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openHow to request a work title change? Webcomic
How do I get approval to change the title of a work page?
The page for Alfie 2010 obviously enough has 2010 in the title to designate the year it started. However, it actually started in 2014, and the 2010 dates on Chapter 1 are an error. Explanation here
I realize I could just create the new page myself, but then I'd have to change every wick, and I don't want to do that if it's just going to be reverted by well-meaning editors. Also, I don't have the power to delete the incorrect page title.
openPossible misuse Anime
Here's a The Complainer Is Always Wrong entry regarding Code Geass:
- Between himself and his best friend Suzaku and dear sister Nunnally, it sure feels like this for Lelouch of Code Geass. Taken to even greater heights in Turn 19 of R2 during Schneizel's meeting with the Black Knights; first with Tamaki and Diethard, who contend that anyone could have faked the recording, and after everyone has made up their minds, Kallen, who in an attempt to protect Zero from his would-be traitors, calls her fellow comrades out on being too one-sided, only to be warned to get out of the way or be shot down on suspicion of being geassed. Lelouch ends up lying to her in order for her life to be spared. The following episode, Diethard's earlier attempt to rein in an AWOL Ohgi by holding Villetta, the one responsible, captive, ended up with him getting a few bruises, and complaining to himself that Ohgi, who remains on the Black Knights and is now joined by Villetta, is miscast as a leader.
- The third Compilation Movie's take on these events have Ohgi fall under this when he wants to give Zero a chance to explain himself and tell the truth, and objects to Schneizel's men preparing to shoot until they actually have their answers. He and Viletta also have a point with Deithard considering he really was doing a couple of stuff behind their backs, including how in this version, he was the one who shot her and caused her amnesia that led to them meeting in the first place.
The first line is a Zero-Context Example as it doesn't explain how Lelouch falls under this, and the Black Knights who objected to the betrayal were actually in the right and made better points (and it was several of them objecting, not just one person) so it doesn't seem the narrative is portraying them as wrong for doing so. I'm not sure if it counts overall but I think it at least needs to be re-worded.
Edited by Javertshark13openAPP Concerning DMoS entries
I found several Dethroning Moment of Suck entries I have concerns about; normally this is something I’d take to one or more of the cleanup threads in the Projects subfora, but the entries have a range of different problems with them, and are also each for different works, so I think it’s simpler to bring them all here instead. I’m going to folderise each example for organisation (and length) purposes.
- Grotadmorv: I'm not excited to see any more of Toriel in Deltarune, because Chapter 2 completely misunderstood her character. She's just a horribly unlikeable woman who swears constantly and is rude to her ex-husband. There's no in-universe explanation for it either, they still imply she was a good mom in the past. It feels like cheap Out of Character comedy that gets dragged out for too long.
Here’s the problem: none of that is true. I’m currently in the middle of playing this game, and I just wrapped up Chapter 2 and began Chapter 3 a couple of hours ago. So I can state with confidence that:
- Toriel swears precisely once in the entirety of the content currently released for the game (as of writing, that’s Chapters 1 - 4), and it’s one of the mildest swear words to boot (“Hell”). That’s hardly “swearing all the time”.
- Toriel is never anything but cordial and pleasant when talking to Asgore; what “rudeness”, precisely, is Grotad talking about? That she tries to keep her interactions with him brief and leaves abruptly when he shows up trying to convince her to take him back? That’s not rude; Asgore is repeatedly disrespecting her boundaries by constantly trying to get her to take him back. What he’s doing might very well constitute harassment, in fact. She doesn’t owe him engagement; if he’s making her uncomfortable (and he clearly is), she has every right to want to bail, and it isn’t rude to do so.
- How, exactly, is it possible for Toby Fox to “misunderstand” his own character’s personality?
I think this one should be cut wholesale as misinformation. Whether it’s a wild misinterpretation of what Deltarune actually is in relation to Undertale or perhaps driven by an ulterior motive, I couldn’t say.
- Lord Daddy Funk: Jade Empire has a pretty big one. All game other characters have reported seeing a flaw in your fighting style (the reason for this is that Master Li purposely put one in that he could exploit later on to kill you); after roughly 12 hours of gameplay, with all this build up and foreshadowing, you finally kill the Emperor who you've been lead to believe was the real villain, and how does the scene where Li betrays you pan out? With your techniques being quickly exploited in a fight and him defeating you? Nope, you get distracted by something shiny and he kills you without anything save your attention span being exploited.
This one has been contested before, but somehow, it’s still up. I’ve played Jade Empire; it seems pretty clear to me that Master Li isn’t using the Water Dragon’s heart as a distraction. Instead, he’s tossing it up into the air to free up both of his hands for his surprise attack on the Spirit Monk, and then exploits the flaw in the Spirit Monk’s fighting technique by striking at a very specific spot on their body—presumably one which he subtly trained them not to defend. So this is another one I believe is based on false premises (in this case, a misinterpretation of the cutscene in question.)
- SRE 89: I know opinions are going to differ due to religious/political beliefs, but the [[Dethroning Moment Of Suck]] for "Wolfenstein: The New Order" was when Anya was reading her journal, which she used the pseudosynonym Ramona in case she got caught. As she was reading on how she fought Nazis and killed them, she read about how she seduced a Nazi just to kill him, and then later on she got pregnant, and had an abortion. Even though she said it was "Ramona", it was obviously her. I stopped playing the game after that, and I am sure many others did the same. For one, she kept calling it a Nazi baby, even though fetuses have no concept of ideology. Number two, she killed an innocent because at least the Nazis she killed chose to be Nazis. And the messed up thing is, she is Catholic and Catholicism teaches that abortion is a mortal sin and also the fact BJ just accepts her doing something so messed up. I played Wolfenstein due to it being a World War II Alternate History game. I did not play it to hear a woman's back story where she ended up killing a child she got pregnant with just by seducing a Nazi and calling it a Nazi baby, trying to justify killing it, and if it were mention in a sequel, she would pull the whole "I Did What I Had To" crap, which I see it as bad as the Nurember Defense. I stopped playing "Wolfenstein: The New Order" right then and there. I know Bethesda has made games that would be seen as edgy by some, but I thought this was too much. For all I care, Anya can go to Hell!
Lots of problems here, mostly ROCEJ-related:
- It presumes to speak for other players, instead of only for SRE 89 themself (“I stopped playing the game after that, and I am sure many others did the same”.)
- Characterising abortion as “killing an innocent” is common anti-abortionist rhetoric.
- It compares getting an abortion to Mass Atrocity Crimes vis a vis the Nuremberg (not “Nurember”) Defence reference. I’m sorry, but saying “I did what I had to do” after getting an abortion is nowhere near as heinous as saying “I only committed war crimes and genocide because my superiors ordered me to, even though they wouldn’t have punished me for disobeying” is.
- They borked the formatting.
I’m not going to argue the finer points of the politics any further here; suffice to say I, as a woman, feel this is misogynistic hate speech dressed up as criticism of a video game. SRE 89 admits in the very first line that their criticism is rooted in their political and religious beliefs; that would be perfectly fine if they weren’t expressing bigoted beliefs about women and trivialising mass atrocities in the process of critiquing Wolfenstein.
For the record, I do not feel comfortable pinging SRE 89 to this post for discussion, given the inflammatory topic of their entry and its sexist undertones. They’re the only Troper I’d rather not ping, though; I’ll leave it to others to determine if pinging the other Tropers here to discuss is an appropriate step to take.
Wow, that’s... pretty insulting towards Killerwienerdog, isn’t it? Implying they didn’t explain themselves “properly” is a completely unnecessary snipe.
I seem to recall from lurking Edit Banned that Aj Wargo has been in trouble with the mods before, possibly even bounced already? Correct me if I’m wrong. Still, I think the first sentence needs to be cut at the very least. It’s very uncivil.
- Amber 72004 This post from an anti-Pooh's Adventures Tumblr blog
is just badly-written about a user on Deviantart, The users puts hyphens on words such as sick f**k and High time and misspelled the word Quality and he uses all-caps on his post as well, This just come as very unprofessional at best and poorly-written at worst.
Not Tropable, right? Also seems really nitpick-y.
I haven’t removed or modified any of them yet; since it’s Dethroning Moment of Suck, I figured I should err on the side of caution and get consensus to act first.
ETA: Spotted and fixed a typo I previously missed.
Edited by DarkJediPrincessresolved How to Handle a Specific TLP Draft Sponsor
I have a question regarding the TLP draft Alternating Scream Cut
. The trope itself seems valid, but my main issues stem from the sponsor themselves, Willow Jackson.
Most of the examples Willow added to the draft (which are not pulled from the replies) have a lot of issues. This mainly involves writing examples as Nightmare Fuel or Played for Horror regardless of context, using an excessive amount of web links for examples, and focusing on wittiness instead of being clear and concise.
I have tried to explain to Willow about these issues multiple
times
now
, but none of my replies resulted in Willow fixing their draft. What's even weirder is that Willow has been on this site since 2022, and their edit history is three pages long, so I can't tell if this is a case of an inexperienced troper trying to do a TLP draft or not.
I want to know what I can do about this sponsor. Should we inform Willow, wait a bit longer for them to fix their draft, or Take a Third Option?
resolved Papyrus char page (undertale) Videogame
How do i make a self demonstrating article for him? Sans has one so i feel like Papyrus deserves one too.
openPolicy regarding em dashes?
I've noticed some tropers going through pages and adding spaces around em dashes—admittedly something I myself used to do. However, every grammatical style guide I've seen emphatically says not to do that. I'm not seeing anything on TV Tropes' grammar administrivia pages on the matter, so I feel I should ask what should be done.
Edited by Arawn999resolved Self-help book index
Is there some index on tvtropes about self-help books? I have other websites I can check, but it has scifi literature, fantasy, young adult, mystery, horror, etc. so I guess there was this too.
resolved Fairly new troper making suspicious edits
~stemy is a troper who joined around May this year, and in the TRS just posted an improperly-formatted thread
for All Gays Are Pedophiles whose entire point of concern is not just something that can be sorted out in a Trope Description repair thread, but is also pretty eyebrow-raising, because it takes umbrage with the "Nowadays this is a Discredited Trope" part:
Out of curiosity, I went to check on their edit history, and while there's a decent amount of impartial, non-problematic edits, there were a few that definitely blinked as being a bit agenda-y:
- Adding an improperly-indented justifying edit
to Just Ignore It that segregates "trolls" and "internet jerks" in a vague way, phrased as to imply that Just Ignore It is an invalid practice. This has since been removed.
- Adding an entry
to BrokenAesop.Harry Potter criticizing JK Rowling for "breaking her own morals" based on her real-life history of transphobia. This has also since been removed.
- Adding this entry
to UncertainAudience.Live Action Films that only exists to complain about Ghostbusters (2016) and Ocean's 8 in the same sentence (two movies separated by a few years and by different studios) solely on the basis of "has female cast", uses language like "They are seen as useless and effortless remakes by the majority of the public, looks like a liberal fanservice for conservatist audience and disorienting liberal audience not knowing if the gender bending was supposed to be a really clumsy representation of women or mocking their revendications[sic?] for more diversity."
- Adding an odd expansion
to Red Scare in the sentence "The Red Scare is different from works genuinely critical of the Soviet governments and specific aspects of the ideology.", adding "...and it often involves leftist ideologies that can't be remotely qualified as communism." I don't treat this as strictly inappropriate, but adding this without elaboration, especially in conjunction with everything else about their edit history makes me tilt my head a little.
- And just today
, they're constructing Analysis.Misaimed Fandom, an incomplete, improperly-formatted stub that wants to list the reasons for Misaimed Fandom, but presently isn't doing much beyond saying "fandoms miss the point".
Normally I'd just brush these off as incidental, but their TRS thread really propped up a red flag in them trying to push "people don't care about LGBTQ people anymore, conservatives are still queerphobic; I fixed your description". Did they ever receive notifiers of their previous and now-removed political edits? I feel like they should be aware at this point that regardless of where they put it, moralizing of this sort is discouraged and should be discussed beforehand.
Edited by number9roboticopenorganizing trope examples Live Action TV
I previously made a thread
asking for help organizing the tropes
on Film.Meet The Parents Film Series and had no response. What should I do? Here’s a full list of tropes that don’t mention a specific film for example.
- Accidental Truth: When the family finds out that Greg got a cat to be a fake Jinx which trashed the family room and lied about it, Pam rhetorically asks him this:
Pam: Now what are you going to tell me next? That you set Kevin's altar on fire? (chuckles nervously. Greg keeps his silence, causing Pam to stop smiling, and realize that what she just guessed was actually true) Oh my god.
- Actor Allusion: Jack mentions to Greg that he spend 9 months in a Vietnamese prison camp.
- Adaptation Expansion: Compared to the 1992 film, the main characters' backstories are much more developed, and Pam gets one additional sibling as well as a specific job as a 2nd grade teacher.
- Adaptation Species Change: Bingo the dog from the 1992 film is replaced by Jinx the cat.
- Adaptational Jerkass:
- 1992's Irv Burns is presented as a typically serious, conservative, cigar-smoking, gun-wielding Midwestern American father. A realistically intimidating father-figure, if you will. Still, he is initially trusting of Greg until his would-be son-in-law's accidents cause the family to collapse. Jack Byrnes, however, is a paranoid, overly accusatory former CIA agent who is immediately suspicious of Greg and goes to comical extremes to confirm his suspicions that he's an unsuitable suitor for his daughter, as he did for all of her past suitors.
- Downplayed with Greg. In the 1992 film, he always apologizes and tells the truth, even if no one believes him. However, in the Hollywood trilogy, he tends to make up lies and excuses when something goes wrong, but he's trying to save, not ruin, his relationships with Pam and her family.
- Adaptational Job Change:
- 1992's Greg (no last name) is an advertising agent. 2000's Greg Focker, on the other hand, is a male nurse.
- Also in the indie flick, patriarch Irv Burns was a gas station owner who eventually sold his business to Japanese investors and retired on the income. Here, Jack Byrnes is a Vietnam War veteran and retired CIA operative whose cover story is that he's a retired florist.
- Adaptational Name Change: Besides Greg being given an embarrassing last name when he originally had none (plus an embarrassing real first name), the Byrnes family last name was originally spelled "Burns" in the 1992 film. Likewise, Jack, Dina, and Debbie were once called Irv, Kay, and Fay.
- Adaptational Nice Girl: Pam's 1992 sister Fay is a creepy, obsessive lunatic who can't stand anyone criticizing her singing, and her interactions with Greg lead to the whole family's downfall. Her 2000 sister Debbie, though, is happily engaged to a man named Bob and isn't given much characterization beyond that, as the bulk of the film focuses on the Greg vs. Jack dynamic.
- All Take and No Give: Jack's Circle of Trust, despite its intentions, is unfortunately this. Jack expects the select few in the circle to be utterly honest, but he cannot keep his suspicions in check.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents:
- The free-spirited Fockers. They Cannot Keep a Secret and have no boundaries whatsoever, especially when it comes to sexuality.
- Jack Byrnes to a slightly lesser degree - it's clear that Pam has grown very tired of his overprotectiveness and the lengths he is willing to go to nitpick any potential suitor of hers. Not to mention, he wears a fake boob for much of the second movie.
- Ashes to Crashes: Greg breaks the urn containing the ashes of Jack's beloved mother trying to open a champagne bottle. To make it much worse, Mr. Jinx mistakes the resulting pile for a litter box.
- Blatant Lies:
- Pam telling Greg that her dad is "the sweetest man in the world". Also, later, when Jack claims to be a very accepting person.
- Greg himself is guilty of a few, especially invokedthe one about the time he milked a cat.
- Bourgeois Bohemian: The Fockers. They're portrayed as well-meaning and friendly (certainly much moreso than Jack's family) if a little loopy and too open.
- Butt-Monkey: These films are all about making poor Greg Focker actually, Gaylord as miserable as possible, having everything that could possibly go wrong, go wrong starting with when he's meeting his girlfriend's parents and continuing the trend well after he's managed to marry her and start a family.
- Cannot Keep a Secret: When Pam reveals to Greg that she's pregnant (and the Fockers figure it out on their own), he's afraid Jack will find out because his parents are so open about everything and refuse to keep secrets. Ironically, Greg ends up being the one who spills the beans to Jack, albeit under the influence of truth serum that Jack injected him with.
- Cats Are Mean: Even Mr. Jinx seems to have it in for Greg.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The "bingo bango bongo" guy in the second film who turns out to be the county judge.
- Closer to Earth: Played straight with the Byrneses; Dina is far more sane and rational than Jack. Averted elsewhere, though. Greg, despite being a klutz, is otherwise a fairly level-headed guy and on par with Pam in terms of overall intelligence and sanity. As for Bernie and Roz Focker, they're both pretty loopy.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Greg's parents to a T. Kevin evolves into this by the third film. And Jack, in his own paranoid and overprotective way.
- Conflict Ball: And how! The entire trilogy's biggest conflicts all revolve around Jack thinking Greg is out to do no good when it's all misunderstandings and not waiting until he has all evidence before confronting Greg.
- Control Freak: Jack Byrnes' Fatal Flaw, on top of being Improperly Paranoid, is that he needs to be the leader of the situation and only his opinions matter. The further down the trilogy he goes, the less control he has, the more stress he gets, which culminates with him getting several heart attacks in the third film.
- Cringe Comedy: Any lesser man would have pummeled Jack Byrnes to a pulp (or would have risked serious injury/death trying), hollered his feeling fed-up with the crap he's been through, and gone back home. Which goes to show how determined Greg is to make things right.
- Daddy's Girl: Pam, being Jack's oldest daughter. Debbie to a slightly lesser extent.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Not just Greg, but most of Pam's exes as well. There's nothing really wrong with the guys, Jack is just that overprotective
- Dead Pet Sketch: With a cat.
- Decomposite Character: 2000 Pam's sister Debbie and brother Denny are two components of 1992 Pam's sister Fay, one being a woman and the other being a secret marijuana user. Neither, however, has inherited Fay's trait of being an obsessive would-be singer who can't take criticism.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: Greg just can't help himself.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": For obvious reasons, Greg Focker does not like using his actual first name: Gaylord.
- Embarrassing First Name: Greg's real first name is Gaylord. His parents also call him "Gay". What sort of parents call their son Gaylord Focker? Hippies, of course. It is also implied with the airport security officer Norm, considering Greg's sarcastic "Bye, Norm." after Jack shows up to interrogate Greg instead.
- Empathy Pet: Jack's beloved Mr. Jinx is equally intelligent, standoffish and mean to Greg. Bernie's dog Moses humps everything that moves.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- While Jack has all but delighted in giving Greg a hard time from the moment they met, he cannot abide by Denny's mean-spirited mockery of Greg's legal name. In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it background moment, you can see Jack soberly gesturing to Denny that his joking isn't appropriate and he needs to stop. Despite being Greg's biggest critic, even Jack's one of the few who doesn't find it amusing.
- In Meet the Fockers, Roz causes Greg much embarrassment when she talks about Greg's circumcision, and shows the Byrneses his saved foreskin. Even Bernie, who's notorious for being TMI and causing embarrassment by it, thinks that Roz is taking things too far.
- Failed a Spot Check: The ultra paranoid and suspicious Jack is unaware that his own son Denny smokes pot.
- Fatal Flaw: Jack's hyper-paranoid humorless Control Freak tendencies and how because of them he's constantly stressed. The fact that this almost becomes a literal fatal flaw is an important plot point of the third film.
- Flanderization: Jack is a domineering Papa Wolf / Knight Templar Parent in the first film and gets even worse in the sequels. Greg/Gaylord, meanwhile, gradually becomes marginally more self-sufficient and assertive and by the third film, is almost Jack's equal in terms of being a hardass.
- Greeting Gesture Confusion: When Greg first meets Dina, she holds out her hand for a handshake while he goes for a hug.
- Happily Married: Bernie and Roz Focker, to the point that the level-headed Dina is secretly jealous that they have such a successful sex life at their advanced age.
- Hippie Parents: Roz and Bernie to Greg.
- Horrible Judge of Character: For someone who claims to be an expert in reading people, Jack is astoundingly bad at it. His laser-focus on Greg makes him completely miss Bob's character flaws and he only realizes it when Bob cheats on Debbie. He also thinks that Kevin, who, while wealthy, is a flighty In Love with Love airhead who believes in "alternative medicine" and is bold enough to make advances on an already-married woman whom he is suggested to have an unhealthy fixation with, is a better match for Pam than Greg, a skilled nurse who rose through the ranks to become department chair and is clearly dedicated to his wife and children. Dina, in fact points out how he treated Kevin similarly to Greg when he and Pam were dating, and only developed this idealized view after they had broken up.
- Improperly Paranoid: Jack's Fatal Flaw – he would rather believe Greg (and his parents, and everybody else who so much as saw his girls) is actively and maliciously trying to do something (and put him through utter hell to force him to tell the truth) than accept that his son-in-law is just a Butt-Monkey. The "circle of trust" system is also supposed to allow for an open inter-family relationship, but it becomes apparent long before Pam and Dina call B.S. that Jack is the only one allowed to have secrets. Not to mention that he's so focused on Greg that he's caught completely by surprise to learn his other son-in-law, Bob, has been cheating on Debbie, which then indirectly causes him to double down on his paranoia toward Greg over something innocent his granddaughter says.
- Innocent Swearing: Little Jack repeating the word "asshole".
- Insistent Terminology: Jack always says that Greg's job is "male nurse" rather than just "nurse".
- Irony: Even though Jack is one of the best examples of a Knight Templar Parent, his favorite song is the one that exemplifies childlike innocence: "Puff, the Magic Dragon."
- It's All My Fault: After Jack learns that his daughter Deb has broken up with her husband at the start of the third movie, he blames himself for not seeing the signs that Bob was cheating, claiming that he was so focused on Greg that he didn't pay attention to Bob.
- Jerkass:
- Jack. Pam's entire family, in fact, except Dina and Pam herself. Even his cat is a Jerkass.
- The redneck cop in the second movie.
- The Lawful Stupid airline employees that Greg had to put up with in the first film.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While Jack clearly disliked, bullied, and had many unfounded suspicions about Greg, not all of it was unjustified. Greg did unwittingly cause a lot of property damage, and a lot of trouble for the family, and always lied about it, or made excuses, rather then simply fess up, apologize, and try to make amends. Even Dina and Pam couldn't argue with Jack that this was disgraceful, and sided with Jack, when he finally threw Greg out. On the other side of the coin, Jack claimed if Greg had simply been honest about everything, he would've been completely accepting of him. Additionally, while his biases may have led him to assume the worse, quite a few of the things that sour his view of Greg throughout the trilogy are based on Not What It Looks Like examples that Greg is initially unaware of and lacks the opportunity to refute, so a few of his bad impressions are based on not entirely unreasonable deductions.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jack a very restrained type considering the actor that is playing him; he clearly loves his daughter and wants only the best for her, but his extreme Papa Wolf personality makes it difficult for her to have any successful relationships. Though he does push it with how much he tortures and refuses to reason with Greg and his family. The "Circle Of Trust" and control-freak tendencies make it clear he's pretty difficult to live with, which even his own wife and daughters admit. That being said, he does come to respect Greg by the end of each film, even if he slips into Aesop Amnesia in the next film and has to relearn the same lesson all over again.
- Kafka Komedy: All 3 movies revel in being this.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Jack, who dotes on Jinx like crazy. The "kindhearted" part is extremely debatable to say the least, though.
- Knight Templar Parent: This describes Jack Byrnes to a T.
- Large Hams: The Koshers - er, Fockers, oh damn.
- Let Her Grow Up, Dear: Pam's mom is definitely more supportive of her relationship with Gaylord than Jack ever will be.
- Lighter and Softer: Very much so compared to the 1992 movie, in which most of the main characters die, including Bingo the dog. The worst example we see of animal cruelty in this movie is Greg accidentally losing Jinx and replacing him with a stray, spray-painting his tail.
- Living Lie Detector: Jack places his thumbs on Greg's wrists as an impromptu lie detector in their last major scene.
- Which may border on to research failure as using your thumbs to take a person's pulse is not correct; your thumb has its own pulse and thus may give a false reading.
- Some have speculated that Jack was counting on Greg not knowing that, and getting distracted from hiding other signs that he's lying. Though he'd already learned that Greg aced the MCATs.
- Which may border on to research failure as using your thumbs to take a person's pulse is not correct; your thumb has its own pulse and thus may give a false reading.
- Lovable Sex Maniac: Greg's parents.
- Luke, I Might Be Your Father: See Ethnic Menial Labor above.
- M.D. Envy: Inverted; although Greg scored top marks in medical school, he chose to be a nurse so he could spend more time with patients. Jack and the rest of the Byrnes family (which include several doctors themselves) grill him on why he just didn't become a doctor and even refuse to believe he passed his MCAT with top marks.
- Military Alphabet: Jack uses this when talking to his CIA contacts.
- Nasal Trauma: Greg accidentaly breaks Debbie's nose during the volleyball scene.
- Not Under the Parents' Roof: Greg and his fiancee Pam are staying with her parents, Jack and Dina. After a disastrous first day, they are just about to have sex in her room, only to be interrupted when Jack and Dina knock at the door. They're there to say not to worry about the events of the day... and to inform Greg that he will be sleeping downstairs in the den. As Dina is leaving, Jack casually informs Greg that while he realizes the two of them have probably had "premarital relations", while they're under his roof, it's his way or the Long Island Expressway.
- Not What It Looks Like:
- Many of Greg's problems with Jack come from Jack jumping to erroneous conclusions based on limited information; he assumes Greg is giving Pam fetish clothes when he examined a suitcase that was sent to Greg by mistake, he believes Greg didn't take the MCATs but in reality Jack's contacts didn't find Greg's marks because Greg took the tests under his legal name of Gaylord, etc.
- In the third film, Andi gets drunk and tries to force herself on Greg, but he rejects her. Jack arrives, planning to apologize to Greg for their earlier falling out, but gets the wrong idea when he sees them from afar.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Different types: the Fockers are of the "so embarrassing to be around that they feel like a plague" type, while the Byrnes are of the "make your life hell via constantly point out any little flaws you have" type, with Jack being the exaggerated version of that, that being "Personal version of Big Brother Is Watching You".
- Old People are Nonsexual: Jack and Dina are implied to be this in the first, while Bernie and Roz are definitely not. By the end of the sequel, Jack and Dina pick up a few tips from the latter and proceed to do it in the RV.
- Only Sane Man: Dina's the only member of Pam's family who is remotely nice to Greg.
- Overly Long Gag - see Punny Name below.
- "Are you prepared to be... the Godfocker?" "The Godfocker." "Yes. The Godfocker." "I'm not sure I like the name 'The Godfocker'".
- Papa Wolf: Jack to a disturbing degree.
- Jack learns to his dismay that Bernie Focker can be one when he finds out that Jack drugged Greg with truth serum.
- Parental Marriage Veto
- Precision F-Strike: "Ass...oooole..."
- Profound by Pop Song: Greg is asked to say grace at dinner. He tries to improvise a prayer, which ends up as the lyrics to "Day by Day" from Godspell.
- Punny Name: Mo Focker, an unseen relative. A conversation between Jack and Greg reveals that's not the extent of it, either:
Greg Focker: You meet some of the... eh... some of the cousins?
- Put on a Bus: The first scene we see of Bernie Focker is him taking dance classes... in Spain. It seems this will be his only appearance in the film... until he makes a surprise return home in the second half of the movie. Originally, Dustin Hoffman could not agree to work on the film due to disagreements with the production studio on the scope of his role... but this changed, thanks to negotiations that included a bigger paycheck. He ended up being added via reshoots
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- After spending most of the movie being dumped on by his prospective in-laws, Greg finally loses it and gets thrown off an airplane for giving this to a flight attendant.
- Jack also gets this from Pam and Dina after they realise he's just been looking for excuses to kick Greg out, and from Greg himself when he shows up at the airport. In all cases, he's basically being called out on being an overbearing Control Freak Boyfriend-Blocking Dad.
- Running Gag:
- At the end of each film. At the end of the first two Jack views a video of Greg ragging on him via "hidden" camera. At the end of the third film Jack views a Youtube video of Greg talking about Jack at a seminar and Reiterating the crazy antics Jack pulled in the films.
- People (usually Jack) taking pot shots at Greg for being a male nurse. Even Kevin gets in on it in a backhanded way when he equates nursing with volunteer work.
- Sadist Show: The basis of the humor in the movies is that the universe seems to hate Greg Focker. Also, his new father-in-law is a sadist who refuses to let Greg ever come out of something looking good, and most of his in-laws are sardonic snobs who ridicule Greg at every opportunity. Even the cat seems to delight in making Greg look bad.
- Second Place Is for Losers: The attitude expressed by Jack and (to a lesser extent) Dina after they see the "Wall of Gaylord" put together by Bernie and Roz.
- Shout-Out:
- When Greg and Jack fall into the ballpit, the Jaws theme starts playing. When Greg notices a Worm Sign circling him, a dolly zoom occurs and he starts screaming for the kids to get out of the ball pit.
- Greg and Jack listen to "Puff the Magic Dragon", and Greg brings up the common reading of it as a weed metaphor. Jack is unimpressed.
Greg: Some people think that to "puff the magic dragon" means to smoke a marijuana cigarette.
- Shown Their Work: The human lie detector was debunked, due to info on the pulse. However, another aspect of lie detecting was still in play. When Jack administers the test, he looks at Greg in the eyes. While Greg looks away a few moments, Jack still keeps his eyes focused on Greg's. This is based off of a popular fact that if you look to the left while answering a question, you are lying. The left side of the brain has been known as the thinking side while the right side is the creative side, but they each control the opposite side of the body. Looking to the left means you are coming up with some BS story.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Given that the 2000 film is much lighter than the original 1992 story, Pam and her mom are not accidentally killed by her dad, nor does said dad die of a heart attack.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Averted with Isabel's son, Jorge and Greg as it turns out he's not the real father. Its still uncanny, though.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Greg finally snapping and telling off the annoying flight attendant ends with a hard cut to him getting dragged off the plane back through the airport by security guards, and only Jack showing up and pulling rank is able to save him from getting hit with a slew of criminal charges. Even before The War on Terror and the creation of The TSA, aggressive and threatening behavior on an airplane was not taken lightly.
- Too Dumb to Live: Even though the film takes place in the pre-9/11 era (barely) and Greg was at the end of his rope, saying "bomb" on an airplane was pretty stupid on his part.
- Too Much Information: Practically everything Greg's parents say.
- Trailers Always Spoil:
- The reveal of Jack being ex-CIA would've been funnier if it wasn't stated outright in trailers for the movie.
- They also played up Jack watching Greg doing silly kung fu moves to his hidden camera, which is the film's last scene.
- There isn't much the theatrical trailer doesn't give away.
- The Un-Favorite: With Grandkids. Jack picks the bright (and slightly psychotic) Samantha as his favorite to the lonely and somewhat dim Henry. He claims this is because Samantha likely has more of Pam's genes than Greg's, and is therefore "less of a Focker."
- Vertigo Effect: When Jack is swimming after Greg in the ball pit. This is a Shout-Out to Jaws, which helped make the Vertigo Effect famous.
- Wham Line: A subtle one... During the What the Hell, Hero? scene with Jack, Pam and Dina, after Pam walks out says a lot, including the fact that even the adored Kevin had difficulties while dating Pam.
Jack: So what if he took the MCATs? He's still not good enough for Pam.Dina: Who is, Jack? Nobody has ever been good enough for your Pam. I mean, do you realize that you never even warmed up to Kevin until she broke up with him?
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The fake "Mr. Jinx" cat with the grey tip on its tail. When Jack confronts Greg about it, Greg sets the cat down, and the cat walks off, down the hallway. It's never seen again after that. Not that we even need to know about it after that.
- Andi Garcia in the third film; she disappears from the plot after she and Greg wake up in the dirt pit.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Only hippies. Pam's brother has a good laugh when he asks the trope; "Wait a minute! So your name is gay focker? (laughs) It's an unusual name."
- World of Jerkass: With the exception of Pam and Dina, everyone seems set on making life miserable for Greg.
resolved Question about Recap Pages
Are Recap pages allowed to have tropes referencing or mentioning a later episode of the same show or another work in the series? I ask this because I was looking through some of the Recap pages for Avatar: The Last Airbender and a large number of them contain either trope examples referencing a later episode or trope examples referencing a different work entirely. Like these examples in Avatar: The Last Airbender "The Swamp"
- Foreshadowing:
- The mask cart that passes Iroh and Zuko in the opening scene bears the Blue Spirit mask. At the end of the episode, Zuko reassumes his Blue Spirit alter-ego.
- The Foggy Swamp Tribe's unorthodox application of waterbending (bending the water within the plants) foreshadows darker applications of the art shown later.
- The spirit vine that hits the bird at the end, and the swamp itself, which foreshadow a big revelation in The Legend of Korra about the Spirit World.
- While begging for money, Iroh sings a song about how great the girls from Ba Sing Se are, much to Zuko's irritation. Later, Iroh hooks Zuko up with a Ba Sing Se girl.
I'm pretty sure that this isn't allowed as Recap pages are about tropes that occur in that specific episode, but I wanted to ask and make sure first before I edit them out
openCryptavolt Web Original
There's this You Tuber (not sure if anyone uses that term anymore) called Cryptabolt who is a web voice actor and makes funny videos about Dead by Daylight, mainly revolving around Springtrap. I tried searching it on this site to see if there's a page about them but there wasn't, so I was wondering if I could create the page myself, if it's okay.
Edited by IC420openDoes this fit as Even Evil Has Standards? Videogame
In Poppy Playtime, the corrupt, child experiment supporting evil CEO Leith Pierre, after a catastrophe happens in his factory's theater, does something to a large group of people that another executives questions they had to do. (It's heavily implied the theater burned down and he trapped the the theatergoers inside to protect company secrets, denying them a chance to evacuate and survive). However, it's Leith who people say Even Evil Has Standards applies to.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Leith is a vile man, but he was enraged at Harley Sawyer when Gerad Lockharte accused the latter of causing the Theater Incident [...]
openTo avoid an Edit War
I bring up a recent edit on the Character page for corru.observer by GooseWithAPhone which has resulted in unilateral changes to folder names and addition of speculative tropes that I'd like to revert. Specifically:
- The troper added Ambiguously Gay for a character whose actions have yet too little context or weight behind them for a work that is still being released in chapters as we speak, renamed He Knows Too Much to "She Knows Too Much" which is frowned upon, and tried to mask speculation by claiming the trope is "heavily implied" without sufficient proof.
- Renamed folders with the full names of some characters, when the game itself refers to them by their shortened names and they're rarely referred upon by their full names.
- Added a few tropes about a character that reek of speculation hidden behind "implications" that I do not believe are necessarily there yet.
resolved Is spoilering out an entire example fine with the spoiler policy? Western Animation
So I noticed on both WesternAnimation.K Pop Demon Hunters and YMMV.K Pop Demon Hunters that the same troper, ReginaldOgron5, edited two separate entries for the same reason: they're both completely
spoilered out
(though for the YMMV example I can at least understand a little more, with the Fan Wank explanation).
My concern is... there's multiple other completely spoilered out examples on both of those pages? And the thing is, not only are both of those examples not Self Fulfilling Spoilers, but they're also... actual spoilers that should be spoilered?
So I'm just wondering... is this correct? Is a completely spoilered out example fine?
Edited by Eisnerresolved Does this part of a Pop-Culture Isolation example really qualify? Live Action TV
On YMMV.Squid Game, 8BrickMario
recently added
the following bolded sentence to the page's Pop-Culture Isolation example:
- Pop-Culture Isolation: The reason the reveal in "Front Man" that the Front Man is Jun-ho's missing brother In-ho was more shocking to Korean audiences but kind of got lost in translation internationally is because the Front Man's actor – Lee Byung-hun – is one of the top A-list megastars of all of South Korean cinema, and whose film Inside Men was explicitly referenced earlier in the series by Ji-yeong in the past episode "Gganbu", even mentioning Lee by name. While Lee has also played roles in Western cinema before Squid Game, most notably Storm Shadow in the G.I. Joe film series, neither Lee himself nor the use of Celebrity Paradox via passing dialogue are anywhere near as popular in Western media. From a Western perspective, imagine if a player sarcastically referred to the games as "our mission, should we choose to accept it", only for it to turn out that the mysterious leader of the masked guards is portrayed by Tom Cruise. Perhaps recognizing that Lee Byung-hun's reveal didn't hit as much outside of Korea, the show does pull off a similar casting effect for Western audiences by Season 3, where we see an American games recruiter played by Cate Blanchett!
The issue is that this added sentence was apparently to mention how the series "corrected" the pop culture issue with another big-name actor, but I don't really get how it can parallel to the issue of Western audiences not regarding Lee Byung-hun as much as Cate Blanchett, since the latter's character is someone who appears only once (unlike the former's major role) and didn't first appear masked before then having their face visible to amaze audiences at the actor, nor is there any mention or reference to said actor and/or their other roles beforehand.
I'm wondering, could this added sentence feel too redundant for what the example is referring to? What are your thoughts?
Sent a PM to 8BrickMario so they can be aware of this query, by the way.
Edited by Inky100openWanting to avoid an edit war, and rudeness in a blank edit reason Videogame
On Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Ukokira removed
this edit...
- False Flag Operation: Ultimately, this is what the Red Herrings surrounding the Red Samurai amount to. Despite it seemingly being an ally if not Lou or Deadman assisting Sam from beyond the grave, it turns out to be Higgs screwing with Sam, luring him into a false sense of security so he can nab Tomorrow right from under his nose.
... with the reasoning of "This literally isn't true. It's Deadman in the Red Samurai suit up until Higgs hijacks in the DHV when Deadman is explicitly outside of the Samurai body."
I added
back in on my read of "Except Deadman himself says it's not him when the Red Samurai/Higgs appears again in the Magellan. Realistic chiral holograms exist, and if it WAS Deadman he would've cleared it up at some point."
Ukokira then removes
it again with the reasoning of "He is literally talking about that one specific moment when Higgs hijacks the body" (although for some reason, the removal shows
up twice
), followed by two null edits with the edit reasons of "He is literally talking
about thatone specific moment when Higgs hijacks the body We LITERALLY SEE DEADMAN in the suit. He does a whole "we will always be connected speech". It is CLEARLY not a Chiralgram there. How are you being this dense???" and "Deadman being the suit is also in an area
that's explicitly outside of the chiral network. It physically can't be a "realistic" chiralgram".
I'd like to add the False Flag Operation back in, but I want to avoid an edit war. My reading of the whole situation is that Higgs could easily bypass the chiral network in part because of how long he spent on the Beach and being stuck there would've given him some different powers, and thus allow him to puppet the Red Samurai with a chiral hologram of Deadman overlaying the face, and that it wouldn't be out of character of Higgs to deliberately mislead the protagonists. The other reasoning is that Deadman never outright confirms that he was ever masquerading as the Red Samurai, because why would he, what with his heart having been donated to Heartman, and the rest of Deadman's body would've been more than likely incinerated to avoid the chance of a voidout.
resolved Is "All-New Venom" page overdoing it a little with the Paul hate? Literature
I noticed recent edits to All-New Venom seem to be definitively describing Paul Rabin as an abusive asshole selfishly gaslighting and brainwashing Mary Jane into staying with him when she clearly still loves Peter Parker.
Now, I don't like Paul any more than... well... pretty much everyone, including the writers and artists at Marvel, but that strikes me as going into Alternative Character Interpretation territory—indeed, Paul being an abusive asshole who uses gaslighting and dark magic to manipulate MJ into staying with him when she still loves Peter Parker is mentioned under Alternative Character Interpretation on the YMMV page.
If anything, Paul is depicted as a Butt-Monkey who's effectively being cuckolded by the Venom symbiote and is disrespected by Dylan Brock at every available opportunity despite reaching out to the latter and trying to be a supportive father figure.
Edited by Arawn999openAre Fandom Rivalry and Friendly Fandoms mutually exclusive? Videogame
On YMMV.Mario Kart World, there's this entry:
- Fandom Rivalry: With Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, due to the long-time Mario-Sonic rivalry and that both games are looking to expand upon vehicle transformation and otherwise take their respective series in bold new directions.
Seems kind of stubby, just making surface-level comparisons between the two games and the two franchises' history together, but I didn't really question it since Nintendo seems to still get compared to Sega even years after the latter exited the console business.
Then I scrolled down and saw this:
- Friendly Fandoms:
- Despite the historical rivalry and the duel with Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Mario Kart World in general has been positively received by fans of Sonic the Hedgehog, due to World's surprisingly robust movement mechanics that seemingly take close inspiration from Sonic itself, namely wall running, "spammable" aerial tricks, and rail grinding. For CrossWorlds specifically, many fans also see it and World as worthy competition which can take the Mascot Racer genre to new heights. It helps that both games are taking different approaches, with Mario focusing on open-world checkpoint racing while Sonic is sticking with circuit tracks.
So which is it? Can both happen at the same time? If not, which do we keep?

G-Liguria
is not getting how Hindsight tropes work, particularly wrong-way hindsight.
It began here
; they apparently added
a bunch of wrong-way hindsight examples to Donkey Kong Bananza, which another troper deleted
for being wrong-way hindsight. Despite the deletion being correct, as the entries all pertained to things that occurred before the work was released, G-Liguria sent the troper a notifier, which caused them to doubt if they did the right thing or not. I myself
and other tropers agreed that the deletion was correct, and so the notifier should have not been sent, because there was nothing wrong with the deletion.
With this, I sent G-Liguria a misuse notifier, and they got rather argumentative in the reply, not understanding why it was wrong-way hindsight. But even after I sent them another PM and quite clearly explained that Hindsight refers to the work itself being seen as hilarious/harsher/heartwarming thanks to events that happened after the work was released, they still refused to believe it, citing another Hindsight-related page...that is also full of wrong-way hindsight examples. Since it seems that they're not getting it, I've brought it up here.
Edited by UFOYeah