Unredeemable Tropes

[Danskin]

Great post. I'd agree about racist stereotypes, but in terms of the other 4, I don't think they can't be done, but that they can be done well or badly, and all too often are done without subtlety.
Fridging is annoying certainly, and it would be hard to avoid it being cliche. But perhaps not impossible.

 

[The Dark One]

What's fridging?

 

[Queshire]

Killing off a character, often a loved one, just for the shock value of, saying, opening a fridge and finding their corpse stuffed in there.

Not related to implausible ways of surviving a nuclear bomb.

 

[pmmg]

Killing them off. Usually meant as getting rid of characters so as to be motivation for another. Such a wife whose only purpose is to be killed off so the MC becomes activated. Also at times meant to mean killing of token representation characters.

This is an old thread.

 

[Finchbearer]

Fridging
This can take many forms, but essentially you kill/rape/torture a less important character solely for giving the hero something to be emotional and angsty about. In its most cringe form, it is the hero himself who commits the abuse, to show how wounded and dark he is.

The term is also explained in the OP, which I’d say pretty much sums it up.

When I’ve read examples of fridging within storylines, they’re often not even a less important character, more like just a faceless, identity-less name. I’m not sure if it’s lazy writing or whether it has its place.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

Red shirts (The trope) can die in a fire. Especially if they bother to give them personality and backstory. If their only purpose is to die randomly, don't put effort into making me give a shit about them. Make them a memorable character, sure, but don't expect me to get actually invested in soldier number 4 who dies right after you talk to him the first time.

 

[pmmg]

Looking back over the posts, seems many have already said what I would on this. There is just no such thing as an unredeemable trope. There are just tools, use them or not.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Exploiting the reader’s suspension of disbelief
Example: The hero is locked up, but can hear the voice of a fellow prisoner in the next cell. Super corny trope, but I accept it because the whole story is rather kitschy. But then, it turns out to be a guard pumping the hero for information. The story asks me to lower my guards, only to punch me on the nose. Such ungentlemanliness!
I especially hate this trope when it subverts humor. The hero says a cool one-liner. The reader recognizes it as such, and don’t think too deeply about it. But later, information revealed in the one-liner comes into play in the story. This is cheating. The reader accepted the agreement that the one-liner was there for fun only. When the author cracks a joke, the reader should be able to enjoy it in a relaxed state of mind, without having to look out for any hidden agenda.

***The thread staggers from the bog, moaning, algae dangling from its rotten clothes.

This quoted one is interesting. I've heard several people recently say they "hate it when a book acts like its smarter then they are."
Chuck Palahniuk says the same thing in his advice, something along the lines of "Your reader wants to feel smarter than the story."

I think this probably stems from bad foreshadowing? If the book has deus ex machina falling from the sky at every turn, it would be annoying to not feel like your investment counted for anything. Readers are constantly trying to figure out whats going on. If the writer doesnt provide any way to do that, i think its usually bad writing.

Alot of critical readers say the same thing about ASOIAF; "why care, they're gonna die with or without any lead up or explanation anyway."

Even with a detective story, the best endings usually include the detective showing the reader clues they more or less saw earlier in the book.

Anyway, it's an interesting problem to address. Obviously you want the best twists possible, and often you don't want to give so much away (fight club, anyone?) that the reader is confident of the ending, or you want to load that confidence up and then subvert it.
But if I finish a great book with a really cool twist ending, I usually feel like I ALMOST had it figured out. Right as the twist is being revealed, I get that wonderful, dreadful realization of what's actually about to happen.

So I think this is a "bad writing" trope, but I think the definition is a little more complicated than this.

 

[pmmg]

"Your reader wants to feel smarter than the story."

Poor reader...If I write so you feel smarter, were you really smarter...

 

[The Dark One]

Exploiting the reader’s suspension of disbelief

I especially hate this trope when it subverts humor. The hero says a cool one-liner. The reader recognizes it as such, and don’t think too deeply about it. But later, information revealed in the one-liner comes into play in the story. This is cheating. The reader accepted the agreement that the one-liner was there for fun only. When the author cracks a joke, the reader should be able to enjoy it in a relaxed state of mind, without having to look out for any hidden agenda.

Disagree strongly.

Setting up a twist can take any form you choose and if that hapens to be in a joke, so be it.

 

[Finchbearer]

I’m not sure I can think of exact examples I’ve read of the above, so it’d be hard to know exactly what the OP meant. But at the end, the hidden agenda is something that makes up a lot of novels, so I’m not sure I see it as a subversion. Or I don’t think it’s something you can particularly subvert.

Subversion itself I think often gets misconstrued to mean ‘opposite’, but…that’s not what it means.

Reviewers are becoming sick of everything though so I am tempted to just write whatever I like, annoying tropes included. Loads of reviewers hate ‘toxic relationships’, well they make up most of literature lol.

 

[Finchbearer]

Poor reader...If I write so you feel smarter, were you really smarter...

Neil Gaiman does this and that’s what I don’t like about his writing!

 

[pmmg]

Neil Gaiman does this and that’s what I don’t like about his writing!

I was gonna say the same thing about Mr. Gaiman, but changed just before posting

 

[pmmg]

Disagree strongly.

Setting up a twist can take any form you choose and if that happens to be in a joke, so be it.

I don't think the OP'er is coming back to defend his comment. And I dont disagree with your comment. And, in fact, I don't agree with the context about humor being a bad place to put a meaningful comment...


But, I do think its possible to include things that just feel like cheating. A murder mystery, perhaps, where the end reveals turns on something that was never presented in the story, "And so Mrs Scarlet, it was your candlestick that was found in the study" and the reader is like....wait, I thought they said the candlesticks were untouched? (I actually get this feeling watching Murder She Wrote, cause at the end, it seems like Mrs. Fletcher just makes it up to close the show). But cheating can take a lot of forms, just the withholding of info, and springing it later would be a no for me. I think this is similar to the humor comment, as the OP is saying you used a gimmick to hide that it was important, well, I dont enjoy your gimmick.

Sherlock Holmes does this a lot too... Did you notice the scuff on his shoes Watson? That means he had recently been to India....Um....where was the part where I was supposed to notice his shoes? But, with Mr. Holmes, its watching him thats the entertaining part, more so than the mystery.

 

[The Dark One]

I don't think the OP'er is coming back to defend his comment. And I dont disagree with your comment. And, in fact, I don't agree with the context about humor being a bad place to put a meaningful comment...

Not to mention the fact that humour is a spectrum and everyone's sense of it will be different.

Writing humour comes easily to me but that doesn't mean my characters are always cracking jokes. It means (mostly) that the expression of the narrative is wry/full of irony and understatement/and the characters will frequently find themselves in amusing situations (even in a crime novel). The reader (hopefully) has a half smile for most of the journey but only occasionally will they laugh - and it's never at a "joke".

I read Holmes avidly when I was younger and never did I feel cheated. There were one or two I thought slightly ridiculous - like the Red Headed League - but never cheated. Can you remember any particular stories that grieved you?

 

[pmmg]

I read Holmes avidly when I was younger and never did I feel cheated. There were one or two I thought slightly ridiculous - like the Red Headed League - but never cheated. Can you remember any particular stories that grieved you?

Pmmg said:

...But, with Mr. Holmes, its watching him that's the entertaining part, more so than the mystery.

So grieved...no. But there are many places where we are to accept details that were not really shown to us.

If we are talking Murder She Wrote, then grieved might come into play




But those are mysteries, not fantasy. With fantasy, I would liken it to a twist we were not supposed to see coming because....there was no reason we could, it was never set up, or was intentionally hidden from view (Or, I'll add, skews disbelief too much).

One story like this was Arrival. Where the MC is having flashbacks of her dead daughter, only to find out its actually flash forwards. So...I have to ask, when the character is having these strange flashbacks, how could she not know she did not even have a daughter? Yet, there was no believable reaction to it?

Another for me is HP, which really had me say BS a lot. The whole goblet of fire depends in getting Harry into a contest, and then hoping he wins to end up on a battlefield? Isn't that a little elaborate, and chancy, when you can just pull up in a white van and drag him away. And for the life of me, I hate the golden snitch...that he did not catch it, but instead tripped and accidentally swallowed it.

I felt cheated in the marvel movies many times. The one that I dislike the most is both sacrifices over the pit Red Skull is guarding. Neither character gave up what they loved most, and both got the prize.

Star wars, Obi wan flipping over Darth mail to defeat him, and then later saying you cant win, I have the high ground? That was pretty weak.

Anyway....what was the topic?

Old Tropes...

 

[Nighty_Knight]

Pmmg said:


So grieved...no. But there are many places where we are to accept details that were not really shown to us.

If we are talking Murder She Wrote, then grieved might come into play




But those are mysteries, not fantasy. With fantasy, I would liken it to a twist we were not supposed to see coming because....there was no reason we could, it was never set up, or was intentionally hidden from view (Or, I'll add, skews disbelief too much).

One story like this was Arrival. Where the MC is having flashbacks of her dead daughter, only to find out its actually flash forwards. So...I have to ask, when the character is having these strange flashbacks, how could she not know she did not even have a daughter? Yet, there was no believable reaction to it?

Another for me is HP, which really had me say BS a lot. The whole goblet of fire depends in getting Harry into a contest, and then hoping he wins to end up on a battlefield? Isn't that a little elaborate, and chancy, when you can just pull up in a white van and drag him away. And for the life of me, I hate the golden snitch...that he did not catch it, but instead tripped and accidentally swallowed it.

I felt cheated in the marvel movies many times. The one that I dislike the most is both sacrifices over the pit Red Skull is guarding. Neither character gave up what they loved most, and both got the prize.

Star wars, Obi wan flipping over Darth mail to defeat him, and then later saying you cant win, I have the high ground? That was pretty weak.

Anyway....what was the topic?

Old Tropes...

Disagree with this. Hawkeyes family was already dusted. Black Widow was the thing he loved most that was left.

And Gamora counted as well, as the requirement was a soul for a soul and one you had to love. Thanos loved Gamora. It didn't have to be something he loved the most.

 

[pmmg]

Did he though?

Way I remember it, they were fighting to see who would sacrifice themselves, and Hawkeye did not give her up as much as she sacrificed herself when he was unable to stop her. He gave up nothing--he instead lost. She did not give up what she loved. She gave up herself, so something she loved would not have to.

 

[Nighty_Knight]

Did he though?

Way I remember it, they were fighting to see who would sacrifice themselves, and Hawkeye did not give her up as much as she sacrificed herself when he was unable to stop her. He gave up nothing--he instead lost. She did not give up what she loved.

I mean, it was a soul for a soul and he was present to see and feel the loss. I suppose the stone isn't too strict as long as it hits the main requirements.

 

[pmmg]

I mean, it was a soul for a soul and he was present to see and feel the loss. I suppose the stone isn't too strict as long as it hits the main requirements.

Perhaps. I call it BS.