Misused: Stun Guns

Then what to do with The Paralyzer? That's also a catch-all for any stunning effect not covered by the subtropes.

I'd say putting an effect to be used from long-range seems to be a important split, what with Teleport Gun, Tranquilizer Dart, etc.

Possibly there's some Tech vs. Magic split too...

Stun Guns seems to be the long-range version of The Paralyzer (a very broad, messy supertrope, indeed). Huh, I guess the Paralyzer supertrope already exists.

I'd say turn both into disambigs. I also checked the pages in the Unknown/Zero-Context Examples folder and found that a lot of the Stun Guns examples actually do fit neatly into a subtrope.
Series.Daredevil 2015

• Chekhov's Gun: Leland Owlsley quips about dusting off his old taser in "World on Fire" in light of Matt's conflict with the Russians, and Fisk having just killed Anatoly. Two episode later, in "Stick", he gets to use it on Matt when Matt is distracted by Stick showing up. In the Season 1 finale, he tries to use it to stun an enraged Fisk, to no effect. (Static Stun Gun)
  Webcomic.Peter Is The Wolf
• Butt-Monkey: One of the guys in the van is named Baker and in the adult pages 319-327, he gets slammed into by Wolf-Sarah, becoming stuck in her breasts as she ran at high speeds bouncing him up and down. Then when that's over, a mildly tranquilized Wolf-Sarah sits on the guy's head, with his coworkers saying "Nice catching her." And then still woozy from the sitting and bouncing, he puts in the final tranquilizer and Wolf-Sarah falls on him once more. Just before that last bit, he mutters, "Oh come on-" (Tranquilizer Dart)
  VideoGame.Technobabylon
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Regis can do this with Latha when she's holding his own stun gun on him, assuming you don't just point out that the gun has a genetic lock to prevent anyone but Regis from firing it. He's wrong on both counts, but luckily he's already burned most of the charge, so it's just a painful shock, not an incapacitating one. (Static Stun Gun)
  Recap.ALZI Production Supergirl
• Glowing Eyes: Supergirl uses her heat vision to destroy the lead criminal's taser.
• Precision F-Strike: One of the criminals calls Supergirl a "bitch" after she knocks his taser out of his hand and physically hurts him in the process. (Static Stun Gun)
  Literature.Net Force
• Running Gag: Tasers are useless. Howard gives more than one lecture as to why, and any time a character uses a taser, it's at best ineffective. (Static Stun Gun)
  Film.Killer Under The Bed
• Bound and Gagged: Sarah finds the receptionist at the dental office unconscious on the floor, with her hands tied behind her back and a cloth tied over her mouth. Then Dr. Ryder tases her from behind. (Static Stun Gun)

We can expand this thread's scope to cover The Paralyzer if someone does a wick check for it. Even if that doesn't happen, merging Stun Guns into it still isn't out of the question.

Just a note, "nobody ever moved these subtrope examples over" isn't really a TRS issue by itself. It's a cleanup one that is perennial even for pages that were not made in 2008 (as The Paralyzer was). A correct example of a subtrope is by definition also a correct example of the supertrope.

In this case, to disambiguating The Paralyzer without more checks. I think it would be useful for one broad "this weapon makes you stop moving" supertrope so we don't end up with a missing supertrope down the line, then move examples to more specific tropes during clenaup. I would prefer that bigger trope to be The Paralyzer, since it has 200+ more wicks than Stun Guns and a broader name.

If you make it a disambig page, maybe you should also add Shock Stick.

So... There's ~475 on-page examples... Someone going through them and checking how many are exactly right for Stun Guns, then we have a base number of valid examples to decide when Stun Guns is cleaned?

If all those on-page are correct, then that's 555 - 475 = 80 wrong examples or something.

But counting all the Main wicks across Main and redirect, there's 115 Main wicks, so some numbers are off.

Why 555 instead the related page's number of 561? There's about 7 overlap with Stun Gun.

Edited by Malady on Feb 4th 2022 at 6:53:18 AM

Well there's two wicks for Sandbox, so those wouldn't be included, and probably a few other namespaces that aren't necessarily example spaces with wicks.

ETA: I'm going to start moving examples into the correct subtropes to get things moving if that's alright.

Edited by Hello83433 on Feb 5th 2022 at 4:17:32 AM

Wait a second, why is "disambiguate" the only option to deal with Stun Guns? Haven't we established that there are examples that don't fit any of the subtropes?

We always have the Trope Idea Salvage Yard, which doesn't require TRS to edit, or they could be moved to The Paralyzer if they fit that.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 6th 2022 at 10:58:08 AM

Making a TLP draft out of the examples is also a free action.

I have no objection to it being on the crowner, I'm just wondering why my idea wasn't added as an option.

Possibly because people determined that there aren't enough examples that don't fit into another trope, and The Paralyzer throws a wrench into that idea further...

I'm looking through the thread and I can't see where that was determined. Did that happen somewhere else, like a sandbox page, or is this a "glasses on the forehead" situation?

Well, there was this post, for starters.

The only subcategory I see us currently needing is a laser-type as indicated by the wick check, so we can send that one to the yard.

What about rubber bullets and the like? There are a few examples of those on the page.

Trick Bullet has 1 or 2 "rubber bullet"-s?

True, but I wouldn't call Trick Bullet a subtrope of Stun Guns, unlike Tranquilizer Dart, Static Stun Gun or Sonic Stunner. Unless you want to argue that incendiary or armor-piercing rounds are non-lethal.

Honestly, I think there are enough examples that don't fit into existing subtropes to justify keeping Stun Guns around, such as the water gun that was tested on MythBusters. I won't be particularly upset if consensus decides otherwise, I just think my idea should be given a fair shake.

Edited by ImperialMajestyXO on Feb 6th 2022 at 11:41:59 AM

We already have that subcategory. eroock called the folder "Laser-type" because he wasn't aware that we have Ray Gun.

Since fictional ray guns are often lethal, I'm not sure that really counts as a subtrope.

How clean is Ray Gun anyway? There's a Freeze Ray on its page, and not sure if thermal effects aren't a downplayed Disintegrator Ray.

We can tackle Ray Gun some other time if it has issues.

I'm not completely opposed to a Stun Gun supertrope, but at this point a clean slate in TLP would probably be for the best anyway just to ensure it doesn't keep getting misused for subtropes.