Needs Help: Not So Different

The entries for this trope generally take two forms:

1.) In-universe. Character A tells Character B they're not so different and explains why they think this is the case.

2.) Out of universe. A troper has noticed a similarity between two characters that (they think) is meaningful, and elaborates on it.

The first is objective, but the second is highly subjective and prone to misuse, especially since the parameters of the trope do not distinguish which similarities are meaningful and which aren't, or acknowledge that two characters / factions can take the same action for different reasons and that what is morally justifiable in one situation may be completely over the line in another. For example, two characters in Grand Theft Auto V are listed as this because they both wind up committing murder, even though one does so For the Evulz and one does so out of I Did What I Had to Do.

tl;dr: If the subjective examples are allowed to stay, this really needs to become a YMMV trope.

edited 27th Nov '14 1:58:23 PM by poi99

I'll let this live.

I'd say take out the non In-universe examples as misuse. The trope is when a character points out the similarities. The audience reaction is just something that happens. A lot. With or without any justification.

1. 1 is a trope, #2 is not. So this should be in-universe examples only. Experience shows that for any two random characters in any setting, somebody on the internet will find a similarity.

This has been bothering me for a while too, for that very #2 reason, which I tend to clean up if I'm familiar with the work, and I took the initiative to include it in Square Peg Round Trope on October (there was some discussion back in the day, IIRC, and I think the OP read my note)

Editors use it for usually long winded analysis the moment two characters have some similarities, turning it into an omnipresent trope or worse, when it's meant for in-story realizations, remarks and so on.

I'd make it a In-universe examples only trope.

edited 27th Nov '14 2:40:10 PM by TrollBrutal

Nthing In Universe Examples Only

I disagree. There are plenty of examples where two characters are clearly intended to parallel each other despite being supposedly different, without it being explicitly lampshaded. Just because this trope gets overused doesn't mean every instance is misuse.

That is usually covered in other ways by the more generic Foil, a dynamic evoked when characters have similarities and differences. The subtrope is specific by the description. The line that opened the article and was removed illustrated it well, IMO

We're not so different, you and I. In another time, another place, I might have called you friend!

Implicit, non-verbal moments are okay when it's clear the trope is in play, for instance when Luke realizes his father is missing a limb too, but I've seen Not So Different used to compare characters from different movies, go figure.

edited 27th Nov '14 3:07:42 PM by TrollBrutal

Yeah, that's definitely misuse. I'm thinking of examples like the thing with Luke and his father—they're not explicitly stated to be Not So Different, but the hand and the thing with the cave on Dagobah make the intent perfectly clear. Just want to make sure we don't lose those in the process.

I strongly disagree with making this cover similarities between two characters that are not specifically called out within the work. We already have a number of tropes that cover those similarities. This one isn't about the similarity; it's about the action of one character calling out another one on the similarity.

Additionally, whether the intent is "perfectly clear" or not is itself subjective.

edited 27th Nov '14 4:42:47 PM by Madrugada

+1 to make this "in-universe".

By the way:

I'm with Discar. If we switch to in-universe examples only, yes, we'll lose a lot of non-examples and misuse, but we'll also lose a lot of meaningful observations and examples just because the work was subtle enough not to hit us over the head with them by having the characters explicitly point it out, like the aforementioned Star Wars example. Let's make sure we're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I would sooner see the two split into separate tropes, one objective and one YMMV. The latter may be a troper / Audience Reaction, but reactions are still tropes (e.g. Moral Event Horizon).

That's a struggle we have with a lot of tropes, implicit vs. explicit. With explicit you get the point across but you sort of violate Show, Don't Tell. With implicit you open things up to bad examples but you also include great examples that are not explicit.

I'll counter that by claiming that good Foils are Not So Different, in the subjective sense. Since Foil is already a trope where we the viewers are drawing upon inferences, such examples fit better in that trope, instead of mixed into a different trope that is about one character attempting to relate to (or manipulate ) another character on a personal level.

edited 28th Nov '14 5:07:20 PM by crazysamaritan

What about the "bad" Foils? Just because you can find identical examples in both tropes doesn't mean one supersedes the other.

I can't be sure what you mean by that. EVERY example of Not So Different is a Foil. The only exceptions are bad examples, which may be examples of Foil, even if they aren't examples of Not So Different.

All of the Foil subtropes are based on how the audience's attention to the dynamic between the characters is focused. Not So Different is (based on the current definition) about the characters themselves drawing the comparison. The point of subtropes is to supercede the parent trope in specific instances. Allowing the audience to draw the comparisons between the characters effectively allows Not So Different to duplicate each example of the parent trope, making the two effectively identical, despite the initial definition.

Read the trope definition, people. Not So Different explicitly says that it's the action of one character pointing out the similarities between himself and another character to the other character. It's not "implied". It's not "intended". It's not an Audience Reaction. It's an action that either happens or doesn't and can be objectively supported as either happening or not.

Then should tweaking the definition to included those be considered?

NO! The definition is fine. The definition is not broken. Tweaking it to include those will make it a duplicate. Clean up the bad examples. That's all this needs. It is not broken. Do not change the definition to fit shoehorned examples.

edited 28th Nov '14 9:55:52 PM by Madrugada

A Foil is done through either compare (so the small differences stand out more) and contrast (to highlight broad ideology), and is much more specific than simply hero and villain or The Rival. If they are already very similar to begin with that can't create a Not So Different scenario, which is specifically about people who seem very different learning they have similar traits. In fact those types tend to argue that they are "Actually Very Different."

Personally, all I think needs to happen with the trope is to eliminate flagrantly bad examples like "character A from movie X is similar to Character B from movie y" that some are talking about. This is a plot trope between two characters, not broad observations.

I should note that for audiences pointing out that two characters from unrelated works are "not so different", we already have tropes like Expy, Captain Ersatz, and Alternate Company Equivalent. We really don't need such examples on this page too.

None of those feel like they match this trope's misuse, though — like the Star Wars example, which notes similarities in the stories of two characters within the same continuity.

I will also note that the name is contributing a LOT to misuse as a Pothole Magnet; I just saw it potholed to describe two different sides of a fictional civil war.

One final question: does it count as this trope if a third party within the work itself decides that two other parties are "not so different"? If not, that's another form of misuse.

edited 29th Nov '14 2:10:03 AM by Leaper

Yes, it's still describing them as Not So Different.

edited 29th Nov '14 4:16:27 AM by SatoshiBakura