Trope Talk: Welcome to Super School! 

"Detention that breaks the Geneva conventions" gave me a good laugh.

You can just tell Red had the time of her life drawing those big crying eyes

The protagonist's friend constantly having "I'm about to burst into tears" eyes is probably one of my favorite bits of this whole video. 😂

My grandma is 75 years old and she still has the occasional nightmare about failing a French test

Red: *says she graduated fully five years ago like that's a long time* Me: *starts looking for a drink*

She forgot one: when the school itself is the antagonist and the students commence wacky 80s Era shenanigans.

"But while class might be sidelined, classism won't be!" Colleges for rich people summarized in a single sentence I think.

I like how fiction just has a school for everything

I do enjoy how in the end the moral of the video was “School sucks so much that even fictional stories are better when the characters leave it”

One way to make sure the school aspect isn't boring is to make the teachers interesting characters too.

"I graduated fully five years ago." I haven't been stuck in a class room for close to 25 years and I still get those dreams. Often.

I can smell the tournament arc from a mile away

Huge shoutout to Assassination Classroom for being a "super school" anime that was actually focused on the normal class aspects and learning more than its super elements, as the only "super" thing about it was honestly the teacher (and some of the extra classes they had to take because of said teacher).

There's also another version, that crosses over with a genre that's rarely seen outside of Japanese media - school dramas where the MC is a teacher, rather than a student. It's been a very popular genre in Japan, where teaching is a very well regarded profession, and the teacher who really cares about their students and will go to absurd lengths for their health and wellbeing is a huge archetype. And they often deal with the sort of problem you Interestingly, it typically focuses primarily on the student's problems. Because that's the whole point of the genre: a teacher is somebody who guides and assists students. Typically, even when the teacher has their own problems to deal with, they're more as things that make it harder to help the students. They're also often more ensemble casts between the teacher and students, so you get the best of all possible words in terms of narrative - all the students dealing with problems /and/ the teacher is an active participant who facilitates, rather than a plot hijacker the writer needs to work around. And there's a whole pile of super-school versions.

What I always liked about 'My Hero Academia's' U.A. High School, is while it's primarily known to cultivate professional superheroes, it has other departments for General Education (for students who are aiming for non-superhero careers), Support (for students that want to learn to develop gadgets and equipment for heroes to use out on the field), and Management (for students who are aiming for working in the business side of heroism, from hero agencies to venture capitalism). Same deal with the various settings in Magic the Gathering, where you have institutions of education such as Strixhaven, where the actual topics are fairly mundane academic subjects but are done through magic (such as studying history by using White Elemental Magic to raise spirits from the dead.) A lot of fantastical schools in fiction don't really have fairly mundane academic avenues for students to focus on if they don't want to aspire to level skyscrapers or to conjurer eldritch abominations from worlds unknown, so it's rather novel that some do as part of that settings world building.

The biggest enemy of the Super Students? The Super Principal!!

"mentors that might actually survive" had me rolling

Fun fact: In the owl house, the protagonist was initially never meant to enroll at the magic school and was just put there because disney wanted a school setting. From the beginning of S2 onwards, it becomes obvious the showrunner is trying to include the school as little as possible

My mother, a doctor in her 60s, recently confided in me that she STILL has nightmares from university.

"A lovable wimp in over their head who's being pushed around aimlessly by the tides of fate until the protagonist swoops in to fill their life with the excuse-me-he-asked-for-no-pickles energy they've been craving." I love everything about that, and I especially love that you used Luz and Willow for that clip because in their case it eventually works both ways, with both of them defending the other just as fiercely.

The good news is you don't have to pay for normal school, the bad news is you can NEVER LEAVE

I can't explain it but the crying wimp's eyes are just so funny to me. After they were introduced I was looking for them in every scene.

"excuse me he asked for no pickles" energy is such a thing I never noticed in these stories. love ya Red. keep up the amazing work.

I love that Red perfectly described Harry Potter several times in this video but never used it once. This is why she’s my hero

I will be honest, I LOVE this trope. It's absolutely formulaic, but it's basically my comfort genre. One thing I'm a bit surprised you didn't touch on is the 'group project worth 90% of your grade', where the hero and like, one friend are put into a teacher-assigned group for a group project that usually involves live combat. This is often where the hero's first bully gets a redemption arc, usually by virtue of 'I have to get a good grade so I'll help you' or something similar,

Anyone else here usually imagine themselves as the teacher at a super school, not a student? No? Maybe this means I should get a teaching degree

Don't worry, Red, I graduated fully 10 years ago and the stress nightmares involving both my college and my high school have yet to disappear

I never realized that the reason so many stories are set in schools is because of Write From What You Know. it's probably not the entire reason, but definitely a big part of it

The virgin setting your story in a super school for an eazy plot structure vs the chad setting your story in a super school for an eazy way to dump your thousand page worldbuilding notes onto the audience. It is vitally important to the plot that you see the lecture about anchient farming techniques

Discworld is fun because despite having an earlier example of the Wizarding School, Unseen University is already a parody of the trope and avoids pretty much all of the clichés Red talks about in this video. The school's main goal is to teach wizards not to use magic. All the characters of prominence we follow from UU are the faculty members; only one book (Moving Pictures) features a main character who is an UU student. And there is zero teaching involved in the university, because the faculty likes to avoid students as much as possible.

God I love this trope. X-Men is the obvious biggest culprit of this for me, but an entire school filled with super-powers breeds so many interesting possibilities.

School in and of itself is so stressful. I can’t imagine school where if I do something wrong, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people could die

One thing that I thought of first is how good the Percy Jackson books utilize the "camp" setting. The camp is a safe space pretty much until book four but it is expected within the world of the story that the kids won't stay there for long because of greek mythology's concept of fate. All the kids in this series are children of gods and it is just understood and explained that danger is seeking them at all times. So even though the camp is safe, inevitably something will happen that'll force them to venture out into a great advantage and become heroes. The only thing the camp provides is a place to stay for a little while and some combat training. So the stakes are always high- because at any moment and probably at the most dramatic moment the heroes might be forced out.

I'm hoping this comment doesn't get lost amongst thousands, but I HIGHLY recommend the Scholomance trilogy written by Naomi Novik. Her writing is enchanting, and Scholomance was my entrance into her writing. She is my new favorite author currently and I cannot recommend her enough. Especially for folks watching these videos, the fantasy stories she writes are spectacular.

Ah, love the fantasy premise of “What if school but good”

i'm a simple girl. i trope talk and click immediately. and then proceed to be roasted for 16 minutes about the clichés of my favorite stories. good times lol

You know, if I had a nickel for every story that had a hyper specific school curriculum based around skills that no more than 15 people can afford/have knowledge to learn, I'd have enough money to make a hyper specific school curriculum based around skills that no more than 15 people can afford/have knowledge to learn.

Another fun thing about the super school: A decade or so after you released the story, you can pump out a sequel where the characters are adults, especially if one of them is a teacher herself now.

One crucial aspect of the Super School is to make the Super School matter once the plot interest grows outside of the school. In things like MHA and The Owl House, the plot leaves the school behind and makes you kinda wonder why you were there in the first place, especially in something like MHA where it also involves leaving behind the school cast you were invested in. I think a better example is RWBY where the final events before the leaving the school really are what motivate the characters and the greater stakes of the plot even when they've long since left the school behind.

I resonate with the perpetually crying one so hard it's unbelievable.

Ok two things: 1. Red definitely picked this topic because she saw G-Witch. 2. As a note about leaving the school, I'm reminded of the Yu-Gi-Oh GX episode in season 4 where Crowler tries to stop everyone from graduating because he doesn't want them to leave.

2:42 "And clean expensive dorms" You know it's a fictional setting if the dorms are even somewhat clean

This made me think about how much potential there is in a story where the MC is actually rejected by the school, instead of getting in. Like Julia’s plotline in the Magicians tv show, for example.

I do wonder if maybe one of the problems with the setting might be that such schools are almost always structured as high schools. College settings feel more open to allowing the students to experience aspects beyond the schooling, since college schedules can sometimes mean you're waiting for hours on end between classes (speaking from experience from when I went). Not to mention, since the students are likely all adults, it's more believable that they would be going places without supervision. Of course, the problem is the fact that other aspects of high schools are far less likely, like taking classes you don't like (though prerequisites do still exist) or the obligation of socialization--or even the obligation to stay on campus. One thing that is also lesser are the cliques, as media tends to switch those to frat/sorority rivalries, and if a character isn't in a dorm, they're kind of separate from that.

I’m still in school, and I don’t ever have nightmares about class. The nightmare starts when I wake up.

During the school under seige part, the one I thought of was RWBY Vol.3 Finale was definitely a moment of "OH FUCK" that no one was prepared for. Great video, Red.

"Background Radiation of Constant Unpleasantness" is one of my new favourite lines

What immediately sprang to mind for me, was Ender's Game. It's essentially an example of this, but with a few twists - and more importantly, not only does it *play* with those tropes, Ender himself is *trope savvy* enough to tell! Right at the start, he notes how it seems 'all wrong' that the teachers actually seem to *favor* him, putting him on a pedestal and giving him special treatment, rather than being mean to him. Then, it eventually becomes clear that they're doing that specifically to make him a target for bullies, because they want him to develop experience dealing with such 'unstructured threats' as well... Considering that the book predated most of the examples that comes to mind, it's quite interesting that it can subvert, then play into, tropes that have barely *solidified* at that point.

Even as an adult, I really love the super school setting. It is just so easy to make a fun story

I find it funny that you got through this whole video with exactly zero Harry Potter references. Speaking of Harry Potter one of my favorite things about those books was how relevant the classroom scenes were. Not only where they really frequent, establishing that we were, in fact, in a wizard hi-school, not just a passive setting where the plot can happen outside of class, but they very frequently included some vital plot information, important training for the heroes, cool world building, character development, or some combination. The classroom scenes really grounded the story in the school setting and I haven’t read a book where that was done better.

One thing that these stories almost never touch on is falling behind on schoolwork to do the plot. Code Geass isn't a super school, but even it makes Lelouch accountable for homework and class attendance instead of terrorism

As someone who is currently writing a magic school story, I find this video an absolute win.

Red's doodle characters are always adorable, but I just can't help but giggle at the always teary fren in this vid when they appear. They're just, extra woobie and want to hug them. Their hair almost seems as fluffy as Alinua's too. At first I was surprised Assassination Classroom didn't have a clip cameo, but as I thought about it I realized that it's not a super school. Just a normal school with a super teacher and unusual extra curricular assignment.

This reminds me of a moment i love in volume 2 of rwby where they go on a big field trip, everyones excited for the adventure and the audience thinks its about to be worldbuilding exposition dump galore. But it shows the teachers chaperoning the protagonists actually doing their job and pretty damn well. It provides an opportunity for the main cast, specifically Yang, Blake and Weiss to introspect and gain more insight to their characters as they confront the question of what they actually plan to do after they finish their studies. The school they're at is teaching them to become "huntresses" - basically monster hunters - but this moment asks the characters what that actually means to them and to find their motivations. It's a small discussion but one i love

My guilty pleasure movie in the genre is literal "Super School" Sky High: all the tropes are there, competently if unexcitingly executed in a cute way, the cast is charming (looking at you, Danielle Panabaker) and you have early Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Bruce Campbell as Coach (Sonic)Boomer and Kurt Russel as a Superhero. It's not a great movie and falls apart in lots of ways, but it's a nice "rest your brain" flick.

I can’t wait for the trope talk on animal companions. Why does every popular franchise need a lovable mascot? Every ancient hero from Gilgamesh to Perseus has a named steed, and every crime solving team needs a talking dog. The unregistered member of the five man band. It’s everywhere!

The wimpy friend character who's constantly on the verge of tears and have eyes the size of bolling balls is my new spirit animal.

really love the inclusion of Gundam Witch from Mercury as an example of the trope

Hey, red! Trope talk suggestion for you; "The incident" or "Noodle incidents" are a literary tool of a trope that gives more literary weight (funniness, scaryness, impact on the audience) to an event or noun than a description would, mostly by context and the reader's imagination. Named Noodle Incidents because of a short series of Calvin and Hobbes comics wherein everyone at school gives the eternally frustrated 6-year-old grief about something he did in the past that is now known only as "The noodle incident." It is hinted at vaguely many times, but the writer ultimately leaves it up to your imagination; which is a strength because whatever the audience dreams up will be way more literarily impactful (in this case funny) than anything he could write down. And that's not even the only time that comic uses a noodle incident, see, there's this kids book calvin always wants read called "Hampster Hewwy and the Gooey Kablooey" and Now I'm ranting. Point is; by leaving the event, place, person or item, open to interpretation, it has more literary weight than the creator could have possibly written. The Legendary Super Saiyan may have looked a lot cooler in your head than just goku+blonde+power. Another instance this trope is used is in an S.C.P. story wherein a certain slime MUST NEVER come into contact with a human corpse. Why? That's classified. A foundation researcher files the suggestion to test the slime on a human corpse because it's never listed what happens, only that it is a V E R Y bad idea, and the researcher is curious. He gets demoted and heavily scolded by an O-5, who states "Just don't." That one of the 0-5's, who have seen untold horrible horrible things, REALLY doesn't want this to happen, forces the reader to come up with something even the 0-5's fear, and is therefore even more terrifying than anything the writer could have written down. A "Noodle Incident" or "The Incident" is a rare trope that involves telling the audience that something exists or happened, but not telling them what it was, in order to give the plot point more narrative weight than a description would give it, partly because of the imaginations of the audience. It is a great trope that I think you should cover. I'm going to keep suggesting it on every trope talk and mythology video untill you do.

And now I have to rewatch RWBY. Perfect ending for something that started at a school.

Now I want to write a story that starts like a typical Super School story but the protagonist really fails the entry and the story goes a totally different way. :D

Can we all appreciate the fact that lots of us were listening to Red's description and we were all thinking the same thing, half expecting Red to show a clip of HP. But then half way through we realized that Red is deliberately avoiding it.

"Being a person is a lot more fun" *me, on the verge of sudden tears* Damn right it is

This episode made me really appreciate "Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun", it plays in the "super school" space, but has so many twists and subversions it really comes off as a great and refreshing take on the trope. Highly recommend!

“Detention that violates the Geneva Conventions” made me uncontrollably laugh for a good minute (11:26)

Every time Red said "Super School" I kept hearing "soup or school" and then my chicken noodle soup of a brain kept wondering what the soup du jour was and whether or not I actually had to eat it.

Love the look of the “first friend” always on the verge of a mental breakdown

Magic: The Gathering had a set all about a magic school and they very deliberately made it so the focus of the school was still normal school subjects, just with magical aid. So Lorehold, the history folks, did magic to bring back long-dead spirits to learn about history, and stuff like that. Quandrix, the math folks, did magic based entirely on mathematical formulae and equations, it was all a neat aesthetic and such. Made for an interesting twist on things. Granted, said magic school was also a college, not a high/middle school, so it had a bit more leeway to do interesting things. Also the 'main characters' in it were two fresh-faced adults getting into planeswalking who were directed there by effectively Miss Frizzle, 5 established students (one for each group) and then a returning major character incognito as a teacher and coming to grips with survivor's guilt. Was a nice time.

As a professor, the only change in my unexpected / almost missed test dreams is that now I’m the one who’s supposed to be giving the test… and no, that doesn’t make it any less stressful and unpleasant 😅

Was not expecting to see Yugioh GX and Gundam The Witch of Mercury used as examples in a Trope Talk, but this was a pleasant surprise.

One thing that is also worth mentioning is that school experience can be pretty different depending on where in the world you're from. But because english is currently a _lingua franca_ for the whole world, a lot of super-school stories are specifically _US-American_ super-school stories. A lot of the tropes are just not as relatable as the author might expect to a _large_ portion of their audience. That's not exactly a problem, or something you can do anything about, but it is an interesting phenomenon.

I've always wanted to go to super school Testing magical/sci fi super powers is just awesome instead of a boring math test

Wow, watching this had me thinking back on the Owl House, which I and I think a not insignificant number of others thought “man, for a show with a magic school they’re really leaving a lot of school stuff on the table”. Hearing red go through through this rundown of “typical super school plot arc”, it finally came together that they had down ALL of the super school in the brief handful of episodes actually featuring school. Just like it’s notable that the romantic arc and “hidden secrets” plots worked I think better than most by cutting straight the heart of them and stripping them of the usual water treading that accompanies those elements to attempt to extend interest, they did the same with the super school and I didn’t even notice.

Now I want to right a story where the protagonist gets a letter to the super school and then fails the entrance exam and has to figure out their powers on their own, perhaps with other rejects. Maybe they can have adventures solving the problems the school ignores, with small-scale but more relatable conflicts while the school's alumni go saving the world in the background.

Reading/ watching mashle, magic and muscles knowing they hit all of the major beats of a super school story while also being a spoof on JKR while being genuinely compelling in under 200 chapters. This story boils down all of the best parts of super school fiction and just does it so well

I gotta admit, it's probably the easiest setting you can use for a story. It comes prepackaged with everything you need to tell a good story and all the writer has to do is make the gimmick cool and come up with shenanigans for the protags to get into.

I admire the fact that you went 16 minutes discussing super schools and didn’t mention once the very popular magical school in a very remote location where the wizard protagonist goes to that we were all secretly thinking of that you likely passed over because of the (understandable) controversy they contain Which I totally get. Mushoku Tensei is a hard series to recommend.

15:56 this part is why MHA's later seasons have focused so much on internships and work studies. Taking them off campus to meet other heroes and placing them in more and more situations where there are less training wheels and where they're expected to participate in larger hero vs villain fights.

(TW: c-ptsd, school-caused trauma) As someone who's c-ptsd is partially loaded with a shit ton of school-caused trauma, I have SO MANY mixed feelings about this trope. This video put many of those reasons into words and helped me with processing my feelings about it. Thank you ❤

The crying kid has to be protected.

"Formulaic" doesn't mean "bad." Just because you know what's coming doesn't mean it can't be enjoyable. And never forget, We All Of Us Stand On The Shoulders Of Giants.

My favorite example of this trope is "Welcome to Demon School". It's not groundbreaking in any way, but it uses thr trope well IMO, and does a few interesting things. See, the whole plot follows Iruma, a human, going to Demon School, and the adventures and hijinks he gets into. However, he has to hide the fact he's, well, a human, since demons eat people. Luckily, most demons have no clue what humans are actually like, so his main focus is just trying not to be obvious about not being a demon. It helps give a reason for him to actually care about passing classes (since being able to use magic is an innate part of being a demon), and the stakes can be higher for him than others because demons are more resilient and just a tad crueler than humans. It's amazing, and I love it dearly

Is the Super School trope being too formulaic and repetitious apropos or just funny? Also appreciate that Red has included Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury. But more importantly, I appreciate Red included the scene where Chuchu made that bully girl 2000’s Windows PC Shutdown Noise.

If I might suggest an awesome super-school story: "Welcome to demon school, Iruma-kun" is aaaaawesooooooome. Also every time any of the characters smiles it melts my heart, I must protect them

I just realized that the Kobayashi Maru test at Starfleet Academy fits the trope of the ridiculous entrance test that's secretly a test of character. Would that make Starfleet something akin to this trope (it's a military system and not a school but the point about structure and episodic natures still fits).

To reference Norman Osborn, the Jedi Temple was something of a super school itself...

Can we appreciate the fact that Red did a whole video on super schools without mentioning Hogwarts? It must have taken a loooooot of self restraint to do that. props

Red mentioning the internal hierarchy thing has me thinking about Assassination Classroom - a super school confined only to the lowest rank of the hierarchy, which feels like the logical extreme. There's also way more emphasis on the actual school stuff there than is typical for theses stories, as the "we-must-become-great-assassins-to-murder-our-octopus-alien-teacher-thing" /thing/ is explicitly a secret from the rest of the school. As far as Super Schools go it's one of my favorites.

What I like about this setting is the unparalleled amount of badass mentor figures. I can’t really picture any fantastic school setting without at least one badass teacher and that dork teacher.

I found it funny that she pretty much accurately described Harry Potter

The Marvel comic “Strange Academy” is one of my more recent favorites, imagine if all of the magical superheroes got together to help educate the next generation of wizards. It’s very fun.

My worst stress dream about school is being forced back into high school even though I’m approaching 35. Not online classes or ged courses, but fully in the classroom with those stupid chairs, lockers, the whole shebang

Whether we love or hate the super school trope, we can all agree that Sky High did this trope the best.

Surprised at the lack of RWBY rep, particularly for the School Under Siege bit. Of the many versions of that trope, RWBY's is the one that sticks out the most in my mind.

I love how you kept bringing back the big eyed sad character in your drawings, it was so cute and funny!

School did a wonderful job of preparing me for a future while also mentally and emotionally beating any passion for that future out of me. I remember the last thing my counselor said to me to try to convince me to go to college: "you're a brilliant boy, you just need to stop thinking so much"

"And I graduated 5 years ago..." 12 years out and I still have music school stress dreams.

Absolutely love the dedication to not have a single Harry Potter example despite the fact that it does LITERALLY EVERYTHING BROUGHT UP IN THIS VIDEO (because it is The Most formulaic story out there)

This trope is one of the reasons that MonsterHearts is a favourite TTRPG of mine for most of the reasons listed here. Games built around social drama run so much smoother when the characters are all forced into a confined environment together for most of their day, and a school setting achieves that while also feeling totally natural. Usually I'll also make the school a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, since that doubles down on the feeling.

I'm in my mid-thirties and still have dreams about school. They aren't as bad anymore, I often remember that I'm no longer a student and can leave. I also sometimes have daydreams of what-ifs, being back there, and those usually make me sad. I'm glad to be an adult and free of that. I always loved learning, but school was never a place for that.