As long as we right it write it should work fine. We just have to make it clear that it's about tools used by the occupation. Not weapons the occupation normally uses as weapons used as weapons. How is this?
In the real world, most occupations have tools of the trade that are used entirely for utilitarian purposes. In fiction however, these noncombat objects become deadly weapons. The fireman who normally only uses his axe to bash in doors now bashes in skulls. The painter's brush spills blood with every stoke. The mechanic's wrench now breaks ribs.
This trope does not apply to weapons that a given occupation normally uses as weapons. A cop shooting people with his gun doesn't count. A cop shooting police badges at people does.
edited 22nd Oct '14 7:36:40 PM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. DickSmall Girl Big Weapon is essentially a Weapon Of Choice version of Cute Bruiser. Works as a contrast trope.
Brute is a good word for those who use axes as a sign of being big, strong, and prone to using force over finesse.
Axes Of Evil would need to include a contrast with heroic swords (or possibly other weapons more heroic looking than axes). If both good and evil forces uses axes, there is no contrast, and the axes don't show evil in themselves. They might be spiked or something to look more evil, but that's Spikes of Villainy or some other related trope.
Occupational Weapon sounds good like . Could also be a smith using a hammer (which isn't a war hammer). Fundamentally about using tools as weapons. Would it count as a subtrope to Improvised Weapon? Going by the definition, it would be a subtrope of Improbable Weapon User (which also has cooking tools listed).
Also agreeing with the nature type (aside from firefighters as noted). An axe is a tool most often used in nature, seeing a trees tend to grow in the forests.
edited 23rd Oct '14 10:09:21 AM by AnotherDuck
Check out my fanfiction!Axes Of Evil sounds good to me, but I'm not sure that nature archetypes using axes is widespread enough to be considered tropeworthy. Can you think of any examples?
Anyway, for axe subtropes, I'd go with Axes Of Evil (the evil counterpart to Heroes Prefer Swords), Primitive Axes (barbarians, vikings, and other such "less civilized" groups using axes as their preferred weapon), Psycho Axes (crazy or unstable people using axes — ie, literal axe murderers), and Executioners Axe (medieval executioner types using axes designed for beheadings).
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.I don't find those distinctions as tropey as the other ones mentioned. Especially if limited to axes, since primitive weapons are more often clubs and spears, and psychos use a lot of other weapons as well (machetes, cleavers, knives of various kinds, hooked weapons, chainsaws, etc.). It just sounds like you're trying to fit axes into personalities, rather than looking at what those personalities actually use.
Check out my fanfiction!Well, yeah. We're looking at the various things that an axe as a Weapon Of Choice could mean for characterization — ie, what using an axe says about them as a character. I'm not sure how fine we should make our distinctions (ie, is "literally axe crazy" worth splitting from the more generic "evil people use axes"? are "axes are used by big dumb brutes" and "axes are used by barbaric societies" splittable, or should they be under one "axes are unsophisticated" trope?) but we should be approaching this from the direction of "this guy uses an axe, what does that mean about them?" rather than the other way around, since that's the trope we're working on.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.Or rather, people pick weapons because it fits their personality; they don't fit their personality to the weapon they happen to find.
Well, I'm looking at it from a more Doylist perspective. The author gives a character a certain personality, and also gives them a preferred weapon, and the two are used to reinforce each other. The same way you wouldn't give a Nice Guy a costume design with Spikes of Villainy, you wouldn't give the Weak, but Skilled character big honkin' axe (unless you were going for a deliberate subversion, anyway) because it doesn't fit the theme.
The problem is that axes can mean more than one thing, which is why we're talking about splitting the trope.
edited 23rd Oct '14 9:01:55 AM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.My point is that you have to consider what other weapons would also say exactly the same thing.
Less civilised groups would also use clubs and spears, because those are more often seen as more primitive weapons than swords and axes. As such, I don't think it's a good fit. On the other hand, axes are the main weapon of those who use brute force. Sure, a club or maul might say the same about someone being very strong, but a club is more primitive and crude (more emphasis on strong and dumb), while a maul is a somewhat cleaner weapon (fictionally, at least), so they don't say the same thing. Axes are for those who kill and destroy through force rather than finesse, and don't mind if it gets messy. In short, "primitive" and "brute" are different, even if they're often combined.
Same with Psycho Axes. Sure, they could use axes for that, but exactly the same thing is highlighted with the other weapons I mentioned, so I don't think it would be an axe trope specifically.
And Executioners Axe I can buy, since it's essentially the same as using a scythe to depict someone as relating to Death. Not a weapon strictly speaking, but looks enough like one that most people accept it as a weapon, even if they're actually tools. Which would make them fall under Occupational Weapon. Well, the scythe is more of a symbol for harvesting souls, but still.
Basically, if we want axe tropes specific to axes, we want personalities that axes and only axes emphasise. Otherwise we have a wider trope than that. And that's not a bad thing. We just need to not limit ourselves only to one weapon because that's the original broken trope.
Check out my fanfiction!If you're trying to find fixed, exclusive one-to-one relationships between specific weapons and specific personality traits, I don't think that we're going to get anywhere. You seem to be suggesting that instead of having an Axes Of Evil trope or an Axes Are Unsophisticated trope, we should have an Evil Weapons trope that includes axes, scythes, flails, etc and an Unsophisticated Weapons trope for axes, hammers, clubs, etc.
That's a way bigger change than what we're talking about. That would involve essentially scrapping all of the Weapon Of Choice subtropes and creating a completely new series of tropes (Evil Weapons, Unsophisticated Weapons,Heroic Weapons, Graceful Weapons, etc) to replace them, which is a very different thing than "fix the current Weapon Of Choice tropes and add subtropes as necessary".
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.Go back and read what I've actually written.
Check out my fanfiction!I tend to agree. Axes are tied very closely with brutish (but not primitive) types, dwarves being the clearest examples (perhaps enough enough to be a subtrope) while Primative Man Primative Weapon (or whatever) would feature axes but not be exclusive to axes. Same with Small Girl Big Axe, Occupational Weapon (which I agree could be a valid subtrope of Improvised Weapon).
I am iffy on the Literal Axe Murderer (okay maybe I am going overboad with making up names), it is true that there are a range of weapons associated with psycho killers (anything crude and messy, really), but the term axe-murderer is so common, I feel like giving an axe to a psycho killer is a bit different than, say, a a psycho killer with a chainsaw (which is also quite common). IDK, I am fairly neutral on that one, I suppose. Maybe a supertrope of Crazy Weapons For Crazied Killers with Literal Axe Murderer and Chainsaw Massacre-er as subtropes??
"Some A are B" (Lots of Barbarians use Axes) does not mean that "All A are B" (Every Barbarian uses an Axe) or "All B are A" (Everyone who uses an Axe is a Barbarian.) Tropes don't have to be universal or all encompassing to be tropes. The Barbarian Axe is trope, even if psychos who aren't barbarians also use axes and even if there are barbarians who don't use an axe. What other weapons might be used to say something similar about a character isn't really relevant, unless we're trying to write a character-definition trope. Which we aren't.
Also, I'd say "unsophisticated" or "uncomplicated" rather than "brutish".
edited 23rd Oct '14 11:09:20 AM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.I find that to be conflating statements to make an argument.
If you're saying "unsophisticated" or "uncomplicated" then any well-designed or detailed axe wouldn't fit, because it would clash with the message.
Check out my fanfiction!It's "unsophisticated" in the way that the vikings were "unsophisticated" compared to the Romans, not "unsophisticated" as in "stone age primitive". There's definitely a difference in tech level there (vikings weren't building any major infrastructure projects like highways and aqueducts, for example) but that doesn't mean that the unsophisticated group is incapable of making axes.
Think of it as the flip side of Regal Rapier. Using a rapier shows you to be elegant and refined, using finesse more than brute force. Unsophisticated Axe is the opposite — it shows you to be straightforward and uncomplicated, using raw strength rather than extensive training.
edited 23rd Oct '14 1:29:29 PM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.I think even within the primitive/brutish/barbarian/large axe tropes we might actually be looking at two separate tropes here, which is why it's so hard to come to an agreement on terms. I'd support lumping one type of axe in with other Unsophisticated Weaponry such as clubs and spears, when the intent is that the character is inherently less intelligent and therefore goes for force over finesse to indicate a lack of intelligence needed to use or make a more complex weapon (like a caveman or orc barbarian). On the flip side, characters who use axes because they are bulky/strong/straightforward, and not because they're too dumb to use, make, or learn other weapons, fall under a different trope. That's where we're looking at characters like vikings or dwarves; the axe isn't an indication of fighting finesse or intelligence, they just chose axes because they're straightforward and it gets the job done better than the other options. While there are probably still examples that straddle the line, I think it's better than trying to lump them together.
I think Occupational Axes is good umbrella for the Nature Axes and other characters that originally used them for practical reasons and could certainly cover executioner's axes as well, provided they see it as their job and the rest of the universe more or less agrees to a reasonable extent. If they see themselves as an executioner but the rest of the world views them as a psychopathic killer, that falls under Psycho Weapons.
I'm iffy on Axesof Evil. I'm not sure there's enough inherent about an axe that makes it evil that doesn't already fall under another suggested trope (it's the associations with brutish thugs or psycho killers that make it evil, or resorting to appearance tropes to get the point across), but I also feel like it could be a trope with a little refinement of the idea.
Rocks fall, everyone miraculously survives.Have we considered the Competitive Balance tendency for the weapons? For example, an axe-user tend to be a Mighty Glacier, a dagger-user is usually a Fragile Speedster, and a sword is Jack of All Stats. Is there a trope for that? If not, is it tropeworthy enough?
Competitive Balance tropes tend to be their own mess too. I'd rather not have anything else depend upon them.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanUsually in works with multiple equips Axes are slow powerful and have a bad accuracy rating, nothing really competitive about it really they are usually just variety.
Bumping the thread.
(On another note, why does Caltrops even exist?)
Because people mistake weapons existing in works for tropes.
Also, competitive balance makes a mess of everything. It's better not to link it anywhere outside its own pages.
edited 18th Nov '14 7:51:02 AM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dicklike I said, Garnishing the Story
MAX POWER KILL JEEEEEEEEWWWWWYou keep citing that trope, Dan, but. Do not think it means what you think it does. That isn't saying that any random object that shows up in a work is a trope. Quite the opposite. It's saying that in fiction, certain tropes have specific forms that they are more likely to take.
It still doesn't mean that just having a axe show up means anything. Axe weilders on their own have no more significance than the character having brown hair. Everyone needs to have a hair colour. Not all of them mean something. The same is true of axes.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. DickIsn't Garnishing the Story more than just "using something because it exists"?
It is, but people seem to treat it as any random object.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
I was more equating firemen to the forest fire fighting types but yeah it is more of an attempt to shoehorn. And yeah Occupational Weapon is for sure something but that one might get a little chairsy as Cops Use Guns is not really a trope.