Misused: Achievements In Ignorance

Achievements in Ignorance is defined as a character doing something impossible because they didn't know it was impossible. It even specifically says that a character accidentally doing something is not an example. However, a ton of examples are about a character doing something accidentally, or any time an unintelligent character does something productive.

Wick Check: Achievements In Ignorance Wick Check

Results:

• 12/50 = 24% are examples.
• 21/50 = 42% are characters accidentally doing something, or being lucky.
• 17/50 = 34% are either ambiguously worded, hard to understand without knowing the work, or examples of an unintelligent character doing something.

It seems like either:

• The trope definition got narrowed in order to reduce the number of examples, but old examples were not removed.
• Tropers are mistaking this for something else, because the name could refer to multiple ideas.

I recommend that a new trope is made for characters doing something by accident (Accidental Achievement?). The Achievements in Ignorance page may also need to be rewritten to emphasize what the trope means.

Opening.

I don't see why accidental achievements don't qualify for this trope. It shouldn't make a difference whether something is impossible for that character (because he lacks the skill, but gets lucky) or something is impossible in general.

So I think we should tweak the description here and be done with it.

Edited by Spark9 on Feb 18th 2021 at 8:02:43 AM

I feel like there are three separate concepts floating around here:

1. Character can break the in-universe laws of reality due to being ignorant of said laws. This is Beyond the Impossible, with the caveat that it only works as long as the character remains ignorant of the laws. This makes it a sort of schrödinbug in reality as experienced by that character.
2. Character achieves something seen as outstanding or "impossible", just by going about their day-to-day business. Not necessarily an incompetent character, just not expecting that result.
3. Character manages to do something that is considered "Impossible," but it's actually not - Common Knowledge just happens to be wrong in this case. It's the character's ignorance of said knowledge that allows him to look outside the box, and formulate a workable approach. Example from an actual work:
   • Honor Harrington - Manticoran Allies Because of Grayson's relative isolation from the rest of the galaxy, much of their technology before joining the Manticoran Alliance was built on them experimenting, during that period, with technologies and techniques long abandoned in the Galaxy at large. Despite that — or, probably, because, as nobody was around to tell them that "it's impossible" — Graysons managed to achieve several rather spectacular technological feats.

The comment about excluding "accidental blind luck, etc" seems to be trying to lean away from #2, which might be a supertrope of Accidental Discovery...

The parts of the description talking about immutable laws of physics or magic trend toward #1, and the description of Reminder of Impossibility definitely reads it this way.

The Real-Life mentions are more talking about #3.

The Genius Ditz or Bungling Inventor's results might actually apply to either #1 or #3, depending on what limits they are breaking.

1. 1 I believe, should be listed under Beyond the Impossible, either directly or as a sub-trope. Description for Beyond the Impossible could also use some cleanup, but that's a side issue.

2. 2 - Is this a tropable concept, or is it too general?

3. 3 - Independent of the other two.

Which concept should keep the Achievements in Ignorance name? I don't know right now. My first thought is #3, but have not scanned through the wick check to that level of detail yet.

EDIT: because the existing wick of my example said it better.

Edited by underCoverSailsman on Feb 18th 2021 at 3:29:10 AM

Let's break the trope down. According to the specifics in the description:

1. the character knows what the task is (this already disqualifies the page image)
2. the task must be seemingly impossible to do
3. they don't know that it's impossible
4. achieve it anyway because of 3 (ignorance is the driving force, not luck or accident)

Very few examples meet all these criteria. Can we loosen up on any of them?

Edited by eroock on Feb 18th 2021 at 3:40:42 AM

Well, your point 1 seems to contradict the page title, so it would help to loosen up on that. Your point 4 is hard to actually define in many settings, and I don't think it helps the trope any.

Do we have a trope for achieving a goal by dumb luck? It's a common trait for Homer Simpson. There is e.g. Invincible Incompetent but is there a plot trope for it too?

Edited by eroock on Feb 22nd 2021 at 1:43:04 AM

This recent TLP draft was very poorly done, but seemed to fit that "succeeds through dumb luck" concept. Maybe we could salvage the idea into its own trope?

Edited by mightymewtron on Feb 24th 2021 at 6:01:08 AM

I'm in favor of doing what Spark said in his first post.

I'm not against that... but we still need to figure out if "They didn't know it was impossible" means:

• "Can break reality, as long as they don't realize that's what they were doing" (Like Wile E Coyote running out onto air —Until he looks down) or
• "Didn't know that common knowledge holds that it is impossible. Common knowledge is wrong, and they missed that day in school, so they do it anyway"

Note that only the second can happen in real life.

Edited by underCoverSailsman on Mar 23rd 2021 at 11:30:56 AM

Why not have both be valid?

According to the wick check, the dividing question is if the achievement came around by

1. accident/luck
2. ignorance about the impossibility

Should both options be allowed?

Could. But the first strongly overlaps with Beyond the Impossible mixed with a dose of Reminder of Impossibility —What would differentiate it?

Beyond the Impossible means the example has to be impossible even by the standards established by the work, not just that it's impossible in real life. The Wile E. Coyote example you mentioned is merely something that's impossible in real life (ditto for the cartoons that involve paintings of tunnels working like the real thing), since it's something that happens frequently in those cartoons and thus is not an example of Beyond the Impossible.

It's not listed as an example of Reminder of Impossibility (Edit: I'm referring to on-page examples), but since that trope was launched very recently (the page says it was launched in 2019), it could be that it's still an example, but nobody added it yet.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 24th 2021 at 8:47:50 AM

Okay, maybe not the best example. My point is that "Break actual limits of the universe" is distinct from "Get incredibly lucky" and from "Ignorance helps protect you from being blinded by common knowledge."

The first seems to be covered by Beyond the Impossible. The Second may be a supertrope of Accidental Discovery. Which leaves the Third for this trope.

Let's say we don't have an agreement on the cause of the feat and we allow both luck as well as the power of ignorance, what about the aspect of the impossibility. Here's an example that was added today to The Simpsons S5 E2 "Cape Feare" which depicts a funny yet doable act done in ignorance. Should this be allowed?

• Achievements in Ignorance: Homer manages to put Sideshow Bob in grisly pain by driving the family car (with Bob hanging onto the bottom) over a cactus patch when Lisa and Bart cheer for it.

Edited by eroock on Apr 4th 2021 at 4:05:02 AM

I'll confess, I'm not sure what we should do with this if we can't even decide what the definitions would mean.

Having not watched it, I'm not sure what that example is trying to say. Can someone elaborate?

Haven't watched either, but from the recap page, Bob is the villain —he's trying to kill Bart. This would be akin to picking up a gun and firing at a random cactus, which your enemy happens to be hiding behind.

I just reviewed the Wick Check sandbox, and I find that erock's objection to the Wile E. Coyote example contradicts the position Blegh took on a similar example when sorting wicks (See the "toons" entry). Perhaps what we should do is re-sort the wick check based on "potential definitions" rather than "Correct/Incorrect" and then revisit?

Edited by underCoverSailsman on May 2nd 2021 at 11:47:12 AM

Expired clock and stale; closing.