, The Punisher, who hunts down criminals of all stripes). I'm honestly not sure if that's tropeworthy by itself or not, but it should certainly be split from The Monster Hunter.
edited 5th Mar '16 6:42:06 AM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Perhaps this should be renamed to its existing redirect, Monster Slayer.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
The Hunter does not have to 'slay' though, plenty of people who trap or catch whatever take up the role of The Hunter. Nor does it have to be a monster.
edited 7th Mar '16 12:39:46 PM by Memers
Jupiterian Local
I dislike the Monster Slayer name, but I don't really have a good reason to. I just like The Monster Hunter better, I guess. I'd support a rename to either.
The bit about hunting things other than monsters honestly seemed tacked on, and I think the trope would be improved by removing it. It seems like the trope is trying to be "any character that dedicates themselves to protecting the innocent by hunting down a specific foe, whether it be a particular species of monster, a certain type of criminal, members of a specific nefarious organization, etc", but that's really too broad to be tropable in my eyes. Restricting it to monster hunters make the description much more clear, and most of the other variants are covered by other tropes anyway, most of which are mentioned in The Hunter article (Serial-Killer Killer, Nazi Hunter, Bounty Hunter, Vigilante Man, etc).
The Monster Hunter is far far too close to Monster Hunter franchise.
And anything can fit The Hunter role really, even something like a Dog Catcher if played right.
edited 7th Mar '16 4:41:05 PM by Memers
Jupiterian Local
Eh, we have tropes that share names with works. (See Main.The Paladin and Literature.The Paladin, for example). That's what namespaces are for. And that wouldn't even be a problem with The Monster Hunter, as it doesn't overlap with Monster Hunter anyway.
And the fact that the trope is overly broad is exactly the problem. That's why we're suggesting narrowing the definition.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
I dont think we need to narrow the definition though. The trope is already pretty much written like a supertrope to the various hunting tropes as an Archetypal Character and the name fits that, we just need to make it fully that.
edited 7th Mar '16 6:00:55 PM by Memers
Jupiterian Local
I don't think "guy who hunts things" is a trope when it covers everything from mundane people trying to capture mundane criminals to supernatural badasses trying to exterminate vampires or demons. Someone who hunts supernatural creatures or otherwise dangerous monsters that normal people aren't equipped to handle is a much more tropable concept; they virtually always have special equipment, training, and/or powers, they use specialized techniques and tactics that they've been taught or developed themselves, they may have to worry about The Masquerade for certain monsters in certain settings, etc.
At the very least, we need to rename the trope as The Hunter is extremely vague. Even if we keep the current definition of The Hunter (which I don't think we should), we should rename it something else and use The Hunter as a disambiguation page for the various tropes we have about hunters and hunting (of which there are quite a few).
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
I'm not sure if The Hunter (as a supertrope to Egomaniac Hunter, Great White Hunter, etc.) by itself is really an archetypal character in fiction/mythology, though I wouldn't be surprised if it is. It's where Manly Men Can Hunt and several other tropes derive from.
I agree that the "hunter of supernatural things" concept should be transplanted to Monster Hunter.
edited 17th Mar '16 10:05:05 AM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
Jupiterian Local
I agree that "guy who hunts things" isn't tropeworthy by itself, which is why I'm saying The Hunter should be used as a disambiguation page (basically, a list of all the various pages that "The Hunter" might be in reference to) rather than a supertrope.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Villain Protagonist
I agree with that: The Hunter as exampleless, then add The X Hunter as a subtrope
Okay, so our options seem to be:
- Rewrite the description to clarify that it's about a character who hunts supernatural beings only.
- Rename (either to The Monster Hunter or Monster Slayer, both of which have been mentioned above)
- Make The Hunter a supertrope, transplant the current definition to one of the names mentioned above.
Note that not all of these are mutually exclusive. That sound about right?
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
Made a crowner for those options.
Hi
Hooked, thanks. ![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
The Unknown
Honestly, all of the crowner options are good.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Jupiterian Local
They're not mutually exclusive; nothing keeping us from doing all of them. If you like them all, upvote them all.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Bump for votes.
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
Hi
Calling for the winning options.
Ok, since we decided on a rename for the "hunts supernatural things" trope, now we need to settle on one. The Monster Hunter and Monster Slayer were already mentioned. Any other ideas?
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
The Unknown
I think The Monster Hunter works best. Monster Slayer lacks the "seeks them out" connotation.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Well, since nothing else has been suggested, here's a crowner for those two options.
How sweet it is
It's hooked; thanks.
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Jupiterian Local
Been up for a week, The Monster Hunter is currently at 10:0.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Crown Description:
What would be the best way to fix the page?
This trope is largely okay, except that I think there's two separate concepts at work in terms of examples given for it.
1. The Hunter as stated by the article: someone who hunts monsters or supernatural beings of some kind for some reason. 2. An archetypal character or culture based around the concept of game-hunting, either for survival as part of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, because of belief in the glory of the hunt or purely for the thrill of it.
Now, either makes a valid trope on its own, but having both together as the same trope when the page is clearly only about one of them is just silly. My suggestion is this: we split the two definitions into 2 separate tropes, something like 1. The Hunter and 2. The X Hunter — or something like that. If not that, we should find a trope to replace any and all entries of The Hunter with, because it's clearly causing confusion in the troper ranks.