Discussion Series / Bones

Can anybody think of a trope for Brennan's situational atheism?

Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, Voodoo, Candomble, etc. are all minority religions in America with eccentricities that intrigue her as an anthropologist - and draws her sympathy as a social pariah. Catholicism, on the other hand, shapes every facet of the society she grew up in - y'know, the one that repeatedly treats her as an unlovable freak even when it's trying to be nice to her.

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Informed Attractiveness does not mean "Well, I don't find Bones attractive" and is not a subjective trope. It's just a trope where the narrative (or other characters) point out a character is particularly attractive.

Edited by 216.99.32.44 Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

Could someone explain Writer on Board? Those really need context because I haven't the foggiest what they're referring to.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

I think Brennan's freak out during Family in the Feud about not being able to contact Max, thinking he disappeared with Christine would count as Adult Fear, but crappy lappy's being glitchy and I can't edit any pages. Anyone willing to help out?

A weird little kid who grew up into a weird little teenager.

Did Not Do The Research is not a trope. If someone wants to rework some of these into actual Artistic License Examples, I'll leave them here.

• Did Not Do The Research: Unavoidable; as they are constantly exploring odd topics, they'll get their research just plain wrong once in a while - and with six seasons and a hundred and twenty nine episodes, it was inevitable there'd be some screwups. From a purely scientific point of view, generally their information on physiology and osteology is correct, but they've ascertained things about diseases, illnesses and psychological premises that would make any first year medical student anywhere in the entire world wince and cringe at their inaccuracy.
  • In "Player Under Pressure," the victim, a college basketball star, has traces of an unnamed performance-enhancing drug in his system, just referred to as "steroids." There have only been two NBA players that have been suspended for using performance enhancing drugs (Rashard Lewis and OJ Mayo). Really, there would be very little benefit in taking them. Recreational drugs like marijuana and cocaine have seen exceedingly high peaks, but not performance-enhancing.
  • In "The X in the File," the cast makes several egregious errors about the geography of New Mexico. Most notably the assertion that any place reasonably near Roswell could be 2km from the Mexican Border, which is at least 150 miles from Roswell. On top of that the Estancia and Tularosa Basins are mentioned and discussed as being in Mexico rather than central and south-central New Mexico respectably.
  • Tropers living in DC will find things to nitpick in just about every episode. Starting with the first shot of the first episode — a plane landing at National Airport with a caption calling it Dulles.
  • Especially as it concerns weather. There are far too many scenes depicting snow and ice - including ice fishing. The DC-Metropolitan Area doesn't get a lot of snow, let alone the amount and kind of snow they depict. To put it plainly, the area is a reclaimed swamp - it's never cold enough for ice fishing.
  • In "Yanks in the U.K.," Brennan gets very basic information wrong such as the dates of the British Bronze Age. The material in question being firmly from the Iron Age and 1000 years or so out! As part of the plot hinged on this detail, one would have assumed the writers would have at least tried to get it correct.
  • The episode "Mayhem on a Cross." No, let's not elaborate. Everything in that episode was just plain wrong and offensive. All Metal fans are portrayed as either spineless wannabes or bloodthirsty monsters. It all goes downhill from there.
  • In "The Man In The Wall," Brennan brings up the fact due to "alpha male tendencies" rappers kill each other all the time, citing The Notorious BIG, Tupac, and Jam Master Jay as examples. Keep in mind, there is no evidence any of them were killed by other rappers, especially not in Jam Master Jay's case.
  • In the episode "A Night at the Bones Museum," the Bones team makes some wild statements about ancient Egypt. Among them, that there were no redheads in ancient Egypt. There is also some mention of how women weren't embalmed in order to discourage necrophilia. The entire Oxford History of Ancient Egypt neglects to mention any of that anywhere.*
    ^{Herodotus - and Herodotus alone - mentions a 'lapse of a few days' before embalming female mummies. It's hard to tell how accurate that claim really is, since it wasn't made by an Egyptian source.}
  • In "The Superhero In the Alley" Booth says that the group of LARPers they're investigating are the type to "burn the school down" and calls them "Columbine Nerds." As an FBI agent and former sniper, you'd think he'd be well aware that the Columbine shooters weren't social outcasts at all. It's also rather strange to hear him call the LARPers "nerds" when he made the distinction between 'geek' and 'nerd' five minutes previously in the episode.
  • Where to begin with "The Witch in the Wardrobe"? The pentagram is not an "ancient Wiccan symbol," as Sweets claims it is. Wicca is a relatively new religion, only being officially recognized in the 1950s. Bat bones are not an integral part of the Wiccan religion. The people executed at Salem for witchcraft were not buried in actual graves; they were pretty much dumped outside of the town without burial. Although the (fictional) coven in this episode may have its own rules, it's not unacceptable to use your given name rather than your magical name inside sacred space. Many Wiccans may not even have magical names.
  • "The Babe in the Bar": 1) something cooling is NOT ENDOTHERMIC, as it is releasing heat (exothermic), not absorbing it; 2) something transitioning from liquid to solid via lowering temperature is not an endothermic chemical reaction, it is a simple state change. Even with the often ridiculous science on the show, how did they mess this one up?
  • You'd think nerd-culture-savvy Sweets and the facebookaholic suspect in The "Body in the Bag" would prefer 2009's Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year "unfriend" to the much less common term "defriend" they insist on using.
  • A Berimbau is not a type of flute, but rather a percussive instrument.

"You want to see how a human dies? At ramming speed." - Emily Wong.

Just added a trivia section, mostly for "Hey's It's That Guy." I'm watching this on Netflix, and I keep seeing people (mostly guest stars) and saying exactly that.

The louder the bird, the more delicious the sandwich.

I'm looking for something related to Viewers Are Geniuses - Non-Viewers Are Morons? A repeated plot element is how the team has to "talk down" to normal people. Cam is basically the "Stop Having Fun" Guy - she chews out Hodgins on a regular basis for his impromptu tests - spam and artificial bone to determine circumstances of death(2x01 The Titan on the Tracks) make perfect sense to Hodgins and the viewer, and she says, "Defence lawyer hears 'Spam', he makes a joke, and the jury laughs, and everything we get from the Jeffersonian is framed as ‘goofy science’, you know, from a bunch of squints with no connection to the real world." Bones herself gets harangued for being smart while jurors are slack-jawed morons - she nearly loses an otherwise open-and-shut case because the opposing expert is chatty and handsome. "The jury likes Michael better then they like me, apparently that’s a problem. Are they stupid?" Goodman responds that, "Compared to you, yes they are stupid. However, compared to you most of the world is a little stupid."

It's like the producers are saying "Smart people watch BONES. Lots of stupid people don't. Here are some, aren't they soooo stupid?"

Edited by Kalaong

I'm removing this entry under Writer on Board: In season 3, one episode's plot keeps getting put on hold for the characters to extoll the virtues of organic, sustainable farming.

I just rewatched this episode, and the Booth and Bones do debate organic farming while investigating a murder of an organic farmer. They need something to discuss while driving and a little argument for relationship development, and Booth reasonably argues the disadvantages - "Who wants a $4 tomato!."

Also, the successful organic farmer in the story strong-arms other farmers to go organic whether they want to or not, which is highlighted as a character fault, and he's a philanderer. Finally, the killers are his daughter, and her seriously greenie boyfriend, and they dispose of the body in a organic compost heap.

Organic farmers really don't come out looking all that good from the episode.

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"The Sin in the Sisterhood" used a mysterious sounding song as background to the wrapping up of the investigation, complete with lyrics like "maybe there is no rhyme or reason". To New Zealand viewers, this was hilariously out of place, being instantly recognisable as Minuit's "Aotearoa", a song about New Zealand's cultural identity, history, unity or lack thereof, cultural cringe etc... or perhaps just a shameless attempt to jump on the tourism marketing money train, if you're of the cynical disposition. Even the music video is a collection of historic NZ footage and modern day holiday snaps of the country. Meanwhile, the cast are digging through an American turkey farm for the final piece of evidence, as the song is cut just short of "We are, a New Zealand".

Lyrical/soundtrack dissonance? Irony? Truth in television for the aforementioned cynics? Lost in translation of some sort? It's certainly something, I'm just not sure what.

The entry under 'You fail physics forever' is incoherent and does not clearly reference the episode in question (the Twisted Bones in the Melted Truck.) In this episode a scientific explanation is given for the melted bones. It is not really a failure on Brennan's part that she could not have predicted the behaviour of bones under the very obscure circumstances which arose in the episode, especially since she is an anthropologist and not a chemist or a physicist.

There is, however, a perfectly good alternative YFPF in this episode which is that the magnesium fire which 'melted' the bones would have been more than hot enough to melt the bullet that was found intact in the skeleton.

Current entry: You Fail Physics Forever: As an anthropologist Bones should know that any solid has a melting point, if it doesn't decompose or goes straight to gas for. But according to her, bones cannot melt. Despite the episode with the corpse is just that: completely melted.

Any opinions from those slightly more grounded in physics than I am?

Edited by wombat18

Hello. I'm still kinda of new here so maybe some one can help me with this. In season 1 episode 18 "The Man with the Bone" theres a minor deus ex machina involving the villain of the week. Right after that theres a shot of a radio named MST 3K Mantra. Should that go on the main page under lampshade hanging? Or should the MST 3K Mantra trope be on the main page?

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I propose removing the Character Derailment example for Temperance Brennan. There's some natter there that shows it's not a solid example of the trope, as the proposed conflict is nuanced. A sex change to bring one's physical gender identity inline with one's psychological gender identity is a very different thing from altering one's own features to more closely resemble a societal ideal. At most, this adds dimension to her position on plastic surgery.

This is what it says now:

• Character Derailment: The He In The She, Brennan should have been enraged at the idea of someone changing their gender, given her hatred of using surgery to change your looks.
  • Doubtful, because she only seems to disapprove of plastic surgery when done out of vanity or to bow to societal pressures.
    • No, she specifically stated that she hates plastic surgery because it removes the individuality that a person was born with. A sex change would still count.

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