Problems: Named after a real-life person who is erroneously associated with the trope's primary quote, obscure name with no obvious meaning that relates to the definition, and a magnet for Zero Context Example wicks.

Wick check results (50 wicks out of 123 total):

29 Unclear (mostly Zero Context Examples):

• Agatha Christie Bibliography
• Characters.Bioshock
• Characters.Buffy The Vampire Slayer Antagonists
• Characters.Care Bears
• Chaos Walking
• Chaotic Evil
• Cunning Like a Fox
• Characters.Dilbert
• Characters.Disney Villains
• Edelweiss
• Florence Of Arabia
• Characters.I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream
• Mad Men
• Minder
• Neutral Evil
• New First Comics
• Perfectly Cromulent Word
• Characters.Power Academy
• Characters.Psych (including the main article's wick)
• Seven Faces Of Dr Lao
• Video Game.Spore
• Tactics
• Characters.The Flash
• The Music Man
• The Princess and the Frog
• The Sky Tides
• The Winter's Tale
• Characters.Touhou Windows One
• Characters.Unfettered

9 Incorrect (most of them appear to be assuming that "Con Man" equals "The Barnum"):

• Characters.Star Wars The Old Republic
• Characters.Suikoden II
• Characters.Suikoden V
• The Princess And The Frog
• The Thief Of Always
• Transformers: Generation 1 ("apparently a con man"? Definitely not this trope.)
• Beam Me Up, Scotty! (The Barnum is not a Sink Hole for every time P.T. Barnum is mentioned, people)
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy (ditto)
• Decades Of Darkness (third time)

12 Correct (as far as I can tell, anyway):

• Characters.Inu Yasha (borderline; the entry description seems to fit, but it clashes with what I know/have seen of the character's personality and his Hidden Heart of Gold.)
• Ranma ½ (and yes, I'm lumping both this wick and the character sheet's own as one collective wick, for obvious reasons)
• Tabletop Game/Scion
• The A-Team
• The A-Team
• Characters.Transformers Animated
• Characters.Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines
• Badass Family (it's about Nabiki Tendo, who is a correct example)
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing (ditto)
• Manipulative Bastard (ditto again)
• Money Fetish (... Four Is Death?)
• Characterization Marches On (fifth time, only it's an unrelated, non-Rumicverse character that is compared to Nabiki Tendo)

Conclusion: This trope really needs a new, truly indicative name.

For what's it worth, I've found an already-existing alt-titles crowner for this trope.

edited 18th Feb '12 4:00:01 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Shameless Shyster would be a perfect name

Shyster? I usually hear that referring to lawyers. Are people thinking of "shuckster"?

I feel guilty because the first person that popped into my head was the Fable character.

"A shyster is a slang word for someone who acts in a disreputable, unethical, or unscrupulous way, especially in the practice of law, politics or business."

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

See, when I hear "Shyster", I think of Irwin R.

Shameless Shuckster could work.

"Stealing is a crime and drugs is a crime too BUT if you steal drugs the two crimes cancel out and it’s like basically doing a good."

Looks like shyster can cover this, but if people associate the word with "lawyer," many will mistake this for Amoral Attorney. All the positive examples on urban dictionary mention lawyers. Dictionary.com puts "shady lawyer" as the primary meaning.

Shameless Con Man, Shameless Con Artist, Shameless Trickster... *shrug*

edited 19th Feb '12 6:19:31 AM by Willbyr

How does Consummate Con Man sound? The primary aspect of this trope appears to be that the character lives for/on being a Con Man.

edited 19th Feb '12 6:47:07 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Consummate, to me, means exceptional, the epitome of whatever...for what the trope sounds like, I think Shameless works better.

Well, other than the shamelessness whenever confronted about their unscrupulous activities, this character does sound like an epitome of the Con Man to me. How about Shamelessly Consummate Con Man, then?

edited 19th Feb '12 10:23:02 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

We have a Con Man trope. We don't want a name that will be confused with that.

This is "A trickster-philosopher who lives by pandering to people's greed and gullibility."

Edit: Wait what? Is Con Man an index or or a character type trope? Oy vey... Another candidate for TRS.

edited 19th Feb '12 11:18:10 AM by Catbert

The description reads like a Super-Trope to me, though whoever made it obviously did a rather poor job of avoiding ambiguitiy, having written "tropes" instead of "subtropes".

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Trickster And Thinker, then? Trickster And A Philosopher?

I don't think a new name is enough. We also need a better description, because I'm having a hard time figuring out how this compares to our other trickster tropes.

I think it would be easier to trope the kinds of swindles the real Barnum would pull, rather than the actual person who does the swindling.

I think this trope could be a lot broader than just con-men. Don't a lot of magicians basically fit this type? Take Derren Brown. He fits the description perfectly, but he's a mentalist/hypnotist/magician/TV personality.

If we could come up with a much broader name, this could potentially be a heavily-used trope.

edited 19th Feb '12 3:00:48 PM by abk0100

Catbert: Which tropes did you have in mind?

I don't know about Catbert's issue, but I can share mine.

All the description tells me is The Same But More, Con Man who is happy. Which means the only Con Man who doesn't fit, is one who regrets his actions. We have a trope for criminals who regret their past, and wish to change?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Hukster. Shukster is not a word.

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

For a bit of history, this used to be called Humphrey.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070505070715/https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Humphrey

---

A trickster-philosopher, who lives by pandering to people's greed and gullibility. Not only does he never feel guilty about it, he will be offended by suggestions that he stop. If people want to be tricked, who is he to say no?

The true mark of a Humphrey is how serene and happy they are, despite what they do every day. They have reached a cynic's nirvana.

Named for two Humphreys: Sir Humphrey Applebee of Yes Minister, and Mr. Humphries of Are You Being Served? Sir Humphrey had a cynical motto for everything ("Gratitude is merely the expectation of future reward," "The Official Secrets Act exists to protect officials, not secrets"), and was always cool — except when some honesty broke into his perfect world. Mr. Humphries knew how ridiculous his job was, and did it just as absurdly as he was supposed to. After all, he was never the one who had to face the consequences — that was the boss or the customers.

edited 22nd Mar '12 5:02:15 AM by Catbert

Honestly, I think we need to scrap this page and start from scratch. The description is incoherent and most of the examples are bad.

Create a trope for showmen/advertisers that make their living off of exagerated claims, dubious advertising, and sometimes even down right hoaxes. Those are the traits I would associate with PT Barnum. Give the new page a new name. The Barnum can be a redirect to that.

I think you're on to something there.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Bump. Should we cutlist this and YKTTW it anew?