Narrative devices you hate

[Johnny Novgorod]

the pyramid guy in Xmen

I died a little inside when I read that. Apocalypse is hardly a "nobody" and the fact that so many people did not recognize who he was when he was shown at the end of the credits blows me away.

I know him from the animted show and some of the Capcom/Marvel fighting games but I didn't see the resemblance I was familiar with and I never really related the guy to pyramids.

 

[beastro]

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.

Pffff, those are simply the "time waves" catching up to the present, silly!

A Sound of Thunder is such an amusingly bad movie for being so audaciously stupid....

 

[lunavixen]

snip

You read the Honor Harrington books too?!

Anyway, I hate irrelevant love interests, the dead family trope done merely for attempts at poingnancy, a story that is inconsistant in both tone and telling (I'm looking at you Beyond: Two Souls), characters that (by the end of their story) are so overpowered that the story ends up becoming a joke, using amnesia as a plot device without a substantial reason why the character has it and the list goes on and on.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

When they have a climactic battle and they triumph in the pinnacle of character development and then afterwards, because they couldn't possibly ruin the moment or fit it in during the conflict where it belongs, just any fucking nobody enemy materialises, fatally wounds a main character and is dispatched immediately to allow the heroes their emotional scene. DULL.

Also when a formerly naive and harmless, possibly annoying character's arc consists of them giving a huge sacrifice which you are informed is a monumental undertaking but which seems to have little effect on the actual character, but validates their purpose for being there and the team realises they're not just a dead weight and they still can't DO anything but they did this apparently horrific thing. Now, when it happens that the character is actually forced to kill someone or undergo torture or something like that, fair enough. But sometimes it's some vague procedure like reliving a memory or interfacing with some force that you're only told is horrific or painful.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

"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.

About 2, if two people who were brought together by something and aren't likely to have met otherwise, I think it is actually reasonable to assume they won't meet, and the future has no reason to cause them to meet another way unless fate is involved. So all things running their courses that I think would have the desired effect, although we rarely see a good exploration of the results of them not meeting. But on 3, the other element to that is people should be constantly changing races and preferences and clothes in a future setting from the ripple effects from the protagonist if they do anything remotely significant.

 

[Richard Dubbeld]

This does not really apply to video games as much as in TV, but when all but one of the characters undergo some sort of transformation, either they think they are evil, or a younger version of themselves and once the curse or whatever is lifted, they do not remember a thing!

Pisses me the hell off, mostly because great potential for character development is lost once amnesia is introduced.

Watching Buffy again has highlighted this, as, despite the flaws of the show, at least Whedon made his characters remember all the bad/embarrassing things they did in the episode.

 

[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.

About 2, if two people who were brought together by something and aren't likely to have met otherwise, I think it is actually reasonable to assume they won't meet, and the future has no reason to cause them to meet another way unless fate is involved. So all things running their courses that I think would have the desired effect, although we rarely see a good exploration of the results of them not meeting. But on 3, the other element to that is people should be constantly changing races and preferences and clothes in a future setting from the ripple effects from the protagonist if they do anything remotely significant.

Thanks for the comment on #3; I didn't think of that.

And I guess I should have made my problem with #2 clearer. See, a while ago I read a children's comic book, Bamse, where the main characters went to the future and noticed that there was pollution everywhere like in Captain Planet's worst nightmares. So they went back to the present and made sure that the businessman who were in charge of all the industries responsible for the pollution wasn't allowed to keep on polluting, and once they'd done that they knew that the future wouldn't be super-polluted anymore, since they'd stopped it from happening

There are obvious problems with this:

1. To create a super-polluted future, you need the businessman to start his factories and then to have them remainuntil they've managed to spew out pollution to the max. Since the business man was stopped from doing this, it makes no sense for the protagonists to have seen a future where he wasn't stopped. WHere'd that future come from if he never made it happen in the first place? How could they travel to a bad future that never got a chance to happen in the first place?

2. If you stop a future from coming true by making different decisions, then there should constantly be a gazillion new futures that never come true because we never did make them come true. In 2008, we should have been able to travel to a future where John McCain is the president, which then would have been changed since we never elected him in the first place. And in 2007, we should have been able to travel to a future where Bill Cosby is president, and which then would have disappeared as the elections came and nobody even considered electing him.

 

[FPLOON]

Uh... The Pronoun Game?

I'm honestly having a hard time finding those narrative devices I really don't like... I guess I hate the whole "it was right there the whole time" plot twist from the first two Hangover movies...

Spoiler: Are you fucking kidding me, movie(s)?!

You mean to tell me that if they just, I don't know, kept looking around the same [exact] place they just woke up from [hard enough], they would have found Doug/"That one dude who wasn't Doug" without even more "misunderstanding shenanigans" happening [yet, because they would still be asking why they are the way they are after the hangover anyway]?

I feel SO sorry for Doug right now and I barely even know this character!

Other than that... uh... the "slow burn to something exciting" narrative? The "it didn't happen anyway" narrative? The Pronoun Game??

 

[Frezz]

This is something that's pretty context-sensitive for me, since I'll let a lot of things slide given enough raw enthusiasm (JoJo appeal I guess I'd call it)

Here's the one that's annoyed me most lately:

Crummy Villain Motivations/Plans

unless the character is a deliberate spoof of villain absurdity, I like villains to have a reason behind their actions that is consistent with their personality. It doesn't have to be "logical" per se, (Though the villains that make me feel like they could convince me they're right are often my favorites) but I want to believe that the character has thought through their plan (or has a reason not to have done so) according to their skewed worldview. Essentially, I hate when it seems like a villain's plan wouldn't even make sense to THEM if they thought about it for more than not at all.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

While I don't hate this, I'm slightly annoyed by death scenes where the dying character has just enough life in him to give closure to himself and the main character.

Which is why I find the death scene in Madoka Magica so effective.

Spoiler

Mami just dies. She gets her head bitten off and dies in front of the other characters.

There no teary dying speech or anything. She just dies. It leaves the characters shocked, stunned, and confused at first before it begins to sink in, thus creating additional conflict for the remaining characters and effectively gets across the message of how being a magical girl is not all it cracked up to be, as well as works as a sort of catalyst for the events that's yet to come.

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.

Oh, man, then you're gonna hate Mawaru Penguindrum.

Hell, I hate Mawaru Penguindrum.

I'm kinda with you on that as well, but I'm tolerant of it, just as long as it's not being shoved into my face every 30 seconds (Penguindrum.)

 

[CloudAtlas]

Reason I ask this is, as a writer, I am eager to learn better ways to make deaths more impacting, especially for family members of the protagonist or so.

I'm not sure what you mean here. If you want the reader/player/watcher care about the death of a family member of your protagonist, then you need to make her care about that family member itself first - like the protagonist does herself. In other words, this family member should not just be a storytelling device, but a character in her own right.

In order to achieve that, the reader usually has to spend enough time with this character - and of course this character should be worth caring about too. Depending on the skill of the writer, it doesn't even have to be that much - Up makes you feel more within only 4 minutes or so than many other works manage over the course of many hours.

 

[Eliam_Dar]

Lately two are getting on my nerves:

In games - Amnesia: I get it, you need to somehow make the gamer experience the story from a humble beginning, and then develop as the character develops. But there are other ways, take the Princess Bride route where the main character was a simple farm boy at the beginning. Amnesia is a simplistic excuse, a lazy resource. Just stop using it!!!!

In movies - Femme Fatale: every movie apparently has a woman who fights alongside his male counter part...even those supposedly based based in historic events, in historic periods where women were never in the front line (in most cultures). They have even go as far as taken female characters that are supposed to be guides, or mentors. I am not against the idea, but sometimes is forced (King Arthur comes to mind here) and adds nothing to the plot.

oh one more, though not exactly a plot device:

cultural historical inaccuracies. If you are making a movie about a fictional event, but located in a specific time frame, do your research. I do not need to see a viking using a conquistador's armor, or a roman gladiatorial helmet for that matter (13th Warrior).

 

[gargantual]

Any of the previously mentioned devices. I dont have too much of a problem with in and of themselves, since I've consumed books, games and films that can pull such devices off effectively within context. The only thing that makes me cringe or recoil with twitched eyebrows are.

POOR ATTEMPTS AT MEDIA TRYING TO BE 'COOL'

or trying to globally re-define it.

'Cool' in media is highly contextual, and more of a individualistic or outlier concept rather than ideas that should be overimposed on random consumers. It'd be better if people in media told stories that simply HAD other philosophies, schlock, sex and violence, as part of a larger contextual whole.

instead of trying to impose or SELL other philosophies, schlock, sex and violence for ratings.

Its like a quote i saw in a writers magazine. People can accept unbelievable worlds, powers, devices and the wierdest awkward concepts but not emotional dishonesty.

 

[Riot3000]

the pyramid guy in Xmen

I died a little inside when I read that. Apocalypse is hardly a "nobody" and the fact that so many people did not recognize who he was when he was shown at the end of the credits blows me away.

I know him from the animted show and some of the Capcom/Marvel fighting games but I didn't see the resemblance I was familiar with and I never really related the guy to pyramids.

I flipped out when I saw Apocalypse so I was hyped he was coming he needs no introduction in my book. I think he is associated with pyramids because quick back story he is the first mutant and he happened to be from Egypt so I guess thats where the pyramid motif comes from.

I won't say hate cause that is strong word some things that annoy are

dark and gritty=mature mean saying the world is just all killing and bad things is just as much immature view as it being all sunshine and rainbows

I don't many will know of this one but its the College educated black male or female forgetting where they came from. I most movies that are consider black movies starring african americans this cliche is that the college educated one looks down on his or her blue collar peers till they get their balloon popped. It is really annoying and sometimes they make good points but this is ignored. Basically Tyler Perry you are on really really thin ice.

The concept of the chosen one is kind of played out if lets say some guy or gal gets a band together and runs into others to take down the big baddy that would cool. Also the chosen one thing can probably backfire as in my Skyrim example I made my dragonborn a skooma addicted Argonian who would sooner sell precious dragons bones to feed his addiction over actually trying to save the world.

 

[Entropywarrior]

I dislike when two characters have a misunderstanding that could easily be cleared up with 3 sentences of explanation but one character stands there angry and the other one stands there looking stunned until angry character storms off.

 

[GamerAddict7796]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who rages when a villain kills their own henchmen.

Yeah, I'm sure that after getting a group loyal to you, killing them all will get the applications rolling in. Best villain ever!

Also, when the hero is made to look bad for killing the villain. You've been fine with him mowing down the henchmen who are probably just trying to scratch out a living but when it gets to the evil overlord trying to nuke the world, why is killing him bad? Put a bullet in his head and go home for cake not try and paint the hero in a bad light for this.

When a hero refuses to kill someone even if it'll save hundreds of lives. Yes BATMAN I'm looking at you! Kill the Joker already!

 

[Luminous_Umbra]

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.

A particular bit of this I hate more than most is "fated love." I especially hate it when they pull "these characters are fated to be in love, but initially hate each other. Oh, through some contrived events, they now love each other." I could maybe understand (except for the fate part) if it actually took some time, but most that I have seen have no patience for it.

 

[CloudAtlas]

In movies - Femme Fatale: every movie apparently has a woman who fights alongside his male counter part...even those supposedly based based in historic events, in historic periods where women were never in the front line (in most cultures). They have even go as far as taken female characters that are supposed to be guides, or mentors. I am not against the idea, but sometimes is forced (King Arthur comes to mind here) and adds nothing to the plot.

From what I recall female warriors weren't exactly uncommon with the Celts. And I have the impression that King Arthur's Guinevere was heavily inspired by one particular female celtic warrior - or rather warrior queen - who definitely existed: Boudicca.

So forgive me if I find this particular complaint a bit questionable.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Time travel and deus ex machina's through time travel. Freaking hate it because everyone just twists and shapes the idea to suit their needs, but it never makes any sense whatsoever.
I can stand time travel or time-related stuff when it's done in a smart way, but the examples are few and far between.

Dragonball style introductions of increasingly more powerful villains, together with an increasing "power level" of the hero. There are a few exceptions to this, notably Dragonball itself, but usually it just pisses me off.

"Monster of the week" style storylines. Those are why 90% of the western animation series suck balls imho.

Withholding info from the audience in thriller series. Especially when "the detective" is constantly belittling the audience because everything should be obvious, but at the same time important information is held back from the viewers / readers.

 

[Evonisia]

Multiverses come to mind. There are no plot holes in this piece of fiction! Something in a different universe explains why it makes sense.

Also I don't typically like the "of the week" stories, as changing the status quo suddenly becomes harder to do and it becomes stagnant fast.

Oh and wise figures. Some person will always know everything but either get ignored or they'll be used as what is essentially a deus ex machina.