Duplicate tropes discussion thread

What's the difference between From New York to Nowhere and City Mouse? Both tropes boils down to "a big-city person moves to small village".

Apparently, City Mouse is the character and From New York to Nowhere is the plot.

...Is that a meaningful enough distinction, though? I mean, we don't necessarily have a strict criteria to distinguish between "character tropes" and "plot tropes" and I often find the same trope being listed in both the work's Main page and its Characters subpage. Case in point, I actually discovered the From New York to Nowhere from one of the Harvest Moon character pages.

Also, if "the plot" and "the character" are meant to stand-alone as their own tropes, we'd be having three separate pages for "parents who abuse their children", "a child who is abused by their parent(s)" and "a shitty household situation where the parent abuses the child" and so on.

Edited by Adept on Dec 18th 2018 at 2:42:52 AM

- Well, Uptown Girl sounds like a Character Trope, is used as one, but is described as a Plot Trope...

What does and doesn't go on character pages is quite controversial at the moment. Some people think almost any trope can go on character pages if given character context. I happen to disagree, but it seems like there's no settled policy on this.

One possible distinction is that From New York to Nowhere is for the main plot or premise for a work, while City Mouse can be a side character or the work can pick up after the City Mouse has lived there for a while so you don't get to see them in their native habitat. I agree that this is a weak distinction.

I need to ask again:

What's the difference of Breaking Old Trends and Nothing Is the Same Anymore? Both seem to be about changing the status quo.

I need to ask about Devoted to You and Undying Loyalty as well.

So I just stumbled across Plot Immunity... I'm not entirely clear on how it's supposed to differ from Plot Armor, and the description is kinda messy on top of it.

Devoted to You looks like it's an obsession trope. A person may be in thrall to the object of their devotion due to qualities the object has (or is perceived to have), but it's only because of their obsession with that person, and it is therefore entirely dependent on that obsession existing for the devotion to last. Someone who is obsessed in this way might not act in the best interests, or according to the wishes, of the person they're devoted to — but what they think is best for the person they're devoted to.

Undying Loyalty is a loyalty trope, not an obsession trope. A person has a reason for being so loyal that may have absolutely nothing to do with the qualities the object of loyalty possesses (or is even perceived to possess), this is more about the qualities of the loyal person themselves that makes them so prone to unshakable loyalty. Someone who has undying loyalty will always attempt to act in the best interests of the person to whom they're loyal, even if it sacrifices their own personal best interests (especially if they're loyal even knowing the object of loyalty doesn't deserve it).

In short: Devoted to You is an obsession trope based around how a character builds up the target in their mind and exists only because the obsession exists, while Undying Loyalty is a servitude trope based around how a character is unshakably loyal to another, even if they know that person doesn't deserve their loyalty. Devoted to You is more like a possession trope (the subject seeks to possess the target in some manner, even if only inside their own mind, making it a selfish trope) and Undying Loyalty is more like a service trope (the subject seeks to serve/support the target in some manner, making it a selfless trope).

Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 21st 2018 at 10:48:50 AM

Then perhaps some of Undying Loyalty examples belong to Devoted to You instead? (I have to check first though.)

It might well be the case, but only if my interpretation of the two tropes is correct. I have to admit that I did have to sit down and think about it for a while before pulling that 'core' out of both tropes. I therefore don't know if other people will agree with my interpretation.

Is Gameplay Derailment significantly different from Game-Breaker?

Is it just that the former needs to be a bug? Or usually is one?

Edited by Malady on Dec 29th 2018 at 8:22:23 AM

Gameplay Derailment = the gameplay turns out different from how it was intended due to player's actions and discoveries

Game-Breaker = something that makes the game too easy

The former can involve the latter (particularly in competitive settings, where the gameplay of other people turns to taking the GB into account too much), but not necessarily.

I'd like to know the difference between Heroes' Frontier Step and Adopt the Dog. Both seem to be about "assuring the viewers that this dubious-looking guy is good".

These aren't tropes per se, but what exactly is the difference between a Fridge Logic subpage and a Headscratchers subpage? They seem to be functionally identical.

Edited by Primis on Jan 2nd 2019 at 6:29:50 AM

Fridge Logic/ isn't a namespace. Just Fridge/ is, but it's for Fridge Horror and Fridge Brilliance — Fridge Logic specifically goes on the Headscratchers/ subpage. As far as I can tell, it's just a weird artifact from the early days of the wiki, when we only had Fridge Logic and it went on the "It Just Bugs Me" page.

Heroes' Frontier Step seems to be the turning point in a gradual Heel–Face Turn or redemption plot, Adopt the Dog is about resolving the allegiance of morally ambiguous or neutral characters. The same event could be both if a character gradually goes from evil to ambiguous to good.

The two could use to be crosswicked.

How are Utility Party Member and Support Party Member different from each other? Those two pages only link to each other with a "compare", without saying how they're different.

I'm also gonna ask for difference between That One Player, UltimateGamer386, Godlike Gamer and King of Games too.

Edited by 4tell0life4 on Jan 4th 2019 at 3:10:20 AM

That One Player vs UltimateGamer386: They're both "the person notoriously good at this video game", but while UltimateGamer386 was always for In-Universe examples, That One Player was originally meant for real players. It's clearly not like that now, since it's NRLEP, but I'm not sure where that leaves it...

Godlike Gamer is "person who is generically good at video games". King of Games is "person who is generically good at games of any kind".

Edited by wingedcatgirl on Jan 4th 2019 at 6:21:34 AM

I guess I should bring out That One Player and UltimateGamer386 into TRS then.

And Godlike Gamer is just the more specific kind of King of Games? Really? I wish they can be folded into one instead.

I'd say that "whoa, they're good at Bejeweled, Call of Duty, AND Dustforce??" gives a different impression than "whoa, they're good at chess, Settlers of Catan, AND Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot??", y'know?

Yes, video games have a different cultural verve than classic board games and other game events, being much newer. I don't expect Yami from Yu-Gi-Oh! (to choose the King of Games example that first comes to mind; edit: it's the Trope Namer) to be a video game expert, because he never demonstrates hand-eye coordination or other video gaming skills. (Pinball is a middle ground. I could see the Pinball Wizard falling under either trope.)

The Unfavorite and Parental Favoritism seems to be two sides of the same coin. The essence of either trope is that parents favour one child over the other, the only difference being that one focuses on the favoured child, while the other focuses on the, well, not-favoured one.

Is there any other justifiable reason why these two are separate pages? Even the page images demonstrates virtually the same scenario.

- True...

Well, from the names... The Unfavorite, sounds like a character trope, while Parental Favoritism sounds more like a plot point...

But, they sorta must occur together, so merging them does come to mind...

They might be separate like how the TLPs, "Women's Suffrage Movement" and "The Suffragette" were separated...

Edited by Malady on Feb 10th 2019 at 8:25:44 AM

You can have The Unfavorite without having PF: when a parent otherwise treats his children equally, there's one he singles out as being unfavorite.

What is Unlikely Hero about? The the title is used in real life sounds similar to the From Zero to Hero TLP draft, which is about a hero who comes from humble beginnings. However, based on the examples there is heavy overlap with Reluctant Hero and Classical Anti-Hero (hero who's a wimpy schlub). And the description makes me think of a Vanilla Protagonist type, like the guy in a Magical Girlfriend or Harem Genre plot who is very normal but gets pulled into adventure due to having wacky friends.