Gannon Banned

Two Ns, not three!

Clark Kent: Mix-Ill-Plick?
Mr. Mxyzptlk: NO! Repeat after me, bright boy. It's MIX--YES--SPIT--Lick.

—Mr. Mxyzptlk, Superman: The Animated Series

In every community for every series, there are common mistakes. Someone could use the wrong romanization of a character's name, or think that the title referred to the main character, or insist on spreading a rumor about the plot until everyone believes it.

To Canondorfs, this can get annoying. It pushes fans' Berserk Button enough that people that continue to perpetuate it are treated with the same respect as a Troll, although many times they merely made an honest mistake. As the following examples demonstrate, however, many other times the purists are not railing against mistakes, but against things which are not technically wrong, such as dub names, simply because they happened to dislike the alternate adaptation.

The trope name comes from The Legend of Zelda forum that lays out ground rules about obvious false rumors (like that a cover song was produced by a different band from the one that actually did it, that Link's name is Zelda, etc.) and shuns people that continue to spread them. Also, as shown by the picture above, in one version of one game, the Big Bad Ganon's name was misspelled as Gannon; so referring to him as Gannon (instead of Ganon) is also something likely to get you banned. Of course, the list does have things like "Claiming Zelda II is anything other than the best Zelda game ever" and calling The Legend of Zelda CDI Games "epic", so there's a strong hint of Stealth Parody present.

See Also: Fandom Heresy, I Am Not Shazam, Internet Backdraft, Media Research Failure and Refrain From Assuming. An in-media equivalent would be Insistent Terminology. For Cannons that are banned, see Fantasy Gun Control. If Canon is banned, it's Canon Discontinuity.

Not to be confused with Banning Ganon, who's a Complete Monster and clearly deserves to be Ganon Canned.

Doesn't seem to be related to Gannon Car Rentals. Or Gannon University, for that matter. Or Officer Bill Gannon from Dragnet.

When adding examples, please keep in mind that this trope covers audience and fandom reactions. It is not intended to be a catalog of misspellings, misconceptions, and common errors.

Examples of Gannon Banned include:

Anime & Manga

  • This can, on rare occasions, be inverted in the anime fandom, with posters saying "You aren't Japanese, so stop using the Japanese names." While certainly some are just elitist, some just use the original name or spelling because they like it better or if it's just what they're used to. There's also the problem some newer members of the fandom may have with correct pronunciation, potentially making it difficult to figure out what they're talking about.
It can also be inverted in real life, when hardcore fans or self-professed Internet scholars attempt to use the "original" Japanese name for anime/game characters around people who have only watched/played the Western version of said show/game, and are completely bashed for being total dorks. Another example suggests that you should never use the Western names for Pac-Man ghosts when taking part in online Pac-Man fan conversations—a corollary to that should be that you're better off not using anything OTHER than the Western names (more specifically, the nicknames Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde) when talking about Pac-Man to 90% of the people you will actually meet in real life.
In English-speaking circles, going out of one's way to use the Japanese words for things that are typical of anime in general when the English equivalent would suffice is considered to reflect poorly on the speaker; for instance, saying you dig vampire catgirls isn't a big deal, but going to the trouble of saying kyuuketsuki nekomimi-shoujo will put you on the Chumptrain to Douchetown.
    • Many fan translations are militant in their use of Japanese equivalents of a word whenever possible, and occasionally reverse-translate portions of a manga (EX, changing Lordgenome into Genome-sama for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, when it was one word, and changing perverted to Ecchi in other manga when it damages a normal reader's ability to understand the text.)
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!! communities, especially those with a heavy population of OCG players, get rather snippy whenever someone doesn't use the "proper" name for a character or card. Woe betide anyone who calls "Saint Dragon -- The God of Osiris" by the American name, "Slifer the Sky Dragon"... okay, so "Slifer" is a pretty silly name for a God Card, and it has a really stupid origin, but lighten up, people...
    • It lives on when people watch this guy's subtitling of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds. The rule of thumb: when watching a Japanese version of the show, use the Japanese names and terminology. Countless people have been marked as spam just because they refuse to use "Aki Izayoi" or "D-Wheel" and instead use "Akiza Izinski" and "Duel Runner". Some in the fandom find this particularly annoying because like its predecessors before it, almost every term has been changed, seemingly for no apparent reason. There are certain YGO fans who will rip you a new one if you call a character by their dub name.
  • Though she was initially called "Dark Chii" by fans due to No Name Given for a large part of the manga, call Freya that to any Chobits fan's face and feel the wrath of the heavens descend upon you. Whether the name should be written as Chi or Chii is also an issue with some.
  • Happens in the Dragon Ball fandom. People who use certain names over other tend to get looked at as filthy dub fans. It's not Master Roshi, it's Kame-sennin! Hercule? You moron, it's Mr. Satan! And so on, and so forth.
    • There are also the so-called purists who insist of saying "Saiyajin" instead of "Saiyan", since the latter is an "Americanized" term. ("Saiyajin", in Japanese, means "someone from Saiya". "Saiyan", in English, means... "someone from Saiya".) However, the anglicization of "Saiyajin" to "Saiyan" was first used by Bandai for their Super Battle Collection action figures, which predated any of the American adaptations.
      • The English Dub references this at one point by having Buu mispronounce "Saiyan" as "Saiyajin."
      • Not to mention people who will only refer to the hero as "Son Goku" as opposed to just Goku, and Kuririn instead of Krillin.
    • Treating GT as canon is another good way to get people to flame you.
      • Treating the movies or filler as canon is another mistake. Some circles go so far as to discourage discussion of the anime at all, as the only true canon is the manga.
  • Referring to Anthy Himemiya (of Revolutionary Girl Utena) as "Anshii" has been known to instill homicidal rages in fans of the show, due to "Anshii" being nothing more than a Japanese pronunciation of the actual Greek name (seeing as Japanese does not have a "th" sound so has to approximate it with a "shii").
  • Sailor Moon:
    • Referring to the original characters using the dubbed names. Many fans will ignore you or worse. (Some will wish/inflict physical harm upon you.) However, this has been mediated these days, with decades of rage slowly giving way to admitted nostalgia.
    • Say that Uranus and Neptune are cousins. You will get one of two reactions: enraged purists/shippers/ who will want to strangle you, or dubbies who will defend you to the death. Say they are lesbian lovers, and reverse the reactions.
      • What happens if you say that they are Kissing Cousins?
        • Hilarity Ensues, at least among the ones who will make fun of Dub Text-induced incest. It helps a lot that the dub did everything it could to support the Kissing Cousins interpreration, right down to keeping a literal case of it—on the lips.
  • Call the characters of Tokyo Mew Mew by their Tokyopop or 4Kids names. Go on, I dare you.
  • Do NOT call Roronoa Zoro "Zolo". Ever. Unless you want everyone at the One Piece forum you visit (with the obvious exception of 4KidsTV's) to hate you. Also, never ever call Luffy simply "Monkey". Other dub spellings provoke similar reactions.
  • Death Note
    • Calling the series Deathnote, rather than Death Note, usually doesn't go over well.
    • Many fans of the show have a tendency to call Light "Raito". This is the most understandable of the romaji transliterations, as early translations used Raito, but it gets really crazy when fans talk about "Ryuuku" and "Nia" and even "Eru". There has even been "Desu Noto" floating around... basically fans are calling characters with English names the romaji spelling of their names.
  • CLAMP and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle fans often get pissed off when someone calls the series Tsubasa Chronicle. See, the anime is called Tsubasa Chronicle and it was beyond awful. It was so bad CLAMP themselves disowned it; in the fandom's mind, calling it Tsubasa Chronicle most likely means you have only seen the anime.
  • Inuyasha: Oh god with the Tessaiga. Viz's translations created a lot of confusion as to how to spell it. Some prefer the romanization of "Tetsusaiga," while some like the previously used romanization. There are other variants as well, I'm sure.
  • Whether you're talking about Naruto, Cardcaptor Sakura, Street Fighter, Pokémon, or any anime, manga, video game, or anything in general, the name Sakura is pronounced SAH-KU-RAH, not SUH-KOO-RA and some fans will be unforgiving if this name is said incorrectly.
    • Vowel sounds in general should be done as precisely as possible. In this case the first would be written as さくら while with second would be さこら. A more extreme example of this are possible words for 'someone's husband' and 'prisoner', the first possibly being しゅじん or shujin while the second possibly being しゅうじん or shuujin... yes that one う/u makes a difference.
  • Don't call Ryuzaki from Daimos Richard on any anime forum or you are in trouble.
    • So calling him "Kelly Hunter" would be right out, then?
    • Unless you're from the Philippines, in which case most who grew up watching Daimos (or Voltes V) would correct you politely whenever you use their Japanese names.
  • According to the fans, it's spelled "Chrno" and not "Chrono". However, Word of God has admitted that "Chrno" was a mistake on Daisuke Moriyama's part, and by the time he noticed it was too late to change it. Later reprintings of the manga in Japan call it "Chrono Crusade".
"Chrno" can cause some confusion, too, if you misread the ch as the one from "child" not the one from "chaos". Coincidentally, "czrno" is the Slavic word for "black"... which is also what "Kurono" means in Japanese.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist
    • Spelling the (obviously western) names of the Elric brothers as Edo and Aru after the Japanese mispronunciation due to a lack of -d and -l sounds in the Japanese language will automatically brand you as a noob among Fullmetal Alchemist fans.
    • Some people used to insist that there was a character named Edvard Elric in the Fullmetal Alchemist series, who lived in "Amestria" or even "Shamballa". As you can guess, the former shows up infrequently online where text is far more common than speech, but the rest were fairly common amongst almost-but-certainly-not fans at one time.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion
    • Is it Gendo, Gendou or Gendoh Ikari? Ryoji or Ryohji Kaji? Asuka Soryu or Sohryu? The list goes on. This debate is mostly just a microcosm of a debate that can make language forums run ankle-deep in blood: Which Romanization scheme to use for Japanese? It's even uglier for Korean (and there, there's also an asinine "don't romanize at all" thing, because apparently only hangeul can even approximate Korean's sacred phonemes).
Given how much chaos can be caused by conflicting romanization schemes, the "Don't romanize at all" thing may simply be a result of getting fed up with having to figure out from examples which romanization scheme is being used this time, which means practically that if you don't have one very dominant, you have to learn all the schemes for the language. Meanwhile, just using the original writing system means the only romanization scheme anybody needs to know is the romanization scheme they use—and/or the one you have to use to type in the language.
  • Hardcore Rurouni Kenshin fans really tend to hate anybody who calls it "Samurai X". Funnily enough, the author likes that term and even referenced it on his next work, Busou Renkin.
  • The two girls in Please Twins! are not not the twins, and assuming they are may be hazardous to your health. It's actually about two girls who each believe themselves to be the sister of the male lead, and wind up in a Three's Company sort of sitch until they figure out which is which. It's Mina. Or Karen. Depends on whether you take the show or the manga.
  • Pronouncing the word "Eureka" as anything but ee-oou-reck-ah will cause certain fans to cringe. Even when you're talking about another series entirely.
    • Interestingly, in Modern Greek "eureka" is pronounced "evrika".
  • For a Ranma ½ fan, the use of 'Nermia' is akin to a boot to the head.
  • Chances are, if you mention "Robotech", you're going to have to listen to why Robotech sucks, why Harmony Gold sucks, why it ruined Macross, and a number of other things, that usually don't relate to the other two series Robotech used. Even if it is a Robotech video on Youtube...
    • Nearly every single Macross video has at least one Robotech basher who just randomly starts the bashing without any provocation or anyone mentioning Robotech before the basher does.
  • "Hardcore" fans of the Kirby anime will be rather annoyed if you refer to the Holy Nightmare Corporation as N.M.E. or eNeMiE or any other way you want to spell it. Calling NIGHTMARE himself that is right out, and justified, as people really should know the name of the FINAL BOSS OF KIRBY'S ADVENTURE/KIRBY: NIGHTMARE IN DREAMLAND is not NME. You can probably get away with using the 4KiDS character names though.
  • On at least one forum, posters can be targeted by cries of "NEGIMA BANNED!!" for calling Negi's mother Akira or referring to his cousin Nekane as his biological sister. Generally, though, Negima fans seem fairly understanding, because there's a lot to keep track of...
  • Tales From Earthsea runs into this trope. Most purist fans insist on referring to the film by its Japanese name, Gedo Senki. In fact, most Studio Ghibli films get this treatment from the purists. The most notable example of fans' refusal to use an English name is Princess Mononoke (referred to almost universally as Mononoke-hime), with Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) third most likely to suffer from this).
  • Fairy Tail features a currently raging debate over several characters names (Mistgun vs Mystogan, Luxus vs Laxus, Gazille vs Gajeel, Gerard vs Jellal, and Erza vs Ezra vs Elsa vs Elza.), and while a lot of fans will make the translation in their heads and leave it alone, there are some who will rip your spine out if you use the wrong one.
  • Don't ever call Bleach's Sexta Espada "Grimmjaw". You. Will. Be. ANNIHILATED. People also take issue with most of the Espada's names (partially because they released an official Romanization for their names long after they were introduced). Nnoitra Jiruga is officially Romanized as Nnoitora Gilga, and Szayel Aporro is officially one word, but most people still call them by their original names. Before that was Harribel, incorrectly called Halibel, and Baraggan, which is such a subtle change from Barragan that people probably didn't notice the difference.
  • Debate on the correct Romanization of Hellsing character Seras Victoria's name can get nasty. Some alternate spellings are Celes, Celas, and Ceres. That's not even to mention confusion over whether Victoria is her surname (in the British order) or her given name (in the Japanese order).
  • Due to the nature of Nanoha's intelligent device's usage and partly due to some subtitling errors and pronunciation difficulties, some fans assert that the said device's name is Raging Heart.
  • Many people who got into Wandering Son by the anime think Chiba's full name is "Chiba Saorin". "Saorin" is actually a nickname used by Sasa, "-rin" is often added to a female friends name in Japan. Fans will make you notice if you call her that.

Comic Books

  • There's sometimes confusion about whether it's Watchmen or "The Watchmen." This provoked a lot of fan-rage when the movie came out, especially because "watchmen" was an Arc Word in the comic, and became the name of a superhero team in the movie..
  • Spider-Man's title gets this a lot. As Friends helpfully explains:

Phoebe: "Why isn't it 'Spiderman'? You know, like Goldman, Silverman?"
Chandler: "Because it's not his last name."
Phoebe: "It isn't?"
Chandler: "No, it's not like he's Phil Spiderman. He's a SPIDER <beat> MAN. You know, like 'Goldman' is a last name, but there's no 'Gold-man'."

  • This sometimes happens regarding Lex Luthor's name in Superman media, particularly Justice League Unlimited. A talk show host interviewing Luthor, who happens to be running for President at the time, pronounces it Luther, while in another episode Superman gets it right by forcing the 'thor' part.
  • Making character calls about the modern versions of DC superheroes by using evidence from before Crisis on Infinite Earths (unless you're talking about a large number of specific characters who died during/weren't rewritten by the event) is a great way to get everyone on the forum to laugh their asses off. Also, mixing up which of said rewritten characters had their pasts completely wiped, which ones were rebooted in a modern setting, and which ones had their continuity subjected to Broad Strokes, and how broad those strokes are for each character and each past event, will earn you just as much ridicule. Yes, keeping up with comic continuity is widely known to be a bitch, but this is widely considered basic knowledge that comes right after figuring out which characters belong to Marvel and which to DC.
  • In general for the DC comics, mixing up characters. Many different people have gone by the same superhero, though in general movies and cartoons stick to one character (for example Dick Grayson is almost always Robin).


Computing

  • Calling a Mac a "MAC" will earn you the ire of Apple fans.[1] Same with calling the iPod "IPOD," "I-POD," or "Ipod."
    • Or calling an iPod Touch an "iTouch".
  • Do not, I repeat, DO NOT admit to using Internet Explorer to anyone in any IT department, you will get flamed. You're honestly better off not even mentioning it except in pure jest, and even then only if the jest is at Internet Explorer's expense.
    • If you admit to using a Mac, you will get flamed (probably about the lack of mouse buttons). If you admit to using Microsoft Windows, you will get flamed (probably about the constant crashes). If you admit to using Linux, you will get flamed (as a pre-emptive measure to stop you evangelising). If you admit to dual- or multi-booting, you will get flamed by everyone at once.
    • An exception: if the IT department installed Internet Explorer on your workstation before issuing it to you, and they don't make Firefox or Chrome available, do not admit to using anything other than IE.
  • Among programmers, making a Perl/PERL/PEARL/Pearl/perl mistake can lead to someone losing all credibility. In general, the capitalization thing for computer language names can get sticky. Especially for older languages, which had a tendency to start life as all caps abbreviations and then become mixed case in later standardization efforts. LISP ("LISt Processing") and FORTRAN ("FORmula TRANslating System") are now just Lisp and Fortran. COBOL is still COBOL, though.
  • The editor of one early (late 1970s) British computer magazine persistently claimed that the difference between compilers and interpreters was "academic", even in the face of corrections from knowledgeable readers, until one month he learned the hard way just how wrong he was, by wasting three pages of the mag on a worthless hex-dump of the workspace of a BASIC interpreter. The mag didn't last very much longer after that issue.
  • Any real-life incident where a tech support person gets a call that starts out with "We bought the internet from you", "Is this the internet?", "I think I need to reboot the internet", "I deleted the internet" will lead to vicious mocking.
  • If you wish to communicate with people in the Free Software Foundation, or Debian users, make sure to call the use of the Linux kernel with the GNU userland tools: GNU/Linux. Most people don't care, but there are a few that are very serious about it.
    • Be very careful about who you talk to. Most other distros' users will get a bit irritated with you if you call the kernel GNU/Linux. Some Debian users do too. For further clarification this goes back to a very old argument between Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman over who should get credit for free operating systems.
  • Call Microcomputers such as the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and the Amiga "PCs" in front of Microcomputer fans.
  • It's the Xbox. It's just one word, normally capitalized. Not XBox, XBOX, X-box, X-Box, or xBox. The name comes from Direct X; When Microsoft was creating it, it was codenamed the Direct X Box, or Direct Xbox, and when they were trying to come up with a cool name for it, someone realized "Why don't we just use it as it is?".

Fashion

  • The goth, punk, and emo subcultures tend to be very particular about what is and isn't goth, punk, or emo. All of them look disdainfully on middle-school goth kids that they refer to as "vampires". Bonus points for referring to modern "emo" music and fashion among emo fans from The Eighties.
  • Do not suggest that Lolita fashion has any sexual connotations.


Films

  • James Cameron's Avatar:
    • An "avatar" is a transgenic half-breed telepathically controlled by a human. Go to any collective forum for this movie and call any one person in the film Avatar, or call the Na'vi "Avatars", or ask what this has to do with Avatar: The Last Airbender, and chances are you'll get a front row seat to a Flame War. The same goes for referring to the Na'vi (literally meaning The People) as 'Na'vis' (technically, 'the Na'vi' is Department of Redundancy Department if you go by a literal translation, but ignored for practicality since it also refers to them in a species context). Other mangling of names cause annoyance, such as 'Navi', 'Ney'tiri'/'Neyti'ri' or other omissions or addition of apostrophes. Calling ikran/toruk 'dragons' will cause a lot of annoyance, especially since if you don't want to use the actual name, there are even convenient English versions, and can be considered particularly Egregious due to the obvious fact that they are not.
      • Presumably they also wouldn't like it if you pointed out that an avatar is a virtual representation (in this context, not the Hindu one). A corporeal representation...is called a waldo, after an early example in a Robert A. Heinlein story. That wouldn't look nearly as cool on the poster over the Na'vi eyes, though.
        • It's only in the digital world that "avatar" refers to a virtual representation. Outside of the specific meanings (Hindu, digital, and the movie Avatar) the general definition of an avatar is any embodiment or personification, so it's not really correct to say that an avatar must be virtual.
    • Examples other than words include the depressingly common complete misunderstanding of what tsaheylu is (likely perpetuated by a certain flash animation). Other misconceptions include some people who claim that either the floating mountains can't exist, claim that Pandora's magnetic field would kill a human, or that there is no oxygen on Pandora.
  • Godzilla fans are funny. Though they aren't likely to flame you for the names you use, the use of Japanese names is sort of a status symbol. So a "real" fan calls Godzilla "Gojira" or "Goji" for short. This gets silly when the name in question was actually in English, but the fans insist on spelling it the way it's pronounced in Japan (Spacegodzilla vs. Supeisugojira, or the Super X vs. the Supaa X).
  • Smith, the main villain in the second and third Matrix films, is an Agent only in the first movie, and his entire existence in the second and third revolves entirely around the fact that he is not an Agent anymore. Some in the Matrix community will unplug you if you call him an Agent in the context of the latter two films.
  • To the fanbase of the "Underworld" series of movies, particularly every single person who knows anything about mythology, It is Lycanthrope. The term "Lycan" is a clear shortening of the scientific name for the disease/curse (or rather the real-world symptoms that mimic it), designed to be a slang insult to the species (at least until the prequel, at which point they tossed out their own sense).
  • Just go on any board where anyone is talking about Coraline and refer to it as a Tim Burton movie... But arguably not their fault, considering that all of the advertising proclaimed "From the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas", (a movie that is titled Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas). The promotion of the movie was trying to make people think it was a Tim Burton film, knowing that a lot fewer people have heard of Henry Selick.
  • Granted, fans of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen tend to be a bit more tolerant than most, because they know that it's not exactly faithful to the source material. However, there are some no-nos even here, chiefly in character name spelling. It's Dorian Gray, not Darien Grey or any other permutation. It's Jekyll, not Jekall or Jekil or (heaven forbid) Jekkie.


Literature

  • In one series of Harry Turtledove books (known, alternatively, as Timeline-191, TL-191, or the Southern Victory series), a Confederacy that survives into the 20th century is taken over by the dictator Jake Featherston, who is basically a Hitler analog. For some reason, people insist on misspelling it as "Featherstone". This really pisses off fans, but what took it beyond the pale was when the misspelling appeared on the freakin' dustjacket of one of the books.
  • Referring to any of the books of The Inheritance Cycle as a "brick" can actually get you in trouble with the staff in some quarters. But in other places, even on fansites, the staff call them "bricks" too, but used as a term of affection rather than, well, ridicule and scorn.
  • In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Victor Frankenstein constructs and brings to life his Creature or, if you prefer, Monster. The Creature itself is never named. Thanks to scads of largely terrible films, comics and stage plays, people have been using the term "Frankenstein" to refer to his Creature (and being criticized for it) since the 19th century. Yup, Older Than Radio.
  • Some fans of that lady who wrote the Pern books are rather grumpy about "McCaffery", probably because her last name is "McCaffrey".
  • Many of the fans of the Warrior Cats series will scream (or at least groan) should you make the mistake of not capitalizing the word "Clan". There are four Clans. The main characters are in ThunderClan. Their ancestors are StarClan. And don't you dare suggest otherwise. Perhaps justified in that this is pounded into your brain for over twenty books, and not bothering with grammar rules automatically gets you labeled as an idiot on the major forum.
  • There's a huge Broken Base among The Chronicles of Narnia fans about whether The Magician's Nephew should be considered the first Narnia book, or sixth book in the series and a prequel to the first book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The publisher hasn't exactly helped, what with deciding at one point to renumber the books in chronological order.
  • In the world of Lewis Carroll's Hunting of the Snark, if your snark[2] happens to be a boojum, "you will softly and suddenly vanish away, and never be met with again." Not "softly and silently". This did cause arguments way back then, with one fan, Snarkophilius Snobbs, becoming infamous for persisting with this misquote.
  • Harry Potter fandom is large and diverse enough that almost anything is acceptable in some circles, but in general the following rules hold:
    • Technology at Hogwarts isn't permissible in any dose.
      • Things that work electronically, as below, do not work. Things that work mechanically, such as Harry's watch, do work.
      • Also, technology in Diagon Alley or the Ministry of Magic is usually fine, as both locations are right in the middle of London and yet there's no apparent disruption of service to all their Muggle neighbors. (And given that the Ministry in particular is directly underneath Whitehall, you'd think people would notice if all the electronics in the center of British government stopped working.)
    • Hermione's name is Hermione. Unless you're Grawp or Viktor. There are absolutely no other exceptions. "Hermy" is an elf from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
      • It's "Hermine" in Germany.
      • My Immortal deserves mention just for the sheer fact that it manages to break all six of these rules in a spectacular Crosses the Line Twice fashion.
    • There was a throwaway joke in the first book were the Weasley twins were given sweaters with their initials on them. This prompted them to say they wouldn't forget their names, they are Gred and Forge. The fandom took this joke and ran with it, nearly every fic about the two of them has one of them refer to the other by this nickname. And almost all of them get it wrong. They mistakenly call Fred Gred and George Forge. But it's the other way around as the joke was that they remembered what the first letter of their names were (presumably because it was on their sweater) but it was the rest that they got confused on. Meaning Fred was Forge and George was Gred.
  • The eponymous entity in the Cthulhu Mythos has a name that will never have an agreed pronunciation (especially since Lovecraft himself used no fewer than three different pronunciations depending on when you asked him), and each pronunciation has a following that will ridicule and shun those who pronounce it differently.
    • Even worse are the discussions in fandom what the Elder Sign looks like - a star of a tree. Problem is that in different stories it is described as either. Mocked in the musical A Shoggoth on the Roof where in the opening a fight breaks out over this question. 'Star!' - 'Tree!' - 'Star!' - 'Tree!'...
  • In the presence of hardcore Carrollians, never refer to the Hatter as the Mad Hatter, or to the Jabberwock as the Jabberwocky.
  • P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves is a valet, not a butler. Not that you can exactly be blamed for making the mistake, since it even occurs on book jackets.

Live-Action TV

  • Doctor Who:
    • Referring to everyone's favorite Time Lord as "Doctor Who", or his show as Dr. Who, is not going to ingratiate you with the fanbase. The origin of all the confusion, as noted on the main Doctor Who page, is that the name for the character during the show's development was originally "Dr. Who," a name that was retained in the credits and internal documentation for over 20 years, despite the fact that the character was never called that on-screen except in Mythology Gags.[3] (Rather like the Trope Namer, in that sense.)
    • Using "Timelord" instead of "Time Lord" or any spelling other than TARDIS is a bad idea.
    • It's also probably a good idea to avoid referring to the actor that played the Fifth Doctor as "Peter Davidson," unless you enjoy the thought of being lectured on how Peter Davison is an actor, while Peter Davidson is the guy who used to draw Desperate Dan in The Dandy.
      • Doctor Who Magazine's Fifth Doctor announcement managed to mess this up , reading "PETER DAVIDSON IS THE DOCTOR" (they lampshaded this later when Davison got a cover for "Time Crash").
  • Jim intentionally did this to irritate Dwight on The Office. After an ethics meeting where they were told to avoid "Time Theft" in the workplace, Jim had a deliberately loud conversation with Andy about the Battlestar Galactica TV show. During that conversation, he talked about how the show has Klingons and Wookiees, is a shot-for-shot remake of the original, and is about a character named Dumbledore Calrissian who has to return a ring to Mordor. Meanwhile, Dwight is seething at his desk, trying his hardest to refrain from getting involved in this non-work-related conversation.
  • It's quite easy to get Gannon Banned from The Colbert Report fandom (the fact that politics is frequently involved probably doesn't help), but the quickest way to do it is to spell Stephen Colbert's name wrong. There is no such person as "Steven Colbert". Pronouncing the T in "Colbert" will cause similar levels of rage.
  • Confusing Star Wars with Star Trek in the presence of either fandom is one of the most brutal suicide methods known to man. A Troll jokingly asked in a YouTube comment if TNG was "the one with the ewoks". Insta-Flame War.
  • On The Price Is Right, "Showcase Showdown" is when they spin the big wheel; "Showcase" is when they bid on the prize packages. Many people have been chewed out for confusing the two.
  • A lot of Super Sentai purists get pissy if you use Power Rangers-specific terminology in the context of Sentai (i.e. "Zords" instead of "mecha") or if you refer to a Super Sentai character by the name of their Power Rangers counterpart (i.e. Rita Repulsa instead of Bandora the Witch). Some fans even go as far as to insist on using the term senshi (the Japanese word for warrior) instead of "ranger" when talking about the members of a Sentai (since the term "ranger" wasn't used for any of the teams prior to Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, with the exceptions of Himitsu Sentai Goranger and Kousoku Sentai Turboranger). Although, the introduction of the "Ranger Keys" in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger has made the term "Ranger" a bit more acceptable as a substitute for senshi among purists. The following seriesTokumei Sentai Gobusters has introduced Megazord into the Sentai lexicon as well as the phrase "It's Morphin Time".
    • Speaking of Power Rangers, Jason David Frank was once booed for saying that he would have preferred it if Steve Cardenas had returned for Forever Red instead of Austin St. John.
  • Calling any version of Stargate "StarGate" or "Star Gate" will cause every fan of the series in the world to tell you just how wrong you are, and how it's nothing like Star Trek or Star Wars.
  • Confusing the British original and American remake versions of Skins is likely to get you Gannon Banned from fans of the former - who make up the majority of the fandom, and most of whom see the American version as somewhere between forgettable and an unwatchable atrocity.

Music

  • That famous Lynyrd Skynyrd song with the long guitar solo? It's called Free Bird, not Freebird. Diehard Skynyrd fans will correct you (possibly by giving you a free bird).
  • Luca Turilli's first album is 'King of the Nordic Twilight'. The tenth track on said album is 'Kings of the Nordic Twilight'. Remember this if you do not wish to be set on fire.
  • Quiet Riot's song "Metal Health (Bang Your Head)", or "Bang Your Head (Metal Health)". Calling it just "Bang Your Head" is Tempting Fate.
  • Metalcore (or any word with "-core" in it except maybe grindcore) is not considered metal. It's best not to call metalcore metal on a metal forum. On second thought, it's best not to mention metalcore at all. There is also quite a bit of rivalry between fans of the two almost entirely different genres named "power metal", one of which was formed in America in the early '80s, the other of which arose in Germany several years later.
  • Groundlessly bashing hide or Munetaka Higuchi or Jasmine You or anyone else who is dead on pretty much any jrock community in general is often seen as trolling or shit-stirring behavior. You might get away with trashing poor Soichiro Umemura, but most likely doing so will bring out the one Tokyo Yankees fan still around to start the Flame War.
    • Neither hide's nor Jasmine's deaths have an exact official cause. hide's may have been an accident, or it may have been suicide—he can't tell us so we'll never know. Jasmine definitely died of an illness, but the exact illness was never specified. So, it's common for people to speculate, and sensible guesses are often sort of tolerated. But sometimes people come out with really, genuinely silly, often downright offensive Epileptic Trees such as "hide killed himself just to piss off Yoshiki" or "Hizaki killed Jasmine You". These are the people who will end up in trouble, and it serves them right, really.
  • Calling all electronic music "techno" will earn you death in some circles. It's only swift if you're lucky.
  • Refer to Pink Floyd as "he" and prepare to be laughed at.
    • The Pink Floyd example was actually referenced in their song "Have A Cigar":

Oh by the way, which one's Pink?

    • And later The Wall was sort of written about the life of a character named Pink.
  • You're unlikely to be slaughtered for it, but expect some groans, sighs and face-palms if you walk onto a forum/comments page/website/whatever for a Visual Kei band or song and ask something along the lines of "Are they all men?" or "Such-and-such is a woman, right?" Hardly anyone finds these questions bad in their own right, it's just that they get asked so many times that people get fed up with having to answer them.
  • Even though it's impossible for two people to agree on what emo is, if you call a band Emo and it isn't, you're bound to catch hell for it.
  • Talk to any Radiohead fan and mention "Tom York". Or, "Johnny Greenwood".
  • If you're discussing Mozart with any serious classical fan, don't make the mistake of mentioning how Salieri poisoned him. Amadeus plays quite fast and loose with historical fact; it was never intended to be a Mozart biopic so much as just the film of Shaffer's play. Pretty much no reputable Mozart scholar out there thinks Salieri poisoned him or plotted against him, and in fact, the two men actually got along quite well and greatly respected each other. Salieri also had nothing to do with either the commission for or the completion of Mozart's Requiem. And by the way, Salieri wasn't the talentless hack portrayed in the movie. In fact, he taught Beethoven and Schubert along with being one of the most successful composers of his time (even if its popularity died down after his death).
  • Fans of Muse have sometimes been critical of the name being written as "MUSE" just because the logo is all caps.
  • A lot of die-hard music fans get very picky over genres, to the point of getting into lengthy flame wars over which of two very similar subgenres of metal a particular band fits into. Even worse is when you get a band that seems to fit perfectly into a certain genre, and the only thing stopping them from doing so is the fact that the bandleader insists otherwise. For a good example of this, look at the My Chemical Romance entry a few lines up, and think of the lives that have been lost because incredibly easy mistakes were made.
    • Always head into any thrash or power metal discussion with shields raised, targs forwards. Inevitably, you will hit this. May also occur with goth. Standard accusations are mostly that said bands are not (genre) enough to count as real (genre) bands. See also: 'hair metal' like Poison in comparison to the rest of metal, with all but the most generic metal fans proclaiming they are merely 'hard rock' to disassociate from them.
  • Don't call into a classic rock station and request "The Who's Teenage Wasteland". Not only will they not play it, but they may come to your house and work you over.
  • The genre is called "country music" or "country"; it hasn't been "country & western" since the 1960s. Using the "western" tag automatically identifies you as a non-fan, and is nothing short of a Berserk Button for fans of the genre.
  • It's Mötley Crüe, not Motley Crue. The dots are important. However, since most English (North America and the UK) computer keyboards don't have an umlaut feature and not too many people know the "alt + numberpad combo = special character" feature, it's somewhat forgivable.
  • Some people think "Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed is simply called "Sickness" (possibly with a "the" added). Disturbed fans aren't happy about it.
    • Also, the final track on the same album is "Meaning of Life" despite many who might claim it's called "Psycho".
  • Eve of Destiny are Goth. Not Visual Kei. This point is nowhere near as trivial as it seems. Anyone who calls EoD "visual" runs a significant risk of being shot down and stamped on by an indignant fan/fans. It doesn't help that having EoD's genre mistaken in this manner has become something of a Berserk Button for frontman Haruhiko Ash, to the point where he has severed ties with promoters who sold Eve of Destiny as a Visual band.
  • Many fans of Canadian band The Tragically Hip can be quite hostile towards people who the drop "The" from the band's name — or don't capitalize it.
  • A rare case of Canon Gannon Banning itself: The band name 'Led Zeppelin' is in fact Gannon preemptively Banning itself from Americans pronouncing 'Lead' 'Leed'.
    • Also, Led Zeppelin is a band, not a solo artist. Saying "Yes, I like him" will mark you as a poseur by hardcore fans.
    • Though causal fans might take a bit of ribbing if they say "Zo-so" instead of "Page's Symbol."
    • Led Zeppelin's fourth album does not have a title. Call it "the fourth album" or "the untitled album", and you should be fine. In some circles, calling it "Led Zeppelin IV" will give you away as only a casual fan. Call it "the Hermit Album," "the one with 'Stairway to Heaven'" or "Zoso" and you will be held beneath contempt.
  • The Phantom of the Opera. Serious opera fans will slaughter you if you say Phantom is the last opera you saw.
    • Same thing if you tell an old school Phantom fan that you just loved the 2004 movie or the stage sequel.
    • Naming John Williams as your favorite "modern music" composer is likely to get you Gannon Banned by most serious classical music fans on its own. Same with Danny Elfman, or Andrew Lloyd Webber, or any modern film/Broadway composer, but John Williams is a huge Berserk Button since so much of his music is directly-copied from, if not heavily influenced by, older works.
  • Do not mention the controversies Miley Cyrus has been involved in certain circles. You'll either get fans trying to hand wave her behavior or another good old fashioned hateraide party, neither of which deserves spending any time in.
  • If you refer to a well-known song, especially one involved in Memetic Mutation, by its catchiest lyric, there is a very good chance someone will swoop in and insist you refer to it by the "proper title", which is usually much less known and thus does a poorer job of conveying which song you're talking about.
  • Spelling Metallica as "Mettalica" won't get a nice reaction.
  • Referring to any member of the Backstreet Boys except Kevin Richardson as a "former Backstreet Boy" is an instant Berserk Button trigger for BSB fans.
  • Never ever wonder out loud how many bass drums Iron Maiden 's Nicko McBrain uses while drumming. The answer is one.
  • DragonForce's famed song from Guitar Hero is "Through The Fire And Flames". "Through The Fire And The Flames" is a lyric from said song. Also, ZP was ZP's actual first name, not initials.
  • On the Band Geek side: Gorramnit, people, trumpets are NOT the awesome ones with the slides!!
  • It's Beatles, not "Beetles"! (This troper recalls an article in his high school newspaper about George Harrison's death - the student who wrote the article always spelled 'Beetles' incorrectly, though she claimed the editors insisted on it.)
    • If you don't know who wrote the song, you probably shouldn't guess. Saying something like "I love 'Here Comes the Sun'! It's my favorite song by Lennon" (or any other song with the incorrect songwriter) could earn you ridicule from a die-hard fan.
  • Do not ever call the group Gorillaz "Gorllias", or even worse, "The Gorillas".
  • Attempting to define Enter Shikari as anything at all will generally cause backlash from the fans as they are considered to be in no genre in particular, though naming particular genres present in particular songs is certainly acceptable. This can be disregarded if the term being used is non-serious or affection in nature (Entershikaricore)
  • Imply that Lady Gaga isn't as original as her fans think she is, or that her music isn't the ultimate expression of pop music greatness, in the presence of her fans and you'd better have your life insurance paid up. They might even come after your family...

Tabletop Games

  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • D&D has demons and devils. Many, many fans commonly mistake the two and nearly just as many are really anal about fans who can't get it right. And when you throw in the fact that the most common kind of both demons and devils have more specific names (Tanar'ri and Baatezu respectively), it all just gets very messy, very fast. Not to mention other kinds like obyrith and archdevils that more pure-blooded fans know about.
    • Furthermore, if you don't want to start an edition war, do not use past and present tenses to describe changes between 3.5 and 4th edition, e.g., "there is no lawful evil alignment anymore". And please, for the love of Pelor, DO NOT claim that one edition is objectively better.
    • Misspelling "rogue" as "rouge" will get you flamed in most online fora.
  • Paranoia: Even in the game world itself, referring to The Computer as "the Computer" or, worse, "the computer" can get you executed.

Science

  • Unless you are specifically aiming to torpedo your credibility, don't dismiss the Theory of Evolution as "just a theory," oversimplify it as "survival of the fittest," or ask "If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?" as if you have single-handedly posed The Question That Will Once And For All Destroy Darwinism.
    • Additionally, don't confuse the Theory of Evolution with the Big Bang, or any theories about the origins of life, neither of which it has anything to do with directly. Also, evolution in Pokémon has nothing to do with real evolution except the name (it's really more like metamorphosis/an organism's life cycle).
  • In general, lack of knowledge on what constitutes a thesis, a hypothesis, a theorem, a theory, and a law gets you immediately Gannon Banned in any related discussion.
  • When you enter any online science discussion, take note of the most widely quoted sources and experts and refrain from questioning them unless you want your opinion to be dismissed out of hand, even if you have legitimate grouses.


Sports

  • Calling the "Super Bowl" the "Superbowl" is considered an easy way to tell if someone is not a fan of the NFL.
  • There's a lot of vitriol spewed over which sport is supposed to be called "Football" and in what context. The name "Soccer" also gets a lot hate.
  • Old guys like to remind you that the New York Giants are actually the New York Football Giants.
    • Which is actually the team's full name, and appears on the wall behind the endzones during home games at their new stadium.
  • Pick a stadium in the US that's recently been renamed by a corporate sponsorship. Any stadium. Try calling it by its sponsor name in a local sports bar. For example, "I really like going games at 3Com Park," or "...Monster Park.' Proceed to get beat up by the guys who insist that it's "Candlestick Park" and it will ALWAYS BE CANDLESTICK PARK!. Go to another city and repeat.
    • One of the most insane examples: The park formerly known as Comiskey. Charles Comiskey is heralded as one of the worst sports owners; he intentionally made sure his Chicago White Sox players got less meal money than the league average and often skimped on washing their uniforms. All that led to Sox players conspiring to throw the 1919 World Series in one of sports' worst scandals. The White Sox never returned to the World Series in the next 40 years of Comiskey family ownership. And yet Chicago natives still insist on calling their park Comiskey that the US Cellular name it currently bears.
      • We still call it the Sears Tower, too!
  • The one time you'll get a pass for calling park by a corporate name is if it's never had a non-corporate one, or if the non-corporate name is unknown by most fans. If the corporate sponsor changes, generally use the most well-known name, which is usually the first one.
    • At least one exception to this is Ashburton Grove, the stadium of Arsenal F.C., which is almost exclusively referred to by its sponsored name of "The Emirates" or "Emirates Stadium", even by fans. Conversely, in the same league, the City of Manchester Stadium, home to Manchester City (natch), is generally only referred to as "Etihad Stadium" by sports commentators, who are somewhat obliged to refer to stadiums and competitions by their sponsored names.
    • The Houston Astros offer an interesting inversion: their park was once known as Enron Field. After the Enron scandal, the team went to court to be released from the naming rights agreement, arguing that scandal around Enron diminished the Houston Astros brand. The court agreed. Subsequently, the park was rechristened Minute Maid Park, and nobody in their right mind speaks of Enron Field anymore.
  • Try referring to a Baseball Park as a Stadium instead. Be ready to run.
    • Except for the ballparks that actually are named "Something Stadium", especially Yankee Stadium, which is perennially called "the Stadium" by locals.
  • It's the Pittsburgh Steelers. Not Pittsburg. And not Stealers.[4]
    • 'course, some who call them the "Stealers" usually do so intentionally, pointing out the controversy behind their Super Bowl wins.
  • And it's Tottenham Hotspur, or Spurs,[5] not "Tottenham Hotspurs"


Toys

  • Transformers:
    • There was an IRC chat back in the mid 90s where the admin would kickban any user who referred a particular character by any name other than "Dezaras". "Deathsaurus" was forbidden, "Deaths-R-Us" was right out, and "Death Czarus?" Well, you know the drill.
    • So who's the blue robot, Frenzy or Rumble? This question, when ask, will prompt other fans either saying "You had to go there, didn't you?" or straight-out causing flame wars.
  • As Gabe discovered, LEGO fans are all too ready to point out that the plural of LEGO is LEGO.
    • Funnily enough, this rule gets broken in the first Lego Island game at one point.
  • Calling Toa or Matoran "Bionicles" will result in a massive Internet Backdraft.
    • Heck, pluralizing the title will get you obliterated.


Video Games

  • The game is called Super Mario Brothers, NOT Super Mary-Oh Brothers, as some old Mario commercials would lead you to believe.
    • Asking for Super Mario Bros. 4 to be made will lead irked fans to point out that it already exists—only it was called Super Mario World in the US.
  • The page name/image refers to the Big Bad Ganondorf, aka Ganon (explicitly said so in the third game's manual), who is commonly believed to have gotten an additional "N" in The Legend of Zelda but no other official sources. The reality is more complicated. "Gannon" was used in every Japanese game up until Triforce of the Gods (that is, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past) at the very least, and was the official romanization up until that point. This can be seen in Zelda II the Adventure of Link's intro text and game over screen, and Tot G's end credits, where it refers to "Gannon's Tower". Whether due to a simple error or a deliberate choice, the American manual of the original game favored the spelling Ganon, and beginning with Zelda II, the American localizers explicitly went out of their way to change the spelling in-game, giving the appearance that the original three-N form was a simple misspelling, rather than an artifact of the Japanese version.
    • Claiming that there is only one Link, that the games were released in chronological order, etc., is liable to get you laughed out of any timeline forum. Likewise is redirecting anyone with a timeline question to the Gametrailers timeline.
    • The "Tetra"force theory — the theory that there are four pieces to the Triforce, recieves quite a bit of hate.
    • Call Link "Zelda" around any LoZ fan and prepare to get yelled at.
    • For your own safety, don't call Zelda an RPG.
    • In recent years[when?], It has become a serious crime to refer to the Wind Waker as kiddy in certain fan groups. Link stabbing Ganondorf through the head and the prime evidence of the split timeline may be a big contribution to this
    • Also, don't call Link an "elf" in front of a Zelda fan unless you want to be slapped upside your face for being a complete n00b. You'll also probably get a huge speech about how Link is NOT an elf but rather a Hylian, the main race in the games.
      • According to pretty much every non-human entity in those games, Hylians are humans. Presumably the ears are just long.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Go to a random community, mention "Hyper Shadow", and watch Satan himself flinch in fear of the backlash you get.
    • For that matter, mention any of old backstory used in English speaking countries prior to Sonic Adventure and you'll likely be blasted by a group of "Only the Japanese stuff counts" purists. Which will then trigger a war with the "It's our childhood memories and we don't care if it's not really canon" fans.
    • Mixing up the British/Egmont/Fleetway comic with the American/Archie comic (which, while having a seperate canon from the Saturday morning cartoon, used all the same characters and settings, and is where you find Sally Acorn, Bunnie Rabbot, etc.) around fans of either comic is liable to get you eaten alive.
    • Questioning whether the events of |Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 really happened is also good Flame Bait despite the ending hinting at the characters possibly remembering the events of the game as well as part of Sonic Generations taking place during the supposedly erased events of said game.
    • Tails is not a girl, and never has been. People will gladly tell you this repeatedly.
    • Calling Amy "Amy the Hedgehog" will give you some flak, though you can get into a debate that her full-name is "Amy Rose the Hedgehog". Likewise calling Tekno from the Fleetway comics "Techno" is a bad idea.
    • Debating whether Ivo's real name is "Robotnik" or "Eggman" is another classic flame war kickstarter. Sega settled the issue (both names are official) but even this works as well as Shigeru Miyamoto's word on Sheik's gender.
    • Oh and do not spell Rouge the Bat's name as Rogue.
  • Mega Man:
    • In some fan communities, there are those who will insist on using only the Japanese names (Rockman instead of Mega Man, Forte instead of Bass, etc.) and will insist that only the events as detailed in the Japanese games are "true," even if the community is based on the American games with American fans. And even if the fan-work being discussed is explicitly based on the American continuity.
    • Insisting on using the alternate names for Mega Man X 5 characters will lead to backdraft.
    • Referring to the primary villain of the original series as "Dr. Wiley" is a bad idea. Calling him "Dr. Willy" is an even worse one.
  • Go ahead and call Hyperspeed in Guitar Hero a "cheat". Don't expect to last long on any forum, official or not.
    • Also, don't call Rock Band a Guitar Hero knockoff. You will be bludgeoned to death with various plastic fake instruments.
  • Confusing speedruns and TASs is not recommended. Trying to pass off a TAS as a console speedrun is heavily looked down upon by both the speedrunning and TAS-making communities. For that matter, calling a TAS "fake" or "cheated" is a bad idea too.
  • Chrono Trigger has fans constantly arguing over the hero's name being Crono or Chrono, and choosing between Frog and Glenn. In the first case it's justified, since the character names could only have up to five letters.
  • Final Fantasy IV has this persistant FWAK entry about Palom and Porom [6] in several walkthroughs with FWAK entries in them. Repeating them in forums can be a bad idea.
  • Final Fantasy VI, like Final Fantasy IV before, has FWAK entries,.[7] You'd better be planning to stay off the Internet for a while after repeating them in forums.
  • Hilarity Ensues if you refer to Squall Leonheart as Squall Lionheart or, God forbid, Leon Loire.
  • There are people who tend to complain about the Shadaloo bosses having the "wrong names" whenever they get to play the Japanese version of a Street Fighter game, unaware of the fact that the names were actually switched for the overseas version of the series: the black boxer M. Bison became Balrog overseas, the Spanish Ninja Balrog became Vega, and the Shadaloo overlord Vega became M. Bison.
    • Also, using "Shadowlaw," "Shadowloo," or "Shadaloo" will garner criticism depending on where you are.
  • In Deus Ex, early pirated copies of the game (that didn't include sound because of the internet speed at the time of release) would not allow players to get on the boat and go from the 1st level to the 2nd because the game required a sound clip play (and the soundclip wasn't present in the pirated copy). This has leads to pirates marking themselves as such by asking "How I get on the boat" [sic] questions on various fourms. Flame Wars tend to ensue.
  • There's a lot of nastiness in Pokémon fandom over names. It usually results from differing translations or romanizations, works of dubious canonicity, and good old fashioned obtuseness.
    • When Pokémon was first starting to get popular, kids would cringe whenever their parents (or some other adult figure) pronounced "Pokémon" as "Pokey-man" or "Pokemons".
  • Devil May Cry fans used to have a civil war over whether one of the bosses in the original game was named Nelo Angelo or Nero Angelo. This has pretty much been laid to rest with the introduction of a character named Nero who is distinct from the aforementioned boss.
    • Related, there was a big uproar in the time leading up to Devil May Cry 4 about whether or not Vergil, Dante's brother and Nelo Angelo was dead after the events of the first game. The enemy data files in 4 put the rumors of his survival to rest hard, saying that the Bianco Angelo enemies were actually created by using pieces of his corpse.
  • Gamers have a tendency to flip out at people (especially journalists) who get the name of the thier favorite console wrong, like when people refer to the Nintendo DS as the "Game Boy DS."
  • Go to the EV:Nova webboard and ask about the "Vellos", "Velos","Vell-Os", or (god forbid) the "Vell'Os", and somebody is sure to point out that they are called the "Vell-os".
  • This trope can go either way, in that Pyramid Head (debuting in Silent Hill 2) has been seen in other games and the movie. Some rabid fans say that this is not okay, Pyramid Head to them is only a representation of James' psyche. However, other fans view him as a God of Silent Hill.
  • In Metroid fandom, calling Samus "Metroid" or even, god forbid, saying "I love Metroid, he's so cool in these games" is considered a horrible crime.
  • Go onto a forum and say Meta-Knight or "MetaKnight" is your favorite character. You will not hear the end of it. "His name is Meta Knight, damn it! Meta-Knight is the group of swordsmen and MetaKnight doesn't exist! RAHHHHH, IT MATTERS! YOU'RE NOT A REAL FAN!"
  • Star Fox is the name of the mercenary unit where Fox McCloud works. It is not his name. This misconception isn't helped by the fact that Andross seemingly uses this name to refer to Fox at the end of Star Fox 64 (Andross was actually talking about the team in general, but in context it looks like he's just addressing Fox).
  • Spelling Jak's name with an added c or Daxter with an e is a Berserk Button for many Jak and Daxter fans. If you're lucky, they'll facepalm and point out your mistake. If not, they'll eat you alive.
  • When someone looks at some piece of Touhou fanart and asks "What anime is this?" flames are to be expected.
  • Never mention the "Giygas fetus theory" on an EarthBound forum. You will get banned (temporarily, at least).
  • The main character of Kid Icarus is Pit. Trying to say his name is Icarus will get you laughed out of any Nintendo forum.

Web Comics

  • In The Order of the Stick, Big Bad Xykon has to deal not just with random members of the community, but even characters in the comic spelling his name wrong (with a Z). He can even tell when you misspell it in a speech balloon. And he will kill you for it.
    • Not a name-related issue, but speculating on the comic's frequent Schedule Slip on the Fora is grounds for having your post locked and receiving an infraction.
  • On the Fora of Looking for Group, anyone ignorant enough to post anything even hinting that they think the comic is a World of Warcraft story happening in Azeroth will get beaten up, crucified, eaten and shot, in that order. Despite the fact that the comic started as a Warcraft parody (though only for a very brief period) and incredibly obviously took significant inspiration from the games.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court: The third girl from the photo is not Jones, and she is not related to Gamma in any way. Fans continued to speculate to the contrary, even though Tom Jossed those theories, within hours of their first proposal, then put a note to that effect below the comic. At one point, a forum regular who should have known better suggested that this speculation should be a ban-worthy offense. This specific line of Wild Mass Guessing seems to have stopped now that it's been unambiguously confirmed in-comic that the photo girl and Jones are different people.
  • Dreamkeepers fans are usually pretty torn when it comes to pronouncing Namah's name. Some people say NAA-MUH, while others believe it to be NAY-MUH and refuse to back down in their opinions.
  • Las Lindas author Soul Kat has a big Berserk Button related to this trope due to so many people screwing up Davin Preacher's name, instead calling him Devin.


Web Original

  • The origin of the Pretty Cool Guy meme was rooted in a Gannon Banning.
  • Don't speculate on the Homestar Runner wiki. Don't forget to sign your posts. And for your own sake, if you don't want a month long banning, never mention their year break.
  • Do not talk about Mallard Fillmore at The Comics Curmudgeon. As in, you'll be banned for it because it only ever causes arguments.


Western Animation

  • Call a Don Bluth movie a Disney movie when there are Don Bluth fans around. You'll be sure to irk someone.
  • In the Live Action Adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, M. Night Shyamalan changed the pronounciations of some of the characters' names, most notably the main character, from their Americanised pronounciations in the cartoon to their more "correct" pronounciations based on their spelling and Eastern origins. Predictably, this caused considerable backlash among fans of the show ranging from purist "Trukk Not Munky"-esque Fan Dumb to more casual viewers who simply found it strange listening to the epynonymous Last Airbender being referred to as "Ah-ng" the whole movie insead of "Eh-ng."
  • Any hardcore Disney fan will pointedly tell you, Cinderella's dress is not blue! This can be blamed on the Disney Princess marketing, in which a lot of the merchandise shows Cinderella in a blue dress, despite the fact that she never wore that color in the original movies.
    • You'll get just as much flak for saying that her hair is blonde, which is understandable as the merchandise and recent rereleases color give her a brighter hair color than seen on previous releases and earlier artwork.
  • Never refer to The Powerpuff Girls as "The Powderpuff Girls", or someone is going to get mad. In fact, that happened to the Girls themselves, intentionally, in a Cartoon Network promotional cartoon where they break into The Legion of Doom's headquarters (as in, the villains from the old Super Friends cartoon) to rescue Aquaman and Wonder Woman. Lex Luthor makes the mistake of calling them "the Powderpuff Girls"; needless to say, the three heroines are not amused.
  • Looney Tunes fans hate it when someone spells it "Looney TOONS". Unfortunately for them, people at Warner Bros. actually use that spelling too.
  • In-universe example for Superman: The Animated Series: When Superman mispronounces the name of Mr. Mxyzptlk (Mix-Yes-Spit-Lick) as Mr. Miz-Ill-Plick, said Reality Warper promptly corrects him on it. This was done as a Take That to how his name was mispronounced in the original Superfriends cartoon.
  • The aftermath of asking most fans what Robin's real name is in Teen Titans will definitely not be pretty.
  • Confusing My Little Pony characters for each other. Its especially bad with the drift between "classic" fans and the "bronies" of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Confusing Glory [dead link] for Rarity [dead link] is a bad idea, and believing Glory was the inspiration for Rarity is just as bad of an offense (she's based off Sparkler).
  • Family Guy fans hate it when people and the media call it The Family Guy.
  • There was a small incident in the Transformers Prime fandom, right after episoe 21 aired, when someone who shall remain nameless for their own safety perpetuated a rumor via Wikipedia that episode 22 would be named something along the lines of "one bot, two bots, red bots, blue bots" or some such thing like that, and somehow several people fell for it. It was even uploaded onto Youtube with that name, but ended up being completely wrong.
  • This attitude is mercilessly mocked in Animaniacs with an ad for the Please Please Pleese Get A Life Foundation. In fact, the Straw Fan at the beginning and end of the segment says things reminiscent of most of the examples on this page.
  1. ↑ A Mac is a brand of computer. A McIntosh is a variety of apple, not a variety of Apple (though it is a variety of expensive audio gear). A MAC is part of a network interface (if you're a geek) or a store where high school girls buy overpriced makeup (if you're not).
  2. ↑ no, not that kind
  3. ↑ For example, one character introduces him as "The Doctor," then the other says, "Doctor who?"
  4. ↑ "Stealers" is kindergartner for "thief". "Steelers" is a reference to Pittsburgh's strong connections to the steel industry; the Steelers logo is taken from the Steelmark.
  5. ↑ or The Lilywhites, at a push,
  6. ↑ specifically, there was a rumor spread around stating they have they can be retrieved after their Heroic Sacrifice
  7. ↑ specifically that you can get General Leo to join your party after his demise
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