Buffy's 'Help' doesn't qualify as the "Shaggy Dog" Story it's labelled as, as it has the moral "I guess sometimes you can't help."
The Laconic and parts of the description seem to suggest that this is a Video Game only trope, but the examples are from all over the place, the theme apparently being 'someone is rescued but gets killed anyway' rather than an example of Gameplay and Story Segregation. Should the laconic and the description be change to reflect the examples or the examples pruned to reflect the laconic and description?
Edited by Bryn Avatar source◊ Hide / Show Replies
The main article doesn't necessarily imply this is a video game trope, it just uses the Framing Device in terms of video game narrative instead of a traditional one like most introductory Framing Device trope paragraphs do. The laconic definition did imply too much, though, and I changed it.
On a related note, though, I don't think the name does us any favors in avoiding that confusion. It sounds like it's using "saved" in the sense of "saved game", not rescued. The word "saved" in general is much worse for this trope anyway, as that word has several more meanings than "rescued" does.
This trope is several months old and only has thirteen wiks. Would there be any objections if I renamed it to Not Quite Rescued Enough?
See you in the discussion pages.
Does Odin's villainous quest to assemble the fragments of Loki's mask only to helplessly watch as Atreus decides to snap it in half count for this in God of War Ragnarok?