Split Out Non-Canine Examples: Our Werewolves Are Different

As it stands right now, Our Werewolves Are Different is the only article we have for werecreatures. In theory, werecats, werepanthers, weretigers, and werebears should all go under this trope.

However, when I go to read the trope, I see a HUGE Wall of Text that consistently uses the word "wolf", with only one tiny mention of other types of were creatures is a few sentences toward the end. Supposing I wanted to look at a list of werecats, for example, I'd also have to do some careful digging in a big block of wolf examples to get a complete list.

Also, I've been looking at cleaning up Cat Girl and I've noticed that some werecats seem to be finding there way to Cat Girl instead of this trope.

I would propose one of the following:

1) Create a new trope or tropes for non-wolf were-like creatures, 2) Soft-split the non-canine examples from the canine examples, and make the discussion of non-canine possibilities more prominent in the description.

I could definitely see a supertrope for weres. The Were? Were Beast? YKTTW might be a better place, though. But it's worth some discussion first.

edit: I note it mentions bears and cats, but I'm pretty sure that both seals (the selkie of celtic mythology) and foxes (the Japanese kind whose name I can never remember) are extremely common too. We don't seem to have an article on The Selkie, but we do have a work (Selkie). I'm not sure about the fox.

edited 8th Aug '11 12:34:17 PM by Xtifr

We need to clean up the description, but the name is fine. Werewolves are by far the most common form of this trope.

The problem is that they are so common that all the other examples are getting lost in the flood of wolfiness. I'm thinking that Werecats, Werebears, etc need to be separated somehow, either as separate articles or at least clearly defined sections of this article.

The description is huge. I was thinking that a supertrope about were-creatures in general might give us someplace to stash the more generic information, and go in into a little more depth on the other common types of weres without expanding this already bloated article even further.

edit: ninja'd

edited 8th Aug '11 12:36:48 PM by Xtifr

I misspoke. The problem isn't that wolves are the most common, its that the other types are so incredibly rare that we're barely going to have any examples. Not to mention that if a work has more than one type of were-creature, it usually has about a dozen.

So, how many werebears are in Cat People?

If The Other Wiki can do it, surely we can do it better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fictional_werecats

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werecats#In_popular_culture

edited 8th Aug '11 12:47:39 PM by Auxdarastrix

Yes, I support splitting other Werebeasts off the werewolf article.

A quick search shows at least a dozen werecat examples buried in the Our Were Wolves Are Different article. I know there are also some at Cat Girl (which has a TRS thread right now) right now.

Selkies (wereseals) are actually pretty common too. I suspect on can put my hand on at least three works with selkies without half trying.

I discoved this abandoned YKTTW that started to do just this, but the guy that started it never really followed up on the initial proposal.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=zj96bvwnu06r898nct590dh8

So, what do we need to do?

Turn the current article into a supertrope (with the MASSIVE analysis) and make new separate articles for Wolves and Non-Wolves? Most logical, but also the most work.

Keep the current article, transform it into a wolf only article, create a new non-wolf article, and move the MASSIVE analysis somewhere else?

Keep the current article as is, but just create new subtrope specifically for non-wolfs, just like we have Wolf Man for a specific type of werewolf? I'm thinking this would be the easiest solution.

edited 8th Aug '11 1:08:11 PM by Auxdarastrix

Also, I would hesitate to loose the very good information in the article, and clearly someone worked hard on it, but the main page could be more concise. Could we move some of the descriptions of various types and characteristics of Werewolves to Analysis?

That last sounds ideal (I'm still thinking about your previous post).

Analysis or Useful Notes (depending).

edited 8th Aug '11 2:36:11 PM by Xtifr

Useful Notes is more for Real Life topics.

Honestly, we should just edit the article to Our Werebeasts Are Different then edit the contents.

No. The Difference family of tropes is about the same name of creature having a myriad of origins and perceptions. Werewolves qualify (as do dragons, and a few other mythical genii), but "werebeasts"? Nope, they're too different from each other.

edited 8th Aug '11 7:18:57 PM by Stratadrake

One could make the argument that having all those different types of werebeasts is what makes them different from the "ISO Standard Werewolf".

I think "other werecreatures" makes sense as a page.

But most of the werecreatures tend to follow the similar trend, and as someone posted, them being a non-wolf werecreature is itself an act of being different.

I can see arguments for not doing a hardsplit, but we should at least do a rename (Preserving the original name as a redirect, of course) and soft split if we want to keep non-wolves on the current page.

edited 9th Aug '11 5:02:41 AM by Auxdarastrix

I haven't been able to figure out how to make crowners, so a suggested crowner:

How do we deal with the nonwolf werecreatures?

—

Option 1: Rename Our Werewolves Are Different to "Our Werecreatures Are Different", rewrite the description to be less wolfcentric, and do a soft split of the wolf and nonwolf examples.

Pros: Least amount of work fixing wicks and inbounds.

Option 2: Create a spinoff subtrope for non-wolf werecreatures.

Pros: Allows for a smaller, more precise trope.

—

Eitherway, I'd be using the examples I'm collecting at the this YKTTW page.

edited 9th Aug '11 5:04:47 AM by Auxdarastrix

I lean toward the first option.

Option 3: have a werebeast supertrope, and that way we can, if we choose, make other subtropes (the selkie, or were-seal is very popular in Celtic Twilight stories).

edit: I can't believe we don't have Celtic Twilight; it's one of the most popular High Fantasy settings after the standard Tolkienesque one.

edit2: this is different from option 1 because it covers cases that aren't different from the set of werecreatures found in actual mythologies.

edited 9th Aug '11 7:56:31 AM by Xtifr

So, your Option 3 woud turn the current werewolves page into just werewolves, and we would put everything else either on the Werebeast supertrope, unless we have enough of a specific type to spin of a subtrope, such as a selkie subtrope or a werecat subtrope.

Yep. I am actually a fan of that option.