Talk:Tiamat (Dungeons & Dragons)

Merge proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of the merge debate was do not merge. --Muchness 20:12, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

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• Oppose -- articles are about two different things. User:Mrwuggs appears to be trying to get more exposure for Tiamat (planet) by eliminating acknowledgement of other Tiamat disambiguations. -- JHunterJ 18:46, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose per JHunterJ. Leibniz 19:25, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose: Rather than those who oppose having to explain their reasons, shouldn't the person who proposed the merger list his/her reason(s)? Since no explanation for the proposed merger is given, could we simply remove the merge tag?--Robbstrd 20:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

  Beats me. After undoing some of Mrwuggs' work on Tiamat and Tiamat (disambiguation), I do at least appreciate the less intrusive method of a simple merge tag here, which should reach its (hopefully) obvious conclusion and that will be that. -- JHunterJ 20:41, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose, as stated before, the articles are about different things. ddcc 16:54, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose, it seems hard to find any common ground for the basis of a merge other than the name. 152.7.54.199 06:53, 2 October 2006 (UTC) User:Ikanreed

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Incorrect image source

The image in the article is not Tiamat. It is a similar painting but was created for a Dragonlance character.

• While created for DL, the five-headed multi-colored dragon in the background is at least an accurate depiction of the physical form of Tiamat. zogetaur (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:22, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Tiamat =/= Takhisis

Will someone please give a verification for them being the same entity? To my knowledge, they aren't. DDSaeger (talk) 15:21, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• They were the same entity in the 1e Manual of the Planes. However they were openly -not- the same entity in 2e sources, and again -not- the same entity in 3rd edition sources. For roughly 20 years they've been distinctly different entities. It's a historical quirk that they were once assumed to be the same in very early sources, which deserves a footnote on the wiki entries for Tiamat and for Takhisis.Shemeska (talk) 17:51, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• I'll agree with all of that, completely. BOZ (talk) 18:29, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

• While a footnote is obviously appropriate, completely identifying them in the introduction is not. I'll change that when I find some time, unless someone is ahead of me. DDSaeger (talk) 17:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

• I believe the entity in question was first defined in the 1e MM, without reference to Takhisis. "Takhisis" in the 1e MotP may have been included to show similarity to the main antagonist of the DragonLance milieu, or how a denizen of the outer planes may form the core of a specific Prime Material mythos; as previously noted they are distinct entities. zogetaur (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:05, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Notability

The article has plenty of references to notability. Anyone care to explain the tags? And this isn't very in-universe at all... Hobit (talk) 03:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

There are no reliable secondary sources to demonstrate notability;95% of the article is plot summary with an in universe perspective. If you wish to contest this, put the article forward for peer review at RFC. Do not arbitrarily remove the templates are you are doing on other articles. --Gavin Collins (talk) 05:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome to bring this, to an RFC if you wish also. Hobit (talk) 03:56, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Tags

Hi @Ixtal: could you describe the specific issues you see with the article? It's hard to know how to fix it without more details. It has a heck of a lot of cites (much more than most articles) and while it has issues, I don't think anyone could tell the exact things that are bothering you. Hobit (talk) 09:49, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

A lot of the issues stem from fan-oriented sources or content in the article. For example, you mention a heck of a lot of cites (much more than most articles), but it is hard to argue a top 10 list of cool, unknown facts really would show a fact as due for inclusion. Entire sections (especially in the fictional description section) are largerly unsourced and contain phrases like To reach it, one must pass a chamber known as the Cave of Greed, which is filled with cursed treasure that compels the weak-willed to try to steal it. These factoids are of course interesting and relevant to fans of D&D such as myself, but to a casual reader or an encyclopedic summary of Tiamat these are in my eyes wrong to include and better suited for fan-oriented wikis (such as the Forgetten Realm or D&D wikia). I like how WP:FAN describes this issue: the specific focus of the discussion may be that the article is a compilation of facts that reliable sources outside of fan-based reliable sources have not found interesting enough to publish. With that in mind, I don't believe that there are enough non-fan-based RS to support the fictional description section being more than one or two sentences. Thanks for the ping and I look forward to discussing this with you, Hobit. Also, I hope you have a happy New Year's Eve ^u^ — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 11:51, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ixtal and Hobit: I think the better guidance is MOS:PLOT which states plot summaries and similar recaps of fictional elements (like a character's biography) should be written in an out-of-universe style, presenting the narrative from a displaced, neutral frame of reference from the characters or setting. MOS:PLOTLENGTH doesn't have a hard and fast rule for characters; in general, plot summaries for most topics should be between 400 and 700 words but many character articles have longer (ex: Peter Parker) fictional character biography sections. While the description section is tagged as fictional (per WP:LABELFICTION), it could use some cleanup to make sure everything is in the out-of-universe style and trimmed down to the key plot beats for the character which would be more than two sentences and could use primary sources. The section could be reorganized to have subheadings for each edition to show how the character has changed over time (similar to comic book characters where their fictional biographies are divided by publishing ages). Sariel Xilo (talk) 18:10, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I disagree with the opinion that Tiamat can be compared to Peter Parker. The scale of the cultural impact is nowhere as near. I am glad we are in agreement that cleanup is needed, although I expect we'll be in disagreement on the scale and type of cleanup, Sariel Xilo. I am more in favor of removing factoids not explicitly mentioned in non-fan-based RS within the fictional description. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 20:42, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I linked to the Peter Parker article because it is a good example of what character articles should strive towards. In this case, I'm mostly suggesting we look at Peter Parker#Fictional character biography as a model to how to structure this article. We should shift the "fictional description" section to a "fictional biography" which would make it a plot summary (and we don't need to rely on secondary sources since primary sources can be used for plot summaries; WP:PLOTCITE). I could probably pull info from 5th Edition books and maybe a few 4th Edition books in a few days but I don't have easy access to the older editions. Maybe @BOZ and Daranios: could help in the new year. :) Sariel Xilo (talk) 22:52, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

I too have access to most earlier editions. So if you have anything in particular you need, please feel free to ping me. Hobit (talk) 21:48, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

The PP fictional biography is ~3500 counted by Google docs. Given that includes formatting and other things, it's probably close to 3000 at a guess. I'd say 1000-1250 words would probably be a good target here. But hard to say. Hobit (talk) 21:54, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

If you can find enough non-fan-based RS to support that many words in that section, sure. However, I'd argue that basing arguments on how much to include based on words and other articles is not convincing when ignoring underlying PAGs. In this case, verifiability and neutral coverage are better guides than an article that passed its last GAN in 2009. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 22:50, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

On another note, I fail to see how WP:PLOTCITE validates or encourages circumventing the need for secondary sources to show content merits inclusion in the case of characters within a work of fiction rather than the work itself, which is what the how-to guide describes (in my eyes). — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 22:56, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

I was looking at the above section (WP:PLOTSUM#Characters, locations, etc.) which states: In the cases where we have articles on characters, locations, and other parts of a fictional work, we often have a section that amounts to a fictional biography. These sections are, essentially, just a different kind of plot summary. A plot summary cites the primary source (MOS:FICTIONPLOT: Examples of information in primary sources include: [...] background information on fictional creatures; and the plot itself). Secondary sources are key in other sections (product history, reception, etc) but not required for a plot summary. I don't think that's circumventing anything. Sariel Xilo (talk) 23:33, 3 January 2023 (UTC)