Ambiguous Name: Too Dumb To Live

What An Idiot also doesn't talk about how the idioticy drives the plot like Idiot Ball does.

edited 7th Jan '17 5:22:08 PM by Karxrida

So what is the point of What An Idiot but to complain about idiocy? We have the other Stupidity Tropes from the Bad Writing Index, why keep it if we can't think of a purpose for it but as a extra way to complain?

This may warrant it's own TRS. If so, I say if we keep it, we keep it to it's dedicated pages like Darth Wiki, since they follow a format (the scenario, what audiences expect them to do, then the stupid thing they do instead) that keeps it somewhat objective that entries outside of said dedicated pages almost never bother with.

I say keep Too Dumb to Live as is, change the laconic to match the description and cut the misuse.

Kinda think we have to change the name as well.

We need a whole lot more evidence than we've seen to justify a rename.

"Misuse" which fits the older definition can't be counted, since there was never a cleanup when the definition changed. Really, just about the only thing we can do at this point is send this to projects for a cleanup, then re-evaluate in a year or so.

And part of the reason the misuse is there is because, as noted earlier in the thread, the "misuse" is closer to how the phrase is commonly used in real life, let alone how it used to be defined on this website, than the current trope definition is. Even putting aside my other criticisms of it, why name a trope after a real phrase if you're not going to use its real definition? That'd be like saying that "teacup" means "cellphone," or that "plastic bag" means "battery."

Granted, that particular issue could be just as clearly addressed by renaming this as by restoring the original definition, but I prefer restoring the original definition partly because "life-endangering stupidity" seems like a worthwhile trope idea on its own, (and I'd hate to see the effort tropers put into typing all those examples go to waste) and partly because if we DO decide to create a subtrope for examples that actually killed the character, we can start fresh with a new trope and cut misuse before it takes root.

edited 11th Jan '17 4:25:33 PM by neoYTPism

Since it seems to have been a unilateral decision to change the definition (I haven't been able to find an old TRS thread), perhaps we need a crowner now to decide which definition we will use going forward. That wouldn't prevent us from splitting off "death by stupidity" as a subtrope later.

What about a new trope like Life Endangering Stupidity?

And yes, this needs a crowner.

Crowner is up.

That's possible, but the evidence is unavailable, buried under the mess that happened when the trope was unilaterally redefined. We have examples which fit the old definition, examples which fit the new, and no real way (unless someone wants to turn this into an advanced research project in web archaeology) to tell whether the definition or the name is the cause.

Without concrete evidence of the type that isn't available, we'd need special dispensation from the powers that be to rename this. And I suspect they'd be pretty hesitant about renaming a trope with nearly 35 kilowicks!

Renaming is the most difficult, labor intensive, and disruptive solution in our bag of tricks. Renaming a trope like this could take years! (Judging by my experience with the efforts to rename Nakama.) We make it a solution of last resort for good reason.

I dunno. The mods are welcome to chime in, but I suspect they might just veto any motion to rename by fiat, as things stand.

I'm a little confused by the crowner. Is "life-threatening stupidity" supposed to refer to the old definition? And if so, shouldn't we mention that that option would be restoring the original meaning?

Life-endangering stupidity doesn't necessarily kill a character, but if a character is killed by life-endangering stupidity, it meets both definitions.

Therefore, if we restore the "life-endangering stupidity" definition, there are no examples that will need to be removed. That seems to me like the most obvious solution to this.

Especially if the alternative is to keep the narrower definition, which contradicts the real-life definition, which would no doubt constantly spill-over into the trope anyway. (Why would you expect anything different? How is it not obvious why someone less obsessed with TV Tropes and its jargon would think the phrase means the same thing here that it means everywhere else?)

edited 11th Jan '17 6:11:56 PM by neoYTPism

I've edited the crowner to emphasis it is restoring to the original definition, not a new definition.

What about stating the current definition in the crowner, would that be worthwhile too?

Does renaming need to lead to changing the wicks' names in every page? Why can't we just use redirects (i.e turning the old name into a redirect so links to the original name are preserved)?

And, well, there's still the issue of Too Cool to Live and Too Powerful to Live having the subject actually dying. If this doesn't then people will question it a lot, yeah?

Ideally I'd rather those tropes be renamed, but even if not, it'd be better for this to contradict the definitions of other tropes than to contradict the definition of a real-life phrase.

After all, if someone's into TV Tropes enough to know that Too Dumb to Live means something different here than it does everywhere else, they're into TV Tropes enough to know to check the definitions of those other tropes before jumping to conclusions.

edited 11th Jan '17 9:46:58 PM by neoYTPism

There are plenty of tropes where the trope namer isn't an example, so that alone isn't a reason to rename or change the description unless there is clear misuse. See This Index Is Not an Example for more instances.

The problem with this trope is there was never a cleanup project when the description was changed.

I still say we keep the current definition, correct the laconic and do a cleanup project to remove examples of "life-endangering stupidity which does not result in death".

The crowner neglects to mention that the old definition was established before TLP, and the current definition was established by unilateral Troper action. Neither was consensus-driven.

"There are plenty of tropes where the trope namer isn't an example" - maxwellsilver

That's reasonable when said "trope namer" is just some work of fiction... but we're talking about a pre-existing real phrase here. If TV Tropes takes a such a phrase and gives it a different definition here than it has everywhere else, and as a result, people misinterpret the trope, whose fault is that?

Not that I would've otherwise been that fond of the definition based on consequences rather than on the decisions themselves, but even so, if we restore the original definition, we can always create a new subtrope that's based on said consequences instead of said decisions.

edited 13th Jan '17 9:50:15 PM by neoYTPism

In that case, you should look at Cop Killer, which is a reaction rather than what is entailed by the pre-existing term. Half the examples follow the pre-existing term instead of the definition.

Here, however, I'm still not seeing an issue with the current description aside from the lack of a cleanup effort, though I am also not familiar with "too dumb to live" being used to indicate "he's an idiot and shouldn't be alive".

"In that case, you should look at Cop Killer, which is a reaction rather than what is entailed by the pre-existing term. Half the examples follow the pre-existing term instead of the definition." - maxwellsilver

Well, maybe we should consider renaming and/or redefining that one as well... along with whichever other tropes use pre-existing real phrases. I knew TV Tropes had a lot of jargon, but I thought they mostly used their own rather than just ignoring the real definitions of real phrases like that. I'm kind of left wondering what other trope names are based on that sort of thing.

Would this sort of issue be more efficiently handled in a long term project thread, to find every one of those kinds of tropes?

Remember: Tv Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary.

Now whether it starts becoming unfunny is another question...

Ideally, though, we should be making TV Tropes less prone to ruining people's vocabulary.

Or at the very least, less of a pain in the ass for those just getting into it for the first time.

And keep in mind the precedent of "Too X To Live" tropes being death tropes, which I assume is why the change was made.

Plus "character should have died from their stupidity" is rather subjective.

What about Darwin Award Winner? Darwin Award is a preexisting term for died due to his own stupidity and winner implies it actually happened.

edited 16th Jan '17 5:57:58 PM by Memers