Your Most Hated Tropes

[LittleOwlbear]

I did seem to me, that Aang spent most of his time, saying...Nope, I wont be like them. And doing so in the face of other avatars who were telling him he must. The notion of free will is a worthy investigation, and it does not just pertain to chosen ones. One could ask, does anyone have free will? Cause that is one of those vexing questions of our existence and it seems to have no good definitive answer.

Chosen ones often add the dynamic of having to come to accept the role, which is often hard and fraught with peril. Garion did not seem to like or want to be a chosen one, and spent most of the book afraid of what it meant. And there was no guarantee that he would succeed. Frodo was the same way, he did not wish to be a ring bearer, and slowly let the role wear on him. But the beauty was in his noble struggle to bear it, and not let the burden pass to others.

I can appreciate that one has problems with this 'Trope' or another. But Tropes are willow wisps made of nothing. Unless you are running over to TV Tropes to see what your next scene must be, and I hope you are not, then story matters more than tropes, cause stories supersede them. The story is what the story is about, not the little check box of 'Look, I found a trope inside'. Personal aversions make no difference to their role. A good story is a good story, regardless of Kings, or heroes, or chosen ones or whatever.

Tell a good story, and stop focusing on fluff. Thats the best thing I have to say on tropes.

Yeah, he did refuse for a long time, but he wouldn't had a realistic chance to step out of it.
Being made responsible for a life path, and even saving the world, you didn't choose for yourself, is a trope that doesn't sit right with me.

Of course a story shouldn't just be tropes in a row, but tropes are not made of nothing. They are made of common ideas, lived or idealized human experiences and also made form former and current worldviews, gender roles etc...

 

[pmmg]

There are made of nothing. Its like looking at a fish that is blue and saying, oh, I've seen a fish, all fish are blue.

The bigger question is, if the chosen one does not have free will, does any one? Cause, for him to succeed, others must necessarily fail. So all of them, must have their role. But you must know, that any argument for free will comes with a lot of obstacles. How do we know we even have it? Even if we are not fated to stuff, how do any of us know we are not just the result of chemical reactions, or environment, or past experiences. That all of what we do is just something that was set on a course long ago?

I suspect the reason it does not sit well with you, is that you prefer something where free will is supreme, but how can that be? Everything you write, every character and action, is subject to your own will. What is it you wish to say about free will, that the chosen one takes away?

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

Yeah, he did refuse for a long time, but he wouldn't had a realistic chance to step out of it.
Being made responsible for a life path, and even saving the world, you didn't choose for yourself, is a trope that doesn't sit right with me.

Of course a story shouldn't just be tropes in a row, but tropes are not made of nothing. They are made of ideas and former and current worldviews.

To me a Trope is like a tool, used correctly it can be enjoyed despite however old or however used it is.
But I don't think we should ever use tropes 'raw' if that makes sense. What our job as writers is to do is to take a trope and add our own 'special sauce' to make it interesting.

There are tropes/stereotypes that probably shouldn't be used, but there's another word for those I think.

I think a Trope in and of itself isn't bad, it's the execution and poor quality of the writing that makes it bad.

 

[pmmg]

A trope is not an interchangeable part. It is just the result that some people read something, and think they've seen something similar before. So what if they did. History does not really repeat and authors do not pull tropes out of a trope bag. All things fit the story and add to the whole. By the time the whole is done, it will be unique enough not to be like anything else. Its not a good standard of writerly knowledge or skill.

 

[Queshire]

Humans as a species naturally look for patterns in things. Know the sort of patterns the audience is familiar with because of what they've read in the past and you can make use of that knowledge. Maybe that's as simple as calling a race in your story "Orcs" so that you don't have to spend the extra page space you'd need to spend to explain them if you called them "Scro," or maybe that's intentionally going against the patterns by having the prophesied hero get killed in the first chapter and now it's up to their not prophesy chosen best friend to try to complete the mission.

 

[CupofJoe]

That was one of the [few] bits of the film World War Z.
Okay we know Brad Pitt is The Hero, but we are introduced to the hot-shot Virologist who knows what is going on. A crack team is formed to get him where he needs to be.
Brad and the Guy have got his back!!!
Then he slips on the wet tail gate of a C130 and blows his own brains out...

 

[MSadiq]

Tolkien was supposedly quite fond of monarchy, or rather, he didn't trust anyone that went about seeking power for themselves and kings were good because they didn't have a choice in the matter. Of course that's overlooking the sort of problems that can come about by someone that comes to expect power because of the circumstances of their birth, but that's veering a bit close to politics.

I think it's more accurate to say that he was fond of anything that's traditional of England, not in any xenophobic way. As a matter of fact, he was an avid hater of empire. He hated the Roman empire, not Rome, and the British empire, but not England because he didn't want the traditions of England, nor any other culture, to get lost or lose their uniqueness as they melted together or came under one rule and had to adapt to each other.