I should've said that I won't be editing the page itself until it comes time to launch the new one.
On that note, the line between Similar Plot and Similar Character is blurry, but not so much as I had feared, at least thus far. I pegged about 20% of the examples as being "Character-Based" as opposed to "Plot-Based" and, of those, I was only wrong about 10% of them. Also, several of the examples containing character-named works I left on the "Story" side of my ledger initially.
Anyway, here are my revised descriptions. (The page image will go to Surprisingly Similar Characters)
Stories:
Sometimes, two works are obviously inspired by each other, or the younger one contains minor Shout Outs to the older one, or they are coincidentally considered Dueling Movies.
This page is not a collection for them. Here, we should experiment with finding some less obvious, and probably nonexistent connections, through wordplay, and selective examples of plot points.
This page is where the plots or settings between two stories are similar. If all that is similar are the characters, that belongs in Surprisingly Similar Characters instead.
Spoilers ahead! Mostly unmarked, so read at your own risk.
Characters (picture redacted):
Sometimes, two works are obviously inspired by each other, or the younger one contains minor Shout Outs to the older one, or they are coincidentally considered Dueling Movies. Or sometimes, the plots just sound familiar for some reason.
And sometimes, it's only the characters who seem like clones from another work. If you're clone hunting, you've come to the right place.
If one character is an obvious Expy or a Captain Ersatz of the other, then they don't belong here. Here, we should experiment with finding some less obvious, and probably nonexistent connections, through wordplay, and selective examples of plot points or character traits.
This page deals where just the characters are similar; the only similarities in the plot relate to the characters listed. For cases where the plot is the similar, go to Surprisingly-Similar Stories.
Compare Paint the Hero Black and the Villain Whitewashing Service. Bonus Points if you find out that a hero in one story would be a villain in another.
Spoilers ahead! Mostly unmarked, so read at your own risk.
Edited by 68.1.57.131 Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.
And I've rewritten the example from xkcd. It's in the style similar to Paint the Hero Black, which I'll be converting the examples on the new "Characters" page to once I put it up.
AC:xkcd
- These two leaders live in a world of moral absolutes and racist undertones and will lead their chosen nations against a veritable tyrant. But first, they need to get their swords fixed.
Aragorn and Martin; as expressed here
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Could someone please specify which of the translations has Beatrix as Bella and confirm that that language's Twilight translation kept that name? If so, I'll restore it.
- Fantasy book series with a shallow, dark-haired, Muggle-hating unstable woman named Bella (who is acquaintances with a werewolf) who obsesses and slavishly devotes herself to a pale, immortal, powerful man who does not reciprocate her feelings. Their relationship is at best shallow and one-sided, and at worst abusive and unhealthy. Bella is killed in the final novel.
EDIT: Another Music/Creators example.
- In Real Life: A Progressive Rock band, who tinged their music with pop influences and partially for that reason was instrumental in popularizing the genre during their time period. They favored the traditional Epic Rocking of Progressive Rock, as well as frequent use of synthesizers. After their fifth album, commonly considered to be one of their best, they created for their sixth a two-disc Rock Opera about the supernatural adventures of a boy in New York. Following this, the lead vocalist and frontman left the band and focused on a solo career; to cope with this, the band's drummer took up the mantle of lead vocalist. During this period in their history, the band released a self-titled album, which they had not done up to that point.
- Got to be Genesis, right? Or Spocks Beard?
Well, the Harry Potter character's name is Bellatrix, and Voldemort calls her Bella. IIRC he's the only one who addresses her by name in a familiar way.
Vainglorious Overlord
I was going to object to the "Neon Genesis Evangelion or Hamlet?" example, given that it specified a date of "80's/90's" — so I looked it up. Each was created during that time span in their own respective century. Thus, objection withdrawn.
Well played, poster. Well played *slow clap*
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There are some examples that really try too hard to compare two stories. I would zap that one, but I don't think it's a life-or-death matter anyway. It's preferable to have such stuff here way over having them in any of the Shout-Out pages. Those should only have intentional references, instead of shoehorned coincidences. =)
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Sorry for the delay on the split page... I've been laid up with a cold at the same time my area got iced over. At least I'm better, so hopefully I can work on this new page during the Super Bowl. (Or before...)
Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck. Hide / Show Replies
Well, I've looked again, and there is a similar page: Counterpart Comparison. However, it's a YMMV page, so I think that cross referencing that page with our new proposed page (which I will launch shortly) will work. The boundary between those two pages being "a single troper" for SSC and "Vocal Minority" for CC.
Also, here is CC's Laconic entry:
The key word is judged. Neutral or gushing tone in JFF. I'll also edit that page to make the difference clear.
Edited by 68.1.57.131 Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.
Finally created Surprisingly Similar Characters. Will edit this page after lunch.
EDIT: Er... Make that dinner... Or evening snack. Also, please excuse the Mega Edit.
Edited by 68.1.57.131 Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.
This list is getting too long is confusing to navigate. Something must be done.
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And now it's topped the 500,000 character mark necessitating a split, but it's far from obvious how to do so.
And now it's topped the 500,000 character mark necessitating a split, but it's far from obvious how to do so.
We should probably alphabetize by the first work mentioned. Or grouping by medium and dedicating a section to cross-media examples. It's difficult, yes, but not impossible. =)
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I'd suggest splitting it by examples that compare works to each other and examples that compare characters to each other.
If we can find a good line between comparing plots and settings and just comparing characters, we could consider that. I'm not so sure that that would be possible, though. Grouping by Medium may have to be the way to go; I would be utterly against grouping by first work mentioned as that would blunt the humor/shock in the comparison.
Ideally, it should be like Paint the Hero Black and Villain Whitewashing Service where the entries are sorted by contributor, but A: That would break off follow-up comparisons and B: It's not possible as presently stands with the last traceable edit being only 8 months ago.
EDIT: On that note, the subpages should be made part of the Sugar Wiki.
EDIT 2: Actually, Surprisingly Similar Characters does have a nice ring to it.
Edited by 68.1.57.131 Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.
Actually, we could do it by sending all the pre:April 2013 additions (without citations) to a Surprisingly Similar Stories Archive which would then be locked. We could then Soft Split the stories and characters distinction for easy later transfer.
Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.
I've extracted the examples and transferred them to some personal notepad files. I've accomplished a preliminary separation off-site (Apparent Character entries seem like only 20% of the total), but will have to look at the examples more closely. (Character-named works are murder.) Also, I'm working on adding attributions to those examples dated 16 April or later (because the histories only go back that far...)
Edited by 68.1.57.131 Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.
Morgan: I've completed my preliminary split... and I only count a total of 280,000 characters between the split pages. And I just checked the page itself and it weighed in at only 270,000 characters. I just can't believe that spoiler markup and Word Cruft amounted to 200,000 characters!
I'm going to go ahead and put the proposed page split in YKTTW as I don't see the need for expedited launching.
Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.
There is no Planet B
One edit reason claimed that these are based on the same source material. They don't fit, but I'm not 100 % sure, so I'm moving it.
- (A) Member(s) of Law Enforcement from the distant future is stranded in the present after terrorists they were supposed to execute use a time machine to escape. While in the present they come across people who may have shaped the future they come from. There is much dilemma about how their actions will change the future both for better and worse.
Power Rangers Time Force is an Adaptation of Mirai Sentai Timeranger. Continuum is an unrelated series. Will plug it back in with Time Force as an annotation beside Timeranger.
Also, Timeranger is the elder series, so it'll go first.
- A Law Enforcement Unit/Officer from the distant future is stranded in the present after terrorists they were supposed to execute use a time machine to escape. While in the present they come across a person/people who may have shaped the future they come from. There is much dilemma about how their actions will change the future both for better and worse.
- The unit is from Mirai Sentai Timeranger (and its adaptation Power Rangers Time Force). The lone officer is from Continuum
There is no Planet B
Weblinks Are Not Examples. Moved from the page.
- Even New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd has joined in the fun: read her column and see if you can guess what work of art she is talking about.
- This xkcd strip. (Redwall, Lord of the Rings)
- This Cracked article proves that Home Alone and Die Hard are the same movie.
If I have time, I'll try to read those and put them back with proper context.
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When we convert the page to requiring signatures, these will be reproduced as template examples with proper citation. The Webcomic/XKCD one would be the "Character" example and the other two will top the main page.
Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.
Removed because you can tell which one doesn't fit:
- The human race discovers ancient alien technology on Mars, gets into a first contact war with another alien race, eventually joins a UN styled space station run by representatives from three major alien races and several minor representatives from others, eventually the main character steals a massive prototype space ship and breaks away from the government to fight an ancient alien race that resembles a large organic spaceship. Both sets of representatives eventually employ an elite security organization that's above the law, and only accountable to the person/persons at the very top of said station's The Federation.
- Mass Effect, or Babylon 5?
In Babylon 5, the main character is provided a prototype spaceship by the Mimbari, and asked to use the prototype in a few missions while the rest of the fleet is constructed. No theft involved.
There is no Planet B
Both are Star Trek. I don't think two series of the same franchise can qualify for this page, so I deleted it.
- In the 24th century, a new starship and crew, very early in their adventures, encounter a group of orange skinned, aggressive, ugly humanoids with no regard for humans. These aliens are the major threat of their part of the galaxy, and the heroes regard them with trepidation. However, the aliens were poorly conceived by the show's creators, and the fans did not react well to their involvement. Therefore, the aliens were moved into the background and a new threat emerged: an army of relentless, unstoppable cyborgs.
TheScrappy and ButtMonkey of the Pantheon Thread
- Within the backstory, there is a legend of two very closely related entities with god-like power who ruled the land. The elder one was associated with light, the color white and had control over fire while the younger one was associated with darkness, the color black and had control over lightning. Eventually, the younger one grew dissatisfied with the status quo and started to fight with the elder one, which threw the land into complete chaos. Eventually, one of the entities sealed the other within a circular object and peace was restored to the land. However, by the climax of the main story, the sealed entity is unsealed and six others have to face and defeat it with with the Power of Friendship.
- Is this {{Pokémon Black and White}} or My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic?
- There's one thing that I don't get. What're the "six others" in Pokémon Black and White? I get the MLP "six others" being the keepers of the Elements of Harmony, but I don't understand the one in Pokémon. Does it represent the maximum six Pokémon the player can carry at a time? Because that doesn't seem to make sense.
TV Tropes Pantheon Group Members Database
Can we add musician discography examples? Such as this:
- Musician makes a debut album that is only a modest hit both critically and commercially, yet includes the musician's most famous song, which the musician does not like very much. The musician goes into a much more experimental direction for the second album, which features imagery rather than personal lyrics. It doesn't do well commercially, but fares much better critically and is considered a huge improvement over the debut. The third album eventually becomes the musician's best selling album and is often considered his artistic triumph. Radiohead or Van Morrison?
Why not?
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.
Why is this in Main? It's not a trope. Says right here: "Here, we should experiment with finding some less obvious, and probably nonexistent connections, through wordplay, and selective examples of plot points." This page is an exercise in wordplay and selective presentation. Not a trope.
Once it gets large enough, then yes. I would suggest sorting examples in "Similar Stories", "Similar Characters", and "Uses Outside of TV Tropes".
Welcome, traveller, welcome to Omsk
Isn't the Coraline or The Wee Free Men example due to them both being the archetypal story of a child having to save someone from Fairyland?
It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird
Evaluating the examples for possible relocation. Removing the following:
Examples Are Not Arguable. If it's likely a Shout-Out, then it "likely" goes there:
Creators are Real-Life persons. These examples may fit Stories, but it's dicey:
Modifying this one. If at least one of the choices doesn't fit all the comparisons, then at least tell us which choices don't fit which qualifications!
- A young man recieves the power to transform into a superhero through less than heroic means. Refusing to serve the evil forces than created his powers the new hero rebels and fights against them and in the end saves the world. As a bonus two of the characters both ride motorcycles, a trait that is shown in their superhero names. Similarly two of the charaters have insect-like armour in their heroic forms.
- Kamen Rider, Ghost Rider or the third Blue Beetle?
Edited by 68.1.57.131 Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck. Hide / Show Replies