Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Fictional elements

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This is a collection of discussions on the deletion of articles related to Fictional elements. It is one of many deletion lists coordinated by WikiProject Deletion sorting. Anyone can help maintain the list on this page.

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The guideline Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) and essay Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) may be relevant here.

Related deletion sorting

Fictional elements

Stobotnik

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I was made aware of this article when I was notified it linked to an article of mine. I find it to be non-notable, with only The Mary Sue article and the ComingSoon.net interview as sources for establishing notability (probably for the former, as it doesn't dive into fan works much). The Washington Post article doesn't provide WP:SIGNIFICANT coverage in my view. The Anthem Magazine interview does cover the relationship between the characters in the stories, but not the fan ship, and the Toronto Star article barely covers the relationship itself, as does the the IGN article. The Kotaku article cannot be used at all due to Kotaku articles written since 2023 having been declared unreliable. The rest of the sources are WP:VALNET sources, which cannot be used to establish notability. Google News searches for "stobotnik", "stone x robotnik", and "robotnik x stone" only brought up some of the prior sources, Valnet sources, and an interview that doesn't cover the fan ship (from reading the automatically-generated transcript). ❤︎PrincessPandaWiki (talk | contribs) 17:18, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Film and Internet. ❤︎PrincessPandaWiki (talk | contribs) 17:18, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements and Sexuality and gender. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 04:31, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or redirect if a suitable target is found. Setting aside the reliability of sources (sad to learn Kotaku went to the dogs, didn't know...), I don't see how WP:SIGCOV is met. Not a single cited source uses "Stobotnik" in it's heading. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:14, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Litten, Torracat, and Incineroar

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Another attempt at re-creating Incineroar, which was previously AfD'd in 2020 as a result of lacking the coverage needed for an article. The reception is almost entirely WP:ROUTINE announcements regarding the character, WP:VALNET sources, which do not provide notability, or brief listicle rankings without further SIGCOV. There's also a large chunk relating to Wolfe Glick, but it's not clear why this is relevant; a certain person liking a Pokemon is not important unless that importance is defined by other sources and illustrated in impact: i.e, if Glick's relation with Incineroar resulted in a reevaluation of its popularity, it led to any particular movements, etc.

I've previously done research on Incineroar, and the Pokemon is just non-notable; there's no real SIGCOV on it outside of TheGamer and Smash announcement articles, with the latter falling under ROUTINE. Litten and Torracat have comparatively even less coverage, and don't have any SIGCOV individually or with Incineroar that would be able to salvage this article's Reception. As it stands, I'm not seeing the coverage needed for a separate split here, and I'd support a redirect back to List of generation VII Pokémon as an alternative to deletion. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 00:56, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Video games, and Japan. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 00:56, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The Wolfe Glick part (which was originally in its own section) is meant not to display his opinions on the Pokémon, but their history and how that led to Incineroar becoming his signature Pokémon. I know it sounds odd, but it was notable enough for me to be able to write a paragraph on it. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 02:23, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Per nom. Lacks significant coverage, and is otherwise an attempt at a Voltron article combining multiple lacking topics into one topic. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 02:57, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete While I don't want to say just 'per nom', Poke really summed up a lot of my issues with it well.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 03:53, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Unlike the other multi-Pokémon articles, there really isn't that much of a strong connection of notability between even Litten and Incineroar, and unfortunately, even Incineroar has notability issues. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 05:38, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per all. There's questionable WP:SYNTH and WP:IINFO here. Either way it doesn't meet WP:SIGCOV. There is already a clear and discriminate and notable topic in List of generation VII Pokémon, which could also be an WP:ATD. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:32, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can you elaborate on your SYNTH and IINFO claims? The article passes WP:NOTPLOT and I don't see any violations of SYNTH. I also believe the large amount of reviews allows it to pass SIGCOV. Even though the topic isn't the main subject of the reviews, it is more than a trivial mention. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 13:51, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete no case for notability here. I would also recommend retargeting Torracat and Incineroar back to their entries on the List of generation VII Pokémon page.--65.92.245.71 (talk) 23:07, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I see sources from Kotaku, Polygon, VICE, and Time Magazine. The subject certainly isn't just covered by Valnet sources and the amount of reliable sources makes me really doubt that it does not pass GNG. ArtemisiaGentileschiFan (talk) 02:09, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yea, I can't help but compare it to Popplio, Brionne, and Primarina. A majority of it was Wikipedia:ROUTINE, but it wasn't deleted. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 13:09, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Considering Litten and Incineroar is the main subjects of the two articles, I also think the Inverse and The Game Haus sources should be taken into account. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 13:41, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The first deletion was no consensus, the 2nd was withdrawn by nom. Not really what I'd call "open and shut notability". I'm sure a 3rd AfD on that page would still have a great deal of debate and may go another way. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 04:44, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just because they exist in sources does not mean the subject is notable; there's a difference between Wikipedia:SIGCOV and Wikipedia:TRIVIALMENTIONS. Let's take a look at each source you specified.

-Kotaku has three references. The first, "These Are Your Pokémon Sun and Moon Starters", mentions Litten twice, once in the first sentence, and then only once more as it describes what Litten does in a trailer. There's no commentary here or indication of impact here at all. The second, "The Creators of Pokémon Explain Why Sun and Moon Has Ridiculous Monster Designs" does not mention any of the line at all. The third, "Pour One Out For Popplio, The New Pokémon Starter That Nobody Likes", only says that Litten was popular and well-liked; this isn't really SIGCOV, it's just saying a basic fact. At most this is one sentence: Litten was popular. Note that neither Torracat or Incineroar are not mentioned at all in these sources.

-There are a lot of Polygon references so let me run through the list real quick. The first, "Take a closer look at Pokémon Sun and Moon’s new monsters", is a quick "We like it" statement before going into summary of the character. The second, "Pokémon Sun and Moon’s starter evolutions may sway you on which partner to pick" is again a trivial "We like it statement", followed by basic (albeit dramatized) summary of Torracat's in-universe lore. The third, "Pokémon Sun and Moon’s newest Pokémon are one-of-a-kind", is short, but I suppose not terrible. The fourth, "New Pokémon Sun and Moon video reveals more Ultra Beasts, Z-moves for starters", mentions Litten once, and does not comment on it beyond mentioning it. The fifth, "Incineroar is the newest Pokémon in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", is just a ROUTINE news piece announcing Incineroar is in the game. The sixth, "The staff of Polygon officially crowns Pokémon Sun and Moon’s best starter", is debatably usable, but again I'm not sure what you'd get out of it beyond "It's cute and well-liked". The seventh, "Pokémon Sun and Moon’s final starter evolutions officially unveiled in new trailer", is just a trailer summary that says Incineroar exists now. The final one "Everyone loves Sprigatito, the new weed cat Pokémon starter", mentions the whole "Litten on two legs" thing, but this is very brief and really only states it exists. While there's some crumbs here, I'll specify later why this doesn't really count for notability.

-I'm not quite sure what to make of the Vice source, because frankly I'm not sure how much journalistic credit we can give to an article that gives us this gem: "A large Snorlax rip-off called “$WAG.” A water-type Pokémon called “woke bae.” Clefairy learns a new song, and it’s “Why You Always Lying?” In the innocent and pure world of Pokémon, I fear the encroachment of fleeting youth slang and dank, dank, tropically dank memes." That aside though, the commentary here is largely just "Litten's name is strange and it looks cool."

-The Time source doesn't mention any of the three line members at all.

So what are we left with? A bunch of statements that Litten is cute, popular, and has a funny name. There's two reasons this doesn't work. One, the impact of this is not significant enough that we have enough content to split into a separate article. This is something that can be easily summarized into maybe two or three sentences, and given the lack of real major independent dev info (As Litten's is about the starters as a whole and not about Litten itself), Wikipedia:NOPAGE definitely applies here. Something merely having a lot of statements that "It's popular" is nowhere near enough for a separate article; it's why we merged Greninja a while back. NOPAGE states that: "Sometimes, a notable topic can be covered better as part of a larger article, where there can be more complete context that would be lost on a separate page". Given a lot of the Reception I'm seeing here is in conjunction with other Starter Pokémon, or are merely "It's popular" statements, it seems beneficial for this information to be kept at List of generation VII Pokémon, where this popularity can be more adequately compared and discussed alongside other similar species of Pokémon.

There's also the fact that this article is an obvious WP:COATRACK failure. All of the above comments are specifically on Litten. There's nothing on Torracat but summary that exists, and there's nothing directly addressing all three at once. Let's compare this to Popplio, Brionne, and Primarina. In that article, all three members were directly compared against each other by critics, and all three members are directly relevant to the others' individual Reception. These are topics that, when separated, make less sense than they do together. In this article, all coverage is either about Litten individually or Incineroar individually, and barring a brief mention that people disliked Incineroar as a final phase of Litten, which per NOPAGE can be just as easily covered at the Gen 7 list since it's quite literally one line of comparison, I see nothing really saying these three have an intrinsically connected Reception section. If you were to write articles on these three individually, they'd not only be non-notable, stubby articles separately, but they'd also be completely functional individually of the other. If you were to do the same for Popplio, Brionne, and Primarina, then you'd find three articles being non-notable individually, but with all discussing their relationship to the other. Per NOPAGE, those three articles have coverage, discussed as a group, to make them notable as a group, and be better discussed as one than on a list. Comparatively, Litten's line does not have that; it's just stacking three non-notable subjects together to make a non-notable group article.

Just because it exists in reliable sources does not mean the subject itself is notable. Notability requires SIGCOV, coverage that means it's better read as a separate article than as a merged article per NOPAGE, and that, as a group, all elements of the group are notable together, not individually. There's no reason why this should be a standalone article, and we have a lot of precedents to show that. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 19:03, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The article has a lot of sources discussing it in depth and there are articles such as Popplio, Brionne, and Primarina that are primarily ROUTINE, but are still in existence. The extent of the coverage allows it to pass WP:GNG. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 15:51, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Let us not use WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS arguments, which are not valid to use in AfD. Circumstances and sources differ from article to article. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 04:49, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to List of Generation VII Pokémon. I agree that there really isn't enough SIGCOV here to warrant an article, but I don't see why we can't have this title be a redirect to the list. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:25, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because that would imply redirects from every other duo, trio, or set of Pokemon should also be created and redirected to the lists. That gets deeply into fancruft and is overdoing it. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 05:13, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The nom statement pretty much says that all.. ToadetteEdit (7M articles) 19:31, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Beach Head (G.I. Joe)

AfDs for this article:

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Fails WP:GNG entirely. Mostly plot article of a non-notable cartoon character. (The previous nomination was closed as procedural keep due to the nom's disruption, but the merits were not discussed at all). ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 07:16, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements and Comics and animation. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 07:16, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Television and Toys. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 10:44, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Domdaniel

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No significant coverage for this fictional place. SL93 (talk) 23:20, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 23:39, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. Doesn't have enough coverage to pass WP:GNG. WP:BEFORE is hard here, because domdaniel is also a word meaning "a den of inquiry",[1]. There's also a WP:NOTDIC issue here where the article just extracts WP:OR of various times the word has been used. It seems to have been coined in One Thousand and One Nights, so there could be a valid WP:ATD as a search term. Shooterwalker (talk) 13:22, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to List of mythological places as an WP:Alternative to deletion. This is a relevant place in two works of fiction, which is referenced in a number of younger works of fiction as can be seen in the number of primary and secondary sources both present in the article and especially those appearing in the WP:BEFORE search. This role and connectivity in my view goes beyond a dictionary definition, so this should have some place on Wikipedia. Presence in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable indicates that as well. There's a rather extensive discussion in this paper on the Thalaba version. Oriental influences in the English Literature of the early nineteenth century, p. 25, discusses the Arabian Nights - Thalaba connection. Britain and the Muslim World, p. 132 has an interesting one-sentence-comparison to Hogwarts. The secondary sources I've seen in a brief search are short on the Domdaniel beyond the specific work of Thalaba, so I don't think a stand-alone article is warranted so far, but deletion would be a loss. Daranios (talk) 07:40, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

....or weak keep concurring with Hannes Röst. At least Babylonian Influence on the Bible and Popular Beliefs has an additional background on etymology beyond what's in the other sources or the Merriam-Webster entry. Daranios (talk) 15:44, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mythology-related deletion discussions. Daranios (talk) 07:43, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep : The article is severely unsourced, but there are many sources about the subject in Google Books and on the web. Itzcuauhtli11 (talk) 18:44, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 05:49, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

weak Keep : the problem with subjects like this is that we require reliable secondary sources, not just usage of the term in primary works of fiction/poems/tales. So preferably a (scholarly) discussion about the place, not just evidence that the word is used by someone. I found [2] [3] [4] (probably there are more) on top of the three sources found above which is not as in depth as I would like but at least there are multiple independent secondary sources on this topic which should be enough for a short article. --hroest 13:52, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect/merge Any sources I found only mention this term briefly, and not in a consistent way. Sometimes I do see the connectivity but a lot of times I don't. I prefer WP:ATD and we could group these together somehow, if someone can parse out when a mention is related and when it's not. Archrogue (talk) 15:34, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, asilvering (talk) 05:28, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect. The article is a terrible, undereferenced mess. Sources above are meh, as admitted even by the editosr who found them. Np prejudice to seeing this improved, sure, but in the current form it is unacceptable. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:32, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fictional element Proposed deletions

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