The Dark Magical Girl is usually a foil to a main character. That should definitely be in the description.
It is. The opening paragraph: "A Magical Girl is a force for good and light. But every bright light has a shadow. Every virtue has a Dark Side. The Dark Magical Girl is this for the Magical Girl. Every virtue that powers a Magical Girl is twisted to serve evil as the Dark Magical Girl. "
And it's repeated again later: "Inevitably, the Dark Magical Girl will fight the Magical Girl, acting as her Evil Counterpart or Shadow Archetype,"
And again when discussing powers: "The abilities of the Dark Magical Girl are often the polar opposite to the Magical Girl. "
People can't figure out that means the Dark Magical Girl is a foil to the Magical Girl?
As for the costume debate: "One common way of signalling a Dark Magical Girl is her outfit is usually slightly more fetishy and dark, which might explain why a Heel Face Turn doesn't always mean a switch in costume. "
Which is pretty accurate as far as I can tell.
I'm pretty well satisfied with the current description the way it is. What exactly do people think it is deficient in?
Honestly I don't think this is a trope. I think it's just Dark Counterpart + Magical Girl. I don't really see anything different in the Magical Girl variant from any other variant of Dark Counterpart + Character trope.
SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)First and foremost: We don't have Dark Counterpart yet, so cutting this before that gets launched would be silly.
However, even after its launched, I still think this a valid subtrope. It's not just Dark Counterpart + Magical Girl. It's a number of specific tropes detailing the DMG's emotional state compared to the MG's, and so.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.I never suggested cutting the page before it was launched. Of course we can't do that.
Still, I just thing the fact that we have examples that are "Dark Magical Girl except she's not a Magical Girl" sort of proves that it's not Magical Girl specific. I would suggest either adding adding a line in the Dark Counterpart page about the Magical Girl genre using this often, and that there is costume and magic differences involved, (which as far as I can tell is probably the only special thing), and another on the Magical Girl character page about a Dark Counterpart version of Magical Girl is a popular adversary to the heroic magical Girl, and that would be it.
edited 10th Nov '11 7:25:55 PM by NoirGrimoir
SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)![]()
What examples do we have of "Dark Magical Girl but not a Magical Girl?" Wouldn't not being a Magical Girl mean that you can't be a Dark Magical Girl?
I mean.. the name of the trope sort of presupposes that the chracter is a dark version of the Magical Girl.
That's a trope. It's clearly has examples. It's Invoked for goodness sakes. How can something be invoked, lampshaded, and otherwise played with, and not be a trope?
edited 12th Nov '11 11:31:50 AM by Sackett
Which is why we cut them. And why we are creating a supertrope for them to fit in.
Why exactly does that lead to the conclusion that we should cut Dark Magical Girl?
I just think trope combinations don't need their own page unless Trope A + Trope B equates to something significantly more than it's parts. Basically if there isn't something really special or unique to the two tropes being in one that we can't sum up in a sentence or two, then I see no point. We might as well have a trope page for every single combination of tropes there is, if that's the case.
It's not that Magical Girl + Dark Counterpart isn't a trope, it just seems really pointless to me to have a page for it when basically the entirety of what the character is all about can be summed up by saying Dark Counterpart + Magical Girl. I say just soft split the magical girl character page with Dark Counterparts and add like a paragraph about it, then move all these examples there. They can get their own folder. It would also probably help with people thinking Dark Magical Girl is a Black Magician Girl.
And all the stuff that was cut for not being a Magical Girl we can move to Dark Counterpart.
edited 12th Nov '11 4:31:04 PM by NoirGrimoir
SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)![]()
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There are plenty of Super Hero specific tropes that can only apply to Superheroes. And Magical Girl is akin to superheroes in many respects.
However I agree with shima DM Gs get the treatment that is on the page right now they are more than just a Magical Girl's rival and so many other things in common. (There are a few that might eschew one or two elements here and there but rarely and usually in an attempt to deconstruct the character type.)
This is the Magical Girl equivalent of a Char Clone. (Which is a highly copied Mecha character type which most common form is the rival.) Unlike Char Clone, which can be traced to well Char, Magical Girl started as as just a collection of shows by Toei and built the genre in stages and it evolved gradually, not sure if there even is an Ur-Example to the Dark Magical Girl.
This is a pre existing term for a pre existing trope and character type... We did not create it the Japanese did and they were troping long before this place. (And before anyone says anything it's not Japanese specific... See Luna in My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic.) cutting it or fucking it up is a really bad idea.
edited 12th Nov '11 5:08:54 PM by Raso
Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!
Agreed. Anything that does not fit the definition should either be deleted, moved to more appropriate tropes, or if there are enough that fit the same definition that we do not have, create a new trope and it put there.
EDIT
By the way, since the examples have been cleaned and I'm the first person to post in a month, can we lock this thread up?
edited 29th Dec '11 1:18:36 PM by ChaoticNovelist

If you are speking about the necessity of the title's show to contain Mahou Shoujo, then I don't understand your Nanoha example, which has for title Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha.