Ambiguous Name: John Barleycorn And Friends

Technically you can eat those.

I think the longer names aren't particularly clearer though.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

That's sort of my point. Presuming that playing the lottery is a vice, then it would be easy to expect a personification of it to fall under "Anthropomorphic Vice". However, this trope is apparently about consumables specifically.

Hence I feel that "Anthropomorphic Vice" isn't a terribly clear name: it sounds it names a trope that's far broader than the actual trope is.

That said, looking at the trope page, it mentions even things like comfort-binge ice-cream falling under its umbrella. As a result, perhaps even if not for the medicinal definition, "drug" might not be fitting here.

So, to my mind "Anthropomorphic Consumable Vice", while quite a mouthful, is by far the clearest name proposed thus far.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Dec 18th 2020 at 4:12:56 PM

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Is there a reason it can't refer to medicine, considering people use that recreationally?

You can't always get what you want.

Is this trope only about consumables, or is that just the most common vice (negative personality trait) to be anthropomorphic?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

We can also have redirects, you know that, people?

I'd like to apologize for all this.

Hmm... that's a fair point. However, I feel that medicine used as medication tends to be presented differently to medicine used recreationally.

As far as I can tell, it's not about the personality trait at all, but rather about the substance itself. So, for example, it wouldn't cover a depiction of the imbibing of alcohol, but would cover a depiction of an alcoholic drink.

True, but better to have a clear name, that doesn't strongly suggest the inclusion of things not covered, it seems to me.

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Let's crowner the name, this discussion is starting to go in circles.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

If we expand the trope to non-consumable vices, then for example King Dice from Cuphead would qualify as an Anthropomorphic Personification of gambling. So would the various depictions of the Seven Deadly Sins as actual characters (such as in Shazam!).

Yes, please! We need a crowner now before we'll be stuck with "Johnny Cereal Box" before the clock ends.

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Okay, crowner up.

Rock'n'roll never dies!

The "imbibing of alcohol" is not a trait, that's an action. The trait is drunkenness. The depiction of an alcoholic drink is also a depiction of a drunk. Mr Butts is a depiction of smoking addiction, they are a smoker.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I did think any gambling personifications would be covered under this trope (as an addiction in the same vein as alcohol/drugs), but not seven deadly sins (as negative personality traits).

Anthropomorphic Addiction?

Edited by Synchronicity on Dec 18th 2020 at 11:50:26 AM

Hmm... Okay, fair. I still think that there's a distinction between the thing being imbibed and the trait of wanting to imbibe it, but I do think that you're likely right in that this trope generally covers cases in which the one is used to speak to the other.

(As to the crowner; voted.)

[edit] Actually, I like that. I've amended my vote to include it.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Dec 18th 2020 at 9:14:12 PM

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The new crowner's hooked.

One of the crowner entries was a Hyphenated Title, which is deprecated, so I removed the hyphen.

You can't always get what you want.

Anthropomorhic Addiction is fine, but it would also broaden itself to other things such as sex, caffeine, trading cards, jelly beans, computers, internet, social media, and TV Tropes, which already has its own trope...

Edited by alnair20aug93 on Dec 19th 2020 at 6:38:50 PM

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I mean, all of those things could be described as vices under the right circumstances, I feel, so "addiction" isn't much worse than "vice" on those grounds, I would argue.

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Addiction is actually narrower than a vice:

• addiction: dependency on a particular substance, thing, or activity
• vice: weakness of character or behavior; a bad habit

Eating ice cream to drown your sorrows is a weakness of character, but not a dependency. A moral weakness is also a character weakness, so vices are strongly associated with moral flaws.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I'm also a bit concerned that people might confused Anthropomorphic Vice and Embodiment of Vice. How does Anthropomorphic Intoxicant sound as a name?

On Embodiment of Vice, John Barleycorn and Friends is potholed to "literal vices".

"Intoxicant" is way too narrow- that only applies to alcohol.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

How about just Anthropomorphic Vice or Anthropomorphic Addiction, without any worries? After a name has been crowned, and chosen, we then could have some redirects to the page.

Edited by callmeamuffin on Dec 20th 2020 at 6:29:43 AM

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I'm now leaning toward Addiction instead of Vice because of the alliteration (I don't know if it was mentioned, or if it was even intentional), and because Vice would make the name similar to Embodiment of Vice (which was previously mentioned).

Either way, Intoxicant is too narrow.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 19th 2020 at 2:45:04 PM

You can't always get what you want.

I do agree that "intoxicant" is too narrow—binging on ice-cream, for example, doesn't intoxicate (that I'm aware of), but is included under this trope.

"Addiction" is also a bit narrow, in all fairness, as crazysamaritan points out.

It's a tricky one, this.

I come back to feeling that "Consumable Vice", while a bit on the clunky side, is by far the clearest and most-fitting option that we thus far have.

The thing is, a poorly-fitted name may invite misuse. I can very much see embodiments of non-consumable vices being potholed or wicked to "Anthropomorphic Vice", for example.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Dec 19th 2020 at 11:23:00 AM

My Games & Writing

Well, Anthropomorphic Consumable Vice is quite restricted to drug use, even though the laconic and description of John Barleycorn and Friends agree with such. Many want to extend this out for anthropomorphic vice objects, like living gambling and sentient pornographic or explicit magazines. I'm not saying that Anthropomorphic Vice is a good option, but we need a good trope name.

Edited by callmeamuffin on Dec 20th 2020 at 7:46:08 PM

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