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Rewrite description/redefine trope?: First Person Smartass

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zerky Since: Jan, 2001
#1: Oct 22nd 2010 at 3:13:29 AM

zerky believes that the article for First-Person Smartass has an extremely confusing description. It's a lot of allusion and history, but it never actually describes the trope. What little it does have is cripplingly obtuse, only describing things associated with the trope and not the trope itself.

Here's a description of a First-Person Smartass straight from the article:

"It describes a type of character, fairly popular in fantasy but also appearing in other genres, who is a more lighthearted version of Philip Marlowe of Raymond Chandler's books. Marlowe was well-read and on occasion played a game of chess in his head for fun (something one would more associate with Sherlock Holmes than the typical gumshoe stereotype). Has a tendency to be, or at least seem like, an Author Avatar.

This character takes these attributes further, making a hero who is often intellectual, a gourmet cook, mingles with the upper crust (even if making sarcastic comments about them), and generally eschews the stereotypical flask of bourbon under the desk."

If one takes a look at the examples one might find that most people just went with the title of the article and ignored the description itself; this is potentially a wise course of action, as the trope itself is so inaccessible. To zerky's knowledge, not one of those characters listed is an intellectual gourmet cook who eschews having a flask of bourbon under the desk. If the description doesn't need to be fixed then it's probably the examples that need to be fixed instead. Thoughts?

edited 22nd Oct '10 3:14:07 AM by zerky

BlackWolfe Viewer Gender Confusion? from Lost in Austin Since: Jun, 2010
#2: Oct 22nd 2010 at 3:22:18 AM

Gah, yeah, there's a fair mix of First Person Narrator + Deadpan Snarker = This Trope in those examples, without the rest of the formula taken into account.

The question is Redescribe or Rename or What?

edited 22nd Oct '10 3:22:32 AM by BlackWolfe

But soft! What rock through yonder window breaks? It is a brick! And Juliet is out cold.
zerky Since: Jan, 2001
#3: Oct 22nd 2010 at 3:36:37 AM

zerky herself is in favour of redefining the trope to be more in line with the trope's title. The mix of Deadpan Snarker and First Person Narration seems to be the most appropriate and intuitive, as most people are taking First-Person Smartass to mean Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Unless there's another trope that encompasses Deadpan Snarker and First Person Narration and unless this... highly... specific description is actually required to define some archetype, zerky doesn't really see a problem with redefining. Perhaps even a split might be called for if the latter is true, but zerky somehow doubts that.

edited 22nd Oct '10 3:37:12 AM by zerky

BlackWolfe Viewer Gender Confusion? from Lost in Austin Since: Jun, 2010
#4: Oct 22nd 2010 at 4:01:20 AM

Frankly, I agree. Um. Are you always a Third-Person Person?

But soft! What rock through yonder window breaks? It is a brick! And Juliet is out cold.
zerky Since: Jan, 2001
#5: Oct 22nd 2010 at 4:35:34 AM

Yes. For everyone's sake you should keep zerky away from sharp objects.

piearty Hello world! from The clouds Since: Oct, 2009
Hello world!
#6: Nov 6th 2010 at 10:48:20 AM

Um, yeah, I thought it was going to be 'internal monologue is really snarky' but what I got from the description(barely...) is that the character is high class or something, which made no sense. I don't think there is really any trope that would fit that weird description. The name, however, made me think of quite a few characters from stories I've read.

Xtifr World's Toughest Milkman Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
World's Toughest Milkman
#7: Nov 6th 2010 at 6:29:58 PM

I won't comment on whether zerky should be trusted with sharp objects, but I'll definitely trust her with a hammer, because she hit the nail right on the head here! grin

Unless some really strong, unexpected arguments appear, I fully endorse rewriting the bizarrely over-specific description.

Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.
TripleElation Diagonalizing The Matrix from Haifa, Isarel Since: Jan, 2001
Diagonalizing The Matrix
#8: Nov 6th 2010 at 7:57:20 PM

Look, we made the same thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=nyg1xoffxian22t6b9z93cqp&page=1

Hopefully this time it catches some attention.

Pretentious quote || In-joke from fandom you've never heard of || Shameless self-promotion || Something weird you'll habituate to
SomeSortOfTroper Since: Jan, 2001
#9: Nov 7th 2010 at 11:49:24 AM

Oh so I have replied to this before.

I refer you to my previous suggestion.

TripleElation Diagonalizing The Matrix from Haifa, Isarel Since: Jan, 2001
Diagonalizing The Matrix
#10: Nov 7th 2010 at 5:00:50 PM

Buh. What suggestion?

I have to admit I didn't quite get what you were trying to say back there.

Pretentious quote || In-joke from fandom you've never heard of || Shameless self-promotion || Something weird you'll habituate to
Ramenth Since: May, 2009
#11: Nov 8th 2010 at 10:39:45 PM

I agree that this needs some repair, mostly because the definition of the trope is a) not what the examples point to, b) not what the name implies, and c) is not actually true going by the examples.

There seems to be a confusion between correlation and causation here, where because many some first person smartasses are intelligent/well read/cooks, it's become identified by someone as a part of the trope, as opposed to a character simply having multiple traits.

It shouldn't be, in my opinion, and I don't believe it was when I first ran into this trope page a year or so ago. The First Person Smart Ass is specific narratival writing style. It's not inherently connected to any of the characters except by virtue of being first person. A character might not be at all like Marlowe or 'upper crust' (seriously, where does that come in? almost none of the examples fill the random blurb at the top) but they can still be written as a first person smart ass. It's an authorship/writing trope, not a character one.

edited 8th Nov '10 10:41:30 PM by Ramenth

zerky Since: Jan, 2001
#12: Nov 12th 2010 at 12:28:04 PM

How about:

"A first-person narrator who describes events in a consistently snarky or sardonic tone. Popular in fantasy - especially urban-fantasy - settings and Private Eye Monologue. Can come off as an Author Avatar.

A First-Person Smartass is usually as Genre Savvy as the reader and will often lampshade and poke fun at tropes that threaten to break suspension of disbelief. This makes it appealing for writers to use this narrative device in Urban Fantasy because they can describe fantastic events in a mundane setting and incorporate a reader's own skepticism. The tendency of a First-Person Smartass to lampshade the clichés present in a work also means that a writer can get away with using more of them before the work itself becomes trite.

A typical example of this trope will be intellectual and well-acquainted with pop culture (or at least works with which the author is familiar), even though he or she may be described as uneducated, bad at school, or book dumb.

The Trope Namer was a review of Steven Brust's Dragaera series by ''The Library of Babel''.

First-Person Smartass can overlap with Deadpan Snarker, but a Deadpan Snarker is only a First-Person Smartass when he or she is narrating. Compare Lemony Narrator."

If this is used it would probably be a good idea to clean up the examples to remove references to how the example is or is not like Marlowe.

Alternatively First-Person Smartass could be a Self-Demonstrating Article written of course, in the first person. However, zerky wouldn't know anything about that. :3

edited 12th Nov '10 12:28:39 PM by zerky

TripleElation Diagonalizing The Matrix from Haifa, Isarel Since: Jan, 2001
Diagonalizing The Matrix
#13: Nov 14th 2010 at 9:25:52 AM

[up] Do it. At the very least we'll have an improvement.

Pretentious quote || In-joke from fandom you've never heard of || Shameless self-promotion || Something weird you'll habituate to
zerky Since: Jan, 2001
#14: Nov 14th 2010 at 9:42:35 PM

Alright, done. If this is okay with everyone the thread can probably be closed/little tag on article thing can be removed... if that's how it works here.

zerky has no idea.

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