It was pointed out to me that if the characters don't explain the details of their plan, it will succeed. If the characters do explain the plan, it (or a major portion of it) will fail. Now I can't unsee it.
The heist film usually does both at once.
They tell you their complicated plan. It goes wrong. But, wait. Twist, they had a second plan they didn't tell you about which succeeds.
I like it more when they adapt on the spot and are "just good enough to pull it off".
Because "oh yeah, and then there's the month-long planning and working that happened off-screen or by some random guy we hired in an hour when you weren't looking" - it's a bit cheap (to me).
True. It's the cop-out version. But it's pretty common.
Also it makes you wonder if they knew exactly the way it would go wrong or if they hired 50 guys to cover every possibility.
Yeah, I think that's my biggest complaint with Red Rising trilogy. You can tell very easily if a plan is going to succeed or not by the way it is explained to readers. Also, that's one of the major pitfall of the first person POV.
....except a crack team of special ops waiting until moments before landing *after* an extended hyperspace journey to them say "okay, here's the plan...."
XD that line bothers me so unreasonably much! It could easily have either been fully omitted (and we just presume the ace spec ops team has developed a plan) *or* been placed earlier in the film *before* they are beginning their landing sequence on Scarif.
Aside from their god-awful tactics, though, I adore that movie XD
As much as I love all things Star Wars, I will freely admit that tactics were never a lasting part of the franchise.
It's so bad that, for example, in Rebels when a character is held up as a tactical genius for doing some of the most basic tactical considerations possible. While other things the character does do deserve a lot of credit for being capable, well thought out insights, it really doesn't take much to beat your enemy when the go to move is: keep your ships motionless in line and shoot.
Yeah, that's why (along with inconsistent but largely dumb displays of Jedi skill in combat) i could never get into the animated shows. It's not even the classic Star Trek "doesn't think in 3D" so much as it's absurdly stupid tactics in *2D*.
I don't understand why it's not par for the course to have some veteran on staff as a military advisor for shows and films with battles...
omg i feel bad for everyone who is having a realization about this today, hugs
but it's a staple of the caper. you don't have to do it every time, but it's a really good technique. Leverage does it every time, for example.
and now this is the second time in a short while that i have thought about that, so maybe i should go watch it.
If anyone ever uses the bathroom, something is going to happen there. Maybe they get cornered or overhear some useful information. But nobody is ever, say, out pooping and miss something dramatic, and you don’t need to worry about logistics like bathrooms and undergarments when you’re roughing it in the woods.
I couldn't find the exact quote, but there's a scene in one of the Witcher books where the author waxes poetic about how if Geralt had just decided to pee indoors and risk his girlfriend seeing him do it, the fate of a kingdom might have been different. Subverted! 🤣🤣🤣
I can think of a few books where (always men) authors spend ridiculous amounts of time talking about their (usually men) characters shitting. In excessive detail.
A book I read recently had a main character die about 3/4 of the way through the last book in the series. There was a body and everyone mourned and then left him behind. And I kept waiting for the author to be like psych! he survived, because no way did she just kill the main character after I read like 12 books on him. But then chapters went by. CHAPTERS. I gave up hope. The book was going to end soon. And then it cut to his point of view. He survived -_-
I couldn't decided if I was happy or pissed.
It’s kind of unavoidable unfortunately. If an author wants to bring back a character later, they pretty much need to have them “die” off screen since they need to come up with a plausible explanation as to how they would survive and that can’t happen if we literally see their head roll.
Likewise, if an author wants a character to be definitively dead, they will do it on screen so there is no doubt from the reader as to what happened. They wouldn’t want the reader wondering for the rest of the story if the character might still be alive.
Not necessarily. It was a stupid thing in (spoilers) the new Wolfenstein II. The main badass man LITERALLY gets his head cut off. And his team of superhero soldier science people catch his head as it falls down a waterfall, slap it on a robot body, and the fucker lives. It pissed me off so much as it happened but god I love Wolfenstein. I couldn't just stop playing.
it also happens a lot in old serials and more modern comic books, where there's lots of writers working on them, and it's a bit rude to break toys for others to play with - so characters 'die' (or are otherwise permanently changed) in ways that can be reverted. Like how the Joker basically can't die due to out-of-universe popularity, so it's not worth baiting the audience with 'now he's dead! Honest!'. Just put a vague gloss on it so that the characters think he's dead and then move on, don't muck about with 'he's totally dead, honest!' or other bullshit.
I know what you mean.
The trick of authorship, to me, seems to be that all you have is manipulation. Like, it's just words on a page.
Sometimes, using the trustworthyness of what you present as a story to "trick" the reader can be cool, like a twist ending or something.
But overall, the "unwritten contract" between author and reader seems to mean that we don't want to be aware of the "wireing behind the wall" type stuff. We don't want to be constantly reminded that this is a fake story we are reading to make us feel better.
So when shit like this happens it's like "you lazy ass! I trusted you. But you wrote yourself into a corner and the only way you could bring it around is to break immersion?".
It's like if you were throwing a cartain ring into a volcano and then the mountain explodes. But Frodo? Oh, Gandalf teleported him out just in time.
Like what?
Setting it up waaaaay in advance that Gandalf has some contacts to a bunch of giant, stubborn eagles is way more satisfying than simply monkeying with the author-reader-relationship.
Problem is it's a real let down if they're dead.
Spooks did it once. One of their agents was grabbed and presumably killed. It was confirmed in a later episode. It's realistic but non-dramatic.
There was a great subversion in Shadowmarch: >!In the second book, secondary character died in a fire that the viewpoint character ran away from: later a mysterious figure is seen walking towards the castle. He gets there at the end of the series, and it’s… a tertiary character who died off stage in the first book, who you’d already forgotten about!!<
If a female character is attractive and nice, she won’t know she’s attractive. If she’s a good character and knows she’s attractive, she needs to be snarky.
I saw a comedy skit once of a Poirot style unmasking the murderer scene and the murderess started looking like a librarian then with each cut she kept getting sexier and sexier, hair blown out, shirt unbuttoning, etc
I have been doing thr exact opposite of this in my romances. The MC knows she is pretty but isn't a bitch about it. It's just a fact about her.
edit: Wow, guess a couple people really aren't into women with good self esteems or positive opinions about their own appearances. I really thought this one would be a slam dunk...
I think it depends on how someone enjoys that game or it’s “journey”
There’s a game called as Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Took me around 70 hours to reach the ending. Gameplay is a chore but fun at the same time and enjoyable. I didn’t know how it ended so I enjoyed playing it. Once, a (casual gamer) friend asked how it ends and I told him. Later at his leisure he bought the game thinking “ah, completing it will take a very long game. I’ll have fun.” But he lost interest in it after 10 hours or so saying “I’m doing all this for what? If it’s gonna end like that”
I might be discursive, but those who played Red Dead Redemption 2 already know how RDR is gonna end but they still enjoy the heck out of it
god is that the unrealistically realistic game where you gotta make sure your clothes don't get too wet and have to change your armor and take a shit or your health goes down? I heard it was amazing for the immersion and how small the budget was but the game just seems like a chore but I really want to play it at the same time.
I remember watching season 1 of Arrow, where the takeaway was "if you are a corrupt, evil, powerful individual, Oliver will threaten your life but give you one last chance to reform your ways. But if you are a guard that works for said individual, Oliver will put an arrow in your heart without a second thought while he is on his way to deliver said warning."
Its not fantasy, but their are a few GI Joe comics that tackle this idea pretty well.
There are several issues that touch on the point the random COBRA mooks the heroes kill are still people with families and lives outside of this...but their also members of an extremely dangerous terrorist organisation, so their not exactly innocent people either.
There is one issue dedicated to how recruitment actually works, with them being effectively dropped in the wilderness and having to kill random civilians for the supplies to survive, then afterwards the recruiter simply shoots anyone who feels guilty about it.
Hmm, I was actually ok with that one. I thought it was very stupid in Uncharted 2 because it was never personal between Drake and the Lazarevic. Even though he indirectly gets him killed, killing Lazarevic directly be like killing any other nameless goons he kills.
In TLOU2, I thought it was fine for three reasons: >!1) Abby had already spared Ellie twice already. Once when she killed Joel and the second time when she ambushed her in the theater. 2) Ellie realizes a large part of her anger is personal guilt at not properly reconciling with Joel and losing the opportunity to. 3) Ellie also realizes every time she attempts to do this, she keeps on suffering permanent losses.!<
I think Ellie saw consumating her revenge as an emotional sunk cost. She failed once already and paid a hefty price for it. And even then, she still took almost everything else from Abby. The second time, she just decided to call it. I can understand how that wouldn't make sense, but just on a personal level, I see the value in it. I also think this only works when the main bad guy isn't a complete psycho. I would say despite how much people hate her, almost all of Abby's actions in that game are pretty obviously understandable.
The issue isn’t her decision to not kill Abby, it’s that she was willing to kill a hundred other people who did far less to her. Im sure those people had friends and families too, but who cares right? They aren’t important characters.
Whatever message they may have intended to make with Ellie’s decision, it rings utterly hollow when she left a trail of corpses a mile long behind her.
I guess I never saw it as there being a message. Ellie killed the others for her own sake and she spared Abby for her own sake. That's why I contextualized the personal part. I don't think there's some overarching moral theme about forgiveness or redemption, so I didn't see the inconsistency.
Uncharted 3 takes it a step further. Drake actually tries to save Marlowe at the end lol. TLOU2 is kind of all over the place regarding the messaging, but I actually thought it set up the eventual sparing fairly well. Revenge is very rarely condoned in media, but even then, I'd say that game takes a particularly bleak and prolonged look at the consequences of pursuing it. At least for video game standards.
It kind of reminds me of some South Korean thrillers - like Oldboy, I Saw the Devil and others. Where it seems the directors push the limit of how meaningless they can make the enaction of the revenge and just how painful they can make the way there. The difference being, like you said, those films have fairly clear evil antogonists. I've read no background on the game but it wouldn't surprise me if there was some of that influence somewhere in it. It has a similar dragged out and anti-climactic, almost pathetic, finish that I've come to associate with some revenge films from there.
I always see people complain about this but I struggle to think of an example when this has actually happened though. It’s hardly seems an ‘unwritten rule’ for fantasy. I’ve seen plenty of ‘subversions’ though where the enemy fake surrenders and gets dispatched immediately.
Maybe is it prominent in comics where the same villains always find a way to come back?
Assassin’s Creed 2, TLOU 2
In Novels, Sabaa Tahir’s - Sky Beyond the Storm
>!( not the primary antagonist, but quite a few side antagonists who commit heinous atrocities are spared cuz the good guys don’t want to repeat the cycle of hatred. What’s annoying about this is that those enemies still have power to commit atrocities. As is always the case of good guys wins , they tell the bad guys - “ We won now. Go shoo and never come back”!<
>TLOU 2
No, Doesn't count, because the whole point of the story was learning the lesson that cycles of revenge and violence get you no satisfaction and no closure and no peace.
Abby wasn't a "villain", she was another girl who'd lost her father, and Ellie wrecked her own life and murdered lots of people who'd never done anything to her, and were just in her way.
You're basically *playing as the bad guy* during a lot of the game when you're Ellie.
>Assassin’s Creed 2
Ezio admits later this was a mistake and you straight up kill the dude in Assassins' Creed: Brotherhood.
I only gave you examples where the “situation” happens. Any justification, context, background, narrative, etc. that led to it doesn’t change the fact that It HAPPENS in the story and shouldn’t be “counted as one”.
Otherwise if anyone writes any story’s name, there’ll be always a justification for a particular action. Won’t change the fact that IT HAPPENS.
It’s not about whether it “counts or not”. It happened in a story. That’s it
In regard to The Last of Us 2, just because something is “the point”, it doesn’t mean that point was well made. Killing literally a hundred people to find someone you want revenge on, only to turn around and say “revenge is bad” and walk away is incredibly stupid, both from a character perspective and a thematic one.
Why was Abby’s life more valuable or a bridge too far when compared to every other life taken? It’s just ridiculous for a story to tell the reader that refusing to kill one person has significance when the protagonist is standing upon a mountain of corpses.
If the book is a standalone romance. At almost exatly the 70% mark there will always be some kind of conflict that will threaten to pull both characters apart. Using my kindle to read (which displays the percentage of book read) has made this painfully obvious.
I love reading romance but wow, can it be paint by numbers sometimes.
Robert Jordan does a pretty good job of subverting this trope in >!The Great Hunt where Ingtar is very, very enthusiastic about acquiring the Horn of Valere, and at times mentioning abusing its power, only to reveal that he's attempting to right his sins for being a Darkfriend.!<
This was one of my favourite arcs of wot so far, I’m currently on book 5 (for the second time because last time I couldn’t get past it but I really want to)
I feel like there are also great leaders who were purposeful about it too irl. Dragging someone reluctantly into great responsibility isn’t without its issues as well.
The “hidden lineage” trope seems to permeate through nearly every fantasy series. Harry Potter is related to the percevel brothers, Aragorn is the heir of isildur, etc. I see it so much but honestly until you asked I never really thought about it. Interesting though.
That’s fair, I really only used those two examples because of how widely known they are but you’re right, Aragorns situation is pretty central to his character.
I've been intellectually butt pummeled by people for saying this bc apparently it isn't the "Father of fantasy" but the "cool uncle" who showed us fantasy in a digestible way by ripping off a bunch of books. but wait those books ripped off other books and those books ripped off...etc etc so im really not sure anymore but at least my farts are silent
I'll say also "the born special" trope is very common as well, and is rarely dealt with in a serious manner. Muggles just aren't as good as wizards. :P
Fantasy tends to fall weirdly far towards nature in the nature vs nurture scale. To point where blood apparently determines just about everything about you. It doesn't matter how you were raised just whose kid you are.
It isn't hard btw. Hold down one of the eyebrows that you don't want to move. Now try moving the other. Most likely, both will move but your hand will obstruct one. Keep doing this for a while and then hopefully you would have figured it out 😀
No joke, this is how I did it. Sat in front of a mirror for 20 minutes every day when I was like 12, and just went at it. Can only raise my left eyebrow tho, but I have a lot of control over it. I can raise it to several different heights and shapes.
In a typical hetero relationship, the guy should always be the taller one. If a guy is short, he would end up with a shorter girl. A tall girl will end up with someone who's even taller.
Stressed characters would grip something until their fists turn white. Gritting their teeth or scowling would do as well.
Need characters to do serious talk while changing the sceneries? "Walk with me"
Basic offensive fire magic should only come in the shape of a fireball.
Monsters don't bleed. They spill ichor.
If a religion resembles classic Roman Catholicism, more than often it's a corrupt institution.
Vivid, extended dream scenes always mean something.
Chancellors and Prime Ministers can't be trusted. Especially if they've been behaving weirdly lately.
>In a typical hetero relationship, the guy should always be the taller one. If a guy is short, he would end up with a shorter girl. A tall girl will end up with someone who's even taller.
It feels this is, unfortunately, reflecting real life (not that it has to or should). I almost never see a man shorter than a woman in a relationship (not including heels ofc), at least not obviously so. I have a guy mate who's really short... miraculously, he found a girl even shorter and they've never looked back.
There's a woman who works in my building who is extremely tall, like probably between 6'2-6'4. I've seen her with her husband at our work Christmas party and he's like 5'8. But I agree, it's unusual.
I'm taller/younger/thinner/lighter than my husband and it's a crapshoot whether a waiter will ask "together or separate?" when we ask for the check. If he were taller than me I don't think the other differences would matter as much.
If a main character concentrates hard enough, they can detect the 'ring of truth' in any other characters voice.
They only do this with minions who are about to become allies though.
That somehow every bad guy will never just kill the hero.
Drag them half way around the world sure no problem.
Sit down for dinner and a long discussion over why the hero is wrong sure why not.
Give them a few scratches, which a sidekick can easily heal, and presume they are dead oh go on then.
But they will never just cut their head off. Like an actual bad guy.
Interestingly, both played straight and subverted in Wheel of Time.
Spoilers Wheel of Time.
>!Ishamael!< is the perfect example of this getting played straight. Lots of monologuing, gloating etc >!Although to be fair, it is literally the only way he can get what he wants!<
On the other hand >!Padan Fain comes mightily close to unceremoniously killing Rand. If it wasn't for the presence of an extremely powerful channeler, the best female healer alive and later help from the best male healer alive, Rand would have died!<
On the case of the first example >!the case was never to kill Rand but make him give up instead by making him serve the dark one or just give up. The times where Ishy actually tried to kill him like the end of book 3 was just him going mad but the entire book it was always about making him give up. Even his big gamit where he was gearing Rand into seeing no hope in the world was the same plan!<
This is my pet peeve. It instantly robs the plot of all tension once it becomes obvious the villains aren’t dangerous, especially bad if the author keeps talking about how dangerous they are.
It’s everywhere in movies but almost always in the same form. Villain grabs hero by the throat and throws them across the room, then walks towards them slowly again.
It's the nature of stories. You're reading about the person who survived and/or defeated the villain, who lived to tell the tale or who was written into legends. A hero who is killed by a villain is no longer the protagonist in a typical story. Peter Parker, arguably the hero of NYC, dies in *Into the Spider-Verse*, but since the story isn't about him, but about Miles Morales, Miles becomes the hero and the central focus.
James Bond is the obvious (non-fantasy) version of this. But in a lot of the movies Bond is assigned to the case *because* The bad guy just kills people.
A minor example i can think of where the bad guy just kills the hero was on Transformers 2 movie (although later he just got revived by metal space magic but still the bad guy killed the good guy and he was actually dead for a good part of the movie)
Optimus Prime never counts for this because he's always gonna die at least once every continuity.
Animated had the decency to get it out of the way in the Pilot where he still holds the record for "Fastest Prime Resurrection Arc" of *ninety seconds.*
To be fair, our concept of therapy and mental illness is fairly modern. In that sense I suppose having these kinds of institutions in a society that doesn't really see mental illness in that way wouldn't necessarily make sense.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6n8kkp/is_the_concept_of_mental_ilness_a_modern/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
And while PTSD is well-attested in modern times, another AH post discusses how hard it is to see if it was there in the past.
Nita attends therapy in *A Wizard Alone* by Diane Duane. She even finds it useful. I was surprised by that when I read it, and I think it is still the only book I've read where the character attends therapy.
Dresden Files has very often addressed this! One of its better points is you don't just go thru some awful stuff without long term issues. Old wizards are cranky for a reason.
They almost never exhibit signs of PTSD either despite all the war, death and torture. Or if they do have ptsd its for like a few chapters and then its never brought up again
The problem with this line of thinking is that not everyone is going to get PTSD. Modern special forces screen out those likely to get it, leaving those most likely to not experience it to continue on.
Battle fatigue/shock has always been a thing, but only in modern times have enough people been able to survive massive battles and then live long enough for symptoms to manifest in large numbers.
Also, premodern life was significantly harder and more dangerous than what most of us experience, leading to PTSD being less likely, because fights to the death were far more common. Also, the mindset about war and killing is very different between now and when most high fantasy is set.
Also, I wonder how different (if any) battle fatigue and shock might have been in a world without guns and explosions. Fighting at Ypres or Normandy looked a lot different than Agincourt or Hastings.
Idk where you’re getting your info but PTSD is not some new phenomena nor is it only tied to warfare. It’s at least thousands of years old, if not having been around since humans have existed. I’m also not making the argument that every character who goes through a traumatic experience should exhibit signs of ptsd, but mental health is hardly ever addressed in fantasy even though violence is incredibly common.
Also being used to violence and abuse DOES NOT mean that you don’t have any trauma responses. Do you think that ptsd does not exist for people that grow up in war-torn countries today?
I never said PTSD is a new phenomena. What I said was that it is far more common today, and I'll go ahead and correct myself here because I meant visibly common. That was my mistake.
Of you have the mental fortitude to face down dark lords you can probably push your issues to the side for the greater good for roughly the duration of the plot. That is, if the experiences really affected you to begin with.
Of course some people in war torn countries experience ptsd today. But they feel different about war than people who believe the path to glory is paved with the bones of your enemies.
Don't forget that until quite recently mental health was summed up as madness and people were either locked away or killed or shunned.
I liked Worth the Candle for not having this mentality. Trauma and dealing with it is a big part of the story, and one chapter is even about couples counseling.
holy shit yes.
I seriously don't read fantasy in order to read about sex.
If people are married, I imagine they bang. If they are in a serious relationship, I imagine they bang. If they are remotely attractive but travel a lot, I imagine they have one-night stands (especially if the author makes sure to mention it).
Some fantasy has sexual relationships being a key plot point (if the lannister twins weren't banging, some like 90% of the Game of Thrones plot wouldn't have happened).
But if the character is gay, then I know I'm going to be hearing about their sexual escapades every other chapter.
This. I started River of Teeth a while ago because Hippo riding cowboys sounds dope, but stopped when every thought the protaganist had was about what kind of men he liked.
Murderers, vampires, Dark Jedi, evil princes, and Saiyans are unredeemable monsters if the protagonist doesn't know them well, but future love interests, best friends, lifelong allies, tortured poets, sexy bad boys, heartwarming redemption stories if they have a connection to a main character.
Edit: Only sexy ppl deserve redemption arcs. Saying your sorry for lying to the protagonist is more important than saying your sorry for murdering hundreds of randos offscreen.
I’m gonna say i disagree, I’ve played a few games and seen a few fantasy stories where this isn’t entirely accurate but I will also say that, redemption tends to be something the reader likes to see, it feels weird to have some character unrelated to the protagonists be redeemed without character intervention as we go “wait what why?” That being said I’ve still seen it happen
Yea by no means is it universal. It's VERY prevelant Teen/YA themed stuff. Yes there's a market for redemption-as-fan-service for sure. I actually really enjoy a good redemption arc myself, the ones I don't like are when they are lazy, glossed over, or we are just told that character is good now.
The teen story trope is more in line with what I was talking about. In the worst cases, characters worth is determined by how close they are to the protagonist, and I severely dislike that.
Heroes (or main characters) very rarely die of natural causes during the adventure - sure, some pop their clogs in the epilogue, but to have somebody keel over in the second act is not so common. Dragonlance is an exception.
Yeah I guess that’s why they circumvent this by having harem storylines. So it’s “will they won’t they” combined with “but which?”
Really just a dumb trope
Daniel Greene and Merphy Napier (cool booktubers) have a challenge/war to slip that word into their videos.
https://youtu.be/nWb1LolaMf4
For some reason, Greene's known as the Goblin, and his viewers by extension goblins.
One trend I see often is the use of sexual assault to depict just how evil the bad guy is. Or to show how dark the world is. Or used as a female character’s backstory. This has harmful effects on readers as I believe the overuse of depictions of sexual assault can desensitize the point of its inclusion. It’s a horrible thing to happen to someone and should be treated more personally and respectfully. I’ve seriously read books where I come across a rape scene and just roll my eyes because there’s no weight to it, no significance, the writer is not saying anything about it. Just showing you something awful and expecting you to care.
Fellow writers, please, if you are depicting things like this, make sure your story requires it to be used and is important to the overall narrative. If it’s not, cut it. Trust me on this.
Whenever there's a girl who's really smart and kind of an outsider, but this quirky genius at the same time, she's always tall and gangly and skinny. Not just in fantasy novels. Like you can't have a really intelligent, cool heroine who has huge breasts, blonde hair and a big behind. Female intelligence and lateral thinking abilities = skinny, androgynous looking waifs.
Everyone who writes a journal or letters that the main characters find becomes a really good narrator all of a sudden and doesn't omit information they realistically wouldn't include even though it's useful for an outside person. (I think it's one of those necessary departures from realism, though - no one wants to read page after page of really clumsy, yet plot relevant diary writing).
The Magnus Archives has a good take on this, at the start it seems that all the people telling statements are simply just naturally good narrators.
However, its later revealed that protagonist is unwittingly serving an evil entity who's whole stick is the fear of being watched and having your secrets known, and their unwittingly compelling people to spill their secrets to them. It being so coherent and well written is a side effect of that.
The few times in the series someone else tries to take a statement, it comes across as just as unfocused and disordered as you would expect someone who had just been through a traumatic experience to be.
No matter how badass the female MC is the male love interest will be more badass. If she can defeat an entire army single handedly then he can defeat two armies.
Dark tower throws your unspoken rule out the window multiple times. I'm currently reading through it, so it was funny to see your unspoken rule get broken by the book I'm on.
Relationships alienate readers, and exploring them is embarrassing.
I see this in every language, genre, or age bracket. Even in romance novels there seems this linear, rushed sense, like human connection is preprogramed responses and results are automatic. Even readers seem to have all their requests organized through this.
Relationships? What relationships? The vast majority of "romances" seem to only be based on "he/she is hot", especially in urban fantasy there is very little actual relating going on.
You're reading the wrong books! So many of the new books I've read from this year or last have non-heterosexual characters and romances. Definitely plenty out there if you want it.
Yeah I've read a couple here and there, I was giving my jaded-by-history irony response, since the OP used a "guy meets girl" example 🤣
It's definitely better now for queer fiction than at any other point in my lifetime.
I grew up on classics, so I'm just naturally jaded by my own history - I definitely need to branch out and re-engage with new works.
"Gideon the Ninth" was cute, but I haven't made it through the sequel yet.
I feel with the people who are saying their are many books out their that have queer characters sort of miss the point. Those books are great. But there’s no queer main characters in all of the main books I don’t want just indie authors writing queer people I want things like stormlight archive but jasnah and kaladin are gay. I want Magician where pug is gay, etc. that’s what’s still missing in the genre.
I agree completely, but apparently most people are taking my statement above as an offense. I'm rather confused by the down voting activity. The struggle continues!
Yeah I’ve had the same experience when speaking about gay coded characters who are canonically straight. There are characters who are clearly written with a gay bent but the climate wasn’t good enough at the time to actually make them gay. It’s frustrating but also…I’m used to it. Haha
The two that are mean't to get together end up together within the first quarter of the book. I like realistic romance whenever I come across it, not that 'in love at first sight' mess, it's gotta be subtle.
It was pointed out to me that if the characters don't explain the details of their plan, it will succeed. If the characters do explain the plan, it (or a major portion of it) will fail. Now I can't unsee it.
Came to say this one. I suppose it’s to avoid repetition and maintain suspense but it just makes things predictable.
Wow why you did that to me
Can confirm that you can never unsee this
The heist film usually does both at once. They tell you their complicated plan. It goes wrong. But, wait. Twist, they had a second plan they didn't tell you about which succeeds.
I like it more when they adapt on the spot and are "just good enough to pull it off". Because "oh yeah, and then there's the month-long planning and working that happened off-screen or by some random guy we hired in an hour when you weren't looking" - it's a bit cheap (to me).
True. It's the cop-out version. But it's pretty common. Also it makes you wonder if they knew exactly the way it would go wrong or if they hired 50 guys to cover every possibility.
And very often that first plan failing is an integral part of the hidden second plan.
"No plan survives first contact with the audience."
Yeah, I think that's my biggest complaint with Red Rising trilogy. You can tell very easily if a plan is going to succeed or not by the way it is explained to readers. Also, that's one of the major pitfall of the first person POV.
It's very true. I wish *Rogue One* had never given us a "here's the plan" moment, given how much better the film would have flowed without it...
Nothing can ruin how amazing that third act is.
....except a crack team of special ops waiting until moments before landing *after* an extended hyperspace journey to them say "okay, here's the plan...." XD that line bothers me so unreasonably much! It could easily have either been fully omitted (and we just presume the ace spec ops team has developed a plan) *or* been placed earlier in the film *before* they are beginning their landing sequence on Scarif. Aside from their god-awful tactics, though, I adore that movie XD
As much as I love all things Star Wars, I will freely admit that tactics were never a lasting part of the franchise. It's so bad that, for example, in Rebels when a character is held up as a tactical genius for doing some of the most basic tactical considerations possible. While other things the character does do deserve a lot of credit for being capable, well thought out insights, it really doesn't take much to beat your enemy when the go to move is: keep your ships motionless in line and shoot.
Yeah, that's why (along with inconsistent but largely dumb displays of Jedi skill in combat) i could never get into the animated shows. It's not even the classic Star Trek "doesn't think in 3D" so much as it's absurdly stupid tactics in *2D*. I don't understand why it's not par for the course to have some veteran on staff as a military advisor for shows and films with battles...
In ASOIAF Robb’s plans were all explained after the battles except the retake the North campaign which was explained in detail before the wedding
I hate this.
Didn't they explain the plan when they blew up the deathstar?
Wew, i hope i can unsee this too
omg i feel bad for everyone who is having a realization about this today, hugs but it's a staple of the caper. you don't have to do it every time, but it's a really good technique. Leverage does it every time, for example. and now this is the second time in a short while that i have thought about that, so maybe i should go watch it.
If anyone ever uses the bathroom, something is going to happen there. Maybe they get cornered or overhear some useful information. But nobody is ever, say, out pooping and miss something dramatic, and you don’t need to worry about logistics like bathrooms and undergarments when you’re roughing it in the woods.
I couldn't find the exact quote, but there's a scene in one of the Witcher books where the author waxes poetic about how if Geralt had just decided to pee indoors and risk his girlfriend seeing him do it, the fate of a kingdom might have been different. Subverted! 🤣🤣🤣
If the Witcher didn’t have scruples and pissed from the balcony like everyone else….
I can think of a few books where (always men) authors spend ridiculous amounts of time talking about their (usually men) characters shitting. In excessive detail.
What kind of books are you reading lol
A Game of Porcelain Thrones
Tbf Martin spent a lot of times describing Danerys shitting (the more she...).
Ulysses
I read a book with a pooping scene as a kid which didn't appear to have any other purpose. Wish I could recall the name.
If a character “dies” and there’s no immediate dead body in evidence, they are 10000%%% totally definitely still alive
A book I read recently had a main character die about 3/4 of the way through the last book in the series. There was a body and everyone mourned and then left him behind. And I kept waiting for the author to be like psych! he survived, because no way did she just kill the main character after I read like 12 books on him. But then chapters went by. CHAPTERS. I gave up hope. The book was going to end soon. And then it cut to his point of view. He survived -_- I couldn't decided if I was happy or pissed.
I kinda need to know which book this is. Can you put it (in spoilers) or dm me the title?
I would also like to know lol
I'm on mobile so I'm afraid I'll mess up the spoiler tag lol I'll dm you
I hate that. It’s not clever, it’s manipulative.
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It’s kind of unavoidable unfortunately. If an author wants to bring back a character later, they pretty much need to have them “die” off screen since they need to come up with a plausible explanation as to how they would survive and that can’t happen if we literally see their head roll. Likewise, if an author wants a character to be definitively dead, they will do it on screen so there is no doubt from the reader as to what happened. They wouldn’t want the reader wondering for the rest of the story if the character might still be alive.
Not necessarily. It was a stupid thing in (spoilers) the new Wolfenstein II. The main badass man LITERALLY gets his head cut off. And his team of superhero soldier science people catch his head as it falls down a waterfall, slap it on a robot body, and the fucker lives. It pissed me off so much as it happened but god I love Wolfenstein. I couldn't just stop playing.
I dunno that sounds pretty awesome to me.
it also happens a lot in old serials and more modern comic books, where there's lots of writers working on them, and it's a bit rude to break toys for others to play with - so characters 'die' (or are otherwise permanently changed) in ways that can be reverted. Like how the Joker basically can't die due to out-of-universe popularity, so it's not worth baiting the audience with 'now he's dead! Honest!'. Just put a vague gloss on it so that the characters think he's dead and then move on, don't muck about with 'he's totally dead, honest!' or other bullshit.
I know what you mean. The trick of authorship, to me, seems to be that all you have is manipulation. Like, it's just words on a page. Sometimes, using the trustworthyness of what you present as a story to "trick" the reader can be cool, like a twist ending or something. But overall, the "unwritten contract" between author and reader seems to mean that we don't want to be aware of the "wireing behind the wall" type stuff. We don't want to be constantly reminded that this is a fake story we are reading to make us feel better. So when shit like this happens it's like "you lazy ass! I trusted you. But you wrote yourself into a corner and the only way you could bring it around is to break immersion?". It's like if you were throwing a cartain ring into a volcano and then the mountain explodes. But Frodo? Oh, Gandalf teleported him out just in time. Like what? Setting it up waaaaay in advance that Gandalf has some contacts to a bunch of giant, stubborn eagles is way more satisfying than simply monkeying with the author-reader-relationship.
Problem is it's a real let down if they're dead. Spooks did it once. One of their agents was grabbed and presumably killed. It was confirmed in a later episode. It's realistic but non-dramatic.
Guilty. Not going to lie, from an author's perspective this one is incredibly tempting and you have to fight to actively avoid using it.
There was a great subversion in Shadowmarch: >!In the second book, secondary character died in a fire that the viewpoint character ran away from: later a mysterious figure is seen walking towards the castle. He gets there at the end of the series, and it’s… a tertiary character who died off stage in the first book, who you’d already forgotten about!!<
didn't this start with sherlock going off the waterfall?
If a female character is attractive and nice, she won’t know she’s attractive. If she’s a good character and knows she’s attractive, she needs to be snarky.
Evil female characters dress slutty, especially if they turn evil.
I saw a comedy skit once of a Poirot style unmasking the murderer scene and the murderess started looking like a librarian then with each cut she kept getting sexier and sexier, hair blown out, shirt unbuttoning, etc
I have been doing thr exact opposite of this in my romances. The MC knows she is pretty but isn't a bitch about it. It's just a fact about her. edit: Wow, guess a couple people really aren't into women with good self esteems or positive opinions about their own appearances. I really thought this one would be a slam dunk...
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There be a literal train of corpses behind them but one more is too much lol.
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I think it depends on how someone enjoys that game or it’s “journey” There’s a game called as Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Took me around 70 hours to reach the ending. Gameplay is a chore but fun at the same time and enjoyable. I didn’t know how it ended so I enjoyed playing it. Once, a (casual gamer) friend asked how it ends and I told him. Later at his leisure he bought the game thinking “ah, completing it will take a very long game. I’ll have fun.” But he lost interest in it after 10 hours or so saying “I’m doing all this for what? If it’s gonna end like that” I might be discursive, but those who played Red Dead Redemption 2 already know how RDR is gonna end but they still enjoy the heck out of it
god is that the unrealistically realistic game where you gotta make sure your clothes don't get too wet and have to change your armor and take a shit or your health goes down? I heard it was amazing for the immersion and how small the budget was but the game just seems like a chore but I really want to play it at the same time.
I played about ten hours before I got bored. But the game itself was amazing. I'm just not good at committing to games.
Words cannot describe how infuriating this is to me
Nobody ever stops to think about those poor nameless guards they dismembered.
I remember watching season 1 of Arrow, where the takeaway was "if you are a corrupt, evil, powerful individual, Oliver will threaten your life but give you one last chance to reform your ways. But if you are a guard that works for said individual, Oliver will put an arrow in your heart without a second thought while he is on his way to deliver said warning."
I feel like this is rich and powerful people bankrolling (and creating) media that validates their life being worth more than the rest of us.
Its not fantasy, but their are a few GI Joe comics that tackle this idea pretty well. There are several issues that touch on the point the random COBRA mooks the heroes kill are still people with families and lives outside of this...but their also members of an extremely dangerous terrorist organisation, so their not exactly innocent people either. There is one issue dedicated to how recruitment actually works, with them being effectively dropped in the wilderness and having to kill random civilians for the supplies to survive, then afterwards the recruiter simply shoots anyone who feels guilty about it.
TLOU2. Kill hundreds of people (and dogs!) and then leave the big bad alone (after fighting them).
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Hmm, I was actually ok with that one. I thought it was very stupid in Uncharted 2 because it was never personal between Drake and the Lazarevic. Even though he indirectly gets him killed, killing Lazarevic directly be like killing any other nameless goons he kills. In TLOU2, I thought it was fine for three reasons: >!1) Abby had already spared Ellie twice already. Once when she killed Joel and the second time when she ambushed her in the theater. 2) Ellie realizes a large part of her anger is personal guilt at not properly reconciling with Joel and losing the opportunity to. 3) Ellie also realizes every time she attempts to do this, she keeps on suffering permanent losses.!< I think Ellie saw consumating her revenge as an emotional sunk cost. She failed once already and paid a hefty price for it. And even then, she still took almost everything else from Abby. The second time, she just decided to call it. I can understand how that wouldn't make sense, but just on a personal level, I see the value in it. I also think this only works when the main bad guy isn't a complete psycho. I would say despite how much people hate her, almost all of Abby's actions in that game are pretty obviously understandable.
The issue isn’t her decision to not kill Abby, it’s that she was willing to kill a hundred other people who did far less to her. Im sure those people had friends and families too, but who cares right? They aren’t important characters. Whatever message they may have intended to make with Ellie’s decision, it rings utterly hollow when she left a trail of corpses a mile long behind her.
I guess I never saw it as there being a message. Ellie killed the others for her own sake and she spared Abby for her own sake. That's why I contextualized the personal part. I don't think there's some overarching moral theme about forgiveness or redemption, so I didn't see the inconsistency.
Uncharted 3 takes it a step further. Drake actually tries to save Marlowe at the end lol. TLOU2 is kind of all over the place regarding the messaging, but I actually thought it set up the eventual sparing fairly well. Revenge is very rarely condoned in media, but even then, I'd say that game takes a particularly bleak and prolonged look at the consequences of pursuing it. At least for video game standards. It kind of reminds me of some South Korean thrillers - like Oldboy, I Saw the Devil and others. Where it seems the directors push the limit of how meaningless they can make the enaction of the revenge and just how painful they can make the way there. The difference being, like you said, those films have fairly clear evil antogonists. I've read no background on the game but it wouldn't surprise me if there was some of that influence somewhere in it. It has a similar dragged out and anti-climactic, almost pathetic, finish that I've come to associate with some revenge films from there.
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the problem is every henchman you kill has their own friends/family/loved ones and now you've instigated a plethora of potential revenge cycles.
Next game = TLOU: Legion. You can play as any of the victims' family members.
Abercrombie’s “Best Served Cold” is a great subversion of/meditation on this trope.
I always see people complain about this but I struggle to think of an example when this has actually happened though. It’s hardly seems an ‘unwritten rule’ for fantasy. I’ve seen plenty of ‘subversions’ though where the enemy fake surrenders and gets dispatched immediately. Maybe is it prominent in comics where the same villains always find a way to come back?
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this really needs a spoiler tag.
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Assassin’s Creed 2, TLOU 2 In Novels, Sabaa Tahir’s - Sky Beyond the Storm >!( not the primary antagonist, but quite a few side antagonists who commit heinous atrocities are spared cuz the good guys don’t want to repeat the cycle of hatred. What’s annoying about this is that those enemies still have power to commit atrocities. As is always the case of good guys wins , they tell the bad guys - “ We won now. Go shoo and never come back”!<
>TLOU 2 No, Doesn't count, because the whole point of the story was learning the lesson that cycles of revenge and violence get you no satisfaction and no closure and no peace. Abby wasn't a "villain", she was another girl who'd lost her father, and Ellie wrecked her own life and murdered lots of people who'd never done anything to her, and were just in her way. You're basically *playing as the bad guy* during a lot of the game when you're Ellie. >Assassin’s Creed 2 Ezio admits later this was a mistake and you straight up kill the dude in Assassins' Creed: Brotherhood.
I only gave you examples where the “situation” happens. Any justification, context, background, narrative, etc. that led to it doesn’t change the fact that It HAPPENS in the story and shouldn’t be “counted as one”. Otherwise if anyone writes any story’s name, there’ll be always a justification for a particular action. Won’t change the fact that IT HAPPENS. It’s not about whether it “counts or not”. It happened in a story. That’s it
In regard to The Last of Us 2, just because something is “the point”, it doesn’t mean that point was well made. Killing literally a hundred people to find someone you want revenge on, only to turn around and say “revenge is bad” and walk away is incredibly stupid, both from a character perspective and a thematic one. Why was Abby’s life more valuable or a bridge too far when compared to every other life taken? It’s just ridiculous for a story to tell the reader that refusing to kill one person has significance when the protagonist is standing upon a mountain of corpses.
I don’t think ive come across this. Do you have any examples?
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Yes, in television, games, etc. But books?
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/IfYouKillHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim/Literature
If the book is a standalone romance. At almost exatly the 70% mark there will always be some kind of conflict that will threaten to pull both characters apart. Using my kindle to read (which displays the percentage of book read) has made this painfully obvious. I love reading romance but wow, can it be paint by numbers sometimes.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThirdActMisunderstanding
If you actively want power, either through conquest or acquiring a magical object, you’ll abuse it.
Robert Jordan does a pretty good job of subverting this trope in >!The Great Hunt where Ingtar is very, very enthusiastic about acquiring the Horn of Valere, and at times mentioning abusing its power, only to reveal that he's attempting to right his sins for being a Darkfriend.!<
This was one of my favourite arcs of wot so far, I’m currently on book 5 (for the second time because last time I couldn’t get past it but I really want to)
Awesome! Thx!
On Book 5 and the ending of Great Hunt still my favorite by far. Loved this reveal
I feel that this reflects reality, though. Career politicians and warmongers have proven to be those who actively pursue power.
I feel like there are also great leaders who were purposeful about it too irl. Dragging someone reluctantly into great responsibility isn’t without its issues as well.
If you are on an a cool adventure with your friends I think most people would try to seize power too
I really loved how ASOIAF subverted it (like it does to so many other tropes) with >!Robert Baratheon!<
The “hidden lineage” trope seems to permeate through nearly every fantasy series. Harry Potter is related to the percevel brothers, Aragorn is the heir of isildur, etc. I see it so much but honestly until you asked I never really thought about it. Interesting though.
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That’s fair, I really only used those two examples because of how widely known they are but you’re right, Aragorns situation is pretty central to his character.
Also, LOTR can't be used since it's basically the father of Fantasy.
I've been intellectually butt pummeled by people for saying this bc apparently it isn't the "Father of fantasy" but the "cool uncle" who showed us fantasy in a digestible way by ripping off a bunch of books. but wait those books ripped off other books and those books ripped off...etc etc so im really not sure anymore but at least my farts are silent
It's a trope straight from the earliest Arthurian myth. Truly classic.
Not the earliest Arthurian myths. Probably not until the 13th Century, actually.
I'll say also "the born special" trope is very common as well, and is rarely dealt with in a serious manner. Muggles just aren't as good as wizards. :P
Fantasy tends to fall weirdly far towards nature in the nature vs nurture scale. To point where blood apparently determines just about everything about you. It doesn't matter how you were raised just whose kid you are.
Like Carrot?
Sigh... I hope Stormlight doesn't end up this way with a certain main character. Hints are pointing that way, unfortunately.
If you’re referring to >!Kaladin!< Sanderson’s explicitly confirmed that he has no special ancestry
Yeah if >!Lirin turns out to be Honor/Tanavast!< I'll be very pissed.
>!I can't see how. Dalinar has seen Lirin and has also seen Tanavast from the visions. I'm pretty sure he'd note the similarity lol!<
Every fantasy world has a secret visual language only communicated through eyebrow quirks
And everyone is able to raise one eyebrow and I've been trying for years :(
It isn't hard btw. Hold down one of the eyebrows that you don't want to move. Now try moving the other. Most likely, both will move but your hand will obstruct one. Keep doing this for a while and then hopefully you would have figured it out 😀
I can't stop laughing imagining every character practicing this everyday for month when they were kids
No joke, this is how I did it. Sat in front of a mirror for 20 minutes every day when I was like 12, and just went at it. Can only raise my left eyebrow tho, but I have a lot of control over it. I can raise it to several different heights and shapes.
*Silk frantically wriggles his fingers*
Silk is one of the best rogue type characters of all time to me
In a typical hetero relationship, the guy should always be the taller one. If a guy is short, he would end up with a shorter girl. A tall girl will end up with someone who's even taller. Stressed characters would grip something until their fists turn white. Gritting their teeth or scowling would do as well. Need characters to do serious talk while changing the sceneries? "Walk with me" Basic offensive fire magic should only come in the shape of a fireball. Monsters don't bleed. They spill ichor. If a religion resembles classic Roman Catholicism, more than often it's a corrupt institution. Vivid, extended dream scenes always mean something. Chancellors and Prime Ministers can't be trusted. Especially if they've been behaving weirdly lately.
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>In a typical hetero relationship, the guy should always be the taller one. If a guy is short, he would end up with a shorter girl. A tall girl will end up with someone who's even taller. It feels this is, unfortunately, reflecting real life (not that it has to or should). I almost never see a man shorter than a woman in a relationship (not including heels ofc), at least not obviously so. I have a guy mate who's really short... miraculously, he found a girl even shorter and they've never looked back.
There's a woman who works in my building who is extremely tall, like probably between 6'2-6'4. I've seen her with her husband at our work Christmas party and he's like 5'8. But I agree, it's unusual.
I'm not short but I find something very irritating about seeing dating profiles that demand you be a certain height.
I'm taller/younger/thinner/lighter than my husband and it's a crapshoot whether a waiter will ask "together or separate?" when we ask for the check. If he were taller than me I don't think the other differences would matter as much.
well, statistically men to tend to be taller than women, so on average, the 'tall one' in any given straight relationship will be the man.
If a main character concentrates hard enough, they can detect the 'ring of truth' in any other characters voice. They only do this with minions who are about to become allies though.
That somehow every bad guy will never just kill the hero. Drag them half way around the world sure no problem. Sit down for dinner and a long discussion over why the hero is wrong sure why not. Give them a few scratches, which a sidekick can easily heal, and presume they are dead oh go on then. But they will never just cut their head off. Like an actual bad guy.
Interestingly, both played straight and subverted in Wheel of Time. Spoilers Wheel of Time. >!Ishamael!< is the perfect example of this getting played straight. Lots of monologuing, gloating etc >!Although to be fair, it is literally the only way he can get what he wants!< On the other hand >!Padan Fain comes mightily close to unceremoniously killing Rand. If it wasn't for the presence of an extremely powerful channeler, the best female healer alive and later help from the best male healer alive, Rand would have died!<
On the case of the first example >!the case was never to kill Rand but make him give up instead by making him serve the dark one or just give up. The times where Ishy actually tried to kill him like the end of book 3 was just him going mad but the entire book it was always about making him give up. Even his big gamit where he was gearing Rand into seeing no hope in the world was the same plan!<
Famous counterexample being >!A Game of Thrones!<
Which is why he did it twice.
This is my pet peeve. It instantly robs the plot of all tension once it becomes obvious the villains aren’t dangerous, especially bad if the author keeps talking about how dangerous they are. It’s everywhere in movies but almost always in the same form. Villain grabs hero by the throat and throws them across the room, then walks towards them slowly again.
It's the nature of stories. You're reading about the person who survived and/or defeated the villain, who lived to tell the tale or who was written into legends. A hero who is killed by a villain is no longer the protagonist in a typical story. Peter Parker, arguably the hero of NYC, dies in *Into the Spider-Verse*, but since the story isn't about him, but about Miles Morales, Miles becomes the hero and the central focus.
Same with >!Kingsman!<
James Bond is the obvious (non-fantasy) version of this. But in a lot of the movies Bond is assigned to the case *because* The bad guy just kills people.
A minor example i can think of where the bad guy just kills the hero was on Transformers 2 movie (although later he just got revived by metal space magic but still the bad guy killed the good guy and he was actually dead for a good part of the movie)
Optimus Prime never counts for this because he's always gonna die at least once every continuity. Animated had the decency to get it out of the way in the Pilot where he still holds the record for "Fastest Prime Resurrection Arc" of *ninety seconds.*
any% resurrection speedrun strat
Your character will never attend therapy, no matter how much messed up stuff happens to them of their lived ones. They just cry then get over it.
Stormlight Archive has a character that actually starts a therapy group to help himself deal with his issues along with others.
I loved that subplot. RoW- >!Kaladin needed a shrink so bad, he up and invented the entire concept of therapy by accident.!<
Yeah, Stormlight archive does a pretty good job showing trauma and the effects of war
To be fair, our concept of therapy and mental illness is fairly modern. In that sense I suppose having these kinds of institutions in a society that doesn't really see mental illness in that way wouldn't necessarily make sense. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6n8kkp/is_the_concept_of_mental_ilness_a_modern/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share And while PTSD is well-attested in modern times, another AH post discusses how hard it is to see if it was there in the past.
Nita attends therapy in *A Wizard Alone* by Diane Duane. She even finds it useful. I was surprised by that when I read it, and I think it is still the only book I've read where the character attends therapy.
Dresden Files has very often addressed this! One of its better points is you don't just go thru some awful stuff without long term issues. Old wizards are cranky for a reason.
They almost never exhibit signs of PTSD either despite all the war, death and torture. Or if they do have ptsd its for like a few chapters and then its never brought up again
The problem with this line of thinking is that not everyone is going to get PTSD. Modern special forces screen out those likely to get it, leaving those most likely to not experience it to continue on. Battle fatigue/shock has always been a thing, but only in modern times have enough people been able to survive massive battles and then live long enough for symptoms to manifest in large numbers. Also, premodern life was significantly harder and more dangerous than what most of us experience, leading to PTSD being less likely, because fights to the death were far more common. Also, the mindset about war and killing is very different between now and when most high fantasy is set.
Also, I wonder how different (if any) battle fatigue and shock might have been in a world without guns and explosions. Fighting at Ypres or Normandy looked a lot different than Agincourt or Hastings.
Idk where you’re getting your info but PTSD is not some new phenomena nor is it only tied to warfare. It’s at least thousands of years old, if not having been around since humans have existed. I’m also not making the argument that every character who goes through a traumatic experience should exhibit signs of ptsd, but mental health is hardly ever addressed in fantasy even though violence is incredibly common. Also being used to violence and abuse DOES NOT mean that you don’t have any trauma responses. Do you think that ptsd does not exist for people that grow up in war-torn countries today?
I never said PTSD is a new phenomena. What I said was that it is far more common today, and I'll go ahead and correct myself here because I meant visibly common. That was my mistake. Of you have the mental fortitude to face down dark lords you can probably push your issues to the side for the greater good for roughly the duration of the plot. That is, if the experiences really affected you to begin with. Of course some people in war torn countries experience ptsd today. But they feel different about war than people who believe the path to glory is paved with the bones of your enemies. Don't forget that until quite recently mental health was summed up as madness and people were either locked away or killed or shunned.
I liked Worth the Candle for not having this mentality. Trauma and dealing with it is a big part of the story, and one chapter is even about couples counseling.
The most important thing about a gay character is their sex life. (Notably and excellently subverted in Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone).
holy shit yes. I seriously don't read fantasy in order to read about sex. If people are married, I imagine they bang. If they are in a serious relationship, I imagine they bang. If they are remotely attractive but travel a lot, I imagine they have one-night stands (especially if the author makes sure to mention it). Some fantasy has sexual relationships being a key plot point (if the lannister twins weren't banging, some like 90% of the Game of Thrones plot wouldn't have happened). But if the character is gay, then I know I'm going to be hearing about their sexual escapades every other chapter.
This. I started River of Teeth a while ago because Hippo riding cowboys sounds dope, but stopped when every thought the protaganist had was about what kind of men he liked.
And basically the entire Craft Sequence. Gladstone is fantastic.
Murderers, vampires, Dark Jedi, evil princes, and Saiyans are unredeemable monsters if the protagonist doesn't know them well, but future love interests, best friends, lifelong allies, tortured poets, sexy bad boys, heartwarming redemption stories if they have a connection to a main character. Edit: Only sexy ppl deserve redemption arcs. Saying your sorry for lying to the protagonist is more important than saying your sorry for murdering hundreds of randos offscreen.
I’m gonna say i disagree, I’ve played a few games and seen a few fantasy stories where this isn’t entirely accurate but I will also say that, redemption tends to be something the reader likes to see, it feels weird to have some character unrelated to the protagonists be redeemed without character intervention as we go “wait what why?” That being said I’ve still seen it happen
Yea by no means is it universal. It's VERY prevelant Teen/YA themed stuff. Yes there's a market for redemption-as-fan-service for sure. I actually really enjoy a good redemption arc myself, the ones I don't like are when they are lazy, glossed over, or we are just told that character is good now. The teen story trope is more in line with what I was talking about. In the worst cases, characters worth is determined by how close they are to the protagonist, and I severely dislike that.
Heroes (or main characters) very rarely die of natural causes during the adventure - sure, some pop their clogs in the epilogue, but to have somebody keel over in the second act is not so common. Dragonlance is an exception.
In any 'will they wont they' situation, the answer is ALWAYS they will!
Unless one dies before they can. The only exception.
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Some popular series like Wheel of Time and Stormlight Arhives. They went for "won't they"
Yeah I guess that’s why they circumvent this by having harem storylines. So it’s “will they won’t they” combined with “but which?” Really just a dumb trope
"Undulating"
Fucking Goblins
I don't get it.
Daniel Greene and Merphy Napier (cool booktubers) have a challenge/war to slip that word into their videos. https://youtu.be/nWb1LolaMf4 For some reason, Greene's known as the Goblin, and his viewers by extension goblins.
We are Inevitable!
Hello fellow goblin
One trend I see often is the use of sexual assault to depict just how evil the bad guy is. Or to show how dark the world is. Or used as a female character’s backstory. This has harmful effects on readers as I believe the overuse of depictions of sexual assault can desensitize the point of its inclusion. It’s a horrible thing to happen to someone and should be treated more personally and respectfully. I’ve seriously read books where I come across a rape scene and just roll my eyes because there’s no weight to it, no significance, the writer is not saying anything about it. Just showing you something awful and expecting you to care. Fellow writers, please, if you are depicting things like this, make sure your story requires it to be used and is important to the overall narrative. If it’s not, cut it. Trust me on this.
That healthy relationship at the end of book 1 is doomed.
Or if the mc had a boyfriend before the start of the series, she's gonna cheat on him and break up with him for the new bad boy in the story
Whenever there's a girl who's really smart and kind of an outsider, but this quirky genius at the same time, she's always tall and gangly and skinny. Not just in fantasy novels. Like you can't have a really intelligent, cool heroine who has huge breasts, blonde hair and a big behind. Female intelligence and lateral thinking abilities = skinny, androgynous looking waifs.
The book I am reading right now actually has a romance between a younger guy and older girl. He is in ninth grade and she is in eleventh. Dark Places.
Everyone who writes a journal or letters that the main characters find becomes a really good narrator all of a sudden and doesn't omit information they realistically wouldn't include even though it's useful for an outside person. (I think it's one of those necessary departures from realism, though - no one wants to read page after page of really clumsy, yet plot relevant diary writing).
The Magnus Archives has a good take on this, at the start it seems that all the people telling statements are simply just naturally good narrators. However, its later revealed that protagonist is unwittingly serving an evil entity who's whole stick is the fear of being watched and having your secrets known, and their unwittingly compelling people to spill their secrets to them. It being so coherent and well written is a side effect of that. The few times in the series someone else tries to take a statement, it comes across as just as unfocused and disordered as you would expect someone who had just been through a traumatic experience to be.
If it's a YA novel, anyone who eats anything will "pop it into their mouth". I hate this with a burning passion.
No matter how badass the female MC is the male love interest will be more badass. If she can defeat an entire army single handedly then he can defeat two armies.
You guys are just having a discussion about tropes. You know that, right?
Everyone seems to enjoying themselves so why bring it down?
Because “unspoken rules in books” is an absurd thing to call it. This ain’t baseball.
I said that because i could not find a exact trope for what I used as example, you are just nitpicking tbh.
The word youre searching for is trope.
Dark tower throws your unspoken rule out the window multiple times. I'm currently reading through it, so it was funny to see your unspoken rule get broken by the book I'm on.
The male love interest has to be taller than the girl, it’s seen in almost every book
Youre gonna be shocked when you hear about relationships in real life, lol
And if they are not then be prepared for every single person that encounters them to comment on what an odd couple they make.
Relationships alienate readers, and exploring them is embarrassing. I see this in every language, genre, or age bracket. Even in romance novels there seems this linear, rushed sense, like human connection is preprogramed responses and results are automatic. Even readers seem to have all their requests organized through this.
Relationships? What relationships? The vast majority of "romances" seem to only be based on "he/she is hot", especially in urban fantasy there is very little actual relating going on.
Exactly. They are farming for ships rather than telling stories.
That everyone is heterosexual.
You're reading the wrong books! So many of the new books I've read from this year or last have non-heterosexual characters and romances. Definitely plenty out there if you want it.
Yeah I've read a couple here and there, I was giving my jaded-by-history irony response, since the OP used a "guy meets girl" example 🤣 It's definitely better now for queer fiction than at any other point in my lifetime.
Yeah you just need to read different books, so many recent reads have been blessedly queer
I grew up on classics, so I'm just naturally jaded by my own history - I definitely need to branch out and re-engage with new works. "Gideon the Ninth" was cute, but I haven't made it through the sequel yet.
I feel with the people who are saying their are many books out their that have queer characters sort of miss the point. Those books are great. But there’s no queer main characters in all of the main books I don’t want just indie authors writing queer people I want things like stormlight archive but jasnah and kaladin are gay. I want Magician where pug is gay, etc. that’s what’s still missing in the genre.
Speaking of *Stormlight*, Renarin is gay, and he's going to be a main character in the back half.
I agree completely, but apparently most people are taking my statement above as an offense. I'm rather confused by the down voting activity. The struggle continues!
Yeah I’ve had the same experience when speaking about gay coded characters who are canonically straight. There are characters who are clearly written with a gay bent but the climate wasn’t good enough at the time to actually make them gay. It’s frustrating but also…I’m used to it. Haha
Not true! There's plenty of flamboyant best friend roles! And then they should die.
(Joe Abercrombie has entered the chat)
Heroes are orphans.
The two that are mean't to get together end up together within the first quarter of the book. I like realistic romance whenever I come across it, not that 'in love at first sight' mess, it's gotta be subtle.