Thread:Forum:Trope Talk/The The Tropes/reply (5)

"Are you saying that nearly all the tropes that don't start with 'The' should have it added?"

No, generally only the ones that are unique in the context in which they are used should have a "The". "The Big Guy" on a team implies that there can only be one of them; we wouldn't say "The Red Shirt" or "The Straw Vulcan" because there is nothing about those that implies uniqueness.

The use of "the" will get a little fuzzy since often something is unique in some contexts and not others, making it a judgment call about whether enough uses are unique to require a "the" on the trope name, so I wouldn't recommend globally changing everything that doesn't have "the". If you want to argue that a specific example needs it, sure, go ahead.

"I don't any of the definitions you quoted is relevant here except the last one."

The other definitions apply to some of the examples. For instance, the one about abstract ideas applies to The Worf Effect.

"An example that I hope shows my point"

"The big guy" is unique within a certain context. So if you're talking about a context where there can't be more than one of them (about a single team), you use "the", while if you're talking about a context which refers to a second team, you use "a". You could also say "character A is the Big Guy of the other team" and you could not put "a" in that.