Baby Got Backstory - A trope creation thread

[BobbyBesar]

Hah. Those are cute, but a little on the nose, since they're pretty self aware. I just find self aware examples a little less illustrative because there is deliberate intent.

I'd argue that the Azure Bonds example might also be a Jessica Rabbit situation: the armor is sexy because she likes to look sexy, so it's an explicitly sexual explanation.

I think a lot comes down to my feeling that the explanation be elaborate and gratuitous. Distracting enemies with your tits is fine, but it's a throwaway joke within the confines of a standard fantasy setting. Overheating optical camouflage (which really feels like a perfect example) is so much more labored.

[Cyborg771]

I'm not familiar with any of those universes so I don't know what's played for laughs and what's legit.

[Gormongous]

In the final episode of Gunbuster, Noriko tears open the chest of the mech she's piloting to remove its core, but because mechs are controlled by mirroring the movements of their pilots, she tears open her shirt in the process. Oops? It's an awesome and empowering moment, but still a moment of barely-justified fanservice from "Bustgunner."

 

The titular character from Medaka Box is so noble and trusting of humanity and its intentions that she doesn't see any reason not to strip and stand around in her underwear if it's too hot or if someone asks her to do it. Played for laughs, but it's still a statuesque woman with huge boobs lounging around in lingerie. She's also a statuesque woman with huge boobs because she's the moral and genetic peak of the human species in every way, which of course means that she's conventionally attractive in a very specific sense.

 

Holo from Spice & Wolf is an ancient deity only recently awakened to the world. She relishes her nudity as proof of her pagan heritage and only reluctantly puts on clothes at the insistence of her traveling companion. She regularly references the indignity of a goddess having to hide her form behind mortal clothing throughout the series.

[Cyborg771]

SNL did a skin in '89 about a planet of women with enormous breasts. A woman played by Dolly Parton is banished to earth for having comically small breasts in comparison. A joking "explanation" for the Dolly Parton's actual breast size?

[Reyturner]

I don't know if ecchi manga or romance novels (in which I would say includes Twilight) or specific parodies of hypersexualization tropes or porny things in general fit the bill.

I feep like they should be sincere, straight faced but wildly, transparently clueless.

Bast the Elf's excuse reads like a joke to me; she's selfawarely written to play on the unreasonablely sexy warrior woman trope. A sexist parody of a sexist thing is still sexist... but it isn't in the realm of Baby Got Backstory.

What say you?

[SuperBiasedMan]

- Nerdcore: The Core Wars explains that the Geneva Conventions "made it a war crime to injure a female anthropoid in the area of the cleavage, stomach, or thighs. Thereby making it unnecessary for women to cover those areas in armor."

Of course you trust your life on the idea that everyone will abide by the Geneva Conventions at all times.

 

Also, back on the subject of the Asari, I remember some incidental dialogue that implies they appear differently to each species as to always look like an attractive female. I think this strengthens their candidacy. They're hot women because they're evolved to be a hot woman to anyone who looks at them regardless of species.

...and yet they're still blue, slightly lizardy skinned.

[Cyborg771]

The blue lizard skin might be unavoidable, maybe they just change shape? This crazy explanation raises a lot of physical questions, like if two tailors of different species make outfits for an Asari will they look different to a third party observer, and how would the Asari fit into either one? If they are capable of changing shape why do they still appear female to straight female or gay male observers? And also this seems like a pretty basic part of Asari physiology to go completely unreported in the codex. Considering how long they've been around various other species you'd think somebody would have made note of it before.

[tegan]

maybe Sheperd's into blue skinned lizard women.

[Twig]

The same incidental dialogue that reveals that they don't always appear human-ish also mentions that they're always blue, I believe. I remember hearing that and laughing out loud. It's in Mass Effect 2 (I know that much for sure), in the bar on the planet where you meet Liara, I think.

[Cyborg771]

They actually kind of contradict themselves in the dialogue though. The human points out the Asari's bellybutton saying it's "something Humans and Asari have" and the Salarian seems to confirm seeing it. The Turian says "My knees hurt just watching that, and mine are supposed to bend that way!" implying he sees her with different knee structure.

[Ben X]

That Nerdcore example is spot-on. Is it serious? Even if it's not, it can be pointed to as a parody of this trope.

[dium]

Very quickly looking up Nerdcore (it's an old webcomic) implies to me that it can't be serious; it's a comedy and the artstyle is a sort of inexpert/amateurish computer art thing that I seriously doubt could be used for titillation.

 

I know the internet exists, nobody has to try and prove me wrong.

[BobbyBesar]

Let's keep talking about Twilight, because Twilight is fascinating.

 

The problem with trying to include cases that appeal to females is that in many cases the goal of "titillation" is a little different. In Twilight, Edward isn't appealing because he's primarily visually attractive (which isn't to say that he isn't good-looking, but that's not the primary appeal), he's appealing because he's a 14 year old girl's conception of a perfect boyfriend, who thinks Bella is uniquely the most special and interesting girl in the world and is kind of interested in sexy fooling around stuff, but in a non-scary way because there's no actual weird penis and vagina stuff.

 

There's an implicit assumption in this discussion that we're talking about visual titillation, which (Taylor Lautner notwithstanding) isn't something that Twilight is very interested in as it's core appeal, especially with regards to Edward. Being a visual medium, the films did this a little big, but again, primarily with Jacob.

 

However, I could possibly be convinced, but because it ISN'T used as an excuse to get him shirtless all the time (in fact, much the opposite, it justifies him being covered up), I think that we would need to agree that "sparkliness" is inherently attractive to the target market, and that the "uh, vampires are sparkly because their skin is made of marble" is the justification. That is something I might be willing to stipulate to, having seen my fair share of shoujo anime. Even then, I'd personally prefer a little more contortion and actual lore building (e.g. the venom inside Twilight vampires - look it up - sweats from their pores and crystallizes when it reacts with air, therefore making them sparkle). Otherwise, it's pandering writing, but not necessarily this trope.

 

In order for this to work with Twilight, you need to re-define the gratuitous backstory to apply to the elements that are attractive, in which case Twilight begins to work: what appeals about Edward is the sexy/chaste dichotomy in that he absolutely wants Bella but refuses to have sex with her. In this regard, his being a vampire at all begins to be an elaborate justification for that. HOWEVER, him being a vampire is too integral to the plot-stories being told, so I think it begins to fail about from a "gratuitous justification" perspective.

 

 

 

SNL did a skin in '89 about a planet of women with enormous breasts. A woman played by Dolly Parton is banished to earth for having comically small breasts in comparison. A joking "explanation" for the Dolly Parton's actual breast size?

 

I don't even know what's happening in this thread anymore.

[Cyborg771]

I'm reaching for weird examples because I like trope outliers.

I think you might be spot on with your point about Edward.

[Codicier]

Does pretty much any 'demonic' female character who is either completely naked or clad in some variation of boobplate count?

Since the explanation that usual gets thrown about is 'demons are creatures of sin'. Which of course doesn't quite explain why all the male ones are weirdly inhuman or deformed ways and all the females are just a naked lady with some bat wings

Sidenote:I like my ipad autocorrected 'boobplate' to 'bookplate'

Edit: now I think more about it a bit more I think the whole demon thing might actually be relevant but in a totally different way to what I originally thought.

What people seem to be saying is that the BgBS is all about a creator taking a characteristic they have chosen for a individual, and then attempting to say that they did not make a choice about the individual they made a choice about the contex/environment, and that choice is what makes the character act/dress the way it does thus absolving the artist from any blame for the end result.

Which means for me it feels like when someone says ' I didn't create a sexualised lady, her environment just made her that way' they are echoing the old medieval idea of these external forces being responsible (Demons, The Devil etc) for things.

Like they are saying the character was basically fated to become sexy, that there was never any other course they could have gone down somehow.

Which in turn is kinda creepy as all hell because it's moving some of the characters own agency towards their sexuality, they don't choose to be sexy it just kinda happens to them

[BobbyBesar]

I've been thinking that over. Specifically, for Darkstalkers' Morrigan.

I actually think that succubus et al are something different. It isn't gratuitous, because sexuality is a necessary and defining trait for that character. Can you have a non overtly sexualized succubus? I guess, but it wouldn't really make sense. It becomes the converse: it's actually straight line logical to design that character that way, therefore she's _not_ sexy because of <elaborate explanation> rather than the other way around.

The problem there is: was it really necessary to make this character a sex-demon? If not, that's sloppy and pandering writing, but it isn't the same kind of post-hoc justification we're generally talking about here.

Unless they actually designed the character first, then backed into the demon thing. Which I could see happening. The question again becomes whether it's actually important for her to be a sexy demon.

I'm could be convinced either way on a case by case basis, to be honest.

[Twig]

Having now actually played (a tiny bit) of Bayonetta, I'm not so sure I stand by my original statement that she should be included. It's never explicitly stated that she HAS to be half-naked during combat because of her hair being magical or whatever. In fact, the (first) game starts with her fully clothed (as a sexy nun, of course), before she just rips it all off herself after battle damage and voluntarily goes hair-clothed. Also man, she is just utterly confident and happy to be as sexy as possible. It's so weird to play a game like this where it feels okay because the character is all for it. Of course, I'm aware some disagree, but that's how it came off to me. But now I'm going off on a tangent. ANYWAY!

 

Also, I agree that succubi/incubi should not be included in this trope! At least, not by default. If they go out of their way to say "hey she (or he!) is totally a sex demon and blah blah blah" and then said sex demon never really does any sexing, then I'd say that qualifies.

 

Of course, as I typed that above paragraph, I recalled the White Court vampires from The Dresden Files. They are sex vampires, rather than blood vampires. They get their freak on to feed. This often results in them becoming uncontrollably sexy when the hunger gets too great and they'll get all nekkid and affect all the people around them and make them wanna get nekkid and such. Maybe it's just because it's not the straight-up traditional-style sex demon trope that it stands out to me. I don't know. SAM? You read The Dresden Files, right? What's your opinion!

[SecretAsianMan]

Of course, as I typed that above paragraph, I recalled the White Court vampires from The Dresden Files. They are sex vampires, rather than blood vampires. They get their freak on to feed. This often results in them becoming uncontrollably sexy when the hunger gets too great and they'll get all nekkid and affect all the people around them and make them wanna get nekkid and such. Maybe it's just because it's not the straight-up traditional-style sex demon trope that it stands out to me. I don't know. SAM? You read The Dresden Files, right? What's your opinion!

 

I've actually been trying to parse The Dresden Files in terms of this trope.  As a bit of background, White Court vampires are emotional vampires.  Each of the different Houses within the Court feed on a different type of emotion such as fear or despair.  The House that appears most often is the House Raith, which feeds off of lust.  They are for all intents and purposes succubi/incubi.  The in-universe reason for their powers is they each contain an inner demon that must be fed.  There's nothing that explicitly states they can only feed on one emotion, it seems to be a matter of preference.  Since House Raith favors lust, all of its members are incredibly sexy.  Interestingly the most prominently featured member of House Raith is a male, Thomas Raith, whom Harry describes as the "long lost Greek god of body cologne" and the "high priest of Bowflex" which I guess would make him a good male candidate of the trope.

 

Since there are other vampires that can feed off of emotions besides lust, I think the members of House Raith would qualify for the trope.  Or maybe it doesn't because they chose lust instead of being forced into it.  I'm still not sure how we're defining the trope.

[Twig]

Yeah I realized I'd forgotten to mention that they choose to feed off lust rather than other things (ironically arguably making them less "evil" than other Houses that choose fear, for example, but that's a different discussion). Luckily you brought it up for me!

 

I think the fact that they chose it actually supports the idea of them fitting into this trope. (Which runs contrary to my contrariness re: Bayonetta, I know... I'm bad at this. I'm sorry.) Basically, my reasoning is: they could arguably have chosen any emotion off of which to feed, but at some point in their history, Raith arbitrarily chose lust. Now, it might not actually be arbitrary in the fiction, but that it IS fiction is the point. Jim Butcher could have made them anything else, but he chose to justify their existence as sex vampires.

 

---

 

Speaking of Dresden Files, I guess we should probably also discuss the Faeries... I think this is a little more straightforward, because all (human-like) faeries are meant to be the embodiment of perfect beauty. The only thing here is do we treat it like the standard sex demon trope above - where the "justification" is actually just because it's already a trope for faeries to be super hot, or do we treat it as its own in-universe justification.

 

FWIW, I lean more toward the side of not including it the BGB trope.

[SecretAsianMan]

In the case of the Sidhe (faeries), the reason they appear sexy is because they choose to be.  All creatures of the magical realm have to create bodies of ectoplasm to exist in our world.  They can use magic to appear however they like and they like to choose a sexy body because they are master manipulators and naturally a sexy body helps.  So in a way they are choosing to be sexy to mess with humans and aren't necessarily inherently sexy (although that is the implication).

[Twig]

Is that how it is? I'd forgotten all of that. I mean, I knew that was true when they go into the real world, but... What about in the case of those humans who become faeries. You know who I'm talking about! In fact, the queens, in general, I don't know if I ever got the impression they were choosing the way they looked - they just look that way from the start, because the Sidhe domain is the closest to the mortal world, and it naturally affects them as such?

[Codicier]

I think what I was getting at is that in a way the whole succubus thing had to start somewhere, and that whoever made the choice to create these fictional creatures made a choice that externalise the sexual, basically doing the same thing that I feel like the BGB trope might be based around, & I think perhaps thought because the idea of external emotional personification is so deeply embedded in fiction it doesn't count.

 

To try and explain myself better i guess it best to look at what's come before and say that where Gorm & Dium have said this about their internal definitions of this

 

Can we try to float some one-sentence definitions of this nascent trope, then?

 

I thought for a while, and this is the best that I have: "Baby Got Backstory: when the creator of a work gives a conspicuously non-sexual explanation for a character's sexual behavior or appearance."

 

How about...

 

"When a character's behavior or appearance seemingly serves as sexual titilation/fan service, but has some in-fiction explanation meant to legitimize it."

 

my internal BGB definition is something like:

 

BGB: where a creator (consciously or unconsciously) attempts to retroactively create a external (non sexual) force or event existing outside the main narrative, which is used to justify a characters explicitly sexually appearance or behaviour 

[SecretAsianMan]

Is that how it is? I'd forgotten all of that. I mean, I knew that was true when they go into the real world, but... What about in the case of those humans who become faeries. You know who I'm talking about! In fact, the queens, in general, I don't know if I ever got the impression they were choosing the way they looked - they just look that way from the start, because the Sidhe domain is the closest to the mortal world, and it naturally affects them as such?

 

I don't want to get too into this here since it's starting to be off topic but I was mainly talking about "pure" faeries.  Humans are still human but they can use magic to change their appearance too.  I would suppose that their natural form resembles humans because of the close association they have with our realm but their appearance is amplified by their magic.  A good deal of what I said is speculation on my part though, none of this is really explicitly spelled out.  But in terms of the trope I think that when the fae appear in the book to Harry they're using their charms on him, in both the magical and non-magical sense, thus I still call it at least a partial choice on their part.

[Twig]

Isn't it sort of implied (or even explicitly stated) that Summer Lady Whose Name I Forgot kind of gets way hotter over time? I guess it could just be magical outward appearances as you said. Also I guess she gets older and "matures", as it were... Um.

 

Anyway, I still don't know how to classify it.

[SecretAsianMan]

They do appear to get more beautiful over time, but again its not clear if that's because their power is growing, they're maturing, they're natural beauty is coming out, etc.  It's all pretty vague.  Also keep in mind that the book is a first person narrative, so everything is described through Harry's eyes and he's the person that everyone in the world wants to manipulate.