Since the official rules are a bit unclear, my personal opinion is that having a header to a group of examples should be allowed under some conditions:
- It needs to say something meaningful and not just be word cruft.
- The information should be relevant to all of the examples underneath it.
These examples are good uses of a header since it essentially pulls out information that would otherwise be in every sub-example.
On the other hand, something like:
- Work Name: This trope is used a lot in the series
- Example one...
- Example two...
is a poor use of a header since it's not actually saying anything meaningful.
the Retromancer
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Yes, I think if the first indentation says something about the following examples that it could just not, it shouldn't.
I've also always interpreted it as "a general grouping remark is fine to use, while specific examples should be on individual levels". For example, a larger example for Animal Motifs for that ASOIAF block would map something like:
- Animal Motifs:
- Lions for House Lannister something something King of Beasts...
- Lannister 1
- Lannister 2
- Wolves for House Stark something something Noble Wolf...
- Stark 1
- Stark 2
- Lions for House Lannister something something King of Beasts...
in which case, having the explanatory note generalizing how King of Beasts and Noble Wolf apply to the families would be beneficial, while the third bullet points would explain how it applies to each character.
Edited by Synchronicity on Jan 4th 2024 at 10:57:30 AM
Here's a example I wrote for Malcolm & Marie.
- Hypocrite: Malcolm repeatedly rails about how his race is interpreted in the film industry — but as Marie keeps pointing out, it's not like he's doesn't participate in it.
- He gripes about the white, woke, university-based media-studies types who he's anticipating reviewing his work — but he himself has a college degree in the arts.
- He complains about his work being viewed as political — but his next film is going to be an overtly political biopic.
Malcolm: I mean, we get it. You're smart. We get it. You're woke. We get it, we get it. Let us, us artists, have some fucking fun with the shit. Let us have fun with the art.
Marie: (Beat) Malcolm, you're writing the Angela Davis biopic right now.
Malcolm: (Beat) Yeah, but that's different. That's different. - He complains about being viewed as a "black director", but according to Marie, he somewhat brands himself as such. He lets — or perhaps even leads — people in the industry to assume he's been affected by the sorts of disadvantages that disproportionately affect black people, even though he's actually from a stable, privileged background.
Marie: You have two parents, no bad habits other than being a fucking prick, and a college education. Your mother is a therapist. Your father is a professor. Your sister works for a think tank in D.C. But out here, on these streets, these smiling fucking rich people, they think you know what it's like to scrap, think you fucking lived it. Give me a break. You're more privileged than the white girl who works for the LA Times, who thinks she's doing a public service by lifting up your mediocre ass.
Someone changed the formatting to make the first line a bullet of it's own too. I DMed them and we talked about it. Upon reflection they agreed my original formatting was correct — the first line is an overview, while the latter ones are specific instances.
However, I can see where they got the idea from. Example Indentation in Trope Lists does not show any example where it's correct to have text on the first line and also sub-bullets. I think adding such an example to the page would be helpful.
Edited by Eievie on Jan 12th 2024 at 11:47:14 AM
the Retromancer
I've noticed "general statements" have been mentioned in EditBanned a few times as cases of correct indentation, so I guess the policy page does need to say that this is fine.
- Trope: general statement about examples
- Specific example 1
- Specific example 2
Per this
.
I'll use this random example at Noble Wolf, but this is very common, and you can look up other cases (especially in ensemble tropes or color tropes).
At DarkSouls.Tropes A To L
On one hand, this violates a principle that all examples should be on the same level. On the other hand, there's no better way of saying that an example is common within a setting, with specific elaborations. And it'd feel very wrong to make them single-paragraph.
In either case, Example Indentation in Trope Lists isn't very clear if these are a problem.
Edited by Amonimus on Jan 3rd 2024 at 11:05:39 PM
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup