Cleaning & Reorganizing Weaponry Tropes:

Again, you people disagree even on what counts as a trope.

Having weapons is cool, so... Rule of Cool? But yeah, when you have a weapon it suddenly feels distinctive. Having a weapon feels different from not having at all, and having one weapon feels different from having another. That, in my opinion, is what makes a trope. The bits about who's using it or what the setting is makes it richer, but ultimately, entirely optional.

You can feel it more if you've watched more shows with weapons.

If you insist, though, we gotta keep the name An Axe To Grind and then list Internal Subtropes. No need to make new pages.

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Having hair feels different from having no hair, and having blonde hair feels different from having brown hair. Does that make blonde hair a trope on its own?

What if I say yes?

Maybe that's the thing though: hair isn't as remarkable as a weapon is. It's a case by case situation, i.e not everything can be regulated under the same rule.

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And I thought we were just starting to get somewhere for a few posts. I would support a Cool Ax or Fighting With An Ax rename because the use of an ax is distinctive regardless of who is using it, which is what I've been trying to get at. Names are sometimes just names, but the trope behind it is what's important. The fact the ax itself CAN be distinctive is all that matters. If a character is using a wood splitting ax just to split wood (ie work off some steam), that's People Sit On Chairs. But if the wood chopping is filmed like a plot mirror to some zombie killing, then it becomes a trope. That's how fine a line we are drawing here.

Firefighters using axes is a different subject. If they just use firefighter axes for their occupational use that would go better under the Occupational Weapon idea we've been throwing around. But sometimes a character has a firefighter motif and still uses an ax as a combat weapon (Optimus Prime in Transformers, sometimes), and that would still be the ax trope. These tropes are interconnected and not their own individual things.

We also have Bald Of Awesome for the lack of hair making the character look cool.

edited 3rd Dec '14 5:58:47 PM by KJMackley

A kitchen knife is not a dagger, a chair leg is not a club, and a hatchet is not a battleaxe. They might be related, but fiction uses them in different ways. They shouldn't be lumped together.

edited 3rd Dec '14 6:21:20 PM by troacctid

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Sitting on a chair feels different from sitting on a couch. Does that mean People Sitting On Chairs is a trope? Using tools created for fighting to fight with doesn't sound like Rule of Cool or distinctive in any way. It just sounds like People Sitting On Chairs. Weapons are not inherently remarkable.

If chopping wood with a woodchopping axe is People Sitting On Chairs, why is battling with a battleaxe not People Sitting On Chairs?

And anything can be distinctive. That does not mean it's a trope. Blonde hair can be distinctive. That does not mean blonde hair is a trope. We've been over this.

And that's where we disagree. It's not distinctive regardless of who's using it. It's distinctive if it's used by someone who looks too small to handle it. It's not distinctive if it's used by your average rank-and-file soldier.

It's that which makes them distinct that makes them a trope. Not them in and of themselves.

And if you're really set on "using an axe" as a trope, then we're back to the same problem that began this. "Alice is using an axe." "Bob is using an axe." There's no additional context needed, because "using an axe" is a trope. According to you.

edited 3rd Dec '14 6:37:48 PM by AnotherDuck

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As opposed to an ax just lying in the background, yes, it is a trope. Simple question, is Badass Longcoat not a trope? That is just a character wearing an item.

The difference is that the longcoat is being used as a sign of Badass-ery. The axe isn't being used to signify anything. It's just being used for its intended purpose, which is not any more noteworthy on its own than a screwdriver being used to turns screws (which were chosen as fastenings instead of nails).

edited 3rd Dec '14 6:56:43 PM by MrL1193

I've seen a lot of works that use battleaxes in a fairly consistent manner. I'm pretty convinced there's a trope there.

Weapons have personalities. Play a lot of video games where you have to choose between them, and you start to see the patterns. The game designers make conscious choices about how to balance weapons against each other, or how to design the gameplay for characters who use different weapons. Other times they have a character's gameplay in mind and, when coming up with a design for the character's look and feel, they have to choose what sort of weapon to give them. In both cases, the type of weapon they use informs or is informed by the type of gameplay the developers want. And once you see the pattern, it becomes clear that it's not limited to games—the same implications tend to hold true in other media as well.

edited 3rd Dec '14 7:37:02 PM by troacctid

Rhymes with "Protracted."

^^ Badass Longcoat is that the coat looks cool, therefore the person wearing it looks badass. I would also point out that while there are different types of axes, a woodsplitting ax is often not that much different visually from axes that were made for war. A lot of weapons got their start as tools. Google "War Ax" and "Hatchet" separately.

^ It's like Tropes in Aggregate. If it just happened once, that's meaningless. Multiple times is a pattern. There is a distinct pattern of different weapons having different connotations.

KJ, if you do in fact care about the connotations, then why do you continue to resist the repeated suggestion of identifying the patterns formed by the combinations of weapons and connotations to fill in the gaps the current tropes don't cover? Why do you insist on keeping a uselessly broad "supertrope" which is only half of an actual trope and has a purpose that really should be served by an index instead? If we can all agree that the connotations are important, then why should we keep an axe "trope" sans connotations?

edited 3rd Dec '14 9:01:52 PM by MrL1193

@ duck: Like I and King Zeal said, using weapons is remarkable once you see it a lot.

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Because even before I started pushing this argument, nothing was happening on this thread. I've never said that "a weapon that suggests something about the character using it" is not a trope, I've been saying that trying to create 3+ tropes for every weapon based on that is not only going to leave a lot of orphaned examples but is simply too unwieldy to do as a single TRS thread and doomed to stall forever.

I've also been pushing that the ax itself can be/is/whatever a perfectly valid trope on its own. Does anyone actually argue that a distinctive, interesting looking ax being used is not a trope called Cool Ax? Anymore than a distinctive, interesting looking car is a Cool Car? Or a distinctive, abnormally large sword is a BFS? Or an evil blond guy means Blondes Are Evil?

I'm suggesting a supertrope so that we have places to put the odd examples that don't necessarily fit the limited subtropes that can be created from this thread from any individual weapon. Because editors are going to want a place to put those examples. Then with a supertrope in place we can make a index of more specific ideas, if you so choose.

edited 3rd Dec '14 9:45:51 PM by KJMackley

As far as I can see, the thread is stalled right now because we keep arguing about whether an axe is inherently tropeable. You just mentioned the possibility of a Cool Axe trope, saying that axes could be tropeable, but what you've been saying for the past few pages is that all axes are tropeable regardless of connotations, with only the barest of caveats in the requirement that they be used. When you water the trope down that much, it becomes meaningless and ceases to be a trope. And what would make tolerating such a thing worthwhile? A dumping ground for all the Square Peg Round Trope misuse taken from the other pages? That doesn't seem like much of an upside to me.

Once again, I would like to urge you to propose as many specific combinations of weapons and connotations as you have in mind. You can put them all up in YKTTW if you like and take as long as you need to flesh them out. You can also make an index of axe tropes if you like. But let's not cut corners just because the thread is taking too long. If we're going to take action to fix this mess, let's do it right.

That doesn't even make sense. Sitting on chairs a lot doesn't exactly make it remarkable.

@KJ: So you are okay with examples being only, "Alice is using an axe," and "Bob is using an axe"? You don't think that falls under Zero Context Examples? You know, one of the main problems with the trope to begin with? Because if using an axe is notable in itself, then that's all that's needed for an example to not lack any context.

If you want to push for Cool Axe, then there's an implicit assumption that there are non-cool axes, and that axes aren't cool by default. Just like cars. Cool Car isn't just about any car; it's about especially cool cars. The Batmobile, KITT, and others. Not the Ford Fiesta driving past in the background.

A Badass Longcoat needs a description of why it's badass. Saying, "That is just a character wearing an item," is misunderstanding what the trope is about. It needs to add badassery just by its presence.

As mentioned, weapons have personalities, and axes aren't exempt from that. However, not all axes have the same personality. It's not enough to just be using an axe and then assume it has exactly that personality. Not all axes are slow and powerful. Not even in media. Therefore, not all axes are that trope. It's not enough to just be an axe. It has to fit certain characteristics according to the trope.

As for real axes, work axes are generally heavier than war axes, since war axes need to be more agile and faster to have a better chance of hitting what you aim at and not take too long to pull back after the swing so you can swing again. A work axe just needs to be light enough to not be too tiring to use, and as long as it's sturdy and does its job it's fine. Well, unless you get to speciality axes, but that's something else.

edited 4th Dec '14 12:04:58 AM by AnotherDuck

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God I am so lost... I am just going to say I stated my ideas in post 74 and really stuff like this has to go somewhere◊.

edited 4th Dec '14 12:53:17 AM by Memers

I've said repeatedly, an ax showing up is not a trope. I am not talking about someone holding an ax or using it to chop wood. A character with an ax on their Wall of Weapons is not a trope. A character using an ax in battle IS a trope. How about this, Intimidating Ax. An ax is used to make a character more intimidating. That covers pretty much any time an ax is used in a fight. The same thing with Brutal Looking Ax, or Fighting With An Ax. Why is any of those not a trope? Or are you still thinking I'm talking about it just sitting there doing nothing?

Truth is all these different weapons have different, innate uses built in every time someone uses them in a fight. An ax of any shape and size is designed to cleave and chop, they are not subtle in appearance and are very messy when used to kill someone, battle ax or lumber ax alike, which contrasts a cleaner stabbing weapon or a blunt force club. All of that is built into the personality of the item as a weapon, it doesn't matter the exact details of what it looks like or the personality of the character using it.

I've always thought that some tropers are such weapon enthusiasts. :P

@ duck: no, sitting on chairs and wielding an axe have different remarkable levels. Again, Rule of Cool. (You just fail to understand the coolness.) Those bits about why it is used or who uses it are icing.

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An axe is not Rule of Cool. An axe is a very practical weapon. That's why it had it's fair share of use on the battlefield. Rule of Cool is about accepting things that don't make sense just because they're cool. Rule of Cool isn't anything that's cool.

Rule of Cool relating to axes would perhaps be an oversized axe that would be too practical to use at that size, but since it's cool we don't care about how impractical it is.

At least read the tropes before you start to refer to them.

Also, just because you think axes are cool doesn't mean it's a trope.

@KJ: I've stated before that I'm discussing on the assumption that this is about non-civilian axes used as weapons, so don't come and imply I'm saying something else.

That part is reasonable. That's sort of how you describe a trope. Brutal Looking Axe would also fit roughly the same. Unless you mean, "An axe is always used to make a character more intimidating," rather than, "An axe that is used to make a character more intimidating." The latter is a reasonable description of a trope, while the former is a false assumption.

This part, no. That's just going back to the same stuff you've said before. It's not just about every time an axe is used in a fight. For instance, a dwarf using an axe isn't necessarily intimidating. However, axes are frequently dwarves' favourite weapons, which is a different axe trope.

Just like Fighting With An Axe isn't a trope. That's just ignoring that there are certain characteristics to it, and claiming fighting with an axe always includes whatever it is you want to include in the trope.

The logic should be: If an axe is used to show off certain characteristics, it belongs in a trope.

The logic should not be: If an axe is used, it's meant to show off certain characteristics, and it belongs in a trope.

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The default impression of someone holding an ax with the intent of using it is that it is supposed to be intimidating. A dwarf using an ax can certainly be intimidating, so long as they can lift it. It might be comical at the same time, but they can certainly intimidate someone with it. If it's not intimidating, ie they try to use it and fail, that would be a Subverted Trope.

No.

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Ah, that's it: What's more tropable isn't the axe itself, it's "fighting with an axe."

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I think it should be Small Girl Big Weapon rather than axe specifically because it tends to convey the same thing if it's an axe, a maul, a mace, or anything else comically oversized for her.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

So much this! Any weapon that's not being used to fight with is just chairs, once it's being used it fight with, it is definitely a trope.

And Rule of Cool can most definitely apply to axes. I'm currently playing though Brutal Legend and the Weapon Of Choice for the main character is an axe with flame decals that can shoot lighthing, cause fire damage, convert damage into health, cause a Damage-Increasing Debuff, or simply be an Absurdly Sharp Blade. And this is in a world that runs on The Power of Rock...

edited 4th Dec '14 7:41:59 AM by ObsidianFire

Is BinaryStep still involved in this? I think my suggestion of Kukris Are Kool got lost in the discussion.