To-do list:

• Does Not Like Shoes was renamed to Prefers Going Barefoot and rewritten to focus on characters who explicitly dislike wearing shoes, and the old name was disambiguated. Move examples that fit at least one of the tropes accordingly if possible, and remove other examples and ZCEs.
  • Clean up wicks. Examples pertaining to martial artists can go to Barefoot Martial Artist

Wick check:

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jul 23rd 2023 at 4:10:47 AM

Pinging ~Acebrock and ~Zerukin.

We can probably disambiguate this. I'm also good with yarding cases of actually disliking shoes.

I wouldn't exactly call it a chair. I think a large majority of people does wear shoes (and I also think that works from or set in places where it is ordinary to never wear shoes is a very much a minority), to the point that a character being barefoot all the time is generally a notable characteristic of theirs. Except if the works just takes place in a setting where no one is expected to wear shoes.

I agree with Smoker, for the same reasons. I personally don't see this trope as a chair.

I also disagree about it being a chair. If your character goes barefoot always (or most of the time) in a setting where people normally wear shoes, you would get a lot of coverage about it in the media (think Rapunzel and Aladdin) - because it's unusual, it's not always realistic, and people would ask themselves what was the author's intent behind that. You wouldn't get nearly as much attention if your character even has a scar or an eyepatch - because not wearing shoes where people usually do is a choice that says something about personality, just like, say, Elective Mute or Elective Broken Language. IMO, Barefoot Poverty, Barefoot Captives, and Barefoot Cartoon Animal are much weaker tropes because characters are expected to be barefoot if they are animals, poor or in captivity, and there isn't much storytelling purpose behind that.

Edited by Paddywhack on Jun 16th 2023 at 3:13:15 PM

I would be sympathetic to such an argument if far too many of the examples weren't like this:

• (Characters.Ico) Does Not Like Shoes: Yorda is never seen having shoes on.

Pulled from the wick check, where over half the examples had this much or slightly more context, with none offering any meaning to the trope (the entire "Character tends to go barefoot without any deeper meaning offered" folder). That's why I called it chairs, I saw no meaning in the usage, and the other folders were little better (though spinning off a trope for a character being unable to wear shoes might be doable, as there were a few uses of that).

right, this is one of those "in theory vs in practice" issues that comes up a lot with tropes. A character not wearing shoes is not necessarily meaningful in of itself. There are ways for it to be meaningful, but those are more specific than what this trope is and what most examples are.

& are both saying that "not wearing shoes says somehting about the character" but the issue is that most of these examples don't explain that. They simply state a character doesn't wear shoes, without answering what kind of characterization the audience is meant to read from it. Barefoot Poverty, Barefoot Sage, Barefoot Loon and Earthy Barefoot Character tell you what that association is / what the barefootness is meant to reinforce about the character.

If there were clear patterns of use not already covered by tropes revealed in the wick check, I'd recommend breaking those out. but seeing that's not the case, I agree with a disambig.

Edited by amathieu13 on Jun 16th 2023 at 9:30:28 AM

I mean it wasn't actually written by me. I just wanted to be pinged out of interest in voicing about it.

While I do feel that the trope itself isn't Chairs and can be a clear cut trope, I was never a fan of the name as it always felt confusing to me. I understand what it was about, the name made it sound like it was about characters who go barefoot because the don't like shoes.

As such, I would at least suggest a name change. As the wick check shows, would prolly be good for a cleanup of sorts as well.

Of course, with how many barefoot tropes there are already, I am also in favor of turning this into disambig.

Edited by Zerukin on Jun 16th 2023 at 6:37:41 AM

IMO, it's tropeworthy as a Rejection Trope: rejecting something that people usually do, and in this sense it's similar to, say, Keeping the Handicap or Elective Mute (if your character refuses to speak or to cure a handicap, you would list them on the page even if the author doesn't clearly explain the reason for this - the same applies here).

I would be more in favor of commenting out examples in which it's not clear that it's by choice.

Edited by Paddywhack on Jun 16th 2023 at 3:52:56 PM

That would involve redefining the trope, essentially tightening the definition to focus on one specific reason a character would go barefoot, which I wouldn't be opposed to, though it might be easier to spin it off as its own trope instead.

This is actually what the trope name (Does Not LIKE Shoes, as opposed to, say, "Does Not Wear Shoes"), the image and the description imply.

Yep, this is another misused item dated back to 2009

Make it an index, maybe we can spin-off a couple of new tropes:

• The One Who Doesnt Wear Shoes: Inverse of... well, you know. The reason this one doesn't exist yet despite being made the same year as TOWWS (2009) is because the token barefoot character tends to be potholed under Does Not Like Shoes.
  • e.g. Yoda, Ed from Cowboy Bebop, Juzoh from The Last Blade

• Self Preferrential Barefooter: This one... might be salvaged from existing DNLS examples. If a person explicitly states he / she doesn't like footwear
  • Creator.Anna Sophia Robb have the person in question confessing she Does Not Like Shoes in an interview, just saying. Also Antimony in the current DNLS page image

Edited by RobertTYL on Jun 16th 2023 at 10:20:05 PM

I’ll pitch Quirky Barefooter while at it.

I don't see this as similar to Keeping the Handicap or Elective Mute at all. For both of those tropes, the decision to not get the handicap fixed or to not speak is part of the narrative, either by the character making the decision in the story or via discussion of the decision if it happened prior to the story being told. We don't need to know the reason or justification behind it, but there needs to be some indication that a choice was made other than "character is handicap" or "character doesn't speak". That's the actual comparison to how this trope is being used.

If what you want is to spin this into "character actively doesn't wear shoes as part of a larger rejection of social norms" or "character's barefootedness is used to emphasize they're not conventional or out of the norm" that's still more narrow than what this trope is and requires the examples to elaborate on how we know the character goes against social norms, like Nonconformist Dyed Hair. While I think that idea has merit, that's not reflected in the usage so it'd have to go to the TLP or be yarded.

ETA: This is actually correct. Barefoot Loon has a slightly non-indicative name since it covers eccentric types too. So the idea I discussed is covered, making me really question just what this would be used for.

Edited by amathieu13 on Jun 16th 2023 at 10:36:31 AM

@Synchronicity: Isn't it Barefoot Loon?

@RobertTYL: I like these two new tropes, this could be a solution.

Edited by Paddywhack on Jun 16th 2023 at 4:38:11 PM

It's not exactly a chair, but the name is non-indicative and it often is just used to say a character goes barefoot (or in downplayed examples, wears open-toed footwear) without additional meaning.

I'd lean into disambig/example-less Supertrope myself, and any examples not already covered by one of the existing subtropes can be proposed. Does Not Like Shoes can be an actual trope where the meaning really is "this character does not like shoes" and it'd fall under something like Barefooter.

Agreed that this isn't chairs. Some characters don't wear shoes to feel free because such a thing might make them feel restricted. There are many reasons why a character might prefer not wearing shoes, and there needs to be a trope that reflects them all. Maybe renaming to Prefers To Be Barefoot and cleaning up ZCEs would be better options than totally getting rid of the trope.

This trope usually has a reason, even if the narrative doesn't spell it out. It's not like Alliterative Name or Fashion Designer, where it's, "this real life pattern/job exists." This is noteworthy since no one really goes barefoot by choice, and how such a thing isn't realistic (like their feet don't get dirty, or they don't feel the hot/cold roads/floors under them, or they don't get hurt from stepping on anything sticking from the ground, etc.).

I think Prefers To Be Barefoot is a better name for characters who are explicitly shown and/or stated to prefer to not wear shoes.

Regarding the other ideas, do they have enough examples to be split without TLP? The third folder has examples for characters preferring to be barefoot, but the other folders, with the exception of the Chairs-y "no deeper meaning" folder, do not have enough examples, so I don't think those ideas are doable without TLP or the Yard. Plus, I prefer to avoid doing splits without TLP anyway.

Edit:

Personally, I think renaming to a name that more clearly indicates that it's a preference, plus rewriting the description if necessary, and cleaning up examples that don't fit the category in the third folder of the wick check (characters who explicitly prefer to be barefoot) is enough.

We can just Yard or TLP the trope for a single character standing out for not wearing shoes, and Barefoot Loon already covers quirky/eccentric/crazy characters who are barefoot; we don't appear to have enough to work with without doing Yarding or using TLP. (In the event that I'm mistaken, I'd like to see a list of examples to work with; otherwise, I'm only willing to put renaming and rewriting to refer to characters who prefer to be barefoot on the table.)

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 16th 2023 at 12:41:46 PM

I agree that this is tropeworthy. I can think of a couple of reasons someone would not wear shoes that aren't covered by a subtrope: character is close to nature, shoes are painful to wear for whatever reason, shoes actively hinder a character's job/hobby/fighting style, shoes are against a character's religion.

I don't have any name suggestions at the moment, but I think this can be salvaged with a rename and cleanup as the best solution.

^The first one is already covered by Earthy Barefoot Character and painful shoes is covered by both Fashion Hurts and High Heel Hurt.

I will be fine with a rename and cleanup for this Does Not Like Shoes.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jun 16th 2023 at 3:50:06 PM

Rename

Rename

I agree with renaming because I don't think this is chair-sitting.

"There are many reasons why a character might prefer not wearing shoes, and there needs to be a trope that reflects them all", I don't want to sound like a broken record but I just don't see how this doesn't contradict with how we've been troping recently. To me, this reads no different than saying "there are many reasons why a character would prefer to use a whip, or an axe, or a knife for a weapon, and there needs to be a trope that reflects them all". Those broad and highly misused tropes were disambig'd and broken out into more meaningful and specific tropes to avoid people shoehorning in chairsy examples of "character uses X". How and why is "character likes being barefoot" different? Genuinely asking, here.

Edited by amathieu13 on Jun 16th 2023 at 7:23:06 AM