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Narm
- 77 statements
- 13 feature instances
- 198 referencing feature instances
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Narm is a moment that is supposed to be serious, but due to either over-sappiness, poor execution, excessive melodrama, unneeded use of foul language, or the sheer absurdity of the situation, the drama is lost to the point of surpassing "cheesy" and becoming unintentionally funny. It is named for a famous scene in the last season of Six Feet Under. In it, main character Nate Fisher briefly grabs his right arm and complains that it's numb. He then suffers a brain hemorrhage while repeating the words "numb arm". However, it quickly degenerates into "Narm! Narm!" before he comically rolls up his eyes, snorts loudly, and then drops to the floor. Even though the scene was intended to be dramatic, fans and critics overwhelmingly found it to be funny. Were you to discuss this phenomenon in a scholarly work or literary circles, the word you would probably use is "Bathos". Narm and Bathos are similar, but narm is for unintended humor. Narm is subjective, as different audience members may find different things unintentionally funny. It can stem from a failed attempt to pull off an awesome (if it comes across as either too underwhelming or ridiculous to be taken seriously), heartwarming (if it comes across as sappy) or heartbreaking moment (if the audience fails to be sad). Anything that falls under Wangst and Deus Angst Machina runs the risk of falling under narm, as what is intended to be sad can instead come across as over-the-top ridiculous and absurd. A Very Special Episode, when handled poorly, can cause unintentional laughs when the tone of the work is not well-suited for delivering a particular message. In subtitled anime, narm is often created through the use of badly used English. In dubbed anime, narm is more likely to result from the combination of a budding William Shatner reading an overly-literal translation. In CGI movies or video games, unrealistic movements or facial expressions may result in narm. Sometimes a poor and blatant use of stock assets (such as Stock Scream) can make a scene funny when the use of such assets was meant to be unironic. In video games, untimely graphical or even audio glitches can also turn a serious and dramatic scene into something comical instead. Note that this only applies to scripted sequences where the glitches are fairly consistent. A choice of script can also contribute. Totally Radical dialogue in cartoons or commercials pandering to children can also be a rich source of narm. A poor use of censorship or Obligatory Swearing can both sound unintentionally funny if they contrast with the overall tone of the work. A lot of the unintentionally funny moments come from acting and voice acting. Trying too hard to and the acting becomes comical instead even if the creators didn't intend it. From the opposite part of the spectrum, underacting can also produce unintended laughs when the audience realizes the actor is here only for a paycheck. Even when the acting and voice acting are competent, mistakes like fumbling over a piece of dialogue, Inopportune Voice Cracking at the most important moment, or just an actor falling on a stage during a theatrical performance can turn a dramatic moment into a comedic one. Even a good performance in a bad movie can evoke narm if the actor's performance isn't enough to keep the scene from becoming comedic rather than serious. Much of the strength of a narmy moment comes from the severity of Mood Whiplash caused by it. Compare Narm Charm, which is when a scene still works even with the cheesiness included. Contrast Dude, Not Funny!, Level Breaker, Comical Overreacting. Sometimes narm examples come from a moment being too realistic, in which case it falls under Reality Is Unrealistic, or from overshooting its mark and making it come off as trying much too hard to sell the drama, pathos, or sense of awe the moment is meant to evoke. While many things can make an audience find moments unintentionally funny, the source has to be on the work itself, which means things like not being able to take an actor seriously in a role does not apply, nor does a serious scene or work being funny because of it being a subject to a meme, nor does it fit for video game examples where the player's actions and choices undercut the game—giving your character a huge goofy hat isn't Narm, because it's deliberate choice on the player's part and not unintentionally bad drama on the creators' part. Not to be confused with 'Nam. See also Nightmare Retardant for "scary" narm, Fetish Retardant for "sexy" narm, and So Unfunny, It's Funny for "funny" narm. If this trope is intentional on the writer's part, see Failed Attempt at Drama. Please do not place examples that better belong on Bathos here or on any main page. In other words, only unintentional humor belongs on this page. |
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Dropped link to BigBad: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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| Narm / int_1b71921c | type |
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Misfile: Rumisiel's rant was meant to be awe-inspiring, but "I'm a frikkin' angel, babe, and I got nothin' to lose" came off as just plain cheesy. | |
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| Narm / int_1f1d1a2c | type |
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The Bongcheon-Dong Ghost: This Korean Webtoon is notorious for being extremely scary if you're not expecting the twist of the comic actually having animation and sound, but if you're expecting it, then the scene where the ghost pounces at the girl becomes narmy due to the extremely underwhelming sound effect, which sounds more like a burp than a scream or roar like you'd expect from this kind of scare. | |
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| Narm / int_267cbfa | type |
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Dominic Deegan: A woman's misplaced hatred caused her to attempt to kill several people by slowly freezing them to death. She is thwarted by the protagonist's brother, who channels his magic into becoming SuperGreg, modeled on his comic book hero SuperMage, himself a Captain Ersatz for Superman. The Mood Whiplash never settled. When Cthulhu-TIM and Celesto were tearing up Lynn's Brook, there's a scene where Dex and his ex-wife are desperately cowering behind a piece of rubble as people all around them are getting slaughtered. It would have been a much more emotionally powerful scene if the people getting slaughtered looked more like they were desperately running for cover and less like they were out for a casual morning stroll. |
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| Narm / int_3d55626e | type |
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I Will Survive, a Zootopia fan comic where Judy and Nick discuss the very heavy and sensitive subject of abortion. Aside from the mismatch of cutesy characters and serious subject matter, the (mostly professional-looking) art ends up looking goofy at times. Of note is Nick's reaction when Judy tells him she doesn't want the child◊, and Judy's reaction to Nick saying that her getting an abortion would be murder◊, followed by her slapping Nick in an over-the-top way◊. | |
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| Narm / int_4257cbdf | type |
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In The Young Protectors, Spooky tries and fails to rescue a group of hostages from electrocution by Death Trap, then absorbs their souls in desperation so they can be returned to life. This is supposed to be incredibly traumatic and potentially deadly for him. It also leaves him comically inflated and bobbing in the air like a balloon when the demon to whom the hostages were sacrificed arrives. | |
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| Narm / int_50bcf7a6 | type |
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Homestuck has its moments: When Karkat reveals that he didn't perfect the genetic sequence of the frog that created the kid's universe, dooming their timeline, he says that he gave their universe cancer. While it is a very shocking and upsetting development, the line "I GAVE YOUR WHOLE UNIVERSE CANCER, JADE. SORRY." has been met with laughter and many distasteful cancer jokes. Karkat's constant use of all caps makes this worse, since it's easy to picture that he's shouting about how he gave an entire universe cancer through the conversation. When Jade is comforting Jadesprite, who Came Back Wrong, hates being alive and is unable to stop crying, the fact that her tears are rendered in chatlog style as "BOO HOO HOO HOO HOO. woof :'(" somewhat lessens the genuine tragedy. It doesn't help that a few pages later, Karkat starts imagining Jade and Jadesprite making out. |
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Among the highest-profile instances of webcomic narm is the Very Special Episode, "Loss". Ethan bursts into a hospital room to find out that his girlfriend Lilah has a Convenient Miscarriage. This is a webcomic in which the main character built a wacky human-hating robot out of an Xbox and was once crowned the King of Gaming, yet creator Tim Buckley attempts to portray this seriously. His attempt, however, consists solely of removing the dialogue from his otherwise unserious slacker-gamer art style, so Ethan's reactions come off as pantomimed Dull Surprise. Between that, the jarring tonal shift, and Buckley's already spotty reputation among webcomic creators, the comic was widely mocked and turned into a meme almost immediately. | |
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The Pokémon trading card game frequently invents moves not in the games, some of which have rather goofy names, like Mawile's Big Ol' Bite, Glalie's Intimidation Pebble, and Forretress's infamous Everyone Explode Now. | |
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| Narm / int_ab67d84 | type |
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Ctrl+Alt+Del: Among the highest-profile instances of webcomic narm is the Very Special Episode, "Loss". Ethan bursts into a hospital room to find out that his girlfriend Lilah has a Convenient Miscarriage. This is a webcomic in which the main character built a wacky human-hating robot out of an Xbox and was once crowned the King of Gaming, yet creator Tim Buckley attempts to portray this seriously. His attempt, however, consists solely of removing the dialogue from his otherwise unserious slacker-gamer art style, so Ethan's reactions come off as pantomimed Dull Surprise. Between that, the jarring tonal shift, and Buckley's already spotty reputation among webcomic creators, the comic was widely mocked and turned into a meme almost immediately. This panel◊ has Buckley's Author Avatar try to deliver a "The Reason You Suck" Speech aimed at Jack Thompson (a politician who was trying to ban violent video games). The whole thing however is torpedoed into silliness with the last speech balloon: "We outnumber you and the people who think like you. Don't fuck with us.", which is both an incredibly hollow and cheesy threat but also completely contradicts with the main claim that gamers aren't violent. |
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El Goonish Shive: Catalina asks Susan to go out with her, Susan declines, and Catalina runs off. This was a dramatic moment... right up until Catalina says "Assjack!" (a reversal of the highly temperamental Genki Girl's favorite word, "Jackass(es)!"). The Big Bad dramatically revealing her name could've been an epic moment, except it is utterly impossible to take an Eldritch Abomination who has chosen to call herself Pandora Chaos Raven seriously. It's the kind of thing a disaffected goth girl would come up with, not an immortal godlike being. This was later indirectly justified by Jerry, who comments that other Immortals tend to like overly-dramatic names, especially the immature ones. |
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Bittersweet Candy Bowl: An in-universe example - the horror movie that Jasmine and Paulo see fails to frighten them, instead making them laugh, much to the consternation of the rest of the audience. | |
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How I Became Yours: Has its own page. | |
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| Narm / int_e75c6d45 | type |
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Goblins: The initial reaction to Chief's death is over-the-top, but then Thaco delivers this priceless line: | |
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