Today's video is part one of two parts on this subject.
We're going to be talking about some really hated tropes.
Specifically, I hate them.
I hopped on my Discord and I asked people, "What are some tropes that
you hate and specifically tropes that you associate with me hating?"
Mostly, we just ended up having a really fun conversation out of it,
but also, I have a video now.
Two videos, in fact.
The first one's just going to be mostly a fun--
It's just going to be a fun video where we're going to tier rank my most hated tropes
and make fun of them for a while.
Then my next video is going to be me taking these tropes and showing you
examples of them being done well, because any trope,
any overused tool in writing can be done well.
Well, no.
Actually, that's not true.
Some of them can't be done well.
We'll talk about that.
But almost every single trope can be done well
and some of my most hated tropes are done wonderfully
in some of my favorite books.
This is just a fun video talking about some of my least favorite tropes,
and then the next video is going to be showing you
some instances where they're done well.
She just said that.
Oh, I guess I need to talk about these tiers.
The tiers that we're working with today are all negative
because these are my least favorite tropes.
Something won't ruin a book, it grinds my gears,
really don't like it.
Get out, just leave the room.
We don't want you here, then incoming rant.
If it shows up, I'm going to point it out
and I'm going to be irritated about it.
I'm probably going to rant about it.
The last one, die a slow death.
I never want to see it again.
It cannot be done well.
Just kill it.
I could just grab some images
to represent what we're talking about here.
The first one that is randomly thrown into this tier maker thingy is insta-love.
This is one that a lot of people hate,
so I don't feel bad about hating it.
In my opinion, it's just lazy.
It's not that hard to add a few scenes here and there
where people have chemistry and make a solid connection
before they're ready to throw their lives away for each other
and are meant for each other and proclaiming love for each other
on their third meeting.
There's nothing wrong with instant attraction.
That is totally reasonable and realistic, but "We're soulmates.
I would give my life for you," is a bit much after knowing each other a week.
It's mostly annoying to me because I can't get on board
with two people falling in love if I don't get to watch them fall in love.
Now don't get me wrong.
It's okay for two characters to already be in love
when the book starts.
I'm fine with that.
You can create chemistry after they're together, perfectly fine.
If I'm there for their meeting, and I'm there for the first,
"I love you," and they take place two seconds apart,
I'm not going to be happy about it.
I'm never going to end up rooting for these characters.
Even if I like these characters individually, I will never care
about their relationship if it's rushed, and sloppy, and lazy.
It grinds my gears.
It's not going to ruin the book for me, but it will ruin the relationship for me,
which is why I'm putting it a tier below, won't ruin the book.
It will put a sour taste in my mouth,
especially if the insta-love isn't just some side thing that happens
that really is irrelevant, but it's actually important to the story.
It's the main characters that this is happening to
and it's a significant side plot.
It'll mess up the side plot.
It will.
It'll ruin the side plot.
It may not ruin the whole book unless it's a romance book
then, of course, it will but it grinds my gears.
Next one is stupid mistakes.
Characters that are supposed to be intelligent
are supposed to be good at their job
or good at whatever it is that they're doing poorly at the moment.
It's okay to make your characters make stupid mistakes
but I'm talking about, "You're an idiot right now."
It doesn't make sense for the character,
it doesn't make sense for their experience.
It's just to drive forward the plot.
It's nothing but a plot device.
I'm putting this on, it won't ruin the book,
because it won't ruin the book for me,
but if you do it too many times, then it will.
Next is love triangles.
Okay, love triangles.
Have we seen it done well?
Almost never.
I think a big reason why it's almost never done well
is because it's almost always blatantly obvious
who the author wants you to like.
We know who endgame is from the start so it's just needless drama.
It doesn't even add layers to the story.
It's just needless drama.
I do have examples of it done well, but they are rare.
It's not enough for the amount of times that I see it done.
I'm going to kick love triangles out of the room.
Thankfully, they're not as common anymore as they used to be,
but they still exist and they're never, almost never executed well.
I'm just going to kick them out of the room.
We'll leave them out there.
Next one is the chosen one.
This is a trope that some people really enjoy
and some people don't like at all.
I've really never been a fan of the chosen one trope.
Some of my favorite books have the chosen one trope.
It's definitely not going to ruin the story for me,
spoilers for where I'm putting it, but I also don't like it and I don't need it.
It's not a buzzword for me.
If you tell me something is chosen one, I'm more likely to not pick it up
because it's a trope that I personally don't care for,
but also, it can be done well.
It can be done very well, and I'm fine with it.
I just don't really like it that much.
Here we go.
Here we got.
Okay, now we're getting down to the good ones.
This one is--
I honestly don't even want to put it in here
because I don't want to deal with the dudebros that are going to be in my comments,
but hey, let's do it.
The trope of the woman or-- This has happened to men too.
It's just a lot more common for female characters.
The woman has to be raped in order for her character development
to happen, her character development is so tied up in that rape that
the readers are convinced that if she weren't raped,
she wouldn't have this tremendous character growth,
therefore, somehow subconsciously convincing the readers that
the rape was good for the character.
Ooh, she hates to see it.
It's so common, especially in adult fantasy.
Adult fantasy is one of my favorite genres of all time.
I love it so much.
But, oh my goodness, does it come up so often,
and whew, the way some people vehemently will defend it?
In my opinion, it can't be done well.
It can't be done well.
I don't know why it's used so often.
Put a sword in a man's hand and he's great.
He's off to the races.
He's got his development.
Yet, in some books, a woman can't seem to find her development
apart from sexual assault.
I don't know why.
In some books, it'll just happen over and over again
to every female character in the book.
We love to see it.
Actually, no, we don't.
Let's kill it.
Let's let it die a slow death.
Let's never see it again.
This has got to be my least favorite trope.
I don't think anything makes me-- ruins a book like this does.
The amount of trauma that actually comes from sexual assault,
you cannot convince me that it's good for a character.
On a lighter topic, the next one is miscommunication.
Two characters don't really have much conflict in their story
so let's just make them bad at talking.
Let's make them bad at humaning, in fact.
If the whole conflict can be solved with a single conversation
and, in fact, an easy conversation to have
and it isn't and we could have cut 200 pages
if we would have had that conversation 200 pages earlier, ooh, get out.
We're kicking it out of the room.
I don't want to see it.
It's so frustrating because it's so simple.
We notice it.
We, readers, we see it and we hate it so much.
I don't think I've ever actually talked to someone that said,
"Oh, man, I love the miscommunication trope."
It's one that we deal with because it comes up so often,
but it's such a lazy point of conflict and really frustrating to read.
Okay.
The next one is another one of my probably least favorite tropes.
That is when the dust settles and the battles over, the main battle
the one that we've been building up to throughout the whole book
or the whole series, everybody's still alive.
This is more of a sci-fi fantasy trope.
It doesn't really apply to-- It could apply to a thriller.
It could apply to a lot, but it doesn't apply to every genre.
If the whole book or series has led up to one big battle,
one big moment, and it ends with
that one side character that no one actually cared about,
that we all saw that death coming
because it's obvious that the character was only introduced so they could die
so that that character doesn't have to die because we actually like that character,
incoming rant.
I will always be irritated by this.
I'm not saying that authors should kill off characters
for the sake of killing off characters.
It's just I'm not going to be convinced that you defeated the enemy
and all of the enemies' soldiers, or whatever situation we're in
and none of our main crew has any long-term consequences like death
or at least some sort of intense injury that means that they can't do X
that's very important to them.
I can't be convinced that you slayed hundreds
but no one on our side died
except for the ones that we don't actually care about.
Also, I just want some consequences to major things.
Something big that will impact thousands or millions or more people.
Something that is going to impact so many people in the world.
I can't be convinced that at the end of it
no one is truly affected on the side that won.
The world is all rainbows and sunshines now.
Everything is fine.
Everybody's happy.
The grass grows again.
The sun comes out and everybody walks home
arms on each other's shoulders smiling with no PTSD.
That was a rant just there.
All right.
I'm actually going to skip the next one
and follow this one up with the resurrection trope.
Now again, I think that almost all of these tropes can be done well.
Resurrection doesn't have to be the worst thing ever but it is.
Almost every time it's used it is
and I want this on the heels of everyone comes out alive
because one thing that I've noticed that I hate is when we're in that final battle,
and we kill off someone that we care about, and the readers mourn, and we're hurting,
and I'm crying, and then I turn the page,
I cannot tell you how much that irritates me because it's hallow emotions.
I've been cheated out of my tears.
The author wanted me to feel something but couldn't commit
so they killed off my fav, made me cry, and then said, "Just kidding.
I'm not brave enough to do this so haha you felt it.
It counts."
No, it doesn't.
Incoming rant.
I don't know.
Resurrection can be done well so I'm not going to put it in die a slow death
but what I just described that's not it done well.
Now we'll jump back to the cute little puppy.
This is talking animals.
This is a trope that is objectively fine.
I just for whatever reason don't like it.
It's not even something that I feel justified about not liking.
It's not even one of those things where it's like,
"Okay you can respect that I don't like this, right?"
"No, you probably can't respect that I don't like this because it's irrational.
Why does this bother me so much?"
I don't know.
I want to put it in won't ruin the book because it's such an illogical irritant of mine
but it has ruined books for me, especially if the whole cast is animals,
I can't do it.
I don't know why.
I'm just going to put it in grinds my gears
even though I don't think that's fair because it doesn't.
It's not so much an irritant as it is just I can't do it.
I just don't like it.
I don't know why.
It doesn't make sense.
Next is flashback, which I mostly put this in because it kept coming up on the Discord
when I asked for people's recommendations, and because it can be really overused
and it can be done really really poorly.
But it's actually not one that bothers me that much
so I'm just going to chuck it in Won't ruin the book
because I know that it won't for me.
It can be done really poorly.
But even when it's not executed well, I generally don't mind that much.
I just get bored in the flashbacks and I'm like,
"This really isn't necessary.
We don't need this.
You could have incorporated it another way."
But it's not going to bother me that much.
I mostly put it in this video so that I could include it in the next one
because I have examples of it done so well so we'll just move forward.
This image doesn't represent the trope well at all
but I couldn't think of what would work.
This trope is the one where it's all talk and no action.
This is really more of a writing flaw
and less of a, "This is overused and people are tired of it" flaw.
The author really wants to convince me that this character
is a force to be reckoned with.
They can look at a room and we'll have a long monologue about
all the ways that they could kill everyone in this room,
all the ways that they could best everybody and make it out alive in the end.
They're not going to do it but they'll think about it
really hard over and over again throughout the whole book.
Or it can be done with friendships too.
Like just really nail in to the reader through your narrative
that this person is a great friend or an excellent love interest,
but you're never actually going to show me,
you're just going to really tell me a lot.
I will never be convinced by that.
Again, it's more of a writing flaw than it is--
but it's something that comes up so often.
It's something that multiple people at the Discord brought up,
and I think that it's worth acknowledging as something that--
it'll ruin whatever it is that the author is trying to get across to me.
Whatever it is that the author is trying to tell me this character is,
if you only tell me and never show me,
it'll make it worse than not even including it.
I'm just going to put it--
Oh, I'm just going to kick it out of the room.
It's annoying, but I don't know-- Would I rant about it?
If I reviewed this book, would it get a dedicated rant section of the video?
I think it would.
Yes, we're going to put it in incoming rant
really it should probably be put in die a slow death
because I don't think this can be done well, right?
Just telling me constantly that a character is something
but never showing me.
I don't think that can be done well, but that column is reserved
for a certain something, a certain trope that we've already discussed.
The last on this list is romanticized or justified cheating.
This is one that I have ranted about so many times,
and it's in all of my least favorite books.
All of the books that I have dedicated rants for,
that my subscribers expect me to talk about
when I talk about my least favorite books of all time,
it is always a book that has romanticized or justified cheating in it
or just abusive relationships that are romanticized.
Man, I hate unhealthy relationships.
Anyway, moving forward,
either the current person that they're in a relationship with is a jerk
or is I don't know, just not the protagonist.
Whatever the reason is, it's justified, and it's fine.
In fact, this relationship where active cheating is happening
is cute and sweet, and we root for them.
There's always a reason,
one book particular there's not even a reason other than just she's dating the guy that
the main character wants.
It's fine, everything's fine.
I despise cheating.
Just break up with them.
I get it.
You want to make out with that person over there.
Just break up with the person that you're currently with.
It's really not complicated.
If you don't like them anymore,
or you don't like them as much as the person that
you're trying to jump the bones of right now, break up with this one.
It's not--
Incoming rant.
Okay.
I don't know if this was fun for you guys.
It was pretty fun for me.
I feel like I let out some steam.
These are some of my least favorite tropes of all time,
some of the ones that I talk about a lot, and this is me ranking them.
Now you know, in what order, I hate them the most.
Next, we're going to talk about ways that these are done, well almost all of them.
We're going to talk about ways in which I've seen this done,
and I've actually genuinely liked it.
I'm going to give you book examples so you can read it done well,
at least in my opinion, and we'll be able to talk about that.
Until then, in these comments, be sure to hop down to the comments
and let me know, are there some of these that you also hate on the same level as me?
Are there some that you actually like and give me examples of
how you've seen them done well?
And then if there's any that I'm leaving off the list that you really hate
that I didn't talk about, I'd love to hear it.
Thanks for hanging out with me for this ranty video.
I post videos every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
I'll see you guys again soon.
Bye.
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