Your pet peeve tropes

I'm really tired of cartoon animals having a Species Surname.

Though "(name) the (species)" does make sense, and despite the trope claiming so that's not in fact a surname.

Edited by Nukeli on Mar 22nd 2024 at 12:01:48 PM

Oh yeah, speaking of Awful Wedded Life jokes, I just remembered there's another cliche from the late '90s and early 2000s that you don't really see anymore. Back in those days, a lot of fictional women, especially the ones in TV shows, acted like their husbands playing golf is the worst thing in the world. What was the deal with that? :S

Spending too much time away from the home, not doing their share of the chores, and wasting time on a pointless game when they could be at home and spend time with their wives instead, showing them proper appreciation?

...

Edited by Trainbarrel on Mar 22nd 2024 at 7:33:22 PM

I’ve never heard of that cliché, but I assume the reason it blew up was because that was the time golf became a huge part of pop culture (with the rise of Tiger Woods, Happy Gilmore, Dorf on Golf, etc.). Golf always has a stigma of being played by middle-aged men (which is kinda true), and like Trainbarrel above me said, it’s an easy way to show a fracturing marriage.

Edited by CanuckMcDuck1 on Mar 22nd 2024 at 12:49:31 PM

You could say that about many things though, like going to the bar or watching the game on TV in a man cave. Golf didn't need to be hit like that Though it definitely is kind of a "middle aged man" thing.

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 22nd 2024 at 2:50:06 PM

It's an expensive frivolity that demands ridiculous amounts of space that could be enjoyed by more people with less intensive maintenance as a park or woodland. Golf deserves it. :P

Fair

I think the main problem was that the women wanted their husband to do something else. It set up tension, because it is something that men wanted to do, but it wasn't bad in it's self. Sometimes it was fishing.

Playing videogames is probably the modern day equivalent, but that doesn't involve leaving the house, so it is more like watching sports on tv. For a sitcom, the husband leaving the house, has a different dynamic as him staying.

Marvel Comics have a whole fucking lot of square-jawed and buff blonde guys who look nigh-indistinguishable, at least to me. DC comics has similiar but with black-haired guys.

It doesn't have its own trope on here, but I never like when blacksmiths are portrayed working the forge without a shirt on. Protection exists for a reason, people.

Edit: I also don't like when, in a setting with multiple sapient species, the species name is capitalized.

Edited by AmateurStorytime on Mar 25th 2024 at 7:41:59 AM

yeah that is rather annoying. It isn't helped that a few were derived from actual names (largely due to A Kind of One cases) that would make it confusing if capitalized.

I'm sick of heroes in "Save your loved one(s) or save the city/the world" situations choosing the first option, the first option being portrayed as morally good and/or choosing the second option being demonized.

If you think it's OK to let thousands or millions of people die for your girlfriend, you're just selfish and a bad person, period.

At my workplace, “Safety First” is STRONGLY enforced.

One of the interesting things about Fate/stay night Heaven's Feel is that it makes it painfully clear that the protagonist choosing his girlfriend over innocent bystanders means that he can't consider himself a hero. Both it and its prequel explore the "sacrifice one to save many" theme.

And if he doesn't do it, he will basically die on the inside as a human being.

And you have to save the girlfriend in order to continue towards the best ending or the story ends then and there.

Corollary: horror stories where the protagonists are so bad at following basic safety guidelines that it's a wonder nothing else happened to them before the monster did. (In horror it's commonly outdoor recreation of some variety. Dishonourable mention to The Ritual, whose supposedly-fairly-experienced hikers fail to leave a travel plan with anyone, and then decide they can hike through unmarked wilderness faster than on a paved path with a sprained ankle.)

It's far more terrifying if you can take every reasonable precaution and still be imperilled because the Outside-Context Problem is unreasonable.

I’ve seen this so often, but apparently, when you’ve got a character who has Seen It All, the only reactions legally allowed are apparently to be more bitter and sarcastic than Rusty Venture, or “Ho-hum”.

Are there any scenarios you know of where this isn’t the case? Or, for that manner, NOT having the character(s) respond like this?

Maybe this?

Edited by AmateurStorytime on Mar 29th 2024 at 2:23:02 AM

Closest I can think of is the Doctor off the top of my head. The Doctor has basically seen it all but still is prone to bouts of excited wonder it things both fantastical and mundane. And what they have grown numb to, they still experience a sense of wonder vicariously through their companions.

Same Plot Sequel. I find it disappointing when a story has an interesting setting and a bunch of characters and yet for continuing things past the original ending, the writing team picks "the safe option" and just tells the same plot as before. IMO it also makes the world feel "less organic" if that makes sense, like it feels like less of a lived-in place and more of a stage revolving around reenacting the same conflict over and over again. Bonus points if the previous installment ends with the main villain being dead, seemingly dead, or otherwise just about permanently put away, yet the sequel finds some means to bring them back and put them in the Big Bad spotlight again anyway.

I'm just not a very big fan of recycled plots in general. Had I known that we had a page for Same Plot Sequel when I made my first post on here, that would have been part of that post.

Another annoying thing about Always Save the Girl is the character in question almost always has zero agency, and no say in the matter. And yes, they very often are a girl. That really rubs me the wrong way.

Yes, I get that the question of "is it right to sacrifice the one for the many" is a complex one without a clear-cut answer, which philosophers have been debating for centuries. But taking all agency from this one girl, and treating sacrificing others to save her as the objectively good choice, comes across as iffy. The impact on others is rarely explored, and the person who got saved at such a massive cost is realistically likely to be too wracked with Survivor Guilt to function.

I haven't played Heaven's Feel, but it's interesting that it sounds like neither choice is really portrayed as right, despite saving the girl leading to the best ending.

Except when choosing "Save the girl", you don't just "save the girl" but "saving the world" and the girl at the same time by doing so.

Basically, you save everyone by picking the girl first.

I do have trouble sympathizing with heroes who allow bad things to happen because they couldn't make a sacrifice. Like I had no sympathy for Starlord in Infinity War because Gamora outright asked him to kill her and he still couldn't, which screwed over the universe. I have less respect for heroes who not only choose Always Save the Girl, but who do it against that girl's wishes.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 11th 2024 at 12:10:41 PM

Yeah, ignoring the girl's wishes makes the "hero" look even more selfish and calls into question how healthy the relationship is. I get that the hero is stuck in an unimaginably awful Sadistic Choice, and their pain shouldn't be invalidated - of course they're going to suffer horribly. Nor should killing people or allowing them to die be taken lightly. But to portray making the choice in the girl's stead as the Right Thing... It makes the whole situation even sketchier, and further deprives her of agency.

At least, looking over the Always Save the Girl trope, many examples seem to be portrayed as anti-heroes.

That said, I find the opposite trope annoying too - the idea that only villains can have meaningful relationships, whereas heroes have to be brooding rugged loners because they put the rest of the world first. I saw a meme once saying romances between villains are inherently better/more loving, because they'd screw over everyone else for each other. Uh, got to disagree, people like that are more likely to be possessive than caring. That and the trope just glamorises villains. It'd be nice to see more heroes who care just as much about saving the world, and respect each other's wishes even when doing so is painful.

Oh, of course. It all depends on the stakes and stuff, I think. I love love love me some good heroic friendships and romances but I dislike it when the hero has their priorities skewed to the point of sacrificing the safety of everyone else.