Rename: I Just Shot Marvin In The Face

I Just Shot Marvin in the Face

The trope is about people acting with a lack of gun safety. The name, though, sounds heavily like it's "someone got shot by accident, regardless of whether gun safety was involved or not." Looking over a search for it, a lot of is usage on the wiki shows this misuse... Also, there are a few uses where it appears that people are just taking it to mean 'shooting someone in the face'.

It's also frequently linked at random whenever people want to use the quote, because (understandably) it's a cool famous quote that has zero memetic association with this trope.

Examples of misuse:

GTA Radio

Common Mary Sue Traits

The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three

The Mexican

Clear Qualia

That Guy With The Glasses

Naked Lunch

Firefly

There are probably many more; that's just a relatively quick glance over the first few pages of results.

edited 19th Jun '10 2:52:29 AM by Aquillion

I'd definitely support renaming it. Seems like there are a dozen potential reasons to change it. Among the ones you mention, the meaning of the trope is only (sorta) clear if you know the quote. In isolation, it might be about shooting Marvin in the face on purpose, or because the shooter's crazy, or whatever.

It's really a catch-all "gun safety aversion" trope, and should have a name fitting that better.

This is a classic case of naming on the basis of a "really cool" pop culture reference rather than because it actually demonstrates what the trope means. Rename.

Brainstorming a bit. Screw Gun Control; Screw The NRA; Safety, What Safety? (with Safety What Safety as a redirect of course)

edited 19th Jun '10 6:15:50 AM by Twilightdusk

If the misuse if consistent in nature and common then maybe we should split it off?

Yeah, if very few of the 180+ wicks are directly about gun safety, then the title must be good for something else. If the use is about accidental shootings (rather than the cause of accidental shootings), then have a trope of Accidental Shooting and make the movie quote a redirect to it.

The gun-safety text could go in the No Gun Safety redirect.

edited 19th Jun '10 8:57:19 AM by FastEddie

Yeah, split it for accidental shooting, since I don't think we have that.

A split sounds good. And this one definitely needs a rename.

I like Gun Safety Aversion, although I think Aversion To Gun Safety would be more clear, as Gun Safety Aversion sounds like it might have something to do with the "safety" on a gun, rather than the practice of being safe with guns.

Another possibility is No Such Thing As Gun Safety.

What Is This Thing You Call Gun Safey?

This is a classic case of naming on the basis of a "really cool" pop culture reference rather than because it actually demonstrates what the trope means. Rename.

SPOON BS aside, wasn't the Trope Namer a result of the gun being waved around and getting triggered because of a lack of gun safety?

Left The Safety Off

SPOON BS aside, wasn't the Trope Namer a result of the gun being waved around and getting triggered because of a lack of gun safety?

Which is why it was probably chosen as the Trope Namer. However, I agree, though lack of gun safety was the cause (the trigger, if you will), the quote seems more apt for a trope about the shooting itself, not the cause. Rename/Split.

Hm... I'd like to see just how many bad wicks there are. Looking at that list, they're not all bad.

• The Mexican actually- the guy got shot because people were shooting guns off in the air in celebration. Unsafe.
• GTA radio is good too, just poorly worded- the guy got shot because of poor gun safety.
• Firefly- Ambiguous. Someone got shot, but it doesn't go into detail about the circumstances.
• The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three- Though it's used as a reference to the original, it's still apparently a good example- someone got startled by a rat and shot someone else in the face.
• Clear Qualia- Bad, but not because it's not an example. Looking at it, it's just Not An Aversion, since people apparently get guns pointed at them with the safety on, which is still poor gun safety.
• Common Mary Sue Traits- Bad
• That Guy With The Glasses- Ambiguous, I'd have to watch the episode to know for sure. It says it was an accidental shooting, but it doesn't say the circumstances. However, he's still an example for other episodes.
• Naked Lunch-Bad

I'm not entirely against expanding the trope to include accidental shootings in general, but I'm not sure how many of the links are actually bad, so I can't support it either.

Firefly was a nonfatal gut wound.

Lethality isn't why it's ambiguous— how'd they get shot? Was someone waving a gun around, or were they just an innocent bystander?

A little of both at the time. Someone lost their temper while holding a gun and fired by accident.

Ah. Then it's a good example.

Actually, after reading the page, I just thought about something— ALL the examples that aren't people intentionally shooting people in the face, or situations where someone gets shot by way of mistaken identity fit the trope. Pretty much any accidental shooting is going to be because of someone exhibiting poor gun safety.

Against a rename- If someone accidentally shoots someone else, they were demonstrating poor gun safety to begin with, and therefore are still an example. Add Accidental Shooting as a redirect.

This one was once a huge source of frustration, at the time when searching on the redirect was broken. I'd come across the trope before, read it, wanted to return to it and for the life of me could not remember where it was.

So slightly pro-rename, but would not be against splitting the trope into "characters blatently ignorant of gun safety" and "actuual accidental shootings", with I Shot Marvin In The Face as a candidate name for the later.

I'd suggest Accidental Discharge as a redirect but that has... other meanings.

Is this trope about Did Not Do The Research as regards to firearms safety, or situations in the story where lack of gun safety is highlighted? The trope description seems to tend towards the latter, but judging from the "aversions" in the examples they're all treating it as the former.

I'm for a rename if only to get rid of the present unwieldy and unintuitive title, but I'm not very sure what we should rename it to until I'm clear about this point.

I think its mostly a Did Not Do The Research, but sometimes it's played up for parody, the image for example.

At a risk of violating the snowclones guidelines, I'd call it You Fail Gun Safety Forever.

While I think that would be a perfect title, I don't see Fast Eddie allowing it.

It's mostly Did Not Do The Research in that it's not really extraordinary when a character with no training demonstrates lack of gun safety, it's when characters that should damn well know better (like cops) demonstrate it. (The examples mix both freely)

edited 22nd Jun '10 9:09:50 AM by Elle