Genre Savvy cleanup

Finished cleaning up GenreSavvy.Western Animation. The only Genre Savvy subpage that needs to be cleaned up is GenreSavvy.Professional Wrestling.

I added in a line to further clarify the difference between Genre Savvy and Medium Awareness as a lot of examples seem to be using Genre Savvy where they should be using Medium Awareness. I hope it's alright.

Time to start looking at the crosswicks...

edited 15th Mar '16 2:25:02 PM by ObsidianFire

Just to clarify something, does Dangerously Genre-Savvy require the character to be Genre Savvy to begin with? 'Cause the description of Dangerously Genre-Savvy makes it sound like it doesn't...

edited 15th Mar '16 3:13:36 PM by ObsidianFire

Cleaned up all the "Y" crosswicks.

edited 15th Mar '16 4:57:34 PM by ObsidianFire

Cleaned up all the "X" crosswicks.

Cleaned up all the "B" crosswicks

Okay, seriously, I'm going over the DangerouslyGenreSavvy.Anime page and almost all of the examples are of people who are not Genre Savvy as according to what the definition now is, but are simply not holding the Idiot Ball, acting like it's not fiction but real life, etc. I'm kinda curious as to what that trope definition should actually be now as the definition of Dangerously Genre-Savvy has nothing to do with being Genre Savvy and everything to do with being an effective villain/hero.

I'm leaving the Dangerously Genre-Savvy sub-pages alone for now.

edited 29th Mar '16 8:20:32 AM by ObsidianFire

Honestly, I've never been entirely clear on what the hell Dangerously Genre-Savvy is supposed to be. It seems to be (mis?)used in more or less the exact same way as the Genre Savvy misuse that everyone is working so hard to get rid of right now.

^That's what I've noticed too. I'm tempted to say cut Dangerously Genre-Savvy along with all the uses of it that don't involved Genre Savvy and move/re-wick all the examples/uses that do involve Genre Savvy to plain old Genre Savvy.

^ I'd be in favor of that unless someone has a really compelling defense of DGS.

The problem with DGS is that it's defined by the absence of tropes. It's an aversion of Idiot Ball. It's a defiance of Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?. It's the lack of Contractual Genre Blindness. Etc. etc. Consequentially, its only purpose seems to be empty gushing. "This character didn't do a stupid thing! Dangerously Genre-Savvy, man!"

As it's currently written, DGS isn't a trope, just an ambiguously-defined collection of trope aversions. That's problematic. We're not here to catalog things that don't happen in a Work.

edited 29th Mar '16 12:07:30 PM by TobiasDrake

It's about the subversion, not the aversion, of tropes like that. Well, was supposed to.

Our userbase has a difficult time grasping the distinction between things the work itself implied could have happened versus hypothetical scenarios they, the audience, invented in their imagination.

For reference, see the constant misuse of Fridge Horror.

edited 29th Mar '16 12:17:32 PM by TobiasDrake

What was the reasoning behind having a trope that documents the subversion of certain other tropes? Genuine question, I'm wondering why trope this type of subversion when there are so many other subverted tropes out there that don't get a separate trope to document that.

edited 29th Mar '16 12:58:45 PM by Wyldchyld

Closer to the topic, see Not A Subversion for what the problem with the distinction is. I definitely agree that some tropes tropers just can't handle (see also Nightmare Fuel) without adding anything that comes to mind whether it fits or mostly not. That's a different problem from a problem with the definition, though.

That sounds very similar to arguments amounting to some things being okay because they happen elsewhere, even if they're problematic there as well. Just because one thing works for one trope doesn't mean it works for any other trope, and this one in particular isn't about any singular trope. The absence of a page or example isn't proof that it isn't true. It could just be that it hasn't been added.

edited 29th Mar '16 1:09:25 PM by AnotherDuck

I always thought Dangerously Genre-Savvy made most sense as a trope for "meta" villains, but that might just be me.

I which case we've got things like Meta Guy or Medium Awareness which have much more concrete trope definitions.

I always thought Dangerously Genre-Savvy meant "character is Genre Savvy and invokes tropes on purpose" but that's nowhere to be found in the description at all.

edited 29th Mar '16 5:50:35 PM by ObsidianFire

I've always interpreted it as a trope about villains who use or subvert tropes for their own gain and the heroes' demise. I believe that's how the idea of it started.

^ Unfortunately that's one of those ideas that seems simple when you say it like that but falls apart when you try to apply it. Almost anything that happens in fiction falls under one trope or another, so almost anything a villain does can count as "using or subverting a trope" if you shoehorn it hard enough.

A road of good intentions.

Not to bring up another Genre Savvy related trope, but how should an example of Genre Blindness be described? It seems like it's another "defined by an absence" tropes. Only this time it's an absence of characters knowing about genre conventions (at least, I think that's what the definition implies).

So how is that supposed to work given that characters knowing about genre conventions is usually an example of Genre Savvy?

And what's the decision on Dangerously Genre-Savvy? So far the only character who seems like they're a legitimate example of it is from The Order of the Stick and that's because they're a bard who became an evil warlord on purpose. Every other time it comes up the character usually isn't even Genre Savvy.

Finished "A" crosswicks. Doing "C" crosswicks.

Completed crosswicks: A-B, X-Z.

edited 30th Mar '16 9:19:33 AM by ObsidianFire

I know. I was wondering why Dangerously Genre-Savvy was deemed a trope it would work for. Post #43 has done a really good job of stating what thinking process made me ask the question.

edited 30th Mar '16 5:15:34 PM by Wyldchyld

Yeah I have always been going by Dangerously Genre-Savvy being the bad guys who know the genre's stereotypical tropes via media and do their best to avoid them.

Things like Scott Evil in Austin Powers calling his dad out on standard evil mastermind tropes because he watches TV.

Someone who prepares for whatever the heroes might do and has a counter prepared seems to be most of the misuse but that isn't Dangerously 'Genre' Savvy in any conceivable way. It's a sign of a wise strategic thinker, The Mole, or someone who understands what the hero's thinking process or objective.

edited 2nd Apr '16 12:37:59 PM by Memers

Not just avoiding them, but avoiding them for the purpose of attacking the heroes where/when/how they don't expect it.

The line between "Is familiar with the tropes in the work because of their exposure to fiction" and "uses that familiarity to their advantage" is blurry at best. Most characters who demonstrate the former quality at least attempt to do the latter. Sometimes they fail, mind you, but the effort is there.

Consequentially, I'm not sure Dangerously Genre-Savvy has value. It's basically "Genre Savvy characters who aren't abruptly killed by their mistakes." As a trope, it's The Same But More; like Genre Savvy except these characters are way better than those idiots!

If it were being proposed today as a new trope, it would be very quickly rejected. It only still exists because it's grandfathered in; an artifact from the early days of the site.

edited 2nd Apr '16 1:43:10 PM by TobiasDrake