Is this an example?

Is Kristoph Gavin from Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney an example of Satanic Archetype? He's a False Friend to Apollo and Phoenix and Vera literally calls him "the devil".

I have a question about this Fire Emblem: Three Houses entry:

• Low Fantasy: There's still all the swords, sorcery, gods and blessings of a typical Fire Emblem game, but it's never been less the point. Almost all the major conflicts are driven by characters with very grounded motivations. The Azure Moon route in particular is mainly about a man overcoming a realistic trauma, and the evil doomsday cult gets run down purely by accident.

I'm almost certain that this is misuse, since the setting of Three Houses still has a lot of fantastical elements prevalent in the setting. I think the person who wrote this is using the "low fantasy typically has more down-to-earth themes" parts of low fantasy, but I think the sheer amount of fantastical elements in the setting are more than enough to disqualify the game as "low fantasy."

Still, I'd like to get some more opinions on the matter. Thanks!

From what I know it sounds like an example by the standards of the series, but not in a vacuum. Not sure how to approach that, although the simplest answer is probably just a cut. (OTOH Low Fantasy is a pretty broad concept.)

Edited by nrjxll on Sep 25th 2019 at 8:00:38 AM

^ It's also a Genre, so convention sticks it in the description, not as a Trope.

Reposting from a couple of pages ago:

So does this example from Sarah Z look like it has enough context?:

• Caustic Critic: Sarah herself averts this trope but in her video titled "Bad Media Criticism", she demonstrates how the overuse of the trope can lead to nitpicking in place of actual critique.

On the Characters.Rainbow Rangers page, TrendingToon1 added an example to Mandarin Orange as being a Black Best Friend and Token Minority as the sole African-American. While she has the darkest skin of the main cast, Bonnie and Lavender have comparatively dark skin as well, and all the girls are from Kaleidoscopia, a Magical Land not on Earth. I had deleted the latter example for those reasons but not the former as it was added later. Do you think it counts?

Edited by lalalei2001 on Sep 26th 2019 at 6:27:06 AM

Is she a satellite character who exists for the primary purpose of making her non-black main character best friend(s) look better? Your post doesn't contain that information.

She's gone on on the least amount of missions but is an active participant in them and is useful when she does go.

The Low Fantasy entry in Fire Emblem: Three Houses just got changed to this:

I'm still convinced that this is misuse, because the setting of Three Houses has way too much fantastical elements to count as "low fantasy," and I'm also certain that just because a story focuses on more "down-to-earth" elements doesn't automatically make it low fantasy; it's more like low fantasy tends to move towards those types of stories partly due to not having that many fantastical elements.

Can I get some feedback on this please? Thanks.

No response to my question on Satanic Archetype? Also, I question whether these are valid examples of Bishōnen, as they don't have feminine features:

• Dragon Ball Z: Gohan was downplayed version in his high school days, being more shy and wearing an oversized uniform to hide his muscles.
• At the end of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga and second anime, Alphonse is revealed to be a gorgeous bishonen. He's arguably even more of one in the movie of the first anime, since he shares his brother's long hair until the epilogue of the film. This is what he looks like (on the left); not feminine.

Need more context on Satanic Archetype to really judge it. Right now it seems like a no considering the trope description and comparing it all the the fleshed-out examples on the page.

For Bishōnen, I don't remember Gohan's school boy look ever hiding his muscles, let alone look any way feminine or androgynous. He was muscular as a kid, even, and the closest pics I could find where he looked scrawny with glasses he still couldn't be described as Bishōnen. I'd cut it.

Alphonse's example needs to stand on its own with text, not images. Cut for ZCE not explaining how he looks Bishōnen (which he also doesn't, overall) besides having long hair.

I'm on the side of Low Fantasy being a broad concept. If The Witcher is one of the prime examples of Low Fantasy I really don't see how FE3H is disqualified just because it has a lot of fantasy. So did The Witcher. Dragons, sorcerers, some goddesses, etc. They're all sidelined for the driving forces of prejudice/war/nobility and bloodlines etc.

From the trope description, the human dominance, scope (down-to-earth), shades of grey, and war boxes are ticked for FE3H. Most of Part 1/the beginning of Part 2's plot is based on mundane medieval things unaffected by fantasy like bandits, kingdoms, nobility, bureaucracy, alliances, and the separation of church and state. I have not seen the ultimate ending of the game and Part 2's conclusion, however, so if the protagonist with her goddess shtick just beats all the other factions in a given route to death with a magic sword I'd put it as a point against Low Fantasy.

I'd like it if the trope description that's currently on the FE3H was expanded along these lines, though, since I have no context for the Azure Moon path besides taking their word for it and if I didn't already know Part 1's plot I'd be skeptical.

Edited by Darkaros on Sep 26th 2019 at 11:21:24 AM

Honestly, I'd hesitate to call The Witcher low fantasy, since the setting is filled with fantastical things, including freaking dimensional-travelling elves and vampires from another world.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Sep 26th 2019 at 11:28:31 AM

The Alphonse picture wasn't part of the original example; I linked to it to show how he didn't look feminine. I removed both Al and Gohan from Bishōnen, and found this in Alphonse's section on Characters.Fullmetal Alchemist Brothers. Could it be replaced with Hunk?

• Bishōnen: He becomes a big-time Bishonen after he gets his body back and heals up.

As for Satanic Archetype, I was looking for someone familiar with Apollo Justice to weigh in.

Edited by rjd1922 on Sep 26th 2019 at 2:31:05 PM

YMMV.Elfen Lied

• Hype Backlash: While this series had a ''strong'' cult following at first in America, the general tone of anime fandom has changed pretty heavily over the years, and the [[DarkerAndEdgier type]] [[{{Gorn}} of]] [[HotterAndSexier series]] this is has largely ''extremely'' [[DeaderThanDisco fallen out of favor.]] As a result, while older anime fans tend to be at least okay with the series, younger fans and those who have discovered anime more recently tend to hate this show with every fiber of their being and treat it as emblematic of everything wrong with anime (similarly to series such as ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer'' and ''LightNovel/TheRisingOfTheShieldHero'', but considered somewhat less inflammatory than those shows due to its relative age).

Hype Backlash is about fan or critics praising a works so much audiences think it doesn't measure up. It's a misuse if fans are turning against it.

This might be Seinfeld Is Unfunny, but definitely as misuse of Deader Than Disco as such dark works still have fans and are successful (I heard Goblin Slayer was the most successful anime of the season, would that be No Such Thing as Bad Publicity?). This entry is questionably accurate and complainy such I question if it's worth keeping.

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Sep 26th 2019 at 1:14:03 AM

In a later issue of Beasts of Burden, the main characters meet a family of paranormal investigators and summarize the main events of the series to them. Would this be an example of The Watson?

Does it count for Absurdly Low Level Cap if it's an absurdly low threshold for Diminishing Returns for Balance? Because in Pathfinder 2e, you can hit that threshold for ability scores at level 1.

I would think it counts, because Absurdly High Level Cap already provides non-level examples of caps, providing precedent, and it seems needlessly complicated to have a separate trope for Absurdly Low Dimishining Returns Threshold.

Could I get some more opinions on my low fantasy question here?

Also, I'd like to contest this entry on the Low Fantasy page:

I'd argue that Fire Emblem has far too many fantastical elements to be a Low Fantasy work. It feels like whoever wrote this entry just went over the bullet points of what Low Fantasy stories usually focus on, and forgot the "the amount of fantasy, and the number of fantastic or otherwise supernatural elements, that it contains" part of the genre description.

From Fashion-Victim Villain, this seems like most of these mini-examples forget the fashion victim part of the equation.

• My Hero Academia villains have this to the extreme. Shigaraki’s first outfit is literally just a v-neck black long sleeved shirts, red sneakers, and black pants. The only evil part of his outfit is the severed hands that cover a crusty face... and those are the subject of many, many memes. Dabi has a face covered in skin grafts, with his costume looking straight out of Hot Topic. Toga and Mustard literally wear their school uniforms, while Spinner looks even more like a Ninja Turtle than Stain does. To be fair, most of the heroes aren’t much better.

ATT regarding Bi The Way. Is Word of Gay enough or does it need to be demonstrated in-work? I argued Ambiguously Bi fit better because the character in question only had subtext.

Bi The Way needs to be established in the work. It's not enough that the character be Ambiguously Bi or for Ho Yay to rear up in fans' minds. They must be shown or stated to be bi in continuity. Word of Gay is a little problematic in this regard. I'd say that if it's not evident in the work itself, it shouldn't really count, but I don't have a super strong opinion there.

Remember that for a main-page (non-meta, non-audience reaction, non-trivia) trope to count, it must be intentionally present in the work, and it must affect the work in some way. If a character being bi is not clearly indicated and has no effect, even if it is to establish that being bi is perfectly normal and unremarkable, then there's no trope example.

Compare: A character could be established by Word of God to have a fetish for rabbit porn, but unless they do or say something in the work to indicate that, or another character brings it up, or it has some plot relevance, nobody who was not aware of that Word of God would ever know about it, and therefore it is not present in the work.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 27th 2019 at 12:50:35 PM

The Ultimates have a "nerd Hulk", a clone of Hulk that keeps the intelligence of a normal person. The character page has this entry

• Inverse Law of Complexity to Power: Fury wanted to create a Hulk that was physically powerful while having enough intelligence to properly follow orders. Unfortunately, the Nerd Hulk's intelligence and newly gained cautious behavior took away the Hulk's general advantage of being more powerful and dangerous with his diminished intelligence and reckless rampaging behavior. This is lampshaded by Captain America.

But when I check the trope it seems to be about superpowers involving elemental forces being more powerful than other that are more complex. It it a valid example then?

I'm thinking this example regarding Ishtar from Danmachi should be changed:

• Pet the Dog: She is one of the goddesses who defends Hestia when Loki tries to grill her for information on Bell. This happens long before she learns about Freya's infatuation for Bell so this act is the one genuinely nice thing she does.

I believe this was actually more of an obligation than actual kindness.

And I'm pretty sure Ishtar and Hestia were neither friends nor did they have some sort of relationship.

It may not even detract from the monster Ishtar turns out to be.

Edited by MasterJoseph on Sep 28th 2019 at 9:36:09 AM

It may yet not be an example because the idea of Pet the Dog is to make a villain/anti-hero look not-so-bad, and your reference to "the monster Ishtar turns out to be" suggests she may not even be a villain at this point.

Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 28th 2019 at 11:01:47 AM

"your reference to "the monster Ishtar turns out to be" suggests she may not even be a villain at this point."

Well, that wasn't what I was trying to say.

By all accounts I don't see her coming close to being a good samaritan.

Edited by MasterJoseph on Sep 28th 2019 at 6:05:19 AM

Two examples from SeasonalRot.Live Action TV:

• Arrow:
  • Season 3 is seen by many to be a comedown after the near-universally praised season 2 left a Tough Act to Follow. While it was praised for providing previously disliked characters such as Laurel and Thea some much needed development, it was also derided for excessive flashbacks, an increased focus on Oliver and Felicity's relationship (what made their relationship so refreshing early on was just how angst-free it was), underwritten plot points (such as Oliver becoming Ra's al Ghul's apprentice and then revealing in the very next episode that it was all an act), and the removal of fan favorite characters Sara and, later on, Roy. Ra's al Ghul was also seen as a less compelling villain than Deathstroke due to his general lack of motivation and development, which led to a finale that was viewed as anticlimactic and formulaic.
  • Whether or not Season 4 is any better is a point of contention among critics and fans. While it did make some notable improvements to Season 3, such as providing a more compelling villain with Damien Dahrk, changing the status quo for its cast and giving compelling story arcs to characters such as Diggle and Thea, it was also criticized for further dragging out the Oliver/Felicity angst, which led to Felicity going from the series' Ensemble Dark Horse to the show's most overused character. Also, like Season 3, the second half is said to have lost momentum, as the show once again indulged in poorly-integrated flashback sequences and introduced a contrived and easily resolved nuclear apocalypse threat, not to mention suffered from deteriorating fight choreography. The season finale, Schism, had ended the season on a sour note, with some going so far as to call it one of the series' worst episodes. Season 4 was so derided, in fact, that when the show's star Stephen Amell had to rank the show's seasons from best to worst he did not even include Season 4 in his list.
  • Luckily, Season 5 has been widely accepted as an aversion, with many calling it the best season since Season 2 for its compelling Big Bad in Prometheus, entertaining flashbacks that have Oliver finally joining the Bratva after years of teasing, and generally improved pacing, writing, and cinematography. Its only notable flaw being the addition of the New Recruits (especially Tina Boland/Dinah Drake) and said recruits taking the spotlight from the previously established characters aside from Oliver and Felicity. Nonetheless, it did not totally derailed the season's momentum (mostly thanks to the aforementioned Big Bad). This all eventually lead to a finale which, both critics and fans agree, is one of the best, if not the best, episodes in the shows history.
  • Sadly, this was immediately followed by season 6, which is near-universally considered the worst one yet. Opening with the reveal that the entirety of Team Arrow survived the events of the season 5 finale, with the only casualty being Samantha Clayton, a character no one particularly cared for, was a less than promising start for the season at large. Other criticisms are too much focus on Oliver's son William whom doesn't serve much purpose other than to distract Oliver his duty in keeping the city safe, Warner Bros forcing Slade into exile, because of the DCEU, and polarizing villains in the form of Michael Emerson's Cayden James, and later Richardo Diaz, who simply don't have the menace or charisma that Prometheus had. The New Recruits also sank into even more unpopularity by breaking off from Team Arrow and forming their own team and acting like petulant brats any time they have to work with their own comrades — Dinah in particular after her former boyfriend Vigilante is killed and she's only obsessed with killing Black Siren and will attack anyone who gets in her way, even Quentin. The whole schism arc simply drags well pass its welcome and consumes the second half of the season. The finale was also polarizing: while it did effectively shake things up with the death of Quentin Lance and Oliver being arrested after revealing his identity to the FBI, it had a number of controversial elements, not the least of which being that the Big Bad Ricardo Diaz gets away in the end. Season 6 was so negatively received that it was announced that show runners Marc Guggenheim and Wendy Mericle would not return as show runners for season 7, with Mericle leaving the franchise completely and Guggenheim being Kicked Upstairs to the role of "executive consultant."
  • While the first half of Season 7 was praised for seriously changing the status quo, the second half was mostly criticized for its villain, Emiko Queen, who was arguably one of the worst in the series. In addition, the finale was one of the most divisive in the series, as while some praised it for its many satisfying moments, others felt it was way too rushed.

While I'm not disputing that Series.Arrow had Seasonal Rot, it's more about how to ensure this makes sense without getting too overly wordy or being too simplistic. I'm not an expert on the source material (I've only really seen Series.The Flash 2014) so I would appreciate it if this could be looked over.

Also from the same page, I added this (since I know about the show concerned):

• Police, Camera, Action!, a Long Runner (it lasted for 16 years) has this trope, and although not quite as controversial as Arrow for Seasonal Rot, due to its nature of being a British Series, fans argue over where the Seasonal Rot actually began, with:
  • Season 7 in 2000 was seen as a very Filler-based season, and only the episodes "In The Driving Seat", "On The Edge" being liked.
  • The first few episodes of Season 11 were seen as dull due to Clueless Aesop, pacing and other issues.

My actual problem is how to write about the Seasonal Rot in a way that explains it without getting too long or too short. I wasn't sure if Seasonal Rot applies to documentaries. I would appreciate any help in fixing this.

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Sep 29th 2019 at 12:35:19 PM