Ask The Tropers

resolved

Should Nightmare Retardant limited to something meant to be scary?

The latest example make me think it's on advance state of Trope Decay.

• Though the Gecko in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots are a force to be reckoned with in combat, they would have been a hell of a lot more frightening if they didn't moo like cows while attacking.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Gecko isn't suppose to be scary. The worse offender are these entries.

• In fact, just take something that you find scary in mind. Take a long hard look about what it is and why you are afraid of it. Examples?
  • Dem Bones - Walking skeletons... technically what you are. (That just became unintentional Fridge Horror, didn't it?)
  • Malevolent Masked Man - The same things trick-or-treaters wear.
  • Giant Spiders - spiders and insects are never bigger than a dinner plate because those're the limits of exoskeletons - sea spiders aside (not that you'll ever see one of those in your life, of course) - and open circulatory and respiratory systems.^note They don't have circulatory systems as you generally think of one. It's a blood-like liquid called hemolymph that essentially is sloshed around inside the body cavity, immersing the organs to keep them oxygenated and fed. It's terribly inefficient, much like their respiratory system, and if you scaled it up the hemolymph would essentially pool at the bottom and the dang thing would die in very short order. Life is not a Xerox machine; "enlarge original" is not an available function. Furthermore, the bigger a spider is the more harmless it is. Those dinner-plate spiders? Completely harmless, unless you have an allergic reaction to them. Besides, spiders will only ever bite you to defend themselves.
  • Snakes - also mostly harmless, and even if they're not? Knee-high boots. They'll only ever bite you to defend themselves, usually after some sort of prominent threat-display which gives you a chance to back away and not get bitten like an idiot.
  • Elephants and hippopotamuses (hippopotami?). Both are very large animals more than capable of killing you in half a dozen different ways if they feel like it. Both are so incredibly goofy-looking that in fiction they're more or less relegated to the comic relief of the animal world.
  • Dolphins, who are considered ridiculously cute critters, despite the fact that they're known to kill sharks.
  • Chimpanzees, those really funny act-so-much-like-humans animals most folks just seem to adore, have been known to kill people and are among the few species on the planet other than humans that conduct actual wars: chimp social groups will, if their ranges overlap, routinely launch into insanely vicious, bloodbath-level wars. No, really: kidnappings, infanticide, cannibalism (including literally drinking the blood of their enemies), torture, and completely indiscriminate killing have all been observed. The longest known chimpanzee war took four years to resolve - from 1974 to 1978 - and is known as the Gombe Chimpanzee War.
  • Baboons, as well, even though they have teeth made of scimitars and Ebola, and are one of the few animals that are habitually sadistic, torturing other creatures (especially lion cubs) for fun, which not even humans do (normally).

So basically, instead of (from laconic) "Meant to be scary, but isn't." some examples are more of "Does not meant to be scary, and it isn't, but I think it should". It is no longer about audience reaction, it's WMG.