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The Alleged Car, scope, and what counts or should count

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themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him
#1: Jan 9th 2025 at 6:12:51 PM

Over in the complaining cleanup thread, someone brought up a misused Real Life folder on The Alleged Car concerning the Tesla Cybertruck, consisting mostly of complaining about the truck's controversial design. Fighteer argued the folder was misuse, saying about The Alleged Car:

Speaking as someone with an acknowledged bias in the matter, this seems like complaining about the selling features of the car and has nothing to do with its product quality. The Alleged Car is about a vehicle that's held together by duct tape and luck, not one that some people find aesthetically displeasing or don't like the sales terms of.

This comment piqued my interest, as I was genuinely unaware The Alleged Car was that strict — especially since I felt like I'd seen misuse for "bad car" in the wild.

I brought it to the TRS meta thread to ask if the trope needed TRS, and if a rename or expansion would be supported. War Jay 77 argued that an expansion would work, owing to the comedic value present in the more general idea of a "shitty old car".

Fighteer, however, expressed concerns that such an expanded trope may become too broad, or attract complaining examples about infamous cars. In the ensuing discussion, it became apparent that The Alleged Car may need a Trope Talk thread (proposed by War Jay 77) discussing the current/potential future scope of the trope.

So, what is the trope's current scope? Is an expansion needed, and if so, to what? What should and should not be a part of this item? That's what we're here to find out.

Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him
#2: Jan 9th 2025 at 6:13:55 PM
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#3: Jan 9th 2025 at 6:15:44 PM

If the definition is really this strict, then yeah, an expansion seems good to me. But if the examples in question could just count as downplayed, then we're probably okay?

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#4: Jan 9th 2025 at 6:18:15 PM

As noted by others, I see no need to dramatically expand the trope. Its definition is flexible enough to include "car that is poorly maintained and/or breaks down a lot". However, expanding it to include "cars that have poor brand reputation among specific demographics" or are infamous for things other than bad quality would be undesirable. That's not what the trope means or ever has meant, and examples along those lines would be simple misuse.

Also, any RL examples should obey No Recent Examples, Please!, because like any issue of brand reputation, we cannot know how history will judge it until enough time has passed to gain a perspective.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 9th 2025 at 9:19:46 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#5: Jan 9th 2025 at 6:19:27 PM

Yeah, to be clear that's not what my expansion idea was meant to cover.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#6: Jan 9th 2025 at 6:24:24 PM

Jesus, I just looked at the article itself: TheAllegedCar.Real Life and the Cybertruck folder is longer than entire other folders listing out individual examples. Someone just wanted to rant. I don't care if people think it's the worst idea for a car ever; it is far too early for history to adequately judge.

I also note that the United States folder has multiple "general" sections followed by sub-examples, and that's an improper use of indentation, never mind a violation of Examples Are Not General.

Let's see... the GM EV1 is listed there despite the fact that GM recalled it because they wanted to get out of the EV business, which is the opposite of the definition. And the Model T is listed despite being the first mass-market car and not giving any real explanation of why it's so bad.

A lot of these examples are about cars or car parts that are underpowered or had poor reception/features, none of which fits the trope either.

The whole RL section needs a massive cleanup.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 9th 2025 at 9:29:01 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him
#7: Jan 9th 2025 at 6:26:01 PM

Interestingly, the trope wasn't always this strict. Per the description in 2008:

It's cheap. Unfortunately, it tops out at about 40 miles per hour, it breaks down a lot, and you probably have to special-order replacement parts from overseas, since you're the only one in your time zone who was enough of a sucker to buy one (and cars like this are inevitably foreign). Often it has some kind of cute nickname.

So this seems to be some kind of weird variation of Trope Decay, where the trope got stricter over time. Huh.

Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#8: Jan 9th 2025 at 6:28:55 PM

See, that's the sort of definition I was talking about. It looks like the scourge of changes has affected yet another trope

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him
#9: Jan 9th 2025 at 6:30:05 PM

Hmm. So, if we were to revert the description back to a pre-decay state, would we still need TRS?

Also the Real Life section definitely needs to go to the Real Life thread. Or cleaned up as Fighteer suggested — though I couldn't be of any help as I know little about cars.

Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#10: Jan 9th 2025 at 6:32:40 PM

It's not uncommon for tropes to accumulate extra paragraphs of text in their descriptions through Wiki Magic, often de facto redefining the trope without any affirmative action on the part of TRS or other efforts.

But the original text of the trope matches my understanding of it, which is that it's a car that's old, beat up, unreliable, hard to repair, and/or generally unfit to be a car, yet its owner tends to be loyal to it and it manages to get the job done despite its flaws.

The RL section suggests that it's about entire models of cars that suffered from crippling design flaws, which is at best an encapsulation of the concept without really defining or exemplifying it.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 9th 2025 at 10:05:04 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Amonimus the "Retromancer" from <<|Wiki Talk|>> (Sergeant) Relationship Status: In another castle
the "Retromancer"
#11: Jan 9th 2025 at 11:35:24 PM

As a trope, it's about cars that are comically unreliable by the story's standards, but a character keeps it around for some reason anyway. It's not just "poorly made cars". RL having "a depressing number of them" means people see it that way and are using the page for complaining that doesn't belong there.

Overlap with What a Piece of Junk was mentioned, that name demonstrates No New Stock Phrases, as that trope is specifically about someone applying Underestimating Badassery to the character's vehicle.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#12: Jan 9th 2025 at 11:39:01 PM

My understanding is that What a Piece of Junk is for things that look like The Alleged Car (or The Alleged Spacecraft etc.) but aren't.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#13: Jan 10th 2025 at 5:55:13 AM

Edit: Never mind

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 10th 2025 at 8:55:28 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
themayorofsimpleton Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him from the Island of Koridai (Captain) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
Short-Term Projects Herald | he/him
#14: Jan 10th 2025 at 9:35:07 AM

So — going to ask again since I didn't get a clear answer.

Would TRS be needed to revert the description back to its less-strict variant, or no?

Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
EmeraldSource Since: Jan, 2021
#15: Jan 10th 2025 at 1:07:01 PM

^ If a wick check is done and the issue is isolated mostly to the real life page itself, TRS is not needed.

Offhand, The Alleged Car has a Doom It Yourself implication, that its simply old, outdated and has been held together through improvised repairs, either through the character personally or them inheriting it. Thus it sticks around as a matter of pride or necessity, even if it's hard to get it to 88 miles per hour.

The idea of entire brands and models fitting this definition, where it's just a badly design vehicle, feels like a missing super trope. Faulty out of the factory devices places emphasis on bad corporate decisions which never gets to the hobbyist tinkering with it for years phase. It would be close to the idea of a Flawed Prototype, more of a Flawed Release Version. First thing that came to mind was the ED-209 from Robo Cop.

On the Cybertruck specifically, it feels just too early to call it out. A version 2.0 may resolve any problems, and a number of things may be faulty reporting due to external controversies. On the other hand, Top Gear and The Grand Tour have pointed out numerous vehicles that were poorly designed from the start, did not stand the test of time but still became collectors items for that reason.

Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#16: Jan 10th 2025 at 1:16:41 PM

[up] I agree that, fundamentally, the trope does not permit entire models of cars to be examples. It's for individual vehicles that are super shitty but still manage to run somehow. Thus, the entire RL subpage is a shoehorn.

Where I disagree is that we need a supertrope for it. To be a trope, it must be a recurring, meaningful pattern in fiction, and I don't see "shitty model of car" used in that way very often except as a joke and a shout-out to the real life versions.

For example, Top Secret! has a gag about the M9 Pinto, in which a Jeep lightly brushes its bumper, and it explodes. This isn't The Alleged Car because nobody owns the thing and it's not shown to be busted but drivable. It's just a parody/shout-out.

Maybe we could find a trope in parodic references to real-life brands that are notoriously shitty, but even then, the trope would be in the shout-out, and thus a RL section would be impossible.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 10th 2025 at 4:17:54 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#17: Jan 10th 2025 at 1:17:33 PM

Wouldn't that actually be Every Car Is a Pinto?

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#18: Jan 10th 2025 at 1:18:47 PM

[up] Yes, the specific example is Every Car Is a Pinto, and thanks for reminding me of that. My point is that "gee, Pintos were unsafe" isn't The Alleged Car, and thus there is no place for RL examples of the phenomenon.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (3,795/50,000)
#19: Jan 10th 2025 at 1:19:17 PM

Oh, well, yeah, I agree with that.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
EmeraldSource Since: Jan, 2021
#20: Jan 10th 2025 at 1:50:45 PM

Some examples will just be bad. That is Made of Explodium and Every Car Is a Pinto. But a work like Top Gear will reference infamously bad models and brands, but are creating their own narrative around the specific car they are using to demonstrate why the model/brand was so bad.

A truly proper real life example of The Alleged Car would be stories of individually bad cars, such as Sam Raimi and his Delta 88.

I was also trying to decouple the idea from just vehicles to flawed mass production items in general. The ED-209 was said to be a guaranteed military contract so Dick Jones didn't care if it worked. Silicon Valley showed numerous devices and software that imploded on launch. It's tangible story elements that would be more appropriate for most the The Alleged Car real life section, and probably other tropes too.

Edited by EmeraldSource on Jan 10th 2025 at 1:51:15 AM

Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#21: Jan 10th 2025 at 2:01:43 PM

Except that, as I pointed out, The Alleged Car is not about real life products that were bad in aggregate, or as entire brands/model runs. It is about exactly what you said above: specific individual cars that are shitty and loved, or whatever. Sam Raimi's story about his Delta 88 is a great demonstration of this.

The framing of your post sounds like you think we are obligated to provide a space to list RL examples of poorly received or unsafe products, and that's simply not true.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 10th 2025 at 5:02:14 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
EmeraldSource Since: Jan, 2021
#22: Jan 10th 2025 at 2:18:23 PM

We are wondering where the misuse came from and if it spread beyond the RL page. If there is a decent trope idea to come from it, don't really see the issue with that.

Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#23: Jan 10th 2025 at 3:11:39 PM

[up]You're completely missing what I've been saying. RL examples do not justify tropes. If there is no trope that fits something in RL, we don't invent one just so that can happen.

Tropes exclusively exist in fiction. Any applicability or relationship to RL is incidental and not the purpose of the wiki.

Edited by Fighteer on Jan 10th 2025 at 6:14:32 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Discar Since: Jun, 2009
#24: Jan 10th 2025 at 3:12:58 PM

I think "this brand of car is infamously bad" might be a valid trope, but it feels very different from "this specific car is terrible due to age, poor maintenance, or other issues."

Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.
StarSword Captain of USS Bajor from somewhere in deep space Since: Sep, 2011
Captain of USS Bajor
#25: Jan 10th 2025 at 3:18:10 PM

I think we should take The Alleged Car to NRLEP because I agree that it's meant to be about depictions of specific vehicles, not entire model runs. My '01 Forester was a leaky heap that had cost me its entire purchase price and then some in repairs by the time I finally got rid of it, but even if we still did Troper Tales, I wouldn't call the entire model year a heap just because of one 20-year-old abused rustbucket.

Edited by StarSword on Jan 11th 2025 at 2:09:23 PM

Trust me, I'm an engineer!

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