Discussion page dropped off watchlist again. GAH!
On the whole, I feel Depending on the Writer is one of those tropes you have to tread very carefully around. Also, I very seriously doubt it's in play here. Quoting directly from the trope page:
"Don't get this confused with character depth. Just because you can't predict a character's moves 100% of the time doesn't mean they're inconsistent. Now, if you can predict a character's moves 100% of the time only when you know who's writing, then they're definitely inconsistent."
Also, Depending on the Writer is for instances where changes in characterization occur because of writer changes.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Hello all! Am looking to post a trope for Inconsistent Dub. Shinra is called a demon, an ogre, but I don't remember if they also refer to him as an Oni or not. Assistance?
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Unless you've spotted errors I haven't (entirely possible, I'm the world's worst proofreader), I'd say he's referred to as an oni pretty consistently once you get out of the prologue. "Demon" was the prologue and his profile page, irrc.
I very distinctly remember him being called an ogre at least once and going "da wut?" Though I don't think he got called that again after that one incident. Thus inspiring this entry. So poor Shinra gets called at least 3 different things.
I'm poking about the trope of Kingmaker Scenario, but a lot of my thoughts on the matter feel more like conjecture than anything else. Given that ayakashi culture seems to run on Asskicking Equals Authority, whoever the MC picks out is arguably King of the Hill specifically because she picks him over the other offers, but so far they aren't specifically mentioned as recieving any additional authority because of it. (This may come up in the future?)
There's also the fact that her children are going to be unusually powerful ayakashi, and in Chiakge's route it's explicitly stated that's why she's important: she's the Mother Of The Future Leader so long as she has that power. She may be a kingmaker in a more literal sense (she makes them in her bellay!) but that's not exactly what the trope's referencing.
Is this more appropriate for Wild Mass Guessing, or is this more of a proper trope in and of itself?
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Huh, this didn't show up on my watchlist. Odd. Moving on!
I'd say it's WMG for now, since the currently available love interests are already clan leaders (or heirs to the position - the VN is kinda inconsistent about it).
So right now a Kingmaker Scenario feels unlikely since the protagonist doesn't know exactly why they need her when they show up with their offer. She's under attack and just trying to survive, and picks her protector pretty much at random. Now, if she were to withdraw her favour and offer it to someone else as a deliberate power play, however...
True on the inconsistency. (One thinks perhaps the writers don't talk to eachother?)
Good point on that last one. Kingmakerscenario doesn't seem to include options that may be entirely accidental.
Question: Do we assume it's somehow significant (based on architecture and the plethora of red-collared fox statues) that the protagonist appears to live at an Inari shrine? Sure, they're the most common type of shinto shrines in Japan, private or otherwise, but the LI who gets most screentime is Miyabi, and Inari is the patron of foxes.
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I don't think it's significant. The important part seems to be more that it's a shrine, and Samon's presence, rather than who it's a shrine to/for. As you mentioned, Inari shrines are one of the more common types and Miyabi is the one who gets used for promotional purpose, so it may make for some nice visual coherence for people familiar with the symbols. But so far that it's Inari's shrine hasn't seemed to have an impact on the plot.
I'm having trouble with the Attempted Rape entry, but I don't know if it's just me overthinking things, so I don't want to change a perfectly legit entry out of the blue. Someone check my thinking, please?
Full disclosure: the event referenced made my skin crawl too. I get where you're coming from.
This is the entry:
- Attempted Rape: Miyabi tries to "seduce" the protagonist, but it is clearly rape. He undresses and touches the protagonist without her consent. She shakes her head frantically in protest, tells him no/to stop more than once, and has tears in her eyes. This experience is, however, romanticized.
However: The trope is Attempted Rape, yet the first sentence states unambiguously that it is rape, which isn't the trope at all. So, shoehorning. The way the entry is written sounds like personal opinion, rather than observation of events in the story, which would make it better suited for an entry on the YMMV tab.
Finally: This is a romance game. The "arrogant alpha male who knows a woman's body better than she does" is a staple of the romance genre, and a ubiquitous one at that - just pick up any Harlequin novel. Very, VERY dubious consent is a thing (just look at the survey at Kissed By the Baddest Bidder that put Eisuke and Ota in the top three characters.) And while we're not supposed to pursue social justice here, I'm not sure if borderline kinkshaming is a good thing in a genre that exists to explicitly cater to fantasy?
Tl;dr - It's not an example of Attempted Rape, by the editor's own admission and the trope as defined on its own page. Reword, find a more appropriate trope for it, and/or stick it in YMMV?
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Remove it. If there is context that explains how it's romanticized, put it in Romanticized Abuse.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I confess I haven't played the route, so I avoided messing with the entry due to lack of sufficient context. However, the Attempted Rape trope specifically states that it's for scenes in which rape is attempted but stopped violently, either by the victim physically fighting off the attacker or by the intercession of a third party.
I have no doubt that Miyabi tries to force unwanted sexual contact on the protagonist, but unless he's stopped specifically and only by violence, it's not the Attempted Rape trope. We have a related trope, Near-Rape Experience, in which the rapist stops of his own volition, but that trope involves a sense of horror and remorse on the part of the rapist for what he almost did, which doesn't sound applicable either.
If he actually rapes her, neither trope applies. In neither case can it be considered Questionable Consent if the protagonist is making her lack of consent clear, so that one's out. If someone wants to make a case for Romanticized Abuse and/or Sexual Extortion, those seem like they'd fit.
Finally got around to putting up the entry. Not happy with how wordy it got, but meh. Have to cover both "it's Fetish Fuel, I swear!" and "but yeah definitely rapey", so what can you do?
ETA: Stole... ahem... appropriated some of Lily's phrasing from the original entry.
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HELLO ALL.
So I've been reading the POV series that just came out. Miyabi's pretty much what I expected, but Chikage's and Shinra's revealed some interesting things... about characters that aren't Chikage and Shinra. I'm holding off on making these official tropes given some suspicions of Depending on the Writer on Volage's part, and the fact that certain character traits can be exaggerated or not depending on whether they are the love interest in the storyline in question.
In Chikage's POV, Yukinojo displayed an incident of Bitch in Sheep's Clothing (bringing him in line with some of Voltages more recent archetypes) with a cold (haha) logic that surprised even Chikage. I'm sure there's a trope for this sort of hard logic, but The Spock doesn't really fit as Yukinojo is perfectly capable of hiding it and does so most of the time.
Kyoga displayed some traits in Shinra's POV that are a bit hard to pin down from a trope perspective - his behavior towards Shinra seems much more like a concerned (although irritating) older sibling, but none of the sibling tropes I've come across seem to fit. Kyoga certainly has a Friendship Moment with Shinra after Shinra leaves the protagonist with his older brother, thinking that's what she wants.
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