The Fridge Brilliance Pages on TV Tropes

TheConductor

Jesus Christ. I've never seen a bigger page filled with...idiocy. These people thinking that they're so deep and insightful by...saying something that's either complete bullshit (The Joker is apparently a blending of Red Oni/Blue Oni and he wears a purple suit to represent this...yeah...) or just stating exactly what happens in the story (Willy Loman is bipolar). 

Crimson

It's pretty much a second gushing page combined with WMG, like anymore of that is needed on tv tropes.

It can't be any worse than Getting Crap Past The Radar though.

ClockworkUniverse

^I dunno about that. Getting Crap Past the Radar contains the occasional legitimate entry, if you're lucky enough to stumble across it. I'm not sure that applies to Fridge Brilliance.

DonZabu

>Willy Loman is bipolar

I read this as "Willy Wonka is bipolar". Which would kind of make sense, actually.

Malkavian

I'm going to use this opportunity to post my favorite WMG entry.

Smallville is a deconstruction of Super Sentai/Power Ranger shows

Where as traditional Sentai get cool uniforms and cool cars. Clark must fight in street clothes with no fancy vehicles. Super Sentai get weird alien mentors, but Clark just has his parents and friends to guide him. Most of the monsters are kryptonite poisoned humans and not hominoid monsters. Smallville inverts the Earth human vs alien monsters theme with the alien hero vs Earth human monsters. Super Sentai always have a 5 to 6 man band becomes deconstucted in Clark having to fight solo.

TheConductor

I hope to God that's one of those WMGs that aren't meant to be serious...I really do!

Malkavian

It's just so perfect, in how utterly it misunderstands what a deconstruction is to not understanding the actual conventions of Toku to the utter pretentiousness of it.

Whoever made this entry... if it really was a joke... I think I'm in love.

Icalasari

I didn't realize those entries were not legitimate

Then again, I stay with a limited pool of games and shows...

Although I really should have guessed that Joker one since the oni tropes are opposites, aren't they?

Or was that one even there last I read it...?

RedEyedAbyss

Heartwarming Moments: "Even 4chan has one. If you request Rule 34 of Yotsuba&!... the results ain't pretty. That's right, 4chan defending the innocence of a character. This is Anonymous we're talking about. Yotsuba is just so pure that no one dares to corrupt her... that's just beautiful in a rather disturbing-if-you-think-about-it-too-hard way..."

I remember asking if I could delete that entry on the forums, and someone said I couldn't because it's impolite to delete stuff just because I don't find it heartwarming in the least. Of course, if I recall correctly, he was creeped out when he saw the entry.

MadassAlex

Even 4chan has one. If you request Rule 34 of Yotsuba&!... the
results ain't pretty. That's right, 4chan defending the innocence of a
character.

---

You could stop it there and it'd be fine, I think.

RedEyedAbyss

Except she's fictional, and they're treating it like someone standing up against rape.

Anyways, back to Fridge Ass Pull:

"As different as the Disney movie is from the original book, you could justify it by saying that the Disney version is the version that Clopin is telling to the kids he's performing for, while the book's version is closer to what really happened."

Myrmidon

Sometimes it's interesting, but mostly it's just people declaring their fanwanks canon.

Glowsquid

Perhaps this is just me trying to squeeze any last bit of juice out of a relatively average game, but the plot of ""Tom Clancy's HAWX reads a LOT better as a Xanatos Gambit by whoever is running Las Trinidad, the game's Latin American Chavez/Castro substitutes that you really don't see too much of. The first time you see them, they throw a few dozen planes and landing craft at Rio (with or without potential partisans inside the city) in an attempt to decapitate the Brazilian leadership and gain dominance over Latin America. Naturally, you (a pilot for the local PMC, Artemis, which has just signed a "lucrative" contract with the Brazilians) tear them to shreds, save the Brazilians, and earn tons of money for Artemis while LT has botched their first strike and now has to await a counterattacked coupled with American intervention against them. All well and good, right? But pay attention to the briefing for that mission: it says that Las Trinidad's PMC (ie "Mercenary") units have been put on high alert, so chances are that the LT units you killed off at Rio and in the few other missions later were not "home-grown" units dedicated to LT's agenda, but rather mercenaries with no permanent loyalties and who are thus disposable. So, after their defeat by Artemis at Rio forces LT on the defensive, what do they do? Simple: they BRIBE Artemis- the force responsible for their defeat at Rio- with a BETTER CONTRACT then their Brazilian one, wagering (correctly) that the senior stockholders are all Corrupt Corporate Executives who will sell their country and their ex-allies up the river if paid enough and who are desperate due to profit downturns after the official American intervention. This maneuver violates the Reykjavik Accords that legalizes the PM Cs in the first place. Keep this in mind. So, after increasingly tense situations with command, Artemis does a FaceHeelTurn and back-stabs the US and Brazil. Naturally, you being the patriotic, pro-American gamer that you are, desert and start kicking Artemis around. This naturally ticks Uncle Sam off (likely since Artemis is probably American-based, is largely run and staffed by Americans, and is in violation of the Reykjavik accords), and thus they demand that Artemis disarm. Apparently, because the Board of Directors are either Randian fanatics or Too Dumb to Live, they decide to pull a coup that leads to a mini-civil war breaking out across the US, leaving tens of thousands dead. Because of the chaos, the Reykjavik Accords get tossed out (thus outlawing PM Cs again), and you get sent back to save the day by blowing Artemis' CEO and his inner cadre to hell. So, where does the Xanatos Gambit come in? Think about this: First, LT sends in an invasion of Rio spearheaded by disposable mercs who have no allegiance to them and who- if shanghaied into national service- would probably be fighting AGAINST them. If they had won, it would have been a simple coup before a march to Brasilia to clean up any loyalist resistance before the US can react. But, since they lost they have only lost a few hundred mercs with little loyalty- and perhaps some native LT sympathizers- while testing Artemis' capabilities. After this, they choose to bribe Artemis, thus getting THAT firepower on their side while continuing to use mainly disposable mercs while forcing an international incident over the rights of PM Cs. After the situation spirals out of hand and Artemis attempts to launch a coup that fails but DEVASTATES important areas of the US, Las Trinidad has achieved a major victory: they have managed to turn and destroy the mercenary company that stopped them from taking Brazil by forcing it to fight Brazil's chief ally- the US-, with a mini-civil war in the US that outclasses 9/11 diverting attention from Las Trinidad's war against Brazil, ALL WHILE LOOSING ONLY EXPENDABLE MERCENARIES (HELL, they probably only had to pay Artemis' up-front fee!) WHILE DAMAGING THE BRAZILIANS, REMOVING PM Cs from the Table, ALL WHILE PRESERVING THEIR DEDICATED CADRES TO GO TO A "ROUND 2" against Brazil while the US is still distracted by Artemis!!!!! Either Clancy's writers are SMART or I should have their jobs.- Turtler

• Probably the latter, if the Let's Play of the game is to go by. If better writers ever reference this incident, it'll probably be true.
• I always thought Las Trinidad was defeated after Operation Stiletto, so it's impossible for them to actually have a "Round 2" with Brazil. Here's the thing: The game mentioned at the beginning of Operation Ulysses that Las Trinidad's ground assault have been halted after the capture of their battle plans, leaving their only way of waging war to be by water, hence why the beginning of Operation Ulysses involves fighting Las Trinidad's naval forces. The James Lawrence Battle Group destroyed both Las Trinidad's fleet, as well as Artemis's contracted fleet. Las Trinidad was defeated soon after in Operation Stiletto (when their Operational Center was bombed), which is why they're no longer mentioned for the rest of the game.

 

(note that I had to trim more than 3510 character of this shiti, vanilla couldn't even post the whole thing)

Demongodofchaos

The Fridge Brillaince for pokemon actually makes a lot of sense.

Icalasari

^ Examples?

Scythemantis

Why stop with the Fridge Brilliance pages? MOST fan opinions on TVtropes are painfully contrived.

Marioguy128

Not to mention that some of the examples on those pages are PAINFULLY OBVIOUS in context.

Icalasari

That reminds me. I need to start a trope repair shop thread for TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything

Not because the trope doesn't work. It's because there are too many shit examples for one man

Gelzo

I guess this is about how shitty TvTropes can get, but at some point I wanted to mention something I didn't notice about The Big Lebowski until my third viewing.

The characters end up mirroring a lot of phrases and words said in previous scenes. To me it was kind of subtle and interesting, but maybe I was just being thick.

MillerCross

Isn't that Ironic/Meaningful echo?

captainbrass

A few months ago I (and a few others) had a go at cleaning up the Fridge Horror pages. The Real Life one nearly broke me - just endless natter, with an overriding tone of " little nerd boys around the camp fire trying to make the little nerd girls cry with their creepy tales of how the world is doomed to destruction and life sucks anyway."

So Fridge anything is problematic for me.

Gelzo

Well... sorta kinda. Have you seen the movie? There are parts where it seems more understated than others.

MillerCross

Nah, haven't seen it. Been meaning to, though. 

Gelzo

Well, just keep an ear out for it and you can let me know what you think.

gentlemanorcus

You can't really trust TVTropes to try and form any theories that don't devolve into fan wank, really. 

Scythemantis

The big problem with fridge horror, accidental nightmare fuel and troper tales about anything scary is people adding things that did not actually scare them, but they have a hard-on for the series and think "OMG so dark and edgy, this would totally scare somebody, I better add it so everyone knows how awesome this show is!!!"

IanExMachina

I think I still hate shout outs the worst.

Urgh I mean you'll get people grasping at infinitely thin straws to say x show is related to their favourite series because the main characters both have hair or something.

TheConductor

Or people who over think things.

Icalasari

^^ Pokemon is TOTALLY related to CSI because Pokemon is about kids using animals to fight which is illegal in the real world and could get you killed and put in an episode of CSI

InsanityAddict

Awesome Moments. 1/6 description of what actually occurs, 5/6 bluelinked hyperboles. Also, contextless one-liners.

LouieW

Well, I am not going to disagree with the idea that Fridge Brilliance pages and the like can be a bit frustrating to read occasionally, at least they are rarely creepy and are left as subpages. I can cut Awesome Moments and such some slack too mostly because I do not think they really do much harm and they stay off the main pages as well.

I think the fanservice tropes examples on main pages tend to be more annoying to read because they are often "talking about why one finds a certain animated character/actor attractive." While I might be able to see how one troper may have such an opinion, I would prefer that he or she keep it to him or herself, given that other people who do not share that opinion may find it unnecessary, disconcerting, or kind of gross depending on the character/comment in question.