It just seems lazy to me, you can by-pass any characterisation or character development by throwing a prophecy at them. The MC often ends up being a whinny bitch, throwing a tantrum and stamping their feet because "I don't want to have to be the hero, why is it all up to me"; the sort of reaction you expect from a child who has been told to tidy there room and would rather watch the TV. It also plays to a lackadaisical and entitled audience; it plays to an attitude of I can't be bothered making an effort to change my circumstance, some miraculous event- winning the lottery perhaps- should just do it all on my behalf. I would be more likely to root for a character who actually gets off their arse and goes and tries to achieve something rather than dragging their feet because they have been told to do something.
Yeah, I've got to disagree with that one. Many stories suffer from the protagonist having improbable fortune. They are surrounded by thirty bad guys with guns and just shoot their way out because they are mad enough. Being chosen fixes that problem and allows for unrealistic scenes to suddenly seem feasible since the outcome is in the end out of the hands of the protagonist. It not only fixes problems but creates interesting dilemmas. Sure, if the character knows everything and everyone likes him/her its a shallow plot. However, I don't see how that has anything to do with the character being chosen, it would still be a shallow plot if that were the case and the character weren't chosen. There is a lot more potential than anyone on this thread seems to realize. Say the entity giving the prophecy isn't purely good and the antagonist isn't purely bad. Questions arise as to if the path the protagonist is on is really the right one and if it is possible to alter. Say the prophecy foretells of the protagonist saving the world and dying in the process. The protagonist has to make hard decisions all with the lingering question if his decisions can even change anything. Say the prophecy comes from a time traveler instead of an omniscient force, question arise as to how changes in the timeline impact the credibility of the time traveler. Say the prophecy is purely bad, that is interesting too. The characters I hate in stories are ones that are the minority gender in a love triangle. They have two people that want them and can't pick because they enjoy the attention. They are often very superficially interlaced into the plot and are only really there for the sake of the love triangle. They have annoying dialogue, act annoyingly innocent, and cause a bunch of fabricated drama that goes by slowly and predictably. I guess I don't like love triangles in general, they are an old plot technique that is hard to build nuances on because it is so simple. You can't make it into a love square because that makes no sense. There are three outcomes at the start, A get B, C gets B, or no one gets anyone. Each is beaten to death and formulaic to the point of being sickening. B is the problem and it would just be better if B died in a fire.
There's this one fantasy series I read a long time ago, Thomas Covenant. That guy I think was supposedly chosen, but he was so f***ed up it didn't even matter.
Characters who are designed for a younger audience (I'm fine with this) but try to be "cool", "hip" and fail or try to be funny and fail. It makes me cringe. Watch any show that's got both an adult and child audience and you might find one.. Examples include, Bart Simpson (not in earlier seasons though), Robin in Batman: The Animated Series (they changed his character though) and most notably the dreaded Jar Jar Binks. Comic relief characters are alright, as long as they're funny and actually serve another purpose than just being funny. An example of a comic relief character who's actually useful is Saka (I probably spelt that wrong) from Avatar. Another type of character I can't stand is the "dark and brooding" types. I'm fine with characters having a difficult past and thus having to use a "tough guy shell" but some of them have no personality other than being dark and brooding. Batman (depending on what version it is) does more than just brood over this parents death personality-wise. I'm fine with having a brooding character who eventually opens up. They're fairly popular in anime and videogames. Start there if you want to begin your search. Characters who give way more questions than answers. See any bad M Night film or any other bad mystery or horror film for this type. I'm fine with a character who when the protagonist talks to them, gives them an unanswered question as long as it makes sense i.e. the character does not know but I detest it when the character doesn't answer anything. It just seems lazy to me. Selfish assholes or spoilt brats we're meant to like. I'm fine with a character who's selfish or spoilt but as long as we're not meant to like them (Joffrey) or they change their ways. When a character is like this for most of the story, yet we're still meant to actually like them that gets on my nerves. An example of this is Gone With the Wind "My husband is dead, I'm annoyed because I can't dance anymore." That's not an actual quote from the film but she might as well have said that. Eye-candy. Both male and female characters (it's mostly female ones we see though) who are there to "smile and look pretty". Examples of this include just about every character Megan Fox has ever played. "Love at first sight" characters who just talk about how in love they are. What do you have in common with Juliet, Romeo? What do you have in common with Cosette, Marius? We never find out. Love does not work that way in real life. If Romeo and Juliet was more realistic, no one would have died and if Les Miserables was more realistic, Eponine and Marius would have ended up together. Either that or she realizes he's kind of a tosser and finds someone else. Yes, I know those two stories are pretty old but I can still hate the characters. I'm not talking about the film. I'm talking about the musical, it's a lot better. The musical's version of Javert can actually sing. Characters in "romance" who depend upon their partners too much but it's looked upon as a good thing . It's not healthy to depend upon one person that much. It's not good for them and it's not good for you. I'm fine with this happening in a story where it's looked upon as being a negative thing, though. I'm in a relationship at the moment where I'm too depending on that person, mostly due to a negative relationship with my family. It's not good, it puts an emotional strain on her and it makes me feel guilty because I feel like I'm a burden. You need more people in your life you can depend upon than your lover. Examples of this character include Bella Swan from Twilight and the protagonist from 50 Shades of Grey. Both of which are terrible female "role models", Bella in particular as her audience is a younger crowd. 50 Shades of Grey is "mummy porn" so most of it's readers will be a lot older and less likely to take the book's lessons to heart.
It's more of a tragedy than a romance. It's about how their love was forbidden, how their rival families tried to split each other apart, lovers between rivals (ect). I can still hate the two characters though. I prefer King Lear and Macbeth as far as Shakespeare's work goes. There's a story inspired by Romeo and Juliet set in Belfast during it's years of pointless violence called "Across the Barricades" that I actually enjoyed. The two lovers, this time around a Catholic boy and a Protestant girl actually have ruddy chemistry. Rather than die at the end, they bugger off to England to start a new life away from the pointless violence. At least I think that's how it ended. I haven't read that book since I was 14
Well, maybe I'm wrong, but I thought one of the points of Romeo and Juliet was their extreme immaturity. First, Romeo loves Rosaline, then suddenly, it's Juliet. Then they're married. Then he kills Tybalt. Then he sees his wife is "dead" and kills himself immediately. I don't think these characteristics were unintentional flaws. FYI, I think Romeo and Juliet is probably the greatest thing ever.
Although I enjoyed the book, I did think this about the male MC. He's too perfect and that just never happens. I don't think it should happen in fiction either.
Apologies in advance if this is a threadjack, but: There's a "trope" I really hate. I call it the Superman trope, but it doesn't just apply to Superman or other superheroes. You can find it in all kinds of stories. It's when the Evil Bad Guy is some kind of mad scientist or evil genius, using his intelligence and knowledge to steal billions or take over the world or whatever, and he always gets defeated by some lunkhead hero who has more physical strength than he does. Brawn over brain! Superman over Lex Luthor, or Brainiac, or whoever else! Metro Man over Megamind! It's almost like, if you're smart, you should be the bad guy. It pisses me off. It sends the wrong message to kids. It tells them muscles are more valuable and important than brains, and even that brains are kind of bad, even evil. It encourages big bullies to beat the crap out of smarter kids who just might be nerds instead of jocks. It makes smart kids ashamed of their intelligence. Why is this common? How often do you see the smart hero defeat the musclehead villain? So the character type I hate is the evil genius - the guy who thinks that because he's smart he must become the bad guy.
In Iron Man Tony Stark is pretty smart. Batman might just be rich, but he has crap that took brains to build instead of just strength. As far as Superman goes, I'm to the point where I root for the bad guys even though its not like they will win in the end. Imagine fighting an invincible alien where his only weakness is contact with a fairly expensive noble gas, it takes skill to beat him and no skill to be him.
"Brains" have been responsible for a lot of evils in the world. Global warming, atom bomb, CGI movies. Brawn on the other hand goes back to core human values. Eating a lot, getting women. I think the trope makes a lot of sense. A brawnier character has less to be resentful of, and even if he did, he'd be too stupid to figure it out, so he's more likely to be a good guy.
Tropes are always hit or miss with me. I see them in every movie/series. Even so I can enjoy the whole piece in general even when there isn't enough originality to justify a trope used. I think my standard for such things is a little weak considering. Sometimes it only takes a few scenes for me to like a movie even if most of the other scenes were sub par and unoriginal. I just saw this movie called Equalizer with Denzel Washington which would be the alpha male trope. Probably a little closer to superhero trope. I guess why I liked it is because of his interaction with others in the movie. he was more of the 'by-standard' in the beginning which was done much more tastefully then anything in superman. Then when he activated his bad-assness it was over the top to say the least.(comparable to sherlock holmes fight scenes in the most recent movies) These action scenes are never realistic enough for me, and always fall short of my expectations. rather than slowing everything down it would be sweet to see him take out eight people in sixteen seconds. Rather than using such dramatic and inefficient poses which obviously take longer to act out than the supposed time lapse. I see a movie like this all the time and think, 'damn that was alright. I just wish it was so much better.' A good example of using this same trope extremely effectively is Rage with Nicolas Cage. It reminds me that you can never truly hate any trope. Just when you've made your mind up about some cliche that you'll swear you'll never use, something like this comes a long and makes you rethink ever hating it. So It's hard for me to hate any one particular trope although I agree the ones you have stated so far are by far the most run down, making them hard to swallow whenever you see them again, but you will. because we are limited. Books are made out of other books. And we all need to start somewhere, true originality is a concept dreamed up by fools. One trope I would say is tired as well which you haven't pointed out yet though, is the child prodigy or psychic. They always act way above their age and seem to be more in control of the situation than the adults who are normally running around, trying to get a sense of what's going on. (sixth sense for example) good movie though.
I agree with most of the archetypes/tropes mentioned so far. Brains vs brawn: From my perspective, neither should be seen as inherently 'good' or 'bad'. In my opinion, in general, brawn allows one to exert an influence over a small scale (of space or time), while brains allow influence over a larger scale. But I agree with @minstrel that intelligence gets unfairly thrashed in pop culture. I don't think the Chosen One trope is tired yet. I just think it's tired of being played perfectly straight. As @HelloImRex mentioned, there are still lots of interesting directions to take it in. I'm sick of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, where a quirky vivacious vixen exists solely to pull some whiny bloke out of his depressed funk, while having no personal goals of her own. Think of pretty much anything Zooey Deschanel has been in. As well as being boring and unbelievable, the genders are almost always aligned as I described, so it comes off as sexist wank material. Not to mention conveying the general moral that you don't need to take responsibility for your own life; someone will come along to solve all your problems for you. --- Going off-track: Fair enough to have this impression from the film and musical, as those are distillations of the original monolith, so don't go into as much detail. I'm a die-hard "Mizzie", so have your grain of salt ready, but I felt Cosette/Marius was much more believable in the book. Spoiler: Brief summary - spoilers ho! It starts out as a Romeo-and-Juliet-style adolescent infatuation, but they then meet every night to talk for several hours at a time, and only truly fall in love through that process. Eponine is less sympathetic than in the musical, as she actively tries to drive Cosette away from Marius, and lures him to the barricade in the hope that he and Eponine will die there together. You still feel sorry for her, but it's not as clear-cut as in the musical. Also of note, Eponine acts as a foil to Cosette: Eponine is coddled as a child, while Cosette is destitute and covets the doll that Eponine has; then as young adults, Cosette is coddled, while Eponine is now destitute and covets the "doll" that Cosette has. And Eponine just isn't Marius' type. She's coarse, involved in various shady dealings, and is hideous via poverty. Marius is upstanding, educated and idealistic. He's poor, but only because he's estranged himself from his bourgeois family because of political differences. She's just the worse-off neighbour he feels sorry for. However, the book suggests that Eponine could have been beautiful and educated if she were not poor, so perhaps her missing out on love is just one more symptom of the oppressive social hierarchy that the author was railing against. I agree that ol' Rusty was not a good Javert...
I'm new here...yay! But concerning the question...I absolutely hate the main characters who never die. This usually happens in a lot of book plots, where the main character can basically fall into a pit of fire and not die. Those "invincible" characters are really annoying to me, as some authors really extend their character's survival by a lot.
This is a staple of so much cinema in particular. A character gets shot in the shoulder and has a fist fight in the next scene, or shot in the leg and continues to chase after the antagonist, or gets thrown down stairs, across rooms, into walls without any injury etc etc. The reality would be more like this: -
You should call it the Conan trope. Conan was always fighting sorcerers and wizards much smarter then he was, and prospered because he could swing a sharpened bit of steel really well.
On the other hand, even the most evil genius would go down with a headshot or he could be choked unconscious? Granted you get close enough, and he isn't wearing some super armor. So when it comes to kicking ass, the one with the biggest muscles or guns has a good chance to win, even if they don't have a Mensa membership. In all fairness, sometimes adrenaline can help the hero through the pain, but I agree that it shouldn't be continuous or too outrageous, especially if the injury is just in the limb you'd need. Since I read quite a bit of military themed thrillers, sometimes it just gets comical when the main guy has been shot, beaten up, hasn't slept in 3 days, and still keeps on fighting, still can get it up in bed. Ok, I get it, you're SAS, you've got that incredibly hardass Regiment training under your belt, but adrenaline and willpower will only take you so far...
Don't you guys usually know what sort of characters you're signing in for before you even open to the first page? If you give me a fantasy novel at random there's over a 99% chance I'm not going to like the characters.
I get irritated by any character who seems 'constructed' out of body parts and personality quirks. You know, the kind you get by relying too heavily on character sheets during the early stages of writing. Characters who exist only to serve the plot of the story, and have characteristics that lack depth and seem tacked-on. The one that comes to mind first is Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. I read all Agatha Christie's mysteries when I was young and still living in the USA. I loved the stories because of the local colour in them, and couldn't have cared less 'whodunnit' in most of them. However, I could never warm to Hercule Poirot. He just seemed cartoonish. He was the perfect detective who never made mistakes, but showed his 'humanity' by wearing a silly little moustache and being extra picky about everything. I just didn't find him believable, and could not imagine what his life before Agatha would have been like. He seemed to have no history, no real feelings. Fortunately, the David Suchet portrayal of him in the TV series has put bags of humanity into the character, and I love the series the way I didn't love the books. Ditto Joan Hickson's Miss Marple. These two actors have given life to what were otherwise not terribly believable characters, as written.
@minstrel - I agree 100% with what you said. Conversely, I also don't like the 'dumb jock' trope. It's like, 'hey kid, you prefer to throw a ball around than to do trigonometry? If so, you're just a dumb meathead'. Some kids like sports, some kids like lab coats. Both of them can actually get along in the real world. Shocking, I know. Dark, edgy characters who are that way because it's the popular trend these days. I don't mind them if they have a good valid reason, but not if it's just because. Then they come off as flat and boring. The 'Hitler'. You know what I'm talking about. The character who is basically Hitler/the Nazis in all but name. Look, I get it, they were evil, Hitler was evil. I get it. There are thousands of other historical bad guys to draw from for your villain. Hitler wasn't the only evil dude in human history and, sadly, he wasn't the last. Also, it gives the author an excuse to not develop their villain any more than 'Well, they're like Hitler!'
