What are your most hated sci-fi/fantasy tropes?
What are your most hated sci-fi/fantasy tropes?
I have a few:
- Chosen ones, fate, destiny, &c. When you get down to it, a story with these themes is one where a single person or handful of people is ontologically, cosmically better and more important than everyone else. It's eerily similar to that right-wing meme about how "most people are just NPCs" (though I disliked the trope before that meme ever took off).
- Way too much importance being given to bloodlines by the narrative (note, this is different from them being given importance by characters or societies in the story).
- All of the good characters are handsome and beautiful, while all of the evil characters are ugly and disfigured (with the possible exception of a femme fatale or two).
- Races that are inherently, unchangeably evil down to the last individual regardless of upbringing, society, or material circumstances.
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The Amazon, not the rainforest, the warrior woman archetype thing. In ancient history they weren't portrayed any more sexually than warrior men, but then by the 1800's you've got authors writing books about their frenzied lust and whatnot and that became, like, the big thing about them.
Now, if fantasy or sci-fi has an all female group they are guaranteed to be portrayed in a way that's male gaze first and character second.
Counterpoint. A story where the Amazon's are all as hornt as Ao3 girlies would be kinda rad. They would be inspecting their male captives for who has the nicest hands and applying guyliner to them to see who they want to keep as tea slaves. It only works if it so completely female gaze as to be incomprehensible to the male reddior though.