[376] It's been a while

[Cassiopea The Grande]

Well this explains why Jones is such a bitch to Annie

[tonie]

cassiopea said:

Well this explains why Jones is such a bitch to Annie

Quite. Jealousy of someone who looks like James' big crush [edit: Or anger at someone who represents the product of his heart being broken]. Although the idea of Jones being jealous of anyone does seem a bit improbable to me.

[Tenjen]

I dont see Jones being a bitch to Annie. She's just gauging the abilities and nature of a promising candidate for a very challenging job requirement.

I doubt its anything personal.

[Count Casimir]

YES! JANES FOREVER!

And to EVERYONE who says they're just friends...

They're in love and getting married and having seven kids in a big castle with Eggy slaying dragons everyday and Jones bein' a super badass and if anyone uninvited comes she smacks them around a bit with absolutely no expression and then Eggy comes home and he's like "mmmmm...steak."

That's how it happens.

[Boksha]

Don't make me post a tvtropes link.

[Yin]

Why are so many people wielding tvtropes links as weapons ;.;

[Count Casimir]

I'd love tvtropes if it didn't kill my afternoons.

Oh wait, 63 webcomix in one folder does that already.

Link away!

[Boksha]

sli said:

Why are so many people wielding tvtropes links as weapons ;.;

They just happen to work that way.

[Tom Siddell]

I feel I should mention that I find TV Tropes to be largely insulting, as I'm sure is the intention.

[Boksha]

I doubt it's the intention, but I can definitely see at least several reasons why one would feel that way. I always block everything I read on there when reading/watching a story, and I plan to do the same if I ever write one.

[nikita]

I think after a year, most people will wonder why they even bothered to read the articles on that site as they describe plot devices that are already known. Just putting up a website to collect them and giving them cool names doesn't make it interesting (to me).

[gdwarf]

I don't find TV tropes to be insulting, nor do I see that as it's intent.

It's just a way to poke some fun at the ur-chilches that seem to appear everywhere.

In order for it to be insulting (in the way that word is normally used) there would have to be some malicious intent, and I don't see that. Just some people highlighting how absurd genre conventions have gotten.


Then again, I apparently have a very thick skin when reading online, so I might just not be seeing it.



In addition, nikita, the point isn't to catalog every trope, it's to poke fun at them. The bad articles on there are the ones that take themselves seriously, the ones people remember are very tongue-in-cheek.

[Tom Siddell]

If the intent is to poke fun at clichés then I don't think I'm being too over the top when there is a page listing every cliché in my comic. I understand that I am at fault for not having original ideas, but whenever I introduce something in the comic and it's flagged as a cliché (or in some cases, some elements listed just for the sake of it, such as "characters have hair", "the art changes over time", "one character is drawn with her eyes closed", "something happened and was mentioned later") I've found it to grate a little over time.

[Boksha]

The original intent of the site as a whole seems to be to simply list story elements that get used frequently (or frequently enough to have several examples for each), whether they work or not and whether they're clichés or not. Of course there's going to be people that are hell bent on analysing good stories to the point where they themselves stop enjoying reading them.
In fact, a lot of people seem to think something is a cliché and should not be enjoyed if they find enough examples of it after a long arduous search. The same lot probably also thinks that when a trope shows up in a story, that's a bad thing. I'm fairly sure those people never read how TV tropes will ruin your life, and especially not the ways to avoid that from happening.

But if you were talking about the page about Gunnerkrigg court on there, that's not a list of clichés; rather it's a list of story elements that have been identified in the comic. They may be story elements that have barely ever been used or even (considering it's a wiki and moves fairly quickly) story elements that have first been identified in GC. The fact that it's quite a lot is because practically anything imaginable in a story is listed on that site so every work of fiction (and reality) will likely be an example of page long lists of tropes. And even then that list most likely only scratches the top of the iceberg in terms of the depth that work of fiction has, something I definitely think applies to GC.

gdwarf: the aim of the site is definitely not to poke fun of tropes. Sure, there are a lot based around common errors and, being errors, they will be made fun of. But there's also loads and loads of things listed on there that do work well in stories. Whether you think that's interesting like nikita was saying is a different matter.

[nikita]

Wow, I didn't know there's a page specifically about Gunnerkrigg.
Seems they have invented a name for just about anything that ever might happen in some story. Most of them are pointless observations, forced or plain wrong.
I think the worst thing is that the whole site suggests, that GC (or any other story) is just made of predictable, uninspired elements.

If the site is intended to be funny, then I wonder what's so funny about for example an author writing a story taking place in the country he's living in. ^^ As I said, other people probably have a different opinion, to me this is just a really long list of things that once happened in some fictional story.
The fact that they label almost anything they find a trope is what makes it irrelevant. It's like making a list of the world's most remarkable cities and ending up with a thousand pages covering every city in the world.

[popo]

There's only one remarkable city in the world, and that's the good ol' US of A.

[Tom Siddell]

I identified a new trope. It's called Slapwankles Tetra-Inversion Principle. It's when a character says something to another character in a story, and then later a different character says a thing that has nothing to do with that other thing. It's a device I fall back on often and I think I saw it used in another story sometime. How do I add it to the list?

[Tenjen]

There's only one remarkable city in the world, and that's the good ol' US of A.

: \

[Mezzaphor]

Oh, shit.

Confession time: I'm one of the contributors at the TV tropes wiki, and I edit under the name Meta4. So yeah, all those mentions of Gunnekrigg Court in the example sections of the various articles? I wrote about 75% of them. I added GC to the Notable Webcomics list, and started the article about it.

It was not my intention to mock or criticize the comic, and I'm very sorry that it came across that way.

From my time surfing and editing at that wiki, I was under the impression that the majority of tropes are value-neutral. That the intent of the wiki is to analyze the methods of storytelling (albeit in a thoroughly haphazard and disorganized manner) and those storytelling elements that pop up a lot. And it's common knowledge (which means it's largely left unsaid, unfortunately) that most of these elements pop up a lot because they work.

I can also vouch for the fact that, if one were to poll the editors there about their favorite TV shows, books, movies, and comics, the resulting list would be almost the same as the Trope Overdosed list. Those items are Trope Overdosed precisely because there's a lot of editors watching or reading and thinking about them.

Stepping back, I can definitely see how the overall tone of the wiki comes across negative. But I felt it was intended to be tongue-in-cheek and all in good fun. If I thought it derisive, I never would have stuck around there.

Again, I'm sorry for the grief I've caused.

[Boksha]

admin said:

How do I add it to the list?

I think it falls under subverted Chekhovs Gun.

[gdwarf]

boksha said:

gdwarf: the aim of the site is definitely not to poke fun of tropes. Sure, there are a lot based around common errors and, being errors, they will be made fun of. But there's also loads and loads of things listed on there that do work well in stories. Whether you think that's interesting like nikita was saying is a different matter.

Even the simply cataloging pages tend to be very tongue-in-cheek.

Most of the editors certainly seem to feel that the point is to have fun.

And I certainly prefer that to a dry list of facts.

While dry lists can be quite interesting, they rarely make for good prolonged reading.

Yet many people sit down and try to read all of TVTropes (which would be easier if they fixed their linking problems.) So obviously it's more than a list of stuff.


And, for my coup-de-gras: They have an article titled "That thing that goes Doik" (or something like that.)

[Boksha]

I didn't mean to say many of the articles aren't written to be funny, but I feel there's quite a lot of space between being funny while explaining something (possibly somewhat at the expense of the subject) and downright ridiculing the subject matter. In other words, it's tongue-in- cheek, not mocking.
Like Mezzaphor said, most people actually write about the things they like, not about the things they dislike; as such they're generally not going to be negative about it. If it seems like that, it's generally not intentional.

[nikita]

Eh.. "meta4" indeed looked somewhat familiar..

Ok, so at least it was written by someone who actually likes the comic.
(btw "The Word of Tom" should be a mandatory read for people posting comments... for each new comic, there's at least one post suggesting that Jones is the girl from the photo)

"This also happens to tropers who know their favorite stories forwards and back: every trope they read reminds them of an example from that story and they simply must share it with the world."
Part of the problem is that those "tropes" exist in the first place. "Hair", "Hero has Red Hair" or "Evolving Art" just are no story devices (in most cases).

I'm in no position to tell other people what to do, but if you intend to clean up the article, here's where I'd start:
1. Delete anything that isn't a trope.
2. It'd probably the best thing to just ask yourself whether Tom actually used this trope, or if it just happened.
Uh.. I'll just delete some of them myself...
...
I kicked 26 tropes from that list. There are still many left. Those are ok, I think. My criteria for what I deleted were derived from this: "the intent of the wiki is to analyze the methods of storytelling"

I guess that site should make a statement somewhere whether it want's to be serious or not. We can't have both at the same time.. it causes confusion and anger (as we saw).

PS: I'm still no fan of tvtropes.

[nikita]

Something different. Did you ask Tom before posting the images there?
(Ignore this question if Tom has allowed that kind of use and I missed it.)

[Mezzaphor]

nikita said:

"This also happens to tropers who know their favorite stories forwards and back: every trope they read reminds them of an example from that story and they simply must share it with the world."
Part of the problem is that those "tropes" exist in the first place. "Hair", "Hero has Red Hair" or "Evolving Art" just are no story devices (in most cases).

I'm in no position to tell other people what to do, but if you intend to clean up the article, here's where I'd start:
1. Delete anything that isn't a trope.
2. It'd probably the best thing to just ask yourself whether Tom actually used this trope, or if it just happened.
Uh.. I'll just delete some of them myself...
...
I kicked 26 tropes from that list. There are still many left. Those are ok, I think. My criteria for what I deleted were derived from this: "the intent of the wiki is to analyze the methods of storytelling"

I guess that site should make a statement somewhere whether it want's to be serious or not. We can't have both at the same time.. it causes confusion and anger (as we saw).

From the Front Page (emphasis mine):

Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. If a trope gets used too much, then it becomes clichéd. The word cliché means 'stereotyped and trite'. In other words, dull and uninteresting.

We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. The point of the wiki is to have fun talking about tropes, not to make fun of tropes.

The wiki is called "TV Tropes" because that is where we started. Over the course of a few years, our scope has crept out to include other media. Tropes transcend television. They exist in life. Art in any form does its best to reflect life, so tropes show up everywhere. We want 'em all.

This is not Wikipedia. We're a buttload more informal. There Is No Such Thing As Notability and no citations are needed. ... We encourage breezy language and original thought (and won't object to the occasional snarky comment, either). Some of us are a bit fussy about grammar, but that's just because we like English. Go on, have fun.

As for the pictures... I admit I didn't ask. I'll remove them if that's a problem.

----

Regarding the comic, I just realized, James was "Mister Eglamore" back in chapter 13. Then Annie heard Ysengrin addressing him, so now he's "Sir." Even when she's being cold, she knows to address people by their proper title.

[nikita]

Oops... I never read the front page.

The point of the wiki is to have fun talking about tropes, not to make fun of tropes.

Sounds like a pretty good idea... I probably shouldn't have judged that site by its wiki but its forums then.

As for the images. I'd like to add I'm not pointing this out because I like blaming people for random stuff. It's just that I'm frequently visiting cg-art forums so I'm used to spot such copyright issues. Most people don't think of it very much. They only want to share great art they found with others, sometimes even with the intention to make it more popular.
We'll see what Tom thinks of all that tomorrow.

----

Hum.. I never noticed that Annie emphasises mister on that page. Maybe Ysengrin is just used to refer to knights as "Sir"s. I guess I don't know enough about the proper usage of those honorifics to decide that.

[popo]

tenjen said:

There's only one remarkable city in the world, and that's the good ol' US of A.

: \

see, it's a joke. sarcasm, y'know?

[todd]

At least they paid Tom a compliment when they said that he was too much of a gentleman to poke fun at the similarities and differences between Annie and Harry Potter, so that had to be done by the first guestcomic.

[Tom Siddell]

I hope I'm not coming across as the bad guy here. As a "creator" on the "internet", mentioning that you disagree with someone's comments pretty much labels you as some kind of prima donna who can't take criticism, even if the critique is nothing more than name calling. As readers you're certainly allowed to criticise the comic, but I reserve the right to ignore anything that either misses the point entirely, offers nothing constructive, or is intentionally inflamatory (I'd put Internet Passive Aggression in the latter category).

The TV Tropes fellows are generally being top gents (and ladies) about it all, so that's pretty cool. Mezzaphor, I already knew that you posted on TV Tropes and worked on the article, but I can also tell you genuinely enjoy the comic so I didn't think you were trying to be malicious in any way. I just noticed links to tvtropes.org happening more often and while "insulting" is perhaps too strong a word, it was certainly starting to bother me. I just wanted to mention it.

I'd never demand you guys stop posting on TV Tropes as, off this forum, you're allowed to say anything you please about me or anybody. I think it's great that you (posters here and the posters on the tvtropes forums) were willing to take a step back and take my opinion into account in editing the article or re-examining the intent behind it on your own accord.

Oh, also, using imagery from the comic in the article is fine. Fair use and all.

[UbiquitousDragon]

admin said:

I understand that I am at fault for not having original ideas

*dons English/Classical Studies student hat*

There are no original ideas in literature, only innovative ways of expressing them.

A really old example: Homer's the Iliad and the Odyssey. Oral poetry written down, then Virgil came along, yonks later (I'm ignoring here all the less famous ancient poets here for sake of brevity) and nicked a load of stuff, mostly from the Iliad, in his Latin epic. Skip forward to the 1600s, Milton nabs even more, from both, and from the Bible. Using Latinate style in English. Then, 1995: Northern Lights, Philip Pullman, is a retelling of Paradise Lost in a different style, medium and angle, for a different purpose.

Therefore, derivation wins.

[/mild rant]

Not the best way to win an academic argument there but there is only innovation not originality in story-telling, we're far too archetypal-centric. And that's not necessarily a bad thing--it's the new spin that makes it interesting, especially in something like GC where expectations are subverted.