thelaughingfool
Something I hate in any form of fiction is the "Passionate Princess" model. I suppose it doesn't need to be a princess per say. But when you have someone in the upper echelons of society
who simply can't stand the suffering of their people, it makes me want to close the book, turn off the TV, and walk out of the movie theater. A friend of mine says this is a reaction, especially by American writers, to make their character's more relatable and to justify their royal status with the reader. But it's so passé and so boring to me.
If I sometimes catch myself creating such a character, I try to spice up their personality a bit. My favorite method is to make them do good things for all the wrong reasons. "I'll stop this horde of monsters that seek to destroy my kingdom because I don't want to lose my position and do honest work for a change." That sounds so much more interesting than being self-righteous and preachy.
I think another aspect of this is kind of a fantasy thing. A lot of people wish that the rich in powerful in their society would use their wealth and power to help others and make the world a better place. It's been speculated that part of the recent mainstream popularity of superhero movies is for that reason. (in addition to wish-fulfillment and all that) The superhero has all this power, and the power hasn't always been earned by that person, but s/he uses it to help others rather than focusing (solely) on personal gain.
I'm getting increasingly annoyed with "chosen one" stories. It's not that I think they're inherently bad. Really, there are many I love. But I've noticed more and more writers using it to be lazy. They have a prophecy so they don't need to put effort into how or why something happens. It happens because the prophecy says so! And it's often used as a cheap, easy way to put a character into the center of the conflict. Why does this character have to save the world? Because s/he's the chosen one and the prophecy says s/he has to do it! Even outside of bad/lazy writers, I've just gotten pretty bored with the whole idea. The character is the chosen one just because. Why not more creative ways of putting the character into conflict? How about a character who earns his/her position, or who has an alternate motivation for doing the big thing?
Elaborating what I posted earlier... The main problem with love triangles. I tend to stay away from love triangle stories because 99.99% of them have this problem. I think the love triangle does have potential for legitimately good story and conflict, but most books avoid that by copping out. They make it so the decision is too easy and that completely destroys the whole conflict of the love triangle. Sometimes one of the guys is treated as perfect, while the other has glaring flaws. Of COURSE she's going with the perfect guy. Other times both of the guys are good options, but one does something really bad that the girls runs to the other. Again, it makes the choice too obvious. Sometimes one of the guys will die so in the end, there's no choice at all. There's also this weird trend I've seen in a lot of love triangle books, what Nostalgia Chick refers to as "the ethnic third wheel". It's when one of the guys has "exotic" as his appeal, but that guy is rarely chosen in the end. Can't help but wonder if that has like, racist implications or something. Oh well.
I hate being told something but then being shown something completely different. A character we're told is ugly, but then described in a way that doesn't sound ugly at all. Characters who we're told are strong and smart, but don't do anything to suggest those things. I see this a lot with "designated heroes" as well. We're supposed to totally root for a character, and see everyone who gets mad at them as mean or unfair. But sometimes the opposing people have good points, but that never gets acknowledged. (at least not in any meaningful, story-impacting way)
Cliche fantasy. It needs to stahp. Right now. Dragons, medieval European world, elves, dwarves, all that s**t is great, but fantasy gives you more freedom than any other genre. Why a lot of people insist on sticking to a Tolkien model, I'll never know.
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