Misused: Adult Fear

To-do list:

• Move examples that fit at least one of the tropes on the Adult Fear disambiguation page, and remove ones that don't.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 16th 2022 at 6:46:47 AM

Huh, it appears this was stealth'd. Alright.

Allow me to break down some of the other patterns in the wick check:

• As mentioned, child-danger examples were overwhelmingly more common than other examples.
• Several examples were more about the characters experiencing fear in-universe.
• Some examples were written in such a way that I couldn't tell if they were about the audience perspective or the character perspective. Other wicks had multiple perspectives accounted for. This is the only reason the "mixed" folder had more wicks than the "subjective" one, but the 25% subjective usage is nothing to sneeze at.

I am honestly lost on what exactly to do with the trope.

I think removing all of the generalized "Child gets x-ed" examples from the trope description would be a good start.

I think we should refine the trope to be about children be in danger. "Anything in a work that could scare level-headed adults and happen in real life" is too broad and subjective. On top of that, Nightmare Fuel has a real problem with people treating it as a badge of honor. I have no doubt people treat Adult Fear the same way, with people shoehorning examples to make their favorite works seem more adult.

But how is “child in danger” a trope?

huh this... is not at all what i thought it was. I admit I guess I just never actualy read the page itself, because my osmosis understanding was that it was something like "things which are scary to specifically to adults, but less so to children", for example children being told to keep a secret from their parents by their cool new adult friend- kids see the "keeping magic a secret" thing but miss what the parents are afraid of

however, that is not really what the definition says

I believe that the trope was written as one of those "Most stories have X, but this one has Y, a noteworthy departure" tropes. Here, X is "things children find scary" and Y is "things adults find scary".

And from my experience browsing work pages, Adult Fear does seem to be a badge-of-honor trope, much like Shown Their Work, Reality Ensues, and (shudder) Dangerously Genre-Savvy.

I'd say in general there's a taboo against harm to children. That's why Death of a Child is tropeworthy. It's rare that a work will kill off a child, so when it happens it's noteworthy.

That's pretty much what I thought the trope was. That could be a potential redefinition.

Just throwing out ideas:

• Make Adult Fear In-Universe only.
• Make it clear that this is about general, realistic fears and concerns adults have in fiction. Not all adults are parents whose biggest fear is children in endangerment.
• Move objective examples to Realism-Induced Horror.

You mean like Parental Bonus played for horror?

The wick check is not very user-friendly on the objective/subjective split. I clicked on a few pages to get a picture of it, but figured I may as well ask: what is the difference between the in-universe and audience reaction examples? Is the in-universe examples problems that the characters themselves face, while the subjective ones what audiences think they're feeling?

Like:

• In-universe: Alice worries about facing crippling debt and her mother is dying of a rare disease.
• Subjective: Alice doesn't mention it but she is actually facing crippling debt while her mother is dying of a rare disease.

Edited by Synchronicity on Oct 29th 2021 at 11:53:31 AM

The "in universe" examples always took the time to mention it was how the characters felt, and the subjective ones were written like bog-standard Nightmare Fuel or Fridge Horror examples, where it's the audience being scared by it.

So more like:

• Objective: Alice has a long talk with Bob, wherein she mentions that she's scared she and her mom might lose their house.
• Subjective: Alice and her mother losing her house is something that scares a lot of lower and middle class people these days.
• Unknown: Alice and her mother lose their house.

The reason I didn't add the text over both times is A), to try and make everything less obnoxious to read, and B), to try and not make the page that huge.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 29th 2021 at 1:18:41 PM

So how do you put the “This trope is being discussed in the Trope Repair Shop” thing on the Adult Fear page?

I usually just copy and paste it from other tagged pages and swap the link out.

Sooo, expand to fit other stressful situations + add the criterion that adult characters need to express these fears in the story, no meta examples?

I can get behind that.

I approve

Sure!

That would cut down on the Shoehorns/Badge of honor examples.

I'm fine with making this In-Universe Examples Only (since the wick check turned up a decent amount of in-universe examples) and rewriting the description to decrease the focus on endangered children. If the in-universe examples are taking their time to mention that they're in-universe, we can always trim them.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Nov 1st 2021 at 5:07:50 AM

I believe we should start by removing the image on the main page.

I still think there's going a lot of misuse, even if the trope de-emphasises children, and becomes IUEO. Any time an adult in the work is shown to be afraid, there's a danger of it being listed. So, it may need some boundaries added.

That said, one way of de-emphasising children would be defining what counts as a 'child' for the purpose of the trope. For instance, Child Prodigy excludes teenagers; Would Hurt a Child also excludes teenagers because it attaches a 'completely defenceless' clause to what children count for the trope to be in effect.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Nov 1st 2021 at 11:26:03 AM

Hmm... What about limiting this to works aimed at children? Adult Fear doesn't really stand out in a work aimed at adults, because it's expected for them to deal with adult issues. But when a work for children also shows adult characters dealing with issues like finances or children in danger, it's sort of a fear-based Parental Bonus.

I do think "child in realistic danger to elicit Primal Fear" is tropeworthy in some way, though. Maybe if it's the guardian specifically showing fear?