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    Original post 
OP made in collaboration between JMQwilleran and selkies. Please ping JMQwilleran here since the thread is queued with their name.

Long Title has been bothering us for a while due to a number of reasons. Here are the problems that I see with this trope:

  1. The trope has no established scope or "definition" if we can call it as such, other than whatever someone thinks happens to be a long title. I think most people would agree that titles that contain, say 10+ words, are long. But what about titles that only have 5 words? Tropers have added titles containing as few as 5 words, such as PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Fraternity Massacre at Hell Island, or The 30 Second Bunnies Theatre. Neither of these strikes us as particularly long and if we're including those, then there are any number of other titles not yet listed that would go on that list.
  2. Simply having a long title does not seem like a trope in and of itself. Everything has a title except for untitled works of course. So what if the title is long or short? How is it not People Sit on Chairs or an index at most? Without any further definition other than "this title is long," we don't see how it can be anything but chairs.
  3. According to the site's standards, the trope is an absolute magnet for zero-context/chairs-y examples. Per this wick check, over half of the examples are Zero-Context Examples stating the name of the work itself and minimal context at best. There's no purpose documented in the trope or examples whatsoever.


Wick check:

Long Title is one of the Title Tropes that bothered me because its description defines it as "something with a very long title" and nothing more. It's supposed to describe ridiculously long and awkward works' names and how it now became a parody of works with such names but this doesn't show up in wicks where it's just [work title] as context, which is a ZCE. Also the unwieldy/awkward aspect is covered by Intentionally Awkward Title.

Wicks checked: 70/70 (was originally going to check 55 wicks only but got carried away without noticing).

  • Quick wick check results:
    • 37/70 or 53% are just ZCEs repeating the work's name or have minimal context including potholes.
    • 26/70 or 37% are examples that go beyond stating the work's name or are parodies/exaggerations/a repetitive pattern throughout a single work.
    • 7/70 or 10% are misuse and other unsorted examples.

  • Long analysis + final verdict: More than half of the wicks are examples that repeat the work's name which already can be seen on the work's page without adding anything noteworthy, five examples of the 37 wicks literally don't have any context at all. A high number of examples list cases where the work has multiple examples, making it a trademark for the work, or list exaggerations (with one going as far as having 34 words!), parodies, and In-Universe (Show Within a Show) examples. Several examples misuse it either for Overly Long Name (for characters + places' names) or use it for characters' titles In-Universe and nicknames, while the rest of the same category are just unsorted wicks.

  • Solutions:
    • Make it a Tropes in Aggregate by giving it the Always Identical Twins treatment since a work with a long work existing alone is chairs unless it's lampshaded, (ridiculously) exaggerated, discussed, parodied, a Show Within a Show or the work features more than one single example.
    • Or turn it into an index.

    open/close all folders 
    ZCE/chairs & potholes — just the work's name or very little context (37/70) 
  1. Album Title Drop: Bring Me the Horizon:
  2. Censored Title: John Cooper Clarke has a poem called "The Title Appears at the End of Each Subsequent Verse with Monotonous Regularity." Each verse ends with "Some cunt used the n-word."
  3. Game Maker: OHRRPGCE (Official Hamster Republic Role-Playing Game Construction Engine) is a freeware, open-source editor that was originally a DOS application, but has now been ported to FreeBASIC for support with new Operating Systems. — Excerpt of a longer example
  4. Lifetime Movie of the Week: An episode of 30 Rock featured scenes from a fictional Lifetime movie which told the story of how C.C. became a congresswoman after being shot in the face by a dog. The movie was titled A Dog Took My Face And Gave Me A Better Face To Change The World: The Celeste Cunningham Story and the scene where she's shot had her dramatically gasping "I'm going to get into politics!" as she fell to the ground.
  5. Rhyming with Itself: "It Was an Absolutely, Finger-Lickin', Grits and Chicken, Country Music Love Song" by Bomshel uses "song/along/song/song" as a rhyme in the chorus. This is a rare two-for-one, as it uses both a StockRhyme (song/along) and a Rhyming With Itself based on the same word.
  6. Who Wants to Live Forever?: The Flaming Lips' "Talkin' 'Bout the Smiling Deathporn Immortality Blues (Everyone Wants to Live Forever)":
    If I've lived a thousand times before
    And if I'm gonna live anymore
    Always brings me down
    Everyone wants to live forever
    Thinkin' that it'd be a lot better...
    Everyone wants to live forever
    But no one ever gets it together
  7. Animation.Eena Meena Deeka: The Eena Meena Deeka Chase Comedy Show.
  8. Anime.Choppers Kingdom On The Island Of Strange Animals: Seriously the title's a mouthful.
  9. Anime.Kiznaiver: The titles of each episode are sentences.
    • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The numbering of each episode is hidden in the Japanese readings of the titles. — Also improper example formatting
  10. Anime.Unlimited Psychic Squad: Its full title is Courtesy of Zettai Karen Children - The Unlimited - Hyoubu Kyousuke. Abuse of hyphens ahoy.
  11. BerserkButton.Theatre: In The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (now that's a Long Title), Ruth mentions her mother's high-school nickname, Betty the Loon. It doesn't end well for Ruth or for her pet rabbit.Just a side comment?
  12. ChildhoodFriendRomance.Visual Novels: Honoo no Haramase Oppai Shintai Sokutei ~ Osananajimi Joshikousei Karada Sokutei de Zenin Nakadashi Paradise! (please excuse the Intentionally Awkward Long Title) allows you to get a Harem Ending with fourteen different Childhood Friends!
  13. Comic Book.Azrael}}: A new Azrael showed up in a three-issue Battle for the Cowl miniseries titled Battle for the Cowl: Azrael: Death's Dark Knight (May-July, 2009).
  14. ComicBook.Nikolai Dante: Lauren Stone, the Veronica, is a more consistently Fanservicey character due to the fact that she wears hot pants and short skirts to show off her pins, while Jena as the Betty, naked appearances aside, dresses more conservatively as befitting a princess. The pair of them come to blows in "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I've Been A Liar All My Life" over Nikolai.
  15. Creator.ETA Hoffmann: The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, together with a fragmentary Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler on Random Sheets of Waste Paper.
  16. Creator.Luisjefe 1: Chucky el Muñeco Esotérico Encabronado Militar Enamorado Estocástico Maldito (Child's Play and its sequels)
  17. Creator.Ai Maeda: Ashita wa atashi no kaze ga fuku (Digimon Adventure 02 first ending)
  18. Creator.Yukari Fukui: Kururu Sumeragi in Air Gear: Kuro no Hane to Nemuri no Mori -Break on the Sky-
  19. CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass.Anime And Manga: Problem Children Are Coming From Another World Arent They (*gasp*)Example isn't relevant to the trope being wick checked but another side comment, a snarky one at that
  20. Fanfic.Amber Night And The Curse Of The Diabolical Pastry Thief: No context is given
  21. Fanfic.Because Im Not Popular Ill Try To Go Out With A Hero: No context is given
  22. Fanfic.Fairy Tail Redux Salamanders Time Traveling Escapades: No context is given, c'mon now...
  23. Fanfic.Jake Englishs Mysterious Theater Of Scientific Romance From The Year 3000: Jake English's Mysterious Theater of Scientific Romance from the Year 3000 is an MST series written by Edrobot, centering around characters from Homestuck'' riffing really bad fanfiction. — Sinkhole as well
  24. Fanfic.Unexpected Encounters: This happens with the chapter "Sontopia - Visit to the Agency and Memories of the Past".
  25. Film.At Midnight Ill Take Your Soul: At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul
  26. Film.Dr Strangelove: The film's full title, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
  27. Film.Ill Kill You Ill Bury You Ill Spit On Your Grave Too: No context is given
  28. Film.Sartana: The films' titles, as can be seen above. They're BADASS titles, though. — Unncessary gushing or maybe sarcasm
  29. Film.The Bloody Video Horror That Made Me Puke On My Aunt Gertrude: No context is given
  30. Film.What Have You Done To Solange: What Have You Done to Solange?
  31. Funny.Brows Held High: Kyle renaming the review "Mr Nobody is a Bad Movie and Please Stop Trying to Convince Me Otherwise"
  32. Literature.A Christmas Carol: The full title is A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. But when was the last time anyone called it that?
  33. Literature.Dokkoida: The original Japanese title is Sumeba Miyako no Cosmos-sou Suttoko Taisen Dokkoider
  34. Literature.Hokuou Kizoku To Moukinzuma No Yukiguni Karigurashi: And translating it into English just makes it longer.
  35. Literature.On The Oceans Of Eternity: The title is five words long.
  36. Literature.The Strangely Beautiful Series: Somewhat of a trademark of this series.
  37. Music.Aurora: All her albums.

    More context than just the work's name/noteworthy exaggerations/parodies, etc. (26/70) 
  1. AdventureTime.Tropes I To R: The video game is titled Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why$d you steal our garbage?!!, and its follow-up, Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!The work uses it more than once
  2. AudioPlay.Bert And I: The first three albums all qualify, but the third clocks in at 26 words. — Needs more context but 26 is definitely a huge exaggeration
  3. Awesome.Queens Of The Stone Age: Really, quite a lot of their long ass titles are quite cool. Such as, "I Was a Teenage Hand Model", "How to Handle a Rope (A Lesson in the Lariat)", "Give That Mule What He Wants", "The Fun Machine Took a Shit & Died," "These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For", "Everybody Knows That You Are Insane", ""You Got a Killer Scene There, Man..."", just so many.
  4. Blog.How To Write Badly Well: "Cram as much information and detail into the title as you can, even if this means sacrificing the readability of said title and somewhat stealing the thunder of the main body of the work itself, which is left only really being able to reiterate what has already been said in the title, which was itself clumsy and repetitious."
  5. ComicBook.Zero Hour Crisis In Time: Though referred to as just Zero Hour, the official title is Zero Hour: Crisis in Time!, though the covers make it out to be The End of Today... Zero Hour: Crisis in Time.
  6. Creator.Samuel R Delany: Many of his works has this pattern
    • The Hugo- and Nebula-winning novella "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones". (For the curious, those semi-precious stones are used by the underworld as a sort of universal codeword. The stone is changed periodically - hence the name.)
    • The novel Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.
    • And the truly impressive story, "We, in Some Strange Power's Employ, Move in a Rigorous Line". (Yes, that's the title, not a quote from the story.)
  7. Tropes L to R: A repeated pattern in the work
    • The Japanese title of Chapter 6 translates to: "The Reason Super High School Level Bad Luck Enticed Super High School Level Murder and Super High School Level Execution and Super High School Level Despair". The official English localization shortens it somewhat with the use of the word "Ultimate" in place of "Super High School Level", turning it into "Ultimate Pain, Ultimate Suffering, Ultimate Despair, Ultimate Execution, Ultimate Death".
    • The title of the game can be counted as this as well, as the original Japanese title translates to Danganronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair.
    • The Anime of the Game is titled Danganronpa: Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair: The Animation.
  8. DarthWiki.Millville Mornings: Some of the episode titles, like "Wendy's Dead, Now Move On With Your Life", "Seeking a Franz for the End of the World", and "Look Forth, Look At the Firth of Forth".
  9. Western Animation: Clerks: The Animated Series loves doing this. Every episode title describes what happens and gets progressively longer with each title until episode 6, "The Last Episode Ever." It was meant to be a subversion and an in-joke, but the series was cancelled shortly after its completion. — Parodied
  10. Fanfic.The Annoying Mole A Hetalia Trollfic: The full title is: The extremely amazing ballad of Austria's annoying mole and their amazing adventures when said mole comes to life. An Axis powers Hetalia trollfic. Of EPICNESS!!!Exaggerated for shits and giggles
  11. Literature.Feline Therapy: In the grand tradition of light novels, the official title is much longer than it needs to be — 21 words long.
  12. Literature.Im A Behemoth An S Ranked Monster: The English title is twenty-three words long.
  13. Literature.The Genius Princes Guide To Raising A Nation Out Of Debt Hey How About Treason: The English title, The Genius Prince's Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt (Hey, How About Treason?), is already fairly long even without the parenthetical.
  14. Literature.Ben To: Episode 10 of the anime is titled "It tasted warm and kind, just as my grandmother used to cook. Japanese food, kind to the heart and the body. Fried chicken with plums, dried sardines and seasonal vegetables. 480 kcal."
  15. Literature.Maoyu: Maoyuu Maou Yuusha "Kono Watashi no Mono to Nare, Yuusha yo" "Kotowaru!"; the title of the first Light Novel, and actually the official title of the Comp Ace manga adaptation, which is from a excerpt of a dialogue between the Hero and the Demon Queen. — Well explained
  16. Literature.Reborn As A Space Mercenary I Woke Up Piloting The Strongest Starship: Exaggerated even by isekai genre standards. You think the page name is bad? The title of the original novel was translated by Seven Seas as When I Woke Up, I Got the Strongest Equipment and a Spaceship, So I Went and Became a Mercenary in Order to Live as I Please While Aiming for a Detached House. Even the author thought it was a bit much in hindsight.
  17. Literature.The Lost World 1912: The book's seldom-printed full title is "The Lost World: Being an Account of the Recent Amazing Adventures of Professor E. Challenger, Lord John Roxton, Professor Summerlee and Mr. E.D. Malone of The Daily Gazette."
  18. Literature.To Be Or Not To Be That Is The Adventure: Parodied with the Show Within a Show (or, rather, book-within-a-book), whose full name is The Murder of Gonzago: A "The Adventure Is Being Chosen By You" Story! Can You Murder Your Brother Gonzago and Then, Playing as Your Dead Brother's Son, Murder Your Usurping Uncle? I Sure Hope So; Choose From Over 300 Different Possible Endings.
  19. Literature.Welcome To The Impregnable Demon King Castle: The full novel title (難攻不落の魔王城へようこそ~デバフは不要と勇者パーティーを追い出された黒魔導士、魔王軍の最高幹部に迎えられる, Welcome to the Impregnable Demon King Castle – The Black Sorcerer Is Offered a Seat as a Member of the Demon King Army's Top Brass After Being Kicked out of the Hero's Party Because They Didn't Need Debuffs) actually fully describes how the story begins. It's still present in the light novel and manga, but the subtitle is much smaller.
  20. Manga.Assassination Classroom: The anime Takebayashi recommends to Koro-sensei is "Ore No Imouto Ga Totsuzen Hiroshima-Fan Ni Natta No Wa Kareshi No Eikyou Ni Chigai Nai Ken Ni Tsuite" ("Regarding The Incident Of How There's No Doubt That My Little Sister Became A Hiroshima Fan Due To Her Boyfriend's Influence"), clearly poking fun of light novels of the mid-2010s (such as Oreimo) to use overly long titles with lots of kanji.
  21. Manga.My Cheat Skill Resurrection Revived Me: The full English title, at its smallest, is 24 words long.
  22. Manga.Rock Lees Springtime Of Youth:
    • The full title of the anime is "Naruto SD: Rock Lee no Seishun Full Power Ninden"[[note]]The original manga has the same title, but leaves out the "Naruto SD"[[/note]].
    • The English anime title: "Naruto Spin-Off: Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals"
    • The 4th ending theme, "Icha Icha Chucchu Cappy Cappy Love Love Suri Suri Doki Doki" by Happy Birthday, which is the name of a Japanese girl group.
  23. Manga.Though Young People Recoil From Entering The Black Magic Industry: Holy hell, it is long! Not even taking into account the size of the Japanese title, the English name for it is a full 34 words in length!
  24. Music.A Tribe Called Quest: People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. Also Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest and We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service
  25. Akiko Shikata: Some of her songs (notably those related to EXA_PICO) have weird, lengthy names, such as "EXEC_over.METHOD_SUBLIMATION./~omness chs ciel sos infel." — Weird, incomprehensible naming pattern
  26. VideoGame.Pinball Dreams: Parodied by Pinball Illusions. The introductory screen for the Amiga version starts off naming the game "Super Pinball Fantasies Turbo EX II M-Ball Edition", then quickly corrects it to "Pinball Illusions".

    Misuse/other/unsorted (7/70) 
  1. One-Word Title: Contrast to The Fantastic Trope of Wonderous Titles and Long Title.
  2. Age Of Empires II Definitive Edition: (Frederick), Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily, Jerusalem, Burgundy & Germany. — Misuse — the description says this is only for work titles
  3. Characters.Naruto Hokages: (Minato), Prone to giving his (and sometimes other people's) attacks comically long and convoluted names. — Misuse
  4. Characters.The Prince Of Tennis Shitenhouji Chuu: (Toyama), "Super Ultra Great Delicious Giant Swing Mountain Storm". — Sinkhole + misuse
  5. Characters.Total Drama Tokyo: (Casey, in The contestants' folder), The Girl Who Has A Scarf And Thinks She's Popular Like Chelsey But Isn'tThis is probably her title/nickname In-Universe so that's misuse for Overly Long Name
  6. Manga.Daily Lives Of High School Boys: Defied through Executive Veto. Word of God mentioned his original title of the series was Stories of the Boring Daily Lives of High School Boys. — Aside from linking to a trivia page in the work's main page, this is probably What Could Have Been
  7. Manga.Minami Kamakura High School Girls Cycling Club: As it's the Overly Long Name of the club of concern. — Misuse/shoehorned

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 9th 2023 at 8:34:12 AM

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)
#26: Jun 9th 2023 at 6:23:30 AM

Calling in favor of disambiguating between Work Info Title, Short Title: Long, Elaborate Subtitle, Officially Shortened Title, and possibly other tropes, and sending in-universe examples to the Trope Idea Salvage Yard.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
selkies Professional Wick Checker Since: Jan, 2021 Relationship Status: Star-crossed
Professional Wick Checker
wootzits Since: Apr, 2010
#29: Jul 8th 2023 at 7:25:48 PM

Less than 1000 wicks, 147 for the redirect.

Yindee Just stoic wisdom. from New England Since: Jul, 2016
Yindee Just stoic wisdom. from New England Since: Jul, 2016
Yindee Just stoic wisdom. from New England Since: Jul, 2016
Berrenta How sweet it is from Texas Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
How sweet it is
#35: Jul 17th 2023 at 9:50:34 PM

Good work! Closing.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
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Trope Repair Shop: Long Title
6th Jun '23 1:10:28 AM

Crown Description:

Long Title has multiple issues:

  1. The trope has no established scope or "definition" if we can call it as such, other than whatever someone thinks happens to be a long title. I think most people would agree that titles that contain, say 10+ words, are long. But what about titles that only have 5 words? Tropers have added titles containing as few as 5 words, such as Play Station All Stars Battle Royale, Fraternity Massacre At Hell Island, or The 30 Second Bunnies Theatre. Neither of these strikes us as particularly long and if we're including those, then there are any number of other titles not yet listed that would go on that list.
  2. Simply having a long title does not seem like a trope in and of itself. Everything has a title except for untitled works of course. So what if the title is long or short? How is it not People Sit On Chairs or an index at most? Without any further definition other than "this title is long," we don't see how it can be anything but chairs.
  3. According to the site's standards, the trope is an absolute magnet for zero-context/chairs-y examples. Per this wick check, over half of the examples are Zero Context Examples stating the name of the work itself and minimal context at best. There's no purpose documented in the trope or examples whatsoever.

What should be done with Long Title?

Total posts: 35
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