r/TopCharacterTropes • u/SpookieSkelly • 26d ago

Characters Character shows off a skill that doesn't seem like anything special to the layman but is unbelievably impressive to those who know the craft.

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  1. Giotto of Florence from real life. The pope wanted to commission a painter and sent a messenger to collect works from a bunch of artists so that he may examine their skill. When the messenger got to Giotto, Giotto simply freehand drew a perfect circle on a sheet of paper in front of the messenger. The messenger was confused, but Giotto told him that it'll make sense once he tells the pope how he drew the circle. Sure enough, the pope recognised the skill it takes to draw a perfect circle freehand without a compass and gave Giotto the commission.
  2. Johnny from The Devil Came Down to Georgia. While the Devil's solo sounds cooler on the surface, Johnny's solo is actually more difficult to play and showcases more advanced technical skill.
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u/ThrowAwayehay 26d ago

And blumineck maybe not have set them up right either. We don't know the gaps between each axe.

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u/iwantdatpuss 26d ago

Yeah earlier in the video he noted that the axes might've been set up upright with a wider gap between them due to the mention of trenches. 

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u/PhysicalConsistency 26d ago edited 26d ago

Set them up right? You know it's a fantasy story right?

edit: Guess not.

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u/BombOnABus 26d ago edited 26d ago

You do get that people recreate fiction things for fun, right?

So, doing the setup to match the setup the author describes is the point, it's not about determining what historically happened.

Edit: or sure, you can pretend it's just the person you responded to not listening, instead of you. Of all the options you have, that is one of them.

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u/mrbrambles 25d ago

Here is a translation of Telemachus setting up the task:
"As he spoke he sprang from his seat, threw his crimson cloak from him, and took his sword from his shoulder. First he set the axes in a row, in a long groove which he had dug for them, and had made straight by line. Then he stamped the earth tight round them, and everyone was surprised when they saw him set up so orderly, though he had never seen anything of the kind before."

You see how there is basically nothing physical described except that they are in a line? It isn’t even described what part of the axe they are shooting through. It’s a fictional trope of a really hard task that people at the time would hear and think “that would be pretty hard to do”. And that’s it. There is no “right” way to do it, except that it needs to look hard, and be hard to do.

The point isn’t that someone isn’t setting it up right. The point is that the task is so vaguely described that you can fulfill the task with a huge variety of set ups

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u/PhysicalConsistency 26d ago

Sure, people LARP and cosplay. But questioning whether someone is LARPing or cosplaying correctly is something else.

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u/BombOnABus 26d ago

Not when you're trying to do it the way it was in the book.

"Today, we're going to do the archery test from the Odyssey! So, we'll start by figuring out what the setup was, but it's possible this isn't exactly it since...."

That's not judging them, that's the creator explaining the decisions they made and how they might not be 100% true to what Homer envisioned in the original

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u/PhysicalConsistency 26d ago

The fuck are you talking about? The geometry of the room is never described, nor is the distance. It's literally imagination thinking there's some magic setup that wasn't followed. It doesn't even say they were in a straight line. But please, let's not interfere with the LARP fantasy going on here.

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u/BombOnABus 26d ago

No shit dingus, that's why the creator in said video mentioned that their setup MIGHT be off because of trenches that were mentioned.

No one was saying it was inaccurate, the person making it said "this might not be what was imagined originally", and then the reading comprehension expert i replied to took that to mean people were saying someone was LARPing wrong.

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u/PhysicalConsistency 26d ago edited 26d ago

Explain how you do something correctly from a book that wasn't described in the book.

How do you respond to a thread with people complaining about people not doing it like the book and then respond that no one actually said that!

Reddit is wild.

Edit: Just because this guy may or may not be self aware enough to edit his own comment:

So, doing the setup to match the setup the author describes is the point, it's not about determining what historically happened.

"Not when you're trying to do it the way it was in the book."

It's even weirder you're still pretending like you actually read it.

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u/BombOnABus 26d ago

No one "complained", fuck you're dense. I even said, in the comment you replied to, that no one was complaining and the comments about whether or not it was perfectly set up came from the person who made the damn video themselves.

You're the problem you have with reddit. Learn to comprehend what you read.

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u/V_van_Gogh 25d ago

You're doing gods work here xD

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u/PhysicalConsistency 26d ago

It's terrifying that you're allowed out into the public. Although I suspect it's probably not that often.

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u/SpiketheFox32 25d ago

Wow, you're really mad...

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u/Tangyhyperspace 25d ago

Ok?? How does that at all mean there was no intended way for it to look? Homer would've obviously had a specific way he imagined the axes lined up.

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u/blackjacktrial 25d ago

How do you know he pictured the scene, and didn't just write words that gave a vague description in the hope it would sound impressive?

It's all conjecture when we are trying to understand the unspoken parts of an author's thoughts.

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u/Tangyhyperspace 25d ago

He would've been a really awful author if he just wrote random bullshit with no intention

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u/AGBell97 25d ago

Vauge=/= no intention. Horror is often this way, avoiding specifics allows the brain to fill it in in a way that is more personally frightening, or in the case of Odysseus's challenge, impressive.

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u/Masquelinity 25d ago

How do you know he pictured the scene, and didn't just write words that gave a vague description in the hope it would sound impressive?

I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.