Needs Help: The Con

Many subtropes of The Con are underused and/or vaguely named, as was first discovered during the TRS thread for Fake Mark; some are also narrowly defined and may be redundant. There are too many subtropes with this issue to list individually, which is why I did a bulk TRS. There are also two redundant sub-indices, Short Con and The Tale, that do essentially nothing but define the respective terms and repeat parts of the main index. Despite the name of this thread, I don't think The Con itself is problematic.

In the tally below, "OPW" refers to the number of distinct works with on-page examples, excluding Real Life and commented-out Zero-Context Examples.

If you can't pick out the details, the tropes that immediately appear problematic are Big Store, The Con Within a Con, Delayed Wire, Good for Bad, One Born Every Minute, Pig in a Poke, Quick Change, The Roper, Short Con, Spanish Prisoner, and The Tale. Beat Bag and Hustling the Mark may be problematic as well, but would require a separate TRS.

I'm back!

Opening this. I distinctly remember there was some kind of administrative decision in 2012 about these tropes but I don't recall what it was or where it took place.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I was waiting for this to get opened. I'm in favor of merging the lot of them, as they have obscure names and narratively speaking most cons have more-or-less the same effect as one another.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

I'm in favor of merging to The Con and keeping defitions on the Analysis page.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I'm in favor of merging all the low-wicked subtropes such as those mentioned in the OP. The more well-known ones, like Ponzi or 419 Scam, should stay separate.

Also, some tropes on the page, like False Prophet or Roguish Romani, are character tropes and should probably be listed on Con Man, not The Con.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Get rid of the Short Con and The Tale indexes.

The list of problematic pages is too long for my taste. Most of the pages have a problem with cross wicks but that can solved. E.g. Delayed Wire.

Merge the non-thriving ones into either The Con or Con Man (depending on whether they're about the act or the character doing it), but the thriving ones can probably be kept (per naturalironist's post).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 16th 2021 at 10:52:13 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

What's the benchmark for deeming tropes thriving?

The one listed on Administrivia.Wick, though there have been exceptions involving cases of tropes being determined to have wick counts that are low relative to how common they are (such as why Olive Garden was renamed to Spaghetti and Gondolas last year). That said, the fact that so many of these have double-digit wick counts despite technically thriving points toward them not being distinct enough to keep separate.

Edit: I think we should take on-page examples into account as well, since some of these have single-digit amounts of works listed for on-page examples, with Short Con having none at all.

Another edit: You know, maybe we should merge all of these into The Con or Con Man instead of keeping some separate (rather than what I previously said), considering the triple-digit wick amounts for some of these still aren't terribly high. Either way, I think Analysis.The Con and Analysis.Con Man would be fine for describing the different types.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 17th 2021 at 2:47:44 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

At the very least, we can merge Short Con and The Tale into The Con for being completely redundant and for respectively only having six and twelve items on them.

Edited by Serac on Feb 17th 2021 at 9:47:34 AM

I'm fine with that.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I'll second

Third.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Made one with everything listed in the first post. I downvoted everything with a wick count that's at least 100.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Note that Scamming the Bereaved and Staged Pedestrian Accident were recently renamed, so I’m inclined to be more forgiving of the lower wick count.

Edited by Synchronicity on Mar 20th 2021 at 11:21:56 AM

I forgot about Scamming the Bereaved being renamed, so thanks for adding that note to the crowner entry. I only added Staged Pedestrian Accident's rename because it was mentioned in the opening post.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 20th 2021 at 4:26:22 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't 419 Scam and Spanish Prisoner both forms of advance fee fraud?

What is the real difference between them?

Edited by SkyCat32 on Mar 22nd 2021 at 1:41:30 PM

Rawr.

Yes. The 419 scam gets more representation in media probably because it's newer.

Oh, right. I suspect, again, probably because it's newer and creators assume their audience know what it is.

Edited by Tabs on Mar 22nd 2021 at 10:55:51 AM

The troped difference is that 419 is something discussed and maybe used as a Cutaway Gag, while the Spanish Prisoner is a plot trope that develops the scam on-screen, as part of the B-plot or even A-plot of the story.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Y'know, I think the only real difference is that the classic Spanish Prisoner uses a person as the motivation, and appeals to the mark's better nature. the 419 Scam focuses on moving money, and focuses on profit motive.

Of note, the page for Spanish Prisoner lists "Russian Bride" and "Save this Hooker" as modern variants that focus on the "humanitarian" motives.

: I'm feeling like that's an artificial distinction, though. Why would the human-based version have to take up the whole plot? Why couldn't you build a whole plot around a very persuasive 419?

Edited by underCoverSailsman on Mar 22nd 2021 at 12:59:22 PM