TV Tropes - A Missed Focus?

By definition, a trope is a recurring motif in fiction, related to characters or the plot. A lot of "tropes" on this site either get dangerously close to People Sit On Chairs or totally miss that definition - a lot of them rely on audience reaction and subjectivity, represented by, among others, fetish tropes and YMMV tropes. That is incorrect - by the definition I mentioned above, a trope either happens or doesn't happen, a motif doesn't leave the medium it shows up in and goes into the audience's heads for it to be processed. Thus, the very concept of YMMV or subjective tropes is ridiculous.

Take fetish and fanservice tropes. Many of them have absolutely no significance to the work itself, but only to the audience. Let's take the first two tropes on the Fanservice index - Absolute Cleavage and Action Dress Rip. Absolute Cleavage, plot-wise, has no significance - a female character happens to have an outfit with a very deep decolte, which is meant to induce a certain audience reaction. Other charcters may comment on the outfit, but that is another trope. This, just like other examples of fanservice for the sake of fanservice, isn't a legitmate trope. On the other hand, Action Dress Rip has a clear context to the plot - a female character wearing a dress rips off the lower part for the sake of mobility. That is a trope. See the difference?

As for why the idea of subjective tropes is absurd, like I already mentioned - a trope either shows up or doesn't show up. If something is even vaguely subjective, it isn't a trope. Let's take Complete Monster. A complete monster is a character who is meant to induce utter revulsion in the audience and has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Just like with fanservice, it relies solely on the audience reaction (not to mention that a character without a single potentially sympathetic quality is almost impossible to find), which is why it's hard to find a universal consensus on the complete monsterdom of a character - just remember the Krusty Krabs shitstorm.

So, in my humble opinion, the wiki should try to direct its attention to the actual definition of tropes and what it entails.

I'm happy to see that I'm not the only person who thinks the wiki is rather unclear on precisely what it is supposed to document.

One thing that is clear to me, as a long-time passive reader, is that there are a lot of tropes that say "this story has x in it and x is cool, or sexy, or cute." These tropes are filled up with examples that are all the same and don't teach me anything new besides "this story has x in it." I mean, I guess hats and longcoats are cool, but stories aren't built up of things that are cool, or sexy, or cute. They're built of plot and storytelling. The cool/sexy/cute things are just frosting on a cake.

A recipe for baking a cake would be useless if the only things it showed you in detail were different ways to frost the cake, right?

One thing I'm sure I'm not alone on is the overuse of the "Badass X" suffix we keep getting all time time.

For example: lets take a look at Badass Longcoat, Badass Back, Badass Grandpa and Badass Adorable.

Badass Longcoat is a valid trope, in my mind. It serves a purpose in that it is often sensible attire for most of the characters that wear it (be it to conceal and store weapony, serve as protection etc). And it's a character archetype quirk that's been solidified since the Western and the crime drama.

Badass Back is also a valid trope, because it's something a character does in a fight scene, and even in normal character interaction. It shows arrogance, aloofness and an "like i give a shit" attitude, which can make the receiving party react accordingly.

Badass Grandpa is not a valid trope. Its an old man that just so happens to be badass. Neither is Badass Adorable. Its just a cute over the top thing.

The problem is that certain things are clearly repeated patterns in media, but it isn't always possible to know for sure what they represent. We can't rely on authorial intent. Some tropes exist unconsciously, come from a group of writers, or are culturally enforced rather than being inserted deliberately by a single writer with a stated, recorded reason for using that trope. On that topic, most of the creators of works on the wiki did not have access to a website that catalogs tropes, so they weren't using enumerated tropes off a list.

Plot isn't the totality of a work of fiction. A Merchandise-Driven work or a porn movie doesn't have a plot or characters worth talking about. Should our article focus solely on the plot anyway? Some things might not seem like tropes because they have no clear impact on the story, but it's just that they don't have as obvious a meaning.

On subjectivity, a lot of the tropes we have as subjective aren't actually subjective, it's just that on a wiki that anyone can edit, they might as well be.

Edit: @Schitzo, there's a thread in this subforum for fixing and removing Badass tropes.

edited 31st Jan '12 4:40:38 PM by Treblain

We have been moving the YMMV (subjective) things off to that namespace, and should continue to do so. They are things which should be kept separate from tropes.

We do have people who misunderstand the difference between a storytelling convention and things that are just in a lot of stories. Like specific lines of dialog, or physical attributes. The desire to list these comes, I think, from them thinking that what we're doing here is listing clichés.

There are Special Efforts underway to address all these issues. Please lend a hand. Stop by that sub forum.

edited 31st Jan '12 4:42:35 PM by FastEddie

Do also remember that not all tropes need to be Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory deep. Sometimes a trope is just telling you "this character is supposed to be sexy" or "this character is the protagonist" and that's all right. Not every trope needs to have deep meaning. Some tropes are shallow because some media is shallow.

Good point.

And the "badass" clean-up thread has stalled a bit, so any help anyone wants to give it would be much appreciated (I can't really post today).

Best thing to do about this is to hang out in YKTTW and nip the PSOC in the bud.