Outside of TV Tropes, I have never seen anyone assert that Spiritual Successors must involve the original creator. They can involve them, but they don't have to.
I don't usually go to Square Peg Round Trope for actual trope definitions. I would blame SPRT for being wrong than Spiritual Successor's page.
If I recall, there's one guy who's responsible for the writings in SPRT.
Edited by 4tell0life4 on Sep 12th 2020 at 10:31:31 AM
We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza
Just realize that the wiki is not peer reviewed, isolated lines can create discrepancies like that. The quality and consistency of the examples is the bigger marker.
Broadly speaking, requiring Word of God on these things is rarely effective because that information can be sparse. We operate by observation and using our own intelligence, otherwise it's more of a trivia trope. Regarding specifically Spiritual Successor, the most obvious marker is sharing some creative crew and few would argue examples like Enemy of the State via The Conversation. If it lacks any connective cast and crew, then the similarities need to be a lot stronger.
Edited by KJMackley on Sep 12th 2020 at 10:34:33 AM
Godzilla
Here’s my take on it.
Spiritual Successor is when a work is intentionally reminiscent of a preexisting franchise (usually an inactive one) without actually being a part of that franchise.
Spiritual Adaptation is when a work unintentionally resembles a preexisting work and this wiki notices the similarities.
SKREEEEEEEONK!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Spiritual Adaptation is just "Spiritual Successor in a different medium", though.
Not sure why we even have a separate trope for it, TBH.
Spiritual Successor is about something that arrives to fill in the gap left by a work wrapping up (or having limited amounts of it), which is why it usually involves the same creative team. Spiritual Adaptation differs in it is more about how in place of an official adaptation this fills that gap, with being part of the same creative team nowhere in the description.
Godzilla
Laconic.Spiritual Adaptation states it’s about unintentional Spiritual Successors.
SKREEEEEEEONK!
The laconic for Spiritual Adaptation makes it clear that it's for when a Spiritual Successor happens in a different medium.
Edit: I don't see anything in either laconic about it being having to be intentional or not.
Edited by RustBeard on Sep 12th 2020 at 3:29:37 AM
I guess I have to bring up Spiritual Licensee to attention here, too.
Edited by 4tell0life4 on Sep 12th 2020 at 3:50:32 AM
We can never truly eradicate the coronavirus, but we can suppress its threat like influenza
Then the Laconic is wrong.
The description of Spiritual Adaptation is perfectly clear that it's about Spiritual Successors in different mediums.
That's just a redirect...
Edited by Primis on Sep 12th 2020 at 4:39:34 AM
I recall Spiritual Licensee as being its own thing, i.e not a redirect...
I think at this point we need to start a clean-up of the Spiritual trope (Spiritual Successor, Spiritual Adaptation, Spiritual Antithesis).
I've noticed a bit of a discrepancy between the entry for Spiritual Successor on Square Peg Round Trope and Spiritual Successor's trope page description.
On Square Peg Round Trope it says that Spiritual Successor has to be done on purpose:
Yet the description on Spiritual Successor says this (I've bolded the relevant bit):
Another issue is that Spiritual Successor says the following:
This is contradicted by Square Peg Round Trope, which says that the same creators do have to be involved:
Although it should be noted that that description of Spiritual Adaptation seems to misuse, as it defines Spiritual Adaptation as fans seeing one work as an unofficial successor to a previous work, whereas the actual definition is fans one work as an unofficial successor to a previous work in a different medium (e.g. an unofficial adaptation in all but name.)