Fountain of Expies, Mountain of Problems

Well Boba Fett was modeled off of The Man With No Name. That's why I'm saying it's redundant to have two tropes.

Edited by RustBeard on Jan 20th 2022 at 3:30:28 AM

Alright I think I'll start a wick check for Fauxba Fett at some point in the future. Not yet though.

If anyone wants to start one before I do, —> Fauxba Fett Wick Check

BTW, going back to the original topic, what about Shana Clone itself? Should we start a disambig discussion on that? It's what started this whole thing.

Do you need a wick check if the issue is that the trope is a duplicate?

I've been told yes, but I'm not 100% sure actually.

It would help to confirm that the usage is overall similar.

Yeah, it's one of those things where the proof is in the pudding, not in people's assumptions. If the usage isn't similar, then there's less of a case to make.

Or if a distinction is found, the thread can discuss whether or not it is a splitworthy one.

Right. There's a reason I try and encourage people to just see wick checks as usage checks and to not go in with the intent to prove something. Just collect data and go from there.

So... What do with Captain Ersatz? It's distinct from Expy, but then says:

"For common types of Captain Ersatzes, see Fountain of Expies. A cast made up of Captain Ersatzes counts for Cast of Expies."

And I'm not really sure what to make of this.

Also, bump

Captain Ersatz seems to be related to copyright issues, but I don't know if that's distinct enough. Maybe as Trivia but not as a trope. Unless we wanna call out outright copying.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 24th 2022 at 10:59:08 AM

Apparently Captain Ersatz was originally defined as how we use Expy now, a character that is a copy of another character. Expy was supposed to be for when a writer copies one their own characters. The Expy got hit by trope decay and now the two tropes are identical.

If we do decide that parody characters shouldn't count as Expies, maybe we could repurpose Captain Ersatz for parody characters?

I don't see why characters made to parody other characters wouldn't count.

To be honest, I'd like if Expy subtropes required a detailed explanation of how the character is an expy, beyond just superficial similarities.

This is a huge problem with every one of the Fountain of Expies subtropes, the idea of Expy itself is sound and has a lot of great examples, the Fountain tropes though, they tend to be... really messy.

I know Shana Clone was the one that got attention first, but even the older and heavily wicked ones like Char Clone have a lot of issues with themselves.

While I'd like to make my longterm plan a cleanup of level tropes (which I'm hoping I can kick off after The Lost Woods eventually reaches the TRS), the Expy tropes may also be in need of a big check, after all, Cleopatra Nose's TRS trip was what kickstarted the mass cleanup of appearance tropes in general.

Edited by Tonwen on Mar 24th 2022 at 11:34:12 AM

I think it's better when, a list of traits, we can boil it down to one concise image. That would better discourage "it has this trait and this trait so it counts!"

At the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn, it's why I really like the pic that was just put up for Tuxedo and Martini (spies that take after Bond). It has other elements of the character instead of a bunch of dudes that look/are dressed the same.

I feel like a pic of that sort nails what an Expy is intended to be a lot better than something like Char Clone's current page pic, for example. An expy has a lot more to it than just physical appearance, mannerisms and such matter just as much.

Some characters are so influential their stories get copied over and over again to the point of Trope Codifier for specific subgenres. Other characters are just popular and authors try to pick out specific elements they find appealing without thinking what made them popular are just combinations of known cool elements.

Tuxedo and Martini works because 1. Bond is such an iconic character that it's not hard to imagine that those examples are deliberate and 2. The traits that make up the character are consistent throughout the examples. The issue with Darth Vader Clone was that there was no consistency between examples.

I'm giving this a bump because I kind of want to make the case of splitting parodies from Expy. The thing about expies are that they have to be copies. Many examples have been cut because of one big difference between the characters. Parodies don't necessarily have to be copies and can diverge wildly. I'm sure there are plenty of examples of obvious parody characters that diverge so much that they wouldn't count as expies.

Parodies are more Captain Ersatz, anyway.

Right, but at the moment Captain Ersatz is being used interchangeably with Expy. I think we should make Captain Ersatz cover obvious parodies, with Corrupted Character Copy being a subtrope of CE.

I definitely think Shana Clone is tropeworthy, however, the definition needs some adjustment (get rid of all the conditions on physical appearance apart from red hair).

Every other "magic battle" light novel series in the first half of the 2010s had a main heroine with the following traits:

• Violent tsundere
• Arrogant personality/looks down on everyone but they have the skills/power to back it up
• Red hair
• Fire magic abilities
• Main weapon is a sword

Apart from having big boobs, I don't see how you could call these characters anything other than a Shana Clone.

Examples:

• Kaze no Stigma
• Seireitsukai no Blade Dance
• Rakudai Kishi
• Asterisk War
• Dakara Boku wa H ga Dekinai

Edited by lolitorte on Apr 18th 2022 at 1:31:25 PM

Maybe rename it to be more about the characteristics than the original source character?

Would probably also increase usage if people know the archetype but don't know Shana.

The mentioned cover, in order:

• Tsundere
• Small Name, Big Ego
• Fiery Redhead
• Playing with Fire
• Heroes Prefer Swords

I'm not sure a combination of these is automatically Shana, as being associated with fire reflects on personality and mages with swords aren't that uncommon.

Edited by Amonimus on Apr 18th 2022 at 9:05:50 PM