Split and/or Create Supertrope: Zettai Ryouiki

Yeah, it really becomes tiresome when people just take the same thing to TRS over and over again. It really feels like they are just trying to push an agenda instead of letting the decisions stand.

Personally, I didn't know there had already been a thread on this. So even though I didn't start this thread, I supported starting it so we could stop talking about it on a Wiki Talk thread where it came up. Either way, if someone like me who didn't get the chance to participate last time wants to discuss it, are we to just shut up because other people already talked about it? Maybe new shit has been brought to light, and new decisions might need to be made. There's a lot of ins and outs, man.

Also, I'm not gonna read through 500 plus posts just to glean some little bit of relevant information. Sorry, I spend a lot of time on this site but I don't have that much time.

edited 3rd Apr '12 9:32:54 AM by Martello

Glad I actually wander in here for a change :D

I don't want it changed at all, catbert. But there was a lot of argument in wiki talk and special efforts about it, so much that the threads were being derailed. Some said it violated the new lewd rules and some said it didn't.

edited 3rd Apr '12 9:32:43 AM by animeg3282

Not only that, but policies have changed since the last TRS thread. Most notably our policy on lewdness, for which this trope was very nearly cut. But also our policy on unnamed "types" in tropes, which the grades arguably fall under.

Should we have not discussed ZR a year ago because it had been in the TRS a year before that? Or six months before that one?

edited 3rd Apr '12 9:32:50 AM by ccoa

Isn't there a policy about waiting like a year after previous action in TRS. Also the trope was edited for creepiness once before, if's the trope is creepy again restoring the description and cleaning the examples should be the solution.

ccoa, if the sole purpose of this thread is to discuss the types in light of the restriction on trope typing, then perhaps we need to limit discussion to that.

Not discuss renames et al.

However, the last thread already discussed concerns about creepiness, in light of the preexisiting concerns about having fetish pages. After 500+ comments worth of discussion and a crowner vote between multiple possible descriptions, the page was put into its current form. There isn't any reason to change the current discription in light of creepiness. That has already been fixed.

edited 3rd Apr '12 9:42:40 AM by Catbert

People claim that the current description (which was voted on in the last thread) is creepy even though we voted on it and it won by a land slide.

As well as people are against the Grade system which was kept so people wouldn't have to go into detail about legs, since we controlled the wording explaining the types. (If we get rid of the grades though I feel that creepyness in the examples will float back in.... but that is just me)

If we do get rid of the grades we will have to do something about Grade S and its intersection with Tsundere and Twin Tails... I tried to get that split off in the last crowner but that failed. (some thought Shana Clone covered that but its only part of that trope, and the grade S trope maker isnt even a Shana Clone.)

edited 3rd Apr '12 9:48:17 AM by Raso

Well, I think types A and B work at this for the sake of efficiency.

Also, I'd only tweak the description a little as far as creepiness goes. As for the west-east thing, I really have no clue.

I don't believe anyone actually proposed a rename. People just automatically assume any thread about ZR is about a rename.

Just because the TRS made a decision, it doesn't follow that it fixed the problem. We can't disallow tropes coming back if they may still be broken, or were broken by TRS action. That would be foolish.

edited 3rd Apr '12 9:49:59 AM by ccoa

I proposed a rename. But we can finish with the "needs help" part first and then discuss if a rename is needed.

65,000 inbounds are not getting a rename, just like Vasquez Always Dies will not.

But yeah, topic. West and east seems to be the biggest debate right now.

It's also a very Japanese concept like Tsun Dere

^ It's not like there's no such thing as Western tsunderes. Hell, I can even point out lampshadings of the trope from Robert Heinlein books from the early 60s. So it's perfectly reasonable that there'd be western examples of this trope as well.

I've got to say that the 1920s "flappers rolling their stockings down to show the skin of the thigh" thing is largely one of those "OMG the youth of today is out of control!!!" situations rather than an actual fashion phenomenon. Very few women actually did it, because it was a bit beyond acceptable limits, but the media looooved talking about it (in scandalized tones), for that very reason. I haven't ever seen a photograph of that that wasn't posed (usually for deliberate cheesecake). Now, moving the garters down so they would show when the skirt was lifted a bit, that seems to have been a real thing.

I do think that the idea of Zettai Ryouiki as a) something that can be combined with otherwise-unexceptional dress and behavior to provide "chaste" fanservice and b) something standardized that can be manipulated, is specifically Japanese.

I went through all 22 pages of the last TRS thread. I cannot find any mention of Japanese vs. Western use of the trope. The thread seems to pre-assume that it's an anime thing.

^ Lebrel, where does that leave the many Western examples, many of which predate anime as a cultural phenomenon?

edited 3rd Apr '12 10:10:20 AM by ccoa

I meant in that the concept plus naming has no real western equivalent other than saying stockings but the concepts behind ZR, don't have the same concepts that stockings do in the west. Being in the west the concept is generally "those are clothes we put on our feet and legs" making it no more trope worthy than say a sweaters or T-shirts, but Japan has developed this deep/weird conceptually meaning relating to age/growing up, length and attitudes towards them.

edited 3rd Apr '12 10:11:46 AM by Vyctorian

If you don't think thigh-high stockings are fetishized in the west, with or without the short skirt, you're not paying enough attention to Western media. :P

But ccoa has demonstrated that it happens in the west as well. Neither Tsundere or Zettai Ryouiki appears exclusive to any culture.

I'm not talking about fetishization, there is much more to ZR than that I had to do research into it during the last time we TRS this. Believe me there is much more to it than that, see my edited above post.

You will not believe how many essays are written based on the Japanese view of this concept.

edited 3rd Apr '12 10:13:37 AM by Vyctorian

I've already posted Western examples with the same symbolism. (Why do I have to keep repeating myself about this?)

Although it's worth pointing out that "for fanservice" is not chairs.

The same non-fetish symbolism, cause I live in the west and I can say there is pretty much none outside of "stockings are super sexy".

edited 3rd Apr '12 10:25:04 AM by Vyctorian

I pointed out examples with the same symbolism that is listed on the page (innocent sexuality). Why is this idea being resisted so much? Is it because you fear that making the page non-anime centric might open the door a sliver to a rename?

Living in the West does not make you an expert on how tropes are used in the West. I live in the West, as well. And I've been known to be wrong about tropes in the past (shocking, I know).

I don't like what your insulating nor your accusations. They are uncalled for, unappropriated, unprofessional and have nothing to do with the issue at hand.

You are putting words in my mouth and making WMG-style assumptions on my views and character, and I will not stand for that.

edited 3rd Apr '12 10:30:29 AM by Vyctorian

It wasn't intended to be an insult. It was a genuine and sincere attempt to understand why, despite having posted examples from Western media (some of which predate the trope namer) that have the same symbolism put forth by our own trope page, multiple people still insist that it's used differently in the West.

If it's fear of renaming that's the problem, then I want to be able to reassure people that that is not my aim.

EDIT: Back on topic, can anyone then explain how it's used differently in the West, in a way that fits the Western examples?

edited 3rd Apr '12 10:36:01 AM by ccoa