The Chew Toy is somebody who seems to be the target of abuse through pure bad luck, Played for Laughs.
I mean... what's the practical difference between these? Can it perhaps be illustrated with an example?
We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.
Lost in Space
Dunno. Seems like sometimes we have different tropes just for the sake of having different tropes. You'd need to run these through TRS, but it's pretty busy at the moment, and I'm pretty sure we visited them before.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
That is wrong according to Square Peg Round Trope:
Lost in Space
Butt-Monkey is "character is abused". The Chew Toy is "character is abused so the audience will laugh". I'd expect reams of misuse if we looked at the examples.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
So Butt-Monkey is the supertrope then?
If it really means "character is abused", would it be a supertrope to Domestic Abuse or Hilariously Abusive Childhood?
We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.
Lost in Space
Well, Domestic Abuse is usually played seriously, and it's generally not about the plot making the character its whipping block. Hilariously Abusive Childhood could be, if the character retains the status of designated misfortune magnet into the current story. Butt-Monkey usually lacks an internal justification; it's just the universe (or the other characters) conspiring to make a character's life miserable.
edited 8th Feb '17 5:06:04 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Can I bring either Butt-Monkey or Chew Toy to TRS?
We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.
Zzzzzzzzzz
Why? What makes you believe that either one of them is broken and needs repair?
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
I'm afraid Chew Toy is simply The Same But More for Butt-Monkey.
And one post above said that even if the two has coexisted, people still put their Chew Toy examples to Butt-Monkey.
We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.
Zzzzzzzzzz
If you want to make a TRS, I'd strongly suggest that you put a whole lot of thought and effort into what you'll use as your Opening Post then, because "I think they're the same" is going to require a very strong supporting argument, considering that Butt-Monkey has 16 thousand wicks and 39 thousand inbounds and The Chew Toy has 3600+ and 4400+ respectively. plus another nearly 1000 wicks from the redirect "Chew Toy"
A wick check showing serious levels of misuse for both of them (50%+) will be absolutely required before a TRS thread will even be opened, and you'll need much stronger reasons to mess with either one than "I don't see the difference."
I also strongly suggest you give some serious thought to what the difference between "The Same But More Specific" and a Subtrope is and why we don't just fold all subtropes back into the trope they're "The Same But..." as. ( Here's a hint: because if we didn't allow differences to establish more specific tropes,, we'd have about 6 tropes, total. Because if you take "a trope can't be The Same But [More/Less/Good/Bad/Played For Laughs/Played For Drama/Whatever]" to its logical extreme, every trope can be pushed back up that line to one of "Plot", "Setting" "Spectacle", "Character", "Dialogue" or "Technical".)
Frankly, the rate at which you make these "what's the difference between...?" threads makes me wonder about your ability or willingness to read for comprehension.
edited 25th Mar '17 6:12:54 AM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Lost in Space
Indeed. Without a wick check proving substantial overlap between the two tropes, no merge proposal will succeed in TRS. In fact, we'll reject it out of hand.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Zzzzzzzzzz
Anyway, your example ( although, hey, look, there are pages and pages of examples of both of them!)
- Charlie Brown is a Butt Monkey.
- Tom Cat, of Tom and Jerry is a Chew Toy
- Wile E. Coyote is a Cosmic Plaything and a Chew Toy
edited 25th Mar '17 8:25:34 AM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
The Chew Toy is more the running gag of getting abused for laughs, every single episode they are just abused left and right. You know it is coming and if you like the show you will have to find it funny. IE Kenny in South Park.
Butt-Monkey just requires them to be the butt of many jokes, they don't need to be abused or anything. IE literally like anyone in South Park.
edited 25th Mar '17 8:30:31 AM by Memers
What's the difference of Butt-Monkey and Chew Toy?
edited 7th Feb '17 8:06:29 AM by Getta
We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.