"Badge of Honor" tropes

This a term that's been getting thrown around a lot lately, and I feel like it'd be interesting to actually break down why certain tropes are considered "cool" to attach to works, often at the cost of just shoehorning the items into existence and ignoring definition and context.

So far, tropes and concepts identified as being a "Badge of Honor" include Nightmare Fuel, Five-Man Band, Adult Fear, Getting Crap Past the Radar, and Surprisingly Realistic Outcome. All of these concepts see usage everywhere and anywhere, regardless of context, often just to make the work seem edgier and cooler. (FMB is the outlier here, since I don't see how having a specific team trope is "cool", but nobody can argue that people don't like to squeeze every work into existence into that trope, so...)

It'd be useful to identify other "Badges of Honor", so that way it'll be easier to tackle future cleanup / TRS efforts, as well as to discuss ways of discouraging this mindset (since just reminding people that Tropes Are Not Good isn't working).

I think that Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard are also seen as badges of honor, but the strict approval process for examples thankfully means that the impact of this is mostly limited to the cleanup threads.

Tear Jerker is similar to Nightmare Fuel, people think that having a long Tear Jerker page makes their work "deep" and "emotional", so they list every single instance of a character feeling any kind of negative emotion (and sometimes positive emotions too).

Ah, yeah. It's weird how people always conflate "cool" and "deep" with works being horrifying or tragic or super edgy and "realistic". I think the only reason Shocking Moments doesn't share the same issue is since it's new and underutilized.

As you just said, it's not actually that interesting, because it's both obvious and sad: tropers think that works being "mature" or "dark" makes them inherently better. It's why we see way more of this sort of "badge of honor" shoehorning for kids' works, and possibly for comedies, then we do for works whose fans don't feel that same need to justify liking them.

Right, there's a tendency on this site to try to make works aimed at kids seem mature and dark. The worst Nightmare Fuel pages in terms of shoehorning are one for kids' shows. Getting Crap Past the Radar is another example of trope that people use to make it seem like their favorite show is mature or edgy.

Deconstruction is another Badge of Honor trope - again from people trying to make the work seem more "Adult" or "Serious".

Maybe Shown Their Work as well, to prove that the work "put in research" or "is accurate".

Surprisingly Realistic Outcome too.

I think tropes like Deconstruction, Subversion, and Aversion have a badge of honor reputation because

1. They're seen as avoiding cliches.

2. Given that this site is about discussing pop culture, I think tropers tend to love of works that are self-aware or meta.

I completely agree with the Subversion, which is not just a "badge of honor" used by tropers to gush about their favourite tropes, but also in media in general. I recall plenty of movies that are widely praised for "subverting expectations" as if that inself is a good thing, when the "cliche" they subvert it with kind of makes no sense or just falls flat.

The Last Jedi, I'm guessing? Cause I agree, and that film in particular made the phrase "subverting expectations" a meme for how overused and shoehorned it is.

Then there are tropes that are less of a badge of honor for the work, and seem to be more about the troper showing off their encyclopedic knowledge of media. I'm thinking of stuff like Mythology Gag or Shout-Out, where the most tenuous connections between works will be shoehorned so that the troper can show off that they know exactly what minor plot point or stylistic flourish happened in some obscure comic book in the 60s or whatever.

Expy is a perfect example of that. I get the impression much of the misuse of that trope is from people trying to make it seem like their favorite work is influential.

"Badge of Honor" may be part of it, but it's also that those tropes are so broadly defined/interpreted that it doesn't take much to interpret almost anything as applying. Expy was originally meant to be about a specific character archetype that appeared in a set of specific works or done by a particular creator, but became a String Theory drawing connections between works that otherwise have zero similarity.

Conversely, there are "Badge of Dishonor" tropes that are included as stealth criticism. Many have been relegated to YMMV despite the fact they should be objective tropes.

Yeah, I don't think Expy is a badge of honor so much as it's more akin to the hindsight tropes, where any loose comparison ever will get turned into an example.

I'm not sure which tropes you're referring to as a "badge of dishonor", and especially not sure which ones you think shouldn't be YMMV. Mind clarifying?

Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 9th 2021 at 1:41:14 PM

As for YMMV tropes, Big-Lipped Alligator Moment and Ass Pull in reality should be main tropes due to the criteria presented but are just too easy to apply to anything to really work as main tropes (Ass Pull would need a rename). As for main tropes, Flanderization, Hypocrite and Series Continuity Error are complaining magnets.

@ MasterN: TLJ is where that trend starts being widely mocked in review circles, although personally I've detested that since Disney started the Hidden Villain formula in Frozen (2013).

Another trope that could be used as "badge of honour" Genre-Busting. If the work doesn't neatly fit into defined genre categories, then it must be unique and original. Same goes for Multiple Demographic Appeal.

Tropes have actually been cut due to becoming badges of honour. It's why I Am Not Making This Up was replaced with "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer, because on the original trope, people were intentionally describing their favourite shows in deliberately outlandish ways in order to put them on the trope, because it made them seem cooler.

The same happened with Rape The Dog. People would describe every slightly cruel or selfish thing a villain or anti-hero did in the most sickening way they could think of because Rape The Dog was bigger than Kick the Dog, and people wanted their favourite show to be part of the upper echelons of entertainment that reach such heights of tropiness. And it makes them seem edgier. That trope got split into Moral Event Horizon and Complete Monster, both of which themselves seem to suffer from Badge Of Honour syndrome.

Edited by VampireBuddha on Nov 11th 2021 at 12:51:20 PM

Genre Deconstruction is used a lot to just say "this work is better/darker/smarter than others in its genre". Deconstruction is a fancy academic term, so using automatically makes the work more artistically/intellectually legitimate. Reconstruction can also be used as "this is a straightforward example of the genre but just vaguely 'better' somehow".

American Kirby Is Hardcore, What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?, and What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids? are also used as badges of honour.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Nov 11th 2021 at 11:36:13 AM

Really? I've never seen American Kirby Is Hardcore used as anything but complaining.

I would say things like American Kirby Is Hardcore is less a Badge of Honor type of trope and more an opportunity to describe minute differences between marketing/adaptations/localizations. Same with Dies Differently in Adaptation.

I am pretty certain the "badge of honour" concept was coined in the context of Complete Monster back when that trope was swamped with misuse.

It's less an issue now with the cleanup, but people who post on those threads still occasionally seem to think it's an honor, since they'll get sad about downvotes or cuts. Not everyone there, of course- but some.

The mentality of certain tropes being badges of honor (or certain other tropes being demerits of shame) is unavoidable. Look at Complete Monster its still a badge of honor but now it is properly gate-keeped. I think we should just roll with these attitudes by acknowledging that, broadly seaking, some tropes are more or less desirable than others but they must have been earned for your favorite franchise to be declared having utilized it.