Central Theme and High Concept

Central Theme and High Concept sounds really related in that they describe what the work is about. How can I know the difference?

While both describe the work in some way, they aren't the same thing at all.

High Concept is what it is about : "Die Hard on a Plane" or "Ones a stoner, ones a giant blind gerbil. Together they fight crime"

Central Theme is the message : "The power of friendship can help defeat any problem", "Life sucks some times, but it gets better", or "It's never too late to change and to fix your mistakes".

No, what you described as Central Theme is instead An Aesop. The very page even differentiates it.

An Aesop can be the central theme, but doesn't have to be. Do you know what the "Theme of a work" means? (I'm not trying to be snide here,; it's a concept that many people don't really encounter in school beyond a quick brush-by.)

In case you don't, the theme of a work is the central or underlying idea of the work. It forms a running thread that shapes the whole work, and is usually some philosophical idea. If a work has several themes, one of them is more important, more central to the whole work. That's the Central Theme.

As to the original question, how to distinguish between a Central Theme and a High Concept, one easy and relatively accurate way tis to see how short you can make the statement and still have it fully explain the idea. Using an example from the High Concept page: the High Concept for Dave is "The Prisoner of Zenda as the President of the US." The Central Theme the movie explores is "What happens when corrupt people give a good, idealistic man a chance to apparently hold a high level of power, thinking that he'll be a good little puppet to the corrupt people who gave him that position?"

An Aesop is a lesson. The theme will almost certainly affect what, if any, Aesops the work will have, but they aren't the same thing. Many works don't have any Aesops at all. But they do have a theme or themes.

edited 24th Jun '17 10:08:53 PM by Madrugada

These could probably go on the Canonical List of Subtle Trope Distinctions, as there was also some discussion on Central Theme about the themes seeming to be aesops. Taken from Madrugada's post and also their respective pages:

• An Aesop: A direct precept or lesson from an episode or arc within the work, or from the whole work.
• Central Theme: The underlying idea of the work that forms a running thread that shapes the whole work, and is usually some philosophical idea.
• High Concept: The basic premise of the work, which usually describes the plot and is not some philosophical idea.

A theme is often also an Aesop, but they are not always the same thing: you can have Aesops that are not themes and themes that are not Aesops.

edited 25th Jun '17 8:19:54 AM by Fighteer

For a basic illustration, I found myself thinking about Half-Life. The high concept of the games is a relatively basic alien invasion, the twist being that you're playing as an ordinary scientist rather than a badass soldier or action hero. Moreover, the first game was rather original in dispensing with the traditional mission-based structure in favor of seamless free-form exploration and goal-setting. The central theme, however, is whether there's any actual freedom in it, as opposed to the player character being strictly rail-roaded by nebulous forces, all while bearing the ironic name Freeman. This is further enforced and illustrated by the games' heavy use of scripted events in lieu of traditional cutscenes.

For another example, take Cowboy Bebop. High concept - jazzy bounty hunters in space. Central theme - dealing with one's past. Aesop - er, if you see a stranger, follow him. Though the other one - don't leave things in the fridge - pretty much sums up the actual story as well.

I feel like a lot of works have multiple themes that can't necessarily be ranked in importance. Some contributors try to list multiple themes as bullet points under "central theme", the way you would a work with multiple aesops, which seems like a problem because you're either misusing the trope or ignoring anything that isn't the indisputable central theme. Can't we make a trope that's just "themes"?

edited 1st Jul '17 1:08:17 PM by TheBigBopper

That trope would have an example from every single work, making it omnipresent and therefore not interesting. You discuss the theme above the line, in the description, not in the examples list.

Point taken.

"Themes" could possibly work as an index.