Trope distinctions - do these make sense?

Any help with differentiating Kicked Upstairs and The Dilbert Principle?

Same for Most Definitely Not Accompanying Us and Wait Here.

Edited by eroock on Mar 19th 2019 at 9:45:39 PM

Wait Here seems to require that the person who is told to stay behind gets in trouble, regardless of whether they obey the order or not.

Most Definitely Not Accompanying Us seems to be specifically about someone disobeying an order to stay behind, but not necessarily getting in trouble because of it. Also the page looks like it's trying to specify that the disobedient character has to be a child or at least childlike but I'm not sure.

Not sure on Kicked Upstairs and The Dilbert Principle.

• Kicked Upstairs: A person is incompetent, so we promote them to a position that has no real responsibility.
• The Dilbert Principle: We need to promote someone, but the competent people are all too valuable to remove from their jobs. Ergo, the least competent person gets it.

The distinction is the rationale. In Kicked Upstairs, management is trying to get rid of an incompetent employee, whereas The Dilbert Principle is about an employee being too competent to promote.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 20th 2019 at 11:33:47 AM

I've seen cases of Kicked Upstairs being used to make someone confined to a more restricting desk job, though; the character is suspected to have "too much lenience" when he was in a lower position.

That's Reassigned to Antarctica.

That's strictly the case for reassignment, not promotion.

I'd like to help distinguishing Betting Minigame with Loot Boxes.

Because currently the two pages don't link at each other.

"Promoted to a useless job because the management finds you inconvenient" and "assigned to an undesirable job because the management finds you inconvenient" seem at least slightly distinct. Kicked Upstairs isn't explicitly about the former, but I guess it could be close enough.

Betting Minigame, as defined, is about spending in-game currency on in-game gambling for in-game rewards. Loot Boxes is about spending real-world money to buy randomized content in-game, usually with the option of earning said content through continued play.

I'll crosslink them in their descriptions.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 22nd 2019 at 11:36:06 AM

What's the difference of Villain Ball Magnet, Hero with an F in Good and Hero with Bad Publicity?

Edited by 4tell0life4 on Mar 24th 2019 at 3:01:51 AM

Villain Ball Magnet is a character who doesn't want to be evil, but the whims of the universe keep forcing it on them. Every action they take, no matter how well-intended, ends up having some kind of horrible consequence that marks them as a pariah to the world at large. If they give money to an orphanage, it turns out to have been counterfeited. If they help an old lady cross the street, she falls into a manhole. In some cases, an intrinsic trait marks them as evil no matter what they do.

Hero with an F in Good is a character who is trying to be good, but either has a seriously shady past that keeps interfering, or has habits or personality traits that make them a terrible Face. In this case, it's not about the universe conspiring to make them into a villain, but their own flaws and/or history conspiring to keep them from being successful as a hero. This character may help an old lady cross the street, but habitually steal her purse along the way.

Hero with Bad Publicity is a broader trope in which a heroic character is vilified by society (or by specific parts of society) no matter what they do or how good they are. They may also be a Hero with an F in Good, but most of the time they are simply the victim of fate. Their actions are heroic and genuinely help people, but someone always spins it into a bad deed. If they catch crooks, they get branded a masked vigilante. If they rescue cats from trees, someone will accuse them of animal cruelty (or trespassing). If they help an old lady cross the street, they get blamed for obstructing traffic. Sometimes these characters are really bad at PR and this is a consequence.

So, to summarize:

• Villain Ball Magnet: No matter what this character tries to do, it goes horribly wrong in such a way that makes them a pariah.
• Hero with an F in Good: This character has serious flaws that interfere with their ability to be a hero.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Society has decided that this character is bad no matter how genuinely heroic they are.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 25th 2019 at 4:08:15 AM

Thanks, looking quite clear.

How can Non-Answer and Cryptically Unhelpful Answer be contrasted?

Non-Answer is a response that is either so vague and generic or trivially true that it provides no useful information.

Cryptically Unhelpful Answer is a response that does, technically, answer the question, but is given in a way that makes it very difficult to decipher or understand.

Q: "Where are my glasses?"

• Non-Answer: "Can anyone ever really know where something is, in this vast and dynamic world of quantum uncertainty?"
• Mathematician's Answer: "Where you left them."
• Cryptically Unhelpful Answer: "Within the domicile of thy father's firstborn, seek the chamber that is illuminated by the fires of heaven when the cock croweth. Upon a mahogany plinth thou wilt find thy answer." (Translation: On your dresser.)

That last one is actually comprehensible if you can parse the language, but I didn't want to invest a lot of effort to make it even more ridiculous.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 25th 2019 at 4:24:19 AM

Thx

What's the difference of Iconic Item, Companion Cube, Security Blanket and #1 Dime?

I've got the feeling that one is a Super-Trope to the others, but I can't tell which.

Iconic Item: Item is seen as a symbol for a character, in or out of universe. What the character thinks of the item is irrelevant.

#1 Dime: Item that a character is unreasonably protective of for its apparent value. Probably a supertrope to:

Companion Cube: Inanimate object that's treated like a person/loved one by characters (but is non-sentient, unlike an Talking Appliance Sidekick).

Security Blanket: Item that a character needs to feel safe/supported. The emotional connection to the object is generally more justified than for Companion Cube or #1 Dime. Generally not treated like a person. More likely to be a Iconic Item compared to #1 Dime or Security Blanket.

Edited by naturalironist on Mar 26th 2019 at 11:19:12 AM

What's the difference between He Also Did and Creator's Oddball?

In terms of differences:

• He Also Did: It's a work that's outside the range of the genre someone's known for, e.g. Albert Einstein writing a book on plants when he normally studied physics.
• Creator's Oddball: This applies to a work in a series that a creator did. It's incongrous with the rest of their regular output (i.e. iet clashes). For example, Lets Go Luna (a pre-school show) from Joe Murray is Lighter and Softer and doesn't have Getting Crap Past the Radar that Rockos Modern Life is known for.

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Mar 30th 2019 at 10:05:24 AM

I always found The Casanova, The Pornomancer, Really Gets Around, Accidental Pornomancer, and Chick Magnet to be really similar. I don't think they should all be one trope, but I do feel at least one of them is unnecessary.

The Casanova is a man who actively tries and succeeds in wooing people (usually women) he's interested. While sex may happen, this is primarily about romance (even if he's primarily interested in sex, he is able to fool women into thinking otherwise).

Pornomancer is a person who gets an implausible amount of sex, and constantly has people wanting to sleep with him. While the trope description says this is gender-neutral, I'm not sure if that makes sense to me given sexual double standards. I'm not totally clear how this relates to the other tropes.

Accidental Pornomancer: Character who is constantly having sex foist on him even when he doesn't want it.

Chick Magnet: Character who has lots of women interested in him, through no action of his own. Unlike The Casanova, this character isn't trying to get the women, they just go for him anyway. He may or may not want the attention, and sex may or may not be involved.

Really Gets Around: Character that is easy to get into bed. There is a distinction between persuading others to sleep with you (The Casanova, The Pornomancer) which is a good thing, and being persuaded by other to sleep with them, which is this trope, and considered a bad thing. Due to sexual double standards, this trope is almost Always Female (if not, the character will be a Depraved Bisexual or promiscuous gay) and portrayed negatively.

Edited by naturalironist on Apr 1st 2019 at 1:49:52 PM

Thanks, I had a pretty bad idea of what Really Gets Around and The Pornomancer were.

Could I get one for how Hello Nurse is different than Distracted by the Sexy and Eating the Eye Candy? I know what the latter two mean, but Hello Nurse confuses me, even after reading the examples.

A comment to the definition of The Dilbert Principle given by Fighteer in #54 above. If I understand correctly, Kicked Upstairs is for removing undesirable staff through promotion and The Dilbert Principle is for keeping desirable staff through non-promotion. As much as I agree with your definition of The Dilbert Principle, nothing in the description goes along with it. It's basically reiterating the idea of Kicked Upstairs. I feel the write-up is in need of improvement to make the distinction clear. Opinions?

I generally agree.

Also, Kicked Upstairs can also happen to people who are troublemakers or otherwise piss off the management for reasons other than incompetence. Whereas The Dilbert Principle is specifically about competence.

The description of The Dilbert Principle could use a bit of improvement, but it's not hard to get my reading from it.