Narm Cleanup

• Just a regular complaint
• Kinda reads as a stretch
• I'm not really following why that's funny.
• Doesn't say if it's funny
  • Okay? What's funny?
• ZCE
• Reads as unnecessary snark
• Doesn't say what's funny, just that it's "narm-tastic".
• Doesn't say what's funny
• ZCE
  • Natter

• First-Person Writing suggests this is a single troper's opinion.
• Keep.
• None of thatis meant to be serious. Cut.
• "It's hard to take this seriously, except a lot of people did". Cut.
  • No context, likely just a flaw.
• No context. Likely misuse, given that the line doesn't contradict the rest of the scene.
• Complaining.
• ... And what's funny about that?
• Again, no context. And doesn't describe a moment.
• Cut, this is only funny due to a meme that originated elsewhere.

Bringing up the following example from Licorice Pizza:

• Narm: Bradley Cooper's role is a crazy insane person in what until that point, was a relatively normal & grounded film for the most part. It doesn't help that it's also the start of the film's narrative going off the rails.

Cut. What a terrible example (how is Bradley's character Narm? Is saying crazy AND insane necessary?)

Also, Bradley's character is a real person who was probably just on a lot of drugs, because it was LA in the 70s.

I agree it should be cut.

Bringing up the following examples from Transformers: Prime:

• Narm:
  • Near the end of Predacons Rising, Bumblebee holds off Megatron with the Polarity Gauntlet long enough for Optimus to escape with the Allspark. What would have been a tense and suspenseful scene is rendered inept when the high-pitched, whirling sound of the Polarity Gauntlet and the lack of background music make the scene unintentionally hilarious. Knock Out and Smokescreen using the tense moment to quip doesn't help.
  • At times, Unicron's voice makes him sound nasal and like the kind of person who has to yell to be taken seriously, which can make some of the lines of this Satanic Archetype chuckle-worthy.
  • Megatron's tendency towards Fish Eyes make many of his scenes much funnier than intended. Even more so after being upgraded by Unicron where his face looks outright goofy.
  • Shockwave saying "logic" every once in a while would be fine, but it occurs so frequently that he turns into a self-parody.

From YMMV.Stranger Things

• Narm:
  • In "Holly, Jolly", we get a flashback of Eleven being forced to use her powers on a cat. While it makes a variety of noises, the cat makes one very common stock yowl, usually seen in cartoons and comedies, which can pull you out of the otherwise tense scene.
  • After all the emotion over Eleven's disappearance at the end of Season 1, it's pretty jarring when Season 2 reveals she just walked right back into our world.
  • Some of Will's monologues in Season 2 about the Upside-Down and the Mind Flayer feel very stilted and theatrical, as opposed to the more naïve and childlike naturalism of the other child actors. At times, he sounds like a thirty-year-old stage actor inside a twelve-year-old's body.
  • "The Mind Flayer" lingers ominously on Bob having left his gun behind, but between the Demodogs' bullet resistance and Bob barely knowing which end to point, it's obvious to the viewers it's useless to him anyway and comes off a bit silly. (In retrospect, the point may be to show he's lacking vital situational awareness that he'd forget it, but that's not apparent in the moment.)
  • A huge amount of tension is built around Will fighting the Mind Flayer's possession to give a message to the other heroes... Which turns out to be that they should close the gate they already knew full well was the cause of everything.
  • While Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown continue to do a stellar job in portraying the relationship between Mike and Eleven in Season 2, "The Gate" occasionally saddles the former with some very cheesy lines that sound more like something from a cliched romance film than something a kid would say.
  • The sheer fact that Billy never runs into any legal issues throughout season 2. So much about him is so Obviously Evil that it breaks the suspension of disbelief that no one would ever call the cops on him.
  • During Billy and Steve's fight in "The Gate", Billy breaks a plate over Steve's head. While it's likely meant to highlight just how insane Billy has gone in the moment, it comes off a bit like something out of Looney Tunes.
  • The first couple episodes of Season 3 really can't make up their mind on how normally Eleven can speak now. Thankfully, this clears up for the rest of the season.
  • Grigori's resemblance to the Terminator seems like a nice homage, until you rewatch previous seasons and see that the actual film exists in the Stranger Things universe. The end result makes it seem like he is deliberately channeling The Ahnold in an attempt to be trendy.
  • Cary Elwes does a fine job as the slimy mayor Larry Kline, but his reaction to Hopper breaking his nose stands out as hilarious in an otherwise intense scene. His delivery is definitely what sells it.
    Larry: MY NOSE! YOU BROKE MY GODDAMN NOSE!
  • Will still has his bowl cut in Season 4, even though he's long since grown too old (both in and out of universe) for it to look anything but daft.
  • El's bullying scene at the roller skate ring is often considered one of the worst scenes in the show. In mere minutes, Angela somehow gets everyone in the entire ring, including adults and the DJ himself, to participate in a disgusting show psychological bullying. Jake throwing Eleven's drink on her and Angela's horrible delivery of "no foods or drinks allowed on the ring is the icing on top of the cake. It's all beyond unrealistic and over-the-top bullying.
  • Eleven beating Angela with a roller skate is treated as a shocking assault and compared to her apparently massacring the test subjects at the lab, which can be hard to take seriously as it's far from the most violent thing she's done. The build-up to this moment, with her menacingly walking after Angela with ominous close-up shots of the skate in her hand, is also rather overdramatic.
    • Just to drive the point home, the following episode has Angela being helped by paramedics (as if her injuries were life-threatening) while every person in the roller rink is crowded around, gaping at the scene.
  • Hopper's daring escape attempt from the Russian gulag seems to forget Hop is just supposed to be a small-town sheriff, since he spontaneously gains superhuman-level pain resistance and immunity to cold weather. For a start, he breaks his own ankle only to continue walking, running, and even landing on it without expressing any discomfort, not even a limp, then later travels quite far through snow without any footwear. He's still not given any, even when captured again, and continues to never express discomfort over conditions that should have led to him losing his feet to frostbite.
  • The prisoners sent to fight the Demogorgon are provided with medieval weaponry like spears and flails; while anachronistic, they are still realistically designed. However, in the final confrontation, Hopper picks up a sword that looks more like a prop from a Lord of the Rings movie.
  • Pursued by Vecna, Nancy desperately pries the wooden planks from a boarded-up door. But once she finally gets them all off, she pushes the door open, meaning the planks weren't even holding it shut at all.
  • The big reveal that Vecna is Henry Creel/001 can be a little hard to take seriously when you realise he's delivering a dramatic, eloquent Motive Rant to an eight year old child who, at this point in time, can barely speak English, let alone understand a sophisticated tangent. And when they reunite years later, he gives another rant about what he's been doing since then.
  • Vecna can use telekinesis, so the shot of him carrying Max over one shoulder is hard to take seriously.

There're might be some legitimate examples but I feel like most of it are complains.

• That last sentence describes a bit that's played for laughs, so cut that. I'm not clear on why a high pitched noise and lack of background music makes something "hilarious", but perhaps I would understand it in context. Otherwise, reduce the spoiler tags so that it's not whiting out the whole entry.
• General
• General
• General

• Reads as "thing falls flat"
• Regular flaw
• Regular flaw
• Regular flaw + Fridge Logic
• Regular flaw
• Regular flaw
• Regular flaw + Fridge Logic
• Kinda reads as a stretch as written
• Regular flaw
• Fridge
• Maybe fine if given more context. What about the delivery is funny?
• Regular flaw + general
• Regular flaw
• Fridge flaw
  • Fridge flaw
• Fridge flaw
• Regular flaw
• Fridge flaw
• Fridge flaw
• Fridge Logic

Yeah, most of these can go.

Bringing up the following example from Resident Evil (2022):

• Narm: Richard says a monotone "Oh, fuck." while being overwhelmed by zombies.

Very low context.

Eh, it's simple but enough for me to picture it and totally understand how it'd look comedic instead of dramatic.

(x3) If it makes sense, I think it works yet maybe it could use more context.

EDIT: Very slightly expanding on this ig.

Edited by RandomTroper123 on Jul 16th 2022 at 3:55:46 AM

what context would be necessary? a short summary of the events leading up to it?

not having seen the work, i can think of ways to add more words, but not more context.

Eh, it feels borderline. "Monotone" is definitely not how he says it, it's more like resigned. He was shouting right up to that moment, but it clearly hits him that he's finished, so it's a little quieter but still with emotion.

It's kind of like the way the last baddie in Hot Fuzz says "Oh god no" before he gets blown up-it's not a huge, hammy over the top shout, but it's not empty of all emotion, either. Given that Baxter isn't a huge character and his death isn't a super serious moment, I'd be inclined to cut it.

I actually changed it to Nightmare Retardant, mainly because of how it was rewritten.

Bringing up the following examples from Narm.Yu Gi Oh:

• Dark Yugi dramatically eating spaghetti in Mokuba's Russian Roulette dinner game is often used as an example of how silly the series can be at times, even in the manga.
• In Viz's translation, when Dark Bakura reveals that he's holding Yugi and his friends' bodies captive in coffins the moment is ruined by the sound effects. "ZZ ZZ ZZ" makes it look like they're snoring.
• The manga's scene◊ where Atem leaves has very over-the-top sobbing from Honda, who barely interacted with him at all, while Bakura's expression is less 'sad' and more 'Did I leave the oven on?'
• The Toei anime has the episode with Hirutani's yo-yo gang, infamous in the fandom for being too silly to take seriously. While in the manga the yo-yos are weaponized and real threats, in the anime they aren't except for Hirutani's, so his gang terrorizes Domino with ordinary toys.
• For some reason, the dub choose to give Dark Yugi regular Yugi's voice as his inner voice. The result is the cool Dark Yugi thinking in an extremely boyish voice. Made worse by the fact that we usually only hear his thinking during tense moments. It's even more ridiculous in dubs that had regular Yugi sound like a preteen.
• Yugi yelling "Yu-Gi-Ohhh!" whenever he changes into Yami in the dub's first season.
• The fact that Dark Yugi refers to himself as "Yu-Gi-Oh" in the dub. One cannot help but wonder if a Dark Kaiba would call himself "Kai-Ba-Oh".
• Yami Yugi's oft-mocked "It's time to du-du-du-du-du-du-duel!" from the dub's opening.
• Bakura being made British in the dub, despite inexplicably keeping his Japanese name.
• SAY GOODBYE TO EXODIAAAAAAAA(My cards!)AAAAAAAA!
• In the sequel-movie, "Dark Side Of Dimensions", the scene in the Pharaoh's Tomb, where Diva shows up and proceeds to use the power of Prana's Mind to banish everyone to another dimension is full of this. Especially their reaction when the magic powers don't work, because Kaiba's new Duel-Disk is amplifying his ego, which negates the power of Prana's Mind. The entire scene just feels like it was written by LittleKuriboh.

• I guess fine
• I guess fine, though it's written as "thing falls flat" instead of something funny.
• Not sure "who barely interacted with him at all" is necessary, since that's more of a Fridge Logic flaw, but I guess the rest is fine.
• Doesn't really list a particular moment
• General and "thing falls flat"
• General
• General
• Low context
• Fridge Logic
• ZCE
• I don't think that last sentence is necessary, but I guess the rest is valid.

Bringing up the following examples from Charmed S5E17 Lucky Charmed:

• Narm: There's a generous helping of it in this episode.
  • The leprechauns' costumes, bad Irish accents and stereotypical Oireland traits. And the badly pronounced Irish too.
  • How ungodly hammy the demons Janna and Jayda are. Specifically the Big "NO!" when one of them is vanquished.
  • Saleel's hilarious scream when Paige rescues Seamus.

Opening sentence is unnecessary.

• General
• Doesn't say what's funny
• Could use some elaboration why the scream is funny.

Anne With An E:

Mary's death. While it was a beautiful send-off, the Easter scene, with everyone reciting a prayer around her under a gazebo feels somewhat narmy especially for a character we barely know, when other characters like Gilbert's father weren't granted any fanfare despite having lived in Avonlea for their whole lives. The fact that death by sepsis is noted as being horrible and very painful while Mary is just a little sweaty but still able to sit up and talk, makes the ethereal death quite unrealistic. It seems more narmy and kills any suspension of disbelief.

This seems nitpicky.

Yeah, and it doesn't say what's supposedly funny. I say cut it.

Bringing up the following example from America (2017):

• Narm: Some of the quotes from the solo have been considered painful to read. The one quote everyone cite as one of the worst in the Marvel lineup is "What the holy menstruation are you doing here?", considered a terrible attempt at pandering.

Not familiar with the comic, but I doubt it was supposed to be used in any serious situation. At least, I can't imagine it was.

That moment was not supposed to be dramatic, so the example is invalid by default. It does qualify for Signature Line or Memetic Mutation, though.

(x3) I'd cut it.