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openAre we allowed to link to fan translations
I decided to clean up a No Export for You entry for Valkyria Chronicles III for being complainy, but I'm not too sure about leaving links to fan translations. Don't we typically don't allow that?
The entry in question:
- Unfortunately Valkyria Chronicles III will never see the light outside Japan as a PSP game. This is mainly due to Sega's decision shoot itself in the foot by making the sequel a PSP game instead of a PS3 game like the original. The original sold better in the West than in Japan (due in part to the PS3's international popularity), but since the PSP was thriving in Japan but dying in the West, the game sold poorly outside of the Japanese market. Poor foreign sales led to Sega deciding not to export Valkyria Chronicles 3. Thankfully, the PSP's region-free nature makes it easy to import the game, and an English patch is available here http://vc3translationproject.wordpress.com/about/
openFunny Moments
Can Funny Moments for a comic also include funny commentary from the creator's personal weblog, or does it have to be in the comic itself?
openWMG page that unabashedly disregards ROCEJ
I thought the WMG entry I brought up yesterday
was bad. The WMG page I came across today make that one seem tame by comparison, and there's a lot more than just one entry. Examples include:
- Hoping the entire cast will die, then being disappointed when they don't (this is only the first entry).
- Calling the people who work on the show Trolling Creators who are making people sick of MTV's Network Decay even madder.
- Numerous theories as to what species Snookie belongs tonote such as half goblin, part tangerine, and a hybrid of Amy Winehouse and a pumpkin.
- Accusing the show of being a Batman Gambit to make sure that aliens don't invadenote The entry states that if aliens watched the show, they would consider the entire human race to be already on the road to wiping itself out (and therefore not worth invading in the first place).
As divisive as it is, Jersey Shore is still a Reality TV show, which makes these entries all the more insane.
Edited by Shadow8411openPokemon The Series divisions
Just out of academic curiosity, who split the Pokemon anime pages up according to season/series? It's something I'd actually been thinking about doing myself for months but never got around to it. I want to give major props to whoever did so, especially since they did it all on Pokemon Day.
openStrawman Has a Point in Godzilla King of the Monsters 2019 Film
Troper Derv0s B 2 added this to Strawman Has a Point in the YMMV page of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019):
"A surprising number of viewers reacted this way to the government's Gotta Kill 'Em All demands regarding the Titans. Said viewers argue that while the ending proves The Extremist Was Right, with what little the human race knows about the Titans at the film's start, the demand comes off as highly understandable. Of course, this argument ignores the fact that Monarch have already established before the film's start that the Titans are ecologically essential, and that the government are basically getting it into their heads that they somehow know better than the professional Titan experts."
I think the fact that the entry argues with itself disqualifies it for the trope. What do you say?
openDC Infinite Frontier 2.0 Print Comic
DC Infinite Frontier is in full swing and its YMMV page is up and running, but some of its entries come off as opinionated writing. In the main page, Continuity Snarl has the following context: "Minor case, but the whole concept of Barry Passing the Torch back to Wally, as it's presented as if Barry was giving Wally a promotion. While meta-wise, Barry had been treated as the "real" Flash by DC's editorial, and Wally had been Demoted to Extra with his return (and had suffered a major Heroic BSoD in the last few years thanks to being a Cosmic Plaything), in-universe the two were meant to be about equal, in the same manner as Hal Jordan and John Stewart, so this shouldn't be a case of Wally 'taking Barry's role' so much as Barry leaving Wally to handle their shared duties on his own, something they both know he's more than capable of doing. It is a minor case however, as this somewhat makes sense with their respective flaws; Wally has cripplingly low self-esteem despite his greater power levelnote even putting aside his recent Mobius Chair powers which elevated him to Godhood, Wally is a cosmic powerhouse, while Barry has had It's All About Me tendencies in recent years."
The YMMV page lists Barry Allen as Unintentionally Unsympathetic with this context: "Barry Allen once again falls victim to this when his whole sequence with Wally West features Barry stating he is leaving to help President Superman deal with something Multiverse-related. In regards to his departure, Barry tells Wally that he's now the Flash and is leaving Earth-0 under Wally's care. While this is meant to be seen as if Barry's passing the torch to Wally, aside from the glaringly obvious issue that Wally was already the Flash for years, the whole thing comes across as if Barry's patronizing Wally. The idea that Barry thinks he needs to give Wally his blessing after everything Barry did that ended up practically destroying Wally's life is incredibly galling on Barry's part."
I admit I haven't read The Flash comics in years, but this comes off as an attempt to demonize Barry for, yet again, the Flashpoint event. Last year, Barry was given an entry in Designated Hero but this was later disproven
, which is why I'm bringing this topic up again.
Pandering to the Base has this context: "Given that the event is intended to be about realigning DC to fix their recent mistakes, it's gotten some heat from New 52 fans, particularly over benching Barbara Gordon to return her being to Oracle, and to having Barry Allen be Put on a Bus to give Wally West the Flash title again, as well as being lighter and more idealistic instead of Darker and Edgier. For most fans, long-term and new, this is fixing some severe mistakes, but for the Vocal Minority who joined the fandom during the New 52, it feels like fans of the pre-New 52 DC are Running the Asylum." —- Also, Win The Crowd is becoming a bit bloated, with examples like:
- The creative team of Mariko Tamaki and Dan Mora on Detective Comics is considered by many to be an improvement over the last one, which many derided as So Okay, It's Average.
- To say nothing of actually keeping to what they inferred with Speed Metal and having Wally West once again the lead character of The Flash. Some Barry fans are mad, but general Flash fans consider this franchise rerailment and Wally West's fanbase are ecstatic. Helping matters is the initial arc is solicited to feature the Flash Family, something that was deeply missed by the fans during the last decade.
- Mitigating the issue with Barry was the announcement of an Infinite Frontier event that will chronicle what he's doing with the Justice Incarnate team, along with plans for a Justice Incarnate ongoing to launch after helps avoid the feeling he's being tossed away.
- Also, while not officially announced and confirmed, the statement that there are plans for a Batgirls book co-staring Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain, with Barbara Gordon as their mentor, has fans of the Batgirl legacy hyped, especially as this was a commonly suggested fan-idea.
- Fan reception to Brian Michael Bendis on Justice League is naturally mixed thanks to his equally-vocal Fandom and Hatedom, but people are responding well to the line-up, which has avoided the Big Seven focusnote which had been the case for the last decade and people were growing bored of, primarily because it was considered creatively uninspired and quite limiting to what the Justice League can be, to instead a mixed team featuring new characters like Naomi, old classics like Green Arrow and Black Canary, and unexpected ones like Hippolyta and Black Adam.
This entries come off as knee-jerk reactions instead of, well, entries that could have a long-term position in this page.
So, what do you say?
openMagnum Opus Dissonance misuse?
- Cupcakes is an extremely gory My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic that was written on a whim because the author wanted to see if it would actually get any attention. The result: a fanfic so infamous that reading it is more or less a pre-requisite for understanding many of the in-jokes and references in the Friendship Is Magic fandom. It's spawned an incredible number of spinoff fics, and later someone claiming to be one of the show's animators made a rather gruesome music video based on the fic. The show's staff is also more likely than not aware of it, as they often interact with the community. Most bronies might not even know that the author actually wrote more 'normal', more serious works that don't exactly get a ton of attention compared to Cupcakes.
- BioWare first began development on Anthem under the codename "Project Dylan", as they envisioned creating what they wanted to be seen as the Bob Dylan of video games; a title that would be referenced and remembered for years, which clearly indicated that they intended it to be their masterpiece. Unfortunately, in-part thanks to an extremely Troubled Production, the game wound up being the lowest rated title in the company's history.
I suspect both are misuse. Cupcakes never states the author thought their other works were better. Nor did they say ‘’Anthem'' was their best after it's Troubled Production thwarted their plans to make it their best.
Relating, this Magnum Opus Dissonance entry was deleted by troper genocide 24 without edit reason.
- My Little Pony: Friends Forever #14 was self-described as "the most socially and politically conscious pony comic you ever read" within 10 minutes of its release on writer Jeremy Whitley's twitter
...who went on to fiercely defend it and even blocked the author of the scathing article that pointed out the many problems and complaints
of the issue, which was almost universally disliked. Compare and contrast his Fiendship Is Magic issue that featured King Sombra's origin which, despite releasing with much less fanfare was praised as not only the best of the entire Fiendship series but one of the best issues in the entire IDW comics run.
I PM'd them asking why they removed it. Anyone have any reasons not to add it back?
And why is Magnum Opus Dissonance Trivia and not YMMV if the part that makes it different from the Trivia Creator's Favorite Episode is audience opinion?
openTwo-sided example dispute on YMMV/RedoOfHealer
To go over this dilemma, I'll need to lay out the context within the Redo Of Healer story.
Buckle up, because this is going to take a while. (If you want to skip all this stuff, go straight to the TL;DR at the bottom.)
- Keyaru is a healer that is enslaved and kept docile by magical drugs so that he can be raped and used. After developing immunity to drugs, he then kills his tormenters and restarts time with his memories intact.
- After going back in time, he starts learning new abilities and kickstarting his immunity early. Princess Flare, who can sense "Heroes", tracks him down and brings him back to the castle to be a healer. She is the primary target for Keyaru's revenge.
- Keyaru deliberately allows the initial steps to happen as before, such as various maids in the castle "seducing" him because sex with a healer makes one more powerful. He absorbs the abilities of each person he has sex with.
- Flare tasks Keyaru to heal a swordswoman with a missing arm. The process causes Keyaru tremendous pain and he blacks out. After he wakes up, he deliberately pretends to be traumatized by the experience and refuses to ever heal again, exactly as he did in the first timeline, so that Flare will be disgusted with him and have him drugged and enslaved.
- While drugged and enslaved, Keyaru is again made a sex slave and raped (including by male soldiers). However, he uses this to absorb their abilities.
- After drug immunity kicks in early, Keyaru escapes and begins taking his revenge on everyone.
I tell you all of this, because a lot of people who watch the series criticize and do a lot of headscratching at point #4, where he intentionally pretends to be traumatized, knowing exactly what would happen. His reasoning as stated in the story was that he wanted to absorb the knights' abilties, but those who criticize this argue that he would be able to do that simply by healing them after battle, as Flare was asking him to do. Allowing himself to be drugged and raped again in the second timeline is thus criticized as only being for the benefit of the audience seeing what pieces of work Flare and everyone in her kingdom are.
An example of Unintentionally Unsympathetic was added by Clown Prince 47
mentioning this exact criticism. It was removed by Tropers.Raquel The UFO for the reason: "I'm deleting this portion because Keyaru actually explains why he took the path of revenge instead of trying to avoid the path entirely. Flare has the power to sense heroes like her. Even if Keyaru denied her request to be a hero or ran away from home, she would find him, drag him back and subjugate him all over again like in the first timeline meaning that a life of peace was impossible from the start."
I brought it to the discussion page
because the removal reason is incorrect: nobody is arguing whether or not Keyaru should have taken revenge at all — they are specifically questioning whether step #4 in his plan was necessary, under the logic that he could have still gotten his revenge without subjecting himself to the same torment.
Tropers.Dj0rel first made the accusation that I "didn't read" the edit reason, and repeatedly made the same accusation. When that was finally cleared up, he then made the claim "And you assume that he could have avoided everything if he played along? I think you are forgetting what kind of people he's dealing here". After I said that this was Speculative Troping, because we don't trope what is likely to happen, he then flipped it to claim that criticizing Keyaru's decisions is "speculation".
TL;DR:
Tropers.Dj0rel argues that the logic of the story makes sense in context because questioning the protagonist's decisions is "speculation".
I argue that that isn't how YMMV works. If people are all having the same fridge logic and argue that the protagonist's actions don't make sense, even with the explanation given in-story, then it's significant enough to trope.
For proof that this isn't just a criticism posed by myself or Clown Prince 47, there is also this critique on Youtube
addressing the same exact plot point.
resolved Characterization tag removal plugin
On 11 September, NES Boy ran a plugin on the Ret-Gone page which erased all characterization tags... by removing everything after the tag, which certainly wasn't their intent. Oddly enough, this edit also changed the past-tense "retgonned" to "retgonne", which itself indicates use of a plugin.
resolved YouAreNotAlone page
Self-Demonstrating content on You Are Not Alone was added back after previously being removed.
openTheyChangedItNowItSucks misuse?
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Adam Malkovich behaves nothing like the AI from Fusion, Samus's recollection of him from Fusion, or even the manga version of himself. Instead of being a reasonable authority figure with a warm bond with Samus as the only CO she ever respected, he comes off as a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk at best and a sociopath at worst.
I think this is misuse as: 1. The work does attempt to portray him as "reasonable authority figure" who's becoming cold to Samus has an in-work explanation, it just does a very bad job at portraying it. 2. His characterization would likely have been just as unpopular even if it didn't replace his prior depiction.
The They Changed It, Now It Sucks! page sounds like it's only supposed to apply to changes in adaptations. But is seems like it's used for any complaints, the sort of thing that got restrictions placed on other tropes. Does it has such restrictions?
openOn JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's Ensemble Dark Horse page. Anime
A few days ago, a troper by the name of 227someguy made two edits to the Ensemble Dark Horse page to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Personally, I feel that these two edits were unjustified and should be reverted back, but from what I understand, doing that would be considered starting an Edit War, so I decided to come here and get other people's opinion on it.
In their first edit, they removed the bolded line from this example:
"One of the earliest examples: Robert Edward O. Speedwagon. Despite the fact that he can't use the Ripple and doesn't fight (Zeppelli even notes that he's more or less useless despite his friendship with Jonathan), he's popular with Western and Eastern fans alike. Must be his Nice Hat. In fact, he's arguably the biggest example of this in the series. Even though it's been several years since he's been relevant in the story (either in the manga or the anime adaptation) he still maintains a devoted fandom."
Their justification for this was that this was a case of Examples Are Not Arguable. However, Examples Are Not Arguable seems to only apply when the example itself is being argued, which isn't the case here (Speedwagon is most definitely an Ensemble Dark Horse), rather, what can be argued is that Speedwagon is the most notable example of an Ensemble Dark Horse in the series.
In their second edit, which is the one I'm more opposed to, they changed a sentence to refer to the character Cioccolata as an Evil Counterpart to the character Giorno to instead refer to him as Giorno's foil, citing it as a case of Square Peg, Round Trope. Personally, I do not see how that is the case, as Evil Counterpart is defined as an evil character who shares traits with a heroic character, which I feel Cioccolata fits the bill for (both him and Giorno are intelligent men who use a polite demeanor to hide their hidden violent sides, and both have abilities based around directly manipulating life).
Basically, I'd like to get some other's opinions on these edits and see whether or not they should be changed back.
Edited by lpk675openEdit war on Characters/MyHeroAcademiaSchoolFacultyAndStaff
Courtesy link: My Hero Academia - School Faculty and Staff, history
The following entry has been removed and re-added multiple times:
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: She is completely forgotten about almost immediately after her death, with no one shown mourning or even acknowledging it. Even Aizawa, her childhood friend, bluntly states that it doesn't matter and they have "more important things" to worry about.
- It was first added by Some New Guy on April 24, 2021
- It was then removed by Bio Yu Gi on June 24, 2021, with the edit reason "She is very visibly mourned by the students"
- It was then promptly re-added by Some New Guy the same day, with the edit reason "Yeah they mourned her for about a single panel before the cast and the story itself acted like she never even existed."
- Then removed by jdixon0151 today, with the edit reason "Her death was acknowledged by present mic, and it has not been that many chapter since then, so we really can't just say she has been forgotten or that the story is acting like she never existed in the first place"
So in addition to the edit war they are holding a discussion in the edit reasons.
Edited by SynchronicityopenStock Parody Jokes
I think Stock Parody Jokes may need a cleanup. Some of them are just making comments about the quality of a work (such as "the Super Mario Bros movie is bad" or "the later SpongeBob seasons are just mean-spirited grossout") instead of specific kinds of jokes parodies do.
Also, some of the examples are getting redundant (nearly every work with anthropomorphic animals has a "the show is furry bait" example), and there's even an example related not to the work, but to the author ("HP Lovecraft was racist" is listed under the Cthulhu Mythos in the Literature page, even though that's a joke about Lovecraft himself, not the Cthulhu Mythos).
openBatman controversy 2.0 Print Comic
Our favorite Dark Knight never seems to stay away from controversy for too long, and this time, it's two-fold.
First, Batman's folder in the DCAMU: Justice League character page has Adaptational Wimp, which says: "Downplayed. This incarnation of Batman is still a good fighter and he has his moments like getting the upper hand over Green Lanterns in the Justice League movies. But in his own films, aside from being able to defeat Deathstroke, himself an even worse Adaptational Wimp, in Son of Batman, he tends to get the short end of the stick in his titular films. In Batman Vs Robin he spent most of his fights taking a beating from various Talons, Robin, and the main Talon, while his comics counterpart was able to defeat Talon even after being famished and dehydrated for days. He also spends much of Bad Blood being captured and playing the role of Badass in Distress so he can be saved by the Bat-family. And in Hush, while he did much better in fights, he still wasn't able to defeat the eponymous villain on his own in the end and required the help of Catwoman to do so, whereas his comic books counterpart was able to beat The Riddler when he had been similarly physically enhanced by Venom during the Knightfall story. Justified with Damian. In Apokolips War, a brainwashed Batman reveals that the only reason Damian won is because he let him, and during their last fight he proves to his son that the latter is no match for him."
Adaptational Wimp has been frequently misused over these past few years, but the trope's definition is: "when their usefulness, agency, and contribution to the plot is significantly reduced. It is not this trope when the character "only" easily defeated twenty Mooks instead of a hundred; it's when the character struggled to take down even one. Realize too, that this may be intentional and in a long-running series may have the character take a level in badass to provide Character Development and align them better with the original version."
Then, the Dork Age entry in the YMMV page of Batman (Rebirth) was deleted and added yet again, because apparently, a consensus hasn't been reached about whether or not Tom King's run can be considered a Dork Age. Dork Age, much like Adaptational Wimp, has seen its fair share of misuses, but an entry in a long-running franchise can be a Dork Age if it qualities for any of the following criteria: 1. It has to be a critical and financial disappointment
2. Any changes it brought to the series must be undone by later installments
3. Whenever it's referenced by other entries, it has to be done in a negative manner.
So, what do you say?
Edited by MasterHeroopenDoes having your memory erased and replaced with FakeMemories count for BrainwashedAndCrazy. Videogame
So there's a character in Fire Emblem Awakening, whose backstory involves her being kidnapped as a teenager by people she hates, having her entire memory and personality erased to the point she no longer remembers her parents or even her name, and then all this being replaced with a Fake Memories magically implanted into her mind. She is then used to carry out her kidnapper's bidding.
The character describes herself as a ""A girl enslaved mind, body, and soul"
and the official sources use "pawn" and "puppet to describe her, with the Fire Emblem wiki(link
, ) describing her with the word, "brainwashed."
The reason I put this here is someone keeps contesting this example and saying she wasn't brainwashed, even though there is a similar character listed from Sailor Moon. I wanted to know what ATT thinks? Does that count as an example of Brainwashed and Crazy?
Edited by MonsundopenGenre Turning Point question
I discovered in the edit history for Genre Turning Point that the page once had real life examples, but they were deleted in March 2017 by Nohbody with the edit reason "none of those are trope examples". Despite this, the page is listed under Keep Real Life Examples. While I believe that the examples deleted may not count since there is no "genre" being changed, they were deleted without explanation, and as mentioned the page is indexed under an index that indicates real life examples can stay. What should I do? Should I restore them? Keep them removed? Temporarily restore and then figure out what to do with them? Go through the examples and see which ones are legit, if any? I'm puzzled as to what to do.
The examples in question:
- When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his army rather than surrender to his rivals he made all but inevitable the fall of the Roman Republic and the birth of The Roman Empire. The very shape of Western Europe (and thus by extension some of the shape of the rest of the world) were set from one course to another by one man's personal ambition.
- The Black Death decimated Europe's population in the mid-14th century with repercussions felt for decades. Some of these still felt today, according to various scholars, may have included:
- The foundations of the Protestant Reformation and the weakening of Church authority in general
- A rise in anti-Semitism and other prejudices
- The end of feudal economy and the rise of the middle class: Because laborers and craftsmen were fewer and could therefore demand higher wages, allowing them to accumulate wealth.
- The rise of paper and printing, as lawyers forced to settle a large number of estates began to wish that more of everything was written down, which increased demand for people who could write, which led to people looking for faster ways to produce documents. Eventually, they hit upon the printing press.
- The Agricultural Revolution: In order to increase the efficiency of food production, which the plague had squeezed. Also, great lords realized that running larger farms with hired hands was more efficient than serfdom.
- The Industrial Revolution—Indirectly, as a result of several of the above factors; the accumulation of wealth in the hands of craftsmen (which allowed them to start profit-making businesses that eventually turned into industries), the Protestant Reformation (which encouraged a burst of new thought in all directions, and also led to the establishment of the community of English Dissenters, who it just happened were mostly craftsmen, and whose response to Anglican discrimination—which had the effect of pigeonholing them as craftsmen and merchants—was to invent the modern world), and the Agricultural Revolution (which freed up labor to work in factories when industrialization happened, and also created fabulous wealth for farm-owning nobles, many of whom bankrolled industrial ventures basically because they had nothing better to do with their money).
- People of European ancestry having greater resistance to HIV, which some scientists have linked to antibodies originally developed by people who survived the plague.
- The plague also returned periodically for centuries afterward, leading to boom/bust population cycles which didn't really end until the colonial age.
- King John of England (the real-life king behind the Robin Hood tales) managed to screw things up quite badly in England; botched wars, high taxes, and getting the nation excommunicated for a few years. His frustrated and angered barons united and forced John to sign the Magna Carta (Great Charter). Now the monarchs had to at least be accountable to the nobles. The Magna Carta also established concepts like due process of law being required before stripping a non-serf of land and property, limitations on the king's powers, and a provision where a council of 25 nobiles could overrule the king's decree. It became the first restraints of absolute monarchy in England, and paved the way for the eventual triumph of parliament over monarchy.
Winston Churchill: We owe far more to the vices of John than to the labours of virtuous sovereigns.
- The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 is widely considered by historians to mark the official end of The Middle Ages and the final nail in the coffin of The Roman Empire (the Byzantines always considered themselves to be Romans, referring to their territory as Romania), which had existed for nearly 1500 years if one combines the ruling years of Ancient Rome and the Byzantine Empire together.
- The massive outflow of Greek scholars from Constantinople greatly influenced and accelerated the birth of The Renaissance in Europe.
- The sudden removal of the Byzantine Empire as a buffer-zone between Christian Europe and the Muslim Middle East, as well as the removal of the main overland trade-link between Europe and Asia, led to rapid advancements in warfare and seafaring technology within Europe for the first time in centuries.
- The fact that the Ottomans were now blocking the Silk Road led European navigators to pursue alternative routes to the riches of the Far East, which brings us onto...
- Perhaps most famous of all, Christopher Columbus' discovery of the West Indies in 1492 was The Beginning Of The End for every major civilization in North and South America, along with much of the native populations. At the same time, northern Europe, which had been a cultural backwater for centuries, entered a new era of vast riches and world domination. It triggered the Columbian Exchange, the exchange of crops, goods and people across continents, leading to items such as the potato, cocoa, chocolate and coffee being spread as far as China.
- Though the Black Death may have gotten the ball rolling economically (see above), the Wars of the Roses officially signaled the end of the feudal system in Britain, while also definitively ending three centuries of dominance by The House of Plantagenet. They showed just how much chaos could result from a weak monarch leaving too much power in the hands of landholding nobles guided by petty grudges and ambitions, with a personal quarrel between the Duke of Somerset and the Duke of York gradually spiraling into the most devastating civil war that Britain had ever seen. In an age when the Plantagenet bloodline had become so widespread and diluted that multiple second and third cousins of the King could seize the throne by virtue of being direct descendants of Edward III, it was only a matter of time before the young Henry VI became a pawn of his scheming Lancastrian advisors and his ambitious Yorkist cousins. When the Wars were finally settled by the rise of The House of Tudor, Henry VII and his successors made damn sure that the same thing would never happen again. Under the Tudors, the monarchy's power grew to unprecedented levels, with a well-developed central bureaucracy presiding over far more aspects of public life than ever before.
- The Peace of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thirty Years' War, originated the modern conception of state sovereignty (including territorial integrity and modern diplomatic relations), not just for the states involved, but all future states as well. It also removed The Pope and the Roman Catholic Church from European politics for good, finishing what the Black Death had started two centuries prior.
- The Protestant Reformation definitively broke the long-unchallenged binary between the Roman Catholic Church in the West and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the East, marking a major milestone in the Western World moving past the old vestiges of the The Roman Empire that endured through Rome and Constantinople's surviving religious institutions. It showed that there were far more ways of interpreting Christianity than anyone could have imagined before, and it challenged the idea that any earthly religious authority—like the Pope or the Ecumenical Patriarch—could have a monopoly on interpreting the word of God for the masses. Once Martin Luther opened the floodgates by founding the Lutheran Church, a host of others denominations followed in short order, including the Calvinists under John Calvin, the Swiss Protestants under Ulrich Zwingli, the Anabaptists under Thomas Müntzer, and the Anglicans under King Henry VIII—all of whom (directly or indirectly) fueled the geneses of the Presbyterians in Scotland, the Puritans in England, and the Baptists and Episcopalians in America. Likewise, the movement spread literacy through the use of the printing press and as per Max Weber, it paved the way for the development of capitalism. The world was never the same again.
- When the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and resulting tsunami and fire devastated the capital of Portugal and left tens of thousands dead, its aftershocks weren't limited to just the physical ones, or even to how it left Portugal's colonial ambitions up in smoke and solidified the power of the prime minister (the Marquis of Pombal's effective response to the earthquake saw the old aristocracy effectively sidelined). The disaster, which struck a devoutly Catholic city on All Saints' Day and left nearly every church (along with about 85% of the city) in ruins, had a tremendous impact on Enlightenment-era European thought that, two centuries later, Theodor W. Adorno compared to the reaction to The Holocaust, shaking the faith of many people in the idea of a just and benevolent god. The Great Lisbon Earthquake has been cited as the birth of atheism, with Voltaire, most notably, using the example of the earthquake in Candide and Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne to savagely attack the philosophical optimism of his peers.
- The American Revolution (c. 1774-1783) decisively changed international politics forever. It was the first modern democracy, and thus the trope maker for much of what we now think of as Western democracy. It directly or indirectly inspired revolutions for nearly a century and a half (from 1776 to 1918) - in particular the anti-monarchist nature of most of these revolts. It arguably represents the point at which guerilla warfare and firearms first met. And finally, it was the first time that an imperial European power was defeated by a non-European one. It was also the first example of a nation dominated by people of obvious European extraction, speaking a language from Europe, nevertheless declaring themselves a separate, non-European nation, paving the way for revolutions in Haiti, Ireland and independence movements across the world.
- The French Revolution put an end to one of the oldest monarchies in Europe and left France as a veritable laboratory of political experimentation for the next century (the only monarch afterwards who tried to pretend that things hadn't changed that much did not last long), eventually making it into a solidly Republican country. The Revolution's army reforms also changed the notion of warfare as per Carl von Clausewitz and marked the first modern "total war". The Revolution also proved, albeit briefly and imperfectly, that a democracy can govern over a large area of land, that an army of Conscription and meritocratic ranks can not only defend itself against professional aristocratic armies but that they can win wars and take territories as well. Before the Revolution, the main argument against republican forms of government and democracy was that it only applied to small city states and small populations.Even Jean-Jacques Rousseau (the guiding spirit behind the Revolution) agreed with this but the Revolution, regardless of later contradictions and reversals, put a permanent dent in that belief.
- The US Constitution's Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, both of which were first drafted in 1789, are the Trope Codifiers for the modern concepts of liberal democracy and human rights. While some of those rights had appeared in the Magna Carta in the fourteenth century (though many of them had previously suddenly lapsed halfway across the Atlantic for British colonial subjects), the 1789 documents took what were historically viewed as peculiar customs of the English (and Welsh and Scots and Irish, but nobody on the Continent paid any attention to those) and turned them into universal rules. The American Bill of Rights and French Declaration of Rights declared the rights they defended to be inherent, "natural" human rights, with which the state could not legitimately interfere, rather than being the merely traditional "Rights of Englishmen" guaranteed by Magna Carta.
- Inverted with the Revolutions of 1848, "the Spring of Nations" described by historian G. M. Trevelyan as the the turning point where "history failed to turn". He and later historians note that the general failure of the events and the triumph of the repressive governments to put it down pointed out the greater strength of autocratic nations to police the population. But at the same time, the revolution did force many of these nations to move on a path of reform.
- In Germany, this event led to what some historians call Sonderweg (though it is disputed and contentious). In this view, Germany launched on a "Special Path" towards modernization where feudal structures and values were synthesized with modern ideals, leading to the rise of Otto von Bismarck who changed and organized Germany "from above" to prevent revolution "from below". This in turn paved the way for greater authoritarianism in German society, finally reaching its climax in the rise and fall of the Third Reich.
- The American Civil War turned the American economic and political map upside down. The Southern states that made up the Confederacy, which had once been the wealthiest region in the country, became a backwater for a century following the destruction of the exploitative chattel slavery system, which had been the key pillar of their economy; no longer could the Southern gentry lash and beat their way into prosperity on the backs of their slaves. The end of slavery, likewise, planted the seed for the newly-freed African American community to establish their independence, setting the stage for the Great Migration
and, later, the Civil Rights Movement, though in the short term, unfortunately, it led to a racist backlash
from both Southern whites who resented their loss of status and Northern whites who feared competition from black labor. Beyond slavery and race relations, the example that had been made of the Confederacy firmly established the supremacy of the federal government over the states and the idea of the US as a singular nation rather than a collection of such, up to and including a shift in language
; before the war, the US was most commonly described in plural terms ("the United States are"), while afterwards, it was described in singular terms ("the United States is"). Finally, the industrial might that the Union used to overpower the Confederacy laid the groundwork for the industrial wars of the 20th century, which would be fully realized in World War I (see below).
- The Hurricane of 1900 that struck Galveston, Texas sent it into a long decline while turning Houston into a booming port town. NASA and oil would finish the job. The construction of the Houston Ship Channel played a significant role in the shift as well.
- The Great San Francisco Earthquake (1906) for California. Before the quake, San Francisco was the largest city on the West Coast, and Los Angeles' population was less than a million, nowhere near the second largest city in the United States. The quake and the Hollywood boom were instrumental in shifting the population southward.
- A second turning point in The '80s came when San Francisco started attracting computer technology firms, partly due to Apple, and partly due to Berkeley and Stanford's top-notch computing laboratories. Then the Internet went mainstream, and the San Francisco Bay Area is now considered a mecca for computing startups and cutting edge tech. On the downside, the split between the sheltered, highly paid techies and the lower-paid non-technology workers has led to skyrocketing rents, shuttered landmarks, and a nasty cultural divide.
- World War I. Although the American Civil War was arguably the first "industrial" war, World War I was pivotal (and traumatic) for how it oversaw the realization of a total war fueled by industrial production and weaponry. Beyond even military technology and tactics, World War I brought about the collapse of the great autocratic multinational empires that had once dominated Europe's history - Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Austria-Hungary - and made representative democracies based around a nation-state representing one historical/ethnic group the ideal if not the norm (with a couple of big exceptions...). Then, World War I and its aftermath was key in raising nationalist resentments and economic hardships that would nourish the Fascist movement. At the same time it brought about not only the collapse of Tsarist Russia, but the failure of the democratic Russian state that immediately succeeded it and the rise of the Soviet Union, transforming the driving force in world history from the competition between Europe's colonial empires to the struggle between democratic-capitalist, Fascist, and Communist ideologies. Finally, the war gave the world the League of Nations, the doomed but still important precursor to the United Nations.
- The fall of the Ottoman Empire changed, overnight, the cultural and regional landscape of the Middle East. The division of territories between France and England, the rise of Arab Nationalism and other issues of the time, directly paved the way for much of the later conflicts in the region that continue to the present day.
- The Statute of Westminister in 1931, which redefined the relationship between the United Kingdom, the British Monarchy, and the various dominions which had once been colonies, marked the start of the peaceful end of the most widespread empire in human history as The British Empire became the (British) Commonwealth. The Suez Crisis of 1956 and the intervening period of decolonization and independence movements, marked the fading of England as the world's pre-eminent superpower, giving way to America and USSR.
- After World War II (1937/1939-1945) the world system of international relations was restructured drastically, with a new emphasis on not just sovereignty (already codified by the Peace of Westphalia) but (legal) equality between states. The old alliances of Europe were finished (World War I had previously shown how destructive they could be) in favour of new ones like NATO and the United Nations. It also discredited Anti-Semitism (at least in the West) to a great extent, and the led directly to the creation of The European Union. It also saw the end of American isolationism and saw the drastic increase of the US military in all branches.
- Once the world got used to the end of World War II, the Cold War changed things all over again by showing people a very new kind of warfare. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as superpowers and became the bitterest of rivals, but both of them eventually possessed enough nuclear weapons between them to bring about The End of the World as We Know It. The result? Traditional warfare between the two suddenly wasn't an option—leading to the age of proxy wars and the rise of the intelligence services. In short order, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was formed in 1947, with the Russian Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti (KGB) following in 1954, followed by three decades of up-and-down tensions as NATO and the Eastern Bloc backed competing factions in nearly every country that wasn't already allied with either of them. It seemed inevitable that the standoff would ultimately climax with World War III. But then...
- On the 13th of September, 1989, a non-Communist government was formed by the Polish parliament, and the Soviet Union declined to force them to do otherwise. This kicked off The Great Politics Mess Up: within weeks, the entity variously called the Eastern Bloc and the Warsaw Pact, the great enemy everyone had been planning to fight in World War III... simply went away. Just over a year later Germany was reunited, and a year after that the Soviet Union itself finally went into the dustbin of history. Western democracies were stunned to discover that the Cold War was over, had never turned hot, and they'd won.
Austin Powers: Oh, smashing, groovy, yay capitalism!
- There's a reason why the combined oral contraceptive pill, first approved by the FDA in 1960, is so often referred to as just "the Pill". Contraception had existed since the dawn of civilization, but the Pill was far more effective than the crude condoms and diaphragms of the past — and more importantly, it gave women full agency in whether or not to get pregnant. It played a large role in the emerging sexual revolution of The '60s, which in turn kicked into overdrive the already-bubbling second wave of the feminist movement and the genesis of the organized LGBT rights movement. A vast number of the social changes of the '60s and '70s can be directly attributed to this one little pill.
- This article
in Time makes the case that an epidemic of rubella in 1964-65 played a large role in the legalization of abortion in the United States and Western Europe, perhaps almost as much as the sexual revolution. Rubella is a fairly mild illness in most people, but pregnant women who catch it often give birth to infants with severe birth defects. As a result, when the epidemic broke out, it led to thousands of 'respectable' (i.e. white, married, middle-class) women getting 'therapeutic' abortions to terminate pregnancies that had a high likelihood of producing babies that would suffer a lifetime of medical problems, if they survived long at all. This effectively broke the stigma that had surrounded abortion, which was previously viewed as something that was done by women who were poor, unwed, and 'deviant'. Less than ten years later, the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion across the United States, and similar laws were passed throughout Western Europe.
- The terrorist attacks of September 11 brought about The War On Terror and redefined the relationship between the U.S. government and the Muslim world. In addition, it also triggered a series of game-changing reforms in the U.S. intelligence community.
openWasted Character? - Edit War
keyblade333 has added the following example of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character to Wonder Woman (2017):
"Ares is one Wonder Woman's top villains in terms of influence, power, and overall notability. The choice to end the very first solo film with him defeated is seen as a huge waste by many viewers, as Ares easily is strong enough that he could be a good climatic villain at the end of perhaps another movie that builds up to him. He even works well as a potential Big Bad for a Justice League style villain if built up enough. Sadly he is killed after appearing at the end with no real build up."
I don't think this is a valid example because, as stated in the trope's page, "this trope is about ignored characters with good potential who never receive the spotlight (or do so just once and then get removed or forgotten)". Ares' machinations are the catalyst for everything that goes wrong in the narrative, and I don't understand what they mean by "no real build up", given that killing him is Wonder Woman's entire motivation for most of the film.
The entry also argues that Ares deserved to be the villain of another film, but this violates another of this trope's rules: "(This trope) is not about leading characters who are not used the way you would like; there are infinite alternative ways any given character could have been used."
It should be noted that this is the second time this troper has added such an example to the page, so I cannot do anything about it without edit warring myself. Can I get some opinions?
openBrewing Edit War: Self Rpeorting Anime
There are some issues ongoing in the https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/YuGiOhSEVENS
page revolving around the Broken Base entry. Namely about the use of a 'repetitive duels' part of the B.B.
Main argument point being my 'this is what people are saying in reaction the duels' versus 'repetitive duels are hardly just Sevens'.
It's going back and forth at this point between myself and Jackpot 21 and should probably get a intervention sooner rather than later.

This example was under the real life section of Slowly Slipping Into Evil:
The article is legitimately fascinating, but I feel like this should be an obvious No Real Life Examples, Please!? Shouldn't it?
Edited by jjjj2