Discussion Main / Irony

The laconic says "An outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected." Yet the main page says if something is unexpected, it's not necessarily irony.

How ironic!

Does anyone object if I move the examples currently under "situational" into the main examples (why is it the only category with a separate example list?), put the all caps example categories into folders in their proper places among the other folders (so that there's not essentially three examples lists: the situation one, the all caps one, and the folder one), and do a general natter clean-up?

At what point does the word "irony" not come to also mean the broader notions such as those in the Morissette song? Language constantly changes and far more words than in the Cracked article have had their meanings change and even reversed. Consider https://theculturetrip.com/europe/articles/10-english-words-that-have-completely-changed-meaning

Personally, I've always found the pervasive use of "literally" to mean "figuratively" far more annoying (because it's explicitly wrong vs an expansion of a word) but at some point you have to give up and accept it means that too.

Also consider words like "s***" and "f***" which have universally come to mean practically everything.

Is there an existing trope for a kind of irony where a character says something, and it turns out to be "more true than you know"—because the statement becomes true in some unusual, perhaps exaggerated way, rather than in the way or sense in which the character originally thought it would be true?

The current definition given is just VERBAL irony. In my mind, SITUATIONAL irony is the most common form of irony. In verbal irony, the same words have opposite meanings. In situational irony, the ACTUAL outcome of an action is the opposite of the INTENDED effect. This is typified by Oedipus, which is already mentioned in the description... Imma gonna add this, and if anyone doesn't like it, they can improve it...

Should we do something about the beginning of the article, because "the intended meaning is an inversion of the plain meaning" doesn't really cover all of irony or explain the concept well, (for example, what the hell does a fire truck on fire have to do with plain meanings?) and it's also condescending, which is not a great combination. It's also deeply ironic that the it tries to explains irony in ten words, and then launches into an almost 1700 word description of the finer points.

Why are we providing examples of this? Irony is what makes stories into stories. Pretty much every novel, joke, comic, TV episode; the all have Irony. That's what make them worth telling. It would be easier to list the things that DON'T contain irony, like most poems or video games like pong.

I dunno if this counts as irony, but a Vocaloid producer, famous for his horror songs, apparently likes movies, cute things, cool people, and toys and dislike bitter things, worms, and scary things. I am confused by how to use Irony because everyone uses wrong so much. Is this Irony or just something really weird?

So, if someone who's been on the receiving end of stalking through the use of Time Travel, and later, they have to recruit someone they have never met before, and essentially gives them The Call in a way that comes off as more than a little stalker-ish*

Does it count when someone uses the existence of a TV Tropes page for marketing purposes, to argue that a work is notable?

Example

Should the real life irony on Trump’s impeachment still be up as it never got any major traction?

Under the Live Action TV tab under Examples, a line is quoted from The King of Queens.

In the commentary: "The silly thing about this argument is that the word "ironic" actually does mean "made entirely of iron.""

This does not seem to be correct on two points: 1) the silly thing about the line is that 'made entirely of iron' makes no sense in the context of a story (a category mistake, if you will) and 2) the word 'ironic' does not mean 'made entirely of iron.' (Ferrus is the word)

Removed these because of factual issues:

• Code Geass
  • Three-quarters through season 1 when Suzaku is going to sacrifice himself to hold Lelouch/Zero in place for a massive missile strike, Lelouch whips out his Geass and commands Suzaku to 'live' thereby making a Heroic Sacrifice impossible. Exactly one season later in R2, while fighting (and losing to) Kallen the Geass activates causing Suzaku to fire the FLEIJA warhead, destroying most of Tokyo and supposedly killing Nunnally. ((Lelouch is aware of Suzaku's death wish at that point, and gives the order with that awareness. The order wasn't intended to stop the missiles, and the missiles were only aimed at them. It would be ironic if it caused Suzaku to kill himself in the FLEIJA, right after he finally got over his death wish, but that's not what happened)).
  • There are many indications that free will is the only thing Lelouch holds for inviolable. The deep irony is that his unique Geass power is able to turn any person into a will-less puppet for a while, and his forced reliance on it ends up gradually corrupting all the ideals that he started out with. (( What indications? Geass powers are based on the person's dearest wish... I know there's no such thing as notability here, but at the same time, how undeveloped a theory can you really base an example on? ))

I hid a few others that didn't look like irony. And Suzaku didn't start a war by killing his father, as one example said - if anything, he helped the war end sooner (e.g. with vanquished survivors as opposed to no survivors, which is what his father wanted).

I'm removing the following unless somebody can explain something I'm missing.

• In X-Men: The Last Stand, the Juggernaut ending up being a bitch of someone he directly made an emphasis on.

It's poorly worded in the first place, and if you didn't know the meme you wouldn't know what it is saying. But if I'm reading it right, it's saying that it's ironic that Shadow Cat made Juggernaut her bitch after he called her a bitch. First of all, he didn't actually call her a bitch (the meme was referenced, but he just said "I'm the Juggernaut" without the word "bitch" at the end). More importantly though, being beaten by somebody you insulted is not irony, especially not because of some clever word choice that wasn't ever actually used in the movie.

Does Michelle Fairley's casting in Resurrection count as ironic, considering how everyone expected he largest prior role to turn out yet it didn't?

• The first appearance of Captain America featured him punching out Hitler. Cap's secret identity, Steve Rogers, has blond hair, blue eyes, and after taking the Super Serum is a specimen that anyone would be happy to call Übermensch.
  • The origin of the Super Soldier Serum underwent some retconning in the 90s, which added an extra layer of irony: the scientist working on the serum was in fact a Nazi agent, using American resources to perfect the serum, and he was killed by a different spy who wasn't in on the charade. So a Nazi scientist actually created the ubermensch, who spent his career kicking fascist ass up and down the globe.

I'm sorry, but...I could just think of someone saying [[{{Pokémon}} "We dreamed of creating the world's strongest]] Ubermensh...and we succeeded,"

Pulled an "arguably" example from the main page. If someone familiar with the series can confirm whether it belongs or not, that would be good.

• Dune Messiah is arguably a case of Tragic Irony combined with a character who knows what's going on. The introductions to the chapters reveal that Paul will die, soon, and the description of the book says the same. Paul himself realizes this partway through the book, and acts accordingly.

This article's been collecting some Natter that doesn't belong here. Someone added a conversational bullet point to the Metallurgic definition even though it was meant to be a joke. Rather than delete it, though, I just reworded it to get rid of the appearance of an Accuracy Attack.

And the other things:

** Actually, in the novels he seemed annoyed with the man more than anything, and most likely referring to the guy's abilities when compared to those of Mithril soldiers rather than Sousuke or himself. Gates was created specifically for the anime, so the originally un-named, un-developed character in the books may have been somewhat different?

This one (couldn't tell who added it) was in response to the Full Metal Panic example. As far as I could tell, this didn't provide anything to the table. If Gates is an anime-only character that had no name and no face time to speak of in the novels, why bother replying to the main example in an attempt to discredit it?

6th Aug '12 11:44:43 AM shawn_allen

Added line(s) 430 (click to see context) :

** Hate to nitpick this one, but Nixon wasn't impeached. Ok, he did resign before that could happen, but the only Presidents to be impeached were Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton.

Probably the most blatant Accuracy Attack of the bunch. Next time you see some factoid that's incorrect, shawn_allen, Repair Dont Respond.

I don't agree with all the deletions Tropers/Yora did. The edit reason was "Removed some cases of people who just changed their mind."

Below are the examples I think should be restored:

• In 1958 the then Minneapolis Lakers (now known as the Los Angeles Lakers) drafted Elgin Baylor, an acrobatic basketball prodigy with immense athleticism and scoring capabilities. For years Baylor served as the centerpiece and leader of the Laker squad, even when they finally moved to Los Angeles. Though Baylor carried the team valiantly, they never won a title. Eventually age and injuries forced him to retire at the start of the 1971-1972 season. The Lakers, starting with the first game after his retirement, would go on a 33-game winning streak—still an NBA record—during which they would bring Los Angeles it's first NBA championship title.
  
  This is a form of situational irony. The guy they got on the team in hopes of doing well has to retire due to injury. The expectation would be that they would do worse. Instead, they do much better than they had before.
• A certain cathedral in Quebec, Canada has a spring (outside) that is reported to heal the lame. There's even a wall of crutches inside, supposedly cast aside by those who no longer needed them. Around the side, you can go in the handicapped entrance.
  • That's not ironic at all. A spring that heals the lame would need a handicapped entrance. A handicapped exit, on the other hand...
    
    The natter (second bullet point) needs to go, but the example is ironic. A church with a spring outside the doors which can heal the lame wouldn't be expected to need a handicapped entrance.
• Drug addiction. You take the drug to escape an unpleasant reality. Then it destroys your life and you continue taking the drug to escape the even worse reality that was created because you used it.
  
  Expectation: An escape from problems. Actual result: More problems. Situation irony.