Are some tropes actually bad?

Reading Backtracking for one makes me think that some tropes really are bad (at least 90% of the time). Some Bad Writing tropes too (although I have doubts on whether they are actually meant to be tropes or just a trivia?)

I'm saying tropes, not trivia or YMMV item.

Tropes Are Tools. Any trope can be used well or poorly, depending on the writer and the situation. Some tropes tend to be more indicative of bad writing than others, or are more likely to be cliches. And some tropes are inherently fraught with problems of racism, sexism, classism, etc., to the point of becoming discredited.

None of this means they can never contribute positively to a story.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 8th 2019 at 10:12:39 AM

Not all tropes are created equal, there are Bad Writing tropes that are strongly advised to be avoided because they are a sign of narrative weakness, but some writers like to take that as a Self-Imposed Challenge to make one work.

Doesn't some Bad Writing need to be played ironically, used in a meta-narrative, or deconstructed to not be considered bad (hence "Bad Writing")? E.g. Mary Sue would be bad (or an annoyance at the best) if used normally, but can be effectively parodied in a Troll Fic, Played for Drama if it's used in a story-within-a-story to demonstrate the author's ego, or deconstructed by showing the Sue as some sort of narcissist god.

Mary Sue is a literary criticism trope (and a useless one), not an In-Universe trope. A more appropriate example would be something like Uncle Tomfoolery: a stereotype of a black character. This is almost always considered bad nowadays, but can be and has been parodied, deconstructed, or otherwise used in a valid fashion.

Again, if a work published today unironically inserts a goofy, comic-relief black sidekick, it's probably Bad Writing, but that's very rare. This is part of what makes a Discredited Trope: it only sees use in current works in Playing with a Trope forms.

Bury Your Gays and Black Dude Dies First are other cases where stereotypes clash with good writing. If you deliberately set up a black (or gay) character to be killed off, especially if they are the only black or gay character in the work, you've got a problem. But if a work happens to feature black or gay characters who die along with others, and their race or sexuality have nothing to do with the reasons for their deaths, then there's no issue, although those would also not be examples of the tropes in question.

I'll toss in an example from a movie that I liked very much: No Way Out. In it, the primary villain is a character who is revealed in the end to be: (a) gay, (b) in Unrequited Love with the secondary villain, (c) driven to homicidal insanity by this love. For bonus points, they commit suicide after a Villainous Breakdown.

So, after an otherwise enjoyable thriller, we get hit, out of nowhere, with a terrifically stereotypical and disturbingly anti-gay message at the climax. Ouch. This would be a case of Bury Your Gays used in a "bad" way, although whether the writing itself is of poor quality is a question for debate. It's certainly very convincing when removed from the cultural context... for example, would it still carry the negative implications if the villain had not been gay, but all the other aspects remained?

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 8th 2019 at 2:18:08 PM

The way I see it is the way I see anything related to storytelling: Anything can make a good story if it's written well and any trope can be portrayed in a "good" light. Even tropes with negative baggage aren't inherently negative, though they need especially good writing to overcome the baggage or they need to be played with in some way. The idea is that if the writing is quality, the writer is smart, and the narrative makes it work, even a "bad" trope can be written well.

Then why's Backtracking have no examples?

I don't know, but plenty of fine tropes are exampleless.

Because as the page says, the aforementioned baggage means that it would take an unreasonable amount of policing to keep the page from devolving into Complaining About Shows You Don't Like. People wouldn't be able to resist harping on how awful the backtracking in Game X is, and how much it ruins an otherwise great game.

You mentioned Backtracking and that can be used effectively in Metroidvania and it’s powers based exploration.

How didn't that happen with all these?