The Broken Base cleanup thread discusses about examples in Broken Base, but this talks about examples in YMMV pages of works containing Base-Breaking Character, (despite being an Example Sectionectomy, this can still be seen in the YMMV pages of works) where the details on what is suitable is also vague.
Here is the criteria for Base-Breaking Character:
- A long-term, sustained conflict: Characters that were simply hated and loved, then had their interest evaporated away (both positive and negative) after a few months doesn't count. Characters in upcoming works also don't count.
- A vicious conflict: Factions that have little problem co-existing and doesn't mind about what the other faction likes or dislikes about the character doesn't count. If it's not particularly vicious and heated, then it would be cut or be listed as a Downplayed Trope.
- Two (or more) vocal, almost equally sized factions: A tiny Vocal Minority that doesn't shut up their pet peeve, whilst being outnumbered by more reasonable fans don't count. Nor does a Silent Majority who doesn't make a big deal with the other side count. If one of the hating factions is significantly bigger than the other, it would be classified as The Scrappy or an Ensemble Dark Horse.
- Little to no Middle ground: Scenarios where most of the fandom doesn't care about the character, don't count.
Base-Breaking Character is when half of the fandom likes a character, yet another equally sized half dislikes it. Now that happens, but the problem is, some entries aren't really contentious (thus not resulting in flame wars when someone says they "liked that character"). Also, several entries are one-sided towards the negative or the positive side describing that only side in detail, but then wrapping up with a single line saying "But the other half likes that character". A correct way would be describing it like "a split in the Fandom on who likes it or not", with details on both sides why they're liked and disliked.
Here's an example from YMMV.Undertale:
- Alphys. A lot of players find her character gimmick of constant messages and attempts to help more annoying than funny, especially on repeat playthroughs. And even though she has sympathetic reasons, the reveal that she's been experimenting on sick monsters to create the Amalgamates and manipulating the player to feel better about herself doesn't help, especially since she never directly apologizes for the latter.
While it may have annoyed players due to these reasons above, there has been a considerable amount of fanarts and comics or her, and not only that, the like-dislike situation hasn't been so contentious (compared to Sans, whom he's popular, now he sucks.)
edited 21st Feb '18 1:46:31 PM by AppleGates
The Base-Breaking Character page clearly states that the characters must meet all four conditions listed. If they don't, they don't count. Simple as that.
You're also edging a bit close to personal territory there. Dial it back a little, please.
"I squirm, I struggle, ergo I am. Faced with death, I am finally, truly alive."Then we probably need to redefine the trope or take a look at There Is No Such Thing as Notability again, because this thread seems to be very close to demanding notability for every single example people propose and shouting down people within the debated fandoms who try to give their accounts of what's up.
Edited by PhiSat on May 28th 2019 at 5:41:15 AM
Oissu!![]()
That's not what There Is No Such Thing as Notability means. To quote a mod from this discussion page
:
And to quote the TV Tropes Glossary definition:
Notability in this case just refers to how well-known the work is to warrant a page, with the site's stance being "as long as it's published and doesn't go into really, really bad territory, it can be featured on this site."
Edited by dragonfire5000 on May 28th 2019 at 4:46:57 AM
"I squirm, I struggle, ergo I am. Faced with death, I am finally, truly alive."" Every now and then you might see a Wikipedia Updater who will delete your example with no reason. A small Edit War of delete/restore will start, before someone on the discussion page brings up "notability." This page is your response."
I dunno, sure sounds like what's going on here right now. Demanding specific proof of fractured base rather than listening to people within the fandoms who can presumably understand when they're seeing a broken base in action. I dunno, maybe I'm overestimating people's intelligence, but still.
I'll second kicking the trope to TRS, because I'd vote that currently the trope's definition is too narrow and this thread is enforcing too strictly.
Oissu!![]()
Going by the definition used on this site, that bit is more of a response to a "Someone deleted an example you posted because they thought the work in the example is too obscure" situation.
I'm against making the requirements of Base-Breaking Character more lenient because otherwise it's just "This character has a lot of people who like them, a lot of people who don't like them, and some people who don't care" (which hilariously enough is a good example of bad entries brought up here in the past). That sort of audience reaction is not particularly noteworthy.
Base-Breaking Character is noteworthy because it isn't just any form of divisiveness, it's the sort of divisiveness where practically every fan takes a "You're either with us or against us!" mentality and bitter conflicts continue for a very long time. The mere mention of the character in question sparks lots of arguments and/or flame wars.
Take that away, and you're just left with "Lots of people have differing opinions." Not really noteworthy on its own. And before someone tries bringing up There Is No Such Thing as Notability, that's for entire works, not audience reactions.
Edited by dragonfire5000 on May 28th 2019 at 5:07:26 AM
"I squirm, I struggle, ergo I am. Faced with death, I am finally, truly alive."The problem I see is that multiple times within just the last dozen pages in this thread we've had people try to contribute to the trope saying they have witnessed heated debates centering around a character within their fandom only to be ignored or dismissed because they have no "proof" or they're told their word means nothing unless they've gone around looking at every single space a discussion about that fandom might be held. No other Audience Reaction requires that kind of stringency except maybe Deader Than Disco (which has its own problems and is having calls to broaden too). This requirement just seems too stringent.
Plus, the lack of middle ground people is also difficult considering fandoms attract a lot of discussion and a lot of different fans who just might not care about an issue. Say you have a video game where let's say about half the fanbase care about the story for and half don't, just wanting to play for the gameplay. Does this automatically mean that series can't have a Base-Breaking Character because half the fanbase doesn't care about the story? Do we measure just based on the fans of the story? Are they the fandom?
Edited by PhiSat on May 28th 2019 at 6:11:54 AM
Oissu!If the two halves constantly come to blows about whether it's the story or the gameplay that makes the game good, you have a case for Broken Base. If the two sides don't really argue over those things, you don't. The conflict part is, after all, a part of the Broken Base definition.
Though the "don't really care about the story" part also suggests that one side isn't invested enough in the story to actually have heated conflicts with those that really like the story.
Edited by dragonfire5000 on May 28th 2019 at 5:18:18 AM
"I squirm, I struggle, ergo I am. Faced with death, I am finally, truly alive."Sure. But I think that if the people who care about the story are fighting over a character they shouldn't be ignored just because there are people who don't care at all about the story and so have no opinion either way. That's just silly. Say a bitter conflict about a character was happening within a fandom like that. Under the current definition that character can't be a Base-Breaking Character because there's a segment of fans who don't care at all about the story. Does that make sense? I don't think so.
Edited by PhiSat on May 28th 2019 at 6:19:56 AM
Oissu!
It makes sense to me; you can't really have the conflict needed for Base-Breaking Character if one side isn't interested in fighting over that character. What you do have in that case is one character that half of the fanbase either really likes or really hates, and the other half really doesn't care about.
No bitter conflict between two sides of nearly the entire fandom = No Base-Breaking Character.
Edited by dragonfire5000 on May 28th 2019 at 5:25:23 AM
"I squirm, I struggle, ergo I am. Faced with death, I am finally, truly alive."But of course they're not going to care if they're not at all invested in the story. You might as well axe every single video game example on the wiki right now by your definition because I'm telling you there are a sizable amount of people who Play the Game, Skip the Story in every single video game out there.
Edited by PhiSat on May 28th 2019 at 6:27:35 AM
Oissu!If those entries really do mention that some people don't care enough about the character in question to get into conflicts over them, than those entries should be axed for misuse.
Edited by dragonfire5000 on May 28th 2019 at 5:30:15 AM
"I squirm, I struggle, ergo I am. Faced with death, I am finally, truly alive."Just saying, as of late, TV Tropes feels like a forum where if a person doesn't like an aspect of a piece of fiction, then they are forbidden from critiquing it at all.
Especially with all these rules.
I'm confident in stating, without picking sides, that that is a problematic and confusing dilemma for critics, fans and administrators to debate about.
There is at least three ways to go about this:
1) Make the rules less stricter.
2) Repair the trope(s) that needs repairing.
3) Get rid of the trope altogether.
Now putting professionalism aside, I mean come on.
If the naysayers are gonna be so uptight about what constitutes a Base-Breaking Character from a writing standpoint, what is stopping you admins from axing all the YMMV tropes that have to do with writing a story?
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character
Broken Base in general.
To name a few.
Why not crack down on all of these, if we apparently need academic research to justify examples and entries now?
Edited by BrightLight on May 29th 2019 at 2:51:45 AM
Several of those already have cleanup threads because surprise surprise people were misusing them and also using them for complaining.
Edited by dragonfire5000 on May 28th 2019 at 7:53:21 AM
"I squirm, I struggle, ergo I am. Faced with death, I am finally, truly alive."It's one thing to crack down on misuse so that there isn't a million entries on every page but it seems like some of these tropes are being winnowed out of a fear of applying too many negative-sounding tropes to YMMV pages as if we're somehow afraid of offending the media gods by pointing out that certain things are less than beloved.
Edited by AlleyOop on May 28th 2019 at 11:04:32 AM
Speaking hypothetically, if I was supreme dictator of TV Tropes, I probably would just do away with all of the complaining YMMV pages. They're way more trouble than they're worth, given the stated goals of this site. (Of the listed-above, They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot and Character, in particular, are essentially PSOC without a serious redefinition).
That said, as far as the current definitions are concerned it does seem like the threshold for evidence for the base-breaking pages is getting a little high in some cases. It's not possible to take opinion polls of literally every member of a fandom.
Edited by nrjxll on May 29th 2019 at 5:00:05 AM
Well, I'm with Redmess.
I vouch for keeping all the YMMV tropes and letting people give reasonable critiques about a piece of fiction.
(As of late, it feels like one can't criticize a work that they've gone through the trouble of experiencing.)
If the guidelines really must be the bottom line, then all the YMMV content on this site may as well be obliterated — make it fair for everyone, and let everyone keep their differing opinions to themselves.
(Because that seems to be the objective of the new, stricter rules here.)
As a creator of one of these cleanup threads, I must admit. My intention was never to say you can't critique a work. It's that people are complaining about said work that makes it misuse.
Take Erika from the Pokemon anime for the scrappy thread for example. She was cut because there is a chunk of the fan base in Japan that thinks she wasn't being unlawful in banning Ash from her gym for essentially insulting her work. And she did come around so she was since then rescued.
And as stated before, it isn't the end of the world if a work doesn't have a Complete Monster or Magnificent Bastard. People treat those tropes like they are badges of honour when that's far from their intent.
Edited by Klavice on May 29th 2019 at 4:16:25 AM
I should point out that some measure of complaint will always be a part of these kind of tropes, because having a complaint about a work or character is often inherent to tropes like base breaking character or scrappies.
I think we should only focus on excessive complaining, not just any and all complaints. Also, these complaints should be expressed in a neutral way.
And I agree that people can get rather too defensive about not wanting ANY complaints about their favorite show at all. That is not a healthy approach to discussing works.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest times

Then they're just divisive characters. They're just not of the Base-Breaking Character class of divisive.
"I squirm, I struggle, ergo I am. Faced with death, I am finally, truly alive."