Tropedia

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Tropedia


Q[]

  • Quip to Black used to be "Grissom One Liner" after Gil Grissom from CSI. The old name required people to know the Grissom character, who was perhaps not the best known example even within the CSI universe. In turn, CSI was not the originator of the trope. Finally, the strong internet meme surrounding the CSI: Miami (Horatio Caine) version makes it all too easy to mistake the trope for the meme and vice versa.


R[]

  • Raised Catholic used to be "Good Catholic", which was noted was a pretty poor description of the trope.
  • Raise Him Right This Time used to be "Second Chance", which could refer to all sorts of things that are not this trope.
  • Random Drop was "Randomly Drops", but a noun is more convenient for the trope than a verb.
  • Rapid-Fire Comedy used to be called "Comedy Through Superior Firepower".
  • Rapid Fire Name Guessing was formerly known as "Tom? Dick?" "My Name is Harry!"
  • Rascally Raccoon was formerly "Everything's Rascally with Raccoons". Changed because animal stereotype tropes shouldn't have "Everything's Better With" names.
  • Raven Hair, Ivory Skin used to be "Black and White Beauty". The name was changed so it would be more clear that the trope was about a beauty standard.
  • Real Joke Name was renamed from "Klutz the Surgeon", which didn't make it clear at all what the trope was about. Even before it was "Mulligan the Headsman", which was maybe even less explicit.
  • Really Gets Around used to be called "Miss Yo Yo Knickers", until the prudes found out. Changed to be gender neutral as well.
  • Recurring Extra was known by "Yuppie Couple" which sounded like a completely different trope.
  • Recycled Trailer Music was once "The Elfman Effect". Not a reference to the Danny Elfman / Tim Burton collaborations nor the The Simpsons theme overshadowing his work. Readers who got the right Elfman had to then guess it meant that he is one of a number of composers whose music appears in trailers for films other than the one it was composed for.
  • Red and Black and Evil All Over was known as "Red and Black, Keep Back". It was renamed to become more clear on what the trope was about.
  • Redemption Demotion was renamed from "Heel Face Downgrade", which itself used to be Good Is Dumb (the latter's meaning changed to fit the title more).
  • Regenerating Health used to be "Walk It Off". Renamed to make the connection between the trope and name clearer.
  • Regional Bonus was once "PAL Bonus", but was renamed to include bonus content from any regional version of a product.
  • Reliably Unreliable Guns was "Shur Fine Guns" (which has some meaning, but it's not mentioned anymore on the page).
  • The Remnant was formerly known as "The Undefeated", which sounds like another trope entirely.
  • Repeating So the Audience Can Hear was originally named "So What You Are Saying". It was renamed because it had nothing to do with the trope it described and sounded like a generic line of dialogue rather than a legitimate trope.
  • Replacement Flat Character was once "The Niles". Renamed for being an obscure and underused character-named trope.
  • Resignations Not Accepted used to be "You Can Never Leave". The "Hotel California" reference obscured the meaning of the trope a little.
  • The Rest Shall Pass was originally "I Got This", a vague Stock Phrase that's applicable to far more situations than just this trope.
  • Retroactive Preparation was once the opaque "Wyld Stallyns Rule", which was named from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure where a case of Retroactive Preparation leads to the principle being arbitrarily after a band. The new name hints at time travel hi-jinx.
  • Rhetorical Request Blunder used to be "Rid Me of This Priest" — from a famous oral tradition surrounding Henry II. His words were interpreted as an order to kill Thomas Becket — which they may not have been. The reference was quite opaque to some, others mistook it to mean the trope was about priests. The trope was also clarified as being broader than murders, but always a statement not intended as a request.
  • Rightful King Returns was once "Return of the King" but it was getting confused with Tolkien's work.
  • Rise to the Challenge wasn't really renamed from an existing trope, but a similar trope had existed prior to The Great Crash as "Rising Death From Below".
  • Rogue Juror was formerly known as "Twelve Angry Men", named for a work which centered around such a plot. It was renamed so that the former name could be used to refer to the work itself.
  • Romantic False Lead was originally "The Paolo", after the character from Friends. Renamed because it required knowledge of a specific work and out of a general trend away from "The X" trope titles.
  • Romanticized Abuse was formerly "Abusively Sexy". It was renamed because the original name suggested that the abuse could be a good thing.
  • Romantic Plot Tumor was formerly "George Lucas Love Story" after the poorly received romantic subplot in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. It was renamed because making titles just to be a Take That against a single work (it was determined most George Lucas stories don't suffer from this trope) isn't very good form and it's very likely the name will stop being topical.
  • Romantic Runner-Up was renamed from "The Baxter" (from The Apartment), to avoid a "The X" name.
  • Rousing Speech was formerly two separate tropes, Rousing Speech and Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, which were merged under the name of the former, until the latter title was made a page about the poem of the same name (sort of).
  • Rube Goldberg Device was renamed from "Robinson Goldberg Contraption" because a.) Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg are two different people known for such devices, and b.) the term "Rube Goldberg Device" is in common use off-wiki, so there was no need to Call a Rabbit a Smeerp.
  • Russian Naming Convention was originally "Trope, Son of Trope, Smith". An example of why the use of "trope" in trope names is discouraged.
  • Russians With Rusting Rockets was formerly "Tricolours with Rusting Rockets". It was renamed because "Tricolour" can refer to a lot of different nations (esp. France). The new title also allows awesome alliteration.
  • Ruthless Modern Pirates was renamed from "A Disgrace to Blackbeard" for clarity. The old name was confusing because Blackbeard was ruthless, but also romanticized.


S[]


T[]


U[]


V[]

  • Vampire Dance used to be "Blood on the Dance Floor", but since blood is related to more than just vampires (and didn't have much to do with the trope, anyway), the trope was renamed.
  • Vanishing Village used to be "Brigadoon", after the musical play of that name. Changed to avoid conflicting with the work title.
  • Verbal Tic used to be known as "Spoon Speaker", after the catchphrase of The Tick, who wasn't actually an example.
  • Verb This was "Dodge This" after a line in The Matrix, but some examples missed that the emphasis is on the second word, and were about dodging instead of "___ this!".
  • Vetinari Job Security was "Vetinari Paradox", which wasn't that paradoxical if you think about it — only hard to pull off at the start.
  • V-Formation Team Shot was formerly "Justice League Shot" but was renamed to be less work-specific and less opaque.
  • Victim Falls For Rapist used to be Rape Is Love, changed presumably due to the old title being full of Unfortunate Implications.
  • Victor Gains Loser's Powers was "Your Defeat Means I Obtain Your Powers". The original name was created with only clarity in mind, but many people thought it could be easily improved.
  • Villain Forgot to Level Grind was launched as "The Viral", after a character in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. The page was renamed because the word "Viral" has meanings which are more common than the the character name.
  • Villains Blend in Better was "Antagonists Assimilate", name was stretched to keep unused Transformers Quote.
  • Villain's Dying Grace was renamed from the unundicative "My Revenge Is Mercy".
  • The Villain Makes the Plot was once "The Law of Bruce", which failed the One Mario Limit. [1] The title failed to provide context: readers who guessed the Bruce were no nearer to the trope.
  • Virginity Makes You Stupid used to be "Innocence Virgin on Stupidity". It was changed to be more transparent, as most people didn't get the pun and simply thought the title had bad grammar.
  • Visions of Another Self was originaly masquerading as "Flashback Echo"; the new name is much more accurate to the description and allows a broader interpretation of the trope. A relaunched Flashback Echo ought to refer to the flashback version of Ironic Echo or Meaningful Echo, which is what some people thought this trope was under the old name.


W[]

  • Wackyland was once called "Magicant", an area from Earthbound. It was renamed to be less obtuse and more encompassing.
  • Wake Up Fighting was once called "Rude Awakening". Another case of taking a commonly used phrase and using it as something that wasn't the trope, causing underuse and misuse.
  • Waking Up Elsewhere was renamed from "Waking Up in Vegas" because the trope was much broader than the former name made it seem... and because the Trope Namer wasn't even an example.
  • Wants a Prize For Basic Decency was once "Virtue Is Its Own Reward", which sounded too much like another name for Think Nothing of It.
  • Watch It Stoned used to be called "Everything's Better on Drugs", which implied a connection to the unrelated and discredited Everything's Better with Indexes family.
  • The Watson was formerly both "The Sarah Jane" and "The Rick", named after a companion from Doctor Who and a character from Magnum, P.I., respectively. They were merged and renamed because "The Rick" is just flat out too vague, the distinction between the two was too subtle, and Watson from Sherlock Holmes is well-known outside of Science Fiction and Eighties TV fandom.
  • Waxing Lyrical was formerly "Don't Sing Along If You Don't Know the Words". It was changed because it was too long and not at all descriptive of what the trope was actually about.
  • Webcomic Time has been itself for quite some time, but "That Night Felt Like Months" was lumped with it.
  • What Were They Selling Again? was once known as "Distracted by the Shiny". It was changed because the trope name led people to believe this was a trope about characters being distracted by shiny things, which Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny now covers.
  • When You Coming Home, Dad? was originally "Cat's in the Cradle"; the new title is a lyric from the song which also provided the name of the old title. It was changed to clarify the meaning of the trope.
  • White Magician Girl was originally "Staff Chick", which underwent lots of misuse with people adding examples that played the role of healers but didn't match the personality (you might be looking for Healing Hands, The Medic or White Mage for more general cases) or worse, people assuming the staff to be the crucial aspect of this trope. The new name also matches this trope's Black Mage counterpart, Black Magician Girl.
  • Wicked Weasel was originally titled "Everything's Better with Weasels", a snowclone of the discredited Everything's Better with Indexes family. As with several similarly named tropes, the earlier name encouraged a list of all weasels regardless of portrayal.
  • Wife Husbandry was originally titled "Hikaru Genji Plan" but was changed since the latter was too obscure to those not knowing said work.
  • Wimp Fight used to be called "Zero Chops".
  • Wimpification was originally called "Ukefication"; it was changed to remove Gratuitous Japanese and because the trope was not actually about relative positions in a relationship as much as the stereotypes that went with them.
  • Windows of the Soul was originally "She Then Saw the Glint of Triumph in His Eyes", which was too long and unwieldy.
  • Word Salad Title is now the primary name for "Super Punk Octo Pudding Gas Mark Seven" instead of a redirect. This is because the original name was too hard to remember and spell, couldn't be used in a sentence, and didn't make all that much sense (which was both a problem and the entire point).


X[]


Y[]

  • YMMV used to be called "Subjective Tropes". It was renamed to Subjectives when someone pointed out that tropes are not subjective, and renamed again because people say "YMMV" more than "it is subjective", and because YMMV is an easy to remember namespace.
  • You Are Too Late was formerly "Thirty Five Minutes Ago" after a line from a comic book series. It was renamed because it was not only completely opaque and unsearchable, but also a major spoiler.
  • You Just Told Me was originally named "Rumplestiltskin Ploy"; renamed because the former Trope Namer is not an example.
  • Youkai was formerly "Yokai", with the latter now redirecting to the former, because the latter is wrong according to standard transliteration conventions.
  • You Know Who Said That was renamed from "And Now You Know the Rest of the Story" because the trope name was an obscure reference that didn't even fit the definition.
  • Young Conqueror was renamed from "The Alexander" because the name "Alexander" alone was not distinctive enough to clearly refer to Alexander the Great. Further, while Alexander the Great is noted for conquering a large part of the (known to him) world, the fact that he started out as a teenager is less widely known.
  • Your Mom was originally named "Yo Mommas a Trope", which was perhaps the ugliest use ever of the word "trope" as a placeholder in a trope name.
  • Yuri Fan was formerly "Yuri Fanboy". It was changed because too many of the examples and Troper Tales were female for the male-gendered title to make any sense as the primary title, though the original title was kept as a redirect.
  1. Are we talking Lee, Springsteen, Willis, Banner, Campbell, Almighty or Robert the Bruce? (answer is the third)