Merge with Superpower Russian Roulette: Superpower Lottery

1. Problems
   1. The phrase "Superpower Lottery" sounds like "superpowers are given/distributed via a lottery(-based) system", and yet per the description, the laconic definition, and the trope's usage (AFAIK, at least), it's only about characters actually winning the "superpower lottery".

   2. On a related note, Superpower Russian Roulette suffers from the same basic problem. The description also touts itself as essentially the Blessed with Suck version of Superpower Lottery, in spite of the term "russian roulette" not evoking that meaning (you load one and only one bullet into a revolver, spin the cylinder so that it stops at random, and then pull the trigger; the actual chance of the chamber stopping at the loaded chamber is low - ~16% for a six-round revolver).

2. Suggestions:
   1. Keep Superpower Lottery and Superpower Russian Roulette separate, and rename both to Won The Superpower Lottery / Superpower Lottery Winner and Lost The Superpower Russian Roulette / Superpower Russian Roulette Loser (while keeping the original titles as redirects). Vetoed by general troper consensus
   2. Merge both tropes into Superpower Lottery, create two internal subtropes to reflect the "win" / "lose" aspect of the "superpower lottery". (while keeping the original titles as redirects)

edited 19th Jun '11 1:41:26 PM by MarqFJA

Won The Superpower Lottery / Lost The Superpower Russian Roulette sounds good.

I have never seen this misused. Add Won The Superpower Lottery as a redirect, sure, but unless you prove misuse, there's no need to actually rename.

Yeah, I've yet to run into misuse either. Also, at 536 wicks and over 6000 inbounds, a rename (even to a very similar name) is less than advisable.

I'm with the, lots of wiks, no misuse crowd. Just because something could be confused doesn't mean it is/will be.

So the title describing one thing while the article, laconic definition and usage describe another is not good enough reason for a rename? Nor is the same problem afflicting another, related trope?

And there's at least one case of misuse: On the Bleach character sheet, the main protagonist Ichigo is described as "a literal Superpower Lottery" for being responsible for unknowingly Super-Empowering at least two of his classmates.

edited 19th Jun '11 9:57:35 AM by MarqFJA

One out of 550+ is pretty small. At that number of wiks there's always going to be some misuse.

Also, 90% of laconics are wrong. People are horrible at writing them. Sometimes I just want to take an axe to the laconic wiki.

edited 19th Jun '11 9:51:35 AM by shimaspawn

It's not just the laconic, you know...

Also, I thought we were supposed to pursue accuracy of titles (within reasonable limits, of course). "Superpower Lottery" is both too broad (the description only covers the win condition, whereas a lottery has both win and lose conditions) and too narrow (the title only concerns a "lottery of superpowers", not whether one wins or loses it) for what the trope is supposed to be about.

And I don't see any reason for separating Superpower Russian Roulette from Superpower Lottery, and it only has 10 wicks and (as of now) 52 inbounds.

edited 19th Jun '11 10:05:24 AM by MarqFJA

I think the name could be better but high inbounds and little misuse trump a bad name.

That's what suggestion #2 is there for: We merge Superpower Russian Roulette (10 wicks, 52 inbounds) into Superpower Lottery, and create internal subtropes to cover the "win" and "lose" conditions.

It's a good suggestion. Superpower Russian Roulette doesn't actually mean a Russian roulette, but it means a lottery. And Superpower Lottery doesn't actually mean a lottery, but means winning the lottery. It's a good idea to combine them and do some editing from there.

On related note, why not rename the trope to fit the description of "getting very (un)lucky in gaining superpower(s)" and keep the original title as a redirect to avoid so many redlinks, since we seem to agree that the title does not describe the trope correctly?

Because tropes don't just get renamed willy-nilly. That causes Wiki Schizophrenia, and people can't rely on things staying the same.

If it's being used correctly, then its being used correctly. Rule number one has always been if its not broke, don't fix it.

EDIT: Added Won The Superpower Lottery as a redirect.

edited 19th Jun '11 12:50:21 PM by Discar

There are good points about the name, it's just that it's been around for years and has permeated troper consciousness, and(impressively) has done so to such a degree that there isn't misuse. I know the grandfather clause no longer applies as a reason not to rename, but at this juncture we need a really good reason to justify a change of this magnitude.

Wick check. Context quoted directly, for your convenience.

Correct:

1. Absurdly Sharp Blade: The super-powered serial killer in ~H-E-R-O~ used one of these, thanks to his superpower being the ability to use any superpower he could think of. He just selected "the power to cut through anything".
2. Advent Rising: Gideon Wyeth, has, once he unlocks all his powers, Super-Strength, a Healing Factor, Bullet Time when using his improbable dodging skills, telekinesis, various forcefields (which are impenetrable and harm any enemy that touches them), electromagnetic bolts, massive, devastating radial energy explosions, gravimetric teleportation, intertial damping, dozens of exploding ice-missiles, and cryokinesis. He's also skilled at piloting, marksmenship, and hand-to-hand combat. And, for his last trick, he can create controlled singularity that can kill a Physical God.
3. Characters.A Game Of Gods: Has the same powers like Superman.
4. Characters.A Game Of Gods: The fact that he's the King of Heroes and has access to almost every other Noble Phantasms, in addition to his demigod origins, makes him a prime case of this.
5. A Gift of Magic: Of the gifts given to the grandchildren, Kirby gets to be a talented dancer, Brendon a gifted musician and Lois a writer, but Nancy gets freaking magic powers.
6. A God Am I: Kamiya Kanade calls himself God. As a siren, he really did win the Superpower Lottery, but [...]
7. A God Am I: Too bad for her half the cast also won the Superpower Lottery, and Yukari had other plans.
8. All Your Powers Combined: This is often the result of winning the Superpower Lottery.
9. All Your Powers Combined: The protagonists of Persona 3 and Persona 4 were dealt fate's wild card, able to use Personas of all the tarot arcana and combine them to make better ones.
10. PlayingWith.All Your Powers Combined: "Wouldn't it be cool if you had all the powers of the Justice Team combined? It would be like winning the Superpower Lottery!"
11. Ambition Is Evil: All Tom Weathers, from the Wild Cards series, really wants to do is use his immense power to make the world a better place.
12. Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: Ben Tennyson has the Omnitrix.
13. Animal Eye Spy: The range of this power goes from paranoia inducing to Superpower Lottery winner.
14. Badass.Anime: Your Mileage May Vary though, because some of the more polarizing characters are seen by many as simply Jerkasses who won the Superpower Lottery. (Correct usage of the trope, but deleted as Natter.)
15. TheWesley.Anime: Naruto himself could qualify as well, mainly because some people think he's an annoying idiot who won the Super Power Lottery.
16. ActionGirl.Anime: And we even get to see that she actually has won the local Superpower Lottery by having a double kekkei genkai, too!
17. TookALevelInBadass.Anime And Manga: [...] and lucking out on the Superpower Lottery.
18. WhatMeasureIsANonHuman.Anime And Manga: [...] but the big winner of the Superpower Lottery who verges at times on omnipotence.
19. BlessedWithSuck.Anime And Manga: Shunsui Kyoraku's Shikai has arguably one of the most diverse and powerful benefits introduced in the series.
20. BlessedWithSuck.Anime And Manga: All of the Contractors in Darker Than Black have Conditional Powers tied to some sort of price. Said price can vary from the simple but annoying (eating a specific food, say, or smoking) to the weird (writing poetry) to the very, very bad (breaking their own fingers, drinking children's blood). [...] (Of course, depending on the whims of the Superpower Russian Roulette and Superpower Lottery, there's the odd Contractor who ends up Cursed with Awesome instead)
21. Dresses.Anime And Manga: It doesn't help that Françoise lost the Superpower Lottery by only having Super-Senses, which puts her in a disadvantage in regards to her partners, and she knows that very painfully.
22. BetterThanItSounds.Anime And Manga: One Piece: Small people with random skills go on a road trip and fight large people with government connections.
23. Aquaman: Due to being adapted for life deep underwater as well as dry land Aquaman has basically won the Superpower Lottery: He's strong and tough to the point where he can lift around 20 tons, has several Super-Senses, is very fast, and his telepathic abilities are as strong as (if not stronger than) the Martian Manhunter.
24. Author Appeal: [...] has no superpowers to compete with the girl's Superpower Lottery superpowers [...]
25. Characters.Avatar The Last Airbender: Can learn all types of bending, not just his native one, learns them very quickly thanks to his millennia of experience through past lives, and has a defense mechanism that sends him into Super Mode.
26. Characters.Avengers Villains: [used with a character, Count Nefaria]
27. Characters.Avengers Villains: [used with another character, Graviton]
28. Awakening the Sleeping Giant: If the entity is an individual, then they won the Superpower Lottery
29. Axe Cop: Powers that appear in the story include possession of an axe, boomerang socks, being an avocado that can shoot avocados out of its hands... and Uni-Baby's horn, which can grant any wish, travel through time, or bring 1000 people back to life in an instant. Plus 2000 million more. And create a planet for them to live on.

Incorrect:

1. A Fistful of Sky: Magic tends to manifest differently for each person, with most people becoming talented in a specific area of magic. Opal, the oldest, is best in her use of glamours and transformation magic, and uses this to be a great Hollywood makeup artist. Jasper has a talent for languages and music and is in a band. Flint's magic is chaotic and can be used to travel large distances, and Beryl keeps her magic secret. Gypsum, of course, has the power of cursing.
2. Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: Dial H For Hero is a long-running DC plot-device: A magic telephone dial that can turn whoever uses it into a completely random superhero for one hour at a time.
3. Artifact of Doom: The Star Brand from The New Universe is exactly like this. A limitless power only held back by one's imagination, it can only be used by living things. The first time someone tried to place it into a inanimate object to get rid of the power, it initiated the White Event, the world's biggest Superpower Lottery.

Not sure, need help:

1. Artifact of Doom: In one installment of Curiosities of Lotus Asia (a series of side stories to Touhou written by the creator), Rinnosuke Morichika gets "artifact of doom" vibes, via his ability to see the name and purpose of an object (but not ''how'' it is used), from a Game Boy. He spends most of the story agonizing whether he should allow it to fall into the hands of local Reality Warper Yukari Yakumo. (To be fair, it does allow you to "control a world", so to speak...)

edited 19th Jun '11 4:07:08 PM by troacctid

So about 10% misuse. That's really low. It's what even the best defined tropes seem to settle into.

Okay, I'll give you that. What's the verdict on the merge option?

I think the problem with that is that Superpower Russian Roulette seems to require a Mass Super-Empowering Event which isn't always the case with Superpower Lottery.

How so? Several listed examples do not involve a Mass Empowering Event in anyway. I think the Mass Empowering Event mention was not meant to be taken literally.

edited 19th Jun '11 4:41:07 PM by MarqFJA

Like which ones? They all seem to involve some kind of drug, virus or event.

edited 19th Jun '11 4:43:43 PM by captainpat

If I'm reading the summary and examples right, Superpower Russian Roulette is essentially a literal Superpower Lottery, where the winners get super powers (or superhuman abilities or whatever), and the losers die/go insane/get Blessed with Suck, and so forth. That would seem to imply a Mass Super-Empowering Event, but that's not necessary - quite a few of the examples have to do with radiation or superpower-giving drugs, like Element Zero in Mass Effect.

I'm not sure whether drugs would count as a Mass Super-Empowering Event.

edited 19th Jun '11 4:45:48 PM by JackAlsworth

The examples seem to bear that out. Most have a "When the character undergeos X Super-Empowering event they stand a chance of getting a bad outcome," the key being that the empowering event is repeatable (eating mermaid liver, getting exposed to a virus, pollution, Super Serum, etc).

Edit: When it's drugs or the like, it usually still qualifies as Mass Super-Empowering Event by virtue of being able to apply to multiple characters.

edited 19th Jun '11 4:46:36 PM by Earnest

So to better phrase it, there's a transformational aspect involved in this trope.

edited 19th Jun '11 4:46:39 PM by captainpat

I'm not sure what you mean. To go back to my Mass Effect example, some humans get psychic powers when exposed to Element Zero, but most people just die. But they're still human, nothing physically happens to them.

The transformational aspect is the Super-Empowering itself. Sure, they're still human, but after playing the roulette they're either a human with power, bad powers, or dead. (Of course, some roulettes have "no longer human" as the bad outcome.)

(Disclaimer: Never played the game) Another way to look at it is that the roulette gets a fresh "bullet" every time someone new undergoes the procedure, gets exposed to a drug/virus, or is exposed to whatever is causing the empowering. So whenever someone new is exposed to Element Zero they roll the chamber and shoot, and this happens every time someone is exposed.