Have a question about how the TVTropes wiki works? No one knows this community better than the people in it, so ask away! Ask the Tropers is the page you come to when you have a question burning in your brain and the support pages didn't help.
It's not for everything, though. For a list of all the resources for your questions, click here. You can also go to this Directory thread
for ongoing cleanup projects.
This has been brought up before and I think the general consensus was that if the personal detail is something general and more-or-less relatable, like "This instance of implied child abuse is really devastating, especially because I've experienced that situation," it's kosher, but if it's a legit anecdote about their personal life, like "When Alice and Bob were fighting about X and Alice slapped Bob in the face it really got to me because my girlfriend and I were in a similar situation earlier the same day that I watched it, fighting about the same thing, and she also slapped me," it needs to go.
Even the "because I personally experienced it" is a bit too far into Troper Tales for my comfort.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"^ I could see it going either way. I'll try to dig up the other question to see exactly what was said. We did end up with some kind of "Well it depends" verdict.
Edit: Huh, I'm not finding it. Maybe it was in the forums, in which case I'll probably never find it.
In any case, I'm down with removing them (or rather, if they could be a Tear Jerker on their own, rephrasing them to remove the personal stories/references).
Edited by SolipSchismThis time it will be extremely easy to provide examples since they are already written with TV Tropes Quirks in Mind.
- Brokeback Mountain. The final scene with the shirts in the closet may not have me crying, but I'm certainly feeling sad about it.
- Am I the only one who thinks that the Joker's demise in Batman was tearjerkery? I mean when he had his leg tied to the gargoyle as it was about to fall, you could even hear him groaning. Just listen to it Best Death Scenes: The Joker
.
- As with the Batman Returns example, the music that accompanies it is what gets to this troper about the Joker's death. Partly because the Joker was perhaps the most memorable part of the film and it's sad to see him go as well.
- Am I the only one who thinks that the Joker's demise in Batman was tearjerkery? I mean when he had his leg tied to the gargoyle as it was about to fall, you could even hear him groaning. Just listen to it Best Death Scenes: The Joker
Oh whoa.
- Okay, the BBM example is fine, it just needs the first-person stuff removed, and not to be overly opinionated, but that is absolutely a tearjerker.
- The first Batman example would need to be almost completely rewritten, but it could be done.
- The last Batman example just needs a slight tweak to remove "this troper".
Yeah I'm going to completely reverse my "Eh either way" comment above. That shit is pretty bad.
Edit: Also... The second Batman example referring to something else makes me think they're actually the same example.
Edited by SolipSchismShort-term Projects forum
?

I love the Tear Jerker Pages. They are amazing...until you find self insertions aka Troper Tales. Seriously, I would remove them but I want to be sure if its kosher. Also some TT like entries are so ingrained we are bound to just do away with some of the examples entirely. So I wanna ask before I do anything.