Tropes named for Cerebus

First off, I know that Cerebus Syndrome seems to be one of the older tropes on the site, used to indicate when a previously light-hearted series turns dramatic. However, I have never read Cerebus, and after reading up on it, it seems to be an indie comic with little mainstream recognition. Is it well-known enough to be a Trope Namer? I've seen the phrase "Dropped the Drama Bomb" or other such permutations used far more often for the same situation that Cerebus Syndrome describes.

Cerebus Retcon and Knight of Cerebus, however, are just bad. They're nonindicative and in the case of the latter trope, not even used in the work it's named for!

Might I propose Dramatic All Along for the former and Suddenly Scary Villain for the latter?

As I recall Cerebus Syndrome is what its called oven outside TV Tropes to the point where The Order Of The Stick referenced it.

It's mentioned on The Other Wiki.

edited 10th Oct '10 10:44:59 PM by RhymeBeat

Websnark coined the term "Cerebus Syndrome", not us. It caught on with internet users to a sufficient extent that we'd be failing our mission if we didn't have an article by that title.

agree with ^ and ^^, though I agree with the OP that the derivative names should be changed to be more indicative.

Per the previous arguments, Cerebus Syndrome shouldn't be changed. Cerebus Retcon I could go either way on, since it does happen in the story, but Knight of Cerebus I wouldn't mind seeing changed, especially since the comic's page points out that the trope isn't used in the Trope Namer.

There's also one more that I just found: Cerebus Ending. This Index Is Not an Example lists it as a subtrope of Cerebus Syndrome, but I suspect that it could fit with another trope.

edited 11th Oct '10 3:35:58 PM by Willbyr

Cerebus Syndrome, as a name, also has that totally-appropriate-sounding name that makes Xanatos Gambit work. The snowclones, though... I'm not so sure.

I wasn't aware that Cerebus Syndrome was in widespread use outside of the wiki. But my complaints about the snowclones remain. "Knight of Cerebus" in particular is just stupid and nonindicative.

Cerberus Retcon -> Drama Bomb Retcon?

And I like Suddenly Scary Villain.

edited 12th Oct '10 2:13:24 PM by Ryusui

Suddenly Scary Villain sounds too much like Not So Harmless.

But that's kind of the point isn't? A show that had silly, ineffectual villains before is abruptly taken over by competent and serious ones.

edited 12th Oct '10 5:13:23 PM by Scisless

Agreed.

Knight of Cerebus to Suddenly Scary Villain
Cerebus Retcon to Meaningful All Along or Silliness Retcon
Cerebus Ending to The Fun Stops Here

edited 12th Oct '10 5:26:41 PM by Willbyr

Cerebus Ending seems rather close to Drama Bomb Finale. (They aren't the same, exactly, but the former seems to just be the latter with the requirement that it's a Downer Ending.)

The names as they are provide an easy reference to each other, as family names should. Rather than being named for Cerebus, they should be considered being named for Cerebus Syndrome. As they are related concepts, having related names only makes sense.

Suddenly Scary Villain sounds waaaaaaaaaaay too much like Not So Harmless. It reads like a villain has suddenly become scary, not "suddenly, a scary villain appears!"

Also, is there an actual problem with these tropes or do you just like other names better?

edited 12th Oct '10 8:59:40 PM by Shale

New Serious Villain. I'd like better redirects for these, simply because I keep spelling it Cerberus.

Cerberus is the three headed dog. Cerebus is some made up word I can never spell. Some redirects would be nice at the very least.

Drama Bomb Retcon doesn't fit the definition though I'm tempted to suggest Drama Bombardier as a Knight Of Cerberus redirect.

Suddenly Scary Villain sounds waaaaaaaaaaay too much like Not So Harmless. It reads like a villain has suddenly become scary, not "suddenly, a scary villain appears!"

So it should be "Suddenly, Scary Villain!" then?

edited 13th Oct '10 4:58:50 AM by tbarrie

Nope. Ptitles aren't fixed yet.

I think, anyway.

edited 13th Oct '10 5:09:59 AM by Iaculus

Cerebus Syndrome is probably good, albeit in a sort of Grandfather Clause kind of way. The others should be changed.

Cerebus itself has probably fallen off the comics-culture radar a bit. In the '80s, it'd be one of the handful of indie comics that everybody at least knew of, even if they didn't actually read it. Now that the series has ended and Dave Sim is more famous as Notable Crazy Person than "Creator of Cerebus," it's certainly no longer at the level where being in trope names would be justifiable, if it ever was in the first place.

Incidentally, the trope image on Cerebus Syndrome is awful, in the technical sense. It's fine thematically, but something went seriously wrong at some point while resizing or something.

The image looks fine to me, thematically and technically. Try a different browser and see if it changes for you?

Hmm, curious. The lettering in particular looks all mangled and almost illegible in IE 7 (unable to use any other browser at my current location.)

Checking the page in IE, I see it too. The text isn't unreadable (possibly my resolution isn't as high as yours), but the text has distracting compression artifacts that just aren't there in Firefox. Weird.

It appears to be an ordinary JPEG. While JPEG isn't the best choice for saving comic-style images (you should use PNG) I don't know if the choice was due to the original comic being saved that way or not. IE does weird things to just about everything involving the web, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that it has trouble displaying a format that's 18 years old and still in common use.

edited 13th Oct '10 7:59:23 AM by GoggleFox