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HTD Since: Mar, 2013
#1: Sep 9th 2024 at 5:25:01 PM

The trope description for Flying Brick describes it as a suite of powers (flight, toughness, strength, etc...) for superpowered characters. On the same trope page, nearly all examples in the fiction folders do describe such superpowered characters, but the Real Life folder is full of examples that describe aircraft (which do qualify for all of the requirements for the trope, save for superpowers and/or being characters), and I've seen tropers delete such examples from work pages (like here). Are these examples valid or misuse?

FSharp Resisting a rest Since: Jan, 2019 Relationship Status: I wanna know what love is
#2: Sep 9th 2024 at 7:40:26 PM

Unless they're Sentient Vehicles, I wouldn't call any planes "heroes."

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number9robotic (Experienced Trainee)
#4: Sep 9th 2024 at 9:08:54 PM

I think the intent of that was that Flying Brick was interpreted on the same general level of other "power-level/balance descriptor" tropes like Glass Cannon and Lightning Bruiser, which do have leeway that they apply to a menagerie of different characters/concepts, and the weapons that define them. However, Flying Brick is absolutely a trope in spirit and description meant to describe archetypes of superheroes, so this doesn't get that leeway IMO.

So yeah, Real Life examples about inanimate objects read as misuse.

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MorganWick (Elder Troper)
#5: Sep 10th 2024 at 3:32:20 AM

This may have started with describing planes that were called Flying Bricks, which the now-deleted real life section started out with a notice clarifying what that means in that context. The description claims the Trope Namer to be a flight-simulator game, though that seems to be a very late addition.

(Note also that a) the real-life section first appears in the same Internet Archive copy as the former Visual Pun trope image, and b) in the archive linked to at the top of this post, said image has a caption describing how a literal brick attempting to fly might work, which aligns with the usage of the term in real life as specified in the above-mentioned notice. I wonder if the image encouraged the addition of such "examples" in its own way?)

Lymantria Tyrannoraptoran Reptiliomorph from Toronto Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: Historians will say we were good friends.
Tyrannoraptoran Reptiliomorph
#6: Sep 10th 2024 at 2:18:19 PM

For what it’s worth, The earliest version of the Wayback Machine (fixed your link above) starts out by describing the Trope Co. product (now at TropeCo.Flying Brick).

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