Regarding the Trivia namespace (crowner switched 20th Jan 2020)

People have ignored "clearly visible in the work itself" before while judging something to be trivia, such as Actor Allusion, where it's also explicitly written into the work for that purpose.

The trope with The Other Darrin is that you're supposed to ignore the change, rather than acknowledge it. It's similar to how you're supposed to picture some props and scenery in theatre as chairs, stairs, lairs, and other things, despite only being made out of boxes or other simple forms. It's a type of shortcut that simplifies the production while maintaining the work's integrity.

The issue of Trivia vs. not Trivia is tricky. There are lots of borderline cases.

But here's how I see it. Suppose we have a scene where the King is sitting on his throne.

1. The throne is represented by a cardboard box on stage, but it's supposed to be a quite opulent piece of furniture: Not trivia, but a production trope.

2. The King's throne is a cardboard box in-universe: Obviously a trope and not trivia.

3. The King's throne is a copy of the Iron Throne from Game Of Thrones, and it's not recognized as-such in-universe (and we're not in a shared universe where GOT is real): Not trivia, because it's some sort of deliberate allusion which the audience is supposed to get.

4. The throne used in the production was designed by a famous furniture designer, but this is not obvious to the audience: Trivia.

edited 25th Nov '17 7:15:58 AM by GnomeTitan

Agreed.

Ack, didn't see these replies until 3 days later because I didn't notice the page had rolled over. That's what I get for browser-bookmarking page 68 instead of learning how to properly watchlist forum threads.

So, with this distinction between a trivia and a production trope, what makes Playing Gertrude a production trope while The Other Darrin is trivia?

Also, Actor Allusion was mentioned as another trivia that ignores the "not visible in the work" criterion, but the crowner seems to be in favor of removing it from Trivia...

Should I add a similar item for The Other Darrin, an "already trivia, but downvote to remove from trivia" entry?

edited 28th Nov '17 9:31:08 AM by BURGINABC

Production tropes are not tropes in the strictest sense of storytelling devices, and they can border on trivia.

My understanding (which might be wrong) is that a production trope (as the term is used on this wiki) is an aspect of the production (such as casting, or which props are used) which is obvious to the audience, or intended to be obvious.

If it's not apparent to the audience from just experiencing the work, but a fact which they have to rely on external sources to notice, then it's trivia.

Well, what I've sort of been saying is that The Other Darrin is often visible in the work; you don't have to consult an outside source to see that the actor was replaced.

Just like the young actress playing the old lady, it's the "cardboard box standing in for opulent throne" type of production trope you mentioned earlier.

Does that mean it should be removed from Trivia?

EDIT: I went ahead and pushed it to the crowner.

edited 28th Nov '17 9:42:30 AM by BURGINABC

If it communicates something to the audience, it's a trope. It can be something for the audience to accept despite not actually being there, or to ignore despite being there. Accepting two actors as the same character despite the actors clearly being different falls under that. It may be something brought on by external forces, but it's inarguable part of the work. It's essentially a call to Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

Obvious Second Choice looks more like a YMMV statement than a trope/trivia analysis. The term "obvious" being a subjective term itself.

I have some problems with how that trope is used. Some are about second choices that were talked about, one or two about assumed second choices, and some are just changes that aren't so much getting the second option as writing around what you lack.

It's not about using a different actor (or music, as a few examples are about) in place of a previously used one, but about the originally planned one. The audience doesn't get to see any kind of switch. It's no different than any other script rewrite for practical purposes, and again, this is all before the audience gets to see what it was "supposed" to be.

If the trope is supposed to be about the original, then Obvious First Choice would be a more indicative name. The name refers to whatever did the replacing (which does show up in the work).

I'm adding The Band Minus the Face as it seems similar to other band tropes already having lots of votes on the crowner as good candidates for triviafication.

I'm thinking that Trope Overdosed should be considered Trivia; it's relevant for this site but is nowhere obvious from the work itself — like other trivia entries such as Trope Namers and Image Source.

It's a TV Tropes meta trope, which probably qualifies as trivia.

Have we decide whether tropes about inaccuracies should be tropes or Trivia?

edited 9th Dec '17 8:34:42 PM by Lymantria

Artistic license is a trope.

Artistic license is a trope, but are errors tropes or trivia? Don't assume all errors are intentional so you don't have to point out mistakes. That's assuming alll creators are omniscient.

The reason we treat errors and deliberate artistic license as the same thing is that a) it’s often very hard to kniw which is which without Word of God, and b) the various ”error” tropes that used to exist acted as complaint magnets.

So a decision was made to treat everything as Artistic License, which is a trope.

Should Let's Play be a trivia? We're already not supposed to list it as a trope, on account of it, y'know, not being a trope, but then people do it anyway because there's no marker thing telling them not to...

Let's Play is a genre/medium, so it can't be discussed here at all.

You're right. So the pages aren't Trivia?

Would Abandoned Mascot possibly qualify as Trivia?

As I said in the TLP draft, I don't think Abandoned Mascot is trivia because if you watch the whole series then you will notice that there's a change in the mascot. This change is present in the work and you don't need outside information to figure that out. That said, it may be difficult to do this for older works or for Long-Runners, but it is still in the work itself.

@AnotherDuck:

Wouldn't a TV Tropes meta-trope be Administrivia, not Trivia?

Trope Overdosed isn't a trope, but Trivia seems wrong also.

edited 19th Dec '17 6:53:59 PM by BURGINABC

No, I'd say it's more of a curiosity than something fitting Administrivia. It is kind of hard to place, though.

I agre that Actor Allusion isn't more Trivia than any other Shout-Out subtrope. Casting Gag might be, though, and I'm not sure about Actor-Shared Background (going by the defintions in the crowner of Casting Gag's TRS thread.