Why isn’t IncestSubtext a YMMV trope?

Looking through the page for Incest Subtext and it’s a mess. While there are a few cases where the subtext was 100% intentional in its writing, the vast majority on the page contains examples that were clearly unintentional. For example Frozen contains several paragraphs discussing Anna X Elsa, when Disney’s intentions was clear to depict love between sisters, not anything romantic. The page description even notes sometimes the subtext is unintentional. So I feel we either need to fold the page into Incest Yay Shipping, or crack down on it and only include stuff that Word of God confirmed was intentional.

Edited by Mariofan99 on Jan 25th 2024 at 9:21:03 AM

Because it technically allows both intentional and unintentional examples right now.

...And also because it just hasn't been moved yet. A lot of super old tropes should be subjective but aren't because we haven't gotten around to it.

There are intentional cases of Incest Subtext, so I could see keeping it as objective.

I’d vote subjective given most seems to be open to interpretation

Maybe we should split the trope?

That can work too.

Edited by SoyValdo7 on Jan 25th 2024 at 8:41:03 AM

Yeah, perhaps merge the non-confirmed ones with Incest Yay Shipping

Edited by Mariofan99 on Jan 25th 2024 at 9:37:16 AM

i feel like splitting the trope would be the best option.

for splitting (preferably) or moving to ymmv entirely

There definitely are examples of this trope that authors intend for and thus belong on Main, but stuff where it's entirely fans insisting that all love is sexual belongs on Incest Yay Shipping.

That's actually shipping it, though. Not just identifying scenes that seem incestuous when they weren't meant to be.

Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading would cover examples of unintended incest readings.

The issue is, how do you know for certain something is unintentional? It's the Ho Yay issue all over again; that's the same issue from a different angle as it's very hard to know if something was meant to be gay or not.

That hasn't stopped Ambiguously Gay and Ambiguously Bi from being around. So splitting the trope between a subjective and an objective one can work.

It can work, but we should examine wicks first and see how easy it actually is to separate them.

I'm starting to work on wick check (Incest Subtext Wick Check). At the moment I'm checking if the examples are intentional or not, but any suggestions are appreciated. Feel free to help.

based on the wick check, it kinda looks like a lot of the "intentional" examples aren't really subtext at all, they're just, regular text. Or more specifically, they're examples of characters either ending up in an unintentionally romantic-looking moment with a close relative, or indicating an attraction to a close relative, but no actual incest occurs. (Often played for laughs). That does seem like a pretty objective concept, but also not really the same thing as "subtext"

I too think it would be best to move the examples to Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading and/or Incest Yay Shipping — unless the subtext is confirmed by Word of God or, like Tremmor noted, isn't subtext at all. I think something like that was done with Author's Saving Throw, wasn't it?

It's just that I was having troubles with this trope only yesterday. The context: in The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors, there is an… interestingly-written scene that numerous adult fans believe to be dripping with Incest Subtext, so much that the incest is practically considered canon. But, since the book is a children's fairytale written in Stalin's times, and there was no sex in the Soviet Union, it can't, I think, be assumed with certainty that the subtext was intentional. I thought it over and ended up moving the example to Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading.

Edited by AutumnLeaves on Jan 29th 2024 at 3:16:11 PM

Yes, I definitely think the "subtext" part is the problem here. If anyone wants to add to the TRS queue, feel free to use the wick check. Just ping me.

Tropes about objective romantic subtext have a big issue in general because - speaking as someone who ships characters myself - it seems like certain shippers wear superglued Shipping Goggles and legitimately do not understand the concept of close-yet-platonic friends. Or two enemies who genuinely hate each other. Or, in this case, a deeply loving sibling relationship that does not involve romantic or sexual feelings. So because they interpret everything through the lens of Eros, they make it harder for those not in the fandom to know if the characters really do have intentional subtext in their relationship, or if it’s just the goggles at work.

So what should we do with the trope? We can move the unintentional examples to Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading, but some of the intentional examples are basically Big Brother Attraction / Big Sister Attraction.

Edited by SoyValdo7 on Mar 6th 2024 at 2:33:05 PM

id vote to merging with Platonic Writing and Romanitc Reading

Ok, I'll go ahead and add it to the TRS queue.