Three Fantasy Tropes and Why We Love Them

[deilaitha]

So, I wrote a blog post today about, as the title might suggest, three fantasy tropes and why we love them. There is a lot of hate for tropes out there, but...

Ah, Fantasy tropes. They are the subject of much heated debate and are often proclaimed to be hated by many. There are dozens of them, and they are ridiculed profusely by lovers and haters of Fantasy alike. However, I contend that these tropes exist for a reason, and that reason is we secretly love them. Three of the most common tropes are The Dark Lord, The Wise Old Wizard, and The Chosen One.

Anyway, you can read the rest of my ramblings here.

Three Fantasy Tropes and Why We Love Them

What do all you folks think? Am I completely off base?

 

[Orc Knight]

I'll be coming at this from a different direction perhaps. I admit to using all three of those tropes, in a way. Most prominent is the Dark Lord and the Chosen One. But I use them to look at them or lampoon them. As for the Old Wizard Mentor, I actually rarely use it. And if a wizard/witch/mage of sorts shows up it's generally not in a mentor sort of role. And if they do give words of wisdom they prefer the trickster style or just not mincing words at all. That and they're old by human standards but rarely look it. At least in my more current stuff.

And all three get mixed and matched and thrown together in my stuff.

 

[argentquill]

In your examples, I think both writers and audiences love those three tropes so much because so much can come to life through them. Each one of those characters fills a role. Each of them can do a lot. And we love to see all the many things they can do. Take Gandalf's example. In the course of being the wise old wizard, he filled the role of spellcaster, sage, guide, advisor, warrior, historian, instigator. That was a real enjoyable thing about him. In filling this role, he was empowrred to DO a great many things. And we got to see it

 

[Seira]

I loved the layout of your page! Looked awesome.
I must be in the minority because I actually don't love those tropes, in fact I get really frustrated with seeing them. But each to their own.