Discussion Main / WhereTheHellIsSpringfield

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: How are we supposed to do this?, started by Deboss on Mar 21st 2011 at 10:22:39 AM

I have said this in the archived discussion but nobody commented: Is it really necessary to have Arlen on this list? We know the country and state, and there is a given name for the city. There's even a name for the county. It might be a fictional one, but it's still miles more established than many of the other setting examples on this list.

I've missed the series, so I have this doubt: Has it ever been said in Kamen Rider Double where exactly Fuuto is located?

Family Guy - Where the hell is Quahog, Massachusetts? I don't watch enough of the series to know if the location is more concrete than that.

More nuking...

• The DC Universe has always had plenty of fictional cities with vaguely defined locations, but in recent years they've gotten a bit better about nailing them down to at least a state. Rather confusingly, real-world locations such as New York City and Chicago (the inspirations for Gotham City and Metropolis, respectively) also exist in the DCU. This was finally explained in a Marvel crossover: DC Earth is larger than Marvel (and presumably our) Earth; thus, there's plenty of room for the extra cities.
  • Some DCU locations include:
    • Metropolis, Delaware (Superman's residence);
    • Gotham City, location unconfirmed but implied to be New Jersey (home town of Batman);
    • Bludhaven, New Jersey (Nightwing's former residence);
    • Blue Valley, Nebraska (home town of Wally West);
    • Central City, Missouri (home town of Barry Allen);
    • Keystone City, Kansas (home town of Jay Garrick);
    • Coast City, California (home town of Hal Jordan);
    • Fawcett City, Wisconsin (home town of Captain Marvel);
    • Happy Harbor, Rhode Island (first location of the Justice League's headquarters);
    • Hub City, Illinois (home town of Captain Atom and The Question);
    • Midway City, Michigan (home town of Hawkman);
    • Opal City, Maryland (home town of the Starman family after a Zero Hour retcon);
    • Smallville, Kansas (home town of Superman);
    • Star City, California (home town of Oliver Queen);
    • Although it's never established, Martian Manhunter's adopted home city where he kept his detective identity from his earliest appearances is Apex City, Florida in Fanon — because it's a coastal city with a warm climate, their mascot is the Flamingo, and most of the businesses start with the name "Apex".

I really don't get the tendency to list fictional cities that are placed in a real-life state on this page. Short of giving latitude and longitude coordinates, or naming the exact interstate exit, how much more detailed can the setting get? This trope is about deliberately vague and contradictory locations, not just fictional cities.

• The Marvel universe avoids this for the most part by using only New York City real-world American cities.
  • Except for Wakanda, Latveria, Atlantis, etc.

If we listed every story that uses real-life cities, there wouldn't be any room for the rest of the tropes. :)

Also, removing...

• The city in The Matrix was never explicitly named, and it certainly wasn't New York. Street names are taken from the Wachowski brothers' hometown of Chicago. It was filmed in Sydney.
  • This may not be a good example, since there is only one city in the Matrix, and it takes up the majority of the acreage.

Since the city is its own self-contained universe.

Annnnd...

• I'm pretty sure that Jason Goes to Hell makes it more or less clear that Crystal Lake is also in Ohio, if memory serves, so naturally it would be within a couple of hours' driving distance. And I'm pretty *damn* sure that no one in the first Nightmare film says they're in L.A.

This Troper (grr), Thread Mode, and as for the substance of the comment... there are palm trees prominently on display in the first movie. It's not Ohio, at least not at first. Crystal Lake also isn't in Ohio, as "Jason Takes Manhattan" would make no sense if it were (there's no ocean route that could take a boat from a lake in Ohio to Manhattan Island in a few days). Both movie franchises have been deliberately having fun with this trope over the years, so there's no need to defend them with fan guesswork.

And removing this one, tentatively...

• The Harry Potter series has a number of fictional locations whose whereabouts are never pinpointed, although:
  • The first book explicitly places Little Whinging in Surrey.
    • The films agree; in the Order of the Phoenix movie, when the (presumably) local weather report shows the area. This is sort-of-confirmed by an early scene in the Half-Blood Prince movie, which takes place at Surbiton railway station, which is in south-west London near the Surrey border.
  • Godric's Hollow is probably in the West Country.
  • Hogwarts is obviously somewhere in the Highlands of Scotland.
  • The Ministry of Magic is somewhere in central London, as is St. Mungo's; the latter is in one of London's major shopping streets, probably Oxford Street.
  • Ottery St. Catchpole is implied to be in Devon or Exeter.
  • Spinner's End is Oop North in an old mill town with a river flowing through it.
  • Little Hangleton is implied to be somewhere else Oop North.
  • Azkaban is somewhere in the North Sea.

The UK's not all that huge geographically, and most of these locations seem to have been narrowed down to specific counties. Like the DC example, I'm not sure how much more specific Rowling could get.

And again...

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show's Brad and Janet are from Denton, Ohio. This city doesn't exist, but writer Richard O'Brien named the city Denton because there are many of them in the US. The sequel Shock Treatment explicitly takes place in "Denton, USA!"

If the state is named, then there's no mystery. I think there's some serious confusion going on with this trope, and people are just putting every fictional city here. It has to be deliberately vague, like Angel Grove having every climate imaginable as the plot demands, or Springfield and all its geographical anomalies. If it's actually set in a real-life state, that's about as specific as any story can get without giving local Shout Outs.