YMMV Home Page and Audience Reaction Policy Thread

I have to admit, I'm confused about the idea of a storytelling element that's an actual part of the story and not an opinion about it, but that the question of whether it's present is subjective.

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.

The idea is that these are things that the audience might perceive to be in the work- a villain as evil as can be, for example, as not everyone will agree that villain x is utterly evil and nothing else. They're tropes in the sense that they're based on what happens in the work, rather than how the audience reacts to the work, but the audience might not agree on if these things are actually present.

Going back to the MEH, it's subjective because people disagree all the time not only on when the line was crossed but if it was crossed at all and if people can even be irredeemable, in fiction and in reality. It's something that occurs in the work, but the audience are the ones who decide if it actually happened. But like I said, the idea that the villains need to be treated as irredeemable in canon is treating the trope like an objective one, which makes the whole point of it being YMMV completely...well...nonexistent.

IDK. Maybe I'm just talking out of my ass, but how else would it work? Otherwise, it's literally just objective tropes that we don't want to take an objective stance on, for reasons.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 26th 2020 at 7:00:17 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

In theory, Moral Event Horizon is objectively present in the work. You can point to a specific event or action and say, "That's it!" In practice, MEH is YMMV because different people may disagree on what constitutes an irredeemable act.

You cannot subvert, invert, parody, or otherwise play with this concept. It is either an act that audience members find irredeemable or it is not.

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To recap...

• YMMV tropes always relate to something in the work: a discrete scene, character, plot device, etc. However, there is room for reasonable (or unreasonable in some cases) argument about the degree to which the trope is actually applicable.
  • There are ways in which some, but not all YMMV tropes can be played with.
• Audience Reactions constitute opinions, ideas, or concepts that are independent from the objective content of the work. Whether you liked a character or found a boss fight difficult is not something you can find in the work. It's entirely in your thoughts.
  • Audience reactions cannot be played with. They are objectively present in the minds of the audience. They may be discussed or used in-universe, or the creator(s) may deliberately be trying to provoke them.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 26th 2020 at 7:12:56 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I mean, I have heard the horror stories of people trying to claim Patrick and D.W. as Monsters, so I know there's never 100% agreement about it.

Still, given the intense vetting process, I feel like we're, like... actively removing what subjectivity there is to the concept. If someone thinks whatever the hell Bellatrix has for Voldemort makes her a 99% monster, well, too bad, the wikimind says otherwise.

I don't know why I'm talking about Complete Monster when y'all are talking about Moral Event Horizon, but that's where I am.

I guess if I wanted to define MEH "objectively", I'd say "the action committed by a character which indicates that the work has no intent of redeeming them"; one might argue about whether it's still possible at that point, but it's not gonna happen.

Edited by wingedcatgirl on Aug 26th 2020 at 4:16:07 AM

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.

My concern about MEH is that it apparently requires the work treat the character as irredeemable, which means the only subjective thing is when the line was crossed- not if a line was crossed. It'd make more sense for the trope to be about the audience perceiving a character as irredeemable because of what they did, not just pinpointing the exact moment they crossed the line. It boils it down so much so that some people don't even seem to realize a character can have multiple moments listed, as people don't agree on where the line was crossed.

Complete Monster is a very weird case as it does come off more objective than anything, but the subjectivity is in whether or not these characters, well... are this evil.

But yeah. YMMV is super weird as the line between objectivity and subjectivity is super blurry.

However, I stand by what I said about these tropes relying on the perception of the audience. If they didn't, they wouldn't be YMMV. If they don't, they shouldn't be YMMV. And because they exist in the minds of the audience, that's why they can't really be played with- they're not necessarily part of the work until the audience decides they are.

If that's not true, then how can they still be subjective?

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 26th 2020 at 7:18:58 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I am thinking the actual problem with MEH is that it is often unclear when the horizon is crossed. I think a more general meta-problem is that the YMMV banner is often thrown onto tropes which have murky definitions.

(Unrelated, but I am thinking that the additions regarding creators and roleplays to What Goes Where on the Wiki are out of place there. I'll see if something about that can be added to There Is No Such Thing as Notability which is the actual "what works do we trope" list)

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

There's no harm in some redundancy as long as the messages don't conflict. The RP cleanup thread certainly appreciates the additions.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Emotion is important to YMMV concepts. Without it, there's little to argue about, and little reason to argue about it. In the case of "irredeem-ability" (or however you want to spell it fml), that emotion is disgust, or a combination of disgust and anger. There's also an element of pity (i.e. sadness on someone else's behalf) for their victims. (I think it's interesting that both MEH and CM have the irredeemability requirement and that's what's being discussed.)

This requirement can be phrased however you like, but at the end of the day, the audience still has to feel some level of disgust or anger towards these characters to count as CM (which is just another way of saying that they are meant to be irredeemable). Even stating MEH as "the action committed by a character which indicates that the work has no intent of redeeming them," which sounds objective and almost scientific, retains the requirement of no redemption being sought or provided. (Though that definition loses a lot of the concept and wouldn't work as a re-write. I'm just responding to what wingedcat provided.)

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

But that's the thing- we're focusing on MEH being specifically about the action that marks when a character became irredeemable, but so much of the debating around MEH is whether or not the characters need to be treated irredeemable in canon, at which point the moment when it's solidified seems like it should be objective. However, if it was the moment the fans decided the character couldn't be redeemed, that'd be entirely YMMV, as it'd be YMMV if the moment even happened at all and not just when or how strongly the fans feel about it happening.

That's what my issue is. By focusing on the fact that the character "is" irredeemable, that makes it far more objective, but it's YMMV, which means there needs to be something subjective about it, and yet the character still needs to be objectively beyond redemption, and...

Basically, here's how I see it:

• Is it something the creator intentionally puts in the work, is objectively in the work, and debates center around simply analyzing the text to decide if the trope is present? It's a normal trope. They can be played with because they're entirely based around the narrative- there's no debating if they happened, and they're tools to use.
• Is it something that might be intentionally added to the work, but is left up to the fans to decide actually exists? Does debates around it often become about how the fans feel and what they think, rather than the raw facts? It's YMMV- as YMMV concepts can be intentional audience reactions, but still require fan perception, not simply the work itself. They can't be played with IMO because in the end, it's about how the fans feel and think, and that's not something a creator can intentionally play with.
• Is it about how the audience reacts, and has nothing to do with the actual context of the work? It's an Audience Reaction, with all that applies to it.

My thoughts on MEH are that, while it's something a creator can do intentionally and thus it has an objective component, how we classify it depends on what we're focusing on:

• Is it about how the work portrays the character?
• Is it about how the audience feels?
• Is it about a specific moment, with a specific intent behind it?

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 27th 2020 at 7:39:13 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Re: being an approved monster. At the very least, their actions have to be reprehensible, and inexcusable. You can have a monster who is liked by the fanbase, but their actions are supposed to be treated with the proper gravity by the narrative. CM does not necessarily equal HS, although there is plenty of overlap.

Also, it isn't unheard of to accidentally create a monster, a la Red Zone Cuba. If the author fails to give a villain actual redeeming qualities, and makes their actions stand out, it doesn't matter what the author thinks; that character is a monster unless the author actually redeems them.

Author intent is irrelevant.

Edited by SkyCat32 on Aug 27th 2020 at 7:43:03 AM

Rawr.

I mean... not all YMMV tropes are "entirely YMMV." And not all YMMV tropes have to be entirely YMMV.

I think defining "irredeemable" would be helpful then, because it is not an objective word at all. It means "hopeless," and there are people out there who would argue that nobody is hopeless / irredeemable. You cannot say "this is the point where everyone lost hope in this character," but you can say "this is the point where most people (implying also the speaker) lost hope in this character." And then tropers argue about what that point is specifically for the greatest number of people.

EDIT RE Skycat: I can see where you inferred I cared anything at all about authorial intent, but I did not intend to imply by "they are meant" to mean "they are meant by the author." More like, "a CM is supposed to be X given the definition of a CM." The irony (of my intent being misunderstood etc etc) almost hurts :)

Edited by WaterBlap on Aug 27th 2020 at 6:48:16 AM

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

Right, which is how I believe MEH should be treated.

How it's currently treated is just "this character is definitely irredeemable, but when did they cross the line?", which is just as easily objective as it is subjective (as a lot of works make it clear when a character crossed the line, and when they expect the character to be seen as beyond redemption, but not everyone will agree on where the line is if the work doesn't make it clear).

I'm not sure how something can be not "fully" YMMV. Is the concept of YMMV itself YMMV or something? How do we determine what's YMMV and what isn't if it's so ill defined? Or did you mean that not everything is fully subjective? Because I'm aware of that- but the more objective we make something, the less YMMV it actually is, until it's literally just a normal trope given special branding.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 27th 2020 at 7:47:13 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

The problem is with our rhetoric. "YMMV" is a terrible term that sucks balls, in my most humble opinion. I wasn't really being all that consistent above, so here's what I have to say about this poopy piece of parlance.

"Your milage may vary" sounds like a binary issue; it either varies or it does not vary. It sounds like it either is YMMV or it is not. However, the concept is about subjectivity, which is not a binary issue. For example, two people can view the same artwork and posit two different interpretations of its discrete elements. We wouldn't say those interpretations are objective, even though they react to objective truths about the artwork. The thing that's equivalent to a "trope" in this analogy are the individual discrete elements themselves. And those two people could have more than two interpretations of the artwork's discrete elements. (This is different from merely two people having different opinions, which would be Audience Reactions as Fighteer described them above, since you don't need to know anything about the artwork to form an opinion about said artwork. Just look at all the people who "hate" Book X merely because Author Y wrote it.)

The analogy isn't perfect, especially because it's so general, but I'm trying to make a point about a general concept anyways (i.e. what is a YMMV trope).

YMMV tropes do require some discrete thing to exist within the work, but that discrete element is not the crux of the concept, unlike a regular trope. The crux of the concept is the interpretation. But an important element to YMMV tropes is that the interpretation comes from some emotional reaction. If it weren't from an emotional reaction, TV Tropes would not have had such a problem with these concepts and they would have stayed as regular tropes. We can see this in those YMMV tropes that are borderline cases that probably aren't YMMV at all (e.g. Acceptable Targets).

So when I said "not entirely YMMV," really I meant that it isn't an Audience Reaction and that it can rely on discrete elements of the work and still be YMMV.

I disgree that "the more objective we make something, the less YMMV it actually is" because that's conflating YMMV with Audience Reactions. YMMV tropes often do rely on discrete, objectively extant elements of a work, but the crux of the concept — or to put it another way, the most important element or group of elements of the concept — is the (a) emotional (b) interpretation.

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MEH then has the emotional element of at least hopelessness, possibly connected with anger but it could instead be disgust or sadness/pity. It also has the discrete element of "this particular scene" or "that particular scene" and it has the interpretation of "this scene is where most people lost hope in this character" (or substitute "lost hope in this character" with "concluded that this character could not be redeemed").

(This essay was brought to you by the letter coffee.)

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

I could be talking out of my ass here but here's how I ideally would define MEH: it can define the moment (or moments, if it's debatable which is which) where most fans couldn't sympathize with the character any longer, but it should also be something acknowledged as horrendous in the narrative. That would allow more flexibility for characters who are eventually redeemed in the narrative (or at least through Redemption Equals Death) but not in the eyes of the fanbase, but it would also prevent moments where a Black Comedy moment is treated as MEH even though the work has Negative Continuity and it's not treated as a big deal in the narrative (such as certain infamous Spongebob moments from the late 2000's and early 2010's).

To go back to BoJack: the fanbase typically considers BoJack almost sleeping with a teenager as his MEH. It is treated as a horrible thing in the narrative that permanently ruins his relationships with others, as well as his perception of himself, and it's the moment that resulted in many people no longer being able to sympathize with him, with some not even being able to watch the show anymore. There are other moments later in the season that are considered his MEH as well. However, he's still a protagonist, so he has to be sympathetic to some degree. But it feels strange to act like BoJack, who is accepted as having done horrible things that often make people in the show call him a bad person, whose actions are clearly not able to be undone no matter how much he develops into a better person, should not be labeled with MEHs on the basis that he's still intended as a nuanced character after he commits these unforgivable deeds. The fandom and the narrative both agree he's crossed a line he can never cross back, and it's forever changed how the show and the fandom sees him.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

It's kind of relevant though, because how objective MEH is would determine if it can be played with- and the same is true for every YMMV concept. It's not just about MEH; that's just the one that's being debated because it's what started this whole mess, but the discussion reveals a lot of confusion and flaws with how YMMV is defined and what is/isn't "objective".

The entire crux of my argument is that if something is about what happens in the work and audience perception plays no role in identifying it, it's not YMMV at all- the MEH issue is because the definition is so focused on what happens in the work when it should be about audience perception, if it's truly YMMV.

This definition is important because it's literally what decides if a trope can be played with or not- if it's subjective, either people think it's true/feel a certain way or they don't, and that can't be played with. If it's too concerned with what happens in the work though, it theoretically can lead to played with examples, but that would mean that it's not about the audience at all.

...For the record, I'm not trying to conflate this with Audience Reaction. I know they're different. All I'm saying is that demanding the character be objectively irredeemable means the only YMMV thing about this is where audience members personally felt the line was crossed, but that can just as easily be specifically written into a work with the intent to show the character as irredeemable, and that's where the problem is- it relies so much on objective facts about the work that it downplays the actual subjective part, and if it's only subjective because it provokes a reaction...shouldn't it be about the reaction?

It's extremely confusing and that's why I'm so concerned over it. It's true of MEH but also a lot of other YMMV tropes, like CM and MB- obviously objective criteria is necessary for these things, but get too objective and it stops being about the audience, and thus they become tropes you can play with. At least with CM and MB though, the idea is that some audiences might not see the character as evil or magnificent as others do, which makes it about perception at the end of the day.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 27th 2020 at 8:50:21 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

And I'm asking a much simpler question. How do you play with MEH? What form would the variations take?

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Well, first we need to define what the MEH is before we can answer that.

I actually have answers to that question, but it depends on what exactly the MEH is meant to be and how we're expected to discuss it.

Because if it's about the specific moment in the work, it can theoretically be played with, because the idea of a character crossing a line and becoming impossible to redeem is just as easily a narrative trope as it is about how audiences feel- for example, the work can deconstruct it by exploring the effects of crossing the line, or it can play it for drama / horror, or it can be invoked (a character intentionally crossing the line), etc. It'd be about the character themselves and the narrative impact of crossing such a line, and there's tons of works that openly admit the character crossed the line and when it happened.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 27th 2020 at 8:55:58 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Discussed Trope can cover a lot of other ways to play with a trope, like deconstructions and lampshade hanging, so in that sense we can play with YMMV tropes, especially if a story has No Fourth Wall.

Is it possible for a YMMV trope to be played with on a meta level (such as the author actively trying to avert/subvert/etc a reaction), or does that become something like trivia? For example, a character that was widely disliked in the first movie gets cut from the second movie in what seems to be an Author's Saving Throw. However, in the third movie, he comes back. Would some consider that a subversion?

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

There is also Conversational Troping.

Tropes like Moral Event Horizon could easily be used as an objective trope as you could identify both the thematic elements that indicate a character has made their decision (long, Time Stands Still montage before they pull the trigger on the puppy) as well as direct confirmation by others that this propels that character into a different level. You would also have to remove some of the qualifiers made to curate the YMMV version like "no possible chance at redemption" and "it cannot happen multiple times to the same character" because A) tropes do not become retroactively discarded entirely because of a retcon (you may acknowledge the retcon and how it impacts the trope but that doesn't mean the trope gets deleted) and B) Depending on the Writer and Running the Asylum means given enough time you probably should consider newer material as a slightly different continuity from older material anyway, you should assess it as a self-contained story and not in competition with 30+ years of other stories.

Now I'm not saying MEH should be made objective, as in this particular case we had way too much trouble trying to do so and it's not worth the trouble.

Thanks, you said what I was trying to.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

For the record, when talking about MEH (even in this post), I've been using it as an example. The subject of discussion is "tropes like MEH / CM" (or YMMV tropes), so what's agreed upon about MEH should also apply to these other tropes.

So... are you arguing that MEH (and subjective "tropes" like it) should be treated as an Audience Reaction or that it should be treated as a regular trope? I thought you were arguing that it ought to be treated as a regular trope, due to the discussion on objectivity / subjectivity, but this seems more like a AR / YMMV divide rather than subjective "trope" / objective trope divide. Because what you seem to be talking about is an Intentional Audience Reaction.

I would not say that the character must be "objectively irredeemable" but that there must be a discrete event present in the work. To use some parallel phrasing, I'm saying there must be an objective event. The irredeemable-ness is inherently subjective.

In curating YMMV/ subpages, examples that lack sufficient information to describe how the irredeemable-ness exists would need to be removed, which is happening with Nightmare Fuel/ subpages for examples that don't reasonably describe how X scared a given troper. There needs to be some explanation how the concept applies, but that isn't necessarily an objectivity requirement for the concept itself. Which is to say that I (or anyone) could completely disagree with the example-on-the-page as written but I wouldn't have cause to remove the example just because I didn't recognize the MEH as a moment of absolute hopelessness for the given character.

I assume you're talking about the salient plays, like subversions, inversions, deconstructed, for laughs / drama. Anything could be discussed or invoked.

• Subverted: Not possible. You could set up the event to happen, but if it does not happen (i.e. if it's subverted), then no reasonable person could say that event made them realize the character is irredeemable, one way or the other. Nothing happening can't positively show irredeemable-ness.
• Inverted: Not possible. While there could be an event that shows the character is not hopeless ("not irredeemable"), this would imply the character never genuinely met the irredeemable requirement. An inversion would contradict the interpretation.
• Deconstructed: Not possible. Maybe if it was In-Universe, but then we don't consider those subjective as a rule anyway.

The situation described sounds like an Intentional Audience Reaction, not necessarily an objective trope.

Those aren't "qualifiers" so much as they are "requirements." Removing "irredeemable-ness" — when that criterion is, if not indeed the most, one of the most important elements to MEH — would necessarily mean the concept described is excluded from being MEH in the first place. Irredeemable-ness is a necessary condition, not a sufficient one.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

But the description does, and that's my entire problem. I'm not arguing for anything other than that we figure out what the hell MEH is and how objective/subjective it's actually supposed to be. If it's something that relies on objective canon events, then there's a good chance it's actually just an objective trope in disguise, but I'm not arguing it should or shouldn't be.

I'm really just trying to get a feel for what it is and how it's supposed to be used, as laying out some ground rules for MEH will clarify pretty much everything else about YMMV/AR. The fact that nobody can agree on anything is troubling and that's why I keep asking for a clear definition of what the MEH is and how it's supposed to be discussed- what it is we're discussing and how we decide what does and doesn't qualify.

Because the whole issue with YMMV is that they're subjective tropes with objective criteria. Determining exactly what a trope like MEH means and how we're supposed to use it will tell us, say, if it's actually subjective, if it can be played with, and how much it relies on the audience rather than the work itself. Like I keep saying, YMMV tropes seem like they're supposed to be tropes that exist if the fans think they do, but the criteria gets so objective that it's hard to find where the line is and how subjective they're actually supposed to be.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 28th 2020 at 5:05:19 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Looking at the oldest archived version of the page (Remember how it was originally called Rape The Dog? 2007 was a bad time)

... it looks like even from the beginning, it couldn't really decide whether it was about "the author is trying to show" vs "the audience comes to the conclusion" of the character's irredeemability.

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.

I think objective events are needed for YMMV tropes, because it establishes what the opinion is in response to. Aside from Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch, where the objective event is that the show exists, the events take place in-story and the audience forms opinions based on those events.

To use Arthur as an example, DW broke Arthur's plane (objective event) makes a very vocal base claim she's irredeemably evil (opinion). Arthur's response was to hit her (objective event), which everyone reacted to as if he was a horrible person (objective). If MEH was objective, that would indicate that Arthur crossed it, but as a subjective trope we'd be able to say DW did. [Not suggesting we add that, but using it to illustrate how making MEH "objective" can make it no longer function as intended.]

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.