Unclear Description: Parent Trap Plot

A TLP entry popped up again recently: Kids Play Matchmaker, about a stock plotline where a kid tries to set their parent up with someone. The description on that page notes that Parent Trap Plot differs in that the parent has a previous history with the person they are being set up with.

Seemed reasonable, right, if perhaps a case of The Same But More Specific. But if you check the actual page, it's difficult to find the similarity in the description. The description on Parent Trap Plot is short, vague, and seem to boil down to "Kids resolve a conflict between feuding adults." I'm not sure the Trope Namer even counts by that standard. And if you look at the examples on the page, only one (Danny Phantom) looks like a straight example; most involve the matchmaking/parental remarriage definition or are ZC Es.

Doing a wick check of all non-index pages (not a lot), it looks like my conception of the trope is much more widely used. Kids set up parents: 14 Kids resolve adult feud: 2 Non-example/ZCE: 10

The trope may have undergone Trope Decay, but I think the real reason is the poor description.

There's an easy fix for this; I would suggest transplanting the description and examples from the Kids Play Matchmaker TLP, which is more clearly written and has more/better examples, into Parent Trap Plot. I'm happy to take charge on that, but I don't want to make major alterations without community approval.

edited 23rd Feb '18 4:03:44 PM by naturalironist

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Solid work. Opening and throwing in a hat for transplant.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

Kids Play Matchmaker is a more indicative trope title. So I vote for merging Parent Trap Plot under the TLP draft.

I agree with eroock. "Parent Trap Plot" is a lot more vague of a title, and has all of the problems mentioned in the opening

Call me Molly! I love the Runaways, the Batfamily, and like 5 people. Might have to change my ID because I didn't know about "no _" rule

Previous TRS thread was closed for inactivity. It was proposed that the current description ("kids help resolve their parent's feud") should be sent back to TLP and the trope namer ("kids convince their parents to remarry") get a description rewrite.

The name Kids Play Matchmaker does not, to me, imply the children are siblings, which would be a supertrope ("kids convince their parents to date").

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I think that these two tropes could be in some sort of sub-super relationship. The problem, as of now, is that nobody is really certain what Parent Trap Plot actually is. If nothing else, it needs a description rewrite of some sort, even if it doesn't end up merging with Kids Play Matchmaker. I think Parent Trap Plot would be a sub trope to Kids Play Matchmaker, focusing on getting the parents back together when they've separated. Problem is, do we have enough examples of that? Does it extend to platonic examples (as the page...maybe indicates)?

edited 24th Feb '18 11:59:19 AM by Molly_Hats

Call me Molly! I love the Runaways, the Batfamily, and like 5 people. Might have to change my ID because I didn't know about "no _" rule

^ The wick check list in OP suggests there are about 10 examples of kids setting up their parents. Would this be considered healthy enough to go as a subtrope?

Note that we also have Divorce Is Temporary which mentions the scenario of children helping to rekindle the relationship of their parents.

I think the most basic trope here is simply: a character attempts to find a romantic partner for their parents. There are then several subtropes, from the TLP page:

• The children are hoping to head off another romantic option at the pass. ("So Dad wants to get remarried, but he picked a horrible person, so lets find him someone better.")
• The children scheme to get their divorced or separated parents back together '(applies to The Parent Trap)'
• Children of two single parents try to get their respective parents together (Commonly, the single father has a daughter, and a single mother has a son) '(technically also applies to The Parent Trap)'

I didn't do the wick check By the Book- you're really supposed to copy and sort the actual text of usage of the wicks, while I just pooled wicks into my own very crude categories and didn't differentiate who the parents were being set up with. We'd have to do another wick check to see if the "Kids reunite divorced parents" variant has enough usage to trope. My money is on no.

I'm in favor of keeping the current name; Kids Play Matchmaker could be a good laconic for it. Why?

• 'The Parent Trap' seems to be the Trope Codifier.
• Based on usage on the wiki, the fact that the trope is a Whole-Plot Reference to that movie is often lampshaded or referenced
• I, and most users of the wiki, assumed that Parent Trap Plot involved, y'know, the plot of The Parent Trap. With the new definition, I don't think this is a bad assumption
• All but two tropes on the Whole-Plot Reference index have the title or a catchphrase from the original work in the name; four others follow the same style as Parent Trap Plot

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

You would have to know the plot of The Parent Trap to understand what the trope title means. Kids Play Matchmaker is self-explanatory.

I would at least like to keep Parent Trap Plot as a redirect.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Incorrect. The definition on the Parent Trap Plot page is: characters attempt to resolve a disagreement between their parents.

They do not have to be separated or divorced for the current definition. This is why the previous TRS proposed tossing it back to TLP.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

If you read the OP, the point of this thread is that based on the name, people on the wiki seem to think this trope is about kids setting one or both parents with someone, with getting divorced parents back together as a common variant.

I agree with you that children resolving a dispute between adults is the current definition of the trope, although I think the description is very unclear to the point where it's not clear that it applies to parents specifically. The problem is that almost no one takes it to mean that, and I also think that's a poor characterization of the Trope Namer.

If you want to keep the current definition, that's fine, but the page will need a re-write, a new name (imo), and a lot of help, since none of the examples on the page fit if you narrow the current definition to children resolving a fight between their parents. Personally I would rather just TLP the old definition.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

I would support splitting this into those 3 tropes.

Thank you for agreeing with me. Please read the previous TRS thread again: two mods unofficially supported the definition rewrite, and there was no dissent. The thread stalled out because nobody did the work.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I can do the work if that’s the only obstacle—I did a lot of writing on Kids Play Matchmaker. My main issue is that I’m a new troper and prone to rookie mistakes.

Call me Molly! I love the Runaways, the Batfamily, and like 5 people. Might have to change my ID because I didn't know about "no _" rule

The previous TRS thread's conclusions seem still good. I don't think anyone actually disagrees here. Do we need a crowner to move forward?

Any good ideas for a name for the current definition? Child Mediator maybe?

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

I think we need a crowner because there were different suggestions been made how to proceed.

Ok. Anybody up to make that?

Call me Molly! I love the Runaways, the Batfamily, and like 5 people. Might have to change my ID because I didn't know about "no _" rule

Created a crowner. Did I get everything?

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Numbered crowner options for reference.

edited 12th Mar '18 2:16:37 AM by eroock

Bump. There seems to be a leader at the moment, but not a huge amount of crowner participation.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Okay, voted.

Do we have a consensus?

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

There's a very clear winner with a decent amount of votes and it's been a couple weeks, so I'd say yes.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?