Narm Cleanup

So what about the Narm example?

I have this example from Narm.Western Animation:

• Megamind has a Narmful Opening Narration from the title character.
  • "He bought their affections with showmanship and extravagant gifts of deliciousness. So I too will make this pop-ped corn and win over those mindless drones."

Found this on the Joker YMMV page:

I feel this is a bit unfair, considering Arthur idolizes Murray to such an extent as to view him as a father figure and in his mind, Murray making fun of/mocking him is gonna be something that well, disappoints and breaks him. Imagine if you idolized someone and they mocked you, you wouldn't be very happy about it would you?

Also, Arthur is mentally disturbed. He overreacts to things that another person would shrug off because he's not right in the head.

Cut that nonsense.

Cut both of the Megamind examples.

I have an example I'd like to add to YMMV.Warframe, but I'd like to make sure it's valid before I add it.

• Kuva Liches are supposed to be the player's Arch-Enemy. They're powerful, immortal foes with an undying hatred for you after they endure the painful Super-Soldier induction process you started. But they're also procedurally generated, including their names. The moment that a Kuva Lich rises is supposed to be a dramatic moment, but it can easily be undercut by the game displaying a name that is pure word salad, such as Andii Grtakmb or Ree Grgrakk; a name that is (almost) one or two real words like Oniry Momm, Gitt Bakk, or Such Egg; a name that is repetitive or otherwise inherently ridiculous, such as App Rapp, Ogogg Ogg, or Bopp Bipp; or a name that is a sexual innuendo, such as Sukk Diss or Kokk Solidd. The game's community manager recorded two videos in which she reads some of the sillier names the system has generated.

That sounds valid. I laughed at a couple of those just reading that, in fact.

(And honestly, it also sounds like a good example of how TV Tropes in general really shouldn't have so heavily emphasized Narm as a complaining trope...)

The academic term is Bathos, which has a much narrower meaning here on TV Tropes. For some reason, some subpages are tagged as Flame Bait.

Sounds legit to me.

Bringing up the following example from Batman Beyond:

• Narm: The show has a very moody and abstract theme music that serves to introduce the audience to the city of Gotham in the future. In the middle of it, there's a random cut to Terry's friends clubbing that's so far removed from the rest of the imagery in terms of tone that it can be humorously jarring.

The Narm.RWBY page came through back in December, but the edits never got applied to the page. I've applied them as per the suggestion, with one exception. A few other examples have been added to the page since, so I'm listing them here for feedback.

• "Salem only uses people until they are no longer useful." When forced to help Cinder's team obtain the Relic of Knowledge, Raven strikes a deal with them to help them in exchange for being left alone after the task is complete. Vernal privately asks her if she really thinks Salem will leave them alone and Raven tells her that it's not Salem's style to permit people she has no further use for to live. However, the way she says it is a bit silly.
  • Don't know about this one. Is it okay?
• Ruby's voice has always been a point of contention, but Volume 5 marked the point where Lindsay's attempts to sound like a 15-17 year old girl became more funny than anything. Ruby's squeaky voice goes into such chipmunk like pitches that it ruins the mood of many serious scenes, especially whenever she starts to make a speech about teamwork and unity.
  • A recent addition, and it comes across as an attempt to disguise complaining.
• Ruby's speeches can be pretty goofy sounding, making them sound like generic shounen anime speeches. In particular, her speech in Volume 6, Chapter 9, is supposed to be an awesome, motivational moment; it becomes funny/stupid when Ruby declares that they never needed help from an adult, considering they have needed help from adults in some of their situations, including events that occurred not long before the speech such as Maria directly saving Team RWBY during the Brunswick episodes.
  • It was suggested in the December post that this be removed for Fridge Logic, but the troper suggested other people should weigh in. There were no responses. I therefore haven't removed it from the page yet. Should it be removed?
• Oscar manages to land a hit on Neo, after first announcing his presence with a yell and then charging up the hallway to punch her. The moment comes across to the audience as Forgot About His Powers because Neo is a character who is known for her razor-sharp reflexes and CQC ability. The episode's writer later clarified that Oscar was supposed to yell, round the corner and punch her in a near-simultaneous action that would genuinely leave her without the time to respond; however, the instructions for the scene turned out to be more ambiguous than the writers realised until after the animators interpreted it to include a hallway run. The mistake was spotted too late to correct. The following episode exacerbates the hilarity and weirdness of this moment by having Neo completely dominate Team JNR and Oscar, while also revealing just how exhausted and close-to-collapse Oscar is.
  • As per the December advice to move the example of Ozpin 'juggling' Cinder with his cane to Special Effect Failure. I moved this one there, too. But I'm not sure it's the right place. The entry is written as a confirmed production mistake. Plus, the fandom's general reaction was actually outrage (hence the creator confirmation of the mistake) not hilarity.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 21st 2020 at 10:34:24 AM

Bringing up the following examples from The Haunting of Bly Manor:

• Narm:
  • Henry Thomas' overly plummy, wobbly RP and Carla Gugino's grating attempt at a Yorkshire accent quickly got many complaints from real Brits, who cringed every time they got a line. Oliver Jackson-Cohen's comically broad attempt at a Scottish accent has received a similar response from Scots.
  • The penultimate episode, which should have been the beginnings of an exciting climax to the story, is set in the 1600s and shot in black and white. Not only do the casts' accents slip all over the place, but the period-setting is pure renaissance fair, which diminishes any sense of genuine horror.

From YMMV.Steven Universe:

• Sadie singing in the intro to "Sadie's Song" is in of itself not a dark moment so much as it is a heartfelt one, but has an unintentionally goofy moment during frames from behind Sadie as she sings and dances while working, which are focused right behind her, where the back pockets are drawn sort of like eyes. It makes it sort of look like her butt is singing!

• Aren't there tropes that deal with bad accents? It doesn't look like Narm as written.
• Again with the accents. However, I can't answer whether the period setting is Narm. I think that needs someone to actually have seen it. If it's a valid entry, it'll need a rewrite.

• It's written as Examples Are Not Arguable, since it talks itself out of being a dark moment and instead regards itself as a heartfelt moment. If she's singing and dancing, how serious a moment is it intended to be? It doesn't say. I'd suggest cutting this. If it's a valid entry, it'll need a rewrite.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 23rd 2020 at 1:15:06 PM

Axed it.

Bringing up these examples from YMMV.Doctor Who S 37 E 1 The Woman Who Fell To Earth:

• Narm:
  • The Doctor scolding Karl for kicking the evil alien who just tried to kill him off a crane, after she herself had just been subjecting him to an exceptionally painful death (though it should be noted that she'd threatened to drop his teleporter if he activated the DNA bombs, but gave it to him anyway after he did so, giving him an opportunity to get home and possibly save himself). It very much comes off like they were worried about her looking too sadistic, but tried to fix it without actually changing anything. In the same vein, the script contriving a way for her to snap "Only idiots carry knives," especially if you recall Jodie Whittaker's role in Attack the Block.
  • The episode also comes up with an especially contrived way to introduce the new companions to the "two hearts" thing, as Grace finds out from taking her pulse, which just raises the question of why her mind went there instead of high blood pressure. However, as she states that the Doctor has two pulses instead of just a ridiculously fast single pulse, that instead suggests that the intent was that binary cardiovascular systems of a Time Lord aren't two hearts in the same system but two systems working in tandem.

Eh, they both read as Fridge Logic nitpicks to me, instead of valid examples.

From Red Hood and the Outlaws:

• Scott Lobdell's writing style, which tends to consist of heaps of narration boxes and expository dialogue, often has describing their thoughts and feelings in explicit detail (which was the convention in the 80s/90s), rather than allow for the artwork to convey them instead.
• Starfire's new costume (often described as "dental floss") is so ridiculous to many people that she's impossible to take seriously.
• Roy's face sometimes falls under this, as it'll very randomly be drawn hyper-realistically in the worst way possible.
• Jason's helmets tend to break a lot. Makes you wonder why he even wears it. The level of detail it's given in the artwork during Volume 1(to the point of having lips) is often mocked as well.
• In the Rebirth issue, Batman taking a young and hungry Jason out for burgers goes quickly from heartwarming to silly, as he immediately begins training him as a Child Soldier. Furthermore, Bruce sharing burgers with Jason is sweet and all... then you see that, apparently, wherever he buys from doesn't wrap their burgers. In anything. Does the artist not know how burgers are bought? It doesn't help that Bruce just eats the thing without taking off his gloves or anything.
• This ruined the cover for issue 21◊ in the Rebirth run, which features Red Hood pointing his gun at the Penguin's face while Cobblepot smugly blows smoke in his face. Most of the cover is very well drawn until you realize that Jason's hand looks like it's coming from his crotch.
• Jason impaling someone with the American flag, and anally penetrating another man with a flare feels like Scott Lobdell was trying to make the book more "adult", but just comes across as cheap, cringe shock value.

Edit: removed last sentence and image link

Edited by cute_heart on Nov 1st 2020 at 10:35:16 AM

YMMV.The Lion King 2019: While there are definitely moments in this film that count (the recreation of Simba's Big "NO!" with such a lifeless expression is the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Narm), this feels not too lengthy to not just be a bunch of complaining.

• Narm:
  • James Earl Jones was approaching ninety years old when the film was in production, and it becomes very clear that his voice has greatly aged since the original film twenty-five years ago. Sad as it is, Jones is widely agreed to not have the same power behind his voice that he used to have, and while he can do the "voice from beyond" such as Mufasa's appearance in the clouds just fine, his more demanding lines leave something to be desired. His scolding of Simba in particular goes from furious to gently agitated, his pleas for Scar to help him in the gorge sound much less desperate, and some audio from the original film is reused for "If you ever come near my son again" and "I'm coming Simba, hold on".
  • The sequence where Rafiki finds out Simba is alive. In the original, he comes across some pollen carrying Simba's scent; here, he finds a piece of his mane... after an Overly Long Gag of the mane floating down a river, being carried by a bird, eaten by a giraffe, ending up in said giraffe's dung, the dung being rolled across the desert by a dung beetle, and finally being carried by some ants that happen to pass by Rafiki's tree.
  • While Beyonce's musical contributions to the film have been praised, her actual performance as Nala has not been so warmly received. Beyonce's delivery is stilted and lifeless, making Nala's more serious moments feel boring and almost comical as a result.
  • When Simba and Nala reunite, Nala instantly recognizes Simba the moment he recognizes her, rather than realistically being confused at first like in the original. This despite the fact that she thought Simba was dead and he's now a grown lion who looks completely different from his cub self. Then she rejoices for only about five seconds before she turns serious and tells Simba that he has to come home. Her change of tone is so abrupt it can come off as comical. Similarly, after "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" is over, they have their argument which lasts for a few seconds before Nala decides she "made a mistake" and walks off, again happening so quickly after the love song it can be hard to take seriously.
  • As much as the visuals try to give the acting that extra push it needs, they often do not work together, as only three or four of the film's myriad animals seem like they get actual emotive faces. This leads to young Simba looking rather awkward when his father falls to his death; the cry is heart-wrenching, but the face looks like a kitten meowing.
  • About half of the rewritten "Be Prepared" is Scar simply shouting the title over and over, actually kind of sounding like more new lyrics were supposed to go there but then they hit the deadline and just threw a bunch of "Be Prepared"s in.
    • Furthermore, the "song" is sung very awkwardly, as if Ejiofor can't decide whether he's singing a musical number or just giving a motivational speech. Overall, it just does not do justice to the original version of the song.
  • The iconic "Long live the King" moment is often ridiculed, due to Chiwetel Ejiofor's awkward reading of the line, and then slapping Mufasa in the face instead of throwing him. It doesn't help that the original scene is one of the most dramatic moments of not only the movie, but of Disney animation overall, which was really hard to live up to. James Earl Jones' "Scar... help me!" and falling scream as Mufasa also sound awkward and stilted compared to the raw terror he expressed in the original.
  • The opening of "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" comes completely out of nowhere, feeling like there should have been at least a couple extra seconds to build that it's time for another song. Also, Pumbaa's brief and funny interjections from the original are expanded to pure Don't Explain the Joke territory. Furthermore, the scene takes place in broad daylight, which clash heavily with the song's chorus and the line "the sweet caress of twilight".
  • Simba's flashback of Mufasa's death once Scar reveals the truth. In the original, the animation is set against a deep red backdrop, with the camera zooming in on cub Simba's pupil before shifting to Simba lunging at Scar. In this version, the footage of Mufasa plunging to his death and Simba's reaction are simply slowed down (not helping matters is that, in the remake, the flashback also includes Scar, despite Simba only learning his involvement that very moment).
  • When Scar goes to warn Mufasa that Simba is in danger, he does so in a very Dull Surprise tone, that sounds like Scar is barely interested in the moment. What follows is Mufasa giving a very awkward "Simba!?" that also suffers from Dull Surprise, turning what was originally a major Oh, Crap! moment into intentionally funny.
• Narm Charm: Others find the floating mane sequence to be epic, and one of the more original flourishes in an otherwise shot-for-shot remake. It could be favorably compared to the "The Egg Travels" sequence from Dinosaur, Disney's first stab at photo-realistic animation. It also very much connects to the "circle of life" theme showing how the animals' interconnected lives make it possible, without overly spelling it out.

I've said it before: The Narm Charm example should definitely be cut. It's a direct response to another Narm entry.

I think we should blend them together "The mane sequence was probably meant to be a demonstration of the animal kingdom working together, but it feels like an Overly Long Gag".

• James Earl Jones' voice is already addressed in WTH, Casting Agency?. It's also more awkward than funny, so a safe cut for me.
• The mane sequence can stay if it's blended together with the Narm Charm example, explaining why it's funny and why it wasn't meant to be. Rewrite.
• Beyonce's Dull Surprise performance can stay. "Are you with me on this - LYE-ANS?!" comes to mind. There should be specific quote to indicate what the entry is talking about. Otherwise, keep.
• The example feels more like Padding or generally awkward pacing to me. Cut or place accordingly.
• Good example. Simba really looks like his face is filled with botox. The Big "NO!" especially looks silly, the camera movements just add to the silliness. Keep.
• Already addressed in They Changed It, Now It Sucks!, cut.
• Perfect example. I myself burst out laughing when I saw Scar slapping him and heard Mufasa's awkward scream. Though it should be placed closer to Simba's Big "NO!", for chronological sake. Otherwise, definitely keep.
• "Can you feel the love tonight?" during daytime is enough of an example already. Rewrite, maybe?
• This feels more like Special Effect Failure, as it's not actually funny. Cut.
• The example is a bit vague, but explains the unintentional comedy very well. Indifferent.

I don't think most of it is too complainy, considering how the movie definitely deserved the scorn it got. It's just that a number of examples feel misplaced or unnecessary.

(Isn’t WTH, Casting Agency? No Examples, Please?)

It's YMMV only.

You know, I've been thinking, and maybe a "Fridge Humor" trope could catch at least some narm misuse.

Bringing up the following examples from Alien:

• Narm:
  • Depending on your sensibilities, the overly genital-based based designs of the aliens can serve to make them look scary, or just plain silly and hard to take seriously as antagonists.
• Narm Charm: There were plans, believe it or not, to make an animated kid's cartoon about Aliens vs Predator. While it never went through, parts of it did make it into a comic book series made for the Kenner action figures, which had Ripley and most of the marines from the second film surviving Acheron, and subsequently going on GI-Joe style missions to battle Aliens throughout the galaxy, wearing brightly colored uniforms, sprouting endless one-liners ^note "HUG THIS!" and wielding goofy, cartoonish weapons (Ripley wields up a flamethrower that's bigger than she is). One predator even appears to be wearing nipple cannons. When compared to the dark and gritty terror of the film, the whole series is hilarious (read it here).

• Narm:
  • When Parker and Lambert desperately try to wrestle Ash off of Ripley, there is this awkward moment where Ash grabs Parker's chest. It has the effect of Ash giving Parker a killer purple-nurple, though it does show that Ash is stronger than most humans.
  • When Ripley boards the escape shuttle, and finds the Alien in it. It appears to be napping in an empty nook on the wall, and it's reaching towards her without properly attacking reads like it's stirred, but not fully woken. At one point, it even slowly extends its iconic mouth tongue as if yawning. Until it actually starts attempting to attack Ripley, it's unclear whether it's stuck there.
  • The (thankfully deleted) extended opening, in which Kane stands in the breakfast nook and cheerfully namedrops every single character as they sit at the table. It's just as kitsch and embarrassing as it sounds. Ridley Scott must've thought so too, because he only filmed John Hurt's side of the scene before shelving it.
  • Lambert's slurred "Oh my god!" during the chestburster scene.
  • The baby Alien just zooming away after the chestburster scene. It's so fast and goes at such a straight line that it's comical.
• Narm Charm:
  • The Alien's phallic head. For as blatantly Freudian as it looks, it's become an accepted part of the creature that most people have considered scary nonetheless.
  • The chestburster reveal manages to be scary in spite of some shaky effects due to the sheer gross out factor. There is a reason why the scene is so memorable.
  • Ash trying to kill Ripley by jamming a magazine down her throat is utterly silly on some level; it's not exactly clear how it will even kill her. But the performances from Holm and Weaver are strong enough to make it the disturbing pseudo-rape scene Scott intended.

~Tauriella just deleted this Narm entry from YMMV.Be More Chill:

• In the Broadway production, the SQUIP speaks in a Surfer Dude Ted Logan-esque voice. While it is a reference to Keanu Reeves, whom the SQUIP physically resembles, for many it utterly destroys all of the character's menace and is more laughable than scary. It's not a problem early in the show when the SQUIP is still Played for Laughs, but he still uses the voice for most of Act 2 when he becomes more abusive and swears to Take Over the World.

They had removed a similar entry before then Adele Potter re-added it with different wording nearly a year later, before Tauriella removed it again tonight. So let's settle this Edit War: is the SQUIP's voice in at least Act 2, when he's intended to be more of a threat, enough to qualify as Narm?

(On a sidenote, they also deleted Award Snub without a reason before, which I don't get because many fans thought it deserved more Tony nominations than a single Best Score nom. The entry admittedly got off-topic when it delved into the song parody, but the basic point still stands.)

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 13th 2020 at 12:35:57 PM