It's not just that they have different connotations (although they do)—it's more that they are pretty much totally unrelated. Being a VIP doesn't qualify you for the trope as written, and arguably may even disqualify you from it. Rjinswand suggested the name (well, the longer version of the name) based on a misunderstanding of the trope we were discussing.
You could rewrite the trope to make the name work, but at that point you're dealing with a different trope and I'm not sure the crowner for the previous definition is still useful. And honestly, if we assume a rewrite is happening either way, I'm not sure if it even makes sense to decide on the name first—I mean, if we don't know whether the trope is going to be about hostages or not, how are we supposed to judge whether Hostage MacGuffin is an acceptable name?
edited 26th Oct '15 11:55:36 PM by troacctid
Both of the current leading names seem problematic. A VIP is an important person, the point is that the person themselves isn't necessarily a VIP, they are just somehow related to or connected to a VIP. As it stands now, it sounds more like the president is the MacGuffin rather than his daughter (for example). Hostage MacGuffin is somewhat better, but I'm not convinced the character is 100% taken for hostage? Are there non-hostage instances of this at all?
Also, I agree that a definition needs to be decided on for sure before you bother with a name. That's putting the cart before the horse.
edited 29th Oct '15 1:01:53 AM by NoirGrimoir
SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)It seems to me that we had a disagreement about the name (some people think VIP Mac Guffin is appropriate, others don't, etc), so we had a crowner, VIP Mac Guffin won... and the people who didn't like it in the first place are saying that the crowner is invalid, for all the same reasons they said they didn't like the name in the first place.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.Let's give this another bump. I guess we need more votes.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.Bump. No meaningful change in the crowner. Runoff?
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.![]()
Looking at both names, Mac Guffin Hostage could mean a person (who is a MacGuffin) is held captive by the Big Bad, while VIP Mac Guffin could mean a high-ranking member of society who happens to be a MacGuffin.
Did I get the gist of both of these, or am I seeing it wrong? If I'm right, that means a simple rename won't do.
Bump. Again.
So. The options are runoff, new crowner entirely, or I just go crazy, swap in all the sandboxes under their current (stupid) names, and keep from pulling any more of my hair out.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.So I'm not hearing any opposition to the "Discar goes crazy and pastes in the sandboxes as-is" plan.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.One more bump. Remember, these are the current sandboxes:
- Living Mac Guffin (supertrope)
- Mac Guffin Person Reveal
- MacGuffin Turned Human
- Mac Guffin Hostage (the one we're arguing over the most)
- Mundane Mac Guffin Person
- Mac Guffin Super Person
Any suggestions besides "just get it over with already?"
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.Looking at those sandbox pages, MacGuffin-Person Reveal and Animate Mac Guffin (MacGuffin Turned Human) seem to be lacking in examples. Was Living MacGuffin checked thoroughly for examples belonging to those two subtropes?
The rest seem all right.
I trawled through for everything I could, but there were a lot of ZCE's that couldn't be categorized.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.Hmmm, the presence of ZCE's doesn't help. Well, if a staff member gives us the signal, we could launch those, and maybe put those low-example pages into YKTTW to build them up?
Already did that, actually. Got a few good examples, though not a whole lot.
I think once we're fixing all the MacGuffin Girl/Holy Child/The President's Daughter wicks, we'll find more to fill out the new tropes. Of course, there are going to be oodles of ZCE's there, too.
edited 2nd Dec '15 3:16:53 PM by Discar
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.I've closed the crowner in favour of Hostage MacGuffin. Mac Guffin Hostage may make a good redirect.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanAll right then. We've done crowners and discussions for everything, so it looks like we're just about done. These are the tropes and sandboxes we have:
- Living Mac Guffin (supertrope)
They can be swapped in immediately, at which point Holy Child, The President's Daughter, and MacGuffin Girl will all be redirected to Living MacGuffin. The wicks for all four of the old tropes will need to be combed through and changed to the new tropes as appropriate. I fully expect we're going to be getting a lot of ZCE's, but we'll do our best.
Anything else?
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.All right, I'm getting started. Wish me luck.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.
Crown Description:
What would be the best way to fix the page?

We can't really use VIP Macguffin with the current definition though.