Misused (alt names crowner 9/8/19): Drink Order

Went to try and clean up the ZCEs on this article, and was baffled by how much misuse there was. It was too much for me to go through with cleanup, because more work had to be done.

Linked here is the Wick Check that ~razorrozar7 and I did. Our criteria was simple: We looked for wicks that showed a link between what the character drinks and a personality trait of theirs. Anything that didn't do so was misuse, oftentimes confusing Drink Order for Trademark Favorite Drink (a redirect to Trademark Favorite Food).

As you can see, of 50 random wicks, 37 were misuse. And only 7 wicks were properly used.

This trope, it seems, has decayed to mean "character drinks tea a lot", or even just a pothole for alcoholic beverages!

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 5th 2019 at 12:32:36 PM

Opened.

At this rate, we may have to cut it or rename for clarity.

Edited by Berrenta on Aug 5th 2019 at 11:32:52 AM

im pretty sure i didn't do the exact numbers i was supposed to, but the point stands: this trope is almost universally mistaken for Trademark Favorite Drink. im thinking the easiest solution is a rename.

I suppose a rename wouldn't be too hard either, with only about 600 wicks and most of them being choppable...

how about Characterization Drink, or Drinks As Character Traits?

Characterization Drink sounds good.

Edited by Piterpicher on Aug 6th 2019 at 11:00:56 AM

Alternatively, Drink-Based Characterization.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 6th 2019 at 4:08:38 AM

i like that better.

Rename.

Drink-Based Characterization works.

Rename. Drink-Based Characterization sounds good.

looks like we have clear consensus in favor of renaming to Drink-Based Characterization.

Yes, but you should wait at least one more day to allow people who are infrequent posters to have a chance to give their input. If nobody disputes it by tomorrow, there will have been three days of discussion/voting.

Edited by crazysamaritan on Aug 8th 2019 at 12:10:44 PM

i had no intention of taking action straightaway in any case, i was just making the observation.

I'm not sure a rename would help. I thought the trope was specifically about a character ordering a drink at a bar and the way they do it. Characterization Drink would be making the trope broader than it is. If that trope is made, it should be a separate supertrope.

I would support re-working the description and narrowing the definition to being specifically about ordering at a bar.

The description is already that narrow, people just don't read it, and the title clearly isn't clear enough on what the trope is. People seem to think it's for the drink a character always orders, their own personal Drink Order, ignoring the characterization aspect. I see no problem with making the trope somewhat broader, as the basic trope is "what a character drinks reflects their personality". That's not a concept that needs to be bar-specific.

I would argue that the description is way too long, and includes a lot of stuff you don't typically get at a bar, like coffee and tea. Moving most of the stuff there to analysis, and better explaining the relationship to other drink-related tropes would help a lot.

The specific scenario of "guy walks into a bar, orders his favorite drink" is cliched and common enough that it deserves its own trope. I think the heart of the trope is "guy orders a drink, this affects the plot somehow", usually because another character comments on his drink.

If we redefine this to any form of drink as characterization, I don't see how that would be different from Trademark Favorite Drink.

Trademark Favorite Drink: Man, X really loves to drink soy milk...

Drink Order: X only ever drinks soy milk, even when he's at a bar, exemplifying his cautious and strict nature.

That's the difference. I'm not sure where you're getting "Character orders their favorite drink and it affects the plot" from when reading the description (which I would agree with chopping and moving to analysis either way).

I mean, here are several lines from the page that necessitate the connection between the drink and characterization:

"One of the most widely used pieces of shorthand for telling the audience about a character's personality: have the character order a drink."

" A character gets extra tough guy points if he makes a point of ordering "Coffee. Black.""

"Wine: the drink of the sophisticated intellectual, particularly if they're well-versed enough to know a Cabernet Sauvignon from a Pinot Noir, or that "[17XX/18XX/19XX/20XX] was a very [good/bad] year for Chateau L'[whatever]." Unless it's clear we're talking about the cheap stuff, in which case it's the tipple of choice for The Alcoholic"

"A hipster might even drink a very common, cheap beer "ironically." (Pabst Blue Ribbon is particularly common among ironic drinkers.) " If a character orders Scotch or Irish whisky, they may be portrayed as sophisticated or worldly. On the other hand, if they order bourbon or rye (American or Canadian) they may be portrayed as a rough around the edges badass"

"Soft drinks or water, when in a bar, represents an especially straitlaced person, or a stone-cold badass who doesn't give a damn about what anyone thinks, and wants to keep his wits about him. Or they're the Designated Driver."

"The drink order can be code for nationality, and social class."

"See also Luxurious Liquor, when what is communicated by a character's choice of drink (one rarely ordered but always found on hand) is their liquid assets."

"Sometimes though, characters make a special point of ordering against type, such as an hardboiled character ordering milk (as mentioned above) or something sweet and girly."

My interpretation is different:

Trademark Favorite Drink: X only ever drinks soy milk, even when he's at a bar, exemplifying his cautious and strict nature.

Drink Order: X walks into a bar and orders soymilk. The bartender gives him a weird look and asks X if he's an alcoholic, leading to discussion about why X chose the drink/ the guy next to him calls him a sissy, leading to a bar brawl/the woman sitting next to X decides he's sensitive and starts flirting with him/etc.

It's not just the characterization, it's a stock scene that involves interactions between characters and is a way of delivering characterization.

I'm sorry, but the description doesn't support that at all, and if that's the case then pretty much every example is misuse.

Does Drink Order specifically relate to bars? With the non-alcoholic examples, it seems like those ones are about the character's preferred non-liquor drink and what it says about them (milk drinkers are childish or health conscious, tea drinkers are classy or serious, etc). Admittedly, the stereotypes are thin when it comes to non-alcoholic drinks.

I have a trope about age and foods in TLP. The non-alcoholic examples could be absorbed into that.

Edited by Pichu-kun on Aug 8th 2019 at 5:30:54 AM

Any other opinions on the current debate?

I've actually seen a few examples on Trademark Favorite Food get moved to Drink Order because "they're about a drink." So yeah, definitely misused.