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redirected from Main.TropesAreNotBad alt title(s): Tropes Are Not Bad; Tropes Are Not Good
Tropes Are Not BadThere is one thing that you must keep in mind to retain your sanity here, and that is that including a trope in a particular work does not make it "ruined." If your favorite shows have long lists of tropes associated with them, well, so do everybody's. A show featuring an Action Girl or showing a character kicking the dog is not a bad thing; the former is merely a reasonable type of character (badass character who happens to be female) and the latter is a character action that happens plenty in Real Life. That said, some trope entries are just highlights of common mistakes, and generally are bad. For instance, a modern-day show where all the cops have laser guns is probably just necessary lameness to appease censors (unless superhero-tech from superhuman geniuses is a common part of the universe), and a writer that includes Instant Death Bullets probably just screwed up. Still, even if a show includes always-bad and unjustified tropes, the harm is likely non-fatal. Consider the following points before you label simply including a common story element or character type as a sign of creative failure: There is nothing new under the sun. Including that very statement. And the book from which it comes. Completely ignoring the possibility that one's favorite show just might not be hewn from the very essence of the universe by Thor himself and placed in the periodic table under Or for "Originalium" doesn't change the fact that it wasn't. And acknowledging that it isn't should not lessen its appeal, either. Every story is influenced by what came before it — and storytellers (e.g., writers, directors, actors) are bound to show that influence, intentionally or not, in the process of telling. Just because something's been used before doesn't mean it's a cliché, and stories often gain something by having ties to other works. That said, there certainly is such thing as too derivative, but there's a difference between playing a trope straight and utter Cliche Storm. Every trope has a silver lining. Just because there's a lot of bad, bad Mary Sues out there doesn't mean nobody could ever, or has ever, did it well in the form of Purity Sue Beatrice (based, incidentally on Dante's lifelong crush of the same name). The much-reviled All Just A Dream was, let's not forget, used in one of the most highly regarded season finales (as well as and also one of the most notorious) in the history of television, as well as one of the best twist endings in any movie. While Darker And Edgier revisionism isn't always a good thing, it's been used in one of the best movie series in recent memory, and indeed the biggest blockbuster of 2008. Remember, while this site is fairly snarky, most of the snark is directed towards shows that don't use tropes well. Fiction isn't necessarily supposed to be realistic. When your reader wants to escape from the tired drudgery of reality, you shouldn't be trying to indexically recreate it. Much fiction seeks to show not what is, but what could be, or what should be. A trope being unrealistic isn't necessarily a flaw, and is often covered by Rule Of Cool, Rule Of Funny, or Rule Of Scary. Indeed, a trope, however unrealistic, can be a convenient shorthand when played straight; setting up aversions or subversions for it can be more wordy than is needed to get on with story.Tropes Are Not GoodTropes Are Not Bad covers the bad half of this, but there are good reasons to remember Tropes Are Not Good, too: All tropes can be written badly. This includes tropes that everyone thinks are good, like Magnificent Bastard or even Crowning Moment Of Awesome. A badly written Magnificent Bastard may be done in such a way that everyone else in the story are idiots and generally gives less of an impression of intelligence and more of an impression of cheating or changing the internal rules of the story. A badly done Crowning Moment Of Awesome can break the Willing Suspension Of Disbelief, so instead of "WOW THAT WAS AWESOME" you get "C'mon. that guy could never do that in real life." Refuge In Audacity has different breaking points for different people. All tropes can be overused. Too many Xanatos Gambits tend to make the show confusing, no matter how well written they are. And while the Xanatos Roulette and the Thirty Xanatos Pileup are not necessarily bad, they too occur because of the overuse of the Gambit. Too many Crowning Moments Of Awesome take up room where plot could go, or make the audience pay less attention to the relatively boring plot bits, making the story more shallow. The Crowning Moment Of Awesome is supposed to be a singular moment for a character and the Rule Of Cool can make up for weak points in a story, but rarely does it work as the story. Just because a trope is realistic doesn't mean it's good. There is a reason why we have an entire category devoted to Acceptable Breaks From Reality. That category only applies to video games, but there are some good non-video game examples as well. For example, The Hero gets shot in the shoulder and dies. The Determinator doesn't come into play, no My Name Is Inigo Montoya, nothing. Realistic, maybe, but that that is not what we want a hero to do. That's right, one of the most fundamental character archetypes is usually unrealistic. The important thing when writing a story is that it's believable, not that it's realistic. A good show doesn't need "good" tropes A well written show won't be any worse if it doesn't have a Magnificent Bastard. A good show doesn't get worse if the main five characters don't form a Five Man Band. Heck, a good show doesn't even need basic tropes like The Hero or Big Bad. If they can do it, good for them. |
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