Measuring the Marigolds: Difference between revisions

This is a major gripe that [[Romanticism Versus Enlightenment|Romanticism has against Enlightenment]]. Related to [[Straw Vulcan]], [[Hollywood Atheist]], and [[Mother Nature, Father Science]], since this kind of character is almost [[Always Male]]. One manifestation of this is [[Don't Explain the Joke]] Compare [[Centipede's Dilemma]]. According to the scientifically-minded, this [[Trope]] is basically [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch]]. Has nothing to do with the [[Otaku Surrogate]] character from [[Questionable Content]].

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=== Straight Examples: ===

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== Anime and Manga ==

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== Straight Examples: ==

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=== Anime and Manga ===

* Edward Elric from ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' would launch into a speech like this every single time anyone said anything romantic. He used it to justify his anti-god stance in the first story arc, anyway. 'Alchemists are scientists, so we don't believe in vague things like God. [[Nay Theist|And he hates me, incidentally.]]' Can be quite the romantic himself, actually, but seems to fancy the pose of being this.

** Taken to one extreme in the final chapter-slash-final episode where Ed somehow manages to turn {{spoiler|'''''a marriage proposal'''''}} into a discussion about the properties of alchemy, {{spoiler|which Winry lampshades by calling him out on.}}

== Comic Books ==

=== Comic Books ===

* One [[Fantastic Four]] story had a villain steal not the intelligence, but the creativity of Reed Richards, who is regarded as one of the most intelligent men in the [[Marvel Universe]]. He found himself shocked to discover that he couldn't even stare at a flower without being hit by the sheer sense of wonder Richards feels at the existence of all things!

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** Dan Dreiburg, AKA Nite Owl II, mentions this effect in passing in one of the supplemental pieces. He found he was losing his awe for owls in studying them, until a chance encounter with a hunting owl brought his fascination back.

== Literature ==

=== Literature ===

* [[Sherlock Holmes]] is a perfect example of this. He was always complaining about how Watson kept writing the adventures in a dramatic fashion rather than focusing on the meaningful facts. Which was rather hypocritical of him, since in "The Valley of Fear' he laid a trap for the villain and kept his associates in the dark about what he was doing ''specifically'' because it was more dramatic that way.

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== Live Action TV ==

=== Live Action TV ===

* ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "This Side of Paradise". [[The Spock|Mr. Spock]] has been affected by spores that release his emotional side. He and his love interest Leila Kalomi are looking at clouds.

{{quote|'''[[The Spock|Spock]]:''' That one looks like a dragon. You see the tail and the dorsal spines?~~ ~~

{{quote|'''[[The Spock|Spock]]:''' That one looks like a dragon. You see the tail and the dorsal spines?

'''Leila:''' I've never seen a dragon.~~ ~~

'''Leila:''' I've never seen a dragon.

'''[[The Spock|Spock]]:''' I have. On Berengaria 7. But I've never stopped to look at clouds before. Or rainbows. I can tell you exactly why one appears in the sky, but considering its beauty has always been out of the question. }}

* ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' (being essentially a [[Sherlock Holmes]] [[Expy]]) is frequently dismissive of human emotions and relationships. On the other hand he rides a motorcycle, takes a sadistic pleasure in artistic pranks, and does all sorts of other not-logical things. He doesn't ''look'' any happier, but they presumably do something for him.

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'''Angela''': So, it's because Booth is hot? Now we're getting somewhere. }}

== Meta ==

=== Meta ===

* One of the things critics of ~~[[TV~~ ~~Tropes]]~~ might cite would fall into this [[Trope]]: [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life]] because, after a particularly long [[Wiki Walk]], you'll start seeing [[Trope|Tropes]] every time you watch a [[Film]] and they'll distract you from enjoying the [[Plot]].

* One of the things critics of trope wikis might cite would fall into this [[Trope]]: [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life]] because, after a particularly long [[Wiki Walk]], you'll start seeing [[Trope|Tropes]] every time you watch a [[Film]] and they'll distract you from enjoying the [[Plot]].

** [http://blog.toonzone.net/blogs/39/crowning-moment-of-annoyance--tv-tropes/ This blog entry] -- the last paragraph directly accuses [[TV Tropes]] of this:

{{quote|But the heart of the problem is that [[TV Tropes]] takes good, challenging fiction and removes its identity as an individual piece of work. ... Nothing more quickly removes the fun and charm of something born from human emotion and creativity than to strip it down into cold and clinical statistics presented out of context.}}

* On [[TV Tropes]] itself, complaints about [[Did Not Do the Research]] are usually put forward more because of a demand for accuracy rather than for intrinsic entertainment. [[Artistic License]], [[Rule of Cool]]/[[Rule of Fun]]/whatever, will often be dismissed as 'the easy way out', neglecting the fact that good fiction uses these [[Trope|tropes]] just as often as bad fiction. And, well, it is ''fictional'' - there's no prizes for getting every detail correct. They don't seem to get that [[Tropes Are Not Bad]], and that we're here to ''celebrate'' popular fiction. Indeed, half of the Wiki is now [[Awesome Moments]], [[Funny Moments]], [[Heartwarming Moments]] and their kin, which is basically the internet's repository of stuff people like just because they like it.

== Music ==

=== Music ===

* The song ''[[Insane Clown Posse|Miracles]]'' angrily renounces anything scientific, instead referring to almost all natural processes as "miracles", such as [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|feeding pelicans]] and [[Memetic Mutation|the workings of magnets]].

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** Not that as usually presented, basic music theory ''doesn't'' contain a lot of rules to follow. But if you haven't heard of the rules, you've also never asked yourself questions such as: "Am I already following these rules? Should I be? What is each rule trying to prevent? How do people get away with breaking each rule?" Music theory is to writing music as a map is to wandering; you can still put it away and enjoy the scenery. Having one just helps you know if you're going in circles, and lets you reach places far enough away from your home that you wouldn't have stumbled upon them otherwise.

== Newspaper Comics ==

=== Newspaper Comics ===

* One ''[[BC]]'' character (probably Thor) neatly torpedoed his own chances of getting lucky by responding to a comment on the beauty of the moon rising by saying it's an illusion caused by the Earth's rotation. Cue him shouting at the retreating Cute Chick, "BUT IT IS STILL ROMANTIC, OH SOOOO ROMANTIC!" in a futile effort to recover the magic.

* Referenced in the ''[[FoxTrot]]'' arc where Andy becomes obsessed with the film ''[[Titanic]]'', to the point that Roger worries about her. Jason begins describing production trivia to her ("Did you know the scenes with everyone drowning were filmed in a heated indoor pool, and their foggy breath was added by computers?" and so on). Andy accuses Jason of trying to ruin her enjoyment of the film. The final panel has Jason telling Roger, "She's onto us. Do I still get paid?"

== Tabletop Games ==

=== Tabletop Games ===

* Overuse of this theme was one of the many criticisms leveled at the [[Old World of Darkness]] games. ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' had the Technocracy, who started out as an evil conspiracy combining the worst features of ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', the Agents from ''[[The Matrix]]'', every [[Government Conspiracy]] ever, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and]] [[Everybody Hates Mathematics|an especially boring math class]]. (They did receive a lot of [[Character Development]] as the game-line went on.) ''[[Changeling: The Dreaming]]'' characters were vulnerable to "Banality", which in practice meant that inhaling while too close to an accountant could make their souls die. [[Science Is Bad]], [[Anvilicious|mmmmkay?]]!

** Of course, ''Changeling'' was also <s> somewhat schizoid</s> [[Depending on the Writer|inconsistent]] on this point, as for every book that treated a slide rule as just as bad as [[Weaksauce Weakness|cold iron]], there was a source book where the [[Mad Scientist|nockers]] pointed out it was the moon landing that resulted in the biggest rush of Glamour most changelings had seen in their lifetimes, or a sample [[Hobbits|boggan]] ''accountant'' who resisted Banality through his profession because he actually took joy in numbers.

** Of course, ''Changeling'' was also <s>somewhat schizoid</s> [[Depending on the Writer|inconsistent]] on this point, as for every book that treated a slide rule as just as bad as [[Weaksauce Weakness|cold iron]], there was a source book where the [[Mad Scientist|nockers]] pointed out it was the moon landing that resulted in the biggest rush of Glamour most changelings had seen in their lifetimes, or a sample [[Hobbits|boggan]] ''accountant'' who resisted Banality through his profession because he actually took joy in numbers.

** Second Edition ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' listed the following as the quote to sum up the attitude of the Sons of Ether: "[[Critical Research Failure|The beauty of science is not that it answers all the questions]], but that with every answer, more questions arise."

** Then there's the Weaver in ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'', a cosmic force which is associated with both technological progress and stasis. While it tends to be perceived as a lesser threat than the obvious [[Big Bad]] that is the Wyrm, many of the non-Glass Walker Garou continue to look down on things like cities or computers. ''Then'' it's further suggested that the origin of the entire [[Crapsack World]] can be traced back to the Weaver, since its imprisonment of the Wyrm was what drove it insane to begin with.

* Early editions of ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' had comparatively fewer rules than later editions for character actions other than combat and spellcasting. Back then if, say, you wanted to throw your drink in a villain's face to blind him, jump from a balcony, swing on a chandelier, ~~sommersault~~ through the air, land on your feet, and run out of the room, your DM would have to figure out exactly how that would work - probably an attack roll with a small penalty, some Dexterity rolls, and a decision about whether you've generally played your character as a guy who would do that kind of thing. Now, your GM has extensive rules for how far you can jump, how for you can move, how much damage you take when you fall, what difficulty the Acrobatics check should be based on your level, oh, and if you don't have an attack power that blinds (or at least stuns or dazes) you can forget the drink-throwing having any useful effect. The new version makes everything much more standardized, predictable, easy to run, and fair, but many old-timers argue that the "rules instead of rulings" style of modern editions take all the heroism and excitement out of the game.

* Early editions of ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' had comparatively fewer rules than later editions for character actions other than combat and spellcasting. Back then if, say, you wanted to throw your drink in a villain's face to blind him, jump from a balcony, swing on a chandelier, somersault through the air, land on your feet, and run out of the room, your DM would have to figure out exactly how that would work - probably an attack roll with a small penalty, some Dexterity rolls, and a decision about whether you've generally played your character as a guy who would do that kind of thing. Now, your GM has extensive rules for how far you can jump, how for you can move, how much damage you take when you fall, what difficulty the Acrobatics check should be based on your level, oh, and if you don't have an attack power that blinds (or at least stuns or dazes) you can forget the drink-throwing having any useful effect. The new version makes everything much more standardized, predictable, easy to run, and fair, but many old-timers argue that the "rules instead of rulings" style of modern editions take all the heroism and excitement out of the game.

** Of course, that's why 4th Edition also included a SPECIFIC list and a table, devoted to 'actions the rules don't cover'...So the GM can EASILY get a ruling for you doing that cool shit. (Especially "I want to swing from a chandelier and hit them!)

== Web Comics ==

=== Web Comics ===

* In ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', the animals of Gillitie Wood think that of the Court scientists' study of magic.

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* ''[[Abstruse Goose]]'': [http://abstrusegoose.com/275 This is how scientists see the world.] The strip does not, however, carry this trope throughout.

== Web Original ==

=== Web Original ===

* A number of [[FSTDT]] quotes question how scientifically minded people can feel love (whether towards a person, a concept or a deity) if they believe it to be a neurological process rather than metaphysical in nature; the usual response is that this knowledge doesn't change the way it feels.

* [[Mr. Deity]] accused Lucifer of this when she explained to him that Penn & Teller don't really have magic powers.

== Western Animation ==

=== Western Animation ===

* Amazo in ''[[Justice League]]''. He started out as a blank-slate nanotechnology android capable of analyzing people to internally reproduce aspects of them. Lex Luthor manipulated him into doing his dirty work, and Amazo proved to be a serious threat because he could copy the powers of every superhero he encountered, then further evolve to become immune to their vulnerabilities. Eventually, he discovered Lex's manipulations, grew disillusioned, and left Earth, calling it insignificant. Some time later, after essentially evolving into a [[Physical God]], he returned to Earth, creating [[Oh Crap|massive panic]] among the Justice League, until it turned out he was struggling through an existential crisis, having obtained unimaginable power but not knowing what to do with it. Doctor Fate took him in, hoping to teach the android how to appreciate life and find a purpose for himself.

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** Kid Flash's perception is likely owed to the fact that the Flash family doesn't really have any magical villains, including Abra Kadabra who uses technological tricks to perform his seeming magic and was probably who Kid Flash had in mind when going through one of his diatribes (Klarion the Witch Boy, who is spying on the group, even asks Abra, "Isn't that how you perform your tricks?")

== Real Life ==

=== Real Life ===

* [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]], in a letter to a friend, once told what he claimed was an old joke about a German professor who "wrote a large book on Das Komische. After which, whenever anyone told him a funny story, he thought for a moment, and then nodded, saying: 'Yes, there is that joke'."

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=== Subversions and Aversions: ===

== Subversions and Aversions: ==

== Anime and Manga ==

=== Anime and Manga ===

* In ''[[Yotsubato]]!'', Asagi shows Yotsuba that the ''tsukitsukiboushi'' making the onomatopoetic chirps heard in late-summer are cicadas, and not summer-ending fairies as she believed. Yotsuba, however is excited to learn something new, and eagerly spreads the word that [[Shaped Like Itself|cicadas are cicadas!]]

== Fan Works ==

=== Fan Works ===

* ''[[Dept Heaven Apocrypha]]'' has [[Student Council President|Ledah]], a workaholic [[Super OCD|overachiever]] with [[The Stoic|all the apparent emotional capacity of a brick wall]]. Slowly, it's been revealed that this is more a result of his walled-in emotional problems and history of being abused than anything else, as he displays quite childish wonder at something so simple as realizing he has a friend.

** He's also like this in [[Riviera: The Promised Land|canon]], although the example is played rather straighter there. Interestingly, in both incarnations, Ledah is deeply religious.

* In the [[Haruhi Suzumiya/Fanfic Recs|fanfic]] ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5713033/1/The_Conflicts_of_Haruhi_Suzumiya The Conflicts of Haruhi Suzumiya]'' there is a scene where Ryoko is watching the rain, explaining all the ways she can ~~analyse~~ it. She ends with, "It's beautiful. The more I find out, the more I feel I can appreciate how special everything really is."

* In the [[Haruhi Suzumiya/Fanfic Recs|fanfic]] ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5713033/1/The_Conflicts_of_Haruhi_Suzumiya The Conflicts of Haruhi Suzumiya]'' there is a scene where Ryoko is watching the rain, explaining all the ways she can analyze it. She ends with, "It's beautiful. The more I find out, the more I feel I can appreciate how special everything really is."

== Literature ==

=== Literature ===

* The short story ''Democritus's Violin'' is about this trope. An academic windbag gets angry at the main character for using science in an essay on Bach and she gets back at him by pulling a prank which [[Broken Aesop|(supposedly)]] proves that [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|the world is strictly reductionist and any belief in the power of art is the product of a dim mind]]. Um, yay?

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* In [[Breakfast of Champions]], there's a scene where [[Makes Sense in Context|the author]] is attacked by a dog. Vonnegut spends two full pages on a ridiculously detailed and brilliantly dramatic explanation of what happens biochemically in his nervous system, body and brain from the time he sees the dog until he [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|jumps over a car]].

== Live Action TV ==

=== Live Action TV ===

* In an episode of ''[[Sliders]]'', when an android explained to Wade why the sky is blue, and she found it romantic.

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* On ''Fool Us'', [[Penn & Teller|Penn Jillette]] frequently says that he and Teller enjoyed a trick more than the audience because they knew how it was done and could fully appreciate the skill with which a piece of sleight of hand was done.

== Meta ==

=== Meta ===

* As said above, some claim that [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|spending too much time on this site will make you jaded and unable to appreciate a work in any medium by automatically dissecting and analyzing it]]. However, [[Tv Tropes Will Enhance Your Life|not only can you get involved in a film's plot, you can have more fun on the way guessing which trope is going to be put into action before it does so.]]

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* The creators of ''[[Extra Credits]]'' say they frequently receive comments saying that by analyzing games they are sucking the fun out of them. Their response can be found [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/3818-Art-Is-Not-the-Opposite-of-Fun here].

== Music ==

=== Music ===

* ''Tom Glazer'' wrote "Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas)" in 1959. The long-forgotten song was later covered by ''[[They Might Be Giants]]'' for their children's educational CD "Here Comes Science", along with an updated song, "Why Does the Sun Really Shine? (The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma)". Justified in that these songs are meant to both educate and entertain, ([[Crowning Music of Awesome|and do both splendidly]]).

* As a judge on [[The Sing Off]], [[Ben Folds]] is enjoying the show on more levels than the rest of us as he elaborates the exact technical merits of each performance. He looks giddy as he explains how the three-part harmony comes together or points out the arrangement of events every four to eight bars.

== Web Comics ==

=== Web Comics ===

* Of course, ''[[Xkcd]]'' is a complete inversion of this, which often talks of math and science with an infectious sense of awe and giddiness, demonstrated [http://xkcd.com/877/ here].

* Clinton from ''[[Questionable Content]]'' also inverts it, arguing that you can't truly appreciate the marigolds until you've measured them.

== Web Original ==

=== Web Original ===

* Inverted by the [http://symphonyofscience.com/ Symphonies of Science] which are pretty much nothing but various scientists [[Squee|gushing]] about how awesome the world and its mechanics are, [[Auto-Tune|Auto-Tuned]] and set to music.

* [[Eliezer Yudkowsky]] argues against it under the title, "[http://lesswrong.com/lw/oo/explaining_vs_explaining_away/ Explaining vs. Explaining Away], with some follow up notes on taking [http://lesswrong.com/lw/or/joy_in_the_merely_real/ Joy in the "Merely" Real].

== Western Animation ==

=== Western Animation ===

* The 90s ''[[Spider-Man: The Animated Series]]'' made Peter a subversion of this [[Trope]] - for instance, when he's on a Ferris wheel, Mary Jane asks how fireworks work, at which point he goes into a talk on the fuses and the gunpowder and the doping with trace metals and so on. When Mary-Jane comments that he's taken the romance out of them by analyzing them, Peter points out that knowing how they work doesn't make them any less beautiful. [[Chekhov's Gun|She would later use the knowledge to create a makeshift distress signal.]]

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* This is the message of the "Give Your Heart a Try" number in ''[[Twas the Night Before Christmas]]'', though the later song "Hope and Hurry" does a lot to balance it out.

== Real Life ==

=== Real Life ===

* Just ask any scientist about their field of specialty, and the ''last'' thing you'll get is a ~~robotically~~ dull answer. Try asking a botanist about flowers, or an astronomer about galaxies. These people chose these fields in the first place because they feel intensely about them. You don't get rich researching science. It is, almost of necessity, a labor of love.

* Just ask any scientist about their field of specialty, and the ''last'' thing you'll get is a roboticly dull answer. Try asking a botanist about flowers, or an astronomer about galaxies. These people chose these fields in the first place because they feel intensely about them. You don't get rich researching science. It is, almost of necessity, a labor of love.

** Hell, ask a ''mathematician'' about their work, aka "[[Everybody Hates Mathematics|the dullest thing in existence]]", and you're likely to get a whole lot of enthusiasm and excitement.

{{quote|'''[[Bertrand Russell]]''', ''Study of Mathematics'': Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty, a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.}}

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* Philosophy, (systematic) theology, and other exercises of raw reason are often enlightening once you've grappled with a particular problem and, as it were, solved the riddle, or at least contributed towards understanding it more.

* Animators spend all day sitting at a desk, studying how a body moves, how things move, making them move, drawing hundreds of drawings. Learning how it works, systematically. It doesn't make it any less enjoyable to watch cartoons being able to spot where other animators went the extra mile, or made mistakes, or knowing what needs to be done to accomplish what happened.

** Also, ~~analysing~~ people's movements make you ~~realise~~ just how different each person moves and how it reflects their personality, mood etc. Whereas most people would have the default assumption that 'a walk is a walk', a walk in animation tells you EVERYTHING.

** Also, analyzing people's movements make you realize just how different each person moves and how it reflects their personality, mood etc. Whereas most people would have the default assumption that 'a walk is a walk', a walk in animation tells you EVERYTHING.

*** The same applies to acting, whether it's a live action role, or a voice role. How does your character walk? Does he slump forward? Does he swagger? Is he pigeon toed? Does he have a particular accent? How strong is it? Is he trying to lose it? Does he have a soft voice, or a gravelly rasp? All of these little things change who he is, and how he's perceived. It's why the school of method acting still exists. People spend months getting into, and building their idea of who the character is, ''because it matters to them''.

* David Kushner's book ''Masters of Doom'' has this to say about id software's John Carmack and his programming knowledge: ''"...after so many years immersed in the science of graphics, he had achieved an almost Zen-like understanding of his craft...Rather than detaching him from the natural world, this viewpoint only made him appreciate it more deeply. "These are things I find enchanting and miraculous," he said. "I don't have to be at the Grand Canyon to appreciate the way the world works, I can see that in reflections of light in my bathroom."'' In further context, this could also be a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]] for Carmack, who, up until that point, was said to have appeared impassive to his peers most of the time.

* Simple kiddie tricks lose their awesomeness, yes, but more advanced tricks of master magicians become even more amazing when you start to understand how much brilliance, hard work, and showmanship skill go into them.

*

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[[Category:~~Measuring the Marigolds~~]]

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