Knife Nut

Continuing from this ATT thread, Knife Nut is causing confusion about what the trope even is, and we gotta resolve it.

Long story short: Trope about knives as weapons in general? Trope about characters who use knives and the traits associated? Characters obsessed with knives? We can't seem to get it right, and the description doesn't help.

Basically, an issue with the trope at the moment is that it's nothing more than Signature Weapon without explaining why it is. It also has no clear characterization associated with it. Knife Nut itself sounds similar enough to be tied to a Yandere, for one potential example. What we could do is is beef up the description with potential characters who could become one. An assassin, the aforementioned Yandere, an insane retired army sergeant who can't help but become violent due to their past, etc.

There's easy potential.

Some of the description currently gives many reasonable examples of it "existing" as a weapon. But that's too much Sit on Chairs alone. There's no "Nut" part that makes it too difficult to give good entries for.

Keep in mind that we clamped down on most of the other weapon personality tropes (such as Archer Archetype and Cold Sniper) years ago. If someone uses a bow or a sniper rifle but doesn't fit the archetype, then it just gets filed under Weapon Of Choice. I assume Knife Nut just got lost in the shuffle.

The question here is what archetype goes with knives. I've always assumed it's "that crazy guy who might be a Torture Technician and probably engages in Licking the Blade," but the page description says almost nothing about the archetype. It's completely about the weapon itself.

That was my initial problem. The description is entirely "knives exist"- but isn't it about the character? The Knife Nut?

One good starting point could be how short blades as a weapon are strongly associated with criminals, especially thieves, assassins, murderers, and Torture Technicians. If a character wields a dagger, they'll usually fall on the "chaotic" side of the Character Alignment system. Even when they're squarely on the side of good, a knife-user will most often be an Unscrupulous Hero and/or a Lovable Rogue.

Edited by Zuxtron on Aug 23rd 2019 at 10:35:02 AM

I would much rather the trope be about the kind of character who is disturbingly into knives. That's what the title implies at least. Forget this "wields a knife" business; it's not a trope.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 23rd 2019 at 11:22:32 AM

Agreed.

I agree- or at least the trope should be "knife users are nutty".

I think Friendly Sniper was created to counter all the "subverted" Cold Sniper examples. The key to a lot of these type of tropes is identifying common traits beyond JUST their preference for knives. There is nothing wrong with combining a few common traits (ie the Serial Killer wandering around with a single butcher knife vs the assassin archetype where they have a dozen throwing knives hidden on them) but if it gets too diverse a split may be needed. Examples that go "X is this" are bad regardless of the trope.

Currently, the trope is used almost exclusively to refer to characters who use daggers in combat, and nothing in the current definition mentions the obsession aspect, so suddenly changing it to be about characters who love knives in general would be confusing and hard to enforce. Perhaps "Knife Fetishist" could be made into a separate trope if there are enough examples of it (I think I've seen one or maybe two of them, so it's definitely a much rarer trope).

Meanwhile, there is a mention of how knives are often used by thieves and Combat Pragmatists, which lends more credence to my interpretation of short blades being a criminal's weapon.

The main problem is though, the description only mentions character traits in passing, and a trope of "knives exist" is chairs.

But expanding on that aspect of the definition would be much easier than throwing it all out and replacing it with something about an obsession with knives.

That's why I think it should be the middle ground of "Knife Users are Nutty"

If by "nutty" you mean "mentally imbalanced", I feel like that might be too restrictive. Many of the crooks that are strongly associated with knives are sane, even if they are sometimes a bit violent.

It should be restrictive. Like every trope. Otherwise the examples have no real characterization merit to them, and no longer become a useful trope worth mentioning.

Any time a character wields a knife as the main weapon is at best Signature Weapon. A Knife Nut, however, needs to have a real reason for it to be a knife, and how it affects their characterization. Them being insane in some way is a good characterization trait that's easily tied to knife users. This makes it more of a trope and pattern than being redundant with Signature Weapon.

Remember, we need to avoid the Sit On Chairs factor, which is all wielding a Knife as is would be.

My suggestion isn't to keep this about knife wielders in general; I do think it should be more restrictive to avoid PSOC. But instead of linking knives with craziness, I'm suggesting linking them with criminals and other shady types.

If a fictional character wields a knife and is crazy, chances are they're using the knife to commit crimes such as murder, so "knife wielders are nutty" would also be mostly covered by "knife wielders are criminals".

Exactly. Tropes are by definition restrictive. They're patterns with meaning and that meaning is consistent, even if the exact manifestation is flexible enough to change.

Issue is, the name supports my "knife means instability" idea. The name may have to change if we go with a broader personality type.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 24th 2019 at 1:31:08 PM

"Nut" can be used to mean "someone who likes something", with the insanity only being figurative. Knife Nut can imply being crazy, but it can also simply mean someone who likes knives (as in, someone who likes knives enough to use them in combat).

Yes, we might have to rename the trope, but I feel like that would be easier to do than removing the trope from most fantasy thieves and assassins' folders and enforcing a completely new definition based only on the name.

Edited by Zuxtron on Aug 24th 2019 at 1:36:28 PM

What about a split? Something like Knife Nut for instability, and, say, Knife Weilding Rogue for the other examples.

A rename does sound better at this point. If it's the only way to make it a workable trope, anyway.

A split might be a good idea. The association between knives and sneakiness is too strong to not have as a trope, so even if we turn the "nut" part of Knife Nut literal, we should still have the "rogue" aspect in another trope.

Edited by Zuxtron on Aug 24th 2019 at 1:43:48 PM

The association to craziness is also very common, so I definitely think both tropes are needed.

Genuine question here, do we need a TRS thread for this? On the one hand we're mostly in agreement and it's just a continuation of what we did with the other weapon personality tropes years ago, but on the other hand full splits and renames are a bit beyond the scope of Trope Talk.

I think the trope should cover "Knife guys are evil", "knife guys are crazy" and "knives are associated with criminals and shady professions".

To compare, Gun Nut is someone who's obsessed with guns.

That's a bit too broad; the ideas there are distinct, if closely related.