Have a question about how the TVTropes wiki works? No one knows this community better than the people in it, so ask away! Ask the Tropers is the page you come to when you have a question burning in your brain and the support pages didn't help.
It's not for everything, though. For a list of all the resources for your questions, click here. You can also go to this Directory thread
for ongoing cleanup projects.
Ask the Tropers is for:
- General questions about the wiki, how it works, and how to do things.
- Reports of problems with wiki articles, or requests for help with wiki articles.
- Reports of misbehavior or abuse by other tropers.
Ask the Tropers is not for:
- Help identifying a trope. See TropeFinder.
- Help identifying a work. See MediaFinder.
- Asking if a trope example is valid. See the Trope Talk forum.
- Proposing new tropes. See TropeLaunchPad.
- Making bug reports. See QueryBugs.
- Asking for new wiki features. See QueryWishlist.
- Chatting with other tropers. See our forums.
- Reporting problems with advertisements. See this forum topic.
- Reporting issues on the forums. Send a Holler instead.
Ask the Tropers:
openDo these have any reason to be commented out?
I found a couple commented-out entries in the Yes, Your Grace character page. I could see why they would be commented out if they were zero-context examples, but they aren't as far as I can tell. Given the nature of the information in both cases, I'm getting the impression somone used the commenting out as some sort of spoiler markup. Is it okay to uncomment these?
(Ivo)
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: The good ending reveals that he never meant to kill his father, and actually wanted to win his approval.
(Beyran)
- Good All Along: While he has a Dark and Troubled Past as a highwayman, Eryk's desperate promise of Lorsulia's hand in marriage inspired Beyran to better himself and become a beacon of hope for his people, leading a group of refugees across the border into Davern. Unfortunately for him, Eryk sees him as an invading warlord and seeks to rally the nobles to oppose him
openNo Title Western Animation
Am I allowed to remove WM Gs that I added myself? I have a WMG I made here that I'm not proud of anymore and I'd like to remove it from the page.
WMG in question.
◊
Proof that I originally made it.
◊
openProblem Troper
Rtkh 68 has made some very complain-y and shoehorned edits in regards to The Last of Us Part II, and have edit warred.
This entry on this
page, which I've deleted:
"Without the pesky necessity of asking the animators what they thought in the process. Leaks already hint that a lot of people were pointlessly and needlessly made very uncomfortable during a time where a game this nihilistic and depressing REALLY doesn't help with the current climate."
They called the whole game a Self-Insert Fic on the YMMV
page, and added "meanwhile the lead writer turns a scene into a Self-Insert Fic that makes us all cringe until our faces hurt" to the Laconic page.
The Tear Jerker
page has several problematic edits, including edit warring. First all they added was "RIP Ellie and Joel" which is a ZCE and incorrect regardless. It was deleted and they re-added it with "RIP Ellie and Joel, died to a golf club." This was also deleted and they re-added it again with "Rest in Peace Joel, Murdered with a golf-club for wokepoints." This was deleted, and their final re-addition was "Rest in Peace Joel, Murdered with a golf-club for wokepoints." Note these edits were made prior to the game's official release.
The Tear Jerker page also has this entry: "the fact this absolute joke of a game was hailed as a 10/10 GOTY masterpiece by all the official review sources. Metacritic tells the real story."
openThe Last of Us Part II questions
The Last of Us Part II has attracted a lot of controversy as mentioned here
. I have questions about the character Abby who is at the center of this controversy.
- Karma Houdini: She ultimately gets away with brutally murdering Joel, as Ellie opts to spare her to end the Cycle of Revenge. Of course, she still loses a lot of her friends at Ellie's hands as a consequence of what she did.
- Villain Protagonist: Arguably given the Black-and-Gray Morality of the setting, but you basically play as Joel's murderer for significant parts of the story. Of course, part of that story involves her having a Heel Realization of sorts that eventually leads her to give up her pursuit of Ellie.
- Designated Hero: Abby, her role in the game was done to humanise her as an antagonist; showing that she had a sympathetic reason to kill Joel and prove that his death changed nothing for her. However, players already saw her as beyond redemption for killing Joel since he was a beloved character from the first game. Ellie sparing her after killing so many people wasn't seen as the message it was intended to be, it was instead seen as Abby getting away with her crimes while Ellie loses everything in the process.
- Fourth Wall Myopia: Arguably part of why Abby is seen as unsympathetic by many players. We've played as Joel in the first game and are thus aware of the complexities of his character, and the understandable (albeit selfish) reasons why he killed the Fireflies to save Ellie. From Abby's perspective, however, he'd just be an unrepentant murderer as she only knows that he killed someone she cared about in cold blood. Many see Abby killing Joel as her crossing the Moral Event Horizon, but the reality is that she wouldn't be aware of Joel as a person unlike the player.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: One of the biggest criticisms the game faces is that, despite its numerous efforts to the contrary, Abby is stunningly unlikable and unsympathetic. While just about everybody understands why she would want to kill Joel, the fact that she actually goes through with it, the insanely vicious and sadistic manner she does it in, and her overall mean and ruthless personality destroys a lot of the sympathy the player may feel for her. It also really doesn't help that she basically gets away scot-free at the end, while her friends all suffer Ellie's wrath and Ellie herself ends the game with her life in ruins.
Karma Houdini seems to argue with itself saying they lost friends as karma. Villain Protagonist says it’s arguable and notes she makes an effort to repent. Designated Hero seems to clash with how Ellie and the game treats her as a villain and is redundant with Unintentionally Unsympathetic. Fourth Wall Myopia and Unintentionally Unsympathetic seem to disagree and I question UU since that’s why she’s the villain who gets better of because the repent for those traits (not denying she’s UU but was written it comes of as combining about intentionally dark stuff). Thoughts on these entries? I asked complaining cleanup but haven’t heard back.
I also have a question about Misaimed Fandom, does it count if fans wanted to kill Abby despite the point of the work was to show otherwise (the downer ending was the result of trying to do so)? Does it apply when there are legitimate reason for it (eg. Broken Aesop, Designated Villain, Strawman Has a Point), or only when it goes past what those reasons would justify?
openEgregious Unintentionally Sympathetic example? Western Animation
- Applejack in "Hearthbreakers". The whole episode is supposed to be about her learning that she was being too closed minded about Pinkie's family and their Hearth Warming traditions, to the point where even her own family worn her that she shouldn't be interfering. However this glosses over the fact that the Pie family can easily be accused of the exact same thing, seeming to expect the Apples to follow their traditions without question and never allowing an alternative point of view. In fact, Applejack was the only one who did try and embrace the other's way, forcing herself to eat their rock soup when the rest of her family only complained.
This reads like a disguised Unintentionally Unsympathetic entry. It dosen't even tell us how Applejack ends up being sympathetic, just that everyone else around her isn't.
openCan I add a trope? Live Action TV
To the B5 page, Ceremonies of Light and Dark. I noticed they had missed something for Continuity Nod, but tbh, after my year-long tempban, I'm a bit hesitant in even any minor infraction. Like, you know... not knowing proper edits. Not the wording, per se, but the text itself. What do I do? Maybe do I post here to ask you guys for help in the final product?
open Is there a way to change the formatting on mobile?
Just today, the formatting in the forums on mobile has changed strangely for me. Is there an option to change the formatting like that? I’m not sure if I accidentally changed it myself or not.
openQuestionable Examples on "Unbuilt Tropes"
Found this here on https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UnbuiltTrope/Literature
"A Confederacy of Dunces: Though written in the 1960s and published in 1981, John Kennedy Toole's masterpiece unbuilds the crackpot ideas and philosophies that emerged from the Internet, and the kind of people who promote them. Ignatius is a predecessor of those very crackpots: he promotes the idea of returning to feudalism and conservatism, predating the modern "Dark Enlightenment" movement, but is a lazy slob who leaches off his mother and spends his time watching cartoons and movies just to complain about their "degeneracy". And it's all but stated he engages in pseudo-intellectual nonsense just to stick it to his liberal activist girlfriend."
The thing is, I just feel uncomfortable about finding some Unbuilt Trope example of something that exists in real-life and not just in the world of tropes and conventions (in fact, the entry explicitly states it is referring to something in real life). It's like saying that so-and-so shows an Unbuilt example of communism or any other real-life theories and movements with real life impact.
To further build upon questionable examples purporting to have found Unbuilt examples of real life movement, here's some other entries on just that page itself:
"The Moviegoer has a series of insightful and utter deconstructive extrapolations about the flaws of 60's counter culture but the book was published in 1961, well ahead of the popular outbreak of what he was describing."
"A good forty years or so before the concept of The Man began to take root in the public consciousness, it is discussed without being named in the 1922 novel One of Ours. Progressive young Gladys takes a moment to ruminate on how protagonist Claude Wheeler's asshole brother Bayliss is one of the type of people who run the world.
— “She believed that all things which might make the world beautiful—love and kindness, leisure and art—were shut up in prison, and that successful men like Bayliss Wheeler held the keys.” "
(I don't even think this is an example of Unbuilt Trope)
openSelf edit-war?
I'm not sure whether to ask about this here or on the Scrappy cleanup thread, but I'm trying here because it's an odd behavior from a specific troper.
Basically, Brian KT removed Devon and Cornwall from The Scrappy entry on YMMV.Quest For Camelot saying "What about when they Took a Level in Badass at the end of the movie?" Then they re-added the example, before removing it again with the exact same edit reason.
openDragalia Lost character info
Over time, the Characters.Dragalia Lost subpages seem to have gradually grown to include more and more character stats on them. As of now, each character has listed:
- Voice actors
- Element (only for main characters and alternate versions, as characters are already sorted by element to begin with)
- Rarity
- Unit Type
- Weapon Type
- Co-Ability
- Chain Co-Ability
- Shareable Skill
- Debut
I really think most of these are out of place for the site; with the abilities and skills turning into Walkthrough Mode. And the text takes a bunch of space, getting much worse if a character has multiple versions to document (see Characters.Dragalia Lost Main Characters for the worst of it).
I'm tempted to just take a chainsaw to this stuff myself, but I'm worried that it'll just be put back and head toward an edit war. And I could use some input on what stays and what goes.
openIs Cross-wicking required?
Endark Culi created a page for Tokyo Tattoo Girls, which itself has sufficient content. However, they only made 3 cross-wicks. Two of them are indexing and one trope was cross-wicked.
I was going to send a notifier, but realized I didn't know if this was actually against the rules.
openDebating on whether this is a good idea here...
So, the Screamer Prank has an actual horror image built into the laconic via a "note". I'm wondering if this really should be here, I get it's in the vein of the trope, but to me it honestly reads as a really iffy idea for a laconic page to have. This has been added back in 2017, and I get it's supposed to be a bit of a Schmuck Bait kind of joke, but I was also wondering if it's almost "too far" of a joke for the wiki in itself.
openIntentionnal Special Effect Failure
Should an animation that's intentionnaly bad have Special Effect Failure ? The YMMV page of Mario Pissing have Special Effect Failure for the fact that the noise is not realistic but considering the animation itself, it's one of the less worst thing there is. In general, should a work have Special Effect Failure even if the effect is meant to be bad ?
open"Common Knowledge" issue?
YMMV.My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic S 5 E 26 The Cutie Remark Part 2
- Common Knowledge: Many of Starlight's detractors criticize her Freudian Excuse, and also compare her to Apple Bloom and Moondancer in terms of cutie marks and losing friends and how they didn't resort to villainy in their situation. What they forget when comparing Starlight to these two is that Starlight hated cutie marks and believed they created differences among ponies, thus driving them apart because they don't have connection, and she believed to have lost Sunburst as a friend as a result of differences created between them. Given that she was a filly at the time, was confirmed to have isolated herself from other ponies out of fear that cutie marks would break new friendships made, it was clear her villainy rose from wallowing in victim-hood and self-pity over her situation which resulted in her blaming cutie marks as the result of friendships that fail in general. Both Apple Bloom and Moondancer are quite different from Starlight, as Apple Bloom wanted her cutie mark badly and Moondancer thought that friendship wasn't for her, and they both didn't become evil because they didn't wallow like Starlight did.
This was deleted as "Misuse and another attempt to complain about Starlight's detractors". I assume the misuse is due to this trope applying to audiences missing things to the point of making factually incorrect factually incorrect beliefs/claims about the work, which this isn't. But there some issues with the comparisons I was thinking about for awhile:
- Moondancer was Twilight's age, young adult, so could be expect to handle it better than Starlight who was a child at the time.
- Apple Bloom was lucky enough to stumble across new friends before Starlight's issues could set in. "On Your Marks" shows AB begin to descend into such when she thinks she's loosing her friends due to their cutie marks ("Oh, hello girls."). Starlight outright says "Not everypony's lucky enough to get her cutie mark at the same time as her friends!" The reason Starlight was supposed to be deserving of forgiveness/redemtion is because the only difference between her and Twilight was Twilight was lucky enough to have a destiny that gave her friends.
I fault the episode for failing to portray or emphasize those points, and agree with cutting shoehorned/misused tropes for such. But I want to be sure we're not quashing legitimate points counterarguments (there's a reason Starlight's a Base-Breaking Character not The Scrappy, which was brought to cleanup) if there's an appropriate trope/place for them. And I was planning on adding some criticism of complaints (which fall under factually incorrect) under Common Knowledge, I want to double-check what the line is for this trope since it came up.
My questions are:
- Do the points brought up fit Common Knowledge and if not why are they objective misuse (only pertain to factual error?). Are the point's I raised objective enough?
- What other tropes or place might those things fall under?
openAgenda edit?
On In Touch with His Feminine Side, Bulsara 413 has just changed instances of "tomgirl" to "janegirl", though page history shows this is something several users disagree on. Is this agenda-based editing? I thought that the term was considered acceptable, since Christine Chandler, a transwoman, used it to describe herself at one point. Thank you.
Edited by PiterpicheropenTierInducedScrappy Edit War Videogame
A while ago, I added an entry to the YMMV page for Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn regarding Tier Induced Scrappy for a Crutch Character named Sothe.
Around March 4th troper Slimeshady adjusted the entry to be arguing with itself by making it talk about how he "used to be seen as one" and is now defending the character. I will put it under a note so it doesn't fill too much of this space out note Sothe used to be this. He's this game's equivalent to a Jagen, despite his decent growths, and has by far the worst third tier class (terrible stat caps including a measly 28 strength cap, and being restricted to knives, which are the weakest weapons in the game), and having a mastery skill that just leaves opponents at 1 HP with no additional effects while all other mastery skills do such egregiously high damage that they may as well outright kill. To make matters worse he has a forced promotion that doesn't occur until after you already completed the first Part 4 chapter, meaning he doesn't even get to be a third tier unit in one of his two pre-Endgame Part 4 maps, so you can't even raise him enough to be somewhat useful for some of Part 4 and he is going to be even farther behind when he does finally promote before you consider his awful caps. The biggest sticking point with players, though, is the fact Sothe is a forced unit throughout much of the game, and is mandatory to bring along into the endgame, where his class limitations make him nigh-useless; the last one is especially bothersome to fans of Volke, who is an objectively superior knife-wielder to Sothe (his base strength is greater than Sothe's maximum strength with comparable speed, while his mastery skill is a guaranteed death blow with the same activation rate), which means to bring Volke along into the endgame would mean having two knife-wielders among your limited units (while there's also only one SS knife in the game). In more recent times though as Jagens are looked at much more favorably by the community, the receptions to Sothe has changed, as Sothe is so indispensable in Part 1 and the DB's Part 3 missions (i.e. the hardest parts of the game), and that by the time he loses his usefulness, it doesn't really matter when you have so many other overpowered units to pick up the slack. Tier lists covering the game as a whole will generally put Sothe in the top tier as he is just so good in Part 1, and without him the early Part 1 maps would be insanely difficult on Hard/Maniac, while when the other Crutch Characters join in later Part 1 he still stands out for his great movement, strong 1-2 range with forged Knives, and all the thieving duties he can do. That said there are still certainly some people who don't care about Sothe's Part 1 contributions and remain resentful of how irredeemably bad Sothe gets in Part 4 while remaining a forced unit.
I adjusted the entry to be back to how it was before, but I did adjust it a bit to include his usefulness in part 1 so point out where the issues people had with him gameplay wise were. As it was before, it was arguing with itself since the entry said he was a bad unit but not anymore despite nothing changing about the game. Again I have put this entry under a note to save space. note Sothe, primarily after Part 1. He's this game's equivalent to a Jagen, despite his decent growths, and has by far the worst third tier class (terrible stat caps including a measly 28 strength cap, and being restricted to knives, which are the weakest weapons in the game), and having a mastery skill that just leaves opponents at 1 HP with no additional effects while all other mastery skills do such egregiously high damage that they may as well outright kill. To make matters worse he has a forced promotion that doesn't occur until after you already completed the first Part 4 chapter, meaning he doesn't even get to be a third tier unit in one of his two pre-Endgame Part 4 maps, so you can't even raise him enough to be somewhat useful for some of Part 4 and he is going to be even farther behind when he does finally promote before you consider his awful caps. The biggest sticking point with players, though, is the fact Sothe is a forced unit throughout much of the game, and is mandatory to bring along into the endgame, where his class limitations make him nigh-useless; the last one is especially bothersome to fans of Volke, who is an objectively superior knife-wielder to Sothe (his base strength is greater than Sothe's maximum strength with comparable speed, while his mastery skill is a guaranteed death blow with the same activation rate), which means to bring Volke along into the endgame would mean having two knife-wielders among your limited units (while there's also only one SS knife in the game). As to make this worse, Sothe is the only character who doesn't benefit from the bonus stats from the previous game because unlike others who instead gain a flat bonus for any capped stats, Sothe, if data is transferred, instead gains whatever his stats were from the previous game which means its possible he'll be even worse since his max stats in the previous game are only marginally higher than his bases here. His use in Part 1 is good but due to how awkward Part 1 is, using him to even the odds is more of a long term detriment to your units since he can soak up precious experience.
As of 6/14, they readded their entry, added a section under Vindicated by History note Sothe's perception as a unit. With how unsalvagebly terrible he ends up in Part 4 while remaining a forced unit for the entire game that can't even die without triggering a Game Over until the Part 4 endgame, for a long time Sothe got a lot of hatred from fans for being an "EXP THIEF!" that "stole" EXP from the rest of the Dawn Brigade in Part 1, only to become The Load in Part 4 no matter how much investment he got. In Japan he was even a Memetic Loser for his insistence on being Micaiah's "protector" up to the end of the game, while becoming so ineffectual in combat and was more someone who needed the protection himself. However more and more players started realizing that the endgame and max level stats are only a microcosm of an entire game, and that a unit's contribution in the entire game before that very much matters, with it being especially a big plus if that unit can provide that contribution without requiring significant resources. So Sothe, being such a vital unit for Part 1 (especially the first half) and still a useful offensive unit in the Dawn Brigade's Part 3 chapters with his Beastkiller, became much more highly regarded and shot up to the high or even top tier of unit tier lists, and he also got big props for providing that big contribution in what are generally considered RD's hardest maps (while most of Part 4 is generally considered pretty easy, as you have the Game-Breaker Laguz Royals, a third tier near-invincible Ike, and a bunch of other trained up third tier units, so Sothe being bad at that point doesn't really matter). Sothe additionally gets sympathy from fans for his boss conversations with the likes of Ike, Dhegnisea, and Sephiran, where he acknowledges that he is a normal man amongst gods that really doesn't belong, but he'll still try to fight for Micaiah and the little things even if he is hopelessly outclassed. Sothe nowadays is often regarded as one of the best executed "Jagens" in the series, as he fulfills his role of really helping the player during Early Game Hell and other difficult maps, while actually falling off hard later in the game like Jagens are supposed to unlike many other Jagens who remain strong late into the game or are flatout Game Breakers up to the very end., and added this message as the reason: "Not using Sothe in Part 1 becaus he "steals EXP' is a pitfall that makes Part 1 harder than it actually is, use him.".
This is a matter of debate yes and I should have clarified why I adjusted it previously, that was my fault. However this is becoming an argument at this point. I will message this about this but the entries are written in such a way that they come across as very defensive about this unit and its becoming an edit war at this point.
openPrerelease "He Panned It, Now He Suck"
I came across an entry for He Panned It Now He Sucks on the YMMV page for Bad Movie Beatdown, describing a tweet made by Mathew where he brings up how he's not looking forward to Zack Snyder's Justice League.
The question I want to ask is, is this okay? The film's not even out yet, so is listing an entry like this premature? It's not even something he brought up on the show itself (Bad Movie Beatdown's been on a massive hiatus for the last few years).
Edited by chasemaddiganopenWhy is Sailor Earth not YMMV?
Sailor Earth is about fans of a work creating Original Characters that follow a theming convention in the work itself. Creating Original Characters based off a work is an Audience Reaction. However, despite this, the trope is not YMMV, and is listed as a trope on many work pages.
openClueless Aesop misuse?
After removing this from Clueless Aesop per cleanup
this was added back:
- * ''Literature/HarryPotter'': According to Creator/JKRowling, the idea behind the House Elves and Hermione's attempts to help them was to satirize WhiteMansBurden-esque activism, where well-meaning people from a more privileged group are so determined to help others in a less privileged group that they ignore what the people they're trying to help actually want. Unfortunately, this lesson is impossible to get across to the readers because House Elves' culture is completely surrounded by being happy that wizards use them as ''[[SlaveRace slave labor]]''. [[ValuesDissonance Not only is this never depicted as wrong by the books]], Hermione [[InformedWrongness is treated as an annoying tree-hugging hippie by both the narrative and the other characters]] simply for being the only one who is horrified by the fact that wizards are completely fine with slavery. It also makes an argument that [[HappinessInSlavery House Elves enjoy serving Wizards]] and [[SlaveLiberation abhor the attempts to free them]]. This ignores the fact that they're psychologically conditioned to [[SelfHarm physically punish themselves severely]] if they fail a task or disobey their masters, [[MoreThanMindControl clearly indicating they are not in control of their own minds]]; in turn, this [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation strongly implies]] that their "enjoyment" of servitude is just as forced. The closest the series comes close to decrying the treatment of House Elves is that [[GoldenMeanFallacy it's wrong to enslave them if you're an abusive master, not that it's wrong to enslave them at all]], with Hermione's CharacterDevelopment over it making her gradually become more reformist and accept that most House-Elves value better treatment from their slave masters more than actual freedom. And even that clumsy message loses what little water it holds when ''Deathly Hallows'' reveals that even a loving and well-meaning master can ''accidentally'' lock an elf in an infinite loop of failure and self-punishment by incautiously giving them an impossible order. As a result, the subplot came off as a huge mockery of genuine activism to many readers, especially to ones who were introduced to ''Harry Potter'' after the series wrapped up. It's not helped by the fact that many real-life slaves in the past were portrayed by their owners as being happy in slavery as an excuse to justify owning slaves.
I removed it as Clueless Aesop is not just an Aesop poorly done, but an Aesop poorly done because:
- It's a subject more mature or complex than the work can effectively portray (not the case given how the series had matured by this point).
- The fantastical parts undermine the real world applicability (not the case as the problems are the real world comparisons).
Also most of the issues causing it are YMMV which shouldn't apply for a non-YMMV trope. This issue is already covered under Strawman Has a Point and Unfortunate Implications. I intend to cut unless anyone objects.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S1 E10 "Swarm of the Century"
This seems more like a Broken Aesop, since Clueless Aesop is when a show fumbles in teaching harsh subject matter. Pretty sure "listen to your friends" isn't controversial. It also just seems like it's arguing with itself with the Double Aesop paragraph.
Also posted this here
, but got no response.