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

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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

Oh yeah damn, I hadn't even thought about that. ick. : p

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I have vague memories as a teenager reading The Night's Dawn books under the desk at school, getting really embarrassed by the multi-page hardcore sex scenes and the protagonist being, uh, a pretty bad person.

There's just something about Doorstop Sci-fi books that seem to lead their writers into trying their hand at fancy space smut.

It contrasted to Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince series, which I read around the same time, where (IIRC) it's either wholesome romance or very obviously intended as something deeply unhealthy... although there was a lot of that!