Unclear Description: The Man

Like how Incredibly Lame Pun is inserted in trope descriptions?

Exactly so. One of the examples in “other” is actually a Meaningless Wiki Word but with a completely different meaning so I just stuck to there.

Also even if we can keep the current description, the current page isn't good. The description is vague and ramble-y, and the quote and image are misleading.

Yeah, if we give it a name change and a redefinition, that's basically just going to TLP with an unrelated trope and doesn't fix the current page at all. It's "Yarding any tropeable concepts" which..no one was disagreeing with in the first place, so we're back to where we started, I think.

Edited by Eiryu on Mar 22nd 2022 at 1:59:48 PM

You know, between the fact that nobody can figure out what this is supposed to be and the fact that a buttload of wicks are just wicks for the sake of wicks (as I previously said, in the vein of So Yeah and I Am Not Making This Up) instead of actual examples, I'm even more in favor of disambiguating.

As for wicks that are about works using the phrase "the man", Stock Phrases Are Not Tropes.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 22nd 2022 at 4:15:14 AM

I agree with . There hasn't really been a clear, detailed description of exactly what kind of trope this could be.

i mean, I feel like both septimus and I have narrowed the definition down a bit. My suggestion would be to write it as a concept or rhetorical tactic trope that characters invoke in lieu of a more defined, singular blameable target. "It can be racism, authoritarianism, feminism, the government, the police, or what have you; the most important and defining quality of The Man is that it's whatever you believe is currently oppressing you at the moment." Something like that.

I don't mind the disambig option since as Eiryu said, the idea above would probs need more work so better to yard it for now, but 1) for someone to yard there needs to be something semi-defined to yard and 2) I think there's some truth to the idea brought up earlier how the lack of a really good disambig option for what the trope should actually be vs how others are using it is an indicator that it's covering something distinct enough to exist on its own.

Edited by amathieu13 on Mar 22nd 2022 at 7:37:45 AM

I'm hesitant to change my vote unless I see a sandbox with a proposed clarified rewrite, since this thread was brought to TRS because of its description and the wick check discovered that the examples are all over the place.

Possibly tropable, but I've got a few questions about that hypothetical trope.

So this new trope would be about characters invoking a "man" of some sort to rebel against? Or would it be about the "man" concept itself? Can the "man" the characters are fighting be an actual threat or corrupting influence on society? Or does it have to be not a real threat/imaginary/too vague/etc.?

Sorry if I seem confused, I'm just trying to figure out the specifics of such a trope.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Mar 22nd 2022 at 7:57:45 AM

I agree. I have seen a few ideas of "This is what The Man is as a concept" which is great and all, but I already knew what that was. What does this look like in fiction? What does its presence look like? How do we define and decide if it's there or not? We need the actual mechanics of it to make it a trope, not just "vague term with vague meaning."

And, yes, what the trope "should be" based on the pre-existing term's definition and use does not, currently, exist as a trope page, but that's...Yardable. I feel like trying to hammer that out is going to take forever and it's going to get beaten with sticks in TLP, too, trying to clarify anything out of it.

And none of that would stop the Wiki Word magnet-ing, which is, currently, the most common use of the page name.

Edited by Eiryu on Mar 22nd 2022 at 7:12:29 AM

On the subject of preexisting terms, we've dealt with tropes that misused them. The since-cut Zero Sum Game, Road Show, and Armchair Psychology had nothing to do with the phrases that provided their trope names. Weapon Of Choice appears to be another one in that vein, since it's defined as "a character's weapon indicates their personality" while most examples are "character's preferred weapon", and since the latter is what the term usually means outside TV Tropes, most tropers use it that way.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 22nd 2022 at 7:32:32 AM

I'm drafting something up, more as an exercise than anything else to see if an agreeable definition is possible.

like I said, I'm not opposed to disambig-ing and yarding it, but I would like a bit more time to hammer something out since the idea I'm drafting does kind of show up in the wick check, just not as any one of the categories outlined. Hard to say what it might fully encompass until a more solid definition is figured out.

Perfectly happy to give time (we got a couple days before we can even crowner anyway), but I still think it might be best to Yard it no matter what you come up with.

We can wait longer than three days to have a crowner if more time is necessary to hash out the definition.

Still drafting, but I came across Windmill Political and what I'm writing is basically a subtrope or Sister Trope of that, which I'd describe as an argument trope.

ETA: I think I'm at a point where I'm just spinning my wheels, so feedback and thoughts about what I've already written would be great. ^note I'm on JST so I may not be able to respond immediately to any direct comments depending on the time.

Edited by amathieu13 on Mar 22nd 2022 at 11:23:38 AM

I don't think The Man has to be real and I suspect it won't be most of the time. But character(s) need to believe in it in some fashion.

So this new trope would be about characters invoking a "man" of some sort to rebel against? Or would it be about the "man" concept itself? I think both could count but a bit more of the latter.

Yes, I think Windmill Political would be closely related. I think the difference would be that a Windmill does emphasize that it doesn't exist and people fighting against it are cray-cray, whereas Man emphasizes more the feeling that it is there.

So... where do we go from here? The reason I didn't make a crowner despite it being past the three-day mark is because I'm not exactly sure what to put on one.

The possible crowner options seem to be:

• disambig
• keep as a trope but refine the definition in this thread (which could eventually involve a re-name)

I was under the impression we were waiting to see a finished draft.

Yeah, I'm not going to hold a vote regarding the definition unless we have some definition(s) to work with. Any crowner option that says "redefine the trope/set standards/etc.; definition/standards/etc. will be decided later" is doomed to fail because voters won't know what they're voting for if they upvote it.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 27th 2022 at 12:58:34 PM

i added an edit to my last post that the draft was at a point where thoughts/feedback would be great.

I don't see anything wrong with the draft — it's better and more thorough than what we have now. I'm going to wait for more feedback (maybe I can wait until Tuesday depending on how many people chime in) on the rewrite before hooking a crowner for whether to replace the current description with what you wrote.

Since that draft as "alternate titles" listed, which I think are better suited the concept outlined in it, even if that launches in TLP, we're left with the question of "What to do with The Man page?" though.

We don't have to rename, but I did notice that this trope's inbound count isn't as high as I expected from such a simple name, especially one we didn't come up with ourselves; The Man Is Sticking It to the Man has several times more inbounds despite not having as many wicks, despite being a name we came up with based on combining the phrases "the man" and "sticking it to the man".

Even Ambiguity Index has more inbounds than The Man despite the latter being older, even if its inbound count is just barely higher, and it's more of a maintenance-oriented index than something non-editors would be interested in.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 28th 2022 at 2:55:24 PM