I just can't fathom why the trope wouldn't emphasize the animal part. Otherwise it's just Does Not Like Shoes- because the species of the character would have no bearing on why the trope is used or how it manifests. There's literally no reason to even have Barefoot Cartoon Animal if the "Cartoon Animal" part is entirely incidental and not relevant at all to the actual trope.
Like...what's the trope, if the part about them being animal isn't meant to be a contributing factor for them being barefoot? If they'd just as easily be a barefoot human with no actual change to how the trope is presented, why is it a different trope?
As for the footwrap part, IDK. I can see it either way, but since something technically is covering the feet I don't personally consider it barefoot.
Edited by WarJay77 Current Project: The Team
A human character who takes their shoes off to go swimming doesn't suddenly become an example of Does Not Like Shoes.
Likewise, not wearing shoes in an outfit where not wearing shoes is situationally appropriate— like a martial arts uniform or a swimsuit— does not make a character a Barefoot Cartoon Animal if they otherwise wear shoes normally.
Yeah, from the example alone it sounds more like he's wearing an outfit that doesn't have shoes, it sounds like an outfit shift towards something more martial art-y.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
As the creator of Barefoot Cartoon Animal, let me explain why the trope exists. Maybe that will clear up some of the confusion.
As shown in this archived discussion
, I saw that we already had The One Who Wears Shoes and Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal — as well as Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal, which didn't get mentioned — but no trope for the stage in-between, which is a Funny Animal who routinely goes barefoot but is otherwise fully clothed. The Gunheart suggested I take it to the page now known as Trope Launchpad, which I did IIRC, and the rest is history. In other words, I created the BCA page because I saw a need for it. It filled an absence in our list of funny animal appearing tropes. Maybe the description can be made a tad more detailed (which I intend to do), but despite my understandable bias, I think BCA is a valid trope that deserves to exist. It is definitely not People Sit On Chairs.
Sorry for the delayed response. I do believe everyone here is arguing in good faith, but the whole thing was frustrating me a bit too much, so I needed a day off to chill.
I wouldn't say the "cartoon animal" part is irrelevant to the trope - it's one of the three criteria, after all. If they're not a cartoon animal, then it's just Does Not Like Shoes and goes there (if it qualifies as such). The part I wonder if you're getting confused about is that you're arguing that they're barefoot because they're cartoon animals. That can be the case, particularly as it helps sell the animal nature of the characters, but it isn't necessary.
For Kazma specifically, everyone keeps bringing up ninja outfits and martial arts outfits, and... I dunno, am I the only one who doesn't see that in this (image for reference)? He doesn't look like he's sporting karate gi or ninja yoroi or anything to me, he looks more like he's Hulking Out, which resulted in shoe loss as that trope sometimes does. Not really the same thing as taking shoes off to go swimming (and again, I agree on that point, that is absolutely too incidental to be the trope).
As far as the trope's merit goes, it already has gone through Trope Repair Shop once and survived, and I believe the narrower focus on "must be fully clothed" was the result (unless it was always there and I just wasn't aware of it prior to the TRS discussion). I'm not entirely sure if you'll be any more successful in arguing for its closure than they were, but if that's your prerogative, so be it. Mayhap the tighter criteria you appear to want will result.
By the way, I do want to stress (not that it had really come into question) - no, I am not trying to defend any zero-context entries. It is right to purge those as has always been the site's standard (and the purging of which I've dabbled in myself in the past).
Moon◊
There's a known bug in Discussion pages that inserts garbage characters into links and breaks them. To see the image ShadowHog linked, copy-paste this into the URL field of your browser: https://www.rainydayanime.shop/summer-wars-king-kazma-figure.html/
Looks like a stylized ninja outfit not too different from what you'd see in Naruto or any number of other martial arts anime to me. *shrug*
The fact that he's Hulking Out seems like an argument against his being a Barefoot Cartoon Animal, not for; the Hulk doesn't wear shoes either, after all. The point is that he's not barefoot because "cartoon animals are barefoot," he's barefoot because he's in a context (in this case, Hulking Out) where people are barefoot.
^ Exactly.
And yeah, I agree, it looks like something out of Naruto or DBZ, an anime-style ninja outfit complete with ninja footwraps, which Google confirms is a thing and not just something I conjured up (saying that because I actually had to check to make sure I wasn't making something up).
The reason I think they need to be barefoot because they're animals is because if that's not why, then it's just "Does Not Like Shoes, but on a Funny Animal". The meaning is lost because there's no connection between "lack of shoes" and "animal character" unless those two things are directly linked in the narrative.
Current Project: The Team
Pedantic note, but I think "lack of shoes" and "Funny Animal character" need to be linked either by the narrative or the design. There doesn't have to be an explicit, narrative link where there's an in-story reason why animals don't wear shoes, but it needs to be at least implicitly linked by the design logic by having the character not wear shoes even when a human character in Real Life normally would.
"Sometimes a Funny Animal character wears shoes and sometimes they don't" isn't a trope any more than "sometimes humans wear shoes and sometimes they don't."
^ Right, that's about what I was trying to say.
Current Project: The Team
And I have added text to the trope description which says exactly that.
"But... nobody told me I needed a signature!"
Grand Poobah of Crimestrikers
Several entries on the main page were commented out due to their allegedly being Zero Context Examples. I've added context to some of these entries and restored others because I thought they just didn't need additional text. To me, this raises the question: how much context is enough? Does the article need to say "These characters go barefoot, but are otherwise fully clothed" in every single entry? IMHO, that would make for repetitive reading. Besides, if a work is listed here, doesn't that alone imply that its characters fall under this trope? Sometimes additional context is helpful, but sometimes it's unnecessary.
"But... nobody told me I needed a signature!" Hide / Show Replies
Commented out? It looks to me like someone just set random huge chunks of the page to be invisible. There was plenty of non-repetitive stuff in there.
Take it to the dedicated ZCE thread, where the guy who did it posted about it. I know I intend to.
There's a known bug in Discussion pages that inserts garbage characters into links and breaks them.
If you copy-paste https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13226024250A77804400&page=86#2143 into the URL bar of your browser, you should get there, or just search the forums for "zero context example".
Grand Poobah of Crimestrikers
Badger 96 posted this on the main page, it was deleted as Natter, and I decided to repost it here:
Actual animals don't wear shoes, even in snow. Is it so much of a stretch for anthro animals to be similar? They have fur and pawpads/hooves, after all. Why would they need shoes?
"But... nobody told me I needed a signature!"
Alright I know I just said "take it to the ZCE thread", but I'm now taking it here from the ZCE thread, as it's become more about interpretations of the trope's scope than, well, ZCEs.
I was arguing that this...
...shouldn't automatically be disqualified just because he had an outfit that included shoes, also justifying it as notable since it was an outfit apparently iconic enough to get action figures made of it. The responses I got (or at least my interpretation thereof - here's the discussion
, judge for yourself) were either that going barefoot needs to be a consistent trait, or that they need to be barefoot because they are an animal, not just happening to be an animal who wears a full outfit but is otherwise barefoot. Thing is, I don't think the trope description actually says either of those anywhere. It does state the latter as a possible reason for the trope, but not the driving one. As far as I'd known the qualifications were purely:
The ZCE thread even emphasized all three criteria. These are not stated in the description:
The first one might be of merit to add to the description, but that seems like something that'd need to be properly discussed in here and codified before we start deleting entries for violating it. (Plus, if I'm arguing that having an iconic outfit that fits the trope means a character qualifies for an entry, stating they have to be barefoot at basically all times would probably nix a few - for example, Katia in Prequel sometimes has outfits with shoes and sometimes doesn't, but I still think she should qualify since the outfits without are so iconic that most fanart of her just has her always barefoot.) I do not support the second one at all; I get tropes need to be narrowly-focused, but that's too narrow.
As an aside, there's also the question of whether footwraps count as footwear and thus disqualify. I don't think they should; as with spats, while they add some protection, your feet are still largely exposed to the elements when wearing them. Furthermore, there are entries on Does Not Like Shoes counting only wearing footwraps as effectively barefoot, and I'd like to be consistent across both on what does and doesn't count.
Edited by ShadowHog Moon◊ Hide / Show Replies