Needs Help: The The Title

Malady has explained pretty well elsewhere in this thread (i.e. here) why exactly Definite Article Title is a trope, but there's nothing like that in the description. Would you mind adding a line explaining how the "the" adds meaning in somewhere?

I haven't been particularly active in this effort for a while, but I'd like to chime in to say that a definite article is not "like 'a' or 'an.'" Those are indefinite articles. I'm going to remove that part from the description, especially since none of the titles listed have indefinite articles. It's kind of appalling that it's in the description, to be honest.

- Oh, I see. You're right!

Hmm... Maybe something like:

- Whoops! Thanks! Totally blanked on that. *sigh*

So, no objection to Omnipresent-ification, from you, I'll presume.

The description already feels too long...

Maybe its the length of the first paragraph that seems excessive. Perhaps split it right before "If an author uses this trope to excess,"...

Or is it the picture that too long...

Most pictures aren't that long anyway, but should handle that in Image Pickin' after we're done with the description.

Honestly most of the first paragraph isn't very helpful.

Perhaps this should have gone through TLP for a peer review before launch.

No one's disagreeing about Omnipresence, right?

Because Definite Article Title has 251 wicks, and I'm not sure if it's growing or not.

If it is, we should handle this before it grows more unwieldy.

We have 236 that still need moving.

- And if this is Omnipresent, then we cut them instead of moving...

Best to decide on which, then do it, instead of doing both...

Edited by Malady on Apr 3rd 2020 at 7:42:42 AM

How is this not People Sit on Chairs?

- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1517097975055231700&page=6#comment-128

Perhaps I should edit that into the description. It's not like there's anything wrong with it...

And done.

Edited by Malady on Apr 3rd 2020 at 8:22:45 AM

Not sure if this needs an example list. It's as basic as no-example trope Fire Is Red.

Edited by eroock on Apr 3rd 2020 at 9:38:25 AM

Fire Is Red is Omnipresent. This isn't.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 3rd 2020 at 4:44:10 AM

Not everyone thinks that.

Omnipresent means it's everywhere; either it's ingrained into the fabric of storytelling itself, it's an extremely common visual shorthand, or it's omnipresent in a particular genre. In all cases, listing examples is an exercise in futility, because you'd never get all of them.

This...isn't any of those things. How is it Omnipresent?

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 3rd 2020 at 5:32:23 AM

There are thousands and thousands of works with "the" in the title, though. Are you really suggesting listing them all?

There are easily thousands of works that don't have "the" in the title, though. Works with Character Title, for example. If this were omnipresent, nearly every work would have it.

Exactly.

Also, the reasons why this is tropeworthy have already been laid out in this same thread. We wouldn't list literally every "the" title, especially not if we change it to something more specific, which is what we seem to be planning on doing anyway.

- Hmm... Well, The Titling is already one Sub-Trope...

What others could we have?

The Inanimate Object? ... It gives a usually common object, some strange importance.

Like, "The Ball", or "The DVD"...

What I mean is that we should not try to have an exhaustive list of examples. It would be more useful to explain how the trope is used, and give more general examples. That would also avoid long lists of Zero Context Examples.

Examples Are Not General...

It's either specific examples or nothin'.

And again, if we limit ourselves to something narrower than just "Title has a "the" in it", we won't have nearly as many ZCEs.

I would be fine with no examples and just explain the trope.

This is not an omnipresent trope and I think it's a cop-out to label it as such. Not all titles have definite articles in them. That is all the counter-argument needs to be. I mean, how does Iceman (2019) #1 or Serendipity the Pink Dragon start with a definite article? There's hundreds of titles that do not follow this pattern.

Anyway, I'm going to start contributing more to the description. I'll put it in the Sandbox/ namespace so we can discuss it.

EDIT: I made Sandbox.Definite Article Title. Y'know, I thought the crowner had us keep The The Title as a separate trope, a subtrope of Idiosyncratic Episode Naming. That's why I removed the image, as it better illustrates IEN than DAT, imo.

Edited by WaterBlap on Apr 4th 2020 at 2:01:30 PM

Great work!

I agree that listing a bunch of titles with no context is pointless. But the solution here is to add context - explaining what the noun in the title is, and why it's important.

Edit: I went in an added context to works I'm familiar with.

Edited by naturalironist on Apr 4th 2020 at 5:20:32 AM

So, what's still wrong with this?

Do we need an Indefinite Article Title trope?

We've made Definite Article Title, the description seems good... Someone confirm that?

So, if I'm right... And I wanna make Indefinite Article Title...

I could take it through TLP, or we could discuss it here as the obvious Opposite Trope to Definite Article Title, and if it's tropeworthy...

OH! Current Examples need Context... ... Is that a TRS thing, though, or should it be a "Whoever wants to do it, can?" sorta thing?

But I'll make a try at it right now...

There's a Codename Title TLP, that could take some examples' context.

Not sure if Video Games examples count...

Nor Sports.

Nor Band Names.

The amount of "The Verbed" Titles... Given that we already have Verbed Title and The Titling, how about making another trope, The Verbed?

Edited by Malady on Aug 21st 2020 at 7:08:09 AM