The "virgin = dumb" is so odd and funny because the Ancient Greek goddess of WAR and WISDOM is a virgin. The fierce, independent goddess of the hunt and moonlight, Artemis, is a virgin. Both women have punished men for gazing upon their nudity without their consent (as they should). In fact, it's believed that Artemis' virginity is a product of her divine duties. She's too busy hunting to find a man. And she couldn't care less. (Edit) Oops, how could I forget Hestia! The only reason why Greek mythology hasn't collapsed on itself. She is the eldest Olympian and is considered the kindest, warmest god there is. It is an established truth that the Gods will show NO mercy to those who harm the Goddess of the Hearth. Thank you, Charity! (Edit 2) Remember, "virginity" in Ancient Greece meant that the woman was unmarried; it was expected of her to remain such. Because, and apologizes in advance, women were viewed as property to the male relatives. Whether that was her father, her brother (younger or older), her grandfather, etc,... Since Lady Hestia, Artemis, and Athena declined the hand of marriage, They would be eternal virgins.
Well, it was a different time back then. They were adored for keeping their dignity. Today, people see it more as "oh, you didn't have sex? Something is wrong with you!" But really, people shoudn't be valuated by their sex exprience. Though yeah, they can be maybe a bit native and clueless when it comes to sex elationship, I don't think it is weird, as they didnt' experienced it.
@@sharonefee1426 Athena is a virgin because her duties as a war and city goddess occupy most of her time; not to mention she is surrounded by men constantly. Artemis is a virgin because she represents the unchained energy of the wildness; she is the rocky, jagged mountain and the ancient, towering trees. A direct counterpart to her twin brother, Apollo, who embodies the benefits of civilization.
@@KezanzatheGreat Vesta is more militaristic and strict than Hestia. The Greeks thought their Goddess as a gentle, selfless, and warm aunt who is diligent in her divine duties. A testament to how much her family loves her is when Papius (pardon my spelling) tried to assault her in her sleep after she and the Gods threw an absolute baller of a party (they overthrew the Titians). Now, this is where the myth becomes cloudy; there are two versions: 1) a donkey hayed, waking Hestia up, and she screamed. All of the deities (including Hades and Aphrodite) rushed to the goddess' aid. 2) Hestia just woke up and screamed, causing her family to rush towards her. Either way, it is an established fact that the Olympians will defend Hestia without hesitation or mercy.
Re the naive virgin trope: back when Britney was big, people were like “I don’t believe she’s a virgin, no virgin could dance like that.” Are you out of your minds? Have you met any teenage girls? Any humans?
Yeah I mean I can't really see the correlation between being able to dance a certain way and doing the nasty anyway. Even if it's sexual that doesn't exactly guarantee anything. I do things considered sexual, but I'm 100% aro ace and a virgin.
Conversely, I knew quite a few women who were extremely shy/prudish in public and absolutely sinful in private. I have no experience with men, but from what my gay friends told me the same often applies to men: best sex they had was with shy guys, apparently.
I like the evil villain monologue AFTER the villain has done everything they need to do and the monologue only serves to distract the hero from any last ditch efforts to undo its effects.
Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago.
Even though your primary audience is novelists, as a comic artist I still find this all extremely helpful (and entertaining). Thank you for aiding all of us on our journeys, no matter how different they are!
@@eyesfromtheabyss9410 hey, same! Wasn't expecting to see a fellow aspiring Mangaka watching Jenna. Keep up the good work! I'll be your rival in the next internation contest, good luck!
I loved how Watchmen's villain Ozymandias subverted the villain monologue. After being called out for monologuing his evil plain, he responds;; "Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago."
she was taking about that and my mind went straight to “did you think I’m that dumb to be talking about my plan with you for all of this time?! I initiated it 30 minutes ago.”
I feel like the major difference between bimbos and himbos are that himbos are usually sweet and endearing characters, whereas bimbos exist purely for fanservice. A good way to subvert the bimbo trope is honestly to just have one that's not sexualized/born-sexy-yesterday and actually be an endearing character like himbos usually are.
Legally blonde is the example of this. She’s not stupid by any means but she’s naive and somewhat airheaded in the beginning but she’s compassionate and hard working
I love how #1 is titled "Wattpad ruined it," because my 18 year old sister obsessively reads bad-boy stories there. And guess what kind of guy she married....😑
My play on the "Chosen One" Trope is to have multiple people believe they are the Chosen One and then Chaos ensues. In my new adult fantasy, the MC (Who is the actual Chosen One) starts off as 17, though he'll be older by the end of the book. His Uncle, who is the main antagonist, also thinks that he ('he' being the Uncle) is the Chosen One. To top it off, the MC thinks his Uncle was the Chosen One but that he failed, so when his Uncle comes back, the MC is very freaked out to say the least.
The Lego Movie does have a technically adult Chosen One, though Emmet is a minifig and the lego avatar of a kid so in personality he’s more childlike. Voiced by Chris Pratt, so manchild is mandatory.
Currently I’m writing a Short Play where the Main Character is “The Chosen One” but in reality, the Characters that “Found the Chosen One” are just abducting Random Kids, banking on the fact that ONE of them has to be the Chosen on Eventually.
The one that I like the most is the Dark Souls one. "You're the chosen one! But not really, we tell this to everyone since one of you is bound to get things done eventually." And by the end the message is that there's no need for a chosen one, almost anyone can get things done if they keep standing up every time they fall.
I started working on a story a while back where the Chosen One gets killed off halfway through. The explanation is that the ancient prophet altered the future by observing it, so instead of the Chosen One saving the day, a completely different person has to step up and save the day. A similar idea I had recently involved time-travelers repeatedly changing the course of future events, so that every time one Chosen One is killed or moved out of the way, someone else becomes takes his place.
In The Order of the Stick (online comic) the evil guy does his evil monologue in front of a mirror before the fight, to keep him from spilling the beans to the heroes later. I found this hilarious. XD
Can we have an evil villain post their monologue on RUclips but get the scheduling wrong so it goes out an hour earlier than it was supposed to... giving the protagonist time to foil his evil plan? (I'd read that!)
The best examples of the Himbo and the 'Niceguy' done right are both from animated movies: The Emperor's New Groove, and Megamind, respectively. Like, Kronk totally carried a good portion of that movie. And when I watched Megamind for the first time, I really did not see the twists coming, but they made so much sense - like of course if you give a guy like *that* that kind of power, they'll abuse it horribly. So yeah, those trope subversions made both of those movies so much better, 10/10.
To me the Nice guy can work if you strip the incel-ish elements("i rescued her cat, i own her pussy") and pull off something else, the nice guy could be a charismatic do gooder who gets taken for granted by everyone, by his family, by his friends, by his love interest(also make sure said love interest is already his/her love/sex partner for years to avoid the typical incel mentality that often pops up.
@@caiolucas8257 But that isn't the "Nice Guy" trope - which is specifically sarcastic (it's often portrayed in quotation marks to show that). There is a version of the genuine Nice Guy trope, which you're referring to (and which I do really like, a la Captain America or Superman - they certainly have their place in media), but again, it's not what we're talking about here. --If you look it up on TvTropes you'll find the genuine version under the Nice Guy category, but they have notes at the end directing to the "Nice Guy" tropes.
I think a good subversion of the nice guy is also Quasimodo in Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. He is a nice guy. Like an actual nice guy. So much so that he is completely content to not get what he wants at the end because he has respect for people.
A very realistic aversion is the "chosen one" through lineage. If the legendary hero from 1200 years ago you are a descendant of wasn't celibate you can easily be one of 300 million rightful heirs, lol.
I can't remember which book it was but I was reading one where some evil group was hunting down all the descendants of some king who lived 3000 years ago or whatever and my thought was, "So they'll be committing suicide after wiping out the entire continent?" But of course in the book all the living descendants amounted to like 5 people............ who must have been so inbred that they were drooling idiots.
Your chosen one subverting trope is exactly what I was expecting from Harry Potter. I read until the end, hoping for the big twist in which Neville was really the chosen one all along, and Harry was just the poor boy who everyone thought was the chosen one. But, it didn't happen.
Uhm... But "The chosen one" trope in HP indicates that it was Voldemort's decision. Harry was "The Chosen One" because Voldemort made him like that. It was a coincidence he didn't choose Neville
@@tosterka I was going to say that. The subversion in Harry Potter was that he's literally a chosen one - as in Voldemort chose him. If he'd have chosen Neville, he would have been the one with the scar etc.
There's a couple of these I like to see go even further. When the villain is defeated, watching them break down and cry, apologise and beg to be forgiven, putting the hero in an awkward position. Also, himbos are great, but even better is the double subversion of herbos. Give us big, buff women who make everyone weak in the knees and the only thought in their heads is to be kind and fight bullies.
@UCQAQ0T-s2rJSnAWmqMqYh6w Hamilton ofc, uh, dsmp, hermitcraft, last life, used to be in warrior cats, white collar, Sherlock, Jenna, jaiden animations, greenhouse academy, lost in space, sweet tooth, Jurassic park, dear Evan Hansen, other musicals....uh idk
The thing I find funny about the "Nice Guy" trope is, that when an actual nice guy has been written, he's not considered to be part of the trope at all. Because a nice guy is just that, someone who is... nice. Often he's the kind teacher or school janitor, the old neighbor down the street, the unintentional mentor, the non-love interest best friend (which sadly those are usually forced into the "Gay Best Friend" trope), the doctor who reveals just before the climax that their patient has been lied to by their parents all their lives, etc. Picture Levar Burton as the version of himself from "Reading Rainbow", Robin Williams in "Good Will Hunting", Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation", or Mr. Rogers. None of them would ever be given the "Nice Guy" trope yet are in fact a nice guy in their stories. Of course, Levar Burton as Geordi La Forge was the definition of the "Nice Guy" trope in any/all of his romantic storylines, but completely different character, lol.
My favourite example of the "Evil plan speech." being subverted is honestly from Watchmen. Like, Ozymandias is explaining his master plan and Nightowl and Rorschach are all "We won't let you do this." and he just turns around like. "Bruh, you think I'd be standing monaloguing if there was a change you could stop me ? I did it half an hour ago."
One of my favourite examples of the 'nice guy' trope subversion is in the animated movie Megamind. Hal Stewart, the cameraman has unrequited feelings for the reporter Roxanne Ritchie. Turned out he was a dick all along... an incel, in fact, before the term was even coined. When getting Metro Man's superpowers and becoming Tighten didn't get him the girl like he expected it would, he turned into the true villain of the movie.
"Fuck your tropes - I do what I want!" Yes! This right here is the one sentence explanation for why I subscribe to your channel, Jenna. You're awesome.
I think the damsel trope is hard to pull off if there's no strong character to counter it, if you have a woman as a damnsel it helps to have a woman who's a counterpoint to that, if you have a male damsel make sure there's a counterpoint to that. Also worth mentioning DC movies have managed to break the mold on these characters, both Lois and Steve are both damsels given they're humans and can't deal the supernatural stuff, but both also get their own action moments and a lot of agency to break the stereotype.
i love the goodest good boys that are also badass and fiery in their own storyline, like the bad butt soldier who is a sappy for his partner, his children and his pet
Here's my personal favorite subversions of these tropes. 1. Good Girl/Bad Boy: Heathers has this dynamic, but you later realize that the "bad boy" is actually just a sociopath. 2. Femme Fatale: The Operator in The Night Comes For Us has all the tell-tale signs of a femme fatale, but she doesn't use sex at all, she's just a ruthless, brutal assassin who will just murder you. 3. Villain's Final Words: Venom 2 "Fuck this guy." 4. Villain Monologue: Street Fighter "For you, the day Bison graced your village, was the most important day of your life. But for me? It was Tuesday." 5. Naïve Virgin: The "virgin" in Cabin in the Woods isn't even a virgin, "we work with what we have." 6. Bimbo: I think at this point the amount of himbos outweigh the amount of bimbos, because even subconsciously sexist writers tend to know how blatantly degrading a bimbo character is. 7. The Chosen One: Evil Dead 2/Army of Darkness is just magical. 8. Tough Guy: Any Jackie Chan movie, an adult man weirdo who can beat the shit out of everybody with unpredictable environmental attacks, but also gets his ass kicked in every fight? Yes, please. 9. Miscommunication: In The Owl House, the miscommunication itself is funny, the villain tries to use it to his advantage, and it's resolved at the first moment it could be. 10. The Nice Guy: The movie Colossal does this in such an incredible, infuriating way.
About good girl\bad boy: There are times when the "bad boy" is surely not some punk with tragic story. But yeah, most of them aren't sociopath\psycopaths.
I laughed when Good Girl/Bad Boy was the first one because the web series I have up will have that dynamic gender swaped. So pretty much it's a punkish female werewolf and a socially awkward good boy who works with a group that actually hunts werewolves and other mythological creatures. Neither of them knows the other's second life.
On the topic of the "nice guy" trope a book I read when I was younger did it well. Threshpelt from Warrior Cats had a crush, and when she didn't like him back he was disappointed but respected her choice. Then later the girl he liked was expecting children/kits and since there father wasn't around he helped care for them with asking nothing in return. He didn't even pressure her into telling him who the father was when she wasn't comfortable with it. He deserved better :(
@@goodmanticore tbf I've only ever known about warrior cats by the numerous amv/map videos here in RUclips that I've never watched once, so for some reason I never thought about it having a source material and just assumed that singlehandedly manifested on RUclips via abiogenesis and slowly grew overtime
In my book I have two "choosen ones" who are brother and sister, the thing is that the guy inherited the power from their mother, BUT the power was meant to be passed down from mother to daughter only. So we end up with a regular'ish guy that is stronger than he should and his sister who is really strong, but not quite enough, and neither of them will ever be able to stand up to the main baddie as their great ancestor did, so they have to figure it out... Of course they have a group of allies and, with the power of friendship, they will eventualy win... lol jk
3- "I thought he'd never shut up. Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to kill him?" 4- The villain could go into the monologue that they had been preparing since their scheme was conceived, only to be disappointed when they sees that the hero fell asleep less than a minute into the big speech and missed the whole thing. Alternative take: the character who wakes up after the monologue (could be the hero or one of their friends) asks what the villain said, and one of their companions says they didn't miss much.
I love that episode of Phineas and Ferb where Doofenshmirtz decides to reveal his evil plan before he traps Perry and Perry ends up trapping him instead
About the nice guy villain talk, this is why I consider Megamind an underrated gem. There's literally a nice guy who becomes a super villain and he even uses his powers to spy of the girl and more.
This isn't a book, but my favorite example of the bad girl/good boy subversion is the main side couple from the Chinese tv show Word of Honor. This couple and trope has such great development in the show.
Red vs Blue subverted the monologue trope with Felix more than once. The first instance Locus tried to stop him from monologuing so they could kill the reds and blues and be done with it, but he insisted on doing it anyway because he had pent up frustration he needed to vent. The second instance, he began to monologue, but stopped himself when he realised they were getting in position to ambush him. Heh, I loved the Chorus trilogy.
Hell yes! I love "bad girl" teamed with "good guy". It's often the sort of juncture where these two, who are on the outskirts of society for different reasons, can find common ground and appreciate each other's strengths. I've written it more one pairing like this myself.
My favorite relates to 3&4 was when Adrian (ozymandias) from Watchmen lays out the plan and surprises everyone when he said he enacted it before they even showed up.
One of my favorites versions of the bad guy monologue, is actually from Watchmen. Ozymandias does his whole monologue and the group is like we can stop it, but the only reason he monologue in the first place was cuz his plan was already in done and there was no way for them to stop it.
“What’s the vibranium for?” - Tony Stark “I’m glad you asked that because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan” *immediately attacks* - Ultron
Ted Lasso is also really great at subverting tropes (the perceived ice queen has a heart of gold, the happy-go-lucky guy is dealing with a lot of trauma, the douchebag gets humbled and has to work really hard to get people to forgive him, etc)
For the miscommunication, I'd take it a step further and after resolving it quickly it becomes an inside joke between the characters and they start occasionally teasing each other about it.
She's talking about the jerk type "Nice guy": the one that complains because women, or sometimes more specifically his crush doesn't like him. The guy that acts nice not because he is genuinely nice, but because he thinks if he acts the part then he'll get laid, and when a woman/his crush rejects him, he sulks, complains, or even outright attacks the woman for "rejecting a nice guy like him". It doesn't matter the reason, if she's taken, a lesbian, disinterested in dating, or plain finds him and his behavior repulsive, he'll blame her, and turn downright nasty and abusive.
She’s not talking about actual nice guys who treat people good. She’s talking about the incelish nice guys who feel entitled to women for sex and then try to objectify them. Big difference.
"Do it? Dan, I'm not a republic serial villain. Do you seriously think that I would explain my master stroke if there was the slightest chance of you effecting the outcome? I did it 35 minutes ago."
I think this is a big reason why so many people love anime so much. While anime is just as guilty of overusing and butchering several of these, anime also subverts several of these in awesome ways
About the virgin: I've always imagined Tom Riddle/Voldemort to be a lifelong virgin, although it's not specified--which is a reason I find "that play" problematic. Hagrid is probably a virgin, too. Maybe Trelawney as well.
"That play" is a trite what-if scenario. Not a chance a man like him would waste his time and energy on sex. He'd be smart enough to manipulate women into following him, but actually offering such a thing? No, he'd think he beneath him.
@@GuineaPig361 I remember in one of the movies she said Hermione had the soul of an old maid or something, so she doesn't think highly of celibate people.
god, the like opposite of the nice guy trope happens _constantly_ in kdrama and anime/manga and i hate it with a fiery burning passion. the love interest is always an asshole and borderline abusive and often has little to no concept of consent/boundaries, but all that gets swept under the rug because he's hot and sometimes he treats her nicely. - _ - meanwhile the second male lead isn't a "nice guy" (derogatory), he's a genuinely _nice_ guy who loves the mc and makes a lot of sacrifices for her and never acts entitled and isn't an ass. but she never ends up with that guy, always the asshole. there's even a term for it in fandom: second male lead syndrome (because we all fall for the second male lead but the stupid mc never ends up with him). it drives me insane. so i decided in my story i'm fixing that trope that i hate and while my mc may like the asshole at first she will come to see that he's no good in the long term and end up with the guy who actually treats her well.
In my third story (soon long enough to be called a real book), I have two MC's. One is a feral fighter woman furry, the muscle of the group, and the other is a little half-elf dude map-maker who's pretty harmless, no matter how you turn it. XD They're not really a pair, but best friends. Still, it's the other way 'round from most versions. I like them.
I've used the "fuck your parting words" subversion in one of my recent manuscripts. Fenrir (the villain). Is about to say his final ominous words when Leo (the MC) cuases a tree to barrel into him from above using his powers
As a dude who gets to hear the nice guy mentality uncensored (since nice guys don't have a reason to be nice to dudes), more of them are closer to the protagonist of the TV show You than the ones that defined the trope.
The Nice Guy trope sounds like a good villains henchman. Someone immersed in their own entitlement to the point where they side with someone openly malicious in order to get what they want? Terrifyingly realistic.
One of my favorite examples of these trope subversions: 4. In the graphic novel "The Watchmen" the central plot is a superhero murder mystery. As it approached resolution, the main protagonists travel to the antagonist's remote lair to confront him. After they get a beating to show they can't take him down, the antagonist spends several pages laying out his grand scheme to trick the world into peace and cooperation, with the killings the protagonists were investigating being side effects of keeping the plan secret. They tell him the plan is insane and ask when he was going to try to do it. He responds, "Going to do it? Daniel, I'm not some Republic serial villain. Did you think I would explain my masterstroke if you had any chance of stopping it? I did it 35 minutes ago."
I did the miscommunication subversion in my Greenwood Trilogy, and I actually got some compliments about how readers enjoyed that the characters resolved their conflict and misunderstanding so quickly. I reallllllly want to do more of this, especially in romance, because I am so tired of how immature people are in book relationships. It's so much more valuable to see the couple you're rooting for actually have healthy, good communication.
one way i thought of subverting the chosen one trope was to have your chosen one but not to have them as the main character. make it a best friend or maybe their enemy. its easy to "subvert" tropes by looking at the story from someone else's perspective entirely, its also just a fun way to explore typical stories in new ways
I agree with the Chosen One rant. If I do it, I put them on the threshold of adulthood (typically close to 18 or older) and have some experience with fighting, and aren't dumb. Also, I hate the "nice guy" trope. If someone's nice, their actions do the talking, not words.
Any time I see the 18 or almost 18 year-old I think to myself "Wow, so nice the prophecy waited until the age of consent! Don't mean to be rude, sorry I offended, but the CO trope is exhausted, and being "a legal adult" while still physically being a child doesn't help that much. At least they're probably not pubescent.
@@VenomQuill Yeah, that's what gets me. I would like any Chosen One (and I rarely invoke it--there are so many better tropes to follow for a main character) to be competent and mature (looking at you, Harry Potter!) That, and I like to add "gray area" to interpretation.
A great subversion I recently saw was in the show Arcane. The main character is questioning a goon about her sister. Instead of going the usual path and lying about her sister being truly dead or something, the goon just says that her sister is back. The goon of course lies about the reason, and the conflict occurs. But it was refreshing to see, I was totally subverted.
#5 As an asexual, yes, I definitely relate to the s*x obsessed society part. Though those virgins which apply to this trope are very naive and actually allosexuals. (Asexuals just don't get any representation in general.) But I find it problematic that those virgin characters are basically forced into doing a 180 by the end because apparently it's not okay to not have s*x. That's annoying... I guess as a creator I'll be just making my own ace characters myself, lmao))) 8:48 Omg, yes! This sounds great. #8 I find this very interesting when it's not just a blank trope, but also a well written and deep character. Come to think of it, this applies to any character.
@@toxicsugarart2103 it’s more the idea that this unburdened, wild girl teaches the boy how to really live in the moment and not worry, whether it’s silly dancing in the rain or joyriding on her motorcycle. The mpdg trope isn’t about the girl at the end of the day, it’s about how she affects the guy which is why she usually floats into his life, turns it upside down and floats out rather than committing to a relationship or even friendship. That’s when the good boy can become a “nice guy” where he just loves her so much and she clearly wanted him to fall in love with her so “why won’t she settle down and date me even though her entire personality is don’t take anything seriously?”
A psycho/evil chosen one who saves the world in their own twisted way would make a hella interesting character. Maybe that's why I love Light Yagami from Death Note.
I think that sympathy, surprise and comedy is the best thing to touch your audience's heart ♥️ It works on TV or movie audiences but I don't know if it works for readers that's why I am here to learn from Jenna 💗
I wonder if anyone tried to subvert the evil plan monologue trope with someone else finding secret documents about the plan and leaking them to people working against the villain.
A great use of the villain monologue was one the villain had already trapped the protagonists in a burning building and ends up monologuing to delay their escape attempts until it was too late (which one of the protagonists then uses against him in order to delay him from getting to safety and thus getting him stuck there as well)
The Marshmallow is a trope subversion I intend to use in one of my own stories. One of the characters in a sci-fi story I'm working on, Tykoh, is a 9-foot tall, 680-pound alien that looks like an alligator man, but he's incredibly inept at fighting, and he's actually the nerd of the group. He mostly resolves problems by thinking around them, not bashing his head into them until something breaks. Instead, the "big guy" of the group is Quti, a hyperactive insectoid alien girl who likes explosives a bit too much.
That's cool. :D Send me a message when you finished that and publish it. I have a proto-story in which there is a team of people and the largest and buffest of them, a half-orc, is a poet and painter. The first thing he does when coming to the big city is getting beaten up and thrown into the river, from which the rest of the crew rescue him.
that's the best! though so rare DDXX. so i also accept "they all become close friends" and "actually both spokes are bad, the hinge is better off on their own"!
My bit of subversion is off the bad boy/good girl trope, but it's bad girl/good girl and avoiding things that make the bad girl just seem like a bad boy with a palette swap.
Covering the villain's evil monologue just makes me think of the Watchmen film (Yup, this is my evil plan.Oh, you wanted to stop it? I did it before you got here) and the Incredibles (You sly dog! You got me monologuing!). Just the sweetest supervillain trope subversions I ever did see on screen...
So I found your videos Jenna and I am loving them! It’s helping me improve my writing and I like hearing about your other followers’ stories! Keep up the good work.
I love the idea of an octogenarian chosen one. "FFS I was looking forward to a peaceful death surrounded by my grandkids and now I have to save the world?!"
There's an ad I keep seeing on facebook about subverting that teen chosen one trope. The book is about an old lady who finds out she is destined to save the world. It sounds so funny but I don't trust facebook ads Also, ya, Raising Dion was amazing n I'm tapping my foot like Sonic while waiting for another season
#1 (The Good Girl and the Bad Boy): I kind of have a Good Girl and a Bad Girl pairing in my Sci-Fi series. I'm going to need to look up what's needed for a character to be a Good Girl or a Bad Girl to make sure I'm using the terms properly before I go ahead with labeling the relationship as this. #2 (Femme Fetal): I currently don't have any characters that use sex as a weapon. #3 (The Villain's Final Words): I don't really plan on letting any villains get in any last words. If they're in a position to say anything to the hero at the end of the climax, they'll usually be dead or too busy dodging bullets to say anything #4 (Villainous Monologue): The only way I'll let a villain survive until the end of their monologue is if the heroes need information and have the time to indulge the villain. #5 (The Naive Virgin): Fumiko, my main character, is a virgin, but she's not naive. She's picked up a lot of information that a *naive* virgin wouldn't know from a combination of thorough research and eavesdropping on people who tend to forget that the quiet person in the corner is there while talking. She's also a very capable combat engineer. #6 (The Bimbo): I don't have a character that I specifically created to be a bimbo or a himbo. Since I'm trying to gender flip as much as I can, I'd be more likely to intentionally create a himbo than a bimbo. Either way, the more prominent the character is the more likely I'd be to subvert the himbo/bimbo stereotype by making the person secretly hyper competent at something and just pretends to be a himbo/bimbo either to get people to underestimate them or because they enjoy acting that way. #7 (The Chosen One): The closest I have to a Chosen One is that Fumiko is secretly a princess and, as of the start of the series, third-in-line for the throne. She ends up become the heir apparent shortly after discovering that she's a princess, when the previous heir apparent is discovered to be one of the main villains and the person between them in the line of succession is also a villain, and could end up empress if anything happens to her great-grandmother. On the other hand, she has four great-aunts and several dozen cousins who could fulfill the role if she died before the Empress or chose to step down for some reason. Also, also the heroics she performs are things that could be done by any reasonably competent marine infantry or combat engineer personnel. When it comes to heroics, she's just a functional adult who just happens to be in the right place at the right time to help fix the problem as part of a team effort. #8 (The Tough Guy): Fumiko is a 9'10" mountain of muscle from an offshoot of humanity that had been artificially created to be super soldiers, with super strength, super durable scales, and sharp claws. She definitely looks like the tough guy and she can act like the tough guy when on duty, but, when her real personality is given a chance to shine through, she's actually a sensitive nerd who deeply cares about her friends and younger sister. #9 (The Miscommunication): Most of the characters are functional adults who are capable of fixing any serious miscommunications by talking it out at the earliest opportunity. If I ever write a plot where miscommunication is integral to the plot, I'd need to structure it so that the characters involved in the miscommunication won't be able to have the conversation that fixes it until the plot's reached the point where removing the miscommunication won't damage plot progression. #10 (Fake Nice Guy): Both Fumiko and Thargilit are genuinely nice people who don't feel entitled to each other. Any Incels I create are going to be evil. Probably a lower level of evil than the main villains in terms of magnitude, but capable of being a much more personal brand of evil.
You know what? I’ll give this a go #1 (the good girl and the bad boy) - The main character does have some traits of a bad boy. He’s quiet, he comes from a troubled background and he commits crime out of necessity. But he’s also quite short and scrawny and he doesn’t use his troubled past as an excuse to hurt people. The love interest comes from a more privileged background but she doesn’t really exhibit any good girl traits. #2 (femme fatale) - I also don’t have anything that really fits this trope. The characters are teens so it’s not appropriate. #3 (the villain’s final words) - The main villain gets knocked unconscious so she doesn’t have a chance for this #4 (villainous monologue) - The villains of the book don’t have any complex plans. They’re usually very impulsive in their decisions so there’s no need for this. #5 (naïve virgin) - The main character is a virgin. He has very little experience with girls at the start of the book due to his poor self-confidence (brought on by years of being bullied by his friends and family). But he’s not naïve - he comes from a rough part of the city and has seen some shit in his time. And by the end of the book he makes it to third base. #6 (the bimbo) - The closest character I have to a ‘himbo’ is a minor character who is tall, dark and handsome and but his relationships are short-lived because he has a total of 2 conversation topics. He’s more boring than naïve and unintelligent. #7 (the chosen one) - My book doesn’t have any prophecies because it’s a slice-of-life story that takes place in the modern world where nothing is set in stone. #8 (the tough guy) - one of the main character’s friends is a tall, athletic asshole who constantly picks on him, but his behaviour isn’t portrayed as in the right. The main character stands up to him halfway through the book and he ends up being a twist hero of sorts. #9 (the miscommunication) - shortly after he stands up to his friends, the main character gets blackout drunk, during which he which he gets into a fight with one of his love interest’s friends and confesses that his mother emotionally abuses him. While he’s in a hungover state, he decides to throw out his SIM card, drop out of school and apply for jobs in the city because he let out emotions he’d kept bottled up for years and now he’s running away from them. He, of course, doesn’t receive any of his friends’ texts trying to get hold of him. It’s a far more complex situation than his love interest simply overhearing something and leaving before the important part. #10 (the nice guy) - One of the boys in the love interest’s friend group. At first he seems like a nice, quiet guy but then the main character’s best friend starts dating another girl in the group, and the ‘nice guy’ starts to grow jealous. One subversion of the trope is that the ‘nice guy’ and the girl actually dated in the past rather than him simply being a guy stuck in the friendzone. The girl is quite flaky and starts off giving the main character’s best friend a fake phone number, then she gets back together with the ‘nice guy’ while they’re both drunk (during this time the guy also gets into a fight with the main character and makes racist comments towards his love interest), then she calls up the MC’s best friend after the ‘nice guy’ slapped her for giving him a present that he didn’t want. The rest of the friend group finds out about the ‘nice guy’s behaviour and they all turn on him. Bonus (the unexpected kiss) - Early on in the story, the love interest mentions that she loves the scenes in romantic comedies where the main characters spontaneously decide to kiss each other at the same time. This ends up happening later in the book and the main character says, ‘Is that the rom-com kiss you always wanted?’, and she laughs and says ‘Are you kidding? You missed every sign’.
Im a new manga artist (not publishing anything yet) and your really helpful because I want my art to be meaningful and your videos are really helpful to add depth to my characters 🧍
I seen the Final Last Words Tropes was subverted in an episode of Criminal Minds. They catch the bad guy and the criminal says don't you want to know why I did it and Hotch says it doesn't matter and walks away. Loved it.
Here’s a story for you: A nerdy good boy falls in love with a goth bad girl. They use “my chosen one” as a term of endearment. Their mutual friend looks like a scary tough guy but is actually a sensitive virgin (who falls in love with a himbo). They sometimes misunderstand each-other but then talk it out. The good boys’ abusive dad is the villain. And during his ominous monologue the bad girl punches him unconscious.
Another interesting way to subvert the chosen one trope is to have the chosen one not be the main character, but instead having the main character be someone else, usually someone who accompanied or protects the chosen one. The Witcher did this very well.
i especially love when the miscommunication trope leads to humor instead of angst. both character A and B think they’re talking about the same thing until they slowly become confused with each other and they’re like “what are you talking about?” “no, what are YOU talking about??” it’s all laughs and no one gets hurt.
Hero: "I won't kill you (villain)! Death would be too good for you!" Me: Oh come the fuck on, dude. You killed like a hundred of his henchman on the way over here. Hero: "Because on my way over here, I took the liberty of murdering your parents." Me: W A I T W H A T
"You sly dog, you got me monologuing!" was one of the greatest subversions ever to fit in a single line
sucks they killed him in the end. he should've come back for the 2nd movie
And the origin of the term "monologuing" as a verb!
I see your Syndrome and raise you Ozymandias’ “Do it? And have you stop me? I DID it 35 minutes ago.”
Where is that from?
@@tsuyayaka1 the incredibles
“People are scared the bad girl isn’t going to be likeable and the good boy isn't going to be sexy.”
I instantly thought of Disney’s Meg and Hercules.
They repeated that successfully in Descendants with Mal and Evie, Ben and Doug.
That seems odd to me, I would think a lot of men would find the bad girl sexy. I know a guy personally that wanted to date the bad girl.
Hercules? Honey you mean HUNKules.
I actually like it and hate it at the same time.
Tbh I thought she(Hercules’s love interest) was gorgeous.
The "virgin = dumb" is so odd and funny because the Ancient Greek goddess of WAR and WISDOM is a virgin. The fierce, independent goddess of the hunt and moonlight, Artemis, is a virgin.
Both women have punished men for gazing upon their nudity without their consent (as they should).
In fact, it's believed that Artemis' virginity is a product of her divine duties.
She's too busy hunting to find a man.
And she couldn't care less.
(Edit)
Oops, how could I forget Hestia! The only reason why Greek mythology hasn't collapsed on itself. She is the eldest Olympian and is considered the kindest, warmest god there is.
It is an established truth that the Gods will show NO mercy to those who harm the Goddess of the Hearth.
Thank you, Charity!
(Edit 2)
Remember, "virginity" in Ancient Greece meant that the woman was unmarried; it was expected of her to remain such. Because, and apologizes in advance, women were viewed as property to the male relatives. Whether that was her father, her brother (younger or older), her grandfather, etc,...
Since Lady Hestia, Artemis, and Athena declined the hand of marriage, They would be eternal virgins.
I love this comment
And don't forget about Hestia! She's the glue that holds the super dysfunctional divine family together!
Well, it was a different time back then. They were adored for keeping their dignity. Today, people see it more as "oh, you didn't have sex? Something is wrong with you!" But really, people shoudn't be valuated by their sex exprience. Though yeah, they can be maybe a bit native and clueless when it comes to sex
elationship, I don't think it is weird, as they didnt' experienced it.
@@sharonefee1426 Athena is a virgin because her duties as a war and city goddess occupy most of her time; not to mention she is surrounded by men constantly.
Artemis is a virgin because she represents the unchained energy of the wildness; she is the rocky, jagged mountain and the ancient, towering trees.
A direct counterpart to her twin brother, Apollo, who embodies the benefits of civilization.
@@KezanzatheGreat Vesta is more militaristic and strict than Hestia.
The Greeks thought their Goddess as a gentle, selfless, and warm aunt who is diligent in her divine duties.
A testament to how much her family loves her is when Papius (pardon my spelling) tried to assault her in her sleep after she and the Gods threw an absolute baller of a party (they overthrew the Titians).
Now, this is where the myth becomes cloudy; there are two versions:
1) a donkey hayed, waking Hestia up, and she screamed. All of the deities (including Hades and Aphrodite) rushed to the goddess' aid.
2) Hestia just woke up and screamed, causing her family to rush towards her.
Either way, it is an established fact that the Olympians will defend Hestia without hesitation or mercy.
Re the naive virgin trope: back when Britney was big, people were like “I don’t believe she’s a virgin, no virgin could dance like that.” Are you out of your minds? Have you met any teenage girls? Any humans?
I would hope people _that think like this_ haven't met any teenage girls 🤮
Yeah I mean I can't really see the correlation between being able to dance a certain way and doing the nasty anyway. Even if it's sexual that doesn't exactly guarantee anything. I do things considered sexual, but I'm 100% aro ace and a virgin.
Oh you silly sausage, didn't you know that only the introduction of a p in your v can unlock a woman's full hip movement capabilities?!
Did someone say this...?
Conversely, I knew quite a few women who were extremely shy/prudish in public and absolutely sinful in private. I have no experience with men, but from what my gay friends told me the same often applies to men: best sex they had was with shy guys, apparently.
I like the evil villain monologue AFTER the villain has done everything they need to do and the monologue only serves to distract the hero from any last ditch efforts to undo its effects.
I absolutely love that!
Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago.
Watchmen
president snow in the midpoint of mockingjay exactly
Honestly Megamind also did a good job of subverting the nice guy trope, for a kids movie the plot and trope subversions were actually really clever
Even though your primary audience is novelists, as a comic artist I still find this all extremely helpful (and entertaining). Thank you for aiding all of us on our journeys, no matter how different they are!
I feel you, I'm creating my own manga and this videos are juts the best.
@@eyesfromtheabyss9410 hey, same! Wasn't expecting to see a fellow aspiring Mangaka watching Jenna. Keep up the good work! I'll be your rival in the next internation contest, good luck!
Comic artist here too! Love seeing fellow graphic writers :)
Same here! Been watching/saving lots of Jenna’s videos to help in making comics.
You're a storyteller! :)
I loved how Watchmen's villain Ozymandias subverted the villain monologue. After being called out for monologuing his evil plain, he responds;; "Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago."
she was taking about that and my mind went straight to “did you think I’m that dumb to be talking about my plan with you for all of this time?! I initiated it 30 minutes ago.”
I think that's trope aversion, not subversion
I feel like the major difference between bimbos and himbos are that himbos are usually sweet and endearing characters, whereas bimbos exist purely for fanservice. A good way to subvert the bimbo trope is honestly to just have one that's not sexualized/born-sexy-yesterday and actually be an endearing character like himbos usually are.
So Lindsay from total drama
@@Rikken552 I don't watch Total Drama, but maybe
Legally blonde is the example of this. She’s not stupid by any means but she’s naive and somewhat airheaded in the beginning but she’s compassionate and hard working
Scorpia from She-Ra
Exactly, himbos and bimbos still need personality, when they're just there for eye candy it gets off putting.
I love how #1 is titled "Wattpad ruined it," because my 18 year old sister obsessively reads bad-boy stories there. And guess what kind of guy she married....😑
☹️ my condolences
Let us all hope it will end good...
Omg
Let’s hope she’ll make it out of there, and find someone better than that jerk
Did he get better at least..?
My play on the "Chosen One" Trope is to have multiple people believe they are the Chosen One and then Chaos ensues. In my new adult fantasy, the MC (Who is the actual Chosen One) starts off as 17, though he'll be older by the end of the book. His Uncle, who is the main antagonist, also thinks that he ('he' being the Uncle) is the Chosen One. To top it off, the MC thinks his Uncle was the Chosen One but that he failed, so when his Uncle comes back, the MC is very freaked out to say the least.
The Lego Movie does have a technically adult Chosen One, though Emmet is a minifig and the lego avatar of a kid so in personality he’s more childlike. Voiced by Chris Pratt, so manchild is mandatory.
@@jbcatz5 Very true.
Currently I’m writing a Short Play where the Main Character is “The Chosen One” but in reality, the Characters that “Found the Chosen One” are just abducting Random Kids, banking on the fact that ONE of them has to be the Chosen on Eventually.
The one that I like the most is the Dark Souls one.
"You're the chosen one! But not really, we tell this to everyone since one of you is bound to get things done eventually."
And by the end the message is that there's no need for a chosen one, almost anyone can get things done if they keep standing up every time they fall.
I started working on a story a while back where the Chosen One gets killed off halfway through. The explanation is that the ancient prophet altered the future by observing it, so instead of the Chosen One saving the day, a completely different person has to step up and save the day.
A similar idea I had recently involved time-travelers repeatedly changing the course of future events, so that every time one Chosen One is killed or moved out of the way, someone else becomes takes his place.
In The Order of the Stick (online comic) the evil guy does his evil monologue in front of a mirror before the fight, to keep him from spilling the beans to the heroes later. I found this hilarious. XD
that's such a clever way of delivering the info! and relatable..
He needed some audience XD
Haven't read OotS in ages, but they are very good at subverting tropes.
@@mirjanbouma Same. :) But I do love that series. :)
Can we have an evil villain post their monologue on RUclips but get the scheduling wrong so it goes out an hour earlier than it was supposed to... giving the protagonist time to foil his evil plan? (I'd read that!)
The best examples of the Himbo and the 'Niceguy' done right are both from animated movies: The Emperor's New Groove, and Megamind, respectively. Like, Kronk totally carried a good portion of that movie. And when I watched Megamind for the first time, I really did not see the twists coming, but they made so much sense - like of course if you give a guy like *that* that kind of power, they'll abuse it horribly. So yeah, those trope subversions made both of those movies so much better, 10/10.
I love Kronk!
Megamind is an underrated masterpiece. Period.
To me the Nice guy can work if you strip the incel-ish elements("i rescued her cat, i own her pussy") and pull off something else, the nice guy could be a charismatic do gooder who gets taken for granted by everyone, by his family, by his friends, by his love interest(also make sure said love interest is already his/her love/sex partner for years to avoid the typical incel mentality that often pops up.
@@caiolucas8257 But that isn't the "Nice Guy" trope - which is specifically sarcastic (it's often portrayed in quotation marks to show that). There is a version of the genuine Nice Guy trope, which you're referring to (and which I do really like, a la Captain America or Superman - they certainly have their place in media), but again, it's not what we're talking about here.
--If you look it up on TvTropes you'll find the genuine version under the Nice Guy category, but they have notes at the end directing to the "Nice Guy" tropes.
I think a good subversion of the nice guy is also Quasimodo in Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. He is a nice guy. Like an actual nice guy. So much so that he is completely content to not get what he wants at the end because he has respect for people.
A very realistic aversion is the "chosen one" through lineage. If the legendary hero from 1200 years ago you are a descendant of wasn't celibate you can easily be one of 300 million rightful heirs, lol.
I can't remember which book it was but I was reading one where some evil group was hunting down all the descendants of some king who lived 3000 years ago or whatever and my thought was, "So they'll be committing suicide after wiping out the entire continent?" But of course in the book all the living descendants amounted to like 5 people............ who must have been so inbred that they were drooling idiots.
I for one welcome himbos in fiction- Kronk from “The Emperor’s New Groove” is my favorite example.
That's the first one that came to my mind too! I loved that character..
Oh, Kronk... 😂
Oh yeah… it’s all coming together
If you've seen the show "Inside Job," Brett Hand is a new example of a himbo.
Being a marshmallow is a technique passed down the armstrong family for generations!
LOVE this reference lol
@@denisel1553 thanks
Your chosen one subverting trope is exactly what I was expecting from Harry Potter. I read until the end, hoping for the big twist in which Neville was really the chosen one all along, and Harry was just the poor boy who everyone thought was the chosen one. But, it didn't happen.
Yeah. I just don't understand why such a dull character was chosen as the MC.
Uhm... But "The chosen one" trope in HP indicates that it was Voldemort's decision. Harry was "The Chosen One" because Voldemort made him like that. It was a coincidence he didn't choose Neville
@@tosterka I was going to say that. The subversion in Harry Potter was that he's literally a chosen one - as in Voldemort chose him. If he'd have chosen Neville, he would have been the one with the scar etc.
"the tough guy who's secretly a marshmallow"
"himbo"
put em together and what av ya got?
one of my novel characters
There's a couple of these I like to see go even further. When the villain is defeated, watching them break down and cry, apologise and beg to be forgiven, putting the hero in an awkward position. Also, himbos are great, but even better is the double subversion of herbos. Give us big, buff women who make everyone weak in the knees and the only thought in their heads is to be kind and fight bullies.
A love triangle, but the two pining parties leave the douche and fall in love
Yes, please!
hey wait, it's you again, the ravenclaw king George, where have we spoken before oh my god this is going to annoy me
@UCQAQ0T-s2rJSnAWmqMqYh6w Hamilton ofc, uh, dsmp, hermitcraft, last life, used to be in warrior cats, white collar, Sherlock, Jenna, jaiden animations, greenhouse academy, lost in space, sweet tooth, Jurassic park, dear Evan Hansen, other musicals....uh idk
The thing I find funny about the "Nice Guy" trope is, that when an actual nice guy has been written, he's not considered to be part of the trope at all. Because a nice guy is just that, someone who is... nice. Often he's the kind teacher or school janitor, the old neighbor down the street, the unintentional mentor, the non-love interest best friend (which sadly those are usually forced into the "Gay Best Friend" trope), the doctor who reveals just before the climax that their patient has been lied to by their parents all their lives, etc. Picture Levar Burton as the version of himself from "Reading Rainbow", Robin Williams in "Good Will Hunting", Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation", or Mr. Rogers. None of them would ever be given the "Nice Guy" trope yet are in fact a nice guy in their stories. Of course, Levar Burton as Geordi La Forge was the definition of the "Nice Guy" trope in any/all of his romantic storylines, but completely different character, lol.
My favourite example of the "Evil plan speech." being subverted is honestly from Watchmen. Like, Ozymandias is explaining his master plan and Nightowl and Rorschach are all "We won't let you do this." and he just turns around like. "Bruh, you think I'd be standing monaloguing if there was a change you could stop me ? I did it half an hour ago."
One of my favourite examples of the 'nice guy' trope subversion is in the animated movie Megamind. Hal Stewart, the cameraman has unrequited feelings for the reporter Roxanne Ritchie. Turned out he was a dick all along... an incel, in fact, before the term was even coined. When getting Metro Man's superpowers and becoming Tighten didn't get him the girl like he expected it would, he turned into the true villain of the movie.
I love that movie.
"Fuck your tropes - I do what I want!"
Yes!
This right here is the one sentence explanation for why I subscribe to your channel, Jenna. You're awesome.
Genderbended tropes is one of my favorite things to both write and read! Male damsels and good bois for the win!
Not to mention eye opening when looking at gender roles in society and the perception of such, exploring things like double standards.
I think the damsel trope is hard to pull off if there's no strong character to counter it, if you have a woman as a damnsel it helps to have a woman who's a counterpoint to that, if you have a male damsel make sure there's a counterpoint to that.
Also worth mentioning DC movies have managed to break the mold on these characters, both Lois and Steve are both damsels given they're humans and can't deal the supernatural stuff, but both also get their own action moments and a lot of agency to break the stereotype.
@@caiolucas8257 Caio, what the fuck are you talking about?
Indeed, they be fun
i love the goodest good boys that are also badass and fiery in their own storyline, like the bad butt soldier who is a sappy for his partner, his children and his pet
Here's my personal favorite subversions of these tropes.
1. Good Girl/Bad Boy: Heathers has this dynamic, but you later realize that the "bad boy" is actually just a sociopath.
2. Femme Fatale: The Operator in The Night Comes For Us has all the tell-tale signs of a femme fatale, but she doesn't use sex at all, she's just a ruthless, brutal assassin who will just murder you.
3. Villain's Final Words: Venom 2 "Fuck this guy."
4. Villain Monologue: Street Fighter "For you, the day Bison graced your village, was the most important day of your life. But for me? It was Tuesday."
5. Naïve Virgin: The "virgin" in Cabin in the Woods isn't even a virgin, "we work with what we have."
6. Bimbo: I think at this point the amount of himbos outweigh the amount of bimbos, because even subconsciously sexist writers tend to know how blatantly degrading a bimbo character is.
7. The Chosen One: Evil Dead 2/Army of Darkness is just magical.
8. Tough Guy: Any Jackie Chan movie, an adult man weirdo who can beat the shit out of everybody with unpredictable environmental attacks, but also gets his ass kicked in every fight? Yes, please.
9. Miscommunication: In The Owl House, the miscommunication itself is funny, the villain tries to use it to his advantage, and it's resolved at the first moment it could be.
10. The Nice Guy: The movie Colossal does this in such an incredible, infuriating way.
For number 9, Which villain/episode was that, I can't recall it atm
Villain Monologue, also: Every one of Doofenschmirtz' plans (bonus points if it comes with a tragic backstory)
@@jazz-cat00: Eclipse Lake, Hunter.
About good girl\bad boy: There are times when the "bad boy" is surely not some punk with tragic story. But yeah, most of them aren't sociopath\psycopaths.
I laughed when Good Girl/Bad Boy was the first one because the web series I have up will have that dynamic gender swaped. So pretty much it's a punkish female werewolf and a socially awkward good boy who works with a group that actually hunts werewolves and other mythological creatures. Neither of them knows the other's second life.
Megamind turns the nice-guy villain trope on its head. Also, it does a great job at the misunderstood villain.
On the topic of the "nice guy" trope a book I read when I was younger did it well. Threshpelt from Warrior Cats had a crush, and when she didn't like him back he was disappointed but respected her choice. Then later the girl he liked was expecting children/kits and since there father wasn't around he helped care for them with asking nothing in return. He didn't even pressure her into telling him who the father was when she wasn't comfortable with it. He deserved better :(
Wait, warrior cats is a book???
Are you talking about Bluestar and her kittens?
@@jazz-cat00 I can't tell if you're joking or not... Warrior Cats is an 80+ book series. XD
@@goodmanticore tbf I've only ever known about warrior cats by the numerous amv/map videos here in RUclips that I've never watched once, so for some reason I never thought about it having a source material and just assumed that singlehandedly manifested on RUclips via abiogenesis and slowly grew overtime
@@jazz-cat00 That's fair. XD They do seem to pop up everywhere.
In my book I have two "choosen ones" who are brother and sister, the thing is that the guy inherited the power from their mother, BUT the power was meant to be passed down from mother to daughter only. So we end up with a regular'ish guy that is stronger than he should and his sister who is really strong, but not quite enough, and neither of them will ever be able to stand up to the main baddie as their great ancestor did, so they have to figure it out... Of course they have a group of allies and, with the power of friendship, they will eventualy win... lol jk
3- "I thought he'd never shut up. Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to kill him?"
4- The villain could go into the monologue that they had been preparing since their scheme was conceived, only to be disappointed when they sees that the hero fell asleep less than a minute into the big speech and missed the whole thing. Alternative take: the character who wakes up after the monologue (could be the hero or one of their friends) asks what the villain said, and one of their companions says they didn't miss much.
Or they just do while they kidnapp the MC or some other character who can't really do anything.
Haha, was that a fable 2 reference?
@@rebecca2494 Yep (also the only thing I know about that game, incidentally).
I love that episode of Phineas and Ferb where Doofenshmirtz decides to reveal his evil plan before he traps Perry and Perry ends up trapping him instead
About the nice guy villain talk, this is why I consider Megamind an underrated gem. There's literally a nice guy who becomes a super villain and he even uses his powers to spy of the girl and more.
“fuck your parting words” is my favorite line ever it’s *chefs kiss* like I want it tattooed on me 😌
I love it too its so amazing and so unique! :)
That basically happens in Venom 2.
This isn't a book, but my favorite example of the bad girl/good boy subversion is the main side couple from the Chinese tv show Word of Honor. This couple and trope has such great development in the show.
Red vs Blue subverted the monologue trope with Felix more than once. The first instance Locus tried to stop him from monologuing so they could kill the reds and blues and be done with it, but he insisted on doing it anyway because he had pent up frustration he needed to vent. The second instance, he began to monologue, but stopped himself when he realised they were getting in position to ambush him.
Heh, I loved the Chorus trilogy.
Chorus trilogy was so damn good
They fighted??? I guess they absorbed the tropes that they talked about.
-Not that red and blue
Ah.
Hell yes! I love "bad girl" teamed with "good guy". It's often the sort of juncture where these two, who are on the outskirts of society for different reasons, can find common ground and appreciate each other's strengths. I've written it more one pairing like this myself.
#3: The villain's final ominous words are "delete my browser history..."
Castlevania S3 but not the villain.
My favorite relates to 3&4 was when Adrian (ozymandias) from Watchmen lays out the plan and surprises everyone when he said he enacted it before they even showed up.
One of my favorites versions of the bad guy monologue, is actually from Watchmen. Ozymandias does his whole monologue and the group is like we can stop it, but the only reason he monologue in the first place was cuz his plan was already in done and there was no way for them to stop it.
“What’s the vibranium for?” - Tony Stark
“I’m glad you asked that because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan” *immediately attacks* - Ultron
Ted Lasso is also really great at subverting tropes (the perceived ice queen has a heart of gold, the happy-go-lucky guy is dealing with a lot of trauma, the douchebag gets humbled and has to work really hard to get people to forgive him, etc)
For the miscommunication, I'd take it a step further and after resolving it quickly it becomes an inside joke between the characters and they start occasionally teasing each other about it.
As a middle grade writer, I find your advice very helpful. I very much have always enjoyed changing the Common tropes, too!
Side character being a hero but not the chosen one? I think you just explained Aragon and Frodo from lord of the rings.
Or Tidus and Yuna from Final Fantasy X.
Nice boy isn’t sexy? Isn’t the boy next door trope a thing, the wholesome upstanding guy?
She's talking about the jerk type "Nice guy": the one that complains because women, or sometimes more specifically his crush doesn't like him. The guy that acts nice not because he is genuinely nice, but because he thinks if he acts the part then he'll get laid, and when a woman/his crush rejects him, he sulks, complains, or even outright attacks the woman for "rejecting a nice guy like him". It doesn't matter the reason, if she's taken, a lesbian, disinterested in dating, or plain finds him and his behavior repulsive, he'll blame her, and turn downright nasty and abusive.
Silverstar16 Early on in the entry about subverting bad boy and good girl
@@jbcatz5 Ok, nevermind, ignore that last comment haha
She’s not talking about actual nice guys who treat people good. She’s talking about the incelish nice guys who feel entitled to women for sex and then try to objectify them. Big difference.
"Do it? Dan, I'm not a republic serial villain. Do you seriously think that I would explain my master stroke if there was the slightest chance of you effecting the outcome? I did it 35 minutes ago."
I think this is a big reason why so many people love anime so much. While anime is just as guilty of overusing and butchering several of these, anime also subverts several of these in awesome ways
BOOM.
Well, it's one of many reasons, but yeah.
This is more East vs West. Anime is plagued by their own cliches and tropes. You can't really subvert a trope not common at all in your backyard.
@@Ryuksgelus mmm good point
About the virgin: I've always imagined Tom Riddle/Voldemort to be a lifelong virgin, although it's not specified--which is a reason I find "that play" problematic. Hagrid is probably a virgin, too. Maybe Trelawney as well.
"That play" is a trite what-if scenario. Not a chance a man like him would waste his time and energy on sex. He'd be smart enough to manipulate women into following him, but actually offering such a thing? No, he'd think he beneath him.
Trelawney had a fiancé, so, she's probably experienced.
@@GuineaPig361
I remember in one of the movies she said Hermione had the soul of an old maid or something, so she doesn't think highly of celibate people.
god, the like opposite of the nice guy trope happens _constantly_ in kdrama and anime/manga and i hate it with a fiery burning passion. the love interest is always an asshole and borderline abusive and often has little to no concept of consent/boundaries, but all that gets swept under the rug because he's hot and sometimes he treats her nicely. - _ - meanwhile the second male lead isn't a "nice guy" (derogatory), he's a genuinely _nice_ guy who loves the mc and makes a lot of sacrifices for her and never acts entitled and isn't an ass. but she never ends up with that guy, always the asshole. there's even a term for it in fandom: second male lead syndrome (because we all fall for the second male lead but the stupid mc never ends up with him). it drives me insane. so i decided in my story i'm fixing that trope that i hate and while my mc may like the asshole at first she will come to see that he's no good in the long term and end up with the guy who actually treats her well.
I appreciate the mention of Brooklyn 99 because that show doesn't get nearly enough discussion about what it does well.
In my third story (soon long enough to be called a real book), I have two MC's. One is a feral fighter woman furry, the muscle of the group, and the other is a little half-elf dude map-maker who's pretty harmless, no matter how you turn it. XD They're not really a pair, but best friends. Still, it's the other way 'round from most versions. I like them.
I've used the "fuck your parting words" subversion in one of my recent manuscripts. Fenrir (the villain). Is about to say his final ominous words when Leo (the MC) cuases a tree to barrel into him from above using his powers
Awesome! That’s a killer(no pun intended) way of doing that approach
I did #3 in my Comic Series coming out next year! Gonna have to send you a copy of the Trade Paperback!
As a dude who gets to hear the nice guy mentality uncensored (since nice guys don't have a reason to be nice to dudes), more of them are closer to the protagonist of the TV show You than the ones that defined the trope.
synchronicity sent me to you, now I will add a trope subversion to my manga, gracias chica!
Meanwhile George RR Martin just subverting the trope of having a main character
#10 is done to perfection in the animated feature *Megamind.*
There is actually a commercial where they parody the villian monologue and he did show a Power Point presentation to the hero.
The Nice Guy trope sounds like a good villains henchman. Someone immersed in their own entitlement to the point where they side with someone openly malicious in order to get what they want? Terrifyingly realistic.
One of my favorite examples of these trope subversions:
4. In the graphic novel "The Watchmen" the central plot is a superhero murder mystery. As it approached resolution, the main protagonists travel to the antagonist's remote lair to confront him. After they get a beating to show they can't take him down, the antagonist spends several pages laying out his grand scheme to trick the world into peace and cooperation, with the killings the protagonists were investigating being side effects of keeping the plan secret. They tell him the plan is insane and ask when he was going to try to do it. He responds, "Going to do it? Daniel, I'm not some Republic serial villain. Did you think I would explain my masterstroke if you had any chance of stopping it? I did it 35 minutes ago."
I did the miscommunication subversion in my Greenwood Trilogy, and I actually got some compliments about how readers enjoyed that the characters resolved their conflict and misunderstanding so quickly. I reallllllly want to do more of this, especially in romance, because I am so tired of how immature people are in book relationships. It's so much more valuable to see the couple you're rooting for actually have healthy, good communication.
one way i thought of subverting the chosen one trope was to have your chosen one but not to have them as the main character. make it a best friend or maybe their enemy. its easy to "subvert" tropes by looking at the story from someone else's perspective entirely, its also just a fun way to explore typical stories in new ways
An enemy chosen one could make for such an interesting story. How do you defeat someone who has fate working in their favor?
Yes! I love trope subversions.
They make me so happy.
I agree with the Chosen One rant. If I do it, I put them on the threshold of adulthood (typically close to 18 or older) and have some experience with fighting, and aren't dumb.
Also, I hate the "nice guy" trope. If someone's nice, their actions do the talking, not words.
Any time I see the 18 or almost 18 year-old I think to myself "Wow, so nice the prophecy waited until the age of consent!
Don't mean to be rude, sorry I offended, but the CO trope is exhausted, and being "a legal adult" while still physically being a child doesn't help that much. At least they're probably not pubescent.
@@VenomQuill Yeah, that's what gets me. I would like any Chosen One (and I rarely invoke it--there are so many better tropes to follow for a main character) to be competent and mature (looking at you, Harry Potter!) That, and I like to add "gray area" to interpretation.
@@VenomQuill And I'm not offended. I don't like all aspects of it.
Someone really needs to write the the CO granny with the buff nurse/caretaker sidekick story that was memed a few years ago.
@@Nerdygoddess I seriously hope at least someone took that meme to heart and wrote it. I'd back a book like that.
A great subversion I recently saw was in the show Arcane. The main character is questioning a goon about her sister. Instead of going the usual path and lying about her sister being truly dead or something, the goon just says that her sister is back. The goon of course lies about the reason, and the conflict occurs. But it was refreshing to see, I was totally subverted.
#5 As an asexual, yes, I definitely relate to the s*x obsessed society part. Though those virgins which apply to this trope are very naive and actually allosexuals. (Asexuals just don't get any representation in general.) But I find it problematic that those virgin characters are basically forced into doing a 180 by the end because apparently it's not okay to not have s*x. That's annoying... I guess as a creator I'll be just making my own ace characters myself, lmao)))
8:48 Omg, yes! This sounds great.
#8 I find this very interesting when it's not just a blank trope, but also a well written and deep character. Come to think of it, this applies to any character.
8:48 - 8:57 You just summed up Kingdom Hearts 1.
I feel like bad girl/good boy merges with the manic pixie dream girl more often than not. And that usually turns the good boy into an incel.
Isn’t the mpdg supposed to be like a quirky ray of sunshine? Idk I haven’t consumed much media involving them but that was the impression I had lol.
@@toxicsugarart2103 it’s more the idea that this unburdened, wild girl teaches the boy how to really live in the moment and not worry, whether it’s silly dancing in the rain or joyriding on her motorcycle. The mpdg trope isn’t about the girl at the end of the day, it’s about how she affects the guy which is why she usually floats into his life, turns it upside down and floats out rather than committing to a relationship or even friendship.
That’s when the good boy can become a “nice guy” where he just loves her so much and she clearly wanted him to fall in love with her so “why won’t she settle down and date me even though her entire personality is don’t take anything seriously?”
Really? I can see the bad girl & goodboy, turn into a rebel-with-a heart-of-gold & goodie-two-shoes-boy-whipped-by-status-quo
Manic tricky nightmare boy
A psycho/evil chosen one who saves the world in their own twisted way would make a hella interesting character. Maybe that's why I love Light Yagami from Death Note.
I think that sympathy, surprise and comedy is the best thing to touch your audience's heart ♥️
It works on TV or movie audiences but I don't know if it works for readers that's why I am here to learn from Jenna 💗
THE POWERPOINT LMAO JENNA
If you’re going to deliver exposition, make it fun.
My goodness, is it four thirty? I'm supposed to be having a back, sack, and crack.
I wonder if anyone tried to subvert the evil plan monologue trope with someone else finding secret documents about the plan and leaking them to people working against the villain.
This was so validating to listen to. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Phineas and Ferb always nailed evil monologues change my mind
A great use of the villain monologue was one the villain had already trapped the protagonists in a burning building and ends up monologuing to delay their escape attempts until it was too late (which one of the protagonists then uses against him in order to delay him from getting to safety and thus getting him stuck there as well)
*whistles in making the chosen one the antagonist*
The Marshmallow is a trope subversion I intend to use in one of my own stories. One of the characters in a sci-fi story I'm working on, Tykoh, is a 9-foot tall, 680-pound alien that looks like an alligator man, but he's incredibly inept at fighting, and he's actually the nerd of the group. He mostly resolves problems by thinking around them, not bashing his head into them until something breaks. Instead, the "big guy" of the group is Quti, a hyperactive insectoid alien girl who likes explosives a bit too much.
That's cool. :D
Send me a message when you finished that and publish it.
I have a proto-story in which there is a team of people and the largest and buffest of them, a half-orc, is a poet and painter.
The first thing he does when coming to the big city is getting beaten up and thrown into the river, from which the rest of the crew rescue him.
I like when there's a love triangle and they all get together in a poly relationship lmao
that's the best! though so rare DDXX. so i also accept "they all become close friends" and "actually both spokes are bad, the hinge is better off on their own"!
Huh. That needs to be done more often.
I have actually used the miscommunication subversion quite a few times in my writings, thank you for elaborating on it and inspiring me! :)
Thank you Jenna 💗💗😚💛
My bit of subversion is off the bad boy/good girl trope, but it's bad girl/good girl and avoiding things that make the bad girl just seem like a bad boy with a palette swap.
Covering the villain's evil monologue just makes me think of the Watchmen film (Yup, this is my evil plan.Oh, you wanted to stop it? I did it before you got here) and the Incredibles (You sly dog! You got me monologuing!). Just the sweetest supervillain trope subversions I ever did see on screen...
So I found your videos Jenna and I am loving them! It’s helping me improve my writing and I like hearing about your other followers’ stories! Keep up the good work.
My favourite way of subverting a trope is to make it gay
I love the idea of an octogenarian chosen one. "FFS I was looking forward to a peaceful death surrounded by my grandkids and now I have to save the world?!"
7:40 I feel so recognized :)
There's an ad I keep seeing on facebook about subverting that teen chosen one trope. The book is about an old lady who finds out she is destined to save the world. It sounds so funny but I don't trust facebook ads
Also, ya, Raising Dion was amazing n I'm tapping my foot like Sonic while waiting for another season
#1 (The Good Girl and the Bad Boy): I kind of have a Good Girl and a Bad Girl pairing in my Sci-Fi series. I'm going to need to look up what's needed for a character to be a Good Girl or a Bad Girl to make sure I'm using the terms properly before I go ahead with labeling the relationship as this.
#2 (Femme Fetal): I currently don't have any characters that use sex as a weapon.
#3 (The Villain's Final Words): I don't really plan on letting any villains get in any last words. If they're in a position to say anything to the hero at the end of the climax, they'll usually be dead or too busy dodging bullets to say anything
#4 (Villainous Monologue): The only way I'll let a villain survive until the end of their monologue is if the heroes need information and have the time to indulge the villain.
#5 (The Naive Virgin): Fumiko, my main character, is a virgin, but she's not naive. She's picked up a lot of information that a *naive* virgin wouldn't know from a combination of thorough research and eavesdropping on people who tend to forget that the quiet person in the corner is there while talking. She's also a very capable combat engineer.
#6 (The Bimbo): I don't have a character that I specifically created to be a bimbo or a himbo. Since I'm trying to gender flip as much as I can, I'd be more likely to intentionally create a himbo than a bimbo. Either way, the more prominent the character is the more likely I'd be to subvert the himbo/bimbo stereotype by making the person secretly hyper competent at something and just pretends to be a himbo/bimbo either to get people to underestimate them or because they enjoy acting that way.
#7 (The Chosen One): The closest I have to a Chosen One is that Fumiko is secretly a princess and, as of the start of the series, third-in-line for the throne. She ends up become the heir apparent shortly after discovering that she's a princess, when the previous heir apparent is discovered to be one of the main villains and the person between them in the line of succession is also a villain, and could end up empress if anything happens to her great-grandmother. On the other hand, she has four great-aunts and several dozen cousins who could fulfill the role if she died before the Empress or chose to step down for some reason.
Also, also the heroics she performs are things that could be done by any reasonably competent marine infantry or combat engineer personnel. When it comes to heroics, she's just a functional adult who just happens to be in the right place at the right time to help fix the problem as part of a team effort.
#8 (The Tough Guy): Fumiko is a 9'10" mountain of muscle from an offshoot of humanity that had been artificially created to be super soldiers, with super strength, super durable scales, and sharp claws. She definitely looks like the tough guy and she can act like the tough guy when on duty, but, when her real personality is given a chance to shine through, she's actually a sensitive nerd who deeply cares about her friends and younger sister.
#9 (The Miscommunication): Most of the characters are functional adults who are capable of fixing any serious miscommunications by talking it out at the earliest opportunity. If I ever write a plot where miscommunication is integral to the plot, I'd need to structure it so that the characters involved in the miscommunication won't be able to have the conversation that fixes it until the plot's reached the point where removing the miscommunication won't damage plot progression.
#10 (Fake Nice Guy): Both Fumiko and Thargilit are genuinely nice people who don't feel entitled to each other. Any Incels I create are going to be evil. Probably a lower level of evil than the main villains in terms of magnitude, but capable of being a much more personal brand of evil.
You know what? I’ll give this a go
#1 (the good girl and the bad boy) - The main character does have some traits of a bad boy. He’s quiet, he comes from a troubled background and he commits crime out of necessity. But he’s also quite short and scrawny and he doesn’t use his troubled past as an excuse to hurt people. The love interest comes from a more privileged background but she doesn’t really exhibit any good girl traits.
#2 (femme fatale) - I also don’t have anything that really fits this trope. The characters are teens so it’s not appropriate.
#3 (the villain’s final words) - The main villain gets knocked unconscious so she doesn’t have a chance for this
#4 (villainous monologue) - The villains of the book don’t have any complex plans. They’re usually very impulsive in their decisions so there’s no need for this.
#5 (naïve virgin) - The main character is a virgin. He has very little experience with girls at the start of the book due to his poor self-confidence (brought on by years of being bullied by his friends and family). But he’s not naïve - he comes from a rough part of the city and has seen some shit in his time. And by the end of the book he makes it to third base.
#6 (the bimbo) - The closest character I have to a ‘himbo’ is a minor character who is tall, dark and handsome and but his relationships are short-lived because he has a total of 2 conversation topics. He’s more boring than naïve and unintelligent.
#7 (the chosen one) - My book doesn’t have any prophecies because it’s a slice-of-life story that takes place in the modern world where nothing is set in stone.
#8 (the tough guy) - one of the main character’s friends is a tall, athletic asshole who constantly picks on him, but his behaviour isn’t portrayed as in the right. The main character stands up to him halfway through the book and he ends up being a twist hero of sorts.
#9 (the miscommunication) - shortly after he stands up to his friends, the main character gets blackout drunk, during which he which he gets into a fight with one of his love interest’s friends and confesses that his mother emotionally abuses him. While he’s in a hungover state, he decides to throw out his SIM card, drop out of school and apply for jobs in the city because he let out emotions he’d kept bottled up for years and now he’s running away from them. He, of course, doesn’t receive any of his friends’ texts trying to get hold of him. It’s a far more complex situation than his love interest simply overhearing something and leaving before the important part.
#10 (the nice guy) - One of the boys in the love interest’s friend group. At first he seems like a nice, quiet guy but then the main character’s best friend starts dating another girl in the group, and the ‘nice guy’ starts to grow jealous. One subversion of the trope is that the ‘nice guy’ and the girl actually dated in the past rather than him simply being a guy stuck in the friendzone. The girl is quite flaky and starts off giving the main character’s best friend a fake phone number, then she gets back together with the ‘nice guy’ while they’re both drunk (during this time the guy also gets into a fight with the main character and makes racist comments towards his love interest), then she calls up the MC’s best friend after the ‘nice guy’ slapped her for giving him a present that he didn’t want. The rest of the friend group finds out about the ‘nice guy’s behaviour and they all turn on him.
Bonus (the unexpected kiss) - Early on in the story, the love interest mentions that she loves the scenes in romantic comedies where the main characters spontaneously decide to kiss each other at the same time. This ends up happening later in the book and the main character says, ‘Is that the rom-com kiss you always wanted?’, and she laughs and says ‘Are you kidding? You missed every sign’.
Im a new manga artist (not publishing anything yet) and your really helpful because I want my art to be meaningful and your videos are really helpful to add depth to my characters 🧍
that moment when my manuscript is the second option she gives for the chosen one subversion - i feel so validated
I seen the Final Last Words Tropes was subverted in an episode of Criminal Minds. They catch the bad guy and the criminal says don't you want to know why I did it and Hotch says it doesn't matter and walks away. Loved it.
The chosen one being a side character and the mc not rlly destined for anything is literally one of the biggest points of my novel-to-be
Here’s a story for you:
A nerdy good boy falls in love with a goth bad girl. They use “my chosen one” as a term of endearment. Their mutual friend looks like a scary tough guy but is actually a sensitive virgin (who falls in love with a himbo). They sometimes misunderstand each-other but then talk it out. The good boys’ abusive dad is the villain. And during his ominous monologue the bad girl punches him unconscious.
I may use that.
@@emilymatthews2990 Go for it! :)
I like “do the monologue/speeches *as* you’re fighting”
Like. Act AND talk, not talk then act!
Yes! Down with the nice guy trope!
Another interesting way to subvert the chosen one trope is to have the chosen one not be the main character, but instead having the main character be someone else, usually someone who accompanied or protects the chosen one. The Witcher did this very well.
Tales of Symphonia was the first one that popped into my head
i especially love when the miscommunication trope leads to humor instead of angst. both character A and B think they’re talking about the same thing until they slowly become confused with each other and they’re like “what are you talking about?” “no, what are YOU talking about??” it’s all laughs and no one gets hurt.
my current WIP deal a lot with trope subversion (specifically with the chosen one) so this was super helpful!! thanks!!
the man from UNCLE movie has Henry Cavill as a kind of a homme fatale, we definitely need more of those
Hero: "I won't kill you (villain)! Death would be too good for you!"
Me: Oh come the fuck on, dude. You killed like a hundred of his henchman on the way over here.
Hero: "Because on my way over here, I took the liberty of murdering your parents."
Me: W A I T W H A T