Not Tropeworthy: Some Anvils Needto Be Dropped

Those tropes are outside the scope of the crowner for now we are just handling Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped.

Edited by Ordeaux26 on Jun 17th 2021 at 8:52:51 AM

Alright, just felt like asking.

I think we're seeing a lot of votes in this crowner because people have had issues with SANTBD for a long time. I remember at least three trope talk threads being made about it. I don't see a problem with keeping this crowned open for a little while longer to see what people think of the newest suggestion.

I think it's because the crowner was announced in ATT. I did the same for Franchise Original Sin and it ballooned to over 30 votes in a single night.

My short take:

• Anvilicious = a work whose message is obvious and delivered without subtlety. Meant to be a neutral description.
• Anvil of the Story = the message WHICH is obvious and delivered without subtlety. Also meant to be neutral.
• Some Anvils Need To Be Dropped = currently has an ambiguous meaning. The obvious message and unsubtle presentation are more effective because they are heavy handed, but is this trope about the work or about the message?

So I propose the following: move examples that are primarily about the MESSAGE into Anvil of the Story, make Some Anvils about WORKS that are generally considered better because their unsubtlety, and move it to YMMV.

Edited by Chariset on Jun 17th 2021 at 10:50:57 AM

All three of those are already YMMV, and we previously had a page called Anvils That Needed to Be Dropped that was unambiguously for listing opinions about unsubtle messages improving a work (it's now a redirect to Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 17th 2021 at 12:53:57 PM

I think I found more examples of the trope being misused. These are in the western animation section and it why the criteria for this trope so confusing or redundant. I don't want to cause any trouble and I'm not the one who wrote these. These are the entries in the folder and this is how they were written.

• In "Can You Spare a Dime?", after Squidward quits his job at the Krusty Krab due to Mr. Krabs accusing him of stealing his first dime, he ends up jobless and homeless. SpongeBob offers to let Squidward stay at his house and help him until he's able to get back on his own feet. However, Squidward soon takes advantage of SpongeBob's kindness and relentlessly freeloads off of him for months on end (to the point where even the narrator gets tired of waiting and a new one is hired). Eventually, SpongeBob, frustrated by Squidward's selfish behavior and unwillingness to get back on his feet, tries to give him gradually less-than-subtle hints to get a job, which Squidward chooses to ignore, driving SpongeBob off the edge. The episode shows that being too nice can result in people selfishly taking advantage of that person's kindness and freeloading of them, and you should not let them walk all over you and know when to stand up for yourself.

• In "No Weenies Allowed", SpongeBob tries to enter a tough sailors’ club, eventually getting in when he has Patrick pretend to be beaten up by him. However, SpongeBob injures himself immediately afterwards and is taken to the hospital. This teaches a very important moral about not biting off more than you can chew.

• "Nasty Patty" has SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs try to catch an impostor health inspector by feeding him a tainted, garbage-filled Krabby Patty. However, they soon realize that the inspector who came to the Krusty Krab was real and try to hide the body. In short, stopping crime is something best left for highly trained law enforcement officials, not civilians who could get innocent people hurt.

• "Just One Bite" teaches Squidward that you can’t say you don’t like something you’ve never tried, while also teaching SpongeBob that if someone doesn’t want to do something, then no means no.

• "Artist Unknown" teaches lessons about not taking credit for others’ work and for teachers to let students express themselves rather than trying to control them.

• "Sailor Mouth" has a very obvious message about profanity. These words are curse words because they are very hurtful to others, and they are not meant to be thrown around casually.

All of those just look like standard An Aesop messages, if even that. At best, they're Accidental Aesop as not all of them were meant to have messages.

The "Just One Bite" one also doesn't make sense because SpongeBob was proven right by the end, so the "no means no" message doesn't really work here.

The "Sailor Mouth" one is especially interesting because it's a pretty standard Swear Word Plot, it doesn't go particularly deep into why curse words are bad, and when Arthur did the message "these words are curse words because they are very hurtful to others, and they are not meant to be thrown around casually," it was berated elsewhere on this wiki for being overly simple. So what's the difference here? It's not a better message, much less better due to being hammered in more, it's just a funnier episode.

As I said in my previous post, SANTB has lost its meaning. People are either trying to find meaning in stories or plots or thinking "This lesson is unconventional or unheard of, must be SANTB!"

Well, yeah; that's why this thread exists in the first place. I think we're past the point now where we need to dig for misuse. Key is voting on the crowner and deciding how we'll fix the problem.

Yeah, pretty repetitive.

Since when is "Nasty Patty" intended to teach a lesson? The police actually do get involved in the episode (so the law enforcement part of the example is a moot point), and their role is Played for Laughs when they mistake the health inspector for a zombie and attack him when he regains consciousness after the titular sandwich knocked him unconscious (SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs originally thought he was dead).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 17th 2021 at 3:55:26 AM

In fact, I'm fairly certain the Narrator themselves admitted that nobody learned anything at the end.

"Yes, they are all idiots, aren't they?"

At this point it's not even "gushing about aesops you like" but "gushing about any story you like." Which may be the problem with any replacement we pitch.

About the "Aesop that justifies itself" thing that's been floating around. I had an idea for that: "Validated Aesop" for when out of universe reason cause it to be well received or justified.

Aesops by definition are supposed to justify themselves by giving a message that's supposed by the work, so "justified" needs something more objective than just liking the Aesop.

Regardless, "justified" Aesop is so different than Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped (in theory about how the heavy handedness improves the Aesop, in practice liking the Aesop) that it should be a new trope, which can be worked on afterwards/separately, as opposed to a fix for SANTBD.

I can already see that spiraling into a ROCEJ nightmare.

As can I. SANTBD is already a ROCEJ nightmare at times, that idea would just make it worse.

And it might already be covered in part by things like Values Resonance.

That sounds like a ROCEJ mess.

This'll either lead to lots of rejoicing or a lot of backlash. Or both!

Maybe we should archive some subpages in Wayback as a compromise just so people don't start freaking out when they're cut.

With a trope this major, wouldn't it be wise to wait for more people to chime in?

We could also download the histories too, just to be absolutely safe.

Edited by ImperialMajestyXO on Jun 17th 2021 at 10:05:14 AM

You mean more than the 60+ people who've already chimed in? At some point, the votes will stop coming. We've already got one of the biggest crowner votes I've ever seen.

I've been encouraging people to spread the word about the crowner so we can get as many votes as possible, just to insulate us from backlash as much as possible. Besides, this isn't some starving trope with fewer than ten wicks, this has thousands. There are probably a lot more people with strong opinions on this trope, and I want to make sure they have a voice.

I'm not trying to obstruct anything, just trying to let more people have a say. This wouldn't be the first time we've waited longer than three days for "big-time" tropes, and I wasn't the only one encouraging keeping the crowner going for longer. But if you're really sure this should be called, I won't stand in the way.

Edited by ImperialMajestyXO on Jun 17th 2021 at 10:16:26 AM