Seems we have a TypeLabels problem there as well in the wicks.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Gentleman Troper!
Let me guess, this has turned into a "list of all presidents in fiction"?
Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!
Maybe, but that is not the problem here.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
This shouldn't be called Our Presidents Are Different. It is not about how you portray presidents differently from how most works do. It's about every possible way that a work can portray the president.
President Action and President Target seem like tropes. Most of these probably aren't should be lumped in with other politicians rather than given their own page for presidents. None should be allowed to be headings on a single "all possible president adjectives page"; the current page is terrible.
Ahem, wrong interpretation of the snowclone family. It's not strictly about "Our Xes are different", it's more about "How Xes are protrayed in fiction", since these names tend to attract better examples.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Yeah, thanks to unstoppable misuse. But we don't think "How Xes are portrayed in fiction" is a good premise for a page, right? Don't we organize examples by trope instead of by noun?
Not because of misuse. Because that snowclone family gets less Zero Context Examples than other names.
There is a precedent for a split, though: Our Zombies Are Different.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Captain of USS Bajor
As long as we're fiddling with this, can we broaden the definition to cover other elected officials such as mayors?
Eh, I do not think that's a good idea. Presidents have a lot of baggage associated with them (e.g launching a nuclear war, being always targets of assassinations etc.) that isn't really there with other officials.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Some of these are tropes associated with presidents - like President Target. Others work just as well with other politicians - like Playboy Politician. That's why we should make a page for each trope rather than make one for each noun and then just brainstorm potential tropes on the page.
edited 10th Jun '13 8:33:35 AM by AmyGdala
When I brought up the subject on Lost And Found, I was told that this trope could apply to senators as well, and just note that in the example.
Some of the types may apply to other elected officials while some would work only for presidents. A split would remedy these problems.
Hi
Clock is set.
Ugh, I hate "Our X Is Different" being used for "Tropes about X." Just a pet peeve of mine.
I'm shocked there's not a trope for "the president's been kidnapped." That's a classic.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Possibly President Target could be made into that.
edited 7th Aug '13 10:21:14 AM by MikuruFan
Captain of USS Bajor
It looks to me like Our Presidents Are Different is really a supertrope. I propose splitting it by section into different subtrope pages and leaving OPAD as an index. Another possibility would be to split the subtropes, kill the supertrope, and put everything under Authority Tropes.
I like the second idea.
Jupiterian Local
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Are the subtropes meaty enough to stand on their own, though, or are they just "[another trope], and also the President?"
- President Action: Badass + The President. See also Authority Equals Asskicking.
- President Target: Distressed Dude + The President. See also The President's Daughter (a "MacGuffin [that] is a living person, and is in danger, held captive or being actively hunted").
- President Personable: Nice Guy + The President. See also Reasonable Authority Figure.
- President Corrupt: Evil + The President. See also... President Evil.
- President Scheming: President Corrupt, but not as much.
- President Jerkass: Jerkass + The President.
- President Buffon: The Ditz + The President. See also Pointy-Haired Boss.
- President Lunatic: The Caligula + The President.
- President Iron: The Determinator + The President.
- President Focus Group: Slave to PR + The President.
- President Evil: President Evil. See also, President Evil.
- President Minority: Token Minority + The President.
- President Playboy: Mr. Vice Guy + The President.
- President Geek: One Of Us + The President.
- President Strawman: Strawman Political + The President.
- President Mary Sue: Mary Sue + The President.
- President Not-Appearing-In-This-Film: Invisible President.
- President Unmodified: A real, actual president. See Historical Domain Character.
Whew! That's eighteen different types, two of which (President Evil, Invisible President) already have explicit tropes. Are any of the others worth keeping? Or should we just make a generic The President trope about elected heads of government?
edited 7th Aug '13 5:17:01 PM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Yeah. I'm not sure if Trope, also the President is a trope. It's not like we have Trope, also a villain.
Captain of USS Bajor
*whistles* Didn't realize it was that bad.
We can probably cut a bunch of them (not sure which ones ATM), but I will say that Trope + Super-Powerful Chief of State (e.g. the president) would appear to have different implications than just Trope on its own.
I'm inclined to think most of those "trope, plus the president" marks are seriously abusing The Same But More Specific. It's safe to say that President Corrupt and President Scheming can go, though.
Yeah, they should be on President Evil.
Jupiterian Local
Well, the question is whether saying "this character is President Badass" is any different from saying "this character is The President and also a Bad Ass". If the "president type" is more than the sum of two tropes, then it's probably worth keeping as a distinct trope. For example, Invisible President is probably legit, as while it's basically "He Who Must Not Be Seen + The President", the reasons for using it are different than He Who Must Not Be Seen, as are its effects on the story, so it stands on its own. Meanwhile, President Badass probably isn't a distinct trope, because the only real difference between "President Badass" and "Badass + The President" is already covered by Authority Equals Asskicking anyway.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
President Target can probably become the standard "The president gets kidnapped" trope as stated above, and President Action and Preisdent Minority are probably also worth keeping in some form or another. The rest should be covered by other tropes, but I'd like to hear what other people think on the matter.
I would put the reason for listing as "too broad".
The trope definition is divided into 18 sections, two of which already have a page. One has a link to a related trope. Each section has a short description of various ways in how this trope is played out with each type having different uses of the trope. The description admits to the different types being used "depending on the story".
Now to the examples. Examples from the 16 sections without their own pages are scattered all over the long list, making it unnecessary difficult to find related examples of the same type of this trope. Examples of President Personable, President Scheming, and President Target are located right next to each other, the only thing they have in common is that they are fictional presidents.
Each type of fictional president should have their own page as they are tropeworthy. The main OPAD page should be made into an index or disambig.