Most hated cliché/trope in fiction

this

All Girls Want Bad Boys, Good is boring, evil is sexy bla bla

this is so overused that it need cynical works just to make it enjoyable in a setting
 
I'm getting pretty tired of the horror film premise where a couple/family moves into a new home after some past trauma/troubles. Also, the husband is a writer. Hubby doesn't believe wifey when she starts seeing ghosts and shit, but in the end he goes mental.

Wow. That's the script for about 99% of all horror films since the year 2000. Shit.

Seriously, I can enjoy a good horror film, but it's sad that 99% of all horror releases are absolute and utter garbage.
 
"Like a language, a genre is a set of norms that should ease communication, not imprison it. When you expand your outline, you should keep in mind what the audience expects and work with that. Your audience expects particular things, but you may not give it entirely what it expects, for that is part of how you maintain dramatic tension. Storytellers keep things lively by splicing genres and types of discourse together as a way to push or subvert expectations. The conventions, though old, are always in charge and always in negotiation. Like spoken language, they must evolve if they are to remain potent and useful."
— Michael Rabiger

Tropes are just tools. Writers understand tropes and use them to control audience expectations either by using them straight or by subverting them, to convey things to the audience quickly without saying them.
 
SarcasticGoodGuy said:
Look at the Walking Dead.

Jumping the shark; this goes quite well with plot armor, having characters that just won't die. It takes out all suspense. Some of the retarded viewers may be surprised by it, but it's a fucking stupid thing to do.
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Glenn not dying in the alley was the breaking point for me and i stopped watching the show. The season had been unbelievably bad since the very first episode but that one shat in the face of the audience.

The series had been in a decline since the second half of the prison but the season in which they pulled the dumb fucking quarry stunt was probably among the worst writing and directing ive seen in tv.
 
I'm going to sound like a maniac depressant here but I hate the idea of happy endings in serious pieces of work.
Unless you're not taking the idea too seriously or you're making a straight up action film, I don't want everything to wrap up in a nice happy bubble.
Nah, I like my stuff to have the worst outcome.

Also, I dislike the idea of people being seen as bad for the sake of being bad.
An example is how Slytherine were treated in Harry Potter, they were seen as nothing but the bad of the School, which I don't get as they are just normal people.

I'm sure there are asswholes in the other Houses as well, but they single out this one House for the sake of conflict.

Although, the first book is much worse for this than the film.
 
Millim said:
I'm going to sound like a maniac depressant here but I hate the idea of happy endings in serious pieces of work.
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I'm kinda one of those people who doesn't like happy nor sad endings.

A happy ending is a cliche, and is to be expected, but endings which are just purely miserable for the sake of being miserable seem equally as bad.

My favorite kind of ending are bitersweet ones where nobody really gets what they expected, but it kinda turns out ok anyway.
 
Somewhat related to the topic of tropes is a pet peev of mine lately; people who point out one trope and think that disqualifies a show/story/ etc.
Just pointing out a trope does not an argument make. Thats really only part of an argument if at all. Two quick examples, one person I had a conversation about tropes found in anime used to just list a shows trope as reasons for "not being good" . Like the child/teen soilders trope and how AoT is bad for having one (never mind they kind of subvert that as the series goes on) or how monoculture in early scifi disqualifes it as not being good because lts not competent world building. Let's just discount Star Trek and The Twilight Zone as bad due to budget or time limitations is such an intellectually dishonest argument. It mistakes the forest for the trees and often the person pointing out tropes is just trying to inflate thier ego or play some insecure mind games.
 
Somewhat related to the topic of tropes is a pet peev of mine lately; people who point out one trope and think that disqualifies a show/story/ etc.
Just pointing out a trope does not an argument make. Thats really only part of an argument if at all.
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True, but there is sometimes quite a reliance on these as the creator/writer doesn't feel like trying to work on a more different concept, or just isn't capable of making something that feels like they are trying to tread new grounds.
Tropes are not always bad but sticking to them to the letter is not helping the medium in which they are made in either.
 
dopezilla said:
Wow. That's the script for about 99% of all horror films since the year 2000. Shit.

Seriously, I can enjoy a good horror film, but it's sad that 99% of all horror releases are absolute and utter garbage.
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I politely disagree imo there's been some dam good horror movies lately. It follows was a great love letter to john carpenter, babadook was great cerebral horror, don't breathe/hush was a breath of fresh air with their really cool premise.
 
Some of the tropes I hate the most:

-Tough girl gotta team up with her father ? She will have daddy issues because the script demands cheap conflicts. No girl can be mentally/emotionally stable, ever.

-Bullets in the shoulder heal instantly and have no consequences whatsoever.

-Car doors and furniture will stop any bullet.

-Guns don't make noises at all. You can shoot them in the elevator and hear your buddy whistle in your ear afterwards, no problem.

-The one I hate the most : the hero can save the day, but he has to convince the mob boss that he has what it takes. So, he'll provoke a brawl, or perform a difficult, dangerous move to prove his point (like shooting the boss' cigar or some shit). The hero never gets killed on the spot for being a reckless asshole, noo... the boss will make a sarcastic clap and say "You've got what it takes, boi".

-Antagonists have hundreds of minions willing to litteraly die for their boss, for no reason.

-International Corporations are always bad, for reasons. Same goes for the suave entrepreneur. He's ready to make the world burn "for Money!" even if that would make his money worthless.

-Don't trust anybody / later on : "I told you not to trust anybody! Haha!"

-Divorced hero forced to team up with ex wife and her new husband ? The new husband will be wacky until he dies. Hurray!

-Autistic persons are either : genius/hilarious.

-Beautiful people are good. Ugly people are bad.

-Each alien race has an assigned, common personality/stereotype. Hutts are all gangsters, for example, despite common freaking sense.

-Roman ? Gotta introduce you to my buddy, Sir British Englishman, caucasian and haughty, because Romans were like that, right?

-All geek stereotypes. The hero "wins" by becoming someone else, someone "cool".

-The hero doesn't follow the rules, man. Especially if he's military or cop.

-A "love story" is about meeting the person, trials, and then kissing her. Hurray! Do Hollywood even knows that millions of people do that by accident every day? And that everything that comes next is actually "the" love story?

-Fatally wounded people always say something deep. They never cry in pain, shit their pants and call for their mothers.

-White dude goes native. Saves the day, because natives couldn't do it on their own.

-Got a dystopian sci fi thingy going on ? The government bad guys will always wear motorcycle helmets.

-Got a female character who loves her job ? She's journalist, and she actually compensates for something. Don't worry, Hugh Grant will come at some point and show her the true meaning of life, because loving your job and a single life always means that the girl has a problem and needs a savior. Always, right?

-Love cannot be stopped. Ever. It never happens.

-Teenagers are never mature. Ever. Same goes for children, they cry, beg for attention and have trouble surviving, and that's it. Because the idea of people having personalities, no matter their age, is a bit too complex for Hollywood.

-"I can take care of myself !" line.

-Got an American native character ? He will be mystical as hell. He will love nature and he will "know things". Because American natives cannot be atheists, close minded, have materialistic jobs, cut trees etc. No, they will always be the wise shaman, because reasons.
 
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Mr Fish said:
Glenn not dying in the alley was the breaking point for me and i stopped watching the show. The season had been unbelievably bad since the very first episode but that one shat in the face of the audience.

The series had been in a decline since the second half of the prison but the season in which they pulled the dumb fucking quarry stunt was probably among the worst writing and directing ive seen in tv.
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I kept watching until the end of the governor's storyline, which was the only half-redeeming quality I could find in this show. I'm okay with a bit of overdramatic characters, but with TWD, it's too much. Every single problem leads to looong series of debates, stares, dramatic silences etc that go and on and on, sometimes during several episodes. It's too much.
I can cringe and forget the heroes being unable to rebuild any kind of civilized place after years of surviving, because that's so common in the genre, the trope is to be expected. I can forget the "every safe settlement is actually run by monsters and hide a terrible secret" cliche. But the constant overdramatic sequences is too much for me. At least the zombies are great, compared to the standard. They actually rot more and more as the seasons pass, that's a nice touch. Also, Andrew Lincoln is an amazing actor, it's too bad his performances are shadowed by mediocre storylines. Finally, the writers had the common sense of dropping the "alien made the zombies" storyline which was supposed to be included.
 
Eh, the zombies are decent but I would not call them great. They are what I consider "monster"-zombies. The way they hiss and moan and comically flail their arms around. My favorite type of zombie will always be Dawn Of The Dead/Night Of The Living Dead/The Dead, where they genuinely walk like they got rigor mortis and doesn't go "WUAAGH!" the moment someone steps in their line of sight. Their silence makes up for their lack of mobility as they suddenly just creep up on you. Suddenly they're just there cause you didn't pay attention enough. The idea that any zombie would be able to take someone by surprise in TWD is dumb. How could they get the drop on someone when they can't stop themselves from going "OOGA BOOGA!"?

I like the comics far more. They're drawn so I can imagine that the zombies are DotD-esque zombies.

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That reminds me, another thing I hate in zombie films especially is when zombies are first shown to be several meters away from a side-character and then they just conveniently teleport right next to him.

Or when the zombies are all in front of the character and we've seen no zombies to the sides even though the camera has panned in that direction, yet when it comes time for the overwhelming and mauling of useless character #7 there are zombies all around the guy/gal.

Oh and this isn't necessarily a cliché or a trope but I fucking can't stand running zombies.
 
SarcasticGoodGuy said:
Look at the Walking Dead.

Jumping the shark; this goes quite well with plot armor, having characters that just won't die. It takes out all suspense. Some of the retarded viewers may be surprised by it, but it's a fucking stupid thing to do.
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If you're disappointed by the show try the comics. Much better imo.

I hate:

Plot armor
Forced romance
And super convenient coincidences. Like for example Morgan finding Ricks map in season 5 of TWD.

mithrap said:
Finally, the writers had the common sense of dropping the "alien made the zombies" storyline which was supposed to be included.
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The aliens made the zombies bit was a lie kirkman told his publisher so they would actually publish his comic. That was never actually intended to be implemented.
 
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Millim said:
An example is how Slytherine were treated in Harry Potter, they were seen as nothing but the bad of the School, which I don't get as they are just normal people.
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I never read Harry Potter and only watched a couple of movies and didn't really liked them much (my wife is the one that loves HP) but didn't they kinda explain that by using the sorting hat or whatever it was called? Wasn't the hat supposed to sort the people into their houses depending on their powers and personality or something like that? So all students prone to be evil would be placed into the same house by the hat... That is what I always thought but again I don't know much about it, I only know bits that my wife tells me :shrug:.

I hate those movies/series where the main character(s) go around exploding, killing and destroying almost everything and everyone and after they kill the big boss everything is good and nice again and we see them in the aftermath living happily. There is no consequences at all for the main character(s) after they kill and destroy so much... The law does not apply to them.
 
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