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Your Most Disliked Tropes


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Are there any common themes or elements in media that you find really annoying? This is a thread for you to talk about them and why you dislike them.

Most of mine are science fiction tropes, incidentally. I've noticed that they tend to fall under three categories: unfortunate implications, lack of creativity, and insulting to viewer/reader intelligence, with a lot of overlap between the three categories.

Gaining a mental disability by sci-fi means is treated as being "robbed of your humanity".

A pretty common trope that takes many forms. Perhaps there's some horrible process that will rob you of thought and emotions and turn you into a living vegetable. Perhaps humans are being subjected to some horrible experiment to make them someone's footsoldiers, and in doing so their intelligence and ability to think for yourself is destroyed. This is seen and described as "becoming sub-human".

On the surface, this trope makes sense, and there's nothing wrong with it. After all, sci-fi often includes a lot of people suffering horrible fates and that sort of thing, and what's worse than losing your very humanity? The problem with me is with the way it's treated leading to unfortunate implications. Too often, it's supposed that people who have essentially been afflicted with a severe handicap or disability by these science fictiony means are now "not human" and may not even have a right to life. The worst part is that it's presented in a very black-and-white way as just the way things are. There's no attempt to balance it out with another viewpoint, like the possibility that have lost the function of some of their faculties still deserve to be considered human beings with rights. In real life, it's hardly universally accepted that those with severe impairments have no right to live or be considered human.

I'm sure some will roll their eyes and say I should just accept it at face value because it's sci-fi and not real life, but the problem is that people being inflicted with severe mental impairments that disables them from experiencing a part of normal human existence is something that happens in real life. I don't see what makes it fundamentally different. And yet, science fiction all too frequently acts like it's just a given that such individuals shouldn't be considered human or even have a right to live. I know sometimes issues with people in vegetative states in real life are complicated, but that's just it: they're complicated. It's not nearly as black and white as the sci-fi version makes it out to be.

In the specific instance of people being turned into footsoldiers, it could be an interesting moral quandary: is it okay to kill innocent people who are only attacking you essentially out of being handicapped mentally if there's no other choice? But sometimes, it's just hand-waved with "They're not human anymore", which if you think about it is kind of horrible. It's there to make things less morally complicated and messy, but it does so by relying on a premise that's morally questionable at best.

I guess I just wish sci-fi writers would be more careful with the implications of what they're writing and not assume they can make things simple and black-and-white just because they're creating it.

Clones being way different from "real" or "normal" people.

Far too often, science fiction treats clones as this weird super-sci-fi thing akin to sentient artificial intelligence or aliens or whatnot, emerging as the same age as the people they're cloned from from vats of goo, and using and treating them as "copies" of real people (and thus fundamentally "fake") as opposed to people who happen to have identical DNA to another individual.

My big problem with this is that...well...cloning is a real technology. I wouldn't be surprised if human cloning became a reality in my lifetime. Do we really want this goofy, inaccurate portrait of cloning to be in the culture's consciousness when someday we might have actual human clones who are basically no different from you and me walking around? It just doesn't bode well. This one falls under both the intelligence-insulting category and the unfortunate implications category, but the latter is especially an issue.

Aliens that exactly like earth species, except for sometimes having extra powers or being a different size or having a different intelligence level or whatever.

This is very intelligence-insulting, of course, and it also shows a disgusting lack of creativity. I understand that sometimes there are valid storytelling reasons for making aliens look like humans, and you probably don't want them to always be shapeshifters. But even then, it wouldn't hurt to change something about their biology. Make them age differently, give them a different diet, or just anything - be creative. (And to be clear, cultural differences are great and all, but I'm talking actual biological differences.) And just making them exactly like humans, but with psychic abilities or superpowers, doesn't count. Making aliens look like other species is often even less excusable, since there's much less reason to do it other than not being creative enough to design your own creature.

And yeah, Superman is totally a part of this trope, which I definitely dislike and which leads me to make up some weird headcanons.

Declaring a certain species "evil" (or good), whether alien or human.

I probably don't have to explain why this is messed up, but I will anyway. It's stupid, uncreative, lazy, cliched, doesn't make sense, and unfortunate implications galore. There's just so much wrong with it. You don't have to show a "good member" or "evil member" of a given species every single time, to be clear. But that doesn't mean you have to go all "humans are the real monsters" or "monsters are the real monsters" or whatever. How about just, "People of any species who are monsters are monsters"? Does that work?

Plus, making character's motives be a part of their species makes for exponentially worse characters.

Time travel.

I dunno, I'm just tired of time travel. The same stupid tropes and paradoxes get repeated over and over and over again, and it's really, really hard to actually make anything make a lick of sense. I guess the problems just outweigh the benefits to me.

Honestly, I'm sure there are probably other tropes that annoy me other than the ones listed, but I've probably gone on long enough for now, eh?

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Hey, a lot of mine are animal ones, so you're not the only one who specialises.

A lot of the animal stereotypes that get used over and over

Let's be clear, some stereotypes make sense because they have a basis in real life. Snakes and Mongeese are rivals? Makes sense. Flies are scared of spiders? Sure. It's all based on actual food chains and stuff. But then there are some species characteristics that keep cropping up that have been debunked over time or were just never right ever. Remember any scenes where sharks were the bad creatures about to eat the heroes when a dolphin saved them because they were cute and helpful? Yeah, the dolphin's probably more vicious than the shark because it can plan its kills. Hippos are klutzy and goofy? Yep, totally fits what is considered the most dangerous large animal in Africa. Snakes are evil? Oh piss off, and the Sonic series has done that twice shamefully enough. Oh, and did you know that alligators are generally more docile than crocodiles? Fiction tends to make them interchangeable, so I wouldn't blame you for not knowing.

Non-Mammal Mammal parts (and sometimes mammal on mammals that shouldn't have them, too)

Okay, so this I can let by if it's one of those works where everyone is basically human except for the most superficial of touches. Any scale lower than that and this really begins to irk me. If you're not a mammal, you don't have the equipment to make milk because that's not how the development of your species works. And you really shouldn't have hair because you don't have fur. The Sonic series is actually pretty on the ball for this, game-wise; Wave is a bird, her 'hair' is feather plumage and she's flat chested because she doesn't have breasts. Neither does Tikal, who as a monotreme would not secrete milk like Eutherians (aka everything that's not them or Marsupials). Often though, there's some pretty bad examples of this (in Sonic, Salma was ridiculous but far from an isolated case. Out of Sonic, Mona Lisa just to grab one off the top of my head). It is most apparent with females unfortunately (because we apparently can't recognise females without those traits), but males get it too...mostly regarding equipment they shouldn't have. For more physiological functions like sweating (which isn't even done across mammals universally), I'm a bit more forgiving because that's harder to get creative with.

That plot where a love interest and a rival get introduced and suddenly has the hero embroiled in a rivalry to get this random woman

I think you know this plot, it's an old time staple of classic cartoons. Popeye is the ultimate refinement of this formula, but you have Mickey and Minnie with Mortimer thrown in on occasion, Tom occasionally got some queen and a rival (Butch was somewhat recurring), Yogi's first love outing was with a rival competing for Cindy, and it even holds up in modern media lest we forget the plot of nearly every main Mario game ever. But the reason I dislike this formula so much is that it often turns characters into plot devices, so they have no chance of getting to see their character or any development outside of that scenario. Some people accuse Olive Oyl of being a pretty flat character, Mickey and Minnie can kinda fall into generic goodness, good luck having any traits to Tom's love interests, Yogi and Cindy's dynamic had to be completely reworked into the one people knew (which became more akin to Sonic and Amy, itself a stab at the trope), and Peach has so many complaints lodged against her flat personality (because the main games don't often show off the nuances the side games do), she probably wins out against pretty much all other love interests on how much hate she gets. And these are the famous examples. This plot used to be one of the go-to stock plots for quickness, so dozens of cartoons did this and the love interest and rival were even more throwaway. Oh, and if you were a distaff counterpart? That would put the love interest at even more risk of this since their character became "The hero but female". On the rival side, do you know how many rivals I can think of who were established to the hero before the love interest ever entered the picture? A number that can be counted on one hand, Butch being one of them. Oh, and I'm pretty sure it has been done in reverse plenty (aka two females competing for one guy) and can be annoying as well, but those cartoons tend to be more modern ones (aka 90s onwards), which I'm less savvy with. In general, a bad plot if you want character.

Edited by VEDJ-F
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The cutest character is the hero: This is a pretty nauseating trope, that the character designated the 'hero' and the winner of the feud is not the most scrupulous side but the one that is most superficially adorable and (self) righteous. The Golden Age shorts were often prone to this, while there was usually an enforcement of karma, many cartoons just skipped the formalities, expecting people to root for the cute animal character outright bullying the shlubby or ugly one (in fairness some series were admitant to falling into this mentality, eg. Jerry started losing to Tom as a response to this in later cartoons, while WB became more and more insistent on making foes Bugs Bunny could look genuinely heroic against). Ironically it's the sickly sweet Disney cartoons that most often played this straight. Donald and Pluto in particular could never catch a break against the sadistic but small and innocent looking Chip and Dale or Spike the Bee, even when they acted ten times worse or outright drawn the first blow. The 90s show The Dreamstone is the most absurd example of this trope I've ever seen. The show seems to do everything in it's power to make the Urpneys far more likeable than the Noops, but think it's balanced out because the latter have a sickeningly cutesy and over the top sanctimonious approach to it all.

 

The 'Casandara Truth' plot: It's been done millions upon billions of times. One character notices something is up with the goings on around them, and absolutely no one, not even their closest and most trusting friends believe them, leading them to spend the whole episode chewed out and ignored while they try to save their ass. It perhaps adds to the frustration that, despite how ridiculously common this plot is, it's incredibly rare that afterwards the disbelieving friends are called out for their mistrust or even make so much as a half hearted apology. Perhaps the only ones I enjoyed were the Porky and Sylvester shorts by Chuck Jones, if perhaps only because they had some cathartic payoff (eg. 'Claws For Alarm' has Sylvester sick of Porky's obliviousness and knock him out cold) or are exaggerated enough to be humorously different (eg. 'Jumpin' Jupiter' where Porky has so many blatant clues, including seeing the Martian IN PERSON, he's depicted more as being arrogantly in denial). I'd truthfully love to see one series do a role reversal, where one of the skeptical characters is now the disbelieved one and likely spends the entire episode complaining everyone else must be completely retarded for not believing them.

 

The female character is ALWAYS right: I know many are sick of this plot too, but it has to be stated once. Where there's a dynamic between two characters, often love interests, and the female, no matter what situation, will win EVERY SINGLE argument, no matter what the circumstance, personality or level of hypocrisy. I get some writers don't think female losers are funny, but I don't see the appeal in such a one sided chemistry, especially since it's usually toxic to development. Satam and Archie started making Sonic pay for not listening to Sally all the time, making Sally increasingly bland and Sonic's key aspects simplified to just their negatives. Even to this day in Archie, where they're actually trying to make Sally flawed, they still generally keep stubbornly to sparing Sally's ethics and dignity against him. And this is one of the more consistent dynamics, there are medias that have the same character win, even if it means completely changing their character, and leaving the male and female with no consistent traits outside 'always wrong' and 'always right' respectively. In some cases it leads into my first example, since it can be so inconsistent and designated the female looks like a hypocrite or just too smarmy or abrasive to side with (did ANYONE ever root for Hayley in American Dad or Carla from Scrubs?). It's just so monotonous and bland and insufferable. Do writers think it's worse to let the female be humanly wrong even in a moderated number of times?

Edited by E-122-Psi
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Oh, I can think of one right off the top of my head.

It's the final battle, some of you won't make it back alive. I guarantee it!

It's the finale, how do we make it epic? I know, we'll kill a character off!

...no, it's been done...it's been done to death, no pun intended. A large number of Games, Anime, Manga, Movies and even Live Action TV shows are all guilty of this Trope. I have been into this before and it still remains the biggest example of a sacrificial hero that pisses me off the most. Persona 3.

The game goes on and on about how social links are the key to stopping this threat, you max out everything and you still end up dead at the end. The game never outright confirmed it until they expanded on the story and showed the aftermath of the ending and pissed me off even further by showing me the suffering the main character had caused, despite my best efforts to get that happy ending. They even had prolonged you suffering by dragging out a certain scene at the end of the expanded story to give the impression that the character you played as this time may have also died.

As time goes on, a twist is added to this trope that, while giving the happy ending I desire, makes the sacrificial act even more pointless. After the credits have rolled, but before the 'Fin' screen has appeared, through various reasons the character that had seened to have perished had suddenly reappeared.

The true ending of the Witch and the Hundred Knight did this and Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven actually appeared to kill off the main character only for him to survive, twice. While I enjoyed the games I mentioned, I just felt letdown by the endings, it just seems like lazy writing. Plus I hate the idea of toying with peoples emotions, whether they are fictional or real.

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Non-Mammal Mammal parts (and sometimes mammal on mammals that shouldn't have them, too)

Okay, so this I can let by if it's one of those works where everyone is basically human except for the most superficial of touches. Any scale lower than that and this really begins to irk me. If you're not a mammal, you don't have the equipment to make milk because that's not how the development of your species works. And you really shouldn't have hair because you don't have fur. The Sonic series is actually pretty on the ball for this, game-wise; Wave is a bird, her 'hair' is feather plumage and she's flat chested because she doesn't have breasts. Neither does Tikal, who as a monotreme would not secrete milk like Eutherians (aka everything that's not them or Marsupials). Often though, there's some pretty bad examples of this (in Sonic, Salma was ridiculous but far from an isolated case. Out of Sonic, Mona Lisa just to grab one off the top of my head). It is most apparent with females unfortunately (because we apparently can't recognise females without those traits), but males get it too...mostly regarding equipment they shouldn't have. For more physiological functions like sweating (which isn't even done across mammals universally), I'm a bit more forgiving because that's harder to get creative with.

Oh yeah, this annoys me too. There are also several other anthropomorphic animal tropes I tend to dislike, such as human-looking hair and poorly combining realistic animal parts with realistic human anatomy - for example, a fur-covered, essentially human body with human clothes and an overly realisitc animal head on top, especially if that head has human-looking hair. In general, anthros with overly human anatomy aren't really my thing. Honestly, they can look very good, but there are just so many problems that tend to go with them design-wise.

I've also tended to dislike the Third Act Misunderstanding ever since I was young. Most examples I've seen are rather contrived and I find them painful to watch.

I'm also not a big fan of kids being recruited for some magical or science fictiony thing and having to keep it a secret from their parents. One major reason is because it's just way too common, and another is that I kind of get annoyed by keeping secrets from your parents being depicted as a good and necessary thing. Another is that it can be contrived at times. I think it would be more interesting if sometimes the parents were actually involved in their kids' magic-y stuff.

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Acceptable targets

I don't care if someone is fat/male/white/black/geeky/someone in a job which is considered "worthy of contempt" i.e A fast food worker, having a go at someone and/or an entire group for certain qualities, especially ones they cannot help such as physical condition or ethnicity or for things they are stuck in is a really shitty thing and something I cant stand.

Fictional works that nomalize this sort of attitude just contribute to the stigmatization of people in society.

Flanderization

One of my most despised aspects of bad writing. Seeing a great character have their personality be degenerated into one or two base traits and then that character being defined by those traits that are grossly exagerrated to the point that they become one-dimensional and irritating is extremely annoying to me. It's happened to most of the cast of The Simpsons to the point that a big part of the "zombie age" of the show is how bad the characters have been flanderized. It's even happened to Sonic himself as of 2010, much to my immense chagrin.

Seriously, fuck the writers who give into this massive characterization vice. Educate yourself about the characters quirks and their complexities and learn some damn subtlety in your writing.

Furry Female Mane

Putting human-like hair on a anthrope character is to me easily the cheapest way of making them look feminine instead of going for more appropriate, more subtle ways of indicating gender. It doesn't look pretty or nice. 9 times out of 10 it looks uninspired and ugly.

Author Filibuster

Strikes me as fairly obnoxious most of the time when writer's use a specific character as their mouthpiece or non-real life shows as their soapboxes to preach their biased opinions. Family Guy is chock full of this bullshit.

Anvilicious

News report writers; Trying to get across the message you want heard by ramming it into your audience with all the subtlety of a 10-ton anvil to the skull is not an ideal way of preaching your message.

Conflict Ball

A character suddenly causing conflict....without it being established prior that they took issue with anything or for stupid unjustified reasons just makes them come-off as fickle little pricks that are incredibly unsympathetic. I'm glaring nastily in your general direction SLW!Tails.

 

 

 

 

 

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I personally find "end of the world/humanity" plots to be uninteresting.

I mean, The Last Man on Earth, Titan A.E, Sonic 06, Sonic Adventure 2 (near the end), Eva, Super Paper Mario, Saikano and others I may have missed. Killing all of humanity or nuking the world into nothingness is a negative extreme that takes very little thought to think of. I mean, it's kinda hard to imagine the end of the world when our world is not in a scenario like that. Try slightly something more realistic, like maybe half of humanity being infected by a literal depression virus, that would make it more real and scarier. The key to being shocking is to get in the viewer's head. If you over do it, it becomes nothing more than a stock gag. "Oh, we are all gonna die, what are we gonna do!?" We are not living in the Apocalypse or Ragnarok for crying out loud.

I know this goes against the real world, but the "all men are perverts" crap in anime. For once, instead of seeing a guy around an unusually nice girl getting nose bleeds, perhaps a guy who is very timid learns from the supposed love interest that he is cared about. Basically, a romance that shows that some men just need some pure love and care to open up instead of just people who are all about large breasts and magazines with little faithfulness.

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Green Aesops

This is a relatively common one that people really hate, so I probably wont go into too much detail. Yes, we get it, the world is filthy and it needs to be cleaned... I think almost everyone gets it by now.

Negative bonus points added if the trope contains misanthropic undertones (I'm looking at you, Avatar.)

Freaky Friday Plot (Aka Body Swap plot)

This one on the other hand everyone seems to love... me? I've always hated this plot device. It's the same damn plot every time. Two people who have differing personalities and views somehow end up swapping bodies, be it through a error in a science experiment, or a magical curse. HILARIOUS Hi-jinx ensue as the characters, now having switched their bodies, try to do the things the other does and screws things up in a wacky way while others around them wonder what's going on with their friends. It all ends with the characters getting back into their own bodies, and and then have a new found respect for one another. The end.

It's probably funny the first few times you see it, but after a while, it's just kind of obnoxious seeing it in every show in existence has a plot like this, and it always turns out the same in the end. I really wish this trope would die off.

Believe in yourself! (Couldn't find the name for this trope)

Those three words have become one of my most hated morals ever made. Like the body swap plot device, almost every show ever made has to have some moral pertaining to this, and it's gotten really annoying. Yes, it's a good message but after having characters say this 100 times on TV, it's hard for me to take it seriously even in real life. Every time I hear those three little words I cringe violently. Not to mention, just because one believes in themselves doesn't mean they're always going to succeed. Yes, you're probably going to have better chances at being successful if you feel good about yourself, but the the way movie and show writers go about it, they always make it seem like belief in oneself will help you win everything in life. 

I'm sorry if I'm sounding like a cynical ass, but I've just seen and heard this saying so much, I just wanna punch the TV every time I hear those hamfisted words.

Adults are useless

This one seems kinda insulting to adults. Most often in cartoons where the kids are the heroes, the kids will often take matters into their own hands, no matter how dangerous or scary the situation is, without telling an adult. Though if one of the few times where if the said kid does let an adult know, sometimes even clearly terrified and wanting help, the adults will laugh it off or tell them that it was just their imagination... Going off of what someone else said about shows telling kids that keeping secrets from your parents is an okay thing to do, this trope also implies that adults wont do anything to help, seeing as how adults think everything kids say are lies. 

Eh, I dunno, maybe I'm just looking too deep into this... but it does really bug me when kids shows/movies do this, especially the latter example. Though I might make exceptions to this trope if the said kid is a well known liar or has a big imagination.

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Main male character falls in love with the main female character

As a romcom anime fanatic, I see this romance over and over and over. So typical, the first male character you see in the first episode that hugs most of the screentime meets up with the first female character (who is around the same age as the male) that also hugs most of the screentime in the first episode = guaranteed lovers. This includes Toradora, Golden Time, Sekirei, A Bridge to the Starry Skies, Oreshura, Hyakka Ryouran: Samurai Girls, Haruka Nogizaka's Secret and most likely Nisekoi.

I have yet to see any anime where the second female main character actually wins. I've seen close ones, Nisekoi and To Love-Ru where the main male, has a strong love interest over the secondary female character but as time goes by, the male grows feelings towards the main female.

Hello, I'm the dumb character of the series!

Now this is fine, if the dumb character actually has some smarts. Chelsea from That's So Raven is my favorite character but she has no common sense that a normal person would. Kel from Kenan and Kel is a dumb character (who strangely scored an 98/100 in an IQ test lol) but the writers were genius and the way Kel acts in the show was just too funny. Sheen and Carl from Jimmy Neutron are another great duo. If you execute it well, no one would have a problem with this.

But that was in the past when comedy shows were actually good. Nowadays, if a show has a dumb character in it, that character just isn't funny. Cosmo from Fairly Oddparents in the early seasons was just plain awesome character. Now he sucks, his jokes are not funny, the way he talks makes me shake my head...exact same thing goes for Patrick Star from Spongebob Squarepants

Dumb Knuckles from Sonic Boom, only once so far that I've laughed at his jokes. He is not funny. I can't think of any recent show that is on air today that the dumb character is the most lovable character of that show.

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The villain takes over the story: Don't get me wrong, I like developed or sympathetic villains and giving them POV at times, but it tends to be a grating recurrence for many shows to get over-engrossed with their bad guys, to the point nearly all the fun and spotlight is perpetually on them. I get villains are easier to make three dimensional and usually allow more appeal to the older audience in what they can do, but there are so many time the writers don't even bother with the heroes. This doesn't work since underplaying them is just as bad. If you have a bland or unlikable villain, at least you get the fun of them being taken down. If a hero acts annoying or syrupy boring no ones gonna stop them. How many heroes have you watched that are so bland and priggish and one dimensionally goody goody you actually cheer the villain trying to destroy them?

It's also a recurring problem that, often a villain's sympathy cred reverse proportionate to the hero's. Often when a writer wants a put upon villain they take the irritating method of making the hero look nastier or gratuitous against them. Making a villain sympathetic isn't the same as making the audience hate the hero for defeating them.

I know it's maybe black and white, but I like rooting for the character that wins most of the time. When I feel nothing but bitter pity for the guy that's always on the receiving end I start to become apathetic to the formula.

Edited by E-122-Psi
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I hate it when the "big guy" in a story is monumentally stupid. It's 100% the case when he's a villain, like he always talks stupid, thinks stupidly, and overall displays no behavioral trait or mental process that exceeds that of a child. it always infuriates me when I see it, I wish writers would cut it out

I also hate how so many villainous leaders in fiction treat their followers as disposable and possesses no amount of care or empathy for them whatsoever. I know every once in a while it's effective in showing how evil they are, but it's always a refreshing change of pace when I see an antagonist who legitimately cares for their underlings and wouldn't do counter-productive shit like shooting them in the face for a simple mistake, and very few writers do it. I really would like to see more villains who actually possess a moral compass of their own, and don't do stupid shit "for the evuls" because more often than not it makes no sense on a tactical level why certain bad guys are as evil as they are.

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It is my belief that most tropes are tools used to convey something visibly, verbally, metaphorically, or philosophically in the work. With this belief, most tropes are okay with me in themselves, because sometimes they have a purpose. I can let fly non-mammal mammaries for telling female characters apart from males and what not.

However, off the top of my head, three tropes do not sit right with me without a damn good reason (and often no reason can be made, or the reason is downright insulting):

The Smurfette Principle (cast-wise)

Every time I see this, I want to throw a brick at someone, preferably the writer. This is basically giving female characters scraps of the presence in the work. Unless you're exploring the concept and overreaching effects of the character being the only woman in the world or the woman exploring the way guys live or something like that, either more female characters in it or don't bother - at the very least have two female characters.

You don't have to pass the Beschel Test or anything, they can be two separate women who'll never meet in their lifetimes for all I care, just avoid having a single female character in the entire work just because.

Now there are moments when I make exceptions to this, such as when the character is the lone female but is the leader of the group.

Token Minority

This is similar to the above, but likewise I can make exceptions depending on how its presented. But the general idea is that, just as there is more than one woman in the world, there's more than just one black/asian/hispanic/etc person out there.

Black Dude Dies First

Connected to the above. Two words: fuck off. That's just insulting unless you're parodying how ridiculous it is.

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Characters made just for exposition.

If you've watched Big Hero 6, you'd know that one of the characters (Honey Lemon) is such a great example of this. Most of her lines are "I think you should see this" lines and it's absolutely crazy. She's the least likable out of all of them because the only things she really does is carry the plot forward in the most typical and repetitive way possible.

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I find the this guy doesn't understand idioms, sarcasm or jokes trope irritating. When I saw this with Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy, I was insulted. In the real world, there are people who really do have trouble recognizing non-literal meanings, I have that problem. It comes across as making mocking fun of people that lack that skill.

Another would be how adaptations of religions often try to make characters like Hades, Hel and Anubis to be evil. They are not evil. Underworld does not equal Satan equivalent. The Greeks, Vikings and Egyptians did not view the after world as all bad, so I'd like movies to cut out the mocking of ancient culture.

Edited by Lime/Parvati-Pai/Key
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"The Kid Who Isn't Into What Most Kids Are Into Needs to Be Shown the Error of their Ways"

This is basically a trope that I for some reason don't see too many people talking about.  Basically, you have the main characters who have a common interest or act a certain way.  For convenience and for ease of understanding, we'll say sports, even though this can be applied to literally anything based on whatever the writer feels to be "normal."  (Which means that there are some examples of the reverse of everything I say as well)  A new character is introduced who is not into sports.  The character in question is usually stoic and often isn't extremely expressive. (Sometimes they may display a full range of emotions, but in a more laid-back manner)  Well, clearly, there is something wrong with him!  After all, what kid doesn't dream of hitting a home run or scoring a winning touch down?!  It's up to the main characters to show this sad, pathetic character the light, so they will finally open up and break free of the chains that confine them!  In the end, the character is usually shown what they are missing out on, and will begin to "open up."  He will be more expressive and essentially start acting like... well, the main characters.  All because sports!  Finally, a normal, non-broken kid!  He lives happily ever after and becomes BFF's with the main characters for life shortly before he is never seen again in most instances.

The problem with this trope is that is so widespread, and has such a strangely conformist sort of attitude towards it, despite its message of breaking free from social and parental expectations.  And overall, when you strip it of its actual substance, it's just a really dumb trope.  "Character is not like me, different bad, make same!"  Suddenly it's a lot less empathizable.  This should not be confused with a trope where the kid who isn't into sports (or whatever else you can substitute with "sports") actually is interested and wants to be like other people.  This is reserved strictly for the characters that seem to be willfully content with their manner of living, but are pursued by the main character(s) who want to show them why they're wrong.
 

Related: "Anything that bores me is run by arrogant people."

Some people find classical music boring.  Some people don't like to go to the opera.  Some people prefer movies to plays.  Some people just don't like stuffy atmospheres.  But there are some people that do, and those people are all dicks!  Yes, you can tell they are arrogant prudes that are judging you by the way they enjoy a certain atmosphere that you don't.  Did the main character say something inappropriate during an opera?  Did another character get dirty looks for bringing their baby to a symphony?  How stuffy and arrogant for them to judge me for not displaying the proper and expected etiquette and for ruining the meticulous hours of labor that go into making sure these things go smoothly!  This isn't fun!  This is where fun goes to die, and they know where they can shove it!

An alternative explanation:  The main characters want to go to a rock concert, but there's that snoody jerk who says "Um, that's not Tchaikovsky, you uncultured swine!"  What a dick!  How dare he have different tastes in music!

Now don't get me wrong, arrogance should be noted and can be toyed with accordingly.  What I hate about this trope is that it's often misdirecting the blame at one set of characters for being stuffy and insufferable while others characters literally and completely ruin the experience for everyone else.  It would be like going to a movie and blowing an MLG horn during a dramatic part.  We can all agree that's a dick move, right?  Why does that suddenly stop applying in shows featuring different forms of entertainment?

I've mentioned this in the Things Which Piss You Off topic before, but operas, symphonies, and other things along that nature take hours upon hours of preparation, not just for the orchestration, but to evoke the proper atmosphere.  A big part of a symphony's atmosphere involves the use of complete silence between movements.  So when you bring a baby to the symphony and it starts crying in the middle of a part that's supposed to be quiet, you're ruining what the musicians and conductors worked so hard to create.  Furthermore, people paid to see this show in its purest form, so you're ruining an experience for people who paid to see it as it is.

I'm not saying that these places can not be used for comedy.  Like, quite the opposite.  The seriousness of these places makes it particularly easy to poke fun at.  But in most of these situations, you're supposed to undoubtedly empathize with the character who is clearly in the wrong.  A good example of this is MLP's season 1 finale, "The Best Night Ever."  In this episode, the mane six attend an annual high society event called The Grand Galloping Gala, an event hosted by the princess herself.  So they dress up and get ready for the event, expecting it to be the most exciting night of their lives, only to find that it's actually kind of boring to them.  In some level of fairness, some of the characters did have reason to be disappointed.  But other characters like Pinkie Pie (whom I love in most every other episode) were clearly the ones in the wrong, yet you're led to empathize with her, as if she were wronged personally.  So she ends up trying to create a party that is more to her liking.  The thing is, a mare in one scene even explains this in a respectful (albeit, annoyed) tone, "This is not that kind of party."  And I mean, I admit, Pinkie's aloofness to the meaning of those words is funny, but in the end, when the entire gala is ruined, Princess Celestia applauds them for finally adding some excitement to the event.

Like, I mean, I don't know.  I think they kind of ruined it.  For pretty much everyone involved.  Nobody except the main characters went to the gala expecting it to be anything different than what it was.  They weren't conforming to a certain etiquette because they had to, they were there because that was their decision and their desired choice of atmosphere.  But I mean, as an episode, this one was okay, but this trope isn't limited to just this episode or this show.  There are so many episodes of different shows and different movies where this sort of thing happens, and it's so dumb to me.

Also, this doesn't just apply to high society events.  If there's a show or a movie or whatever about mostly geeks, you can guarantee that the sports fans are going to portrayed as sweaty jocks who smell bad and are just brutes.  I mean, I understand the dynamic of it, but it's such an age-old trope with little in the way of variety that it's lost its meaning.

Wow that turned out to be a lot more long-winded than I thought it would be.

Underdog Boy Steals Bad Boy's Girlfriend (or Average But not Unattractive Girl Steals Bitch's Boy Toy)

See that leather jacket-wearing punk?  Or that guy in the football jersey?  Or the popular cheerleader type?

So, naturally we have to set up a plan to make these guys pay for being total jerks, right?  And what better way to insult and injure someone at the same time than by stealing the object of their affections?  No, a girl can not have a revelation about the true nature of her boyfriend's character and thus decide to seek a better partner.  She is obligated by the law of movies to sleep with the underdog character who is the victim of bullying, because he deserves it by now, and relationships built on pity are just as much relationships as those based on mutual attraction and compatible personalities, right?  Same thing with boys when it's the other way around, only make sure that they are as brain dead and easily led as possible.  Because relationships built on manipulation are just as much relationships as those based on mutual attraction and compatible personalities, right?

The Girl That's Not Like Other Girls (Optional: Because she tolerates mistreatment)

As well all know, girls are all exactly the same.  Except that one girl.  That one girl whose into other things that the millions of other girls out there are not.  She might be a tomboy, or she might care less about her appearance.  Whatever the case, it's clear she's different and that makes her better.  Bonus points if we have the "everyone else is fake, but you are really you!" conversation.  Because you can't foster your own self-esteem without throwing other girls under the bus as well.

Oh man, but other girls are so sensitive!  This girl clearly takes your "get back in the kitchen" jokes in jest, and shouldn't all girls just have a complete lack of consideration for their self worth like that?  I mean, wouldn't it be nice if we all lived in a world where everyone liked this man's sense of humor specifically, regardless of their own personal experiences and other factors that play a role in how they feel about certain issues?  Not just that, but this girl is supportive of your career and is willing to subject herself to a disproportionate amount of work around the house.  Sure wish other girls were like that!

As a note, I've nothing against women who aren't fazed or are even humored by those sort of jokes, or who willingly choose to take on added responsibilities herself.  But portraying them as the ones with common sense or the ones with a reasonable head on their shoulders is where my problem lies.  It's like the more feminine version of the guy who finds people who don't like football to be literally insane.

Autistic Child is a Genius and/or Has a Heart of Gold

Autism isn't understood nearly well enough in today's society.  This is largely attributed to how recently we have began researching the topic.  As such, it only makes sense that the media would have its good portrayals and its...

Yeeeeeah...

But even when the media goes out of its way to not be completely insensitive, they always make the mistake of turning autistic characters into hyperbolic geniuses or gentle souls with no faults to their name, and that's equally bad.

Humans, no matter what their race, sex, gender, physical, or mental abilities, all have one distinct feature.  They're all different.  We're not all good and all bad.  We all have our own share of strengths, weaknesses, good points, bad points, failures, successes, etc.  Making the autistic character a certified genius isn't in and of itself bad, but that is often the point of their character.  Nobody understands Sam's autism and he is often treated cruelly as a result, but now that we've confirmed that he knows the secret to perpetual motion, we have to show the world so they can respect him for his genius, as opposed to for the reason that he's a human being and acting like an ass isn't acceptable, no matter who it's directed towards.  But what of Jessica, who is really a sweetheart on the inside, but just isn't on the same level as other girls her age?  Same deal.

All Aliens are Military Commanders

I made mention of this in the status updates before, and I've had debates on this forum about the validity of alien invasion stories. but this isn't about their validity per se, as much as an eerily specific trend that happens with them.  Like, some aliens want to take over earth.  Okay, fine.  Here's some things that bug me-

  • Why is every alien specimen part of the military?
  • Why is every alien specimen armed with a laser that can destroy earth at their convenience?
  • Why is every alien race millions of years more advanced than Earth? (And why do we think of "advancement" in terms of years and not in consideration to available resources and knowledge that would make these innovations possible in the first place?)
  • Why is Earth the only planet to not have the abilities that every other planet has?
  • Why is every alien planet connected by virtue of the fact that they are not Earth?

Like, the universe is a vast and expansive place, which means that if science fiction were realistic, we would have all different planets with different types of technology and different levels of technological advancement.  Furthermore, in almost every alien movie, they always just grab one random specimen, who happens to have access to all kinds of world-destroying technology.  Like, do earthlings all have missile silos in their backyard?  Probably not.  Why, then, would aliens not also be specialized in this manner?

Furthermore, it's weird to me how in a lot of shows and movies, aliens are connected to each other as aliens.  They identify as basically being not earth and can communicate with any other alien planet, but not earth.  It's just bad world-building.

 

I'm sure there are more, but I can't think of them off the top of my head right now.

Edited by Tara
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I'm gonna throw some anime tropes in here too, so be warned.

 

HIGH SCHOOL

This has to be, the most overused setting I have seen in fiction. Maybe its because writers assume most children who watch television are in high school, but holy crap is it grating to see. Any live action series aimed at children will more than likely have its characters in High School. Anime loves this trope too, and the protagonist is ALWAYS in their second year or transferred. Its just....come on, can't we have more unique settings? Please. I'm so tired of high school, I had to go out of my way to find other series with a different setting for a change.

 

 

EPISODE SPECIFIC CHARACTERIZATIONS.(AKA Depending on the Writer/Aesopp Amensia)

Riddle me this, you ever watched an episode Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and see Raphael and Leonardo get into an argument over leadership? Does it usually end with Raph leaving off in anger? Now tell me how many times have you seen this same plotline :V Its when characters forget previous episodes, just for the sake of moving the plot forward. The character who usually doesn't complain will suddenly have an issue with someone else's plan, characters who are mildly unpleasant become outright jackasses. I'm someone who likes consistency, so seeing characters forget learned lessons just so they can learn them again, it bothers the shit outta me.

 

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I know it's a rare trope, but I can't appreciate when animals imprinted on a protagonist of a different species are killed off horribly. (Looking at you Mother Brain) I remember when I saw the first episode of Godzilla: the Series as a kid, I was not happy with the implied death of Godzilla Jr., as he thought Nick was his parent (even if the size difference made it awkward, yet cute to see).

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The chick who trains the main pro-tag guy and gets relegated to love interest or background character in the climax of film/book/TV show/ Video Game troupe.

This troupe is getting more and more stale the more I see it. A part of me wishes that the chick training the smuck guy could be the hero instead or at the very least not get into a relationship that's romantic with him. 

 

Edited by Mightyray
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I get annoyed with how in some stories it is acceptable to have child abuse. I know how it feels to be emotionally abused by your own dad when he thinks he is always right. Just because a trope is easy to relate to in our world does not that it is always healthy for the audience, as they might not react the way you want them to. I know it had to be done to complete Bruce Banner/Hulk's backstory, but if done too explicitly, that's just going to bring on some bad memories in some people and it will not be pretty.

 

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It very often depends on how the trope in general is handled for me, but I am very tired of female characters in nearly all things being relegated to maiden in distress. Also dislike the trope that so often the "nerdy girl" needs to be helped by her trendier friends to find a boyfriend, because, you know, she totally needs to change who she is to get a guy. Right... <_<

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Right now, I need a huge break from the whole Your Parent(s) was/were Killed to Trigger the Story. I mean, as much as I like The Lion King, Space Knight Tekkaman, Revolutionary Girl Utena, various Disney movies, and to an extent, the Mega Man X series with Zero, it usually causes more drama in the story than is really fair. It is a genuinely upsetting idea at times. I have family problems of my own and I don't need to have entertainment shoving it down my throat for the sake of being mature. Although, I can cut Shakespeare's Hamlet and the Egyptian tale of Set killing his brother Osiris, only to battle Osiris' sun, Horus a break, as they were centuries ago.

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I'm not sure if it's really a trope, but there is a recurring trait that characters that wear an eye patch in most fiction seem to lack. It's not really the eye patched character that bothers me, it's the real life problem of wearing an eye patch that is almost always overlooked, no pun intended. 

Sure, maybe a highly trained ninja or warrior could overcome the problem, but everybody? It doesn't even get a mention if somebody dresses as a pirate complete with eye patch...

It's pretty easy for anyone to see what I'm referring too. You can try it yourself. You see, if you block or keep one eye closed, your vision loses its sense of depth and perception. To properly see what I mean, just place a glass in front of you and cover one of your eyes. Now simply try to reach it without any hesitation. If your really daring, fill it with water first.

You could still grab it if you used caution...but that's hardly practical. This is the issue I'm referring to that most fictional characters with an eye patch, don't seem to deal with.

Edited by DanielJ86
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Oh god.  Here's one I just remembered.

People From Asia Can't Tell the Difference Between Costumes and Actual Deities

I was mainly reminded of this when watching Batman TAS recently and a Japanese character looks at Batman and exclaims, "Spirit of the Bat!"  Like... really?  It's not even just this show, though, there are so many shows where the characters will go to, say, modern Japan.  Like, fucking modern Japan.  You know, a place that's, like... on the same level sociologically as the US?  And then they'll dress up in a costume or wear a mask or whatever and the entire population will freak out like "omaigod is the ancient shinigami of desu!!!!!!111"  You know, just like how Americans think kids dressing as the devil for Halloween really are Satan every single time.  Except they don't because it's obviously just some kid wearing a mask.

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I'm not someone who is familiar with trope names so I apologize in advance: 

Characters who wield weapons they don't look nearly strong enough to be able to wield. 

This one is pretty common. My old man character in Bloodborne really doesn't look like he should be able to swing Ludwig's holy blade, and yet he manages. The most famous example of this though:

cloud-buster-sword.png?w=720

This thing doesn't even look like a sword. It looks like a tennis racquet handle attached to a few sheets of aircraft grade steel that are just bolted together- and he just has it resting on his shoulder like its nothing. There is no way this dweeb could actually lift the Buster Sword, but at least he has something resembling a bicep. I mean, it somehow makes more sense than this:

naoe09.jpg

This girl looks like she weighs like, 90 pounds. And she can balance it in heels too. How the hell. 

 

Double Standard Abuse: Female On Male:

Totally agree with this one. You see it a lot and it's supposed to be funny like "Oh she's a feisty one" but it just looks weird and abusive. 

Edited by Captain Fun
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