askchapo

22771 readers

323 users here now

Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.

Rules:

Posts must ask a question.
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
Try [email protected] if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

What are your most hated sci-fi/fantasy tropes? (hexbear.net)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

189 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have a few:

Chosen ones, fate, destiny, &c. When you get down to it, a story with these themes is one where a single person or handful of people is ontologically, cosmically better and more important than everyone else. It's eerily similar to that right-wing meme about how "most people are just NPCs" (though I disliked the trope before that meme ever took off).
Way too much importance being given to bloodlines by the narrative (note, this is different from them being given importance by characters or societies in the story).
All of the good characters are handsome and beautiful, while all of the evil characters are ugly and disfigured (with the possible exception of a femme fatale or two).
Races that are inherently, unchangeably evil down to the last individual regardless of upbringing, society, or material circumstances.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I can't stand stereotypical "dumb barbarians". "Me want to break things and drink all the ale" yeah great, man. Even Star Wars did this with the big guy in the Bad Batch (I heard it got better later but that debut episode in Clone Wars...ugh).

They can be done well but a lot of times they're written the exact same way with the same carbon copied quips.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is hilarious to me, especially since Conan, the archetypal Barbarian, doesn't behave like that at all.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, the difference between Conan, the extremely smart, well read, polyglot, world traveler archetypal barbarian and the "D&D Barbarians are illiterate by default" thing is pretty weird.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

From what I can gather, Conan (and by extension, the whole Hyborian age) is commentary on the dichotomy between civilization and barbarism. Conan of Cimmeria is called a barbarian for all the reasons folks throughout history referred to others as barbarians (e.g. he believes that peope aren't property, that people of different faiths should interact, e.t.c.)

Also, judging by the kinds of things Conan does, he'd be a rogue in D&D terms