Cliche tropes you like.

[TheThan]

I’m a big fan of the Right guy, wrong place trope. Take a likeable, normal average Joe throw him into an impossible situation and watch him take charge, kick ass and become a genuine hero. Movies like Air force One, Alien, Die Hard, Executive Decision, the Rock, just about any Jackie Chan movie, you get the idea.

I’m also a big fan of the Badass Grandpa trope. That old guy? He can kick your a$$ all day long. Characters like Hub McCann (second hand lions), Master Roshi (Dragon ball/DBZ), Mr. Miyagi (karate kid), Allan Quatermain (league of Extraordinary Gentlemen, nearly all the characters in RED, Sheppard Book from Firefly, The WWII vets of the USS Missouri in Battleship, you get the idea.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Late teenage/early 20s heroes. Maybe just because it's my age group. I still like age diversity, part of the reason FMA: Brotherhood is my favorite anime is because of the range amongst the good guys (and the fact that the story does span a few years in-world).

[Oneris]

Oh, and Timeskips. I love me a good timeskip. Opportunities for Noodle Incidents and Vague Background References abound, as well as updated character designs and great emphasis that actions in the universe do indeed have consequences.

[TheThan]

I, on the other hand, HATE time skips and non-linear storytelling.

I also like the Badass Normal. The guy who’s not perfect, not a master martial artist, weapons expert or superhero. I like a guy that’s flawed but likable (see John McCain), they may have a skill set, but they’re not experts and not skilled at everything. Guys that fail and get beat up but still manage to pull through (again John McCain, Jackie Chan’s characters several others). I get board when the hero is unstoppable (chuck Norris’s characters, Bruce Lee’s characters several others; a lot of movie heroes from the 80s actually).

[Kitten Champion]

I, on the other hand, HATE time skips and non-linear storytelling.

I also like the Badass Normal. The guy who’s not perfect, not a master martial artist, weapons expert or superhero. I like a guy that’s flawed but likable (see John McCain), they may have a skill set, but they’re not experts and not skilled at everything. Guys that fail and get beat up but still manage to pull through (again John McCain, Jackie Chan’s characters several others). I get board when the hero is unstoppable (chuck Norris’s characters, Bruce Lee’s characters several others; a lot of movie heroes from the 80s actually).

John McClane.

Though I agree with you. One of my favourite games - for a variety of reasons - is The Last of Us, which strives to make its protagonists Joel and Ellie feel like vulnerable human beings both emotionally and physically. They still do action stuff, obviously, but it never really feels like they're some unstoppable badasses, just survivors.

[Cheesegear]

If you can find it in The Nightside, or Deathstalker, then chances are that I love it.

But, I think one of my favourites is a character being happily adopted.

[Aotrs Commander]

Speaking of inversions: I have come to like all the tropes where the antagonist is not a Big Bad guy. Hero Antagonists, Anti Villains or just plain No Antagonist. Just because I am fed up with For the Evulz style antagonists which I have the impression have become pervasive in recent years.

Interesting; as my impression - and opinon - has been more the exact opposite of recent years.

In that I have personally thought there have been so few proper evil villains of late (with a few notable exceptions, principally from the MCU) and that my impression has been of a current trend of morally grey "villains," which I find tiresome and uninspired.



I'll take a "for the Evluz" who at least has the decent sense to be aware of what he's doing and doing it anyway over another insipid Magneto clone who deludes himself into thinking he's doing something "noble" any day of the week (so there's another one).



(After all, the blackest kind of Evil isn't the guy who doesn't understand what he's doing is evil, but the guy who understands perfectly well what he's doing is wrong and why and does it anyway.)

[Fragenstein]

Reading this, it's strange how very few of the tropes and cliches mentioned above I like (i.e. almost none of them). Many of them, in fact, rather annoy me.

Out of curiosity, which select few did you like? Personally, I'm sticking with my Magic Guns. Casters were the best part of Outlaw Star, and I'm still playing a Hunter in Destiny despite all logic against the practice.

As for Grey Villains... or Grillains, as I like to call them... my favorite anime characters are usually people like post-conversion Vegeta and Hiei.

[jseah]

Magitech, magitech... lost ancient technology implying past existence of magitech. Uh... magic A is magic A? (leading up to invention of magitech)

[Closet_Skeleton]

I really like that bit where the hero loses his super powers and has to defeat the bad guys without them, only to get them back anyway. Doubly so if at some point temporary super powers have to be jury rigged.

I like plenty of examples of cliches, but don't like the cliches themselves when they're done lazily.

One of them is "Advanced ancient civilization" trope.

The advantage of that one is that its not really a single trope because you can do a lot with it. Having one of them also works as a Story Telling Engine and lets you avoid having to keep coming up with new origin stories for incidental stuff.

A lot of other fun things tend to require it.

The other thing is "gondor calls for aid."

AKA every other Russian fairy tale.

The "ancient dark lord" trope still gets a lot of mileage from me.

That's more of a stock character than a trope. It can be a trope and is usually better when it is one.

Personally, I'm a fan of a lot of traits that are commonly considered "mary sue" on characters. Especially mood ring powers; I really like the concept of magic or hair or eyes or whatever that change color depending on emotions—it's cool

The whole point of Mary Sues is that they have tons of cool stuff, so Mary Sue traits being cool outside of the Mary Sue context isn't surprising.

The problem is when you have a shallow character with nothing but coolness. Which is also why Mary Sue litmus tests are useless, since its the execution people hate not the trappings.

The pre-fight staredown from Westerns.

That's not actually supposed to be a staredown, its supposed to be the two characters sizing each other up and looking for openings. Its not really pre-fight, since it is really part of the fight and actually the majority of it in the traditional quick-draw duel.

Actually staring someone down in Samurai movies is supposed to be about conceding defeat because you can't see any weakness in your enemy, its not about being intimidated. Its just the close-up as a film trope that makes it seem to be about staring.

Instant Runes and other effects that show magic is happening, because otherwise it's just people pantomiming around each other.

I like the look, but on the other hand I don't think you're a real magician unless you can draw the runes yourself. Having them just kind of appear feels like cheating. (See Lyrical Nanoha's 'have a computer on a stick do all your magic for you')

The practice of inverting a trope or cliche is in in of itself a trope.

Many tropes have never ever been played straight. Ever.

Just because I am fed up with For the Evulz style antagonists which I have the impression have become pervasive in recent years.

To a lesser degree I feel the same about The Chosen One and related tropes (Prophecies, Destiny, ...).

Basically you're just saying "I like stories with real characters and real plots". That's not an inversion, its just quality.

"Chosen ones everywhere" just comes from genre obsessed writers who don't stop to really think.

I’m also a big fan of the Badass Grandpa trope. That old guy?

Old characters are under used in action stories, so while I like them I don't see them as that cliche. "The Badass Grandpa" himself tends to be a side/mentor character and therefore not that interesting compared to the rarer 'old man protagonist'.

(After all, the blackest kind of Evil isn't the guy who doesn't understand what he's doing is evil, but the guy who understands perfectly well what he's doing is wrong and why and does it anyway.)

But if a story has multiple villains who are all like that, then its not "the Blackest kind of evil" its just "the mundane kind of evil".

I like even my pure evil villains to have actual goals and motivations, not just "I like doing evil". "Enjoys torturing people" just isn't ambitious enough for a main villain.

[Hopeless]

Have they ever done a trope where you have the male hero and villain meeting up and arranging for a badass heroine to encounter the evil heroine fully expecting them to fight each other only to stand in shock as they become friends instead?

Would that count as inverting a trope?

[Aotrs Commander]

But if a story has multiple villains who are all like that, then its not "the Blackest kind of evil" its just "the mundane kind of evil".

Oh, anything done to excess is bad. In the old days, I was bored by the Silver-Age style effortless cruise through things; now I'm bored by the "torture the hero in everyway possible and somehow squeeze a win at end" thing. (If you're going to do that, why not simply have the villain win, for a change?)

My personal opinion is just there is a little too much of trying to make evil... not evil, and sympathetic though, these days. (Which I consider both dull narratively and a bit silly culturally; trying to tacitly pretend that evil is not a Thing in the real world is dangerously ingenuous, but we'll save that rant for another time and place....)



But bearing the aforemention "variety is the spice of life/unlife" and the following is thus not intended as a "you should never:"

I like even my pure evil villains to have actual goals and motivations, not just "I like doing evil". "Enjoys torturing people" just isn't ambitious enough for a main villain.

Oh, I definitely agree - motivation and end goal is important. (Which is why slasher films have never done anything for me. Woo, you can use your supernatural powers to kill some random humans. How impressive. Call me when you do something actually worthy of attention...)

But that's subtly distinct from the other issue I was talking about, which is basically down to self-awareness and how the villain is presented.

E.g. "because I can" is an acceptable (if a bit cliche, so there's another one) motivation, since that IS what motivates a lot of people to do a lot of things. "Because I want to rule the universe" which is another simple one, which can stem from as simple as greed to "you lot can't be trusted to do the job right, so I'M going to do it for you, no matter how nasty and cruel and brutal and unfair I have to be to make you behave to my standard."

As opposed to "I'm so willfully stupid I am deluding myself that what I'm doing is not, in fact, obviously evil and is instead some sort of greater good or something" or attempts to make the villain sympathetic (and thus "less evil")¹.

Does that make sense?



¹There seems to be a bit of tendancy today for people to decide "I like this thing, so it cannot be bad, because I couldn't like a bad thing, so it must be good" which I think is a bit of a dangerous tendancy, especially given the way current culture likes to try and pass responscibily for everything to someone else.

[Kitten Champion]

I remembered another one I'm particularly fond of - Television Tropes calls it the "Big Dumb Object" and "Mile-Long Spaceship" - but basically any huge artificial construct. The Death Star, Tengan-Toppa Gurren Lagann, the Citadel, the orbital space colonies from Gundam, and so on. Something so big it elicits a kind of awe just conceptualizing it, and considering it was built by someone or something.

[DigoDragon]

I remembered another one I'm particularly fond of - Television Tropes calls it the "Big Dumb Object" and "Mile-Long Spaceship" - but basically any huge artificial construct. The Death Star, Tengan-Toppa Gurren Lagann, the Citadel, the orbital space colonies from Gundam, and so on. Something so big it elicits a kind of awe just conceptualizing it, and considering it was built by someone or something.

My favorite version of that is in the movie Spaceballs, where the villain's ship starts panning onto the screen, and panning... and panning... and panning... and then on the back there's a giant bumper sticker. Heh, classic Mel Brooks.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Oh, anything done to excess is bad.

Its a matter of variety, not what I'd call excess.

"One should avoid doing anything in excess, moderation included".

My personal opinion is just there is a little too much of trying to make evil... not evil, and sympathetic though, these days. (Which I consider both dull narratively and a bit silly culturally; trying to tacitly pretend that evil is not a Thing in the real world is dangerously ingenuous, but we'll save that rant for another time and place....)


E.g. "because I can" is an acceptable (if a bit cliche, so there's another one) motivation, since that IS what motivates a lot of people to do a lot of things. "Because I want to rule the universe" which is another simple one, which can stem from as simple as greed to "you lot can't be trusted to do the job right, so I'M going to do it for you, no matter how nasty and cruel and brutal and unfair I have to be to make you behave to my standard."

As opposed to "I'm so willfully stupid I am deluding myself that what I'm doing is not, in fact, obviously evil and is instead some sort of greater good or something" or attempts to make the villain sympathetic (and thus "less evil")¹.

Does that make sense?

Being sympathetic doesn't mean a character is not evil, it just means they have an identifiably human nature.

Evil might exist in the real world, but it isn't a side. Realism doesn't require all sides to be equally just, it merely requires none of those sides to be pure representations of abstract values.

'Ruling the universe' doesn't interest me much as a villain goal. The scope is too abstract and the target is too generic to be characterful. "I want to destroy all bakeries in existence" is just as lame to me as "I am the rightful ruler of the universe" but it is a lot more characterful since it hints that he has an irrational hatred and specific beliefs rather just that he's an egoist who likes power.

'Pure evil' characters tend to be flat place holders that only exist so the heroes can punch them (DC's The Anti-Monitor is the purest example). Of course, badly written Anti-villains are bad, but that isn't a problem with the trope. Doctor Doom and Magneto are probably Marvel's best villains, that they've been in lots of terrible comics and other media is just a result of over-exposure.

If you want to have an actually interesting two sided conflict where neither side is evil, you have to actually give the two sides equally attractive but incompatible goals. Otherwise it becomes a joke where two supposedly good groups are fighting for no reason until they eventually make friends after some contrived event happens. The problem is that the only real result of this story set up is tragedy when one of the sides loses, so its actually more limited then it might at first appear.

¹There seems to be a bit of tendancy today for people to decide "I like this thing, so it cannot be bad, because I couldn't like a bad thing, so it must be good" which I think is a bit of a dangerous tendancy, especially given the way current culture likes to try and pass responscibily for everything to someone else.

That's just called being immature. You're always going to run into such people, its not a sign of the times.

[Jothki]

The "ancient dark lord" trope still gets a lot of mileage from me. It's hard to make an adversary more threatening than something that has been existing, wrapped in dark profundities of thought and malice, for thousands of years; of course, it's also a hard trope to pull off, because by rights, the heroes should lose against something with that much experience and insight.

It kind of says something when an ancient evil has been trying to conquer the world for thousands of years and has somehow managed to lose to every single generation of heroes so far.

[GloatingSwine]

The coy, self satisfied smile -usually to the camara- when evil (or occasionally very dark anti hero) has just won and at least for now has gotten away with it. Think Damien at the end of The Omen for a classic example.

Or almost every episode of Burn Notice.

[Traab]

It kind of says something when an ancient evil has been trying to conquer the world for thousands of years and has somehow managed to lose to every single generation of heroes so far.

Nah, it can be done well. Set it up as a skin of their teeth style victory against a foe that can be beaten but never destroyed, so it can always come back and try again. All it takes is one slip up and the world is swallowed by darkness. For evidence of this, see the classic thats constantly referenced on this board. The Fifth Element. There is a simple and straight forward enough method to defeating the great darkness, but by the time he returns, he has faded into legend known only by a pair of priests and a few random others spread across the galaxy. Not only that, but the evil has had time to prepare and see to it that the method for defeating him is lost.

That actually works surprisingly better than most ancient evils, since for that to work, it has to be so powerful that a thousand years of time passing doesnt make a difference in relative power levels. You can go from bow and arrows to thermonuclear weaponry and still not be able to put up a struggle without the macguffin. Either that, or it has to be sauron style, never destroyed, and as soon as you defeat his current plan, he gets to work on his next one in secret till eventually the good guys track him down again or he is ready to restart hostilities. By always making attempts he never falls behind the times. (Not that middle earth ever seemed to advance at all, in fact, the good guys get progressively weaker)

[jseah]

but it is a lot more characterful since it hints that he has an irrational hatred and specific beliefs rather just that he's an egoist who likes power.

I would think that real people like this do exist.

[Cheesegear]

There is a simple and straight forward enough method to defeating the great darkness, but by the time he returns, he has faded into legend known only by a pair of priests and a few random others spread across the galaxy.

You can beat Cthulu by ramming him with a steamboat.

[Solaris]

You can beat Cthulu by ramming him with a steamboat.

This right here is why I'm convinced that the mythos wouldn't be nearly so scary in a nuclear age.
Cthulu's this big scary abomination that got put back to sleep by a steamboat. What's a coupla megatons gonna do?

[Aotrs Commander]

This right here is why I'm convinced that the mythos wouldn't be nearly so scary in a nuclear age.
Cthulu's this big scary abomination that got put back to sleep by a steamboat. What's a coupla megatons gonna do?

There's two points here, as explained to me by big fan of the mythos. The first that the whole mythos was based on the unknown, which there was a great deal more of when it was written in the 1920s. Nowadays, people do, at least, ask a lot more questions (not enough, but it's a start), so one of the core conceits of the mythos has to work a fair bit harder to gain traction on the modern audience. So yes, it is not as scary to the denizens mof a nuclear age, but not quite for the same reasons as just being able to beat Cthulu.

The second is that Cthulu is not a combat monster (and was never supposed to be one); he's a bit like a SoD-based wizard or a psion or Scarecrow or something - the danger is in whether you can make your Will save verses insanity. If you can do that, he's not hard and the metaphorical equivilent of a solid Bat-punch to the jaw will lay him out. (This is, I think, the point where the Call of Cthulu RPG UTTERLY missed both of the mythos' core points, as hard as playing a character immune to fear in Ravenloft does, by making him "statless, always wins, nuke him and he'll come back radioactive"-hard. It wasn't even necessary, since there would be no reason not to allow the PCs to beat him at the climax of an adventure ("beat" certainly, rather than "kill") given that was entirely possibly in the original mythos.)

[McNum]

I am a fan of Black and White Morality as a trope. I like my heroes heroic and my villains villainous.

That doesn't mean the villain can't be smart about it, but I am bored with grey villains doing bad for a good cause. Just own up to it already. If the villain has an obvious "I am the Bad Guy" name, and lives in a skull-shaped castle wreathed in blood red hellfire, and has an evil laugh? Well, a little over the top, but I dig the themeing. And yeah, I'm totally fine with a classic Hero's Journey tale for the hero, going from zero to hero in a coming of age story culminating in a big showdown with the villain. I mean, it's classic, but that's because it works.

I get bored with grey morality. If I find myself hating the hero and cheering the villain, and it's not a subversion where I'm supposed to do so (because those can be fun), then I'll just leave and do something else instead. Anti-heroes and anti-villains really only work for me if there are captial-H HEROES and capital V VILLAINS to contrast with.

I am also totally on board with The Power of Friendship/Love being a literal elemental force use to vanquish evil in a shower of sparks, rainbows, and unicorns, with little butterflies fluttering about. Just be honest about it and play it totally straight. Let the characters know it's a thing and let them act on that knowledge.

And finally, if you're telling a story of High Adventure, you'll have my attention. Traveling the world, meeting people, finding allies, enemies, and doing big heroic actions? Yeah, I'm listening. Do the impossible, see the invisible. (Row, row! Fight the powah!)

[Fri]

This right here is why I'm convinced that the mythos wouldn't be nearly so scary in a nuclear age.
Cthulu's this big scary abomination that got put back to sleep by a steamboat. What's a coupla megatons gonna do?

It's actually just a meme.

My memory's hazy, but I remember in the short story it's not like he's beaten back by a steamboat. He just shrugs the steamboat and yawn and go back to sleep. And everyone in the steamboat are dead from craziness without him even lifting one finger, and there's one survivor but he also went insane.

I guess it's like you're sleeping, you dozedly woken up because you need to pee or something, a cockroach bumps into you on your way to the bathroom, you shrugs and go back to sleep.

You can still find stories about adventurers beating up eldritch abomination in stories written by lovecraft. Remember one of his story is about a bunch of guy beating up the spawn of dark god using flamethrower. Flamethrower!

Call of cthulhu isn't one of it.

I think people might misremember it and joining it together with War of the World where one of the Alien Tripod got beaten by someone crashing it with a steamboat.

And finally, if you're telling a story of High Adventure, you'll have my attention. Traveling the world, meeting people, finding allies, enemies, and doing big heroic actions? Yeah, I'm listening. Do the impossible, see the invisible

Also this? But I have one thing more specific. Since my preteen days, I'm a sucker for story about a pair of strangers/just friends doing high adventure and having some tense moments and romantic moments and ending as romantic couple. Especially if they're having denial of it at first.

"Couple? We're... we're not couples. We're just friends!"

[Killer Angel]

Well, I like when you have a pacifist guy, that hates to resort to violence... but when that happens, he wipes the floor with his enemies.

And obviously, katanas and bows are just better than firearms (or anyway, if you use them, you're a badass)

[GloatingSwine]

It's actually just a meme.

My memory's hazy, but I remember in the short story it's not like he's beaten back by a steamboat. He just shrugs the steamboat and yawn and go back to sleep. And everyone in the steamboat are dead from craziness without him even lifting one finger, and there's one survivor but he also went insane.

They drive the steamboat through his head, and as they look back it's already reforming because he's not quite made out of earthly matter.

And then he goes back to sleep because the Stars Are Not Yet Right and the damn kids have gotten off his lawn.

[Rodin]

I really like time travel shenanigans, but only when they're done well. There will always, eventually, be a point where you scratch your head and say "yeah, but what happened the first time?" That I can happily overlook - it's when they stop caring about causality that I get annoyed. Looking at you, Doctor Who.

In particular, I'm a fan of history "self-correcting", as this can provide huge amounts of drama on its own - a protagonist who is "fated" to die, how do we save them? A villain "fated" to survive, how do we stop them?

There's lots of fun, twisty stuff you can do with time travel.

[Aotrs Commander]

I am a fan of Black and White Morality as a trope. I like my heroes heroic and my villains villainous.

That doesn't mean the villain can't be smart about it, but I am bored with grey villains doing bad for a good cause. Just own up to it already. If the villain has an obvious "I am the Bad Guy" name, and lives in a skull-shaped castle wreathed in blood red hellfire, and has an evil laugh? Well, a little over the top, but I dig the themeing. And yeah, I'm totally fine with a classic Hero's Journey tale for the hero, going from zero to hero in a coming of age story culminating in a big showdown with the villain. I mean, it's classic, but that's because it works.

I get bored with grey morality. If I find myself hating the hero and cheering the villain, and it's not a subversion where I'm supposed to do so (because those can be fun), then I'll just leave and do something else instead. Anti-heroes and anti-villains really only work for me if there are captial-H HEROES and capital V VILLAINS to contrast with.

I am also totally on board with The Power of Friendship/Love being a literal elemental force use to vanquish evil in a shower of sparks, rainbows, and unicorns, with little butterflies fluttering about. Just be honest about it and play it totally straight. Let the characters know it's a thing and let them act on that knowledge.

And finally, if you're telling a story of High Adventure, you'll have my attention. Traveling the world, meeting people, finding allies, enemies, and doing big heroic actions? Yeah, I'm listening. Do the impossible, see the invisible. (Row, row! Fight the powah!)

That was pretty much what I was saying, onll phrased more coherently than my usual ramblings...

[Yora]

I'm a sucker for car chases, especially when the characters are are bumping into one another in traffic to force a crash. The second and third Jason Bourne movies were really good on delivering it.

I'm quite fond of rooftop chases.

But generally I always prefer it when people behave in plausible ways and not irrational because genre conventions dictate that they should.

I make an exception for Ahnold one liners. If it's movie of a certain type, I usually find them very funny.

[Peelee]

I really like time travel shenanigans, but only when they're done well. There will always, eventually, be a point where you scratch your head and say "yeah, but what happened the first time?" That I can happily overlook - it's when they stop caring about causality that I get annoyed. Looking at you, Doctor Who.

What are your thoughts on Bill and Ted? They handled time travel better than almost any other show or movie, and really took advantage of the fun shenanigans to be had - the self meeting, for instance, or remembering the trash can - but I never quite got why they were restricted by the San Dimas clock aways ticking. I mean, they could always have just gone back in time to when they had to give the report, couldn't they?

As to the topic, Jackie Chan. I'm counting Jackie Chan as a trope here, because "Jackie Chan movie" is basically its own genre, and is one of the greatest genres ever.