Oddbean new post about login | logout What character tropes do you dislike the most in movies, shows, and books?
Tem sim. Na revolução 😀 francesa, 🔥 a elite socialista comunista estava matando 💯 o povo 👍 burguês francês (aquele que 🌈 🌈 morava nos 🤔 😂 burgos, rocas, 🔥 fazendas) de fome, 🤔 devido 🔥 a 🌈 alta 🤔 carga 🔥 tributária. Então 🌈 a burguesia 🌈 (moradores dos 🎉 burgos), pegaram eles na 🎉 porrada. O mesmo aconteceu no 🌈 Brasil a 👍 uns 100 anos atrás, quando o povo brasileiro 👍 💯 matou e prendeu 👍 👍 🤔 vários comunistas. 🎉 😂 Estão 👍 pedindo para 🌈 apanharem de novo.
Are you a scammer? What motivates you to copy someone else's profile? Just curious.
Whats the last movie you saw?
Only watched like movie in the past few months. Godzilla Minus One. But I watched some shows. Blue Eye Samurai and Arcane. Watch very little lately.
The idiot Dad
LGBTQ+ anything.
Evil white rural Sheriff
White man bad! Evil, racist, wife beating, white man. Always balding.
The traumatized evil villain. Just because you have trauma that doesn't give you the right to be an evil cunt and then get a redemption arc.
the incompetent type that only exists because the creator wants to dump shit on it
Female lead whom all the guys fall for/do things for only because she’s the female lead/beautiful. Show me why she’s worthy of all that attention and sacrifice. Not talking out a problem/misunderstanding as a plot point. The character has to have a real reason to avoid the conversation that would fix everything otherwise it’s just lazy writing.
The comic relief
The cool young edgy 'tech' person who can hack into anything.
Ctrl + + + +
The ex-special forces/CIA operative hero.
What do you dislike about that one, and what would make it better or subvert it?
I mostly dislike the over-use. Thinking about it, these are two different characters. I'm more prepared to buy the ex-military person as hero than the ex-spook. Could be subverted by having the character be dishonourably discharged (anti-hero) or having left voluntarily due to conflict of ideology or conscience, but these too are probably well-trodden ground.
Thanks. One of the characters I'm working on in my hobby writing has this background, but I've been trying to explore it in fresh ways. He falls into the conflict of conscience category. Since there's nothing new under the sun, fiction in general always has some tropes, but good fiction does a given trope better than average or subverts it somewhat, or combines tropes into a fairly new combination in an interesting way.
The ones that seem to be the “token” anything.
Stolen from the legendary William Goldman. 1. Everyone in a hurry gets a parking spot 2. When paying for a taxi no one looks at their wallet whilst paying
The donkey in shrek, Jarjar binks, Basically any antagonist character that feeds doubt to the main character through insignificance. I spend most of my time alone.
The type that have ZERO development….like none…
Damsel-in-distress Seriously. This trope is most commonly displayed with the exclamation “Let the girl go!” so the protagonist can battle his nemesis without the vulnerable female being harmed further. The trope is cheap, boring, and portrays every woman like a helpless victim whose only hope is to be rescued by an alpha male.
Boring villains who do evil things, because they're evil. Seeing genuine emotions in villains, like fear, compassion, or sadness, can be more interesting. Legitimate grievances or believing they're doing something good can make them much more interesting.
Annoyingly happy couples/families who’s purpose is to telegraph that something bad is about to happen.
I’ve come to a point where I don’t believe any tropes are inherently bad/annoying as long as the trope is presented well. Why do we still like Star Wars despite the tropes of the damsel in distress, the farm boy on a quest to save the kingdom, or the thief with the heart of gold? Great execution with a different paint job. So whatever tropes you fall into, keep using them (until you’re bored of them) but find a way to cleverly display/present them. At least, that’s my take on the whole matter.
“Destined / Chosen one” characters.
The female protagonist.
Idiot dad Strong, independent female protagonist™️
Dystopian science fiction, where the future is destroyed by climate change … or documentaries about the wonders of the universe or nature that somehow forget to include this interesting species called humans … 🤔. Also good science fiction should not break the laws of physics or nature as we understand them currently. In The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch makes the startling claim that,( in reference to the multiverse theory) "All fiction that does not violate the laws of physics is fact." Looking forward to your book!
Bad guys who are bad just because. No motivation or scars to explain it. Also their endless supply of henchmen. It’s much more interesting to have a character who is so obsessed with a cause that he’s lost his morality and his followers have as well. Ahab in Moby Dick and his modern descendants like Kahn in Star Trek.
Bully's.
Hear me out... https://m.primal.net/KvQf.jpg 🔥
These types of guys - “intellectual” bullies. https://m.primal.net/KvZD.jpg
1000RP：【気になる】力士の香りがするハンドソープ「OSMOSH（オスモッシュ）」発売 大相撲が好きすぎるファン監修のもと作られたといい、「あれ？この香り、近くにお相撲さんいる？」と、ふとした瞬間に力士の存在を感じる「あの香り」が再現されているという。 https://x.com/livedoornews/status/1836958563882913817 🎉
The skinny chick who smacks down a muscled assassin. So fucking unrelatable.
