Nominal Importance: Difference between revisions

[[File:Nominal_ImportanceNominal Importance.gif|link=The Order of the Stick|frame|<small>Okay, Mom Appearing In This One Panel.</small> ]]

=== Video game examples: ===

* Averted in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker]]'' and some of the ''Tales'' games, where almost every single character in the game has a name, even random, minor [[NPC|NPCs]]s.

* ''[[Hype The Time Quest]]'' averts this by going out of its way to name almost all the [[NPC|NPCs]]s, down to Maliq, a one-off thug who attacks you. Though there is the exception of a few guards and an executioner.

* In the expansion to ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]] [[Star Trek Elite Force|Elite Force]]'' the player expands his/her arsenal with a tricorder, which can, among other things, be used to scan various [[NPC|NPCs]]s. In keeping with the series' [[Red Shirt]] tradition, important NPCs appear with their name intact, while others are simply called "crewman" by the device.

* Regular enemies in the ''[[Ace Combat]]'' series are identified on the HUD simply with their aircraft model names. However, the rare ace pilots additionally have their callsigns appended to the plane model, marking them as priority targets, since they are usually much more dangerous than regular [[Mook|mooksmook]]s. ''The Belkan War'', which shifts the gameplay focus from blasting through nameless hordes to more personal one-on-one dogfights, takes this trope to the extreme, with [http://acecombat.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_aces_in_Ace_Combat_Zero 169 named enemy aces] (more than the rest of the series combined), ''each'' of whom has a unique short biography unlocked after shooting him/her down.

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' manages to avert this trope with most [[NPC|NPCs]]s (except town guards), but there is no risk that you might mistake a NPC as more important: Those that have a quest for you have a golden "!" floating above them, and NPCs with important services have a subtitle such as <Flightmaster> or <Innkeeper>. Some minor NPCs don't even have any dialogue.

** Not averted completely, though. As creatures which start out with names (dwarves, goblins, humans, etc.) rack up kills, they eventually gain an extension of their original name. Because of this, one can often tell who the local [[Badass|badassesbadass]]es are by looking at who has the longest name(s).

* ''[[Morrowind]]'' goes the opposite direction -- nearlydirection—nearly ''all'' humanoid [[NPC|NPCs]]s have unique names, even bandits who attack you on sight. There are still numerous "Town Guards", though, and although the NPCs have a ''staggering'' amount of dialog large enough to feel diverse, [[Welcome to Corneria|their spoken lines are far more limited]].

* Averted in ''[[Last Scenario]]'' -- every—every single NPC has a name (characters of any importance have portraits, though).

* [[David Drake]] likes to subvert this and made extensive use of [[Tuckerization]] in one of his [[RCN]] books for this purpose (as well as to salute his friends). He explained this in the acknowledgments to the book and noted he was using the ''names'' but not the ''personalities'' and this was, in many cases, "a Good Thing" -- because—because [[Don't Explain the Joke|(he didn't spell this part out)]] some of the people he named after his friends were total wastes of skin.

* The [[Fridge Brilliance]] section has a reference to the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Midnight" -- where—where a monster controls people by forcibly repeating their dialogue and mentally turning them against one another. Nobody ''believes'' the Doctor when he tells them his usually fake name "John Smith". In the end the person who actually beats the villain of the week is the Hostess of the trio - and the cast realise, in the aftermath, that they never ''knew'' her name.

** ''[[Doctor Who]]'' writer and ''[[Being Human (UK)]]'' creator Toby Whitehouse has said in a ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]'' interview that he always gives the [[Red Shirt|Red Shirts]]s and minor characters names, simply because it looks better on the actors' CVs.

* Played around with in the new ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]''. Lots of one-shot characters without much importance have names, but (more importantly) several characters--mostcharacters—most notably Diana Seelix--wereSeelix—were promoted from near-extras to significant recurring characters simply because someone on the cast (usually Aaron Douglas) gave them names and the writers decided to [[Throw It In]].

* In ''[[Feng Shui]]'', this is an explicit game mechanic -- importantmechanic—important characters have names, while others are labeled [[Mooks]] and use different combat rules to enforce their scrub status.

* [[Lampshade Hanging]] in [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0472.html this] episode of ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', where the [[Genre Savvy]] Elan explains that not having a name means you're just a [[Red Shirt]] whose sole purpose is to say "[[You Shall Not Pass|I'll hold them off]]!" and then get killed. As if to demonstrate, two [[Red Shirt|red shirts]] manage to survive a battle by revealing that they ''do'' have names, with one surviving a near-fatal injury by revealing his first name, and stating that he is saving his last name just in case he gets injured again. {{spoiler|This particular [[Chekhov's Gun]] is later subverted. He attempts to [[Invoked Trope]] [[Nominal Importance]] by shouting his last name, but only gets to "Daigo Da-" before being hit in the face with a door.}}

** Subverted several times in the prequel ''Start of Darkness'': when Ekdysdioksosiirwo, Viridian Lord of-- isof—is killed ''because'' he gives his name, and the two main characters survive by giving shorter aliases, and when the named characters {{spoiler|Aliyara, Ridiziak and Eriaxnikol, Right-eye's wife and sons}} are killed, and their unnamed {{spoiler|daughter/sister}} survives. Also? The three main characters are called Right-Eye, Redcloak and Xykon. None of those are their real names.