Hurriedly you cast the quill away from yourself and crumple up the paper. Tonight, I want to get into why it’s bad, but also why it’s both kind of lazy and also, sadly, inevitably ubiquitous, but first I want to talk a little bit about the post that prompted my own article. This badness carries over to the use of the trope in analysis. You get sucked into a story only to have it turn out to be utterly pointless. When used in canon, it tends to come off as a bit of a bait and switch-you become invested in a narrative that has no meaning, where events have no impact. All the kids in Ed Edd and Eddy are dead, Ash has been in a coma since episode 1, Steven Universe’s mom died and he’s imagining all the adventures and Connie is his therapist… whatever. That mode of explanation for the fantastic elements of a story. Or the characters are all dead, or they’re all just imaginary friends, or the character is having a psychotic break due to some trauma or other, or… whatever.
The story is all some character’s dream while the character is in a coma. Preferably something fantastical and beloved. If you’re not familiar with that trope of fan analysis the concept is fairly simple to explain: Wait, wait, that’s the wrong link, hold on, ah here we go, a post about “coma” theories. Last week I happened to seea post on Tumblr that facilitated that sort of topic drop: a post about “coma” theories. Sometimes I find that ideas for articles drop into my lap. To your surprise it begins writing, all on its own! Before your very eyes it spells out these words: You tap your chin with your magical quill and set it to the paper. Where were you? Oh, yes, you were trying to come up with an idea for an article on your favorite show… Something shocking, something original, something that would really turn the setting on its head… But what? You shake your head, still sleepy from your nap. You find yourself in a beautiful garden, a garden lush with flowery growth, marble statues peaking through the verdant leaves.
OVER THE GARDEN WALL THEORIES TV
Punk (5) A Song of Ice and Fire (2) Affect (9) Alienating My Audience (34) Animation (27) Anime (15) Anonymous (3) Anything Salvaged (18) Art Crit (39) Avatar the Last Airbender (2) Black Lives Matter (1) Bonus Article (1) Children's Media (6) Close Reading (96) Collaboration (1) comics (29) Cyborg Feminism (3) Deconstruction (10) Devin Townsend (2) Discworld (1) Evo Psych (1) Fandom Failstates (7) Fanfiction (30) Feminism (24) Fiction Experiments (18) Food (1) Fragments (15) Games (28) Geek Culture (29) Gender Shit (1) Getting Kicked Off Of TV Tropes For This One (12) Gnostic (5) Guest Posts (8) Guest: Ian McDevitt (2) Guest: Jon Grasseschi (3) Guest: Leslie the Sleepless Film Producer (1) Guest: Sara the Hot Librarian (3) Guest: Timebaum (1) Guest: Yanmato (3) Harry Potter (8) Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (3) Has DC Done Something Stupid Today (5) Hauntology (5) Homestuck (18) How Very Queer (38) hyperallthethings (10) hyperanimation (1) Hypercomics (10) I Didn't Ask For Your Life Story Sheesh (25) Illustrated (34) In The Shadow Of No Towers (2) It Just Keeps Tumblring Down Tumblring Down Tumblring Down (11) It's D&D (2) Judeo-Christian (13) Lady Gaga (5) Let's Read Theory (3) Lit Crit (19) Living In The Future Problems (11) Lord of the Rings (5) Mad Max (1) Madoka Magica (1) Magic The Gathering (4) Manos (3) Marvel Cinematic Universe (17) Marx My Words (15) Medium Specificity (15) Meme Hell (1) Metal (2) Movies (29) Music (28) Music Videos (22) NFTs (3) Object Oriented Ontology (4) Occupy Wall Street (3) Pacific Rim (2) Paper Roundup Clambake Panic Attack (5) Paradise Lost (5) Parafiction (5) Patreon Announcements (15) Phenomenology (4) Poetry (11) Pokemon (3) Politics and Taxes and People Grinding Axes (14) PONIES (10) Pop Art (5) Raising My Pageranks Through Porn (5) Reload The Canons! (7) Remixes (10) Review Compilations (6) Room For You Inside (2) Science Fiction Double Feature (28) Self-Referential Bullshit (26) Semiotics (2) Sense8 (4) Sociology (11) Spooky Stuff (38) Star Wars (6) Steven Universe (3) Surrealism (12) The Net Is Vast (32) Time (1) To Make An Apple Pie (4) Transhumanism (7) Twilight (4) Using This Thing To Explain That Thing (124) Video Response (2) Watchmen (4) Webcomics (2) Who Killed The World? (9)