Cliches that you hate with a passion.

[Noala]

-that america is the centre of the universe an american ausdiences cant process somthing in their little brains if its not american enough...for example upon hearing the the "kid that dies" in MW is an american tourist...in london, that actually shocked and offended me more than the fact that the kid dies

What's MW?

My guess is Modern Warfare (COD game) (Not meant to sound condescending or sarcastic)

 

[Queen Michael]

-that america is the centre of the universe an american ausdiences cant process somthing in their little brains if its not american enough...for example upon hearing the the "kid that dies" in MW is an american tourist...in london, that actually shocked and offended me more than the fact that the kid dies

What's MW?

My guess is Modern Warfare (COD game) (Not meant to sound condescending or sarcastic)

That makes sense. I thought he was talking about the manga, but since there's no American tourist dying there as far as I can remember, I was wondering.
Thanks!

 

[Jarlaxl]

I always really, really, REALLY hate it when creators assume that I care about the relationship between characters by simple virtue of their family ties (parent/child, for example).

If you take time to explore it, you're off the hook, but when you don't, I fume.

For instance, (Sandman Spoilers Ahoy)

Spoiler

I always found Lyta's attachment to Daniel Hall in The Sandman series rather forced. I get it, she lost everything, including her fragile grasp of reality, and Daniel was really all there was left, but it just felt like her attachment to him was there just to get the Furies moving.

 

[urahara75]

I loathe narrative contrivances that (more often than not) mirror, and sometimes attempt to justify, gender-specific double standards evident in the real world. Prime offenders are western police procedural TV shows (think Law & Order UK, Law & Order: SVU, Luther, Blue Bloods, & their sordid ilk).

For example, almost all male perpetrators seem to be written to specifically lack any discernible level of relatability or sympathetic motive. Female characters, on the other hand, no matter how hateful, self-serving, narcissistic, amoral/immoral, &/or just plain dumb are practically guaranteed even the most flimsy [a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FreudianExcuse"]Freudian Excuse[/a] to justify their actions (or lack thereof). Case and point - Series 1, Episode 4 of Luther:

Spoiler

Emotionally needy and fragile cabby stalks and kills young women to (fleetingly) smother the angst of his own social, marital, and sexual inadequacies. It all comes to a head where he realises his wife has had a years-long affair with a good mate, and he murders that former friend in said friend's flat. The episode ends with his own grieving wife mortally wounding him with a Ban-hammerific blow to skull after witnessing the aftermath of his grisly murder of previous mate, and her lover. So man + murder = deplorable, but then female relative discovering murder/(er) + grief + improvised weapon = dead male murderer = justice(?). WWhhaattt?? :\

"Any evil can be talked to and reasoned with."

I have honestly never seen this. I've seen the opposite a couple times "he's an evil psychopath who no one can reason with".

well too often i see people make the mistake of showing a person with antisocial personality disorder (psychopaths or sociopaths) show hints of having actual feelings of empathy or remorse, when they should be completely incapable of such a thing (the part of the brain that dictates what we call a "conscious" is literally dead for those diagnosed with this).

To be fair, and more accurate, people who suffer from either psychological "disorder" aren't emotionally/psychologically "deadened" (clinically speaking, of course). It's more like "true" sociopaths have those parts involuntarily "turned off", while "true" psychopaths

care little about what others think about them and they use others to achieve their goals or needs

to put it succinctly. In other words, psychopathy leads a person to become pathologically manipulative, self-serving, and socially disaffected -- immoral, basically. They may, or may not, subscribe to any number/combo of creed(s), faith(s), etiquette(s), and/or honour code(s), but their condition (may) compel them to betray or twist them (their own, or others' understanding of them) to rationalise their behaviour.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociopath

 

[darkcalling]

For some reason it's always bugged me that when a character has electricity based powers in comic books they are either black heroes(Black Lightning, Black Vulcan, Static Shock, Volt) or psychotic white villains (Electro, Livewire, Lightning Lord, Emperor Palpatine, Colonel Volgin,)

I know there's probably just as many that don't fit but it still bugs me.

 

[Dtox333]

I loathe narrative contrivances that (more often than not) mirror, and sometimes attempt to justify, gender-specific double standards evident in the real world. Prime offenders are western police procedural TV shows (think Law & Order UK, Law & Order: SVU, Luther, Blue Bloods, & their sordid ilk).

For example, almost all male perpetrators seem to be written to specifically lack any discernible level of relatability or sympathetic motive. Female characters, on the other hand, no matter how hateful, self-serving, narcissistic, amoral/immoral, &/or just plain dumb are practically guaranteed even the most flimsy [a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FreudianExcuse"]Freudian Excuse[/a] to justify their actions (or lack thereof). Case and point - Series 1, Episode 4 of Luther:

Spoiler

Emotionally needy and fragile cabby stalks and kills young women to (fleetingly) smother the angst of his own social, marital, and sexual inadequacies. It all comes to a head where he realises his wife has had a years-long affair with a good mate, and he murders that former friend in said friend's flat. The episode ends with his own grieving wife mortally wounding him with a Ban-hammerific blow to skull after witnessing the aftermath of his grisly murder of previous mate, and her lover. So man + murder = deplorable, but then female relative discovering murder/(er) + grief + improvised weapon = dead male murderer = justice(?). WWhhaattt?? :\

"Any evil can be talked to and reasoned with."

I have honestly never seen this. I've seen the opposite a couple times "he's an evil psychopath who no one can reason with".

well too often i see people make the mistake of showing a person with antisocial personality disorder (psychopaths or sociopaths) show hints of having actual feelings of empathy or remorse, when they should be completely incapable of such a thing (the part of the brain that dictates what we call a "conscious" is literally dead for those diagnosed with this).

To be fair, and more accurate, people who suffer from either psychological "disorder" aren't emotionally/psychologically "deadened" (clinically speaking, of course). It's more like "true" sociopaths have those parts involuntarily "turned off", while "true" psychopaths

care little about what others think about them and they use others to achieve their goals or needs

to put it succinctly. In other words, psychopathy leads a person to become pathologically manipulative, self-serving, and socially disaffected -- immoral, basically. They may, or may not, subscribe to any number/combo of creed(s), faith(s), etiquette(s), and/or honour code(s), but their condition (may) compel them to betray or twist them (their own, or others' understanding of them) to rationalise their behaviour.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociopath

yes....although i gave a very general overview of the two, they are literally dead in a part of the frontal lobe, there is NO electrical activity going on with certain nerves, leaving them incapable of utilizing those feelings.

 

[theheroofaction]

Alright, I've got a list, sorted by setting, and then just general stuff.

Spoiler: this list is really long

Sci-fi
-The people who, on first contact with the technologically superior aliens, decide that shooting it is the best intoduction
- The people who, when the previous didn't occur and the ET's struck first, try everything except violence.
- Humanity is the best, even though all the aliens think the same way we do and are physically superior in every way.
- Humanity brings some less technically un-advanced alien society into the galaxy, this is only a good one if humans were also uplifted in a similar manner
- Speaking of which, no aliens ever willingly advance human civilization, even in situations where it would benefit them.
- Most scientific projects going horribly wrong and creating the antagonist
- The rest of scientific projects going right beyond the planners imagination and creating the antagonist


Fantasy (both medieval and modern)
-people being turned to stone.
- sacred weapons are always silver longswords with gem encrusted v-shaped hilts and bare handles.
- nobody ever uses guns, even if it wouldn't break the story, seriously, medieval europe had guns, why doesn't "not medieval europe"
- by connection, the few times when people do use guns are exactly the times when they would be useless, such as against ghosts or against people wearing 4 freaking inches of steel.
-Should one of the characters be a mage, the main villain is ALWAYS immune to magic
-tears heal everything.
-safe shapeshifting, I would literally pay somebody to write in a story that the only reason most people don't shapeshift is because it's dangerous
- It's the twenty first century and magic has returned to the world, exactly zero people try to study it scientifically, instead opting for exclusively reading ancient tomes.
-There's a mage in modern times, all his spells are kept in book form and there are no backups. PDAs and IPADs would be both cheaper and easier to carry than a load of books.
-Incarnations of evil. Seriously, this makes it so the villain literally has no motive at all
- nobody ever uses any form of transit more advanced than walking, even in modern settings
- Magic and science being opposites. Somehow seeking enlightenment to the nature of electrons and protons makes it so you can't manipulate the other things.
- If the work has an event that proves an existing religion true, there are no "I told you so's".
- The lighting bolts that the mage summon are always electrical, but nobody ever suspects that the black mass that absorbs all light might contain protons.

modern setting
-The only hat an investigator will ever wear is a fedora
- Bars always have bouncers that decide who enters, the protagonists are only allowed in when it would be in their best interest to be anywhere else.
-Any politician mentioned by name is corrupt
- If there's a mafia style gang then there will be absolutely no other criminal activity, they are always conspiring with the above mentioned politician.
- The antagonist gets away with a murder at the start of the episode, and gets arrested and convicted before succeeding in a second, related murder.
- Oh yeah, and if a crime happens at any time during an investigation, it will be connected to the aforementioned murders
- The only weapon that is neither a revolver nor a russian rifle a villain will use is an UZI.
- Every investigator with a name had a relative or close friend murdered before they joined the police
-Standoffs never happen at ranges longer that 5 feet
-for no adequately explained reason, during a gunfight the guy with the revolver will always be the only survivor, unless he's the main villain, in which case he'll be killed effortlessly.
cell phones can only be used to deliver bad news, all other conversations must either be in person or use a landline.
The rebellious cop with no respect for the rules is A) Always right, B) always kicked off the police force and C) never accused of his obvious hypocrisy. D) always back on the police force at the end of the episode


General
-If there are male and female coprotagonists each of the girls will have a romantic engagement with a guy.
- Nobody is ever happy with their romantic relationships at the start of a movie, even if it's an action movie
-Nobody will ever realize that saving the world is more important than what they already had going on in life, unless these people need some sudden angst.
-Nobody who through some chain of events has to live somewhere other than home had anything but a perfect life before.
-Similarly, anyone who moves willingly always has an extremely dark past, nobody ever moves to be closer to somebody.
- If a protagonist dies at the end of a story, that person will be invariably male.
- If people close to the protagonist are killed, they are always either a single female, who is killed while the protagonist is away, or the protagonists entire direct family, who are of course killed right in front of him/her.

It's not that these things happen that bothers me, it's that there are no exceptions except for those that are deliberately averting them.

 

[DeltaEdge]

Most of these will refer to anime.
A girl gets her panties shown by a mysterious wind or she falls and a male just happens to see them completely by accident.
Girl: Kyaah! You saw them didn't you!?
Man: ...no?
-gets slapped-
A male somehow accidentally walks into a girls changing room or a place with nude girls by accident and is trapped. 'nuff said.
A girl walks in on a male changing and she is completely in the wrong.
Girl: Kyaah! Pervert!
Man: What the FUC--
-gets slapped again-
A young woman or girl acts old like a spectator of the action, closes her eyes, and utters the phrase, "My my, things are getting interesting".
Pretty much any male anime character talking saying, "I need to get stronger!". Especially when it is not a very actiony show.
A generic male idiot jumping in the way of an obviously dangerous attack or situation to save some girl, and it looks like he is just showing off. And when they do it repeatedly. I'm talking to you (Ash Masochist Ketchum!)
People who watch too much anime in real life who talk about how they need to train to get stronger when they are referring to going home and doing nothing, or doing basic exercises.
A guy and a girl trip on or around each other and somehow ends up with one directly over the other facing each other, and the male has 1, or both of his hands on her breasts, or his face. The girl then proceeds to overreact and slap him or beat him senselessly.

 

[Vault101]

-that america is the centre of the universe an american ausdiences cant process somthing in their little brains if its not american enough...for example upon hearing the the "kid that dies" in MW is an american tourist...in london, that actually shocked and offended me more than the fact that the kid dies

What's MW?

I didnt know the specifics (modern warfare 3 black ops??? 0_o) so I just refered to it as MW

anyway like I said the kid dying was suposed to be the "big shicking thing" but I found it more shocking/offensive that they thourght british children just werent sympathetic enough

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

"Our heros cannot die nor can they be hurt in anyway but in places were it is conivient for the plot."

For example, by Word of God the Twilight vamps can walk through a NUCLEAR DETONATION and would only die if they "wanted to."

Why are the vampires in hiding?

 

[Xaio30]

"Well, well, well... what do we have here?"

I get physical injuries from the following cringing.

What about when it's done by a sack full of bugs?

Well well well, what have we here? Sandy Klaws is it? Ooh, I'm really scared!

I could possibly cope with that example. An instance where I died a little was Flemeth in the first part of Dragon Age 2.

 

[Yuki_Seele]

I hate how nerdy people are dipicted in mainstream media. its fucking wrong every time.

 

[Qitz]

Hacking. Here, let me press a series of random keys on the keyboard and I'll crack into any security system IN THE WORLD.

Also the whole "I've got years of fighting experience but can only defeat you by believing in some power that I only just figured out 1hr ago and now rely on completely!"

Same with the previously mentioned shoehorning in of romance into god damn EVERYTHING.

 

[Burningsok]

A sequel or prequel uses a well known line just so fans can go "aahh awesome! a shout out to the series, coooolzzz." It has really started bugging me ever since I saw Rise of The Planet of The Apes.

Spoiler

Stupid douche bag kid is about to get his shit wrecked by Caesar. He just has to say "get off me you damn dirty ape!" I'm like "wtf..." it sounded so forced I nearly got up and left the movie theater. Good thing everything else about the movie was awesome. There is no way that fucking kid would say damn dirty ape, it would be more like get off me dammit!!! or something else. That line just... it doesn't sound like he would of said it.

You DID realise, or check before posting, that that was a shout-out/reference to the 2nd most well-known line from the original Planet of the Apes?

They would probably have tried to tribute the most well-known line, except that it wouldn't really work given that the characters aren't arguing amongst each other whether they've arrived back on Earth or not, and (unlike the original) don't end the film by raging in despair when they realise that they simply landed back on Earth a while into the future (when Charlton Heston's character recognises the ruins of the statue of liberty).



[yes, I konw, SPOILERS, but the film was released in 1968, so I think most folks who are interested have seen it by now]





Great line, that one- Heston [shouting at the long-deceased politicians and generals who allowed WW3 to happen]: 'You maniacs!!! You blew it up!! Damn you! God Damn You ALL to hell!!! [incomprehensible cry of rage and grief, as the realisation of what must have occurred in their absence is too great for him to put into words]. It kind of needs context - the movie starts with one of the first manned missions into interstellar space, except something goes wrong and they land on an unrecognisable desert of a planet. One of the main character reasons that the autopilot would have taken them home automatically, and that something terrible must have happened to Earth, but Heston's character refuses to believe it.

Then they meet two groups of primates: a civilisation of talking, intelligent Apes (some of whom want to conduct horrible tests on them, the same way we do to chimps, some of whom want to kill them and some who believe that these humans are intelligent beings and should be treated with respect and kindness) and a 'tribe' of creatures that look like humans but who have devolved to the point where they no longer even have language, and are simply dumb animals.

Heston and most of the ship's crew believe that they must have landed on a far-away planet where evolution occurred slightly differently, and that chimps, gorillas and orangatangs developed higher intelligence, whilst humans didn't (i.e. he still thinks that these are all aliens and he is on another planet).

This leads to some more awesome quotes as the ship's crew tries to convince the head chimpanzee scientist, Dr Zaius, that they are capable of intelligence and kindness. E.g. Dr Zaius (revealing to the scientist who, unlike Heston, realises that they are actually on Earth): "[taking from the secret database on the pre-ape human civilisation]: Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death."

Hence Heston's realisation that he was wrong on both issues - that he IS on Earth, and that humanity IS (or was) the planet-wrecking monstrosity that the ape scientists claim. Awesome, awesome ending. The ending of the new film wasn't bad...but it was nothing compared to the ending of the original, made during the height of the Cold War and shortly following near-nuclear disaster with the Cuban missile crisis,

Damn... didn't expect to get a reply like this. I agree with you though about how big of a line it is in movie history, and giving a shout out is suppose to be out of respect. But... this one just didn't fit right with me. Maybe if it was used just a little more subtly or not used so blatantly. Although what happened right after that line I thought was pretty damn awesome.
"Get off me you damn dirty ape!!" ...*cringe*. Then "NOO!" ...aw hell yeah

 

[Auron225]

Specifically in RPG's:

"I am a male. So I will protect myself with ridiculous looking armor from head to toe"
"I am a female. So I will protect myself with ridiculous looking armor that protects everything but my ass and boobs"

-.-' There's a line in the sand where no amount of sexiness can compensate for downright stupidity...

EDIT: Oh, and sometimes its ok for a villain to be downright evil, just for the sake of it. Im getting really sick of;

"He's not evil! He's just misunderstood!" 0.0 Why can't he just be a prick?

EDIT 2: In some anime (Naruto in particular, which I generally do like tbh) when during a fight, someone (be they good or evil) uses a technique of some sort and then EXPLAINS to them exactly how it works! Don't they ever consider how they might just be telling them how to handle their technique?? I know its for the purpose of us knowing whats going on, but its still insanely stupid! Why can't we just see these techniques used on something else and explained before the fight, in a situation that allows for time to stop and chat? Instead of, you know, when someone is trying to take off their head with a sword larger than them?

One more thing - the line (again, usually in anime) "I will never forgive you!" is said more often to villains than ex-friends. Why the heck would the villain care!? I highly doubt they are going to try and seek your forgiveness after they slaughter your spouse before your very eyes, etc etc. If they somehow require your favor, they'd probably make a mental note to NOT do something like that.

 

[PunkRex]

That whole samurai quick draw sword thing. Never understood it, never liked it. So terribly, inefficient.

My avatar wants a word with you!

Everything this piece of crap was... talk about killing part of my childhood. Granted the scene with the Stygian witchs was pretty good and Liam Neeson as Zeus is something I could proberly believe to be actual fact, the rest of the film was just so... CLICHE!!!

Io is proberly my most hated character in modern film. Christ everything about her was just awful and no one seemed bothered!!!

One cliche I've grown to really hate is how in almost every media involving Greek mythology, Hades is turned into a monstrous villain. Disney's Hercules, Percy Jackson (the film version), Clash of the Titans (remake), etc.

In mythology, Hades is mostly just doing his job, and is no more an evil villain/jerk than Zeus or Poseidon. But nope, "God of the Underworld" automatically equals "Greek Satan". Heck, God of War was actually surprisingly fair to the guy (aside from making him all creepy, monstrous, and spike-covered), because he actually had a comparatively good reason to seek revenge against Kratos (avenging his wife and brother) rather than just doing it because he's "evil".

I also hate the cliche of "badass" ladies suddenly becoming damsels in distress. Once in a while is fine, but if every single time there's a climactic showdown the girl is whisked into some form of contrived distress, ugh...

Agreed, in actual greek mythology, out of the big three brothers he was the most competent. Zeus and Hades were out bonking everything that moved and he drew the short straw so got stuck with a crappy job. AND EVEN THEN HE STILL DID IT!!! He just beat his wife every night to vent his anger... as ya do... forget what I said he was still a douche, just a competent douche.

Disney Hercules was actually may fave Disney film though. As the fact he got given the crappy job was the reason for his revolution... where as in this bloody film he did it for the evilz... Maybe I just loved the Disney Herc for other reasons and the fact im a big fan of the original Clash may be jadeing my veiw of the newer one abit, i'll admit that but all I have to do to make my point is to compare the Medusa scenes.

The original was bloody terrifying (I know I was a kid) where as this one just made me laugh it was done so lame-er-ly. Then theres those plot driving Djinns that came from no where. The fact the scorpions came from Calibos (originally they came from Medusa which made no more sense) but why could the Djinns control them? Then theres Io... fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

 

[PunkRex]

That whole samurai quick draw sword thing. Never understood it, never liked it. So terribly, inefficient.

My avatar wants a word with you!

Everything this piece of crap was... talk about killing part of my childhood. Granted the scene with the Stygian witchs was pretty good and Liam Neeson as Zeus is something I could proberly believe to be actual fact, the rest of the film was just so... CLICHE!!!

Io is proberly my most hated character in modern film. Christ everything about her was just awful and no one seemed bothered!!!

Might hate me for this, but I liked this movie. I always go into movies with an vague idea of what the movie is going to be, rather than what I hope it will be. This way, I enjoy most movies. This was a fun, no-thinking involved action movie. I saw stuff kill other stuff. Exactly what I expected. And I was happy.

Thats fair enough, its just how well the original did despite it being made in the golden age of golden cheesy cinema. I was hopeing this one would be something more ya know? The epic story of the original but with a mordern twist. Instead we got a series of barely connected, barely reconisable action scenes. Some were good but some were terrible... the Medusa scene in particular made me laugh just how bad it was compared to the original.

 

[Niall Pitcher]

The extremely bitchy woman who is apparantly "Soft on the inside". This is usually said after she spoons out a mans testicles and swaps them with his eyes >.>
In other words, the Tsundere, which is becoming INCREASINGLY more common because of the whole feminist movement
Also when the Foreign guy (Usually Asian)or a bloke who lives in the forest is extremely wise ("I EAT STICKS AND SHARE KILL WITH TIGERS. I ALSO KNOW EVERYTHING BILLIONS OF POUNDS IN RESEARCH HAS NOT YET DISCOVERED")
Then there's the whole "The Government is pure evil! The Man is plotting against us!": WE ALREADY KNOW THIS, STOP REMINDING US

I'm here all night chaps

 

[DustyDrB]

The chess cliche. You know: Two people playing a game of chess that's really about more than just chess and is used to show how much of a (usually evil) genius one of them is.

It's just over-used.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

Kids showing up and either not dying at all or being killed off to try and "shock" moment.
Can't they just join the bodycount with the rest of the bastards who die and not get any sort of special treatment about it?

EDIT:
Also, Villains that NEVER pull the trigger.
Dude! You're holding the gun and your enemy is right infront of you unarmed, alone and completely defenceless! JUST SHOOT THE BASTARD! Post mortem villain speeches can still be cool!