Purple Prose: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:Quill-purple-sm2 2071.jpg|frame| [[Visual Pun|So fluffy you just can't stand it.]]]]

 

{{quote|''The disemboweled mercenary crumpled from his saddle and sank to the clouded sward, sprinkling the parched dust with crimson droplets of escaping life fluid.''

'''Crow:''' You mean blood?

'''Mike:''' [[Running Gag|Let's not jump to conclusions.]]|''[[The Eye of Argon]]'' [http://www.bmsc.washington.edu/people/merritt/books/Eye_of_Argon.html MST]}}

 

There are times within the life of any teller of tales in which they are faced with a most dire situation: the writing, while not lacking in such delightful virtues as a sturdy coherent plot or rich characterization, is supremely dry and uninteresting to read.

 

Compare contrastingly with the phenomenon given the appellation of [[Beige Prose]]. Seek furthermore the silicon entries known as: [[Walls of Text]], [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]], and [[Meaningless Meaningful Words]]. [[Mills and Boon Prose]] is a [[Sub-Trope]]; furthermore, that affliction known as [[Said Bookism]] is a customary peculiarity of this mode of communication. Some communications open on the traditional [[It Was a Dark and Stormy Night|Dark And Stormy Night]]. See also [[Name That Unfolds Like Lotus Blossom]], for when this is applied to names.

{{examples}}

== Anime & Manga ==

* [[In-Universe]] example in ''[[R-15]]'': Taketo's porn writing is pretty much universally overdone.

* ''The Chihuatlan Chronicles'' - [http://gargoyles.settiai.com/viewstory.php?sid=43 Chihuatlan Razortalon] has "golden orbs" for eyes, and hair like "multicolored shade of brown silk." Then again, she's a [[Mary Sue]] of epic proportions.

* Those who write ''[[Gossip Girl]]'' fanfiction have an odd obsession with nagging on about the characters hair color. "The blonde went and did so and so while the brunette did something else". Especially jarring since Nate is always referred to as a blonde when he is in fact a brunette. But it's just so much more poetic to call Nate and Serena "the two blondes" and Chuck and Blair "the brunettes".

* The Official Fanfiction Universities <ref>A Fanfiction University is a type of fanfiction in which the fangirls and fanboys who write poor fan fiction are rounded up to be taught better writing.</ref> play this trope vindictively. Their generally clueless badfic students sign up with a physical description of their in-universe persona, usually give it their typical Purple treatment, and the staff proceeds to give it a [[Literal Genie]] spin. This has resulted in a [[Redwall|squirrel with leaves and fruit growing out of his fur]], and one character with ''actual gold orbs'' instead of eyes.

{{quote|"I think whoever dealt with our forms must be really good with magic and really, really bad with metaphors."}}

* The queen of purple prose was the [[Small Name, Big Ego|entertainingly deluded]] author, [[Amanda McKittrick Ros]]. Her works were ridiculed at the time for being so purple as to be incomprehensible.

{{quote|"Do not sit in silence and allow the blood that now boils in my veins to ooze through cavities of unrestrained passion and trickle down to drench me with its crimson hue!"}}

* [[H.P. Lovecraft]]. Concerning [[Eldritch Abomination|the things he is writing about, this should not come as surprising]]. But [[Tropes Are Not Bad]], and at least he had the decency to be genuinely good at it. Furthermore, Lovecraft often deliberately used arcane and obscure terms—such as 'eldritch' and 'shewn' instead of 'shown' -- in order to add to the creepy, antiquated feel of his stories. He also liked to think of himself as an 18th century gentleman stuck in the 20th century. He deliberately invoked this trope in ''The Case of Charles Dexter Ward'', where the villain uses 17th century expressions and spelling in the 18th century, and later in the 20th century to hint at his true age.

** Indeed, HPL is evidently capable of a different style - take the conversation segment in Pickman's Model, confirming this is for effect. Also, he was writing in an age of voluminous prose, and while he was elaborate,by the standards of his day he was less so - a reader of Dickens, for example, would view Lovecraft as only mildly more extreme, and often less so (compare the Call of Cthulhu to Nicholas Nickelby or Little Dorrit) and is often maligned.

* ''[[Don Quixote]]'': Parodied and Lampshaded. Cervantes achieved the rare miracle of having a florid style that is clearly understandable. But he recognized and denounced this trope: In the Chapter I Part I, Cervantes explains us that Alonso Quijano [[Brown Note|went crazy]] [[Impossible Task|because he tried to understand]] the purple prose found in the [[Chivalric Romance|chivalry books]]:

{{quote|"where he often found passages like "[[Department of Redundancy Department|the reason of the unreason with which my reason is afflicted so weakens my reason that with reason I murmur at your beauty;"]] or again, "[[Meaningless Meaningful Words|the high heavens, that of your divinity divinely fortify you with the stars]], [[Mind Screw|render you deserving of the desert your greatness deserves]]."}}

{{quote|'Scarce had the rubicund Apollo spread o'er the face of the broad spacious earth the golden threads of his bright hair, scarce had the little birds of painted plumage attuned their notes to hail with dulcet and mellifluous harmony the coming of the rosy Dawn, that, deserting the soft couch of her jealous spouse, was appearing to mortals at the gates and balconies of the Manchegan horizon, when the renowned knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, quitting the lazy down, mounted his celebrated steed Rocinante and began to traverse the ancient and famous Campo de Montiel;'}}

* Ron Miller's ''Bronwyn Book Two: Silk and Steel'' has gained a measure of infamy on the internet with [http://www.crackerboxpalace.com/verypurple.jpg this scan.]

{{quote|''Parting the wild roses at the entrance was beauty of which Freckles never had dreamed. Was it real or would it vanish as the other dreams? He dropped his book, and rising to his feet, went a step closer, gazing intently. This was real flesh and blood. It was in every way kin to the Limberlost, for no bird of its branches swung with easier grace than this dainty young thing rocked on the bit of morass on which she stood. A sapling beside her was not straighter or rounder than her slender form. Her soft, waving hair clung around her face from the heat, and curled over her shoulders. It was all of one piece with the gold of the sun that filtered between the branches. Her eyes were the deepest blue of the iris, her lips the reddest red of the foxfire, while her cheeks were exactly of the same satin as the wild rose petals caressing them. ''}}

* When Pat Garrett decided to write "The Authentic Life Of Billy The Kid" he employed journalist Ash Upson to help him along. The unfortunate result is passages of Garrett's dry writing interspersed with terrible flowery writing from Upson, making the whole thing a rather painful read. (Some of Upson's passages are quoted in the ''[[Young Guns]]'' movie.)

 

== Live-Action TV ==

The ice-throne is encased by a shimmering wall of writhing cerulean flame,

A lambent flame far colder than the frozen surface upon which it dances... }}

* Almost all [[Black Metal]] lyrics, and any attempts these bands make at philosophizing in the album liner notes.

* [[Led Zeppelin]]. Justified, since usually whenever their songs go towards purple prose it's because they are referencing [[Lord of the Rings]].

== Video Games ==

* Innumerable character descriptions on ''[[Furcadia]]''. Use [http://nine.frenchboys.net/thesauritis.php this generator] to see some good examples of the type of descriptions many players endow their furries with, and try not to let out the contents of your stomach: "You see refractive colorless orbs flash with innocence 'neath cilia of ivory. The lamia rotates 'pon husky limbs... audionts alert and oculars a-ripple... fervid canvas of ruby tinge shimmers o'er her hale frame." <ref>Probably it means something like: "You see her innocent eyes flash beneath their lashes. The beast-woman turns on muscled legs ... ears alert and gaze mobile, her red hair shimmering on her healthy body."</ref>

* Sadly, this trope is common in just about every role-playing chat-room. Usually the worst perpetrators are young girls (aged 13–21), playing [[Mary Sue|oh so beautiful and perfect characters]]. In any given chat, 50% of the people will make perfectly comprehensible posts, 25% will write with [[Rouge Angles of Satin|so many typos, misspellings and so much text speak that their posts are almost incomprehensible]], and 25% will write with prose so purple that it seeps into the ultraviolet.

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' - Install the FlagRSP or MyRolePlay addon, login to any role-playing server, and look at player character descriptions. A lot of them fall into either short and badly written without a single word spelled right, or a Purple Prose laden opus about luscious bosoms, voluptuous curves and delicate eyelashes, especially if you happened to look for players in areas frequented by [[Mary Sue]]s, such as Goldshire, Stormwind's Cathedral Square, or Silvermoon.

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' has free-text character descriptions built in. They fall into either short and badly written without a single word spelled right, or a Purple Prose about luscious bosoms, voluptuous curves and delicate eyelashes—same as RPG servers in ''World of Warcraft''

* ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]'' - Everything Luke Atmey says. Ever. To the point that Phoenix has to translate his overly-dramatic, verbose ramblings to poor Maya, who's invariably left in the dark.

* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' - Mojo Jojo. Some of his dialogue is this; other times it just ''sounds'' like it because of the [[Department of Redundancy Department]].

* Doc Venture in ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'' does this in an episode where he's trying to find a lost wreck using an underwater robot. He's narrating into a tape recorder everything that happens, making everything as grandiose as possible, including rewinding the tape and recording over something that he felt wasn't elaborate enough. Almost literally all of his lines from the episode are purple prose.

** This was more of a bit of a [[Stealth Pun]], though, as they were also '''pro'''fessional villains who wore purple.

* ''[[Histeria!]]'' had an episode entitled "Riders of the Purple Prose", which showed [[William Shakespeare]] and other historical authors as [[Makes Sense in Context|hard-ridin' cowboys]].