Do you have trouble remembering the difference between Deathbringer the Adorable and Fluffy the Terrible?
Do you have trouble recognizing when you've written a Zero-Context Example?
Not sure if you really have a Badass Bookworm or just a guy who likes to read?
Well, this is the thread for you. We're here to help you will all the finer points of example writing. If you have any questions, we can answer them. Don't be afraid. We don't bite. We all just want to make the wiki a better place for everyone.
Useful Tips:
- Make sure that the example makes sense to both people who don't know the work AND don't know the trope.
- Wrong: The Mentor: Kevin is this to Bob in the first episode.
- Right: The Mentor: Kevin takes Bob under his wing in the first episode and teaches him the ropes of being a were-chinchilla.
- Never just put the trope title and leave it at that.
- Wrong: Badass Adorable
- Right: Badass Adorable: Xavier, the group's cute little mascot, defeats three raging elephants with both hands tied behind his back using only an uncooked spaghetti noodle.
- When is normally far less important than How.
- A character name is not an explanation.
- Wrong: Full Moon Silhouette: Diana
- Right: Full Moon Silhouette: At the end of her transformation sequence into Moon Princess Misty, Diana is shown flying across the full moon riding a rutabaga.
Other Resources:
For best results, please include why you think an example is iffy in your first post.
Also, many oft-misused tropes/topics have their own threads, such as Surprisingly Realistic Outcome (here
) and Fan-Preferred Couple (here). Tropers are better able to give feedback on examples you bring up to specific threads.
For cleaning up examples of Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard, you must use their dedicated threads: Complete Monster Cleanup, Magnificent Bastard Cleanup.
Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 18th 2023 at 11:42:55 AM
she/her
Also, poor ratings is not an "odd reason" to cancel a show. That's definite misuse.
Now a lurker. See you at the forums.
I want to write this entry in Hard-to-Adapt Work:
You could argue the reason the Kid Sidekick trope fell in disuse in Superhero comics is because it was impossible to adapt young kids helping the adult superheroes in live action. In his almost 100 years of editorial existence, no Robin has ever been played up by a kid beyond the realm of animation, with Christopher Nolan famously saying he would never adapt Robin in his films. This also applies in the realm of videogames, where all Robins have been depicted as adults, even Damian Wayne.
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.
Officially intimidated
You shouldn't rely on "you could argue" wordings, because it violates Examples Are Not Arguable. If you truly think it fits the trope, then make sure the example is confident about it, with no ambiguity whatsoever. Otherwise, it'd be best not to add it.
Edited by MyFinalEdits on Aug 17th 2020 at 1:00:55 PM
135 - 169 - 273 - 191 - 188 - 230 - 300
The Kid Sidekick trope was already out of favor (I think long out of favor, really) before live-action superhero movies became a big thing.
Reposting from the previous page, so it doesn't get lost:
Do the following examples from Hollywood (2020) look like they're being used correctly?:
- Fanfic Fuel: It's extraordinarily tantalizing to imagine how the rest of the entertainment history would be changed in the series' Alternate History.
- He Really Can Act:
- While the other newcomers' performances were more divisive, Jeremy Pope and Jake Picking give very sincere and likable turns here, with the former earning an Emmy nomination for his work.
- Additionally, even those who hated the show admit that Jim Parsons, Joe Mantello, Dylan McDermott, Holland Taylor, and Patti LuPone gave stellar performances here.
Definite misuse of He Really Can Act, which is when someone known for non-serious performances does surprisingly well in a serious role. A newcomer cannot be an example. It's also not the right trope for "good performance in an otherwise bad show"; that's Took the Bad Film Seriously.
Reposting from a couple pages ago since I didn't get a reply, is this example from Strangled by the Red String count?
- Danny and Sam from Danny Phantom were obviously planned to be the Official Couple from the beginning, with almost everyone remarking on it, if not being an outright Shipper on Deck, and innumerable S/he Is Not My Girlfriend/Boyfriend moments. The problem is that the writers were so busy making the couple inevitable they never bothered to actually show why they should be together. There was nothing more romantic to their relationship other than them being friends of opposite gender, and the whole thing came off more a combination of awkward teenage hormones and defensiveness in the face of relentless teasing. Worse, Danny and Valerie got real tension and some rather sweet development before that ship was sunk, so it wasn't that the writers didn't know how to write a relationship, they apparently just didn't want to.
Found this in Kenny's folder in South Park's character pages:
- Demoted to Extra: After a few years of resurgence (especially with the Mysterion arc), he eventually ended up as background decoration by Season 20, in which he had one line; even Annie and Red, living props in their own right, have more lines than him. In fact, Kenny had more prominence in Season 6 (you know, the time when he stayed dead for a whole season) than he did in Season 20. He retains his spot in the opening credits over the much more prominent Butters and Randy, however. This trend was reversed again during Seasons 21 and 22, when he had as much screen time as the other three boys, multiple lines in many episodes, A Day in the Limelight episode in "The Scoots", and his first deaths since Season 16.
This sounds like this would fit Out of Focus better, since he wasn't focused on for Season 20 and then came back for Season 21.
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!
I'm helping!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I think that might be a different item... It sounds like they were supposed to be romantic but came off as platonic, so Relationship Writing Fumble, maybe?
I agree with your assessment.
Is What Maisie Knew an Epunymous Title? The trope is listed both in the book and film pages, but the examples fail to explain what the pun is, if there is even one. English is not my first language, so it may be eluding me.
I found this.
All of this clues us in that What Maisie Knew is a novel that's first and foremost about its heroine's mind—and the growth and change that that mind undergoes. This is one little twist to the title, adding to its significance: on their own, the words "what Maisie knew" seem to name something static: "She knew the capital of Alabama," for instance. But in this novel, James treats knowing as a dynamic process—and that's where almost the entire interest of his novel resides.
It doesn't sound like there's any pun involved.
YMMV.Uzaki Chan Wants To Hang Out.
- Americans Hate Tingle: Particularly among certain Twitter circles, there's a subset of the Western audience that is very vocal in their dislike of Uzaki, particularly due to their belief that her body type makes her oversexualized as well as the misconception that she is a minor and therefore promoting pedophilia (despite the fact that Uzaki is 19).
Does AHT need to be more wide spread to count?
Does Tsundere have to be romantic? I know most of the examples are but I don't think it's required.
Lost in Space
It's a very popular trope in romantic comedy but doesn't have to be romantic.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Recap.Family Guy S 8 E 11 Dial Meg For Murder
- Never My Fault: Brian never acknowledges that if he hadn't outed Meg's relationship with Luke to her parents, then she wouldn't have become a terrible person.
I'm starting to wonder if Never My Fault should be made In-Universe Examples Only. Never My Fault is when someone tries to pass the blame off to someone else, despite being their fault. There's no signs that Brian tried to blame Meg for her behavior, so this might be misuse.
Edited by PlasmaPower on Aug 20th 2020 at 6:59:02 AM
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!
Delete. In the end, Meg did harper a fugitive and it was the prison that turn her into a hard criminal.
The Laser-Guided Karma example on the page says: "It's not until [Brian] indirectly apologizes for causing the whole mess that he can talk her down." It sounds like the Never My Fault example can be safely removed.
Twilight Anti-Climax example, putting in a folder for length:
- The conclusion of the Twilight series. The end of Breaking Dawn seems to be leading up to a violent confrontation that was set up two novels previous between the protagonist vampire clan, the Cullens and their allies, and the vampire authority known as the Volturi. Instead of fighting, the immortal vampires with dozens of superpowers between them choose to talk out their differences and come to a diplomatic solution. Quite a letdown, considering the genre.
- Meyer said she wanted the ending of Breaking Dawn to be a chess master-type battle, mental and not physical. The let-down is more that instead of actual battle of wits, the Volturi simply run off when Alice provides a Deus ex Machina, especially after about six or so chapters of the Cullens repeating how the Volturi would use any excuse possible to kill them and probably wouldn't even listen to their witnesses or evidence.
- The first book sets up a trend of anti-climaxes: Big Bad James kidnaps Bella and his cohort Laurent won't go up against the insane, genius hunter, even with seven other vampires. A big chase is enacted to save Bella, and she's thrown around a bit. Then, just as Edward arrives with his posse and it looks like we're going to get a kickass battle... Bella, the POV, blacks out and we don't see anything. This is nicely subverted in the movie. While the camera is focused on Bella, the audience can still see Emmett and Jasper subduing James in the background, while starting a fire and excitedly burning him. Also, we get to see Alice rip off James' head. Beautiful!
- The film adaptation of Breaking Dawn Double Subverts the above-mentioned Anti-climax by showing a long, brutal fight with heavy casualties on both sides, only to reveal that the whole thing was a psychic vision being shown to Aro by Alice. Horrified by the vision, Aro decides that his current course of action is not a wise one and leaves the Cullens in peace. (Understandable, since the vision shows him being mercilessly slaughtered.)
On the work page:
- Anticlimax: Happens a few times throughout the series:
- In the first novel, James is described as an unstoppable killing machine. Laurent isn't even willing to face him with seven other vampires. But we see none of the fight between him and Edward since Bella is unconscious, and so the scary Big Bad is killed offscreen.
- Whereas in New Moon, when Edward was going to off himself and Bella comes to his rescue in the Italian city where the vampire mafia lives whom it's been repeatedly explained to us does not tolerate such abominations as humans who know about the existence of vampires and it seems that they are going to die anyway, it ends up being Handwaved. "Oh, well. If she is going to be a vampire sooner or later, I suppose we can let you all go."
- The final novel, Breaking Dawn, ends not with the epic battle which Meyer had been using a third of the book to build up to... but with diplomatic discussion instead. And the main reason why the discussion turns out favorably for the Cullens and their allies is because Alice introduces a Deus ex Machina.
Regarding Breaking Dawn, the whole point was they were trying to avoid a battle. The gathering of allies was not for the purpose of fighting the Volturi, but to deter the Volturi from attacking before they'd had a chance to explain their side. A discussion is what they were trying to have.
The discussion goes something like:
- Cullens manage to show/convince the Volturi that Renesmee is not a turned child, therefore no vampire laws have been broken
- Volturi bring up something against the Cullens, that point is shot down
- Volturi try to provoke some of their allies into attacking, others hold them back
- Cullens realize the Volturi see them as a potential threat to their power and are looking for an excuse to attack
- Volturi raise a point they can't refute: since nothing is known about hybrids, they can't convince them Renesmee won't be a threat to the Masquerade when she grows up
- Edward senses something and is like "So if there was a way to know what a grown hybrid is like, and we could know there was no threat, then there would be no reason for all this trouble, right?" Volturi: "Right." "And you can leave us in peace?" "Right."
- The "something" arrives: Alice (who ran off several chapters ago), with a grown hybrid in tow.
- The hybrid tells his story, the Volturi have no more ammunition on that front and are forced to leave (after putting on smiles and pretending to be glad about the non-violent resolution).
I long believed Anti-Climax should be limited to intentional examples, otherwise it's complaining which isn't suitable for a non-YMMV trope.
Thoughts on this from YMMV.Paper Mario The Origami King?
- Like You Would Really Do It: With previous games in the franchise having seemingly-dead characters coming back even when they appeared to be Deader than Dead, many were surprised to find Bobby and Olivia don't have a Disney Death.
My impression is Like You Would Really Do It is when audiences know the death won't stick, reducing the dramatic impact, so dying for real is the opposite. I've seen it removed from Rogue One for such.
But looking over the Like You Would Really Do It page make is sound like actually going through with it can count. It also said (I removed it as no real life) actually killing them "can create a Moral Event Horizon for the author in the eyes of their fanbase", a misuse of MEH that make the entry suspect. That entry predates the policy audience reactions can't be played with. Shocking Moments seems to cover when they actually go through with killing them. So does/should Like You Would Really Do It only apply when they do not actually go through with killing them?
I also asked ATT.
"Actually going through with it" describes the complete opposite of not going through with it, so yes, Like You Would Really Do It should only describe when they don't go through with it.
Alright, I will remove the Breaking Dawn and New Moon examples. Looks like Battle Discretion Shot might fit the first book's example.
Like You Would Really Do It also is not supposed to have any examples anyway.
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It's listed under No On-Page Examples, so it can have examples on works' YMMV subpages.
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.
So should I revise the Like You Would Really Do It entry to make clear accentually really doing it is not this trope and should go under Shocking Moments?
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Aug 21st 2020 at 2:56:23 AM
That sounds like a good idea. Also I don't think Killed Off for Real (which you potholed in your post) fits either. It might apply to some examples of this, but not all of them.
Edited by Twiddler on Aug 21st 2020 at 3:08:49 AM
From the Live-Action TV subpage of Executive Meddling:
One of TVNZ's most popular series, Nothing Trivial was unexpectedly being axed for odd reasons. The reason it was axed is because poor ratings make it difficult to pay for a further season.
Poor ratings cancellation doesn't sound like it qualifies as this trope.