Needs Help: One Mario Limit

One Mario Limit was unilaterally added to YMMV in March 2020, despite rules against doing so without TRS. It is believed that the page is actually an Audience Reaction, like Song Association, because it is based on association of a name with a specific person/character.

While this issue doesn't technically require a wick check, it's noted that in on-page examples the trope frequently attracts Fan Myopia and Natter. I won't bother checking any of them, but some of them do make claims that failed verification. Example:

Edited by LaundryPizza03 on Oct 25th 2020 at 9:58:23 AM

Opening.

Seconding making it an audience reaction.

I also found a few on-page examples about creators having to change the names of characters to avoid being confused with other characters.

This is obviously not YMMV.

I'm not convinced it's an audience reaction, either, considering that creators do intentionally avoid certain names to avoid association with well-known other works.

This trope is...hard. It's definitely a real phenomenon among people, but one that is so widespread that even creators are partaking in it in their works. You can't say it's purely audience reactions anymore because works do include this "trope" whether deliberately or not.

If we classify it as a trope, it's still a troublesome one. It's a double whammy because IMO it is one of the Tropes in Aggregate, so it only becomes prevalent when you look at a group of works. Second, it's defined by absence of something instead of existence. How do you write an example of this? "This work doesn't have a character named Mario" and "This work has a character named Mario" are both chairs.

How about "the work contains a character named Mario and explicitly points out that it's not that Mario"?

It strikes me that many of the examples are chairs - e.g., "nobody in fiction is called Grayson except for Robin from Batman" is chairs (and as it turns out, incorrect); and "several people in fiction are called Bruce despite Bruce Wayne being popular" is not a conscious subversion (but rather, also chairs).

It would help if we cut all examples that aren't either lampshaded or confirmed by Word of God. A list of "names in fiction that are (probably) unique" or of "names that we expect to be unique but actually aren't" doesn't get us anywhere.

Edited by Spark9 on Nov 26th 2020 at 6:13:00 AM

My idea was to move it to Just for Fun. Thoughts?

Considering this is a deliberate decision by some authors, why would we move this trope to a non-trope namespace?

"Deliberate"? Do explain in a bit more detail how.

See my earlier post in this thread about Word of God and Lampshade Hanging of the trope. These appear to be a minority of the examples on the page, but they do exist.

Edited by Spark9 on Nov 26th 2020 at 8:08:21 AM

Added TRS banner

What's "YMMV" is the mentality that this name is so popular no one will ever name anyone this ever again, which is hard to describe, confirm, or quantify.

I think the best way to salvage this would be to turn it into a Trivia trope about extremely ubiquitous pop culture characters affecting how other characters are named. Like how Deathstroke quietly dropped the "Terminator" epithet after that little movie.

Edited by Synchronicity on Nov 26th 2020 at 5:48:51 PM

Part of the issue is that if this actually affects other works the impact is a negative. As in, it's the lack of the name and we use that as evidence that other creators don't want to use the name because of the association.

Otherwise it's about characters so iconic people think of them, and that's the audience reaction part.

If we make this YMMV, it would probably be better suited to YMMV.Home Page than Audience Reactions, since the character who's primarily associated with a name objectively exists in their own work, and the YMMV aspect is audiences' association of that name with that specific character.

For example, Mario from Super Mario Bros. objectively exists in his series (as well as crossovers that include characters from his series), and it's the audience who associates the name Mario with that series, to the point of thinking of him when his name shows up in other video games.

Note that this post is just intended as a comment and not a vote. I need to think about this more before officially voting on anything.

There are also some examples where Word of God said they changed a character's name to avoid confusion with another, well-known character, and some where it's lampshaded in the narrative.

There are also several entries on the page that use weasel words (such as "Most people probably think of character X" etc.)

Maybe we could turn this into trivia to avoid Fan Myopia-filled examples.

(Wow, this has only 205 wicks. Was expecting it to have much more.)

Edited by ccorb on Nov 26th 2020 at 1:47:16 PM

I can get behind this. Limit examples to ones that discuss/invoke/defy/lampshade etc.

I'm fine with keeping it as a regular trope if we go with requiring some form of acknowledgement in the work. If we go with Word of God confirmation instead, that would be Trivia and Not a Trope (though it wouldn't be YMMV).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Nov 26th 2020 at 7:26:28 AM

Some of the lampshades on the page are "similar name to celebrity" and fit better in Almost Famous Name or Named Like My Name, though (eg. Office Space). I don't even think celeb names are real examples of this trope. The reason nobody is ever going to take the stage name Madonna again isn't just because of the association with the singer, but because there are legal issues with doing so. This is not the same thing as not wanting your new character to be associated with an existing one through a mundane name.

The other problem I see with the OP Es is that some entries are medium-specific (eg. music, video games). For example, it says no other video game character will ever be named Zelda again, which is probably the case. But where's the precedent to limit to video games? Outside of that medium, Sabrina media hasn't renamed Aunt Zelda (she predated the princess), The Magicians (2016) has a character named Zelda, etc.

I can get behind No Straight Examples, Please!, but I do think Trivia with verification would be stronger. The latter could cover the former with In-Universe examples.

Edited by Synchronicity on Nov 27th 2020 at 6:31:41 PM

If people still care about this, I think we should get a crowner. There doesn't appear to be a consensus at the moment. Something should be done to the page, but I have no idea what.

Crowner sounds good.

It's hard to discern what the suggestions are, but here's a first draft.

Concern: One Mario Limit's on-page examples attract rampant Natter and Fan Myopia, and being defined in the negative makes it difficult to verify. Additionally, it was moved to YMMV.Home Page without discussion.

Options (is this complete?):

• (1a) Reclassify as Trivia.
• (1b) Keep as YMMV.
• (1c) Reclassify as a trope.
• (2a) Redefine as extremely ubiquitous pop culture characters affecting how other characters are named.
• (2b) Keep the current definition, but require objective evidence for examples.
• (3) Make No Straight Examples, Please!. Only lampshades, discussions, and the like will be allowed.

I also suggested moving it to Just for Fun.

At the risk of sounding like a child, I think changing the original definition to be objective or something is going to take the fun out of it. Plus, how many examples will we even get for a Trivia entry about creators changing names due to associations with another character who made the name famous? Like, at least with Baby Name Trend Starter there's multiple databases for that sort of thing.

It could be made JFF, if only because it's a bit hard to prove as an audience reaction, though I think it's a valid thing worth pointing out in a work.

Examples of real life individuals personally acknowledging their fictional namesakes could be kept.

The OP included Kirby as an example.

Yes, I was the one who originally mentioned baseball player Kirby Yates signing a Kirby plushie.

@Laundry Pizza: by voting simultaneously and separately on what the definition should be and what namespace to put it in, we risk ending up with a combination that makes no sense (such as "define it as trivia and keep it in YMMV namespace").

So we should vote on the definition, and once we've settled that, it should already be obvious what the namespace should be.