Oftentimes here in Trope Talk, we get questions about whether or not a given trope is tropeworthy enough, or is an example of the kind of non-tropes discussed in People Sit on Chairs. These threads are extremely frequent, and per discussion
in the TRS meta thread, this megathread was created.
This will be a centralized place to ask: is this article I found tropeworthy? Does it convey meaning or is it used to tell the story, or is it just something that happens to exist in a work? Ask here, and hopefully you will get the answers you need.
Remember, something that is "(people sit on) chairs" means it's happenstance or conveys no meaning. Something that also happens in real life, is common, is rare, or seems minor is not the same as being chairs.
As an additional note, keep this in mind when bringing tropes in, as noted by amathieu13:
Edited by Tabs on Oct 29th 2023 at 10:08:41 AM
Preacher's Kid is supposed to be for how in fiction children of the clergy are either well-behaved or extremely rebellious. Personally, I think this is two separate tropes that are forced together. However, on the page there is a separate category for Preacher's Kids who don't fit neatly into either category. So is this trope just "a Preacher's Kid exists"?
I would think that's just straight-up misuse, yeah. It seems like Preacher's Kid is trying to be two tropes at once: rebelling against family legacy and adhering way too hard to same.
I'm surprised The Law Of Fan Jackassery allows examples. It seems to be just a list of fandoms that are considered toxic which doesn't seem like something that we should catalogue. Given how little examples it has, it probably won't be a loss if it was definition-only.
Stop playing rimshots this isn't funnyI already brought this up in a thread I made, but I really don't think that Sharp-Dressed Man is tropeworthy. Like, it's literally just about male characters who dress formally. That's it. Like, The Dandy usually refers to flamboyant characters who dress as flashily as possible, Man of Wealth and Taste is about villains who dress very nicely, often overlapping with Wicked Cultured, and Badass in a Nice Suit is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Then you got Sharp-Dressed Man, which is not about the personality of a character or anything like that, but simply how they dress. I really feel like this page needs to be an index, not a trope, in the same vein as Cranium Coverings (formerly known as "Nice Hat").
Edited by GoofyLuffyMan on Oct 15th 2024 at 10:39:48 AM
When a hero uses underhanded tactics in battle, they're "smart". But when a villain does it, they're a "coward". Is this the society we live in?That thread is here
, for reference. Would likely just be easier to keep this discussion in one place.
Yeah, thanks. I just found this thread and thought that I'd post it here.
When a hero uses underhanded tactics in battle, they're "smart". But when a villain does it, they're a "coward". Is this the society we live in?
+1 to nuking the examples on The Law Of Fan Jackassery.
I’d wait for the inevitable TRS thread before making such votes.
I’ll do a wick check when I have time - I’m currently traveling and I have exams coming up too, so I can’t do it now.
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallHappy-Ending Massage: a masseuse gives a customer a handjob. Is this remotely a trope? Examples are all over the place in terms of what they do in the plot, or are ZCEs or misuse. (The She-Hulk example under Comic Books, for example, isn't an example, since it's about a boyfriend and girlfriend.)
This old TRS thread
points out the problems. As Morgan Wick pointed out in that thread, there's a tropable core of "massage parlour as a front for sex work", but the examples don't bear it out.
Edited by DoktorvonEurotrash on Oct 17th 2024 at 1:29:30 AM
It's based on an IRL stereotype that massage therapy is a cover for sex work, which has a grain of truth to it. It's tropeworthy but it maybe needs ZCE cleaning.
I mean, you're right, that is a proper trope, but the current description doesn't make that clear, it just describes a character getting sexual favours at a massage parlour.
I've only given the examples a cursory glance, but the ones I've seen don't really delve into the "used as a front" part, either.
Part of the problem may be that the description hasn't changed much from the oldest copy in the Internet Archive
when standards for well-described tropes were lower.
I've already asked this elsewhere, but is Big Ol' Eyebrows tropeworthy? Most description tropes are about how a physical characteristic is linked to characterisation, like Fat Bastard, Innocent Blue Eyes, Icy Blue Eyes, Sinister Schnoz, even Significant Green-Eyed Redhead. Hell, there's an eyebrow trope that does this, Evil Eyebrows. While you could maybe argue Big Ol' Eyebrows are like Gag Nose, the latter trope isn't just 'character has big nose' but instead 'a character has a purposefully over the top large nose' while, in it's current use, Big Ol' Eyebrows just seems to be "character has big eyebrows". This can, naturally, lead to inferences about the character: perhaps they're a jerk, stupid, ruggedly handsome, etc., but big eyebrows in and of themselves don't really seem like a trope. In a written or animated medium where the characters are specifically described/created to have big eyebrows, maybe I can see an argument, and when a character's big eyebrows are remarked upon in a live-action work, then I can also maybe see it, but a lot of the examples just seem to be 'An actor has big eyebrows and therefore the character they plays does'. For example, Walt Jr/Flynn from Breaking Bad has this as a trope applying to him, but him having somewhat large eyebrows doesn't at all inform his character, not are they remarked upon. He's just someone with fairly large eyebrows.
According to the description, it's a specifically Japanese art convention. However, I can't really tell from it what purpose the convention serves, other than accentuating the character's facial expressions, and denoting manliness.
By that metric, any non-Japanese or live-action examples (unless it includes overly large prosthetic eyebrows, I guess...) should probably be scrubbed.
misread
Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 20th 2024 at 2:22:21 PM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall(Just wanted to say real quick — The Law Of Fan Jackassery is already on the TRS Queue, so I won't be wick checking it.)
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallI thought we were at Trope Sounding Board for a second, honestly, given the question.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall

A Fluffy the Terrible-type situation where some imposing, supernatural figure has a completely generic, unassuming name is potentially tropeworthy (if not redundant with the above-mentioned trope and related ones), but it sounds like that's not what this is, especially if it's defining its tropeworthiness by claiming to be an aversion of a trope that's not nearly as omnipresent as it thinks it is
That being said, a trope whose definitive element is that it applies to the main character is not automatically an Audience Reaction. People within the work do not know who the main character is, but it is nonetheless an objective element of the work that's a conscious decision of the author. It just means it's No Real Life Examples, Please!.