Thankfully there are enough variants to enable you to say the same thing in a different way. So I use, "Pull out, we're leaving." to say the same thing.
My fantasy story actually mocks a lot of these cliches. Has anyone ever written something and then gone back to find the huge cliche and be like ahhhhhhhhh!? Prophecy's in general. There's way too many. Nothing ever just happens these days. Like i said my book actually sorta features one, but ony as satire of the whole concept. Oo in films- bad guys mostly being British. What is so evil about us? English people dont have it in us to be evil. 'Look, I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but I do have rather a large amount of nuclear weapons hidden in my secret base, and I was wondering awfully whether you'd agree to pay me hundreds of millions of dollars (even though I'm english) to not set them off. Thanks awfully.'
I can't stand that in almost every fantasy story with a constructed language, the place names could've been taken right out of Lord Of The Rings! The same goes for character names- elves can only use the consonants R, L, G, and N, and dwarves and goblins must have a disproportionate lack of vowels. Also, while towns and locations in the MC's homeland must evoke peaceable familiarity, there is something badly wrong if you can pronounce the evil emperor's capital city. Once again, I find Eragon guilty of this. When I looked over the map, I thought Paolini must've drawn two Tolkien names out of a hat and decided to combine them for each place name. Isenstar? Ardwen? Orthiad? Beirland, which keep misreading as Beleriand?
I don't find wizards to be a cliche. Well, it depends. That's what I like about magic, you can create a magical system and tweak them to your liking, until its believable, has limitations and its original. I find it refreshing when someone uses another word for wizard.
I was just wondering some others opinion on this for my story and it does work well with my plot and I am having trouble finding away around it but do any of you find this as a cliche the villian before the story starts becomes king by revoliting against him?
In Eragon, possibly the most cliché novel/series EVER starts out telling you about how the MCs quaint farm life is darkened because of the evil king who lives forever and killed all the big good guys and the previous king. I would find another way around that if i were you...
What is it with villains trying to take over whatever the good guys have? I'm sick of evil guys trying to conquer the world or a given country, seriously, don't you know that the first rule to bullying is bully the weakest? Whatever happened to being smart and going for the divide and conquer tactic? Or conquer lots of small kingdoms, or ally yourself with the other enemy kingdom and beat them all with brute force? Or better yet, start your own country from scratch and beat them at their own game, ha!
While I agree that the concept was used poorly in Eragon, pippin's idea doesn't have to turn into something as ridiculous as Paolini's work. I mean, that idea (having a bad guy gain kingship by revolting) is SO broad that it could happen in any way, and it could be really interesting, unique, and well-written. I say go for it, pippin. You can always plan it so that it's different from what your reader would expect.
My least favorite cliches -The magic sword/ring/helmet -True love triumphs over all -Evil for evils sake -Good for goods sake
Cliches I've gotten annoyed at: 1. Wizards are always men. Yup. If there's a female magic user, she'll be the "healer" or "mage" or "witch." She won't be a wizard, even if she uses the exact same kind of magic. 2. Witches are always female. It's like no one ever does the research: a male witch is actually supposed to be called - you guessed it - a witch. Occasionally (depending on your source) a male witch may be called a warlock, but this is also usually ignored by authors, who think that "warlocks" are by definition evil and dark and wearing tatty clothing. 3. The evil guy is dark and sinister or bejeweled and fat and pompous. Y'know what? My Big Bad has brown hair and a normal wardrobe, just because I'm tired of the shadowy people in black being bad guys. 4. No one ever comes up with original magic systems. Name Magic, Word Magic, "mysterious ancient magic", and occasionally "spirit magic". Elemental magic is always mysterious and ancient and the fire mages are hot-tempered and often redheads and are either thin women or evil dark men. Here's what I want to see: God-derived magic, where the gods can get annoyed at you and leave your sorry wizard butt without spells because you accidently said the word "damn!" Elemental magic that is not cliche. No hot-tempered fire mages or cool-and-steady earth mages and ditzy air mages. Please. Ancestral magic that doesn't just involve a "lucky sword" or jewel that your great-great-grandpapa handed down. Magic that has become an integral part of the world. You know electricity, this neat thing we use to do stuff? We don't have schools where you learn nothing but how to use electricity. Instead, we use it all the time and think nothing of it. Unless your magic is really, really limited - "oh look, I can tell what flavor something is from six inches away!" - it should have become part of the society around it. Streetlamps powered by fire magic, people wearing thin metal caps to protect against mental meddling, kids taught early on that they should be polite to trees because sometimes the trees might eat you... 5. No one ever quantifies their magic. So your main character is really powerful. Um, how powerful, exactly? If I say that I am the best runner on earth, because I can run a mile and a half in five minutes, that's a quantity. You see it in real life all the time. Even mental power - being able to do complex calculations in five minutes, for example, or reading eight pages of text in a minute - is shown as a quantity. But most writers cheat - their characters don't have set limits, ever, and no one ever sits down and declares, "My main character has enough magic to be able to lift up and hover up to six hundred kilograms for one minute." Instead they have enough to do - just barely - whatever the plot requires, even if it means blowing up a mountain. 6. Young prodigies who best their master or teacher within a year. "Age and cunning beat youth and stupidity every time." 'Nuff said. 7. A secret bloodline. At this point, all princes and princesses who've been hidden away for safety can leave. Have you EVER heard of this happening in real life? EVER? That's right. 8. The idea that women are "more in tune with nature." Um hum. Yeah. Women may be more likely than men to get involved in organizations like Greenpeace, but that's a counterexample if anything. Uncomfortable monthly bleeding does not mean we are intrinsically "better at attuning with the wilderness." 9. Monarchies being the only form of government, save for small uncivilized "tribes" or "clans" somewhere. Why? Why, people? You make my heart bleed. 10. Authors who don't stop to consider the implications of the rules their world is using. If you are using a feudal system - peasants or serfs, landowners, nobles or lords, and kings/royalty - then there won't be many independent farmers in the middle of no where. The royal family was all murdered fifteen years ago, except for one young princess who managed to escape? Uh, there should be some kind of interim government - and if it's doing a good job, the princess probably won't be given any power. Royal blood or no, a princess with no court training or knowledge of history and politics is going to be a poor ruler. No one can do a special kind of magic anymore because all the old magic users died out? Then please don't make an exception for your MC without great sacrifices. Your MC should not be the "only" necromancer and healer and war wizard in a thousand generations, unless you have a darn good explanation for it. And even then, I want your MC to be inconvenienced by it - a lot. I'll quit here because I'm starting to sound like limyaael, but not nearly as eloquent.
A guy "avoiding" the prominent cliches about main villains, their methods, and their fortresses: http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
David Drake's Lord of the Isles series is the exception that proves the rule. Its female magic user, Tenoctris, actually calls herself a wizard.
Magic users never learn magic Oh, yay I can cast fireball! Well, did you have to learn how to summon fire? Did you have to learn how to control the small element before slinging incredibly accurate bolts of flame? Magick Yes, that makes it all better. The Puppet Monarchy The king/queen has no power, they are just a figure head. Even though this is a monarchy and the royal family has ruled for hundreds of years. Behold a Pale Horse WE GET IT ALREADY! The weakspot Um, we just built this huge thing that will make us incredibly powerful but we forgot to put a ventilation cap on it so all you would have to do is toss a rock in it and POW. I understand that everything has a flaw but it shouldn't be so blazingly obvious. I would love to see where the weakspot was just a ploy or it was fixed by the time the story came to it.
I must agree with the painfulness of both of these related clichés. And you are quite right in that the employment of these plot devices ignores that there are many non-hidden royal bloodlines today, in real life, which no longer have any power at all. The people want a voice in their government these days! But, goodness, where would Disney be without the secret, Hidden Princess for whom the people are pining to come and rescue them from the dark and tatty Evil One* who has inexplicably taken power in her absence? Her coming shall change the land! The clouds will lift. Birds will sing. The grass will grow. The streams will run blue and crisp. Her coronation will be magically splendid (never mind that the dark and tatty Evil One has spent the kingdom into bankruptcy.) The crowned jewels will have been hidden in a hayloft by the friendly farming family (who are actually the royal servants in disguise) who hid the Hidden Princess during the bad times. The lady farmer will be plump and jolly (she was the palace cook.) Her husband will be thin and cantankerous, but of course, he has a heart of gold (he was the liveryman.) He’s cantankerous with the Hidden Princess only because she reminds him of his daughter who was lost during the battle for the Royal Palace. When the Hidden Princess takes her rightful place in the Royal Palace through strange and hilarious misadventures with her magical sidekick (talking animal and/or inanimate object,) she will of course, offer the royal servants/farming family/surrogate parents places of honor at court, which they will, of course, humbly and graciously refuse. They have grown to love each other and their simple farming way of life. It is enough that the Hidden Princess is hidden no longer. Long may She reign! *If the Evil One has an evil sidekick, said sidekick will come in one of two forms. Small~ Clever and actually evil. He eventually finds himself in a situation where he is too clever for his own good and this shall be his (and his master’s) undoing. Large~ Slow and thick as two short planks. He is not actually evil. He has been taken advantage of because he is thick, and the amazing goodness of the Hidden Princess will win him over. He will also be the undoing of his master and become the Hidden Princess’s personal guard. Is that about the size if it? Did I get it right?
thanks, for the other person saying about revolting against the good guys its actyually a bad guy revolting against another bad guy government which is usually differnt because usually out of no where a guy kills the good king declares himself ruler. In this there is a civil war and in the height of the war the bad guy takes kills the evil king and creates a more corupt government.
Whenever MC has a conversation with important person, he never finishes it, because of "I can't tell you right now, I'll tell you later." reason. That person ends up dead after two chapters. I’m getting pretty annoyed with that. Why can’t they have normal conversation, where you find out all needed facts or at least some bigger part of it?
The Bad Guy Turned Good. I know my entire species is known for being deceptive and evil but I'm a good person. Please someone tell R.A. Salvatore that books actually end.
Death rides a pale horse. Person/plague/event/location appears in a dream with a dark rider on a pale horse.
