Is this tropeworthy/Chairs?

Don't think those two are related. It's a subtrope of Artistic License – Space because if you can see someome's face, so can a megaton of unfiltered sunlight.

It's a trope along the lines of Marquee Alter Ego and Helmets Are Hardly Heroic where it's more important to show the character's face (especially if played by a big-name actor who cost a lot of money to cast) than aim for realism.

Huh, didn't realize Marquee Alter Ego was a thing. I think they're both valid when taking Theory of Narrative Causality into consideration but ISECSYF has a lot of Zero Context Examples, inversions/aversions and a redundant real-life example, and its purpose in animation seems less important (unless maybe it's mo cap) so I'm wondering if people are interpreting the name as more hyperbolic than it is.

all lowercase letters doesn't seem very relevant. It is supposed to indicate "childishness or, in some cases, idiocy" or to be used in Apocalyptic Log "to denote the point at which the unfortunate author has gone mad or lost all hope". However, most of the examples only mention works that use it in their titles.

Not all tropes need to have a symbolic significance. "Chairs" is when something ordinary happens, such as people sitting on chairs, making that not a trope. When a creator deliberately goes against grammar rules, that's anything but ordinary, therefore a trope.

That is... not quite what we mean by People Sit on Chairs. A trope is, broadly, any element of a story that conveys a message or has some sort of meaning, anything that could be considered a deliberate decision on the part of the author. In other words, PSOC is when something doesn't have significance of some kind. Whether or not that's how it should be is another matter, but that's been the wiki's policy for over a decade now.

To me, all lowercase letters seems like something that's necessarily done for a reason, but it's not always clear what that reason is, which is also relevant to the discussion linked above.

Edited by MorganWick on Oct 27th 2023 at 2:43:51 AM

It's a style choice, which means it's deliberate. Chairs are concepts that are realistic and coincidental / "it just happens".

I wonder if the pinned post should summarize what "chairs" actually means. A lot of people use it to mean "this is something that happens in real life" and miss the requirement of narrative significance or style choice.

Very helpful, thanks!

Edited by mightymewtron on Oct 29th 2023 at 1:48:19 PM

Okay, how's that.

Yeah, its ood how the thread went on with an actually transparent and agreed upon guide for telling what makes something into People Sit On Chairs.

The guide is People Sit on Chairs.

I know, I was trying to praise the decision to put a guide here as well. Because clicking on different pages to even remember the definition is clunky.

Is Shout Box a trope or simply "some sites have this"? It also has nothing to do with works.

BTW, for fun, I looked up the main link for People Sit on Chairs in the Wayback Machine, and it apparently existed in June 2010. No idea about its creation, though. That wasn't archived.

It was launched in February of that same year, apparently.

Some music-related tropes that feel a little questionable to me:

• Let's Duet is just "two characters sing a duet." It could be converted to an index of subtropes (which seem much more tropeworthy to me) which it now doubles as, but it's also poorly named for that.
• Theme Tune Extended is a bit vague even by trivia standards. As I understand it, it covers any Theme Tune which exists in a longer than normal version somewhere, either in series or not.

Villain Song is a rather well-known and esteemed trope, but I worry about it falling into Trope Decay and covering any old number that happens to be sung by a villainous character, which in some musicals may include most or even all of the songs.

(As for Satiating Sandwich, I admit to creating it long ago under a different name, but I don't think it was one of my better ideas now and doubt I'd suffer much of a Lost Food Grievance if it were to be cut.)

Four Eyes, Zero Soul is just "Villain who wears glasses". Does that sound like chairs to anyone?

That’s what the laconic says, but don’t trust the laconic. The description goes into detail about how glasses can enhance a villain’s creepiness.

+ It's on TNTRS at any rate, so it definitely needs a wick check (I have seen a lot of examples that almost literally say "(s)he just happens to wear glasses" for characters that either become more antagonistic over time or are morally ambiguous at worst).

Edited by Coachpill on Nov 1st 2023 at 11:58:26 AM

Villain Song is originally supposed to be the villain singing about their motivations. If it's not used that way, then it might worth doing a TRS about it. But it's not chairs.

^^ yes... to defend the concept of "glasses enhance villain's creepiness" is not saying there is no misuse. that's what the pinned post addresses.

I think Four Eyes, Zero Soul is definitely a trope. There are many other villainous appearance tropes (White Hair, Black Heart, Red Right Hand, etc. etc.) where the physical part isn't exclusive to villains, but which does serve to make a villainous character seem more alien or sinister.

In the case of glasses, having a big glass-and-metal contraption stuck over your face (and especially the eyes) particularly serves to make the character seem more distant. It's usually used for unemotional, "civilised" villains: the Gestapo guy from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Mordecai from Lackadaisy, etc.

(For the record, I wear glasses.)

Edited by DoktorvonEurotrash on Nov 2nd 2023 at 8:03:28 AM

I see. It's just misused. I'm gonna take this to the Laconic thread because the Laconic is "Villain who wears glasses" (which is chairs)

I gotcha, was just mentioning that because I've never seen people mention the specific misuse, just that the trope has problems.

Edited by Coachpill on Nov 2nd 2023 at 1:51:54 PM

bumping.