A few more Missing Supertropes which are needed

In #46 your proposal sounds like you are assigning a motivation: "a person (possibly a Combat Sadomasochist) who invokes Stripperiffic intentionally [...] as a "distraction tactic" (such as Maidman) or because they just get off on it.".

The existing "wears very little/nothing in combat" tropes mostly have nothing to do with motivation, so if you are interested in making a trope about the motivation (which is in itself a perfectly good idea), the existing tropes would not be subtropes of the new trope. If you are merely proposing a costume-based supertrope, that's different.

Actually, I did have it backwards. Stripperiffic would be the Super-Trope of that.

This is very inline with some things I've been pondering from previous discussions, including the hypothetical Chivalrously Acceptable Action Girl (such as the White Magician Girl, who is full on action but is presented as feminine and at least relatively delicate, despite being equally competent). I even thought of a scale of sorts:

Useless Damsel -> Useful Damsel and Plucky Girl -> support characters (invokes Guys Smash, Girls Shoot strongly, plus feminie steretoypes) -> Chivalrously Acceptable Action Girl -> Male Viewpoint Preferred Action Girl -> Stylish Action Girl -> Feminist Action Girl

Almost sounds as if there should be a Straw Feminist Action Girl at the end of that...

I've been thinking about the Magic Is Feminine trope mentioned in the OP for some time, and it seems to me the trope is more Magic Isnt Manly. In general, only females, young boys, and old men are magic users, unless we're talking about a Magic Knight. Male characters in their prime who are mages are often treated as less manly in some way - frail, cowardly, too gentle/sensitive, etc.

Anyway, that one's been percolating in my brain for some time, so stop me if I misunderstood the intent of that supertrope.

I don't know if magic is "dainty," per se, and I don't know if it'd count as a subtrope. But given that the trope was in effect for some older cultures (I seem to recall that runic language was supposed to be only for women in Norse Mythology, and Odin had to cross-dress in order to learn it), I think it's a valid trope on its own.

Ironic that you've brought that up, because I've recently been in contemplation about exactly how it should be defined, and while I had many of the same thoughts as you, there's another element I think we're missing.

Magic is "manly" when it's wild and raw physical force. Zeus throwing a lightning bolt is just as manly as Hercules with a battle axe. It's when you're talking about magic which isn't a force of nature, is more like science, or is just down right pretty, that it begins a slow decent to being unmanly or downright feminine.

You know, something just occurred to me: What is the purpose of this thread, exactly? Collecting possible missing supertropes and determine whether or not they're actually missing?

Well, that, and also to state that I need help, if the project is accepted.

I have a proposed supertrope in YKTTW for Out of Their League, an attempt to cover misuse of Ugly Guy, Hot Wife for guys who aren't ugly. I could use some help with it — perhaps collecting all current misuse to help populate the example list.

Sounds good. It also goes with this YKTTW which even has a red link in the description to yours.

Well, on my end for now, either we have a missing supertrope to Multiple Head Case that is more general in its coverage of polycephaly, or Multiple Head Case is unnecessarily narrow in definition ("multiple heads with their individually separate personalities and wills").

On that note, we seem to be missing an even higher Extra Body Parts supertrope to not only polycephaly, but also Extra Eyes, Vertebrate with Extra Limbs and its subtropes, and whatever other similar tropes that I have missed.

edited 22nd Apr '13 1:10:01 PM by MarqFJA

In addition, we may be missing a supertrope for Paid Harem and Royal Harem — and no, Harem Genre doesn't count.

Plain Harem, which currently is a disambig.

That oddly does not mention Paid Harem. <adds a line in a fix attempt> How does it look?

OK, either we are missing a supertrope for all forms of "eyes possess abnormal powers, magical or not", or someone somewhere forgot to make Magical Eye the (missing) supertrope to Eye Beams, Deadly Gaze, Hypnotic Eyes, X-Ray Vision, Aura Vision, True Sight, and anything else that I've missed.

Anyone got something to say about this?

edited 27th Jul '14 5:25:41 PM by MarqFJA

Moved to Long Term/Perpetual Projects per request.

Thanks.

Something else that occurred to me: I think we ought to make a stickied post that summarizes this thread's Missing Supertrope Syndrome-centric mission.

Suggested Women Make Better Parents would work better as a wider-scope Men Provide Women Nurture. WMBP actually is a subtrope to that. Other subtropes would include:

Straight plays:

• Bumbling Dad
• Feminine Women Can Cook
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals
• Housewife
• Kindly Housekeeper
• Parenting the Husband
• Raised by Dudes
• Real Men Hate Affection
• Team Mom

Subversions:

• Maternally Challenged

etc etc

(Notes to self:

• Men Act, Women Are
• Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty
• Men Provide Women Nurture
• Rough Men Delicate Women or Vulgar Men Refined Women
• Men Think Women Feel
• Aggressive Men Gentle Women
• Men Use Violence, Women Use Communication

That sounds like a trope, yeah.

Wow, this thread died all of a sudden. And that's despite it being listed in the directory.

Looking through the Heel/Face Index, I've come to realize that we might be missing what might be the core supertrope for said index — namely, a trope for the simple concept of a character changing their moral allegiance during the course of a story (as opposed to a metafictionally enforced change, as in the case of a Mirror Universe), regardless of what moralities are being switched between (i.e. is it good-to-evil or evil-to-good?) and whether or not the change is permanent, merely temporary, or the character switches moralities so many times that they come across as indecisive or even unwilling to adopt a morality on a long-term basis. Am I overthinking this, or am I actually on to something?

edited 18th Mar '18 11:58:19 AM by MarqFJA

Another attempt at reviving this thread.

Anyone else think that we might be missing a grand supertrope for all tropes about different kinds of war or armed conflict (Hopeless War, Forever War, Fantasy Conflict Counterpart, etc.)?

I don't really think "War" sounds like a trope, TBH.

Yeah, it's Like Reality, Unless Noted. War happens.

I was thinking about it as "war as the setting of the story (or a specific portion thereof) and/or a narrative event, whether in the present or the past". The way I imagine it, Armed Conflict would be at the top, being the common parent of both Civil War, a new trope provisionally called The War (for wars between states or the equivalent, rather than Civil War's internal conflicts), and any other kind of armed conflict-based trope that should be a sister to these two rather than a subtrope.

By that logic, Character Death shouldn't be a trope because "death happens", or more relevantly, Civil War shouldn't be a trope because "civil wars happen". Just because something is a fact of life in the real world — or at least can and does happen frequently enough to be a relatively familiar concept to the average person — doesn't preclude it from having narrative meaningfulness in a fictional context.

Edited by MarqFJA on Jul 3rd 2020 at 5:57:26 PM