Markup View

Author: kjnoren

May 29th 2013 at 10:24:59 AM

Just took a look at GoodAdulteryBadAdultery, and that's one bad trope to me. That's two extremely broad tropes mashed together.

In comparison, ProblematicPolyamorousEncounter or similar does carry a meaning. If X, then Y happens. There is a causality there. The main trouble with the work so far is that there is too much description, and too few examples. There is also the question on how far the trope should go - should it be limited to actual polyamorous encounters, or to an affair with a third party with the initial knowledge of everyone, or include cheating as well?

Proposed new description:

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A couple begins dating other people, swinging, or otherwise opening their sexual doors to others, and that causes things to go horribly wrong for their relationship.

Maybe one of the spouses decide the grass is greener otherwise, and starts to prefer [[YourCheatingHeart  the third party]], or look for more [[GoodAdulteryBadAdultery sex partners]]. Or the third party becomes a StalkerWithACrush. Or one spouse liked it, and the other definitely did not. From now on, their relationship is starting to break down.
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Ie, skip everything that doesn't define the trope. If a trope is really common or not is best decided by the examples. A discussion how this trope evolved can be had in the analysis section, but even there care should be taken with generalising a trope to lots of fiction.