This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
discussion leading up to creation of the entry '
There's a gag without a name that I've seen lately; it's particularly common on the Williams Street cartoons. The joke is that there's some huge crisis, but at least one character who should be helping with it doesn't care, or is too busy with a trivial problem of their own. For instance, the Sealab2021 episode where zombies are taking over the station, but Debbie is too concerned with her birthday party to do anything. My first name was "Somebody Else's Problem" (after the devices in the third Hitchhiker's book), but that doesn't form a wiki word. Any ideas?
Drop Dead Gorgias: What about Somebody Else's Problem? Punctuation is usually dropped when making wikiwords.
Gus:Are you more interested in the character's myopia/self-centeredness, or the specific plot related to the myopia? I think you could hang more examples of plots off the character trait, so I'd guess you are talking about a Characters as Device entry. I'm not getting a quick retrieval on a name for my candidate for "Most Selfish Character, Ever", but I would go with something like that.
Drop Dead Gorgias: I think what he's describing isn't a character trait, it's more a trope related to maybe one epiosde. As discussed above for sealab, in one episode Debbie might be insensitive, in the next episode Quinn might be insensitive. It's more of a selective Danger Blindness?
Tzintzuntzan: Gus has a point, in that there are some characters who specialize in this (like Master Shake from the Aqua Teens). But as DDG said, there are shows where either it rotates, or everybody does it to some extent; Sealab2021 and Space Ghost Coas To Coast are examples of the rotating selfishness. I think it works as a comedy trope, with a note that the less gonzo shows make the oblivious person consistent.
Gus: Perhaps a conceit like Situational Blinders would fit. As in "Debbie had the Situational Blinders on for this episode..." or "As per usual, Cordelia had her Situational Blinders firmly afixed..."
Robert: The Torchwood SEP field can be seen through, if you try hard enough. I'd guess they have chameleon circuits too to fool the more strong-willed races, though it might be the result of design by a committee with an unlimited budget.
Are there other examples of heroes seeing through SEP fields?
Kendra Kirai: Well, the TARDIS is incredibly old at this point, and has been upgraded at least nine times. The Doctor was having a hell of a time fixing the Chameleon Circuit around the 4th-6th Doctors, and he apparently got used to the look sometime later. Since the TARDIS is telepathic, it's entirely possible the Doctor added in the 'Inconspicuiousity' part recently. I haven't seen more than ten minutes of Torchwood yet, so I don't know what spot in Cardiff the TARDIS was that's retained it, but if the TARDIS (Is there any way to make the wiki NEVER treat certain capitalized items as Wiki Words? So damn many TARDISes and CSIs...) was there a long time, or very often (Such as the spot near the Powell Estate)...
Robert: The SEP field is the result of events in 'Boom Town', which came close to ripping space and time to shreds, with the TARDIS at the epicentre. This may make the field the result of Phlebotinum Breakdown, but the details should probably go on the Torchwood Spoilers page, not here.
Kendra Kirai: yeah, I just saw that. Such a huge amount of power flowing through the TARDIS, which is...well, old and busted, really...just asking for something to happen. They're lucky i didn't become a permanent portal to 15th-century france. :)
octochan: shouldn't that last bit about FFX go under With This Herring
?
Tanto: Deleted this...
- Not uncommon in most RP Gs where the fact that the heroes are the only people able to save the world from total annihilation in no way motivates shop keepers to offer a discount.
- Lampshaded in Final Fantasy X, when the airship is about to be attacked by a dragon. Reoccuring merchant Rin warns the party of the dragon's might and offers to sell supplies to the party, as usual. Once the transaction is complete, Wakka protests: "We gotta pay? If we lose, you die too, buddy!" Rin's reply? "I have faith in your victory."
...because it's got its own trope, With This Herring.
Anonymous: The urge to append "And so do some viewers." to the end of the Space Ghost example is almost overwhelming. I myself used to like the show, but my god. Someone should put something there to dissuade the almost inexorable pull of the Take That!...
Big T: I was moving some examples from this page to the more appropriate No Big Deal, and I found they didn't quite fit there, either. The removed portions are at No Big Deal Discussion.
Tulling: About this: "Real Life Aversion: This troper once had the police called on him by a neighbor while he was entering his own home. Through the front door. With the KEY. While wearing a high school letter jacket that had his last name printed on the back."
It made me awfully curious: What happened to the neighbour afterwards? How did this individual justify calling the cops?
