Is 'roasting' plot elements and character archetypes the same as 'parody' ?

[Naruzeldamaster]

To me I'm not sure if it's the same, like Having a Knight Character pissing and moaning about having to save the princess 'again' you know, 'like he does in every story' hits a bit different than say, monty python and the holy grail. They're both kind of self aware and making fun of whatever they're making fun of, but the jokes just hit different.


Parody is a purposefully constructed plot to make fun of something, but a lot of the humor comes from being 'in' on the joke I think.

Characters becoming self aware and questioning how this shit doesn't make sense doesn't require the audience to be 'in' on the joke.

In a lot of my writing I like to make references to the games or movies that inspired them. But I wouldn't call them parody, they're self aware jabs sure, but I feel like out and out Parody has a different goal I think?

 

[pmmg]

Wouldnt those be easter eggs?

I think parody would not be a good tact unless it all was to be parody. A wink to the audience would take me out of a story if it was not a match for the rest of the tale.

I may be a minority but i dont like easter eggs in movies.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

Wouldnt those be easter eggs?

I think parody would not be a good tact unless it all was to be parody. A wink to the audience would take me out of a story if it was not a match for the rest of the tale.

I may be a minority but i dont like easter eggs in movies.

Eh, the references I tend to make are much less easter eggs and more like, the characters doing smart things whenever an 'average' plot of the genre would have them do 'dumb' things, for the sake of plot.

Say the Princess knows that an ambush is going to happen, instead of falling for it (because her knight becomes 'self aware' and suggests an alternate route) she sends her knight to fool the people trying to ambush her. She then sneaks up on the ambushers and defeats them herself.

It's hard to think of an exact answer. But a good one I like is something like the 'obvious traitor character who hates his friends becomes a traitor, to nobody's surprise' but then later you found out it was his secret plan to weaken the big bad. Later you find out that the companions were suspicious of their friends intentions on outset, but 'played along' because otherwise their friends plan wouldn't well, go to plan.

 

[pmmg]

I see nothing wrong with this method, but if its meant to be funny, the story would need to be comedic imo because it drawing attention to it in purpose.

But it is not my style to be funny in that way. My stories have humor in a much more underlying way. The characters seldom act or draw attention to things meant to be funny but some things just kind of are.

A movie which makes fun of tropes like this is the last action hero. I think it carried very well. But they meant to be funny. Star wars, by comparison, is a funny movie, but its not meant to be. When chewy growls and the little mouse droid runs away is kind of like a smattering of humor in a more serious movie.

 

[Finchbearer]

Yes that is parody. Much the same as Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, which is a parody of the gothic romances that were popular at that time.

I like to reference and write in the style of chivalric romance, but in essence they are in affect a parody, but also a base from which I like to tell a (hopefully) compelling story much in the tradition of myths, legends and saga’s of old.

The ‘white knight’ has been much parodied throughout history and still is to this day.

 

[nuh-the-deva]

I think that's parody to the letter.

I think where a parody gains depth is not just having the characters call out the archetypes but in either having them explore why they feel compelled to live in their tropes/parodies OR in them exploring what incident has woken them up from their trope.

A lot of Monty Python sketches have the former, with characters having absurdly mundane conversations within the confines of their tropes. Peasants and kings and saints don't always "hate" of their tropes but they have fun with them and use their dialogue to call out obvious plot holes and inconsistencies (among other things) in the way their stories have been written.

Something like the Shrek franchise has a lot of the latter. Fiona being imprisoned and never having been saved is what woke her up from being a living trope. Before that, she very much expected to be saved and (in the musical) even wrote a diary that slowly descends from optimism into desperation.

 

[Devor]

The issue you're having is that parody and satire are very old and broad words that don't really reflect the full depth of comedy we have now.

Is it a parody? Sure, but that's so broad it's not very useful at this point. The term that comes to mind is meta humor. In this case, your characters are starting to become aware of the absurd things that happen in the genre they're stuck in.