History Main / TropeCodifier

* ComicBook/ThePunisher is the Trope Codifier of the SociopathicHero. He was, by far, the most popular costumed "superhero" to kill his enemies rather than putting them to jail. And he's been doing it way before the [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Dark Age of Comics]].

* The {{Roguelike}} genre has two important codifiers: ''VideoGame/NetHack'' introduced many features that have since become commonplace in the genre and ''VideoGame/{{Angband}}'' created a whole, thriving sub-genre of its own. Additionally, the [[VideoGame/ShirenTheWanderer Mystery Dungeon series]] established many standards for roguelikes made by Japanese developers.

* "WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty" codified what many consider the "Disney Princess formula" of the Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon and its many imitators, especially compared to the films of the MediaNotes/TheRenaissanceAgeOfAnimation, particularly regarding its characters like Aurora for PrincessClassic and RebelliousPrincess (albeit a [[DownplayedTrope downplayed one]]), Phillip for PrinceCharming and KnightInShiningArmor, the Three Fairies for FairyCompanion and SpotlightStealingSquad, Maleficent for CardCarryingVillain and OneWingedAngel, and Samson for CoolHorse and NonHumanSidekick.

* ''VisualNovel/SchoolDays'' is known for the PsychoticLoveTriangle of Matoko Itou, Kotonoha Katsura and Sekai Saionji. To say the least, [[WomanScorned it]] [[MurderTheHypotenuse can]] [[IfICantHaveYou end]] [[BadEnding VERY BADLY]].

* Thanks to [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Arturia Pendragon]], a plethora of anime and video games now have blonde [[EmotionlessGirl emotionally repressed]] StoicWoobie [[LadyOfWar ladies of war]] with dorky tendencies and a DarkAndTroubledPast as either main characters or love interests.

* The StandardFantasySetting's Trope Maker was ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''; the Trope Codifier was ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''.[[note]]As a minor footnote, the concept of a Trope Codifier was originally suggested by the fact that ''Dungeons & Dragons'' clearly pioneered and set in stone certain aspects of the StandardFantasySetting, but didn't seem to qualify for full Trope Maker status.[[/note]] As Creator/TerryPratchett once put it, Tolkien's influence appears in modern fantasy the way Mt. Fuji appears in Japanese art--and if it doesn't, either the author is deliberately facing away, or they are ''standing'' on Fuji.
** Except for VancianMagic, which [[TropeMakers was made by]] ''Literature/DyingEarth'' and codified by ''D&D''.
** ''D&D'' can also be seen as the Trope Maker of Fantastic Miniatures War Games (Chainmail was the UrExample of a Mini's games featuring fantastic elements, and D&D was originally just the "small warbands" variant of it), but TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} and TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} are the Trope Codifiers.
** Another Trope Codifier was Terry Books's novel ''The Sword of Literature/{{Shannara}}'', which showed that {{Doorstopper}} fantasy novels that weren't written by Tolkien could also go on to sell zillions of copies.
** In the 2000s, George R.R. Martin's ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' became another prominent HighFantasy series, bringing a much DarkerAndEdgier feel to the genre.

** In the 2000's, George R.R. Martin's ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' became another prominent HighFantasy series, bringing a much DarkerAndEdgier feel to the genre.
* ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' is the Trope Codifier for many detective tropes; Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's ''Literature/CAugusteDupin'' stories were the Trope Maker, including such tropes as the less astute [[TheWatson Watson figure as narrator]] and the far-reaching deductions based on attention to seemingly trivial details. A second possibility, wildly popular at the time but now more obscure, is ''Literature/TheMoonstone'' by Wilkie Collins. It placed such concepts as the private detective helping out the near useless police and the LockedRoomMystery into the popular consciousness a few decades before Doyle's novels.

* ''Literature/{{Earthsea}} codified the idea of [[IKnowYourTrueName people and things having "True Names" that give power over them to any speaker]] in the context of magic systems.

* Creator/RaymondChandler is considered the Trope Codifier of [[HardboiledDetective hard-boiled crime fiction]], following Carroll John Daly with the Ur-example (his "Knights Of the Open Palm" was published several months before Hammett's first ''[[Literature/TheContinentalOp Continental Op]]'' story) and Creator/DashiellHammett (the Trope Maker).

* ''Literature/TheRedBadgeOfCourage'' did this for WarIsHell.
* ''Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo'' is one for the "return for elaborate revenge story".
* While ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'' was the first modern codifier for [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampiric tropes]], ''Literature/TheVampireChronicles'' by Creator/AnneRice was a [[SubvertedTrope subversion]] that served to codify the current template used by everyone from [[TabletopGame/VampireTheRequiem White Wolf]] to ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' and ''Film/Underworld2003''. [[UndeadHorseTrope Both kinds of vampire are in active use, of course.]] With an exception: for easily understood reasons, most successors have thrown out Creator/AnneRice's vision of vampires as lacking sufficient bloodflow to get it up.

* Creator/RobertEHoward's ''Literature/ConanTheBarbarian'' codified the BarbarianHero -- and many other SwordAndSorcery tropes, at least among those he wasn't the Trope Maker for it.

* ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' is the Trope Codifier for many detective tropes; Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's ''Literature/CAugusteDupin'' stories were the Trope Maker, including such tropes as the less astute [[TheWatson Watson figure as narrator]] and the far-reaching deductions based on attention to seemingly trivial details.
** A second possibility, wildly popular at the time but now more obscure, is ''Literature/TheMoonstone'' by Wilkie Collins. It placed such concepts as the private detective helping out the near useless police and the LockedRoomMystery into the popular consciousness a few decades before Doyle's novels.

* ''Franchise/JamesBond'' is the most popular image of {{Spy Fiction}}. Virtually every fictional spies in history has its roots from the Bond character.

* ''Art/TheSwing'': It marked the tonal shift from intense, religious {{art}}works commonly associated with the early Baroque to LighterAndSofter depictions of the aristocratic life of the Rococo.

* Many {{paintings}} featuring the RecliningVenus pose from UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance onward credit the ''Art/DresdenVenus'' as their direct inspiration, with every other painting being recursively inspired by those.

* ''Art/SleepingVenusGiorgione'': It's credited as being the artwork that made the RecliningVenus into a StockPose, [[ArtImitatesArt inspiring a number of copycats]] from paintings by Girolamo da Treviso to Titian, Valesquez, Creator/DiegoVelazquez, and Creator/{{Cabanel}}. It is the first known reclining nude in Western painting, and together with the ''Art/PastoralConcert'' (Louvre), another painting disputed between Creator/{{Giorgione}} and Creator/{{Titian}}, it established "the genre of erotic mythological pastoral", with female nudes in a landscape, accompanied in that case by clothed males. A single nude woman in any position was an unusual subject for a large painting at the time, although it was to become popular for centuries afterward, as "the reclining female nude" became a distinctive feature of Venetian painting.

** While [[TrappedInAnotherWorld the Portal Fantasy]] has been a well-known genre in both sides of the pond for decades (with Japan itself having major titles in the genre for anime and manga like ''Manga/{{Inuyasha}}'' and ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' from the 90s), ''Sword Art Online'' popularized its later Japanese incarnation of what is most popularly known as the ''Isekai'' ("Another World") genre today, with numerous other {{Light Novel|s}} series following suit. The main character being a EscapistCharacter trapped in a world that is almost always a medieval fantasy land that [[RPGMechanicsVerse runs on typical JPRG mechanics]] is an especially common setup. Interestingly enough, ''Sword Art Online'' itself isn't quite that, since it's set in an actual video game that the protagonist is trapped in; however subsequent works that follow in its footsteps tend to use a fantasy world that has RPG mechanics in it, but is real otherwise.

** For PopPunk, the codifiers are generally considered to be Music/GreenDay and Music/TheOffspring (with some also crediting Music/Blink182). The concept of combining fast, aggressive music with pop lyrics, however, was invented much earlier by bands like Music/{{Buzzcocks}} and The Undertones.

** For PostPunk, the codifier (and TropeMaker) is Music/JoyDivision

** For PopPunk, the codifiers are generally considered to be Music/GreenDay and Music/TheOffspring (with some also crediting Music/blink-182 with creating the sound that early to mid 2000's pop-punk bands would be influenced by, vocalist swapping in particular) The concept of combining fast, aggressive music with pop lyrics, however, was invented much earlier by bands like Music/{{Buzzcocks}} and The Undertones.