Either way (I just edited my post to suggest possible meanings that could be inferred, see #50.)
But I imagine "stumbling on to the team" is rarer. Interestingly, that is probably the opposite of the "dragooned out of his lecture hall by military men" scenario, but it comes right back around to it — if they stumble onto the team, it's probably a Closed Circle and they will be commandeered into service when they learn his entomology skills are absurdly useful, otherwise the team of experts would haul him off to the brig for trespassing right?
edited 6th Jan '11 12:04:56 PM by berr
I don't think that's "either way". "Stumbles into the team" isn't the same as "stumbles onto the team". Both would still be "dragooned" into service. (I realize force isn't actually necessary; but An Offer You Can't Refuse isn't really an offer.)
Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.What I mean by either way, is it could be a range of options which should probably be below the top paragraph. e.g.
- Dragooned out of lecture hall by uncomprehending military man
- Recruited by an elite scientist who believes in him, but "it was not a request"
- Jumped at the Call because someone finally is in need of his (possibly unrelated) expertise
- Stumbled onto the team in a Closed Circle situation; his (possibly unrelated) expertise proves essential
- In which case the people on-site may actually reject his help at first.
- Stumbled onto the problem, the solution, or both in the course of his research; the authorities take notice
- Usually lampshaded by "we read your article in (obscure laughable journal after Science wouldn't publish it)"
Borderline scenarios:
- Actively seeks out the authorities after a disaster is underway, no one listens to him but he "stumbles" or "worms" his way into the research team. This actually overlaps with the idea of the higher-ups not listening to him, though it gets away from the premise of him being recruited by a team of people. Madrugada, I'm guessing you'd probably feel this to be its own Sub-Trope. I'm unsure, because it overlaps quite a bit in how the story plays out.
- The "hero seeks out discredited Worm Guy who is living as a conspiracy theorist / hacker after his agency fired him or disbanded or suppressed his research", such as the Transformers film examples, is definitely a splittable Sub-Trope, since its an identifiable stock character. Although they sometimes have to be dragooned into helping the hero as well, especially if the hero is on the run. Sometimes they get promoted back onto the research team by helping the hero save the day.
edited 6th Jan '11 12:55:37 PM by berr
I see how I got the trope wrong.
I second berr's suggestion that the whole dragooning aspect be pushed out of the initial paragraph. It should be made clear that dragooning is basically just one narrative device to get that person onto the research team.
However, if I really am understanding the trope I'm having a very tough time with the choice of the exemplar for this trope. I personally have never seen the 1998 Godzilla so I may be biased in this regard. But if this is about a discredited researcher who turns out to have been right all along then one could do much, much better for an archetype. Unfortunately, the archetype doesn't come from a literary work, but from history. I would think that Nicholas Copernicus and the Copernican Revolution is the best choice as archetype for this trope. At the time Copernicus proposed the heliocentric model, Ptolemy's earth-centered cosmology was universally accepted, and he couldn't make a strong enough case to convince people to re-evaluate it. It was only after the work of Kepler, Galileo and Newton finding support for the model that Copernicus' view came to be accepted.
It sounds like the Worm Guy's conflict with other researchers (or any outsider on a research team who eventually turns out to be right) is a writ small replay of the Copernican Revolution, or alternatively Thomas Kuhn's paradigm shift. Why not cite one of those, if this is what the trope is about?
That's not what the trope is about. It's about a kind of Changeling Fantasy where an unimportant scientist who's either in an obscure field or discredited by his peers turn out to be the key to some world-changing problem or a fantastic adventure (like alien invasions or something). They generally become a kind of nerdy The Everyman Action Hero.
Copernicus is definitely not an example. I think mentioning that they have a wild theory that turns out to be true is also missing the heart of the trope. The basic point is that they're not someone important until the story starts, when they get recruited into something important that no one knows about.
edited 7th Jan '11 4:14:08 AM by Clarste
I'm terribly sorry, Clarste, but the more I look at the definition mentioned in your previous post the more trouble I have with it. If that's how the trope is defined then it becomes almost nonsensical that the character is a scientist except as a sort of prince or princess arbitrarily robed in a lab coat and dropped in an action movie where the science is essentially content-free. I'll grant that some stories are basically fantasy stories dressed in technological clothing. Nonetheless, if the Changeling Fantasy aspect is what defines the trope then the science is essentially content-free, and it seems to bake into the definition a fundamental disqualification of hard science works where the science is actually made more plausible and coherent rather than window dressing. I say this because the assertion of the Changeling Fantasy as central seems to conflict with many aspects of how the trope is described and the examples cited below.
If we're talking about an archetypal Changeling Fantasy then what the character does or thinks is pretty much irrelevant, it's all about who he is and what his lineage is. That would seem to qualify anyone recognizable as a scientist. Furthermore, it would seem to conflict with most of the aspects of the trope as defined and rob the narrative of any logic. So it's not the case that "He's really into whatever most frequently obscure and seemingly useless research he's doing" because the ideas are irrelevant. So the "vague and often ludicrous hypotheses" don't matter, and furthermore any tension between this Designated Hero and any Designated Villain is also really just irrelevant window dressing because it's not supposed to mean anything anyway. Furthermore, any tension one might feel is also meaningless because if we're dealing with a Changeling Fantasy the ideas don't count so neither the Designated Hero nor the Designated Villain are taking any stand that has any meaning to the story, so it's all just a waste of time and a diversion from the story. So if anyone dragoons this particular individual, what the individual studied had nothing to do with it, but what brought them to dragoon this person in the first place? And if the ideas have nothing to do with some catastrophe or problem critical to the story, then why does it matter if the problem is solved or not, if the solution has nothing to do with some notion that brought this character into the story?
This tension shows up in a lot of the examples cited in this trope.
- In Jurassic Park, why did they pick Alan Grant, if his insights about dinosaurs are irrelevant to the story? Also, where's the big reveal about his royal lineage? And funding of three years of research while a big deal to Grant, seems kinda cheap for royalty. Moreover, while Grant gets chased around a lot, Grant ultimately solves nothing. The whole group that goes out there gets their butts handed back to them by the creatures on the island and they barely escape with their lives.
- In many of the examples, while there is an adventure, there is no payoff from the Changeling Fantasy perspective. In The Core the story ends where they get out with their lives, as is the case with Armageddon, and any riches to be had aren't spelled out. If anything, Steve Buscemi's character in the story ("Rockhound") undermines the trope since early in the movie he stiffs a loan shark for a six figure sum before he goes on the mission.
- In Stargate Daniel Jackson gets the girl, but he isn't the action hero otherwise.
- in Sphere there's absolutely no Changeling Fantasy action hero payoff whatsoever for Norman or the other scientists, because they all forget everything that happened.
Having said all that, I can buy The Worm Guy as a Changeling Fantasy and/or The Everyman Action Hero trope where the ideas don't count if we're talking about crappy stories or nonsense parody works because then the scientist doesn't have to resemble a scientist or anything in particular, and the parts of the story don't have to have any coherent logic to them and the narrative doesn't have to have any unity.
Perhaps I'm thinking of something that's covered by another trope. If that's the case, some sort of pointer or redirect would be helpful. If the heart The Worm Guy is essentially a story of a princeling on a lark it might help to de-emphasize the scientist or any sort of expert or specialist role, if such content is irrelevant to the trope beyond set dressing.
edited 8th Jan '11 3:26:52 AM by nonpalindromic
You are taking what I said far too literally. It has nothing to do with princes or riches. I linked that trope as a comparison, this is not a subtrope of that. In fact, you're so off the mark that I have to wonder whether you've understood anything I've written.
The comparison to Changeling Fantasy is only in the broadest sense. The hero is actually someone important, but they don't know it yet. For Changeling Fantasy that importance comes from their heritage, while for this trope the importance comes from them having expert knowledge or experience in something that could save the world from some threat.
However, you're correct in that this trope is not about science. It's not a trope generally used in hard SF. Narratively, what the character knows or believes is pretty much irrelevant after the beginning. The point is simply that they're scouted by some secret organization or group because of their knowledge, and that puts them into a position where they can be a hero in the story. That's it. Everything else is optional. You're reading far too much into this, and it's a pretty broad trope.
edited 8th Jan '11 4:22:27 AM by Clarste

Ah, okay, "stumbles onto it" as in stumbles onto the solution, not stumbles onto the "team"... is that right?
Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.