GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#1: Nov 1st 2022 at 2:14:40 AM

Note: This thread was proposed by kundoo.

The problem: It's People Sit on Chairs in its finest. "Shopkeeper" is an occupation, not a trope. The description tries to give us some sort of an archetype, but Wick Check shows that it's largely ignored. I divided the wicks into categories trying to find something of substance here, but essentially all examples boil down to "this character is a shopkeeper".

The majority of examples (60%) are from Video Games, where a shop keeper is a part of the Game Mechanics. Most games have some sort of a store, so this trope is ubiquitous. Just to be thorough, I divided them into complete ZCEs (5%) and examples that have some sort of context (25%), but even the latter are little more than: "This is a shopkeeper. They are needed to buy stuff from".
Non video game examples include: "a character who is described to open or own a shop" (12%), "a character who runs a store (it's unclear if they own it)" (8%), "a meek shopkeeper who is easily bullied into submission" (2%) ^note, "a mere shopkeeper is not expected to be heroic, but is" (4%), "a shopkeeper has a MacGuffin for the heroes" (2%) and ZCEs (12%)

Proposed solution: It's a Super-Trope to the Asian Store-Owner, the Friendly Shopkeeper, and the Super-Stoic Shopkeeper. I don't know if that's an obstacle to cutting it. If not, then cut it. If we want to keep a supertrope, maybe make it Definition Only?

Wick check:

open/close all folders

Shopkeeper NPCs in Video Games 25/ 50 (50%)

Characters.South Park The Stick Of Truth: Shopkeeper: After Cartman banishes Clyde, he becomes the new shop keeper for Kupa Keep.
Characters.Azur Lane Sakura Empire: Shopkeeper: Once ran the normal shop, now runs the cash shop. This is very comparable to her KanColle counterpart.
Characters.Rabi Ribi: Shopkeeper: Manages a shop in Rabi Rabi town and sells all kinds of useful items and upgrades to Erina.
Characters.Broken Sword The Serpents Curse: Shopkeeper: He has a shop that contains items from different countries.
Characters.Omega Labyrinth Life: Shopkeeper: She runs the school store, though considering all her stock is related to dungeon delving, that may just be for Hinata and the rest of the students trying to revive the Grand Garden.
Characters.Mega Man Battle Network 1: Shopkeeper: Lan's go-to guy for getting new chips in the physical world, with the exceptions of 2 and 6.
VideoGame.Grow: Shopkeeper: A Tontie serves as a shopkeeper in Grow Maze.
Characters.Afterparty: Shopkeeper: Functions as one in game in that they give you the game's (only) consumables. Subverted in that Hellcolhol is free in Hell and there is no currency mechanic in game.
Characters.The Legend Of Zelda A Link Between Worlds: Shopkeeper: His main role in the series. Link can rent, and then later buy, all the weapons one would typically find in dungeons, save a scroll to increase one's stamina, and two enhanced mails.
VideoGame.Skrillex Quest: Shopkeeper: Parodied. There's a Desert Store in the second level, but attempts to trade are limited to the following options and replies, which really hammer home how bad everything is.
- Food
All the food is poisoned.
- Trees
All the trees are dead.
- Corrupted text
All the children have cancer.
- Corrupted text 2
You're next. (This actually does give you the fifth Dead Princess Key, though.)
Characters.Monster Rancher: Shopkeeper: She runs the item store in the area.
Funny.Scarlet Nexus: Satori the Archivist is one determined OSF agent who follows you around the game, even in the harshest and most dangerous places. Given that he's the game's Save Point and Shopkeeper, this is justified, though one has to wonder just how much RPM his little motorbike has to be able to constantly be ahead of you despite terrain and obstacles, the threat of Others, and how you needed Luka to mass-teleport you into a secure area. A "shadow" following you around indeed, and the Merchant would definitely be proud.
Characters.Stardew Valley: Shopkeeper: Pierre's Goods will be your biggest asset in your new life, whether it be buying seeds or other useful things.
Characters.Everhood: Shopkeeper: They work as a shopkeeper of a flower store.
Intimidating Revenue Service: Gaia Online's Ivan the Tax Man started out playing this trope straight, introducing Chance Items he'd repossessed from unusual entities, and threatening to repo the Shopkeeper NPCs' stores as part of the "Save Our Shops" event. However, he became unexpectedly popular with the fans, and has since become a more sympathetic character. - Not a video game, but the same idea
VideoGame.Ace Fishing: Along the way, the player will encounter various supporting characters, who will help the players improve their skills, one way or the other: such as Rachel, the player's guide and steadfast companion, Steve, a retired fishing master who serves as the player's mentor, Victor, the egostical fishing champion who constantly challenges the player to fishing matches just to prove himself the superior angler, Camilla, a shop owner who desperately wants the player to defeat Victor, and many others.
Characters.Neopets: Shopkeeper: Like all of the other shopkeepers, you may haggle prices with him, but you may anger him and he can temporarily ban you from his store.
Characters.Nintendo Wars: Shopkeeper: Having retired from active duty, Hachi runs Battle Maps, the in-game shop.
Characters.Lisa The Hopeful: Shopkeeper: His role. He's so respected, one of the inhabitants within the Sportsdome will find it unusual that he is not manning the shop stand.
Characters.Geneforge: Shopkeeper: He serves this role in Vakkiri, providing the residents with good equipment ready for use.
Characters.Honkai Impact3rd Fire MOTH: Shopkeeper: She manages the Felis Shop in the Elysian Realm, but is not actually present in the shop itself although she sometimes appears with it in the stages where it shows up. Notably Mei only gets to meet her much later with the remaining unseen Flame-Chasers.
VideoGame.Fairy Tail 2020: Shopkeeper: Levy, Lisanna, and Cana fulfill this role at the guild's laboratory (for Item Crafting), shop (for standard items), and bar (for Status Buff drinks), respectively.
Characters.Deaths Gambit: Shopkeeper: Sells common items and weapons. His stock grows some time after you defeat the Bulwark.
VideoGame.Luxaren Allure: Shopkeeper: In addition to the expected shopkeepers in town, there are sometimes merchants in or near dungeons so that players don't have to backtrack too much to resupply. Fortunately, this includes the final dungeon, which has several neutral demons acting as merchants.
Characters.Half Minute Hero: Shopkeeper: Runs an item shop that sells summoning stones once you get the Hero Castle.

Video Games ZCE examples 5/ 50 (10%)

VideoGame.Cla Dun: Shopkeeper: Coco
VideoGame.The Simpsons Tapped Out: Shopkeeper: Apu, Comic Book Guy and Herman. Sideshow Bob in his Wes Doobner skin.
Characters.The Secret World Egypt NP Cs: Shopkeeper ZCE
Roleplay.Power Academy: City of Adventure: NPCs, shops and sidequests aplenty. - It's roleplay, but the idea is the same
Characters.Bounty Of One: Shopkeeper: This is what he acts as, allowing you to spend coins to buy his wares.

A character opens or owns a shop 6/ 50 (12%)

EngineeredHeroics.Video Games: In Hometown Story, Clarissa, the town self-appointed sole law enforcement worker, decides to do this to impress the town. She buys an expensive ring from the Shopkeeper Player Character and asks him/her to claim it was stolen so she can "find" it. There happens to be an actual thief in the town at the time, who steals a ring from a villager to pass as the "missing" one. Clarissa is able to catch the thief, thus subverting the trope and providing her with a genuine act of heroics.
Characters.Horizon In The Middle Of Nowhere: Shopkeeper: She is the owner of the bakery "Blue Thunder".
NamesToRunAwayFrom.Weapons: Subverted by Hammer in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, a scary-looking American army man who, upon finding himself in Dracula's castle, starts collecting weapons... to open a shop. Mina is spooked; Soma is just perplexed.
Characters.Recettear An Item Shops Tale: Shopkeeper: Opens a shop to pay off her father's debt.
Film.Chisum: Shopkeeper: Chisum, Tunstall, and McSween open their own general store to compete with Murphy's store.
Characters.Sweets Fairy: Shopkeeper: She owns her own bakery.

A character is a shopkeeper 4/ 50 (8%)

Characters.Another: Shopkeeper: She takes care of the shop and tends to the customers as Yukiyo works on the dolls.
Characters.Tales From The SMP: Shopkeeper: He runs the store in town.
Characters.Mighty Magiswords: Shopkeeper: of what seems to be Rhyboflavin's only bookstore.
Characters.Green Acres: Shopkeeper: Runs the general store.

Meek Shopkeeper 1/ 50 (2%)

Meek Townsman: Black Saddle: In "Client:Meade", the only witness that can prove Clay's client innocent of murder is a meek Shopkeeper who allows himself to be bullied by the dead man's family into changing his testimony.

A shopkeeper has Hidden Depth 2/ 50 (4%)

Inspector Lestrade: The village in Hometown Story eventually gets saddled with two of them. One is trying to make it as a private detective, the other is the closest thing the village has to a police officer. The Player Character turns out to be better at resolving mysteries than both of them and is supposed to be a Shopkeeper.
BecomingTheMask.Anime And Manga: Parodied at Ramen Fighter Miki, a deconstruction of the Fighting Series Played for Laughs: Just after his Tomato in the Mirror moment, when he realizes he is not an Star Ranger, but merely a Shopkeeper who Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality, Akihiko decides that even if he is not a Star Ranger, he will be a hero and see that a little boy is not harmed by an Angry Guard Dog.
Kankuro: Hey Akihiko, your body can't…
Akihiko: [signals Kankuro to shut up] Wakana-chan is waiting for Toshiyuki-kun's safe return. [Theme Music Power-Up begins] I've still got willpower. Since I was asked, I have to help her! A man… is forged from willpower and perseverance! [Cue Imagine Spotting of Akihiko as Red Star.]

A shopkeeper has a Mac Guffin 1/ 50 (2%)

Characters.Castlevania 2017 Other: Shopkeeper: He sells some strange wares. Case in point: he's had at least two distance mirrors among his stock.

ZCE 6/ 50 (12%)

Ascended Extra.Webcomics:The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: The origin of a large part of the cast; many characters originally appeared purely as background filler are likely to reappear years later with names and personalities. Mr. Bystander, Floyd Fitznewski, Heywood J. Lookathat, Ms. Hatbrim, and Herb Gardner all started out as literal crowd filler; and Rocko Sasquatch, Officer Krelch, Akbar Kohlrabi, and the Rogue Canadian Scientists all started as incredible minor, seemingly one-shot characters.
Literature.Village Tales: Primary characters include [...] the tradesmen and farmers - the whole entry is much longer and it terrifies me.
DeliberateValuesDissonance.Literature: Kenobi: The Tusken Raiders of Tatooine maintain a culture that has no tolerance for weakness and no concept of charity because their lifestyle is lived so close to the brink that anyone who needs help might be a liability the clan can't afford. A'Yark initially believes local shopkeeper Annileen has Force powers because she instinctively dismisses the idea that Ben Kenobi would use that power for her sake, after witnessing a runaway bantha miraculously fail to crush Annileen's daughter when it trips and falls.
Characters.The Tritone Gambit: Shopkeeper: Introduced as such.
Ascended Extra.Webcomics: The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!: The origin of a large part of the cast; many characters originally appeared purely as background filler are likely to reappear years later with names and personalities. Mr. Bystander, Floyd Fitznewski, Heywood J. Lookathat, Ms. Hatbrim, and Herb Gardner all started out as literal crowd filler; and Rocko Sasquatch, Officer Krelch, Akbar Kohlrabi, and the Rogue Canadian Scientists all started as incredible minor, seemingly one-shot characters.
VideoGame.Seventh Dragon: Wham Episode: Chapter 6. Installing Hypnos and Haze into Yuma turns him into a bloodthirsty dragon-human hybrid, and Allie reveals that she is the 2nd True Dragon ND, revealing that completing the Dragon Chronicle was a plan to produce a person worthy of evolving into VFD and destroying the universe, and that she is responsible for the Dragonsbane in Tokyo and the Dragon Sickness, before killing nearly everyone in Tokyo. Moreover, she reveals that Chika and Rika are the incarnations of Tokyo's Dragonslayer and that they must be killed in order to recreate it. You also lose access to a large number of side activities such as sidequests and dates, and while you get them back in the next chapter, it's due to Nagamimi cracking open a portal in time rather than things actually being restored.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Nov 4th 2022 at 10:19:46 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#2: Nov 1st 2022 at 2:15:15 AM

Paging ~kundoo to the thread. Anyway, I think this can be cut for the same reason Bank Teller and Landlord were previously cut, that being that occupations are not tropes on their own.

Edit: Changed my vote to disambiguating per the below post pointing out that we have tropes about shopkeepers that are actually tropes and not Chairs.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Nov 1st 2022 at 4:18:30 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Amonimus the Retromancer from <<|Wiki Talk|>> (Sergeant) Relationship Status: In another castle

the Retromancer

#3: Nov 1st 2022 at 2:16:36 AM

Since it mentions Asian Store-Owner, Friendly Shopkeeper, Super-Stoic Shopkeeper and Shoplift and Die, and has notable wick/inbound counts, it'd be best to disambig.

Edited by Amonimus on Nov 1st 2022 at 12:16:49 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#4: Nov 1st 2022 at 2:17:49 AM

Yeah, disambiguating sounds better than cutting since we have actual tropes about shopkeepers that aren't simply "shopkeepers exist".

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#5: Nov 1st 2022 at 3:20:21 AM

Tagged the page.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

amathieu13 Since: Aug, 2013

#6: Nov 1st 2022 at 3:28:15 AM

disambig

Walkinshadows Since: Jun, 2012

#7: Nov 1st 2022 at 4:37:27 AM

Disambig.

themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining

Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him

#8: Nov 1st 2022 at 4:42:24 AM

Disambig

TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall

MacronNotes (she/her) (Captain) Relationship Status: Less than three

(she/her)

#9: Nov 1st 2022 at 5:10:29 AM

Disambig

Macron's notes

Libraryseraph Showtime! from Canada (Five Year Plan) Relationship Status: Raising My Lily Rank With You

Showtime!

#10: Nov 1st 2022 at 5:11:27 AM

to Disambig

Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?

crazysamaritan NaNo 4328 / 50,000 from Lupin III Since: Apr, 2010

NaNo 4328 / 50,000

#11: Nov 1st 2022 at 6:35:15 AM

Including myself, that's eight in favour of disambiguation.

The other option that I would support is making it a redirect to Tropes for Sale.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Willbyr Hi (Y2K) Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other

#12: Nov 1st 2022 at 6:48:01 AM

+1 for disambig

Berrenta How sweet it is from Texas Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love

How sweet it is

#13: Nov 1st 2022 at 6:48:52 AM

Disambiguate

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

Nen_desharu Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire from Greater Smash Bros. Universe or Toronto Since: Aug, 2020 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?

Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire

#14: Nov 1st 2022 at 10:10:40 AM

Hello Mr. Shopkeeper (or Mrs. Shopkeeper), I would like to disambiguate.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Nov 1st 2022 at 1:11:30 PM

Kirby is awesome.

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)

Goku Black

#15: Nov 1st 2022 at 10:15:57 AM

Disambig.

Genuinely surprised we had thus one up. Seems classic chairs.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

Orbiting Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name

#16: Nov 1st 2022 at 10:56:02 AM

Disambig

Adept (Holding A Herring) Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu

#17: Nov 2nd 2022 at 7:23:47 AM

Disambig

callmeamuffin ❀ Mint, Nuts, and Waffle ❀ from the kitchen (Trinitroper) Relationship Status: Thinkin' about you, muffin

❀ Mint, Nuts, and Waffle ❀

#18: Nov 2nd 2022 at 12:50:05 PM

for disambiguating.

Come play Character Uplift Game!

TheLivingDrawing Lucas the Dreamer from The Town of Clayton Since: Apr, 2019 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free

Lucas the Dreamer

#19: Nov 2nd 2022 at 2:50:42 PM

How about adding Intrepid Merchant and Dungeon Shop?

Why waste time when you can see the last sunset last?

GastonRabbit MOD Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#20: Nov 4th 2022 at 7:23:12 AM

Calling in favor of disambiguating.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Sounds good on paper (he/him)

#21: Nov 4th 2022 at 8:34:32 PM

Shopkeeper has gone out of business, so locking up.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

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Not Tropeworthy: Shopkeeper

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