Narrative devices you hate

[Johnny Impact]

Amnesia. Obvious, overused, improperly applied, and ruins the surprise of the inevitable Shock Reveal. "You're actually ______!" Saw that coming from the moment you used the word amnesia, thanks.

Time travel. Let's not spare one moment to think, actually THINK about the consequences of altering time. Let's just throw the phrase "time travel" in there and hope no one notices our story is composed entirely of continuity errors. (Side note, there's a neat little shoestring-budget movie called Primer you should watch if you want to see time travel done smartly)

Training montage. "I learned how to fight like a champ in only ten minutes!" This is excusable sometimes, for example in Kick-Ass 2 when Hit-Girl trains Dave. He still gets beaten, it just takes longer. Increase in skill is okay, becoming a master overnight is not.

Villain kills own henchmen. Smart bosses know that regularly terminating employees from a position will only ensure there will never be a capable employee in that position. This becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

Deus Ex Machina. Doing this out of nowhere is the writer's way of saying he was too lazy to end the story intelligently.

 

[JoJo]

Aside from any that have been mentioned so far, the whole it was a dream! or more often they were crazy and it was all in their head! explanation that stories use can be a real cop-out if done poorly. It can be done well, particularly if it's left ambiguous if the events are real or not, but usually it comes across as cheap and lazy.

 

[Edl01]

When the main villain defeated the main character, and then lets them live for some stupid reason.
Whether it's, "Throw them in the dungeon", or, "I'll kill you later", or even, "I never want to see your face again", it bugs me all the same. The villain could win by stabbing the main character, and they don't simply for the convienience of the plot. It's lazy writing and makes the villain look like an idiot.

 

[Mister K]

You know, I am a bit... well, slightly more than a bit tired of protagonist being "the chosen one" and his/her and his/her companions' motivation to do anything is "You must save the world!"

It has been overdone. Really overdone. I understand that we are all a part of a huge machine, each one of us being easily replaceable by any other shmuck like us and videogames are windows to a different world, where we actually matter, where we are the big boyz and gurlz who shape the universe, but come the hell on! Must it always be a world? Must it always be so grand? And must it be the only motivation?

It is one of the many reasons why I liked DAII. You aren't special. You are just a refugee like any other guy. Even though you had a bit of an advantage (mansion) you were stripped of it. You motivation in the 1st part is to get on your feet, while in 2nd and 3rd ones you simply must try to calm all this shitstorm that is happening in your city. A SINGLE CITY.
And all of this was accomplished not because you had the amazing power to, I dunno, absorb souls of a dragons, or you being the last of your kind, but because you worked hard. Sure, the story had problems, but only because Big Pappa EA wanted this game out as soon as possible.

 

[happyninja42]

1) Useless female characters:
I really hate movies that don't develop their female characters. Granted I hate it when they do this with any character, as it's just an example of poor storytelling, but with female characters, it's doubly annoying. If they're just Damsel in Distress, or Love Interest, or Tragic Past as Justification for Roaring Rampage of Revenge, I am instantly annoyed and less interested in a movie.

2) Going to extreme lengths to have the hero end up alone at the end to fight the Big Bad.
I get having the climactic battle of Good v Evil, I really do. But when it's so blatantly obvious that you're simply removing pieces from the board just to explain why Good Guy is solo versus Bad Guy, I get annoyed.
Specific example: Captain America Winter Soldier.

Spoiler

The good guy members of SHIELD go rushing out onto the runway to go help Captain, shouting "Come on guys! Captain needs us!!".....and then are immediately killed. Seriously, wtf was that for?! That was a useless, pointless, wasted scene. If you're going to introduce those guys, then let them do something!!. Hell, just have them show up and take care of some minor threat, thus taking some pressure off the hero. They don't have to single handedly save the day. Just, give the hero 5 things that are obstacles to him, and let them remove one of them!! Congratulations! You've made their inclusion in the movie relevant, but you've still got 4 things for the Hero to deal with. Maybe have Captain pinned down by gunfire from enemy planes, and then these guys fly in, freeing up Captain to move forward and deal with the other challenges presented to him. I mean come on..that's just dumb how they did it.

3) Inconsistancy with your universe logic.
If you make a point to establish certain aspects of reality for your movie, stick to them. I'm fine with breaking the rules of physics and biology and other stuff in order to tell your story. Science Fiction or Fantasy do this all the time, and that's fine. I can suspend disbelief for certain things when they're established as being part of this Alternate Universe you've made up, no biggy. But if you then have events take place later in the story, that completely ignore the rule you establish, then I get highly annoyed. If you establish that the hero is super strong because on this planet, the gravity is really low, and thus he can lift weights much larger than normal, don't show me a scene later where he's struggling to lift a small, diminutive woman from falling off a cliff, and then she falls to her death. Come on, did you forget the whole "gravity is low here, so weight isn't a big issue" thing? Apparently so, otherwise i wouldn't be sitting here seeing the hero grieving over his lost love that he couldn't lift up in a 1/6th gravity environment!! gggraaaah!!!" *ragefroth*

4) Telling me with dialogue that a person should be one way, but having their behaviour be totally contradictory.
You can't tell me that a character is the nicest, most gentle soul in the world, and then give me a story from their point of view, that includes their internal dialogue, where we hear their horrific thoughts about those around them. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Now if you are setting up a story where this contradiction is a plot point, as in he's a traitor, or double agent or something, sure, ok fine. But if it's supposed to be TRUE in your universe, not a deception, then you've exceeded my Bullshit-O-Meter, and I will rage about your work of fiction to my friends for an hour. xD

 

[Gluzzbung]

Prophecies. They're just lazy writing. As soon as one is introduced you basically know what's going to happen in the rest of the story.

Also, when a character that only been introduced for about 5 minutes on screen or a for a chapter in a book then dies and basically forms the whole premise for the story because of vengeance. We barely even knew the character and now you expect us to just go along with it because, at some point, we may begin to like the main character? No, I refuse.

I kinda hate talk-driven climaxes. This mainly happens in books where a lot of mystery has been created throughout without enough actually being discovered along the way so it ends up being that the 'climax' is just four chapters of exposition. Yes, I'm looking at you Prisoner of Azkhaban! No wonder I never picked up the forth book.

Also, I've been becoming sick of the build up for zombie movies. I understand that the whole 'discovering how to kill zombie' thing is done for pacing but there's only so much zombie-lovers can take. That's why I quite liked Red Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare because it mostly skipped all of that shit.

Also "We know the enemy is here, let's split up and look for him..."

-_-

this is NEVER a good idea and you know exactly how it's going to turn out after that.

Also, having recently finished the Game of Thrones series of book (no spoilers, don't worry) I found out that I'd rather be kept in the dark as to what a character is doing than have them walk in as a filler. (Okay, this is a spoiler. Stop reading now, it's my last point anyway) Kind of like when Varys makes his entrance right at the end and immediately has a huge impact, completing his one important event of the last two books written so far. If I'd have had some kind of filler leading up to that then it wouldn't have been that surprising or interesting.

 

[Nickolai77]

I think this gem from the early days of the internet is relevant here: http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html


Nuclear Bombs:
Basically, narratives were terrorists and rogue organisations steal a nuclear bombs and try to blow up some city or other. It was probably original and compelling in Cold War, but now it's just well overdone.

Do you speak English?:
Not really a narrative device but certainly a trope that annoys me. When the hero, in some far flung exotic location, encounters some friendly local ally who apparently only speaks "a little English" yet throughout the entire film is able to successfully and clearly communicate with the hero without any problems even under high pressure, life threatening situations.

Aliens/Monsters invading America:
The premier country of choice for any malevolent alien or monster species seeking to invade on Earth always seems to be America, and on American soil it is always the same three cities: LA, New York or perhaps Washington, DC. Now the reason why they all do this is obvious: Because the writer's American and probably lives in one of those cities! It does get a bit tiring though watching these three particular cities getting destroyed again, again and again. It must be kind of depressing if you're an urban town planner in those cities.

 

[senordesol]

When the protag can cut through a hundred bad guys without breaking a sweat. This is bad for two reasons:

One: It really doesn't raise any narrative stakes if the opposing force is completely ineffective. It doesn't really make the protag look like a 'badass', it just makes the bad guys seem incompetent.

Two: If the protag is able to slaughter all of their comrades like a scythe through wheat, WHY ON EARTH DON'T THE MINIONS RUN AWAY!?!?! If the other 999 men couldn't finish the job, why the hell do you think that *you're* the thousandth who can?

You don't have to be emotionally dead to be a gritty, dark hero/anti-hero. This was mentioned before, but it bears repeating: sociopathy is not interesting character development...in fact it just makes them look like a dumb brute.

 

[Tahaneira]

The villain giving a "you're the same as me" speech to the hero

Okay, now like most of these other examples, this one can be done well. I just don't see it done well that often. If the protagonist is genuinely ruthless, manipulating and killing random people left and right, or if the villain is going out of their way to help people, then sure, I can get that. Or some other similar circumstance. But usually, the justification boils down to, "You kill people! Therefore you are just as evil as me and should give up fighting MUAHAHAHAHA!" Conveniently forgetting that the people the villain is killing are nuns and babies, whereas the ones the hero is killing are the brainwashed mooks who are trying to burn down an orphanage. AND THE HERO USUALLY AGREES and/or angsts about it until someone else comes along and points out why the villain's argument is patently absurd. Unless the agree with the villain too.

(That's another thing that gets on my nerve, when heroes will, for some reason, instantly take what the villain tells them at face value even if it means distrusting their closest and most valuable allies, but I digress.)

The first example that comes to mind is from a manga I read a while back called Busou Renkin. Now, it may have been sloppy translation, but this moment was almost enough to make me put down the manga then and there. The hero and the first villain are facing off and the villain, naturally starts talking. See, the protagonist and the villain were both dying before this point in the story: the villain from a genetic disorder, the protagonist from having his heart ripped out by one of the villain's monsters. Both of them used fantastic attempts to stay alive; the hero had his heart replaced with a magic artifact that could turn into a weapon (and potentially turn him into a monster that could wipe out Earth, but no one knew that at the time), and the villain made monsters that kill and eat people (not necessarily in that order) to turn himself into a monster that kills and eats people. Clearly not the same moral scale, right?

Well, the villain then goes on to lecture the protagonist that simply because he tried not to die and accepted a way to stay alive, he was exactly the same as the villain, and in trying to kill the villain for also attempting to stay alive (and being a monster that eats people, but that's never brought up), the hero is a hypocrite. AND THE HERO AGREES. And angsts about (not very successfully) killing the villain afterwards.

I just... gah.

 

[Neonsilver]

I hate it when, constantly, a new villain is revealed and we are expected to just accept a bull excuse as to why they are important or here. Recently, I ran into this while reading naruto. No, I don't do so because I think the manga is of any quality, but because I just want to see the thing end. Anyways, at the start of shippuden, The villains were akatsuki, then pain became the main focus, then Tobi aka obito comes out of nowhere and is revealed as the leader, then madara is revealed as the mastermind, and now, the mother of the sage of the six paths is revealed as the true mastermind. That just irks me severely.

Have to agree with that, it's especially annoying since the mother was never really introduced as a character (the short introduction by the sage doesn't count), even madara isn't much of a character. Obito or Sasuke (who I expected) as the final boss would have been perfect.

Now back to the topic:
Power inflation: The constant increase in power of the abilities of the characters. Naruto, Dragonball Z, One Piece are guilty of that. I understand that the opponents have to get stronger to keep the fights interesting, but in a long running series like Dragonball Z it becomes ridiculous.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Fate. I cannot stand the concept of Fate in fiction. Instead of a character's predicaments being caused by his own shortcomings or choices, it's always something out of his hands. The narrator makes the character his cosmic plaything, just because.

 

[Queen Michael]

"Changing the future."

There are several reasons for my hatred of this trope:

1. It assumes that there is one specific point in time that's "the present." This point will invariably be the timme where the protagonist lives.

2. It's based on the idea that making a certain outcome slightly morelikely ensures that it'll happen. For instance, make somebody miss the cruise where she met her husband and you've made sure that they'll never get married and have kids. like, you'll go to the future and be all "Oh no! Now they never got together!" Except that shouldn't work out logically, because they could still meet some other way.

3. When people are removed from history because their grandpa got killed or something, they'll start fading away. This makes zero soense. Either you're gone or you're not.

 

[Vegosiux]

"Changing the future."

There are several reasons for my hatred of this trope:

1. It assumes that there is one specific point in time that's "the present." This point will invariably be the timme where the protagonist lives.

2. It's based on the idea that making a certain outcome slightly morelikely ensures that it'll happen. For instance, make somebody miss the cruise where she met her husband and you've made sure that they'll never get married and have kids. like, you'll go to the future and be all "Oh no! Now they never got together!" Except that shouldn't work out logically, because they could still meet some other way.

3. When people are removed from history because their grandpa got killed or something, they'll start fading away. This makes zero soense. Either you're gone or you're not.

4. When the villain is going to unleash its doom plan in a week, and the heroes go 7 years in the past to swipe an artifact the villain needs for that doom plan, and they have...a week to avert the disaster. A disaster that's not scheduled for a week plus 7 years from where they were dropped off.

or, of course,

5. Oh but it's exactly what you did in the past to change the future that brought about the future you wanted to change!

6. To say nothing of grammar trouble with time travel involved. "I will have had lunch by yesterday 3 PM."

 

[Keiichi Morisato]

i absolutely hate open endings, especially when there is no follow up. if i am supposed to get invested in a book or series, then i want closure for my investment. this is the same for book/films with open endings to be poetic like the ending to Inception, i actually ended up breaking the disc.

 

[Mikeyfell]

something that's established and then never touched again.
like a power or ability that a character has for 1 scene but then never uses again.

also I hate it when characters are stupid...I don't really know if that's really a narrative device but I still hate it.


Also why not get the obvious one out of the way Deus Ex Machina
I guess that's kind of the same as something only being relevant once but whatever

and "THE ENTIRE WORLD IS IN DANGER and YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN SAVE IT!"

I hate that shit.

I feel like any other trope can be done well. But Deus Ex and chosen one fate of the world nonsense are just incapable of being used in any entertaining capscity

 

[EyeReaper]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Time Skips are the worst trope ever. Literally the worst. I know I've made a post like this in other threads like these in the past, So I'll keep it brief. A time skip is a complete cop-out of character development. It is the author saying "We could show you our characters are growing, but we won't, but take our word that they're awesome now. for reals"

 

[DementedSheep]

Prophecies. Not a big fan of only this specific person can actually do anything in the first place (the hero doesn't need to be the only one in existence who could possibly have done anything) and often it seem kinda lazy to me. A justification for why this person has so many unlikely things happen to them and people follow them despite being a nobody.

If you kill him you will be the same as him!
Like this a binary. You either don't kill anyone or kill anyone who so much as looks at you funny.

Shades of grey...by having everyone be unlikable tawts who screw others over for very little reason.

This entire situation could have been averted if the person who knew what was going on actually said so instead of dropping hints about it! It works ok on occasion. Usually when the character is a neutral supernatural entity who only doing it to stir the pot (like a god or fae) but not when you have one of the 'good' guys doing it.

Protagonist who get steadily more powerful to the point of ridiculousness. It seem like with anything long running there is a need to make each villain more powerful than the last and the hero needs to get upgraded to match. You don't need to be constantly raising the stakes and winning against a threat bigger than previous threats doesn't mean you can't use anything weaker again unless you gave the hero ridiculousness powers to defeat the big threat.

The bastion of pure pureness whom everyone including animals loves with the exception of villains. If there an evil corrupting force they will be immune to it. Argh...No one over the age of 14 should be writing this sort of thing.


Drawn out love triangles. I'm not going to go on about this again. I'll just say that they suck and leave it at that

DID in disguise. Tough girl attitude (which usually means being a joy killing ***** and talking shit) and supposed ability to justify her being there in the first place but actually dose nothing useful and is a just a convenient DID and love interest. Bonus points if she joined the military because daddy wanted a boy.