Discussion Main / ArcWords

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused, started by 32_Footsteps on Jun 20th 2012 at 4:42:45 PM

The Arc Words of Warhammer 40.000, "There is only war." (which are repeated quite a lot in the lore and is also cited as their arc words in W40k Tropes A To H and is include in the first quote of Quotes / Warhammer 40,000). Also, apologizes for not linking what I am talking about, this is my first post.

Lots of discussions complaining about non-examples. Well, this is a very square-looking trope. We need some clarification in the head for specifically what arc words are.

The description itself does it no favors. Memorable quotes, repeated line? Seriously? And the last paragraph could use some bolding.

I'd be all for purging zero context examples with extreme prejudice. There's probably more non-examples than actual examples and we can't make that judgement without either a) direct familiarity with the work or b) context. But we need more than that.

Can we remove all the arc words in this topic if they have zero context?

There seem to be a ton of these just in the anime section—I haven't look through the others yet—that are "just a phrase that ends up popping up a lot due to being used a lot in the plot" or otherwise one of the specific types of not-arc-words phrases. I don't have the time tonight, but I'd suggest a general cleanup at some point; if someone gets started without me, I won't mind.

I made a topic on the work's Discussion page as well, but the last post there was 2012 so this might be a more appropriate place:

"Are you alive" from Battlestar Galactica (bear with me if my formatting is broken, I'm brand new to editing a wiki, and all the sandboxes appear to be broken) strikes me as Arc Word-y, though I haven't seen enough of the show to be sure that it's a valid example (it has cropped up twice so far in 7 episodes). Was hoping another (less new) troper might know for sure.

Alright, I know this will be controversial. But none of the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann examples qualified. Most of them were just variations on the Catchphrase of the Gurren Lagann brigade — originally one character's, then deliberately picked up by others, but there's nothing cryptic and no hidden meaning to it, it's just the catchphrase they use whenever they can.

(There are many other examples on the page that look bad, but that one was one I was familiar enough with to definitely say it's not an arc word.)

Re: Homestuck arc words:

I'll give you "ascend," "descend," "rise up," "wake up" and "enter"- all of those are used frequently for important (and usually awesome, unless it's [S]Jade: Wake Up or [S]Caliborn: Enter in which case make that horrific) updates. However, I'd argue "proceed" doesn't really fit on that list. While it does appear in a lot of page titles, these are generally pretty mundane uses ("Proceed to x".)

Also, I took "accelerate," "unite," and "synchronize" out. Each of those has only appeared once, and Word of Hussie (it's still in the news log at the time I'm writing this) is the latter pair of flashes were named for the BGM used, anyway.

edit: typos

Could "Somewhere in the heavens... They are waiting." be considered arc words for Marathon?

• The Simpsons: "El Barto" graffiti pops up often on walls. To the audience it's pretty obvious it is Bart, many people in Springfield don't know that it is.

That's not a case of Arc Words, it's a Running Gag. There's no attached story arc.

• Metal Gear Solid:

• CQC, POW, OSP....

Those aren't Arc Words. They're standard military jargon used in a normal way. It's like saying "codec" is an Arc Word.

Deleted:

• Arguably, the word "Run" can be seen as an arc word, since variations have been made since the new show started. Indeed, the Doctor's first line in the new series is, "Run." Other variations:

  Ninth Doctor: Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life.
  River Song: You and me, time and space. Watch us run.
  River Song: When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it will never end.
  Tenth Doctor: You and me, River, one last run!
  Donna Noble: He saves civilizations, fights monsters...and runs a lot. Seriously there's an outrageous amount of running involved.
  Eleventh Doctor: I'm the Doctor. Basically, run.

This is not a mysterious enigmatic phrase. It's because there is, in fact, an outrageous amount of running involved. Earlier Doctors even had the Catchphrase "When I say run..."

Deleted this:

• Turn Left got a very long and subtle one of these, starting before Donna was even introduced — as early as "Boom Town" Jack's telling a joke whose punchline is "I knew we should have turned left".

How and why? I don't see how it refers to "Turn Left". Davies is good, but not THAT good.