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Duplicate Trope: No Big Deal

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eroock Since: Sep, 2012
#1: Mar 10th 2019 at 6:36:09 AM

According to the TVT sidebar, No Big Deal, Unusually Uninteresting Sight and Weirdness Censor were all created on the same day in 2007. Out of these, No Big Deal strikes me as the one with the least unique characteristics. The description reads like Unusually Uninteresting Sight and most of its examples seem to be covered by other similar tropes.

For reference, here's my definition of related tropes of characters showing an underwhelming reaction to oddness:

  • No Big Deal: Weirdness is not eliciting a reaction from everyday citizens.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Something weird happens, it's noticed/noticeable by people but they move on without a reaction.
  • Weirdness Censor: Weird things happen but people don't seem to acknowledge it. The trope description is pretty close to Unusually Uninteresting Sight, which I leave for a separate discussion.
  • City Of Weirdos: A place attracts so much oddness that the inhabitants get used to it.
  • Seen It All: Long exposure to weirdness has made characters grew unfazed.
  • Unfazed Everyman: An everyday person is pushed into a fantastic environment but does not freak out about the things happening around them. Could also be considered the single-character version of Unusually Uninteresting Sight.
  • The Stoic: A character is faced with wacky (but not fantastic) elements which hardly elicit any reaction from them.
  • Bystander Syndrome: People don't sprint to action if help is needed because they feel it's none of their business.
  • Apathetic Citizens: People ignore a crisis situation.
  • Dull Surprise: Due to an actor's limited skills or the creator's limited imagination a character acts unfazed in situations where you would expect them to show some kind of emotional response.

Any opinions on this?

Moving on, I have checked all wicks of No Big Deal and grouped them by the related trope I think the examples fit best under. Sometimes context is missing to know which trope applies.

    Wick Check (50) 

Couldn't categorize without a doubt:

  • Fangs of the Living Dead:
    (Dr. Horbiger waves a rosary over Bertha's grave.)
    Dr. Horbiger: (dismissively) It's just a protection against the forces of evil.
    Kevin Murphy: How do you sound casual while saying that?
  • My Teacher Is an Alien: Dozens of people see Broxholm unmasked and even more watch his ship escape, but the town's reaction seems to be just pretending en masse that it never happened. There're some hints that the government hushed things up, but it's never fleshed out. — Unusually Uninteresting Sight or Weirdness Censor?
  • Sailor Moon Others: Despite the fact that she's not in the know, she doesn't seem to show any reaction to something as odd as a talking cat.
  • Mrs Pepperpot: This doesn't come up at all in the original story, where she immediately treats her first time shrinking down as No Big Deal, focusing more on how she's going to get her household chores done than on why she's suddenly the size of a pepperpot.

Unusually Uninteresting Sight:

Weirdness Censor:

  • Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine: Horizon School has the property "People must accept that what is happening around them is normal", even if that includes a possibly cannibalistic philosopher-ogre teaching class (and a cat - not a talking cat - teaching the class before that), the vampires and ghosts walking the halls, the Principal's constantly blood-covered hands, or that no more and no less than three events will occur to every student between each class.
  • Circumstances of the Revenant Braves: Those infected by Vices undergo a sort of willing, subconscious amnesia.
  • Trans 9: The ship prevents characters from thinking much in detail about characters who have been "borrowed" by GLaDOS (player on hiatus) or returned to their pod (character no longer played).

City Of Weirdos:

  • Tropes J to P: To be put simply, 99% of the population of Danville would require an extreme amount of weirdness to be confused/shocked by something, the only exception being Linda and Candace (Though that's usually only if said weirdness is made by Phineas and Ferb)
  • Supergirl.Tropes M To N: The inhabitants of Midvale, Stanhope, National City... tend to get pretty jaded about the constant supervillain attacks and what-not.
  • Norm of the North: Subverted. When Norm shows up in New York, a lot of people actually do think he's a real live polar bear, and he has to constantly lie and tell them that he's just a mascot. Even then, some characters see through his lie instantly.

Seen It All:

Unfazed Everyman:

  • The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: Bob is pretty unflappable.
  • Mother 4: * Cloudcuckoolander: It's said that it could be a reason why he [[NoBigDeal accepts his VOX powers easily]].
  • FLCL: Ninamori's response to all the crazy stuff happening to her.
  • Berserk: "What are you gaping at with your eyes popping out of your head!? [[NoBigDeal You'd think this was your first time]] seeing a guy stabbing a BFS through the forehead of a giant fog Emperor while riding a bat-winged Minotaur-lion through a lightning storm!
  • Yandere High School: All sorts of weird things occur throughout the series (characters become ghosts, anthropomorphized animals go to school and have jobs, Taurtis has several clones made, aliens invade Earth, etc.), but Sam doesn't treat it like any of it is strange.

Bystander Syndrome:

  • The Miz: Earlier before the segment, the Miz and Maryse see the unconscious body of Big Cass in a pile of wreckage on their way to the ring. They walk off as if [[BystanderSyndrome nothing]] [[NoBigDeal happened]].

The Stoic:

  • Action Dad/Webcomics: Bob [[NoBigDeal rarely loses his composure]] much beyond his stock look of Dull Surprise.
  • Xenophilia: Lero is quite the oddity in Equestria, and seemingly everypony has an opinion on him one way or another... Except for Applejack, who [[NoBigDeal never really seems to care.]]

Misuse as Stock Phrase:

Other misuse:

ZCE:

Conclusion

Because we have no shortage of tropes dealing with under/non-reaction to weird events, No Big Deal seems dispensable. We could use an index trope though, if none exists yet.

That said, amongst the examples I noticed a scenario that I don't know if troped yet. But it has only few examples. It's when the creator creates a weird situation and shows the contrasting reaction of an unfazed characters against others who freak out. Usually their interaction is played for laughs. That's when the line No Big Deal or a derivate of it is uttered. Examples:
  • TopGearUK.Tropes H To Q: Discussed in the DVD Commentary for the Botswana Special. The commentators tell a story about one of the African guides opening his tent during the night and finding a lion lying directly outside. The best solution? He went back to sleep, and the lions didn't realize that there was anything in the tent. All of the commentators are baffled by such a calm solution.
  • Berserk: "What are you gaping at with your eyes popping out of your head!? [[NoBigDeal You'd think this was your first time]] seeing a guy stabbing a BFS through the forehead of a giant fog Emperor while riding a bat-winged Minotaur-lion through a lightning storm!

Edited by eroock on Jul 23rd 2019 at 6:17:32 AM

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#2: Apr 9th 2019 at 10:13:00 PM

Opening.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
bitemytail Since: Dec, 2011
#3: Apr 9th 2019 at 10:54:25 PM

Dull Surprise should also be on the list.

Edited by bitemytail on Apr 9th 2019 at 10:54:31 AM

eroock Since: Sep, 2012
akanesarumara Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: Abstaining
#5: Apr 10th 2019 at 10:17:28 AM

I was under the impression that Weirdness Censor was for in universe reasons why people (usually normal people) don't notice anything weird (usually supernatural).

Edited by akanesarumara on Apr 10th 2019 at 7:17:48 PM

eroock Since: Sep, 2012
#6: Apr 10th 2019 at 10:30:32 AM

Not seeing it in the description.

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#7: Apr 10th 2019 at 12:05:53 PM

Unless I misread No Big Deal's very short description, it sounds like it takes the general meaning of Unusually Uninteresting Sight and ramps up the amount of weirdness present. I say merge with Unusually Uninteresting Sight.

Edit: The purely misused examples at the end of the OP seem to be side effects of No Big Deal's name being a stock phrase, based on the context given.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 10th 2019 at 2:12:25 PM

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eroock Since: Sep, 2012
#8: Apr 10th 2019 at 2:11:55 PM

Any more votes for dissolving the page and moving its entries according to the list in OP?

Brainulator9 Short-Term Projects herald from US Since: Aug, 2018 Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
Short-Term Projects herald
#9: Apr 10th 2019 at 2:41:24 PM

Apathy Index exists.

I'm in favor of moving examples of No Big Deal to other tropes and either cutting or using it for that other trope idea at the end, assuming that we don't have this one.

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GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#10: Apr 10th 2019 at 2:48:23 PM

I neglected to mention that I'm in favor of moving any examples that fit other listed tropes better, followed by cutting. I meant No Big Deal's description sounds like The Same, but More for Unusually Uninteresting Sight. (Again, the description is so short that details could have been left out, in contrast to how Unusually Uninteresting Sight has a fleshed-out description.)

No New Stock Phrases might prevent the name from being reused for a completely new trope, even if the name itself predates that policy (due to No Big Deal being from 2007 and the policy being from 2011).

Edit: Oh, wow. I said No Big Deal's description was short; the Laconic is even more lacking. "This is normal for us" could potentially apply to other tropes in the OP.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Apr 10th 2019 at 5:25:33 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
SeptimusHeap MOD from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#11: May 10th 2019 at 12:15:33 AM

Clock is set.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
WarJay77 Big Catch, Sparkle Edition (Troper Knight)
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#12: May 12th 2019 at 9:18:47 PM

I'm cool with the move-and-cut proposal.

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razorrozar7 Migrated to Chloe Jessica! from Chloe Jessica Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: Hooked on a feeling
Migrated to Chloe Jessica!
#13: May 12th 2019 at 10:07:51 PM

[tup]to move and cut. personally, i like the idea of repurposing No Big Deal as an index for all the "under-reaction to weirdness" tropes.

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naturalironist from The Information Superhighway Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
WarJay77 Big Catch, Sparkle Edition (Troper Knight)
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Brainulator9 Short-Term Projects herald from US Since: Aug, 2018 Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
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#16: May 13th 2019 at 7:05:46 AM

I say make No Big Deal a disambiugation page/index.

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DEIDATVM from East Fishkill, New York Since: Dec, 2016
#17: May 13th 2019 at 8:29:59 AM

As Brainulator noted, Apathy Index exists, but I think being unfazed by strange happenings is different enough that No Big Deal could be made into an index. [tup]

eroock Since: Sep, 2012
#18: May 13th 2019 at 8:41:17 AM

The phrase "No big deal" lends itself to being potholed a lot. Do we want this to happen for an index page?

Brainulator9 Short-Term Projects herald from US Since: Aug, 2018 Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
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#19: May 13th 2019 at 9:11:15 AM

Admittedly, that is a good point. I know that Did Not Do The Research died as a result of that.

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DEIDATVM from East Fishkill, New York Since: Dec, 2016
#20: May 13th 2019 at 9:47:44 AM

[up]Yup. I still think an index would be a good idea, though it'd be advisable to give it a different name.

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#21: May 13th 2019 at 10:24:10 AM

I'm against keeping the current name if we repurpose this as an index or disambiguation page. If this page is attracting potholes, I think this name should be cut after the index/disambiguation page is moved somewhere else.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 13th 2019 at 12:59:40 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
naturalironist from The Information Superhighway Since: Jul, 2016 Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
#22: May 13th 2019 at 3:50:37 PM

The current page has only 64 wicks, and the stock phrase misuse (from OP wick check) is relatively rare. It doesn't seem to be a problem at the moment. If we're going to cut the page, is there a point to making the supertrope?

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SeptimusHeap MOD from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#23: Jun 15th 2019 at 1:01:29 AM

Clock is set.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
eroock Since: Sep, 2012
#24: Jun 15th 2019 at 1:26:15 AM

Current standing:

  • 6 votes (including mine) for moving examples and cutting No Big Deal
  • 3 votes for making No Big Deal a disambiugation page/index for the list of tropes in OP.

Edited by eroock on Jun 15th 2019 at 1:26:41 AM

Berrenta How sweet it is from Texas Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
How sweet it is
#25: Jun 16th 2019 at 9:18:53 PM

Throwing in my hat for move examples and cut, so that makes it 7-3.

Edited by Berrenta on Jun 16th 2019 at 11:19:25 AM

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