Superman Stays Out Of Gotham needs redefinition, a massive purge, or at least definition clarification.

The official definition of the trope is "Differently powered superheroes in the same Shared Universe stay out of each other's way for the Rule of Drama."

Many examples on the pages and sub-pages do not concern superheroes (just heroes/protagonists), and most of the examples involve simply comparably-powered characters who don't cross over or work together. Sticking to the strictest definition would require cutting most of the examples.

But I think that would me a mistake; the current implicit definition of "crossovers that don't happen when they logically should and would greatly benefit the heroes, if only through one party having useful skills or strength in numbers" is still a specific dramatic situation, not far removed from the titular example, that has made for an interesting page that isn't bloated. If anything, the explicit definition seems so narrow as to leave a dearth of examples outside of perhaps major comic universes and their adaptations.

For that reason, perhaps a slight redefinition (while keeping the title) to leave room for comparably powered or skilled characters (not just superheroes), and situations where them working together would be useful, but not instantly end the story, would be wise.

While there does seem to be a large amount of misuse, it's wrong to describe the laconic as the "official definition". It's not. Laconics, in fact, are very often wrong or misleading because they're made by ordinary tropers who may not be able to capture the essence of the trope. The official definition can only be gathered from reading the unabridged version.

Fair enough. But the question of what the real definetion should be stands.

I understand the definition, but unless it's acknowledged In-Universe, it honestly strikes me as a variation of Fridge Logic created by making multiple works with protagonists of varying power tiers share a setting.

It's basically asking why, if you have multiple supers in a setting, they seem to stick to their own "turf" and so rarely collaborate. In the Trope Namer, it would seemingly be trivial for a Flying Brick like Superman to deal with Batman's normal Rogues Gallery: let's face it, we're talking about asking The Mafia to take down a guy who is nearly as fast as the Flash and routinely tosses planets around like hackeysacks, never mind seeing through walls and shooting lasers out of his eyeballs. And it's not like Supes has ever had a problem dealing with mundane crime instead when there's no world-ending threat that's got his attention (you haven't seen Clark angry until you've seen him dealing with a man using his preteen son for a punching bag).

The problem is, Fridge Logic isn't actually a trope: it's an Audience Reaction.

Edited by StarSword on Nov 29th 2023 at 10:15:56 AM

I dunno, I mean, the reason we know they exist in the same universe and can call on each other for help is because we've seen them do that before, many times. So if we go from a story where two separate heroes work as a team, then go to another story where it never occurs to them to do so, that feels tropeworthy ... at least as tropeworthy as Forgot About His Powers.

I think there could be a projects thread for all those tropes that are more like Fridge Logic, such as Cut Lex Luthor a Check and Reed Richards Is Useless.

Such a defenition encompasses a lot of tropes. I feel we should stick to this one for now.

It is one of those tropes were there is a wealth of examples where the work expressly explains why X and Y aren't partnering up on every little problem (Gotham's gothic buildings use a lot of lead that interfere with Superman's x-ray vision, Batman struggles to navigate and hide in the ultra modern Metropolis architecture), but that draws attention to when there is no crossover even if the threat warrants it. Similar to Clark Kenting the idea is so ubiquitous in the genre there is an opening for the concept of the trope in every applicable work, regardless if it is actually used.

Even if there are Canon cases where a work will handwave away this complaint, I don't think that changes the fact that this is primarily a fan observation. A lot of works will acknowledge and confront Unfortunate Implications. It doesn't mean we should convert Unfortunate Implications to an objective trope.

You know, that makes me think there may be a preexisting solution in the Omnipresent Trope concept, in which case we only need mention examples where the trope is Played With.

Thing too is I don't really see Superman Stays Out of Gotham as a Fridge Logic-based trope as much as, in this particular case, there are actual contracts, licensing and scheduling issues that might be the active cause. We even have Exiled from Continuity for when that is explicitly known.

Requiring tropes to have explicit in-universe commentary has rarely been a bad thing. It may not actually work if the clean-up isn't thorough enough, but there is plenty of solid examples that the trope can stand even with some pruning.

I know this is slightly off-topic, but since it was mentioned above: I feel like Cut Lex Luthor a Check is more trope-worthy in its aversions than when played straight when described - that is to say, "villain realizes they can just use their power to make money legitimately, and does so" seems to me to be a valid trope, and is in fact the main way I've usually seen that trope used.

In fact I thought that that's what it originally was? Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but I thought that that trope was originally meant to highlight the fact that unlike the fact that Reed Richards Is Useless, it's a trope that villains are allowed to use their powers to change the world and make a bunch of money legitimately, even if they ultimately inexplicably end up using that money to rob banks. Either way, that's a more valid trope. It also relates to Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys? in that we're sometimes told that villains are using their powers in legitimate ways to get the money and resources that they then use to fuel actual villainy.

Cut Lex Luthor a Check also has the advantage that its current name would actually apply just fine to that alternative definition (where we just flip the meaning so it represents what would be an aversion of its current definition), though it might require tweaking a lot of wicks. In fact, the name applies better to situations where Team Rocket successfully makes money running a business, which may be why I thought that that was what it already meant.

I'm less sure that there's such an easy fix for the trope at hand - it could be restricted to situations where the trope is invoked or lampshaded or discussed or some rationale / handwave is given, but how often does that happen?

Edited by Aquillion on Nov 30th 2023 at 1:41:22 AM

The oldest Internet Archive version of Cut Lex Luthor a Check is about the lack of going straight, but the first few examples are of what we would call aversions despite no indication that the example section should be restricted to that.

By now, we've brought up a few possible courses of action: widening the definition, restricting the trope to cases where the lack of crossover is acknowledged/justified, advocating a large discussion on tropes like this, etc.

Where does everyone stand?

Any official change would still need to go through the TRS, so we can't declare that here.

Should it head that way, my take is that the definition should be expanded. I'm all for tropes being as flexible and inclusive as possible. The general idea of one heroic entity ("super" or otherwise) staying out of the territory of another can appear in broad range of situations. Let them apply as long the spirit of the trope is met.

Edited by BeerBaron on Dec 1st 2023 at 1:42:38 PM

We can make minor changes to the trope's description (small clarifications and such, which don't require changes to wicks and are therefore of the sort that anyone could do without discussion anyway.) So it's worth considering whether something that minor can solve things before sending it off to TRS, which is more time- and resource-intensive and implicitly requests something bigger than a minor description tweak.

For example, if we just want to change the description to make it more clear that it is often about superheroes rather than always (a change that would seem to match the current usage, making it something uncontroversial that wouldn't require other changes elsewhere), that's a potentially one-word change that doesn't seem like it requires TRS. We don't want to send something to TRS and have a massive discussion only for it to end up with "add one word to the description."

Edited by Aquillion on Dec 1st 2023 at 11:09:50 AM

That actually would be controversial. Anything that constitutes changing the definition or usage (even if it's expanding to match current use) isn't something you can do outside of TRS because not everyone will agree that such an expansion is valid.

I think a wick check is the best place to start. Let's see how the current description is being (mis)used and (mis)understood. The direction we need to take could be as simple as just cleaning up misuse without touching the description at all or as complicated as a full-blown TRS to fix far wider issues, but a wick check should give us an idea of what step to take next.

Edited to add: There are only 612 wicks, so that's 50 wicks that will need checking.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 2nd 2023 at 6:09:01 PM

If I'm not mistaken, a wick in this website means one of these:

A wick is just any link to a different page.

The new description should go in line with "higher power tier stays out of lower power tier's places". Am I right?

The distinction can be based on the hero's Super Weight.

Those with a higher super weight tends to stay out of the territory of those with a lower super weight.

We haven't discussed a new description yet. We need to do a wick check to find out what the current situation is first. Only then will we know what our next step will be. That could be anything from doing nothing, to a minor tweak, to a major redefinition and rewrite.

I don't mind starting off a wick check, but it'll probably have to wait until the weekend, as work is very busy for me at the moment, so I don't have much free time. If other people can do it sooner, feel free.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 12th 2023 at 12:27:05 PM

I thought this trope was about how superheroes tend to stay out of each other's stories. Like how the Ironman isn't in The Winter Soldier and Capt. isn't in Ironman 3. I get the impression that in comics that is often the case, that most characters often have their own world, with crossovers being the exception.