Rename: Sergeant Rock

It's a character-named trope, and one which hinders the creation of a page specifically about the DC Comics war hero Frank Rock.

Is there a big demand to make such a page?

Sergeant Rock is an incredibly descriptive name that fits with the characterization of this trope,(which is why the character was named Sergeant Rock).

Given the source of the request, any reason why Mr. Frank Rock has to have his own page? Is he something like The Joker? We seem to lack a namespace for this sort of issue (ie.: The Joker). Anyways, Sergeant Rock is well named from what I can see, although I only made the connection because I already knew of Drill Sergeant Nasty.

The series he was in was named "Sgt. Rock" for 11 years, and he was the lead character in it for 18 years before that. I think it merits its own page.

edited 16th Oct '10 6:35:30 PM by Madrugada

Yeah, it's a Long Runner, probably the Long Runner when it comes to war comics features. I'd create a page for it (really, technically, more for the "Sergeant Rock of Easy Company" feature than for Frank Rock the character, per se.)

The catch is that the trope IS well-named... after Frank Rock, the Trope Namer.

If it's a conflict with the name of a work, then yeah. Otherwise, I would defend it on the grounds that the name works for me because of the metaphorical calling someone "a rock": stern, hard, "rock in whom I trust".

Can we name the work page Sgt Rock then?

You know I actually heard the term "Sergeant Rock" used to refer to this type of character several times before I ever came to TV Tropes.

I know Tom Clancy used the term in one of his books before (a soldier in training refers to his sergeant as in "Sergeant Rock over there hasn't even broken a sweat!")

I think I've also heard it in a few war movies.

Never knew they were all referencing a comic book character.

edited 16th Oct '10 7:05:54 PM by Sackett

Was it Sgt or Sergeant? We could move the trope to Officer Rock as the broader term.

Well, if Sergeant Rock is a preexisting term or it has caught too much strength in the RL, and then anyways, we should be doing the comics page for the work, ie Sergeant Rock, right? (and then, hopefully, Sergeant Rock, if that's needed).

"Sgt." as far as I can tell.

The character came first. The term was adopted because of him.

Would simply "Sarge" work as the trope name? The ones that don't fit that characterization don't generally get called "Sarge".

The works:

• Our Army at War : 1959 to 1977
• Sgt. Rock's Prize Battle Tales: (a DC annual)
• Sgt. Rock: March of 77 to July of 88.

edited 17th Oct '10 7:27:18 AM by Madrugada

I think an interesting question is whether or not the fact that being considered a "rock" as a personality trope and mixing that together with being a sergeant would constitute making a character or naming a character trope and then naming your character after that trope.

Since none of them have the simple name "Sergeant Rock" would naming the series Sergeant Rock Series function?

edited 16th Oct '10 7:33:12 PM by Deboss

Why not use the correct name: Sgt Rock?

Sgt Rock Series?

I agree with naming the series Sgt Rock and keeping Sergent Rock as it is. We can add a "Not to be confused with Sergent Rock." to both pages. Some people will stumble across the wrong page, but that's bound to happen one way or the other.

I think this trope would be good under the name The Sarge freeing up a page for the work.

I agree, The Sarge (or just Sarge) would probably be best.

Sgt Rock would be distinguished, technically, from Sergeant Rock, but since they're really the same exact name (except one with an abbreviation), the distinction would be both functionally meaningless and potentially a source of confusion.

Whatever the ultimate solution, it definitely should NOT be Officer Rock. (Frank Rock, and most of the examples on the Sergeant Rock trope page, have to work for a living....)

Note also, for the record, that even before he technically had his own comic book titled Sgt. Rock, the Sgt. Rock logo became much more prominent than that of Our Army At War, starting with this 1965 issue.

edited 16th Oct '10 9:38:01 PM by suedenim

I still don't think that the page needs to be renamed so that "[it can] be freed for a work" since we have namespaced pages and it works kinds like a "first come first serve", or with indexes, and this trope name is not broken or anything. But seeing that the official name of the work is abbreviated, of all things, maybe a good solution would be to rename this one to something like The Sergeant Rock Character and free it up for the work. "Sarge" sounds too plain and confuseable, plus it reminds me of Chrono Cross.

The standard is that if a trope is named directly for a work, the work gets first claim on the exact name, and the trope name is differentiated in some way.

Didn't you list the three series and none of them were plain Sergeant Rock, but some sort of Sergeant Rock And Whatever?

The last one (the one from March of 77 to July of 88) was simply "Sgt Rock" — Oh, I see I didn't separate the date so it looks like "Sgt Rock March".

Fixed that.

edited 17th Oct '10 7:27:42 AM by Madrugada

Also, in general, when discussing comic book features, I wouldn't get too hung up on the specific magazine title. (FWIW, he's appeared in a lot more than just those three magazine titles, though OAAW and his eponymous title are the longest runners.)

An alternate title could be Sgt Rock Of Easy Company (and his first story was titled "The Rock of Easy Company"), but as far as I can tell from looking at the cover galleries at comics.org, the feature was never identified as such on any covers. It'd be roughly analogous to Scooby Doo, which could be referred to as Scooby Doo And The Scooby Gang or Scooby Doo And Those Meddling Kids or somesuch, but rarely is.

edited 17th Oct '10 7:48:14 AM by suedenim

It's just that Sergeant Rock is such a perfectly descriptive name (and has even made heavy penetration off wiki in real life) it seems a shame to completely remove it as a reference to the character type.

If possible I think I'd prefer to have it like this:

• Sgt Rock (directs to the series)
• Sgt Rock Series (redirect)
• Sergeant Rock Series (redirect)

• Sergeant Rock (direct to the character type)
• The Sarge (redirect)
• Have a link on the character type page to the series page

Is that just not acceptable?

edited 17th Oct '10 8:13:26 AM by Sackett

With what Madru says, I'm almost convinced that keeping both pages the same name but different namespaces would be better.

What's the problem with "If you are looking for the set of stories featuring the original Sergeant Rock(TM) you can look here" sort of thing?

EDIT: v something like that below. Sleep does wonders. Why don't I have sleep like that?

edited 17th Oct '10 9:27:43 AM by SilentReverence

After sleeping on it, I suspect that adding a disambiguation line on both pages, and making the works page Comics/ (or comic book or comic books, which ever the correct namespace is) Sgt Rock and adding "the" in front of the trope name (to The Sergeant Rock) will work.

Okay. I can go with that.