Not Tropeworthy: Some Anvils Needto Be Dropped

I actually think moving Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped to Sugar Wiki may not be a bad idea. Don't know how I feel about Anvilicious being moved to Darth though.

Also, as was stated, cleanup for the tropes has gone absolutely nowhere. There is a cleanup thread in Short-Term that barely gets used and hasn't stopped the misuse and gushing/complaining. Something else has to be done IMO, simply cleaning up misuse hasn't worked.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on May 27th 2021 at 11:21:53 AM

Oh shit, I missed this one opening, despite wanting this to be dealt with for a while. I'm usually pretty defensive of older tropes and items, but I'd be fine cutting this one.

I think we're missing a big problem here: defining which morals are "good" and "bad" is a ROCEJ nightmare, especially for political works. In fact, very often when issues related to SANTBD come up on Ask The Tropers, it's due to contentious praising of a moral. (Or at least using the moral to chastise real-life people who would apparently disagree.)

So there is an inherent issue with defining morals as "good" or "bad" instead of just "heavy-handed." I also don't think that "heavy-handed" needs to necessarily be a bad thing. BoJack Horseman and South Park, for example, have very unsubtle morals, but are still appreciated by the target audience despite the heavy-handedness. There's no need to let Anvilicious become a complaint magnet when it can be described neutrally — and it's not "watering" the item down when the point of the item should be about the delivery of the moral, not the fact that audiences like or dislike the moral itself. (Sort of like what happened to Family-Unfriendly Aesop.)

I wouldn't be opposed to chucking SANTBD with its most common usage into Sugar Wiki, though. However, Anvilicious is not in such an unsalvageable state that I would send it to Darth.

Edited by mightymewtron on May 29th 2021 at 10:31:13 AM

Well, technically SANTBD isn't even "good aesop", it's "heavy-handedness makes the work better".

I honestly wonder if that's too rare to trope. I can think of works where they have heavy-handed aesops and I don't mind the heavy-handedness, but I can't think of any where the aesop being more subtle would have worked against it. (I guess there's a Misaimed Fandom risk for some, but usually the fandom will find a way to misunderstand the work no matter how blatant the aesop is.) I think that's part of why cleanup has stalled so badly — the misuse is not only so prevalent that cleanup feels futile, but it's just a simpler definition while the current definition's kind of confusing.

One idea I had for redefining SANTBD would be for it to focus on aesops that are appreciated because they aren't common for that particular genre. This wouldn't just be "good heavy-handed aesop" but "this aesop needs this much attention because it's not one that fans are used to seeing."

Edited by mightymewtron on May 29th 2021 at 11:09:03 AM

But as several people had already mentioned, in practice, people won't use "heavy-handedness makes the work better" unless they already agree with the Aesop; so in practice the trope is used as "I agree with the aesop presented in this work, and more people should agree with it, and that's why its presence in the work being heavy-handed is a good thing because it's impossible for the audience to miss or misinterpret this very good aesop". I'm not sure how your proposed redefinition will help. While the added restriction might help curb the spread, I feel like in essence they'd be used in the exact same manner.

I think with my proposed redefinition, focusing more on "audiences appreciated this moral 'because it's not one seen in other works of the genre" would make it easier to catch shoehorns that don't mention the moral you'd typically expect from this show, and that can avoid just posting the moral and nothing else. For example, an entry for Bojack Horseman could explain how people appreciated its message about everything you do having long-term consequences because the expectation is for shows of that type to hit the reset button instead and relish in a character's poor behavior. And for, say, South Park, I personally don't like its messages mocking activism, but I can objectively say that they weren't very common at the time, which is why people found them interesting.

...Then again, this alternate might just welcome complaining by proxy, which is even worse than before.

So maybe the Sugar Wiki idea is best?

Edited by mightymewtron on May 30th 2021 at 4:34:33 AM

I'm okay with Sugar Wiki. Let people gush about aesops they like.

and I agree—Sugar Wiki may be the best option here.

I believe there once was an "Anvils That Needed To Be Dropped" that was located there before being merged into Some Anvils. Don't know why the merged result was kept in Main though, it would have worked better in Sugar Wiki.

There is still a concern about ROCEJ violations, but I think that can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on May 30th 2021 at 4:37:45 AM

And keeping the ROCEJ issues off the work pages will be a load off.

Yeah, Sugar Wiki seems to be the best option that has my vote.

Edited by Ordeaux26 on May 30th 2021 at 2:37:43 AM

Sugar wiki seems nice.

Moving Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped to Sugar Wiki sounds fine, but what would that mean for Anvilicious and Anvil of the Story?

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 30th 2021 at 12:09:24 PM

Plus, splits only really happen if there are examples to justify the split. If the split ends up being made from scratch, it's not a split at all, just a new trope.

Anvilicious is due for TRS soon, we can decide what to do with is and Anvil of the Story then.

Moving SANTBD to Sugar won't change that they are overwhelmingly being objectively misused under the current definition (I recall tropes moved to Darth Wiki were cut when issues persisted). Reworking SANTBD to allow such examples means we might as well make a new trope for them. I'd this new trope.

Who suggested a split? Maybe I missed something since I haven't been keeping up with this thread a whole lot, but I was wondering if you meant to post that in a different thread.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 30th 2021 at 1:59:47 PM

I think fixing the issues with SANTBD would fix issues with Anvilicious / Anvil of the Story in the meantime anyway, especially the whole "good/bad" implication.

That is what I mean by fixing SANTBD. If we do that, we lessen the presence of SANTBD on the main wiki and thus lessen the restriction for Anvilicious to be so negative, allowing it to cover very unsubtle messages even when the troper likes them.

Edited by mightymewtron on May 31st 2021 at 1:24:59 PM

I think they mean splitting SANTBD into "heavy handed Aesops done well" which will be merged with Anvilicious/Anvil of the Story and "gushing about Aesops" which will be moved to Sugar Wiki.

Fix what about SANTBD? We've explained before why is seems the problems are so fundamental no amount of effort to fix it worked. Any new ideas to fix it?

How can it be better fixed than merging the intended definition with Anvilicious/Anvil of the Story and creating a separate Sugar Wiki trope for the gushing tropers want to use SANTBD for?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on May 31st 2021 at 2:24:28 AM

At the time, I assumed she meant to post that in the Hook-Handed Pianist thread, since a split was suggested for that trope despite it only having 16 or 18 wicks. I didn't consider how Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped would fit into this since we already have three Anvil Audience Reactions, and moving SANTBD to Sugar Wiki would mean moving it to a gushy part of the site (which would mean changing the namespace) instead of being a full-fledged split.

Gaston is right. I posted in the wrong thread.

I support moving SANTB to sugar wiki under the definition "heavy handed Aesop done well" and redefining anvilicious as heavy-handed Aesop.

Edited by naturalironist on May 31st 2021 at 1:16:37 PM

It might behoove us to use something like "unsubtle" in place of "heavy-handed" since the latter term has more complainy connotations and I assume we intend for Anvilicious to cover the "Anvilicious but good" misuse as well.

Anvilicious is set for TRS after this, we can figure out how to make it more neutral about it then.

SugarWiki.Gushing About Characters You Like is a thing, so I think the best we move SANTBD to the new page "SugarWiki.Gushing About Aesops You Like". This fixes the problem is almost no SANTBD are about the heavy handedness of the Aesop, give an appropriate place to gush for those inclined, and simplifies the work of curating examples.

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on May 31st 2021 at 1:04:42 AM

I'd been fine with it. My concern is it being on the YMMV page. If we just confine the gushing to one corner of the site, then I don't see a problem.

If it's already being used to gush, I like the idea of a sugar wiki move (and neutralizing Anvilicious down the line, but that's another discussion).