Is Demon King Nobunaga tropeworthy?

It seems to me Demon King Nobunaga is just Historical Villain Upgrade applied specifically to Nobunaga. The only thing that sets it apart is that there's a pattern of Nobunaga being portrayed as a demon. So, if there's a specific way a historical figure is turned into a villain, does that mean they get their own trope? For instance, there's a conspiracy theory that Jack the Ripper was a member of the royal family or on their payroll. Does this mean that "Royal Ripper" or "Jack the Royal" might become a trope one day?

Sometimes something that seems The Same, but More Specific can get its own subtrope out of sheer numbers, like iPhony from Bland-Name Product. Sometimes they do so because there are other things/tropes/traits that show up in this specific portrayal, like how Alternate-History Nazi Victory will always have some sort of fascist dystopia with death camps and general sadness. In this case, it helps that TVT didn't pull this out of thin air — there's historical and cultural basis as Nobunaga really was referred to as demonic at the time.

So yes, if there does turn out to be such a trend regarding Jack the Ripper's portrayals in fiction, then you can probably make a trope for it.

Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 10th 2020 at 3:21:58 AM

And why is Wc Donalds a subpage of Bland-Name Product instead of its own trope?

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No one has tried to split it off is my best guess. (It's also full of ZC Es.)

Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 10th 2020 at 4:19:06 AM

The WcDonald's examples shouldn't even be listed as Bland-Name Product when there's Fictional Counterpart.

Sorry to derail from the OP's query, but the implication is they're actually eating at an actual Mc Donalds, rather than a fictional fast-food chain. Note the line in Fictional Counterpart: "For fake products that are transparent copies of real ones, but with a letter or two switched around, it's Bland-Name Product."

It can probably stand to get a new image that doesn't evoke Walmart so much, but that's derailing even further.

Yeah. It probably should not be a separate trope. Does seem kind of a holdover from the days when there were a lot of tropes that are "the same, but Japanese".

One comparison that came to mind for me is Rasputin, and from a search, I saw that (somewhat to my surprise) there isn't a separate page for sorcerous takes on Rasputin. So, there shouldn't be one for Nobunaga either.

The other comparison I thought of were versions for Vlad the Impaler that are/become vampires (frequently but not always Dracula himself). But that also is not a separate trope as of yet.

For what it's worth, I actually could see Royal Ripper being a trope, since it is a specific, common framing of the Ripper story in fiction.

Edit - I also don't think the WcDonald's thing should be its own trope. There does seem to be something in Mc Donalds (as well as KFC) being "cooler" / having cultural importance in Japan, but I don't see why entries about fictional counterparts of Mc Donalds couldn't be listed as anime examples on Bland-Name Product.

Edited by Hodor2 on Sep 11th 2020 at 10:26:21 AM

Please read Dracula; the original is Vlad. It's the copycats that don't always maintain the connection.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Or...again... no one has tried to make a page for sorcerous takes on Rasputin... I'm a lumper, but I don't see the point in trying to merge Demon King Nobunaga back to Historical Villain Upgrade as it otherwise seems like it's thriving.

Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 11th 2020 at 10:34:40 AM

I thought we have a page for Rasputin The Mad Monk.

Like someone has said, it all boils down to whether there are enough examples to merit a split. By "enough", we mean that it has been widespread enough across media as a thing in its own right.

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So, I'm embarrassed.

I saw the page Rasputin the Mad Monk, but didn't register that it had examples from various media, since it is a Useful Notes page.

Since there are media examples on that page, I don't see any issue with the same for Nobunaga.

Also, I see that with WcDonald's, it has sort of a separate sub-page under Bland-Name Product as well as being a redirect. That seems fine to me.

Edited by Hodor2 on Sep 11th 2020 at 12:08:21 PM

Oda Nobunaga is comparable to Rasputin the Mad Monk, but we don't have a trope page for him that is comparable to Demon King Nobunaga.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

What makes Demon King Nobunaga a trope is the exaggeration of the 'demon' part. The Useful Notes page for Rasputin covers other portrayals that are not sorcerous, the same way the UN page for Nobunaga covers portrayals that are not demonic. The fact that a trope page for Evil Sorcerer versions of Rasputin does not exist is more an argument for it to be made, and less for the Nobunaga page to be cut. (Said page would even come with a free image from the main HVU page.)

Edited by Synchronicity on Sep 11th 2020 at 12:59:22 PM

FWIW, I first learned about Oda Nobunaga from independent history osmosis before I knew anything about his appearances in Japanese media, and I got the impression he was basically just a standard medieval warlord - so I was totally baffled when I found out how many of those appearances in fiction portrayed him as outright demonic. That's anecdotal, but it does help form my belief that this is a specific enough characterization to stand as an independent trope.

(Also, I'm inclined to agree that the lack of a similar "Evil Sorcerer Rasputin" trope is more evidence that one can be created than it's proof that this is not a trope).

So I guess, the question is more about Rasputin now. (I'd agree on principle, but we just need to know how widespread it actually is)

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Pretty common. Off the top of my head. I know examples from Anastasia, pathfinder, hellboy, cassandra palmer, grimm, The Last American Vampire and fate grand order. The evil sorceror /demonic rasputin is a tried and true part of fiction in the west.

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I wonder if interpretations of Dracula who are also explicitly Vlad Tepes would also work as another trope

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A page about them having a connection at all might be tropeworthy, if we don't already have it. If they were the same guy, it would be more trivia than a trope, but while the original novel took inspiration from the historical Vlad, it's never made explicit and doesn't actually line up. It wasn't until almost a hundred years after the novel came out that another book popularized the idea that they were the same person.

In such a trope, I think examples could go either way. Nowadays, having Dracula and Vlad the Impaler explicitly not be the same person is treated as a twist because of the modern expectation that they are.

Nope a bit sooner then that. Dracula came out in 1897 but Dracula in Istanbul (a Turkish translation / rewrite of the novel) which came out In 1929 was the first work to explicitly name him as vlad the impaler.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."