Fantasy Tropes/Cliches that Annoy You

[PhoenixPhyre]

This isn't about physics, or perfect modelling.

When I say "fails to follow through", I don't mean there are little disconnects or odd edge cases that you find if you deliberately go looking. I don't mean that the rules fail to clear the bar of being a robust physics model on the level of modern IRL science.

I mean that the rules and the setting are utterly dissonant.

I have yet to see a good example of this. I even started a thread about it, and most of the examples brought out felt to me like "little disconnects or odd edge cases". I'm guessing that our standards of utterly dissonant are different enough that a "little disconnect" for me is utterly dissonant for you.

I'm curious--what settings (game or otherwise) do you think do a good job of creating consonance? I'd like to investigate this for my own understanding and learning.

Edit: I tend to only concern myself with first-order (and the big second-order) consequences. If the chain of "X --> Y --> Z" goes deeper than about two "-->" steps (or even one if the difference is big enough), then it's not something that disturbs me.

[Segev]

What are your thoughts on Deliberately Fulfilled Prophecies, somebody "Destined from Birth" because their birth/upbringing was arranged to fulfill the prophecy.

Like "The Champion will be born in 233 years", so 233 years later the ancient society kidnaps/adopts a hearty looking newborn and raises them to fulfill The Prophecy?

Self-fulfilling prophecies are...wonky. Sometimes it's handled well in a way that makes the "irony" or the poignancy feel satisfying; others it feels lame.

As somebody noted, a lot of prophecy is similar to time travel in its problems. A self-fulfilling closed time loop a la El Hazard can feel awfully prophecy-laden.

One of the better-done variants on this was the Bodhissatva Anointed by Dark Water from Exalted. He spent decades building up a religion surrounding him as a savior-figure in the Skullstone Isles, then gave a prophecy before he faked his death that he would return some long number of years later as a Silver Prince to lead Skullstone to glory. He then spent a millennium or so working behind the scenes, manipulating the culture and the religion as dozens of different people of varying levels of influence, to ensure that his prophecy was never forgotten and that Skullstone was eager and ready for his return. (And debunking false Silver Princes.)

Then he returned in obvious might and majesty, and is now the revered god-prince of his kingdom. It was a prophecy...but it was such because he was really just saying, "I'm going to leave now, and be back later."

I think I would identify at least the following as fantasy tropes I think are racially problematic:

1. Ethnostates. The Dwarves live in a Dwarven Kingdom. The Elves live in an Elven Kingdom. The Humans live in a Human Kingdom. Not only is this lazy, it's stupid and offensive, because it attacks the argument that "race and culture are different". In the real world, they are. But if all your Orcs are in the Empire of Evil, it sure doesn't look like it works that way in game. For an example of a setting that doesn't do this, look at MTG, particularly Tarkir. Most Orcs are members of the Mardu (who do pretty traditional Orc-ish stuff). However there are plenty of Orcs who are part of the Abzan (who are much less traditionally Orc-y).

It doesn't help that the most diverse group is often the villains, who have "evil Elves", "evil Dwarves", and "evil Humans" all living and working together alongside whatever races of evil exist.

Eh, these actually make a great deal of historical sense. You found Britons in Brittany, Romans in Rome, Celts and Picts in northern Britanium... Heck, today you'll find a strong ethnostate of Koreans in even South Korea, and Japanese in Japan.

You do find some gaijin in Japan. And other ethnicities mixed in some places, but in a lot of the world and especially a lot of history, "exotic" described foreigners because of how ethno-isolated cultures tended to be.

There is a reason we naturally conflate culture with "race." It is a mistake to do so, especially today in modern Western societies where ethnicities immigrate and intermingle, but we do it because for much of human history it was a rule that held strongly enough to be accurate under most circumstances.

Having "a few humans" living in the Dwarf Kingdom would be cool. We often see elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings interspersed as minority populations in human societies. The human town with the dwarven blacksmith is almost a cliché. Add a reclusive elven wizard in his tower nearer this town than any other population center (maybe the humans settled after he'd built; elves do live a long time), and give the wizard and the blacksmith a grumbling rivalry (or even a friendly one, if they're ex-adventuring partners), and it's DEFINITELY a cliché.

But ethnostates make a lot of sense in the kind of tech level and time period that D&D and other fantasy settings try to evoke.

2. Subraces. This is largely specific to RPGs, and maybe D&D itself, but it is super racist because it is injecting something that is exactly what race is in the real world into the game. The relationship between High Elves and Wood Elves is exactly the same as the relationship between Polish People and French People, and the fact that it has mechanically enforced distinctions is very racist.

If you say so. Personally, I see it as a chance to make a super-good archer or a super-good mage, because now I have a (sub)race with even more min/maxed bonuses.

3. There are some things that are legitimate and explicit racist stereotypes (for example, Spelljammer has Space Gypsies).

That's a culture, not a race. IIRC, the Romani were actually particularly open to adopting individuals regardless of ethnicity, even if they had an initial primary genetic stock as their starting point.

Because that is how culture works in the imaginations of racists, not how culture works in the real world. In the real world, the correlation between "born into a culture" and "remains a member of that culture as an adult" is not 100%. There are people who were raised Mormon and are now atheists, or people who were raised in communist Russia and became international businessmen. In the real world, you wouldn't have an "Orcish culture". You would have some nation that would be some percentage Orcs and some percentage other people -- just like England includes people who are not British, and not all British people live in England. There should be Humans who live among the Orcs because they enjoy killing people and hate respecting property rights, and there should be Orcs living among the Druids because they decided they wanted to meditate on the virtues of nature rather than raiding all the time.

When your culture is at war with other cultures, the rate of retention - at least of surviving adults - tends to be much higher.

But Max_Killjoy has already stated his preference against the notion that raising an orc in, say, human civilization would result inherently in an orc-cultured individual.

When you're in a particularly violent culture, failure to adopt its ways tends to be a negative survival trait. It would take separation from the parent culture and safe exposure to the one to be adopted before he could begin to adopt their ways. You simply won't get the orc who spontaneously decides he doesn't like his culture; he'd be slaughtered by his tribe-mates for acting that way. Drizz't's most unbelievable part of his story is he and his father's strangely good alignment out of nowhere, that nevertheless was able to let them survive a cutthroat culture where refraining from murdering those who are weak is very likely to get you ganged up on to "teach you a lesson." Or to teach others a lesson through your death, more likely.

You CAN have outliers like Drizz't, but they will be extremely rare for the combination of the natural yearning for a different, unseen culture and the sheer personal prowess to survive in spite of the alienation their attitude would engender.

So to be clear, you think that you have to be homo sapiens sapiens to experience racism? If there was another world somewhere with fish people, those fish people couldn't be racist against each other?

Don't be silly. Only melanin-challenged homo sapiens sapiens are capable of racism at all.

I've always wanted to run a campaign where the PCs are the Chosen Ones who are foretold by prophecy as the only ones who can destroy the Evil Lich King, so they go through all kinds of wild adventures to accumulate the magical doodads and fulfill the prophecy. Then when they finally confront the Lich King in his throne room, he asks "What makes you think you can destroy me?" and they flaunt their status as the Chosen Ones.

"Oh, really? All of you? You're all the 7th son of a 7th son raised by mothers with one hand?"
"Uh, no."
"Don't tell me you actually swam the Lake of Fire to retrieve the Amethyst of Eternity?"
"What? No!"
"Then which prophecy did you fulfill?"
"We slew the Five Dragons of Night and reassembled the Rod of Doom to strike you down forever and bring freedom to the land!"
"Oh! Right, right, right... I forgot about that one. How long has it been? All five of those things still alive? I stopped restocking their prisons centuries ago because nobody was taking the bait. Good for you, though! That's impressive."
"What?"
"I made up all those prophecies. Nobody wants to lead a rebellion against me if they know I'm destined to be destroyed by someone who is very specifically not them. Although that '7th son of a 7th son' prophecy really helped boost the labor pool for the first few centuries. Stupid peasants were breeding like rabbits trying to give birth to their savior. I wouldn't have been able to strip mine the Silver Mountains without that labor surplus. I could easily destroy any rebellion, of course, but it's just more efficient to avoid them altogether. Every peasant uprising that needs to be slaughtered is a big setback in time and resources. Anyway, before I destroy you utterly, I would absolutely love to hear about that whole 'Five Dragons of Night' thing. Did you find the secret passage to the treasure vault under the Red Throne? I didn't want to make it too easy to find, but obviously it's wasted if nobody finds it. Ooh, ooh! What order did you do them in? If I remember correctly, I put a map of shortcuts in a hidden room in the Onyx Temple, so the whole thing would be much easier if you did the black dragon first and found that map room..."

That would be a spectacular campaign. Especially if you lace hints to the other prophecies around, and place clues in the form of "why WOULD you design a dungeon like this?" sufficiently for players to be able to look back and say, "Huh, that makes sense."

OF course, none of this prevents the PCs from fulfilling the prophecy anyway and still winning the campaign.

Spoiler: spoilers

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I'm pretty sure that [spoiler alert] at least one faction attempted that in the Wheel of Time series. [another spoiler alert] It went poorly.

Prophecy in general is just another trope I don't like, because it raises serious questions about the nature of free-will and whatnot. I do my best to ignore it.

The Wheel of Time's particular mode of prophecy would inherently have the deliberately self-fulfilling version only work by sheer luck. It's actually rooted in a straight-forward set of natural laws of the setting:

1) Reincarnation exists.
2) The Lord Dragon's soul is capable of the kind of magic required to defeat the Dark One.
3) We can plan for his rebirth by setting things up that his reincarnated spirit will be able to pass, identify, and use to maximize his chances.
4) Therefore, when the Dragon is Reborn, he will be identifiable by the tools set up to identify him, and able to use the other tools set up for him to lead a successful campaign of salvation.

It's less "prophecy" and more "planning for something we know will happen."

This isn't about physics, or perfect modelling.

When I say "fails to follow through", I don't mean there are little disconnects or odd edge cases that you find if you deliberately go looking. I don't mean that the rules fail to clear the bar of being a robust physics model on the level of modern IRL science.

I mean that the rules and the setting are utterly dissonant.

Can you give some specific examples of how Eberron (for example) is "utterly dissonant" from its rules? I'm not disputing the possibility, but I'm curious what you see.

[Deepbluediver]

The Wheel of Time's particular mode of prophecy would inherently have the deliberately self-fulfilling version only work by sheer luck. It's actually rooted in a straight-forward set of natural laws of the setting:

1) Reincarnation exists.
2) The Lord Dragon's soul is capable of the kind of magic required to defeat the Dark One.
3) We can plan for his rebirth by setting things up that his reincarnated spirit will be able to pass, identify, and use to maximize his chances.
4) Therefore, when the Dragon is Reborn, he will be identifiable by the tools set up to identify him, and able to use the other tools set up for him to lead a successful campaign of salvation.

It's less "prophecy" and more "planning for something we know will happen."

Yeah, and it was a good story, despite being built entirely out of the "born into destiny" trope I was complaining about earlier. I enjoyed probably 98% of it, but I don't think it's the kind of thing I'm going to read twice.

[Arbane]

Another good point. Most fantasy im aware of takes place in land masses about the size of Europe (give or take) so the One Culture is less stupid.

Because the Byzantine Empire and Vikings have SO much in common...

I've always wanted to run a campaign where the PCs are the Chosen Ones who are foretold by prophecy as the only ones who can destroy the Evil Lich King, so they go through all kinds of wild adventures to accumulate the magical doodads and fulfill the prophecy. Then when they finally confront the Lich King in his throne room, he asks "What makes you think you can destroy me?" and they flaunt their status as the Chosen Ones.
(Wick-tier screwjob snipped)

And then they get to beat the Lich anyway, RIGHT?

(Because the other possibility I see is total failure followed by you doing the Intellectually Superior Dance as you set fire to their character sheets. Them realizing all the prophecies were contrived early means they ... what? Give up in despair and go raise goats?)

[Segev]

Yeah, and it was a good story, despite being built entirely out of the "born into destiny" trope I was complaining about earlier. I enjoyed probably 98% of it, but I don't think it's the kind of thing I'm going to read twice.

My gripes with it are not related to destiny, and more related to Robert Jordan catching a disease that plagues a few authors: wanting to show off all of his world and stalling the story to do so.

Side stories are a better way to go about this. They can even happen contemporaneously and show what others are doing to help along the main plot. But don't make your characters stand around brooding and accomplishing nothing so you can have loads and loads of travel for other characters that ALSO gets nothing done but showing off other parts of the setting! >_<

[BRC]

On the subject of Prophecies: Am I the only one who really loves the idea of a Prophecy turning out to having come down to a translation error.

"The Hero Will Slay The Mad Beast, Forge the Blade of Power from it's iron bones, and slay the Dread King." -Inscription.

And so, every time some sort of "Dread King" shows up, people start hunting for a Mad Beast with Iron Bones, whatever that means.

It turns out, that inscription wasn't a prophecy, it was a RECORD. People translated the tenses wrong. The hero HAD Slain the Mad Beast, forged the blade of power from it's iron bones, and gone on to slay the Dread King.

There is a reason we naturally conflate culture with "race." It is a mistake to do so, especially today in modern Western societies where ethnicities immigrate and intermingle, but we do it because for much of human history it was a rule that held strongly enough to be accurate under most circumstances.

So, here's the thing.

Yes, Ethnostates make sense with a medieval tech level (Although, IIRC historically the world was a lot more mixed than popular culture would have you believe).

Yes, you can have cultures that are cruel and violent.

So, yes, it logically follows that you could have an evil orcish culture, and 99% of orcs would belong to said culture.

But, that still produces the "Racism is Correct" Scenario, where it's very easy to read that, in this world, Orcs are inherently evil, which leads you down the rabbit hole of biological determinism, ect ect ect.

Even though you, the author, know that Orcs are not inherently evil, they just come from a brutal culture, when all orcs are Orcish, and all Orcish people are Orcs, then there's effectively no difference between the two.


But, you're the Author. If you want multiethnic societies and cultures, you can do that.


A town sits on the border between Human and Orcish lands, technically part of the Human kingdom, they have problems with Orcish raiding parties.
But, as the town is on the border, it's population is a mix between Orcs and Humans, much like how a town on the border between France and Germany would likely have people of both French and German descent.

The PC's meet with the Mayor (Human), rent some rooms from the Inkeeper (Half-Orc), and get some information from one of the farmers (Orc).

Boom, you have thus proven that Orcs are not inherently cruel, bloodthirsty raiders. The "Town on the Border" Scenario is pretty archetypal stuff, all I did was make some of the townsfolk Orcs and everything is avoided.

The idea of the "Human" Kingdom being an Ethnostate is only Logical if 1) it is geographically isolated (So, the classic Dwarven Kingdom might work), 2) Culturally Xenophobic (hardly the trait of a "Good Guy" culture), or 3) You assume that Orcs (or whatever) are inherently evil and incapable of coexisting.

But that means not using "Human" as shorthand for "Good Guys" and Orcs as Shorthand for "Bad Guys".

[Bohandas]

2. Subraces. This is largely specific to RPGs, and maybe D&D itself, but it is super racist because it is injecting something that is exactly what race is in the real world into the game. The relationship between High Elves and Wood Elves is exactly the same as the relationship between Polish People and French People, and the fact that it has mechanically enforced distinctions is very racist.

Incorrect (though since most of the people on my side have been arguing using slightly incorrect terms). A racial subtype in D&D represents a genus or a species complex and the subraces ultimately represent individual species within that genus. To back this I cite Frostburn pages 36-38 and 145-146 which introduce neanderthals as a subrace of humans.

[Deepbluediver]

On the subject of Prophecies: Am I the only one who really loves the idea of a Prophecy turning out to having come down to a translation error.

"The Hero Will Slay The Mad Beast, Forge the Blade of Power from it's iron bones, and slay the Dread King." -Inscription.

And so, every time some sort of "Dread King" shows up, people start hunting for a Mad Beast with Iron Bones, whatever that means.

It turns out, that inscription wasn't a prophecy, it was a RECORD. People translated the tenses wrong. The hero HAD Slain the Mad Beast, forged the blade of power from it's iron bones, and gone on to slay the Dread King.

I haven't read to many stories like that, but yes it's something I've considered before. It doesn't even have to refer to a translation error- it's just that the other records of the event happening and being done with were lost in the great flood or volcanic eruption or the barbarian hordes conquering an empire 2000 years ago. Also I think you could funny things with a prophecy that didn't include any punctuation, and the different ways you might read that.



I kind of want to chime in on this whole "fantasy racism" discussion but I'm not really even sure what we're arguing about any more.

[pwykersotz]

I think the trope that annoys me most is particular to shounen anime. Notably that your main characters aren't special, that all this has been done before and that it will continue to be done by the next generation. No matter how convoluted or interesting the story gets, it's always revealed that someone has "been there, done that" before. It combines the worst aspects of prophecy with the sense that everything your character has suffered for their entire lives is pretty much just expected and par for the course. Naruto was particularly bad at this. "You have a demon sealed within you! That's so weird in this world! So strange that your whole life is defined by it! Whelp, no, it's actually just your family legacy. Regular stuff here.

And weirdly, I hate prophecy but I love time travel. So there's that.

[Max_Killjoy]

I have yet to see a good example of this. I even started a thread about it, and most of the examples brought out felt to me like "little disconnects or odd edge cases". I'm guessing that our standards of utterly dissonant are different enough that a "little disconnect" for me is utterly dissonant for you.

I'm curious--what settings (game or otherwise) do you think do a good job of creating consonance? I'd like to investigate this for my own understanding and learning.

Edit: I tend to only concern myself with first-order (and the big second-order) consequences. If the chain of "X --> Y --> Z" goes deeper than about two "-->" steps (or even one if the difference is big enough), then it's not something that disturbs me.

Can you give some specific examples of how Eberron (for example) is "utterly dissonant" from its rules? I'm not disputing the possibility, but I'm curious what you see.

Will answer both of these later tonight when I can look over the book collection at home.

[Segev]

On the subject of Prophecies: Am I the only one who really loves the idea of a Prophecy turning out to having come down to a translation error.

"The Hero Will Slay The Mad Beast, Forge the Blade of Power from it's iron bones, and slay the Dread King." -Inscription.

And so, every time some sort of "Dread King" shows up, people start hunting for a Mad Beast with Iron Bones, whatever that means.

It turns out, that inscription wasn't a prophecy, it was a RECORD. People translated the tenses wrong. The hero HAD Slain the Mad Beast, forged the blade of power from it's iron bones, and gone on to slay the Dread King.

You might enjoy the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson.

So, here's the thing.

Yes, Ethnostates make sense with a medieval tech level (Although, IIRC historically the world was a lot more mixed than popular culture would have you believe).

Yes, you can have cultures that are cruel and violent.

So, yes, it logically follows that you could have an evil orcish culture, and 99% of orcs would belong to said culture.

But, that still produces the "Racism is Correct" Scenario, where it's very easy to read that, in this world, Orcs are inherently evil, which leads you down the rabbit hole of biological determinism, ect ect ect.

Even though you, the author, know that Orcs are not inherently evil, they just come from a brutal culture, when all orcs are Orcish, and all Orcish people are Orcs, then there's effectively no difference between the two.


But, you're the Author. If you want multiethnic societies and cultures, you can do that.


A town sits on the border between Human and Orcish lands, technically part of the Human kingdom, they have problems with Orcish raiding parties.
But, as the town is on the border, it's population is a mix between Orcs and Humans, much like how a town on the border between France and Germany would likely have people of both French and German descent.

The PC's meet with the Mayor (Human), rent some rooms from the Inkeeper (Half-Orc), and get some information from one of the farmers (Orc).

Boom, you have thus proven that Orcs are not inherently cruel, bloodthirsty raiders. The "Town on the Border" Scenario is pretty archetypal stuff, all I did was make some of the townsfolk Orcs and everything is avoided.

The idea of the "Human" Kingdom being an Ethnostate is only Logical if 1) it is geographically isolated (So, the classic Dwarven Kingdom might work), 2) Culturally Xenophobic (hardly the trait of a "Good Guy" culture), or 3) You assume that Orcs (or whatever) are inherently evil and incapable of coexisting.

But that means not using "Human" as shorthand for "Good Guys" and Orcs as Shorthand for "Bad Guys".

Sure, go wild having individuals who are minorities in a particular ethnostate that are not part of that ethnic grouping. Mix their level of cultural adaptation. That doesn't change it from being "The Dwarf Kingdom" just because there's a drow innkeeper who is a refugee from the evil underground spider-worshiping ethnostate of his racial cousins.

[Honest Tiefling]

Yes, Ethnostates make sense with a medieval tech level (Although, IIRC historically the world was a lot more mixed than popular culture would have you believe).

Enthonstates do make a certain amount of sense, and are likely to occur. On the other hand, many real life ancient societies were very mixed. Many didn't really have an idea of race as is common in the Anglosphere, but more of an idea of one's cultural identity and loyalty. So someone who looks completely different but practices the same culture is still counted as a fully-fleged member of the society. Think of the many people of the Roman empire, some of which were granted citizenship despite foreign origins. Still perfectly Roman, of course.

So that Dwarven innkeeper in Segev's example could just be a skinny dark-skinned dwarf with pointy ears. But he quaffs like the best of them, got married to a nice dwarven lass in the temple of the Dwarfmother, and has a battleaxe that he earned in battle against the enemies of the dwarfs he intends to give to his son. Any talk of such an upstanding member of the community being a mere drow is grounds for a fight!

[BRC]

You might enjoy the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson.

Eh, well written, but It didn't especially grab me.

Sure, go wild having individuals who are minorities in a particular ethnostate that are not part of that ethnic grouping. Mix their level of cultural adaptation. That doesn't change it from being "The Dwarf Kingdom" just because there's a drow innkeeper who is a refugee from the evil underground spider-worshiping ethnostate of his racial cousins.

I think there's something to be said for having more than a single counterexample.

A single drow inkeeper is an Extraordinary Example. "Drow are Evil, but this ONE Drow was able to overcome his INNATE EVILNESS and be a good person!"

Have a whole community, even a small one, of Drow Expats, and you get a very different story. It can still be the Dwarven Kingdom, because the population is 99% Dwarves.

When it comes to breaking stereotype, a single extraordinary counterexample does very little.

"All Drow are Evil, except for Razt the Innkeeper" doesn't say nearly as much as "The Drow Kingdom is Evil, but Drow have been fleeing it and living with the Dwarves for Generations", as proven by multiple Drow living everyday lives within Dwarven communities, perhaps having taken Dwarven names.

[Max_Killjoy]

You might enjoy the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson.

Reading the first book right now. Sanderson is a good writer. I'm 50/50 on the way capitalized English words are used for the Allomancy effects and how much Allomantic antics and describing them dominate parts of the book.

Tried to look up something I wasn't understanding online, and sadly stumbled into a couple major spoilers about how the series ends.

[Lord Raziere]

Reading the first book right now. Sanderson is a good writer.

Tried to look up something I wasn't understanding online, and sadly stumbled into a couple major spoilers about how the series ends.

Yeah, you probably should've just kept reading rather than do that. Sanderson's rules often tie HEAVILY into the plot, so someone realizing an implication of their powers isn't just a thing, its a plot important thing that could change how things turn out.

[Segev]

Eh, well written, but It didn't especially grab me.

Pity.

Spoiler

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The second book in particular has bearing on the prophecy line you were interested in.

I think there's something to be said for having more than a single counterexample.

A single drow inkeeper is an Extraordinary Example. "Drow are Evil, but this ONE Drow was able to overcome his INNATE EVILNESS and be a good person!"

Have a whole community, even a small one, of Drow Expats, and you get a very different story. It can still be the Dwarven Kingdom, because the population is 99% Dwarves.

When it comes to breaking stereotype, a single extraordinary counterexample does very little.

"All Drow are Evil, except for Razt the Innkeeper" doesn't say nearly as much as "The Drow Kingdom is Evil, but Drow have been fleeing it and living with the Dwarves for Generations", as proven by multiple Drow living everyday lives within Dwarven communities, perhaps having taken Dwarven names.

I disagree. A single counterexample is all that's needed to demonstrate that culture is not race. A sub-community is actually a worse place to demonstrate this, because they tend to reinforce a sub-culture there. It would reinforce the idea that race=culture because they would be more likely to hold to specific cultural trappings that they maintain within that group.

Reading the first book right now. Sanderson is a good writer.

Tried to look up something I wasn't understanding online, and sadly stumbled into a couple major spoilers about how the series ends.

My condolences. Sanderson is probably the only author that I would actually recommend works by simply because he wrote them. It is rare for me to find a single author whose every work is a page-turner I have trouble putting down. Usually, I'm more setting or specific-story focused.

[Xuc Xac]

And then they get to beat the Lich anyway, RIGHT?

(Because the other possibility I see is total failure followed by you doing the Intellectually Superior Dance as you set fire to their character sheets. Them realizing all the prophecies were contrived early means they ... what? Give up in despair and go raise goats?)

They can certainly try, but they aren't guaranteed to win because the prophecy was fake and the superweapon they assembled isn't that super. They have to fight him just like they would fight any other powerful opponent. The prophecy never mentions that they would get out alive, so hopefully they show up to the final battle with more preparation than just "we brought the magic gizmo that the prophecy said was a 'win button' so all we need to do is blast him and go home".

[Max_Killjoy]

Yeah, you probably should've just kept reading rather than do that. Sanderson's rules often tie HEAVILY into the plot, so someone realizing an implication of their powers isn't just a thing, its a plot important thing that could change how things turn out.

I was thinking I'd missed a subtle reference to something needed to understand what the characters were talking about with Allomancy, and didn't think it would be one click away from a major reveal.

[Xuc Xac]

Because the Byzantine Empire and Vikings have SO much in common...

I'm not sure if you're being intentionally ironic or if you just picked those two at random, but the Varangian Guard was a famous elite military unit in the Byzantine Empire. They were vikings who served as the bodyguard of the emperor for hundreds of years.

[Blackhawk748]

Because the Byzantine Empire and Vikings have SO much in common...

I meant the whole setting takes place on a roughly European size continent and each race only having One Culture there is less dumb. Sorry for not being clear.

I think there's something to be said for having more than a single counterexample.

A single drow inkeeper is an Extraordinary Example. "Drow are Evil, but this ONE Drow was able to overcome his INNATE EVILNESS and be a good person!"

Have a whole community, even a small one, of Drow Expats, and you get a very different story. It can still be the Dwarven Kingdom, because the population is 99% Dwarves.

When it comes to breaking stereotype, a single extraordinary counterexample does very little.

"All Drow are Evil, except for Razt the Innkeeper" doesn't say nearly as much as "The Drow Kingdom is Evil, but Drow have been fleeing it and living with the Dwarves for Generations", as proven by multiple Drow living everyday lives within Dwarven communities, perhaps having taken Dwarven names.

Just pointing out that Drow are a bad example here as there are groups dedicated to Elistrali (or however you spell her name) and they tell the typical Drow to Sod Off. Hobgoblins would be a better example, as i've never seen a good one.

[King of Nowhere]

Evil races are only the most visible part of it, though. It is common in fantasy that people or creatures become stereotyped for no real reasons.
Take, for example, dragons. Dragons hoard gold and gems, everybody knows it. Yes, but why? They have absolutely no use for them. Or did you ever saw a dragon go to the market and buy something. And yet they'll risk their lives on a regular base to hoard more (because the hoard makes them target for adventurers, if nothing else). Why? Are all dragons under a sort of compulsion to be total moron? Standard explanation is that they are arrogant, but that explains nothing. Still, for all their being smarter than genius level humans, they can't help but act like morons. If they were just arrogant and showy I'd at least expect them to find different individual ways to do it.

In my campaign world I stated that dragons need a strong magic field just like plants need sunlight, and the older they grow, the stronger they need the field. And gold, gems and magic items are great at creating a stronger local field. Starting from adult, a dragon without loot will wither and die. This gives a good explanation of why they need to hoard treasure, and it also explains how creatures that big can fly with relatively small wings and move so fast despite all that armor: they need to absorb magic from the environment to do it, and if they don't get enough magic, they die. My players liked the rationale.

That is actually canon from 2nd edition. A dragon requires a horde in order to grow more powerful although they wont actually die without one they will grow exceedingly weak.

They did? wow! on the other hand, it was a fairly reasonable idea, so no wonder different people got it independently.

I like that rationale, too. Is there any chance in your world a dragon might settle down underneath a Wizard-school or anything like that, where all the loose magic flying around also pumps up the ambient levels?

Some of them do get an agreement with rich or magic-heavy humanoid organization to sleep in their vaults. The dragon get a big hoard easily, and the organization get a nifty anti-thieves mechanism.

Don't actual humans spend a great deal of effort accumulating more wealth than they could possibly use? I don't understand how the behavior of a Dragon is all that different from the behavior of, say, Bill Gates.

Bill Gates is not most humans. Most humans never get to the point that they have more whealt than they can possibly use, except in the last few days of their lives, when their capacity to use money is severely diminoshed. And some people are more attached to money, others care less. Some people get very rich because to them getting money is like a game, but then they have no use for all the money and they give most to charities. The people that try to accumulate money for the sake of it are a small minority.
According to traditional descriptions, instead, every single dragon is an enlarged, scaly version of scrooge mcduck with a breath weapon.

[Honest Tiefling]

They did? wow! on the other hand, it was a fairly reasonable idea, so no wonder different people got it independently.

Well, in some ways they didn't. Expensive stuff such as rare spices, valuable gems and gold is always associated with power for whatever reason.

You're not going to find many depictions of mages running around in polyester making poultices of dandelions and ragweed and scrounging around in garbage or dirt trying to find common materials. BEHOLD! I have found sand! Fear my magical might as I use this component for a ritual!

As amusing as the Trashomancer is, I think that's one fantasy trope I'm okay with.

[8BitNinja]

Here's one that I get a little annoyed with- Peasants with swords.

Unless you have a very high standard of living for peasants with a militant culture (so dwarves are the exception) a levied militia should not be armed with swords.

[Max_Killjoy]

Right, this is critical to understand. Lolth is as much a demon as she is a goddess - literally, as she is AFAIK the only power pulling double duty as an exemplar. She's not just chaotic evil, she's an embodiment of chaos and evil and she has designed drow society to be petty, mean, bloodthirsty, and deeply unsatisfying, an exercise in fear, torture, and paranoia in which you are oppressed by those above you and terrified of losing your position to those below you. That it can't be sustained is a feature, not a bug, as this, too, forces its participants to turn to Lolth in both their prayers and their demeanor. Drow are made hard and cruel and vicious and manipulative through a situation of desperation that rewards the alternative with death, and so learn to eagerly propagate that same desperation. And when they flee to the peace and safety of the surface, and some distrusting human wary of the well-earned reputation of the drow bludgeons their head in with a stone, Lolth laughs and laughs because dead drow are her favorite joke and she has won.

If Lolth were to disappear, drow society would collapse in violence and then, probably, get better. Not necessarily less evil, but less actively unpleasant for all parties involved, sure. But she's not going anywhere. She is the Demon Queen of Spiders, and this is her web.

Which takes us to another fantasy trope I hate:

Evil gods are active, and do stuff, and make plans. Good gods are passive, and give platitudes, and just react.

(And yet evil always loses... because.)

We rarely see one of the good gods telling their followers, "You there, go gather up those drow orphans, and protect them from hate, and raise them with care and generosity and fairness, and show the world that I am greater than Llllothllththh!"

[Blackhawk748]

Here's one that I get a little annoyed with- Peasants with swords.

Unless you have a very high standard of living for peasants with a militant culture (so dwarves are the exception) a levied militia should not be armed with swords.

Depending on the time period the fantasy is based off of peasants with swords isnt all that dumb.

[Deepbluediver]

Depending on the time period the fantasy is based off of peasants with swords isnt all that dumb.

It's not just arming them, though- from everything I've read, being competent with a sword takes significant amounts of training. Giving a large group of untrained peasants spears or pikes tends to work out much better.

[Knaight]

It's not just arming them, though- from everything I've read, being competent with a sword takes significant amounts of training. Giving a large group of untrained peasants spears or pikes tends to work out much better.

The difference there is exaggerated, particularly in the cases of shorter swords. With that said, giving a large group spears tends to work out much better for the simple reason that spears are really good weapons for formation fighting and were favored most places for most of history for a reason.

[warty goblin]

It's not just arming them, though- from everything I've read, being competent with a sword takes significant amounts of training. Giving a large group of untrained peasants spears or pikes tends to work out much better.

Remember that for much of the times and areas 'generic' fantasy draws from, soldiers had to provide their own equipment. Because of this, the majority of an army was drawn from people well enough off to afford useful weapons. And since they would be by law required to fight when called upon, and skill with arms was a valued thing, there was substantial incentive to be proficient with one's weapons. Or you're looking at mercenaries or otherwise essentially professional soldiers.

Taking a bunch of really truly poor peasants and handing them spears was not a particularly good strategy. It's more mouths to feed at a time when getting enough food for an army in the field was a major challenge, and you'd get some generally very low quality troops.

Because of the expense of weapons and armor, the structure of society, and probably a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting, medieval armies tended to be both small and professional. The hordes of grindingly poor conscripts is a phenomenon that really starts to appear in the early modern period.

[Kitten Champion]

I'm honestly trying to think of a work wherein peasants wielding swords is anything but a rarity, and I can't think of any. Warcraft III, maybe, if you want to take in-game troop units literally rather than as abstract representations. Perhaps Dragon Age maybe?

Usually being a peasant with a sword is indicative of their character's significance, story-wise.

[Scripten]

It all started, as many things did, with the Battle of Hastings. At least in Europe.

Something about a particularly effective bit of wood and a tiny steel arrowhead really just did the trick on medieval fighting tactics.