Is this an example?

Would this fit Failure Is the Only Option? Maybe as a discussed version?

• Pikasprey tried to beat all of Pokémon Crystal with just a Ditto, which culminated in the fight with Red. His efforts failed, and he decided that, even with a streak of impeccable luck in every area of the battle, he'd still lose just because Ditto's stats were too poor.

Similarly, do these examples fit?

• Luck-Based Mission:
  • His solution for escaping the Lorelei soft-lock ^note in which the player's Rage-using mon is trapped in an endless battle against her perpetually-healing Dewgong involves so much luck with RNG that nobody would actually be able to do it- the player would have to miss Rage every turn until running out of PP, a near-impossible feat as Rage is 100% accurate.
  • His attempt to win Pokémon Crystal with just a Ditto eventually became a purely-luck based game, one where everything had to go right for him to win a battle. This becomes Up To Eleven when battling Red, as to even come close to winning, he needed to have impossible luck, such as every electric move hitting, crit-ing, and paralyzing.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 26th 2019 at 8:19:51 AM

Laconic.Failure Is The Only Option reads "You will always fail at achieving the Series Goal, because succeeding will end the story." So I'm thinking no.

- It might just be plain Unwinnable, but that's not a trope...

You've already used Unwinnable by Insanity, so it might just be a Double Subverted example, where it seemed like it was possibly, but actually isn't.

But, YMMV's can't be played with?

Should we make Unwinnable a trope? Or figure out what kind of Unwinnable this is?

'Cause if the RNG gave him a better Ditto, he could've won? Maybe?

... And that's Luck-Based Mission. Right. That's trope's basically a semi-Unwinnable.

Should also note his personal "Healing Potion-less in battle Run" rules that he always uses?

Edited by Malady on Aug 26th 2019 at 6:02:36 AM

I would if I could find a way to mention it.

I'm not even positive on the Luck-Based Mission examples as is, so... Yeah.

It's hard; I want to describe the events of his personal challenges, but I don't want to stray into troping the games themselves...

I guess call it an Invoked Self-Imposed Challenge.

He does mention HP, so that'd be a valid reason to add a Life Points entry.

Also, One-Hit Kill.

I'm of the "trope as much as I can" rule, but I get where people are coming from.

Edited by Malady on Aug 26th 2019 at 6:29:45 AM

Self-Imposed Challenge works, but I'd personally stay away from the others. Add 'em yourself if you think they fit, but I want to avoid troping anything but Pikasprey and his commentary/challenges/etc. My rule is, if it's an example that would also go on the game's page if one exists, that's where the example should go.

• A Knight Templar is conducting interrogations to root out a rebellion, sincerely believing he's doing what needs to be done to keep the peace. However, one man dies during the interrogation, which haunts him. His next assignment is to apply the torture not to a resisting prisoner but the prisoner's child to get the father to confess. The knight refuses and is arrested, while his Psycho for Hire lieutenant kills the child in front of its parents. Later the knight escapes and ends up in the hands of the rebellion. Most want to execute him for his past deeds, when the mother of the child (now a widow, her husband was executed as well) he refused to kill stands up for him, letting him through, but claiming they're now even. Later the knight learns she was killed in battle, and performs the funeral rites for her.

If the mother got no characterization or other interaction with the knight (he doesn't even know her name), is it a case of Stuffed into the Fridge?

Edited by Chabal2 on Aug 27th 2019 at 5:49:02 PM

I must contest the use of Designated Hero in The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter.

The main Designated Hero page says Aslan qualifies for the trope because:

• In The Magician's Nephew he grants all the animals the ability to speak, but he makes it so that if they continue to behave like natural animals, they will lose that gift. He also decrees that non-speaking animals will be the lowest class in the Narnian hierarchy, while humans will rule over everyone else. In hindsight he is making it so that animals who chose to follow their instincts and nature are the lowest of the low, while humans, who in reality don't have the best track record for living with natural things they can't control, get to rule all. Additionally, the morality of Narnia could be summed up like this: you're either with Aslan and you're "good", or you're with someone else or independent and you're evil.
• In The Horse and His Boy, he wounds Princess Aravis in the back because her handmaiden had helped Aravis escape her arranged marriage and was punished for it. Aslan intended that Aravis know the handmaiden's suffering, even though she didn't really deserve it and had gone through enough hell already.
• In Prince Caspian it's implied he turned a group of fat boys into pigs for no reason than that they were fat.
• In The Last Battle he does something that every other designated hero ever written would call him on, he outright destroys Narnia.

Since C. S. Lewis was a devoted Christian and Aslan was meant to be a fantastic version of Jesus Christ, I think this has more to do with religious differences than anything else.

As for Harry Potter, the YMMV page says that Harry and Hermione qualify for the trope because:

• Hermione is often accused of being this, as she usually painted as being in the right whenever she does something morally questionable, like jinxing the D.A. sign-up sheet to permanently disfigure traitors, knowingly leaving Umbridge with the centaurs so that they could do something traumatizing to her, and abusing Ron whether he deserved it or not.
• Harry Potter through the course of his adventures, despite the great demands of fighting a Dark Wizard, never stops slacking off his studies, breaks countless school rules, displays poor sportsmanship and rarely considering the interests of his team or how it could affect them and their standing when he goes off on his own, and in Book 6, via the Potions book, indulges in what is more or less academic plagiarism. Likewise, while painted as an All-Loving Hero he is shown using two of the Unforgivable Curses (Imperio and Crucio) without any reprimand from his peers and elders even if both are considered taboo In-Universe, and one of them is a curse that tortures people (which he used before the highly moral McGonagall).

J. K. Rowling said that Harry and his friends were never meant to be saints, they are fallible human beings that make mistakes, get angry and are forced into extreme circumstances, not to mention, the Harry Potter fandom is one of the most notorious and controversial fandoms in recent memory.

What do you say?

Designated Hero may be YMMV, but those just sound like the words of someone with an axe to grind.

Abstaining on the Aslan example, but I definitely think the two Harry Potter examples should be removed. The series is presented through Harry-biased eyes and even as he doesn't condemn some things he/Hermione does, he blatantly shows regret for some other things that are not-good. Hell, off the top of my head Hermione is annoyed at Harry cheating, so he's not being excused for it in Book 6. I don't know anyone thinks he's an All-Loving Hero except in parodies and he certainly doesn't act it. Hermione similarly is presented as annoying or going too far plenty of times to be considered designated.

Edited by Darkaros on Aug 27th 2019 at 7:29:53 AM

Yeah at the very least Harry should be removed. One, Hermione calls him out on the studies bit constantly, two, in book five Angelina calls him out when antagonizing Umbridge because it's the right thing to do gets in the way of Quidditch, and as it has been said they were never meant to be infallible. (Also I mean... which student wouldn't use the extra notes too if the school-given copy of their textbook had them? If they help him enjoy and understand a bit better a class that used to be terrible for him, I can't really fault him.)

As for Hermione, the DA list qualifies her for Unintentionally Unsympathetic I guess.

Abstaining on Aslan as I only read the first two books.

Edited by akanesarumara on Aug 27th 2019 at 3:09:37 PM

From Stock Shōnen Hero:

• Percy Jackson from the Camp Half-Blood Series. Brilliant at his universe's Serious Business (Monster-Slaying)? Check. Extremely kindhearted? Check. Energetic? He's got ADHD to prove it. Believes in True Companions? Check. Idiot Hero? Check. Strong sense of justice, mercy, and fairness? Check.

Does this series invoke the trope or is it coincidental? The trope only counts if they're invoking the anime/Japanese archetype.

Well...

• him being ADHD is why he can be good at monster slaying: In-Universe it's battlefield instincts with the regulator knob torn straight off.
• him being kindhearted, loyal and protective of his friends is treated as his Fatal Flaw, mentioned often, proven even more times and even exploited by his enemies sometimes.
• as for Idiot Hero, he's not only ADHD, but also dyslexic, meaning he was never that good at studying due to being a demigod.

Bigger enemies incorporate Percy being loyal to a fault and reckless into their plans at times. Not as in "this is something I shouldn't forget" but "I can build my plan or at least a part on this."

Edited by akanesarumara on Aug 28th 2019 at 6:45:41 PM

I meant, is the work anime/manga/video game inspired? Characters like KO from OK KO and Aang from Avatar the Last Airbender count because they're riffing off the stereotype by being animesque, but someone like Clay from Wings of Fire doesn't because the books aren't Japanese-inspired.

No, it isn't Japanese-inspired. It's mythology-inspired. If any heroic archetype is consciously evoked, it's the classic mythological one.

However I have to ask, where in the description does it say that it has to be Japanese?

Edited by akanesarumara on Aug 28th 2019 at 7:11:52 PM

From Values Dissonance:

• One of Loomer's cronies has some traditionally feminine interests, such as knitting. With gender conventions becoming questioned by the 2010s, some might find it not too funny or unusual.

Isn't it still a common gag for men to be embarrassed by their feminine interests?

Not Japanese, just inspired by the archetype. There are plenty of loud, friendly heroes, but they're examples.

Edited by Pichu-kun on Aug 28th 2019 at 4:04:02 AM

I'll second this.

• The Magician's Nephew entry is Fridge Logic (it says this conclusion is only reached with hindsight).
• The Horse and his Boy entry looks like complaining.
• Prince Caspian is almost ZCE. It doesn't explain what implication leads to this interpretation, just that we have to take the entry's word for it that one exists.
• The Last Battle This is getting into 'Why would God do a thing like that' territory. Designated Hero doesn't seem like the right trope.

As for Hermione and Harry, I think there is an argument in favour of keeping them, but with a bit of a rewrite. As Rowling says, the protagonists weren't designed to be saints, and it's definitely true that they (especially Harry) do some very questionable things at times, so I do think it's legitimate that some fans may interpret them as this trope. However, on the subject of a rewrite, my issues with the entries are:

• Most of Hermione's entry seems like a legitimate interpretation for someone to have made, except for the bit at the end about abusing Ron. That bit comes off as complaining and my ship-war sense is tingling a bit there.
• Harry's entry has decent enough points for someone who interprets him that way. However, he shouldn't be described as an All-Loving Hero. His mother was set-up as one, but he wasn't — indeed, he's more than once compared to Voldemort in a 'there but for the grace of God' manner. I also think the Potions comment is stretching — he's not wrong to argue that he's following instructions, and how many students will make use of notes scribbled by other students into a library copy of a course book if those notes are more useful than the surrounding text? If he sneaked the book into an exam, that would be different, but he's not so the entry just looks picky.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 28th 2019 at 11:36:00 AM

If, say, someone's sentient creation falls in love with that someone (which that someone may or may not reciprocate), is that an inversion of Pygmalion Plot?

The trope description claims that the trope inversion is Replacement Goldfish (the sculptor creates the figure with the intention of loving it by casting it in the image of a lost love).

I'm not sure about that because that doesn't seem like an Inverted Trope to me. That comes across more as a Justified Trope. Unless the point is that falling in love with the statue is accidental, in which case a Replacement Goldfish wouldn't be Justified because it's an engineered consequence instead of an accidental one.

So, really, an inversion in your sense would require the statue to accidentally fall in love with their creator — which is unlikely in most tales of that kind.

Hmm. I kinda want to say it's a straight example, actually. But I'm not sure.

e: It's definitely either a straight example or an inversion.

Edited by wingedcatgirl on Aug 28th 2019 at 3:58:56 AM

@ Pichu : I know that's what you meant but nowhere in the description does it say that it has to be Japanese-inspired. All it says is list the characteristics.

Is this The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You?

The Backrooms:

• Anyone could accidentally noclip out of reality and wind up here. Forever.

It has to be based off the shonen archetype, which is a Japanese term for boy geared works, so the trope lends itself to being Japanese-specific without being mentioned. If it's so confusing, maybe it should be added to the description.

The whole "Deadpool is aware of the fourth wall and talks to the reader" thing isn't supposed to show up outside of his self-demonstrating page, right? Because Badass Transplant has this example in the comics folder:

• Deadpool here! Those Weapon X guys tried to cure my cancer with an injection of Wolverine's man-juice (his DNA you pervs), didn't really work, but at least I can't die now.

Leaving aside the question of whether it's a legitimate example (I thought comic book Deadpool was immortal due to his complicated relationship with Death, not being a mutant, and that the transfusion thing only showed up in X-Men Origins: Wolverine), should I rewrite this to remove the fourth wall breaking?

Yes.