Duplicate tropes discussion thread

Recycled Soundtrack and Musical Nod look the same to me, but...

What's the best trope to use when a newer entry reuses music that originated from an older entry within the same franchise?

Doctor Who of all things using the number 42 can't have been a coincidence, but the primary reference was a reversal of 24.

Recycled Soundtrack looks like it is for unrelated works and is about reusing complete tracks without it necessaeily being a reference to the other work. Musical Nod is musical Shout-Out and it may be just a part of the theme, not necessarily the entire track. If the soundtrack is reused between different installations of the same work, that might be a leitmotif, but I don't think it's otherwise tropeworthy.

Can anyone else figure out the difference between Vicious Cycle and Regularly Scheduled Evil? Both of them claim the latter is a subtrope, but we can't figure out what's even different about them.

As far as I can tell, Regularly Scheduled Evil requires a specific individual to be causing it. If all the corpses in the cemetery rise from their graves every 20 years and threaten to overrun the city, that's a Vicious Cycle. If Bob the zombie serial killer rises from his grave every 20 years, kills five women, then goes back to his grave to sleep it off, that's Regularly Scheduled Evil. Whether that's a meaningful distinction, I don't know. I can tell you that Regularly Scheduled Evil has some misuse in its on-page examples.

Psychoactive Powers and Emotional Powers — what's the difference? I was told before that the former is thought-based instead of feeling-based, in which case I think the trope descriptions need to be tidied, if this is true. Can anyone else confirm it?

Edited by Derv0sB2 on Jun 7th 2023 at 3:36:17 AM

Um... yeah the descriptions seem identical

^^agree with WarJay. Thoughts vs emotions feels like a Distinction Without a Difference. Psychoactive drugs for example are substances that "affect how the brain works and causes changes in mood, awareness, thoughts, feelings, or behavior". They get lumped together because trying to differentiate between thoughts vs emotions is just very hard and often moot as the two are intertwined. I'm already seeing the same examples on both pages like Orihime from Manga.Bleach

Edited by amathieu13 on Jun 7th 2023 at 7:14:24 AM

I mean, I can totally see a use for powers that manifest simply based on what a person is thinking about, while emotion based powers tend to be more... instinctual and aren't often able to be controlled. Basically, the difference between "imagining an object you want and summoning it" and "getting mad and setting the house on fire with pyrokenesis while your chemicals rage". But the current descriptions for both are solely emotion based, so right now this issue doesn't even matter.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 7th 2023 at 7:15:39 AM

Wouldn't the former just be Imagination-Based Superpower?

Probably, though that was just an example. But if it's covered, it's covered and this trope really has no purpose.

If one of them HAS to go I vote for keeping the description of Emotional Powers no matter who wins if both are the same.

What is the difference between Innocence Lost and Cynicism Catalyst? The descriptions make it seem like they could differ in that Cynicism Catalyst is described as something that happens to a hero who has an understanding of evil but still chooses idealism encountering something that's more than they can bear, while Innocence Lost is usually used for children who genuinely had not encountered the horrible parts of the world yet, plus Innocence Lost might not necessarily be a transition to "edgy cynicism" but maturity, which could just mean a more knowledgable idealism. But when I look in the page for Innocence Lost, a lot of the examples are adult characters who become more cynical due to the experience. I just don't think I have a good grasp of what distinguishes the tropes in a way that would avoid misusing one for the other, even if I feel like there probably is a difference.

Also, I just wanted to rerun my question about how Standard Cop Backstory isn't just Dark and Troubled Past but for a specific genre.

The page uses a much narrower definition of Vicious Cycle than its common definition (something like "every time something bad happens provokes the same response, but that response causes the bad thing to happen again") so I wouldn't be surprised if there's misuse.

In its current form, I think the idea is something like: Regularly Scheduled Evil is a monster who wakes up to kill five children every twenty years on an unbreakable cosmic calendar; Vicious Cycle is a monster who wakes up to kill five children, hero defeats it and vows eternal vigilance, eternal vigilance lasts about three generations before people stop taking it seriously and five reckless children accidentally wake up the monster again. Especially if the hero's eternal vigilance corrupted him into He Who Fights Monsters and he becomes the monster of the next cycle.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Jun 7th 2023 at 5:32:51 PM

Yeah, I think the Standard Cop Backstory is just Dark and Troubled Past but for cops.

Do you think we should get rid of it? It seems really unnecessary to have a trope that's just "other trope, but in a specific genre" instead of just saying on the other trope's page that it's common in cop shows.

Though the page for Regularly Scheduled Evil says its a subtype of Vicious Cycle, which makes me really confused. At the same time, Vicious Cycle requires "a good reason to be kept up", it has to be some kind of systematic problem, while Regularly Scheduled Evil just requires the bad thing to happen regularly without themes of people being complacent to it. Also apparently Reguarly Scheduled Evil can be an entirely natural event like a Comet of Doom rather than a sentient villain, but this is only given one line and the rest of the page makes it sound like it has to be someone intentionally causing the evil? If you are correct on the definition of Vicious Cycle, the page should be changed to make it clear Regularly Scheduled Evil isn't a subtrope of Vicious Cycle, if anything it goes the other way around and Vicious Cycle is a subtrope of Regularly Scheduled Evil (unless someone can think of an example of a Vicious Cycle that doesn't also count as Regularly Scheduled Evil). As I understand it Regularly Scheduled Evil is just "any bad thing that happens regularly", and Vicious Cycle is "bad thing that happens regularly that is part of a system perpetuated for what people think are good reasons, and the heroes have to shake things up".

Also I should probably throw in Eternal Recurrence. As I understand it, while in both Vicious Cycle and Eternal Recurrence, the recurring thing can be The End of the World as We Know It, but I think Eternal Recurrence implies a higher ranking on the Apocalypse How scale where everything is completely wiped out, and is presented as more of a natural cycle, while Vicious Cycle is likely to be a lower ranking on the scale that can be rebuilt without completely resetting the world. But this is never stated on the page, it just says "compare Vicious Cycle", that's just my inference from how the pages were described and it would be great if the pages made the difference more explicit. Also can a Regularly Scheduled Evil also cause The End of the World as We Know It?

Edited by molokai198 on Jun 8th 2023 at 8:41:58 AM

Comically Cross-Eyed vs. Fish Eyes?

Opposite directions. Also Fish Eyes is usually played for creepy factor and may even slightly extrude from sockets.

Oh, good thought. Strictly speaking, Eternal Recurrence doesn't have to involve an end-of-the-world scenario - it could just have a pattern of events play out over and over on a cosmic scale. What was will be; what will be was. All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again. Time moves on, but history repeats itself (this one is a slightly different but still related sentiment actually). There's probably something about the widespread idea that the natural state of the universe is progress (technological advancement, Hubble constant, arc of the universe bending towards justice, etc) and only a cataclysmic reset could interrupt it that expects a repeating timeline to still have a clear end point, though.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Jun 9th 2023 at 9:09:28 AM

I was looking for a replacement image The Magic Touch because the current appears to be unsourced but then I found Midas Touch which has the exact page image and source I wanted to use. Midas Touch says that it's about turning objects into something superficial but The Magic Touch already covers that and even lists the Midas story as the Trope Codifier.

Midas Touch appears to be about a plot involving someone who has a magic touch and suffers for it but I don't see why we would separate that from The Magic Touch.

There was some concerns raised here about the trope's scope and Lord Gro advocated for the focus of the trope to be centered on a plot about the bad effects having a magic touch. Not sure if those issues have been properly addressed.

I think Midas Touch is a very specific subtrope of The Magic Touch, the latter being a bucket term for every touch-based power. I think the description should be changed so that it talks less about the Midas Touch aspect of the trope. It should mention that Midas Touch is a subtrope and appropriate examples should go there, because many of the examples listed on The Magic Touch is actually Midas Touch and the supertrope should be listing the other examples instead.

I feel like The Magic Touch is just weirdly placed in terms of how we separate tropes. If it were just "magic/super powered abilities that require physical touch to work" I think it would be fine as that's a common power limiter that can apply to a bunch of different powers. But it's already cribbing on Midas Touch's territory by specifying it further to "the ability to specifically transform things via physical touch". Transmutation is its own trope and I'm not sure if adding "via touch" is a necessary split.

We also don't typically separate power/magic tropes this way: Playing with Fire is for all variations of "fire as a super power" regardless of whether it comes in the form of spontaneous generation like Avatar: The Last Airbender or Alchemy Is Magic as in Fullmetal Alchemist. When we want to talk about how that power manifests, we usually go broader.

So for me, The Magic Touch would be better off broadened.

Midas Touch was launched years after The Magic Touch so whoever launched it didn't do the work to clean the latter. When you launch a subtrope, you need to adjust the supertrope.

If The Magic Touch is the problem, I guess I can wick check it. I am good with the broadening proposal.

Some relevant quotes from the original YKTTW:

One-Winged Angel vs. Turns Red?