Thomas & Friends and Franchise cleanup

I found this under Sir Handel's character folder:

Characters.Thomas And Friends Skarloey Railway

• Spoiled Brat: He disparages the Skarloey Railway sheds; he verbally insults Agnes, Ruth, Lucy, Jemima and Beatrice; he tries to impress Gordon; is exposed to care more about passengers than trucks; and finally pretends to be sick in “Trucks!” to save his pathetic hide.

Spoiled Brat implies that he is a spoiled obnoxious kid. There’s plenty of other tropes that could describe him; Jerkass, Manchild, Dirty Coward, etc. But Spoiled Brat really dosen't describe him. He isn’t spoiled by his crew nor is he a child, at least in the show.

Also, some of the potholes here are misuse, Domestic Abuse in particular requires abusing your spouse, not your fellow engines. Also, it lists him as Easily Impressed even though he was the one trying to impress Gordon?

Edited by PlasmaPower on Nov 26th 2023 at 6:39:05 AM

Yeah, just go ahead and delete the potholes if they don't apply.

I was thinking about making a Thomas cleanup thread for a while now, glad to see that it already exists. I have nothing to add, but when I have the time, I want to delete any complaining about the "Miller era" on Thomas-related pages. Also any mentions of the "new series" (aka seasons 8-12). It's certainly not "new" anymore.

Yeah, go ahead and remove the complaining. Also Examples Are Not Recent, so removing the "new" from the seasons will do just fine, thank you.

Thanks, I’ve been thinking about creating this thread for a long time, to the point where when I left the site for a while, I thought one already existed by now, which it didn’t.

Regarding seasons 8 to 12, I was thinking of calling it the Hi T era, but obviously the first 4 CGI seasons can also be considered under that era. I don’t know what would be a good name for it.

EDIT: Now I’m considering grouping Seasons 8 to 16 under the Hi T era, Seasons 17 to 21 under the Mattel era, and Seasons 22 to 24 under the BWBA era.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Nov 26th 2023 at 11:08:07 AM

In Donald and Douglas' folder:

• Adaptation Dye-Job: In the books, they were painted blue after arriving at Sodor. With three blue engines already, the TV producers wisely decided to keep their more distinctive black paint.

This seems mildly gushy. Also technically inaccurate, as the twins only got their blue color (and numbers) after Topham decided to keep them both after they proved themselves after the initial confusion.

It’s likely they kept them black because the kids watching on TV wouldn’t to be able to tell the difference as easily. That and painting their models blue takes time and money. You can tell that they’re Donald and Douglas by their shape and nameplates even when they’re blue.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Nov 26th 2023 at 11:34:27 AM

Yeah, delete.

I just went and rewrote it to be more accurate. Moving on.

On Duck's character folder:

• Humiliation Conga: As if the trucks forcing him to crash into a barber shop wasn't enough, the angry owner decided to shave and lather him! The Fat Controller ensures this is rectified however and Duck is praised for his hardship.

It’s not much of a conga if it’s only like two bad things happening to you at once. (And the second one isn’t even that bad of a thing) Also, it was established some time ago that it had to be a villain or a Jerkass on the end of this trope, not the hero.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Nov 26th 2023 at 12:22:59 PM

I checked several sub-pages for Humiliation Conga and heroes have been affected by those too. However, two parts isn't really a conga.

That's misuse; the trope even got a wick check at some point so that we could take it to TRS some day.

Was about to bring that up actually. The trope page even mentions how it’s meant for the villain or Jerkass.

I’m wondering, where is the wick check for that trope? I don’t see it on the TRS sandboxes.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Nov 26th 2023 at 1:13:29 AM

Hm. Because the Fan Works page says that several heroes (e.g. Hobbes, Ash Ketchum) have had Humiliation Conga done to them and the Video Games page brings up Oersted, Link and the Web Original has Duddy and the Runaway Guys. But if it's misuse, then delete it.

YMMV.Sodors Legend Of The Lost Treasure

• Designated Hero: Sir Topham Hatt of all characters. While he is doing his job calling out Thomas on his mistakes, he just crossed the line after the dynamite incident where he was extremely harsh and unfair towards Thomas, not letting him explain that he was trying to save everyone, or even bothering to ask what happened, and cruelly sent poor Thomas to his shed in disgrace. Making it worse is that no one else sticks up for Thomas, likely out of fear of getting punished as well. One even gets the feeling that Sir Topham Hatt seems ready to sell Thomas, believing he has become nothing but a liability to the railway.

I don’t think that Sir Topham Hatt was meant to be entirely right for this. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t he forgive Thomas at the end and congratulated him for saving the day?

In fact, I would argue that this is most likely Fourth Wall Myopia. People are upset with Topham due to his punishing of Thomas in the dynamite incident and not seeing the full picture, which is because the audience saw Thomas's noble deed in saving an engine from the explosion. However, because of Thomas' previous misbehaviour in the movie and Topham having to clean up his messes and all the stress and finances that comes with that, is it any wonder that he lost it at Thomas and jumped to this conclusion?

At this point, there really has to be a Base-Breaking Character entry for Sir Topham Hatt (Which I'm surprised doesn't exist yet), because there’s lots of people who see him as an overly harsh jerk who needlessly punishes engines, and lots of other people who see him as the Reasonable Authority Figure he is.

P.S. There was also an Unintentionally Unsympathetic entry, surprisingly for Gordon, even though he was meant to be a dick to Thomas in the movie to get the plot ball rolling. Deleted that right away.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Nov 26th 2023 at 4:40:16 AM

Yeah, I'd recommend deleting it too. If Sir Topham Hatt didn't see what happened and he thinks Thomas did it on purpose because of the really useful engine's mischievous behavior, it should be deleted.

YMMV.Thomas And Friends S 4 E 12 Steam Roller

• Designated Hero: Skarloey in the TV adaptation. He and the others make fun of Sir Handel's wheels, and when Sir Handel sticks up for himself, Skarloey makes a plan "to make Sir Handel see sense." He's treated as being in the right for this. In the book however, Skarloey made his plan after several days of Sir Handel being arrogant about it, which meant his need to be knocked down a peg made him far less of a Designated Villain.

Calling these engines "heroes" or "villains" dosen't feel right to me. Just seems like the person writing this only saw Black-and-White Morality, which early Thomas wasn’t known for.

Another problem I have with this entry is how it treats this episode like it happened in a vacuum. That part about Sir Handel "sticking up for himself" was his usual arrogance and pride that he demonstrated in previous episodes, and the other narrow gauge engines all latch on to this because they know what his response will be. Skarloey's plan to "make Sir Handel see sense." was to Break the Haughty.

Yeah, if Skarloey was doing it to teach the guy a lesson, it should be deleted.

There's also this from Unintentionally Sympathetic: The other engines were making fun of Sir Handel's wheels before he started bragging about them. The reason he needs special wheels is because he kept slipping between the rails. He can't help the fact that he needs them to work. It's the equivalent of bullying someone who needs a walking stick.

It should be deleted as well.

There’s also an Unintentionally Sympathetic entry for Sir Handel that also doesn't work for the same reasons as I listed for Skarloey's Designated Hero entry.

• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The other engines were making fun of Sir Handel's wheels before he started bragging about them. The reason he needs special wheels is because he kept slipping between the rails. He can't help the fact that he needs them to work. It's the equivalent of bullying someone who needs a walking stick.

I’m just going to cut list the YMMV page for the episode. If there’s anyone else here on the site who has a stronger case for them being under these tropes they can recreate the page with how the show's morality and continuity work in mind.

• sniggers* You posted that about two minutes after I did! *laughs*

Oh boy, here we have Thomas And Friends S1 E3 "The Sad Story of Henry"

• Karmic Overkill: Although Henry was being selfish in not wanting to come out of the tunnel (leaving a train full of passengers unaccounted for and severely delayed as a result) simply for the sake of avoiding a rain shower, being bricked up inside the tunnel with his rails in and out taken up is generally considered to be much too harsh a punishment. He does at least get let out again the next episode, but it's implied that it's been quite a while since.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The narrator says that Henry deserved his punishment and asks if the audience agrees, yet a lot of viewers felt sympathy for Henry and saw his punishment as too harsh.
• Values Dissonance: At least in the UK version, Henry is entombed alive, seemingly forever, for the crime of refusing to work; very few modern viewers are likely to see this as proportionate. Not for nothing did the US version Bowdlerise the text so that Henry is simply cooped up in the tunnel "until [he’s] ready to come out" and is only bricked up "so that other engines wouldn't bump into him."

He was meant to be a bit sympathetic because he was already starting to feel guilty for what he's done, but ultimately brought it upon himself because of how selfish he was stopping in the tunnel with his passengers all because he didn’t want his paint to get wet in the rain, and also blocking other potential trains from going through there. Besides, Topham was always going to let Henry out of the tunnel.

What sort of punishment did these entries want for Henry, just a slap on the wheel axles? It just feels like all these entries were written believing all the clickbait articles about this episode to be true.

Yeah, I'd suggest rewriting or deletion. Because again, he brought it on himself and "Percy Takes The Plunge" even has Henry grumbling that no one lets him live it down.

I noticed on the character page there's an entire page just for the diesel engines, yet not all of them are on there and the ones that aren't are scattered around based on where they work.

I'm thinking of just cutting the page entirely and placing all of diesels on said page onto where they primarily are. Is that okay?

Yeah. Makes it easier to read and navigate.

Agreed

Alright, I went and moved all the Diesels on Characters.Thomas And Friends The Diesels to their appropriate place on the island. I also moved the characters from Thomas and the Magic Railroad to their own page on Characters.Thomas And The Magic Railroad.

I'm still wondering if I should give the Vicarstown Dieselworks engines their own page or not. Especially considering the Duck's branch line has its own character page.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Nov 28th 2023 at 7:29:27 AM