Names to Run Away from Really Fast trope page subtypes and ZCE problem

This is straddling the line between Trope Talk and TRS, but I think it can be fine here.

The Names to Run Away from Really Fast trope page has twenty-seven subpages for ridiculously specific softsplits like "Names Ending in Th" and "K Names." That's not counting actual subtropes.

I'd really like to consolidate them all into one list ordered by medium, and last time I suggested it I got traction for the idea. But when I tried to sort everything in a sandbox, I discovered that the vast majority of the on-page examples are ZCEs. So my new proposal is to cut all the subtypes, nuking all the on-page examples in the process, and harvest good non-ZCE examples from the wicks.

Because I mean seriously, here are the first two folders on the first subpage:

I think maybe two of those are salvageable. (the Yu-Gi-Oh and Lightyear examples, specifically).

Edited by Discar on Mar 7th 2021 at 1:31:10 AM

Do Cravers from VideoGame.Endless Space count as "Craven?"

Granted that I'm not familiar with them myself, looking them up on the work page, my guess is that their name comes not from "craven" but from "crave"—that is, not from "cowardly", but from "desirous". It seems like it references their desire to consume pretty much everything.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Mar 7th 2021 at 9:42:01 PM

I'm in favor of sorting by medium.

And... throwing the rest to a sandbox? Commenting out every single one? Hmm, it does seem like a lot of trouble, but I know we're usually not supposed to delete ZCE.

Edited by Tabs on Mar 8th 2021 at 12:59:38 PM

/ Which is my point. "Cravers" definitely counts as Names to Run Away from Really Fast, so having a bizarre number of subtypes just confuses people as to where they should put a valid example.

I mean, I tried putting them in a sandbox, but there were just so many, with so few valid examples, that I lost steam a couple days in.

I don't know, "Cravers" could just be really snacky for chocolate or something.

Why is craven a category, anyway?

They're sorting names by rhyme, ending, or homophone grouping. Also including puns.

So, if I'm understanding the proposal correctly, @Discar, you think that it would be simpler to nuke the lot of the OP Es and build anew on the ashes in conjunction with a wick clean?

Yes, except off-page wicks seem mostly fine. The ZCEs have been mostly covered by general cleanup efforts. It's the on-page examples that are just so bad that it's barely worth sorting through the ashes for anything salvageable.

Bump. Any other opinions? This should be pretty easy, but it also can't be done on a whim, so I want to make sure everyone's on board.

Sorry, I didn't know about this thread and I'd started commenting out some of the many, many ZC Es on these pages (and Names to Trust Immediately).

The pages are a mess, with so many ZC Es and a lot of what looks like misuse, specifically things better suited to Meaningful Name.

You certainly don't have anything to apologize for. I mean, it's no skin off my back, you're the one who had to do a bunch of extra work.

Anyway, I made a sandbox. All the subpages still exist of course, but I deleted the on-page links and replaced them with non-ZCE examples trawled from the wicks.

I agree about cutting the subtypes/subpages. Most of them are borderline generic list of vaguely-dangerous-sounding names, and, "oh, here's some fictional characters with that name,"—which is chairs.

As for the ZCE problem, there should be at least some in-universe acknowledgment that the character, or at least their name, is considered intimidating.

Bump. Anyone have any problems with swapping in the sandbox?

Honestly, I'm not entirely convinced the subpages are a problem. I agree the ZCEs are. Maybe I could try to add some context after looking things up?

... You might have a point. But, as of now, there is no good way to search through all of them.

It might be nice to maintain some indication of theme affiliations - War Gods, Conquerers, etc. make some sense. As do grouping by mythology/source material, but that would break things up in a different way. Names ending in "th"? Seems like mostly coincidence... Not sure what makes the most sense, but the current breakout is clumsy.

I suppose we can split by themes if there's enough examples in those categories, the way Theme Naming have multiple subtropes based on the various theme categories.

Excessive subtypes encourage ZCEs and make it difficult for people to figure out where to put valid examples. As demonstrated by the huge amount of ZCEs and lack of valid examples on these pages. This is hardly a hypothetical problem; it's a problem here, and it's been a problem on other pages that got sorted back into a normal media list.

I'm not necessarily advocating keeping sub-pages. I'm wondering if there is another way to communicate some of the themes. Perhaps some useful notes pages? For example, one work that I know fairly well subverts this trope with gleeful abandon:

• The battleship Nergal (Typically a god of war an pestilence) and her crew are a force for stability, progress, and good throughout earth's history
• The starship Dahak (Depicted as evil in Persian mythology) is most certainly on the side of good.

It also subverts the sister-trope Names to Trust Immediately:

• Anu (The trancendant/unknowable aspect of what was seen as a benevolent triad) as an ax-crazy paranoiac mass murderer who has supported various disruptive forces such as the mongol hordes, the third reich, and various terrorist groups — all with the express intent of causing as much destruction as possible.
• Inanna ("associated with love, beauty, sex, war, justice and political power") is Anu's Paramour, a psychotic surgeon and therapist who covers for him, and has developed the techniques to allow them to commit serial Grand Theft Me.

(The story does give enough of a historical outline to make it pretty clear how the names got the reputations that they have in our history.)

Unless you know your Sumerian/Babylonian Mythology, most of this will go right over your head.

Should all of that be put into every example's context, or would a UsefulNotes.Name Associations page, with Anchor-point subheadings, be something worth generating and referring to?

Edited by underCoverSailsman on Mar 18th 2021 at 3:20:12 AM

What exactly is your suggestion here? We have actual subtropes (they're listed at the bottom of the current page, but they're a bit more obvious in the sandbox).

Hmm... I'd guess the sub-tropes probably do cover the most common themes. I'd missed them in with all of the subpage mess.

I'll re-think a little, unless it becomes difficult to explain why a name should sound scary.

I'm all for removing the subtypes, but I think that issue is independent to the ZCE problem. A lot of Naming Conventions are kind of self-explanatory and don't really need any additional explanation beyond stating a character's name to see how they fit (e.g. Alliterative Name — if we have a character named Lex Luthor, we can immediately see that his both first and last name starts with "L" without needing any more Captain Obvious Word Cruft underlining that fact), so perhaps people think that the same rule applies to this one.

This trope is not just about characters with vaguely ominous-sounding names though; this is about evil/intimidating/ominous characters that have evil/intimidating/ominous names to match. So the examples have to explain how the character is evil/intimidating/ominous, and not simply mention that "this character has such and such name".

Not to mention, unlike alliteration, there's a YMMV element on what kind of names people find intimidating, so there definitely should be an in-universe acknowledgement for an example to qualify.

Edited by Adept on Mar 21st 2021 at 1:43:05 AM

But also, in some cases we need to add enough context to explain why the name sounds scary in context. If you're familiar with Fertile Crescent civilizations, a being calling itself "Nergal" Should inspire terror even before you see any of it's actions, but many readers won't have the context to get that.

If the name is derived from a historical, legendary, or mythological menace, the context needs to show that it is deliberately chosen due to its dangerous connotations, and that it's not a name that's randomly chosen because the author just happens to be browsing at a list of mythological names and picking the one that sounds best.

Again, whether or not something "inspire terror" varies between people, so for this to not be a YMMV trope, the desired reaction (i.e. fear and intimidation) should be observed in-universe. The trope shouldn't have to rely on the audience's knowledge of the reference to work.

Edited by Adept on Mar 19th 2021 at 10:40:46 PM