Re do for the namer only: It Was His Sled

The example lock out was totally justified. But I was thinking, maybe we can restart it and only make it about the namer. Ideas?

Nah, I think it's fine as-is. There's already a brief line describing the Trope Namer; nothing more is really needed.

But the PotHoles really bug me. I wanted to revise it like Adaptation Decay so that you can only link to if if its about Citizen Kane. It would also be interesting to have a list of where that has been referenced.

I like it as is, although a list of Stock Shout Outs to Citizen Kane could be fun, too.

That's what I was thinking. Non-Spoiler is a redirect that would be a good name for reference.

It still describes a thing, and it has 797 wicks and 5,411 inbounds.

Do we have any reason to repurpose it into an entirely different page, instead of just launching Citizen Kane Parodies as another page?

As redirects go, myself I'd prefer Expired Spoiler (what the heck, adding) over Non-Spoiler, because the former conveys something about why it's no longer a spoiler, while "Non-Spoiler" doesn't. After all, Non-Spoiler does not just mean "not a spoiler", much in the way that Averted Trope is not just about "tropes that did not occur".

edited 5th Feb '11 7:44:13 PM by Stratadrake

Since this is in the repair shop I have two suggestions.

First, Needs A Better Name

Second, I think it should be open for examples of fiction that are treated in this way.

Current name is fine, as evidenced by healthy inbounds and wickage and absence of misuse. It has no examples because of Fan Myopia—people didn't agree on which spoilers were widely-known enough to qualify.

Citizen Kane is classic enough.

I'd like to see this open for examples too. Though I understand that this ended up with the equivalent of fan myopia generated kudzu in the examples, there are surely some that belong here. I'm thinking of a Usenet Oracle reply from '96 or so:

"Darth Vader is Luke's father. The woman in the "Crying Game" is really a man. Ole Yeller dies. In they all did it on the Orient Express. Captain Kirk isn't really dead, he's in the Nexus; but then he dies for real later. On July 4th, we killed all the aliens by giving them a computer virus which took down their shields. Verbal is Kaiser Solteh. The North wins. The Nazi's lose. Tom Cruise screws over the firm and gets away. Jeff Bridges did kill his wife. Galron is a shapeshifter imposter. Fortran really is dead. Harrison Ford always, always saves the day. Denzel Washington is right. Jim Phelps is the one who betrays the Impossible Mission team. All of the Reservoir Dogs die. Robert Redford hits a game-winning homer". James Bond gets the girl. Lestat isn't really dead. Leia is Luke's sister. Henry V wins, but barely. Cousin Vinny gets the "two yutes" off, but only after Marisa Tomei's expert testimony. Richard Gear ends up with the slut. Spock dies, then comes back to life on a planet where Kirk's son gets killed, and proceeds to help save the whales and earth by travelling back and forth in time in a Klingon ship, but doesn't get demoted for stealing the Enterprise because he wasn't there, he was dead. ET goes home. Rachael is a replicant — some think that Deckard may be too. Mel Gibson dies, but the future queen is pregnant with his kid. Sean Penn did it. The Wizard of Oz is really a short, fat, bald man. Nicolas Cage dies at the end. "He" is Costner's father. Mr. Holland's former students play his opus in the end — the redhead becomes governor. The Apollo 13 crew makes it back safely. Barnabus is a vampire. Al Pacino shoots and kills Robert De Niro. There is a videocamera on the bus and a hole under the trash can. OJ did it. Harry marries Sally. To get to the other side. The prisoner is Pip's benefactor. Romeo and Juliet kill themselves. Either a newspaper or a half-eaten zebra. Sue Ellen's sister shot J.R. Maggie shot Mr. Burns (not on purpose). Bobby's death was just a dream (Pam's). The HAL 9000 computer goes homicidal, but it isn't his fault. (Incidentally, the letters followng HAL are IBM.) There is always someone in the back seat. Jack gets old and dies. Debra Winger gets cancer and dies. Bill Clinton wears briefs. Rosebud is the sled."

A good half of that applies here.

^And most of those that are endings from actual works still aren't that widely known.

I certainly don't think the plots of Star Trek Generations, My Cousin Vinny, and Mr. Holldand's Opus are universally known to everybody.

And once we start collecting examples from other medias, it just gets worse. Everybody who doesn't read comics isn't going to be aware of Comic Book examples. Nobody who watches anime is going to have any clue about anything that may get filed under that. When a subjective premise is based on the idea that something is universally known, all it takes is one guy saying "I didn't know this; in fact, I've never heard of this work before in my life" to muck it all up.

edited 24th Feb '11 12:26:21 PM by SeanMurrayI

The problem with having examples is that, unless we held a poll of some kind (too much work), we wouldn't be able to choose which ones could be on there.

edited 24th Feb '11 12:26:37 PM by halfmillennium

I don't have a clue to what 90% of that post is even referring to, and that's why this trope doesn't have examples.

Possible alternate titles: Ex Spoiler, Former Spoiler

It would probably be only 70% in my case... but still. No examples.

Edit: Ninja'd.

edited 24th Feb '11 4:45:53 PM by nrjxll

The reason I wanted to re do this was because a list of shot outs to the namer would be fun. If we did that, the current page would be renamed and have no examples.

^But then why can't you just create a separate trope page about Citizen Kane references and parodies and give that a different name? Why do we have to change the names of already existing pages that aren't broken?

edited 24th Feb '11 7:59:28 PM by SeanMurrayI

There is one thing I would like to see added to the description, though: a pothole to What Was Whose Sled?, AKA Popcultural Osmosis Failure. This is to highlight the fact that It Was His Sled can sometimes still be a spoiler, if someone doesn't know the work.

Agreed. Not sure why we have to gut a healthy (if scrawny) page just to make a page of parodies.

Sean Murray I, by your definition this entire TROPE is invalid. I have no idea what Citizen Cane is without searching for it. I don't know if it's a book or a movie, a TV or radio show, theater production or any of the above. This "sled" the trope refers to? Not a clue in the world.

You will always find people that don't watch movies, or haven't watched old movies, or aren't part of anime culture, or don't have the foggiest clue what a football is, or any number of other genre blindnesses you can think of. ALWAYS.

There are over 6.7 billion people in the world. Universal is aiming entirely too high to the point that I think this trope should be unlocked for examples and possibly re-clarified. "everyone within the target demographic" seems to me that "Darth Vader is Luke's father" would qualify. How many sci-fi fans do YOU know that are not aware of this spoiler? Even among those who have never seen the original Star Wars trilogy?

Part of the reason TV Tropes exists (at least in my opinion) is to spread awareness of examples of things like this beyond a single occurrence. Was it really that bad with open editing for examples? Surely the rules could be better laid out?

You tell me. Do you know the important plot twists in Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni? How about Network? Peter Grimes? The complete works of HP Lovecraft?

I changed my mind, I'll tell you. Yes, it really was that bad. The whole examples section was "Spoil your favorite works because everyone else is, obviously, just as familiar with them as you are." It was garbage, it had to go, and it should stay gone.

I don't think the page has to stay exampleless. Since it is a fanspeak term though, it'd make sense to list the well-known cases that have permeated a particular medium's audience. Perhaps not all the people of the world know that Vader is Luke's father, but truly, anyone in the field of scifi, or movies, is bound to learn and even expected to know so.

Part of the problem is that the target demographic upon release need not have a direct correspondence to the people who would be viewing it now. Yes, I think most of us here on the forum know the twist ending of The Sixth Sense. On the other hand, there are now tropers who are in the target demographic but who weren't old enough to have participated in the conversations in which it was spoiled back during the last millennium. (On a side note, this makes me feel old. ) Sure, there maybe was a time when everyone knew how NGE ended, but the anime fandom has grown so much since then that it's no longer common knowledge. Thanks to the new film, there's now a whole new set of Trekkies who don't know how Voyager ended, and that's not counting the ones who never bothered the finish Voyager in the first place and never ended up hanging out with people who did. Hell, there's a new generation of Star Wars fans who think Ahsoka Tano is one of the most important character in the Star Wars universe and don't know about this "Luke" person.

I'd say there are some examples that could be added without too much bickering. Namely, Mr. Hyde is actually... Dr. Jekyll DUN DUN DUN!
...
Actually, that's probably about all I can think of, spoiler-wsie.

But there are also valid examples in Lampshade Hangings of the trope (e.g. the current page quote from Penny Arcade).