National Weapon is so restrictive it really should be 'the preferred or stereotypical weapon' and such.
The description of National Weapon is basically what I meant with Cultural Weapon. It's about weapons associated with a culture. And there culture is defined as anything between a gender and a group like an order or society.
I don't think the definition of that trope is bad, just maybe needs a bit of polish. The name is as mentioned too restrictive for the actual trope, though. Wanna guess what name I'd propose instead?
Here's a good one: Revolvers Are Just Better.
The Laconic says it's about revolvers being more effective than other guns. And yet most of the examples are just "[character] uses a revolver as a weapon".
The description there really does not help its case there with "Let's face it, revolvers are cool. "
Now I could see a Revolver user in a modern or cyberpunk settings, staying traditional or a sign of an old school cop, a plot point with Togusa in Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex. And a Rule of cool Revolver trope because that seriously is a thing as people seem to put revolvers on anything. But Revolvers being treated as better than other guns in accuracy, power, less subject to jamming at the cost of fire rate or loading time is a thing especially in videogames.
EDIT: Seriously why are there revolvers on Starships
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edited 24th Jan '15 11:17:51 AM by Memers
Some of the examples in RAJB will fall into Gratuitous Revolver (or perhaps Gratuitous Revolver Design for things with revolver chambers)
Yes, but an example can be in both tropes. But right now the trope is just revolvers used in fiction that are not Revolvers Are for Amateurs. Including every single western ever...
The way I see it there is
- Revolvers Are Better, the up side of using them such as in video games they usually have more stopping power and such. As well as works that show/tell they are specifically better that other guns that are presented in the work.
- Revolvers Are Worse, in works that have them having low reload time, fire rate and such and mention/show they are worse than modern guns and maybe getting replaced.
- Old School Cop Revolver where the revolver is used to show that these cops are behind the times not using more modern weapons. IE Murtogh in Lethal Weapon and Togusa in Ghost In The Shell.
- Gratuitous Revolver Revolvers put on swords and spaceships and such.
- Revolver Ammo Count Error, failures in writing and such in which a person fires more shots than the revolver they have can hold.
Just having a work set between 1850 and up featuring someone with a revolver is just not a trope.
edited 25th Jan '15 4:21:56 PM by Memers
Now where would Nero (a dude with a custom made revolver) in Devil May Cry count? (I'll give you more details if you need)
MAX POWER KILL JEEEEEEEEWWWWWI think that part of the general issue with weaponry tropes it that we try to shoehorn every character with X weapon into a trope specifically for that weapon. When in general, there are very very few actually weapon specific tropes. Now, I will give you Old School Cop Revolver as a thing. The other ones seem to just be shoehorning though.
Every work is going to have weapons that are treated as decent and ones that suck. No, they're not always going to be the same weapon. We do not need two tropes for every weapon that says they work good in this world, and bad in this other one.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. DickThe more I think about this trope-cluster, the more I feel like it needs to be a medieval equivalent of Standard FPS Guns.
Sounds like a good idea to me. Definitely pare down on the ZCE's, if nothing else.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.![]()
Another vote for the creation of a Standard Medieval Weapons trope/catagory
Every work is going to have weapons that are treated as decent and ones that suck. No, they're not always going to be the same weapon. We do not need two tropes for every weapon that says they work good in this world, and bad in this other one.
Not every example would fall under a trope yeah. As for the better or worse thing, Revolvers Are Better in of itself is more of a western / civil war trope, the worse aspect is more of a modern trope closely related to Old School Cop Revolver. As for if we need tropes for them I don't really know.
Gratuitous Revolver Cylinders is very much a thing considering that people toss them on swords and giant starships for no other reason aside from it looks cool.
edited 26th Jan '15 11:13:47 PM by Memers

Can we change the thread title to show that we aren't working cleaning a specific trope, but reorganizing a bunch of tropes?