To-do list:
- Merge Mary Suetopia's contents into Utopia and move the wicks and on-page examples to Utopia when applicable.
- After the merge is done and the wicks have been cleaned, cut Mary Suetopia and Suetopia.
First off, big credit to War Jay 77 for the wick check. They said that I or someone else could make this thread if they came up with a solution, so, with permission, I made this.
The problem: Mary Suetopia is defined as, effectively, a Straw Utopia (the name of one of its redirects, actually) that is done poorly. Basically, a Utopia that is poorly-written in a specific way to push the authors beliefs on the audience. There are several problems with this—"trope but done poorly" isn't a legitimate distinction per The Same, but More, the name uses the Flame Bait item Mary Sue, Straw Dystopia examples are bizarrely soft-split on the page, and the examples are a bit all over the place anyway. As mentioned in the beginning, War Jay 77 did a wick check for the trope, which I was granted permission to use in this OP.
The wick check: Link here, but here's the quick results:
- 14/50 examples, or 28%, describe a Straw Utopia,
- 2/50 examples, or 4%, describe a Straw Dystopia,
- 3/50 examples, or 6%, are of a world of Mary Sue characters,
- 7/50 examples, or 14%, are unclear,
- 23/50 examples, or 46%, are ZCEs, potholes, or stray references, and
- 1/50 examples, or 2%, are of other usage.
The wick analysis: Lots of complaining in the usage from what I can see. Also non-complaining Straw Utopias, enough that that could be its own trope. A ton of potholes and ZCEs seem to be present as well. Overall, usage seems to be mostly centered around these three categories.
Solutions? Alright, here's what I came up with:
- Should the concept of a Straw Utopia, basically a utopia written and used as an Author Tract for the author's views, be deemed tropeworthy, we could just rename Mary Suetopia to Straw Utopia and take the "done poorly" angle out of the trope altogether. This may help a little with the complaining, along with more clearly defining the trope. Straw Dystopia examples could either become their own trope or just be removed altogether.
- Should the concept of a Straw Utopia or Dystopia be deemed non-tropeworthy, we could just merge with Utopia (or Dystopia for the latter), for similar reasons that caused Polygon Ceiling to be deemed redundant with Video Game 3D Leap (those being that complaining/done poorly versions of tropes aren't really welcome on TV Tropes.)
What does everyone else think? Any other ideas or suggestions?
Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 19th 2022 at 10:24:57 AM
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Paging ~The Mayor Of Simpleton as requested.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 12th 2022 at 1:12:22 PM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
Thanks for launching this Gaston!
Paging ~War Jay 77 who made the wick check to see if they have anything to add.
TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Forgot the @ sign... gah. ~The Mayor Of Simpleton
Edit: Turns out the ping wasn't necessary because I got ninja'd.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 12th 2022 at 1:13:08 PM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
Hehe, Gaston using an OP made by Mayor who was using a wick check made by me. So many layers. 
Uh, yeah, I think the suggested solutions could work though I'm not sure if I favor any in particular. The reason I let you take the OP in the first place was because I was stumped after doing the check.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Personally, I think we can rename this to Straw Utopia, but I think we should cut the Mary Suetopia name after doing so instead of leaving it as a redirect, due to the wick check picking up Mary Sue-related examples and Mary Sue being Flame Bait.
Edit: Though I'd be fine with merging this with Utopia and cutting it due to the "done badly" aspect, similarly to Polygon Ceiling (as mentioned in the opening post).
Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 12th 2022 at 1:16:16 PM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
I support the first option.
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That sounds like a good solution so far.
Thanks for letting me make this Jay. I mainly pinged you to see if you had any extra thoughts to add.
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Sep 12th 2022 at 2:17:31 PM
TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
So, I have work I should be doing so I can't lurk on the forums all day. I'll throw my hat in the ring right now for just merging with Utopia (because thinking a little more deeply I think it'd avoid most of the complaining and shoehorning concerns), and check in later.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
The Unknown
Can we get clarification on how many examples had complaining? The wick check breakdown didn't specify that part.
The check shows more ZCE problems than anything.
Edited by Karxrida on Sep 12th 2022 at 11:21:12 AM
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
The sandbox is here if you want to check the actual examples I pulled. I remember a lot of them being complainy but it's been ages.
And with that now time to actually poof like I said I would ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 12th 2022 at 2:19:56 PM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
The mention of complaining came from my looking over the examples and noticing a lot of it. I can give an exact count later—I'm going to be a little busy later today so I can't do it yet.
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Sep 12th 2022 at 2:19:40 PM
TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
the Retromancer
Rename to Straw Utopia and cut Mary Suetopia to avoid association with Mary Sue, removing corresponding indexes and the Trope Namer paragraph in the description.
I question the trope scope, is it "Utopia too good to be possible (isn't that what Utopia is anyway?)" or "Utopia made to demonstrate political belief in concept". If the latter, the related tropes paragraph and trope's placement in YMMV may need an update as well.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
I don't see a sufficient distinction between that and just a regular Utopia. I think that the page came be merged into Utopia and we can just cut the Mary Suetopia wick.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to cutting Mary Suetopia.
I'm not sure about Straw Utopia, though. Isn't the "straw X" expression used when X is something the author wants to show as bad, stupid and/or ineffective and simplifies it for that purpose? If they want to show something as perfect but end up making it too simplistic, wouldn't it be the opposite of that?
I agree. If we have both Utopia and Straw Utopia, the latter by definition would be a complain magnet, since all non-complainy examples would go to Utopia.
Edited by kundoo on Sep 12th 2022 at 11:43:15 AM
You didn't see anything.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
With that specific part in mind, I'm more convinced that this is The Same, but More to Utopia (of the "done badly" type), so I'm now fully in favor of merging with Utopia and cutting Mary Suetopia.
Since Mary Suetopia seems to just be "Utopia done as an Author Tract, badly", my vote is for cutting/disambiging Mary Suetopia, moving examples to Utopia, Dystopia, and/or Author Tract.
the Retromancer
The longer I think of it, the less it appears for my idea to work out, so it can be cut and examples moved.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Filthy casual
Merge and cut sounds good.
(Annoyed grunt)
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
Merge and cut then
Goku Black
Merge and cut.
Hi
I'm good with merge + cut
Bonnie's Artistic Cousin
I already voted for the merge + cut but I'm posting again just to make my stance more clear.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
CelestaPlebs
Merge and cut. I archived the page.
Crown Description:
Mary Suetopia is misused and, since it contains Mary Sue in the name, it sometimes attracts complaining due to Mary Sue and its subtropes being Flame Bait. What should be done with Mary Suetopia?
To-do list:
First off, big credit to War Jay 77 for the wick check. They said that I or someone else could make this thread if they came up with a solution, so, with permission, I made this.
The problem: Mary Suetopia is defined as, effectively, a Straw Utopia (the name of one of its redirects, actually) that is done poorly. Basically, a Utopia that is poorly-written in a specific way to push the authors beliefs on the audience. There are several problems with this—"trope but done poorly" isn't a legitimate distinction per The Same, but More, the name uses the Flame Bait item Mary Sue, Straw Dystopia examples are bizarrely soft-split on the page, and the examples are a bit all over the place anyway. As mentioned in the beginning, War Jay 77 did a wick check for the trope, which I was granted permission to use in this OP.
The wick check: Link here, but here's the quick results:
The wick analysis: Lots of complaining in the usage from what I can see. Also non-complaining Straw Utopias, enough that that could be its own trope. A ton of potholes and ZCEs seem to be present as well. Overall, usage seems to be mostly centered around these three categories.
Solutions? Alright, here's what I came up with:
What does everyone else think? Any other ideas or suggestions?
Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 19th 2022 at 10:24:57 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.