"Stock Animal" tropes

Not sure what this is responding to, but if the point is to suggest that "stock animals" don't need a reason because "anvils falling from the sky" don't, that isn't the correct comparison to make. Anvils falling from the sky do have a fairly consistent purpose that you pointed out: for comedy. Why is it funny? It's a form of Slapstick: characters getting hurt in absurd ways is an old and simple form of humor. Why a random anvil in the sky in particular? Harder to answer and there's probs some historical things I'm missing, but Surreal Humor is likely part of the equation.

"Stock Animals" (and all stock tropes) are closer to Appearance Tropes in that the consistent pattern itself is what's noteworthy. However, unlike appearance tropes there isn't any narrative reason behind the pattern and the reason isn't specific to any particular stock representation; it's always "because this is just how artists have decided to depict this thing". And we've been slowly culling appearance tropes for being ZCE magnets for literal years now.

Edited by amathieu13 on Oct 30th 2022 at 7:54:32 AM

Everyone was just confused by Amour's post, which compared calling Stock Animals "Lies to Children" with doing the same for falling anvils... likely because both are just cartoon tropes, and not meant to "trick" kids or something.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

And in turn I had called it Lies to Children because "an oversimplification of a complex phenomenon for educational purposes" is what that trope is, so it seemed like an apt comparison for "animals being represented by stylised shorthand illustrations that don't really resemble those animals". The outlandishness of the 'lie' or the credulousness of any hypothetical child isn't really the point.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Oct 30th 2022 at 12:19:52 PM

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

Bumping this thread because outside of the tangets into hypothetical trope ideas, I actually think this had a fairly productive convo going on.

But there are questions that we need to decide on. To summarize the key questions/debate up until now:

1) Is the concept of "a real world thing is consistently presented in a particular way in animation" tropeworthy, full stop? (Here's an argument saying no and an argument saying yes).
1.1) Is that concept tropeworthy only if that representation is inaccurate? (this is going back to the "cartoon ducks are yellow vs. cartoon elephants are grey" divide. No duck IRL is bright yellow, but elephants are IRL grey/grey-ish brown.)

2) If tropeworthy (either version) what's the best way to cover the topic? Many people [1] [2] [3], myself included, have been in favor of a unified trope, but there are things still up in the air:
2.1) should it be animal-specific or cover any depiction of a real world object in animation, non-animal ones included? [4]
2.2) is "stock" the best way to go about describing these things? Or conversely, what do we mean by stock [5]?
2.3) Would it be better to conceptualize this idea as a form of Artistic License? [6] [7]
2.4) do Small Taxonomy Pools and/or The Coconut Effect cover some of what these tropes are going for sufficiently? [8]

3) also suggestions were for a broader Anthropomorphism trope and/or an "invoked pareidolia" trope to cover some of the wide variations these stock animal tropes seem to cover [9]. This isn't a question and since it involves creating new tropes, can be done already if people feel so inclined

---

I think tackling them from top to bottom, most general to more specific makes the most sense. So, questions 1 and 1.1: Do people think the basic concept of "a real world thing is consistently presented in a particular way in animation" is tropeworthy? Yes or no, and if yes to what extent?

Edited by amathieu13 on Dec 18th 2022 at 11:52:31 AM

I'm obviously going to say "yes" because that's my argument that you linked, but since I caused confusion last time let me try to make a better comparison.

If I type :) or , and that communicates to everyone the idea of a face and even a specific emotion, even though they are stylised to the point that no human has ever had a face like that, it is a trope. (Two of them, in fact, Emoticon and "Have a Nice Day" Smile, with Black Bead Eyes for good measure.) "This yellow bird shape with a beak this shape is a duck" is less abstracted, but the same thing. They're symbols conveying artistic meaning by representation.

The problem is that all art and even all communication relies on metaphor and representation to convey meaning, and some are just less abstract than others. (If that doesn't count as a trope, it would only be by making a distinction where symbols are even more fundamental to art than tropes.) I think something like "ducks are yellow" is tropable while "elephants are grey" is not, but I'm also pretty sure it would be better to make pages for "these features are commonly retained when animals are stylised, these features are the least visible and the first to be abstracted away", if possible (e.g. No Cartoon Fish, Realistic Species, Cartoony Species) rather than making individual "this is what [animal] looks like in fiction, Truth in Television Y/N" pages for every animal.

(Thank you for reading my paper on Semiotics 101.)

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Dec 19th 2022 at 11:45:19 AM

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

Maybe this isn't the right place to inquire this, nevertheless, is there an index of "Stock Animal" Tropes somewhere on this site? It'd be helpful.

Giving this discussion a big bump because I wanted to see if anyone agreed or disagreed with Jetbent's post regarding non-tropeworthy "stock X" tropes.

TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall