Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Make it gender neutral?
, started by RavenWilder on Apr 4th 2011 at 1:08:01 PM
How could Man face challenges other than Man vs. Man? How could Man win these challenges?
Can Society vs Nature or Nature vs Nature be types of conflict, too?
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It depends on man being either involved or not. I cannot imagine natute vs nature without man involved.
What about Man vs. Time? It often overlaps with other conflicts, as when a man struggles to do something in set time or before he/someone else ages; men, society, nature etc. oppose him, but sometimes it's just a man's struggle against his own limitations and such, but i don't think it qualifies as Man vs. Self.
Edited by 70.33.253.42
What about war stories? At first glance this is man vs man. But in many war stories the opponent is a faceless military machine. For that matter often the enemy and the characters side side count as two faceless opponents against which the characters struggle in different ways. Would that be closer to man vs society?
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"Male vs female" is just an example of 1, 2, 3, or 4, depending on the author's view about gender issues. "Vs. God/Fate" and "Vs. Unknown" are just supernaturalized versions of "Character vs. Nature" (or, not supernaturalized, depending, again, on the author's beliefs (if the author believes in those gods, then they haven't added anything supernatural).
Vs. Machine is also just "vs. society" (if the problem with the machine can be traced back to those who made it), or, counterintuitively, vs. nature, if it can't be traced back to a maker.
This list is more than half clutter.
The comment about "self-insert stories" (meaning Mary Sue) stories makes no sense unless you know to interpret self-insert as Mary Sue. It is entirely possible to make things ''very'' difficult for a self-insert.
Edited by lavendermintrose