Like for example in the recent Godzilla film, wouldn't it have made more sense for the monster to gone straight to the Japanese mainland in search of nuclear radiation rather than swim all the way across the pacific ocean to specifically target America when there are bountiful supplies of radioactive nuclear power stations in Japan already?
They'd moved the mate of the monster which awoke in Japan to the US thinking it was dead. It was not, so the one in Japan went to find it. Which also happened to be easier for it to do since it was actually capable of flying. It's also why the one in the US leaves the plentiful stockpile of radioactive material it woke up next to and went to meet it. It was time to make some babies.
Tired of heroes and the protagonist being "good". I want to see some cunning, ruthless and smart villains as the main protagonist and WIN. There are a few of those lately like game of thrones and to a certain extend, maleficient. Some I'm quite happy where the trend is heading.
The end result of every person's "personal journey" being to bang the local hot guy/girl. In my opinion (which is dumb and stupid) it shows the current 'society's' fixation with sexual relations which is just too much, making a huge thing out of basically a natural and either very frequent or very infrequent experience.
It's just immature and really, romantic subplots are almost never a good addition to a piece of fiction.
Most other ones have been said, but I want to echo how prophecies, 'fate' and contrived happenings that only serve to advance the plot. If something happens, give me reasons as to why it's happening!
Also villains.
Just.
Vilains.
I get that bad boys are the new sexy, but having Moriarty and Loki being basically the same person has springboarded a lot of "suave yet dangerous", all of whom have lineages going back to Heathcliff. Seriously, Wuthering Heights was basically a teenage love story in it's complexity and we still haven't advanced at al since then.
Mockingbird series and that shitty Divergent book kinda hammer this home.
Teenage fiction hasn't advanced at all since the 19th century.
[i/]once upon a time there was a rebpublic that was really cool untill EVERYONE WENT ON THE DOLE FOR SOME REASON then they weren't cool anymore[/i] <-Flag in exile
[sub/]I know that "show don't tell" is a hard thing to grasp but still, getting tired of your shit David Weber[/sub]
I'm reading those at the moment. I actually like the information disconnect between characters, he's good at keeping track of what a character should know. There's a bit in a previous book where a Peep taskforce drops out of hyperspace atop a Mantie SD and gets pwnt, the Manties think nothing of it but a significant portion of the rest of the books is heavily affected by the fact that the Peeps didn't seem to consider that it could just have been a coincidence. I think he has to tell quite a lot because so many characters and groups have different opinions of what really happened.
Politically the PRH is stupid but it's the kind of stupid I can see someone trying and for a few decades it'd work OK.
The thing I hated was actually in the first book, I was chatting with my girlfriend about the book and she'd just met Young. I turned to her and just asked 'he raped her didn't he?' because rape is easy and God forbid a villain might have a reasonable foundation for their actions.
As it happened I wasn't 100% right but was on the right track.
Why is it always rape? Why couldn't he have been her enemy because she just thought he was an arrogant shit or because he was a petty shit and she broke his record or something?
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.
I agree wholeheartedly with this one. The vast majority of the time it's;
Villain: You're just the same as me!
Me: No he isn't.
Hero: *existential crisis*
I can see why it is an interesting plot device but far too many stories try to use it and it very rarely applies. I can't actually think of one at the moment that worked well but I'm sick of seeing it.
I can see why it is an interesting plot device but far too many stories try to use it and it very rarely applies. I can't actually think of one at the moment that worked well but I'm sick of seeing it.
I liked the version of this used in Dalek, that new series Doctor Who episode. The villain calls the hero the same as them, the hero violently refutes it and uses the difference as an excuse to sink to their level and by the end of the episode other people are pointing the similarity out.
The female character sees something that could be interpreted as an accident under most circumstances or kinky under some circumstances, so of course she will take it the wrong way and storm out/kick his ass without giving the male character the chance to say one word: Many animes use this trope, to the point some base their entire run on this "running joke" as the only way to create drama, even in situations when it makes no sense. That doesn't work as comedy; it only helps to make the female character look like a douche and the male character look like a wimp.
The bad guys are hyper-competent, except when dealing with the heroes: Recently I saw White House Down. In it, a group of terrorists take the white house with precognitive levels of competency. They kill everyone, everywhere, and the entire defense grid falls with no terrorist ever being shot. Not only the secret service and security guards never kill a single terrorist, they don't even get to fire a single bullet. It is one thing to consider a terrorist group being able to take the most secure house in the world, it is another to believe they can do it without a single bullet being shot on the other side. Of course, they later encounter the president and a security guard with a family to protect and they are demoted to regular grunts. Related to the good guys are hyper-competent, with examples of heroes fighting with martial arts against armies of people and never even being touched. Sorry, but no matter if he is the best martial artist in the world, the idea that he can fight dozens of people at the same time and no one is even able to grab his shoulder is ridiculous.
When a character is granted amazing, story-breaking powers but lacks the imagination to use those powers for a swift and easy solution to the conflict.
When your character faints/is rendered unconscious in a cutscene after doing something that would have easily been survivable through normal play. Named so as an inside joke with my friends due to CoD: World at War, where all the levels seem to progress as Get Rescued -> War Crime -> Nap Time
It's an incredibly lame way of taking away all your guns and/or forcing a time skip
I'm tired of seeing that one character that basically says "You can't trust anyone but me" ending up being the one character the hero trusts but shouldn't have because, surprise, they were behind everything all along.
Works of fiction messing with their own history. For example, in Supernatural, when it was revealed (season 4 or so I guess) that their mother was the hunter first, and their father only got into it after she died. We need a frame that the story is being told in, it is what gives meaning to everything we see. I think that this is the result of the writers being unable to come up with something new, so they go for a kind of sensationalism.
Also, and this is a bit philosophical I guess, I dislike prequels in general. They don't necessarily mess with the works history, but they pretend to know which causes are being followed by what effects, in a way that just doesn't sit right with me. Pick any story and any beginning to it that you want, and from there proceed in a manner you see fit, but when you go full circle and pretend to know which in-universe causes it were that led to your starting point, I think you are pretending to know the world and how it works in a way you should not.
The female character sees something that could be interpreted as an accident under most circumstances or kinky under some circumstances, so of course she will take it the wrong way and storm out/kick his ass without giving the male character the chance to say one word: Many animes use this trope, to the point some base their entire run on this "running joke" as the only way to create drama, even in situations when it makes no sense. That doesn't work as comedy; it only helps to make the female character look like a douche and the male character look like a wimp.
Ah, yes. Some people have mentioned "THE MISUNDERSTANDING" before but this is by far my least-favorite variant,because it's so common and so contrived.
It points to the larger problem of popular fictional romance being completely broken relative to actual human relationships, to the point of being absolutely preposterous. Characters in relationships either have insane blind trust or insane paranoia. Sometimes characters switch between these two modes, but it often happens in one episode or one scene with some sort of bullshit epiphany (I should really make a post just for epiphanies, but I'm not up for that rant right now). There's so little genuine trust and communication.
In general I'm frustrated with treating romantic love (and sex, similarly) like some kind of mysterious magical connection completely separate from normal human interaction. Yeah, plenty of people can and do get really weird and/or stupid in romantic situations, fair enough, it's confusing and not always ideal for forming a complete line of reasoning. But unless you've already established that a character is nuts, having them fly completely off the handle gets pretty nonsensical.
I do really like romance. Done well it's a fertile ground for drama. It's got all of the usual challenges of human interaction (trust, acceptance, communication, etc.) complicated by involuntary base physical desires. Those are some powerful tools to work with, so it's always depressing to see writers falling back on lame cliches. Especially the ones reinforcing all the outdated views about gender and sexuality that continue to make all our lives needlessly complicated and stressful.
The female character sees something that could be interpreted as an accident under most circumstances or kinky under some circumstances, so of course she will take it the wrong way and storm out/kick his ass without giving the male character the chance to say one word: Many animes use this trope, to the point some base their entire run on this "running joke" as the only way to create drama, even in situations when it makes no sense. That doesn't work as comedy; it only helps to make the female character look like a douche and the male character look like a wimp.
1) Romance for no other reason than to say "we haz a romance in this game!"
Seriously, if it add nothing tangible to the story, don't add it! Seeing awkward, or stupidly done romance shoehorned into so many movies games and books just gets annoying after a while!
2) Villains in "serious/Mature" stories with no other motivation than "for teh evuls/For teh lulz".
I mean, it works for Kirby, Sonic, and games that aren't super serious. That's fine.
But when I'm intaking "mature" media and the villain is sounding like some stupid Joker knock off, I'm going to roll my eyes and stop taking him seriously. At least The Dark Knight made it pretty clear the Joker had some serious psychological compulsion to cause as much mayhem as possible with no ability or will to restrain himself.
But really, we don't need more villains like this. They're shallow and boring. REAL villains are people. People have some kind of motivation, some kind of overall goal and morality and story beyond just "I'm doing it because I'm evil".
3) "We need to raise the stakes...Quick! Kill off a beloved character in a contrived manner with no foreshadowing or reasonable explanation!" (bonus points of hate if they just revive them later at marginal cost)
I think everyone know what game I'm talking about when I say "Dude, look behind you! Also, why the hell did your shield unit not block that?!". That one part of that game made me roll my eyes and go "really? REALLY? Was that freakin' necessary? You just made that character look stupid as hell and I have no respect for him now that he died that way". Seriously, that took a moment that was actually serious already and then made it totally ridiculous.
If they competently foreshadow the character's fate and you can go "Oh God I should have seen this coming" or their death makes sense, it's ok. (IE "Oh...Since she no longer feels isolated and afraid, she got cocky, got taken by surprise, and then showed us just how DANGEROUS the situation is") (Cookie to you if you know who I am talking about here).
I just hate pointless character deaths when they do nothing but try to ratchet up the "Stakes", especially if they make a character suddenly look totally incompetent, and ESPECIALLY if they can just bring the character back later.
At least the SNES game that basically codified this made a point to use a character's death to show "hey, the villain you've been trying to fight this entire time? You are STILL so not ready for it". So it had SOME point beyond "OMG CHARACTER DEATH SRS BUSINESS TIME!"
4) Prophecies that go off EXACTLY as planned, with no twist at all.
Thanks for spoiling the plot for me, plot!
At least if the prophesy turns out to be a sham, or the prophecy is totally misunderstood, or is breakable, it can still be interesting.
Hell, characters struggling with fate and trying to overcome it, or at least embrace it on their own terms makes for a way better story than "I am the hero because the rhyming scroll said it was so, so I will save the world and I did".
5) Angsty or Angry-at-everything characters who have no good reason to be.
If a character hates everything or just angsts all day about their life, I want a damn good reason for that. I want to eventually find out what's making them like that and then be able to go "Oh damn...Yeah, ok, I can see why they turned out like that".
Also, if you're going to make their main defining trait be "I hate everything", at least make them entertaining. It's not that hard. I'm making a not-so-serious story for a game right now, and my "I hate everything character" not only has a legit reason for being the way she is, but I'm trying to make her rants amusing to listen to.
Tahaneira said:
The villain giving a "you're the same as me" speech to the hero
This, only because I hate seeing heroes go "nooooo he's riiiiiight!!!! ;_;"
At least Advance Wars Days of Ruin
had the balls to have the practical member of the hero's faction go "huh, you're right" and SHOOT THE FUCKER ANYWAY
You know, I really want to see a game or movie or book where the villain pulls this on the hero, the hero blinks, rolls his eyes and goes "yeah, I think we both know that's bullshit *BANG*"
Oh, and it would be VERY nice to see a few villains who have actually read (or at least SKIMMED) the evil overlord's list. I see so many stupid mistakes in so many villains...it would be nice to see one or two who are actually prepared for trouble!
When the hero refuses to kill the villain because ?if I kill you, then I?d be just as bad as you?. No, sorry, that?s bullshit. If you kill someone who murders others in cold blood for little to no justifiable reason, you?ll never be ?just as bad as them?. It means you saved multiple would-be victims of this villain. I recently finished watching the Trigun anime, and it just pissed me off how much Vash would show mercy to his enemies, only for them to just destroy an entire town full of innocent civilians because Vash didn?t want to go against the flawed ideals of his idealistic dead mother figure.
Tsundere. I hate those types of characters so much. Probably one of the most famous examples is Akane from Ranma ½, who is borderline abusive to Ranma, often due to the two?s astonishing lack of communication, despite apparently being in love with each other. Akane beating the shit out of Ranma for some flimsy reason happened so often that it wasn't even funny anymore (if it was ever funny in the first place). It was just annoying.
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.
Why would you expect them to, when most people know the film versions of these characters and franchises more than the comic books, which haven't been relevant to pop culture in, like, ten years? Not to mention, comic continuity is FUCKED.
No, Apocalypse isn't a "nobody" (not that the OP said; he just didn't know who he was), but most people still only know of Magneto as X-Men's main antagonist.
You know a year ago I might have said having a character talk directly to the audience was something that really irritated me but both "House of Cards" and "The Wolf of Wall Street" did it so well that I think I may have been cured of this irritation.
Overly flamboyant villians with little or no motivation beyond personal amusement or just toying with the hero.
So essentially The Joker.
I don't actually hate this, just getting sick of seeing it everywhere. Audiences seem to love these kinds of villians, I suppose because they're "unpredictable" and you just never know what they're going to do next... Personally though I'm finding it increasingly tiresome seeing villians whose only distinguishing characteristic is their obsession with the hero and who every action is determined by that. Isn't it sometimes better to have a villian who actually has motivations and goals of their own whose conflict with the villian is only brought about by differing viewpoints and not just because they wanted to get their attention?
Moriarty from BBCs Sherlock is another example of this kind of villian.
If that's how Sherlock has portrayed Moriarty then I'm so glad I don't watch the show because that ruins one of my all time favorite villains.
OT: I don't like villains who's reasons for being bad rest solely upon some bad thing that has happened to them, or someone who uses real issues to push his own agenda. The villain from the first season of Legend of Korra is a good example of a villain I dislike. To be fair i stopped watching soon after we meet him, but I really hate that kind of villain. In my mind that's not a real reason to be evil, it's succumbing to weakness. Yes I understand the reasons why this type of villain exists, and I can sympathize with them but I just can't get behind them and almost always drop whatever book/show/game has this kind of villain.
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