I dunno if anyone is reading this, but here goes:
The page description appears to define a Dead Unicorn Trope as one that has rarely if ever been played straight. It states, "Do not add examples just because they were never Truth in Television; they might still have been used seriously as tropes."
Under the Tropes folder, there are currently 28 bullet points. At least the following examples fail to explain how they meet the page's definition of a Dead Unicorn Trope:
The Aggressive Drug Dealer
Anal Probing
The Bankruptcy Barrel
Burn the Witch!
Droit du Seigneur
Horny Vikings
The Iron Maiden
Both of the parts under the Ninja bullet point.
Tinfoil Hat
Voodoo Doll
How about I give it a month and then start cutting them from the page and maybe pasting them over here in case someone wants to rewrite them in the future?
Edited by HazelMcCallister Note to all: I don't participate in the forums here unless something much more important than TV Tropes content is at stake.
Okay, here we go:
- The Aggressive Drug Dealer: Actual drug dealers don't go up to random kids, or teens, or adults, and offer them drugs (or pressure them into trying them), or slip them drugs in the guise of "candy". First, that's just asking to get caught. Second, it would be impractical for them to just give away their product for free. They usually just rely on word of mouth. Most people who get into drugs do so not through strangers, but through friends, family, or even doctors. Nor do drug dealers loiter around Pay Phones, waiting for "customers" to call them; that just generates suspicion. Instead, they use Burner Phones, or apps that generate fake numbers, in order to stay Beneath Notice.
- Likewise, Anal Probing is not actually a preoccupation in Real Life UFO abduction communities. The trope derives from Whitley Streiber's description of a recovered memory of an anal probing in his first nonfiction UFO book, Communion, whereupon it took a life of its own. UFOlogists are much more interested in the concept of aliens fiddling with actually important human functions, including the reproductive organs (and hence things like genetic engineering). The idea of a rear-end fixation is probably from the media having one organ in particular on their minds. Some believe the focus on the rear-end was meant to take the edge off what would otherwise be a pretty scary concept — the idea of an advanced alien intelligence basically being a Nazi doctor.
- The Bankruptcy Barrel was indeed a historical artifact, but people didn't wear it because they were poor — it was a punishment for public drunkenness and other similar disorderly conduct offenses.
- Burn the Witch!: A downplayed example, as while it's an indisputable fact that numerous people throughout history were killed for being "witches", actually killing them by burning was a lot more rare than people think (in the most common example, the Salem Witch Trials, all 19 "witches" were hanged except for one who was crushed to death with stones). This may in part be due to people conflating burning heretics with killing witches, as they are often taught about around the same time in schools.
- Droit du Seigneur: It's unclear whether anybody ever actually practiced this in Real Life. That is to say, there were certainly nobles who took advantage of their subjects, including to satisfy their lust, but codifying these acts as "a lordly right" is a guaranteed way to draw people's ire and quite possibly invoke a rebellion. However, accusing people of practicing it goes all the way back to The Epic of Gilgamesh. Basically, it seems to have never been an actual thing that happened so much as it was a go-to horror story to tell people when you wanted to turn them against a particular rich person you disliked.
- Horny Vikings: Vikings in Real Life never wore horned helmets for combat; these would be impractical or even fatal. Ceremonial helmets with horns were used at occasions by Old Norse and in other cultures. Drinking horns and other artifacts made of animal horns were in common use. The horned helmet was popularised in 19th century depictions of Vikings.
- The Iron Maiden did not actually exist as a torture device during the Middle Ages; it was in fact a later invention by museum curators, which looked impressive enough that they started to appear in fictional works.
- Ninja tropes tend to be like this:
- The stereotypical all-black ninja-gi associated with the ninja warrior didn't exist in real life. This outfit is actually the uniform of the kuroko, or stagehands in Kabuki theater, so that they could manipulate the scenery in plain view but be easily ignored by the audience. In real life, a ninja was basically a spy who would blend in seamlessly with the environment (e.g. by dressing as a merchant or a farmer) so no one would find him a threat — until he suddenly killed you and ran away. Kabuki theater, when showing a ninja assassination, would depict this by having a stagehand doing the killing, shocking the audience by having someone they had taught themselves to ignore suddenly interacting with the characters (and also conveniently saving on costumes). It thus worked similarly to The Butler Did It; it's a good illustration of how ninjas work in the story, but not how they actually behave. A ninja who dressed in all black would ironically [[Highly-Visible Ninja stick out like a (Even when ninjas suited up for nightly espionage, they certainly wouldn't go for black. While black might be a fine choice for ninjas in a modern setting, medieval ninjas would dress in navy blue, which would blend in much better with a starlit sky.)
- The shuriken, or Ninja throwing star, is often depicted as a killing weapon in "Ninjer" movies from The '80s. In Real Life, ninja used them as a throwaway weapon of distraction. Even when they did throw them directly at their enemies, they weren't meant to cause damage on their own, but distract the opponent for a key second and allow the ninja to strike. They also weren't usually throwing stars, but more often just plain metal spikes.
- Kunai are usually depicted as thrown daggers that impact with deadly power. They were actually a multitool, often used as a small shovel. They could be used for combat, but a ninja would never voluntarily engage in combat except against a single target.
- The trope of an honorable ninja who defeats technologically superior opponents through the Old Ways is plain old unrealistic. Ninjas weaponized anything, from coins to garden tools, and, though renaissance guns might have been large and unwieldy, but the ninjas would be foolish to discount such a powerful weapon.
- The ninjatao or shinobigatana is frequently depicted as the chosen blade of the ninja. Modern day ninja exponents such as Masaki Hastumi and Stephen Hayes popularized the weapon, and it also frequently appears in ninja movies. However, although there is no historical evidence of this weapon as a specialized ninja sword, it does appear to be derived from the wakizashi and chokuto. More likely, ninja would use whatever style blades that they could acquire. The ninjatao seems to date no earlier than the 20th century and this was after the ninja clans dissolved.
- Tinfoil Hat: How many actual conspiracy theorists do you know of in real life who wear these? Probably even fewer than the number of conspiracy theorists in fiction who don't wear them.
- Voodoo Doll: The "Voodoo Dolls" of popular culture are actually taken from the western folk magic practice of Poppets, using dolls as stand-ins when hexing someone. In Real Life Vodun, the dolls are used for healing.
When I originally added Anal Probing to this list, it read like this:
This trope is rarely, if ever, taken seriously in fiction, and even when it's supposed to be seen as something truly horrible and undesirable, there's usually enough room to interpret the trope's use as Comedic Sociopathy. Real Life UFO abduction communities, which would seem like the most likely place to hear straight-forward examples, don't even discuss probing as something that exclusively involves the rectal cavity (if they do at all).
I don't know where this crap that had to be pulled from the page came from, but it's certainly far off-topic.
Does this really qualify?
- As personal remote control drones became cheaper, easier to fly, and gained increased range in the late 2000s/early 2010s, significant concerns were raised that they would be used for spying and peeping. Sitcoms made it seem like the skies would be inundated with drones (for example, this was explored in an episode of South Park, a B-plot in an episode of Community, and a background joke in the 20 Minutes into the Future final season of Parks and Recreation) while more serious media examined the ethics around these activities. Ultimately, genuine issues were rare while personal drones themselves have since become mainstream enough to no longer be controversial. As a number of jurisdictions ease restrictions around delivery drones early in The New '20s, this idea has found a small amount of new life with the focus shifting to the potential dangers caused by both more drones in the sky and them landing near private residences.
This is like saying nuclear war is a DUT because while there were many genuine concerns of World War III (and is commonly shown in fiction), it, like the floods of drones in the sky in the aforementioned example, didn't happen.
Or does nuclear war also qualify as a DUT?
I noticed someone re-added this part even though it was deleted (with the deleter saying why in discussion.)
- How We Got Here: A specific variation of this trope, namely the "*record scratch* *freeze-frame*" meme and an opening line something to the effect of "Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I got in this situation." While a common trope as many movies open in media res, many have struggled trying to figure out which specific movies open with the 'record scratch' variant. Cursory research suggests it may have cropped up in the occasional Made-for-TV Movie on BET; further investigation is merited. Commonly-cited examples of this trope in action are usually The Emperor's New Groove or Deadpool (2016).
Should I just delete it again or what? Also I am rather confused by the ending: is he saying the two films cited (The Emperor's New Groove and Deadpool (2016).) Don't start with the record scratch variant or that they do? (I've never seen either.) And if they do start with it, wouldn't that mean it isn't an example of a Dead Unicorn Trope.
Edited by Bootlebat
Are downplayed examples of this suitable? For example, the Burn the Witch! trope. While it did really happen, as the main page says in the real life section, it was less common than most people think (in the most well known example, the Salem Witch Trials, all of the "witches" were hanged except one guy, and nobody was burned.)
Hide / Show Replies
It is likely a conflation of witch trials (which were mostly in Protestant communities) and the practice of burning heretics, which was more a Catholic practice.
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
Another one I'm thinking about adding but want to verify first: did people ever really think masturbation could make you grow hair on your palms? I know people in the 19th century thought it could cause a lot of weird health problems but I have only ever heard the "hair on palms" thing said facetiously.
I have a possible Real Life example but want to ask around more before adding it in case I am wrong: Most of us have heard cases of returning Vietnam Veterans getting animal blood/shit/other gross stuff thrown on them, but are there any confirmed cases on this? I remember a long time ago (circa 2003) there was a discussion on Snopes.com about this very subject and while some people told personal stories of being shunned by friends or family members or the like after returning from Vietnam I don't remember anyone saying "ya, I got pig blood thrown in my face at the airport" or anything along those lines. But of course just one thread doesn't constitute proof either way so I thought I'd ask here.
Tyrannoraptoran Reptiliomorph
As others have said, this page could use some cleanup. It's supposed to be about tropes that were never as commonly played straight as people thought they were, but isn't clear on whether it's specifically requires the supposed trope to be commonly parodied or not. Also, some of the tropes simply weren't Truth in Television but are commonly played straight in fiction (Poverty Barrel, Chalk Outline, Droit du Seigneur, the Ninja entries, Voodoo Doll, the "rainbow party" entry, etc.) and others seem more like Lost in Imitation and/or Newer Than They Think than this trope (like the fairy tale entries - the Fairy Godmother wasn't in the original fairy tales, but is in the later versions most people today are familiar with (and said versions' adaptations, parodies, etc.). Some examples like The Butler Did It appear to be valid, but do they have to be "never played straight" or simply "not as often played straight as people think"?
Edited by Lymantria Join the Five-Man Band cleanup project!
I think maybe Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy should be here as in the trope name the storm troopers can't hit the heroes (mainly due to Plot Armor) but usually have no trouble shooting other people.
Hide / Show Replies
Not really, the trope is still real, you're just saying the trope namer is just not as accurate as an example. Which I disagree with, mind you; this trope applying due to Plot Armor is still the trope applying.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Removed:
- How We Got Here: This trope is related to the "*record scratch* *freeze-frame*" meme which popularly mocks many movies which open with said sound effects, and an opening line something to the effect of "Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I got in this situation." While a common trope as many movies open in media res, many have struggled trying to figure out which specific movies open with the 'record scratch' variant. Cursory research suggests it may have cropped up in the occasional Made-for-TV Movie on BET; further investigation is merited. Commonly-cited examples of this trope in action are usually The Emperor's New Groove or Deadpool (2016).
This seems to be talking about a very specific version of the trope, not the trope itself, which is quite common and not a dead unicorn trope.
Does this refer to a "dead horse" trope that was never really a trope in fiction, or a "dead horse" trope based on something that was never really "truth in television"?
I had assumed it was the former, but there are many examples that suggest the latter. E.g. the ninja example, which says black ninja suits are a Dead Unicorn Trope because ninjas never really wore them, despite the fact that the "black ninja suits" trope has been and still is used reasonably seriously.
Hide / Show Replies
I came over here to ask the exact same thing. The trope text specifically mentions "Do not add examples just because they were never Truth in Television", then, two lines down, the first example we see is The Aggressive Drug Dealer, which explains that real drug dealers don't push their stuff on kids. That's great and all, but the trope itself isn't about it being realistic, it's about how (and why) the exaggerated character exists.
Likewise, Aliens Steal Cattle, Anal Probe, Brain Food, Chalk Outline, Droit du Seigneur, Hockey Mask and Chainsaw, Tinfoil Hat, Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000 and Voodoo Dolls are all presented as research failures/agenda pushing, as opposed to being just tropes. I think the whole page could use an overhaul.
Multiverse Madness
Would Matress Tag Gag be a dead unicorn trope? I don't remember anyone ever playing that trope straight for a good long while, if I ever saw it played straight.
The fantasy RPG videos that play in my head are amazing.
Someone is once again trying to claim that blondes are more likely to become the Final Girl in slasher movies, trying to contradict what Joss Whedon says about Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Slashers Prefer Blondes exists for a reason.
Would the idea that St. Peter is the gate keeper of heaven, standing in front of heaven with a golden podium and a line of souls to be judged count? I've seen many things that make jokes about that, but never read of anything serious on the subject. For that matter, most things having to do with fluffy cloud heaven- archetype afterlives are the same way. It's something you see joked about, but I've never seen any actual litirature about it.
Hide / Show Replies
In Calvino's Italian Folktales, he collected two cycles of humorous stories about St. Peter, and in at least some of them, Peter is shown in the role of gatekeeper to heaven.
Also, I'm not really sure about serious treatments of this with St. Peter, but there are religious traditions that believed in a figure who would figuratively (and sometimes literally) weigh the soul and determine if someone was bound for heaven or hell (or the equivalent thereof). IIRC, Thoth did this in the Ancient Egyptian religion, and in some Jewish folktales, there's a recording and/or accusing angel taking that role (the latter of which is Satan *).
Edited by Jordan Hodor
Cleaning up indexing: there are some problems with this page and similar pages listing tropes with commentary. I have cleaned up Dead Horse Tropes because works were making their way into the index and messing that up. I am going to try and rearrange some examples to make sure the trope they are referencing comes first in the order when the index code sorts the page into the relevant index. Does anyone object? Does anyone object to a note not to mess up the index being inserted into the explanation?
For instance, this example does not have a specific trope listed. Is it all right to cut it?
- Myth Busters, of all things, made reference to a Dead Unicorn Trope when tackling the (busted) myth that steel-toed boots could actually sever toes instead of protecting them. Adam commented about "samurai movies" where the tip of someone's boot would be cut off, except the toes are intact right behind where the tip was severed. This is actually a somewhat common comedy trope, but its appearance in a "samurai movie" is highly dubious at best (what with the characters wearing sandals and all).
- Mythbusters does this a lot, actually, especially in recent seasons. Since almost all the more well-known myths have been tested over the course of the show's eight seasons, the show has used much more obscure ones to keep things going.
- Since firing their folklorist, the show has been more about finding out what is possible than setting the record straight.
It could also do with a rewrite to cut out the extra bullet points.
Also: is this really a trope?
- Speaking of Samurai, Japanese armor was never made of lacquered wood despite many claims to the contrary—it was usually various types of leather, iron, and eventually steel armor, with plenty of silk cording to tie it together.
And so on. This article needs a rewrite to cut out spurious examples and get back to what actually is a Dead Unicorn trope. I don't want to do it without help/permission, but it's difficult to see what a DUT really is from all the stuff on this page.
Edited by Crowqueen
I cut this for now. At the moment, it just seems overly long and defensive, while providing no examples of the 'other stereotypes' it's referring to. Still, maybe it could be cleared up a bit.
- Not to mention numerous other stereotypes about JRPGs that are largely based on exaggerations or mischaracterizations of Final Fantasy (And mostly VII and VIII at that)... ignoring not only the fact that many of these weren't actually true of Final Fantasy, but that it's not actually a particularly typical representative of the genre. To what degree there is a typical representative of the genre — it's actually very diverse, especially when you take into account all the ones that never came to the US because they were "Too weird" — Dragon Quest would have to be it, as it has done much less to stray from the initial conventions than most of its offspring.
Teutonic Tomboy T-Girl
Wondering about the bit regarding the "Guy Smiley" game show host stereotype. I wonder, was this type more prevalent in Britain in the '60s and '70s? It just occurs to me that Monty Python used this type of character a lot (usually played by Michael Palin), as does Evil in Time Bandits, when luring the heroes with The Most Fabulous Object In the World.
Jet-a-Reeno!
Removed brain-eating zombies. The problem with calling it a Dead Horse Trope is twofold: Basically, a Dead Horse Trope is a trope that never existed, which people believe did. But...
First, it's very real and very common, and was present in what serves as the Trope Maker for most common pop-culture zombie depictions. Removing it from later depictions to make them more 'serious' would be a Dead Horse Trope, not a Dead Unicorn Trope.
But second, the way it's stated here implies that there are people who believe that 'eating brains' has always been a universal part of all zombies — the implication of calling it a Dead Unicorn Trope is that brain-eating zombies are twisted and subverted to make fun of this hypothetical body of 'serious' zombie works. That's silly. Brain-eating zombies are funny in and of themselves; there's no assumption that, say, actual Voodoo zombies ate brains. It's not a Dead Unicorn Trope, it's a common Shout-Out to Night Of The Living Dead and the movies that came after it — it's a matter of Small Reference Pools, where the pop-culture zombie-invasion zombies that Night Of The Living Dead invented is its own self-referential genre.
Hide / Show Replies
Except that it wasn't in Night of the Living Dead. It was in Return of the Living Dead, from the 80s, long after the Zombie Movie was well-established with no brain-eating in sight — and Return of the Living Dead was definitely a more comedic take on the Zombie Movie than previous efforts.
In other words, you've just single-handedly proved it actually is a Dead Unicorn Trope with your discussion of why you thought it wasn't — it was never widely used as a serious trope, but a lot of people think it was common in movies where it doesn't actually occur due to its being persistently parodied and referenced.
Readding
Edited by Nezumi "That's ridiculous. What would a walrus do with a magic bag?" Pokeamida
There are indeed serious models for the Captain Space, Defender of Earth tropes. Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter is probably the best known; Tom Swift may also qualify. C.L. Moore's Northwest Smith and Leigh Brackett's Eric John Stark.
People are more familiar with the parodies than the originals, because the originals mostly appeared in print in books that are now forgotten (mostly because they were pretty terrible). But the originals existed.
{{Planescape}} Hijack
This page needs a bit less pedantry, among other things. I'm cleaning it up a little. To start with: this seems like it really doesn't fit here, more like Common Knowledge (which I suppose this is a subtrope of).
- Christopher Columbus did not set sail to prove the Earth is round. A Greek scholar named Eratosthenes calculated the circumference in 330 BC. The general idea that it was round may've dated to even earlier. Europeans did not believe the Earth was flat and this had nothing to do with Columbus's explorations. The controversy was that Columbus believed the Earth to be significantly smaller than it actually is, making a westward sea voyage to Japan from Europe practical and potentially very profitable if a route could have been found. The idea that Europeans needed to be convinced the Earth isn't flat is effectively a real life Retcon created by Washington Irving in his novel The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828).
- Along the same vein, in arguments about religion (and especially religion vs. science) religious people will often be accused of "believing the Earth is flat." As noted above, the belief in a round Earth pre-dates Christianity and was never opposed by the Church. Presumably people are actually thinking of heliocentrism.
- This was probably Washington Irving's intent in creating the myth in the first place. The idea was to mock the pre-Enlightenment European establishments (royalty, church, etc.) by claiming they were so foolish and hidebound that they believed something as absurd as the idea that the Earth was flat, when any educated person — or anyone who'd travelled far enough from home to see it sink below the horizon — could tell that it wasn't. Irving's mythologized Columbus was a symbol of American Enlightenment thinking triumphing over the Old Ways.
- And there are some who believe that Columbus actually knew or suspected that there was another continent out there waiting to be (re)discovered.
- Though that is itself a Dead Unicorn Trope. It's generally accepted that Columbus was using an erroneous, too-small estimate of the Earth's size, whereas the establishment he was defying actually had the right estimate. Thus, he thought the world was small enough that he could reach China in a reasonable amount of time by sailing west. Until the day he died, he believed he'd actually reached the East Indies; it was only later that the Americas were recognized as new continents (which is why they're named for Amerigo Vespucci instead of Columbus).
- Along the same vein, in arguments about religion (and especially religion vs. science) religious people will often be accused of "believing the Earth is flat." As noted above, the belief in a round Earth pre-dates Christianity and was never opposed by the Church. Presumably people are actually thinking of heliocentrism.
There are a few other Square Peg Round Trope type examples, so I'll try to get rid of them.
(Also, the Film Noir example was rather taken apart by its bullets.)
Edited by Haven Productivity is for people without internet connections. -Count Dorku Hide / Show Replies
I have absolutely no idea what the Generation X example is supposed to say. It might be a good point, but it definitely needs clarification. Does anybody want to give it a shot?
Hide / Show Replies
Uh, of course it means... yeah, I have no idea. I'm thinking it MAYBE makes sense if you assume "60s" in the first sentence is a typo for "80s," but even then....
I'd summarize the point, such as it is, as something like "Lots of people talked about using the term 'Generation X', but they didn't really use the term except in such low-profile venues as presidential campaigns and national anti-drug efforts. So the term was a Dead Horse Trope except some idiots started using the term nobody had ever used AGAIN in the '90s. Morons."
Alternative interpretation is that it's talking about some trope ABOUT Gen X which the author doesn't actually specify, like perhaps Generation X Are All Slackers.
Jet-a-Reeno!
Totally agreeing here. Cutting it until someone can come up with a more coherent version:
- The stereotype in the mid-60's of Generation X / Gen X was actually a non-truism, the term was coined in the late 1960's by a media group to drum up publicity for the changing of old to new hands of government and the future of the children in America but never once was used in anyway aside from mentioned in ad campaigns for presidents running in an election and off-putting messages by D.A.R.E. and anti-drug activists in the late 1980's. What makes it a Dead Unicorn Trope is that it was re-invoked in the mid 1990's trying to say that children of the new millennium had nothing to do which is actually untrue...after all plenty of things have happened since 2000.
It's super effective.
- The notion that the captain always goes down with his ship is, in Western media, usually a distortion of how the captain of a sinking ship, both in fiction and in real life, would sometimes make a Heroic Sacrifice when the ship was about to sink, and allow the rest of the crew and passengers to board the lifeboats ahead of him.
- In a number of cultures, particularly in a military context, a captain was considered to be his ship, and must share its fate. If the ship went down, it was the captain's duty to go with it. The Imperial Japanese Navy elevated this to nearly a requirement. In contrast both the RN and USN considered it almost a dereliction of duty to go down with the ship; Captains have much training and experience that is hard to replace!
- Having said that, the loss of a ship with its cargo and the lives of passengers was a fatal blow to any Captain's reputation. Although in modern times such an event could be investigated and the Captain possibly exonerated, previously there was no such thing and he would always be held responsible - even if he could afford the massively-inflated insurance needed to do so, no one would be willing to trust him with another ship. His reputation and career in tatters, a Captain in such a position might consider going down with his ship rather than face the humiliation of failure and the loss of his livelihood.
- It is true that a captain is not particularly expected to go down with the ship when it sinks, but any captain that is seen to "abandon ship" before passengers or anyone else is likely to lose his livelihood since he IS expected to be the last one off. Since the Captain is in charge of the ship, it is considered his responsibility to lead everyone else to safety and keep them calm. The Captain in these cases
found out what happens when the Captain doesn't conform to expectations.
- Joseph Conrad's uber-depressing short story The End of the Tether was about a Captain who went down with his ship, but that was entirely for the life insurance.
Yeah. Doesn't sound like it fits. Anyone able to clean this up so it does?
Hide / Show Replies
Well, there's now a Going Down with the Ship trope for further discussion of this. But all of the above paragraphs are interesting perspectives on the trope and how it may or may not be used seriously.
Hello. I'd just like to call attention to what Kombucha and Pisthetairos said in 2017 and last year respectively. This page still seems unable to keep in mind what it's supposed to be about.
Note to all: I don't participate in the forums here unless something much more important than TV Tropes content is at stake. Hide / Show Replies