Narm Cleanup

None of these fit the description of "trying to be dramatic, ends up being funny", except maybe the one about the final boss (which would need rewriting to emphasize that it's unintentionally funny).

I mean... is that trailer not comedic to begin with?

YMMV.Melanie C:

• Narm: The lyrical content for "If That Were Me", most notably "I couldn't live without my phone / And you don't even have a home" was ridiculed by critics for being this and too bland.

I can't tell if this is unintentionally funny or "falls flat".

Seems to be the latter. At best, I don't think it has proper context for why it's Narm. I'm okay with hiding it.

Question; does this thread also cover Narm Charm as well as Narm? Because I'm not sure whether this examples from Birds of Prey (2020) is being used correctly?:

• Narm Charm: It's drenched in Camp, with previews/a premise that has alienated some viewers, but those who enjoy it, enjoy it because it's sheer fun.

Honestly, Narm Charm is used to mean so many things I have no idea what's proper usage or not. It's used for everything from camp to "scene works because of Narm element" to "scene works in spite of Narm element".

I think it's supposed to be "scene works because of Narm element", but I don't know if that includes camp or not.

I would like some advice on the following example from the Age of Sigmar YMMV page:

• Narm: A number of people have found the game's colourful aesthetic, dramatic naming conventions, and generally over-the-top epicness off-putting, comparing it to cheesy Saturday morning cartoons. Quite a few players flat-out refuse to use some of the cheesiest faction names, like Aleguzzler Gargants.

While I don't believe any of these are meant to be dramatic I have never been a good judge of this things and the example doesn't explain how/why they are meant to be dramatic so should it be cut for not being an example or simply commented out for not having sufficient context? The last sentence may also be a little too complainy as well.

Edited by SebastianGray on Feb 18th 2020 at 9:56:55 AM

When has Warhammer not been a Saturday morning cartoon all grown up? That's always been one of its charms. Maybe someone more involved in the fandom can offer a better explanation as to why Age of Sigmar's naming conventions are a bit too much even by WH standards, but I'm in favor of hiding the entry.

The naming conventions are't much different than the previous game, they are just more of them and they don't have the Grandfather Clause of dating from the time that such things were in fashion for fantasy settings

Bringing up this example from Last Ounce of Courage:

• Narm: The Nativity Play featuring aliens, both for its hilariously stupid concept and the implication the filmmakers believe that the Nativity is the only Christmas story in existence, when there are actually many secular plays many people perform around Christmas instead.

That sounds super bashy. I mean, it's not a great movie, but c'mon.

And it doesn't bother to say why the example is so dramatic it's cheesy. Cut.

These examples on YMMV.Fantastic Four 2015 are questionable:

• The Catchphrase "It's clobberin' time!" being turned into what Ben's older brother says before hitting him borders on Black Comedy that Crosses the Line Twice.
• The name "Planet Zero" comes across as actually being sillier than the original "Negative Zone".
• For some reason, the Thing is completely naked, which makes it a bit hard to take his scenes seriously. In addition to that, there's a very jarring Vocal Dissonance with the character in the trailer — he speaks with Ben Grimm's regular voice as opposed to having the Guttural Growler tone the character is known for, which also ups the narm-factor (the actual movie has a vocal filter applied).

I'd say 1 and 3 don't count. 2 maybe, but it needs a specific example of a scene that's cheesy because of it.

First and third are usually one of the most contentious things brought up when criticizing the film, or at least Thing's character in said film. I've found more than a few who find this incarnation hard to take seriously because his lack of pants, when the entire reason they removed his pants to begin with (iirc) is to make it less campy. Definitely keep the third. I haven't seen the film since release, but unless the "Clobberin Time" scene was supposed to be serious, I'd favor cutting it. Number two is more distracting than anything.

Found this massive chunk on YMMV.Sagrada Reset:

• Narm:
  • Monotone dialogues with tons of exposition from the main characters can very quickly turn into this, especially because of the static picture and the emotionless expressions of Misora and Kei faces.
  • Just try to view the whole fourth episode with a serious face, when the characters will start to agitated discuss about mystery MacGuffin as it some Serious Business, although neither the protagonists nor the viewer at all know what it is. With every mention of this word, everything becomes more and more narmy.
  • The fifth episode's long amount of narration and dialogue about "the precious thing" is easily this because of the fact that it makes absolutely no sense and seems to be there just to stretch a story that could have been wrapped up in ten minutes all the way to twenty-four.

It was added alongside a one-sided Broken Base example (which I deleted) and a Snark Bait example by the same troper. What should happen to these examples?

The second example is the only one that sounds like it's trying to fit the definition of "tries to be serious, but ends up unintentionally funny instead."

Agreed. And it needs to be rewritten to be less bashy.

So on YMMV.The Good Place, there's an edit war over Narm. I've since brought it to discussion, but I'm going to put it here to get extra eyes on it (My comments in bold).

Of note, part of the discussion is about what the scope of narm is. On the discussion page, one user is arguing that "That something is a joke doesn't mean it can't be Narm. Narm is when there is an earnest attempt at a portrayal that falls flat" which seems like a stretch.

Doesn't help there's clearly an agenda there.

WARNING: Unmarked spoilers for The Good Place

DO NOT READ ON IF YOU PLAN TO WATCH THE SERIES BUT HAVEN'T

If you want to skip to the next post in the thread to avoid spoilers, CLICK HERE.

• Narm:
  • From his first moments onscreen, Brent was a fairly obvious Hate Sink. Casually racist? Check. Misogynist? Check. Running a business that damages the environment? Check. Constantly talking up his golf game, which is objectively not very strong? Check. As such, some fans felt he came across less as a character and more as a collection of traits, making his final unfinished apology to Chidi feel unearned and false.
    • These aren't dramatic, they're jokes. Only the final confession could even qualify as Narm, and the entry isn't claiming that it's unintentionally funny, just criticizing it.'
  • Similarly, Brent commits one big, awful act in the afterlife that turns his teammates against him and causes Eleanor and Michael to doubt he can be reformed. What is this act, you ask? He writes a book that offends Simone and Tahani, and gets angry when they criticize him for it. A shitty thing to do, yes, but contrasted with Michael—an actual demon who gleefully tortured decent people for thousands of years—and his Heel–Face Turn, treating his poorly written book as a Moral Event Horizon seems a bit silly.
    • Again, played for laughs the whole time through, up til the end which isn't addressed in the slightest. Though I have to say, the desire to defend Brent reeks of Wants a Prize for Basic Decency by proxy. The point is that constant little shitty behaviors are bad, and not calling them out makes them worse.
• Narm Charm:
  • Eleanor's breakdown over toothbrush holders coming in family packs. For context: she was shopping at Bed, Bath & Beyond after her father died and had assumed the multi-pack was for someone as rich as Bill Gates After learning they're for a family, she starts talking about how the parent toothbrushes protect the little ones and keep them safe, allowing them to talk about feelings, before bursting into tears. It keeps swinging between sad and hilarious as she cries into a toilet plunger and the poor employee helping her tries to switch her to tissues instead.
    • This is absurdity played for hilarity. I don't think it's Narm Charm so much as... a joke landing.
  • Michael bursting into tears when he sees Team Cockroach is safe in "Leap to Faith". Silly? Maybe a little. So, so sweet? Absolutely.
    • This might count. Michael's reaction is laughably cheesy but it makes the scene even better.
  • Jason asking a series of typical Jason questions to Chidi on learning the other will sacrifice his memories of the Soul Sqaud and Eleanor, ending with, "Will you still remember pizza?" In context it's very silly and poignant because Jason is tearing up, and it's his way of expressing fear that he's going to lose his best guy-friend.
    • Honestly not sure on this one.
  • "Oh no, no no no. I made God cry." Hilarious line, but a mind-wiped Chidi says it to Eleanor, believing she's the architect of the neighborhood, after she attempts to torture him and make him better with the Jianyu plot.
    • Again, it's a joke landing. Not unintentional hilarity

Edited by Larkmarn on Mar 2nd 2020 at 1:58:06 PM

Realized it was kind of a dick move to have spoilers from a show in this thread, so I edited the post above so that people can skip straight to this one if they don't want to be spoiled.

Hope it helps.

Edited by Larkmarn on Mar 2nd 2020 at 1:58:57 PM

I agree with your reasoning. I've even pulled the offending Narm examples before and they got added back in.

And you're correct, Narm can't be a joke. That's misuse. It has to be intended as dramatic, and the drama has to be funny instead, not "Ooh but I can pretend to be CinemaSins and poke holes in the logic of the presentation if I really try."

Edited by MisterApes-a-lot on Mar 2nd 2020 at 1:25:16 AM

YMMV.Final Fantasy X

• Narm:
  • When Tidus finds out that Yuna will die fighting Sin. His scream makes it sound like he stubbed his toe. Tidus' further reaction to said news, slamming his hand on the ground and curling up, becomes hysterical when the rest of the group walks past him in slow-motion.
  • It's difficult to make out what the Al Bhed chatter in Home is saying. It sounds like the intercom is yelling, "I'm annoying, huh?" on a loop.
  • Much of the voice-acting. While groundbreaking when the game came out due to being the first fully-voiced Final Fantasy game, the acting was harshly (perhaps too harshly) criticized from the outset, and is unfavorably compared with the later titles. It's obvious the translators and voice actors are trying to match their dialogue to the Mouth Flaps to avoid Lip Lock, resulting in lines that sound stilted or hurried. And the result still doesn't match the lip movements very well, so one wonders why they even bothered.
    • As for the voices themselves, most are fine, but Seymour's English voice is very foppish and silky for a character who is supposed to be a major antagonist.
  • The NPC who discovers Jyscal's sphere speaks rather matter-of-factly for someone who has just collapsed into a heap of disbelief...
  • A Recursive Translation gives Seymour the hilariously stupid name "Simon Chubby". It's impossible to take him seriously after seeing that. In east Asian markets, especially China, there are pirates who release movie DVDs containing only the cinematics of the game, ripped and stitched together into a movie—probably just to please those who want to watch the cinematics but don't want to play the actual game. The recursive translation appears to come from the subtitles of one such DVD, which contained cinematics ripped from the Japanese version of the game.
  • The melancholy main theme, "To Zanarkand". Despite being praised for its emotional power when it was originally heard, it's hard to listen to it without breaking into fits of giggles nowadays, especially after The Gmod Idiot Box abused it in a corny April Fools joke machinima. Doesn't help that it sounds like a boilerplate piece played during dramatic moments on soap operas (if not stolen outright by many a low-budget production in third world countries).
• Narm Charm:
  • Hedy Burress' attempt to lip-sync with the animation is frequently brought up when discussing the quality of the voice-acting. On the other hand, it fits pretty well on the ferry to Kilika, since she's trying to chat up Tidus with lines like weather is nice and God wanted us to meet, so it makes sense for it to be awkward.
  • For some, Seymour's English voice is a fine match for the character. It may not befit the type of Evil Overlord fans are used to from Final Fantasy, but it is very fitting for a preening, disingenuous, creepy stalker, which is what Seymour is.

How are all these examples?

The "To Zanarkand" example looks bad to me. What if you've never seen that Gmod Idiot Box video it "was abused" in? (I certainly haven't seen it). Not to mention being used in a video for laughs alone doesn't make an entire music piece Narm even outside the context of that video. Because in that case, we might as well just add every sad video game music ever to Narm because they've been used in videos as jokes (for example, N's Goodbye has been used in at least one You Tube Poop, but that alone shouldn't make the music itself Narm even in game context)

Edited by KingofNightmares on Mar 7th 2020 at 10:09:49 AM

There's on Narm example that I'm not sure about from Star Trek: The Next Generation, specifically because it's also listed as an awesome moment (the latter characterization is the one I agree with).

Specifically, it's when Jean Luc Picard says, in Chain of Command, that "There are four lights!" while being freed from his torturer. As I said, I believe it's an awesome moment, but the narm page for Star Trek says:

"Chain of Command": "THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!". It's not the sentence itself that's Narmy, it's how Patrick Stewart delivers it. He shouts it in defiance, when he could have said it normally and with steel in his voice. Honestly, you'd expect more from Patrick Stewart.

Here's the video (slightly truncated, removing the part where the guards tell him he's that he needs to be cleaned up before returning to the enterprise) of him saying the famous line. For context, he's just spent days being tortured by the Gul to make him see five lights and was right on the verge of breaking, and that makes his way of saying that there are four lights perfect IMO.

Anyway, if it's both narm (which I don't think it is) and a moment of awesome, then shouldn't it be Narm Charm?

Your argument is a little weird. You go in and discuss the context that makes you find the scene awesome, which is fine- but then admit that it's the delivery that makes it a bit funny for some people. That's the entire point of Narm- moments that would be dramatic or awesome made funny by awkward execution. With the way you describe it, it sounds like it is Narm material- if people found the scene unintentionally funny at the expense of the drama.

What it isn't is Narm Charm, as that's when people like a scene because it's Narm, not when a scene just so happens to be both Narm and Awesome. That is, unless people like the scene for the Narm; but your explanation doesn't apply to the trope.