Rename: The Last DJ

The Last DJ

Guess what this is about!

Answer: a character who sticks to his principles at the cost of his own advancement. So the sergeant who refuses to send his men to massacre an enemy village and is demoted by local General Ripper for it for example.

It's named for Tom Petty song. Surely we can get a better name than this?

Would you kill your best friend, can you save yourself?

Definitely needs a new name. Title's way too misleading.

Everything is better as a Dunkleosteus.

I'm not clear on how this differs from Screw the Money, I Have Rules!. Not saying it doesn't, just that I'm not clear on the difference. Is it that it's more about corporate pressure than money per se?

By the way, added the discussion button to the page. I feel this really should come along with any discussion that strongly encourages a rename (in fact, I think it should be automatic as soon as someone proposes a rename and gets at least one favorable response).

edited 1st Jul '10 5:34:39 PM by MoCellMan

Searching for plausible mechanisms.

Less rules, more principles I'd assume.

Fight smart, not fair.

So, isn't this Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!?

^Actually, this discussion makes it sounds like Screw The Money Im Doing Whats Right.

Searching for plausible mechanisms.

Yeah, Screw The Money, I'm Doing What's Right sounds good.

I am a proud member of the Western Federation's Anti-Japan Media Task Force. My work is very important.

Screw the Money, I have (word for something that's right).

Everything is better as a Dunkleosteus.

"Something that's right" is included in the description for Screw the Money, I Have Rules!:

"Maybe a hero's morals and convictions are so strong that he can never be bought out"

edited 1st Jul '10 6:54:10 PM by MoCellMan

Searching for plausible mechanisms.

Plus, snowclones are generally frowned on anyway.

What's precedent ever done for us?

Cant Be Bought might be better then.

Fight smart, not fair.

Can'tBeBought sounds like they're refusing a bribe. Principles Before Promotion?

Calling someone a pedant is an automatic Insult Backfire. Real pedants will be flattered.

I'm not inherently against snowclones but for the sake of argument, let's not apply "Screw the X" here. For one, it's written as a character trope - the sort of character that lives by "Screw the money" - and two, I would have to see a much more creative name suggestion to be sold on a change at all. I don't think the current one is too bad.

In the tradition of picking more descriptive lines from Trope Namer songs, maybe Can't Turn Him Into A Company Man.

I think my mouse is going wonky and double clicking things that should not be. ;p

edited 2nd Jul '10 8:50:42 AM by Elle

^ Why didn't you go with Can't Turn Him Into A Whore?

Searching for plausible mechanisms.

Could try "Conviction>Promotion"

^ That requires a ptitle that doesn't lend itself easily to a non-ptitled redirect.

Would you kill your best friend, can you save yourself?

I'd like to see an empirical demonstration that it has been  ^*

misleading. But provisionally "Can't Turn Him Into A Whore" edges out "... Company Man" by virtue of being shorter

The child is father to the man —Oedipus

^ Please please tell me anything about the title which gives you any idea that it's about the trope, without having a fanatical knowledge of the back catalogue of Tom Petty.

There's nothing. I'd go as far as to say it's one pf the worst trope titles I've ever seen.

Would you kill your best friend, can you save yourself?

Are there examples that don't belong? Are a lot of wicks wrong? I'm not arguing that the title is perfectly clear and anyone who doesn't get right is stupid; I just don't want to rename based on a gut feeling, however reasonable.

The child is father to the man —Oedipus

• Cowboy Bebop - Jet was this when he was a cop. - correct
• John Milton - Thankfully, some heavy lobbying from his friends saved him from execution, and Milton, having learned his lesson, decided that the rest of his days should be spent low-key. Returning to scribbling relatively non-incendiary poetry, he completed two heavily religious epic poems - Paradise Lost and Paradise Regain'd, and the tragedy Samson Agonistes - all written after he lost his sight in 1654. - arguably correct
• Samurai Champloo - Jin. - correct
• The Wire - Lester Freamon was this before getting a second chance in the first season. McNulty and Daniels too, even though Daniels does eventually enjoy a string of rapid promotions, he is ultimately forced to retire his post as commissioner because he's unwilling to compromise his principles. - correct
• The Losers - Agent Stegler is a textbook case. - correct
• Beware the Honest Ones - Sam Vimes, (Carrot's superior) also gets treated like this on some occasions. Notably, the city's Magnificent Bastard lord, Vetinari, has said that someone who is too honest to play the game makes those who are playing (like the city's nobility) nervous, and Vetinari finds that to be quite useful. Also, when Vimes goes back in time in Night Watch, Vetinari's aunt makes a similar observation. - correct
• Almighty Janitor is that character who is near the bottom of the scale in terms of rank, but is at the top in terms of what he can actually accomplish. Maybe he screwed up in the past, maybe he pissed off the higher-ups and has been paying for it ever since. - correct
• M*A*S*H - Hawkeye - correct
• The Phantom Menace - Obi-Wan hints that Qui Gon is this character type. - correct
• Characters/Gundam00 - (He is the only named character from the ESF army that didn't join A-LAWS) - correct

10 out of 10 random uses check as correct with only one weird case. It doesn't seem like it's being misused.

edited 2nd Jul '10 5:10:37 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

I quite like Cant Turn Him Into A Company Man; it's long and punctuated, but those aren't total dealbreakers.

^ Me too. I was kidding about Cant Turn Him Into A Whore - if I was guessing what a trope with that name was, it wouldn't be this...

It is possible that the lack of bad examples is due to the name being so obscure that people looking for a trope with this description for a character don't find it, or don't click on this name when they see it come up in the search because they don't think it could be right, and just end up putting their example under Screw the Money, I Have Rules!. I'm not saying that's necessarily true, just possible. The fact that there are only four film examples is suspicious to me, though.

edited 2nd Jul '10 7:15:20 PM by MoCellMan

Searching for plausible mechanisms.

Thinking about what would make a good redirect, ptitles make lousy ones but it could be shortened to Not A Company Man. But I still lean on the side of "it's not broke enough to fix" other than Redirects Are Free.

I will admit it makes more sense after the page is read than before and I did have an initial "huh?" reaction to it.

edited 2nd Jul '10 7:42:08 PM by Elle

Indeed, now that I know what it is, I like it the way it is. But then, I usually feel that way about cool, obscure trope names once I learn them...

Searching for plausible mechanisms.