Emphasize Everything: Difference between revisions

This is an admitted [[Sub-Trope|subtrope]] of the [[Bad Writing Index]], but sometimes it's [[Guilty Pleasures|fun]].

 

 

You'll see ''a lot'' of shouting on ''this very wiki'', but since the question of whether or not it's overdone is ''purely'' [[Subjective Trope|subjective]], what can you do? '''''NOTHING!!'''''

 

== Anime ==

 

 

== Comics ==

* Mainstream comic books '''tend''' to do this with bold '''text'''. It's '''actually''' very strange and no one '''seems''' to know why it happens. Possibly, it's intended to highlight the key (i.e., plot relevant) words in the character's speech, and has nothing to do with how the characters are talking. That way, the reader, if he wants to get to the guys in colored tights beating on each other, can skim more easily. That doesn't make it any less weird for someone who isn't used to reading comics.

** This one thinks that it's because of the fact that people in real life, while they do usually have very distinct speech patterns, quite often ''italicize'' strange words in ''their'' speech.

** Averted with Rorschach who speaks with no italics or bold. His voice IS described by other characters though as being a creepy, gravel-y monotone

 

== Film ==

** This seems to be a habit of [[Peter Jackson]]'s. Was the strobe effect really necessary in [[King Kong]]?

 

* There are a ''lot'' of ''italics'' in the novelization of ''[[Star Wars]] Episode III: Revenge of the Sith''. Possibly ''justified'', since the book's main character, Anakin ''Skywalker'', is a ''notorious'' drama queen.

** From the same author, ''[[New Jedi Order|Traitor]]'' and ''[[Shatterpoint]]'' are equally italics-heavy, although only in some sections. Since one book's protagonist is undergoing a drug-and-torture fueled religious experience, and the other is in a [[Whole-Plot Reference]] to [[Heart of Darkness]], it is perhaps understandable.

** He does use lots of italics, but most of them are to indicate a character's thoughts, not to emphasize words.

* [[Terry Pratchett]] very occasionally veers into this territory. He'll make an ironic observation which isn't that mind-blowing, ''but he'll write it in italics to make it seem like it is.''

* [[Matthew Reilly]] has a tendency to italicise too many verbs during the action sequences that take up the bulk of his novels.

* [[Lord Peter Wimsey]]'s assistant Miss Climpson likes to emphasize everything with italics in her letters. Since they usually only take up a few pages, it's more of a character quirk than an annoyance.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* Almost everything on the History Channel. Ominous music, tragic tales of the man who was [[They Called Me Mad|never listened to]], and of course, the ever-present deep-voiced narrator.

* What about certain presenters - Jeremy Clarkson, for instance, '''really''' ''likes'' '''to put''' ''emphasis'' on '''''almost''''' ''every'' word. Oddly enough, Andrew Marr shares this habit.

* The Daleks of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' emphasize every individual [[Accent On the Wrong Syllable|syllable]] of every word they say, without exception.

 

 

== Music ==

* This is staple trope of several forms of Punk and Metal in which screaming or growling is the dominating vocal technique. At extreme cases the growling sounds like whispering and the distorted guitars sound like TV static.

 

 

== Webcomics ==

* Many sparks in ''[[Girl Genius]]'' talk like this.

* The dialogue in ''[[Dominic Deegan]]'' is filled with '''bolded words'''. Sometimes it's there to [[Viewers are Morons|make sure that readers don't miss the puns]], but most of the time it's downright random.

* As mentioned, many descriptions on the [[TV Tropes]] wiki itself fall into this. It's one of the hallmarks of [[That Troper (Darth Wiki)|That Troper]].

** Our late I Am Not Making This Up section was an epic emphasis spam, not only in grammatical terms but by its very existence. It was a place that everyone could go to underscore how amazing/bizarre/hilarious events from entertainment could be, and, well, everything ended up underscored.

* Often crops up in [[Fan Fiction]] of course, but what aspect of bad writing doesn't?

** One can find [[Emphasis Spam]] in all its forms, including bold, italic, coloured text, different fonts, repeated letters (including letters that represent sounds that are hard if not impossible to extend) and multiple exclamation marks.