Are these Character Tropes?

Because if the trope is spoilered, the spoiler is self-defeating. To know if you're allowed to read the example, you need to unspoiler it.

Compare:

• The Hero Dies: Jesus got killed at the end

to

• The Hero Dies: Jesus got killed at the end

Or, my personal favorite:

• The Hero Dies: Jesus got killed at the end

Which of these three is more practical? Which is a total waste of time?

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

No hard feelings, WoodsyGrabass2019.

Administrivia.Handling Spoilers notes that we do not do any spoiler-tagging on trope names.

Edited by gjjones on Oct 19th 2020 at 1:24:45 PM

He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.

I'm just saying, there's a lot of character pages on the site that don't even have a single spoiler-tag.

But...alright if people wanna go site-wide deleting Death Tropes, go ahead and I won't edit-war again. Just make sure they always get put onto the main work page immediately afterwards, okay?

I'm Surrounded by Idiots...

Literally I was only arguing against your "hide the trope name" argument, but cool cool dude

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

The bottom part of my comment was a reply to gjjones about my previous...incident on The Incredibles. And also just to everyone on the site in general.

Edited by WoodsyGrabass2019 on Oct 19th 2020 at 2:44:03 PM

I'm Surrounded by Idiots...

Spoiler issues aside (I've never understood the aversion some people have to spoilers, but I suppose having a bad memory helps with that), as I have said before, I believe in a case-by-case as to what should and shouldn't be on a character page so don't think a blanket removal of death tropes would be a good thing.

This gets back to whether character pages are for character tropes (i.e. any trope associate solely with the character/organisation/group/etc.) or characterisation trope. I am a strong proponent of the former and from my experience this is the common usage of character pages on this site since I joined).

Knowledge is Power, Guard it Well

Except "tropes associated with a character" turns into pretty much every trope in the work if you want to stretch it that way, which would empty the main page. A "characterization trope" is much more limited, and is intended to be specific to a character/ensemble.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I did specify solely related, and a case by case basis. For example, take Horned Humanoid. If only a single character is one then I feel it should go on the character page. If everyone in the cast, however, is one then it shouldn't go on the character page but on the main page. If it applies to a specific group it goes on that grou['s entry on the character page if it has one, not every character who is one, otherwise it goes on the main page. On the other hand Red Oni, Blue Oni is a characterisation trope but, as it involves comparing two characters, I believe it should go on the main page, not the characters involved, (unless there is a single entry for the two characters).

Knowledge is Power, Guard it Well

The same would be true for pages with Loads And Loads Of Characters if we started removing most tropes from them. Suddenly the tropes related to a minor character in Trope Overdosed works like One Piece or Game of Thrones would be spread across dozens of main pages. Not to mention big franchise characters like Darth Vader or Captain America whose tropes would suddenly be spread around to multiple works that each can have multiple pages of tropes. People like making / reading character pages because it keeps all the tropes related to those characters in a single place that' easy to find.

Pages that could get "emptied" rarely even have character pages, like one-shot films or Short-Runners series.

About the Character Pages Cleanup:

• Fatal Flaw: If it or related characterization tropes results in their death or something equally spoilery, do we spoil out there spoilery part or just not add it?
• Tragic Hero: Innately spoils they don't get a happy ending. Do we not add it as it's not under Characterization Tropes or the other indexes on the page?

If the cleanup means Character Pages only have tropes from the Characterization Tropes index, the 141 tropes under it seem awfully limiting. YMMV has 256 tropes, Trivia has 405, that's the president for pages that only allow specific tropes.

I propose we create a index for trope that are allowed/supposed to go under character pages. If nothing else that would get traction to cleanup character pages. UPDATE: found a Are these Character Tropes? thread, might be helpful there.

Last question: what circumstances would Character Trope be allowed under work/recap pages (besides it not having enough to warrant a character page)?

Counting those, that should more than enough tropes. Now I question how can tell what is or isn't such as such a large amount of indexes and sub indexes seems like more than one can be expected to memorized. (I get if there's too many to put in one index.)

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Oct 20th 2020 at 10:36:53 AM

141 tropes in the main one + a bevy of sub-indexes + Stock Characters, etc.

Making a list would require consensus on what is allowed, however, which there isn't at the moment. Hence this discussion. Also, you do realise that that link leads to this thread right?

Personally, I am not a fan of aggregate entries for characters as it can separate tropes from works.

Edited by SebastianGray on Oct 20th 2020 at 6:49:57 PM

Knowledge is Power, Guard it Well

No, the tropes about what happened to a minor character would be moved to the main page where plot tropes belong. The tropes about the characterization of the minor characters would remain. Not all minor characters are given enough characterization that they need a character page anyway.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I always figured the easy answer to "is this a character trope?" is "is this listed under Characterization Tropes or one of its many sub-indexes?" Is that too broad?

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

No, that's exactly what it should be, but other editors want it to be broader than that, and that's why we have this thread.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

That's funny to me because I have the opposite tendency to put character tropes on main, not main tropes on character pages. That may be because many of my favorite works have ungodly long character pages and could stand for some tropes to be moved to the main page anyway.

I can think of some death tropes that could qualify as character tropes, like Redemption Equals Death (it's under the Heel/Face Index which is under several sub-indexes of Characterization Tropes), but I don't see the harm in moving those to the main page if they're spoilery. When you list it under a specific character, it's a pretty obvious spoiler, but listing it on the main page just allows you to know somebody dies without spoiling whom.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

Personally:

• Work: If the character does not yet have a character sheet entry, or they're so minor and one-off that they don't need one.^note Technically you only need one trope to put them on the character sheet, but I find that superfluous and bloat-y.

• Recap: If the trope only appears in that installment. Eg. Alice already has a fiery temper, but dyes her hair red in Episode 5. If the dye is gone by the next episode, then Fiery Redhead can go in that recap page.

No need to memorize it; just scroll down to the bottom of the trope page and see where it's indexed.

Where does the "only Characterization Tropes should be on Character pages" actually come from as, looking at the Characterization Tropes, nothing there says that they are only what should go on Character pages, in fact the line from the description "For lists of tropes as they apply to specific fictional characters, see Character Sheets" seems to indicate that they are a separate thing? Also the main Character Sheet page basically says that they exist to organise overlong Work pages by putting all the tropes relating to a single character together, not jut Characterization Tropes.

Edited by SebastianGray on Oct 20th 2020 at 7:28:38 PM

Knowledge is Power, Guard it Well

Character Sheets is the index for all character subpages. It isn't auto-indexed like the Trivia and YMMV subpages, so it has to be done manually like Shout-Out and Recap subpages. If you were to make a character subpage for The Mona Lisa (please don't), it would be indexed to Character Sheets.

Characterization Tropes is the index for main page articles. If you made a new trope about characterization, it would be indexed there, not Character Sheets.

Edited by crazysamaritan on Oct 20th 2020 at 1:44:10 PM

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

There actually are cases I'd argue death tropes themselves can be characterization tropes and not even just character-linked tropes.

I'm thinking of a number of characters who have repeated Death Is Cheap / Back from the Dead (not necessarily to the comedic or constant level of They Killed Kenny Again). It informs your expectations for the character, and the experience(s) of death shape the characters' own understanding and character development.

Edited by PointMaid on Oct 21st 2020 at 9:10:22 AM

I know what they are, that wasn't what I was asking. I was asking where exactly people are getting the "only Characterization Tropes are allowed on Character sub pages" as that isn't mentioned on the Characterization Tropes page, the Character Sheets page (the index for Character sub pages) or, now that I look at them, the How to Create a Character Page or What Goes Where on the Wiki page itself.

Edited by SebastianGray on Oct 21st 2020 at 2:27:21 PM

Knowledge is Power, Guard it Well

It’s not stated anywhere because there *is* no policy for what should go on a character sheet. I guess it was just a natural point of view to arrive at from debating if something is a “character trope” (ie. the point of the thread).

Ah right thanks, because the way people were talking seemed to indicate that it was actually a thing.

Knowledge is Power, Guard it Well

Basically, character pages are extentions of the main pages. They exist primarily to declutter things and cut down on page length. So it stands to reason that the tropes intended to be used on them are the characterization based ones- it makes sense from an organizational standpoint.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Technically, there's no policy, and people can put Next Sunday A.D. or Short Story on the character subpage.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.