Breakfast Topic: What Tropes does your character embody?
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Oct 7th 2009 at 8:00AM
For those of you who do not know what TV Tropes is, I'll explain in short: it's a wiki in which the contributors look for common themes and cliches present in modern pop culture and fiction, document them, and categorize them. Of course, rather than give the Tropes simple names, part of the fun seems to be giving your tropes fanciful and offbeat names. Big Lipped Alligator Moment, anyone? How about Contemplate our Navels?
Seriously though, I refuse to call myself a troper, but I do have fun browsing through the site every so often. You know how a lot of people get their drama fix through Guildwatch? I get my drama fix by looking for edit wars or obvious bias on TV Tropes.
But what does this have to do with WoW, you ask? Well, if you have this big list of tropes, it's only only natural that some of them would be applicable to WoW itself. For example, when Chris Metzen floated the idea of Garona for Thrall's mate a while back, he got a pretty big dose of Die For Our Ship from the Thrall/Jaina shippers. A running joke among many players is that Garrosh and Varian have a bit of Foe Yay going on. Thrall might be said to fit into The Messiah trope (or does he?).
Anyway, this is actually an idea I got from Anna over at Too Many Annas, and I thought it'd be fun to throw it out here. Sure there's a Warcraft page over at the TV Tropes wiki, but I thought I'd see if anyone's seen any Tropes that apply to their characters specifically, or to your daily chores in WoW. For example, I'd say my Death Knight is definitely The Quiet One with a bit of Noble Demon thrown in, while my Druid has a bit of Badass Preacher going on. I'm interested to see what tropes other people can dig up.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Breakfast Topics, Humor, Lore, NPCs
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
snowleopard233 Oct 7th 2009 8:17AM
Middle child who's finally out his own worth outside his overbearing family.
snowleopard233 Oct 7th 2009 8:19AM
inset "Finally finding out". Man, I hate this comment system.
Legolastom Oct 7th 2009 8:20AM
Oh look a link to TV tropes, what's the worst that could happen?
Sleutel Oct 7th 2009 8:24AM
10,000 people mysteriously show up late for work.
loreaddict Oct 7th 2009 9:46AM
You just had to put a Tv Tropes link on a World of Warcraft site, didn't you?
Tv Tropes will ruin your life + World of Warcrack = Amount of life left: Zero.
Wartra Oct 7th 2009 12:28PM
It was 9:30am when I opened this wow.com post that linked me to that cursed site. I just now realized everybody was getting up to go to lunch. It's 11:30 now! What have I done? NOTHING for 2 hours :)
omegatwo Oct 7th 2009 8:22AM
This is bad... TvTropes is known to destroy any and all productivity! Don't check those links! You will be trapped there for hours! DAYS! D8
Killchrono Oct 7th 2009 9:05AM
http://xkcd.com/609/
Muse Oct 7th 2009 9:07AM
I couldn't help myself. I clicked. I figured "just looking wont hurt".
Do they have addiction programs for tvtropes yet?
Tim Oct 7th 2009 11:09AM
Thanks for the warning, I almost walked in without knowing what I was getting into. It cant be that bad right?
Abbadon Oct 7th 2009 8:28AM
While somewhat interesting, how can you honestly read that stuff?!
I followed a few of the links in your article, but then each page that is supposed to give a definition has 20+ links to other tropes, making it extremely difficult to get a full understanding before having to hop from page to page in order to make sense of the next trope linked.
Karilyn Oct 7th 2009 8:52AM
That's generally the problem with TVTropes.
If you get into it, before you know it, you wind up going through some 20 different pages trying to understand what you just read. And somehow you enjoy it.
But you feel a little dirty afterwards. Yet you'll do it again next week.
Aaron Oct 7th 2009 9:07AM
@Abbadon I'm right there with you on this one. My brain isn't ready for this kind of thing this early in the morning. LOL
kabshiel Oct 7th 2009 12:35PM
I enjoy reading the trope definitions, but I find that most of the examples people come up with are terrible. It's like they didn't even bother reading the definition.
Rimeshade Oct 7th 2009 8:35AM
My main RP (Belf Mage) character has a troperific list of them...
The Trickster
Obfuscating Stupidity
Deadpan Snarker
Chaotic Neutral
Straight Gay
And if surrounded by dramatic, serious Rpers he morphs into;
Plucky Comic Relief
DeathPaladin Oct 7th 2009 9:07AM
For my Death Knight Main:
Blood Knight
Psycho for Hire
Ax Crazy
The Unfettered
My Paladin:
Boistrous Bruiser
Hot Blooded
Large Ham
Light is Not Good
Knight Templar
My Paladin is particularly fun to RP, since he's a happy-go-lucky, friendly, light-wielding, party animal supervillain.
Kia Oct 7th 2009 9:08AM
I have no clue. Can't stand TVTropes, at all. It's ridiculously irritating and I hate how the people that do read it start firing off names like they expect the average person to have any bloody clue what they're talking about.
Raze Oct 7th 2009 9:41AM
Why? Do you really value your time that much that you can't afford to spend it on something silly and fun every once in a while?
Kylenne Oct 7th 2009 10:29AM
Not Helping Your Case, Jerkass.
RogueJedi86 Oct 7th 2009 10:49AM
Maybe if you'd actually read tvtropes despite your hate, you'd understand the tropes these people rattle off in daily life. You have a chance to learn the tropes, but you specifically deny them. That's not your friends' fault, it's yours.
Yes, I am a Tropaholic.