Discussion Series / JessicaJones2015

Yeah. Cut. The example itself debunks its own opening sentence by listing all the reasons it doesn't apply.

Personally I think it's not rape, because Luke knew who Jessica was even if he didn't know what she did. He consented in the moment, even if he didn't know all the facts. But that stems from my definition of "rape", not from the situation itself. If "having sex without telling someone important information" is rape, then it's definitely rape.

I think the term is broad enough that at the very least her actions count as harmful manipulation.

Holy shit, that is an incredible shoehorn.

First off, not rape. At all. If we devalue the word to actually mean "having sex with someone without telling them something" then damn near everything is rape.

Secondly, where is the double standard? The example doesn't establish that in the slightest, and In-Universe, Jessica gets called out on the shadiness of what she did by multiple characters, including herself.

I think that the claim is "failure to tell someone information that if they knew it would result in them not having sex with you". So going by this it seems pretty clear Luke wouldn't have slept with Jessica (obviously) if he'd known that she killed his wife. If it's not an example of Double Standard Rape: Female on Male, perhaps still Bed Trick?

That is wildly broad. By that definition, technically Lily raped Marshall in How I Met Your Mother when she didn't tell him about her severe credit card debt.

And given that entry (with the now-deleted complaining about the fandom bit) is the sole edit by that guy, it is pretty likely that the edit was done in bad faith, possibly as an MRA-type deal. As such I dont think we need to try to salvage it.

Yeah, it does seem pretty broad. Looking at Bed Trick again there, it's defined as just one person impersonating another to trick someone else into sex. So that's my bad, and it definitely isn't what happened. I think we can drop this now.

Larkmarn: You're comparing apples to oranges. While you may argue that the entry sounds MRA-esque, personally, your argument ("devaluing" the word rape) is more in line with my experience of their beliefs than the entry.

There's a wide berth of difference between lying to someone about things unrelated to them (such as credit debt) and lying to someone about things you KNOW would hurt them or take malicious advantage of them. It's difficult to point at where the line is drawn between the two, but that doesn't mean there IS no line.

I could also get behind Bed Trick, but Bed Trick IS a rape trope.

Either way though, in what way is there a double standard? As has been pointed out, the show and the characters acknowledge that what Jessica did is wrong. The other rapist in the show is Kilgrave, and it's rather disingenuous to compare Jessica to him.

That IS true.

I dont really see how it would be apples and oranges. They are both instances of withholding the truth from someone for fear that they will be angry with you if they find out and it will change their perception of you. And it is Marshall's business since they're married and it turns out he is up to his eyes in debt and didnt know it.

It's apples and oranges because, again, there are different degrees of "withholding the truth". It's not all under one huge blanket. It's the same question as Age of Consent laws: "well, since there's no clear way to know when someone becomes an adult, then there's no difference".

It's an argument fallacy, but I can't remember which one at the moment.

Even in the case you describe (though I am unfamiliar with the work), it's still apples and oranges, because the deception happened in a marriage, which means it involves more things than simply "they wouldn't have sex with me". It's abusive in a multitude of ways, beyond sexually.

I can't remember the fallacy name either. So frustrating.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Thinking over it again, isn't the issue that if Jessica had told Luke she killed his wife (even unwillingly) he'd have never slept with her? It doesn't qualify by our definition of Bed Trick, as that also requires pretending to be someone else, not just withholding information, though morally (or legally?) it could be another matter.

Questionable Consent seems to be the most applicants trope.

Yes, good catch.

That's... actually pretty funny. Buuuuuuuuuuut it's not a YMMV trope. So it wouldn't go on anyway.

Right, I meant Drinking Game. That usually ends up in YMMV until there's enough to need a full page.

I'm not the one who said Robyn was following Malcolm, I originally had put this note under Contrived Coincidence with the point that Robyn just happened to be at that bar at that time to hear his confession, which is the coincidence of all coincidences. Somebody else (Troper Schnutzel) edited it to say that she was following him because she suspected he knew something that he wasn't letting on. With that bit of info, that she was following him and that the overhearing wasn't a coincidence, the entire note no longer fits the trope.

Just because there is a coincidence at all (In this case, Robyn inciting the group to attack Jessica at the same time she had captured Kilgrave) does not make it a Contrived Coincidence. If it did, then every coincidence ever happening in any story would be a Contrived Coincidence. "Contrived Coincidence describes a highly improbable occurrence in a story which is required by the plot, but which has absolutely no outward justification — not so much as a character saying There Are No Coincidences". This has an outward justification: To whit, the point we just went over where Robyn had followed Malcolm and discovered everything. That is a logical, connecting, in-universe reason for why these things happened, at this place and at this time.

If, for example, Jessica had Kilgrave stored outside of her apartment and Robyn was walking down the street and just happened to see her with a captive and interfered, that would be a Contrived Coincidence, since there is no internal reason for why she would have seen Jessica at that place at that time. Or if Robyn stumbled upon their isolation cage earlier when they had Kilgrave captive then, without having followed anybody or any clue, that' would be a Contrived Coincidence. If there was nothing to lead anybody to this place at this time, if the very fact that Robyn is there doesn't have an explanation, that's a Contrived Coincidence. This, as it is, is just "a coincidence", and not the trope.

No it isn't. The support group insurrection happening at the exact time that Kilgrave was captured is highly improbable and nothing about those two events occurring simultaneously is "logical". They are two complete separate happenstances which serve for no other reason than to move the plot forward. The trope uses this exampe: "For example, when two characters are separated in a huge battle involving millions of combatants, they will bump into each other again just in time for one to save the other's life." By your reasoning, that wouldn't count either because they were in the same battlefield and started in the same area before separation, so therefore it's logical that they would reunite at the exact moment it takes to save each others' lives. As you said, there's an in-story reason for it.

Saying "every coincidence in a story ever" would be this trope is strawmanning. The point of the trope is that two things which are not logically connected (and this is NOT) happen in a way that the story needs it to in order to continue. Without this occurring, Luke Cage wouldn't have returned to the series, let alone been introduced to Claire.

Let's head this off at the pass and go to Ask The Tropers directly, because I feel we're about to be stuck in a loop again as we have in our other discussions.

Also, just to say in general for our several discussions, I'm not approaching these as adversarial or hostile. You've had several points that I've agreed with and (By inference since you didn't take them here to this page for further discussion after edits) there have been points of mine that you've agreed with.

I never saw this as adversarial or hostile.

I just try to keep tropes flexible, as there's sometimes a tendency to rely entirely on the wording of a definition rather than its intended meaning.

The Laconic definition of Just Eat Gilligan is as follows: A single simple action would solve all the problems.

Getting a person who doesn't speak English to assist either isn't simple, or doesn't solve the problems. If he doesn't speak English, how do they speak to him at all to communicate what they're trying to do? Do they work through a translator, resulting in there being at least two people involved in the scheme who are outside contractors? If they're people coming off the street (Just walking into Chinatown and saying "hey, want to help kidnap a guy?") what's to stop them from going to the cops and saying "Some crazy people asked me to help kidnap a guy". If they aim for hardened criminals, people they know would be willing to do this kind of work, where do they find them? None of the cast seem to have the criminal connections to hire non-English-speaking-thugs, even when Simpson decides to go for the killing moves (Before he goes insane) he calls in old comrades from his days in the special forces.

But let's say they do work it out somehow: Simpson's a cop, so he asks for favors from a friend at the department to put him in contact with some foreign criminal who's recently arrived in New York, and they get somebody else to set up the original meting and translate so they arrange everything in advance. We're now talking about a complicated scheme involving foreign criminal organizations, likely requiring large sums of money, with no guarantee they won't somehow betray you for their own ends because we're talking about criminals in the first place. That is not the "single, simple action" of the trope. Sure, it could work, but it also has a thousand opportunities for normal, regular human problems to make it fall apart.

There are a hundred possible ways to counter Kilgrave's powers, I can think of several of them myself at need (Gas grenades to incapacitate him without needing to get as close required by a dart gun, substituting somebody into his cadre of thralls with the already-mentioned earphones to sneak up on him without him realizing that they're not controlled, some sort of a paralytic compound introduced into his food, etc.), but Just Eat Gilligan is not about "There are ways", it's about "here's something front and center that is left lying fallow". To go back to the Trope Namer, Gilligan is a problem in almost every single episode; he is constant and direct, and removing him from the situation changes EVERYTHING. That's why the trope is Just Eat Gilligan and not, for example, Just Build a Boat or Just Repair The Radio, which are certainly ways to solve the problem facing the cast (And less evil than cannibalizing somebody who just wants to help).

EDIT: Also, and here's the biggest part, they don't need to do any of these things. Their problems aren't that Kilgrave gets his powers into them, it's that they can't get to him. First it's that they can't find him, then they discover he has hired security guards, and then they didn't prepare for betrayal from one of their own. Except for his escape from the holding cell there wasn't a single point in the entire series where Kilgrave's powers being used on the main cast was what defeated them. Not once. All of their precautions worked. In what circumstance except for that escape, which did come about from the unplanned betrayal, would any additional anti-Kilgrave-devices (Like the non-English speaker or the headphones) have helped? In this series they have, in essence, eaten Gilligan because they did take effective, working precautions.

Forgive me if this seems a bit harsh, but that reply is really overcomplicating things, and full of Fan Wank Fridge Logic gish-galloping.

A lot of that is your personal opinon/speculation of how various options may fail. It also ignores how taking any of the stated steps (such as earplugs/headphones) can help the sitation.

You are also being VERY cherry-picky by going only with the laconic itself. The trope page itself says: "Note that there's no guarantee that doing this one thing would definitely result in the show's resolution, but there's at least enough potential there to make it worth a try. Or maybe several tries, to hammer out all the bugs, if the fundamental concept is particularly rational."

Your personal assessment on how "simple" or feasible something is isn't a requirement of the trope.

Yes, that is "[my] personal opinon/speculation of how various options may fail", that's pretty much my whole point. The mentioned options are other people's personal opinions and speculations, we have no idea how they'd work and wind up, the trope isn't for theories or concepts. To go back to the language barrier example, we never see Kilgrave ever speak to somebody who doesn't speak English so we don't know if that is actually a barrier at all, maybe even if they don't speak English his powers still work somehow through 'intent' or something (I find that unlikely, it probably would be a barrier to his powers, but my point is that we don't how that whole situation would work out and it's ALL coming down to Fan Wank).

Let's approach this from a different direction: Please tell me a time when doing one of these things would help. I'm not being sarcastic, maybe I'm missing something very obvious and you're smacking your forehead going "Whats wrong with this guy?" (It's happened before on this very page in other edit-discussions). Tell me a point where their lack of headphones/earplugs/deaf person actually caused them a problem. Because, and here's my point that I added to my post up above in an edit, I can't think of any. They do take effective precautions and thusly never find themselves victims of Kilgrave, so them doing any of these things wouldn't help at all.

To my recollection, the only point where any of knowledgeable cast (Any of them) were put under Kilgrave's control after they were aware of his power and taking precautions was when he broke out of the containment cell, and that was an unplanned, unexpected disaster from several different levels, and the only person he 'got' was Trish. If she had been wearing noise-cancelling headphones in that instance she would have been protected, yes, but they had no reason at all to expect that he'd be breaking out and that their other (Effective) countermeasures would be sabotaged. Plus, they would have rendered her unable to assist in their current operations before the breakout. So, it would be completely unreasonable to expect her to be wearing headphones in that circumstance, and if she had been that would be its own entry under Crazy-Prepared. Apart from that one instance, none of them were ever taken over by Kilgrave, so where would them wearing headphones/having a deaf person/not speaking English been an asset?

Help me understand where you're coming from.

You're putting way too much impetus on ME proving something to YOU. That's not how you discuss something in good faith.

The point is, the trope is not "this possible action would definitely have worked, and is easy to do". The trope is "why didn't anyone try to do this, or try it enough times to troubleshoot, or in combination with other things to help?"^note That is basically in the definition.. The headphones point is the most egregious because it actually WAS used at some point, which only makes you wonder why that was the first and only time. The very name is an example of this: would killing Gilligan actually solve more problems than it created? Who knows? That isn't the point. And if you want further examples of what I mean, actually look at the examples.

Just to throw out an imperfect example of how taking measures would have (by no means perfect) been an improved measure, let's take the example of Luke Cage. He literally attempts to one-shot Kilgrave while he wasn't looking but didn't expect Kilgrave's dad to warn him. He comes within a second of killing Kilgrave before being commnded to stop.

Luke was so close to Kilgrave that he could have easily turned his head or closed his eyes to finish his attack. Being unable to hear Kilgrave would have helped IMMENSELY in that situation, although, yes, there would still be risks as well as ways for it to fail.

But, that's just a shot in the dark, off the top of my head. I'm not going to try to convince you, because as I said, that isn't how an honest debate works.

You're missing my point: I'm not asking you to convince me because I am the arbiter of what does or doesn't apply, I'm asking you to convince me because up until the example you gave in your response (Which is exactly what I'd asked for) you hadn't given any examples of where these things WOULD have helped. You had said "Why didn't they try XXXX?" and I said "When would trying XXXX have helped?". My point (Well, one of my points, because we've spun through half a dozen different things by now) was that they had in effect "eaten Gilligan" because they had taken precautions and they had tried these different options. My argument was that since they had taken different precautions, which did work, that just because they hadn't tried other precautions at other times was not the trope.

Now, in the specific example of Luke Cage's attack on Kilgrave, my retort as to why that wouldn't apply to the Just Eat Gilligan trope is that Luke Cage didn't really believe that Kilgrave could control him. He hadn't experienced it personally, just Jessica's say-so, and from their earlier encounter it was clear that he still held her at least partially responsible for his wife's death, he didn't accept complete domination. He thought he could resist, that Kilgrave wasn't really that powerful, which is why he just tried to bum-rush Kilgrave. We know he should have worn headphones, yes, but up until then he had no reason to believe they were necessary. If, for example, Luke had been controlled by Kilgrave earlier, and so therefore knew that Kilgrave was that powerful, I would absolutely agree that that scene would qualify for Just Eat Gilligan. As it stands, when up until then he wasn't even convinced that Kilgrave really could control people, it's not a question of "Why didn't he try this?" but is instead "Why would he have tried it?"

See, the Luke Cage issue brings my point: there's always an excuse. Regardless of how well I make my case, if this argument boils down to me trying to convince you of an example of how Just Eat Gilligan works, there are an infinite number of justifications you can come up with to counter it. Also: when did Luke say he thought he could resist Kilgrave? Why would he try to sneak up on Kilgrave if he thought he could "resist" him? Your saying he tried to bum rush Kilgrave because he thought he was immune makes no sense, because tried to do it while Kilgrave didn't see him.

Also, "why WOULD anyone try this" is not a relevant question to Just Eat Gilligan. Why would anyone kill/eat Gilligan? Why not just tie him up? Keep him imprisoned? (Then, someone says "because he can escape as Rule of Funny", to which someone else says "in that case, he might survive a murder via Rule of Funny too" and on and on and on. The fact that we're here arguing woulda-coulda on ONE example is just proving my point.)

Thing is, I'm not missing the point. I totally get your point, but it doesn't work here.

We're going around in circles with this, I'm going to bring this to Ask The Tropers so that we don't just keep going back and forth.

EDIT: Ah, I see you already made the question there, and I agree that it should be an Audience Reaction. Let's see what other tropers say.

I already did.

Please clarify, I'm not understanding what the point is that you are trying to make, or what about the trope example as written is a problem. The Therapy Is for the Weak trope refers exclusively to when characters refuse therapy, the trope itself doesn't require that therapy actually work or not or what kind of focus the show puts on it, and the entry as written covers (In generalities) those who participated, those who didn't, and how their approaches got different results. What are you saying should be changed?

I'm not sure how I can make any clearer than I made it. Therapy doesn't just not work, characters actively become disillusioned with it—especially within the context of the main conflict.

The "generalization" is flat-out inaccurate. It implies that the one who was improving was the only one sharing in the therapy sessions, which wasn't true. They all were, initially. It's just that later on, nearly all of them are totally disillusioned with it. That is a rejection/dismissal of therapy.

Yes, that's correct, I'm not disagreeing with that. Again, I'm asking, what should be changed? How should the entry be written instead?

How's this:

• Therapy Is for the Weak: Jessica emphatically states that she neither needs nor wants therapy, instead relying on self-medication with alcohol and internal repression. Most of the more prominent characters likewise outright dismiss the thought of therapy after their various traumas. Further, people who actually go to therapy only reinforce the theme of its ineffectiveness: the one technique which Jessica learned from therapy seems to work at first, but Jessica angrily claims it isn't helping. And while one person of the Kilgrave support group is improving, most of them slowly start becoming disillusioned with the sessions. In summation, the show's cynical leaning means that therapy seems less-than-desirable.

Editorially I'd remove the last sentence, because my read of the show is that it's saying people do need actual therapy (Since the half-assed efforts and pseudo-philosophy of sharing don't help, and Jessica's alcoholism is never potrayed as anything but self-destructive), but trope-wise that's an accurate description of how the show uses the Therapy Is for the Weak trope.

I kind of agree with the second part of your read, but not the first part. It's kind of hard to tell when a edgy story is arguing in favor of therapy when none of the characters actually take it and improve. It's kind of like stories with an anti-violence message, but pacifists still don't have any means of actually fixing things.

Even if the show is arguing that pseudo-therapy isn't a good option, it doesn't go anywhere else with it. At the very least, Jessica and a couple of other characters alone make it seem less-than-desirable.

Wrong place.

Except that they're scaled down for completely different reasons. Jessica's powers are scaled down for one reason relating to the adaptation: Her flight and other flashy powers would have worked poorly in a low budget TV series, resulting in either very shoddy effects or scenes where she didn't use her powers when she could have. That is the Pragmatic Adaptation trope: Making a change to a work that is required by the adaptation. This change ALSO meant that they could put more drama into the series by making her less powerful and therefore at greater risk to the dangers she encounters, and I certainly do feel that that works well and is a good change, but that part of the change is NOT the Pragmatic Adaptation trope, that's just 'a change.'

None of Luke's changes had to do with the medium adaptation, they are solely story changes to fit the desired plot. It would not have stretched the budget to have him be more-invulnerable, nor would the effect somehow not have worked visually, since his internal invulnerability does not need more work than just the surface. The change was solely to fit the plot and story they wanted to write, it was not in any way required by the change from comic to TV medium. Again, I think it WORKS, it's a good adaptation, but it's not the Pragmatic Adaptation trope.

I brought the subject up to Ask The Tropers, as this isn't my understanding of the trope, nor how I've seen it in use.

I've seen your note there, let's see if the Community can help clear things up.

As I said on Ask The Tropers, this is only a clear cut case of Adaptational Wimp for Luke because his powers being at his comics peak wouldn't be a strain on the budget like Jessica's comic powers would.