Why is "Music to Invade Poland To" YMMV?

Music to Invade Poland to is a weird trope in my eyes. The page itself is listed as YMMV, yet it's not listed on the actual YMMV home page, and every single example of it I've seen on a trope page has had it listed on the main page, rather than the YMMV page.

I’ve thought for a while that this trope urgently needs TRS; the examples are all over the place. The laconic says it’s about German music being accused of being Nazi music, some examples are just “this music sort of sounds like Nazi music”, some examples are about certain music (such as Wagner) being used to evoke Nazism, some about literally about music used by Nazis, and some are somewhere else entirely:

• In Curb Your Enthusiasm, lead character Larry David expresses his appreciation of the music of Wagner. He is a Jew but is not a particularly devout one, however, other Jewish people around him are shocked when they find out he likes Wagner. He claims that he likes the music and does not care what it's associated with.

...Ouch. This trope really isn't in good shape.

For the longest time I had assumed it was a Just for Fun page since the title literally sounds like a Spotify playlist. This is the first I'm hearing about it being an Audience Reaction; the biggest issue here is definitely the name, which does absolutely nothing to describe the trope. It's just bad.

Edited by Coachpill on Jan 18th 2024 at 12:50:46 PM

It is supposed to be about bombastic music from Germany or Germanic-speaking countries getting ignorantly associated with the Nazis, which is legitimately something that happens: Sabaton have complained about it^note Among other things, they were scheduled to play in Volgograd on the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad, but the show was cancelled after a local politician got it into his head that they were neo-Nazis planning to burn a Russian flag onstage. and Tyr even wrote a song about it.

It is clearly an audience reaction, but if it looks to be misused, then I definitely think a wick check in order.

Edited by StarSword on Jan 18th 2024 at 12:57:32 PM

Frankly, the whole concept sounds like "Gushing About Music You Like".

EDIT: God, I didn't read this thread and the trope description, forget what I said.

Edited by SoyValdo7 on Jan 18th 2024 at 11:07:28 AM

I'm currently looking through the wicks right now (not sure yet whether I want to do an outright wick check in a dedicated TRS thread if we're really willing to go that far) but just based on what I've seen so far most examples are even worse than I initially thought, lots of examples of the trope being "Invoked" when that shouldn't be possible for YMMV tropes

To be fair, "invoked" is a word that can be used in work-page trope examples to signify that the trope in question is being used In-Universe and so doesn't get the icon that flags it to be moved to the YMMV page, though the Invoked Trope page indicates that it shouldn't work that way.

Oh, and it has the YMMV banner because it's on Audience Reactions, which triggers the YMMV banner same as the actual YMMV page. (This isn't a comment about whether it should be YMMV, just explaining it from a technical perspective since the OP seemed confused about it.)

Well, YMMV isn't allowed to be Played With (and as I said, I do think this belongs there), so those definitely need to go.

Under the current scope, would this count as an In-Universe example with the additional context that Wagner (deservedly or not, depending on who you ask)'s music was appropriated by the Nazis? Or not, because the historical appropriation already makes it not a misconception?

Edited by Synchronicity on Jan 19th 2024 at 10:38:20 AM

Yeah, that's a definite In-Universe example. Wagner was notoriously antisemitic, but he died six years before Hitler was born. He's mostly only associated with the Nazis because he happened to be Hitler's favorite composer.

Fucking Nazis ruin everything.

Edited by StarSword on Jan 19th 2024 at 10:54:05 AM