Misused: Knight Of Cerebus

It does seem odd that every time a cleanup thread is proposed as a potential solution to any TRS issue, people automatically think of the CM and MB effortpost-type threads, even though those are the only two threads that do this and every other cleanup thread just finds and discusses entries. Those two threads are the biggest and most popular, granted.

Edited by MasterN on Dec 30th 2021 at 5:01:06 AM

But this time was proposed a "watch", not a cleanup, and I can't imagine it being physically possible to do.

I only bring them up because those threads are so popular and other people suggest them as solutions even when they don't fit, and in this instance a "watch" system implies some sort of curation and restriction. It's not all that possible to "watch" a trope unless one person wants to follow it and keep an eye on the Related page, or unless we do have a thread specifically made for that purpose, which will likely start enforcing things like Effort Posts in an effort to make things fit. It's not such a random leap to make this time around, especially when the suggester frequents CM almost exclusively.

Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 30th 2021 at 8:07:35 AM

Well not just that ACW is the main guy who handles the CM related stuff (no offense but it is true).

True, but to be fair I also frequent it a lot. And there was already a big debate in the Hate Sink cleanup thread about effort-posts that ultimately ended with the decision that they were not needed and strong suggestions to stop using them altogether, so I do not think we’ll ever end up using such a format for any other trope.

Getting back on topic, should we keep the current definition (villain who causes permanent tone shift in lighthearted series to dark and dramatic) and cut all examples that don’t fit, or change the definition to something else?

The "should we" questions are what the crowner is for. Which is already made, just the "change to something else" part needs to be elaborated.

TBF, that thread only had that debate at all because the people who made it wanted to copy the CM thread's style. It keeps coming up because some people do seem to think it's the only way to do a cleanup thread.

We need a crowner, we just haven't fully decided on what our options are.

It's kind of annoying, because the definition isn't that complex; it's just people don't seem to use it correctly (similar to General Ripper, which I may make a misused thread for myself).

The first two options listed in this post are solid, with the exception that we wouldn't be touching the names of the other Cerebus tropes unless they got wick checks of their own. My objection is that the option for redefining doesn't say what the new definition would be, and proposals for changing the definition may involve more than one mutually exclusive crowner option.

The Getting Crap Past the Radar thread had a crowner option that said new standards would be set, but that said standards would be decided later, and it was heavily downvoted because nobody knew what they'd be voting for if they voted for it.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 31st 2021 at 7:03:26 AM

I will admit I am guilty of using General Ripper for just "evil general" so could be a good one to do.

Si si we have enough options for a crowner?

As I've said multiple times, if anyone wants to redefine this, we need some definitions to vote on before voting to redefine. The alternative is that I hook the crowner I linked to in my previous post without the redefinition option.

Double posting because I found some definition suggestions in a post Synchronicity made earlier in the thread:

• Expand to any character who causes a Tone Shift
• Expand to allow non-villain characters who make the story Darker and Edgier
• Allow temporary Tone Shifts
• Allow non-serial works like movies
• Define as a villain who deconstructs the setting

We could also have these two:

• Disambiguate Knight of Cerebus, merge the concept of "a villain who causes the story to turn dark" into Cerebus Syndrome, and move examples to Cerebus Syndrome, Vile Villain, Saccharine Show, Mood Whiplash, and others. (mutually exclusive with all keep options)
• Rename

I changed cutting to disambiguating because there are too many inbounds for a complete cut, and I left out the other Cerebus tropes because they didn't get wick checks of their own (as far as I know).

Renaming would only be mutually exclusive with disambiguating, I'm pretty sure the the first, second, and last redefinition options are mutually exclusive with each other due to their varying scopes, and I'm pretty sure the last redefinition option would be mutually exclusive with the Tone Shift-related options (note that Darker and Edgier is a subtrope of Tone Shift) since it would no longer be about tone shifts.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 3rd 2022 at 4:39:35 AM

If nobody comments, a crowner with all of these sounds good enough.

I've got a quick question about the proposal to change it to a character that signifies a permanent shift to a darker tone.

At the moment, one of the clarifications that gets used is that works that were always intended to get darker as the story progresses are excluded from counting as a Cerebus work, for example, if a work introduces the setting as something light-hearted or carefree or idyllic, and then the plot kicks in with the arrival of the character that signifies the audience should be settled in now, and it's time to move on with the main plot. So, if a character arrives that kicks off the plot, they're not a Knight, they're something else because their role has nothing to do with Cerebus tropes (it's a different kind of plot driver trope).

I'm asking because I'm not quite sure what some suggested crowner options will mean for this... for example:

• Expand to any character who causes a Tone Shift
• Expand to allow non-villain characters who make the story Darker and Edgier
• Allow non-serial works like movies

These options seem to be saying that either a redefinition of Cerebus Syndrome is required, or Cerebus Syndrome is irrelevant to what these options will be doing, to allow the tone shift character to herald the change in mood regardless of whether the work was originally intended to change tone or the creators decide to change the tone of an existing work. This is especially relevant to the third option, which will obviously have been planned from the outset to get darker for the film to have been made at all, so the "tone shift" will have been baked in from the beginning.

Basically, what I'm asking is... if we vote for these options, are we voting for the trope to become independent of Cerebus Syndrome, or are we voting for Cerebus Syndrome to drop the "if it was planned from the outset, it doesn't count as Cerebus" exclusion? This does seem to be the unspoken consequence of these three options, but it's not clearly stated — if people are hazy that Cerebus tropes have this aspect to them (and that seems to be the source of at least some Cerebus misuse), then what the options mean and what voters think they mean may not be the same thing.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jan 3rd 2022 at 11:05:35 AM

We wouldn't be touching Cerebus Syndrome's definition, so if those options would make this independent of Cerebus Syndrome, we'd probably just remove any text saying Knight of Cerebus is a subtrope of it.

Also, renaming wouldn't be out of the question.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 3rd 2022 at 5:20:13 AM

Cool, okay. Thanks for the clarification.

Could we yard the idea of a "Tone Shift Character" trope if the option to redefine Knight of Cerebus to mean that doesn't get consensus?

Sure? You can add whatever you want to the yard, TRS vote or not.

Temporary tone shifts and non-serial works are on top, so I ask again- how is that not just gonna lead to almost every villain ever being listed, because villains generally always darken the tone of whatever scene they’re in?

Drastic tone shift? There's a difference between a comedic villain and a serious one, as well as a villain taken seriously by the narrative or the characters.

Not yet. All I figure is that the name has to say three things:

• The character is a villain.
• The villain causes the work to shift to a substantially darker tone.
• The shift must be permanent.

All I can think of right now is Permanent Tone-Darkening Villain, but that’s a little too unwieldy for me. Anyone have anything better?

I don't have a problem with the name you came up with since it's descriptive enough, but maybe someone will come up with something shorter.