Board 8 > Best of the Trope Season 2: Day 229 - Torch the Franchise and Run

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Best of the Trope!

Here are the rules. Each day, I will post a trope from TV Tropes, and each poster can name up to three examples of that trope. Whichever nomination gets the most mentions wins! Posters may also name as many Honourable Mentions as they like, but they are purely optional and will not count towards the running score. You may look at the TV Tropes page for that day's trope for examples, but you do not have to pick all your examples from the page. You can nominate whatever examples you like, as long as they qualify for the trope. Each trope will last around 24 hours before the next one goes up.

In the event of a tie between 4 or more nominations, a tiebreaker poll will be run the next day to determine a winner.

Posters may also nominate any tropes they wish to see come up during the series. This is optional, and you don't have to do it every day, or at all. Tropes will be randomly selected from the list each day, except for some occasions where I will pick a thematically appropriate trope that may or may not be on the list.

Here's the list of previous tropes, so if you wish to nominate some tropes, check on here that it wasn't previously done. http://board8.wikia.com/wiki/Best_of_the_Trope

Trope list:
Grand Finale

The winners of yesterday's trope, Memetic Psychopath, were Tails Doll (Sonic R) and Villager (Animal Crossing), who got 6 votes each.

Previous winners: Day 201 onwards
Storming the Castle - Leeroy Jenkins
BFS - Buster Sword (Final Fantasy VII)
Fat Bastard - Eric Cartman (South Park)
Mentor Occupational Hazard - Obi Wan Kenobi (Star Wars)
Oddball Doppelganger - Mimikyu (Pokemon)
Mood Whiplash - The destroyed village ends "A Girl Worth Fighting For" early (Mulan)
Names to Run Away From Really Fast - Shelly DeKiller (Ace Attorney)
Hostile Show Takeover - Monika (Doki Doki Literature Club)
Lean and Mean - Voldemort (Harry Potter) / Waluigi (Super Mario Bros.) / Slenderman (Marble Hornets)
Identical Stranger - Guy Incognito (The Simpsons) / Kingsonn Dededoo (Brawl in the Family)
The Only One Allowed to Defeat You - Bowser (Super Mario Bros.)
Humiliation Conga - Yzma (The Emperor's New Groove)
Shock and Awe - Pikachu (Pokemon)
Fat and Skinny - Junkrat and Roadhog (Overwatch)
Enemy Mine - Mario and Bowser (Mario RPGs)
Kindhearted Simpleton - Forrest Gump
Evil Costume Switch - Black Suit Spider-Man
Trauma Conga Line - Shinji Ikari (Neon Genesis Evangelion) / Spider-Man
The Woobie - Butters (South Park) / Kate Marsh (Life is Strange)
Trash the Set - Raccoon City (Resident Evil)
Angst? What Angst? - Claudette is diagnosed with breast cancer (The Room)
Knight in Sour Armour - Solid Snake (Metal Gear Solid) / Batman
Woobie Destroyer of Worlds - Carrie White (Carrie) / Mr Freeze (DC Comics)
Empty Shell - Shedinja (Pokemon)
Wide-Eyed Idealist - Papyrus (Undertale)
Manic Pixie Dream Girl - Rinoa (Final Fantasy VIII)

Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol
Watchmen
Every Metal Gear Solid game

HMs:
Batman: Arkgam Knight
Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?


---

Today's trope is Torch the Franchise and Run. Here is the link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TorchTheFranchiseAndRun

A writer has created a franchise, but they don't own the legal rights to what will happen to the franchise; the publisher, network, studio, or whatever does. Or maybe they share the rights with someone else and just don't have as much control as they would like. They want to stop writing it and move on to something else.

But they don't want anyone else being able to handle their property, even though they don't legally own it. And even if they did own the franchise, what happens when their kids get their hands on the franchise after their inevitable death? The solution? Torch the franchise and run. Write one last story that totally wrecks everything. They kill off everyone they possibly can. They make the lives of all of the characters a living hell before executing them. They make 100% sure that everyone is dead, and those that aren't have no way of returning to the status quo or main premise of the show. However, the author can also achieve this in the form of an unambiguous happy ending where the villains are defeated for good and the conflict is resolved in such a way that everyone lives Happily Ever After.

Essentially the authorial version of breaking your own toys so that nobody else can play with them.

TL,DR: The creators try to end the series in such a way that it's very difficult, if not impossible, for anyone else to continue it.

Nominations:
The cast goes over the top (Blackadder Goes Forth)
Pepe's creator kills him off (Pepe)
The Brethren Moons awaken (Dead Space 3)

Honorable Mention:
Aliens (Crash Team Racing) - I'm not sure why Naughty Dog thought adding an alien was going too far in a series that already had time travel, genetically evolved animals and sentient enchanted voodoo masks.

Trial V3-6 (Danganronpa V3)
---

Trial V3-6 (Danganronpa V3)
---

Metal Gear Solid 4

And then it kept going, but the effort was there
---

The Ice Age happens (Dinosaurs TV Show)

Mutagen Bomb explodes leading to post apocalyptic future (TMNT 2012)

---

Trial V3-6 (Danganronpa V3)

---

Blackadder Goes Forth

They actually DID manage to bring it back after that, for a one time special, but the main series was done done done after that.

The other reason I like this is that three of the four seasons killed a majority of the cast and the one that didn't still killed a major character. Yet this killed off its cast in such a way that any attempt to do another one would be seen as ridiculously inappropriate.
---

Lightning Strikes posted...

Blackadder Goes Forth

They actually DID manage to bring it back after that, for a one time special, but the main series was done done done after that.

The other reason I like this is that three of the four seasons killed a majority of the cast and the one that didn't still killed a major character. Yet this killed off its cast in such a way that any attempt to do another one would be seen as ridiculously inappropriate.

One of my favourite series endings ever
---

Just thought of another one!

Replace Dead Space with the increasingly ridiculous fake sequels (22 Jump Street)

Trial V3-6 (Danganronpa V3)
---

GavsEvans123 posted...

the increasingly ridiculous fake sequels (22 Jump Street)

_SecretSquirrel posted...

Trial V3-6 (Danganronpa V3)

---

Vince McMahon injecting the WWE with a lethal dose of poison (the NWO)

I know it's a kayfabe example but it's perfect for this

Also gives me an opportunity to post the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7aQP4dXFgs" data-time="
1:30 gives us his delivery of the word "inject", which may well be the best reading of a single word in the history of words.

---

Rankings so far:
Trial V3-6 (Danganronpa V3) - 5 votes
The cast goes over the top (Blackadder Goes Forth) - 3 votes
Metal Gear Solid 4 - 2 votes
The increasingly ridiculous fake sequels (22 Jump Street) - 2 votes
Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol
Watchmen
Every Metal Gear Solid game
Pepe's creator kills him off (Pepe)
The Ice Age happens (Dinosaurs TV Show)
Mutagen Bomb explodes leading to post apocalyptic future (TMNT 2012)
Vince McMahon injecting the WWE with a lethal dose of poison (the NWO)

Hbthebattle posted...

Trial V3-6 (Danganronpa V3)

---

Nanis23 posted...

Hbthebattle posted...

Trial V3-6 (Danganronpa V3)

Basically this

Thanks for mentioning this guys, like you all :)
---