Well, I can perhaps accept the complaint:
- "People don't know who and what this is referring to." (Although I was under the impression that scene is something iconic; heck, I haven't seen the movie and I still knew it vaguely. I think it's the case a lot of people will know and a lot of people won't, as with any named-after-particular-thing except those that are genuinely obscure.)
As I was saying, I can perhaps accept that complaint, though I don't think it's strong enough to change unless we make a general argument against everything named after a particular fictional thing. But I'm not accepting this argument, which appeared above:
- (Sean Murray I:) "The whole point of this trope, and why it's even named after Hannibal Lecter, is to highlight when a villain states something to turn the tables on the person whom the villain is speaking to, like what Lecter would do when it appeared others had the upper hand over him. Remove that part from the trope, and this shouldn't even be called Hannibal Lecture anymore."
This isn't about obscurity but assumes reference to the original. That's why I was talking about thinking of the right original.
I don't think anyone's getting the wrong impression ("I don't get it" doesn't count) from thinking about the wrong Hannibal, because what alternative impression is there to get? I do suspect they have been using this wrong because of thinking about the right Hannibal and judging resemblance by the wrong standards, which are the ones I want made the right ones.
edited 19th Dec '11 1:33:08 AM by VVK
Gentleman Troper!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Indeed, we are making a general argument against everything named after a particular fictional character. Please see our renaming guidelines for details.
People who know the reference expect that everybody knows it, and in fact many people don't. This is a well-known phenomenon called Fan Myopia, and a common problem with character-named tropes (the second problem being that characters are generally known for other traits than the trope, and the third problem that there are often multiple characters that share that name, as is the case here).
edited 19th Dec '11 3:18:45 AM by Spark9
Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!
Avatars may be subject to change without notice.
Another problem with character named tropes is that the names don't specify what about these characters one is referring to. That it's called Hannibal Lecture narrows it down a bit, but still not enough. Is Hannibal scolding someone? Is he teaching at a university?
edited 20th Dec '11 5:33:34 PM by HiddenFacedMatt
"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart
Well, what did the Hannibal who sounds like Lecture do that could come to mind? I see the general point, but this must be one of the better-working examples.
All I have to say about that is that if there's some general argument all tropes named like this should be renamed, I can't say a lot to that. But if there are some that shouldn't, I say this is one that works. It has also as far as I can see entered the TV Tropes vocabulary pretty solidly, even if under the wrong definition; I think all the misuse testifies of either that or of it being in practice transparent (just not as meaning the old definition). It seems it has to be either one, because how else is everyone going to converge on a definition that isn't actually stated on the page? I'm also personally fond of the name.
It seems the polling is getting more and more clearly in favour of definition change. At what point can we go ahead with that?
Whatever he did, at this point, I'm not sure if any of it could accurately be called "lecturing".
But it doesn't work; if you titled a repair thread on this trope "A different definition seems widespread", if we acknowledge that the trope is misused and being interpreted to mean things other than its stated definition, then it can't be working.
edited 21st Dec '11 6:03:33 AM by SeanMurrayI
Avatars may be subject to change without notice.
Gentleman Troper!
Well, I did a search on that, and "Hannibal fan fiction" turns up numerous links for fanfiction of The A Team and Blade, both of which also have a popular character named Hannibal. That's just further evidence that this is not a good trope name.
(edit) hey look, Xiaolin Showdown and Alias Smith And Jones also have a Hannibal, and Star Trek has a spaceship by that name, too.
edited 21st Dec '11 7:36:20 AM by Spark9
Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!
"But it doesn't work; if you titled a repair thread on this trope "A different definition seems widespread", if we acknowledge that the trope is misused and being interpreted to mean things other than its stated definition, then it can't be working."
You miss the point. If everyone's already using it by a different definition — and yes, all the misuse I have seen would be correct under the same new definition —, then there's no problem as soon as the definition is changed. Then it works. It doesn't work by the more narrow definition that I want changed, but it works to identify some unified concept, works so well in fact that that has more influence on use than the stated definition on the page, and this is what I want the definition changed to reflect.
And this is also the thing I want to say right now to say to all the other objections. Empirically, the name is recognisable to a lot of people. Okay, maybe another thing too: It's just not always possible to come up with a trope name that tells everyone what the trope is about even before they read the description, because just about anything's ambiguous. It seems you are asking that of this. But what about when they come to the page and, in this case, read the quote from Hannibal Lecter? (I do not intend to remove it, I had some weird markup issues or something that caused me to leave it out of the new draft.) Then, if they're paying attention, they'll already have an idea before even getting to the definition. Combined with the name already being so widely known, that's about as good as it gets.
In principle possible, but I've never ran across an actual example of a problem like this. I'm not sure this particular concern in its own right even establishes proper names as having more ambiguous connotations than other words.
edited 28th Dec '11 4:40:40 AM by VVK
Anywho, can we declare the proposition currently under vote settled? I've never done that part, so I'm unsure about how it works, but by what guidelines I can find it seems this is quite enough to go through with the change.
edited 28th Dec '11 4:41:37 AM by VVK
No, the name still wouldn't work if we do that because the name Hannibal Lecture is still referring to something much more specific than your proposed new definition. If we're going to concede to the Trope Decay and modify the definition to fit the misuse, then we should change the name to better reflect those modifications, too. (OR we could just keep the original definition, give this a clearer name, and flush out the misuse)
Hannibal Lecture is already pretty non-indicative by ever stretch of the imagination, anyway, as several others have already pointed out. There's no reason the keep an unhealthy name that doesn't already work as it's supposed to, nor is there reason to keep the name for a trope definition which the name does not accurately reflect.
edited 28th Dec '11 7:29:52 AM by SeanMurrayI
The name does reflect accurately on the trope as much as it ever did - it's simply less limited now.
Trope is about bad guy turning tables on an interrogator via mindfuck. All that stuff about captured or not was not material. It is about the mindfuck. I've refocused the description on that point.
I believe this meets the direction the crowner took.
edited 28th Dec '11 4:53:35 PM by FastEddie
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
It's still written as an occurrence during Perp Sweating and interrogation scenarios.
That much should imply being in some state of custody, certainly being "cornered", so to speak, by a domineering interrogator who has the tables turned on himself. If anything, the new description retains the same exact definition as before; it's just better written (which I'm not complaining about, but if anyone was expecting this to be specifically "redefined", I wouldn't say that's what the new description achieves).
edited 28th Dec '11 5:37:03 PM by SeanMurrayI
Avatars may be subject to change without notice.
edited 31st Dec '11 6:40:42 AM by HiddenFacedMatt
"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart
Sure.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
That's the final word? What Sean Murray II says. It's also not what the crowner was about and not a solution to the problem. But I think the best thing for me now, since I sense complaining at this point is certainly not it, will be to go suggest a new trope with a clearer name that will be a supertrope to this one and that can be used to replace the misuses. I'll do that shortly. (As such, don't anyone start a cleanup of examples yet, as there will be a place for them.) Edit: it's now called "Break Them by Talking" in YKTTW.
Even though my suggestion didn't win out, thanks for putting the question finally to rest.
edited 2nd Jan '12 4:47:14 AM by VVK
Note that "turning tables" involves starting out behind... tables.
Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
It can be a table of power, or a table of morality.
The definition given is one of power: hero has it, villain doesn't, but turns that around.
The usage is one of morality: the hero believes he is in the moral right and the villain is wrong, but the villain turns the tables, making the hero doubt himself.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
It's not quite that simple, but it's a moot point now anyway.
Why are examples being cut and moved to a trope that hasn't even launched yet?
VVK, in these circumstances, it's better not to touch any of the wicks or examples for the page you're branching off from until after your YKTTW is launched.
Avatars may be subject to change without notice.
What trope?
edited 2nd Jan '12 5:41:04 PM by HiddenFacedMatt
"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart
I see. Well, actually, I don't really understand. Those examples should be removed from this page anyway, as per the decision reached here, regardless of whether or not I'm making a new trope. I am allowed to remove incorrect examples, right? I'm not sure what branching off from a page means, but are you sure I'm doing that? What are "these circumstances"?
The new one I'm proposing, as I said above, to clear up the misuse of this one.
edited 3rd Jan '12 4:21:54 PM by VVK
I'd just like to point out that, since the definition wasn't changed like I suggested, there are now lots of examples needing to be removed. That's right, isn't it? I already started doing that, but I managed to give everyone the wrong impression about what I was doing, and they ones I removed are now back. It would be nice if someone more experienced with the proper procedure could look into the matter.
Oh, right, that is to say, the examples removed from here are probably best at the same time also moved into the new trope once I get it started.
edited 4th Jan '12 12:05:27 PM by VVK
