Talk:Homage

Is this a sub trope of Shout Out?

Not as I originally intended it when I created the trope some ten or twelve years ago. The choice of name may be confusing things, though -- back then we used whatever sounded good without really thinking about wider implications, and as I recall it was FEddie (wearing his "Webmonkey Gus" hat) who put this name to the concept I'd defined. (You know, "Shout-Out" is similarly misnamed -- literally, a shout-out is a creator doing something like a Hi, Mom! call-out to someone or something he knows; what we call a shout-out is really a reference, allusion or in-joke, or the smallest possible instance of what "homage" really means.)

Anyway, what we call an Homage is much larger in scale than a simple troping!shout-out. The latter are usually small details or momentary bits of business which you might miss if you don't know what's being referenced. An Homage is an extended sequence that you're expected to recognize, which is why they're doing it.