Misused: White Magician Girl

Late but I am not sure clean up needs be on the crowner since it's already a free action that doesn't need TRS

Also, the supertrope option is unclear to me because it doesn't say what the supertrope is going to be about. I can't vote on it without further clarification.

Edited by MacronNotes on Oct 13th 2023 at 8:13:41 AM

It'd probably be something along the lines of "Attack Mage, Support Mage" (or "remedial mage? Or "Healing mage?" whatever gets the point across of what White Mage is supposed to be). Basically something codifying the two archetypes as being intentional contrasts of each other in coexistence, if not direct cooperation. That I think is much more tropable than merely "mage who does spells that hurt" and "mage using White Magic".

If feel with the direction this thread is heading, maybe we should investigate Red Mage as well, it was designed to be at first those capable of White and Black Magic but it is moving away from this concept. Maybe there's a missing trope for those good at both "attack and support"?

EDIT: Maybe the multi-discipline mage could borrow from the trope currently in the TLP called Disciplines Of Magic, having the name "Multi-Discipline Mage" while Red Mage becomes a subtrope of this new trope, referencing examples of mages who are proficient in the offensive and support branches of magic.

Edited by JustaUsername on Oct 5th 2023 at 3:05:02 AM

The thing that pops out as an immediate problem for The Red Mage is the name, which does have a particular meaning if you're familiar with Final Fantasy, but I think it distracts from the fact the trope's base concept is a little too close to Jack of All Stats: can do multiple stuff, but doesn't specialize in many of them. It basically reads as just "Jack of All Stats: Mage Edition".

There's also some discrepancy in the trope's description as well as Laconic where it doesn't make clear that The Red Mage necessarily doesn't have to be "balanced", and can do as much as the Black Mage and White Mage, that is up until the sentence about "if they can 'master all schools of magic, that makes them The Archmage", which is also its own weird can of worms.

If we're talking within the domain of specifically having offense and healing/support ability, that also runs into Combat Medic, doesn't it? (Which is itself not a video game-specific trope)

Edited by number9robotic on Oct 5th 2023 at 11:20:43 AM

Even within the Combat Medic trope, you see the quote this.

Contrast The Red Mage, a mage who knows healing and attack magic.

(x4) I haven't thought of an official supertrope, but this is more or less the groundwork for it.

ETA: I didn't even realize The Red Mage on its own had problems, which isn't a good sign...honestly I almost feel like it should be disambiguated between Mutually Exclusive Magic, Combat Medic, Draw Aggro, Yin-Yang Bomb and whatever others would fit.

Edited by Coachpill on Oct 5th 2023 at 6:14:11 AM

The issue (if there is one) seems comes down to the fact that the Trope Namer is based on a character proficient in both Black and White Magic, so naturally people are going to go by the idea of what a Red Mage is in Final Fantasy rather then what the trope currently means which according to the laconic description is "A magician capable of casting spells from multiple schools of magic that are usually mutually exclusive."

oh wait a minute, I didn't even realize Black and White Magic exists. That's basically already the hypothetical "Attack Mage, Support Mage" concept I pitched on post 27; definitely seems like it should be the basis for the overarching super trope.

Definitely needs a rename to prevent things from getting confusing; even the description itself notes it's "Not to be confused with Black Magic and White Magic, which are distinct tropes and don't usually overlap with this. If a character can do both, then he's The Red Mage. Characters who use offensive magic are Black Mages, characters who use defensive & healing magic are White Mages." Sounds like we've really gotta avoid the "black/white magic" terminology altogether for tropes based on this kind of game balance.

Edited by number9robotic on Oct 5th 2023 at 6:50:34 AM

Should we call the Crowner now? It feels that we've stabilized with two accepted options and two rejected ones, plus we're past Three-Day Rule with current discussion.

Edited by JustaUsername on Oct 10th 2023 at 7:12:50 PM

What's the new supertrope about? The description here? Is Black and White Magic the supertrope?

Black and White Magic could be a possibility. Is everyone else good with it?

It would be a good fit, considering that it ties into both tropes.

I feel The Red Mage is going to need to be investigated but that is best covered in its own Trope Repair Shop as the proper definition no longer strictly ties into Black and White Magic, so best save that for when its their turn in the TRS.

Edited by JustaUsername on Oct 10th 2023 at 9:05:45 PM

Echoing part of this post, I think Black and White Magic's description should be edited to reflect a bit more on the "attack, support" roles—but otherwise the options sound good. Something like this:

I feel like by proxy, this will keep the part of the description mentioning The Red Mage more in-line with what the definition of the latter trope should be, while still indirectly connecting to The Archmage (and maybe but probably not Mutually Exclusive Magic) so it doesn't really feel redundant.

The TRS posts I've made today are the first ones I've made in a while, but regarding the posts on this page, I feel that Macron's concerns in this post are still valid since there's uncertainty on what we're even supposed to do with the supertrope that was voted on. (I would have brought this up sooner if I had been on TRS when the crowner was running, but I was still taking a break from TRS at the time.)

Edit: Also, I noticed the crowner says to consider Launch Displacement on Not That Kind of Mage. Why does it say to consider it instead of having whether it is or isn't being done decided directly by the crowner?

Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 13th 2023 at 6:49:18 AM

The supertrope idea was mentioned here but what the supertrope means was not explained clearly there. I don't think "Black Mage, White Mage juxtapostion" is necessarily a supertrope to White Magician Girl and Black Magician Girl (whose super tropes should be White Mage/ White Magic and Black Magic/ Black Magic) and I am also not sure what the creation what the supertrope is going to fix. Both mage girl tropes were designed as standalone archetype.

EDIT: Forgot about Black and White Magic existing

Also, how are we supposed to launch displace Not That Kind of Mage and why are doing that in the first place? Was that explained?

Edited by MacronNotes on Oct 13th 2023 at 8:36:40 AM

+ The concern originally sprung up here specifically because Black Magician Girl is referred to as "almost" the inverse of White MG despite the description not indicating otherwise; number9 mentioned this would help the two tropes serve a direct contrast with each other.

The "consider" thing was because I wasn't really sure whether Not That Kind of Mage was going to be made a redirect beforehand, considering yarding the concepts hasn't been talked about all that much. If it isn't then it's fine to go ahead with that idea IMO, but I was wondering if people still had the drafts in mind.

Edit: partial

Edited by Coachpill on Oct 13th 2023 at 8:45:48 AM

Our concern is that how the supertrope is supposed to be defined should have been decided before it was voted on, but since it wasn't, it's not clear what's supposed to be done.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 13th 2023 at 7:44:24 AM

Would it help if I made a sandbox? I don't want the thread to be shelved yet (assuming there's nothing else to talk about) but on the other hand it might be better for me to correlate ideas there.

A sandboxed draft would help clarify the definition, if the definition is known.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 13th 2023 at 7:51:14 AM

Don't we usually send "just clean it up" TRS threads to short term projects?

Edited by AudioSpeaks2 on Nov 2nd 2023 at 7:39:38 PM

If someone makes a Short-Term Projects thread, this thread can be closed.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Nov 2nd 2023 at 6:41:09 AM

Done. Locking up.