Tropes you hate and why

cauliflower

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This is a good post. I'm trying to think of a few I haven't seen yet. I haven't read through everything though.

-Main character is a badass with a rough backstory, but zero personality. Simply drives the plot forward.
-Boring accountant family man has his daughter kidnapped by terrorists and suddenly he's a trained NAVY Seal and helicopter pilot.
-Vampires vs. warewolves.
-Story centers around a military unit which has no discipline or respect but they're apparently so good they never get punished.

.
 

ShayDRaven

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The "I'm not like other girls (and therefore I am better than them)" trope.

I wholeheartedly agree with this one. I feel like this is almost an invitation to discuss how poorly females are portrayed in novels, but then again the same can be said for any other gender. To me the real issue is that the writer just isn't being truthful. Prolific writers always toss that little tidbit of advice around to "tell the truth" and I think these are good examples of how NOT to incorporate it. It's annoying to read about a character who views themselves as above everyone else in general, unless the plot revolves around the fact that this is actually their weakness, perhaps.

Another one to add to the list that I'm sure has been brought up is when the antagonist of the story suddenly has a change of heart and decides to right all of their wrongs because they've "learned their lesson." Humans prove time and time again that change is hard, so this is SO unrealistic to me.
 

TwistedTyping

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I don't know if this is a trope, but I hate that beautiful people are heroes and ugly people are villains. The instant an non-good looking male walks on screen, I wonder if he's a villain.....and he usually is.

This isn't true of women, if a woman is ugly she's fodder for comedy but not a villain. Even women villains are good looking because Hollywood seems to have forgotten there are unattractive people out there.
 
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In any case.... attractiviness is relative
I don't know if this is a trope, but I hate that beautiful people are heroes and ugly people are villains. The instant an non-good looking male walks on screen, I wonder if he's a villain.....and he usually is.

This isn't true of women, if a woman is ugly she's fodder for comedy but not a villain. Even women villains are good looking because Hollywood seems to have forgotten there are unattractive people out there.
 
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The ugly duckling is ignored by the hot girl/ guy til they get a makeover and chage up their lifestyle. TYen the perosn who ignored them likes them and get into a romance..... so... y should i want you, you didnt like me when i was myself
 

Cobalt Jade

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The ugly duckling is ignored by the hot girl/ guy til they get a makeover and chage up their lifestyle. TYen the perosn who ignored them likes them and get into a romance..... so... y should i want you, you didnt like me when i was myself

I would love it if the unachievable object of desire, once they have been secured by the protag, gets lectured and then dumped for being lookist, and the protag goes back to being him or herself.
 

and_so_on

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I didn't have time to read every post because I'm heading out to a thing in a few minutes, but has anyone brought up the Over-Explaining Villain?

I'm sure I could come up with an example that would make me seem much more interesting and intellectual, but the first one that springs to mind is Lord Voldemort. If he would have just. Stopped. Talking, he would have had, like, six or seven chances to make Harry Potter a moot point. I realize that would have turned a seven-novel juggernaut into a depressing short-short about a wizard murdering a child, but you'd think he would have made the connection eventually.

Is there a trope with characters who swear WAY too much? That's the one I have fought with in my own material. I shoot for naturalistic dialogue and end up with people using more curse words than conjunctions. It's "realistic," but it's about as pleasant for the reader as the time I got to sit through a guy doing Adam Sandler's "P.O.S. Car" at a karaoke bar.
 

Roxxsmom

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I would love it if the unachievable object of desire, once they have been secured by the protag, gets lectured and then dumped for being lookist, and the protag goes back to being him or herself.

Or if the former "ugly duckling" has an epiphany and realizes that their fixation on said object of desire back before they (the former ugly duckling) had their makeover was shallow and looks based too, and that they really liked their fellow nerd better.

A variation of this is a fiery hatred for the trope where the unremarkable male protagonist (played by an actor who is not known for being a hunk) has this "ordinary" girlfriend/lover who is anything but ordinary. She's pretty damned hot, in fact (because there really aren't that many young, female actors who aren't darned good looking), much hotter than a guy like him "should" be able to secure, even if she's presented as a "girl next door" type. But he gets fixated on a different girl, one who is arguably "hotter (maybe because she's blonder or has bigger boobs, I dunno), and somehow he has a chance to cheat with her. So he does, and of course all heck breaks loose, and his "true love" gets mad for some strange reason and he has to get her back (and of course this is possible too) after realizing that she's the "real deal," and this "hotter" gal is shallow etc. Variant being that the true love doesn't know he's cheating, and he simply decides to stop cheating on her.

The whole plot of the movie "10" and countless others I've seen over the years.

Bleh. Talk about a male-centric fantasy. Maybe it exists in reverse too, with a normal looking woman cheating on her really nice looking husband with an even hotter supermodel dude type, but I've never seen it. It might make an amusing parody.
 
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Emermouse

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I didn't have time to read every post because I'm heading out to a thing in a few minutes, but has anyone brought up the Over-Explaining Villain?

I'm sure I could come up with an example that would make me seem much more interesting and intellectual, but the first one that springs to mind is Lord Voldemort. If he would have just. Stopped. Talking, he would have had, like, six or seven chances to make Harry Potter a moot point. I realize that would have turned a seven-novel juggernaut into a depressing short-short about a wizard murdering a child, but you'd think he would have made the connection eventually.

To be fair, over-explaining is a common occurrence in the Harry Potter-verse for both the good guys and the bad guys. Dumbledore often seems to exist to explain things to the slower readers in the audience. He shows admirable dedication to the job in that not even the icy hand of death will keep him from his duty. It works better with Hermione, who has been depicted as being more than just a bit didactic. It also works because whenever she starts lecturing, Ron and Harry roll their eyes about it.
 

travelgal

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Or if the former "ugly duckling" has an epiphany and realizes that their fixation on said object of desire back before they (the former ugly duckling) had their makeover was shallow and looks based too, and that they really liked their fellow nerd better.

A variation of this is a fiery hatred for the trope where the unremarkable male protagonist (played by an actor who is not known for being a hunk) has this "ordinary" girlfriend/lover who is anything but ordinary. She's pretty damned hot, in fact (because there really aren't that many young, female actors who aren't darned good looking), much hotter than a guy like him "should" be able to secure, even if she's presented as a "girl next door" type. But he gets fixated on a different girl, one who is arguably "hotter (maybe because she's blonder or has bigger boobs, I dunno), and somehow he has a chance to cheat with her. So he does, and of course all heck breaks loose, and his "true love" gets mad for some strange reason and he has to get her back (and of course this is possible too) after realizing that she's the "real deal," and this "hotter" gal is shallow etc. Variant being that the true love doesn't know he's cheating, and he simply decides to stop cheating on her.

The whole plot of the movie "10" and countless others I've seen over the years.

Bleh. Talk about a male-centric fantasy. Maybe it exists in reverse too, with a normal looking woman cheating on her really nice looking husband with an even hotter supermodel dude type, but I've never seen it. It might make an amusing parody.

Crikey, that's so lame. I never watch romances or romantic comedies, so clearly I haven't missed much.

Ah yes, the ugly-ducking trope, I'd love to see that happening, but an ugly person is unworthy of love (according to Hollywood), especially if it's a female.

In my YA, the MC never gets her hot-shot crush; she crushed on him because he was kind to her, but that was before he realised who she was; Cecile's loser twin. By the time her 17th birthday rolls around (everyone's celebrating Cecile, not her), she disdains him, and instead uses him in her web of lies.

I did not want her to end up with a man. More important, she insisted she wouldn't. :D
 

HaHs

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The soulmate trope. Sure I get the romance and all, but the whole 'we were made to be with each other' thing really grates on me sometimes. Especially when being soulmates means they're so compatible that everything is kisses and roses and hunky-dory loveliness. I can't root for people that don't need rooting for. And soulmates who don't even have to fight for each other in the first place are the WORST.
 

Emermouse

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Thought I'd talk about a trope/general meme that keeps showing up: Adoptive Parents aren't real parents. It does show up in published works, but a good example is all those Harry Potter fanfics where Hermione discovers she is adopted and skips off to be with her birth parents, never bothering to give any thought to the pair of muggle dentists who changed her diapers and have pretty much been there for every moment of her young life. Apparently if a mother didn't personally gestate a kid and Daddy didn't supply the seed, they're not real parents.

John Byrne, from what I've heard, is a horse's rear end, personality-wise, but the rewrite he did of Superman in the 80s is damn good, simply because it acknowledges a few basic facts: Superman may get his alien DNA and all the powers that come with it, from his Kryptonian parents, but ultimately his moral code, the thoughts and ideas that make him the hero he is, came from being raised by a pair of Kansas farmers.

Favorite panel from said reboot here: http://comiconverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Superman-standing.png
 

autumnleaf

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Just for once, I want to see a love triangle end with the protagonist ending up alone -- either because she (it's usually a she) decides she'd be better off alone, or because the two competing suitors decide they're better off without her.
 

Maryn

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On the flip side, though, you have the excellent movie "Lion," based on "A Long Way Home," the true story of an Indian boy raised well and with love by Australian parents, who feels compelled as an adult to find his birth family based on what little he can remember.
 

Brightdreamer

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Just for once, I want to see a love triangle end with the protagonist ending up alone -- either because she (it's usually a she) decides she'd be better off alone, or because the two competing suitors decide they're better off without her.

Oh, yes, the love triangle... They're very tough to pull off without being either highly manipulative or exceptionally lopsided (as in, one guy's obviously Wrong, but is kept in the running to increase angst and pad the plot.) And so often, when one person does win, there's little thought to the loser, who just had their heart broken and dreams shattered if they actually cared about the MC at all (though the manipulative plotlines like to brush this off by saying the loser never really loved the MC anyway, 'cause True Love wins out and everything else is a meaningless lie.)
 

Myrealana

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Superman may get his alien DNA and all the powers that come with it, from his Kryptonian parents, but ultimately his moral code, the thoughts and ideas that make him the hero he is, came from being raised by a pair of Kansas farmers.
Reminds me of a line from the Dean Cain Superman series "Lois and Clark" -- "Clark Kent is who I am. Superman is what I can do."
 

Emermouse

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A quote from Guardians of the Galaxy 2 that goes with my adopted parents rant: "He may have been your father, but he wasn't your daddy."
 

airandarkness

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Just for once, I want to see a love triangle end with the protagonist ending up alone -- either because she (it's usually a she) decides she'd be better off alone, or because the two competing suitors decide they're better off without her.

I'd like to see more of this too, especially the former, just because I'm a big advocate of the single life (although the latter would be humorous too). One of Sarah Dessen's more recent novels had a triangle where the girl didn't choose either of them in the end, just ended up single. I remember feeling kind of confused while reading the book because her books usually feature a pretty straightforward romance, but in that book I couldn't tell who the love interest was supposed to be, and both of them occasionally came off as jerks. Then in the end she didn't end up with either of them, and I was like, ah, cool!
 

Sweet Escape

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I'd like to see more of this too, especially the former, just because I'm a big advocate of the single life (although the latter would be humorous too). One of Sarah Dessen's more recent novels had a triangle where the girl didn't choose either of them in the end, just ended up single. I remember feeling kind of confused while reading the book because her books usually feature a pretty straightforward romance, but in that book I couldn't tell who the love interest was supposed to be, and both of them occasionally came off as jerks. Then in the end she didn't end up with either of them, and I was like, ah, cool!

Oh, which book was that?
 

Chase

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My anti-trope alert sounds loudest :e2Order: when the innocent young girl:e2file: recalls black belt skills--including star-throwing, short sword fighting, and Annie Oakley marks(wo)manship:guns:--from a summer of karate classes at girl scout camp and develops into a brash young woman with an attitude. :rolleyes
 

Maryn

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Obviously that's never happened to you...

Maryn, who also learned to wrestle gators
 

Chase

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Obviously that's never happened to you...

Pity the poor 'gators.:cry: In my case, I began shooting once a week at 10 and earned every step award in junior NRA to distinguished marksman in six years. Then several army weapons schools and 10 years nearly daily practice to get almost as good as an 18-year-old girl at her first visit to the range :guns:in some current tropes. :flag: