Misused: Adult Fear

I think you make a good point, Mew. Restricting this to younger works makes sense.

I strongly agree, Mew.

It makes absolutely no sense for mature works, especially those Rated M for Money and examples of Animated Shock Comedy, to feature this trope.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Nov 2nd 2021 at 11:06:47 AM

I upvote the “no adult works” addendum.

Honestly, this is another one of those easy shoehorn Pothole Magnet tropes.

Like, every time a kid in a movie (even comedic ones!... why is this trope on Home Alone and on all three Honey, I Shrunk the Kids movies, again?) is in some minor danger, this wick happens.

Also this seems like an easy companion pothole to Outliving One's Offspring — if a work contains OOO, chances are Adult Fear will be somewhere on the same page.

That was my concern as well, hence my post.

Looking at the trope itself, I feel like Adult Fear is almost trying to be a "foil" trope or, at the very least, a conflict trope.

By that, I mean... think of those works where you've got the kid/teen heroes focussing on the supernatural threats while the adults are focussed on the mundane threats. This brings two characters into conflict due to competing priorities/fears.

I'm making up an example here because it's been years since I've seen Buffy, but it would be something like Buffy and her friends worrying about the Big Bad destroying Sunnydale while her mother finds out Buffy's been spending time in the roughest area of town and panicking about her daughter being murdered or assaulted by every day, mundane, very human criminals. That would create a clash of competing priorities between them as her mother would be trying to keep her away from a place with ordinary dangers while she has to keep going there in order to do her job as the Slayer.

I just thought of an actual example. In Another Life (a very adult show), the focus is on the scientists trying to communicate with the alien artefact that lands on Earth until the main scientist's daughter suddenly falls sick with cancer. Suddenly, the storyline gets complicated by competing priorities between the main scientist's worst nightmare (being unable to protect or save his child as she withers away in front of him) versus the urgency of learning more about the alien artefact and whether it's friend or foe. His Adult Fear becomes a tool others can (and do) exploit.

My point is that the trope reads to me as if it's trying to capture a mundane terror of an adult in a non-mundane storyline, such that the mundane terror becomes plot-significant in some fashion — either by pitting parental priorities against kid/teen hero priorities (for younger works where the kids/teens tend to be the heroes) or by creating an exploitable vulnerability in the adult who is susceptible to the fear (in older works where most of the characters are adults, and any kids in the show are there usually to present Adult Fear opportunities for the plot). In both cases, the triggering of an Adult Fear situation is about creating a conflict within the plot that potentially pits people who would normally be on the same side against each other until that fear is overcome in some fashion.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Nov 3rd 2021 at 10:57:22 AM

That's a good point. Maybe we can split this into different tropes: "Kids' Show, Adult Problems" and "Supernatural Show, Mundane Problems" or something like that?

Yes, succinctly put. I like it.

Do we need a trope focusing on the inherent horror associated with child endangerment? Or are things like Harmful to Minors and Death of a Child enough?

The latter might be covered by Mundanger.

We have Extraordinary World, Ordinary Problems if that relates to anything.

I feel like, the way Adult Fear is used by a lot of examples leans too strongly into People Sit On Chairs. Things such as children being endangered, loved ones being sick, and not having enough money for the necessities are things that cause fear and anxiety in adults.

That's not a trope. That's barely an audience reaction. There's tropes to be found in exploring those topics, sure, but this doesn't seem like one of them.

So since the supernatural angle is covered, could the kids' media angle work? The presence of adult problems is not tropeworthy, but the contrast with child-oriented (or at least family-friendly) works could be.

Right, in kid's media it's framed as a way to make the adult audience have something to fear. In adult works, it's... just things people fear.

Horror tropes are always kinda hard because fear is subjective. So you can't say that the tropes are objectively scary. All we can say is that they're there to evoke fear. The issue with this trope is that all of the examples are either in-universe or subjective (or low on context and mostly just "thing happens").

I'd be okay with the child-work focused spin, but how many examples of that do we have?

I feel like that doesn't fix the "badge of honor" issue. It'll probably exacerbate it. "See this show for kids also features 'grown up' issues!"

I think redefining this so that it only applies to works aimed at kids is to prevent examples that go "this adult work focuses on issues that adults face". In my opinion, the best way to tackle the "Badge of Honor" problem is to require that characters express fear In-Universe and clearly define what is and isn't an adult fear.

But what exactly would you say is and is not Adult Fear? Could you please give a few examples?

I'd say for sure examples where someone's children are in danger should count. I'd also count a character having financial anxieties as an example of Adult Fear.

Generally, I'd define it as fears that most children don't have to consider, usually tied to adult responsibilities. Finances, legal responsibilities, guardianship, etc. This provides something relatable and tense for parents in a work otherwise focused on a kid's perspective.

One specific example: Lilo & Stitch is a family movie mostly about Lilo, the child, but it also deals with Nani's fear of being Promoted to Parent and losing Lilo to a social worker. However, since Lilo's own grief and trauma about her parents is something a child in that situation would understand firsthand, it wouldn't be Adult Fear.

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 7th 2021 at 12:45:42 PM

Do small kids fear pain and death of characters as much as adults (11% in the wick check)? Perhaps we have also to define the age of the kids we are talking about.

Well, that's more Primal Fear anyway. Even so, many kid shows do approach the topic of death in some way and kids may not understand death fully, but they do generally fear pain.

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 8th 2021 at 3:21:35 PM

Yeah, I don't think we should count death as an Adult Fear, simply because it can lead to people shoehorning examples where death occurs/might occur.

I'm good with that.

I'm not so sure we need to restrict it to kid's works only and IUEO, mostly because both seem to be giving the trope two different meanings. Either it's a way to scare the adults in the audience as well, or it's a way to show the adult characters being scared of something, and I'm not sure combining those two things would really help. It just feels... IDK... a bit messy to me. Like, what is the exact definition of the trope that we're aiming for?

I think we should restrict it to In-Universe examples, just to cut down on shoehorning. I'd be okay with having examples from adult fiction.

Personally I'd go for "kids works only, out of universe examples allowed".

Should we rename Adult Fear? I feel like that could also cut down on "Badge of Honor" examples since at that point it'd be an entirely new trope.

I feel like limiting to kids' shows would be easier to enforce than IUEO, especially when people may still blow up an inconsequential in-universe fear to be more eerie-sounding in Adult Fear.

I don't know if renaming it will help because Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, a similar "badge of honor" trope, still attracts the same misuse it got under Reality Ensues, though that might also be from halfhearted cleanup.

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 8th 2021 at 5:34:20 AM