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I found this on a livejournal post (ie, not mine). However, I find some truth in the statements. Fantasy stories seem to sometimes lack in creativity. Sure, most stories have been written before in some form or fashion, but do they always have to sound like the author just replaced the names from another text? Does the fantasy world need a fresh start?

As an aside: what's your favorite cliche?

Mine is definitely the Orphan Hero. I've played so many RPGs where the entire setting is made up of orphans. not a single parent survives past childbirth!


As a second aside: Yes, I've used some of these cliches in my own writing.
Have you?

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TOP TEN FANTASY CLICHÉS

(in no particular order)


1. The Orphan Hero

Almost every fantasy story will have a hero (or heroine, but henceforth referred to as hero for ease) that either starts off orphaned, or eventually becomes orphaned – normally because the author can’t be bothered to have their hero think about contacting their parents, but occasionally because the hero needs to have some unknown relative. The orphan cliché is particularly tacky when used to justify a need for vengeance against the Evil Villain.

2. The Wise Old Mentor

Generally male, the Wise Old Mentor starts the hero off on their quest to fulfil their destiny and knows more about the hero than the hero themselves do. They tend to teach their pet hero the ways of the world and either magic or swordsmanship. Once the hero is nearing proficiency in their chosen speciality, the Wise Old Mentor will die, generally killed by the minions of the Evil Villain.

3. The Quest

The Evil Villain can only be defeated by a single item, which happens to be hidden on Mount Doom, beyond the Rivers of Lava guarded by the twenty-four headed dragon of death… Obviously, there’s no such thing as planning a rebellion or something, because this magic item will do all the work for you. It’s a pity the Evil Villain didn’t clue onto this earlier.

4. The Noble King

The Monarchy is the Proper Way of Governing Your Country. Full stop. If there is an evil King, it is because the rightful King has been usurped by his young brother/grand vizier/high priest/pet monkey. Future harmony can only be restored by putting the dictator- er, rightful King back on his throne. All of his descendants will rule as nobly as he did, because it runs in the blood. Democracy is a foolish way of ruling and is not allowed in a fantasy world.

5. Long-Lost Relations

If the main character is an orphan (as so many of them are) then they tend to have a previously unknown relationship to either the Evil Villain, the Evil Villain’s right-hand man, the rightful monarchy (making them the True Heirs to the throne) or that girl they had a crush on. They may also be related to the legendary hero of aeons past.

6. Destiny/Prophecy

The hero is either favoured by the gods, has some sort of ancient prophecy about them or is destined to rescue the world because they have a dragon/magical sword/no one else can be bothered to do it. The prophecy is often written in badly rhyming couplets, and is never wrong. It is also often vague (but the Wise Old Mentor had no problem about interpreting it – pity he died before he explained it to the hero). Destiny/Prophecy is often used as an excuse for why nobody else can be bothered to do anything about the Evil Villain, and why the hero should be automatically obeyed by everyone (and anyone who doesn’t obey him is Evil or Misguided).

Whoever came up with this idea in the first place should have been SHOT.

7. Good and Evil

Moral ambiguity is not to be approved of. The Evil Villian is Evil and must spend his (or occasionally her) time proving his Evilness by killing random messengers, torturing his own servants, putting convenient villages to the torch and just generally being Evil. It makes you wonder why anyone would agree to serve them. Conversely, the hero is always good and all his decisions are the morally correct ones, even if taken under great stress and without having listened to the advisers who've been around for a lot longer and probably have a better idea of the right thing to do. Strangely enough, even the heroes that are seeking vengeance still manage to stay on the side of the 'Light'.

8. Hopeless Odds

Yes, okay, it potentially raises tension in the story if this is the only chance there is to overcome the Evil Villain and if the hero fails the world will be submerged in darkness forever and ever (or until the sequel). Optimism, however, can be done very well. Imagine a story where the heroes think they can win because they've managed to arrange several attacks and you've seen them coming up with the strategy - or a series of rebellions that took careful planning, toppling the government in a chaotic mess. Not everything has to be resolved in a one on one fight against the Evil Villain on top of a swaying wooden bridge swinging across an active volcano.

9. Female Characters

The overwhelming temptation with female characters is either to have them as the Convenient Love Interest or the Bold Warrioress Who Awes People With Her Wild Beauty (in a fashion much akin to Xena). Unfortunately, most people fail to realise that if the Bold Warrioress uses a sword, axe or other weapon, the chances are she will have muscles – especially if she actually wears armour instead of running around in skimpy leather lingerie. She is also likely to get scarred at some point in their life. This makes her Wild Beauty hard to maintain – but this is rarely mentioned in most fantasy novels.

10. Unpronounceable Names

It is not 'the longer the better'. It has never been 'the longer the better'. If you think Aleiasagathian is an appropriate name for anything, ever, you should not be allowed to write. Just as equally, inserting apostrophes in random places is not clever. In fact, any name that needs a glossary at the back to explain how to pronounce it should be removed at once.


This is not a list to say to say that anything including any of the above can't be considered a good story. That would eliminate a good 98.2% of fantasy novels and leave me with nothing to read. The list is simply a compilation of the most common factors I've noticed in fantasy stories - and is by no means comprehensive.

As an aside, however, if your story contains more than five of the above, you should probably burn it. Especially if your name is Christopher Paolini.

As I was reading through it I went through the plot line of my fantasy story to see which ones I had in there and surprisingly it came out to 3-4 of those topics. I thought with my luck I would have more but no. Thanks for this.

Copies and saves for future reference.

~Buwie

You know, I'm just going to copy and paste this and put it on the back of my book as the synopsis. xd

Like how the Fool is both the White Prophet and the true main character, while the Fitz is only his Catalyst, his "enabler of heroes" in Hobb's tri-trilogy. It does make a good twist if it's done correctly, but if it's not.... I'll just not read the book.

Love and Vale,
-LD

"6. Destiny/Prophecy

The hero is either favoured by the gods, has some sort of ancient prophecy about them or is destined to rescue the world because they have a dragon/magical sword/no one else can be bothered to do it. The prophecy is often written in badly rhyming couplets, and is never wrong. It is also often vague (but the Wise Old Mentor had no problem about interpreting it – pity he died before he explained it to the hero). Destiny/Prophecy is often used as an excuse for why nobody else can be bothered to do anything about the Evil Villain, and why the hero should be automatically obeyed by everyone (and anyone who doesn’t obey him is Evil or Misguided).

Whoever came up with this idea in the first place should have been SHOT. "

ROFLMAO xd xd xd xd xd xd

I agree, but it's the way like that with anything. Take mystery: The police are too stupid to figure out the crime, the detective nobody's heard of come in, and then this big adventure forms around the case with the police standing in the sidelines and the detective running around doing all the work. Of course, the bad guy is caught, and the detective becomes famous.

My point is, it's not just fantasy. But then, there are some good fantasy (and mystery) stories for that matter, they're just hard to come by.

Wow, that was awesome. It's true almost all the fantasy books I've read have the orphan hero.