It should be remembered that the "miscommunication" in Pride & Prejudice is a product of their social life- one that comes with strict rules of decorum. Lizzy and Darcy cannot just talk amongst themselves and clear things up. Single men and women rarely interact. When they do it is in highly social events like a ball, where there are lots of people, constant chatting, lots of dancing, there are chaperones, etc. And to ask after certain people directly is highly frowned upon. You can't just bring a subject matter up and ask about it. And all this further complicated by strict social classes. Austen is one of the best novelist for comedy of errors and manners and she wields her wit and keen social eye particularly well in P&P.
I love this comment. It's so important to remember that the social conventions of the past - or even of other, contemporary societies - can be as alien to us as any fantasy setting, and place the characters in their proper context. The novel of manners, especially when as well executed as Jane Austen's, can be instructive to the fantasy author for this reason - I would really like to see characters interacting with their setting, as much as with each other, each time they have an exchange. (I think Frank Herbert does this well, and I'm sure others could provide many more examples.)
I mean there were so little for female novility to do and they couldnt exactly pick up jobs and so business, and no tv or internet, or even radio. Or phone. whyjane austin loved balls i presume social meetings women had full access to. They could just talk. Which is complicated when you jave a lot of peoole restrained and bored. They will gossip, create unnessesary big socidl structures, even more if its playing that game to get engaged and having influence. Or for fun. So they could as noble women just, their varoety of activity was restrained and so they got bored and gossip and intruige a lot to waste time.
@@Thenoobestgirl Even more with marriage being arranged, spun and for all kind of reasons, especially in nobility, which austins characters are, lower aristocracy. I think.
Absolute least favorite trope of ALL TIME is "character overhears half of conversation that seems mean, leaves and then it turns nice" every time it makes me want to DIE
@@heather9130 Yeah, you wanna be able to throw every shitty thing they said about you in their face when you confront them! More ammunition is always better!
A sub-trope within "resurrection" that I can sometimes enjoy is when a character fakes their death as part of a plan or scheme and we, the audience, are fooled by them as well.
@@thornoftheeolian8355 It's funny because in the original stories that was actually his death, then Doyle missed writing the character and figured out a way for him to have faked his death at Reichenbach falls by retracing his own footprints to convince Moriarty's minions that they'd both died in their fall.
The Miscommunication trope is also really well done in The Umbrella Academy. a dysfunctional family of 7, that rarely ever has all 7 people present in one location at a time, is bound to always have some people out of the loop and acting on the information that they happen to have at the moment. That information is rarely ever complete, correct or up to date and is often muddled by a heavy emotions and trauma, and by whether or not they even believe their siblings, their friends and their enemies. The miscommunication is so flawlessly integrated in this show that I only noticed in the 3rd season that this is actually that trope that I usually hate so much.
I’m not a fan of love triangles, but I think it depends on the perspective. For instance if a protagonist is interested two people and they have to pick one, I find that cliché and boring. But if the perspective is shifted, and the focus is on two people interested in one person (especially if the two people are friends), I find that to be more interesting. This creates tension in the friendship dynamic and they have to decide what is more important - their friendship or their love interest. This only really works if you can’t tell who is going to let go first and if the love interest hasn’t been leaning one way or the other either.
You should try reading the witcher short story 'A shard of ice'. It's a great love triangle story, though the ending is vague it packs quite an emotional punch.
I think it can add a lot if its either interesting and enjoyable and everyone gets along, or, it plays into a theme and choices. Or one is dead and comes back from apearent death and their friend or relative or foemer enemy is the new. It can be good, bit most authors cant handle one good romance between 2 people, with 3 it just gets more complicated.
ASOIAF actually does the death resurrection well. It requires sacrifice. Usually blood magic. And coming back is not pretty- Lady Stoneheart is perhaps the best example. She is nothing like Cat. She is a being of hate and vengeance. She can't even speak. But even Beric is a little less himself every time he comes back. And I bet Jon would be so changed too. He cannot be as in the tv series were he just comes back (and regresses as a person lol). His spirit might need to reside in his wolf for a time. They might have slightly merged by the time he's put back into his body. He might be like a fire Other, or something.
Huck Finn attended his own funeral, but readers knew he was alive the whole time. That's a way to do it. As to resurrection, yeah, it's like cheating, a cheap gotcha. Whereas Gandalf going from Grey to White, (largely having forgotten his Grey period), merely fulfills his status as a spiritual guardian of Middle Earth, a demi-god of sorts. That's gratifying, and was planned all along.
Instant love: I came home from my first date with my husband, spoke to my parents, went to bed. My dad turned to my mother and said, “she’s going to marry him.” I was 15. 57 years later we are still together. But yeah, it seldom works out like that.
My father in law said something similar to my husband after they dropped me off after a date. We’d been dating for a little under a month and we’ll be married 6 years this weekend ❤️
Jessica Kellgren-Fozard has said in one of her videos something along the lines of: "When I saw Claudia for the first time, I thought 'Ohhhh, you're the one...'." :D They are now married and have a toddler.
One trope I don't really like is when characters meet each other in universe and then fall in love that very same day. Or very soon after. And the reason for that is simply that I've been reading a lot of soft wholesome childhood friends to lovers books or even books where they don't become lovers but are instead very good friends. And I personally find the buildup for that to be so much more fulfilling than reading about two characters who just met and hardly know each other.
I also greatly dislike this trope where they met one (1) time as children and they meet again as adults, but it's like their love story started as kids who like, were at the same beach the same time. Like.... why??? What for?? Why do they need to have met as children?? i.e. like every 4th Koreanovela lol
As much as I dislike this Trope, I can't call it unrealistic because that's the story of how my grandparents met. Like, the dude was 30 something and she was 20, he gave her a flower the first time they met in a hospital, and two weeks later he proposed to her. They lived happily as a married couple for around 50 years until he fell down a roof and cracked open his skull, so I can't say the instant love thing is that unrealistic.
I actually saw a fanfiction based on one of my favorite manga ('Seraph of the End') that accidentally illustrated this point really well. Mika and Yu's relationship in the manga has built over years. However, in this story, we just have the guy who's been fighting vampires and the vampire meet and fall for each other instantly and it makes ZERO sense. The reason so many fans ship these characters and want to see them be happy together is that they have always been each other's support since the day they met (well, Yu was kind of a prickly little shit at first - for very good reasons - but Mika was very determined to show all the orphans what a real family is), and they've been through so much, and we want to see that devotion rewarded. If they've never met before, then even if the characterization of each is accurate, it just isn't as compelling.
A miscommunication trope that I really loved is Kaguya-sama: Love is War manga/anime. It is also driven by the pride of the two protagonists. It is more like "lack of honest communication". It is used more for comedic effect than tension, unless you count romantic and sexual tension. Highly recommended. One of my favourite rom-com stories.
Yeah, that's not miscommunication, rather complete lack of one. They're both somehow unaware of how the other feels, but also sure they can get the other to confess first. It's hilarious, and i think if it weren't so, it'd be entirely too annoying, no?
@@AllTheArtsy Yes that's true. I honestly just wanted to let her know about this amazing manga. Miscommunication trope sort of fit with the manga. So it makes sense to comment here, instead of just doing it randomly in any video.😅
@@AllTheArtsy It is more that they are pretty sure that the other reciprocates, but that they cannot bear for them to be wrong and be rejected. Especially when the confession is a significant cost to their personal ego and self-worth coming from their far different backgrounds.
@@radix4400 I just want to see it end with both of them confessing to each other at the same time. All this "trying to make the other confess because it will hurt my ego if I confess" is the sort of mind games that toxic people play.
Actual misunderstanding trope is used with miko, but whats entertaining there is that the misunderstanding is on her part because of her wild (and dirty) imagination and it just makes it funny
I think an example of "I hurt you to protect you" done well is Nami's village treating her like a traitor who had joined Arlong, when in reality they knew that she was trying to save up money to buy the village. They wanted to protect her from the burden of the village's hopes and dreams resting on her shoulders. I think this is the least ham-fisted example of this trope I can think of.
Man this leads me to think that One Piece has done this trope THREE TIMES SPOILER ALERT The Nami case you mentioned Robin in Water 7 (not much hurting but a little bit of betraying and a lot of information hiding) Sanji in WCI And each time is even better than the previous (which is remarkable seeing that all executions are excellent). Man what a great series
This is not a book but, well... Frozen spoilers below I like the insta-love between Anna and Hans because it makes a lot of sense. Anna has been lonely and neglected her entire life and is so desparate for love that when someone is showing her the bare minimum of affection, she falls head-over-heels. She hasn't experienced love (in any way) in a very long time, so when she feels the start of a connection with Hans, she mistakes it for romantic love. Hans on his side isn't in love with Anna at all, he's in love with her title, which usually comes a lot quicker than actual love.
And also you could still not suspect Hans' true intentions in the beginning despite this because when you hear he has 12 older brothers so it's easy to assume that having so many older siblings means he doesn't get much attention at home and is easily overlooked (he even mentions a story where all 12 of his brothers refused to talk to him for a time) so you may think that he's falling in insta-love for the same reason Anna is. It's only later that you realize that him having 12 older brothers had a different impact on his motivations, i.e. being 13th in line for a throne.
Personally, my biggest pet peeve trope that is almost impossible to do well is time travel. First of all, it is the ultimate deus ex machina. you can do almost anything with it, and once you introduce it, it immediately opens up a pandora's box.If you had this the entire time or could do this at any point, why was there any problems ever, and also any future problems immediately become irrelevant because time travel exists so you can stop them before they become problems. Also, time travel can't be a minor plot point if you want it in your story. If you have it in your story, it either has to be the main focus or the entire plot has to at least take into account that it's there. That's not to say it can't be done correctly, but you have to thoroughly explain the rules and how it works and potential consequences or it's going to be a huge problem in your story or series
**SPOILERS FOR [TITLE -- BECAUSE JUST SAYING THE TITLE IS A SPOILER?] LOL GENERAL SPOILER FOR A GERMAN TV SHOW AND AN ANIME LOL* To me the only good way to use time travel in a narrative is for the time travel to be so baked in, that is always happened, is happening, and will happen. Past affects the future. Future affects the past. My favorite examples are Dark and Shingeki no Kyojin (altho the mechanics for this one is not really travel through time, but something more convoluted)
@@AllTheArtsy yes, exactly, if you introduce it, it makes it seem like it was always there and might even fix some logistical mistakes the story might have had. i might be mixing my tropes a little, but in venture bros, they introduce cloning to fix two main characters being dead. immediately we realized that the boys will never have to face consequences, and the characters knew that too, to the point that the characters replaced weren't even the second or third versions, they were the 14th, and then later, they reintroduced tension by killing all the clones. that's how good your tropes need to be to work properly
@@TheBigE9999Few Spoilers for One Piece : In One Piece the time travel element was used pretty well. For example only forward and not back so it is able to remove tons of problems
I love time travel, but i hate when it violates its own rules. And the rule of dont care , have fun timey whimey is a model you can do , if it fits the story. And 12 monkeys series, amazing, legends of tomorrow fun. Seriously if its done well, its great, but its easy to ruin or to have too carelwssy(if its not like very campy) Oh futuramas is really good as well.
The "I hurt you to protect you" trope has a sub-trope that i really dislike; "Noble Idiocy". It is generally a romantic trope where one person feels they are not good enough in some way for their partner in some way (secret cancer, class/wealth/family issues, secretly going to jail etc) so will either cruelly break up with them or just disappear without a word. It is always portrayed as they great and noble sacrifice, but in my mind it is always incredibly self-centred - They only want to be with their partner during the good but not the bad. And I always have trouble taking the relationship seriously once they get back together.
Just finished fruits basket after your recommendation and wow this is one of my new favourite series, I love and adore this story (although the enthusiasm might be the story hangover, I binged this one and now I'm crashing hard!)
Amnesia. I hate hate hate amnesia tropes. It always feels like it exists just to punish the reader by creating situations we know could easily resolved if the characters just remembered.
I think the best use of the amnesia trope I have seen was in "after the revolution" by Robert Evans. The main reason it worked for me was that the event causing the amnesia happened before the story began, so you could learn about the character's past along side them. This allowed for it to be a major source of tension, rather than one of annoyance, as it usually is, when the reader already knows everything the character is trying to figure out.
Best use of this trope that I also despise, in my opinion, is in Riordan’s Son of Neptune. Percy gets amnesia with hints of his old life, and as he adventures, he gets more and more of his memory back. What makes this version work is that 1. It’s a move made by an exceptionally petty god, and 2. It doesn’t make the hero any less heroic or competent
One of my least favourite trope: the crowd switching side after a character speech. You see that often in kids movies. For years and years we believed that [insert fantastical creature] was dangerous and wanted to kill us, but after this random guy’s speech , all my prejudices are instantly erased for good and I’ll accept instantly what I used to hate with open arms. The world doesn’t work like that !!!! Stop doing this !!!!!
I mean maybe it can work, but dont let them switch too fast, one thing cant change that. Like i love one piece alabasta forall that coming together and failures to stop it, like is it a bit escapist, yeah, but it has a lot of legwork before.
I also equally hate the usual subversion of this. You will have this really dramatic scene with a character doing a speech and then everyone will laugh at them or boo them or whatever. It just feels very cheap.
Also, I think that the “resurrection trope” or the thinking a character is dead works the best with an unreliable narrator and false memories (as long as it’s consistant throughout). This is done really well in The Screaming Tree by Phil Lovesy. It’s just amazing
A love triangle that I thought was done extremely well was in Cassandra Clare's series Infernal Devices, which was Clockwork Angel, Prince, and Princess. Ignoring all of the other issues with that author lol. But in that series, there wasn't a rivalry between Will and Jem as they were trying to win Tessa's heart. All 3 of them cared for each other fully, and it was beautiful. No spoilers, but the way the triangle was resolved in the 3rd book makes me weep every time. Edit to add: I haven't read the series in years so I don't know if it'll hold up now.
I've heard "fake tension" tropes (like fakeout deaths, miscommunication, macguffin hunts, the party getting lost, etc.) described as "narrative cul-de-sacs" somewhere and that always stuck with me. The story would be just the same if the author didn't waste our time getting sidetracked in something that ultimately had no effect, so then why do it, ugh!? You could just write a shorter book...
I won't leave things that go nowhere in my books, but I am writing a huge series, so there are some scenes that don't go anywhere in that book, but eventually lead to something in a later book. That's probably not what you mean, but I just thought of that as a potential reason why there might be something that at least appears to go nowhere.
I can see fake out deaths being narrative cul-de-sacs, but only if the character's apparent death didn't affect other characters or change anything. It just comes down to well-written vs not well-written.
Just watched The Boys season 3. One of the main characters uses the "hurt them to protect them" trope on someone they cared about and it backfired spectacularly in the season finale. One of the more interesting uses of that trope imo.
I thought it was just a normal use of the trope, with the likely consequences. It’s the only issue I have with Season 3. The only reason it can be ‘excused’ is because they’ve never tried to make us believe that he has great judgment or emotional maturity, so bad decisions are pretty much his forte.
@@dajtoad1 sure, and the point is not good storytelling or meaning-making for me. The Watchmen can make essentially the same argument but so much better.
I think he said in the last AMA in r/books that it's on his waiting list!!! I would love to know his opinions in all of the arcs. Besides, both Oda and Brandon are outstanding authors
I think one other way how resurrection can be done well is when it has repercussions for the one doing it, not the one returning. When it’s a resource that is available, but can only be used sparsely and/or with HIGH risks. And risks can get higher with each use, forcing characters to make tough choices. And/or maybe it makes the user be seen as a monster by everyone else, including the resurrected. There are ways to explore it, without taking away the significance of death
One of the best fakeout deaths I’ve ever seen was pretty early on in Steven Universe (spoilers to follow, obviously) where there is basically a fakeout death that gets resolved only a few seconds later and serves to introduce the viewer to one of the main mechanics of the show’s alien people and how they can and can’t be hurt. At the same time, though it’s a child seeing a loved one die out of something he blamed himself for and that is not a done issue at the end of the episode, even with her returning, it’s a trauma that stays with him throughout the whole series among a vast collection of other things. The episode is often marked by fans as a point where there’s a shift in his character for the first time, not exactly in a very blatant way, but in a lot of subtle ways. At a later point when he has arguably gone through far worse he still responds to being reminded of the incident with a reflexive defense ability and has to actively calm himself down to go on with what they were doing. I love this one so much because obviously the viewer was never supposed to think the character had died, but Steven did. Even if it was just for a moment, he saw somebody die because of his own actions and it stuck with him, even through a sea of other horrible and traumatic things that he sees and experiences throughout the show. The few seconds of death still had such an impact on him and the show took that seriously.
A really good resurrection I've also seen in tv was the first resurrection in Supernatural (which is ironic considering the show became famous for death being meaningless). In the penultimate episode of s2, one of the brothers dies. Within the first 10 minutes of the season finale he's already been brought back, but instead of hating it, it's one of my favourite parts of the whole show. The series just sets it all up so well. The brother who ultimately resurrects the dead character has established a clear position on resurrecting the dead and self sacrifice to save loved ones throughout the series; if something's dead, it should stay dead, and sacrificing yourself to bring someone back is ultimately selfish, because now that other person has to live with the knowledge that you brought something awful on yourself just for them. He's been saved at the expense of someone he loves before, and the survivors guilt has been eating away at him, which is why he feels so strongly about all this. But time and time again throughout the season, we see that his brother is his blind spot. His greatest fear all season has been his worry that he won't be able to keep his brother safe. He will completely compromise his morals if he's in danger, because his brother will always been an exception for him. So when he dies, he does the unthinkable and resurrects him, damning himself in the process. He completely throws his principles out the window just to bring his brother back, despite knowing what that survivor's guilt feels like, because he can't fathom the idea of living without him. The consequences of his actions then form the main plot of the entire following season. So the death really works, because it was never supposed to be about getting us to mourn a main character before pulling a switcheroo: it was about showing us what would happen to the other main character when pushed to breaking point, and devoting an entire season to dealing with the consequences of his selfishness.
Psychonauts 2 has a similar example, I'll try to be vague, but it's still pretty Spoilery, and you can probably work out what I'm referring to: There's a character who is thought to be dead, who turns out to be alive, but was basically in a coma and none of their loved ones had any idea for literal years- pretty much everyone else is shown to be traumatized by the events that led to their death, but especially their husband, who is shown to be drinking their life away just to numb the pain(He does get help, but it's clear he is very messed up from this) There's a happy ending, but it's clear that this wasn't just a moment of player only tension, the "death" had conciquences
Buffy's resurrection was done amazingly well. I watched it after I had just quit Arrow over it doing some really bad resurrections, so I was happily surprised
Doing a rewatch of that and yeah. It's one of the most interesting resurrections in stories that I've seen. The ramifications for both Buffy and Willow in particular are super interesting.
Kind of spoilers for FMA FMA does resurrection well by having characters explore the idea of resurrection but realize why it can not be done. plus, there are severe consequences for even exploring it.
And the price for even trying to attempt something like it (like the Philosopher Stone) comes at a cost so great it only makes sense for someone who has no regard for human life to pursue.
Exactly👍 people generally need to confront each other to understand their own heart, nature and if they can be friends or not. Instead, miscomunications happen and because of that, horrible decisions are made, like killing somebody or betrayals or conquering the world but with wrong ideals and more 😒😡🔥
“She’s a terrible person, she will always be a terrible person, and I don’t CARE if you guys have good chemistry, SHE’S AWFUL” is giving Gretchen Wieners “We should totally just stab Caesar” energy
What relationship is she talking about? I've read all of WoT, i feel like once someone says it I'll understand but I literally can't think of anyone that awful, except Gowan lol EDIT: Someone mentioned Tuon earlier, it's definitely Tuon she owns slaves
@@mkjmoon8263 lots of people hate Faile (why, I really don't understand, but the hate is real). I personally hope she meant Tuon as well. But, since I HATE Mat, I honestly think they deserve each other. (yes, I know, many people love him. I just hate fetshised gambling, and that's his entire character)
@@dorisveeken5354 While I agree the gambling part is not great, Mat is at least a loyal and caring person and, notably, does not own slaves. Also Tuon is very self serving
@@dorisveeken5354 I was definitely a Faile hater my first half-read of WoT and my second time through I understood WHY she was the way she was, but it didn't win me over. She shows up and is entitled about the hunt for the horn, doesn't really listen to people trying to give her advice, and when she marries Perrin she is the exemplification of "Well, if you don't know why I'm mad, I'm not going to tell you" and doesn't give him a chance to explain himself before she just storms out. The only reason I kinda sorta forgave this behavior the second time around was the 1 scene where we meet her parents and I realized that for cultural reasons she's pissed off that Perrin isn't "acting like a man" according to how she was raised. He actually, you know, respects her the way he was taught to by stout Two Rivers folk, and the miscommunication trope rears its head because for her to tell him about it would defeat the point of him being direct, forceful, and dominant the way she believes a man "should" be. But if you miss the nuance of that scene and the cultural expectations Faile was raised with, then she's just acting like a spoiled brat.
5:57 One of my favorite series (The Night Angel by Brent Weeks) did have this trope, where the main character turns immortal, but he doesn’t know/ realize what the cost for his immortality is until near the final stage of the story, which elevates the emotional stakes of the final conflict
I’ve heard Buffy does well for resurrection as there’s an after effect for Buffy herself in terms of mental health, and also a new slayer appearing the few times she “dies” which create social consequences. But unsure how well done that is as I’ve not watched the show properly yet
It’s been a few years since I watched it, but it was my first thought of the trope done well. Every time Buffy comes back, there’s some kind of consequence.
Her first death activated the next Slayer. Technically she isn't the Slayer any more so her successor's death would activate the next one. This whole issue, Slayers dying young, the mechanisms of activating a Slayer amoung a set of potentials and so on are major plot points and pay off in the very last episode. So yeah, consequences. And it took Buffy a whole season to recover from her second death. It's also extremely risky to revive someone in this universe and it does go wrong in some instances.
Her first resurrection is interesting and has good ramifications. Her second resurrection has aMAZing and has dramatic ramifications both for her and her friends. It's one of the more interesting arcs in the series in my opinion.
You mentioning Just Ella was a huge blast to the past, I loved that book when I was little and forgot all about it. It all just came rushing back to me.
Another thing about Pride and Prejudice is that the miscommunication is intenionally made worse by a third party who sees a chance to hurt someone he hates, while also ingratiating himself into a whole neighborhood and making it easier for him to get away with his evil deeds.
My favourite example of resurrection is the manga dungeon meshi, which takes place in a DnD style dungeon. Resurrection is a spell that is not that obscure to know and somewhat costly but not extremely so, at least while being near a dungeon as souls tend to stay near the body there. Because of this there's a whole economy of people who go down into the dungeon with the specific purpose of finding adventurers who died and charging them for resurrections after the fact. But also the deeper you die in the dungeon the less likely those people are to reach you, so if the person in your group who knows how to resurrect people dies deep down you're gonna need to get them out, and if their body is severely damaged that could make it impossible. And if someone dies in a way that destroys most of their body and you don't have the meat with you to resurrect them you are in trouble as well. The first part of the story is the main characters going down into the dungeon in order to kill the dragon that ate the sister of one of the main character in the hopes that because of the slow metabolism of dragons there'll be enough of her left to resurrect her.
I don’t know if this is a trope and it happens more in movie and show sequels, but my least favorite thing is when writer break up characters in a time skip between movies/seasons. It must be because writing committed relationships well is hated than writing characters wanting to start a relationship.
Catelyn Stark’s death & resurrection as Lady Stoneheart is definitely one of the better examples of a resurrection because even though Catelyn is “alive” physically, she is not really Catelyn in anyway that matters. She’s the body of Catelyn Stark but she is so consumed by the need for vengeance that she’s not the same person.
I generally dislike the resurrection-trope, but I think it was done well in “Neverwhere” by Neil Gaiman. The resurrected character didn’t get away completely unscathed and it served an important purpose in the story.
I haven't read that book, but I agree that a resurrection trope can be good if it actually has some significance to the plot/characters/world. Actually one of my favorite books has the resurrection trope (can't say which, that would be a huge spoiler). The book foreshadowed it so well, I did not see it coming but when it happened it was one of those "aahh now it all makes sense" moments.
Yeah, the mechanism by which he is resurrected (you know which) was set up and there was foreshadowing about it happening. Plus, it's within a surreal and absurdist fantasy. Plus, it's the freaking Marquis.
My most hated trope is time travel. However there are two stories that I think did it well. One is "Erased" (never read the manga, watched the anime) and the other is "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" which I was first introduced to the movie, which led me to the book. I enjoyed both immensely, even though I generally really hate the time travel trope.
Holy crap, huge kudos for bringing up Just Ella! One of my favorites as a kid- it was the one book I wanted from the Scholastic Book Fair the year it came out 😂
The "takeback" death thing is SO true. And I know we're talking books, but this is especially true of shoes too. Magicians, Supernatural, etc. Like I literally found myself "not caring" when Glen died for real in the Walking Dead because I had already mourned him. In retrospect, them trying to bring him back is what killed the show for me and I ended up slowly dropping off watching it and never finished the series. Some things need to be permanent and death is one of them. Otherwise, I think that the show/book/whatever has no heart. I'd be curious to see if I feel the same way about the series you talked about though.
The one time I recall seeing the "hurt you to protect you" trope work (at least for me) was the Mortal Instruments trilogy. The hurting was effective and you see the internal struggle of the person who did the hurting in the second and third books. It was the one time the whole "dude acts like a jerk but is actually nice" trope made sense to me. It's also the only series where I've seen a well-done love triangle, where both relationships make sense and you root for both of them.
I have a rule on fake out deaths; one per series. You get one for story purposes, so make it make sense & improve the story, but any more and it's annoying. And maybe don't make your first character death a fake out. That makes it harder to trust the real deaths.
Good to see these types of videos, a chat from fans to fans. This video also helps to remember that tropes are tools and what determines if they are good or not is their execution.
I still think you'd enjoy Redwall, or at least reading it to the kids. Although maybe read them first cos I loved them as a kid and still managed to somehow forget how dark they could be (also I find myself amused how different the book Redwall feels to the rest of the series)
@@merphynapier42 they're used to me not paying attention to them during friendship circle time. but also it was via messenger so they didn't know i was listening to you. (don't tell them tho)
Make the girl love you, aka I’m going to keep going to keep going until you give in, is the only trope that comes to mind that I cannot see being done well. It’s just gross under every circumstance and I’m burning the book.
I'm glad you can see the "fake" death trope with Sanderson now. I remember having a conversation with you on a previous video a year or 2 ago. Thank you for always being awesome
Lately I can’t stand “the morals in the other world are different so I guess I’m ok with it.” As if the mc would suddenly be fine with slavery or killing as soon as they wake up in the fantasy world, with no moral examination. Did they have no morals in the first place? It’s shallow and frustrating and makes me think the author must be a creep.
This comment kind of... got me thinking about when this trope could work, and *why* it doesn't for the examples you bring up, so... uh. Sorry that this'll be a wall of text. And a wall of text that kind of spells out a lot of things you probably know about anyways/have already implied. I think a large part of the reason it doesn't work where you bring it up is bc "Other World is Just Different, so I guess I'm ok with XYZ" kind of... makes whatever XYZ is seem less awful, and mostly just *different*. So - this works very well for say, another culture eating live bugs, which really isn't morally repugnant at all but does tend to squick people out that are from cultures that don't eat live bugs. "Other World(/Culture) is Just Different, so I guess I'm ok with trying to eat live bugs" would be a very reasonable stance to take, and probably doesn't require a lot of moral examination. (... it probably would include getting over any initial disgust at the mere thought, though, for anybody who grew up thinking this is really gross.) With say, slavery, this doesn't work bc it's morally repugnant, and just getting an in-story shrug as this being "just different" makes it seem like the author also does just think that "eh, it's okay", is treating it as something that's *not* morally repugnant. So... yeah. Not great, absolutely makes the author seem like a creep. Another thing that doesn't work is the lack of moral examination. I do genuinely think that, say, someone's attitude towards when physical violence is appropriate would probably shift - or at least be re-examined - if they spend time in a society that has a different attitude about when it's appropriate. For instance, in a lot of early modern Europe, it *was* considered an appropriate reaction to punch someone in the face for knocking your hat off - because your hat was a sign of your reputation, your honour, and that *mattered*. A character thinking this... really ridiculous initially but ultimately ending up at a position of "okay, I get this in the context of this society, and probably also will deck someone in the face for touching my hat *here*" could absolutely come across as both realistic and not really unreasonable, depending on how it's shown. Similarly, someone might re-examine or have a shift in their attitudes and opinions about killing or what exactly constitutes self-defense, but... not even the hat thing should happen without moral examination. It shouldn't just be shrugged off. Honestly, this is also an opportunity to actually examine the morality of some things in more detail, so... this trope also doesn't work in these cases because it specifically is a missed opportunity to examine things, and. Personally, examine things I'd find really interesting and that I think would give a story more depth? Which is where your complaint about it being shallow comes in. TLDR: So - overall, this trope actually *could* work if there's sufficient moral examination for whatever the MC ends up accepting, and it's not too morally repugnant. Just shrugging it off could work great for... idk, most types of different clothing or food. It doesn't work for slavery. ... anyways, I have written a long wall of text, which. Idk, I hope there's some useful thought in there. What do you think concerning when this trope could work, and when it doesn't?
@@smr1114 Exactly! The scale of difference needs to match the scale of examination or the story skips the development phase. The whole point of otherworld stories is to frame a normie in a new context and create self-examination. It's boring when the normie immediately adjusts and effortlessly kills twenty dudes in the first fifty pages. I'm thinking of a few examples that work more or less. The moral ambiguity of A Song of Ice and Fire, where all the characters have individual moral frameworks that need to be examined in the context of war. Or Mushoku Tensei, where the worst guy from modern times realizes he regrets how he was living his life but uses his second chance to blunder through becoming a better person. Both are interesting stories where the main characters do some evil things and they do some good things. They learn and change along the way.
I did not really expect you to mention A Golconda Story, but I still appreciate your words of praise in your assessment of the story and the resurrection trope being done well.
Resurrection is my most hated trope! Death should be one of the highest stakes the characters are trying to avoid. When characters can come back to life somehow suddenly the stakes are so much lower...
I really enjoyed the resurrection in the Night Angel trilogy. The novels themselves were 7 out of 10 but I really enjoyed the take on the costs of "immortality" and making death still have cost afterward.
I don’t know if this counts but I’ll put it anyway. Mo Dou Zu Shi (The Grandmaster Of Demonic Cultivation) has resurrection as a trope? in the books. It happens at the very beginning right after an announcement of his death. He is resurrected 13 years after his death but since you haven’t connected to the character at all yet there is no cheated-out-of-my-emotions thing going on. It’s actually done really well and the resurrection is actually relevant to the plot. This also has some miscommunication between the two main characters (Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji) but it’s nothing dumb. It did make me yell at the main character for being an oblivious idiot though. 10/10 recommendation it’s one of my favourite book series’s
I agree with the resurrection trope! It needs to be impactful, and you take away from that by continuously bringing characters back. I think Umbrella Academy has done resurrection really well--it always comes with a price or a reason, not just for the hell of it. That, and "Under the Whispering Door" by TJ Klune!
I remember Merphy hating Will for being the "I'm going go hurt you to protect you" type, but I fully agree--I love the way that love triangle played out.
@@kenna176 In Will's defense, he thought that anyone who liked him would literally die, so he genuinely thought he was doing them a favor. Also, he assumed that anyone still alive didn't truly love him, so he probably didn't realize how badly he was hurting them. I feel like Will is made up of tropes that I dislike/don't prefer, but somehow wrapped up in a way that makes him really likable. I'm not a huge fan of the Mortal Instruments and never read beyond those, but I really loved the Infernal Devices growing up and the trio of Jem, Will, and Tessa was absolutely why.
@@ArabellaTurner You're preaching to the choir. Internal Devices is my favorite Shadowhunters trilogy, and Will is absolutely my favorite character. He's a little bit of a disaster as a human and his loyalty is unmatched, and I love him for that.
Interesting lol love a fun Merphy explaination and rant video!! Thanks for the positive side as well, :) Had a fun time like chatting to a sweet and bubbly friend. 😃
The "hurt you to protect you" trope was also done really well in an episode of "White Collar" - S4 E4 "Parting Shots". He used the "hurting" her, telling her he'd already stolen all her money, to lead her to call the FBI agent who could then follow the rest of the clues he also told her, saving her, hopefully saving him, and hopefully catching the bad guys.
There's a series that has resurection where I think it's really well done, Dorohedoro. The reson why I think it works in this world is because the world they live in is already so screwed up and human life and death is so trivialized, that it just kinda makes sense that there's one character that can just bring people back to life and it's "no biggie".
One series I love the resurrection in was actually a middle grade novel, keeper of the lost cities. (Also, spoilers for that series if you care) There's a character who dies, but they find out he actually had a twin who was still alive... The story had set up that elves HEAVILY discriminated against twins, especially in the past, and this elf is very very old, so the two twins had developed a telepathic link to function as one person, which also explained why they were able to be all over the place etc. So, when the one twin dies, he actually is dead, and the weight of that is actually made heavier when you get to see his other half suffering for his death, but it also helps with the gap his character would have left if he'd been completely gone. So, kinda a resurrection, but also not
I loved in Dark Matter when Three was injured and tried the "I hate you now go" trope on Five to get her to abandon him and save herself. When she tears up he tries to belittle her over it and she just smiles through her tears and tells him, "No, I'm crying cause I know what you're trying to do." He then proceeds to stop being stupid and they make a plan to use him as bait to ambush the antagonist hunting them.
Thank you for not trashing specific novels and instead focusing on what you said you would: where those tropes are done well. A RUclips trope I hate is “people *say* they’re going to focus on a positive, *pretend* to be morally superior, and then just trash others (by name or through parody) and the whole thing was a thinly veiled attempt at pretence”. (If someone wants to trash stuff - fine - just be honest about it!) Your video and commentary were great - I’m going to add Just Ella to my list (because I also hate that trope, and the Cinderella story in general, but this sounds much more interesting!).
A love triangle I thought honestly compelling was Lancelot, Arthur, and Guinevere in 'The Once and Future King.' The morality, politics, and honest sadness of it all... even if Guinevere wasn't the most developed of characters.
The "I hurt you to protect you" works when there's espionage involved and it is done in order not to put the person hurting in more grave danger. But when they're not just communicating for some reason, and the other one is unreasonably carrying it all and withholding all information all on his own, that's when it becomes cheap, sometimes a plot hole.
@@ahmxtsxnjuu2373 it's prosthetic not original limbs. Try cutting your arms and replace it with the most advanced prosthetic arm, it won't feel the same.
Yeah, people's reaction to prophecies causing the prophecy to come true is the only satisfying way to do it for me, the exception in my case being LotR where there's gods putting their thumb on the scales at the right moments, but I'm willing to overlook it because it fits with the world he created.
Same! I also like it the way it was done in Percy Jackson. It was the kid of the big three that reaches 16 first but it changes who it most probably will be
The trope I absolutely hate and don't see ever being done well is teenage girl being physically abused her whole life and not only isn't that much affected by it, if at all, but doesn't want anything done about it because she's just that kind hearted and pure. Even the variation of it where sure she feels a little bad but then it's like it never happened as soon as she meets that one dude sucks. I see it in webnovels all the time.
I'm not a big fan of love triangles either but my favorite one that does really well for me is a webtoon called brass and sass. One of my favorite arcs of the story is instead of a competition between the girls to get with guy, they actually grow and build each other up outside of the guy instead!
As someone with anxiety and depression, the "I hurt you because I wanted to keep you safe" annoys the hell out of me. Having someone destroy you as a person, throw all your insecurities at you as a means of pushing you away, then turn around and be like "jk, I still love you" is not okay. You don't just bounce back from that. It can cause permanent rifts in relationships and scar people for future ones. That isn't a sign of love, it's emotional manipulation. Every time the other character forgives them immediately after hearing their reasoning, I want to smack some sense into them. Happens all the time in superhero media. The friend or love interest gets too close to finding out their secret identity, so they make them go away. Like, why would anyone forgive you after that? If you're gonna use that trope, don't let them immediately be forgiven. Let the other person have time to stew and hate. And make the reason be a real one, not some nonsense that could be solved with a simple conversation
Regarding the fake out death trope - in my writing I plan to use it in an interesting way. A double fake out. A shapeshifting assassin replaced the character while he was recovering (or dying) in the hospital. Let the characters get real comfortable with his survival before twisting the knife.
I think one of my favorite books that do the whole. Everyone thought they were dead but is really alive. Is the Ascendance series by Jennifer.A.Neilson. She does a great job with making people think the character is dead when in reality. He used his clever mind to escape death.
Iron Widow had the best love triangle, and those who have read it know why. And I like the resurrection trope in Game of Thrones. The people who get resurrected "lose" something, and still carry the wounds that were inflicted upon them before death. And sometimes the person who does the resurrection has a consequence too.
Note that the implied event is that Hisoka underwent a significant power increase from the death and resurrection. By leaning into Nen after death and all that comes with it he will supposedly have gained massive permanent improvement - the experience that is transcendent of life, breeds transcendent power … or something like that
To the scene in One Piece you describe in 8:20 there is one significant thing happening after the person supposed to get hurt not taking it. The fact that the protective character in this case does feel bad about what he's doing. It's stated that the only one who is being hurt is himself and we not only read that but we really see the real emotions of the protective character and that for me puts the cherry on top. Also now that I think about this trope in context with One Piece, Oda uses that a lot and it always feels different and rarely like the trope is really being used.
Just Ella was the book that got me into reading. I was so resistant until I was 13 and my friend let me read it during Silent Reading and I loved it. Got me actually interested in reading and I never looked back.
For me when resurrection, fake out deaths, or reincarnation are involved in the plot I like when they are main plot points that the reader is aware of as it allows the repercussions of such plot lines to be explored without seeming like a copout certainly doesn't hurt that the big reveal is one of my favorite types of scene in a book as I like the shocked reactions the characters in book show.
One example of a love triangle that I really liked was in Star Trek DS9, one character really likes another, but she's already with someone else, so he doesn't pursue because he cares about her happiness and still values her as a friend. They do eventually get together, but much later on.
If you want to consider what happened to Gandalf the same resurrection trope, I think it also was done really well. Tolkien has an extremely sensitive approach to death (from the Halls of Mandos to the unknown that awaits in death for Men), and being a Maia is really the only thing that brought Gandalf back - same spirit, different "job" :)
I've been hurt by the resurrection trope going the other way. In Joel Rosenberg's books, he kills off one of his main characters, but it kinda happens off-page, and I kept hoping they may have actually survived. In later books, it is heavily implied that this person may have survived, then nope. They're dead. So I got to mourn twice.
I liked miscommunication in "36 Questions That Changed My Mind About You" when Hildy didn't show up on a kind of date, because she thought her brother went missing/ ran away (I'm not sure, I read it some time ago so I may misremembered something). She didn't have a way to contact guy she was supposed to meet with to tell him she may not show up because he literally contacted her through fake Messenger account from public library computer and she understandably was more focused on her brother at the time. But as soon as she found her brother and realised she missed the meeting she went out of her way to explain herself and apologize to Paul, even though it was really hard to get to him because he was really closed person in the first place but also as I said her only contact info was fake account he probably stopped checking. She succeeded though and he wasn't mad about it once she explained everything I enjoyed this book, it was fun to read
2:06 I would go further and say it applies to consequences as well. Marissa Meyer has a writing quirk where she will add something that SHOULD break her characters or drastically change things, but she won’t go through with it in the end. Spoilers: Throne losing his eyesight and getting it back. Wolf is brainwashed to be wild and ruthless and forget Scarlet, and it’s reversed the second he sees her. In Supernova, tons of characters lose their powers and they’ve all returned by the end of the story. These are just a few examples-mainly, the ones that pissed me off the most.
You describing how resurrection was done well in Malazan made me realize the Brando Sanerson DOES do it well when it's not the main characters. The heralds and voidspren are sometimes traumatized and dysfunctional in ways that are interesting to the story
JJ Abrams movie director uses a trope for his scifi movies. All his stories are "a bad guy with a powerful ship who wants to destroy everything and everyone". Check his movies and you will see.
The hurt you to save you trope really only works when there's a villain literally within listening distance (potentially) who will kill the person unless you hurt them that way. It works in the show Murdoch mysteries when Julia refuses to marry Murdoch because she received a photo of them kissing with an note saying this serial killer could see and hear her any time and if she didn't break off the engagement or if she told anyone he contacted her, he would kill them both.
It's such a relief to hear someone also talk about all the fake deaths in One Piece! That's probably my biggest problem with this manga. Also the I-hurt-you-because-I-love-you trope. That thing just physically hurts ME. I remember reading The Well of Loneliness and just starting to scream at such a scene. Not only do you make a selfish "noble" decision to break up with someone because you think you are not good enough for them, but you also decide to do it in the most traumatic way possible. And somehow that's framed as a painful but ultimately good thing to do... As for the love triangle trope, I think it becomes really interesting when the relationship between the 3 characters is really complex, intense, and deeply psychological, with additional points if this relationship is central or important to their character development and/or the plot. So, for me, one of the best examples of the love triangle done right is the relationship of Guts, Griffith, and Caska in Berserk. Most fans of this manga will agree that the relationship between these three is central to the story. It is incredibly complex and well-written and eventually gets horrifyingly messed-up. But it is also a proper love triangle. Caska loves Griffith, but eventually falls in love with Guts and chooses him. Guts loves Caska as a woman and loves Griffith as the most important and special person in his life (arguably platonically). And Griffith gets to the point of obsessively and possessively loving Guts, while also having some feelings for Caska (she is his only confidante pre-Guts and the only person with whom Griffith allows himself to be vulnerable). And all of that very much doesn't end well.
I wonder how you would feel about fake outs deaths in the Re;zero novels it uses time loops to kill characters then bring them. I would say the series focuses on the emotional and mental turmoil these failed loop put on the main character he treats everything that happens as real and carries the guilt and sorrow over as motivation.
My take on some of these being done well in my opinion: Killed not killed- WoT BALEFIRE duh so cool! Hurt you to save you: Moulin Rouge movie Resurrection: LOTR Love triangle- Les Miserables book(so so so well done). Talking Animals- Golden Compass (I also loved it in Nevermoor)
"Obviously it won't destroy the story for me, but I WILL whine about it!"
Now that's a sign of a true fan
@Dating zone 5 why, just why?
😂😂
true words have never been spoken.
It should be remembered that the "miscommunication" in Pride & Prejudice is a product of their social life- one that comes with strict rules of decorum. Lizzy and Darcy cannot just talk amongst themselves and clear things up. Single men and women rarely interact. When they do it is in highly social events like a ball, where there are lots of people, constant chatting, lots of dancing, there are chaperones, etc. And to ask after certain people directly is highly frowned upon. You can't just bring a subject matter up and ask about it. And all this further complicated by strict social classes. Austen is one of the best novelist for comedy of errors and manners and she wields her wit and keen social eye particularly well in P&P.
I love this comment. It's so important to remember that the social conventions of the past - or even of other, contemporary societies - can be as alien to us as any fantasy setting, and place the characters in their proper context.
The novel of manners, especially when as well executed as Jane Austen's, can be instructive to the fantasy author for this reason - I would really like to see characters interacting with their setting, as much as with each other, each time they have an exchange. (I think Frank Herbert does this well, and I'm sure others could provide many more examples.)
So true!
@@andrewvanhorne4359 my god, courting in the olden ages must have been a pain in the ass 😂
I mean there were so little for female novility to do and they couldnt exactly pick up jobs and so business, and no tv or internet, or even radio. Or phone.
whyjane austin loved balls i presume social meetings women had full access to.
They could just talk. Which is complicated when you jave a lot of peoole restrained and bored. They will gossip, create unnessesary big socidl structures, even more if its playing that game to get engaged and having influence. Or for fun.
So they could as noble women just, their varoety of activity was restrained and so they got bored and gossip and intruige a lot to waste time.
@@Thenoobestgirl Even more with marriage being arranged, spun and for all kind of reasons, especially in nobility, which austins characters are, lower aristocracy. I think.
Absolute least favorite trope of ALL TIME is "character overhears half of conversation that seems mean, leaves and then it turns nice" every time it makes me want to DIE
Right?! Like if you're going to eavesdrop and get mad, at least commit to hearing the whole conversation.
Yes!
@@heather9130 Yeah, you wanna be able to throw every shitty thing they said about you in their face when you confront them! More ammunition is always better!
Yeah, it happened a lot in Arcane, but like, it's not that it's really poorly written, it's just annoying.
Looking at you, Shrek
A sub-trope within "resurrection" that I can sometimes enjoy is when a character fakes their death as part of a plan or scheme and we, the audience, are fooled by them as well.
Indeed!!!
Fake out death
I agree! Loved it in Sherlock for example
Like Romeo and Juliet!
@@thornoftheeolian8355 It's funny because in the original stories that was actually his death, then Doyle missed writing the character and figured out a way for him to have faked his death at Reichenbach falls by retracing his own footprints to convince Moriarty's minions that they'd both died in their fall.
Urghhhh, I despise that "I hurt you to protect you" trope as well. I threw one of my books across the room really hard when it showed up 😤
Yeah that's pretty toxic
@@Thenoobestgirl It's called Tsundere in Japanese.
@@wikansaktianto9215 mm I think this is different.
I kind of want to see this particular trope subverted, where the person hurting someone "to protect them" is revealed to be abusive/manipulative
@@eliasbischoff176 Yeah, the line “hurt to protect” definitely gives villain/abuser vibes.
The Miscommunication trope is also really well done in The Umbrella Academy. a dysfunctional family of 7, that rarely ever has all 7 people present in one location at a time, is bound to always have some people out of the loop and acting on the information that they happen to have at the moment. That information is rarely ever complete, correct or up to date and is often muddled by a heavy emotions and trauma, and by whether or not they even believe their siblings, their friends and their enemies.
The miscommunication is so flawlessly integrated in this show that I only noticed in the 3rd season that this is actually that trope that I usually hate so much.
I’m not a fan of love triangles, but I think it depends on the perspective. For instance if a protagonist is interested two people and they have to pick one, I find that cliché and boring. But if the perspective is shifted, and the focus is on two people interested in one person (especially if the two people are friends), I find that to be more interesting. This creates tension in the friendship dynamic and they have to decide what is more important - their friendship or their love interest. This only really works if you can’t tell who is going to let go first and if the love interest hasn’t been leaning one way or the other either.
Infernal Devices does this AMAZINGLY
You should try reading the witcher short story 'A shard of ice'. It's a great love triangle story, though the ending is vague it packs quite an emotional punch.
I think it can add a lot if its either interesting and enjoyable and everyone gets along, or, it plays into a theme and choices. Or one is dead and comes back from apearent death and their friend or relative or foemer enemy is the new.
It can be good, bit most authors cant handle one good romance between 2 people, with 3 it just gets more complicated.
That is like k drama love triangles. I like those.
Easy solution all date each other in a poly relationship
ASOIAF actually does the death resurrection well. It requires sacrifice. Usually blood magic. And coming back is not pretty- Lady Stoneheart is perhaps the best example. She is nothing like Cat. She is a being of hate and vengeance. She can't even speak. But even Beric is a little less himself every time he comes back. And I bet Jon would be so changed too. He cannot be as in the tv series were he just comes back (and regresses as a person lol). His spirit might need to reside in his wolf for a time. They might have slightly merged by the time he's put back into his body. He might be like a fire Other, or something.
I wanted to type this exact comment, but you phrased it much better than I could, so thank you.
I agree
If we ever even get Winds of Winter
@@jackroberts2704 2028 is my guess
Lmao u think grrm will bring back Jon???
Huck Finn attended his own funeral, but readers knew he was alive the whole time. That's a way to do it. As to resurrection, yeah, it's like cheating, a cheap gotcha. Whereas Gandalf going from Grey to White, (largely having forgotten his Grey period), merely fulfills his status as a spiritual guardian of Middle Earth, a demi-god of sorts. That's gratifying, and was planned all along.
Is that Huck Finn? Or Tom Sawyer.
@@evenstar1608 I think it's both
@@kalyanijiivanimukti3618 I didnt read the Adventures of Huck Finn. I think he is an orphan. How he fake his death?
@@evenstar1608 he killed a pig and used its blood to set the scene
@@kalyanijiivanimukti3618 Ah, ok.
Instant love: I came home from my first date with my husband, spoke to my parents, went to bed. My dad turned to my mother and said, “she’s going to marry him.” I was 15. 57 years later we are still together. But yeah, it seldom works out like that.
❤
😂😂
My father in law said something similar to my husband after they dropped me off after a date. We’d been dating for a little under a month and we’ll be married 6 years this weekend ❤️
Jessica Kellgren-Fozard has said in one of her videos something along the lines of: "When I saw Claudia for the first time, I thought 'Ohhhh, you're the one...'." :D
They are now married and have a toddler.
Okay that’s actually really sweet
One trope I don't really like is when characters meet each other in universe and then fall in love that very same day. Or very soon after. And the reason for that is simply that I've been reading a lot of soft wholesome childhood friends to lovers books or even books where they don't become lovers but are instead very good friends. And I personally find the buildup for that to be so much more fulfilling than reading about two characters who just met and hardly know each other.
I don't like romance much unless they suffered from the same issue and both of them protect each other like in Primal.
I also greatly dislike this trope where they met one (1) time as children and they meet again as adults, but it's like their love story started as kids who like, were at the same beach the same time. Like.... why??? What for?? Why do they need to have met as children?? i.e. like every 4th Koreanovela lol
As much as I dislike this Trope, I can't call it unrealistic because that's the story of how my grandparents met.
Like, the dude was 30 something and she was 20, he gave her a flower the first time they met in a hospital, and two weeks later he proposed to her.
They lived happily as a married couple for around 50 years until he fell down a roof and cracked open his skull, so I can't say the instant love thing is that unrealistic.
I actually saw a fanfiction based on one of my favorite manga ('Seraph of the End') that accidentally illustrated this point really well. Mika and Yu's relationship in the manga has built over years. However, in this story, we just have the guy who's been fighting vampires and the vampire meet and fall for each other instantly and it makes ZERO sense. The reason so many fans ship these characters and want to see them be happy together is that they have always been each other's support since the day they met (well, Yu was kind of a prickly little shit at first - for very good reasons - but Mika was very determined to show all the orphans what a real family is), and they've been through so much, and we want to see that devotion rewarded. If they've never met before, then even if the characterization of each is accurate, it just isn't as compelling.
@@alucard347 While I'm sorry for your grandfather, I am also finding his history one worth living. It must've been a beautiful life.
A miscommunication trope that I really loved is Kaguya-sama: Love is War manga/anime. It is also driven by the pride of the two protagonists. It is more like "lack of honest communication". It is used more for comedic effect than tension, unless you count romantic and sexual tension. Highly recommended. One of my favourite rom-com stories.
Yeah, that's not miscommunication, rather complete lack of one. They're both somehow unaware of how the other feels, but also sure they can get the other to confess first. It's hilarious, and i think if it weren't so, it'd be entirely too annoying, no?
@@AllTheArtsy Yes that's true. I honestly just wanted to let her know about this amazing manga. Miscommunication trope sort of fit with the manga. So it makes sense to comment here, instead of just doing it randomly in any video.😅
@@AllTheArtsy It is more that they are pretty sure that the other reciprocates, but that they cannot bear for them to be wrong and be rejected. Especially when the confession is a significant cost to their personal ego and self-worth coming from their far different backgrounds.
@@radix4400 I just want to see it end with both of them confessing to each other at the same time. All this "trying to make the other confess because it will hurt my ego if I confess" is the sort of mind games that toxic people play.
Actual misunderstanding trope is used with miko, but whats entertaining there is that the misunderstanding is on her part because of her wild (and dirty) imagination and it just makes it funny
I think an example of "I hurt you to protect you" done well is Nami's village treating her like a traitor who had joined Arlong, when in reality they knew that she was trying to save up money to buy the village. They wanted to protect her from the burden of the village's hopes and dreams resting on her shoulders. I think this is the least ham-fisted example of this trope I can think of.
It also was to make it easier for her to just flee and abandom them if she decided to do so. Gen says this if I recall correctly
@@romerus6087 Yep, that's correct.
Man this leads me to think that One Piece has done this trope THREE TIMES
SPOILER ALERT
The Nami case you mentioned
Robin in Water 7 (not much hurting but a little bit of betraying and a lot of information hiding)
Sanji in WCI
And each time is even better than the previous (which is remarkable seeing that all executions are excellent). Man what a great series
And robin. And the smutje.
@@Antonio-oc8ub yesss 🥰
This is not a book but, well... Frozen spoilers below
I like the insta-love between Anna and Hans because it makes a lot of sense. Anna has been lonely and neglected her entire life and is so desparate for love that when someone is showing her the bare minimum of affection, she falls head-over-heels. She hasn't experienced love (in any way) in a very long time, so when she feels the start of a connection with Hans, she mistakes it for romantic love. Hans on his side isn't in love with Anna at all, he's in love with her title, which usually comes a lot quicker than actual love.
And also you could still not suspect Hans' true intentions in the beginning despite this because when you hear he has 12 older brothers so it's easy to assume that having so many older siblings means he doesn't get much attention at home and is easily overlooked (he even mentions a story where all 12 of his brothers refused to talk to him for a time) so you may think that he's falling in insta-love for the same reason Anna is. It's only later that you realize that him having 12 older brothers had a different impact on his motivations, i.e. being 13th in line for a throne.
Personally, my biggest pet peeve trope that is almost impossible to do well is time travel. First of all, it is the ultimate deus ex machina. you can do almost anything with it, and once you introduce it, it immediately opens up a pandora's box.If you had this the entire time or could do this at any point, why was there any problems ever, and also any future problems immediately become irrelevant because time travel exists so you can stop them before they become problems. Also, time travel can't be a minor plot point if you want it in your story. If you have it in your story, it either has to be the main focus or the entire plot has to at least take into account that it's there. That's not to say it can't be done correctly, but you have to thoroughly explain the rules and how it works and potential consequences or it's going to be a huge problem in your story or series
**SPOILERS FOR [TITLE -- BECAUSE JUST SAYING THE TITLE IS A SPOILER?] LOL GENERAL SPOILER FOR A GERMAN TV SHOW AND AN ANIME LOL*
To me the only good way to use time travel in a narrative is for the time travel to be so baked in, that is always happened, is happening, and will happen. Past affects the future. Future affects the past. My favorite examples are Dark and Shingeki no Kyojin (altho the mechanics for this one is not really travel through time, but something more convoluted)
@@AllTheArtsy yes, exactly, if you introduce it, it makes it seem like it was always there and might even fix some logistical mistakes the story might have had. i might be mixing my tropes a little, but in venture bros, they introduce cloning to fix two main characters being dead. immediately we realized that the boys will never have to face consequences, and the characters knew that too, to the point that the characters replaced weren't even the second or third versions, they were the 14th, and then later, they reintroduced tension by killing all the clones. that's how good your tropes need to be to work properly
@@TheBigE9999Few Spoilers for One Piece :
In One Piece the time travel element was used pretty well. For example only forward and not back so it is able to remove tons of problems
I think it's perfectly possible to do time travel well.
Which makes it really frustrating to see it done so poorly all the time.
I love time travel, but i hate when it violates its own rules. And the rule of dont care , have fun timey whimey is a model you can do , if it fits the story.
And 12 monkeys series, amazing, legends of tomorrow fun.
Seriously if its done well, its great, but its easy to ruin or to have too carelwssy(if its not like very campy)
Oh futuramas is really good as well.
"I don't want to be your friend anymore"
Luffy: "you can decide that after I save you"
The "I hurt you to protect you" trope has a sub-trope that i really dislike; "Noble Idiocy". It is generally a romantic trope where one person feels they are not good enough in some way for their partner in some way (secret cancer, class/wealth/family issues, secretly going to jail etc) so will either cruelly break up with them or just disappear without a word. It is always portrayed as they great and noble sacrifice, but in my mind it is always incredibly self-centred - They only want to be with their partner during the good but not the bad. And I always have trouble taking the relationship seriously once they get back together.
It's also really patronizing - let people decide for themselves what they're capable of in relationships.
Just finished fruits basket after your recommendation and wow this is one of my new favourite series, I love and adore this story (although the enthusiasm might be the story hangover, I binged this one and now I'm crashing hard!)
Amnesia. I hate hate hate amnesia tropes. It always feels like it exists just to punish the reader by creating situations we know could easily resolved if the characters just remembered.
I agreed, unless the amnesia get the main antagonist.
I think the best use of the amnesia trope I have seen was in "after the revolution" by Robert Evans. The main reason it worked for me was that the event causing the amnesia happened before the story began, so you could learn about the character's past along side them. This allowed for it to be a major source of tension, rather than one of annoyance, as it usually is, when the reader already knows everything the character is trying to figure out.
@@eliasbischoff176 That does sound like it would be significantly better.
Best use of this trope that I also despise, in my opinion, is in Riordan’s Son of Neptune. Percy gets amnesia with hints of his old life, and as he adventures, he gets more and more of his memory back. What makes this version work is that 1. It’s a move made by an exceptionally petty god, and 2. It doesn’t make the hero any less heroic or competent
@@BatTCK You know,I think hit the nail on the head of what frustrates me. This trope forcefully makes characters incompetent
One of my least favourite trope: the crowd switching side after a character speech. You see that often in kids movies.
For years and years we believed that [insert fantastical creature] was dangerous and wanted to kill us, but after this random guy’s speech , all my prejudices are instantly erased for good and I’ll accept instantly what I used to hate with open arms.
The world doesn’t work like that !!!! Stop doing this !!!!!
*Insert WWII Propaganda Speech here*
I mean maybe it can work, but dont let them switch too fast, one thing cant change that.
Like i love one piece alabasta forall that coming together and failures to stop it, like is it a bit escapist, yeah, but it has a lot of legwork before.
I’m fine with the trope on the assumption that the speech slaps. See “Friends, Romans, countrymen” for the definitive example.
I watched Sea Beast from Netflix recently and it did this exact thing near the end, so annoying!
I also equally hate the usual subversion of this. You will have this really dramatic scene with a character doing a speech and then everyone will laugh at them or boo them or whatever. It just feels very cheap.
Also, I think that the “resurrection trope” or the thinking a character is dead works the best with an unreliable narrator and false memories (as long as it’s consistant throughout). This is done really well in The Screaming Tree by Phil Lovesy. It’s just amazing
"You put them in a daggum explosion, everyone mourns for them, and then they're fine"
Merphy's talking about Pell isnt she. She definitely is lmao.
Well Pedro dies ate least for real, till now
@@gilgeaschwithkerk2344 Still couldn't kill the bastard
I WAS LITERALLY THINKING OF PELL LMAO
Fuck the Pell death fakeout
A love triangle that I thought was done extremely well was in Cassandra Clare's series Infernal Devices, which was Clockwork Angel, Prince, and Princess. Ignoring all of the other issues with that author lol. But in that series, there wasn't a rivalry between Will and Jem as they were trying to win Tessa's heart. All 3 of them cared for each other fully, and it was beautiful. No spoilers, but the way the triangle was resolved in the 3rd book makes me weep every time.
Edit to add: I haven't read the series in years so I don't know if it'll hold up now.
I've heard "fake tension" tropes (like fakeout deaths, miscommunication, macguffin hunts, the party getting lost, etc.) described as "narrative cul-de-sacs" somewhere and that always stuck with me. The story would be just the same if the author didn't waste our time getting sidetracked in something that ultimately had no effect, so then why do it, ugh!? You could just write a shorter book...
All these tropes can be important to the story though.
@@leonmayne797 No, if they fit this definition they aren't. If it adds to the story it automatically isn't a narrative cul-de-sac.
@@jaspervanheycop9722 No I mean the tropes you described are sometimes important to the story. They aren't always narrative cul-de-sacs.
I won't leave things that go nowhere in my books, but I am writing a huge series, so there are some scenes that don't go anywhere in that book, but eventually lead to something in a later book. That's probably not what you mean, but I just thought of that as a potential reason why there might be something that at least appears to go nowhere.
I can see fake out deaths being narrative cul-de-sacs, but only if the character's apparent death didn't affect other characters or change anything. It just comes down to well-written vs not well-written.
Just watched The Boys season 3. One of the main characters uses the "hurt them to protect them" trope on someone they cared about and it backfired spectacularly in the season finale. One of the more interesting uses of that trope imo.
Dude that trope uses in The Boys is pretty cheap
Never made it that far. From the first, I find The Boys in general to be cynical and cheap
@@AllTheArtsy um - that’s the whole point.
I thought it was just a normal use of the trope, with the likely consequences. It’s the only issue I have with Season 3. The only reason it can be ‘excused’ is because they’ve never tried to make us believe that he has great judgment or emotional maturity, so bad decisions are pretty much his forte.
@@dajtoad1 sure, and the point is not good storytelling or meaning-making for me. The Watchmen can make essentially the same argument but so much better.
I see One Piece and Brandon Sanderson together and I can only say Brandon Sanderson should read One Piece
One Piece propaganda.
Has Brandon Sanderson read manga? XD
I think he said in the last AMA in r/books that it's on his waiting list!!! I would love to know his opinions in all of the arcs. Besides, both Oda and Brandon are outstanding authors
@@Antonio-oc8ub That's so cool. One Piece also has a character named Sandersonia.
@@bendover7841 lol and every time she was on screen I thought about that xD. Literally that’s the only reason I like her more than Mariegold
I think one other way how resurrection can be done well is when it has repercussions for the one doing it, not the one returning. When it’s a resource that is available, but can only be used sparsely and/or with HIGH risks. And risks can get higher with each use, forcing characters to make tough choices. And/or maybe it makes the user be seen as a monster by everyone else, including the resurrected. There are ways to explore it, without taking away the significance of death
One of the best fakeout deaths I’ve ever seen was pretty early on in Steven Universe (spoilers to follow, obviously) where there is basically a fakeout death that gets resolved only a few seconds later and serves to introduce the viewer to one of the main mechanics of the show’s alien people and how they can and can’t be hurt.
At the same time, though it’s a child seeing a loved one die out of something he blamed himself for and that is not a done issue at the end of the episode, even with her returning, it’s a trauma that stays with him throughout the whole series among a vast collection of other things.
The episode is often marked by fans as a point where there’s a shift in his character for the first time, not exactly in a very blatant way, but in a lot of subtle ways.
At a later point when he has arguably gone through far worse he still responds to being reminded of the incident with a reflexive defense ability and has to actively calm himself down to go on with what they were doing.
I love this one so much because obviously the viewer was never supposed to think the character had died, but Steven did. Even if it was just for a moment, he saw somebody die because of his own actions and it stuck with him, even through a sea of other horrible and traumatic things that he sees and experiences throughout the show.
The few seconds of death still had such an impact on him and the show took that seriously.
Steven Universe is a TRASH tier show
And once again Steven Universe being the incredible and revolutionary work of art it is 🔥❤️
A really good resurrection I've also seen in tv was the first resurrection in Supernatural (which is ironic considering the show became famous for death being meaningless). In the penultimate episode of s2, one of the brothers dies. Within the first 10 minutes of the season finale he's already been brought back, but instead of hating it, it's one of my favourite parts of the whole show.
The series just sets it all up so well. The brother who ultimately resurrects the dead character has established a clear position on resurrecting the dead and self sacrifice to save loved ones throughout the series; if something's dead, it should stay dead, and sacrificing yourself to bring someone back is ultimately selfish, because now that other person has to live with the knowledge that you brought something awful on yourself just for them. He's been saved at the expense of someone he loves before, and the survivors guilt has been eating away at him, which is why he feels so strongly about all this.
But time and time again throughout the season, we see that his brother is his blind spot. His greatest fear all season has been his worry that he won't be able to keep his brother safe. He will completely compromise his morals if he's in danger, because his brother will always been an exception for him.
So when he dies, he does the unthinkable and resurrects him, damning himself in the process. He completely throws his principles out the window just to bring his brother back, despite knowing what that survivor's guilt feels like, because he can't fathom the idea of living without him. The consequences of his actions then form the main plot of the entire following season. So the death really works, because it was never supposed to be about getting us to mourn a main character before pulling a switcheroo: it was about showing us what would happen to the other main character when pushed to breaking point, and devoting an entire season to dealing with the consequences of his selfishness.
Psychonauts 2 has a similar example, I'll try to be vague, but it's still pretty Spoilery, and you can probably work out what I'm referring to:
There's a character who is thought to be dead, who turns out to be alive, but was basically in a coma and none of their loved ones had any idea for literal years- pretty much everyone else is shown to be traumatized by the events that led to their death, but especially their husband, who is shown to be drinking their life away just to numb the pain(He does get help, but it's clear he is very messed up from this)
There's a happy ending, but it's clear that this wasn't just a moment of player only tension, the "death" had conciquences
Buffy's resurrection was done amazingly well. I watched it after I had just quit Arrow over it doing some really bad resurrections, so I was happily surprised
Doing a rewatch of that and yeah. It's one of the most interesting resurrections in stories that I've seen. The ramifications for both Buffy and Willow in particular are super interesting.
Kind of spoilers for FMA
FMA does resurrection well by having characters explore the idea of resurrection but realize why it can not be done. plus, there are severe consequences for even exploring it.
And the price for even trying to attempt something like it (like the Philosopher Stone) comes at a cost so great it only makes sense for someone who has no regard for human life to pursue.
“I hurt you to protect you” is the stupidest thing of all time…
Miscommunication… I mean… just effing talk to each other like normal people…
Exactly👍 people generally need to confront each other to understand their own heart, nature and if they can be friends or not. Instead, miscomunications happen and because of that, horrible decisions are made, like killing somebody or betrayals or conquering the world but with wrong ideals and more 😒😡🔥
“She’s a terrible person, she will always be a terrible person, and I don’t CARE if you guys have good chemistry, SHE’S AWFUL” is giving Gretchen Wieners “We should totally just stab Caesar” energy
What relationship is she talking about? I've read all of WoT, i feel like once someone says it I'll understand but I literally can't think of anyone that awful, except Gowan lol
EDIT: Someone mentioned Tuon earlier, it's definitely Tuon she owns slaves
@@mkjmoon8263 lots of people hate Faile (why, I really don't understand, but the hate is real). I personally hope she meant Tuon as well. But, since I HATE Mat, I honestly think they deserve each other. (yes, I know, many people love him. I just hate fetshised gambling, and that's his entire character)
@@dorisveeken5354 While I agree the gambling part is not great, Mat is at least a loyal and caring person and, notably, does not own slaves. Also Tuon is very self serving
@@dorisveeken5354 I was definitely a Faile hater my first half-read of WoT and my second time through I understood WHY she was the way she was, but it didn't win me over. She shows up and is entitled about the hunt for the horn, doesn't really listen to people trying to give her advice, and when she marries Perrin she is the exemplification of "Well, if you don't know why I'm mad, I'm not going to tell you" and doesn't give him a chance to explain himself before she just storms out. The only reason I kinda sorta forgave this behavior the second time around was the 1 scene where we meet her parents and I realized that for cultural reasons she's pissed off that Perrin isn't "acting like a man" according to how she was raised. He actually, you know, respects her the way he was taught to by stout Two Rivers folk, and the miscommunication trope rears its head because for her to tell him about it would defeat the point of him being direct, forceful, and dominant the way she believes a man "should" be. But if you miss the nuance of that scene and the cultural expectations Faile was raised with, then she's just acting like a spoiled brat.
How did I know that the resurrection trope would be mentioned first lol, awesome as always merph, keep it up ya legend
Yes!!! Finally someone else talking about The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea!!! I love that book so much!🤩
Great video!!!
5:57 One of my favorite series (The Night Angel by Brent Weeks) did have this trope, where the main character turns immortal, but he doesn’t know/ realize what the cost for his immortality is until near the final stage of the story, which elevates the emotional stakes of the final conflict
I’ve heard Buffy does well for resurrection as there’s an after effect for Buffy herself in terms of mental health, and also a new slayer appearing the few times she “dies” which create social consequences. But unsure how well done that is as I’ve not watched the show properly yet
It’s been a few years since I watched it, but it was my first thought of the trope done well. Every time Buffy comes back, there’s some kind of consequence.
Her first death activated the next Slayer. Technically she isn't the Slayer any more so her successor's death would activate the next one. This whole issue, Slayers dying young, the mechanisms of activating a Slayer amoung a set of potentials and so on are major plot points and pay off in the very last episode. So yeah, consequences.
And it took Buffy a whole season to recover from her second death. It's also extremely risky to revive someone in this universe and it does go wrong in some instances.
Yes this is the only example I can think of where it was done well
Oh yup. The story changes drastically and painfully (in an unfortunate yet well done way)
Her first resurrection is interesting and has good ramifications. Her second resurrection has aMAZing and has dramatic ramifications both for her and her friends. It's one of the more interesting arcs in the series in my opinion.
You mentioning Just Ella was a huge blast to the past, I loved that book when I was little and forgot all about it. It all just came rushing back to me.
Another thing about Pride and Prejudice is that the miscommunication is intenionally made worse by a third party who sees a chance to hurt someone he hates, while also ingratiating himself into a whole neighborhood and making it easier for him to get away with his evil deeds.
My favourite example of resurrection is the manga dungeon meshi, which takes place in a DnD style dungeon. Resurrection is a spell that is not that obscure to know and somewhat costly but not extremely so, at least while being near a dungeon as souls tend to stay near the body there. Because of this there's a whole economy of people who go down into the dungeon with the specific purpose of finding adventurers who died and charging them for resurrections after the fact. But also the deeper you die in the dungeon the less likely those people are to reach you, so if the person in your group who knows how to resurrect people dies deep down you're gonna need to get them out, and if their body is severely damaged that could make it impossible. And if someone dies in a way that destroys most of their body and you don't have the meat with you to resurrect them you are in trouble as well. The first part of the story is the main characters going down into the dungeon in order to kill the dragon that ate the sister of one of the main character in the hopes that because of the slow metabolism of dragons there'll be enough of her left to resurrect her.
I don’t know if this is a trope and it happens more in movie and show sequels, but my least favorite thing is when writer break up characters in a time skip between movies/seasons. It must be because writing committed relationships well is hated than writing characters wanting to start a relationship.
I love how your description for the 'hurt you to save you' trope applied so perfectly to at least 2 scenes from one piece
Catelyn Stark’s death & resurrection as Lady Stoneheart is definitely one of the better examples of a resurrection because even though Catelyn is “alive” physically, she is not really Catelyn in anyway that matters. She’s the body of Catelyn Stark but she is so consumed by the need for vengeance that she’s not the same person.
I generally dislike the resurrection-trope, but I think it was done well in “Neverwhere” by Neil Gaiman. The resurrected character didn’t get away completely unscathed and it served an important purpose in the story.
I haven't read that book, but I agree that a resurrection trope can be good if it actually has some significance to the plot/characters/world.
Actually one of my favorite books has the resurrection trope (can't say which, that would be a huge spoiler). The book foreshadowed it so well, I did not see it coming but when it happened it was one of those "aahh now it all makes sense" moments.
I LOVED this one. Especially with how it was executed. It was all soft-magicky and I adore that.
I agree!!! And it was set up to happen nicely, it didn’t feel random or like it was used as a scapegoat, but rather a key part of the story
Yeah, the mechanism by which he is resurrected (you know which) was set up and there was foreshadowing about it happening. Plus, it's within a surreal and absurdist fantasy. Plus, it's the freaking Marquis.
My most hated trope is time travel. However there are two stories that I think did it well. One is "Erased" (never read the manga, watched the anime) and the other is "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" which I was first introduced to the movie, which led me to the book. I enjoyed both immensely, even though I generally really hate the time travel trope.
Holy crap, huge kudos for bringing up Just Ella! One of my favorites as a kid- it was the one book I wanted from the Scholastic Book Fair the year it came out 😂
I appreciate someone who can generally dislike certain tropes but appreciate that sometimes they can be used well.
The "takeback" death thing is SO true. And I know we're talking books, but this is especially true of shoes too. Magicians, Supernatural, etc. Like I literally found myself "not caring" when Glen died for real in the Walking Dead because I had already mourned him. In retrospect, them trying to bring him back is what killed the show for me and I ended up slowly dropping off watching it and never finished the series. Some things need to be permanent and death is one of them. Otherwise, I think that the show/book/whatever has no heart. I'd be curious to see if I feel the same way about the series you talked about though.
The one time I recall seeing the "hurt you to protect you" trope work (at least for me) was the Mortal Instruments trilogy. The hurting was effective and you see the internal struggle of the person who did the hurting in the second and third books. It was the one time the whole "dude acts like a jerk but is actually nice" trope made sense to me.
It's also the only series where I've seen a well-done love triangle, where both relationships make sense and you root for both of them.
I have a rule on fake out deaths; one per series. You get one for story purposes, so make it make sense & improve the story, but any more and it's annoying. And maybe don't make your first character death a fake out. That makes it harder to trust the real deaths.
Good to see these types of videos, a chat from fans to fans. This video also helps to remember that tropes are tools and what determines if they are good or not is their execution.
I still think you'd enjoy Redwall, or at least reading it to the kids. Although maybe read them first cos I loved them as a kid and still managed to somehow forget how dark they could be (also I find myself amused how different the book Redwall feels to the rest of the series)
Wow. It's so weird I get to the part where merphy talks about Wheel of Time while I talk to another friend about wheel of time..... Merphy is psychic
I'm sure your friend is wondering why you have a video playing in the background while you talk to them about WoT :P
@@merphynapier42 they're used to me not paying attention to them during friendship circle time. but also it was via messenger so they didn't know i was listening to you. (don't tell them tho)
How is this comment 2 days old if the video was posted 7 mins ago
It's called Observation Haki.
@@barbarabeatriz6504 i am also wandering
Make the girl love you, aka I’m going to keep going to keep going until you give in, is the only trope that comes to mind that I cannot see being done well. It’s just gross under every circumstance and I’m burning the book.
I'm glad you can see the "fake" death trope with Sanderson now. I remember having a conversation with you on a previous video a year or 2 ago. Thank you for always being awesome
Lately I can’t stand “the morals in the other world are different so I guess I’m ok with it.” As if the mc would suddenly be fine with slavery or killing as soon as they wake up in the fantasy world, with no moral examination. Did they have no morals in the first place? It’s shallow and frustrating and makes me think the author must be a creep.
let me guess: isekai?
You seem pretty naive. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Beliefs are different
This comment kind of... got me thinking about when this trope could work, and *why* it doesn't for the examples you bring up, so... uh. Sorry that this'll be a wall of text. And a wall of text that kind of spells out a lot of things you probably know about anyways/have already implied.
I think a large part of the reason it doesn't work where you bring it up is bc "Other World is Just Different, so I guess I'm ok with XYZ" kind of... makes whatever XYZ is seem less awful, and mostly just *different*.
So - this works very well for say, another culture eating live bugs, which really isn't morally repugnant at all but does tend to squick people out that are from cultures that don't eat live bugs. "Other World(/Culture) is Just Different, so I guess I'm ok with trying to eat live bugs" would be a very reasonable stance to take, and probably doesn't require a lot of moral examination. (... it probably would include getting over any initial disgust at the mere thought, though, for anybody who grew up thinking this is really gross.)
With say, slavery, this doesn't work bc it's morally repugnant, and just getting an in-story shrug as this being "just different" makes it seem like the author also does just think that "eh, it's okay", is treating it as something that's *not* morally repugnant. So... yeah. Not great, absolutely makes the author seem like a creep.
Another thing that doesn't work is the lack of moral examination. I do genuinely think that, say, someone's attitude towards when physical violence is appropriate would probably shift - or at least be re-examined - if they spend time in a society that has a different attitude about when it's appropriate.
For instance, in a lot of early modern Europe, it *was* considered an appropriate reaction to punch someone in the face for knocking your hat off - because your hat was a sign of your reputation, your honour, and that *mattered*. A character thinking this... really ridiculous initially but ultimately ending up at a position of "okay, I get this in the context of this society, and probably also will deck someone in the face for touching my hat *here*" could absolutely come across as both realistic and not really unreasonable, depending on how it's shown.
Similarly, someone might re-examine or have a shift in their attitudes and opinions about killing or what exactly constitutes self-defense, but... not even the hat thing should happen without moral examination. It shouldn't just be shrugged off.
Honestly, this is also an opportunity to actually examine the morality of some things in more detail, so... this trope also doesn't work in these cases because it specifically is a missed opportunity to examine things, and. Personally, examine things I'd find really interesting and that I think would give a story more depth? Which is where your complaint about it being shallow comes in.
TLDR: So - overall, this trope actually *could* work if there's sufficient moral examination for whatever the MC ends up accepting, and it's not too morally repugnant. Just shrugging it off could work great for... idk, most types of different clothing or food. It doesn't work for slavery.
... anyways, I have written a long wall of text, which. Idk, I hope there's some useful thought in there. What do you think concerning when this trope could work, and when it doesn't?
@@smr1114 Exactly! The scale of difference needs to match the scale of examination or the story skips the development phase. The whole point of otherworld stories is to frame a normie in a new context and create self-examination. It's boring when the normie immediately adjusts and effortlessly kills twenty dudes in the first fifty pages.
I'm thinking of a few examples that work more or less. The moral ambiguity of A Song of Ice and Fire, where all the characters have individual moral frameworks that need to be examined in the context of war. Or Mushoku Tensei, where the worst guy from modern times realizes he regrets how he was living his life but uses his second chance to blunder through becoming a better person. Both are interesting stories where the main characters do some evil things and they do some good things. They learn and change along the way.
I did not really expect you to mention A Golconda Story, but I still appreciate your words of praise in your assessment of the story and the resurrection trope being done well.
Resurrection is my most hated trope! Death should be one of the highest stakes the characters are trying to avoid. When characters can come back to life somehow suddenly the stakes are so much lower...
I really enjoyed the resurrection in the Night Angel trilogy. The novels themselves were 7 out of 10 but I really enjoyed the take on the costs of "immortality" and making death still have cost afterward.
I don’t know if this counts but I’ll put it anyway. Mo Dou Zu Shi (The Grandmaster Of Demonic Cultivation) has resurrection as a trope? in the books. It happens at the very beginning right after an announcement of his death. He is resurrected 13 years after his death but since you haven’t connected to the character at all yet there is no cheated-out-of-my-emotions thing going on. It’s actually done really well and the resurrection is actually relevant to the plot. This also has some miscommunication between the two main characters (Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji) but it’s nothing dumb. It did make me yell at the main character for being an oblivious idiot though.
10/10 recommendation it’s one of my favourite book series’s
I agree with the resurrection trope! It needs to be impactful, and you take away from that by continuously bringing characters back. I think Umbrella Academy has done resurrection really well--it always comes with a price or a reason, not just for the hell of it. That, and "Under the Whispering Door" by TJ Klune!
The Infernal Devices series is a good example of the Love Triangle trope done well.
I remember Merphy hating Will for being the "I'm going go hurt you to protect you" type, but I fully agree--I love the way that love triangle played out.
@@kenna176 yeah I agree with her on the "I'm going to hurt you to protect you" BS.
@@kenna176 In Will's defense, he thought that anyone who liked him would literally die, so he genuinely thought he was doing them a favor. Also, he assumed that anyone still alive didn't truly love him, so he probably didn't realize how badly he was hurting them.
I feel like Will is made up of tropes that I dislike/don't prefer, but somehow wrapped up in a way that makes him really likable. I'm not a huge fan of the Mortal Instruments and never read beyond those, but I really loved the Infernal Devices growing up and the trio of Jem, Will, and Tessa was absolutely why.
@@ArabellaTurner You're preaching to the choir. Internal Devices is my favorite Shadowhunters trilogy, and Will is absolutely my favorite character. He's a little bit of a disaster as a human and his loyalty is unmatched, and I love him for that.
@@ArabellaTurner that's fair
Interesting lol love a fun Merphy explaination and rant video!! Thanks for the positive side as well, :) Had a fun time like chatting to a sweet and bubbly friend. 😃
THANK YOU for talking about the resurrection trope. I have a burning hatred for it and what you are saying exactly explains how I feel about it.
The "hurt you to protect you" trope was also done really well in an episode of "White Collar" - S4 E4 "Parting Shots". He used the "hurting" her, telling her he'd already stolen all her money, to lead her to call the FBI agent who could then follow the rest of the clues he also told her, saving her, hopefully saving him, and hopefully catching the bad guys.
There's a series that has resurection where I think it's really well done, Dorohedoro.
The reson why I think it works in this world is because the world they live in is already so screwed up and human life and death is so trivialized, that it just kinda makes sense that there's one character that can just bring people back to life and it's "no biggie".
One series I love the resurrection in was actually a middle grade novel, keeper of the lost cities. (Also, spoilers for that series if you care)
There's a character who dies, but they find out he actually had a twin who was still alive... The story had set up that elves HEAVILY discriminated against twins, especially in the past, and this elf is very very old, so the two twins had developed a telepathic link to function as one person, which also explained why they were able to be all over the place etc. So, when the one twin dies, he actually is dead, and the weight of that is actually made heavier when you get to see his other half suffering for his death, but it also helps with the gap his character would have left if he'd been completely gone. So, kinda a resurrection, but also not
I loved in Dark Matter when Three was injured and tried the "I hate you now go" trope on Five to get her to abandon him and save herself. When she tears up he tries to belittle her over it and she just smiles through her tears and tells him, "No, I'm crying cause I know what you're trying to do." He then proceeds to stop being stupid and they make a plan to use him as bait to ambush the antagonist hunting them.
Thank you for not trashing specific novels and instead focusing on what you said you would: where those tropes are done well. A RUclips trope I hate is “people *say* they’re going to focus on a positive, *pretend* to be morally superior, and then just trash others (by name or through parody) and the whole thing was a thinly veiled attempt at pretence”. (If someone wants to trash stuff - fine - just be honest about it!) Your video and commentary were great - I’m going to add Just Ella to my list (because I also hate that trope, and the Cinderella story in general, but this sounds much more interesting!).
A love triangle I thought honestly compelling was Lancelot, Arthur, and Guinevere in 'The Once and Future King.' The morality, politics, and honest sadness of it all... even if Guinevere wasn't the most developed of characters.
I also found it compelling in The Mists of Avalon.
"She;s a terrible person, I don't care if you have good chemistry, she's awful..." *Cough Tuon *Cough
The "I hurt you to protect you" works when there's espionage involved and it is done in order not to put the person hurting in more grave danger. But when they're not just communicating for some reason, and the other one is unreasonably carrying it all and withholding all information all on his own, that's when it becomes cheap, sometimes a plot hole.
Bad communication for no particular reason is just bad.
3:42 if you're talking about Hisoka's resurrection, he didn't come out of it the same. He lost a hand and a leg for g's sake.
Wym ? He still after that had his arm and leg
@@ahmxtsxnjuu2373 it's prosthetic not original limbs. Try cutting your arms and replace it with the most advanced prosthetic arm, it won't feel the same.
@Dating zone 5 ?
Yeah, Hisoka change so much, the only person he will spare will probably the MC's and machi.
He probably died and the new character is a zombie or he is him but is brain damaged.
I _really_ dislike chosen one prophecies, but I actually like how it was approached in Harry Potter
Yeah, people's reaction to prophecies causing the prophecy to come true is the only satisfying way to do it for me, the exception in my case being LotR where there's gods putting their thumb on the scales at the right moments, but I'm willing to overlook it because it fits with the world he created.
Same! I also like it the way it was done in Percy Jackson. It was the kid of the big three that reaches 16 first but it changes who it most probably will be
@Axolotl I've only seen the first kung fu panda, so I'll take your word for it.
The trope I absolutely hate and don't see ever being done well is teenage girl being physically abused her whole life and not only isn't that much affected by it, if at all, but doesn't want anything done about it because she's just that kind hearted and pure. Even the variation of it where sure she feels a little bad but then it's like it never happened as soon as she meets that one dude sucks. I see it in webnovels all the time.
I'm not a big fan of love triangles either but my favorite one that does really well for me is a webtoon called brass and sass. One of my favorite arcs of the story is instead of a competition between the girls to get with guy, they actually grow and build each other up outside of the guy instead!
My favorite Jordan trope around non romantic relationships is how women will just go up to each other and directly ask if they want to be friends.
As someone with anxiety and depression, the "I hurt you because I wanted to keep you safe" annoys the hell out of me. Having someone destroy you as a person, throw all your insecurities at you as a means of pushing you away, then turn around and be like "jk, I still love you" is not okay. You don't just bounce back from that. It can cause permanent rifts in relationships and scar people for future ones. That isn't a sign of love, it's emotional manipulation. Every time the other character forgives them immediately after hearing their reasoning, I want to smack some sense into them. Happens all the time in superhero media. The friend or love interest gets too close to finding out their secret identity, so they make them go away. Like, why would anyone forgive you after that? If you're gonna use that trope, don't let them immediately be forgiven. Let the other person have time to stew and hate. And make the reason be a real one, not some nonsense that could be solved with a simple conversation
Regarding the fake out death trope - in my writing I plan to use it in an interesting way. A double fake out. A shapeshifting assassin replaced the character while he was recovering (or dying) in the hospital. Let the characters get real comfortable with his survival before twisting the knife.
I think one of my favorite books that do the whole. Everyone thought they were dead but is really alive. Is the Ascendance series by Jennifer.A.Neilson. She does a great job with making people think the character is dead when in reality. He used his clever mind to escape death.
Iron Widow had the best love triangle, and those who have read it know why.
And I like the resurrection trope in Game of Thrones. The people who get resurrected "lose" something, and still carry the wounds that were inflicted upon them before death. And sometimes the person who does the resurrection has a consequence too.
Note that the implied event is that Hisoka underwent a significant power increase from the death and resurrection.
By leaning into Nen after death and all that comes with it he will supposedly have gained massive permanent improvement - the experience that is transcendent of life, breeds transcendent power … or something like that
Not just that but his entire philosophy changed from fighting opponents at their strongest to killing them no matter the cost.
He is basically an undead remenant, which makes him stronger but ceases to be human.
To the scene in One Piece you describe in 8:20 there is one significant thing happening after the person supposed to get hurt not taking it.
The fact that the protective character in this case does feel bad about what he's doing. It's stated that the only one who is being hurt is himself and we not only read that but we really see the real emotions of the protective character and that for me puts the cherry on top. Also now that I think about this trope in context with One Piece, Oda uses that a lot and it always feels different and rarely like the trope is really being used.
Just Ella was the book that got me into reading. I was so resistant until I was 13 and my friend let me read it during Silent Reading and I loved it. Got me actually interested in reading and I never looked back.
The wheel of time bit, I feel your passion. I laughed so hard.
6:07 “I don’t want to hurt your feelings but the truth is you never mattered all that much to me.”
For me when resurrection, fake out deaths, or reincarnation are involved in the plot I like when they are main plot points that the reader is aware of as it allows the repercussions of such plot lines to be explored without seeming like a copout certainly doesn't hurt that the big reveal is one of my favorite types of scene in a book as I like the shocked reactions the characters in book show.
I agree with the death thing. It’s a boy who cried wolf thing.
One example of a love triangle that I really liked was in Star Trek DS9, one character really likes another, but she's already with someone else, so he doesn't pursue because he cares about her happiness and still values her as a friend. They do eventually get together, but much later on.
Yeah, that was awesome! Like pretty mych most of that show, so well done!
If you want to consider what happened to Gandalf the same resurrection trope, I think it also was done really well. Tolkien has an extremely sensitive approach to death (from the Halls of Mandos to the unknown that awaits in death for Men), and being a Maia is really the only thing that brought Gandalf back - same spirit, different "job" :)
I've been hurt by the resurrection trope going the other way. In Joel Rosenberg's books, he kills off one of his main characters, but it kinda happens off-page, and I kept hoping they may have actually survived. In later books, it is heavily implied that this person may have survived, then nope. They're dead. So I got to mourn twice.
I liked miscommunication in "36 Questions That Changed My Mind About You" when Hildy didn't show up on a kind of date, because she thought her brother went missing/ ran away (I'm not sure, I read it some time ago so I may misremembered something). She didn't have a way to contact guy she was supposed to meet with to tell him she may not show up because he literally contacted her through fake Messenger account from public library computer and she understandably was more focused on her brother at the time. But as soon as she found her brother and realised she missed the meeting she went out of her way to explain herself and apologize to Paul, even though it was really hard to get to him because he was really closed person in the first place but also as I said her only contact info was fake account he probably stopped checking. She succeeded though and he wasn't mad about it once she explained everything
I enjoyed this book, it was fun to read
I love when you try to do lists and go off on tangents, it's so relatable lol
2:06 I would go further and say it applies to consequences as well. Marissa Meyer has a writing quirk where she will add something that SHOULD break her characters or drastically change things, but she won’t go through with it in the end.
Spoilers:
Throne losing his eyesight and getting it back.
Wolf is brainwashed to be wild and ruthless and forget Scarlet, and it’s reversed the second he sees her.
In Supernova, tons of characters lose their powers and they’ve all returned by the end of the story.
These are just a few examples-mainly, the ones that pissed me off the most.
Her: *talks about how faking death is frustrating*
Black Clover: "Let me introduce myself."
You describing how resurrection was done well in Malazan made me realize the Brando Sanerson DOES do it well when it's not the main characters. The heralds and voidspren are sometimes traumatized and dysfunctional in ways that are interesting to the story
JJ Abrams movie director uses a trope for his scifi movies. All his stories are "a bad guy with a powerful ship who wants to destroy everything and everyone". Check his movies and you will see.
The hurt you to save you trope really only works when there's a villain literally within listening distance (potentially) who will kill the person unless you hurt them that way. It works in the show Murdoch mysteries when Julia refuses to marry Murdoch because she received a photo of them kissing with an note saying this serial killer could see and hear her any time and if she didn't break off the engagement or if she told anyone he contacted her, he would kill them both.
It's such a relief to hear someone also talk about all the fake deaths in One Piece! That's probably my biggest problem with this manga. Also the I-hurt-you-because-I-love-you trope. That thing just physically hurts ME. I remember reading The Well of Loneliness and just starting to scream at such a scene. Not only do you make a selfish "noble" decision to break up with someone because you think you are not good enough for them, but you also decide to do it in the most traumatic way possible. And somehow that's framed as a painful but ultimately good thing to do...
As for the love triangle trope, I think it becomes really interesting when the relationship between the 3 characters is really complex, intense, and deeply psychological, with additional points if this relationship is central or important to their character development and/or the plot.
So, for me, one of the best examples of the love triangle done right is the relationship of Guts, Griffith, and Caska in Berserk. Most fans of this manga will agree that the relationship between these three is central to the story. It is incredibly complex and well-written and eventually gets horrifyingly messed-up. But it is also a proper love triangle. Caska loves Griffith, but eventually falls in love with Guts and chooses him. Guts loves Caska as a woman and loves Griffith as the most important and special person in his life (arguably platonically). And Griffith gets to the point of obsessively and possessively loving Guts, while also having some feelings for Caska (she is his only confidante pre-Guts and the only person with whom Griffith allows himself to be vulnerable). And all of that very much doesn't end well.
I wonder how you would feel about fake outs deaths in the Re;zero novels it uses time loops to kill characters then bring them. I would say the series focuses on the emotional and mental turmoil these failed loop put on the main character he treats everything that happens as real and carries the guilt and sorrow over as motivation.
I really want her to read some japanese light novel, Re zero is my favorite
@@ahmadiskandarzulkarnain5833 ya i hope so too Re;zero just is doing so many unique things from its story and characters im sure she would love it
My take on some of these being done well in my opinion:
Killed not killed- WoT BALEFIRE duh so cool!
Hurt you to save you: Moulin Rouge movie
Resurrection: LOTR
Love triangle- Les Miserables book(so so so well done).
Talking Animals- Golden Compass (I also loved it in Nevermoor)