Narm Cleanup

...Okay, who the freeze-dried hell wrote that first bullet?

Sorry, just really had to get that out of my system.

Reposting from the previous page:

Bringing up the following examples from Narm.Marvel Cinematic Universe

Captain America: Civil War

• The shot of Team Cap doing a Tom Cruise-styled run together earned its share of laughs for being unintentionally silly looking. The fact that it ended up being the thumbnail of the first official trailer hurt matters.
• The shot of everyone running at each other in the trailer is pretty awesome, but a few points definitely aren't. Scarlet Witch uses her powers to blast herself upwards, but they're gone in the next shot and she looks like she's awkwardly flailing through the air and regretting her decision. Meanwhile, The Vision is just drifting along in a casual airborne pose like he's a balloon on a string. Some people also found the fact that the small number of people fighting (the area looks practically empty) makes it more silly-looking than awesome.
• For some, Tony's "You just started a war!" comes across as a lame way of alluding to the movie's title. Thankfully, it's only in the trailer and not the actual film.
• Bucky shambles up the stairs after incapacitating several heroes in a rather comical fashion similar to a gorilla.
• Black Widow going against Team Iron Man and helping Steve and Bucky escaping to the Quinjet by shocking Black Panther is less impressive when the film shows the process is essentially her shocking him as he stumbles for a few seconds before shrugging it off, takes a few steps forward, she shocks him, he stumbles then shrugs it off, lather, rinse, repeat.
• The scene in the hospital in which an upset Tony questions Vision about the Rhodey misfire is meant to be moving and desolating, but it gets a bit ruined when a close-up on Vision's back accidentally highlights his cape's stamped curtain-like pattern.
• The subtitles in the beginning are rather... unfortunately placed. Specifically, smack dab on Bucky's crotch. Even funnier if it's in Spanish, as at one point it's covered with the word "Homo".
• The Russos recalled that while watching the film in a theater, they found the audience laughing at multiple moments that weren't intended to be funny (though this is less the fault of the film than it is the audience being conditioned to Whedon-style comedy beats from the Avengers films). In particular, they noted that Tony one-shotting Sam offhandedly after Rhodey's crash drew a round of laughter from the audience, despite it being a very dark scene for all intents and purposes.
• The giant title cards are incredibly jarring and rather than set a dramatic scene, come across as a bit funny.

Doctor Strange (2016)

• Stephen's car accident starts off properly visceral and terrifying... but some moviegoers found that it went on for so long and that the car seems to fall from such an absurd height that it crossed over from scary to unintentionally hilarious in a Black Comedy sort of way.
• The visuals during Strange's initial trip through the multiverse alternate between wondrous, horrifying... and resembling popular Internet memes.

Thor: Ragnarok

• Hela's Beta Outfit, which many have mocked for looking like a stereotypical goth. Doubles as Narm Charm, as many other fans don't seem to mind her look. And conversely, the absurdly elaborate headgear that Hela otherwise wears is a bit hard to take seriously.
• The words "Asgard is not a place, it's a people" are intended to be Arc Words taken seriously, but the words are only said for the first time during Thor's vision while fighting Hela in the final battle, and then stated once every few minutes afterward until the end of the movie, making them seem much more silly and much less profound than they were intended to be.
• The whole lead up to the Hulk reveal is played straight as a surprising revelation, but since the reveal of the Hulk was shown outright in the trailers it can get gratuitously funny to those who paid attention to the promotional material.
• Thor's visions of Odin after his death may become a lot harder to take seriously when he's dressed as a rather ordinary old man. It also doesn't help the camera starts at a distance and then zooms in really quickly everytime.
• The otherwise cool duel between Thor and Hela has a Fight Scene Failure moment when she blinds him. After she slices his eye, the wound is immediately covered in brown caked blood, as if it coagulated instantly.

Black Panther (2018)

• At one point in the final battle, T'Challa and Killmonger are separated by a train speeding past between them and take advantage of the lull to argue their respective philosophies. The speeches themselves are fine, but in order to give both sides enough time, the train just keeps going... and going... and going... and going...
• From a native speaker's standpoint, Nakia's Korean isn't great. Despite her character supposedly knowing the language, it's clear the actress doesn't as her accent sounds too tonal. However, what's really Narmy is that Sophia, the native Korean character, speaks much worse Korean than Nakia's, if that were possible. It's so bad that some theatrical versions in Korea had to re-dub Sophia's lines entirely, just because the audience could not understand them without looking at the subtitles.
• The heavy accent used by Forest Whitaker as Zuri has been mocked by many fans for sounding hoarse and garbled. It doesn't help that he was coming off a performance in Rogue One that was heavily mocked for the exact same reason.
• In the council meetings in Wakanda, the dramatic tension during the heated debates is always ruined by the presence of a council member with a huge lip-plate in his mouth. This isn't played for laughs, no-one remarks on it and the dramatic music continues playing in the background whenever he's onscreen.

Avengers: Infinity War

• While Zoe Saldaña does a good job overall, she has two dramatic scenes where she makes Gamora look too Wangsty. The scene where Gamora thinks she killed Thanos and grieves maybe too hard over the act, and the scene where Gamora predictably throws the meal Thanos offers her and starts ranting about how much she hates him.
• Thanos using the Reality Stone to unravel Mantis into a living fleshy ribbon is suitably disturbing, but it clashes with Mantis going "BOING!" and springing into the air like a jack-in-the-box.
• Early on, Gamora says that if Thanos gets all the stones, he can rewrite reality like that, snapping her fingers to illustrate the point. For the rest of the series, every time someone uses all the stones, they literally snap their fingers in so doing. While the first instance has a certain Narm Charm quality to it, showcasing he's exactly as powerful as Gamora says, it gets kind of silly to see it repeat.
  • This can be justified as it’s as practical as squeezing a single finger to fire a gun. Thanos chose to snap his fingers as a show of power over everyone else, including the Aesir who literally just embedded a giant axe in his chest. As a result the Avengers, who know far, far less about the nature of the stones, likely believed that snapping your fingers is the only way to use all six stones at once, and who could blame them?
• Thanos is a sociopathic walking tank who has spent centuries traveling from planet to planet and slaughtering half of the population of each planet because he’s a Well-Intentioned Extremist, who now has the power to alter reality almost literally at his fingertips. When he disarms Star Lord and Gamora, he does so by turning their weapons into… bubbles.

Avengers: Endgame

• The mood of the trailer is incredibly somber, but the music is over the top action movie fare, not even with the familiar Avengers theme. The dissonance is unintentionally hilarious.
• With the trailer again, the phrase "Whatever it takes" is not the most inspiring thing, but it's decent enough for the scenario. However, saying it about a dozen times feels a lot more like a Running Gag, or a video game character who only has one phrase.
• A Deleted Scene showed that when Tony died, every other character solemnly dropped to one knee. This instead comes off as a bit overwrought considering not only would this scene have been set right before said character's funeral, but Natasha also had a noble sacrifice and didn't get anywhere near this level of on-screen recognition. No wonder the scene was cut.
  • The real standout is Gamora's reaction: she just up and leaves while everyone else is kneeling. One has to wonder if she left Earth because of the sheer narminess at hand.

Bringing up the following examples from The Witches (2020):

• Narm:
  • The Grand High Witch's true form is less scary and more like a cartoon character come to life with her Mileena-esque teeth, Slenderman-like arms, and Anne Hathaway's inconsistent accent.
  • The narration feels more like an Everybody Hates Chris Halloween special than a movie about a young child dealing with demonic hags.
    • Made even worse when it outright clashes with the events as depicted; for instance, long after the characters learn Daisy's real name is Mary and refer to her as such, Rock's narration keeps calling her Daisy.
  • The rats look more like they came from a Raja Gosnell film than anything from Robert Zemeckis (even his worst works were better than this and that even includes female dolls fighting Nazis and Christmas movies that manage to make Tom Hanks and Jim Carrey look unintentionally creepy). Likewise, Hades the cat is largely portrayed by yet more funky CGI and can bring some unwelcome flashbacks of the 2004 Garfield movie.

I don't think the second or third bullets count. The former is just a flaw, and the latter is just hokey special effects. Not sure about the first bullet. It's a general example, though, so maybe it's a cut.

Bringing up the following examples from Narm.Spider Man Trilogy:

Spider-Man 2

• Many serious, empowering moments are made difficult to take seriously by Tobey Maguire's strange facial expressions, which bounce all over the spectrum from Dull Surprise to Chewing the Scenery. The infamous train scene from the second film is particularly tough to sit through because Peter's face scrunches up to an immense degree; it looks like he's preparing for a werewolf transformation scene.
• One scene from the film sorely stuck out when Harry starts to have a mental breakdown at the end and sees his father. His Big "NO!" sequence came off as funny rather than dramatic.
• The lead-in might be more narmtacular:

  "AVENGE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

• Earlier on, when Dr. Octavius' experiment goes wrong, Harry shrieks out "I'M IN CHAAAARGE HEEEERE!" while hopping up and down like an angry toddler.
• From the same scene, Rosalie Octavius's death. The metal in the window she's facing is attracted to Dr. Octavius's man-made sun, causing the glass to shatter in her direction. She just stands there and screams. If shown in real time, this wouldn't have qualified as Narm, but it was in slow motion, with a very drawn-out scream — she also looks like she's smiling. The extremely dramatic music certainly doesn't help, either.
  • The story also tries to make it seem like she was mutilated by the glass as it shred her to death, like it would any person with such large chunks of sharp glass flying everywhere. Except Beauty Is Never Tarnished and they opt to show her intact with seemingly no injuries at all right afterwards. Clearly she died by a heart attack.
• Toward the end, when Peter sees a big-ass wall about to collapse on MJ from behind, he lets out a wail that is not only really over the top, but comes with a close-up of his face as he makes it. It's some awful, ungodly high-pitched roaring noise that escaped from the fires of hell and out of Tobey Maguire's mouth. Take a look.
  • It takes a lot of steam out of the scene when the winds from Doc Ock's experiment make the whole scene awkward as MJ falls over and they accidentally incite a Panty Shot. And the actress focuses more on correcting her skirt than being terrified of the wall about to crush her, complete with her screams suddenly going much more muted and awkward. It's like they pulled off a Marilyn Maneuver at the worst possible time.
• One of the female extras starts Chewing the Scenery during a scene in which Doc Ock's arms pierce through the wall. She starts screeching, does an extremely stereotypical Girly Run towards the camera — to the point where the camera can practically see down her throat as she melodramatically shrieks while running towards it — only to come to a complete halt to scream some more. However, unlike some of the other examples here, this scene was probably intentionally made to be corny by Raimi.
• "He humiliated me by touching me" provides enough narm in its own right, but combine it with Harry's Foe Yay obsession with Spidey, and his decision to instantly flip a pair of sunglasses on, and this scene instantly becomes iconic.
• Doc Ock opens up the train car to take an exhausted Peter with him, and everyone who stood in his way (one of them notably being Joey "Coco" Diaz) gives a half-hearted "you're going to have to go through me" one-liner.
• The wooden delivery of what some may consider to be the film's most iconic line:
  Peter: [plunk] PIZZA TIME.
• Also, this other over the top delivery from Mr. Aziz combined with his Middle-Eastern accent.
  Mr. Aziz: GO!

This is on Caillou:

Narm: When PBS Kids announced that they pulled the show off the air, they posted some pictures of advice on social media about how to say goodbye as if someone recently died. In fact, most of them actually celebrated.

The social media posts also linked to this article.

The YMMV page of Superman & Lois has two entries of Narm, both from the pilot, which read:

• The dramatic intensity with which Clark confesses his origin story to Jon and Jordan can be so over-the-top in a "well, when you say it like that, this whole thing is actually pretty silly" kind of way. With the way it's played out, you'd almost expect for Clark to laugh and yell "just kidding!" instead of proving himself by lifting the truck.
• Nobody at the party noticing Jordan using his heat vision during the brawl, even though he's surrounded by dozens of people, some of whom are filming the brawl. Makes the emotional and shocking scene seem unintentionally comedic.

I have to ask, is this valid? Narm only applies for moments that are meant to be taken seriously but instead come off as hilarious, not moments that either fall flat or just don't have the intended effect.

• Keep. Maguire's facial expressions in this film are an infamous source of unintentional comedy.
• Doesn't explain what's funny about the scene. Cut.
• Both Natter and a ZCE. Cut.
• No such thing happens. Harry simply yells at Otto and punches his own thigh in frustration. Cut due to being inaccurate.
• "Thing falls flat", not "thing is funny". Cut.
  • Incorrect indentation; Natter; Sarcasm Mode sinkhole,; doesn't describe a funny moment. Cut with extreme prejudice.
• Keep. This scene is pretty much a meme.
  • Okay, I guess. But the indentation needs to be fixed.
• If the scene is intentionally corny, it does not qualify. Cut.
• Iconic scene, maybe; but not exactly funny. I'm leaning towards cut.
• Yeah, that's kind of the point. The terrified New Yorkers desperately want to protect their hero, but have nothing to defend themselves with other than a wimpy bravado. Doc Ock himself responds to the scene with a condescending grin. Cut.
• Not a serious moment. Cut.
• Zero-Context Example.

Edited by TantaMonty on Mar 4th 2021 at 2:28:02 AM

Bringing in some examples from Pokémon.

• The battle theme used for your two rivals does suit Bianca, but sounds too peppy and joyful to suit Cheren. Black 2 and White 2 didn't bother to fix this either.
• Ghetsis's costume.
• Anytime the Plasma grunts try to be intimidating, they shout their team's name (PLASMAAAAAAAAAAAA!), but the way it played out makes them look as goofy as the Galactic grunts instead.

While the Ghetsis example is a ZCE, this◊ is what his outfit looks like. Would the example still work if context was added?

Edited by Vandagyre on May 23rd 2021 at 6:30:24 AM

B/W:

• Not explicitly funny, just reads like "falls flat."
• I personally don't recall most people making fun of Ghetsis's costume. People seem to think he's an intimidating villain regardless of it.
• Were the Plasma grunts meant to be dead serious? Most grunts have some hammy moments sprinkled in to contrast them from the more serious villains. So this might be intentional comedy.

X/Y:

• If Shauna lampshaded how silly he looked, doesn't that mean it was meant to look silly and thus doesn't count
• Team Flare, IIRC, was meant to be goofy.
• The crying sounds juxtaposed in a funny enough way to count.

Sun/Moon:

• I think both the blank face and the customization feature can count as unintentionally funny due to Mood Whiplash, but it's not like that's really a thing exclusive to this game in particular. I think there might even be a trope for it.
• I think the Toucannon move works because of how ridiculous it looks for the sprite to be flying through the air.
  • The fact that the moment has to be hacked into the game to work seems like it shouldn't count. Plus I don't think Toucannon looks as silly because it's flapping its wings here.
  • Bewear sounds valid too.
  • Dugtrio especially sounds funny.
  • The example is misleading due to Bounce itself not being the Narm entry, but I think the animation for Supersonic Skystrike is silly enough to count.
  • Is the Metronome example too general?
• The thrust animation is more Accidental Innuendo but it can overlap here.
• The Machamp story sounds like a genuinely serious and sad story that's ruined by a silly animation. Sounds totally valid.
• The Preschool losing animation is probably meant to look a little funny, so I don't think this is valid.
• The Lusamine Slasher Smile entry could count, and Lillie's could count too, for the animation making a serious moment look silly.
• The Australian one doesn't have a lot of context on the funny moment, but I wouldn't be surprised if the ad was supposed to be silly.
  • More of an Accidental Innuendo, and too specific to regional slang to be considered Narm. I think "cousin" is legitimate slang for a friend in other regions.
• Hard to tell if this is "unintentionally funny" or "moment falls flat."

I don't think Machamp is meant to be comforting her. This◊ is what the Machamp riding animation looks like. I can absolutely see how that'd distract you from the serious story.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 4th 2021 at 7:32:08 AM

x5 I think you can cut the Caillou example for being overly bashy.

x4 Superman & Lois examples read as nitpicks. I think they can be cut.

EDIT: Mightymewtron's post wasn't here when I started typing. Seems like we disagree on a few examples, but they have raised valid points.

Edited by TantaMonty on Mar 4th 2021 at 4:25:52 AM

I am sorry if this has already been brought up, but I see Narm sometimes used in video games that allow the characters to wear silly costumes or accesoires, but have a rather serious story the entry then reads like "it kills any dramatic tension if the character wears X". These costumes are a deliberate choice by the developer, and it's highly unlikely that they wouldn't know how silly they are. The point? Intentional silliness is not Narm, and it should go to WTH, Costuming Department? , shouldn't it?

Edited by Mysterium on Mar 4th 2021 at 8:38:38 PM

Bring up the following examples from Narm.Spider Man Trilogy:

Spider-Man 3

This film is infamous for being Narmy:

• Nearly every viewer tends to agree on one element of the film being hopelessly Narm-tacular: Venom opens his terrifying mouth and out comes...Topher Grace's voice. You almost expect to hear "In the Street" playing.
  • Even when he peels back his Venom face to reveal his human face, said human face now has sharp teeth for some inexplicable reason. The fact that he even feels the need to constantly reveal his human face also reduces his intimidating factor.
  • And even with the mask on, Venom's roars can only be described as incredibly high pitched screeches that does not fit even his leaner physique in the film. If you had only been listening to the film, you would think Spider-Man was fighting Ridley instead.
• Emo Peter has become one of the sole things people think about in regards to this movie. He's either a case of Never Live It Down or Ensemble Dark Horse depending on who's talking about him:
  • Peter's emo haircut practically neutered any attempts to take him seriously. The dancing and his random flirting with women make it even worse.
    • It would have been fine if Peter's hair just happened to hang over his face when he was under the influence, but that one shot showing him purposefully sweeping his hair forward wrecked it.
    • Even with that, you could somewhat take the hair seriously because of its disheveled look. Then the very next scene, where we see that the hair is carefully groomed to look like that, ends any chance it might've had for visualizing the emotional torment Peter might be going through.
    • The whole "emo dance". No wonder he doesn't like to talk about it.
  • Peter's angry expression when slamming Eddie up against a wall for faking photos of Spider-Man looks really goofy, like he's trying way too hard to look angry.
  • Peter's dance number in the jazz club has become legendary in its sheer narm, especially because of the Mood Whiplash afterwards. Sure, it's intentionally played as comedic, but his reasons for doing this are meant to be seen as a serious dick move on his part, but it's sort of hard to focus on that when the dancing is so silly. Not helping is the fact that the crowd seems to regard it as the coolest thing ever.
    • "Now dig on this." BLEUGH.
    • When Mary Jane melodramatically asks Peter "Who are you?", audiences alternately laughed while also muttering "Don't say it, Peter, don't say it!", only to groan in disappointment when Peter inevitably answers Mary Jane's question with an equally melodramatic and predictable "I don't know!"
• The scene where Mary Jane breaks up with Peter. Some people found it hilarious when Tobey Maguire started crying.
• When MJ and Harry start being flirtatious to each other, they start dancing to "The Twist" while cooking an omelet with gigantic grins on their faces. It ends up coming off as more weird than romantic. It's also never brought up again.
• When Peter knocks Harry down and Harry says, "I protected you in high school. Now I'm gonna kick your little ass!", Peter's immediate reaction is a mock "Oooh!"
  • He then follows it up (after turning the tables on Harry) by mockingly remarking "Look at little Goblin, Jr.! Gonna cry?", in the same tone he used for the mock "Oooh!"
    • For an extra dose of irony, keep in mind that this taunt is coming from Tobey Maguire's Peter, who's known for bursting into tears a lot in the trilogy.
• These lines:
  Mary Jane: Do you want to push me away?
  Peter: Push you away? Why would I want to push you away... I love you!
• Harry, when coming after Peter as the New Goblin, yells "SHUT UP!" when Peter tries to explain that "I didn't kill your father! He was trying to kill me, he killed himself!"
• Right before the final battle, Spider-Man dashes in across some rooftops to deal with the threat. During this time, he runs in front of a huge American flag waving majestically, taking up the entire background of the shot. The overly-jingoistic tone of this moment ruins the dashing entrance that he's supposed to be making.
• Eddie Brock "praying" to God to kill Peter Parker for exposing him as a fraud comes off as being more funny than creepy due to Grace's whining delivery. This is possibly intentional, since Brock being a pathetic whiner unable to take responsibility for his own actions is sort of the point.
  • Also, as Cinematic Excrement points out, he seems to genuinely expect God to kill Peter for him!
• It's also difficult to take Harry's "Evil Plan" in the middle of the movie very seriously, due to things like the end result of hurting Peter like this not being very clear, the fact that MJ could have put a stop to it if she just told Peter that Harry got his memory back out of earshot of Harry, Harry's line about revenge (or the pie) tasting "so good!" and the strange face he makes at Peter from the window. What was that?
  • The latter part is made even more ridiculous when he somehow pulls off a Vehicle Vanish when a truck crosses in front of Peter. The only plausible explanation is that Harry, when the truck came rolling by, flung himself to the floor as fast as he could in order to get out of Peter's line of sight. That would probably explain that guy in the background turning his head in confusion. Seen here.
• The scene where the scientists decide that a bird ended up in the sand pile is full of this, as one wonders how they would come to the conclusion that a bird would account for the recorded change in mass of the sand. To make it even worse, they keep going with the experiment without actually checking to see if it really was a bird, resulting in the birth of Sandman. Nice job, guys. You've earned those PhDs.
• The final fight has a few moments of this:
  • The two little kid extras^note Actually Sam Raimi's kids, in what's clearly the only reason the moment exists suddenly commenting on the large climactic fight scene:
  "AWESOME!" "WICKED COOL!"
  Rixtrax: When producer's kids act.
  • Mary Jane — who has been a major Damsel Scrappy throughout the entire trilogy — seems utterly determined to take this even more Up To Eleven, as if in an attempt to cap off the trilogy with one last melodramatic blast of Damsel Scrappiness. To her credit, she's a lot more of an Action Survivor this time around.
  • The incredibly obvious recycled audio from the first film of MJ's terrified screams and Spidey shouting "HOLD ON, MARY JANE!" and "MARY JANE!!!" Those who distinctly remember hearing all this before will find this very jarring.
    • For that matter, if you look closely during the falling taxi scene, Kirsten Dunst is laughing rather than screaming.
  • Also, every single Dull Surprise line that comes from the English TV news reporter's mouth.
    • Speaking of that, why the hell is a reporter for a New York news network English?
    James Lileks: Is there a woman with a Bronx accent doing the news in Manchester, England?
• The incident that causes Harry's Laser-Guided Amnesia comes off as a bit more slapstick than dramatic. Pete catches Harry off-guard with a web clothesline, knocking him off his hoverboard, flipping him into a ventilation pipe...and hitting at least two more things on the way down to the pavement. The epic music cutting out right as this happens certainly doesn't help.
• The scene where Mary Jane steps out of the playhouse after being let go from her show, steps out to applause...only for Spider-Man to swing by. Yes, this scene was supposed to twist the knife for her bad day, but a) did she really think they were applauding her? and b) why did they start clapping before Spider-Man would be visible to any of them?
• The trailer alone had MJ saying "Everybody needs help sometimes, even Spider-Man." twice. As if we didn't know the symbiote would mess him up, she just really wants to drive home the point that Pete really needs help.
• Early in the film, Peter tries to clear up things with Harry regarding his father's death, only for Harry to shut him down with, "Tell it to my father. Raise him from the dead". This is intended to be a bitter, scathing remark of sarcasm, but the way it's delivered makes it sound more like a genuine request, almost as if Harry legitimately believes Peter could bring the dead back to life.
  • Becomes especially Hilarious in Hindsight when you look up Sony's plans for the cancelled third installment of The Amazing Spider-Man Series and see that one of the ideas was Peter inventing a formula that could resurrect the dead.
• Thomas Haden Church's performance as Flint Marko/Sandman is incredibly flat in contrast to the drama Raimi tried to inject into the character. It doesn't help that he was some of the most awkwardly written dialogue in the movie. His reacting lines almost seem completely independent of what other characters are saying to him. It's like having a fever dream and imagining an extra character was added to the movie by your mind.
  Sandman: (dull monotone) I don't wanna hurt you. Leave now.
  Spider-Man: I guess you haven't heard. I'm the sheriff around these parts.
  Sandman: (bored) Okay.
• Once Harry stops Venom from impaling Spider-Man (read: slicing at his elbows with Razor Bats), Venom hardly reacts in pain as much as he just irritably shrugs his arms down as if to say "Jesus, really?!"

No, I completely agree with this. It's one of the reasons why us defining Narm as a complaining trope sits so poorly with me - the existence of stuff like that helps show how creators aren't always nearly as rigid with how seriously a scene should be taken as this site wants them to be (and Narm Charm and Bathos having Narm Done Well vibes isn't great either.)

What exactly do you want to say? I apologize, but don't get your point.

I've said in the past that Narm really shouldn't be considered as negative a concept as we define it - it's currently "Something about a serious scene accidentally becomes funny and this is bad." Your post struck me as an example of that, in that if game developers leave open the option of dressing your character in ridiculous outfits during dramatic cutscenes, they clearly aren't as insistent on maintaining a 100 percent dramatic tone as Narm's definition seems to assume creators usually are.

Under the current definition, though, I agree with you that those aren't examples.

Edited by nrjxll on Mar 5th 2021 at 5:40:02 AM

The way I'd like to see it, Narm is "the scene is more unintentionally funny than it is intentionally serious" while Narm Charm is "the scene is unintentionally funny, but this doesn't take away from the drama / quality." But as defined, Narm Charm is "Narm but the comedy isn't a bad thing."

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 5th 2021 at 7:51:30 AM

YMMV.Steven Universe Future:

• At the very end of “Everything’s Fine”, Steven is in the middle of a raw breakdown, pass his breaking point. But what comes off as distracting is Greg shrugging at Pearl and Garnet staring at Steven with one issue of her mouth open and the other with clenched teeth.

I don't remember this at all??

I'm not even sure what the second half of that entry is trying to say, honestly. But as written, it's not funny, so it isn't Narm.

I'd actually like to contest the removal of the Narm of Superman & Lois above, at least the second one which I put up. Maybe the write-up was a bit scarce. But it wasn't just an action scene falling flat. It wasn't really an action scene at all.

To sum it up, it's Jordan (who is somebody with severe social anxiety and inner darkness) watching his brother getting beat up and then, in a fit of Traumatic Superpower Awakening, releases a giant freaking red beam of heat vision from his eyes, that explodes right next to a freaking bonfire, with dozens of witnesses.....and somehow, nobody notices it was him. The whole absurdness did veer into unintentional comedy in my opinion.

Narm isn't specific to action scenes, just serious scenes.

Yes and it was supposed to be one.

Ah, I misread your post then.

Just wondering if in-universe examples of narm are allowed. I added the following example to Alluna and Brie, and just want to be sure it's kosher.

• Narm: An in-universe Show Within a Show example. As part of the three-heart outing with Alluna, Brie watches a romance movie that is supposed to be very good. The problem is, the male protagonist of the movie is killed by a very slowly descending hot air balloon that he should have had plenty of time to get out of the way of while making his love confession at the end. This has Alluna laughing at what's supposed to be a dramatic, heartwrenching scene.

Note that this is described after the fact instead of being shown on-screen.

Edited by Acebrock on Mar 7th 2021 at 8:28:37 AM