I've decided to start a cleanup thread for Narm, since it seems to attract a lot of misuse and complaining. Like I said in my ATT post
, "some misuse is easy to catch (e.g. saying a joke is Narm when Narm by definition can't be a joke), a lot of examples fall into grey areas that seem like misuse but it's hard to tell. Like nitpicks that at first glance seem to be valid examples, but feel like stretches the more you think about them."
I think one of the main reasons for misuse is that most people aren't clear on what Narm actually is. To my understanding, it's when a scene is intended to be dramatic, but comes off as cheesy/funny unintentionally. But going by the page description, it's kind of vague what actually qualifies something as Narm. At the top, it says "Narm is a moment that is supposed to be serious, but due to either over-sappiness, poor execution, excessive Melodrama, or the sheer absurdity of the situation, the drama is lost to the point of surpassing "cheesy" and becoming unintentionally funny." But then later on in the same page, it gives a much more vague definition:
Most often, Narm is misused to mean "anything I personally don't think worked," whether or not it was intended as dramatic or comes off as funny. And when a work is high-profile enough, hoo boy, pretty much every scene is Narm to somebody. You can look at the Narm subpages for Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Game of Thrones and find tons of examples of people nitpicking the tiniest of details in a scene and blowing whatever it is out of proportion.
Another problem is that since it's such a subjective trope, it's not clear if there's supposed to be any sort of in-fandom consensus on the example in-question, or if every example is valid under the "it's called YMMV for a reason" excuse, even if the only person who thinks the example is Narm is the troper who adds it in.
I think it needs to be clearer whether nitpicks are valid examples of Narm, especially since nitpicking overlaps so often with barely-disguised complaining. The most frequent offenders for Narm entries I see are complaining, nitpicking, adding jokes, and ZeroContextExamples. I'm going to use Venom (2018) as an example, with my comments in bold:
- The scene of Eddie freaking out on the medical table is presented as the teaser's Money-Making Shot. It... doesn't quite work as intended, which isn't helped by it being sped up, making it look like a parody.
- The final trailer features a more complete version of the clip showing Venom's face "shutter" over Eddie. Whether or not this works or if it looks like a cheap special effect depends on who you ask.
- What makes the freakout even more narmful is that Eddie's screams are different screams playing on top of each other. The actual film lacks this strange effect. This example seems fine to me, but falls into the "The trailer is Narmy but the finished product isn't" doublespeak.
- The leaked trailer revealed some pretty terrible lines (“The guy you work for is an evil person.”). Tom Hardy's horrible New York...ish(?) accent isn't doing the delivery any favors either. And it really does not help that his voice cracks on the reading of "evil person". Thankfully, that line is not in the film proper. Do we keep examples that are purely in the trailers? Also an example of "thing falls flat" instead of "thing is funny."
- Hardy's line reading of "You're not real, you are just in my head." sounds like he's suffering from Elmuh Fudd Syndwome. At worst, he sounds like Adam Sandler's signature Manchild babbling. However there's some speculation that, based on the context of the scene and Eddie's stumbling movements, he's actually drunk, or perhaps even overdosed on medication (considering he was seen taking a bunch of pills, thinking he's sick). That and it could be a case of Reality Ensues, as it's unlikely anyone would keep the mental clarity to speak normally as an alien parasite is slowly bonding with their body. Natter. Goes back and forth between snarky complaints and defending the moment. Also nitpicking.
- Movie trailers cutting quotes out of context to form a new sentence is nothing new, but the editing on the line "you will only hurt bad people" is particularly poor, and it's very easy to hear that the line has been cut together out of separate pieces of dialogue. Not really a dramatic thing, so I don't think it counts as Narm. And it definitely isn't funny, it just falls flat.
- How Jenny Slate's character pronounces "symbiote" note . Plus, her giving firm, equal stress to all three syllables like she's speaking some foreign language. Luckily, this was cut from the theatrical release. Nitpicking and not funny.
- The shot of Eddie crashing straight through a half-fallen tree in the forest that he could just as easily have ducked under comes across as more comedic than cool, as if they just needed an additional gratuitous shot of something breaking. Especially if your mind goes to Victor from Wet Hot American Summer and his inexplicable refusal to jump over anything. It really does not help that the evil bad-guy vehicle chasing him looks like a slightly modified golf cart. The context for this one in the movie is that Venom is taking control of his body and forcing him to blindly flee through the woods to escape the Life Foundation. Context makes it not-Narm. Cut?
- Although it may look better in the context of the full scene, Eddie flying 50 feet into the air on his motorcycle off a slightly steep hill seems to rather severely break the laws of physics. Clearly written before the movie came out. Cut?
- The Jump Scare (on both sides of the fourth wall) where Venom suddenly shouts Eddie's name as he brushed his teeth would have been much more scary if not for the fact that the latter Screams Like a Little Girl. There's also the fact that he somehow throws himself backwards so hard that he crashes into the bathroom wall. Intended as comedic, so it isn't Narm.
- Remember how creepy and awesome that shot from the second trailer of the symbiote forming around Eddie's face in order to eat a guy was? In the third trailer, the potential Nightmare Fuel of that moment is significantly undercut by Venom slobbering all over the man's face with its tongue in an amusingly over-the-top manner. One is reminded of the scene with Patrick licking the yellow popsicle, or perhaps "This is the taste of a liar".... This seems pretty in-character for Venom. I'm not sure with this one.
- The guy who Carlton Drake subjects to Orifice Invasion in the third trailer would have been disturbing, if not for the victim's bland expression. Moment that falls flat; not funny. Cut.
- The symbiote's Venom-face forming on the end of Eddie's arm to talk to him strongly resembles a deranged hand puppet rather than a vicious alien parasite. There's also the fact that they can communicate telepathically, making that sequence unnecessary. Seems fine.
- Venom's violent threats to his enemies are this if they're not aggressively tasteless Black Comedy. His threat to mutilate a man until he's "like a turd on the wind" is particularly groan-inducing, especially coming after a genuinely frightening threat. How It Should Have Ended was even driven by this to make a video on just the trailer for the very first time, in which he mangles a bunch of other sayings. Pretty sure they are intended as comedy, so it's not Narm. Cut.
- The animation of the yellow symbiote just looks like mozzarella cheese come to life. Nitpick. Also... inaccurate? It's more of a mucus yellow.
- After Venom heals Eddie's broken legs, he flatly states "My legs! They were broken... and now they're not broken..."
- "My leg!" Seems fine to me.
- "HOSPITAL!!!! (extremely long pause) Now!" Zero-Context Example.
- Eddie and Anne quite casually discussing cannibalism as one of the symbiote's favorite activities. It's something that would probably sincerely shock and disgust the average person and likely require therapy, and yet it's bandied about like it's a pretty normal occurrence. These kinds of entries are tricky to me. They seem valid at first glance, but there's something off about them. I don't think this one counts if the work itself is treating the moment lightly.
- Any menace from Cletus Kasady is completely undercut by Woody Harrelson's truly ridiculous wig. A common comparison is that it causes him to look like a live-action Sideshow Bob, or a make-up-less Pennywise. Uses complainy word-choice. Otherwise fine.
- Kasady promising that there will be "carnage" after he gets out is so on-the-nose that it feels like it's straight out of a parody. First off, that's not an example of Anvilicious. Secondly, this verges on a nitpick to me. I'm not sure. It's not really funny, just lame.
- The final trade of words between Venom and Riot before the final battle is nothing but total Ham-to-Ham Combat - that and the two symbiotes happen to be Perpetual Smilers, which just gives off the feeling that they don't really give that much of a damn about their goals.
- Towards the end of the film, it's revealed that Venom used to be something of a loser on his home planet, like Eddie. This is his entire reason for wanting to save the Earth. Moment played as a joke, so it isn't Narm.
- Despite angrily forcing Eddie to spit out cooked meats because they're no longer living animals, the symbiote develops a taste for tater tots, and it practically demands that Eddie buy some during a conversation in the ending. The director admitted in an interview that the writers just thought it was funny and put it in the script. It unfortunately invites comparisons to a similar tots-focused scene in Napoleon Dynamite as a result. Entry admits it's a joke. So it isn't Narm.
- Drake having bonded with Riot is treated as a huge shocking twist going into the final battle... except for the fact that the audience was already well aware of it and saw the whole process. It feels very much like a consequence of Executive Meddling to give Riot more screentime. Another tricky example. Seems to fall under "scene doesn't work" instead of "scene is funny."
- Right after Eddie is separated from the symbiote, a rather obvious ADR overdub replaces the intended "fuck you" with the much less vicious "we're done". Not really funny, just falls flat.
- Eddie's "DRAKE! STOP!" sounds less like he's in pain and more like a little kid telling his Big Brother Bully to stop giving him a wedgie. Nitpicking. Most people wouldn't even pay this sequence any mind.
Another issue with Narm is the distinction between moments that are unintentionally funny on their own, and moments that are only unintentionally funny after Memetic Mutation or similar feat. Does the latter truly count as Narm? Because you can make the case that everything that has ever been made can fall under that.
Edited by MisterApes-a-lot on Mar 31st 2019 at 7:06:31 AM
I'm Sad Frogerson.
Really, the biggest problem with those entries is how little of them focus on how the scenes come across as humorous. The closest are the ones about Kro and how ridiculous he looks, which can work if the entries just focus on his appearance.
Seriously, if you're not laughing or giggling at the scene because of the poor execution, it's probably not Narm.
Yeah, most of those are just fridge complaining disguised as Narm, which is a significant fraction of most Narm entries.
I'm okay cutting the Eternals page entirely and moving the few valid examples back to the main MCU page.
Speaking of the main MCU page, this was added fairly recently under Captain America: Civil War:
- The criticisms of everyone's Deadpan Snarker tendencies coming up at inappropriate times come to a head here. The Avengers are literally split down the middle fighting each other, some of them like family to each other, yet not only was there no angst, but it seemed like everyone was more obsessed with being "the funny one", trying to out-sarcastic-quip one another! One critic compared it to "A Star Wars movie where Luke, Leia, and Chewie all try to be Han Solo."
That's just pure complaining, not even trying to be a Narm entry.
It doesn't even give an example of a quip. Obvious cut.
I'm Sad Frogerson.
"These attempts at being funny that aren't hilarious are unintentionally hilarious".
... yeah, cut that.
Bringing up the following examples from Narm.Yu Gi Oh:
- The amount of improbable hair colors and styles reached its apex with this series.
- Yuma's evil laugh in the dub, appearing in episode 20 and 61, definitely counts. Possibly intentional, given that it was false both times.
- One from the Japanese version. While the first time Mizael summons Number 107: Galaxy-Eyes Tachyon Dragon is a huge in-universe Wham Linenote his declaration of "overlay" is nothing short of hilarious.
- Mr. Heartland's "Heart burning" catchphrase. It sounds less like a "ta-ta for now" kind of phrase and more like a complaint about is digestion problems.
- Some people found Kurosaki and Yuto to be hilarious in episode 21. Kurosaki barges in at the mention of LDS and ignores Yuzu until he mistakes her for Ruri, and Yuto knocks Kurosaki unconscious then picks up Yuzu's Polymerization card with Kurosaki on his shoulder.
- LDS using their Duel Disks as cellphones is this to some.
- Rune-Eyes Pendulum Dragon moves around by skipping, effectively. Odd-Eyes itself runs like a chicken. Hard to take it seriously in the dramatic second ending when it's skipping down the road.
- When Sawatari Pendulum Summons in episode 3, his ridiculous expression makes it look like he is having an orgasm. Being Sawatari, this might be intentional.
- While normally a sane person would question why would a duel tournament allow anybody to physically assault another participant, the duel between Kachidoki and Yaiba could be seen as this. The fact that viewers do not even get to see the actual duel (it's implied that Kachidoki OTK's Yaiba), but are just shown shots of Kachidoki beating the ever-living daylights out of Yaiba and causing his Life to hit 0 can make a person go, "Well, that happened." Depending on a person's taste, Yaiba's screams also add to the hilarity.
- In episode 39, when Yuya is taken over by the darkness inside him, he plays Performapal Turn Toad and Performapal Cheermole on the Pendulum Zones and Pendulum Summons Performapal Cameloose and Performapal Silverclaw, so he can overlay them to Xyz Summon Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon. Regardless how badass and terrifying Yuya looks, the appearance of his silly looking monsters takes some of the dramatic atmosphere away.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
- General and not played for drama
- Low context. Is it funny or just a flaw?
- Maybe fine, but could use a little more context on why that's supposedly funny.
- General. Not knowing the context, I don't know if it's even meant to be dramatic.
- Not sure what's funny here. It's just a plot summary.
- ZCE, probably not played for drama, poor example writing.
- Maybe fine
- I guess fine?
- "could be seen as this" is likely not an example. Also just reads as Fridge Logic. Perhaps the last sentence could count if elaborated upon.
- "Thing falls flat" misuse.
"Casey literally shooting herself on the foot with her tranq gun while chasing the Predator. For all her earlier talks about having prepared herself for her mission and her admittedly impressive athleticism, it all falls short by way of slapstick self-injury. The Ultimate Predator's character design is admittedly intimidating in closeups, but its hulking upper body on top of strangely slender legs and digitigrade feet makes it unintentionally ridiculous if seen whole, like a badly done mix-and-match creature or as if he had forgot to work out on half of his body. Amusingly, none of the otherwise quite spoilerific marketing pieces shows clearly the baddie's lower body, which means the producers probably realized this by themselves at some point and tried to hide it until the release. Autism, particularly the unrealistic Idiot Savant archetype, being considered "evolution's next step". It only avoids being offensive by being laughable, given how inaccurate by evolutionary science standards it is. For some reason, a bunch of stock sound effects start being used during the final fight with the Ultimate Predator when ones like this hadn't been heard up in the movie to this point—the standard "tree falling over" sound, a cartoon cough sound as a hatch on the Predator ship opens, and the Ultimate Predator himself uses two different stock roars."
Only the first and last examples are actual moments. I haven't seen the film, so I don't know how serious the scene is meant to be for the first one.
If the first one was intended to be dramatic, I guess it can stay, but I also haven't seen the movie and don't know the context. I think the other three can be cut for either not being moments or being non-funny regular flaws. Also, the text in your post formatted without the bullets for whatever reason.
Bringing up the following example from Star Trek Enterprise S 01 E 05 Unexpected:
- Narm: The Klingon captain's quite narmy "I can see my house from here!"
He/Him
Character as narm. Easy cut
Bringing up the following examples from F the Prom:
- Narm: The movie's exaggerated humor and cartoonish, over-the-top behavior from characters makes it hard to take seriously even in otherwise serious scenes, and the awkward dialogue doesn't help. Some standout examples include:
- The idea that Cole would be laughed at by everyone and instantly become a 'loser' just because he got pantsed on his first day, for three years.
- In the film's climax, Cole delivers what is intended to be a serious and heartfelt public speech about how stupid the concept of high school popularity is and how bullying is wrong. It's negated by the fact he delivers the entire speech with his underpants showing and rather lamely finishes it with the line "What's up with that?". It doesn't help that his defences of his own actions are so weak they come off as unintentional damning with faint praise ("We didn't shoot up the school, and none of us committed suicide!").
She / Her
It was saying the line was Narm.
- Blanket statement with some slight complaining.
- I'm assuming whoever wrote this was never bullied, because a single prank is usually enough to make you a permanent target of the abuse. Cut.
- Probably fine. The described scene and dialogue seem too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
x4: Lacks context, but I can't imagine a scenario in which a line like that would be dramatic.
Edited by TantaMonty on Jul 27th 2022 at 7:11:35 AM
So, which entries of the Eternals page should be deleted and which ones should be moved to the YMMV page?
Of the ones you brought up at the top of this page, I don't think any of them are valid. Most of them are just Fridge Logic or regular flaws, and the ones that aren't—like Kro looking goofy—aren't moments.
Bringing up the following examples from Narm.Yu Gi Oh:
- While most consider Yuto's final pleading to Yuya to be one of the most touching moments of the whole series, the fact that it gets repeated to death in flashbacks caused some backlash from fans tired of watching the same scene over and over again.
- Similar to the above, the early episodes got a lot of mileage out of Yuya flashing back to his father's words to break a Heroic BSoD. When a flashback has become Stock Footage used almost as much as the summon sequences, it gets silly. Thankfully this was dropped by the time the show got into the qualifying duels.
- Reiji's odd pose in Episode 51, straight out of JoJo.
- When Yoko was trying to make Yuya duel her in episode 52, it managed to be pretty serious through most of it. However, during a scene when she was chasing Yuya around on her motorcycle, the way the back part of the bike was positioned during it made it look like she wearing a fez.◊ Naturally, this made the scene a bit hard for some to take seriously.
- In an odd inversion, some found Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon's smiling face in episode 53 to be disturbing instead of funny.
- Episode 75 had the moment when Dennis had Antique Gear Chaos Giant attack Kurosaki's Raidraptor - Last Strix. After its early attack on Kurosaki's Raidraptor - Revolution Falcon mere moments ago, which was most definitely not funny, how does it do this? By literally poking it. The resulting Mood Whiplash and the massive size difference between the two monsters ends up making the scene unintentionally ridiculous.
- Also from Episode 75, Satellite Cannon Falcon nuking Chaos Giant from orbit is indeed pretty awesome, but in the dub, some of the impact is lost due to the Falcon's attack being called out as "Vengeful Vengeance". Could you really not come up with a better attack name, Shay?
- Episode 76 had Sergey's Slasher Smile. It was intended to be creepy looking, and while some did find it that way, others found it incredibly, incredibly derp looking. And while most found Sergey's excitement at pain and destruction to be creepy, some of the fandom thought his exaggerated expressions during his duel with Yuzu to be ridiculous rather than scary.
- When Yuya finally summons Tuning Magician in a duel, he gets mocked by almost everyone watching for bringing out such a 'useless' monster - despite the fact her name is Tuning Magician, and he summoned her in the Synchro Dimension. This even extends to Melissa, who seems to commentate the Friendship Cup every year, and Shinji, who not only Synchro Summons, but uses several weaker monsters as part of his strategy. While the sub-plot involving the card was already a bit of a Recycled Script, this pushed it into being ridiculous for a lot of people.
- In episode 78, Yuya yells that it isn't the time to be dueling as Yuzu's life is probably in danger. Shinji's response to him is that he should send that message... with his dueling. Made funnier to fans that the protagonist is not the one treating card games as Serious Business for once. It's technically justified, but even so...
- That doesn't explain any hilarity from the scene, it's just a complaint.
- The same as the previous one.
- I'm not sure about that one, the pose it is indeed weird, but would need more opinions on that.
- Oh no, a fez! Now all seriousness from this scene has been drained completely.
- If it was supposed to be funny but turned out to be disturbing, then it is not narm.
- I don't know about that one. As written, it might actually be supposed to be funny, and therefore not narm, but I haven't' actually seen the scene.
- Bad indentantion aside, this one might actually be correct.
- Too many weasel words. I'm alwasy suspicious of any example including "some people" or things like that.
- Seems like just a complaint.
- Not sure about this one.
Edited by ElBuenCuate on Jul 27th 2022 at 3:27:46 AM
Adding to the above:
- The example about the weird pose lacks context and is entirely dependent on the weblink. Hide it for now.
- The ones about the Falcons look okay, just fix the indentation and lose the last sentence on the second one.
- If Shinji's line was intended to be dramatic, that example is probably valid. A man literally risking someone's life to play a children's card game is too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
He/Him
@1514. Yeah, I was tired and saw a period where there was none. Still a ZCE, so cutworthy
My troper wall
Here are the remaining entries of the Eternals page. Do you guys think they should be deleted as well or some of them are valid?
- Prior to the final battle, Thena and Phastos share a scene where Phastos warns Thena to not seek revenge against Kro to which Thena responds she won't but instead will seek only to kill him in retribution. One has to wonder if Thena even understands what revenge is then.
- [Sprit's inclusion] is immediately undone when Druig takes her out of the fight by hitting her in the head with a rock. This has earned a few chuckles from audiences due to how abrupt it is and immediately following an emotional monologue from Sprite. After this, Sersi also just stands up and continues running towards the Celestial acting completely unharmed, making one wonder what the point Sprite stabbing Sersi even was.
- Sersi running has also gained laughs from the audience as every time we cut to her in the final battle she is still just running towards the volcano with nothing else happening to her. Made all the funnier when one wonders why Makkari doesn't take her to the volcano directly and save them all timer.
- After Tiamut is killed, Ikaris decides to commit suicide by flying at super-speed directly into the sun. It's insanely over-the-top and comes straight out of nowhere. It's trying to be an Icarus Allusion, but it lacks any symbolism, making it more of a name-based pun than anything. Not to mention, any subtlety it could've had is lost since the movie explicitly brought up the mythological Icarus earlier, which is explained as a story Sprite made up.
- Arishem coming to Earth to take Kingo, Sersi and Phastos becomes goofy when you realise almost everyone except for Dane completely ignore the fact that an alien bigger than the planet filled the sky and yanked people out into space, most of the other onlookers couldn’t care less and go back to their business. Then again, this is the MCU. At this point, they've Seen It All, and stuff like this is just a normal Tuesday.
For the last one, I'm not sure if the public can see the Celestial.
The first one is missing the point. Athena simply says killing Kro might bring her peace, not revenge.
There's a lot that could mean there, and the most obvious one is that she's not killing Kro out of revenge, but simply as her duty to Gil. Or to stop him from killing anyone else. Or simply because he's the last Deviant, and ending him might be something she needs to do outside of personal revenge. Combat is a big part of Athena's life, she might just want to enjoy killing the final, strongest deviant.
It's a quick scene, but this still reads like fridge complaining.
As for the last Arishem scene, yes everyone can see the Celestial, but they do react to it. The entry is just straight up lying.
Oh yeah, people scream and get pushed back. Definitely cut the last one.
There are several examples on the Eternals page that I think are clearly inaccurate:
The whole point of the London attack scene is to show not only that the Deviants are back, but that they have become more powerful than before. Especially Kro, who is explicitly said to be far more powerful than the other Deviants. If there are people who find it weird that the Eternals are struggling against Kro in London, then that just mean they didn't understand the meaning of the scene at all.
And that's not even mentioning the fact that Sersi and Sprite are among the Eternals whose powers are the least suited for combat, that they are out of practice due to not having fought any Deviants for centuries, and that Kro has the element of surprise in his favor (which the other Deviants don't have anymore in the rest of the movie, since the Eternals know that they are out there and are more prepared to fight them).
Actually, there is some build-up. After the London attack, Sprite discusses with the other Eternals about Kro and says that he must have absorbed Ajak's powers which made him much smarter than a normal Deviant, to the point that she thinks she heard him speak. So yes, the fact that Kro becomes more and more human-like every time he absorbs the Eternals' powers is suggested from early on.
1. I don't see how the fact that Ikaris doesn't use his eye lasers as often as he could is particularly funny (Let's face it, the villain who avoids using his powers too much during the final battle because otherwise the heroes would promptly die is a cliché found in most movies of this genre, Eternals is far from being the worst example).
2. Ikaris is supposed to be conflicted about the situation and would prefer not killing the other Eternals if he can avoid it, as they were his friends for thousands of years (when he caused Ajak's death, he was quite distraught about it).
3. Ikaris does use his eye laser on Druig at one point, and he manages to survive, which proves that the Eternals are durable enough to survive Ikaris's laser anyway.
Ahem, why exactly shouldn't Kro be treated with gravitas? Just because the Eternals have to deal with some new threats in addition to him doesn't mean he's suddenly going to be subjected to Villain Decay and be treated like an afterthought, especially since he absorbed Gilgamesh's power in his last scene so he's stronger than ever.
Also, Kro managed to find the Eternals throughout the film, as he has access to Ajak's memory, and she was the one who knew the most about the Celestials. The fact that he was able to find the Eternals during the final battle is nothing surprising.
Having an Eternal who can create illusions on your side seems pretty useful to me when you're about to face all the other Eternals by yourself, so I don't see why Ikaris would refuse her help. And her illusion of Ajak clearly wasn't supposed to fool Sersi, just to hold her attention long enough for Sprite to sneaks up on her and stabs her (which worked pretty well). Had Druig not intervened, Sprite probably would have successfully killed Sersi, or at the very least incapacitated her long enough for the Celestial to be born. So yeah, kudos to Ikaris for allying with her.