Needs Help: Bury Your Gays

Part of the point I was trying to make in the edit was point that homo/bisexual characters, like other minorities, seems to be generally higher up on the Sorting Algorithm of Mortality. I wrote that part of it in the belief that was within the confines of the trope; that a character being more likely to die first based on sexual orientation isn't all that different from being more likely to die in general based on sexual orientation.

I can fully understand if a distinction is needed though.

We're all still aliens.

There isn’t a pattern to that in media really. If there is a pattern then it needs to be presented and really that is a different trope than what’s on the page.

The Black Dude Dies First is a quantifiable pattern with a massive amount of examples so that it becomes an aggregate trope that moved beyond tv tropes and actively in discussion.

Everyone disagrees with you, which would suggest your opinion probably isn't viable.

The purpose of this thread seems to be resolved, lock it?

edited 11th Dec '17 7:22:09 PM by lakingsif

OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

Just re-read the thread. It doesn't really look like the thread is one-sided like that. Moreover, there's been no established consensus...

Well, it would help if the wick check was from a randomized sample of the wicks. The current wick check looks like it was manually selected "at random."

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

Wasn't the purpose regarding the Square Peg Round Trope misunderstanding of Bury Your Gays. That's been resolved, with a consensus agreeing on the definition of the trope. That is, every post besides Memers seems to agree that as long as 1. a queer character dies and 2. it can be reasonably explained to be either a a. disproportional representation of queer-to-straight death, b. disproportionate level of violence in the death, c. significant moment in the character's story to suggest being killed because they are queer or because the "queer quota" has been met so they can cancel the character, then it is an example and there needn't be a numerical or qualitative restriction.

The thread can be locked, nobody is disputing the tropeworthiness of Bury Your Gays, and a majority do not believe that there needs to be some arbitrary limit set to qualify (at least, in my interpretation of the comments).

edited 11th Dec '17 7:53:54 PM by lakingsif

OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

Sorry, what? There's only been nine people discussing this trope, and that's barely even the minimum for actionable crowner decisions.

Also, the thread was opened under "Needs Help" not "Not Tropeworthy." Who is asking about the tropeworthiness of Bury Your Gays? Memers has been contesting changes to the definition of this, not the tropeworthiness of it. I think it's pretty obvious that Memers was saying that this can't apply to works that are also Anyone Can Die.

And I kind of agree with that. The definition in 30 seems to agree that this doesn't apply in cases of Anyone Can Die. Moreover, such a restriction is not necessarily arbitrary. The reason for such a restriction is: definition 2.a is not met, 2.b is not necessarily met, and 2.c cannot be met.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

Apologies, I misinterpreted Memers's later comments as disagreeing with the idea of Bury Your Gays containing both examples without having some numerical limit and examples that would only fit based on the significant timing of the death, and suggesting that the examples validated on the virtue of excessive violence be split into another trope. I'll guess my context-awareness was down when I read through it, since I was just seeing the latest 2 or 3 posts.

I agree that Anyone Can Die settings shouldn't be assumed to fit the trope, unless meeting 2a. or 2b. from [30]. But this would have to be explicit, as ACD settings are by nature the kind of works that kill characters for the sake of killing characters. However, I do agree with the statement that was presented in [22], and Memers's comment ([27]) that a queer version of Black Dude Dies First isn't prevalent in media can be seen as objectively wrong.

Bury Your Gays, as a trope, does not seem to suffer from Zero Context Examples, which I mention because this should make it easy to spot the entries that obviously don't fit.

edited 11th Dec '17 8:54:57 PM by lakingsif

OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

If it's an Anyone Can Die setting, the only way I can see it being Bury Your Gays is if:

a) gay characters die at a disproportionate rate

b) a character is killed specifically because they are gay (from an in-universe perspective)

Anything else is shoehorning.

So, to addend [30] with details from [22] and [33], Bury Your Gays applies when:

• 1. a queer character dies and either
  • 2. it can be reasonably explained to be either a
    • a. disproportional representation of queer-to-straight death,
    • b. disproportionate level of violence in the death,
    • c. significant moment in the character's story to suggest being killed because they are queer or because the "queer quota" has been met so they can cancel the character
  • 3. it is an Anyone Can Die setting when the character death is either
    • a. (when there are multiple/a representative number of queer characters) part of a disproportionate rate of queer character deaths within the work compared to straight ones
    • b. done because of the character's sexuality in the story
    • c. (when there are a small number of/only one queer character) done immediately after they come out/accept their sexuality, or happens first

edited 12th Dec '17 1:15:30 PM by lakingsif

OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

3C is not this trope. It might be another trope. The Gay Guy Dies First maybe, but not this trope.

If we made The Gay Guy Dies First, it'd be a subtrope of Bury Your Gays anyway, though — right?

OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

No, that would be a sister trope. This trope is not ‘a gay guy died’ the trope.

No: it's a gay guy dies, with meaning. That would be a gay guy dies, with meaning, but first.

OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

The particular meaning is what would make it distinct. "Gay guy dies because X" and "Gay guy dies because Y" would be different tropes, and not necessarily sub-/super-tropes. Moreover, the "dies first (because X)" distinction does not necessarily have the same meaning as this trope.

I agree that they would be different. I don't see a reason, on the face of it at least, to lump the two concepts together. Moreover, it isn't like we need to have one and only one "gay-guy-dies" related trope.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

That is true, and lumping too much leads to misuse

OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

So...

• 1. a queer character dies and either
  • 2. it can be reasonably explained to be either a
    • a. disproportional representation of queer-to-straight death,
    • b. disproportionate level of violence in the death,
    • c. significant moment in the character's story to suggest being killed because they are queer or because the "queer quota" has been met so they can cancel the character
  • 3. it is an Anyone Can Die setting when the character death is either
    • a. (when there are multiple/a representative number of queer characters) part of a disproportionate rate of queer character deaths within the work compared to straight ones
    • b. done because of the character's sexuality in the story

Do we apply this criteria to a wick check, perhaps add a version in comments on the page?

OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

More I'm starting to wonder if this trope in it's current state is People Sit on Chairs because it seems to be a catch for "any character that isn't straight dies" with no discussion presenting evidence or context that the writers killed them off just for being gay.

We may need to make this one a discussion-based trope with a ongoing thread for people to suggest and discuss examples for inclusion so there's some level of consistency.

edited 12th Jan '18 10:02:46 PM by shoboni

That kind of is the trope? Even if a writer didn’t intend it, there’s still the fact that a gay character was killed off disproportionately to straight characters which is a representation issue, which is what the trope focuses on, afaik.

OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

Has anyone here watched the documentary The Celluloid Closet? In that documentary, this trope is explicitly portrayed as a punishment for queer people (in film, at least) having their sexuality, typically after revealing it to another character (almost always cloaked in euphemisms, of course).

Just throwing that out there.

Not really.

Someone that happens to be gay dying isn't a trope unless we're going to trope everyone that ever dies in media.

The trope is when a character is killed explicitly because they're gay, generally for one a few reasons

• Work is written by a bigot with an anti-gay agenda
• It's skirting anti-gay mandates or standards by killing them before they get a happy ending
• It's killing them so the writers just don't have to deal with the gay character
• Bigoted character kills gay character as a cheap Kick the Dog moment to show how evil they are. I'm torn on this last one because it goes against the trope theme of author intend being to punish gay characters.

Gay character is killed off for being gay is a trope, character that happens to be gay dies is not.

edited 12th Jan '18 11:41:17 PM by shoboni

yes, see [41]

And I haven’t seen Celluloid Closet, but I’ve heard of it. There’s no doubting in the entertainment world that this is a trope, and one that’s been making a lot of waves recently.

edited 13th Jan '18 10:21:26 AM by lakingsif

OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

Then we're on the same page.

What I'm saying is that the page has become such a catch-all for listing the death of every gay character in media that might be one of those easily misused tropes that needs regulation via a discussion thread for adding examples.

edited 13th Jan '18 11:00:51 AM by shoboni

Well, that’s why it’s in TRS. To remove examples where sexuality obviously didn’t matter by coming up with solid criteria.

OH MY GOD; MY PARENTS ARE GARDENIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!

Right, but considering the heavy misuse it might just keep happening without some kind of control/upkeep.

The definition in comment #41 is a bit confusing, to be totally honest. 1.2 and 1.3 are nearly identical, though I don't think that's what was meant by Rally Bot 2 and others.

It sounds like, if Anyone Can Die is not in play, then the potential example only needs to hit one of the three requisites (1.2.a, .b, or .c), whereas — if Anyone Can Die is in play — requisite A and requisite B from 33 are necessary. At least, that what I think people were saying.

Here's my suggestion for the definition of Bury Your Gays, and I'm separating out the other definitions people have suggested as part of BYG that aren't actually part of it.

• Bury Your Gays is in play whenever LGBT-Character Death can reasonably be explained to be a(n)...
  • disproportionate ratio of LGBT-to-straight death, or...
  • disproportionally violent compared to straight-Character Death, or...
  • In-Universe case where the character is killed because they are LGBT.
  • If Anyone Can Die is in place, then Bury Your Gays can only be in play if it can be reasonably explained to be a(n)...
    • disproportionate ratio of LGBT-to-straight death, and...
    • In-Universe case where the character is killed because they are LGBT.
• Torturous Gay Afterlife: LGBT characters are shown to suffer eternal damnation after death or receive some other terrible "punishment" for being LGBT. (This was brought up concerning Dante's Divine Comedy.)
• Death By Sex could include those instances where gay characters die because they had same-sex intercourse, if it doesn't already, though that would be a separate discussion. Mentioning it here because I think somebody mentioned it at some point.
• Gay Guy Dies First: An LGBT character dies first as an attempt at humor or due to bigotry or Values Dissonance.
• Kick The Gay: A character who we're supposed to hate kills or harms an LGBT character to show how evil they are.

Edit (1/22): For the Bury Your Gays definition, I meant to include the following requirement but forgot. "at least two of these three must be present." So it isn't just "homophobic character kills an LGBT character." It also needs to be either disproportionately violent or part of a disproportionate ratio.

edited 22nd Jan '18 6:14:26 AM by WaterBlap

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty