when i was a kid i thought love triangles went: character a > character b | character b > character c | character c > character a y'know,, like,,,, a triangle?
@@svenservette4197 In fact they are hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings who are searching for the ultimate question. It is this search that led to the creation of the Earth.
@@cherryjello777 I remember watching the three films in 2019. I liked them way more than I should've. Don't ever even watch animated films, just had them recommended to me and binged all 3 in one day.
@@Alino- lol I ended up watching them as a nanny but like... loved it? I'd always try to convince the kids they wanted to watch Kung-Fu Panda instead of Cars 2 for the 38827538th time.
I think miscommunication is a part of real life, but the whole "it can be solved with one conversation" is SO frustrating. If there's going to be miscommunication to further the plot, it can't be an easy-to-fix problem.
Or like, when two characters are talking over the phone or via letters or whatever and one has really important plot information or something and goes "i'll tell you when we meet'' but then dies and the other one never finds out????? ugh i hate that so much dude, you could have just told them on the phone or whatever!
the only books ive read that really dealt with this are usually where the main character is in a romanticized toxic relationship with another character thats portrayed as normal. if it can be solved with one conversation, like for example if one character is accused of cheating and the other doesn't let them explain what actually happened, i will get so frustrated because most of the time its completely unnecessary when you create a problem that could easily be fixed if you just let them explain. i wish there were more healthy relationships in books where characters actually talked their shit out, im personally tired of seeing the same toxic relationships over and over again in YA novels because its something that could easily be fixed and usually doesn't even further the plot.
of course i know that characters do get into fights and its completely normal, im just tired of seeing the same fights over and over again when they could easily be resolved and the story could actually progress. usually i see this happen with side characters that are forced into chapters and it makes you want to just skip the chapter completely.
the 'strong female character is always angry and violent and could cut a bitch and look sexy while doing it' trope is, in my humble opinion, getting tired. why cant we just get a muscular woman be into politics or be a techie or have a passion for theater and it just so happens that she likes to hit the gym once in a while
@@Deni-mt9bj yes! i would love a female character that is physically weak, unfit and cant fight well, but also have lots of mental strength. however, i have read lots of books and have still not yet come across a book like that... (OP also has some good points though)
@@pleejithoj1712 There's some examples in manga, if you wanna try diving into that. "Farnese" from "Berserk", who's not a fighter. But her role in their group is very important. You also have "Rin" from "Blade of The Immortal". Who hires a bodyguard to help her take revenge for her parents death. Though she ends up saving her bodyguard atleast half the time, through her determination. There's "Eva" from "Monster", who starts out as a spoiled bitch. Where things just continue to get worse for her. She has one of the best arcs i've seen!
One of my least favourites is the persistent male love interest, who gets rejected by the girl he likes but keeps insisting they should be together and is eventually rewarded for his behaviour by her "giving in" and dating him. This is such a red flag and perpetuates the idea that women don't actually mean what they say and don't know what they truly want, and the man just has to wear them down. You see it in central plotlines, (Like in The Notebook, or Ogi in waitress -- gross) but it's also really common as a throwaway line about how two characters got together like "oh I asked your mother out twelve times before she finally agreed to go out with me" said while the two characters gaze lovingly at each other like it's such a funny little anecdote that haha she said no, but no never really meant no, it ACTUALLY meant yes, because look at us now!
I actually met a couple (ex now I think?) That had this as their literal backstory. Sufficed to say they ended up in a horrible marriage and resented the hell out of each other for years. Dunno exactly when they split, just knew it would be the best outcome for them.
Well it doesn't necessarily need to go this way, it depends on the execution I guess. I'm talking about my life here, I was after breakup and I didn't want to date, but this guy didn't push me or anything, he just asked if I would go somewhere with him and I was lonely and I liked his company, so I went out with him. This is how it was for a couple of months where I kept saying that I don't want to date, that I only want and need some fun while both if us knew he wanted more. Eventually I get to a state when I felt ready for another relationship. And we're together for three years know and I would confidentially call it a very happy relationship. So I did say yes to go out but I said multiple times no to dating.. and here we are. I hope it was worth it to him 😁
One of the stories I've read had the MC who was in love with a married woman. He never acts on it or even attempts to flirt with her. In the end, she makes a move on him and the fact she is willing to cheat on her husband turns him off so much he's disgusted at her.
You know for the “love at first sight” trope it would be fun to have a book where the protag instantly falls in love with a person they just met. They spend the first few chapters practically worshipping their partner, but as you turn the pages, red flags start popping up everywhere. The protag notices odd things, but they share another drink and everyone laughs it off. Things progress, their partner is possessive, but no matter how much the protag tries to rationalize the situation, they still can’t help but love their partner. No matter what. The protag starts panicking, knowing something unnatural is happening but can’t prove it to anyone-not even to themselves. They even doubt their own sanity. At the end it’s revealed their partner is an alchemist who has been drugging them with love potion since day one. Soooo basically a modern twist on some old folklore, written in a fantasy thriller type deal. The book could be called “A Fairytale” or “Tale as Old as Time” (I think, regardless of what genders the author chose, this could be an interesting allegory for abusive relationships-bonus points for twilight/50shades references throughout)
@jon gros I’m glad you think so :D Truthfully, the only reason I was so detailed in this description is because I hope someone else might pick it up. Anyone is welcome to use the idea like a prompt: I have no interest in writing such a story myself. I do not care for romance, and even less so for abusive relationships. I hate the idea of researching either topic enough for my version to be any good. I think, perhaps, a story like this would do well to counter books like 50 Shades of Grey. I do wish abusive relationships were not so romanticized. Why not treat them like the horror they are? I’ve seen too many destroyed by such things, even a close friend. Some people never recover, and we’ve all heard stories of the people who don’t make it out alive. Sigh. Maybe it wouldn’t be too difficult to write this as a short story... For now, I’ll keep working on my epic fantasy series. World building is just too much fun :D
anna ferns well yeah but that wasn’t really good...there were no red flags, no foreshadowing towards the reveal, no fun reasoning she’d even like the guy enough to marry him, not even an explanation for why Hans did that stupid smile under the damn boat! Why did he smile like that if he didn’t love her? Why?! It was a lazy twist. No setup at all and more confusing than dramatic.
I saw a book similar to this, but it was a werewolf story, (i dont remember the name but ill try and find it) where this girl has the perfect boyfriend, he and her father get along well and even work together. And one day, she wants to go on a date to the zoo, her boyfriend takes her, but as he gets them ice cream, she wanders off toward the wolf exhibit. And when she arrives, one wolf comes out instantly and they share eye contact and she starts thinking that thats pretty abnormal. And then her boyfriend comes back and sees whats happening, he suddenly becomes very protective over her and hugs her while he tries to convince her to leave, and the wolf gets aggressive at him. Skipping forward, both her father snd her boyfriend are werewolves and so is she. They were testing on her her whole life to stop the werewolf side of her to come out.
"A woman has to be raped in order to have a character development." Wait, am I the only one that has never came across this in books?? This actually exists??? *Edited 2022* LOOK MOM IM FAMOUS!
I do not think I have seen it so often either. Rather: girl gets raped and the guy she is in love with kills the rapist and gets into a lot of trouble for it with results in the woman being guilty for being raped in the first place.
I think Daenerys Targaryen is a prominent example of this, although you could argue her abuse by her brother and her experience as a Khaleesi contributed to her development a lot, and they did, her rape was like a symbolic turning point of her entrance into “womanhood” and responsibility, even though she’s still a literal child.
When I was younger I thought that love triangle is just A loves B, B loves C, C loves A and imo that's way more interesting than just B and C both being love interests and A not being able to decide who they like.
@@3nu570 There's a love triangle like that in Revolutionary Girl Utena For a love triangle to be real one of the characters actually has to be gay in my opinion
@@heinoustentacles5719 Ooh, I've heard of Utena before (didn't know there was a love triangle though) and have been meaning to check it out so I guess I shall some time soon :)
"Smart characters being stupid trope" "Female characters need rape for developement trope" "After the big battle everyone is still alive somehow trope" *cries in Game of Thrones Season 7 and 8*
My least favorite tropes in books, movies, TV series: 1. When the guy is an absolute jerk, treats everyone including and especially the protagonist like shit, and then, MAGICALLY, the moment they are together, he becomes this sweet, helping, respectful, awsome boyfriend/husband. This is NOT how it works in real life. Bad boys will most probably stay bad boys. It gives a very destructive message to young girls. It is used in east Asian media a lot (Especially Korean and Japanese dramas and anime) and it needs to STOP. 2. Is the generalized version of what Merphy said: When things that if any other character does, we will hate them, but for some reason it's perfectly fine if the main character(s) do those, like cheating, treating others poorly, etc. 3. When to depict a strong female character, they depict her as rude and arrogant. Like, why? WHY? Mulan was strong, but she was also humble and nice. Believe me, you don't have to be a jerk to be a strong girl.
For your first point, I think it's mostly because the boy usually has experienced something to close himself off from others emotionally, so when he finds someone he can give his everything, he'll show his real self and his emotions. Also I totally agree with your last point. I personally dislike female characters that are depicted as "strong" but are just blatantly rude and 'sassy'
@Alex Cruz Some of those ‘bad boy’ characters are usually just personas used to cover up their good side. And if they actually are a bad boy and does bad things, then idk why the female protag likes him in the first place. Also, I would love a story like that too! That would honestly make the romance much more compelling and add more depth to the male and female protag. I personally like stories where the romance is not the focus, but rather the subplot to a character’s journey of self-discovery.
My pet peeves in any story (whether they're in a book or any media) are: 1. The MC is overwhelming powerful and flawless aka: the Mary/Gary Sues. 2. Stalkers are romantics 3. A character being demeaning just towards the MC. 4. Token Characters
Maybe I’m wrong but the “rape trope” seems like a lazy solution to create a plot or some trauma for character and at the same time make the book “””more adult””” like ok, it might be traumatizing, but is not the only thing in the world u can use and guess what, rape is a really awful thing in real life, don’t use it like is just a complicated event and that’s all
There are many tropes that get used precisely because they're quick and easy ways to get the reader's emotions going. How many movies have you seen where some major chaos is happening and some child is shown crying right in the middle of it?
Here's how to fix Insta Love: Put them in a magical world. Make the characters be cursed to be together. Make them be attracted to each other, but fight hard to get free from this.
I hate how 'strong female characters' are depicted in SF&F nowadays. Unless the woman 'kicks ass', is rude, arrogant, wears trousers, hates girly stuff etc. So basically, unless a woman acts like a man she's not strong.
I’ve seen that “trope” come from women fighting against the idea that a women should be girly and dainty, the whole “damsel in distress” type of thing. Like I doubt it’s the old white men’s fault for that one, that was a distinct liberal change that we see in tv and books nowadays. I agree that it’s probably gone so far that it’s become a caricature of itself, and maybe we need to come to a universal acceptance that both sides of the aisle can be true and have strong female characters
Right! A super-heroine can kick ass and still be feminine and do traditionally feminine things. A good example of this is Marinette Dupain-Cheng from Miraculous Ladybug. She is very girly and her hobbies are sewing, baking, sweet, shy, etc, yet she is still a badass.
LM i think a girl who “can’t kick ass” and is not a physical fighter is badass as well. I’m actually looking for books with those kinds of female characters
Yes. I hate that too. I write stories (I'm trying to clean them up enough to make them worthy of publishing), and one thing I've striven to do from the beginning is to have a variety of female main characters, many of whom can show different ways of being strong. So, I do have one character who is not very in touch with her femininity, and is tough and combative, a warrior all her life. But that character becomes friends with, and even looks up to, another woman who is also a soldier, but who is rather effeminate. While the more masculine one may have a certain special kind of resilience, the more effeminate of the two also has certain strengths that her less feminine friend can never quite mimic. And one of my favourite characters is a woman who never goes into combat at all, even while her friends do. She may not risk her life while fighting, but in a lot of ways, she is the strongest and most courageous of them all. She's compassionate, emotionally intelligent, and openly affectionate. She naturally takes it on herself to be the emotional centre for all her friends, and she is strong enough to bear everyone's burdens without breaking. In my experience, that's a trait that women seem especially to excel at, and it's a kind of strength that we need more of in the world. Anyway, I agree; pretending that femininity is weak, and that women are only strong if they act like men, is an atrocious lie, and harmful to all people who embrace traits that are traditionally seen as more feminine. I really hope more authors (and especially screenplay writers) start understanding that.
I think Sanderson does this well. Vin is such a badass, but once she gets a chance to dress up and go to balls, she kind of likes the dressing up and fashion and girliness.
I remember back when I was first reading Percy Jackson. I mean, it's written for kids, so say what you want about its value as great art, but damn if Riordan didn't properly subvert the Chosen One. He starts off with a healthy dose of not knowing he's the chosen one, and being relatively miserable. He turns out to be the chosen one, and is even MORE miserable because of it. Five books of sheer panic and unpreparedness from Percy later, and he isn't even the one to strike the final blow, and is perfectly happy to relenquish the title to Luke. I didn't even know it was a trope when I was reading it, but it still sticks in my mind because of how well it was executed.
I also like how Riordan was able to write a book under the same idea of saving the world and having mythology come into play with the Magnus Chase series, but never fall into the chosen one trope. It was actually quite the opposite, where Magnus shouldn't have been allowed in Valhalla but they trusted Samirah enough to let him in and then he was able to prove himself to be more than just a homeless kid from boston that was the son of a pretty useless god.
Plus, he kinda chooses it at the end of the first book, when Thalia joins the Hunters and someone mentions how it might be Nico, not Percy, and he says something about how it would be him, that he chooses this. I liked that a lot bc I've never really seen it done before, except maybe in Moana. But then for the next books, he's just like "why did I do this".
@@mae_er3 I mean, in a way Percy was the chosen one. Just not to land the final blow but to make the fateful decision that actually resulted in the final blow being dealt. I liked that. I liked that the chosen one doesn't have to be the guy that defeats the bbeg but the guy who makes that one choice that decides the fate of the world. But then when everyone congratulates him he's like: "My friend, the guy you all thought was evil, he was a hero and he saved us all." I like that Percy recognizes that being the chosen one isn't a blessing, it's a curse. A responsibility. I think that is also partially why it works in some books but not others.
It has always been interesting to me, that Shakespeare created ironically many tropes in 'Romeo and Juliet' that books nowadays take too seriously, haha.
@@jean_etcetera exactly! ROmeo and Juliet actually ridicules love at first sight and presumtion it will last foroever. He also sneaked the miscommunication trope there as well :)
Aka in fantasy "I'm a girl that doesn't like dresses and prefers swords and horses and stuff so I'm literally like almost every female protagonist ever". Like I kind of cannot complain because I like that kind of protagonists but I'd like some different "I'm not like the other girl" trope executions. If we're still talking fantasy, I want to see something like "I'm the only woman to have a real influence on international politics by steering my undecided, weak husband (whom I love with all my heart) from the backstage. Yet I'm wearing dresses and attending all the parties and am acting like a true lady, even in private, because I enjoy it".
I've read books that literally used that phrase. We know the character is different otherwise they wouldn't be the main character. Show us how they'r different. And if they're beautiful, let another character say it, don't have the character describe themselves.
I love that you mentioned the rape trope. I can't remember who said it, but a famous author was once asked for advice about using sexual assault in his work, and came back with something along the lines of, "If it isn't absolutely necessary, don't use it. And if you think it is necessary, still don't use it, cause you're not good enough to write it." Essentially saying that anyone who thinks using it as a form of character development isn't nearly intelligent or mature enough to write about it. He followed it up with, "save it for autobiographies." I've seen some pretty horrendous attempts and they all made me drop the book almost instantly once I figured out the author's style
@@RianeBane In other words, if it hasn't happened to you personally, don't try to "re-enact" it in your story, is what I think that quoted person meant
I read a novel once with a main character who was sexually assaulted by her uncle, but it didn’t describe it in full detail bc it happened when she was younger and it wasn’t the main plot. I think the author did a good job; however, I can see some authors misusing sexual assault in their novels.
Only time it be used to any effect properly is to have a villain assault someone to show they are a Complete monster. Even then it needs to be done correctly.
When a strong female character is just 'strong' in the literal sense of the word. She kicks ass and that makes her strong. Why can't a strong female character be strong because she is smart? Or creative?
I would say, because it's never see has a "strong" even for men character. Tyrion is described as a smart man, but never has a strong one because he cannot fight. Moreover women are only allowed to be physically strong recently, but for a men, being strong is generally a standars.
What about being emotionally strong? Dealing with mentally stressful situations is pretty hard. I think I've never read a book with a female main character ever being strong in that sense which I don't get it.
I'm here! The main character of the book I'm writing is short, fat and ugly but she's hella smart and she knew that she could never physically overpower the villain so she does something really terrible that some readers might hate her for but oh well lmao
I can’t stand the whole female characters only have a character arc because of rape. I hard agree with you there as not being able to be done well, and it should die a slow death. I also don’t like the resurrection trope either - that can ruin a book for me a lot of the time.
To be fair, there are women in real life who nobody would ever recognise from Adam if they a) weren't raped b) weren't brave enough to speak up about what happened to them to others. Unfortunately it happens. Some people try to bury it, some put themselves out there and try to help others who have suffered like them. It is an unfortunate arc, but it happens.
YESSSSSS, like and It brings a whole problematic kind of thought, like rape her cause she was "weak" or "bratty" to make her strong and humble????? LIKE WTF, I have literally burned a book because of this because makes me SO mad. What makes it worst is the people that agree with it. like to show the villain is bad why harm a woman when our real world have so many of this cases?
@@jwinget1999 This one has the whole OMG LOL Teeheehee vibe going on. Might have read one of those Biff and Chip books. Didn't add to the conversation. Just growled because they're so AnGrY.
If you're worried about old characters dying, then look no further than Fairy Tail. That old geezer cheated death like three times and survived the damn manga.
You know what they say, if a bestseller introduces a trope, everyone copies it. And if it's the greatest bestseller of all time, of course people are going to copy it to death. And then bring it back.
In the Bible, it's actually done pretty well. The death and resurrection is heavily foreshadowed ('foreshadowed' as in 'explicitly said it will happen'). The road to it, that the main character is knowingly taking, is a source of some major conflict inside the main cast (like Peter and Jesus butting heads over Jesus' willingness to die), there's also a bunch of drama over it (like on of the Marys crying and balming Jesus' feet, that one is a source of major fanfiction). Also, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, because had Jesus not acted like he's about to die, Judas might not doubt him enough to betray him (not clear, there's also a strong theme of national pride and willingness to rise up and need of a leader, coupled with throwing onto Jesus responsibilities he doesn't want, like leading an uprising). There's also the fact that the resurrection is the main theme and inciting incident for all of the sequels, so I think the author was justified in using the trope.
"Girlboss mentor lady that's been trained in all forms of combat since the age of 6 sits one out so a hero dude with a week of training can save the world"
exactly! i usually see it used in toxic relationships where they're both so stubborn that they dont let the other have the last word. theres always a problem that can easily be solved if they just talked it out and it doesn't further the plot at all
I say this as a dude, I don't think most us like reading stories about women that have been sexually assaulted. It's really messed up and most guys would rather not have to read about something so messed up. Honestly, I didn't even know that was a trope to begin with.
male authors make it a character arc because often they don't know how else to make a female character grow. the trope to kill of a wife/mom/sister or whatever to make the male lead grow and/or further the plot is also a popular trope
The trope isn't the sexual assault, it's that the assault is necessary for their character arc or for the female character to develop a motivation. But yeah agreed
- Flashbacks; - "Chosen One" stories; - Everybody is alive after the final battle; If somebody really thinks that this can't be done good, well... one word: Avatar.
@@narwolf1899 Indeed! You can try to write an absolutely unique story without using any tropes from other works. Soon you will realize that all the acceptable techniques have already been used and your story will turn into the ravings of a madman.
@@applejuice8271 and the way the character is resurrected works because it has a Checkov's Gun trope. There is an object that one character has had with them for an entire season, so we finally see what it can do.
Once someone said "If you can use anything other than rape, don't use rape" and generally I think that's a pretty good rule. Most of the time it just feels like the writer wanted to make the audience feel bad for the character and couldn't think of anything better. Obviously, that doesn't mean never write about rape, but it's a delicate subject. I think it needs to be handled with more care than most other subjects. Also, you know what's 1,000,000x better than a love triangle? A love triangle that turns into Poly OT3.
Yeah sex crimes often fall into the category of "shortcut to mature content" in the same way as gratuitous swearing and needlessly in-depth descriptions of every single violent act. Write your story first and then figure out whether it's a particularly adult one or not, never start with the premise that it is.
Or a character that realizes ‘this is stupid’ and walks out of the lives of the other two, then the other two get together? Does this exist? I want this in fiction.
A perfect example of the shitty trophe "female characters need to go through traumatic events, like sexual assault, to become stronger" is Sansa's storyline with Ramsay and Little Finger in GoT (which it didn't even happen to her in the books). Her dialogue with Sandor Clegane in S8 was uncomfortable and it's disappointing seeing people defending it. :/ *«Without Little Finger, and Ramsay and the rest, I would've stayed a little bird all my life»* But would you tho? You had already watched your dad get decapitated...
Writers writing things like that is tough to me, because (based on some of my other reading) it seems very realistic. Human beings love “meaning making” and it is very important to us to think that the worst things that happened to us happened for a reason and “advanced our story” in a positive way. I think she was completely wrong, but I also think it is a realistic thing for a character to say, and I am torn about the writer’s responsibility to make it clear that not everything a realistic character is going to say about themself is true.
@@thrawncaedusl717 Yea the idea of people finding a silver lining to a terrible event regardless of whether it's rape or not is a very real thing. Like if you go to prison for 10 years for a crime you didn't commit, that's just a loss and a waste. But if say you meet your best friend in that prison and form a friendship that lasts the rest of your life and even leads to a new family, you got back something from that path, a "balancing of the scales" so to say. So if anything, a character twisting their tragedy into a good thing can add more depth and nuance to their recovery, on top of being more bittersweet because depending how wrong they are about it actually being good for them, it can help convey more of how damaged they really are. Even if they form that as an unhealthy way to cope now, they could very well have a revelation after re-evaluating that position later. Whether one considers that as a character flaw or not, writers are allowed to write flawed characters without having to explain themselves. It's fiction after all. Authors don't need to write in the margins that X is bad and we do no condone characters doing X.
I stopped watching the show after that. there was already way too much rape as edgy drama building in the show, but the fact she suffers the murder of so many family members and the rape is suddenly the pivot for her character arc is just disgusting
What’s even more egregious is Theon is traumatised for the rest of the show after his encounter with Ramsay yet by the first episode of S6, Sansa just forgets about the trauma like it was nothing. I just pretend S5 was the final season because S6 onwards is insulting to fantasy
I like miscommunication in the comedy genre. It takes one misunderstanding to get the ball rolling. And then several misunderstanding before my stomach hurts from laughter.
So glad you put cheating in the rant tier! I really hate when it’s justified in books, hence why I brought it up in the discord. Didn’t realize it would lead to such a discussion on there. I totally agree that people should just break up and show some respect to their current partner even if they don’t like them anymore.
I mean I would say that historical fiction books set before the like 70s when divorce was either illegal or just wasn’t an option for someone of your social class can reasonably justify it
At this point, it’s so easy to get me on board with a relationship that’s just cute and healthy and both people genuinely like each other. It’s all I need.
same here!!! i usually find this in wlw books since straight fiction (especially YA books) have completely destroyed my faith in it. imho i personally read wlw books because i just wanna find some representation of someone like me and i also find a lot of healthy relationships but we ALSO get a lot of "oh my god its not that FUCKING hard just talk it out" frustration because of the slow burn and mutual pining
i've seen too many toxic relationships in books or relationships where they're just constantly getting into fights but the only reason they're in a relationship is just to bang each other
I hate it when the comic relief character is like 'Actually I have depression and everything fun about me was a facade,' and now that's their defining characteristic. I don't see it too much but it makes me unhappy.
Really? I actually really like it. It gives a particularly shallow character more depth and turns them into someone I can relate to. But I can admit, it can be done awfully at times, but most of the time, it's my favorite troupe in media.
@@randomcomment1286 I guess is just a little to predictable nowadays to find out the "act funny to cover sadness trope" because it's being use a lot. It can be cool, but I'm sure you can show other reasons for this people to be all fun and jokes
@@Berenadre You're right. It's my favorite troupe, but even I don't want it to be repetitive. And I can understand why others dislike it, because it shows that if someone's happy, they're most likely depressed. Not all happy people are depressed, they're happy because it's likely their personality.
Celaena from Throne of Glass. Sooooo much talk about what a bad ass assassin she is...........KILLS NOTHING. Definitely falls into the 'tell don't show' trope
she actually killed a lot of people during TAB and before the start of the series. During ToG she didn't have much opportunity or reason to kill anyone. During CoM she faked like 3 or 4 kills because she didn't want to assassinate the people rebelling against the king she also hated. In the later books she kills a lot of people
I also hate the resurrection / fakeout death trope. If a character is LITERALLY resurrected, I’m usually like that was cheap + I can’t trust you not to do it again. To me, the fakeout death where they never died but just went offscreen for a while and ppl assumed they were dead but there’s no body, is almost worse for me bc it always feels cheap and used for shock value. And I always notice it. Full agree on the sexual assault-for-character-development, we HATE to see it.
SPOILERS FOR NARNIA AND LORD OF THE RINGS: So far, the only death and resurrection tropes I liked were Aslan, Gandalf, and two books where the character died before the book started, or after it ended, so we didn't have to deal with those fake out emotions.
@@hisle9188 Or him. Literature is filled with both examples, a single guy with multiple choices, or a girl. But even if it isn't clear who the protagonist would choose, and really is left in the air due to wish washy writers waiting in between seasons to pick one for fan preference (a couple shows have done this), it still ends up just as trash. This trope is garbage, it drags it on, is usually the source of just nonsense drama that should actually be cleared up far easier, and where it can't be cleared up easier due to even more drama or circumstances of fate, it just makes you hate at least one, or even multiples of the characters, which hurts your story.
The beauty in the miscommunication trope ( aka the most common in romance, my favorite genre) comes from the reasons why they are not having the conversation, as long as we feel there’s a somewhat important, valid reason for the avoidance of it i can follow along, and also when they finally communicate and realize or find they could communicate all along this cements their future couple dynamics.
That's true! Like how in Pride and Prejudice one of the conflicts is the social pressures and embarrassment that keeps Elizabeth from talking to Darcy after she changes her mind about him. I never thought of the trope that way before.
"Frozen" is a good example of this. All the tension between Elsa and Anna, and most of Elsa's emotional issues, were based on, or involved, lack of communication.
@@shutterchick79 I disagree. Frozen is full of this trope, though it's all on Anna's side. Elsa never misunderstands Anna; she knows that Anna just wants to go back to being close, but she pushes her away because she is rightly petrified of killing her sister again. Every misunderstanding Anna has about Elsa is directly connected to her illogical refusal to see Elsa's powers as dangerous. This causes each misunderstanding to be super contrived, in my opinion. Anna should never have asked Elsa to return to Arrendelle because it solves NOTHING. The ball and the Eternal Winter should have been more than enough to show Anna that Elsa CANNOT control her powers and that that is the real problem, not that Elsa ran away from home. The conflict should have been Elsa trying to understand her powers (and through that journey, being able to be close to her sister again), NOT Elsa proving her closeness to her sister by IGNORING THE VERY REAL DANGER HER POWERS POSE TO EVERYONE SHE CARES ABOUT. It's especially annoying because they had relational drama built into the story already WITHOUT the misunderstandings: Elsa must remain distant from Anna until she can be sure that she won't accidently hurt or kill her, but if Anna has access to information Elsa can't get to (for obvious reasons), Anna will have to be close to her at some point.
WTF I didnt know there was a 'rape as a plot device to cause a characters growth' trope THAT is yikes. I really enjoy dark themes and events eg if a SA does occur in a book im reading and is handled as a traumatic event that may change the characters behaviour and outlook thats fine. But that usually means an immediate negative change that can take years to get through and id say would never really leave a character even if it no longer has a grip on their life. The idea that it can be a positive thing like 'oh its ok that happened bc the character is stronger now' is awful. Im usually fine with most things being experimented with but when it comes to serious traumatic events and such i like them to be treated as real and seriously as possible.
the thing is, in most conversations, you can never bring up how much you hate this trope without people saying "So you don't think that sex-assault changes you?" but what I'm trying to say is, people CAN grow and learn from trauma, but its never because of the TRAUMA, its from how they dealt with it.
You know, I haven’t seen the “Rape Trope” in any book I’ve read but I’m not surprised because I know of some Dungeons & Dragons players who use that as their backstory when creating a female playable character. It doesn’t happen often (because most GMs don’t support that happening in their games) but it has been done before.
@@davidjohnson6665 I had a DM suggest rape in three (3!) of my female characters backstories before I asked him to stop because it was really creepy and making me uncomfortable. His excuse was that it was one of the more serious traumatic things that could happen to a woman, which isn't necessarily incorrect, but if I want to traumatize my characters, I can do it in ways that don't involve SA.
The biggest example of the rape trope I can think of is in the tv adaptation of Game of Thrones where Sansa’s arc requires her to become adept at Westerosi politics and social manipulation but the show runners didn’t want to try to write her training arc how it’s probably going to happen in the books (last book leaves her in a situation that requires her to be manipulative to survive) so they instead scrapped the whole arc and had her get raped to explain how she became so politically savvy and manipulative in a really short time (honestly that arc should’ve been a massive red flag to fans that the show runners didn’t know how to write off book)
Rape as character development (and the repeated in-universe insistence it was character development at all) was particularly egregious in Game of Thrones with Sansa. Worse because this wasn't in the books at all and basically the writers came out and said Jeyne Poole being Ramsay's victim wouldn't have worked because they needed a character the audience cared about to get raped. So it's a twofer with them. One, they insist rape = character development, and two, they think the audience is so sociopathic that they don't care about rape of anything but main characters.
@@paulogaspar8295 Well I mean Sansa being raped isn't the issue, women get raped all the time in Westeros. It's the idea that rape = character development. With Theon, his torture and maddening is clearly, and rightly, seen as a debilitating trauma he has to process and get over. Sansa? Eh, sic some dogs onto her rapist and she'll start bragging about how her rape made her stronger, which is dumb as fuck.
@@MattJDave Her bragging about it's dumb as fuck I agree, but she surpassing that trauma and still wanting to be queen makes sence. Theon also surpassed some of his trauma. The point of that in the books and the show is to show to the reader that you can allways fight back even when something extremely traumatic happend to you. My point is no one cared about criticising the show for showing Theon suffer that much, but so many people got extremely mad just because Sansa was raped. They even stopped watching. But watching Theon being tortured and completly broken was ok for them.
@@paulogaspar8295 I agree that her surpassing the trauma and wanting to be queen makes sense. It's primarily the trauma/rape = stronger bullshit I have an issue with, and unfortunately there's a bit of a trend of that go-to trauma being rape, which is honestly a little cheap and too easy imo. Sansa being married to Ramsay would inevitably result in her rape of course, but the circumstances themselves came off as contrived (Littlefinger suddenly getting a lobotomy and handing over his key to the north and/or object of creepy affection over to an unknown at best, known monster at worst party) and seemingly only exist to make Theon and Sansa trauma buddies (with Sansa getting over her trauma first because yas queen girlboss). But ye I agree the show got away with murder for some missteps in earlier seasons. The books never fully elaborated on Theon's torture, only showed the end results, leading to a less-is-more effect. Meanwhile the show seemed to actively revel in showing Theon's torture on-screen because Game of Thrones loved to market itself as fantasy with blackjack and hookers. I think it's well within reason to criticise the gratuity myself, but in terms of writing I still think Theon's arc was slightly better written than Sansa's when it comes to handling trauma.
@@MattJDave sure I can see that. But the story over all was getting contrived at that point in every major plot because they where already past the books material.
One that I hate is the creepy abusive male love interest that just can’t live without the female love interest. It’s like the female is the only reason for the male to exist. They will get possessive and even be jealous when the female even speaks to other male characters.
Problem is that for some that's not just a trope, it's their real life. It sucks shite, but it happens over and over again. Hence being used in fiction. (Either because the author is trying to draw attention to the fact it happens, or they know someone going through it, or the want something for these people to relate to. Only thing is, most of the time (I've heard) these people don't know that's themselves in that book because they make excuses for everything their abusive partner does or says)
Kanashii Ookami But usually when I see it in books, It’s portrayed as sexy and hot. And It’s just not okay. If it’s portrayed as a bad thing, then yes I get it. But if it’s portrayed as hot sexy. Then I hate it. It’s not hot or sexy, it’s toxic.
@Tom Ffrench Late, but yeah. The relationship is actually abusive and depicted as dysfunctional (never mind that there are about twenty million red flags before Padmé gets into the relationship), her reaction to Anakin being a jealous/overly ‘protective’ dick is negative but she still makes excuses for him, and she ends up getting assaulted and indirectly killed by Anakin in the end. It’s a deconstruction of the ‘jealousy and possessiveness are sexy and hot’ trope to what typically happens in the real world. (I think it was accidentally, since I don’t think George Lucas originally intended ‘subtly abusive relationship’ to be the archetype of Anakin and Padmé’s relationship...)
Thank you for your placement of the cheating and rape “development” tropes. Another I would add is any time the author paints possessive and controlling as good things in a relationship. I think there can be unhealthy relationships in books without issue, depending on how the author paints them. Unhealthy relationships do exist, but if they’re framed as who you’re meant to root for......Incoming Rant for me
I think the "tell not show" trope can work well if the characteristics described aren't actually part of the character. Like, you have an assasin that has been told about this horrible human being, how he is a monster, killed people, has ties with some pretty nasty people, basically, he is a bad person and needs to be eliminated. But, when the assasin actually does meet the target, he or she finds ou that he has nothing to do with the info that was granted, and this makes him/her question the organization he or she works for and this can be a solid plot for a good book.
Or when the telling not showing is actually the character trait they're showing the reader. The character is full of themself, has managed to build a reputation as something they are not, but they THINK they are the hero they say they are. And then the shit hits the fan and they are the one running away like a coward, showing their true colours in the end.
Yeah, exactly. "Tell not show" works great in establishing an unreliable narrator (or just source of information). It makes you confront the fact that the POV character has their own agenda, even if it doesn't go beyond just making them appear better than they actually are. I really like it, because it makes me question everything that we've seen from the character: "you were lying about that thing to me and yourself, what else are you hiding?", which, in my opinion, adds new layers to the character and their interactions with others.
But that's not a "tell not show" trope. That's a plot twist, which also shows you the truth. It's called the "tell not show" trope, becouse it never shows anything that we're being told.
That's not really showing vs telling here. Telling would be if instead of having chapters where this assassin talks to this person or watches them and sees them doing goo things we were just told "X turned out to be a good person" without showing any of that to us.
i actually “like” when miscommunication is brought to the table if it isn’t something stupid and obvious like you said, that REALLY irritates me. but i like to see a character struggling with communication if they actually grow to learn with it throughout the book. i used to have really poor communication skills so i can understand how things can get messy and really exhausting and frustrating with miscommunication, but i hate when people make it in a way that the whole plot is driven buy this one conversation that the characters didn’t have, i mean, like you said, that’s just lazy and it really gets on my nerves. is like you don’t know how to create a conflict so just make the characters act childish or really stubborn and boom! there you you go! it was all just a misunderstanding 😌 like... are you serious......... 🥴
The absolute worst thing in the "final battle" is when it's all over and the authors like, "o shit gotta kill someone" and then someone dies in a contrived and completely avoidable way.
Also the Blood of Madam Giselle.It's a nsfw webcomic and the cheating of the girl is justified because her husband is abusive to the point of raping her and hitting her. Plus, she was forced into this marriage by her parents and had no say in it. So if you do it like that, then I feel like it's somewhat justified.
@@linjie1213 It was cheating since she was engaged. She didn’t want to be but she was engaged so don’t try to justify it because you like the love story. This is what a commenter was talking about when side characters does something bad and the audience frowns upon it but praises it when the main characters do it.
The first one, insta love, already has me siding with you cause all a can think about is West Side Story, the knew each other for two days, he killed her brother in that time (when he promised to protect him) and she got mad at him for two seconds and then slept with him TWO SECONDS. I just can’t with that movie.
To be fair-WSS is based on Romeo and Juliet, which was never meant to be about any sort of idealized romance. One of the main themes of that play is “young love” which is really young lust, can be stupid. In the play, the whole reason Romeo ends up looking for a honey and finding Juliet is his ex, Rosalind wouldn’t let him into her pants/under her skirts. Guess who’s alive at the end?
i feel like the no one dying thing depends on how long a series is. if its like, one book, then yeah some death would drive it home. but if a cast of characters has been fighting a threat together for so long, its immensely cathartic to see them come out of it alive. obviously injured, but alive and finally able to move on with their lives. idk i just like happy endings...
So do I. If there has to be a death I like that death to be meaningful and important for the character who dies, beyond simply his life. I would consider someone dying to save what he loves to be a happy ending for that person.
i think ive read too much death in books to add death to my stories...so far in all the books ive written, only one or two characters have died, and the protagonists have survived. i just cant anymore. i want my happy endings where all the characters get to finally relax and rejoice together :’)
I feel like the Happy Ending Epilogue in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was necessary because after SO MUCH death and destruction in The Battle of Hogwarts, it NEEDED a super happy ending.
How to solve love triangles? Normal authors: make one of them an awful person Rick Riordan: merge both of the dudes in one person Kane Chronicles one know what I am talking about 😂😂😂😂
The word ‘love’ can be represented by a heart. A heart is a shape. A triangle is a shape... I got it, Love triangles are the best because I ‘Love’ it. Edit: just kidding
My absolutely most hated trope out of every trope is the "going back in time at the end to fix everything up" trope. Why the hell have I been reading these books/seen this movie/watched this TV-series if they learned nothing and there's no consequences they have to live with and there's no change to their life or their character at all? What's the point???? I don't even want it to die a slow death, I want it quick because I want it to be out of this world, like, yesterday. Also, I'm guessing you didn't like Animal Farm very much...
Ida Bergh-Smith It can be done correctly when it was always meant to be part of the plot and even explains some things from previous books that were left purposely a mystery for readers to question. Like maybe in the first or second book, Character A knew something nobody else did or did something that at the time seems random and it was unexplained , until the book where they time travel and make the events that already happened get into place like some weird time loop. Basically if the trope makes things come full circle
The back in time is one of the worst things in books/movies, when it have to fix "end of the world". Characters find some magic artefact and apocalypse start... Few people became a team and they have to defeat evil. But they can't, so they decide they must took artefact and use its power to back time and stop everything before it even started... Few characters die during last fight, but main hero backed time... And make that all story never happened. He is still normal guy and only he rember everything, because he used artefact. His friends he gain during story, and risk lives for each other don't remember who he was. I hate back in time and " it never happened" trophe. But other time travel could be good sometimes.
I keep hearing people in the booktube and authortube communities talk about how flashbacks are rarely necessary, and that the information about the past can be incorporated in a different way, but I have yet to hear anyone explain what those other methods are.
Weaving exposition naturally into the story. I think Asoiaf does this really well. It has basically no flashbacks or exposition dumps, and it still tells you a lot about the history of the world and characters
I say if you're going to use a flashback, don't have it kick the story's pacing in the balls and bring it to a halt. If it comes in at a natural point, I'm completely fine with it as long as it adds something interesting.
@@ephiscus224 The thing is, I feel like flashbacks are often necessary. After all, our past makes us who we are, and that's the same for characters. Our experiences is what shapes our personality and beliefs. And I've always felt a flashback is a much better way to get these crucial details in ther ethan by just having the character explain everything in the present day.
@@TheOnceAndFutureKing Well, sure. Seeing a character's loved one pass on and the grief they feel at that moment would be better felt by us if we were there with them, for example. I just wish they didn't choose to throw stuff like that in at random. I've seen long, slow flashbacks show up suddenly in high speed action sequences way too often for my taste.
I like seeing EARNED overpower. Like I'm reading Wheel of Time right now and if a character is overpowered they show how the character got that way and how much it cost them/continues to cost them.
@@tomswiftyphilo2504 Even if they inherit the power/stuff/tittle, they still have earned the respect of others and learn to respect the power/stuff/tittle.
If the person was born powerful, but gets large drawbacks from it, (like their powers being out of control, or being harvested for their powers by wacko villains) would it still be considered Mary Sue?
@@limink7558 No, the standard definition of Mary Sue that I see float around is a lead character without substantive flaws, so having large drawbacks would automatically disqualify the character as a Mary Sue. Mary Sues are a little overhated I think. Flawless characters will tend to be boring because a lot of pay off comes from seeing characters overcome challenges but sometimes a more spectacle driven story where the character can do anything can be fun. Other media can handle Mary Sues better because they can rely on visuals or other elements to up the spectacle aspect.
Mary Sue is not exactly a trope. Tropes can be good if handled well. Mary sue is instead the complete manifestation of poor writing skills (or absence of caring, which is even worse).
I don’t know if you’d count this as a trope but I hate when the main characters will have the villain captured and tied up. Then when the villain says something that’ll rile them up, one of the characters will get so angry that they let the villain go or let them figure out information. It’s so stupid, it can’t be that easy to just lose your cool and mess up the entire plan.
I like the chosen one trope well enough, but definitely agree with you on the rest. I would have added in "not like other girls." That one drives me to rant 😅
Romanized infidelity is a major deal breaker for me EXCEPT I've found in like "Nobel political marriage where both parties are getting it on the side." Idk, I think it's because I'm a sucker for the political "we don't love each other like that but we make a good team" relationship?
I’m guessing your talking about romance books or whatever they call them I would just call them porn but whatever. But if you were referring to to something not like that we would have to through hands. I guess it’s my inner weeb but teacher student relationships get me. Especially if the student becomes stronger for the teacher or if one sacrifice themselves for the other
One of the worst tropes imaginable: Girl with magic powers falls in love with a boy. At the end of the book, instead of going back to magicland, she can stay with the boy, but she has to give up her magic. AND SHE DOES
You can apply this in a general sense with Successful girl falls in love with relative nobody and then decides to throw everything away to live the rest of her life with him. It's why I hate almost every Hallmark Christmas Movie. It's so unrealistic and vilifies successful women by creative a narrative of they are heartless if they don't give up everything they worked for for some random guy she met like a week ago. I want this trope to die and then it's corpse be shot into the sun where it will never be seen again.
I disagree with this, because magical powers and stuff are cool yeah, but just having those powers alone probably wont make you feel happy, or fulfilled, the idea of chosing a long standing, supportive relationship over superpowers makes perfect sense to me.
Aiden Neally Ah yes a longstanding supportive relationship... for a 16 year old. Sounds legit, throw away your entire self for maybe two years of happiness. This just sounds like the fantasy version of picking a worse college so you and your boyfriend can stay together (and then they breakup in the first month anyway). Or maybe it’s closer to the kid version of how mothers have to give up all their hobbies and interests when they get kids
@@Geostelar4920 I mean true, but that's not what we're saying. Often when this trope comes up, magic is a really important part of the girls life. Giving it up, especially for a relationship that might not last the week, is giving up part of themselves, and that isn't healthy.
Whaa I love cute animals talking, it's one of my favorite tropes D: But I agree with you on the other parts, may I also add I really hate "It was just a dream" and I don't mind if love triangles and miscommunication would die a slow death but ofc they are not as bad as rape is character trope. I think you hit the nail on that one, might be my least favorite trope.
@@aarya1467 Hi unfortunately I read the books in my own language which results to not knowing their original names. Or the ones that I like doesn't have any translation, but I am sure Goodreads has many list like that.
@@aarya1467 the Warrior series by Erin Hunter is really nice, it's middle grade but I love it. From that I've got recommendations to read the Redwall series, I haven't tried it yet. Both of these are all animals cast
That was more of a rebirth/crucible scene, where the Gandalf who fell was not the Gandalf who rose, but he never actually died. Those scenes can also be done very poorly, as in the Deed of Paksennarrion.
I like Martin's take on it. Like someone comes back but they're not 100% the same person and how much they lose also depends on how long they've been dead. I agree that Gandalf was done well and this is where I disagree with Martin who didn't like it.
Gandalf was a maiar. He wasn't just a human and just a wizard, but powerfull immortal being. We could name him angel or even archangel, it is probably closest description. He couldn't die, only his "mortal body" could died, but not him. He wasn't ressurected, literally gods just gave him new body to continue his mission. He also was never permitted to use all his powers, all 5 wizards were just observers and messengers. It was not their job to defeat Sauron, even that all of them and Sauron were maiars. So Gandalf resurrection is not special event, rather normal part of his job.
Tbf, this is something I swear 85% of all TV/Movie writers are guilty as sin in, no matter the genre. It's lazy writing, and that is perhaps why it is so common.
I realized that I had a bit of insta love in my book (two love interests for supporting characters) and then I rewrote parts of the story so the relationships are more believable. I really hate insta love. I also hate resurrection, one character has died, everyone is sad and then suddenly: GUYS I'M BACK! Talking animals is one of my favourite tropes since I write books with animals as main characters.
One thing I find unsatisfying is when a fantasy series ends with removing (or severely muting) the magic system of the world. It just leaves me with a hollow feeling. This video was a bit of a surprise for me. I didn't realize that sexual assault happened so much in books. And I really didn't know there is a trope about it being good for a character. I guess I've been pretty lucky in the books I've read.
Sexual assault isn’t treated very seriously in media a lot of the time - The rape = character development thing is pretty common but another good example is sexual assault being played for laughs - Think of all the cop shows where they finally get the guy and the cop is like “you killed your girlfriend but now you’re gonna be the girlfriend when you get to prison” or something like that. I’d say those are the two most common sexual assault tropes.
Yeah I mean like to an extent someone who got out of an abused relationship does need something that isn't a monster and can provide stability--but it doesn't always have to be romantic. Like if a kid was abused all his childhood and then as a late teenager was adopted into a family like the weasleys or something.
I can't stand love at first sight. I do have a couple of "guilty pleasure tropes" like Chosen one and even Resurrection. I find that if a character I really love dies I hope for the Resurrection trope even if I know it will ruin the stakes of the story. I just want my beloved character back!
I have seen the "telling you that a character is so good at something, like legitimately, you'll be blown away, please believe me," done well ONCE. One Punch Man's KING is an excellent subversion of this and probably the only way you can do it well.
ThePreciseClimber I disagree with that. Sokka and Suki were not dating at that point, they spent a short time together in season 1 that ended with a kiss and that was it. I wouldn’t say they were official until they reunited later on.
Yeah, Sokka's not a cheater. If you put the timeline together, Sokka knew Suki for literally one day - shortly before Zuko gets there, Aang says something "when the unagi almost got me yesterday" confirming that they only spent one night on Kyoshi Island. Sokka definitely had a mega crush on Suki, and vice versa, but when he knew her for a day and then spends several weeks/a couple of months not seeing her, it's definitely fair game to then want to date Yue. Sokka and Suki were never in a relationship, although they might have had that conversation after another couple of days. They didn't get together until the Serpent's Pass - and then when Ty Lee started flirting with him, he very clearly said "Actually, I'm involved with Suki".
ThePreciseClimber that was because he wasn’t WITH suki until after yue’s death. He met suki first, but didn’t get into a relationship with her until after they met again in ba sing se.
about the instant love- the scenes where characters are falling in love and pining and establishing connections are my FAVORITE moments and nothing upsets me more to go straight to being in love :((
No one will probably ever read this but I just want to get my thoughts out there anyway. More for me I guess. I can see why so many people hate "the everyone survived the war" trope but there is a caveat to it I never see mentioned anywhere and that is pov bias that can justify this in some cases. I sadly only rarely see this done well but protagonists are usually essential and exceptional people not only from the perspective of an author but also integral to the happenings within the world. So special, measures could've been taken to make sure these people survived. This obviously goes directly against the commander that rides into battle ahead of his army which is actually so mindbogglingly stupid it probably should've been on this list of bad tropes. People that have some kind of control or value to a big part of the army should view the battlefield from the back row. This is not particularly heroic but a dead commander can be the end of an entire war compared with a bit of morale boost and glory when entering battle at the front and the risk of a completely broken army if he falls. There always is the odd tale of real commanders doing this but if you look at these cases they are always covered by a large group of elite soldiers and you will never see a good commander ride into battle if there are bows capable of punching through his armour are involved. So, the entire cast surviving a battle or even a war isn't that unlikely if they actually follow combat best practices seen in real battles but yea, they usually don't, and I agree then it is just unbelievable and cheapens the victory.
Is there a book where the love triangle is told from one of the "competing" lovers? Like if the love triangle in Hunger Games or something was told from Gale or Peeta? I feel like I've only ever read stories where it's from the POV of the person who has to choose so I think it'd be interesting to write from someone who's stuck "competing" with someone else. Some people would be aggressive in that situation and others, like me, would just feel the need to bow out and try to move on cause they don't feel like the person should choose them/ they're not worth it. Hmmm *cue the writer's brain working*
Its more common in Victoria era romance where books were commonly male led and it was not uncommon for high society girls to have multiple suitors. Think of the count of Monte Criisto by Alexander Dumas which has the villain succsessfully stealing the main charcaters fiance after seprerating the two. Or the Prisoner of Hentzau by Anthony Hope which is a mistaken identity story similar to the Prince and the Pauper. in the prisoner of Hentzau the imposter whoos the real guys fiance. Heck I think it happens in Tarzan. Do not quote me on the historical period I am by no means a history buff. But, you know the type of book I mean. Lastly not sure any of these focus on the love triangle enough to perfectly match what you described but I am sure one of their contemporaries did.
"Hunger Games" from Peta's perspective would be interesting. I'd be interested to know what went on between him an Haymitch during the training, and his perspective during the cornucopia/living with the careers.
I have an example of this being done horribly in a book. The POVs change every book, we see one book with the female, and the rest reading about the two guys gawking over her. They don't rise conflict. They don't even express their feelings maturely. They just spent their arcs, simping after this one girl...Sigh.
The love triangle trope, in my opinion, was done well in the Kiss of Deception. By the end of the book, it was made clear who the MC leans to but I honestly kept on rooting for the other person throughout the rest of the series.
Really no way 😂 i hated the first book when the main focus was the romance but loved the next 2. I thought both the guys were so bland and i didnt care abt either like atall
@Georgia M Dean this happens all the time when I am reading any love triangles. The protagonist always ends up with the character I wish they didn't end up with. Literally I can't think of one book in which the protagonist ended up with the character I liked.
Aarya Gourkar I have the same problem, I only had luck with Hunger Games 😂 the main problem is that I always like dark and bad characters, they are just more sexy to me, I can't help it 🤷♀️
Denisa Smékalová I’m gonna have to disagree there. Hunger Games was one of my least favorite love triangles I’ve ever read (admittedly though, I haven’t read too many of them because I don’t like that trope). They were all really annoying characters to me but especially Katniss. Katniss was annoying to me and was pretty selfish about the whole triangle, knowing she was hurting the guys but not really caring. Peeta was just boring and seemed like his only character trait was loving Katniss. Gale was really whiny and rude, plus his bombs killed Prim. Even if he had no control over it, Katniss would never be able to separate Gale from Prim’s death.
I would LOVE to see a story where a member of the five man band is talked up to be a badass for most of the story, but we dont see them do much for most of it. Then that character is captured by the villain and thrown into a hellscape max security prison. After being damseled, the rest of the main characters make a plan and bust in to rescue said character. They then reach the main control room and capture the head warden. They tell him, "Open the cell doors for *Character X* now!" And then the warden says, "Well okay, but it wont do much good. They escaped three days ago, and we have no idea where they are." I've never seen it done before.
I think it's a trope that genuinely can and has been done well (although, you're right classically it has been done horribly). But people aren't invincible and need to be rescued sometimes. If an author has a damsel in distress moment they should balance it out with moments where that woman is genuinely strong and in her element.
"I don't like talking animals." *Erin Hunter has left the chat* My little sister is OBSESSED with the Warrior Cats series, I was too when I was her age, so I found this really funny. XD
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"We're soulmates, I would give my life for you' is a bit much after knowing each other a week."
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@@riverdaisy4215 They'd known one another for less than a week, so they wouldn't even have heard the chat. 🤦♀️
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Love triangles aren’t even triangles. Because it’s almost always two people being in love with one person, it’s more of a “love V-shape”.
It’s very much a love line between two people with a random poor throwaway character that they shove in the middle like a hurdle to jump and discard.
korra would like to know ur location
Agreed! This is why I'm so looking forward to Iron Widow. Seems like it's going to have a real love triangle, going in all directions.
when i was a kid i thought love triangles went: character a > character b | character b > character c | character c > character a
y'know,, like,,,, a triangle?
You could make an argument for Berserk featuring an actual love triangle
Merphy doesn't like talking animals, *wears a shirt with a talking mouse*
So true
Mice aren't animals. BOOM roasted
@@svenservette4197 In fact they are hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings who are searching for the ultimate question. It is this search that led to the creation of the Earth.
Mickey isn't an Animal.
He is a Funny Animal.
@@wariolandgoldpiramid Ah, yes, the legendary funimal.
“ Ethnic woman who knows about mysterious stuff for some reason and is just there to provide exposition “🙄
Bonus points if she is very spiritual/some sort of shamen or prophet
That's the very definition of ethnicity! Or are you racist, and think its about color?
@@darkwitnesslxx what're you talking about
@@darkwitnesslxx are you stupid?
Extra messed up if they’re Native American or Romani. Seriously writers, people of those backgrounds have other traits too.
There is only one chosen one trope I absolutely adored it's execution and it wasn't a book:
Kungfu Panda
Kung-Fu Panda was way better than I thought it would be.
@@cherryjello777 I remember watching the three films in 2019. I liked them way more than I should've. Don't ever even watch animated films, just had them recommended to me and binged all 3 in one day.
@@Alino- lol I ended up watching them as a nanny but like... loved it? I'd always try to convince the kids they wanted to watch Kung-Fu Panda instead of Cars 2 for the 38827538th time.
Avatar the last airbender is also kind of a chosen one theme but I absolutely adore that show
@@cherryjello777 Yeah, it's a great trilogy. I might need to get my step-nieces to watch it now, they're between the ages of 2 and 4 atm.
I think miscommunication is a part of real life, but the whole "it can be solved with one conversation" is SO frustrating. If there's going to be miscommunication to further the plot, it can't be an easy-to-fix problem.
Brinley Owens exactly and it can't be just for lazy writing of conflict, but something unique to these characters
Or like, when two characters are talking over the phone or via letters or whatever and one has really important plot information or something and goes "i'll tell you when we meet'' but then dies and the other one never finds out????? ugh i hate that so much dude, you could have just told them on the phone or whatever!
Yugoslavioni Art I felt that 😂
the only books ive read that really dealt with this are usually where the main character is in a romanticized toxic relationship with another character thats portrayed as normal. if it can be solved with one conversation, like for example if one character is accused of cheating and the other doesn't let them explain what actually happened, i will get so frustrated because most of the time its completely unnecessary when you create a problem that could easily be fixed if you just let them explain. i wish there were more healthy relationships in books where characters actually talked their shit out, im personally tired of seeing the same toxic relationships over and over again in YA novels because its something that could easily be fixed and usually doesn't even further the plot.
of course i know that characters do get into fights and its completely normal, im just tired of seeing the same fights over and over again when they could easily be resolved and the story could actually progress. usually i see this happen with side characters that are forced into chapters and it makes you want to just skip the chapter completely.
the 'strong female character is always angry and violent and could cut a bitch and look sexy while doing it' trope is, in my humble opinion, getting tired. why cant we just get a muscular woman be into politics or be a techie or have a passion for theater and it just so happens that she likes to hit the gym once in a while
Unapologetically Sorry I mean.. strong female character can be just mentally strong, they don't need to be a fighter to me
@@Deni-mt9bj yes! i would love a female character that is physically weak, unfit and cant fight well, but also have lots of mental strength. however, i have read lots of books and have still not yet come across a book like that... (OP also has some good points though)
Which is why I don't want to read Throne of Glass. The cover looks like this type of girl.
@@pleejithoj1712 There's some examples in manga, if you wanna try diving into that. "Farnese" from "Berserk", who's not a fighter. But her role in their group is very important. You also have "Rin" from "Blade of The Immortal". Who hires a bodyguard to help her take revenge for her parents death. Though she ends up saving her bodyguard atleast half the time, through her determination. There's "Eva" from "Monster", who starts out as a spoiled bitch. Where things just continue to get worse for her. She has one of the best arcs i've seen!
Sakura form Naruto
One of my least favourites is the persistent male love interest, who gets rejected by the girl he likes but keeps insisting they should be together and is eventually rewarded for his behaviour by her "giving in" and dating him. This is such a red flag and perpetuates the idea that women don't actually mean what they say and don't know what they truly want, and the man just has to wear them down. You see it in central plotlines, (Like in The Notebook, or Ogi in waitress -- gross) but it's also really common as a throwaway line about how two characters got together like "oh I asked your mother out twelve times before she finally agreed to go out with me" said while the two characters gaze lovingly at each other like it's such a funny little anecdote that haha she said no, but no never really meant no, it ACTUALLY meant yes, because look at us now!
I actually met a couple (ex now I think?) That had this as their literal backstory. Sufficed to say they ended up in a horrible marriage and resented the hell out of each other for years. Dunno exactly when they split, just knew it would be the best outcome for them.
Well it doesn't necessarily need to go this way, it depends on the execution I guess. I'm talking about my life here, I was after breakup and I didn't want to date, but this guy didn't push me or anything, he just asked if I would go somewhere with him and I was lonely and I liked his company, so I went out with him. This is how it was for a couple of months where I kept saying that I don't want to date, that I only want and need some fun while both if us knew he wanted more. Eventually I get to a state when I felt ready for another relationship. And we're together for three years know and I would confidentially call it a very happy relationship. So I did say yes to go out but I said multiple times no to dating.. and here we are. I hope it was worth it to him 😁
I've had to put books down because of this. I hate it so much!
examples?
Yes!!!!
One of the stories I've read had the MC who was in love with a married woman. He never acts on it or even attempts to flirt with her. In the end, she makes a move on him and the fact she is willing to cheat on her husband turns him off so much he's disgusted at her.
As he should be
@@lindales3959 same
Wow thats really good. Its actually how a normal/good person would behave in a situation like that.
You know for the “love at first sight” trope it would be fun to have a book where the protag instantly falls in love with a person they just met. They spend the first few chapters practically worshipping their partner, but as you turn the pages, red flags start popping up everywhere. The protag notices odd things, but they share another drink and everyone laughs it off. Things progress, their partner is possessive, but no matter how much the protag tries to rationalize the situation, they still can’t help but love their partner. No matter what. The protag starts panicking, knowing something unnatural is happening but can’t prove it to anyone-not even to themselves. They even doubt their own sanity. At the end it’s revealed their partner is an alchemist who has been drugging them with love potion since day one. Soooo basically a modern twist on some old folklore, written in a fantasy thriller type deal. The book could be called “A Fairytale” or “Tale as Old as Time” (I think, regardless of what genders the author chose, this could be an interesting allegory for abusive relationships-bonus points for twilight/50shades references throughout)
Damn, this is an amazing idea.
@jon gros I’m glad you think so :D Truthfully, the only reason I was so detailed in this description is because I hope someone else might pick it up. Anyone is welcome to use the idea like a prompt: I have no interest in writing such a story myself. I do not care for romance, and even less so for abusive relationships. I hate the idea of researching either topic enough for my version to be any good. I think, perhaps, a story like this would do well to counter books like 50 Shades of Grey. I do wish abusive relationships were not so romanticized. Why not treat them like the horror they are? I’ve seen too many destroyed by such things, even a close friend. Some people never recover, and we’ve all heard stories of the people who don’t make it out alive.
Sigh. Maybe it wouldn’t be too difficult to write this as a short story... For now, I’ll keep working on my epic fantasy series. World building is just too much fun :D
Dayum, that's amazing. I kinda remembered Frozen, though. Y'know, Hans?
anna ferns well yeah but that wasn’t really good...there were no red flags, no foreshadowing towards the reveal, no fun reasoning she’d even like the guy enough to marry him, not even an explanation for why Hans did that stupid smile under the damn boat! Why did he smile like that if he didn’t love her? Why?! It was a lazy twist. No setup at all and more confusing than dramatic.
I saw a book similar to this, but it was a werewolf story, (i dont remember the name but ill try and find it) where this girl has the perfect boyfriend, he and her father get along well and even work together. And one day, she wants to go on a date to the zoo, her boyfriend takes her, but as he gets them ice cream, she wanders off toward the wolf exhibit. And when she arrives, one wolf comes out instantly and they share eye contact and she starts thinking that thats pretty abnormal. And then her boyfriend comes back and sees whats happening, he suddenly becomes very protective over her and hugs her while he tries to convince her to leave, and the wolf gets aggressive at him. Skipping forward, both her father snd her boyfriend are werewolves and so is she. They were testing on her her whole life to stop the werewolf side of her to come out.
"A woman has to be raped in order to have a character development." Wait, am I the only one that has never came across this in books?? This actually exists???
*Edited 2022* LOOK MOM IM FAMOUS!
i thought the same thing! has anyone examples of books where this happens?
I do not think I have seen it so often either. Rather: girl gets raped and the guy she is in love with kills the rapist and gets into a lot of trouble for it with results in the woman being guilty for being raped in the first place.
Tamara Seidl there is a character in the Poppy War books that became a different person after being raped.
It happens in iboy to the main girl.
I think Daenerys Targaryen is a prominent example of this, although you could argue her abuse by her brother and her experience as a Khaleesi contributed to her development a lot, and they did, her rape was like a symbolic turning point of her entrance into “womanhood” and responsibility, even though she’s still a literal child.
Most of the time love triangles aren’t even proper triangles, just like love bent lines!
Yeah, I don't like calling them love triangles when they're usually just V shapes
yeah, f**k love triangles.
When I was younger I thought that love triangle is just A loves B, B loves C, C loves A and imo that's way more interesting than just B and C both being love interests and A not being able to decide who they like.
@@3nu570 There's a love triangle like that in Revolutionary Girl Utena
For a love triangle to be real one of the characters actually has to be gay in my opinion
@@heinoustentacles5719 Ooh, I've heard of Utena before (didn't know there was a love triangle though) and have been meaning to check it out so I guess I shall some time soon :)
"Smart characters being stupid trope"
"Female characters need rape for developement trope"
"After the big battle everyone is still alive somehow trope"
*cries in Game of Thrones Season 7 and 8*
I didnt realize that but YES!!!!
The golden company were also all talk no action.
Don't forget resurrection tropes (Jon Snow)
Ohhhh how I hate that rape- trope....
I was going to comment this LMAOOO
My least favorite tropes in books, movies, TV series: 1. When the guy is an absolute jerk, treats everyone including and especially the protagonist like shit, and then, MAGICALLY, the moment they are together, he becomes this sweet, helping, respectful, awsome boyfriend/husband. This is NOT how it works in real life. Bad boys will most probably stay bad boys. It gives a very destructive message to young girls. It is used in east Asian media a lot (Especially Korean and Japanese dramas and anime) and it needs to STOP. 2. Is the generalized version of what Merphy said: When things that if any other character does, we will hate them, but for some reason it's perfectly fine if the main character(s) do those, like cheating, treating others poorly, etc. 3. When to depict a strong female character, they depict her as rude and arrogant. Like, why? WHY? Mulan was strong, but she was also humble and nice. Believe me, you don't have to be a jerk to be a strong girl.
Sassiness sometimes comes off as rudeness.
For your first point, I think it's mostly because the boy usually has experienced something to close himself off from others emotionally, so when he finds someone he can give his everything, he'll show his real self and his emotions. Also I totally agree with your last point. I personally dislike female characters that are depicted as "strong" but are just blatantly rude and 'sassy'
I think I like it because it’s unrealistic.
@Alex Cruz Some of those ‘bad boy’ characters are usually just personas used to cover up their good side. And if they actually are a bad boy and does bad things, then idk why the female protag likes him in the first place.
Also, I would love a story like that too! That would honestly make the romance much more compelling and add more depth to the male and female protag. I personally like stories where the romance is not the focus, but rather the subplot to a character’s journey of self-discovery.
4. *The. Amnesia. Arc.*
My pet peeves in any story (whether they're in a book or any media) are:
1. The MC is overwhelming powerful and flawless aka: the Mary/Gary Sues.
2. Stalkers are romantics
3. A character being demeaning just towards the MC.
4. Token Characters
Miraculous Ladybug literally came to my mind
Maybe I’m wrong but the “rape trope” seems like a lazy solution to create a plot or some trauma for character and at the same time make the book “””more adult””” like ok, it might be traumatizing, but is not the only thing in the world u can use and guess what, rape is a really awful thing in real life, don’t use it like is just a complicated event and that’s all
Wow, I never thought of it that way. But that makes total sense.
*cough cough* Game of Thrones
There are many tropes that get used precisely because they're quick and easy ways to get the reader's emotions going. How many movies have you seen where some major chaos is happening and some child is shown crying right in the middle of it?
It's the same as parents/family were killed(ie. Batman, Spiderman, Harry Potter) only just sexual for "adult" purposes. Lazy is the right word.
@@aliciagroenewald3863 I hope you're referring to the show, otherwise get out.
Here's how to fix Insta Love: Put them in a magical world. Make the characters be cursed to be together. Make them be attracted to each other, but fight hard to get free from this.
PERFECT!😱😍
Do you know of any book where this has been done?
@@kanashiiookami6537 This rings similar to what happens on the witcher books....
this is kind of similar to empire of sand, which is really good!
A very popular book/video game/ Netflix series kind of does this.
@@guilhermekutz1265 The Witcher saga was the first thing to come to my mind too.
PS Definitely worth reading.
I hate how 'strong female characters' are depicted in SF&F nowadays. Unless the woman 'kicks ass', is rude, arrogant, wears trousers, hates girly stuff etc. So basically, unless a woman acts like a man she's not strong.
I’ve seen that “trope” come from women fighting against the idea that a women should be girly and dainty, the whole “damsel in distress” type of thing. Like I doubt it’s the old white men’s fault for that one, that was a distinct liberal change that we see in tv and books nowadays. I agree that it’s probably gone so far that it’s become a caricature of itself, and maybe we need to come to a universal acceptance that both sides of the aisle can be true and have strong female characters
Right! A super-heroine can kick ass and still be feminine and do traditionally feminine things. A good example of this is Marinette Dupain-Cheng from Miraculous Ladybug. She is very girly and her hobbies are sewing, baking, sweet, shy, etc, yet she is still a badass.
LM i think a girl who “can’t kick ass” and is not a physical fighter is badass as well. I’m actually looking for books with those kinds of female characters
Yes. I hate that too.
I write stories (I'm trying to clean them up enough to make them worthy of publishing), and one thing I've striven to do from the beginning is to have a variety of female main characters, many of whom can show different ways of being strong.
So, I do have one character who is not very in touch with her femininity, and is tough and combative, a warrior all her life. But that character becomes friends with, and even looks up to, another woman who is also a soldier, but who is rather effeminate. While the more masculine one may have a certain special kind of resilience, the more effeminate of the two also has certain strengths that her less feminine friend can never quite mimic.
And one of my favourite characters is a woman who never goes into combat at all, even while her friends do. She may not risk her life while fighting, but in a lot of ways, she is the strongest and most courageous of them all. She's compassionate, emotionally intelligent, and openly affectionate. She naturally takes it on herself to be the emotional centre for all her friends, and she is strong enough to bear everyone's burdens without breaking. In my experience, that's a trait that women seem especially to excel at, and it's a kind of strength that we need more of in the world.
Anyway, I agree; pretending that femininity is weak, and that women are only strong if they act like men, is an atrocious lie, and harmful to all people who embrace traits that are traditionally seen as more feminine. I really hope more authors (and especially screenplay writers) start understanding that.
I think Sanderson does this well. Vin is such a badass, but once she gets a chance to dress up and go to balls, she kind of likes the dressing up and fashion and girliness.
I remember back when I was first reading Percy Jackson. I mean, it's written for kids, so say what you want about its value as great art, but damn if Riordan didn't properly subvert the Chosen One. He starts off with a healthy dose of not knowing he's the chosen one, and being relatively miserable. He turns out to be the chosen one, and is even MORE miserable because of it. Five books of sheer panic and unpreparedness from Percy later, and he isn't even the one to strike the final blow, and is perfectly happy to relenquish the title to Luke. I didn't even know it was a trope when I was reading it, but it still sticks in my mind because of how well it was executed.
this why i think the chosen one trope is so much better in middle grade books!! it’s always fun and interesting
I also like how Riordan was able to write a book under the same idea of saving the world and having mythology come into play with the Magnus Chase series, but never fall into the chosen one trope. It was actually quite the opposite, where Magnus shouldn't have been allowed in Valhalla but they trusted Samirah enough to let him in and then he was able to prove himself to be more than just a homeless kid from boston that was the son of a pretty useless god.
Plus, he kinda chooses it at the end of the first book, when Thalia joins the Hunters and someone mentions how it might be Nico, not Percy, and he says something about how it would be him, that he chooses this. I liked that a lot bc I've never really seen it done before, except maybe in Moana. But then for the next books, he's just like "why did I do this".
subverting the chosen one trope usually works better than the trope itself ever did.
@@mae_er3 I mean, in a way Percy was the chosen one. Just not to land the final blow but to make the fateful decision that actually resulted in the final blow being dealt. I liked that. I liked that the chosen one doesn't have to be the guy that defeats the bbeg but the guy who makes that one choice that decides the fate of the world. But then when everyone congratulates him he's like: "My friend, the guy you all thought was evil, he was a hero and he saved us all." I like that Percy recognizes that being the chosen one isn't a blessing, it's a curse. A responsibility. I think that is also partially why it works in some books but not others.
Talking animals? Ah man you’re gonna hate parrots...
I would love to see you and ‘Read with Cindy’ collab, you guys both have such opposite energies it’d be so interesting 😂
This would be so funny
I was just thinking that!
A thousand times yes!
omg I was thinking the same thing!
Dont think they would compliment each other well. No tea just my opinion.
Miscommunication trope: You seem to be throwing a bunch of shade at Romeo and Juliet right now.
Lol the miscommunication trope and the love trope
@@worthyedge9307 both tropes make sense when you realize that the story is about two stupid impulsive teenagers
@@OliverHeikkinen lol that makes more sense
It has always been interesting to me, that Shakespeare created ironically many tropes in 'Romeo and Juliet' that books nowadays take too seriously, haha.
@@jean_etcetera exactly! ROmeo and Juliet actually ridicules love at first sight and presumtion it will last foroever. He also sneaked the miscommunication trope there as well :)
I thought the last one was going to be ''not like every other girl'' trope
Aka in fantasy "I'm a girl that doesn't like dresses and prefers swords and horses and stuff so I'm literally like almost every female protagonist ever". Like I kind of cannot complain because I like that kind of protagonists but I'd like some different "I'm not like the other girl" trope executions. If we're still talking fantasy, I want to see something like "I'm the only woman to have a real influence on international politics by steering my undecided, weak husband (whom I love with all my heart) from the backstage. Yet I'm wearing dresses and attending all the parties and am acting like a true lady, even in private, because I enjoy it".
Totally agree, Also can i use that idea for a short story?
I've read books that literally used that phrase. We know the character is different otherwise they wouldn't be the main character. Show us how they'r different. And if they're beautiful, let another character say it, don't have the character describe themselves.
Your name is Noa? :0 What's your gender, if I may ask? You don't have to answer
@@Kasiarzynka weak husband?
I love that you mentioned the rape trope. I can't remember who said it, but a famous author was once asked for advice about using sexual assault in his work, and came back with something along the lines of, "If it isn't absolutely necessary, don't use it. And if you think it is necessary, still don't use it, cause you're not good enough to write it." Essentially saying that anyone who thinks using it as a form of character development isn't nearly intelligent or mature enough to write about it. He followed it up with, "save it for autobiographies." I've seen some pretty horrendous attempts and they all made me drop the book almost instantly once I figured out the author's style
The only writing rule that I think should be applied to everyone. Good advice. Who was the famous author?
"Save it for autobiographies" wait WHAT
@@RianeBane In other words, if it hasn't happened to you personally, don't try to "re-enact" it in your story, is what I think that quoted person meant
I read a novel once with a main character who was sexually assaulted by her uncle, but it didn’t describe it in full detail bc it happened when she was younger and it wasn’t the main plot. I think the author did a good job; however, I can see some authors misusing sexual assault in their novels.
Only time it be used to any effect properly is to have a villain assault someone to show they are a Complete monster. Even then it needs to be done correctly.
When a strong female character is just 'strong' in the literal sense of the word. She kicks ass and that makes her strong. Why can't a strong female character be strong because she is smart? Or creative?
I would say, because it's never see has a "strong" even for men character. Tyrion is described as a smart man, but never has a strong one because he cannot fight. Moreover women are only allowed to be physically strong recently, but for a men, being strong is generally a standars.
There’s Hermione.
i very rarely (hermione granger for example) see SFCs who aren't just strong in fights, but strong emotionally and are clever too.
What about being emotionally strong? Dealing with mentally stressful situations is pretty hard. I think I've never read a book with a female main character ever being strong in that sense which I don't get it.
I'm here! The main character of the book I'm writing is short, fat and ugly but she's hella smart and she knew that she could never physically overpower the villain so she does something really terrible that some readers might hate her for but oh well lmao
I can’t stand the whole female characters only have a character arc because of rape. I hard agree with you there as not being able to be done well, and it should die a slow death. I also don’t like the resurrection trope either - that can ruin a book for me a lot of the time.
To be fair, there are women in real life who nobody would ever recognise from Adam if they a) weren't raped b) weren't brave enough to speak up about what happened to them to others.
Unfortunately it happens. Some people try to bury it, some put themselves out there and try to help others who have suffered like them.
It is an unfortunate arc, but it happens.
YESSSSSS, like and It brings a whole problematic kind of thought, like rape her cause she was "weak" or "bratty" to make her strong and humble????? LIKE WTF, I have literally burned a book because of this because makes me SO mad.
What makes it worst is the people that agree with it.
like to show the villain is bad why harm a woman when our real world have so many of this cases?
@@danielquinzel9641😂😂 Which book was that?
@@jwinget1999 This one has the whole OMG LOL Teeheehee vibe going on. Might have read one of those Biff and Chip books. Didn't add to the conversation. Just growled because they're so AnGrY.
@BİKAS AYM BATMAN But isn't it true? Most people don't treat rape and abuse as seriously when it happens to men.
You could say her aversion to talking animals is a... pet peeve...
I'll see my self out...
R A that was ... pawful.
Your guy's animal puns are ass
Y’all are so ducking bad at making jokes
Seal what you started? Haven't we been punished enough. Toucan just go away.
No no, you can stay. Stupid puns feed my life force
The old badass guy in anime who dies in his first serious fight. I really hate this one
Yeah it's better we see them get alzheimer's, follow their daily lives in a nursing home and unapruptly die of a heart attack.
@@beastvicious8672 damn 🤣 that could be Joseph joestar tho 😔
@@davantiowo6519 Yeah, now that you mention it! Ohhhh Noooo!!!!!!
@@davantiowo6519 Se have seen him young, It's ok
If you're worried about old characters dying, then look no further than Fairy Tail. That old geezer cheated death like three times and survived the damn manga.
Merphy Napier: *puts resurrection on the list*
Jesus Christ: You weren't supposed to do that
You know what they say, if a bestseller introduces a trope, everyone copies it.
And if it's the greatest bestseller of all time, of course people are going to copy it to death.
And then bring it back.
In the Bible, it's actually done pretty well.
The death and resurrection is heavily foreshadowed ('foreshadowed' as in 'explicitly said it will happen'). The road to it, that the main character is knowingly taking, is a source of some major conflict inside the main cast (like Peter and Jesus butting heads over Jesus' willingness to die), there's also a bunch of drama over it (like on of the Marys crying and balming Jesus' feet, that one is a source of major fanfiction). Also, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, because had Jesus not acted like he's about to die, Judas might not doubt him enough to betray him (not clear, there's also a strong theme of national pride and willingness to rise up and need of a leader, coupled with throwing onto Jesus responsibilities he doesn't want, like leading an uprising).
There's also the fact that the resurrection is the main theme and inciting incident for all of the sequels, so I think the author was justified in using the trope.
"Girlboss mentor lady that's been trained in all forms of combat since the age of 6 sits one out so a hero dude with a week of training can save the world"
JoJo
Ugh miscommunication just pisses me off. Especially if the issue is so simple and the author uses it to lengthen the book lol
Same. I hate it so much. It so lazy and overdone.
miraculous ladybug: *sweats nervously*
exactly! i usually see it used in toxic relationships where they're both so stubborn that they dont let the other have the last word. theres always a problem that can easily be solved if they just talked it out and it doesn't further the plot at all
Just finished a comic that used this incessantly between the male and female lead and it legitimately infuriated me
I say this as a dude, I don't think most us like reading stories about women that have been sexually assaulted. It's really messed up and most guys would rather not have to read about something so messed up. Honestly, I didn't even know that was a trope to begin with.
Truly wise Master Kenobi
Same. It's fucked. Thinking of Codex Alera by Jim Butcher here in particular, but way too many others.
male authors make it a character arc because often they don't know how else to make a female character grow. the trope to kill of a wife/mom/sister or whatever to make the male lead grow and/or further the plot is also a popular trope
I actually know a large majority of individuals who love to defend the trope as "It's just the world they/we live in" .
The trope isn't the sexual assault, it's that the assault is necessary for their character arc or for the female character to develop a motivation. But yeah agreed
- Flashbacks;
- "Chosen One" stories;
- Everybody is alive after the final battle;
If somebody really thinks that this can't be done good, well... one word: Avatar.
I came here to point this out, too. Avatar is the greatest, most perfectly crafted story ever told, and was no worse for wear with this trope.
@@narwolf1899 Indeed! You can try to write an absolutely unique story without using any tropes from other works. Soon you will realize that all the acceptable techniques have already been used and your story will turn into the ravings of a madman.
true. The show even has a resurrection.
@@applejuice8271 Ah, right! I completely forgot it.
@@applejuice8271 and the way the character is resurrected works because it has a Checkov's Gun trope. There is an object that one character has had with them for an entire season, so we finally see what it can do.
Once someone said "If you can use anything other than rape, don't use rape" and generally I think that's a pretty good rule. Most of the time it just feels like the writer wanted to make the audience feel bad for the character and couldn't think of anything better.
Obviously, that doesn't mean never write about rape, but it's a delicate subject. I think it needs to be handled with more care than most other subjects.
Also, you know what's 1,000,000x better than a love triangle? A love triangle that turns into Poly OT3.
Yeah sex crimes often fall into the category of "shortcut to mature content" in the same way as gratuitous swearing and needlessly in-depth descriptions of every single violent act. Write your story first and then figure out whether it's a particularly adult one or not, never start with the premise that it is.
Or a character that realizes ‘this is stupid’ and walks out of the lives of the other two, then the other two get together? Does this exist? I want this in fiction.
I think it was Krimsinrouge
@@professionalmemeenthusiast2117
That's pretty solid advice, thanks.
I mean you can allways use some other act of torture.
A perfect example of the shitty trophe "female characters need to go through traumatic events, like sexual assault, to become stronger" is Sansa's storyline with Ramsay and Little Finger in GoT (which it didn't even happen to her in the books). Her dialogue with Sandor Clegane in S8 was uncomfortable and it's disappointing seeing people defending it. :/
*«Without Little Finger, and Ramsay and the rest, I would've stayed a little bird all my life»*
But would you tho? You had already watched your dad get decapitated...
Writers writing things like that is tough to me, because (based on some of my other reading) it seems very realistic. Human beings love “meaning making” and it is very important to us to think that the worst things that happened to us happened for a reason and “advanced our story” in a positive way. I think she was completely wrong, but I also think it is a realistic thing for a character to say, and I am torn about the writer’s responsibility to make it clear that not everything a realistic character is going to say about themself is true.
@@thrawncaedusl717 Yea the idea of people finding a silver lining to a terrible event regardless of whether it's rape or not is a very real thing. Like if you go to prison for 10 years for a crime you didn't commit, that's just a loss and a waste. But if say you meet your best friend in that prison and form a friendship that lasts the rest of your life and even leads to a new family, you got back something from that path, a "balancing of the scales" so to say. So if anything, a character twisting their tragedy into a good thing can add more depth and nuance to their recovery, on top of being more bittersweet because depending how wrong they are about it actually being good for them, it can help convey more of how damaged they really are. Even if they form that as an unhealthy way to cope now, they could very well have a revelation after re-evaluating that position later. Whether one considers that as a character flaw or not, writers are allowed to write flawed characters without having to explain themselves. It's fiction after all. Authors don't need to write in the margins that X is bad and we do no condone characters doing X.
I stopped watching the show after that. there was already way too much rape as edgy drama building in the show, but the fact she suffers the murder of so many family members and the rape is suddenly the pivot for her character arc is just disgusting
What’s even more egregious is Theon is traumatised for the rest of the show after his encounter with Ramsay yet by the first episode of S6, Sansa just forgets about the trauma like it was nothing. I just pretend S5 was the final season because S6 onwards is insulting to fantasy
@@lt3880 yh no
I like miscommunication in the comedy genre. It takes one misunderstanding to get the ball rolling. And then several misunderstanding before my stomach hurts from laughter.
So glad you put cheating in the rant tier! I really hate when it’s justified in books, hence why I brought it up in the discord. Didn’t realize it would lead to such a discussion on there. I totally agree that people should just break up and show some respect to their current partner even if they don’t like them anymore.
k.
I mean I would say that historical fiction books set before the like 70s when divorce was either illegal or just wasn’t an option for someone of your social class can reasonably justify it
Yh nah
At this point, it’s so easy to get me on board with a relationship that’s just cute and healthy and both people genuinely like each other. It’s all I need.
same here!!! i usually find this in wlw books since straight fiction (especially YA books) have completely destroyed my faith in it. imho i personally read wlw books because i just wanna find some representation of someone like me and i also find a lot of healthy relationships but we ALSO get a lot of "oh my god its not that FUCKING hard just talk it out" frustration because of the slow burn and mutual pining
i've seen too many toxic relationships in books or relationships where they're just constantly getting into fights but the only reason they're in a relationship is just to bang each other
I hate it when the comic relief character is like 'Actually I have depression and everything fun about me was a facade,' and now that's their defining characteristic. I don't see it too much but it makes me unhappy.
Really? I actually really like it. It gives a particularly shallow character more depth and turns them into someone I can relate to. But I can admit, it can be done awfully at times, but most of the time, it's my favorite troupe in media.
@@randomcomment1286 I guess is just a little to predictable nowadays to find out the "act funny to cover sadness trope" because it's being use a lot.
It can be cool, but I'm sure you can show other reasons for this people to be all fun and jokes
@@Berenadre You're right. It's my favorite troupe, but even I don't want it to be repetitive. And I can understand why others dislike it, because it shows that if someone's happy, they're most likely depressed. Not all happy people are depressed, they're happy because it's likely their personality.
I like the trope depending on how it’s done
There are good examples of that trope. I don't know if you know Percy Jackson, but Leo Valdez fits into that trope and he is a lovely character
"I can't be convinced that you slayed hundreds withoun noone on our side dying"
Most Fire Emblem players can, tbh
Yeah, but that’s because it’s a video game and most people don’t like to play with perma-death on
as a fire emblem player i can confirm this statement do you know how many times lissa died when i played awakening
@@nataliamaldonado8328 not exactly. Many players, including me, keep permadeath on, but then reset if anyone dies
BerserkerCiaran I’m guessing people do it to raise the stakes but I find it kind of stressful since I’m a beginner, But that’s just me
@@nataliamaldonado8328 some FE games can easily be completed with no deaths
Sacred stones says hi
Celaena from Throne of Glass. Sooooo much talk about what a bad ass assassin she is...........KILLS NOTHING. Definitely falls into the 'tell don't show' trope
SHE LITERALLY FAKED ALL HER KILLS UP TO THE SECOND BOOK OR WHATEVER!
Like, okay, i get it that in the beggining of the series shes not in best shape but ??? dude??? she can still fight ????
she actually killed a lot of people during TAB and before the start of the series. During ToG she didn't have much opportunity or reason to kill anyone. During CoM she faked like 3 or 4 kills because she didn't want to assassinate the people rebelling against the king she also hated. In the later books she kills a lot of people
So it makes sense the way it happens
Sorry it doesn't work for me...
“Stupid mistakes.” *Everyone side eyes Tyrion in Seasons 7-8 of GOT.*
I also hate the resurrection / fakeout death trope. If a character is LITERALLY resurrected, I’m usually like that was cheap + I can’t trust you not to do it again. To me, the fakeout death where they never died but just went offscreen for a while and ppl assumed they were dead but there’s no body, is almost worse for me bc it always feels cheap and used for shock value. And I always notice it.
Full agree on the sexual assault-for-character-development, we HATE to see it.
Do you like the fakeout if the reader knows the character didn't die, but the MC thinks the character really did die?
selena reads
I really like ur channel
SPOILERS FOR NARNIA AND LORD OF THE RINGS: So far, the only death and resurrection tropes I liked were Aslan, Gandalf, and two books where the character died before the book started, or after it ended, so we didn't have to deal with those fake out emotions.
TV sansa stark says hello
I think the fake out death trope could work if some in a universe where coming back to life or cheating death is an established thing
*Love Triangle trope exist*
Japan:
*Three is not enough, we need MORE*
Uughh I hate it so much no matter how many love interest they have we can totally see right from the beginning who she will end up with in the end
@@hisle9188 Or him. Literature is filled with both examples, a single guy with multiple choices, or a girl.
But even if it isn't clear who the protagonist would choose, and really is left in the air due to wish washy writers waiting in between seasons to pick one for fan preference (a couple shows have done this), it still ends up just as trash. This trope is garbage, it drags it on, is usually the source of just nonsense drama that should actually be cleared up far easier, and where it can't be cleared up easier due to even more drama or circumstances of fate, it just makes you hate at least one, or even multiples of the characters, which hurts your story.
Yeah it's called harem, it's so disgusting honestly
Or the “I’m better” trope in fanfics like the OC tries to make themselves better or more important then everyone.
omg exactly, this is why i don’t read oc stories, and most of them r mary sues ;-;
Yeah, in the book I'm writing the mc thinks she's all that but she's really just not and it makes for some hilarious moments
The beauty in the miscommunication trope ( aka the most common in romance, my favorite genre) comes from the reasons why they are not having the conversation, as long as we feel there’s a somewhat important, valid reason for the avoidance of it i can follow along, and also when they finally communicate and realize or find they could communicate all along this cements their future couple dynamics.
That's true! Like how in Pride and Prejudice one of the conflicts is the social pressures and embarrassment that keeps Elizabeth from talking to Darcy after she changes her mind about him. I never thought of the trope that way before.
"Frozen" is a good example of this. All the tension between Elsa and Anna, and most of Elsa's emotional issues, were based on, or involved, lack of communication.
@@shutterchick79 I disagree. Frozen is full of this trope, though it's all on Anna's side. Elsa never misunderstands Anna; she knows that Anna just wants to go back to being close, but she pushes her away because she is rightly petrified of killing her sister again. Every misunderstanding Anna has about Elsa is directly connected to her illogical refusal to see Elsa's powers as dangerous. This causes each misunderstanding to be super contrived, in my opinion. Anna should never have asked Elsa to return to Arrendelle because it solves NOTHING. The ball and the Eternal Winter should have been more than enough to show Anna that Elsa CANNOT control her powers and that that is the real problem, not that Elsa ran away from home. The conflict should have been Elsa trying to understand her powers (and through that journey, being able to be close to her sister again), NOT Elsa proving her closeness to her sister by IGNORING THE VERY REAL DANGER HER POWERS POSE TO EVERYONE SHE CARES ABOUT. It's especially annoying because they had relational drama built into the story already WITHOUT the misunderstandings: Elsa must remain distant from Anna until she can be sure that she won't accidently hurt or kill her, but if Anna has access to information Elsa can't get to (for obvious reasons), Anna will have to be close to her at some point.
i never actually thought of it that way! it always frustrated me because most of the fights could be fixed with simple conversations
WTF I didnt know there was a 'rape as a plot device to cause a characters growth' trope THAT is yikes. I really enjoy dark themes and events eg if a SA does occur in a book im reading and is handled as a traumatic event that may change the characters behaviour and outlook thats fine. But that usually means an immediate negative change that can take years to get through and id say would never really leave a character even if it no longer has a grip on their life. The idea that it can be a positive thing like 'oh its ok that happened bc the character is stronger now' is awful.
Im usually fine with most things being experimented with but when it comes to serious traumatic events and such i like them to be treated as real and seriously as possible.
the thing is, in most conversations, you can never bring up how much you hate this trope without people saying "So you don't think that sex-assault changes you?" but what I'm trying to say is, people CAN grow and learn from trauma, but its never because of the TRAUMA, its from how they dealt with it.
@@sarcasticeggs8998 Completely agree!
You know, I haven’t seen the “Rape Trope” in any book I’ve read but I’m not surprised because I know of some Dungeons & Dragons players who use that as their backstory when creating a female playable character. It doesn’t happen often (because most GMs don’t support that happening in their games) but it has been done before.
@@davidjohnson6665 I had a DM suggest rape in three (3!) of my female characters backstories before I asked him to stop because it was really creepy and making me uncomfortable. His excuse was that it was one of the more serious traumatic things that could happen to a woman, which isn't necessarily incorrect, but if I want to traumatize my characters, I can do it in ways that don't involve SA.
The biggest example of the rape trope I can think of is in the tv adaptation of Game of Thrones where Sansa’s arc requires her to become adept at Westerosi politics and social manipulation but the show runners didn’t want to try to write her training arc how it’s probably going to happen in the books (last book leaves her in a situation that requires her to be manipulative to survive) so they instead scrapped the whole arc and had her get raped to explain how she became so politically savvy and manipulative in a really short time (honestly that arc should’ve been a massive red flag to fans that the show runners didn’t know how to write off book)
I love how she puts "no deaths" under Incoming Rant, and then proceeds to rant.
Rape as character development (and the repeated in-universe insistence it was character development at all) was particularly egregious in Game of Thrones with Sansa. Worse because this wasn't in the books at all and basically the writers came out and said Jeyne Poole being Ramsay's victim wouldn't have worked because they needed a character the audience cared about to get raped.
So it's a twofer with them. One, they insist rape = character development, and two, they think the audience is so sociopathic that they don't care about rape of anything but main characters.
what about Theon? Theon suffered worse torture than that and no one complained about it.
@@paulogaspar8295 Well I mean Sansa being raped isn't the issue, women get raped all the time in Westeros. It's the idea that rape = character development.
With Theon, his torture and maddening is clearly, and rightly, seen as a debilitating trauma he has to process and get over. Sansa? Eh, sic some dogs onto her rapist and she'll start bragging about how her rape made her stronger, which is dumb as fuck.
@@MattJDave Her bragging about it's dumb as fuck I agree, but she surpassing that trauma and still wanting to be queen makes sence. Theon also surpassed some of his trauma. The point of that in the books and the show is to show to the reader that you can allways fight back even when something extremely traumatic happend to you. My point is no one cared about criticising the show for showing Theon suffer that much, but so many people got extremely mad just because Sansa was raped. They even stopped watching. But watching Theon being tortured and completly broken was ok for them.
@@paulogaspar8295 I agree that her surpassing the trauma and wanting to be queen makes sense. It's primarily the trauma/rape = stronger bullshit I have an issue with, and unfortunately there's a bit of a trend of that go-to trauma being rape, which is honestly a little cheap and too easy imo.
Sansa being married to Ramsay would inevitably result in her rape of course, but the circumstances themselves came off as contrived (Littlefinger suddenly getting a lobotomy and handing over his key to the north and/or object of creepy affection over to an unknown at best, known monster at worst party) and seemingly only exist to make Theon and Sansa trauma buddies (with Sansa getting over her trauma first because yas queen girlboss).
But ye I agree the show got away with murder for some missteps in earlier seasons. The books never fully elaborated on Theon's torture, only showed the end results, leading to a less-is-more effect. Meanwhile the show seemed to actively revel in showing Theon's torture on-screen because Game of Thrones loved to market itself as fantasy with blackjack and hookers. I think it's well within reason to criticise the gratuity myself, but in terms of writing I still think Theon's arc was slightly better written than Sansa's when it comes to handling trauma.
@@MattJDave sure I can see that. But the story over all was getting contrived at that point in every major plot because they where already past the books material.
Merphy: Talking animals, I can’t! I don’t know why but it’s ruined books for me!
Me, avidly reading warrior cats since 6th grade: 👀
BAHAHA ME!
I used to read warriors from like grade five until grade seven. those were the fun times 😂
Big mood
Me, having read watership down about 5 or 6 times👀👀👀
This shouldn't count because they can't communicate with humans, they're all feral cats living in the wild
I’m 26 and I still stay up to date on those books! lol
One that I hate is the creepy abusive male love interest that just can’t live without the female love interest. It’s like the female is the only reason for the male to exist. They will get possessive and even be jealous when the female even speaks to other male characters.
Problem is that for some that's not just a trope, it's their real life. It sucks shite, but it happens over and over again. Hence being used in fiction. (Either because the author is trying to draw attention to the fact it happens, or they know someone going through it, or the want something for these people to relate to. Only thing is, most of the time (I've heard) these people don't know that's themselves in that book because they make excuses for everything their abusive partner does or says)
Kanashii Ookami But usually when I see it in books, It’s portrayed as sexy and hot. And It’s just not okay. If it’s portrayed as a bad thing, then yes I get it. But if it’s portrayed as hot sexy. Then I hate it. It’s not hot or sexy, it’s toxic.
Thats called a Yandere
@Tom Ffrench Late, but yeah. The relationship is actually abusive and depicted as dysfunctional (never mind that there are about twenty million red flags before Padmé gets into the relationship), her reaction to Anakin being a jealous/overly ‘protective’ dick is negative but she still makes excuses for him, and she ends up getting assaulted and indirectly killed by Anakin in the end. It’s a deconstruction of the ‘jealousy and possessiveness are sexy and hot’ trope to what typically happens in the real world. (I think it was accidentally, since I don’t think George Lucas originally intended ‘subtly abusive relationship’ to be the archetype of Anakin and Padmé’s relationship...)
Thank you for your placement of the cheating and rape “development” tropes. Another I would add is any time the author paints possessive and controlling as good things in a relationship. I think there can be unhealthy relationships in books without issue, depending on how the author paints them. Unhealthy relationships do exist, but if they’re framed as who you’re meant to root for......Incoming Rant for me
I think the "tell not show" trope can work well if the characteristics described aren't actually part of the character. Like, you have an assasin that has been told about this horrible human being, how he is a monster, killed people, has ties with some pretty nasty people, basically, he is a bad person and needs to be eliminated. But, when the assasin actually does meet the target, he or she finds ou that he has nothing to do with the info that was granted, and this makes him/her question the organization he or she works for and this can be a solid plot for a good book.
Or when the telling not showing is actually the character trait they're showing the reader. The character is full of themself, has managed to build a reputation as something they are not, but they THINK they are the hero they say they are. And then the shit hits the fan and they are the one running away like a coward, showing their true colours in the end.
Yeah, exactly. "Tell not show" works great in establishing an unreliable narrator (or just source of information). It makes you confront the fact that the POV character has their own agenda, even if it doesn't go beyond just making them appear better than they actually are. I really like it, because it makes me question everything that we've seen from the character: "you were lying about that thing to me and yourself, what else are you hiding?", which, in my opinion, adds new layers to the character and their interactions with others.
But that's not a "tell not show" trope. That's a plot twist, which also shows you the truth. It's called the "tell not show" trope, becouse it never shows anything that we're being told.
That's not really showing vs telling here. Telling would be if instead of having chapters where this assassin talks to this person or watches them and sees them doing goo things we were just told "X turned out to be a good person" without showing any of that to us.
i actually “like” when miscommunication is brought to the table if it isn’t something stupid and obvious like you said, that REALLY irritates me. but i like to see a character struggling with communication if they actually grow to learn with it throughout the book. i used to have really poor communication skills so i can understand how things can get messy and really exhausting and frustrating with miscommunication, but i hate when people make it in a way that the whole plot is driven buy this one conversation that the characters didn’t have, i mean, like you said, that’s just lazy and it really gets on my nerves. is like you don’t know how to create a conflict so just make the characters act childish or really stubborn and boom! there you you go! it was all just a misunderstanding 😌 like... are you serious......... 🥴
If you ever watched Kimi ni Todoke, you gotta say it's the worse case of miscommunication ever 😭💀
The absolute worst thing in the "final battle" is when it's all over and the authors like, "o shit gotta kill someone" and then someone dies in a contrived and completely avoidable way.
I think the only time I didn't care about cheating was in the movie Titanic.
Technically it's not cheating. Rose was forced into this relationship by her mother. Rose and her fiance were not even attracted to each other.
@@linjie1213 Yeah that's basically why I didn't mind it.
The only time I didn't care about the movie titanic was in the movie "Cheating"....
with Goldie Hawn...
I make joke.
Also the Blood of Madam Giselle.It's a nsfw webcomic and the cheating of the girl is justified because her husband is abusive to the point of raping her and hitting her. Plus, she was forced into this marriage by her parents and had no say in it. So if you do it like that, then I feel like it's somewhat justified.
@@linjie1213 It was cheating since she was engaged. She didn’t want to be but she was engaged so don’t try to justify it because you like the love story. This is what a commenter was talking about when side characters does something bad and the audience frowns upon it but praises it when the main characters do it.
The first one, insta love, already has me siding with you cause all a can think about is West Side Story, the knew each other for two days, he killed her brother in that time (when he promised to protect him) and she got mad at him for two seconds and then slept with him TWO SECONDS. I just can’t with that movie.
To be fair-WSS is based on Romeo and Juliet, which was never meant to be about any sort of idealized romance. One of the main themes of that play is “young love” which is really young lust, can be stupid. In the play, the whole reason Romeo ends up looking for a honey and finding Juliet is his ex, Rosalind wouldn’t let him into her pants/under her skirts. Guess who’s alive at the end?
But the music though......
Courtney Nagel yah that’s true but... I can’t get over the fact that she was only mad at him for 2 seconds
Coffee Love and Books I listen to the soundtrack nonstop I just can’t make myself sit through the movie again 😅
Oh, the music is fantastic (big Bernstein and Sondheim fan). And that’s fair-I just want to see the dance fights and move onto something else, haha.
i feel like the no one dying thing depends on how long a series is. if its like, one book, then yeah some death would drive it home. but if a cast of characters has been fighting a threat together for so long, its immensely cathartic to see them come out of it alive. obviously injured, but alive and finally able to move on with their lives. idk i just like happy endings...
It's the sad ones that stay with you forever though.
So do I. If there has to be a death I like that death to be meaningful and important for the character who dies, beyond simply his life. I would consider someone dying to save what he loves to be a happy ending for that person.
I do like happy endings, give me deaths in the middle of the book bit a good ending
i think ive read too much death in books to add death to my stories...so far in all the books ive written, only one or two characters have died, and the protagonists have survived. i just cant anymore. i want my happy endings where all the characters get to finally relax and rejoice together :’)
I feel like the Happy Ending Epilogue in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was necessary because after SO MUCH death and destruction in The Battle of Hogwarts, it NEEDED a super happy ending.
“I’m gonna kick Love Triangles out of the room.”
*Terrible Writing Advice has entered the chat*
How to solve love triangles?
Normal authors: make one of them an awful person
Rick Riordan: merge both of the dudes in one person
Kane Chronicles one know what I am talking about 😂😂😂😂
I will never get over that XD
Ouch that was a spoiler lol
Pro-gamer move
@@pattyisfine7198 I think it his best series
@@davidjpeinado2171 Agreed. I wish we could get more books about the Kanes.
I love these tier ranking videos bc I can watch my favourite booktubers without adding 20 new books to my already extensive tbr list 😭
The word ‘love’ can be represented by a heart. A heart is a shape. A triangle is a shape... I got it, Love triangles are the best because I ‘Love’ it.
Edit: just kidding
😶
Actually your logic is incorrect. The heart is ACTUALLY an organ!
My absolutely most hated trope out of every trope is the "going back in time at the end to fix everything up" trope. Why the hell have I been reading these books/seen this movie/watched this TV-series if they learned nothing and there's no consequences they have to live with and there's no change to their life or their character at all? What's the point???? I don't even want it to die a slow death, I want it quick because I want it to be out of this world, like, yesterday.
Also, I'm guessing you didn't like Animal Farm very much...
Do you mean like in season 1 of sailor moon? It's been a long time since I read the corresponding manga but I feel like that's exactly what happened.
@@justinwill7420 I actually haven't seen Sailor Moon so idk
Ida Bergh-Smith It can be done correctly when it was always meant to be part of the plot and even explains some things from previous books that were left purposely a mystery for readers to question.
Like maybe in the first or second book, Character A knew something nobody else did or did something that at the time seems random and it was unexplained , until the book where they time travel and make the events that already happened get into place like some weird time loop. Basically if the trope makes things come full circle
The back in time is one of the worst things in books/movies, when it have to fix "end of the world". Characters find some magic artefact and apocalypse start... Few people became a team and they have to defeat evil. But they can't, so they decide they must took artefact and use its power to back time and stop everything before it even started...
Few characters die during last fight, but main hero backed time... And make that all story never happened. He is still normal guy and only he rember everything, because he used artefact. His friends he gain during story, and risk lives for each other don't remember who he was.
I hate back in time and " it never happened" trophe.
But other time travel could be good sometimes.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is the only story I’ve seen where this was done perfectly.
Chronicles of Narnia is about to ruin this whole woman’s career
What do you mean?
@@FrozenJedi38 The talking animals!
@@oswintardis Oooh. I was confused cause Narnia is perfection (imo) lol
Merphy: I don't like talking animals
*cries in Warrior Cats*
Merphy: i hate talking animals
Animal farm: hold my beer
I keep hearing people in the booktube and authortube communities talk about how flashbacks are rarely necessary, and that the information about the past can be incorporated in a different way, but I have yet to hear anyone explain what those other methods are.
@Alex Cruz But then that surely turns into the dreaded ... 'exposition'. If readers and authors hate flashbacks, they REALLY hate too much exposition.
Weaving exposition naturally into the story. I think Asoiaf does this really well. It has basically no flashbacks or exposition dumps, and it still tells you a lot about the history of the world and characters
I say if you're going to use a flashback, don't have it kick the story's pacing in the balls and bring it to a halt. If it comes in at a natural point, I'm completely fine with it as long as it adds something interesting.
@@ephiscus224 The thing is, I feel like flashbacks are often necessary. After all, our past makes us who we are, and that's the same for characters. Our experiences is what shapes our personality and beliefs. And I've always felt a flashback is a much better way to get these crucial details in ther ethan by just having the character explain everything in the present day.
@@TheOnceAndFutureKing Well, sure. Seeing a character's loved one pass on and the grief they feel at that moment would be better felt by us if we were there with them, for example. I just wish they didn't choose to throw stuff like that in at random. I've seen long, slow flashbacks show up suddenly in high speed action sequences way too often for my taste.
I don't know if you'd consider it a trope, but I really can't stand the Mary Sue protagonist. I mean, why even bother?
I like seeing EARNED overpower. Like I'm reading Wheel of Time right now and if a character is overpowered they show how the character got that way and how much it cost them/continues to cost them.
@@tomswiftyphilo2504 Even if they inherit the power/stuff/tittle, they still have earned the respect of others and learn to respect the power/stuff/tittle.
If the person was born powerful, but gets large drawbacks from it, (like their powers being out of control, or being harvested for their powers by wacko villains) would it still be considered Mary Sue?
@@limink7558 No, the standard definition of Mary Sue that I see float around is a lead character without substantive flaws, so having large drawbacks would automatically disqualify the character as a Mary Sue.
Mary Sues are a little overhated I think. Flawless characters will tend to be boring because a lot of pay off comes from seeing characters overcome challenges but sometimes a more spectacle driven story where the character can do anything can be fun. Other media can handle Mary Sues better because they can rely on visuals or other elements to up the spectacle aspect.
Mary Sue is not exactly a trope. Tropes can be good if handled well. Mary sue is instead the complete manifestation of poor writing skills (or absence of caring, which is even worse).
Merphy: I hate the talking animals trope, and especially when it’s all animals it just grinds my gears 😡😤
George Orwell holding Animal Farm: ...
Me holding literally all of my pieces of writing.
I'm wondering if it would bother her, because it actually isn't about talking animals. At all.
I don’t know if you’d count this as a trope but I hate when the main characters will have the villain captured and tied up. Then when the villain says something that’ll rile them up, one of the characters will get so angry that they let the villain go or let them figure out information. It’s so stupid, it can’t be that easy to just lose your cool and mess up the entire plan.
*Infinity War has entered the chat*
I like the chosen one trope well enough, but definitely agree with you on the rest. I would have added in "not like other girls." That one drives me to rant 😅
Romanized infidelity is a major deal breaker for me EXCEPT I've found in like "Nobel political marriage where both parties are getting it on the side." Idk, I think it's because I'm a sucker for the political "we don't love each other like that but we make a good team" relationship?
If their spouse doesn't mind them sleeping with other people then that's not cheating, just polygamy. World of difference between the two.
@@secondavenger9775 Polyamory. Polygamy implies multiple marriages.
I can't believe that "teacher student relationship" trope isn't on here!!! Lol.
doesn't that count under "unhealthy relationship / abusive or manipulative relationship" ? if you see it that way it's included :D
Isn't a teacher/student relation something to general forbade trope?
Like, are you talking about an specific type of t/s relationship like romantic?
@@Berenadre yes I'm talking romance. And I still see this trope being used yes not as much but it's still a thing.
@@whatsupmara true but I think it's big enough to be named ya know lol
I’m guessing your talking about romance books or whatever they call them I would just call them porn but whatever. But if you were referring to to something not like that we would have to through hands. I guess it’s my inner weeb but teacher student relationships get me. Especially if the student becomes stronger for the teacher or if one sacrifice themselves for the other
One of the worst tropes imaginable: Girl with magic powers falls in love with a boy. At the end of the book, instead of going back to magicland, she can stay with the boy, but she has to give up her magic. AND SHE DOES
Star Vs the forces of evil?
You can apply this in a general sense with Successful girl falls in love with relative nobody and then decides to throw everything away to live the rest of her life with him.
It's why I hate almost every Hallmark Christmas Movie.
It's so unrealistic and vilifies successful women by creative a narrative of they are heartless if they don't give up everything they worked for for some random guy she met like a week ago.
I want this trope to die and then it's corpse be shot into the sun where it will never be seen again.
I disagree with this, because magical powers and stuff are cool yeah, but just having those powers alone probably wont make you feel happy, or fulfilled, the idea of chosing a long standing, supportive relationship over superpowers makes perfect sense to me.
Aiden Neally Ah yes a longstanding supportive relationship... for a 16 year old. Sounds legit, throw away your entire self for maybe two years of happiness. This just sounds like the fantasy version of picking a worse college so you and your boyfriend can stay together (and then they breakup in the first month anyway). Or maybe it’s closer to the kid version of how mothers have to give up all their hobbies and interests when they get kids
@@Geostelar4920 I mean true, but that's not what we're saying. Often when this trope comes up, magic is a really important part of the girls life. Giving it up, especially for a relationship that might not last the week, is giving up part of themselves, and that isn't healthy.
Merphy: *likes dragons and fantasy*
Also Merphy: "talking animals just don't make sense".
A) when coincidence drives the plot, B) When characters talk about things that you realize at this point only thre reader would know.
Yup. Those shoulda been on there.
When a book is written in someone's POV but then they describe a scene they've never been present to...
Whaa I love cute animals talking, it's one of my favorite tropes D: But I agree with you on the other parts, may I also add I really hate "It was just a dream" and I don't mind if love triangles and miscommunication would die a slow death but ofc they are not as bad as rape is character trope. I think you hit the nail on that one, might be my least favorite trope.
Can you suggest a good book with animals talking?
@@aarya1467 Hi unfortunately I read the books in my own language which results to not knowing their original names. Or the ones that I like doesn't have any translation, but I am sure Goodreads has many list like that.
@@aarya1467 the Warrior series by Erin Hunter is really nice, it's middle grade but I love it. From that I've got recommendations to read the Redwall series, I haven't tried it yet. Both of these are all animals cast
@@aarya1467 The Knife of Never Letting Go is a good one in my opinion! The animals can't necessarily talk, but people can see what their thoughts are.
Have you read "Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" by Robert C O'Brian?
Totally hate the resurrection trope also! The only time it’s used that I liked was Gandalf in LOTR
That was more of a rebirth/crucible scene, where the Gandalf who fell was not the Gandalf who rose, but he never actually died. Those scenes can also be done very poorly, as in the Deed of Paksennarrion.
I like Martin's take on it. Like someone comes back but they're not 100% the same person and how much they lose also depends on how long they've been dead.
I agree that Gandalf was done well and this is where I disagree with Martin who didn't like it.
Gandalf was a maiar. He wasn't just a human and just a wizard, but powerfull immortal being. We could name him angel or even archangel, it is probably closest description. He couldn't die, only his "mortal body" could died, but not him. He wasn't ressurected, literally gods just gave him new body to continue his mission. He also was never permitted to use all his powers, all 5 wizards were just observers and messengers. It was not their job to defeat Sauron, even that all of them and Sauron were maiars.
So Gandalf resurrection is not special event, rather normal part of his job.
Merphy: "The miscommunication trope can get out of the room"
Wheel of Time: "Aight ima head out"
Tbf, this is something I swear 85% of all TV/Movie writers are guilty as sin in, no matter the genre.
It's lazy writing, and that is perhaps why it is so common.
“Talking animals, I just can’t do it”
*Casually looks to the stack of Warrior (cats) books I have*
I realized that I had a bit of insta love in my book (two love interests for supporting characters) and then I rewrote parts of the story so the relationships are more believable.
I really hate insta love.
I also hate resurrection, one character has died, everyone is sad and then suddenly: GUYS I'M BACK!
Talking animals is one of my favourite tropes since I write books with animals as main characters.
Merphy would love Attack on Titan
Oooo she should definitely watch it!!
Yes absolutely!
One of the main characters dies and then literally the next page they are resurrected though
That show is so insufferable. I guess it's just my opinion tho
R Brooks there’s no way you’ve seen any of season 3 and u hold that opinion
One thing I find unsatisfying is when a fantasy series ends with removing (or severely muting) the magic system of the world. It just leaves me with a hollow feeling.
This video was a bit of a surprise for me. I didn't realize that sexual assault happened so much in books. And I really didn't know there is a trope about it being good for a character. I guess I've been pretty lucky in the books I've read.
Justin Will just @ svtfoe next time 😔
Sexual assault isn’t treated very seriously in media a lot of the time - The rape = character development thing is pretty common but another good example is sexual assault being played for laughs - Think of all the cop shows where they finally get the guy and the cop is like “you killed your girlfriend but now you’re gonna be the girlfriend when you get to prison” or something like that. I’d say those are the two most common sexual assault tropes.
Its NOT that common. I've read thousands of books, and can only think of maybe a handful that have rape at all, much less rape as growth.
Darkwitness X nah there are soooo many books out there with r*pe/SA
“ love triangles are almost never done well”
the infernal devices is typing ...
Giving a character who is or was in an abusive situation a relationship just because of that abusive situation
Yeah I mean like to an extent someone who got out of an abused relationship does need something that isn't a monster and can provide stability--but it doesn't always have to be romantic. Like if a kid was abused all his childhood and then as a late teenager was adopted into a family like the weasleys or something.
One of my least favorite tropes is the forbidden love trope, idk, I just feel like its overused...
But it's forbidden..
and it's love....
Yah it’s annoying and it almost always involves one character cheating
Haha
Then you should crank up the forbidden part to a whole new notch. Cough, Jamie and Cersei, cough
I HATE THAT TROPE
That ruined City Of Bones for me
I can't stand love at first sight. I do have a couple of "guilty pleasure tropes" like Chosen one and even Resurrection. I find that if a character I really love dies I hope for the Resurrection trope even if I know it will ruin the stakes of the story. I just want my beloved character back!
I really like Wings of Fire’s take on the Chosen One trope. I can’t say much without spoiling it, but it really questioned the reader’s expectations
I love expectation subversion!
"Convincing the reader that a character is a force to be reckoned with by constantly telling you that"
Sarah j Maas: it's free real estate.
I have seen the "telling you that a character is so good at something, like legitimately, you'll be blown away, please believe me," done well ONCE. One Punch Man's KING is an excellent subversion of this and probably the only way you can do it well.
Lmao the thumbnail says it all.
Enjoy your weekend everyone.
I also don't like when everything is animals. I don't like animals talking for no explained reason. I FEEL YOU.
When you realised Avatar: The Last Airbender had 2 tropes in the incoming rant 🥺😭
Sokka kinda cheated on Suki with Yue but the story never really presented it that way.
ThePreciseClimber I disagree with that. Sokka and Suki were not dating at that point, they spent a short time together in season 1 that ended with a kiss and that was it. I wouldn’t say they were official until they reunited later on.
Yeah, Sokka's not a cheater. If you put the timeline together, Sokka knew Suki for literally one day - shortly before Zuko gets there, Aang says something "when the unagi almost got me yesterday" confirming that they only spent one night on Kyoshi Island. Sokka definitely had a mega crush on Suki, and vice versa, but when he knew her for a day and then spends several weeks/a couple of months not seeing her, it's definitely fair game to then want to date Yue. Sokka and Suki were never in a relationship, although they might have had that conversation after another couple of days. They didn't get together until the Serpent's Pass - and then when Ty Lee started flirting with him, he very clearly said "Actually, I'm involved with Suki".
@@ThePreciseClimber he knew suki for literally a day
ThePreciseClimber that was because he wasn’t WITH suki until after yue’s death. He met suki first, but didn’t get into a relationship with her until after they met again in ba sing se.
about the instant love- the scenes where characters are falling in love and pining and establishing connections are my FAVORITE moments and nothing upsets me more to go straight to being in love :((
No one will probably ever read this but I just want to get my thoughts out there anyway. More for me I guess.
I can see why so many people hate "the everyone survived the war" trope but there is a caveat to it I never see mentioned anywhere and that is pov bias that can justify this in some cases.
I sadly only rarely see this done well but protagonists are usually essential and exceptional people not only from the perspective of an author but also integral to the happenings within the world. So special, measures could've been taken to make sure these people survived. This obviously goes directly against the commander that rides into battle ahead of his army which is actually so mindbogglingly stupid it probably should've been on this list of bad tropes. People that have some kind of control or value to a big part of the army should view the battlefield from the back row. This is not particularly heroic but a dead commander can be the end of an entire war compared with a bit of morale boost and glory when entering battle at the front and the risk of a completely broken army if he falls.
There always is the odd tale of real commanders doing this but if you look at these cases they are always covered by a large group of elite soldiers and you will never see a good commander ride into battle if there are bows capable of punching through his armour are involved.
So, the entire cast surviving a battle or even a war isn't that unlikely if they actually follow combat best practices seen in real battles but yea, they usually don't, and I agree then it is just unbelievable and cheapens the victory.
Is there a book where the love triangle is told from one of the "competing" lovers? Like if the love triangle in Hunger Games or something was told from Gale or Peeta? I feel like I've only ever read stories where it's from the POV of the person who has to choose so I think it'd be interesting to write from someone who's stuck "competing" with someone else.
Some people would be aggressive in that situation and others, like me, would just feel the need to bow out and try to move on cause they don't feel like the person should choose them/ they're not worth it. Hmmm *cue the writer's brain working*
Its more common in Victoria era romance where books were commonly male led and it was not uncommon for high society girls to have multiple suitors. Think of the count of Monte Criisto by Alexander Dumas which has the villain succsessfully stealing the main charcaters fiance after seprerating the two. Or the Prisoner of Hentzau by Anthony Hope which is a mistaken identity story similar to the Prince and the Pauper. in the prisoner of Hentzau the imposter whoos the real guys fiance. Heck I think it happens in Tarzan. Do not quote me on the historical period I am by no means a history buff. But, you know the type of book I mean. Lastly not sure any of these focus on the love triangle enough to perfectly match what you described but I am sure one of their contemporaries did.
Archie comics betty vs veronica (not the Riverdale show bleh)? That's really all i can think of haha
"Hunger Games" from Peta's perspective would be interesting. I'd be interested to know what went on between him an Haymitch during the training, and his perspective during the cornucopia/living with the careers.
I have an example of this being done horribly in a book. The POVs change every book, we see one book with the female, and the rest reading about the two guys gawking over her. They don't rise conflict. They don't even express their feelings maturely. They just spent their arcs, simping after this one girl...Sigh.
The love triangle trope, in my opinion, was done well in the Kiss of Deception. By the end of the book, it was made clear who the MC leans to but I honestly kept on rooting for the other person throughout the rest of the series.
Really no way 😂 i hated the first book when the main focus was the romance but loved the next 2. I thought both the guys were so bland and i didnt care abt either like atall
@Georgia M Dean this happens all the time when I am reading any love triangles. The protagonist always ends up with the character I wish they didn't end up with.
Literally I can't think of one book in which the protagonist ended up with the character I liked.
that’s the book i was thinking of the whoole video
Aarya Gourkar I have the same problem, I only had luck with Hunger Games 😂 the main problem is that I always like dark and bad characters, they are just more sexy to me, I can't help it 🤷♀️
Denisa Smékalová I’m gonna have to disagree there. Hunger Games was one of my least favorite love triangles I’ve ever read (admittedly though, I haven’t read too many of them because I don’t like that trope). They were all really annoying characters to me but especially Katniss.
Katniss was annoying to me and was pretty selfish about the whole triangle, knowing she was hurting the guys but not really caring.
Peeta was just boring and seemed like his only character trait was loving Katniss.
Gale was really whiny and rude, plus his bombs killed Prim. Even if he had no control over it, Katniss would never be able to separate Gale from Prim’s death.
least favorite trope is the damsel in distress.
Alex Bankuti 😆
Ugh and whole stories are based around this trope too.
It can be done right, as long as it avoids the stereotype.
I would LOVE to see a story where a member of the five man band is talked up to be a badass for most of the story, but we dont see them do much for most of it. Then that character is captured by the villain and thrown into a hellscape max security prison. After being damseled, the rest of the main characters make a plan and bust in to rescue said character. They then reach the main control room and capture the head warden. They tell him, "Open the cell doors for *Character X* now!" And then the warden says, "Well okay, but it wont do much good. They escaped three days ago, and we have no idea where they are." I've never seen it done before.
I think it's a trope that genuinely can and has been done well (although, you're right classically it has been done horribly). But people aren't invincible and need to be rescued sometimes. If an author has a damsel in distress moment they should balance it out with moments where that woman is genuinely strong and in her element.
“I don’t like talking animals”
*cries in Looney Tunes*
"I don't like talking animals."
*Erin Hunter has left the chat*
My little sister is OBSESSED with the Warrior Cats series, I was too when I was her age, so I found this really funny. XD