To-do list:
- It was decided to limit Dark Magical Girl to only examples that are Shadow Archetypes whose story arc / theming distort, subvert, or twist the ideas of The Power of Love and The Power of Friendship.
- Rewrite the description as necessary.
- Clean up on-page examples.
- Clean up wicks.
Dark Magical Girl (DMG) is an archetype exclusive to the Magical Girl (MG) genre (hence the trope name). This antagonistic character has a dark and angsty personality, has issues, and contrasts the main heroine. She initially antagonises said main heroine before turning good. The problem with this trope is that a majority of the examples ignore the MG requirement, making them misuse. A wick check is conducted to gauge misuse. The following are the results:
- 4/50 (8%) wicks pass the MG test.
- 19/50 (38%) wicks fail the MG test. They fit the characteristics but are not MGs / are not present in a work of the MG genre. Simply being a young female character with magical powers and angst doesn't make her a DMG.
- 1/50 (2%) wicks are other types of misuse unrelated to the above.
- 23/50 (46%) wicks are ZCEs and contextless potholes.
- 3/50 (6%) wicks are unclassified.
Suggestion: Cut. Disambig it into one or more "angst" tropes (e.g., Anti-Villain, Dark and Troubled Past, Freudian Excuse, etc.).
Wick check:
The issue: Dark Magical Girl is an archetype exclusive to the Magical Girl (MG) genre, so all correct examples must be an MG. Therefore, any example that don't take this into account is misuse.Wicks checked: 50/50
I: 4/50 (8%)
II: 19/50 (38%)
III: 1/50 (2%)
IV: 23/50 (46%)
V: 3/50 (6%)
- Characters.Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Fate Testarossa: Character is from a work of the MG genre, though this example needs more context on the "Foil / rival" and "angst" parts (PCE).
- Dark Is Not Evil: Fate's Barrier Jacket is black and frequently includes a Dracula-esque high-collared black and red cape. Black is even stated to be her favorite color and she fights with an axe/scythe. While she was a Dark Magical Girl, after her Heel–Face Turn she became the nicest and most lawful member of the entire cast.
- Dark Magical Girl: Trope Codifier. Since the series covers over a decade and a half of time, it's able to explore the long term effects that such a role would have on a girl's psyche.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Even during her tenure as a Dark Magical Girl, she was depicted to be kind and innocent. She then grows up to become the most good character in the series.
- Right Handed Mirror: Firstly, she is a right-handed Dark Magical Girl to the left-handed Nanoha.
- Characters.Puella Magi Madoka Magica Homura Akemi - Dark Magical Girl: She starts the main narrative as a stoic and antagonistic Magical Girl opposing our friendly protagonist, Madoka. The truth is closer to a inversion as she was on Madoka's side from the start as her Mysterious Protector and began the story as her shy friend. Character is from a work of the Magical Girl genre, though this example is a subversion, not an inversion.
- Fanfic.Skylight Pretty Cure - Dark Magical Girl: Cure Crow is the dark magical girl of the Sanctuarians, having been emotionally corrupted by them. Character is from a fanfic of a MG work (Pretty Cure), though this example needs more context on how she is "emotionally corrupted" (PCE).
- Manga.Tokyo Mew Mew - Dark Magical Girl: Retasu begins as more of a Chaotic Neutral Magical Girl; motivated by loneliness and fear, the same emotions as the classic DMG, she strikes out at anyone who might learn or expose her secret and hates herself for it. In the 4Kids dub, Renee (Zakuro) pretends she's a Dark Magical Girl and siding with the aliens only to turn on them, though this doesn't make sense upon examination. Character is from a work of the MG genre. Has the "angst" part but no "foil / rival" part.
- Western Animation - DuckTales (2017): Magica's Living Shadow was a oneshot villain in the 1987 series who proved to be Eviler than Thou, necessitating Magica to pull an Enemy Mine with Scrooge. Their 2017 counterpart Lena on the other hand, is an abused Dark Magical Girl who is only working as The Mole due to being bound to Magica's will, and she ultimately pulls a Heel–Face Turn (in addition to being Webby's best friend). The work is not of the MG genre.
- BrokenBird.Video Games: In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, there's Brigid of Jungby, Ishtar of Friege, Altena of Thracia (or, better said, of Leonster); either Tailtiu or Ethnia of Friege (by the end of their Kill the Cutie years); Silvia's daughter Lene, her expy Laylea, Larcei's expy Creidne (but not Larcei herself) fit in as well. In the meantime Tailtiu's daughter, Tine/Ethnia's daughter Linda, mix this with Shrinking Violet, but ultimately they get much better. Fire Emblem is not of the MG genre. Doubles as a Broken Bird ZCE.
- Characters.Aladdin The Series - Dark Magical Girl: She's a foil for Jasmine as a strong-willed and ambitious young woman who's in love with Aladdin but she's the heir to magical power instead of political. Ultimately she does a Heel–Face Turn. The work is not of the MG genre.
- Characters.Buffyverse Faith Lehane - Dark Magical Girl: She's a loner foil for the friendly and perky Buffy. She looks up to an arc villain as a father-figure. She's redeemed from evil with The Power of Friendship. She even managed to be close friends with Buffy for a short while. Not an MG.
- Characters.Child Of The Storm Harrys Friends - Dark Magical Girl: With Psychic Powers instead of magic, but otherwise a textbook example, and a Tyke Bomb to boot. Tyke Bomb with Psychic Powers. Misuse.
- Characters.Doctor Strange Supporting Characters - Dark Magical Girl: Not as dark as Dormmamu, but still warped although not evil. Disqualifies the "foil" and "MG" aspects of the trope.
- Characters.Elfen Lied Lucy - Used to Be a Sweet Kid: She started out as a kind-hearted, but shy little girl, but through enough torment, crippling loneliness, and a psychotic inner voice, became an Ax-Crazy mass murderer bent on killing all humans. Potholed to "crippling loneliness", emphasizing only the "angst" part rather than the MG part (the primary requirement).
- Characters.Kiss Of The Rose Princess - Dark Magical Girl: She's working for The Dark Side, and is able to use the same abilities of summoning her knights just like Anis. "MG" part is not present in the example.
- Characters.Lady Death - Dark Magical Girl: A magical girl in service to the Big Bad? Check. Endures some emotional abuse from her mother? Check. Ultimately pulls a Heel–Face Turn and helps the heroes out at the end? Double check. The character is not from a work of the MG genre. Just "female character with magic".
- Characters.Naruto Gaara - Dark Magical Girl: Gender Inverted. He's a lonely antagonistic foil for Naruto who becomes a good guy and a friend after his defeat in Part I. Just "antagonistic foil who later becomes an ally".
- Characters.One Piece Nico Robin - Dark Magical Girl: While first appearing as a Dark Action Girl, an essential part of her Freudian Excuse for the more morally ambiguous things she did was the fact that she has been alone, hunted and constantly in fear of betrayal for about 20 years before the series began. The fact that the Straw Hats expressed unconditional love and friendship towards her made her into a better, less treacherous person. A non-MG has a Freudian Excuse. Misuse.
- Characters.Steven Universe Spinel - Dark Magical Girl: Is a cute, young-looking gem who can beat up the Crystal Gems in just the span of a one minute song despite not being designed to be a fighter. She also initially starts out as an antagonist who tries destroying the Earth and is revealed to have deep-seated abandonment issues from being left behind to rot in Pink Diamond's garden for 6 millenia. Check the bolded part of the example.
- Characters.The Owl House Amity Blight: Character is a witch / girl that can use magic.
- Dark Magical Girl: Fits the bill pretty well: Lonely Rich Kid? Check. Dark and Troubled Past, specifically related to her family situation as a bonus? Check. Sour Outside, Sad Inside? Check. Craves approval from the Big Bad? Not directly, but her desire to join the Emperor's Coven counts. Sees the light because of her Magical Girl Foil? Ooh, double check. Yup, she passes the test.
- Foil: She is one to Luz, specifically the Dark Magical Girl to her Magical Girl both start the series as insecure, lonely, and miserable young bookworms with a love of magic who eventually find happiness over the course of the show, but otherwise the two of them are in many ways complete opposites, Luz found happiness after leaving her old life behind for something new, while Amity finds hers by reevaluating the life she already had, while Luz is an out and proud nerd, Amity is something of a Closet Geek, Luz is very much a Genki Girl Cloudcuckoolander troublemaker while Amity is much more restrained, despite her own issues and status as a witch "normal" and initially rather uptight, and when it comes to magic Luz is the Performer to Amity's Technician. It's actually these differences that make them such a great team as they are able to teach each other a number of valuable lessons, with Amity learning how to relax and enjoy life along with not blindly trusting, obeying, or following authority.
- Characters.Yu Gi Oh ZEXAL Tron Family - Dark Magical Girl: Not in the literal sense, but plays this narrative role to a T, being a gentle but tragic figure forced into rivalry with the protagonist due to his horrible circumstances. The first sentence is a misuse, non-MG red flag.
- ContrastingSequelAntagonist.Western Animation: DMG potholes refer to what the character goes through regardless of whether they are an MG or not.
- Steven Universe': Lapis Lazuli was the antagonist of a two-part Wham Episode that begins the show's Cerebus Syndrome. While extremely powerful, she was a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who took the Dark Magical Girl path of being redeemed by Steven's friendship. She started off lashing out in anger, but once good she proved to be something of a Deadpan Snarker.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil: While all the previous villains were monsters (or half-monster in Meteora's case), the fourth season's villain, Mina Loveberry, is a Fantastic Racist who wants to genocide them all. She also doesn't really have any motives to benefit herself, instead being devoted to the Mewni royal family (or at least, its ancestress, Solaria)—given her backstory, she's more like a Dark Magical Girl without the redemption arc.
- Film.Thor - Dark Magical Girl: Gender-inverted; Loki is a sorcerer who Desperately Craves Affection and who believes that his father loves him less than Thor. Loki yearns for Odin's approval while also being envious of his brother, who is a shining example of Asgardian manhood. Loki's strengths, cunning and magic (the latter is, appropriately for this trope, linked with femininity on Asgard), juxtapose Thor's brute force, and he utilizes them to antagonize his elder sibling. Foil character has angst, is envious of main character, and antagonises said main character. Both characters are not MGs.
- VideoGame.Persona 3: Non-MG characters with fantastic powers / a dark motif.
- Chidori, a telepathic Gothic Lolita whose power is to heal others by draining her own life, and who has known the day she would die since gaining her Persona.
- Although a heroic example, Metis from The Answer gets extremely unhappy when it is even suggested she be left alone. It helps that her main color motif is black.
- Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: While Elizabeth isn't evil, she is still one of the most deadly foes in the game and the motivations of her and Igor are left highly ambiguous. However in the Updated Re-release, the protagonist has the delightful option of escorting the princess of darkness around town on several innocent dates where Elizabeth's lack of knowledge on human social behaviour causes hilarity to ensue. For bonus points, you even get to sleep with her, and unlike the other romance options, there is no doubt whatsoever what happened during the Fade to Black.
- Wrestling.Angela Fong - Dark Magical Girl: Black Lotus, who isn't physical enough to be an Action Girl, but is dark and manipulative enough to fill this role. She also has personal motivations for her actions. A wrestler persona, not a Magical Girl.
- Wrestling.Ember Moon - Dark Magical Girl: Her heel persona as Athena fit quite close to this. There are also certain supernatural elements to her character on NXT that evoke this too, even if she is presented as a face. A wrestler persona, not a Magical Girl.
- Fanfic.Pretty Cure Balls To The Wall - Dark Magical Girl: Dietricha, otherwise known as Cure Reich, is a Nazi Pretty Cure. Context boils down to "this magical girl is evil". However, according to the trope description, the character is required to be sympathetic or an Anti-Villain, so the example is misuse.
- AChildShallLeadThem.Western Animation: 13-year-old Elyon Brown aka Queen Elyon from W.I.T.C.H. becomes this after a brief stint as a Dark Magical Girl. Contextless pothole
- Anime.Cyber Team In Akihabara - Dark Magical Girl: Tsubame Commented out ZCE.
- Anime.Fairy Musketeers - Dark Magical Girl: Gretel Commented out ZCE.
- Anime.Mahou Shoujo Taisen - Dark Magical Girl: One appears in Rin Kobari's story arc, hinting that it's not all fun and games in this world. ZCE
- BFS.Literature: In Nick Perumov's Keeper of the Swords cycle, Dark Magical Girl Sylvia gets to wield a Flammberg that has magic that in Sylvia's hands gives it a properties of a Laser Blade, including near-zero wielding weight (but not for the ones hit). Contextless pothole.
- Characters.A Game Of Gods Infinities Champions - Playing with Syringes: As Magical Amber. Commented out ZCE + contextless pothole.
- Characters.Blackbird 2018 - Dark Action Girl: A textbook example. Also technically a Dark Magical Girl, though the more sympathetic elements common to that trope are so far not in evidence. ZCE + contextless pothole.
- Characters.Fire Emblem The Blazing Blade The Eight Legends - Chekhov's Gunman: He defeated the leader of the dragons, but sealed her away instead of killing her since she was an Anti-Villain. Said leader? None other than Idunn. To say nothing of his role in Champion's Sword... Contextless pothole.
- Characters.Game Theory Lyrical Nanoha:
- Dark Magical Girl: Can be thought of as an inversion. Fate convinces Nanoha to join her and Precia, and then Nanoha is almost completely separated from her friends and family. ZCE
- Dark Magical Girl: Defied; the fic's premise revolves around the fact that Precia acts nicer to Fate, which prevents most of the standard DMG tropes. There's also the fact that Fate convinces the hero to join her side. ZCE
- Characters.Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality - Dark Magical Girl: Parodied. She imagines herself to be this and plays up the role after staging a fake dark ritual and "sacrificing her soul" to Harry Potter. ZCE
- Characters.Jellyneo Random Roleplay - Dark Magical Girl Commented out ZCE.
- Characters.Quiz Nanairo DREAMS - Dark Magical Girl Blank ZCE
- Characters.The Princess 99 - Dark Magical Girl Commented out ZCE.
- Characters.Yuru Yuri - Dark Magical Girl Commented out ZCE.
- ComicBook.Scion - Dark Magical Girl: Mai Shen Commented out ZCE.
- Film: The Dazzlings from My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks. Sunset Shimmer from the first movie is often thought of as this, as well though since her Heel–Face Turn at the end of EQG and its confirmation in Rainbow Rocks, she no longer counts. Then you have Midnight Sparkle in My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games... Contextless, chained potholes (or sinkholes). Doubles as an Evil Is Sexy ZCE.
- EvilerThanThou.Western Animation - Ben 10: Hex ended up being betrayed by his niece and Bastard Understudy Charmcaster in her debut appearance. Contextless pothole.
- Fanfic.Oneiroi Series - Dark Magical Girl: Yes, Deirdre's this too. One of the rare examples where one character has both sides, though she leans further towards being a Dark Magical Girl. Commented out ZCE.
- Literature.Magical Girls 2018 - Dark Magical Girl: Rico. Commented out ZCE.
- Manga.Pretear - Dark Magical Girl: In the anime - Fenrir, aka Takako, aka Mikage; also, to some extent, Mawata while under her influence. In the manga - anyone possessed by Takako, especially her main host, Natsue. ZCE
- Series.Magic X Warrior Magi Majo Pures - Dark Magical Girl: Shiori is a villain for the first part of the series. ZCE
- VideoGame.La Pucelle: ZCEs
- Dark Magical Girl: Princess Eclair.
- Dark Magical Girl: Demon Overlord Prier.
- VideoGame.Magical Chaser Stardust Of Dreams - Dark Magical Girl: Princess Meteor and Bibin, just as they were in their respective shows. ZCE
- Main.Always Female - Dark Magical Girl Found in an index.
- Main.Stock Japanese Characters - Dark Magical Girl: A Magical Girl, or rival thereof, who is quite often a Broken Bird with a Dark and Troubled Past. Found in an index. Reliance on potholes.
- Main.Womanliness As Pathos - Dark Magical Girl: A pretty girl with magical powers but is overcome with loneliness and other terrible emotions. Found in an index. Wrong definition.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 6th 2023 at 6:48:04 AM
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Then what are you proposing we do with it? Would retooling it to match how it's being used (i.e., for cute witch characters who aren't Magical Girls) be fine if we don't refer to it as a contrasting archetype (and it was originally Amonimus
who called it a contrasting archetype, not me; I was referencing that post when I mentioned contrast), or are you saying the concept would be too broad regardless of that?
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 1st 2023 at 4:53:11 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
TBH I'd actually argue Cute Witch is the real problem child here, not either of the nominally MG tropes. I think it's come up as an issue in the past, in fact. The name is way broader than the concept it's apparently supposed to be.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I'm saying I don't think "a witch who is cute" is particularly tropeworthy either as an inversion of Wicked Witch (for all the reasons I said before) or as a separate concept from Hot Witch or Witch Classic (since it's not like Witch Classic rules out the witch being cute anyways). Several of the wicks in the Cute Witch wick check were about characters who wore witch costumes and looked cute, for example.
I agree with Amonimus that the most tropeworthy way to salvage Cute Witch would be as an archetype inversion of Wicked Witch and if that's what people want to do, then it should be something like "the good witch" or "the goodest little witch",depending on how much stock you put into cute being necessary: a beautiful, often young and youthful witch who is explicitly aligned with goodness, and is primarily concerned with doing good, working to help others / for the public good.
I am concerned however that might be too similar to what we're considering to be Magical Girl Classic, especially if we focus on her needing to be young and cute, which is why I'm personally more in favor of cutting, merging, or redirecting once we scrape its description for Magical Girl Classic. That said, the difference was always going to be in the specifics for such a trope, since the classical depiction of a Magical Girl is derived from this concept anyways. And it'd also be for the TLP to decide if we go that route, since there weren't any examples in the wick check for that.
Edited by amathieu13 on Aug 1st 2023 at 6:31:38 AM
reconsidering
nvm
Edited by Tremmor19 on Aug 1st 2023 at 7:29:33 AM
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Merging Cute Witch with Magical Girl Classic (particularly since it seems like that's what it was supposed to be to begin with before Trope Decay set in due to the unclear name) after making the latter page sounds fine, between cuteness alone making the trope too broad, and a proper contrast with Wicked Witch not having enough examples to make without starting from scratch with TLP.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 1st 2023 at 6:01:54 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
On doing anything with Cute Witch or Hot Witch for now. Whatever their description says, the wick check shows they're not being used in relation to Magical Girl, so they're irrelevant to this thread and should have their own. As other tropers said, they may be salvaged in other ways that have nothing to do Magical Girl, like as a counterpart to Wicked Witch. Handling them now is just not going to give them the proper attention.
We're tackling a lot of things in just handling Dark Magical Girl and Magical Girl as is. And it seems some people aren't even convinced of doing anything but cutting Dark Magical Girl since they still don't think that's a trope.
Edited by BlackMage43 on Aug 1st 2023 at 6:08:47 AM
Killing is my business
Huh? Most have decided to keep it, just adjust the description a little.
"I'll show you fear, there is no hell, only darkness." My twitter
Cute Witch can't be ignored if we want to rework Magical Girl into "Magical Girl Classic" to give Dark Magical Girl something more concrete to base its Shadow Archetype off of, because Cute Witch is currently defined as "Magical Girl Classic". This isn't a case of a related trope being roped in. Cute Witch is and has been from its inception intended to be "Magical Girl Classic." It's just been wildly misused because of its name, its laconic (of course), and people never reading trope descriptions.
Hot Witch was mostly being discussed as a potential merge target for Cute Witch should we move forward with Magical Girl Classic since that new trope can't exist alongside Cute Witch as it currently stands. And making that trope (along with Magical Girl Genre) has gotten positive feedback so far.
That said, that's most pressing if we go with a tightening / clean up of Dark Magical Girl's description. The other two options discussed for Dark Magical Girl, disambig and do nothing/clean up, wouldn't necessitate Magical Girl and Cute Witch being addressed right this minute. note
I'm personally in favor of the rewrite now so I explored what that would entail. It just happens to have a domino effect because of the connections between Dark Magical Girl + Magical Girl and Magical Girl + Cute Witch.
Edited by amathieu13 on Aug 1st 2023 at 10:23:13 AM
I know that's the majority, my point is there were still debate about it last page and we're kinda getting off-track talking about the witch tropes.
We ignored Dark Chick when we TRS'd The Chick, and those tropes were even more intertwined. Deciding what to do with multiple tropes with 1500+ wicks in a single thread is too much, things are bound to be overlooked. If we reached the point where we are discussing what to do with Cute Witch's examples (that have nothing to do with Magical Girl), then I think we're going too off-track. That needs to be its own thread.
Edited by BlackMage43 on Aug 1st 2023 at 8:13:32 AM
Planeswalker
The Laconic for Cute Witch also has nothing to do with magical girls. If anything, I'd support splitting any magical girls from Cute Witch into Magical Girl Classic and keeping Cute Witch for inversions of Wicked Witch that aren't Hot Witch.
Edited by PhiSat on Aug 1st 2023 at 9:23:23 AM
Oissu!
Idk how many times it has to be said, but laconics are notoriously incorrect and the cause of misuse. You never judge a trope by its laconic, you judge it by its description. And Cute Witch's description says "this is the original Magical Girl archetype."
We ignored The Dark Chick while discussing The Chick because no one was trying to keep The Chick which already was a duplicate for The Heart. Not a single person prior to the crowner wanted to keep it and the crowner was either merge or disambig, i.e. kill the trope in some way. I acknowledged that if we go the disambig or "don't change, just clean up" route we don't technically have to deal with Magical Girl + Cute Witch right now.
But people have discussed keeping Dark Magical Girl / tweaking its definition, which makes Magical Girl and yes, Cute Witch, now relevant. So in the case that we do go that route, we need to know what we're likely getting ourselves into. That's why I spent the time doing wick checks for both. We don't have to go that route right now if the crowner decides otherwise, but that's the reality of the situation.
And you keep saying Cute Witch has "nothing to do with Magical Girl" when that's just objectively not true. I don't even know what to do with that, tbh.
Edited by amathieu13 on Aug 1st 2023 at 12:12:27 PM
Yeah, Cute Witch seems to have been very clearly originally intended as a trope for proto-Magical Girls/"Magical Girl Classic", and then just given an incredibly generic name for... some reason. Maybe part of the backlash against Japanese-named tropes (and TBF I'm not suggesting a rename in that direction), given the era.
Edited by nrjxll on Aug 1st 2023 at 11:20:04 AM
Usagi's done something stupid again (she/her)
If you go back far enough om the wayback machine the first version of this page shows it was intended to be the classic magical girl:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060504025608/https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CuteWitch
I think I was around back then and vaguely recall having input on it's development but that could be my memory playing tricks on me.
So I can't think of anything right now... meh.
Descriptions can also be just as bad as a laconic, we shouldn't take them as holy scripture either. We have to judge a trope by everything its description, name, laconic, examples, etc. We're an unprofessional site, our pages are often messy.
I meant that the wick check you did only had two "Classical Magical Girl" examples (and the Sugar Sugar Rune one is a ZCE), so whatever its original intentions were, Cute Witch isn't being used as a "Magical Girl" adjacent-trope.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Well... No, that's not how it works. Sure, if the description itself is inconsistent or hard to parse you can turn to other avenues to try and understand the definition, but in most cases we're meant to take the description as the definition and anything that contradicts it is wrong. This is how we determine what counts as misuse and the like to begin with — we have to take the description and only the description because its entire job is to describe the trope.
Honestly, how would you even be able to argue that a trope description is "wrong" unless it's somehow self-contradictory? Every other form of misuse must be compared to the description, so how would you even prove that it's the description that's wrong?
I've been lurking here for a bit, not sure what the best course of action is though, I don't watch Magical Girl stuff so this is a bit out of my wheelhouse.
Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 1st 2023 at 1:49:44 PM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
If a description isn’t clear and makes no sense, and it’s affecting the examples, it itself is a possible TRS candidate - “Unclear Description” threads cover those.
TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
Planeswalker
While we haven't done a wick check, I'd hazard a guess the vast majority of the Cute Witch examples have nothing to do with Classic Magical Girls. I perused the non-anime and manga examples and most were just witches with no transforming Magical Girl element.
Oissu!
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Let me clarify: Obviously descriptions can easily be misleading or unclear, but that's different from them being flat out "incorrect".
This is probably a derail, but since the point was brought up I needed to say something because it's a take that doesn't really hold up to any precedent of how we handle TRS threads and determining misuse. Amathieu is correct that as written Cute Witch is a magical girl trope; the examples are thus complete misuse; the other way around (examples and laconic taking precedent) has never been how we determine these things.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
I mean, you partly answered it, being self-contradictory is a big one. But they can also not match off-site use, have weird stipulations, have unnecessary limitations, be too broad or just be poorly written. We have "Unclear Description" in the TRS list of reasons, after all. Our standards for trope descriptions were very low for years.
Edited by BlackMage43 on Aug 1st 2023 at 11:13:13 AM
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
A wick check was done though?
I just clarified my thoughts before you posted; in short though there's a major difference between "incorrect trope definition" and "an unclear definition"; unclear definitions make it impossible to understand what the trope is even about and that is what that category covers. What you're describing, aside from not matching off-site usage, is a lack of clarity, not a lack of accuracy. (And yes, it is "unclear definition" and not "description" now since most description-specific issues do not need TRS if they can be fixed without changing the trope's definition in the process. This goes back to how the description is what we go on to determine meaning, regardless of anything else.)
Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 1st 2023 at 2:17:52 PM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Planeswalker
With an only 5% correct use rate we usually move the correct examples to a clearer name and keep the trope as the misused version (provided those misuses are being used in a standard way). We did that with The Dragon as most people thought it meant Number Two of the Big Bad and it was very, very rarely ever used as the Campbellian penultimate threat it was originally conceived as.
Edited by PhiSat on Aug 1st 2023 at 12:31:38 PM
Oissu!
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
I'd hold off on using The Dragon as proof of anything, it's slated to come back to the TRS (on the queue now if you're curious).
Cute Witch is very much being misused but is it being misused in a way that we can turn it into something more meaningful? "Cute witch" in and of itself doesn't mean a whole lot.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Planeswalker
It's a subversion of Wicked Witch and Witch Classic (though Witch Classic seems to have turned into a supertrope for all witches, not just classic ugly old hags with cauldrons and brooms).
Edited by PhiSat on Aug 1st 2023 at 12:34:20 PM
Oissu!
That's if what is left is tropeworthy. And discussing that was the entire convo of the last half page starting from here.
I'm not saying a decision was made (though I have been pretty upfront that if what we're planning to make Cute Witch into is "a witch that's cute", I don't think that's tropeworthy), but I was addressing BlackMage who was trying to claim that Cute Witch should be left out of the current convo entirely while we deal with Dark Magical Girl and Magical Girl, which makes 0 sense.
If we're doing the Magical Girl split into Magical Girl Genre and Magical Girl Classic idea that was discussed, at minimum, Cute Witch would have to be redefined and cleaned.
Edited by amathieu13 on Aug 1st 2023 at 2:41:08 PM
Edited by amathieu13 on Aug 1st 2023 at 5:25:27 AM