You know what the really funny thing is? I'm not even sure. I came up with this one months ago and thought the time was right, but I don't remember which RPG I was thinking of at the time--there are just so, so, SO damn many possibilities.
I know which game I played just recently which made me decide that now was the right moment, though. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q. And, by connection, SMTP4. This shit is just. So. Tired.
Not hard to see why so many people criticize the Persona series for being too anime after that and the other scenes (like the hot spring in P3 and swimsuit in P4). I don't remember this being a common trope in many JRPGs, but I haven't played as many as you.
What do you think a good execution of this trope would be like? What if the female character compared herself to another female with better cooking skills and this showed the bad cook's insecurities, leading to character development that revolved around helping the bad cook to close her insecurities?
Hm. Well, what you propose might work, but I think the trick would be really selling the idea that it's the insecurities as a whole, with the cooking thing only being a small spark that led to the rest of the character development. But that would be highly different from the usual use of this trope, which is as a one-and-done "joke" about how funny it is that some chick doesn't have any great skill in one arbitrarily selected area of expertise.
You know what an example of something like this is that's not all that bad? The Thanksgiving episode from Brooklyn 99's first season, when Amy Santiago invites the precinct over for dinner at her place. The reason it works here is not that we're expected to find her lack of skill hilarious (though that's certainly in there, with your standard jokes about using salt instead of sugar and whatnot). It's more that this is a symptom of an amusing character flaw of Amy's that, VERY IMPORTANT HERE, has frequently manifested itself in other episodes, in other ways than cooking: that she'll jump into something in the attempt to impress her captain (or sometimes others) without being adequately prepared for it, such as in the episode where she decides to go with Holt and Gina to the arctic plunge on Christmas Eve despite hating the cold, or that one time she was all set to adopt one of Holt's puppies at his mere suggestion even though she apparently is deathly allergic to dogs. The whole fiasco of Amy being a terrible cook is a recognizable facet of an amusing character trait that we have seen and will see expressed many times in the show--it is NOT just the joke in and of itself. Whereas you take SMT Persona 4, and the cooking thing with the girls is just an isolated, spontaneous "joke" that has no connection to anyone or anything beyond being brought up repeatedly in a desperate attempt to convince you it was funny by shouted repetition. Also, the Thanksgiving dinner debacle for Amy actually meant something to the episode and led later on to their all eating a multi-ethnic takeout feast instead, which tied in, symbolically, to the lesson that Jake learns in that episode about recognizing and appreciating family where you find it, which for him is in the 99th precinct with his bizarre coworkers. It actually GOES somewhere, the bad dinner had a POINT. That nearly never happens in RPGs and anime (besides just, perhaps, leading to more tired situational jokes), where these things are usually just one-off "jokes" meant to lighten the mood with the socially-mandated laughs for a few moments here and there.
Which game was this inspired by/
ReplyDeleteYou know what the really funny thing is? I'm not even sure. I came up with this one months ago and thought the time was right, but I don't remember which RPG I was thinking of at the time--there are just so, so, SO damn many possibilities.
DeleteI know which game I played just recently which made me decide that now was the right moment, though. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q. And, by connection, SMTP4. This shit is just. So. Tired.
Not hard to see why so many people criticize the Persona series for being too anime after that and the other scenes (like the hot spring in P3 and swimsuit in P4). I don't remember this being a common trope in many JRPGs, but I haven't played as many as you.
DeleteWhat do you think a good execution of this trope would be like? What if the female character compared herself to another female with better cooking skills and this showed the bad cook's insecurities, leading to character development that revolved around helping the bad cook to close her insecurities?
DeleteHm. Well, what you propose might work, but I think the trick would be really selling the idea that it's the insecurities as a whole, with the cooking thing only being a small spark that led to the rest of the character development. But that would be highly different from the usual use of this trope, which is as a one-and-done "joke" about how funny it is that some chick doesn't have any great skill in one arbitrarily selected area of expertise.
DeleteYou know what an example of something like this is that's not all that bad? The Thanksgiving episode from Brooklyn 99's first season, when Amy Santiago invites the precinct over for dinner at her place. The reason it works here is not that we're expected to find her lack of skill hilarious (though that's certainly in there, with your standard jokes about using salt instead of sugar and whatnot). It's more that this is a symptom of an amusing character flaw of Amy's that, VERY IMPORTANT HERE, has frequently manifested itself in other episodes, in other ways than cooking: that she'll jump into something in the attempt to impress her captain (or sometimes others) without being adequately prepared for it, such as in the episode where she decides to go with Holt and Gina to the arctic plunge on Christmas Eve despite hating the cold, or that one time she was all set to adopt one of Holt's puppies at his mere suggestion even though she apparently is deathly allergic to dogs. The whole fiasco of Amy being a terrible cook is a recognizable facet of an amusing character trait that we have seen and will see expressed many times in the show--it is NOT just the joke in and of itself. Whereas you take SMT Persona 4, and the cooking thing with the girls is just an isolated, spontaneous "joke" that has no connection to anyone or anything beyond being brought up repeatedly in a desperate attempt to convince you it was funny by shouted repetition. Also, the Thanksgiving dinner debacle for Amy actually meant something to the episode and led later on to their all eating a multi-ethnic takeout feast instead, which tied in, symbolically, to the lesson that Jake learns in that episode about recognizing and appreciating family where you find it, which for him is in the 99th precinct with his bizarre coworkers. It actually GOES somewhere, the bad dinner had a POINT. That nearly never happens in RPGs and anime (besides just, perhaps, leading to more tired situational jokes), where these things are usually just one-off "jokes" meant to lighten the mood with the socially-mandated laughs for a few moments here and there.
Holy shit, he did it. He wrote a short rant.
ReplyDelete