Your pet peeve tropes

Fixed @Starbug's embedded video.

Edited by jouXIII on Jul 22nd 2023 at 2:53:16 PM

...That being said, we do have a rule that you can't just drop video links without context.

You know how isekai frequently has slavery as a thing, and not in the sense of "humans rights violations" or "pure evil" senses like it should be? You also know how many of these scenarios are usually played for fanservice? Yeah it is prolly one of the more prominent aspects that make me look down upon the genre.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jul 22nd 2023 at 5:23:34 AM

In my case, Isekai where the destination is Fantasy but operates by modern day video game logic.

I understand the reason, but would have preferred less virtual interfaces clashing with the setting.

Oh, yeah, the video game logic stuff really irritates me. I just can't see any good in-universe explanation in most cases for, say, levels and class systems and EXP. It just clashes too much with the otherwise generally grounded fantasy worlds.

I hate it when people insist magic should be whimsical/not make sense/not have rules or limitations.

Nobody who has actually believed in magic has thought that, you just assume so because you don't know the rationale. Without rules and limits you will also end up contradicting yourself or end up in a situation where magic is all over the place/could fix everything.

Agreed. In one of my settings, there are certain traits ALL magic-users have (minor stuff, really); after that, their abilities depend on the specific “major” they have (Voodoo/Druidic/Elemental/etc.)

These are not all the same thing.

That reminds me, though, that it annoys me when magic systems are so open and effects-oriented that whether the author justifies it as wizardry or telekinesis or alchemy or miracles or superscience or sea slugs is essentially just reskinning the same underlying powers. Don't bother systematising your magic if the processes of your system don't matter anyway.

Some overlap: settings that are Earth+, characterised by having magic, technology, species, resources, etc, that Earth doesn't, without missing anything that the audience takes for granted.

@Warjay

I can see class systems being workable at least. Mainly if its framed as specialization in specific fields, or explained away by Mutually Exclusive Magic and weapon enchantments. Levels and EXP are still more incongruous with the setting.

Regarding your point on magic systems, I'm curious about that one if I may: Would that be things like superhero powers? And either way, do you have any other examples?

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jul 23rd 2023 at 10:34:57 AM

I suppose it's not always bad, but the examples I'm most familiar with treat it as some weird, inherently binding thing without explaining why it works that way or how people get their classes.

Ironically enough FFXIV, which is a video game and not a book has lore for the jobs. And by extensions explanations on why they can't be mixed and matched by the PC.

Basically the abilities and memories of past wielders are embedded in special magic stones that allow someone to access the stored knowledge. And it seems like its impossible to sue two or more at once, so you cannot say, use all the elemental spells that is spread between the Black and White Mages (Red mage borrows from both, but only has 2 elements from the Black Mage and three from the White one for instance)

that is to say (part of) the source of the aesthetics the isekai genre is aping integrates the video game aspects better narratively than the isekai genre. But then again that genre does seem rather...lazy in general.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jul 23rd 2023 at 4:08:52 AM

Indeed! Superpowers work best when they are essentially metaphorical extensions of the hero's identity. (Narratively speaking, they are all equally magic.) This does not keep it from being annoying that whether a given superhero obtained their powers by genetic mutation, freak lab accident, divine empowerment, extreme personal training, etc, is essentially arbitrary - ancient sorcery can do anything, and so can the X-Gene, and the only difference is whether or not Mr. Fantastic gives you a referral to Dr. Strange. The only thing you can get out of trying to explore the causal relationship is to expose the hand of the author, so Doing In the Wizard and Doing in the Scientist are equally meaningless.

That's rather more philosophy of science than I initially had in mind, though, which was more to do with how this mismatch occurs. The writer decides what powers they want available first, then handwaves how their local magic is capable of it, which leads to magicians wielding a mystical energy field that connects all living things having basically the same skill set as magicians who modify their genetics by injecting themselves with sea slug cancer and consequently feeling far more similar than they really should.

Basically, Rule of Cool is fine, I like Cool of Rule better, but my pet peeve is Rule of Cool trying to pass itself off as Cool of Rule.

Aah, I see, I do believe! Thank you for so explaining! ^_^

Hmm... While I'm not as bothered by it as are you, I can certainly see why you might be I daresay. And indeed, I think that I feel at least somewhat the same.

For me, however, I do like it when the nature of a... let's say the "power system"—whether that be magic, superscience, or whatever—informs at least some element of the results—even if only minor.

I'm reminded of a fantasy series that I read that included a form of Blood Magic. Much of this was more or less as one might expect: connecting via blood—whether to communicate or control—etc.

Buuuut then blood mages could also just... make fireballs. Which I do recall being disappointing: it felt generic, and made the blood magic feel less unique.

Conversely, I'm currently reading another fantasy series in which magic is pretty much all based around drawing symbols.

And since it goes into which symbols are involved in, say, blowing things up ("heat" and "impact" or "pressure", I think it was), it often feels to me no less unique for having such effects.

personally I'm okay in this kind of homogenization, "nothing new under the sun" and all. But that is mostly in the case of whether the magic system is universal (as in its the only one in the setting) or at least is founded on universal principles. If you are gonna have two distinct schools of magic, then by all means they should actually be distinct instead of reskins.

Course even in those cases, I'm fine with there being some basic spells common to them.

I think part of the issue might be the proliferation of Elemental Powers in fantasy and RPGs and the heavy abstraction in the latter case. FF XIV can be a example of how the flavoring can work, in lore and aesthetics, and also how the nature of a MMO constrains it to have some aspects feel samey despite that. Which is unhelped by all the magic classes but Astrologian and Scholar (dropped off in Shadowbrigners so can't comment on Sage yet) so far have elemental powers in their repitiore (BLM has the usual Fire, Ice, Lightning, WHM has the other three in Earth, Water and Wind...even though Water was downplayed from the start and the other two were eventually changed to light spells at later levels. Summoner uses summons to channel earth, wind and fire. Red Mage uses Fire, Lightning, Earth, Wind and Light, etc) While having different ways in theories to do so and manipulate aether in general (Summoners [and Scholar] again using summons, but also math to give shape to these summons. Red Mages deliberately synthesizes White and Black and mixes it with fencing for good measure. Astrologian drawing powers form the stars and also focuses on divination. etc), the use of magic also extended outsides the Disciplines of Magic, but the post is getting too long as is.

Arknights also has a magic system in place in its verse, Originium Arts, and that is used in most use cases, and the exceptions are explicitly Wrong Context Magic either from the Sarkaz or Sui Siblings (Not sure about Aegir). The common demoninator of these Arts is the eponymous Originium ore, which is Terra's oil analogue it seems.

That said I think there is another related issue on magic system homongenison, and one that is related to the element scheme to boot. Namely most uses of magic in modern media is in combat and warfare scenarios, rarely it is used for stealth, and I don't think its uses in peaceful contexts are usually delved into (exception again, FF XIV, because the non-combat classes use aether too). Like if you have a spell that manipulates light and only use it as a glorified flashbang when the same spell could be useful as a replacement for a projector or a way to dazzle the children at birthday parties instead, well that's a waste of potential right there.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jul 25th 2023 at 3:21:26 AM

I very nearly added something about how all magic is combat magic but figured I had written enough in a single post already. :P There's a lot of overlap, though.

(I also think "there's nothing new under the sun" is a bit of a truism, but it's also true that I prefer to read by moonlight.)

A lot of my favourite magic systems use Language of Magic/Language of Truth! It still seems a bit silly when every wizard's first word in the tongues of gods is "fireball", though. Like, if "blowing things up" is "heat"+"impact"+"pressure" then it makes me curious what happens when you take away "impact", and what happens if you use the wrong noun declension or end a sentence with a preposition.

One of the coolest things I've ever seen done with this is Fallen London, where every sigil of the Correspondence is basically a different trope - but an esoteric and alien trope, meaning things like (approximately) "to become fire rather than be burned" or "the improbable collusion of unrelated perils" or "marked with the mud of one's beginnings". (There's a place in Sunless Skies where a sigil is translated as "eternal dominion/everything in its place/no drop-in meetings permitted" - it makes the appointment queue sacred and inviolable.) And consequently, it also turns out to be subject to the Death of the Author - the Correspondence is the language the stars use to talk to each other and if they're no longer around to declare their intended meaning, its effects vary depending on the translator. Which only becomes a problem when people start finding ways to kill them. More of that, please!

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Jul 26th 2023 at 12:51:19 PM

It's less a language than... a sort of magical circuit-board: while individual symbols have individual effects, collections of symbols can be joined in specific ways to form greater patterns, through which patterns magic will flow (and into which magic will be drawn).

You'll be glad to know, then, that such usage takes a few books to turn up, as I recall! For one thing, at the start of the series all of the symbols that are really available are defensive in nature.

And indeed, we see the use of individual symbols—the aforementioned included—fairly often!

It might be worth mentioning that there's at least one other form of magic encountered, and which has its own distinct suite of effects. For example, it doesn't seem capable of making fireballs, but it can be deadly and protective in its own ways.

(The series in question, in case you're interested, is "The Demon Cycle" by Peter V. Brett.

That one does sound like a pretty cool magic system, I will say! ^_^

So I want to ask about The Friends Who Never Hang. It kinda seems bizzare at a glance that people that are in a group done seem to mutually like everyone else enought to hang with them, yet at the same time it is also realistic in a sense.

I just want to for thoughts on this trope, and friendship dynamics in groups in general.

I can see how The Friends Who Never Hang can work in a realistic sense. Sometimes, two or more people in a group need a charismatic mutual friend or an external motivation to glue them together in the group. For example, there are some members of a Dungeons & Dragons group I play with that I would never willingly associate with outside of the game. We disagree on nearly everything except for Dungeons & Dragons, but since we really want a game to play, we agree to set aside our differences. It also helps that the GM of the group is a mutual friend who helps us keep our focus on the game and away from other topics. Without the shared hobby and mutual friend, I would have left the table long ago.

Now, a trope I cannot sympathize with is the Tsundere. Perhaps this is my personal bias speaking, but all too often this trope is played in a mean-spirited and, dare I say, even misandrist way. No doubt the absolute worst examples I can think of are listed on the trope's analysis page under "Wolf-Girl-class Tsundere", whose go to method of coping with their feelings is to beat the living tar out of the main character or love interest for the flimsiest and pettiest of excuses (usually assuming the worst of his character because he is a man). However, that breed of physical violence isn't necessary for this trope to alienate me; even the snappy sarcastic attitudes verbally expressed can be read as similarly abusive. However extreme the Tsundere's behavior is, the worst aspect of this trope is that this character is often the designated love interest for the main character, who is usually expected to return the Tsundere's feelings despite her bile and vitriol. Again, maybe I'm reading too much into it, especially since the classic portrayal of this trope was more akin to Defrosting Ice Queen, but I haven't yet come across an example of this trope that isn't mean-spirited to some degree.

I can see why you would think that (personal I'm okay with it but do find the trope itself has been flanderized, esp on the tsun side)

Though I'm also okay with Yandere as well and it's obviously more extreme and I'd expect people might take some ire at the more sympathetic cases of the archetype for similar reasons you dislike tsunderes.

I also can't get into such characters when they're too nasty (I hate mean-spirited Vitriolic Best Buds for that same reason; if they do nothing but argue it comes off as abuse, not friendship). I agree; if it's too mean-spirited then it's hard to get into because it turns into the tsundere being violent or emotionally abusive and the love interest not ever doing anything to deserve such treatment. However, I don't absolutely hate the trope because I've seen it done well

The tsundere off the top of my head that I can accept is Patricia in House of Anubis because she and Eddie have mutual Belligerent Sexual Tension and she's shown to be someone who genuinely struggles to express herself romantically because she's insecure and inexperienced; the relationship ends up being difficult but far from abusive because it never gets too mean-spirited or one-sided. The "I actually love you" moments pop up pretty often and neither of them ever go too far. That, I think, is one example of how these things can be handled well if the relationship's dynamic does not go too far into the realm of bitterness and toxicity.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 4th 2023 at 11:45:24 AM

The more I think about it, the less I like the Well-Intentioned Extremist trope, especially if it overlaps with Easily Forgiven. Honestly, if a character like that does horrible things, then the narrative shouldn't just expect the viewer to act like that character is suddenly a good person because "they had good intentions".

Also a Flunky Boss is fine if it's at least one or two bosses but if every boss comes pre-packaged with henchmen, it gets really annoying.

I've realized I'm not a fan of Power Levels in anime. More specifically I hate the whole "character is cornered so they just 'decide' to become stronger and boost their power levels" thing, it's never made sense to me, it just comes off as a cheap way to keep raising the stakes of the conflicts.

When writers think "evil!!" or "insane!" is a subtitute for a motive. Generally when writers think they can make their villains cardboard cutouts.

They don't even understand how "insanity" works. It's not "lul, random!", people will act rationally in regard to whatever they think is going on and there's obviously still an actual motive. Trying to use "insanity" as an excuse for bad writing/motive substitute seems particularly common in superhero comics.

Edited by Nukeli on Aug 5th 2023 at 9:39:45 PM

yeah it reeks of laziness.

(of course this means that I also end up into this trap, but in fairness I am trying to avoid it if possible)