Snowclone family evaluation:: Our Tropes Are Different

I never understood the "Our X Are Different" family. Maybe someone can explain to me why it was ever a good title.

Our Elves Are Better: It starts out about how elves are superior to humans...but then goes into a long monolog about the different kinds of elves and their traits, and most links and examples treat the trope as that.

Our Vampires Are Different: Is an essay on the common qualities of vampires, not how they're "different". Our Zombies Are Different seems to follow this trend as well.

Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Ok, this one is actually fine.

I don't have the mental energy to dissect every single entry on the index, I need the wiki hive mind for that. But my basic point is that this is an out of control snowclone (and I have nothing inherently against snowclones) that I'm not sure was a very good name in the first place. It needs to go through the same sort of evaluation process that "What Measure Is an X" went through recently.

Our Vampires Are Different was the first, wasn't it? Wasn't it originally supposed to be about how every work puts their own spin on how vampires are portrayed? We've also got Classical Movie Vampire for the ones that aren't different and Your Vampires Suck for when one work mocks another work's portrayal.

At some point, though, people started making a lot more "Our X are different" pages and it became just a catch-all for "the page about this fantasy creature".

Yes, Our Vampires Are Different was the first, and it was named such because it really does seem like every author, ever, wants to make their undead bloodsuckers original somehow.

I'm responsible for the creation of Our Dragons Are Different; I felt (and still do feel) that the snowclone is justified here as well because even the original dragon myths couldn't agree on all their traits.

Our Werewolves Are Different is likewise fine. Between the Columbia version and the classic mythological versions of various different cultures from shapeshifters to skinwalkers, plus modern spins, homages, and reactions to all as well as those that take inspiration from all those sources, there's rarely any similarity from one werewolf portrayal to the next, and the article does well to explain what variant each example uses.

edited 2nd Sep '10 10:22:05 PM by KnownUnknown

The original intent, for "Our Vampires Are Different", might have been to emphasize how authors like to make vampires that are different from other authors' vampires. But if that's really the reason, we should go through all the monster tropes, classify them according to whether authors like to use particularly different versions of them, and only call a particular monster trope "Our... are different" when it's one of those.

This is blatantly not how we are doing it. The use of the snowclone is completely haphazard and bears no relation to whether the trope is actually about a monster that is depicted in unusually different ways. This is easy to see when looking at Our Monsters Are Different. Are we expected to believe that werewolves are treated in very different ways, but depictions of sea monsters are all the same?

Well I made Our Fairies Are Different with the notion of fairies being portrayed differently in works. So I did make sure it fit the name.

^^ If depictions of werewolves are treated mostly differently, than yes.

And it's less intentionally trying to be different than everyone else rather than there being many different sources and incarnations of these myths that can each influence new portrayals in different ways, and thus they all tend to vary somewhat.

edited 3rd Sep '10 10:59:20 AM by KnownUnknown

Right now Our Elves Are Better is the generic "Are Different" trope for elves, which is a bad approach. I think we should split Our Elves Are Better into Our Elves Are Different and a subtrope Our Elves Are Better or just push the Our Elves Are Better examples into Superior Species. There are plenty of examples of elves that aren't smugly superior on that page, but the premise suggests that all depictions of elves are automatically a Superior Species, so it's confusing.

Well, we already have Can't Argue with Elves and Screw You, Elves!.

Honestly, I don't have a problem with naming fictional race tropes after "Our X Are Different".

Why this was ever a good idea? I can tell:

There are a bunch of mythological creatures that are, as a whole, vaguely defined, and even though their recognizable traits (blood-suckking, flying & fiery breath etc.) are widely recognized they need to be cleared up and re-defined to be able to appear as actual characters in a work So on one hand, authors will deal with these their own way. A dragon's breath can be explained away as just a myth, or justified as magic or similar Applied Phlebotinum relevant to your writing, given the scienfitic treatment, taken symbolically etcetra, but anything that is not strictly defined - and these creatures being mythical, they typically never had a single unified definition either - will differ.

The second problem is in fantasy where the Tolkien-esque treatment became a Genre Launch. Basically all fantasy literature are Derivative Works of each other, but you can not admit that. Instead you take some of the original mythology, take some of what others have done to it, then do the whole this-part-is-true-this-part-is-not process (and in a lucky case, contribute some ideas of your own too).

So in the end, when you say a word like "Elf" you have a pretty good idea what to expect, but at the same time you know that there will be something off about it compared to somebody else's book. I think the ...Are Different part refers to this fact, and not meant to imply that different interpretations will be completely or even mostly different. And of course, every now and then you get an author who does change a race in her work completely (while she may also keep the rest the same). For example, Rowling gave centaurs the classical treatment, used zombies but derived from the modern interpretation, and came up with her own rules for gnomes and others. Artemis Fowl changed the biology of dwarves and gave different justifications for fairies.

So yeah, the overall Our Tropes Are Different meaning is that every author will:

• 1. use the same creatures that everyone uses and is familiar with,
• 2. will give them a different interpretation, trying to come up with one that is a. more logical and b. more original his competitors'
• 3. act in-universe as if this was the only true interpretation, even proudly pointing out the problems with others' definitions or incorporating these as "myths".

I don't see it written down like this, but I think this is the overall message of this trope family.

(I do think that taking the name outside this is wrong though. Some items on Our Tropes Are Different clearly do not really belong there.)

(In fact, I'd like to see an eventual merge of Our Monsters Are Different and Our Tropes Are Different into one supertrope, if possible.)

edited 3rd Sep '10 5:09:23 PM by Vree

"The second problem is in fantasy where the Tolkien-esque treatment became a Genre Launch."

You mean "became a Trope Codifier". Genre Launch means genres of works, nothing else. I don't like the Trope Decay with how the name is used.

I could get behind a rewrite of the valid Our Monsters Are Different articles based on what Vree said - as they are they're already long and confusing, on top of any Trope Decay they might have suffered.

One way of going about it: Come up with an Ur-Example profile of the monster in question - the Ur Vampire, the Ur Elf, etc. The examples would then be written in terms of how the example differs from the basic model. I wouldn't swear on anything sacred that that's the best way, but it's a thought.

But I do have a problem with, in general, using the title as a catchall for fantasy creature types.

edited 3rd Sep '10 4:39:07 PM by Elle

I think we should use some sort of theme naming for creature tropes, though. Using just the names - as in The Phoenix, Unicorn, Valkyries seems a bit bland, as if we were writing a Useful Notes page (though it may be the way to go).

But I think having them as "X Are Different" encourages people to put it in the examples how the creature is different in the work exactly, which leads to more interesting and noteworthy examples.

Though a lot of examples are still just "monster appears in this work" even now, I admit.

Bump.

Yay, I wrote a lot of stupid s...stuff on this page.

Anyway, I don't have any problem with this trope family. All of the Our Monsters Are Different are just creature supertropes; which name they use, Zombies or Our Zombies Are Different doesn't really matter. If a species has a lot of different variants in fiction it can use the Our X Are Different format, if not it can use the "The X" one, but it doesn't matter as long as there is only one supertrope of everything.

Like I said in the Zombie thread, trying to separate the "straight" and "different" types probably wouldn't be helpful. Which one is the "true" depiction of something is debatable, and it's much more useful if people just describe how a creature is presented in a work on a single species page than if we tried to sort out what we consider original or straight.

Now, on the Our Tropes Are Different page: it only collects titles that have fallen victim to this theme naming, the ones that aren't Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes don't have anything to do with each other. Unless we want to rename them, I wouldn't bother with them too much. (What'd be grounds for their rename you ask? Most of them don't have anything to do with either the current meaning, ie. monster / race tropes, nor the other meaning, that something has various portrayals in fiction. Just took the name to look "trendy".)

edited 22nd Sep '10 8:46:32 PM by Vree

I'm not saying I *don't* want to rename them. If it were just me I'd like the fantastic species ones mostly renamed too but it doesn't sound like there's support for that.

I haven't seen this being used incorrectly. In fact, these are some of my favorite trope pages.

The entire "Our X Is Different" family of pages is basically the idea of having to establish the rules of this world. Even if you use the exact same vampire traits from Buffy The Vampire Slayer (the human soul is removed, normal human appearance until they get their Game Face, a mutual blood sucking to initiate the transformation, etc) you need to somehow explain it to the audience.

The Naïve Newcomer is adjusting to the idea of "Vampires are Real" and needs a crash course on what they are like versus the old myths. Do crosses or garlic ward them off? Will a stake through the heart kill them?

All of those pages are part trope part Useful Notes as it explains how certain mythological topics have been subject to new interpretations and adaptations. Now if they start going into the realm of "Our Humongous Mecha Are Different" then that might be something to trim away.

edited 23rd Sep '10 11:25:00 PM by KJMackley

• Index of Fictional Creatures

• Our Monsters Are Different

End Of Statement.

I'm against renames for the sake of renames, but my major issue with 'Our Xs Are Different' is that the general -impression- given by the articles are that 'there are certain codified qualities to this creature as a trope, but this work uses them differently': for instance, silver kills werewolves being the codified werewolf trope (even though that was -really- only codified in Universal's ''The Wolf Man''), but in some works, the silver thing is just a silly superstition and doesn't actually work, in others silver only weakens them or their powers, etc.

Mostly, my problem is there's not really any single codified Stock Character trope regarding most monsters, other than the stuff that is absolutely integral to the monster definition itself (vampires drink blood, werewolves are men who turn into wolves, zombies are walking dead {not that even THOSE aren't subverted -occasionally-}). So your monsters can't really be 'different' if there's no actual consensus on what defines that monster in the first place.

I think it's the 'Our' part of it, it implies 'oh, you think you know how X works? Well, OUR X works THIS way.'

and I think that's all 2 cents will buy me.

edited 11th Oct '10 11:41:02 AM by savage

^ That's pretty much my stand. I wouldn't have a problem with the "X Are Different" names if they were actually used most of the time for "this work uses them differently", or if the prime characteristics were so clear cut.

I'm for renaming a good portion of these tropes. As has been said, the "Our X are Different" snow-clone implies that X deviates from an established archetype. The term loses meaning when it's applied to tropes that don't share that meaning. Our Presidents Are Different might be the worst offender on the list. It's about creating fictional characters to occupy Real Life political positions. This isn't even remotely connected to Our Vampires Are Different.

Maybe if there were two tropes for each monster: Classic X, for what they all seem to have in common, and Our X Are Different, for when they vary significantly

^ Hmm, or maybe, since we are TV Tropes, work off the idea of a Trope Codifier for various monster types?

For example, The Wolf Man is probably the baseline for what "Our Werewolves Are Different From," even though a huge amount of the werewolf lore has nothing whatsoever to do with "traditional" lore and was in fact made up out of whole cloth by the screenwriter.

OTOH, even regarding the Trope Codifier, a lot of our knowledge about the "baseline" is in fact Common Knowledge - e.g., stuff about vampires that appears nowhere in either Stoker's Dracula or the 1931 movie.

I think that's just wrong. The Wolf Man isn't in a privledged position here. That's the point. If I say leprechaun a picture that looks like the front of a box of Lucky Charms pops in front of your arm and when you look back there's always something about a short fella with a bright jacket and some gold. When it comes to vampires and werewolves, it's like there is a convention of having your own mixed bag.