Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Ambiguous Name
, started by GreeneMachine92 on Apr 17th 2017 at 5:49:18 AM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Unclear Description, started by Kirby0189 on Mar 30th 2020 at 8:18:47 PM
From the first paragraph: "Mentioning anything about this character/thing at all — worst case scenario, this includes its name or even its existence alone — will often reveal spoilers about the work they feature in"
From the third paragraph: "Also, this is not about characters that are involved in many plot twists but the mere existence of the character within the narrative is a spoiler itself"
The first paragraphs makes it sound like existence-as-spoiler is optional, while the third paragraph makes it sound necessary.
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As far as I see it, it's necessary. A character who has a spoileriffic story is just People Sit On Chairs because this can apply to an uncountable amount of characters in fiction in general and very much in works with many plot twists and 100 % in works with a First-Episode Spoiler. Maybe somebody should change the first paragraph?
The third paragraph was added by Gemser without permission. The first paragraph was always there. Take it to the Trope Description Improvement Drive in the forums.
Edited by SatoshiBakura
I did a quick overview and found some questionable examples here. As a rule of thumb, I asked myself "how much I can say about the character without spoiling anything?" If i can say something sensible, I moved them here.
- Star Wars: In The Force Awakens, while Kylo Ren was prominently featured in the marketing, everything regarding him outside his villainous/Dark Side enthusiast nature was hidden. Given his background and one of his actions, they had reason for it.
- Starkiller Base, the First Order's new superweapon, made out of a hollowed-out planet and capable of destroying entire star systems, also qualifies.
Harry Potter
- Quirinus Quirrell and Tom Riddle are both impossible to discuss without mentioning that the former is possessed by Voldemort, whereas the latter is Voldemort.
- Severus Snape. Pretty much any description other than "Harry's horrible potions teacher" is going to be a spoiler of some kind.
Sirius and Peter might qualify, seeing as all I can say about Sirius is that he's the Prisoner of Azkaban, and about Peter, I'm not really sure what I can say.
Ace Attorney
- Matt Engarde from Justice for All is a very special case as his true personality is denoted by his Two-Faced scars, hidden by Peek A Bangs until Phoenix Wright gathers enough evidence to reveal his secret. Therefore, anyone foolish enough to Google his name before finishing the game will find the majority of image results to show Engarde with his obviously evil scars and Slasher Smile.
- Probably the biggest example is Bobby Fulbright from Dual Destinies, who is introduced 5-2 as the Inspector Lestrade role that Gumshoe and Ema filled. Then the game drops a bombshell by revealing that he's actually Phantom, an emotionless agent who murdered Fulbright prior to the story's events and stole his identity, as well the killer of both Clay Terran and Metis Cykes. This is revealed very late into the game's events, but is a massive twist, especially since Fulbright is one of the last characters one would suspect as the Big Bad given his role and much of the Foreshadowing towards the revelation is very subtle.
- Also in Spirit of Justice is Dhurke Sahdmadhi, who can't even be mentioned by his last name without spoiling that he's Nahyuta's father. Dhurke is initially presented as a revolutionary leader, then it turns out (among other things) that he's the husband of the former queen he allegedly murdered, he's Apollo Justice's foster father... and he's been dead this whole time.
Betty probably qualifies. Her presence spoils relatively minor twist, but I'm keeping her under the Tropes Are Flexible assumption.
Zero Escape trilogy:
- June and Ace, as both turn out to be the primary antagonists (and the true protagonist in June's case) in roundabout ways.
- The sequel, Virtue's Last Reward, has a few as well. Luna and the Mysterious Old Woman are almost entirely whited out.
- Because Tenmyouji was actually a character in the first game as well as VLR, even mentioning his first name is a spoiler.
Those are titles that I've looked over. I wrote whatever I can without spoiling although the cut-out entries may be spoilerific.
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Yes, these characters seem to be non-examples. There should really be a clean-up thread for more. Again, the existence of the character must be the spoiler itself, not the introduction of the character is followed by a plot twist and you should have to urge to make a folder "spoiler character". So I believe all of these you mentioned gotta go, but Kylo Ren takes the cake here (somehow have missed it on my look through). This troper even mentions himself that Kylo's featured prominently in the marketing, so I guess saying "Darth Vader" is a spoiler too?
With Sirius Snape and Peter Pettigrew I took a look at the character sheets.
Sirius: "The White Sheep (sorry, we couldn't resist the pun!) of the elitist House of Black,
Sorry but that information IS a spoiler, seeing as for most of the third book he's set up to be The Heavy and The Dragon to Tom. Same goes for Peter being a bad guy. For the most part, he's set up as a marauder's Butt-Monkey and the fact that he's a Dirty Coward who works for Tom is a major plot twist in the third book.
Okay, these infos might be spoilers (haven't read the books, just watched the films). Still not Walking Spoiler as long as you can say name and most basic profession without spoilering massively
Can we divide it between villains and non villainous characters?
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Soft splits are generally a bad idea, so I think not.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
This page is dangerous. I sometimes want to look at certain examples, but I'm spoiled in works that I don't want to know what the spoilers are (I'm looking at you, Attack on Titan). Same goes for editing.
Edited by 71.171.84.163
... seriously? The very first instance of a Walking Spoiler was from a manga that started in 1990?
I... highly doubt that claim.
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Also, it has not enough context.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Yeah, seems like the second panel would suffice. I would bring it up in Image Picking.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Knows-Many-Things
Doesn't this trope come into conflict of the policy that we shouldn't have examples and pages that are completely spoiled out?
Find the Light in the Dark
Can we add this to the index of Villains? The amount of times I've seen this trope with villainous characters is ridiculous.
Two questions: 1: Does Animated Film count as Film or Western Animation? Because Wreck-It Ralph is split into those two halves, and I don't know which to move. 2: Doesn't Xion from Kingdom Hearts count as a Walking Spoiler as well? Every article I read with her name in it has her name spoilered almost all the time.
TRS thread that went nowhere
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