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Things you hardly ever see in fiction

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MichaelThayne Since: Dec, 1969
#1: May 13th 2011 at 1:30:35 PM

This is going to be a grab bag of things you hardly ever (if ever) see in fiction, but might reasonably expect to. Tropes that would make perfect sense for a writer to try to avert, but never are averted. Add your own examples, comment on mine, whatever.

(1) Enemy soldiers who appear in significant numbers and are portrayed as elite fighters with complete consistency. No Conservation of Ninjutsu here. Call them anti-mooks. In principle, the existence of such enemies wouldn't guarantee that the bad guys win: the heroes could wage a campaign of guerrilla warfare and sabotage, or steal the files that expose the Empire's evil ways and make them public, or find a MacGuffin that will make them ridiculously powerful enough to take on the elite army.

It seems that these approaches are rarely taken, though. Instead, elite enemy soldiers become inexplicably less effective with time. What's striking here is not that mook tropes exist, but that aversions of them are so very, very hard to find. Though when I raised this topic on a RPG board, someone suggested that GURPS: Reign of Steel (a Terminator-inspired setting) is like this. Other examples are very hard to think of.

(2) Serious treatments of villains motivated to do truly horrible things by bizarre delusions and Insane Troll Logic. There's a reason the Khmer Rouge are in the "Real Life" section of the aforementioned trope, but if a fictional villain ever reasoned like that, it would be played for comedy. Black comedy, maybe, as in the RPG Paranoia, ut still comedy.

Similarly, despite the popularity of A Nazi by Any Other Name, how many Space Nazis have killed millions of people because they mistook an oppressed minority group for a conspiracy to rule the world? The best stab at this I can think of is probably from the last Harry Potter book, with Death Eaters claiming all muggleborns get their wands by murdering other wizards. In Harry Potter, though, it's dealt with so briefly that it comes off like an excuse, rather than making you feel like you've come face to face with true crazy.

This is something I noticed while reading a discussion of how in occult fiction that deals with the Nazis, there's often an attempt to turn the Holocaust into a bizarre occult ritual or something. Apparently, that makes more sense to some writers than the Nazis' actual motives. Reality Is Unrealistic much?

feotakahari Fuzzy Orange Doomsayer from Looking out at the city Since: Sep, 2009
Fuzzy Orange Doomsayer
#2: May 13th 2011 at 9:12:05 PM

Settings in which humans are present but minor. Treasure Planet really surprised me in that regard.

Stories that contain both a pseudo-Christian faction and a pseudo-pagan faction and have neither turn out to knowingly or unknowingly be worshipping Satan. Soldier Son is the only series I can think of that gives both factions respect, and it approaches the issue more in terms of culture than religion.

Fantasy stories that have any respect for Team Switzerland.

Non-magical Native Americans.

Stories in which Gaia is evil. (By authorial intent, anyways.)

Scientists who actually follow the scientific method. Especially in fantasy stories.

Stories based off of Aztec mythology. Come on, you know it would be awesome.

Characters who can't decide whether they're Blessed with Suck or Cursed with Awesome.

edited 13th May '11 9:12:14 PM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful
MichaelThayne Since: Dec, 1969
#3: May 13th 2011 at 11:37:57 PM

With the Christian/Pagan thing: We're talking about settings where the gods are (undeniably) real, right? How does Soldier Son pull it off? Traditionally, Christians are rather big on the "no other gods before me" thing, which probably goes a long way why it's hard for a setting to be neutral between the two when there are real gods about there.

DoktorvonEurotrash Lex et Veritas from Not a place of honour (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#4: May 14th 2011 at 1:41:01 AM

A male/female duo (in adventuring, fighting etc.) that's neither a romantic couple nor brother/sister, but simply friends and allies. I was really shocked at the end of Avatar The Last Airbender when Katara and Zuko teamed up to fight Azula, and that made me realise that I'd barely ever seen a male/female duo fighting the bad guy like that without them being either lovers or related.

shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#5: May 14th 2011 at 8:39:03 AM

[up] Actually, we have that as a trope. Platonic Life-Partners. If you're interested in that kind of thing, look there.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Jeysie Diva of Virtual Death from Western Massachusetts Since: Jun, 2010
Diva of Virtual Death
#6: May 14th 2011 at 8:58:08 AM

@OP

Not sure if this is precisely what you had in mind, but... there's a dead-serious, incredibly creepy Transformers short prose story, where a Corrupt Corporate Executive drifts over the course of the story from being a technically law-abiding and non-violent being to coming up with increasingly bizarre reasons to justify to himself why it's actually OK to murder anyone who's in his way. (One that comes to mind is that he rationalizes that his secretary had it coming because she occasionally stole the equivalent of blank floppy disks.)

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)
chihuahua0 Since: Jul, 2010
#7: May 14th 2011 at 6:26:21 PM

  • A Magical Boy story. -glances at thread in Anime and Manga thread-
  • A kid's show with LGBT themes.
  • Or even, LGBT themes in a mainstream Young Adult book.

shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#8: May 14th 2011 at 6:29:25 PM

[up] I have the first one here

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
chihuahua0 Since: Jul, 2010
#9: May 14th 2011 at 9:15:29 PM

[up] Umm...I mean, A Magical Boy story not involving Gender Bending. As in, played mostly straight.

shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#10: May 14th 2011 at 9:29:18 PM

No gender bending. He's still a boy. People mistake him for a girl, but he's still a guy. Otherwise, Green Gable from Spinnerette

edited 14th May '11 9:29:24 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Duckay from Australia Since: Jan, 2001
#11: May 15th 2011 at 1:39:49 AM

chihuahua0, when I was young, Morris Gleitzman was considered pretty essential reading for kids/teens, and Two Weeks With The Queen was fairly popular reading material. It's a shame, really, that this hasn't become more of a trend.

johnnye Since: Jan, 2001
#12: May 15th 2011 at 11:17:51 AM

@chihuahua0 - I'd be extremely surprised if there isn't a Jacqueline Wilson book with an LGBT theme. And what about Sugar Rush?

edited 15th May '11 11:18:01 AM by johnnye

feotakahari Fuzzy Orange Doomsayer from Looking out at the city Since: Sep, 2009
Fuzzy Orange Doomsayer
#13: May 16th 2011 at 12:40:59 AM

@Thayne & Christian/Pagan thing: like I said, that series isn't exactly religious—it's more that the societies depicted are vaguely analogous to ones that in real life practiced Christianity and what would now be consider paganism. Their conflict is over territory and lifestyle.

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful
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