Is this tropeworthy/Chairs?

It's been discussed before that the trope should be more specific and should have a better name. "Villain is pedophile" is tropeworthy if said pedophilia is part of their villainy, and the trope seems to be about that.

I actually have no earthly idea what that's supposed to be, because in practice it seems to exist purely as a sinkhole to any mention of (or even, and maybe more commonly, allusion to) pedophilia.

There was a thread discussing Paedo Hunt a while ago.

EDIT: Ignore this post, my mistake

Edited by StalkerGamer on Aug 23rd 2023 at 5:23:21 AM

As far as I can tell, The Bartender has no other definition other than 'bartenders exist'. The Laconic doesn't help, as it simply states that it's "The person who serves drinks and sound life advice to bar patrons".

"Wise bartender that offers good advice" seems tropeworthy, though examples that are just "this character is a bartender" are certainly chairs.

There are definitely different stereotypes about Bartenders that could be tropeworthy, though this one alone is not a trope.

just fyi, The Bartender has been discussed before in this thread about it needing TRS for it being chairs as currently defined [1]. So if someone wants to do the wick check and bring it in, you'd have a lot of support

So how is Lead Bassist and Lead Drummer actually tropeworthy?

Just because a band's frontman is usually the lead singer or the lead guitarist, I don't think this inherently makes "bassist/drummer who is a notable member of the group (rather than just a backup member)" inherently significant. I feel like these pages would be akin to creating a new trope for, say, Axe Wielding Protagonist or Archer Protagonist because it "subverts" Heroes Prefer Swords.

Edited by Adept on Aug 25th 2023 at 8:43:39 PM

Lead Bassist and Lead Drummer are defined as "when drummer/bassist is the Face Of The Band" and seeing as FOTB was recently disambiguated, it definitely doesn't make sense for these to exist

Right. I'll try and check if they have any usage beyond "bassist/drummer is The Face Of The Band". Might check Lead Singer Plays Lead Guitar as well for good measure.

Pædo Hunt could maybe be turned into a trope about "villain's role in the plot is mainly to be evil for other reasons, but is incidentally also a pedophile to make them be more evil", similar to how Politically Incorrect Villain is "villain's role in the plot is mainly to be evil for other reasons, but is incidentally also bigoted to make them be more evil". A pedophile who is a villain because they are a pedophile isn't really a trope.

Edited by molokai198 on Aug 25th 2023 at 9:49:39 AM

I think it's quite the opposite. The villain whose villainy is being pedophile defines the plot, so it's definitely tropeworthy.

I definitely have seen the "villain is mentioned/implied to be a pedophile but this has no effect on the plot, so it's seemingly only there to make them more evil" thing, though.

Possibly that should be a different trope.

Edited by petersohn on Aug 25th 2023 at 7:25:56 PM

I think "Everyone gets riled up over a supposed pedophile" might be adequately covered by Witch Hunt already. "A bad guy being a child predator makes him particularly evil compared to other baddies" is what I'd suggest retooling to if we do anything about this.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Aug 25th 2023 at 12:38:00 PM

Mistaken for Pedophile usually covers the first one as well.

I think a pedophile who is a villain because he is a pedophile (rather than being a pedophile incidental to other villainy in the vein of Politically Incorrect Villain) isn't trope worthy, are we just going to list every action near-universally agreed on as bad and say a villain who does that and that's the reason they are evil is a trope? Like we have Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil where rape is portrayed as a different level of evil than other evil actions, but no generic "rape is portrayed as evil/a villain is evil because they rape" that just goes without saying. We don't have a "murder is wrong" trope.

Then again we aren't really consistent on this, we have Cold-Blooded Torture which seems to be just "torture exists" and The Bully which is just "a bully exists/a person is a villain because they are a bully" without talking about how either thing is used narratively, so if those are tropes then I guess pedophile exists/pedophile is a villain because they are a pedophile could be a trope, but I'm not sure if those two should be tropes in the first place.

Edited by molokai198 on Aug 26th 2023 at 2:03:13 PM

Please continue the discussion in this thread.

Is Race Fetish really tropeworthy? It seems to be just a subset of Has a Type. I'm not questioning the fetish itself, it's very much a thing, but its worthyness as a trope.

As a characterization trope, I can see its utility. I don't think it's too common to be chairs.

Yeah, I don't think it's chairs in the slightest.

The line between Sub-Trope and The Same, but More Specific can often be thin, but not in this case. A statement like “likes Asian women” has certain aspersions that “likes brunettes” does not.

Edited by Synchronicity on Aug 27th 2023 at 9:36:09 AM

Hi all,

I am writing to inquire about a very old trope: Otaku. Of course, most people here know it refers to a specific type of person.

However, the trope description uses the Japanese definition of the term: "Otaku come in many flavors, but one thing can be said for each and every one of them. They've each staked out their own favorite thing, and they obsess over it relentlessly. Regardless of other intelligence, an otaku will have an obsessive, unhealthy, and almost encyclopedic knowledge of their chosen topic. [...] Neither geek nor nerd is an adequate translation. However, in modern use, both words may carry a shadow of the right connotations of obsessive interest and/or social ineptitude; see the geek page for details. Think of the older, more pejorative senses of geek and you're on the right track. The British term anorak and the Internet terms neckbeard or weeb/weaboo are also close translations."

I thought obsession and social ineptitude are very frequently associated with the geek and nerd archetypes that it probably won't make the trope any more tropeworthy, if geek and nerd per se is Chairs.

On the other hand, the English definition (which is the one used in Occidental Otaku and is a subset of the Japanese definition) might be tropeworthy—but is it? And if it is, is it worth the trouble for TRS action to narrow down the trope definition?

Edited by SamCurt on Aug 29th 2023 at 10:55:14 AM

I think Otaku suffers from some of the same issues that examples of nerd did before they were cleaned up and the trope was renamed Stereotypical Nerd, i.e. it's not really focused on an archetype as much as it is just generalized behavior. And this is because in reality, the term otaku is used exactly in that way, the same way "geek" or "nerd" is thrown around to anyone who is smart or interested in certain hobbies. But that does not make a trope anymore than "genius" in of itself is a trope.

I do think something like Archetypal Otaku is tropeworthy and it'd essentially be the Otaku page image since it's a very specific depiction (creepy, socially isolated, often fixated on young female characters or idols in a way that heavily implies inappropriate attraction, delusional with parasocial relationships, etc) that isn't really captured by Stereotypical Nerd. But on the other hand, I do wonder if that specific depiction isn't just "Japanese Basement-Dweller". Maybe Creepy Otaku would work better because we'd be focusing specifically on the examples when they are portrayed as gross and predatory?

Edited by amathieu13 on Aug 29th 2023 at 11:22:48 AM