Streets of Hope

Well, maybe not new, but still.

Attainder, or "corruption of blood". I thought of the Bucks and their curse when I found it, and figured it could be a word for what was done to them.

And who says tvtropes has no educational value!?

Huh. Pretty neat - it does fit with the Bucks, or rather with the fairly dramatic notion that Nick Buck's insanity and murderous penchant are worth punishing all his descendants over.

As for TVTropes having no value, just wait until a highbrow Ivy League professor or crusty old fart from the Sorbonne, in France, finds a more "academic" term to designate tropes. We'll start seeing definitions almost copied verbatim from the site pop up in literary analysis textbooks.

In my experience, it's a valid avenue of research. Unfortunately, academia still has a hell of a time trying to understand the value of picking stuff like kids' shows or mainstream Anime apart; they've only just accepted that there might be narrative value in stuff like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones. I've cited it before in some papers - just covertly, and after removing their handy trope names and settling for compressed explanations. It's also a good jumping-off point for a few outright academic resources or audiovisual references.

I used to know a professor who worked closely with my thesis advisor, she was a pretty serious Miyazaki fan. Mention Akira Toriyama or Yoshiaki Kawajiri in front of her, though, and her eyes would blank out. It was basically her going Okay, this guy's watched Dragon Ball Z and Ninja Scroll, maybe even Night City. Zero redeeming value. Shift gears to The Wings of Honneamise and she'd perk up again.

Pop Culture still has a good way to go before earning full recognition from academia.