Going by the name, one would assume that Hollywood Genetics is a high-level trope about all fictional portrayals of genetics in general, from inheritance to the microscopic structure of an organism's genome, that are unrealistic to one degree or another, whether it's due to unintended ignorance or a deliberate choice, and including both oversimplifications of what genetics is about as well as inventing in-universe principles of genetics that may or may not have basis in real life (including purely hypothetical ideas). This would make cover such examples as alien species whose bizarre biology manifests in the form of their genome having a structure that is highly unusual by terrestrial standards, such as the DNA strands forming into a triple helix instead of the double helix that is normal to Earth's myriad forms of life (Art Major Biology has three such examples).
However, the trope's article as it is written focuses entirely on genetic heredity for no apparent reason. This might be a possible reason behind the low number of wicks and inbounds (92 and 577 respectively, since January 1, 2012). An old TRS thread also had come to the conclusion that the name is inappropiately broad for the description, and resolved to rename the trope, only for the discussion to die off.
My proposal:
Transplant the current description to a more appropiate title. My suggestion would be Artistic License Heredity (which I'll be using as a placeholder in this thread for convenience), but a multi-option crowner would probably be the correct approach.
Decide by crowner whether or not the name "Hollywood Genetics" itself is appropiate for the aforementioned supertrope; I understand that we're trying to move away from snowclones, and so Artistic License Genetics may be a more suitable alternative.
Going by the name, one would assume that Hollywood Genetics is a high-level trope about all fictional portrayals of genetics in general, from inheritance to the microscopic structure of an organism's genome, that are unrealistic to one degree or another, whether it's due to unintended ignorance or a deliberate choice, and including both oversimplifications of what genetics is about as well as inventing in-universe principles of genetics that may or may not have basis in real life (including purely hypothetical ideas). This would make cover such examples as alien species whose bizarre biology manifests in the form of their genome having a structure that is highly unusual by terrestrial standards, such as the DNA strands forming into a triple helix instead of the double helix that is normal to Earth's myriad forms of life (Art Major Biology has three such examples).
However, the trope's article as it is written focuses entirely on genetic heredity
for no apparent reason. This might be a possible reason behind the low number of wicks and inbounds (92 and 577 respectively, since January 1, 2012). An old TRS thread
also had come to the conclusion that the name is inappropiately broad for the description, and resolved to rename the trope, only for the discussion to die off.
My proposal:
- Transplant the current description to a more appropiate title. My suggestion would be Artistic License Heredity (which I'll be using as a placeholder in this thread for convenience), but a multi-option crowner would probably be the correct approach.
- Write a new description that matches its general-sounding title, making it a supertrope to Artistic License Heredity, LEGO Genetics, Unstable Genetic Code, and other Genetic Tropes of similar nature.
- Decide by crowner whether or not the name "Hollywood Genetics" itself is appropiate for the aforementioned supertrope; I understand that we're trying to move away from snowclones, and so Artistic License Genetics may be a more suitable alternative.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.