I can't spot a clear difference between the two.
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Agreed.
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Support merge.
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No, the other one.
Those two are one trope. Is it a subtrope or sister trope of Broken Bridge?
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I agree; those two are the same trope.
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Plot Lock seems a little more specific than Locked Door. Many examples of Locked Door might do better on Broken Bridge instead (or even Interchangeable Antimatter Keys).
Locked Door still sounds too much like People Sit On Chairs, so I'm in favor of eliminating it.
No, the other one.
It's a device used in games to control where you go, and in which order. It's a clear trope.
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What you've described is a clear trope, but insufficiently distinct from Broken Bridge.
No, the other one.
Are you assuming I described the full trope?
edited 13th Aug '12 8:06:06 PM by AnotherDuck
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If you didn't, please do. With some emphasis on its relation to Broken Bridge (which is a widely encompassing trope in itself).
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The name Locked Door is pretty bad in any case. It sounds like it could be referring to all sorts of locked door situations, including Locked Room Mystery.
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No, the other one.
It seems to me to be a subtrope of Broken Bridge when it's an actual door (or gate, or some kind of entrance with a lock) and you need to find the key to proceed; nothing too complicated. A Broken Bridge is anything stopping your progress in a certain direction, so you need to get the McGuffin or something to proceed.
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That's assuming "the key" exists in the singular, which in many video games is not the case—and that obviously isn't a Broken Bridge situation.
And something that's used to proceed doesn't qualify as a MacGuffin (at least by the classic definition).
edited 16th Aug '12 8:26:32 PM by Prfnoff
No, the other one.
If it's not a McGuffin, it's that something I also mentioned.
That part where you can use Interchangeable Antimatter Keys was why I wondered if it was a subtrope or a sister trope.
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Is "locked doors that you should reasonably be able to break down" a trope that we have? If it isn't, it should be.
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Made of Indestructium would probably be the closest.
Yeah, this is a pointless supertrope to Broken Bridge, Plot Lock, Made of Indestructium, and so on. The only thing notable about a locked door is when there's something odd about it, like that you can't unlock it with your 100% Lockpicking skill or kick it down despite being visibly rotten.
edited 25th Sep '12 7:15:32 AM by Escher
Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence covers obstacles you should be reasonably able to circumvent or remove but can't.
Clock is in place.
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Hook-eed.
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Woah. Wait a minute here. I'm going to have to strongly disagree with the proposed merge on this crowner. It should be the other way around if anything. Locked Door is both the better name (since it usually is totally unrelated to the actual plot, so it makes no sense to have "Plot" in the title) and the better definition (Plot Lock, as written, is just Broken Bridge + Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence). Also, the usage for Locked Door is significantly higher in both wicks and inbounds.
Plot Lock is the problem here, not Locked Door. If we're ditching one of them, that's the one that needs to go. Locked Door has a solid definition and healthy usage and does not need to be tossed out.
This would be an especially poor decision when you take into account that these aren't even duplicates. Plot Lock has nothing to do with locks.
edited 14th Dec '12 5:45:38 AM by troacctid
Rhymes with "Protracted."
So in other words, we can keep them separate?
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Hmm, I think they should be merged. I'm not seeing any difference. But I agree that Locked Door is clearly the far healthier and clearer trope:
Locked Door found in: 144 articles, excluding discussions.
Since January 1, 2012 this article has brought 415 people to the wiki from non-search engine links.
Plot Lock found in: 24 articles, excluding discussions.
Since January 1, 2012 this article has brought 130 people to the wiki from non-search engine links.
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.- Locked Door: Stock video game obstacle where a locked door blocks your path and you bypass it by finding a key.
- Plot Lock: A Fridge Logic trope where a Broken Bridge is also an Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence (probably inspired by a troper thinking "Isn't it weird how if you're a master lockpicker, you still can't get past a Locked Door?" but otherwise unrelated to locked doors).
Does that help clear it up?
Rhymes with "Protracted."
Crown Description:
What would be the best way to fix the page?
Locked Door and Plot Lock seem to be identical in scope: a door in a video game which serves as a Broken Bridge and can only be unlocked when the appropriate quest is completed, even though the player may have abilities or equipment which ought to make it trivially openable.
I propose merging Locked Door into Plot Lock and keeping the title as a redirect.
edited 12th Aug '12 12:13:02 PM by IronLion