The controversial topic of TV Tropes

[Kato]

I'm not going to say the new names suck but I liked quite a few of the old ones... "you don't know who Spike is?" Too bad. "You didn't watch the second Digimon series?" Well, you are not nerdy enough. GET OFF MY SITE, you average person!

No, to be serious, when someone claimed Xanatos' Gambit was totally incomprehensible because s/he didn't know who or what a Xanatos was and s/he only knew Gambit from the X-Men character I a) wondered what that person was doing in his childhood if s/he didn't know Xanatos and b) how someone who's presumably a native English speaker doesn't know what a gambit is if I know it.
Given, Gargoyles is kind of outdated now and it's not a classical Shakespearean work or anything but you might as well say we need to change Soylent Green... wait what, this was changed? Er... how about... The Arthur Dent? The Brigadier? The Kirk? The Nth Doctor? Some things even though the names are not self-explanatory unless a certain level of nerdiness is assumed yet they (I hope) will not be changes because the people are famous enough to maintain tropes by themselves. I don't want The everyday man in Space, The good Military Officer, The Man with a Thousand Faces (which is a trope already I think) in my tv tropes...
Also, if you don't know a trope, half the fun is going there, start reading, find another trope you don't know, go there, read, find trope... repeat ad infinitum.

[Yuki Akuma]

That's called "fundamental attribution error" (alternatively, "correspondence bias") there, Kato - assuming that because you had access to everything you had access to when you were young means that anyone who didn't was doing it wrong.

I never saw Gargoyles when I was younger, for instance. I only know who the hell David Xanatos is from reading TV Tropes.

(Also, "Soylent Green" was changed because the trope really didn't have anything to do with the trope namer - the movie itself wasn't an example, so why name the trope after it?)

(Of course, the new name is a Venture Brothers quote, but at least it's somewhat more comprehensible. ... And they reworked the trope to make Soylent Green an example.)

[Trazoi]

My first take was Xanatos was a reference to the Greek god of death Thanatos, 'cause I'm a huge square. (I didn't see Gargoyles either).

Given, Gargoyles is kind of outdated now and it's not a classical Shakespearean work or anything

On my brief stint on TV Tropes I mainly helped with Image Picking, and my experience was that being a classical reference wouldn't make much difference. The ugly flip side of Everything Is Notable is that Nothing Is Reputable. Goethe and Swift are on the same level as webcomic fanfiction.

[Morty]

TVTropes is a fun casual read and can lead to discovering new books, movies, shows et cetera. It has also helped me discover all sorts of fun trivia about the works I like.
It's not, however, any means of serious literary analysis and it gets problematic when people try to use it like it was some sort of authority, even if the trope they use as a cudgel is grossly misused.
It gets even worse when tropes are treated like quick and easy recipes for success - something you just have to put in your work for it to become instantly good.
Oh and for the record, I too had never even heard of Xanatos before reading TVTropes. I'm honestly not sure if Gargoyles were aired in Poland ever, much less when I was a child.

[Howler Dagger]

) wondered what that person was doing in his childhood if s/he didn't know Xanatos

Living a life without Xanatos?

I mean seriously, Who the heck is Xanatos? Tropers assume that everybody has been exposed to the exact same media, and whine whenever someone complains that they never have seenn or read it ANYTHING about that show/movie/whatever. "Spikeafication" was okay when TVTropes was still mostly buffy-based, but when it got popular, "badass decay" made more sense to a lot of people.

[Prime32]

Living a life without Xanatos?

I mean seriously, Who the heck is Xanatos? Tropers assume that everybody has been exposed to the exact same media, and whine whenever someone complains that they never have seenn or read it ANYTHING about that show/movie/whatever. "Spikeafication" was okay when TVTropes was still mostly buffy-based, but when it got popular, "badass decay" made more sense to a lot of people.

See also "What the heck is a tsundere and why does it need a trope? I've never heard of it."

[Kato]

Oh come on guys, I wasn't entirely serious. Of course I am aware there are people who don't know Gargoyles (still, they are missing out) but I like tv tropes to reference more or less popular media since it IS about media. If every title was terribly obscure that would be different but such iconic characters in there own right... and if it gets people to start watching a good show to realize what a trope is about... even better!

[Yuki Akuma]

Gargoyles only seems popular to you because you hang out on sites where people who like things like Gargoyles tend to congregate.

(Also: 'tsundere' is a term used in anime fandom a lot, and TV Tropes likes to use terms actually used by fandom before making up its own words. And 'Bipolar' doesn't really fit.)

[Psyren]

"Xanatos" is just a cool villain name whether you're familiar with Gargoyles or not. This dovetails with the trope's common usage by morally questionable practicioners. By contrast, heroes are more prone to use the Batman Gambit or Indy Ploy. It all fits together rather well.

And Tsundere is such a well-known trope in Japan that various manga and anime actively invoke it. Not to mention that Yuki is right and the concept doesn't translate well to any one English word or phrase. (Similar to "nakama" and "Yamato Nadeshiko.")

[Traab]

I watched the gargoyles series and I missed the reference to xanatos. I thought it was talking about some videogame villain or something. I had a real lightbulb moment when I made the connection there. "OH YEAH! Now I remember!" I honestly never made the connection between him and the idea of plans within plans where no matter what you do he wins.

[Yuki Akuma]

"Nakama" has a perfectly acceptable English translation - "Comrade". Which is why "nakama" is no longer a trope title. It's a concept that has existed for thousands of years and isn't just native to Japan.

"Yamato Nadeshiko" is a Japanese cultural thing, so of course it's got a Japanese name. The hint is the "Yamato". It's basically the Japanese cultural ideal of a perfectly beautiful housewife. (A literal translation would be "Japanese Large Pink", which is just silly.)

[Arminius]

I don't really see the problem with TV Tropes. Like Wiki, I have learned a great deal of interesting things from it. I have also discovered a number of good books, movies, shows, and webcomics through it. As I see it, knowledge is knowledge. As long as it is correct, it doesn't matter where you learned it. I am glad TV Tropes exists. It has made me less ignorant and expanded my mind in new directions. Heck, it is how I first discovered the Order of the Stick. I'm just judging from the posted exchange, but the OP's friend strikes me as an elitist.

[Psyren]

"Nakama" has a perfectly acceptable English translation - "Comrade". Which is why "nakama" is no longer a trope title. It's a concept that has existed for thousands of years and isn't just native to Japan.

See, even you messed it up. Nakama is stronger than merely "comrade." It carries implications of them being almost family, and you being willing to go through a great deal of pain, or even lay down your life, to protect them. "Friend" and "Comrade" don't capture that at all. A phrase like "Facebook Nakama" is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds.

The hint is the "Yamato".

Gee, had no idea, thanks for clearing that up.

And you're still wrong besides. "Housewife" is a much more 2-dimensional, even demeaning term and does not capture the strength of will required to be a YN.

Boiling these tropes down to an english word or two simplifies them beyond all accuracy - hence, it's easier to simply use the names from the culture where they were born.

[Arminius]

See, even you messed it up. Nakama is stronger than merely "comrade." It carries implications of them being almost family, and you being willing to go through a great deal of pain, or even lay down your life, to protect them. "Friend" and "Comrade" don't capture that at all. A phrase like "Facebook Nakama" is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds.

Actually, Comrade does have this meaning. It is traditionally a status/address between soldiers, and in this sense would imply a level of brotherhood, where you would indeed be willing to go through a great deal of pain and be willing to lay down your life to protect them. The meaning got somewhat muddied because the Communists started to use this as a form of address between themselves, largely because it implied a brotherhood of humanity and did not have the class distinctions of Mr. and Mrs.. It's political connotations have caused it's meaning to be more dependant on context these days, but it's traditional meaning is still in active use.

[Psyren]

Actually, Comrade does have this meaning. It is traditionally a status/address between soldiers, and in this sense would imply a level of brotherhood, where you would indeed be willing to go through a great deal of pain and be willing to lay down your life to protect them.

To me, that would be "comrade-in-arms" rather than merely "comrade" - and even then would be inadequate to encompass nakama, as the former implies a battlefield/conflict situation whereas nakama is applicable to a broader variety of instances.

[Yuki Akuma]

To me, that would be "comrade-in-arms" rather than merely "comrade" - and even then would be inadequate to encompass nakama, as the former implies a battlefield/conflict situation whereas nakama is applicable to a broader variety of instances.

'Comrade' means exactly the same as 'nakama'.

Words can have multiple definitions, you know. One of 'Comrade's definitions means exactly the same thing as 'nakama'.

The concept of 'nakama' is not restricted solely to Glorious Nippon, remember. Other cultures have the same concept, and their own words for it. 'Comrade', for instance, is the English word for it.

[The Glyphstone]

Not to mention it's rather Japanocentric to assume that the Japanese were the only, or even the first, people to come up with the concept of 'friends as close as family'.

EDIT: Samurai'd.

[Knaight]

Not to mention it's rather Japanocentric to assume that the Japanese were the only, or even the first, people to come up with the concept of 'friends as close as family'.

EDIT: Samurai'd.

Particularly when China is right next door. Its not Japan which generated the phrase "Wives and Children are like clothing, they can be discarded; Brothers* are like limbs, and you need your limbs". On a side note, I'm very glad I don't live in ancient China.

*In this case, comrades that aren't within the family

[Arminius]

To me, that would be "comrade-in-arms" rather than merely "comrade" - and even then would be inadequate to encompass nakama, as the former implies a battlefield/conflict situation whereas nakama is applicable to a broader variety of instances.

Comrade is not limited to the military, though that is, I believe, the origin and most common use. Any tight knit group could be considered comrades. Once again, that useage has lessened due to communist usage, but is still valid.

I am not really familiar with the intricacies of Japanese, so I am going off google, which brought up the urban dictionary definitions and the One Piece wiki. Judging from the two, Nakama seems to refer more to close knit groups. One Piece particularly seems to be in the context of a crew, which is well within the boundaries of comrades. If the group meaning is the correct meaning in Japanese, comrade seems a perfect translation.

If the word does not refer to group members who all have this closeness with each other, but between two individuals who are simply close friends with no common cause or interest between them, a better English term would be "boon companion". Boon companion is verging on the archaic these days, and probably will be archaic by the time I am an old man, because modern Western society tends to stigmatize close male friendships as inherently homosexual(and in turn a stigmatizes homosexuality), and does not think non-romantic friendships are possible across sexes. Both "boon companion" and comrade are gender neutral, but historically have applied only to male relationships due to the historic segregation of the sexes. As the culture becomes less bigoted, the meanings of both will/have expand(ed) to include both sexes.

If Nakama has both the group and individual meanings, dependant on context, translations should probably be on a case by case basis, since Nakama is more vague than the corresponding English terms. The article on Nakama should probably be made into a header explaining the contexts, have sub-catagories of Japanese works for each context, and links to articles on the English meanings, since they are more precise.

[Yuki Akuma]

Nakama has already been renamed with an English title, because the moderators realised that the term is universal and using Japanese words for universal tropes is ridiculous on an English-language wiki.

It even has sub-tropes!

[Kato]

'Comrade' means exactly the same as 'nakama'.

Words can have multiple definitions, you know. One of 'Comrade's definitions means exactly the same thing as 'nakama'.

The concept of 'nakama' is not restricted solely to Glorious Nippon, remember. Other cultures have the same concept, and their own words for it. 'Comrade', for instance, is the English word for it.

Yes, both mean basically the same thing. Still, the thing is... a comrade is, even ignoring the meaning it got from communism in it's military sense is someone you depend your life upon whether you like him or not. You are forced to be brothers with your comrades, if you like them or not you will do what you need to keep them save and you expect the same from them.
Even though the 'ideal' comrade is your closest friend and more important yuo you than even family or love, that is only true in the rarest sense.

Nakama the way it is portrayed mostly by One Piece and further adopted by anime fandom is something far beyond that, beyond a brother in arms, beyond family but to the highest peek of admiration a person can feel for another short of love.
Of course, that's an ideal way to think of it as well but since comrade as a trope would hardly work to give that kind of impression I have no problem adapting a new term for it and Nakama fits just fine.

[Yuki Akuma]

Look, no matter what Kaizoku Fansubs tells you, 'nakama' is not some special magical relationship that's different to comradeship.

The word 'comrade' does not have connotations of forced relationships.

[Arminius]

Yes, both mean basically the same thing. Still, the thing is... a comrade is, even ignoring the meaning it got from communism in it's military sense is someone you depend your life upon whether you like him or not. You are forced to be brothers with your comrades, if you like them or not you will do what you need to keep them save and you expect the same from them.
Even though the 'ideal' comrade is your closest friend and more important yuo you than even family or love, that is only true in the rarest sense.

Nakama the way it is portrayed mostly by One Piece and further adopted by anime fandom is something far beyond that, beyond a brother in arms, beyond family but to the highest peek of admiration a person can feel for another short of love.
Of course, that's an ideal way to think of it as well but since comrade as a trope would hardly work to give that kind of impression I have no problem adapting a new term for it and Nakama fits just fine.

That sounds, very much identical. Many military units probably are just a group of people who have to put up with each other until the war is over, or clubs may only have a single interest in common and not particularly like each other. Comradeship is meant to be that same level or respect and brotherhood that Nakama seems to mean. Just because an ideal is rarely met does not mean we need to rename it to another ideal that means the same thing.

[Kato]

Look, no matter what Kaizoku Fansubs tells you, 'nakama' is not some special magical relationship that's different to comradeship.

The word 'comrade' does not have connotations of forced relationships.

Have you ever been a soldier? Being in an army IS forced relationship. You ARE forced to be supportive of your comrades even if you would rather strangle them to death. It's an essential part of a comrade-in-arms that you are forced to be his friend, simply put. And about meaning given to comrades by communist Russia we don't even need to talk, I think.
Nakama to a Japanese speaker might be just the same, not sure what Japanese Self Defense Forces call their brothers in arms, possibly nakama, too, so it's just the same for them but... well, I guess we could start over the whole discussion of whether there is a difference between a Nakama and a comrade but let's go back to something more general.
An English speaker knows, or should know what a comrade is. Or at least have a general idea of it. But it's certainly not exclusively that what anime fandom thinks of when they hear nakama, even though , yes, I know, it's just a normal Japanese word, but that's not what these people think of but they think of a much more specific and much closer relationship than comrades.
Of course you could go and ad a few words to closer describe what kind of comrade you mean OR you could just ad a new word to your dictionary (not saying nakama should be in the dictionary, just talking in general) because language changes. And sometimes we adopt new words, just like German language is including more and more English terms even though we could use/adopt/create German ones. What's so wrong with expanding a language by adopting new terms?
Once in a while I have/witness discussions about 'geek' and 'nerd' which are not sure whether outside the US or outside English peaking countries or whatever often perceived as different where as an American uses both interchangeably if I say 'geek' to another German person he knows I mean something different than 'nerd'.

Wow, this post is getting longish, sorry. Long story short: In Japanese, yes, nakama is really nothing else than comrade for an English speaker but among non-Japanese anime fans if you say nakama they know you mean something much more than comrade (see problem earlier) without further explanation. And I guess it's something many people can disagree on but I have no trouble adopting my language for it to be as convenient as possible as long as I know who I'm talking to.
That this doesn't necessarily applies to tv tropes is true but if someone just doesn't care to look up a trope because he doesn't know what it means... dunno... I explicitly click on tropes I don't know what they are about to find out but I guess that's just me.

[Psyren]

Even if I cede "nakama" (I'm not, but even if I did), equating "Yamato Nadeshiko" to "housewife" is patently absurd.

[Yuki Akuma]

Even if I cede "nakama" (I'm not, but even if I did), equating "Yamato Nadeshiko" to "housewife" is patently absurd.

I specifically said it's untranslateable as it's a cultural thing relegated entirely to Japan.

Seriously. Come on. Do you just skim my posts looking for things to argue with?

[Lurkmoar]

Look, no matter what Kaizoku Fansubs tells you, 'nakama' is not some special magical relationship that's different to comradeship.

The word 'comrade' does not have connotations of forced relationships.

They changed 'Nakama' to True Companions. Probably for similar reasons you've outlined. The trope names will probably change over time, Vizzini Gambit is now Out Gambited.

But seriously, OP don't bring it up around that friend. You'll rarely win an argument, but you can always annoy someone. Now that you know he has a pet peeve, you can use it to your advantage.

On that note, I doubt I'd ever dislike TVtropes unless they started redirecting to various shock sites. It's how I found OotS after all.

[Mewtarthio]

Here's my thought on it: If it's strictly a Japanese cultural thing, go ahead and use the Japanese term. If it's not (and Japan does not have a monopoly on friends willing to lay down their lives for each other), use the primary language of the wiki--ie, English. It doesn't matter if nakama really means all you say it means and no English term comes close to the definition; if someone unfamiliar with the term sees the title is Japanese, they're not going to intuitively guess its meaning and they're likely to assume it's a Japanese thing.

[Psyren]

I specifically said it's untranslateable as it's a cultural thing relegated entirely to Japan.

Except it's not relegated entirely to Japan, as several of the examples on that page are from outside Japan (including a real actual western woman.)

You can translate anything, it just takes more words for some concepts.

Seriously. Come on. Do you just skim my posts looking for things to argue with?

If you recall, I started this whole back and forth by agreeing with you. You responded by arguing with me. (Seriously.)

[Ravens_cry]

Yes, the concept is hardly just limited to Japan, but, so far, the Japanese term for it is the most succinct way of describing it without taking up a paragraph.
Which, incidentally, is what the trope description is for.