Misused (New Crowner 15 July 2021): Cinderella Circumstances

Cinderella Circumstances is meant to be for a kid who goes from a position of relative comfort to living life at the bottom of the heap, often in some form of slavery. The Cinderella reference is pointing to the fact that the Cinderella was from the nobility before she started serving her stepfamily.

Unfortunately, the other more popular parts of the Cinderella story is sort of obscuring what this trope is actually about. In the Cinderella Circumstances Wick Check, I checked 50 wicks, and these are the results:

• Correct: 3/50 or 6%
• Forced Into Servitude in General: 14/50 or 28%
• Cinderella References: 12/50 or 24%
• Other Misuse: 9/50 or 18%
• ZCE: 12/50 or 24%

Too many examples either think this trope is about:

• Forced servitude in general, even if the kid already came from poverty
• More specifically Cinderella-based storylines, up to and including references to the fairytale or Cinderella the character
• Other aspects of Cinderella-stories, such as marrying a Prince Charming or having Abusive Parents

This leaves a total of 3 correct wicks I could find out of all of them, or 6% of all wicks. With such a low wick count of only about ~279 (not counting wicks related to the wick check itself), that only leaves us with an apparent 17 examples in existence that might actually count for the trope. That's not a good sign- even if we retitled this trope, we'd barely have any examples left over for it.

Now, I actually have a lot of thoughts about why these issues are happening and what we can do about them:

• It's become apparent to me that we're missing a trope for general Cinderella-like plots and stories. It's such a common storyline that I'm not surprised tropers are latching onto the only trope that seems like it might fit the bill. Now, do some of those Cinderella-like plots also count for this trope? Probably, but if the emphasis is placed on the Cinderella part of the title, then it stands to reason that we have a missing trope here.
• I think the current meaning of the trope is valid, but overly-restrictive. There's a wealth of examples where the kids are forced into slavery-like situations without them having been from wealthy families. The Riches to Rags aspect doesn't need to be inherent. In fact, if we expand the definition, that would allow the second folder examples to count- and we'd be up to 30% of the current wicks, or about 80 examples- much healthier.
• Where does that leave Cinderella Circumstances itself? Well, we might want to turn it into a disambig. If we do make a new trope for Cinderella References and make an expanded version of this trope under a new title, there's two tropes right there that this can be redirected to. We can also add tropes like Wicked Stepmother and Rich Sibling, Poor Sibling.

So, thoughts?

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 2nd 2021 at 4:39:02 AM

See, to me the Cinderella story has always been about the opposite, a kid from low origins becoming lucky. So I can see why it would be misleading tropers into thinking it is about bad luck—>good luck.

What also confuses others is that many adaptations of Cinderella don't mention her former life of nobility, and just start with Cinderella was a slave to her stepfamily.

Anything could be done to this trope. I would be happy, and Cindy would be too if she was granted this wish.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, I have no ideas what could be done.

Edited by callmeamuffin on Jun 2nd 2021 at 8:08:54 PM

I think we should just disambiguate Cinderella Circumstances, and split off two new tropes from it:

• A “Forced Into Servitude” trope that would cover all instances of a person being forced into slavery-like situations, regardless of whenever they went from Riches to Rags or not.

• A trope for Homages and Whole Plot References to Cinderella.

Edited by jandn2014 on Jun 2nd 2021 at 7:01:37 AM

Both the quote and the image don't help, they remind me more of the part where the Stepmother says "if you clean the house, you go to the ball", which is more along the lines of Moving the Goalposts.

I can get behind the second one. The Cinderella story is so ubiquitous that Whole-Plot Reference to Cinderella is not uncommon in fiction. Not sure how Forced Into Servitude is distinct from Made a Slave though.

Edited by Adept on Jun 2nd 2021 at 8:23:54 PM

I also like option 2. If Forced Into Servitude is not distinct enough from Made a Slave, the description for the latter should probably be tweaked.

A split has been my ideal solution from the get go

I might actually be interested in sponsoring the Cinderella-Reference draft. They've interested me since Middle School.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 2nd 2021 at 12:27:23 PM

We might also salvage ReferencedBy.Cinderella, for these examples.

Edited by callmeamuffin on Jun 3rd 2021 at 5:21:15 AM

Maybe. My draft idea would be more for Whole-Plot Reference examples anyway, not just throwaway references. The "Cinderella Story" has become a stock plot at this point.

But we'll see.

I did find some examples of a Whole-Plot Reference on the page, like Muppet Babies (1984) Pigerella.

I might go through the page, and search for the mice for the trope.

Edited by callmeamuffin on Jun 3rd 2021 at 5:33:27 AM

There's also works that either feature "Cinderella story" episode plots (often as a Fairytale Episode storyline) or are just literally Cinderella adaptations, such as Rags, Ella Enchanted, or, well... A Cinderella Story. It's such a common concept that, like I said, I think it's in Stock Plot territory at this point, moreso than any other princess fairytale, likely because the general concept can be done with or without the fantasy elements, making it easy to adapt in a modern setting.

There's actually several blatant Cinderella-based works I didn't use for the Wick Check because I already knew they'd just be Cinderella plots. I felt like it'd be skewed too much if I used wicks I already knew the result of, especially since they'd all go in the Cinderella Reference folder. The fact that even without those works I collected multiple examples means that this plot is missing a proper trope to go to.

As for the lesser references, like characters merely being referred to as Cinderella, those might go on the Referenced by... page, assuming that one is for all Cinderella stories and not just the Disney film.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 2nd 2021 at 9:46:02 AM

I agree with the idea of Cinderella Stock Plot trope.

Agreed with a Cinderella Plot trope. Maybe the Forced Into Servitude one as well, but we'll see.

Any more opinions? Should I just go ahead and make a crowner? Nobody seems to have any other ideas, and neither trope ideas (Forced Into Servitude and Cinderella Plot) are mutually exclusive. The options can be something like:

• A: Create a Cinderella Plot trope
• B: Create a more general Forced Into Servitude trope, maybe as a missing supertrope
• C: Cut Cinderella Circumstances
• D: Rename Cinderella Circumstances but keep the current definition (Mutually exclusive with C and E)
• E: Broaden Cinderella Circumstances, renaming if necessary (Mutually exclusive with D, C and B)

There's also always the option to disambig it, but we can always have a new crowner for that if we do decide to cut Cinderella Circumstances.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 4th 2021 at 9:36:48 AM

Re E: Broaden to what, exactly? Since this seems to be a specific subtrope to Riches to Rags, wouldn't that option make it essentially a duplicate to the latter? The other options are fine, though.

Edited by Adept on Jun 4th 2021 at 9:32:17 PM

Broaden it to allow for characters who weren't originally rich. Basically, taking the idea of Forced Into Servitude and turning Cinderella Circumstances into that broader concept. If anything, that makes it less similar to Riches to Rags, since that'd no longer be required.

Thanks for asking though; if I make the crowner, I gotta make sure I'm specific.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 4th 2021 at 10:34:19 AM

Love that idea. It also helps that some adaptations of Cinderella don't have the girl start off as rich, but rather middle class, like the 1979 Soviet adaptation.

Two Soviet Adaptations. I'm at least referring to the 1979 animated one by Soyuzmultfilm.

Edited by callmeamuffin on Jun 6th 2021 at 5:29:43 AM

There was a Soviet Adaptation? Interesting.

But yeah, that's something almost every adaptation neglects, especially modern day ones (as in, ones that take place in the modern day). Modern ones rarely have the Cinderella be wealthy, just a normal person with a happy life until the stepfamily got involved. You can still find some adaptations where that happens, but it's rare.

Even then, I'd want to change the title because there's more that people think about when they think "Cinderella" beyond just "forced to work". The entire family dynamic, the ball, the prince, the slipper...all of that stuff is so famous that if you think of Cinderella, you'll likely think of one of those things more than the general idea of "forced servitude".

So regardless, I think Cinderella Circumstances would be best cut or disambiged and the other tropes split. But that's up to the crowner to decide...when we make it. Which I'll do tomorrow after work if there's no last-minute protests or alternate ideas.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 5th 2021 at 3:25:33 PM

I agree that all of the change options to this trope are good, and so I might just upvote all the options in the crowner.

Edited by callmeamuffin on Jun 6th 2021 at 5:32:45 AM

Here's the crowner, then.

Hollering to hook.

Edit: Oh, I see Imperial added the Disambig option. That's cool with me. I left it off mostly because I consider a disambig a form of cutting and assumed we could just crowner it later if we agreed to cut, but this way works too.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 5th 2021 at 9:01:07 AM

Attached it but I hope people won't get confused by the partly exclusive, partly-not options.

What if we made the definition change War Jay is suggesting, but kept that concept at Cinderella Circumstances rather than changing the name? That's what I'd do, but I don't know how to vote on the crowner.

Then you'd vote for "Redefine and rename if necessary." The "Expand Cinderella Circumstances" option exists regardless of whether or not we rename the trope. Assuming it gets upvoted, we'd probably do a single-prop rename crowner.

Am I missing something? I don't see that on the crowner.