Is this tropeworthy/Chairs?

How is Multicultural Alien Planet not just an aversion of Planet of Hats? I don't feel that "a world has different cultures and nations" stands out as a trope in itself.

(Not quite "chairs" in this case, since we don't actually know any other inhabited planets, but you get what I'm saying.)

Would Easy Level Trick make more sense as YMMV? It's not part of the work's content, it's something the audience agreed to.

Seems like just another way to say Cheese Strategy, which is also YMMV, so I'm saying to fold it into there.

Edited by Malady on May 4th 2024 at 5:49:48 AM

Is Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes chairs? It describes something that happens in real life without adding anything in terms of usage as a trope.

I don't know, check the examples/wicks.

From what I can assume, it can be a trope because it's often consciously added by the creators, for example as a joke.

It also often shows when a character has avoided going outside or turning on the lights for a long time, which helps in characterization.

And can just be exaggerated for laughs.

I wanted to discuss Happily Adopted's tropeworthiness, and when thinking about it, I noticed a pattern: tropes that portray things or people more or less postively turn out to be chairs, more frequently than tropes that portray them negatively.

And I have a theory for this: narrative needs conflict to create a story. And since tropes are like the genes of narrative (narratemes?), as a consequence tropes that cannot create any form of conflict, unless they can add layers to characters or to the gameplay, were never tropes to begin with.

So, Adoption Angst is a trope because being adopted is a source of conflict; Surrogate Parents is a trope because a character is portrayed as caring through adopting someone; is Happily Adopted a trope? I'm starting to doubt it.

Edited by TMH-Sir-Iron-Vomit on May 7th 2024 at 5:30:57 PM

By "Surrogate Parents", do you mean "Parental Substitute"?

I guess yeah.

I think Happily Adopted is a trope. Tropes are recurrent tools and shorthands for story telling, and I think this is very much a thing that recurs and is both common that is true but rare enough to not be People Sit On Chairs.

This is an interesting thing, but I'm not sure I agree. Conflict isn't just about the obstacles, it's also about the resources at the heroes' disposal to overcome obstacles. So "positive" tropes have their place in the conflict.

Being Happily Adopted may be the "good thing" that offsets the "bad thing" that is the Archnemesis Dad or the Unpleasant Parent Reveal.

"Good" tropes also are building blocks in a work's themes. In idealistic stories about Nurture over Nature, Family of Choice, or other stories where everybody can be a hero without coming from some special lineage, being Happily Adopted is definitely not chairs, it's an intentional building block.

Thank you! You put it much better than I did.

Making a character an adoptee is also a completely deliberate choice since creators could just make them biological with less hassle. It tells us about the characters

Again I am so glad much better Tropers are coming out to defend this trope.

I also support keeping Happily Adopted.

Because Planet of Hats is not only "this alien species is a monoculture" but "this alien monoculture is entirely defined by a single surface-level (and therefore immediately visible) concept".

Happily Adopted works best with contrast from their biological family (or lack thereof), or to make a point about how not all families are biological. But I could see a similar argument with Has Two Mommies which was cut as chairs, but I guess that's broader in execution.

With Happily Adopted, it was more about how the examples were described, because I was worrying there were too many examples that boiled down to "this character is adopted" (which is chairs).

It could warrant a wick check, but I don't think the idea is inherently chairs-y.

I feel like those are PCEs if they don't include the "happily" part. I suppose this gets at the point you were making earlier, that per The Law of Conservation of Detail it's generally assumed that if we don't know of drama deriving from a character being adopted we can probably assume it was a happy or at least productive relationship not worth noting, but maybe we can try to tease out why the writer(s) bothered to make the character adopted to begin with. If it's just for flavor, tossed in with no further comment, that's probably chairs; if there's some thematic or story reason for them to be adopted, that's potentially tropeworthy.

I don't think a contrast with the biological family is strictly necessary, but it is the easiest way to give it a tropeworthy purpose. Both the current and former page images are from works about white families adopting black children, with the potential for culture clash, meeting of and learning from different experiences, and perhaps a statement of raising the child out of poverty. The page quote is about a character learning they're adopted but the adoptive parent affirming that it doesn't make them any less their child. Sometimes, to the extent there is a contrast, it's to biological parents (or, in Superman's case, a whole race) that aren't deficient, just dead, or to the Orphanage of Fear or foster care system, or even just to the prospect, or reality, of being unhappily adopted.

Thanks.

What's the point of having both Headgear Headstone and Weapon Tombstone? Seems to me it's the same trope, just under different name. Especially since both use field cross as their image, just from different sources. I'm not questioning the point of the trope in general, since it's all over military fiction, but shouldn't it be merged into a single trope? Dunno, even wrapping it up under a "Field Cross" would work out.

I think what you're looking for is this thread.

Does Giant Woman seem chairsy since it involves "a giant who is female". I could be wrong though.