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So basically, the actual meaning of "Parvum Opus" is closer to Quietly Performing Sister Show. For the record, I'm not opposed to a rename.
I remember supporting that YKTTW too. Like I said, there really should be a trope about fan-hated installments in a body of work that analyzes it from an outside perspective.
edited 7th Jan '16 1:57:36 PM by Noah1
I miss you.Agree that's not needed.
As far as pinpointing the actual meaning of the term, I'm not completely positive and I'm also kind of wondering if perhaps E.B. White made it up, because the wiki page is all about his use of it and most of the other uses of the term relate to language and grammar, suggesting they were taking the term from him (although there's also a furniture company for it's worth).
But the idea is to contrast with magnum opus, which is like a monumental, weighty work of high quality (and typically years of effort).
So like you have dictionaries and works on grammar and usage that are 100s of pages and are exhaustive and would be the magnum opus of their author. In contrast, E.B. White used (or made up) the term parvum opus to describe a concise guide to usage which wasn't the most thorough, but basically encapsulated all of the most important things someone would need to know.
It actually seems kind of related to Overly Narrow Superlative.
edited 7th Jan '16 2:58:11 PM by Hodor2
We established a few posts ago that the problem was not with the page, but with misuse elsewhere, which a Flame Bait tag should take care of. We can tell ourselves that there is no need or place for this, but I simply don't agree. It's an aspect of media that needs an objective analysis. If we try to avoid this, then disgruntled fans will find a way to seep their complaints it into areas where it really doesn't belong, so we should at least try to encourage them to be constructive about it. I know that past experiences can be discouraging, but I honestly feel that the trope-o-sphere as a whole has grown above that, at least to the point where the ones that have grown can keep a lid on the ones that haven't without too much hassle.
I miss you.mlsmithca gave a list of places Parvum Opus was being abused.
- The MLP and Spongebob examples, I've found and removed. The former had a better contender for this trope, the latter violated "one example per X"
- The Force Awakens: I didn't follow the alleged edit war, but I agree it's too soon to judge, and judge compared to what?
- The James Bond and Disney examples, yes I see clear violation of "one example per X", but I see that simply trimming those entries down would fix them.
- ZCEs, they can be cut without effecting anything.
While I now see that there is abuse of this trope, but those example can easily be fixed or cut (I can start almost immediately with permission). Most example follow the "one example per X" rule and have no debate or controversy. I say it's a legitimate trope that's worth saving, but merely needs clean-up.
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I honestly don't know who made it or how, but what matters is that it's here, and it serves its purpose, which it is.
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And for the record, I find the Disney examples to be very informative, and not at all complaining.
Ferot_Dreadnaught, I wouldn't bother pursuing cleanup for now, wait until the results are in for the crowner. The two current frontrunners for the crowner would both entail a complete wick purge.
And Noah1 wasn't the one who created the page, it was calvinvaljean (who hasn't edited the wiki since a week after creating the page). You may say the page serves its purpose, Noah1, but so far, you're rather clearly in the minority in this thread in thinking that it's a purpose worth serving. It's here, but most people who have posted to this thread believe it should never have been here, not least as it was created through, effectively, sidestepping the rules. And you may say that you find the Disney examples informative, and yet they go against the idea that each body of work should only have one example, which you're trying to claim is part of how the trope page is run. You can't have it both ways. If you want that sort of analysis, there are plenty of other sites that provide it.
edited 7th Jan '16 5:24:34 PM by mlsmithca
Just because there are other sites that do this doesn't mean TV Tropes shouldn't. We have an index for Audience Reactions, and this is very clearly one we cannot ignore or sidestep around. Believe me, I understand our history with Complaining About Shows You Dont Like, and that history makes it seem as though dealing with this is more trouble than it is worth, but I know it isn't as hard as it seems. At the very least, allow the page a chance to prove it can function here.
(And just to be clear, I never insisted on the one entry per work idea being a hard-and-fast rule)
I miss you.@Hodor2 - Besides E.B. White, other uses I've found include an NPR story on the Pope's Latin-language Twitter account and the name of a company that makes desk accessories, both of which support the "little masterpiece" usage.
It appears to be a fairly obscure term, but fairly consistent outside this site.
edited 7th Jan '16 7:19:54 PM by HighCrate
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It's been on the wiki for over a year. I'd say whatever chance it deserves, it's already had.
Also, you yourself said in Post 25 that "The criteria already set for this trope has done an admirable job of keeping things from getting out of control like the troublesome tropes before it." Those criteria, according to the page itself, include "Some creators may have multiple entries that are considered bad, but each one only has one parvum opus." If that shouldn't apply, then it becomes little more than a trivial observation that some works are less well-received than others. True, but not tropeworthy.
So Parvum Opus in Latin means 'Little Work', That for sure seems to be more the small little unknown work done by a an artist.
I vote we just go with that.
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If the trope has had its chance, and we've confirmed that the only major controversies it has caused were in other YMMV pages... the Flame Bait tag seems to be obvious solution.
As for the "One entry rule", I think the Disney examples can at least be justified by saying they discuss specific aspects of the canon's large history.
And yes, we can rename the trope so that it doesn't clash with the term "Parvum Opus" as defined elsewhere.
I miss you.The purpose of this wiki is to be a catalogue of tropes and how they are used in fiction.
Whether critics think a certain work is a creator's best or worst work is not a trope.
Yes, we have an index of "Audience reactions". Those still are (or are supposed to be) about tropes - but tropes that are created by the interaction of an element of the narrative and the audience. The Scrappy is one example - it's about how a character is developed and written, and how the audience reacts to that.
"Critics thought this was the author's worst work" is not that kind of an audience reaction. It does not belong here. This is not IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes.
EDITED: Yes, there might be other "tropes" on the Audience Reaction index taht also don't belong there according to my reasoning. That is no reason to keep Parvum Opus. A wiki is not a court of law where we are bound by precedent.
edited 8th Jan '16 3:46:43 AM by GnomeTitan
In that case, we can have a Trope about how an episode, movie, or installment of a body of work is developed and written, and how the audience reacts to it.
I miss you.No, not at all. What critics say can be very relevant.
It's just that just saying that "Critics didn't like this work" isn't a trope, so it's outside the scope of this site.
EDITED: And this site actually has a policy not to mention certain things about a work's reception, even though they can be both relevant and interesting. I've several times seen moderators telling people not to mention on a film's work page that it was nominated for Oscars, for example. That's not because that's not interesting, but because it usually has nothing to do with how the film uses tropes (though it can have, and in those cases I understand it's OK to mention it).
edited 8th Jan '16 7:54:04 AM by GnomeTitan
Wait, so you're saying that certain aspects of audience reception are automatically policed out, even if there is something worthwhile to it? Well, I say it's time for a change! We must prove that this fandom can have nice things!
As for mentioning the Oscars, is there a Useful Notes for awards and such? Because that seems like the perfect place for that sort of thing.
I miss you.@ High Crate- Yeah, that's the instances I saw too- the desk people, that article on the Pope's twitter, and one or two (language) blogs.
The lack of uses is what made me wonder if those people were getting it from White.
In any case though, as you say, "little masterpiece" seems to be what the term means.
edited 8th Jan '16 9:25:55 AM by Hodor2
Critical Reception is outside the scope of this site unless it deliberately affects what is contained in the work. IE things like Enhanced on DVD
Sometimes it helps to describe a creator's work on.. But a negative trope like that is tantamount to a personal attack.
Crown Description:

As it is, isn't this page pretty much being used as Scrappy Episode
? (Link is to a defunct YKTTW page that appears to have been discarded; I can't remember if we ever had such a page live on the wiki, but if we did it certainly isn't around any more.)