Duplicate tropes discussion thread

Sadly Mythtaken and Artistic License – Religion?

honestly? Not much difference that I can see. Seems like they're splitting between modern organized religion and what are now considered to be myths, but we don't do that in the context of giving tropes given that many "myths" were once religions.

Edited by amathieu13 on Apr 13th 2022 at 8:31:55 AM

Writer on Board and Author Tract?

Author Tract says "Note that this only applies when the entire universe and characters have been created to put forward the author's viewpoint. If an existing fictional universe or character has been altered to create a medium for a tract, then it's due to a Writer on Board (Author Filibuster is an extreme example of that)."

Question about Foreshadowing and Rewatch Bonus. My impression was the latter was meant to be stuff so subtle it isn't supposed to be noticed on first viewing, but the if it's noticed or not seems too subjective (it would explain the overlapping examples). Rewatch Bonus's page state the difference is RB "has the distinction of not needing to be important to the Myth Arc at large — the work could even function perfectly fine without it — but nonetheless still serves as an intriguing piece of the narrative or presentation that only makes its brilliance clear once you've noticed the patterns or know how everything ends." Wondering if RB is worth keeping a separate trope (as it's oft put under YMMV and duplicates Foreshadowing) or would be better as a super-trope (RB also covers things like Chekhov's tropes)?

Loves My Alter Ego and Two-Person Love Triangle?

Seems like the latter is broader in the sense that it doesn't have to be an alter ego. It can happen between a pair where one has a Split Personality or Alternate Self.

Also, I'm really not familiar with the Homestead Act of America and the tropes resulting from it, but why do we need separate tropes for Determined Homesteader, Determined Homesteader's Wife and Determined Homesteader's Children?

we very likely don't need all three / a trope about the portrayal of this kind of family would likely suffice

Magic Pants and Technically Naked Shapeshifter? I first brought this up on ATT because of the former trope's inconsistency with the clothes disappearing and reappearing along with the shapeshifter, while the latter trope is about the shapeshifter creating new clothes as they transform.

Our understanding:

Technically Naked Shapeshifter is a very specific thing where a shapeshifter forms their "clothes" from their own body, instead of wearing actual pieces of cloth. The "technically naked" aspect isn't always addressed, but it's a defining feature of the trope.

Magic Pants is a broader "shapeshifting never messes with modesty" thing, and includes cases where nobody ever bothers explaining why.

Edited by wingedcatgirl on Apr 21st 2022 at 10:55:55 AM

It's because I've always associated Magic Pants with transformations that destroy all the clothes except for the ones covering the privates like The Incredible Hulk, but some examples have all the clothes vanishing like for those with Funny Animal forms such as Jake Long and Mei Lee.

Edited by TroperNo9001 on Apr 22nd 2022 at 12:23:54 AM

Probably Trope-Namer Syndrome with Hulk's pants at work there, but I think ^^ is spot-on.

Then the page image for Magic Pants being Hulk's transformation must've added to the confusion.

I think 's explanation is really a Distinction Without a Difference. I mean, we have two tropes for the same concept, with the difference that one has some A Wizard Did It justification, on the other it's not explained.

- The difference is Purpose vs. Method. "Modesty" is the Purpose of Magic Pants, and the trope doesn't talk about how it's achieved.

Shapeshifting Includes Clothing... err.. Technically Naked Shapeshifter... is about how well, shapeshifting can make clothing, or the appearance of such, with no in / out-of-universe reasoning required for a context-ful example.

Edited by Malady on Apr 21st 2022 at 12:21:29 PM

Pop-Culture Urban Legends and Common Knowledge? i know one is trivia and one is YMMV but it was thinking about how one should probably be moved to the other namespace that i realized they may as well be the same thing, at least in their current usage.

I think PCUL is for meta rumors and CK is for the content, but I've seen meta on CK too.

This is what I wrote back in the ATT about Magic Pants and Technically Naked Shapeshifter. This just my understanding of the two tropes.

In short: the issue isn't duplication, it's whether Magic Pants is several tropes rolled into one and needs splitting out (none of which will duplicate TNS).

Long version:

Technically Naked Shapeshifters is about shapeshifters who can wear whatever clothing they want to wear without having to lug around a wardrobe with them. They manifest whatever clothing they want from their body to cover it. This means that the clothing is technically part of their body, but they look fully clothed to everyone.

The person is limited solely by their imagination or the restrictions of their type of shapeshifting by what they can wear: they do not need to carry spare clothes or steal undamaged clothes. They can just imagine whatever outfit they want and shapeshift it into existence. This means that, after a transformation is over, they don't have to go back to wearing the clothes they originally were, they can produce a brand new outfit if they feel like it. Clothing damage will never stick because there's no real clothing to damage — but, if it does stick, that's usually a sign the shapeshifter is badly injured and they need healing (expect the clothing to magically heal as the injuries do because it's not really clothing).

An example of Technically Naked Shapeshifter would be Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, whose clothes are a part of his shapeshifting. They're a part of his body. On occasions when he's hitting the limit of his "solid" form (he has to revert back to his native liquid state once a day or he starts to "melt" or "flake"), his clothing will be melting or flaking along with his skin. On one occasion, someone comments he looks better with a belt on his uniform, so he immediately shapeshifts a belt onto his uniform.

Magic Pants has a problem. It's actually got a contradictory description. So, it is claiming that it's doing the following things:

• When someone shapeshifts, their clothes should be destroyed by the process. However, when they return to their original form, the clothes are magically undamaged, despite that not being physically possible.
• When someone shapeshifts, their clothes are damaged or destroyed in the process, but when the transformation ends, their clothes are magically back to normal as if the damage never happened.

Those are actually two different things. The problem gets worse by the addition of Hulk-style examples, which actually creates a third type of transformation/clothing relationship:

• When someone shapeshifts, their clothes are damaged in the process, but in an artful way that protects their modesty. When they return to their original state, the clothing stays damaged, so they need to carry around spare clothes, or steal new clothes, or someone needs to carry spare clothes for them. (The Hulk falls into this category, but does not fall into the previous two).

The key difference between Magic Pants (as it currently is) and Technically Naked Shapeshifter is that someone with Magic Pants is limited solely to the clothes they were wearing at time of the transformation. If they want a new wardrobe, they've got carry spare clothes, buy new ones, steal someone else's clothes. Technically Naked Shapeshifter can wear whatever they want, whenever they want, because they only have to imagine it and then shapeshift it out of their body. They don't need spare clothes because they're creating their own.

However, I think Magic Pants may need some Trope description cleaning up and possibly even a TRS, depending on what it's original plan was. It's covering three different kids of transformation and clothing relationship, and I think it may actually be 3 tropes masquerading as one (2 tropes at best). But, something needs to be done because, at current, the trope's go-to example (the Hulk) actually isn't an example of the trope as written, and definitely isn't an example if you go by the Laconic.

That said, even if Magic Pants needs to be split it out, the splits still won't be doing what Technically Naked Shapeshifter does, so there won't be duplication.

I don't understand the difference between your first two descriptions of Magic Pants. Both boil down to shapeshift => clothes damaged => revert shape => clothes revert. The distinction is more of a technicality than something we should split tropes on. The Hulk-style definition, I understand, and I agree that the trope should be split between these two definitions (i.e. clothes returning to normal after shapeshift and some clothes are selectively not destroyed during shapeshifting).

If you believe that these two are suffering from a Distinction Without a Difference, you can make a formal appeal at the Trope Repair Shop. To do so you're going to need to do a wick check to show that the usage of the tropes on the site are the same to back up your appeal for merging the two. See How to Do a Wick Check for more info if you're not sure what to do.

He's actually proposing to split Magic Pants (between the "clothes getting an Unexplained Recovery after being destroyed during shapeshifting" vs. "clothes somehow not getting destroyed during shapeshifting when they should have" definitions), not merging it with Technically Naked Shapeshifter.

Personally I don't think they need separate tropes, since they share the exact same narrative function ("character's clothes defy logic to preserve their modesty") and the way they get around this can be chalked up to Tropes Are Flexible.

I'm fine with keeping it together too, I was reacting to saying that it covers 3 different definitions, whereas there are actually only 2.

What separates Addressing the Player from “Breaking the Fourth Wall, but for video games”?

since video games are an interactive medium, addressing the player directly has distinct connotations from a simple fourth-wall break; it's essentially the characters in the game acknowledging that they are being puppeteered by a "controller" and the metatextual implications of that acknowledgement

It also has implications for the player character, who is outright acknowledged to be a non-entity or someone being possessed by the player.

I think it should still count as fourth wall breaking when the characters are not specifically giving players instructions. So generally lampshading a video game trope would be fourth wall breaking, not addressing the player.