Misuse : It Burns

I went through the example list and cleaned it up. Mostly I moved the wrong examples to Weakened by the Light and Kill It with Water. I was not really strict, e.g. I kept examples which didn’t involve real religious items, as long as it looks like a religious like attitude towards something could be involved. But I still removed approximate ¼ of the examples.

One big problem seems to be, that It Burns! is treated like the Stock Phrases “It burns!”. Reason could be that it is indexed under Stock Phrases.

A further misuse is, that the examples included every instant when a normally harmless item/concept harms a creature. This is not really surprising, considering the fact, that the cry “It burns!” is used in context with all kind of triggers, and is not limited to religious symbols.

How can we solve the problem? My Ideas:

1. Remove It Burns! from the Stock Phrases index and hope it will be enough.

2. Make it a super trope to all kind of “It burns!” triggers and make a new trope for the religious symbols.

edited 23rd Dec '10 8:02:41 AM by Osmium

It is used as a phrase, so the first option won't work. Go with the second. Holy Burns Evil?

I did some checking and I think I know why there was misuse. It Burns! is two years older than Weakened by the Light, so I imagine tropers used It Burns! in place of the more specific WBTL.

I like the supertrope idea as well, but are there really that many specific variants? I know Depleted Phlebotinum Shells has a great set of descriptions for the individual kinds of things that can cause Kryptonite Factor, but other than that I'm at a loss.

so I imagine tropers used It Burns! in place of the more specific WBTL

WBTL is not more specific than It Burns!, the one is about light, the other about religious symbols. This shows “It burns” is a problematic name for the current meaning, everybody assumes this trope being much broader upon hearing this name.

Depleted Phlebotinum Shells has a nice list, which could give us a good start for the new supertrope. The triggers with their own page would be(At least the one I could think of):

The New Holy Items Burn Trope

Kill It with Water

Weakened by the Light

Cold Iron

Kill It with Fire(I am not sure about this)

Weaksauce Weakness

Mundane Solution

Care-Bear Stare

Post-Christmas bump.

Well, I for one would love it if it was called The Holy Apo Trope or Hagiaphobia (i.e. the technical terms. Apotropes are holy wards against evil and Hagiaphobia is the fear of holy symbols, it's literal meaning in fact suggests a common play on the trope).

This bases itself on focusing on swapping out the name but keeping the focus. I feel this is right. With the other items moved off, the page and the examples manage to keep it together quite nicely. The trope is certainly distinct and also a very universal and well shared trope. To be poetic, it has a thousand faces. Surely, we are not going to delete this trope and suffle off its examples? No, so this page's content is up for a rename. The misuse suggests another trope but let's do that properly.

There is a Stock Phrase, this is different from the idea of Apotropes that certain good things hurt evil. The stock phrase is not a supertrope, it is a phrase. It is used to reference the use of these tropes in certain situations like a camp Hammer Horror film

Post New Year's bump.

That sounds fine by me. And The Holy Apo Trope is certainly a fun title.

I don't get the title. I kind of realize it's not "trope as a placeholder", but I still don't get how this fits the trope.

Apotropes are holy wards against evil...

Pretty obscure tho :)

Holy Burns Evil? It makes it clear it's a form of Good Hurts Evil.

I like It Burns!.

It's too broad for the trope. It would be better as a trope about the stock phrase.

Oh yeah? Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

edited 12th Jan '11 11:31:25 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Well it is a common phrase. I'm seriously suggesting we make the name fit that after renaming this.

Holy Burns Evil sounds OK . It is not overly creative, but it is clear. The Holy Apo Trope is a nice play on words but it is to obscure.

I think it would be nice to make It Burns! more than just a Stock Phrase it would be a good name for the it burns reaction in general. Examples where this is played for comedy and the trigger is something rather unusual could have their place on this page.

Bump?

Consensus in the thread seems to be making this trope Holy Burns Evil.

Yes, Holy Burns Evil Works For Me(tm).

In the nine months since the thread was last active, the anti-Stock Phrase crusade has increased the need to rename this trope.

The misuse would be enough to warrant a rename anyway, of course.

This.

Well, the misuse just sort of underlines why we had the anti-stock phrase crusade, and the crusade underlines the need to rename the trope.

I like Holy Burns Evil. Its clear, its concise and the relation to Good Hurts Evil is easy to see. However, there is something that troubles. There's a section in the definition about this trope applying to 'the opposite' like a gamer shut in with the outdoors. What do we do with that?

Excise it—it's based on the title as a Stock Phrase, which is incorrect.

Currently 9:1 in favor of renaming.

Locking and swapping to alt names.