If you think any of those are strong enough patterns for tropes, you should YKTTW them. They'd make better pages than Strawberry Shorthand or How Do You Like Them Apples or Lifes A Peach or Eggs Trordinary.
That's more or less what Strawberry Shorthand is trying to be.
I don't like YKTTW myself, so I stay away from it.
edited 13th May '13 1:16:27 PM by AnotherDuck
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has five hats and is almost ready to launch, I suppose. How are we doing here? Do we want to make another trope for how fruit is used symbolically?
I mean sort of like how Good Colors, Evil Colors lists the various colors and what they frequently represent. For example, if we had a trope on fruit based symbolism we could say that strawberries generally represent youth, purity, innocence etc while apples represent knowledge, health and a billion other things. The other option is to spin the current trope into apple based symbolism, correct?
I think we need at least a few more examples of symbolic fruits first. Otherwise, it'll just be apples and strawberries. There are some webpages on symbolism of fruits. [1]
[2]
[3]
. I can see some of these being tropes, but it'll require a good deal of research. The symbol tends to vary from culture to culture, which may make these hard to tropify. Fruit in general symbolizes fertility, which can be noted on the main page...
Considering Apple (symbolism)
is a Wikipedia page, it is definitely a trope.
edited 22nd May '13 3:09:54 PM by Rethkir
Apple symbolism does have a wikipedia page, but take a look at it. After listing a few valid apple tropes, that sort of thing quickly descends into "List of apples in popular culture." We can be better than that.
So let's launch Apple Of Eden, Apple of Discord and any other specific symbols we can think of, rather than Apples Are Symbolic.
Yes, that.
I do think it should be Fruit Of Knowledge rather than Apple Of Eden though
(edit) Apple of Discord is an existing trope; it's not about apples though, only about discord.
edited 22nd May '13 4:07:49 PM by Spark9
Sure, Fruit Of Knowledge. And, actually, I don't know if Apples Represent Discord is a trope at all, so never mind that.
It's not Apple Represents Discord. That's not a trope. It's Apple of Discord which is a specific mythological reference to the apple that Eris/Discordia threw into a pack of Goddesses inscribed "to the fairest" and started the Trojan War.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. DickDo golden apples indicate anything in particular? The page itself makes that claim and I think there was a golden apple representing temptation in The Magician's Nephew but I can't recall others offhand. It does seem like one that might be a special exception, though.
Symbolism is up, so we're done with that bit.
By Fruit Of Knowledge of Eden you mean Forbidden Fruit, right? Calling it forbidden seems like a better name for the apple that represents temptation. I don't know if an apple is ever used for knowledge without being forbidden.
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Closest thing would be apple's association with school teachers? But I wouldn't give it a name like Fruit Of Knowledge.
Adam And Eve Shout Out (or something along those lines) sounds good to me, for situations that use apples to represent temptation somehow, since apples do seem to be the only fruits consistently used to represent (or at least evoke) temptation.
Also, for the record, it was a silver apple in The Magicians Nephew; golden apples seem to just be golden because they're magic.
But I am a cat, and no cat anywhere ever gave anyone a straight answer
Think we could have a Golden Apples Are Magic thing?
I think it would be a shame if the title was lost in the mix, but as stated by the OP apples are clearly not a trope in and of them selves.
A "fruit as symbolism" index (something like Panthera Awesome) could be a good idea, and might cut down on not-a-trope examples. We could merge Strawberry Shorthand into this (strawberries might be used enough to merit there own trope but a broad trope like that encourages overuse). Then you have pomegranates, etc. And even a section for made up fruits (like Devil Fruit from One Piece).
I think this could get tricky with fruits that mean different things to different cultures. Peaches, for instance, are related to immortality in Chinese (and derivative) myths where as American culture uses them frequently as shorthand for sex/young women (to the point where people were unwilling to accept that the Presidents of the United States song 'Peaches' was actually about... well, eating peaches).
Specifically regarding apples, (I can't remember where or under what context I read about this so chalk it up to speculation on my part) they were very important to several ancient cultures and as a result were used as a sort of default for depicting magic fruit. Ie, they were used in myths when the goal was to not add the symbolism of the fruit in question to the story one was telling. As an example, neither the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge nor the Tree of Life (which may be the same tree) is explicitly an apple in the Bible or Talmudic scholarship... depicting as such came about much later (when artists started drawing it).
Whatever the final solution here, it should be explicitly stated not to post Erotic Eating examples on any fruit related page (all fruit and probably anything else can be eaten in an erotic fashion...)
Final thought/question: Is a golden apple different from a regular apple? I mean, other than the cosmetic difference, is it tropeworthy when a magical fruit is golden? The fruit of Tree of Knowledge wasn't golden but it was otherwise magic (sort of)? Does the myth of Discord change at all if she had just written "To the fairest..." on a regular apple?
"Fruits that mean different things to different cultures."
That's why we should not have a page called Apple Symbolism or Fruit Symbolism. Instead, we should have Apple Of Fertility or Fruit Of Fertility or (if we want to lump even harder) Fertility Symbol.
Crown Description:
How Do You Like Them Apples is not a trope, but merely a list of apples in fiction.

The thing about fruits is that most of them have one or several specific personalities that often appears in media. Bananas are funny and/or suggestive, strawberries are cute/sweet or passionate. Grapes are romantic, or, especially if peeled, lazy/arrogant/picky. Apples are... kind of special, unless they're compared to other fruits, in which case they're usuall just plain. Pears are unusual, often contrasted to plain apples. Tomatoes (and eggs) go splat. Coconuts are hard. Lemons are sour. Watermelons are for hot summer days.
Point is, there are definite patterns, but they're not fixed, and not universal. It's sort of like how colours usually symbolise various things, which also ties into fruits (like how both red and strawberries can symbolise passion).
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