Rename (28/9/12): Shallow Love Interest

Obligatory Love Interest seems ambiguous and doesn't seem to imply that the character is underdeveloped/flat. Undeveloped Love Interest sounds like it could be the love, not the character, that's undeveloped. A Will They or Won't They? plot that never gets resolved. Satellite Love Interest could work, but it seems a bit obscure. My favorite suggestion so far is Merely A Love Interest. But since this seems to be a subtrope of Flat Character, we might just want to use Flat Love Interest.

I like Merely A Love Interest and Satellite Love Interest. The latter reminds of Satellite Character which this character usually is (maybe its even a subtrope?)

edited 14th Aug '12 6:32:36 PM by kundoo

The trope is a companion to Token Romance and Romantic Plot Tumor, where a characters entire role in a story is defined by being a love interest. It's not to say they are horrible characters or a detriment to the story, but the very concept leads to a lot of strong feelings, especially in the area of the objectification of women or the lack of a strong female presence. I don't see anything really destructive about the name OR trope, any problems with it can be fixed with an easy clean-up.

There is some suggestive evidence of misuse, and we've got a plausible reason for a lot of that misuse, to wit, the name. I think it's at least worth investigating a little deeper before we sign off on the current name.

Is it more than just Token Romance Character?

Reading the description, it seems like it. If it's a staple of harem series, it usually means the character has some significance to at least some plots, especially if it's one of the more notorious harem members. Removing those characters would change the plot significantly, but they can still have a characterisation that depends solely on them being love interests.

It could be possible to split or soft split based on if the character has a significant role in the plot.

edited 15th Aug '12 8:36:33 AM by AnotherDuck

I think there are two crucial points here: firstly, the romance need not be token, but the character is both a flat stereotype (usually "is nice to the protagonist") and gets no attention outside of the relationship. Secondly, it's not about whether you like the character or the romance, it comes from the approach taken by the writer: the protagonist, who exists in their own right, deserves love, and this the only reason for the love interest to exist.

I added the Yuki-chan example, feel free to remove it if anyone feels it doesn't qualify. Kyon gets genuine attention, it's just that there's no moment I can point to that makes him anything other than "nice guy for Yuki to pine after".

The Puella Magi Madoka Magica example will probably have to go. Homura isn't really shallow, she's a minimalist character (remember this is a twelve episode, plot-driven series and only the last three give her any focus). She has no backstory and hardly any subtleties, but she is crucial to the plot and by the end she is the main character.

I don't think this needs a rename, but maybe a tighter definition. I'm actually surprised it has examples at all.

The point about Homura was that, despite being a decently developed character, she still fits the definition of the trope that says "their entire personality revolves around the sole fact that they dig said main character", which is why I say that regardless of what we do, the trope needs a better description. Being "shallow or vague" is kind of vague in itself, which is one problem, and the line after which I quoted above seems like it tries to define what that means, as it does seem like an appropriate description for what "shallow" can mean, in a one-track kinda way.

Or in other words, she may fit the description of the trope, but maybe not the definition of the trope. Depending on what we agree on here.

Ok, here's a wick check. 50 semi-random examples (I started at the top, and then skipped down by around five or six each time). For the Zero Context Example cases, if there was a character sheet, I checked that to see if I could get more info.

Seems more-or-less correct:

• Characters.All Grown Up - an aversion, but the meaning is correct
• Assassin Fantastic
• Characters.Avatar The Last Airbender Other Characters
• Characters.Bambi
• Ben 10: Alien Force
• Betty and Veronica
• Brows Held High
• Characters.Bulbagarden The Fanfic
• Catwoman
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome
• City Dragon
• Dark Mistress
• Characters.Disney Princess
• Don Quixote
• Edison

Seems to refer to shallow characters or shallow love (casual relationship or Designated Love Interest):

• Any Questions for Ben?
• Azure Dreams
• Characters.Being Human - "Appears to have gotten her brains from her father."
• Characters.Black Butler - a "subversion" [sic] because she's "hiding that side of her personality".
• Bunny and the Bull
• Chickification
• Deadman Wonderland - "inverted" when she "passes herself off as this".
• DearS
• Everlost - had to check the history to get context here. Appears to be Designated Love Interest.

Borderline:

• Damsel Scrappy - potholed to "too bland", which isn't quite the same thing, but is at least in the ballpark

Ambiguous

• Headscratchers.Action Girl - seems to suggest that an action girl can't be a shallow love interest, which is just odd.
• Dresses.Berserk - another contrast between this an action girl.
• Brainless Beauty - bordering on Zero Context Example
• Characters.Chasing Time - character has a lot of tropes listed, suggesting this is misuse.
• CharacterDerailment.Comic Books - another contrast between this and action girl
• Corpse Bride - possibly correct, but the description makes it sound like this was intended as misuse.
• Deconstruction - seems to be referring to shallow love, but it's not exactly clear.

Zero Context Example (usually just a name; sometimes not even that):

• Abarat
• A Farewell to Arms
• Airborne
• Angels And Demons
• An Inspector Calls
• Beautiful Void
• Blood Ninja
• Bob's Burgers
• Brazil - I suspect this is Designated Love Interest
• Bring It On
• Casper
• Code Geass: Awesome of the Rebellion
• Confessions Of A Teenage Drama Queen
• Curious George - listed as an aversion; I suspect it's averting shallow character
• Characters.Demashita Powerpuff Girls Z
• Designated Hero
• Dumm Comics

Zero Context Example referring to a main character (almost certainly misuse):

• Attack of the Giant Leeches

That last example makes me wonder: if all the characters are flat, can you really single one out as a Shallow Love Interest? I would tend to say no.

Anyway, that's 18% outright misuse, no matter how you cut it, and only 30% unambiguously correct. I think we have an actual problem here. We generally start worrying at around 10% misuse.

edited 15th Aug '12 2:46:21 PM by Xtifr

Bump. What do people think? Having dug into it, I'm now convinced this should be renamed. Most of the misuse I found seems to fit the name but not the description, so that strongly suggests that the name's ambiguity is the problem. And the misuse is somewhere between 18% and 70%. My rough guess would be that the real number is around 30%. (If we look only at the clear examples, and ignore all the unknowns and ambiguous cases, almost 40% are misuse, so I may be being generous.) Time for a crowner?

I don't believe any trope not specifically intended to allow complaining should have "shallow" in the name; the extent of misuse merely reinforces my belief.

At the very least, I'd say this calls for a crowner.

While I agree on a rename, do we agree on what the actual definition is supposed to be, specifically? How much involved in the plot can the character be? Are we then talking about two tropes depending on that distinction, or is it just not a trope at all if they have too much plot importance?

The character's involvement in the plot is irrelevant. What matters is how they interact with their love interest and others and what else defines them. True, the more plot involvement you have the more likely you are to not be a satellite character, but that's not a definite thing.

That's also how I'd see it, but people seem to disagree.

Actually, that sounds a bit like Designated Love Interest, which may frequently overlap with this, but doesn't necessarily, and is definitely not the same thing.

Single Prop crowner here. Shouting for a hook.

Shout answered.

Isn't Designated Love Interest more like the opposite of this? It's a character who's not involved enough with the character she's a love interest to. Strangely, that doesn't mean there's no overlap...

edited 16th Aug '12 1:34:55 PM by AnotherDuck

No, it's orthogonal. Your one-line summary of Designated Love Interest is correct, but you don't need characterization to have a Designated Love Interest—although both parties can certainly have plenty of characterization.

Basically, Designated Love Interest is when the relationship is flat and underdeveloped. This trope is when the character is flat and underdeveloped. It really shouldn't be surprising that they can and do overlap.

eta: (It should be worth noticing that flat characters and flat relationships can help keep a story focused on more important things. Tropes Are Not Bad.)

edited 16th Aug '12 1:49:45 PM by Xtifr

That's probably closer to what I meant. Different tropes, though.

I like that. Or at least something close to it. The general idea is good, but exact definition can be hammered out if we decide on that split.

edited 18th Aug '12 7:04:46 AM by AnotherDuck

I think I can put into words now how there are two distinct ways in which a character can be defined solely by a relationship:

One corresponds to Kyon in Yuki-chan, which we might call "Undeveloped Object of Attraction" (or just "Object of Attraction"), where the character exists for a more developed, protagonist character to like. The potential problem is that the audience will not care for the relationship because they can't relate to the other half as a believable person.

The other is best shown by Homura: a character is given focus and development, and is likely a protagonist, but all development is centered around the relationship. We could call it "love-Centered Character". The potential problem is that the character is too centered around one aspect of their life to be seen as a believable person.

Obviously they can overlap, but I think a split ought to help the misuse.

Most of the misuse I saw when I did the wick check had nothing to do with the distinction you seem to be trying to draw. (At least as far as I can tell, since I have no familiarity with the works you mentioned.) I think this has enough real problems without worrying about how shallowly-drawn a character might be. Lets see what we have after we get rid of the misuse that clearly doesn't fit before we talk about trying to split whatever's left along some vaguely-defined line.

I cleaned the misuse I noted previously. After consideration, the Harry Potter example really meant shallow in the wrong sense. If someone who's read the books thinks it's a correct use, feel free to write it up in a way according to the trope, without the complaining. Same goes for Twilight, by the way.

edited 18th Aug '12 7:35:44 PM by AnotherDuck

Re-added two of the Twilight examples.

By definition, they seem to fit the trope.

And I removed the complainy formatting and phrasing.

I kind of like the name Satellite Lover since this trope is simply Satellite Character who just happens to be a love interest. Though, to be honest, I'd really much prefer the old name.

I guess the term "shallow" could attract the more...romantically inclined to moan about a character/pairing they personally don't like. But, I just thought a nice blurb should warn them of this.

Unfortunately, the history of TV Tropes has pretty much proven that no amount of saying "Don't whine here" in the description will be able to counteract the effects of a name that says "Whine here".

edited 19th Aug '12 8:13:31 PM by nrjxll