Not Thriving: Informed Power

This one seems to have a mild to moderate The Same, but More Specific problem in relation to its supposed supertrope Informed Ability. It also has only 10 wicks and no edits at all in over a year. It has 16 examples, some of which seem slightly shoehorned in. Something needs to be done. My first thought is to possibly merge valid examples with Informed Ability, but I'm open to other ideas.

Compared the laconics, and they're way too similar.

Seconding a merge.

Merge.

Merge.

Merge

I think Informed Power wants to be the dark counterpart of Informed Ability but the lack of examples makes a weak case for its separate existence. TLP could help.

Edited by eroock on Jan 26th 2020 at 4:19:47 AM

I guess this trope is specifically about the purported destructive capacity of a weapon/MacGuffin, as opposed to a more general skill (which can include non-physical capabilities, such as intelligence and housework skills). That might be a distinct trope from Informed Ability, since none of the examples in the latter trope actually fit the former description.

I say merge. Informed Destructive Power or whatever would still sound like Informed Ability But More Specific.

Yeah, there's not much reason for it to be a separate thing.

Furthermore, this was created in the TLP, and this is what was produced. What'll really come of sending it back? The TLP is useful for getting examples and polishing the description, but that's not what this draft needs- the amount of on-page examples, and the trope's description, are both already passable. TLP won't fix this.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 26th 2020 at 12:28:28 PM

Do we have a TLP morgue to find launched drafts? This one seems to have been rogue-launched by OMEGALORD.

Not a rogue-launched.

TLP-created works have the TLP linked on the discussion page.

Informed Power seems to be a sister trope to Informed Ability, not a direct subtrope. One concerns a character's skills never being shown while the other concerns a weapon's destructiveness never being shown. There's no real good reason for a character's ability not to be shown, but in the case of destructive force there is. For example, how would a writer actually show that the Death Star is as destructive as the characters have said? Answer: By having the Death Star destroy a planet. In a setting where characters have easy access to space travel, this is not a problem. But in a setting where the characters are stuck on the planet that would be destroyed? Showing such destructive force would require essentially ending the story. So as a writer, what can you do? Answer: Never actually show the destructive power.

I propose changing the name to something more clearly identifiable with "destructive power" and editing the description to better explain what this is. The current description relies too heavily on Example as a Thesis.

Okay, the troper didn't wait a day longer than the minimum 3 days to squeeze this one out. And then forgot to crosswick. Just saying this problem child didn't have a healthy upbringing.

On a different note, the connection to Informed Ability looks weak to me. There is a notable difference in the villain not demonstrating his doomsday machine at least once and a character never demonstrating his good singing voice on-screen.

Then we can merge with Informed Attribute instead?

Isn't Informed Attribute essentially an index?

Edited by Florien on Jan 26th 2020 at 12:28:34 PM

It calls itself a "Super-Trope", so I'm not actually sure what it is.

Informed Attribute doesn't have any examples on it, so I think merging this with it isn't really an option. I'm fairly sure it's an improperly labeled index. I think just expanding the definition of Informed Ability to cover Informed Power might be the best course here.

Edited by Florien on Jan 26th 2020 at 12:41:02 PM

Also merging isn't always the best option. If we can salvage this (or in other words repair it) then I think we should. Merging is pretty much giving up on it.

How are you proposing we fix this? I fail to see how renaming and rewriting would fix anything, since the definition itself would still be the same, and it's the definition that people are saying is redundant with Informed Ability and/or Informed Attribute, not the name or description.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 26th 2020 at 4:03:32 AM

I agree with Water Blap that there's a difference between a character having an ability that is never shown, and some sort of Doomsday Device never being used. One is a characterization trope, and the other is a plot-necessitated deviation from Show, Don't Tell akin to the things on The Plot Demanded This Index. Seems like a worthy distinction to me.

Edited by naturalironist on Jan 26th 2020 at 5:03:40 AM

Why does Informed Ability have to be character-specific? Slightly broadening the trope would fix everything; the audience is still being informed that something has a trait they're never actually shown. It's still an informed "ability" since we're being told the item has the "ability" to destroy things.

I agree.

Also, there are only 16 on-page examples. Since there are only seven non-Main/ wicks (and one of the three Main/ wicks is for the Pages Needing Wicks index), crosswicking wouldn't necessarily be enough to make this healthy, depending on how much crosswicking was already done, since the minimum amount of wicks for a trope to be thriving was recently raised from 14 to 24. In contrast, Informed Ability has 3,442 wicks, and Informed Attribute's wick count is also in the four-digit range.

Edit: Neglected to mention that Pre-Asskicking One-Liner's description was previously expanded when the rarely used Pre Asskicking Mutter was cut. Merging Informed Power into Informed Ability would involve doing pretty much the same thing.

Edit: According to Informed Ability's description, it's already a subtrope of Informed Attribute.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 26th 2020 at 4:38:37 AM

I lean towards WaterBlap and eroock's arguments. This can work as a separate trope, but needs more time in the TLP to gather more examples and proper cross-wicking.

EDIT: Out of the top of my head, I can think of another example for Informed Power:

• In Guardians of the Galaxy, The Collector describes the Power Stone as being able to wipe out entire planets and civilizations with a single strike. Of course, when the stone is used against the heroes, it never quite reached that level of destructive force, and the best it does is cause an explosion that proved non-fatal. This may be justified by the fact that not everyone can channel the Stone's power to its full capacity, although the fact that Yondu's arrow managed to cause more on-screen damage than the Power Stone dampens its purported significance.

Edited by Adept on Jan 27th 2020 at 6:07:15 PM

Made a crowner per the Three-Day Rule.