Art Sage
(Reading the list of Central themes)
So no one is going to volunteer and take the time to help with the other central themes, huh?
(Taking a deep breath)
Well then, looks like I'm just going to have to figure out the central themes of the other anime, TV shows, films, books, video games, & etc that haven't been added yet and add them on here myself.
Edited by Henkyo Hide / Show Replies
We don't need to add literally every example. If a fan wants to do it, nobody will care one way or another, but you don't have to treat it like a job if you don't want to.
Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
It can be a tricky distinction, to be fair, but it does seem to me that more than a few of these examples seem to be closer to An Aesop than a Central Theme. Like the definition says, a theme is more of a question the text raises or an overall topic / issue the author wants the reader to think about rather than an outright message to be taken away from the text (although obviously the theme in many cases is developed according to and leads to an overall Aesop). As I understand the distinction, something like "The Power of Friendship" (a subject the author is exploring) or "what it takes to sustain The Power of Friendship in a cold, harsh world" (a hypothesis / question the author is asking) is a theme, whereas "The Power of Friendship will ultimately overcome all obstacles" is An Aesop, and it seems that a lot of examples on the page lean more towards the latter than the former.
Not a big deal, but I think it's possible that the distinction could be made a bit clearer.
Edited by DoctorNemesis Hide / Show Replies
We should be aware that it's been a few years since this comment and many (most?) of the examples on the main and subpages (Anime and Manga, etc) are still An Aesop.
Edited by garden_hoe21
An issue with this is that a central theme can, and often is, a message of some sort. That's the phrase's ordinary use at least in literature, which is "talking about written work," which is pretty much what this page is doing but for more than just literature.
Moreover, An Aesop can apply to arcs or episodes, whereas a Central Theme applies to the entire work. Thus, if the message of the entire series of web comics is "The Power of Friendship will ultimately overcome all obstacles," then that's the Central Theme, even if most of the Aesops are not. That said, the Aesops would need to relate to the Central Theme in some way.
So, whereas most (if not all) works have some sort of Central Theme, not all of them will have An Aesop. Because not every arc or episode will have a specific message, but most works will have some sort of message.
I'm just replying to this thread because OP and garden_hoe21 apparently didn't understand the differences, and some of the examples were needlessly changed.
Edited by WaterBlap Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty
Summer Warrior
Newbie questions ahead:
When it says "Check the archive (upper right) to see what went on before.", does it refer to the forum? 'cause I don't see anything else in that direction. Am I blocking something with NoScript? the domain is allowed... I'm obviously allowing cookies... *sigh* On with the show.
I only checked a few examples, but I dare inferring that Central Theme does not appear in the main work pages for a reason, but I just can't figure out which one it would be. I'd make such an important non-subjective information immediately available to the casual reader, as all authors supposedly would love each and everyone of their readers/players/listeners/audience to just get what their story is about, right?
Okay, it's not the same as getting there yourself, I know. Myself I hate it when I completely miss the point and I need to be told what the show was about. Makes me feel like a moron. Still, I think there's a need to tell people in order to make sure no one misses it. Might make people want to see it again for a variety of reasons, and there's no such thing as too much love for a work.
But I only learnt about this trope after being sent to Analysis.Analysis, which is a subwiki that only a few work pages have this far, so many people may not know about it at all (and I was sent there because I'm about to try and make an Analysis entry myself, which again is not usual).
So how was I supposed to find this important piece of information in the first place?
For example, since I happen to love Final Fantasy VIII, I've read a lot more things about it in this wiki than for most other works. But it has a Central Theme entry that I just discovered as described above, and there's no link taking me there from the main page.
Trope examples and works where the trope applies are supposed to link back to each other, right? Yet I can only find it if I happen to click the "related to..." button, which is not something I will usually do even if I dig all the other namespaces.
So someone please tell me why, of all tropes, this one is so well hidden...
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This article isn't linked from many works pages because it hasn't been linked from many works pages. No real reason that I know of; I think too many tropers are just ignorant of this page's existence. There's certainly no policy against linking to here from a works page.
I didn't write any of that.
I probably was a bit rude, too, since I didn't bother checking all the examples, I just assumed no one would forget linking back from the work in this case.
Also, I wish ALL of the works in this wiki featured this trope, which is why I was so astonished and started complaining... Well then, it seems there's a lot of work ahead. There we go!!
Do you think the central theme of Gravity Falls is to accept life mysteries and downfalls?
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