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. We don't discuss Complete Monster or Magnificent Bastard examples; please don't bring them up.
Edited by SeptimusHeap on Jul 17th 2025 at 8:59:01 PM
Going to bump my post from earlier
—-
Was checking out the Artistic License – Gun Safety page from above, and there are some dodgy examples. Does this one seem at all cromulent?
- 1917 is a rare inversion: the character are generally very good at handling their guns in a professional manner, not waving them around and demonstrating decent trigger discipline. Which is ironic, because this is one of the cases where characters being bad at this would actually make perfect sense, since the film takes place in World War I, long before the refinement of most of the usual gun safety techniques.
It seems to be describing an aversion, and I don't really think it's notable what with all the historical natter and speculation.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose meThat was cut, another, also from Artistic License – Gun Safety:
- Battle Royale: Averted. The Program gives various gun types, ranging from pistols to revolvers to a sub-machine gun, to third-year middle schoolers, with most of them likely not knowing how to operate one. It's averted in that it's made clear that any gun given to a student also contained a manual on how to use it, including turning any safety on or off.
- Played straight in that some of the students with guns end up sticking them into the waistbands of their skirt or pants... justified, since they are in a dangerous situation where having instant access to your gun and not having to fiddle with safety may decide whether they live or die.
Indentation and thread mode aside, I can't really what it's trying tosay.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose meI'll try to rewrite it into something coherent, then we'll figure out if there's an example behind all the misplays and weasel words.
- Battle Royale:
- The Program gives various gun types, ranging from pistols to revolvers to a sub-machine gun, to third-year middle schoolers, with most of them likely not knowing how to operate one. While each gun is given with a manual describing safe operation, this is hardly sufficient gun safety training. This lack of safety is likely deliberate, as The Program doesn't exactly have the best interests of the children in mind.
- Some of the students with guns end up sticking them into the waistbands of their skirt or pants, often without even putting the safety on. However, this is a measured risk in a situation where easy access to a gun is often the difference between life and death.
My opinion is that the first bullet isn't an example. It's not bad gun safety, just a blatant disregard for the safety of the children in question. The Program probably knows full well that some of the children might shoot themselves. They just don't care.
The second bullet is an example of the subtrope Pants-Positive Safety, and should be moved there.
Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.Good call on Pants-Positive Safety, went ahead and moved the second bullet over. Deleted the first one, the trope is specifically for people who should know how to handle guns but don't, and the students weren't expected to know, and as you said the Program just didn't care.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose meSince this is a non-video game example of this, I decided to run it by here. From WebVideo.Lonelygirl 15:
- Missing Secret: In "Swimming!", Bree asks Daniel this infamous question: "Whatever happened to that girl Cassie?" Daniel says he has no idea who that is, and after Bree says she was in his class, Daniel just says he has no idea who Bree's talking about. This odd, seemingly meaningful conversation, combined with several OpAphid videos fixating on Cassie and a couple more mentions of her by Bree (in "My Helper" and "Bree Phone Home", which reveal she was a former friend of Bree's), led to all kinds of fan theories on who Cassie was and what might've happened to her... only for the creators to eventually reveal that she was never intended to be anything more than a minor element of Bree's past.
Currently there's this entry on the Character page of Encanto.
- Fighter Mage Thief: Julieta's daughters are a textbook example. Luisa is the fighter, she has a powerful built, her gift is super strength, and is in charge of all the heavy lifting. Isabela is the mage, she has a graceful built, her power is show-stopping chlorokinesis, and is in charge of filling Encanto with flower. Mirabel is the thief, she has no magic gift and feels herself the black sheep of the family, instead she uses her connection with Casita to acquire intelligence from her family members, infiltrate Bruno's forbidden tower and steal the prophecy shards, and then later sneak into Bruno's secret room. As a bonus Mirabel has a satchel and green glasses.
I don't feel this is a valid example for the three sisters for two reasons.
First, while Luisa's strength and imposing figure resonates with the warrior archetype and Isabela's magical control of plants would fit her being the mage, Mirabel just doesn't fit the archetype of the thief. She's given that label simply because she's the non-fighter, non-mage of the trope.
Mirabel is driven by the love for her family to try and save the miracle. What Mirabel shows in the movie is grit, determination and problem-solving. She functions more as a Sleuth.
She asks questions of her family, follows their clues and explores the Casita, which leads her to places that are traditionally off-limits. She searches Bruno's room and discovers evidence of his vision which she collects. After the disastrous proposal dinner, she observes some rats taking the vision fragments and follows them to Bruno's secret living area. After a chase which includes a parkour jump fail, she meets Bruno, learns his secret and convinces him to have another vision to help the family.
This outlines more of a Nancy Drew mystery, "The Case of the Cracking Casita", rather than a thief's tale "The Quest for the Emerald Shards".
Second, where the trope really fails for me is that the three sisters never form any kind of Power Trio of Fighter Mage Thief. In fact they never even form a workable twosome in which their "powers" help Mirabel at all.
Luisa doesn't offer to accompany Mirabel to use her strength to protect her or aid in her goal. After her song, all Luisa does is offer the clue to look in Bruno's tower then heads off to do her chores.
Same for Isabela. Her song opens herself to new powers and helps fix the sisterly rift they've had, but her "magic" never helps Mirabel.
In fact, when Alma confronts them, both Isabela and Luisa stand off to the side as Alma launches into Mirabel and they never come to her defense.
In my opinion, the trope really isn't in play in this story. Mirabel is shoe-horned into the thief label and the Fighter Mage Thief dynamic never comes into play to actually help Mirabel as the protagonist.
Both ![]()
and
have the same root issue, namely applying video game tropes to non video game works. Personally I don't like it, it tends to feel like a massive shoehorn, but apparently it's a thing that we do. That being said:
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I feel that example would be a better fit under What Happened to the Mouse?.
First off, people don't have a "powerful built", it's a "powerful build". Also, I feel the example is trying way too hard to shoehorn the characters into an archetype that simply doesn't apply. FMT is for gaming, not just any old adventure story. I'd just cut it personally.
Obviously I agree that this specific example feels like a shoe-horn, but I tried the "it's a gaming trope" argument and was reminded that the Fighter Mage Thief page while 80% gaming examples, does include sections at the bottom of the page for Live Action TV, Mythology, Sports, and Western Animation among others, so it's not exclusively a gaming trope as tvtropes defines it.
Edited by rva98014 on Apr 6th 2022 at 9:21:00 AM
Yeah, I can see it applying to stories with that D&D/Fantasy style setting for sure, but often times it seems similar to tropes like the seven deadly sins and five man band, where people do what they can to make their favorite story fit. Also, that sports section needs to go ... but I'll bring that up over on RL cleanup.
Obviously I'm biased here, so perhaps others can weigh in.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose meI don't think Fighter Mage Thief is video game exclusive (furthermore I'm of the opinion that 'game-exclusive' is a pitfall lots of tropes fall into; I see them as storytelling conventions with specific applications in gameplay) but even with that in mind that reads like a big shoehorn precisely because Mirabel doesn't fit 'thief' in the slightest.
Is it a Portmanteau if two companies merge, and one company name lives on while the other's logo is adapted?
- An example of this happened in 1988 when the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad bought the Southern Pacific Railroad. The combined railroad took on the Southern Pacific name, since Southern Pacific had more track mileage. The one noticeable change was to Southern Pacific's "Bloody Nose" paint scheme, as the serif font used for the railroad name on the sides of new locomotives was replaced by the Rio Grande's "speed lettering", which was utilized on all SP locomotives built until the railroad was folded into Union Pacific.
- Before this, there was the Southern Pacific's attempt to merge with the Santa Fe. The resulting railroad would've been named the SPSF, and the paint scheme it had would've combined the yellow of the Santa Fe's "Yellowbonnet" paint scheme with the "Bloody Nose" red of Southern Pacific. This paint scheme was commonly referred to by railfans as the "Kodachrome" paint scheme because these were the colorings on packaging for Kodak film.
- In the airline mergers of the 2010s, United and Continental Airlines merged. The combined airline used the United Airlines name, but the Continental globe logo in lieu of United's old Tulip logo.
- An example of this happened in 1988 when the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad bought the Southern Pacific Railroad. The combined railroad took on the Southern Pacific name, since Southern Pacific had more track mileage. The one noticeable change was to Southern Pacific's "Bloody Nose" paint scheme, as the serif font used for the railroad name on the sides of new locomotives was replaced by the Rio Grande's "speed lettering", which was utilized on all SP locomotives built until the railroad was folded into Union Pacific.
I'm pretty sure the SPSF example is one since the combined "Kodachrome" color scheme and never-used combined name go hand in hand, but the other two I'm not sure about.
Okey Dokey!No. Portmanteau is an existing word with a very specific meaning — the two words must be smushed together. So I wouldn't even keep the SPSF one since that is just an acronym.
"Merged logos" is something else that we might not have besides any fictional examples in Coca-Pepsi, Inc..
We have Motif Merger, though companies merging along with the symbols sounds like some sort of general trivia.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup![]()
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That's a negatory, a portmanteau is jamming two words together to make a new word. Like when you build a robot to be a cop and then name it RoboCop (1987).
Double
Edited by laserviking42 on Apr 6th 2022 at 4:21:15 AM
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose meIt would have to be a new word formed from old words to count. Its not an example if a bunch of companies merge and call themselves AOL-Time-Warner-Pepsico-Viacom-Halliburton-Skynet-Toyota-Trader-Joe's.
Edited by laserviking42 on Apr 6th 2022 at 4:27:25 AM
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose meFighter Mage Thief in Encanto. My argument for Mirabel fitting the Thief archetype, is her use of stealth. In addition to the fact that she’s small, quick, associated with color green, and carries a satchel with her. When Antonio goes missing before the gift ceremony, she knows exactly where he is hiding and finds him immediately. She also eavesdrops on other people without being detected, like Antonio’s family before his ceremony and Alma when she addresses Pedro’s memory. When she infiltrates Bruno’s tower she macgyvers a vine on her own, and after all the sleuthing she does the first half of the film, she spends the second half hiding in the house while the entire family is looking for her.
Isabela says to Luisa and Mirabel that it’s a dream when they work as team at the end of the film but the idea that they don’t count as trio because they don’t combine their powers does not stop them from fulfilling the archetype. A classic video game example of fighter mage and thief is Ganondorf, Zelda, and Link, and they are mot a team, but in fact are two hostile factions.
While prowling around the site, I came across the page for one of my favorite war movies, The Enemy Below. There I found this entry:
Artistic License – Ships: Mostly averted, but Type-VII U-boats only had one stern torpedo tube (plus four in the bow), not two.
Well, this is certainly true about Type-VII U-boats - but there was another type of U-boat, the Type-IX, which did have two stern torpedo tubes. Furthermore, the location of the movie - the South Atlantic, a couple of hundred miles off Trinidad - is an area that a Type-VII U-boat couldn't get to. It didn't carry enough fuel. But a Type-IX could. Thus, there's good reason to believe the U-boat in the film is a Type-IX, not a Type-VII.
So the example quoted above is wrong. Now what do I do with it? I figure I could add a bullet correcting it. Or I can rewrite the entry to be correct. But does it really fit there at all? If the U-boat is a Type-IX, then "Artistic License - Ships" just doesn't apply to the movie at all as far as I can see. And the page on Averted Tropes says that aversions should only be listed under very limited circumstances, including when a trope is so universal that aversions are rare. So maybe the example should just be cut? Or is "Artistic License - Ships" so ubiquitous as a trope that aversions are noteworthy?
"Narn, Centauri, Human, we all do what we do for the same reason: it seemed like a good idea at the time." - Ambassador G'kar, Babylon 5Based on the trope description, I believe the entries I deleted from Portmanteau for the railroad and airline mergers would work under Motif Merger.
Here's what it would look like:
- In the 1980s, the Southern Pacific Transportation Company wanted to merge with the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railway to form a single railroad known as the Southern Pacific Santa Fe (SPSF). The resulting merged railroad would have a new paint scheme
◊ for their locomotives combining the yellow of Santa Fe's "yellowbonnet" paint scheme with the red of Southern Pacific's "Bloody Nose" paint scheme, a paint scheme that came to be known by railfans as the "Kodachrome" livery due to these being the colors used by Kodak on the boxes used to pack their Kodachrome film. When the merger fell through, the railroads were left having to repaint any locomotives with the new livery back into their standard colors.
- In 1988, the Southern Pacific was purchased by the Denver & Rio Grande Western. The new railroad kept the Southern Pacific name, but the effects of the merger could be seen in that new locomotives delivered from 1989 up through the combined railroad's merger with Union Pacific in 1996 had the Southern Pacific name printed on their sides in the D&RGW's "speed lettering" font rather than the SP's older serif font.
- In 2012, when United Airlines and Continental Airlines merged, the resulting airline kept the former's name but adapted the latter's globe logo.
- When the Santa Fe merged with Burlington Northern to form the BNSF Railway, the new railroad had locomotives painted in Omaha Orange and Pullman Green, taking inspiration from the colors of BN predecessor Great Northern, while the railroad's logo was an updated version of the Santa Fe's cross logo. This logo was eventually dropped in favor of the current "Swoosh" logo in 2005, but many older locomotives and freight cars still bear the older logo.
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So do not add a second bullet to "correct" an example, that's a violation of Repair, Don't Respond, as well as indentation and natter.
I would just cut the whole example, aversions are not notable, so a submarine movie that gets the details right is actually Shown Their Work. Everything else, you are taking facts not in the movie and fan wanking it into something acceptable. Does the movie show a Type VII U-Boat? A Type IX? Work with what is shown in the movie.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose meRE Encanto: Fighter Mage Thief. Mirabel is a thief because she's stealthy??
One, that's not a quality that's exclusive to thieves and two, did you remember how ungraceful and awkward her swing across Bruno's chasm was?? Or how she stealthily slams into the wall when pursuing Bruno causing Pepa to zap Camilo with lightning? Or her failed parkour jump while also pursuing Bruno?
Her "hiding in the house" is because she spends the bulk of the time in Bruno's secret area or in Antonio's cavernous room, neither of which is due to Mirabel's skill in being stealthy.
We've even had a moderator note that Mirabel doesn't fit the thief role in the slightest. It feels like we're flogging a dead horse. The trope only kinda fits with shoe-horning and it's just not a strong example for this film.
Edited by rva98014 on Apr 6th 2022 at 4:44:24 AM
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Very well, I'll delete the example I quoted.
As for the rest: I am working from what is shown in the film. It has a U-boat in an area of the ocean where only a Type-IX U-boat could be, and a U-boat which tries to torpedo the pursuing destroyer with two torpedoes, fired from its two stern tubes. However, on further thought I don't see how that information fits any trope, so I simply won't do anything with it.
Thank you for your help.
"Narn, Centauri, Human, we all do what we do for the same reason: it seemed like a good idea at the time." - Ambassador G'kar, Babylon 5

I'm a little confused ... were the deaths carried because someone wrote their names? That kind of sounds like Ryuk is just messing with people instead of breaking his own rules.
If nobody wrote the names then I would say it's a case of Screw the Rules, I Make Them!.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me