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Are "MediaAdaptationTropes" actually tropes? It seems no.

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LordGro (Old as dirt)
#1: Jun 24th 2012 at 1:06:50 PM

After adding a few adaptation-related items to the Trivia crowner, it occurred to me that virtually all the items on Media Adaptation Tropes don't really fit the definition of "trope" — they are not storytelling tools.

Adaptational Villainy, Death by Adaptation, or Promoted to Love Interest and all those other tropes that refer to changes between an original and its adaptation are not inherent to the adaptation (nor the original work) itself. Within the context of the work they're featured in, an Adaptational Badass is just a Badass, and an Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole is just a Plot Hole.

But if they aren't tropes, what actually are they, and how to deal with them? Are they all Trivia, or should they be considered "meta-tropes"?

[Edit: Plot Hole was misspelled as Pot Hole...]

edited 27th Jun '12 1:43:46 PM by LordGro

tbarrie Since: Jan, 2001
LordGro (Old as dirt)
#3: Jun 27th 2012 at 12:30:49 PM

Bumping for more responses.

Admittedly I feel scrupulous about submitting a whole index to the Trivia crowner. It seems there are a lot of such tropes (?) not inherent to the work on the wiki that don't have the Trivia tag. Take One-Hit Wonder, Shown Their Work, All-Star Cast ... all these are not storytelling tools. Yet many of these have already been voted down on the Trivia crowner (so they didn't get the trivia status).

Shouldn't the criteria of what is trivia and what isn't be objective? I know we use a somewhat looser definition of "trope" than is usual, but it seems to me all the "adaptation changed something", or real life observations about a work like One-Hit Wonder, are not tropes even in a loose definition [apart from the rather rare cases where these occur in-story].

jkbeta from right behind you Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
#4: Jun 27th 2012 at 1:22:58 PM

If we define a trope as a story-telling tool, I'd say there are a number of pages on Media Adaptation Tropes that are actual tropes. For example:

There may be more, so I don't think the whole index should be submitted to trivia. Some of the other tropes are trivia in my opinion, though. For example:

Yet others I'm not sure about - they may be tropes or trivia depending on usage (e.g., Adaptation Distillation).

KJMackley Since: Jan, 2001
#5: Jun 27th 2012 at 10:20:19 PM

Trivia is for things that you will only find looking through interviews/articles about the media or checking through the background of a particular individual (using imdb). YMMV is for things that are debatable or exist only to catalog audience response. Main tropes are about elements that are objectively present within the work (and things related to the work such as tie-in material and trailers).

With adaptations the tropes are things that cause a contrast between a media as it shifts from one medium to another. They are definitely used by the writers in the exact same manner as "regular" tropes, and in watching both stories the audience can see the comparison. For instance "I am combining these characters for the sake of efficiency, since one character was not badass but more important to the plot, I will give the new character his name but with the badass skills of the other."

You can make that same kind of rational (looking at it from a writers perspective) for ALL main tropes, while YMMV can sometimes be invoked but are often unintentional. When it comes to Trivia those are simply not visible within the work itself (such as Throw It In, it is unlikely it is going to point out that something was not scripted).

DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#6: Jun 28th 2012 at 1:43:51 PM

I don't understand the objection. It seems clear to me that Media Adaptation Tropes are used by the writers who are creating the adaptation (knowingly or not). To the extent that the original work influences the adaptation, then these would seem to be perfectly legitimate tropes.

edited 28th Jun '12 1:44:18 PM by DeMarquis

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
RJSavoy Reymmã from Edinburgh Since: Apr, 2011 Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Reymmã
#7: Jun 30th 2012 at 10:06:08 AM

Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole should be on the same level as Plot Hole. In both cases, we're referring to something unintentional that is mistake on the part of the author's, or at least they don't care to remove it. In both cases, they are not tropes in the sense of a storytelling tool. But one is a subtrope of the other, in which a compressed adaptation had to cut out some explanations.

Most of the others seem to me to be tropes, covering storytelling decisions, only covering the changing of a story between media instead of making a story from scratch. I see no need to move them to trivia.

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