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Ask the Tropers:
openSearching Discarded Tropes on the TLP?
Is there a way to search through discarded tropes on the TLP? I’m looking for a trope I remember seeing on the TLP, but searching it on both the main site and the TLP page itself brought up nothing. Is there a way to search the discarded tropes, or is it more along the lines of “these things were discarded for a reason”?
openSonic's Dr. Eggman— a misuse of "Affably Evil" Videogame
(Very thorough post below, apologies for length)
Dear Ask the Tropers,
I want to discuss how Sonic the Hedgehog Big Bad Dr. Eggman might be better off as an example of Faux Affably Evil as opposed to Affably Evil, the latter of which is what most descriptions of him I've seen on this site describe him as (including some trope subpage-only cases, hence why I've come over to Ask the Tropers). Spoilers unmarked for ease of reading.
Here are the main entries regarding him:
- Dr. Eggman from Sonic The Hedgehog has his moments of this.
- In Sonic Adventure 2 he acted very pleasant and, though he came close to killing Sonic, he was shown almost regretting it, showing profound respect for him after all the years that they were rivals. He had also been seen getting along with Tails at the end of the game. It also showed that he had the deepest respect for his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik.
- The best example was probably Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), where he's shown acting politely and gently most of the time, especially in front of Elise (except for the whole kidnapping part, of course).
- In the ending of Sonic Generations: The classic version, having learned that he never defeats Sonic, ponders upon pursuing a career as a teacher instead.
- Affably Evil: Despite really wanting to Take Over the World — and occasionally going to some extreme lengths to achieve this goal — Eggman's a fairly pleasant fellow who usually treats his enemies with Villain Respect.
- In Sonic Adventure 2, he lowers his head in melancholy after seemingly killing Sonic, and later gets along with the heroes after teaming up with them.
- In Sonic Colors, he takes Sonic's advice regarding threatening him directly rather than going through a bunch of terrible amusement-park-related puns on the way — for which Sonic then thanks him.
- In Sonic Lost World, he saves Tails' life from the rogue Cubot, even though it isn't necessary for his master plan, and seems to genuinely respect Tails. He's a complicated guy.
Here's my counterargument.
He loves being what he thinks is the most civilized and enlightened guy in the room, plain and simple, and the trope subpages of quite a few different adaptations have already described their Robotniks/Eggmen as "Faux", despite how two of them (AoStH and the movie) were heavily comedy-focused.
Now, I'm sure there might be a couple cases out there of game-universe!Eggman being genuinely affable (maybe just during Olympic season or something, the Twitter Takeovers are more of a different kind of portrayal altogether), but these are too few and far between to be a defining trait.
Let's look at the alleged examples being most frequently cited:
- Sonic Adventure 2:
- The Misaimed Fandom entry I put on the game's YMMV page explains the "Gerald" bit in detail. Long story short, he looked up to his grandpa as a brilliant scientist rather than because of anything benevolent, and he's disappointed that Gerald went crazy trying to destroy the world since he takes pride in his own Pragmatic Villainy.
- The "admirable adversary" scene has him send Sonic to his death via explosive escape pod and then lowering his head out of respect… before immediately getting over it and pointing his gun back at Tails. His Dark Story recap also has him gleefully proclaim, "I finally did it! I've defeated Sonic! That annoying hedgehog is gone forever! He's nothing but floating chunks in space now!"
- He did get along with the heroes during the Last Story, but, y'know, no world means no empire so necessity and all that.
- The somber "you're right" response he gives to Tails' "we all did it together" was meant to fit with the equally somber tone of Shadow's death and Gerald's tainted legacy. As sincere as it sounds, it's just Eggman acknowledging the facts after being briefly lost in a moment of thought.
- Here's a Dummied Out exchange that was meant to happen after that, anyways:
Tails: "Where are you going?"
- Sonic the Hedgehog (2006): He's only gentlemanly to Elise because she has something he wants and he still tries to get rid of Sonic and friends in multiple ways. And he doesn't even give Elise a nice room or a meal.
- Sonic Unleashed: He keeps Professor Pickle fed with cucumber sandwiches on request. Yeah, a corpse is less useful than someone to interrogate, food makes a good bribe in case you don't have a lot of other time and options, and he got the recipe wrong anyways.
- Sonic Colors: The "Eggman changes his evil speech at Sonic's request" scene was most likely meant to be played for laughs given how the doctor does it begrudgingly. There's also this line he gives afterwards to Sonic: "I would say it's been nice knowing you, but it hasn't." Not even this game has a genuinely nice Eggman.
- Sonic Generations: The whole "teaching degree" joke was probably meant to be sarcasm from Classic Eggman, with Modern Eggman missing the point and only considering it because "I've always enjoyed telling people what to do!", causing his Classic self to Face Palm. Also Lost World and Mania happened because each Eggman went back to world conquest, so no.
- Sonic Lost World:
- It's stated in a Magnificent Bastard entry and supported by the game's ending that he only saved Tails to make sure his Enemy Mine with Sonic stayed on schedule. At best, I guess you can argue that he'd want to beat Sonic and Tails personally.
- A scene earlier into the game (the one where Sonic sets the Zeti loose) has him tell the Deadly Six that he's a "compassionate" man… with the rest of what he says being covered up by Sonic and Tails talking over him. Listening closely, this is what he says to the Zeti:
Eggman: "I'm a compassionate man, or else I would've dropped you into a bottomless pit by now!"
- The game in general seems to subtly emphasize how is Eggman a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk— he's back to stuffing animals in robots, he only sees the Zeti as useful lackeys for him, he doesn't care that the Cacophonic Conch's noises are "very painful" to the Zeti and only that the shell itself is "very rare", and he only saves Sonic's life so the hedgehog can get rid of the Zeti for him while he sneaks back to his Extractor device. And to top it all off, this line just oozes with Faux Affably Evil:
Eggman: "Finally, with the energy drained from the Extractor, I can rule the world! Pity about the damage done down there, but there's still enough left for me to conquer."
And considering how he's a very Opportunistic Bastard willing to pervert anything to get what he wants (e.g. Little Planet, Angel Island, an ancient pyramid, a planet, five planets, time and space, a guy's very reason to live, etc.), I think it's safe to say he'd even exploit a Draco in Leather Pants situation like this one if he existed in the real world.
Hence, why I think we should change this. My proposed plan here is to edit the main pages that matter and then edit those linked to it in some way. I'll deal with the latter once I've gotten the go-ahead for the former.
Thank you all for listening.
Many regards, Blurry
openStaving off potential(?) edit war
On AwesomeMusic.Psychonauts 2, on 3 September, editor Andyroid added a quote from lyrics in italics. Per Text Formatting Rules, and specifically the rule saying "Do not italicize the text of the quote itself, except parts of it for emphasis." in the "Quotes Formatting" folder, I removed the italics on 5 September, noting in the edit reason that quotes from lyrics don't go in italics. On 30 September, Andyroid added the italics back without an edit reason.
It's not a hill I'm interested in dying on; any recommendations?
openWhat is the best way to handle this particular indentation problem (** bullet after quote)?
So we have this example here:
- Ambiguous Gender: Their appearance is notably very gender-neutral, and they are referred to with gender-neutral pronouns. They even point this out on Twitter that any pronouns doesn't matter
.
Omegaα: He/She/It/They anything. It does not matter.- It should be noted that some of the talents uses different pronouns. Kronii herself identifies Omega as male due to their androgynous appearance while Ollie identifies them as female.
Now, according to Example Indentation in Trope Lists, this is bad indentation and it should be fixed. I can think of two solutions, but I don't know which one is better.
- Ambiguous Gender: Their appearance is notably very gender-neutral, and they are referred to with gender-neutral pronouns. They even point this out on Twitter that any pronouns doesn't matter
.
Omegaα: He/She/It/They anything. It does not matter.- It should be noted that some of the talents uses different pronouns. Kronii herself identifies Omega as male due to their androgynous appearance while Ollie identifies them as female.
- Ambiguous Gender:
- Their appearance is notably very gender-neutral, and they are referred to with gender-neutral pronouns. They even point this out on Twitter that any pronouns doesn't matter
.
Omegaα: He/She/It/They anything. It does not matter. - It should be noted that some of the talents uses different pronouns. Kronii herself identifies Omega as male due to their androgynous appearance while Ollie identifies them as female.
- Their appearance is notably very gender-neutral, and they are referred to with gender-neutral pronouns. They even point this out on Twitter that any pronouns doesn't matter
Any opinions?
Edited by AsoktencheaopenCharacter limits for multi-character character pages
I wanted to ask if the 40,000 byte minimum for splitting off new character pages only applies to pages for single individuals or for groups as well. For example — say that there's a character page for The Adventures of Alice and Bob, with a section for Alice's gang and a section for Bob's gang. If Alice's folder, by itself, has less than 40k characters, it doesn't get a page. If the folders for Alice's gang, put together, also count less than 40k characters, does the ban still apply or can the group be split off into its own character page anyway?
openSpoiler policy for fanfics
When troping fanfics, how should we treat spoilers for things that happened in canon? Do we treat them as, well, spoilers? Or do we assume that whoever is reading the page is familiar with whatever media the fanfic is for and thus only hide spoilers for the fanfic itself?
openYMMV page for Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon Anime
May I ask if a mod can look over the YMMV page for this series? For the last several months there has been an editing war going on there that I have participated in. I’m not going to make excuses for myself, but my goal in the edits has been to promote factual information about this series. However I was personally called out by Lancelot 07 in an edit on October 7th, which to me sounded like a threat against me making further edits. At this point I feel a mod needs to step in. I’m not going to make any further edits on this page, and if it’s felt that my conduct has been against website rules I will accept that. But I believe there needs to be intervention at this point.
openAudience Reactions and Let's Players
I was reading the YMMV page for Game Grumps and noticed that several examples describe how one of the show's hosts reacted to another work. It strikes me as a bit odd, since I expected the article to describe Audience Reactions to Game Grumps itself. Could someone please clarify whether YMMV pages can be used to document the Let's Player's opinions? Thanks.
openHow do I create an Awesome Music page? Anime
(Apologies for the wall of text, TL;DR will be provided.)
Being a musician and fan of music (particularly OSTs), Awesome Music pages are my favorite thing to view on this site. However, I was disappointed to find that Dr. Stone had no Awesome Music page to speak of. I've been tempted to make it myself, but the reason why I enjoy visiting this site is to hear how other people describe things. If the majority of a page is written by me, it defeats the purpose and ceases being fun. With that aside, I've accepted that there are times when I must be that person for others, as opposed to the inverse.
Anyway, here's what I'm struggling with. Since I'm still relatively new to editing on the site, navigating the rules, forums, and resources is painfully difficult. I've searched numerous times for instructions or guidelines on how to create an Awesome Music page, but have come up empty-handed. When clicking "Create New" on the Main for Dr. Stone, there's no option for Awesome Music.
I can think of a few reasons as to why I haven't figured this out yet. One, I'm stupid and the answer is staring me in the face. Or two, I've been looking in all the wrong places. Knowing me, the former seems to be the most likely scenario.
TL;DR: I'm a newbie idiot, so I need help figuring out how to start an Awesome Music page for Dr. Stone.
Edited by NexyopenCan I add a page to the No Real Life Examples?
I'd like to add the Conspicuous Consumption to the Gossip and Stereotypes page and delete the 'Real Life' section for the former. I certainly think it fits; the real life section is little more than a list of so-and-so celebrity owns a super-duper big mansion, or owns a super-duper big yacht, or a gold plated toilet, or such-and-such silly product exists.
Can I do this by myself, or do I need to go through some process first?
openFound a self rec (?)
I was browsing FanficRecs.Sonic The Hedgehog, when I noticed that a review for The CRONIES pointed out that the troper who recommended the fic (Apollo A) has a suspiciously similar name to the author (Apollo Alexandre). According to the review, the fic isn't very good either, with nobody being in character. Should I delete the rec or nah?
openNaruto Unintentionally Unsympathetic Anime
Copying this from the Unintentionally Unsympathetic cleanup thread to give more people a chance to look at this.
- I would like to bring up the following entries from the Anime & Manga subpage of Unintentionally Unsympathetic to see which of these examples are valid or not. I'm not exactly familiar with the material so anyone who knows about the entries can help, thanks.
- Naruto:
- Sasuke Uchiha rapidly becomes this as the series progresses, at first his Freudian Excuse is very strong i.e. his brother Itachi murdered his parents and his entire clan and he naturally wants Revenge. However that excuse for all Sasuke’s misdeeds stretches thin when he antagonises his allies and dismisses the tragedies of those who have also lost their loved ones compared to his own trauma, Kakashi in particular highlights how selfish Sasuke is as he reveals to him that his loved ones (Obito and Rin) are already dead when Sasuke threatens them. After Sasuke's Face–Heel Turn it becomes even harder to sympathise with him as he betrays the village, actively tries to murder his friends, attacks the Kages and generally acts like a terrorist. It comes to the point where the whole cast (except for Naruto, Sakura and Ino) being prepared to bring Sasuke to justice is entirely justified and Naruto’s determination to redeem Sasuke is almost nonsensical. Also Sasuke being as Easily Forgiven in the Distant Finale conflicts matters more as the worst punishment he gets is being “somewhat exiled” from Konoha which is barely a slap on the wrist in the weight of his crimes. If Kakashi calls him out on his actions, isn't that intentional? If it is, cut.
- The backstory of the legendary "Salamander" Hanzo, the ninja against whom the Sannin won their titles by surviving a battle with him sets Hanzo up as a Well-Intentioned Extremist who lost sight of his goals but is honored in defeat by his rival as a man who strove for peace. By starting a lot of wars and turning his homeland into an unlivable hellhole that produced the most psychologically broken, defeated human beings in the series, just because he was arrogant enough to think his strength could unite the world. Most fans still consider Hanzo an utterly unsympathetic character whose violent death at Pain's hands was richly deserved, as his claim of good intentions didn't make him any less of a paranoid warmongering dictator. How is he supposed to be sympathetic?
- Sakura Haruno's angst over her Single-Target Sexuality - the aforementioned Sasuke - really makes her unsympathetic in many viewer’s eyes. Kishimoto claimed in interviews he tried to make her feelings for Sasuke as “realistic” as possible but that falls flat as in the manga she hasn’t even had a proper conversation with him, and when she did talk to him he just called her annoying (even after she told him she loved him and was willingly to ditch her peaceful life just to be with him) and knocked her out. After the Time Skip she mellows out... until Sasuke comes back into the story and she Took a Level in Dumbass trying to take Sasuke down herself and of course fails, requiring Kakashi and Naruto to save her ass from the boy she loves. The Final Battle and Distant Finale makes it worse as Sakura easily forgives Sasuke for trying to kill her multiple times, and she settles down and marries him having learned no lesson whatsoever. Also Kishimoto’s insistence that Sakura would be a “terrible woman” if she moved on from Sasuke didn’t help matters. Unsure on this one, if it is a valid example, it could use a rewrite to cut on the complaining.
- Tobi AKA Obito Uchiha. He's supposed to be a world-weary counterpart to the protagonist who has given up hope on any chance of world peace, preferring to put everyone in a Lotus-Eater Machine where they can escape all the problems of reality. Instead, many saw him as a whiny Manchild who can't get over Rin's death. Seems valid, though maybe revise the second sentence
- The way Utakata's master Harusame tries to extract the Tailed Beast from his disciple in an anime-only Filler is supposed to be seen as good intentions to the point that upon realizing this, Utakata eventually rebuilt the pedestal with him after accidentally killing him. The problem is, extracting the Bijuu from a Jinchuuriki will also directly kill the host, and with no indication of Utakata having trouble with his Bijuu, nor even knowing why his master does it in the first place against his will, it comes off as Harusame crossing the Moral Event Horizon with Utakata having every right to defy his master and killing him sounds more like a Kick The Son Of A Bitch than what is supposed to be. Maybe?
- Madara Uchiha, the Big Bad of the story. He’s apparently meant to be seen as someone who was forced to grow up in a ninja world full of war, and is just trying to create a utopia so his dreams of peace can become reality. This is all well and good, if you forget that the story shows that he and his former friend, Hashirama, managed to accomplish peace with the creation of the Hidden Leaf Village. Hell, Hashirama even tries to make him leader of that new village, but Madara refuses. It’s even harder for viewers to see him as someone who wants peace at any cost due to his obvious glee before every battle. Add that to fact that a part of his Start of Darkness is caused by him wanting to remake the world in his image, even screwing over his best friend to do so, and this makes him come across not as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, but more of a hypocritical Jerkass. Unsure on this one
- Boruto Uzumaki, Naruto and Hinata's son. It's hard to sympathize with the boy who only wanted his father to come home when he is as bad (if not worse) than Naruto during his childhood. Unlike Naruto, Boruto doesn't have a crappy childhood but takes it all for granted and does the same antics his father used to do, all so his father can pay more attention to him. He keeps calling his father a bad parent, going as far as to wish he was dead and is unable to understand other people's feelings (such as complaining that his father is never around in front of Sarada, whose father was never with her for her whole life). And when Naruto finally spends some time with him, he ignores him and brushes away his affections. Maybe?
openEdit War on VisualNovel.YosugaNoSora Anime
Earlier Dezz Marie 95 added a What An Idiot example to the page. My first instinct was to remove it because What An Idiot is Flame Bait, but I stopped myself because the example seemed VERY familiar. Checking the page history I saw that Dezz Marie 95 had already added the exact same example three weeks ago
(with a small follow-up edit to add extra formatting), but the previous time it was under Too Dumb to Live. I was the one that removed it at the time, with my reason being that Too Dumb to Live is a death trope and so the example did not fit.
Since it is the exact same example, even if the trope name is different, I'd like permission to remove it again, just to be on the safe side and not run afoul of the Edit War rules.
openAdaptational tropes in Halo Live Action TV
Okay, we really need to do something about Adaptational Jerkass and Adaptational Villainy in the pages related to Halo (2022). Tropers have been adding these tropes to plot and character pages simply because the characters, especially the Master Chief himself, aren't as squeaky-clean and goody-two-shoes as their video game counterparts.
Yes, I get that the show is deliberately meant to be Darker and Edgier compared to the games, but those dark and edgy elements were always present in the games' background. They just didn't get enough screentime because the games focused less on the UNSC's unsavory actions and more on the heroic defense of humanity. Besides, despite his flaws, the UNSC's soldiers are still devoted to their duty and part of their character development is to form bonds with each other, just like the Chief and Cortana are doing throughout season 1.
But these are just one man's opinions. What do you think?
openIndexing Anthologies
Over on LGBT Representation in Media, I un-wikiworded Two Sentence Horror Stories as the series itself isn't an example of LGBT Representation (it's a horror anthology), but has several stories that do (and the recaps are indexed there correctly), and got a tap on the shoulder about that being a bad practice, so I just wanted to make sure!
openNamespace move suggestion thread? Western Animation
Hello, I have another unrelated question. I couldn't find a thread regarding possible namespace move suggestions (because I have a few, related to the medium I tagged this query as). Perhaps I just looked straight over it, in that case I apologize.
EDIT: To clarify, I couldn't find one specifically for Western Animation, no matter where I looked... Could I start one myself, or is that considered a no-no? I don't wanna make any moves without consensus, and I only wanna start such a thread if other people agree with it.
Edited by LotteVopenSlur used on South Park page, what should I do?
Was reading the fridge page of South Park: Post Covid: The Return of Covid, when I came across this entry (problem word bolded):
The entry is fine by itself, however it uses the word "cripple" to refer to being disabled, which IIRC is considered a slur in that context. I would've removed it, but as it's in a subpage for an entry of South Park, a show that's meant to be super offensive, I'm not sure as they could’ve used that word in that context in the episode mentioned (Note I haven't seen that episode).
So, um what should I do in this case?
Edited by Cutegirl920fireopenCorrected information because the character was lying?
So, in Critical Role: Campaign Three, Chetney is introduced as a Rogue, and it says so on his character card with stats (but those stats were inappropriate for a rogue, which did not escape fans' notice). Episode 11 reveals that he's not actually a rogue and had been lying to the party (and thus the meta information/the show itself had been lying to the players & viewers from minute one). What he is is a Order of the Lycan Blood Hunter - for the non-tabletop gaming tropers, that has nothing to do with a rogue -, which made his previously incongruous stats make sense.
Should the character then still be credited on the character sheet as Class: Rogue/[actual class], or should I simply delete the "Rogue" class and keep [actual class] spoilered, as the information was untrue in- and out of universe in the first place? The character's player flat out said "I'm not a rogue!" after the big reveal of his true class.

Main.Temporarily Exaggerated Trait
The last part I'm thinking should be removed as YMMV on a non-YMMV trope. Any objections? And on the tropic is there any circumstances audience reaction are allowed under non-YMMV?