I just read it. Wow...
I don't see it at all. Exactly what seems overboard to you?
Creed of the Happy Pessimist:Always expect the worst. Then, when it happens, it was only what you expected. All else is a happy surprise.
Zzzzzzzzzz
I'm not seeing overboard one-sidedness, either — it's comparing it to the previously prevalent characteristic of the addict who is completely ruled by their addiction and is non-functional because of it.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
It seems fine to me.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
-> Typically, this kind of addict can go long periods of time without getting their "medicine" and doesn't depend on their drugs as a "crutch"
Doesn't that completely contradict the definition of "addict"?
The examples mostly seem to be "character is an addict, but can still hold down a day job", which is a fine trope. It's just the description that's trying too hard.
dna hit the nail on the head. Addicts are by definition dependent on the substance. If we use alcohol or coffee as drugs of choice (in a vain attempt to avoid controversy), we have the following categories:
- total non-user. Teetotaller. (in Real Life, most teetotallers are teetotal for a reason; often they are reformed alcoholics)
- occasional user. Glass of wine with food/cup of coffee after dinner, no more.
- frequent user, but not dependent. Big boozy night every friday, coffee all day at work but not at the weekend.
- Functional Addict. Dependent on the substance, cannot get by without it, but still (mostly) living a normal life. Whisky in the bottom drawer of the office filing cabinet. Gets headaches from caffeine withdrawal.
- total dependence. All life revolves around the substance. Affects ability to work, relationships, etc. Alcoholic. (Unlikely to happen with caffeine addiction.)
The article seems to confuse a Functional Addict for a frequent user as defined above. It says that the Functional Addict "doesn't depend on their drugs". It also implies that being addicted is not "dysfunctional", which I think is a poor word choice — arguably an addict is already dysfunctional. (I *think* the article is trying to say not all addicts end up like junkies from Trainspotting, which I agree with.)
I think the key thing is not that the addict doesn't have a problem; but rather that they have a problem which does not affect their entire life. This is certainly the impressions that the examples give: a lot of the characters have issues caused by their addiction, and certainly can't go for long periods of time without their medicine; but are still living reasonably normal lives otherwise.
Zzzzzzzzzz
Once again, let me remind everyone that tropes are not defined by Real Life. Tropes are storytelling conventions, and many of them can be handled in ways that directly contradict Real Life.
The Functional Addict is one of those: in real life, yes, part of the definition of "addict" includes can't function normally without the use of the addictive thing. But in Real Life, addiction is a complex situation. In Fictionland, it's binary: either you are or you aren't one. and if yo are one, you are either a shambling wreck whenever you aren't high/drunk]whatever, or you're perfectly functional except when you're high[=/drunk/whatever.
Redefining a trope because it doesn't match Real Life is both futile and contrary to the goal of the wiki: to catalogue tropes as they are used in storytelling.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
But the intro explicitly claims that the trope does match real life...
This is a matter of Truth in Television, since a large majority of Real Life addicts fall under this category. However, while in Real Life these kinds of addicts can go their entire lives without ever becoming dysfunctional, fiction treats them as ticking time-bombs, slowly working to the one event that will send them over the edge. While crossing the line into dysfunctional territory definitely happens in Real Life as well, the key difference is that fictional sources treat this as inevitable.At the least, that paragraph could probably stand to go.
edited 24th Nov '10 12:39:25 PM by BritBllt
"And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!"
The Other Troper
Well fiction usually defines addition as being total dependence, so not being totally dependent would be notable. At least that seems like how this would be a trope.
I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.
Zzzzzzzzzz
It is based in Real Life, yes. But it is not Real Life and it isn't treated exactly like it is in Real Life. And saying "but if they're functional they aren't really an addict is applying a very specific technical meaning to a term that has a much broader general usage.
We don't make the distinction that a physicist would between a true "explosion" and "just really fast combustion", nor the one that a doctor would between "decapitated" and ""cut his head almost completely off". We aren't working with the DSM IV definition of "addiction" or "alcoholism"; we're working with what most people mean when they use the word.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
Then since the trope isn't about Real Life, we should kill that paragraph. There's no reason to make blanket statements about what "a large majority of Real Life addicts" may or may not be like, and the article reads just fine without it. Personally, I'm extremely skeptical that "a large majority of Real Life addicts... can go their entire lives without ever becoming dysfuctional," especially since, as said, being dysfunctional is pretty much the very definition of being an addict. But the whole controversy can be avoided either way by just removing that one speculative aside.
edited 24th Nov '10 4:12:47 PM by BritBllt
"And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!"
Once again, let me remind everyone that tropes are not defined by Real Life. Tropes are storytelling conventions, and many of them can be handled in ways that directly contradict Real Life.I always feel like I must openly disagree with you whenever you argue this point. Tropes are not merely just storytelling conventions, and the definition of "trope" is not that rigid and limiting. Even the Home Page makes a statement about tropes being a reflection of Real Life. And, indeed, stories themselves often are reflections of Real Life.
They maybe reflections of Real Life, but they reflect it about as well as a fun house mirror. They often times distort it so badly that it's hard to tell it has any grounding in reality at all. It rarely seems to care about truth or accuracy, and it's all about perception.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
"Redefining a trope because it doesn't match Real Life is both futile and contrary to the goal of the wiki: to catalogue tropes as they are used in storytelling. "
Maybe that's why I also said how the trope text disagrees with its own examples, then. The examples tend to show that Functional Addicts have a substance dependence, and have related issues that need to be worked through, contradicting the trope text.
I tweaked the description a bit.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
I'm happy with it.
Recluse extraordinare.
Yeah, it's definitley an improvement. I can't help but feel the original author had some kind of vendetta going on. Thanks.
Formerly Nolan Burke. Natch.
I've already noted this in the article's discussion page, so I'm sorry for being a tad redundant, but I've got a big problem with the Functional Addict article. It just seems like an overly vitriolic counter for Drugs Are Bad, and it's just too openly apologetic for drug use; hell, at the risk of sounding snide, the current wording seems to suggest that the original author was just barely holding back a lengthy rant about how drugs and alcohol have never had a negative effect on anyone's lives and it's all a conspiracy. It really needs to be tweaked to sound a bit more neutral - at the very least, we could work in an admission that this trope can be taken too far.
Formerly Nolan Burke. Natch.