Subject: Same here.
Author:
Posted on: 2018-12-30 18:36:00 UTC
Its also interesting to consider the differences between works in similar genres, like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.
Subject: Same here.
Author:
Posted on: 2018-12-30 18:36:00 UTC
Its also interesting to consider the differences between works in similar genres, like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.
This is my first real post (I'm not counting my introduction post or the Boarders according to Willis thing), so yay! Now that I've been introduced to the PPC I've been noticing tropes in the books I read a lot more than I did before, and thought it might be fun to see what books Boarders have found that contain a lot of tropes.
If you want to add a book full of tropes, please start with the title of the book so others can avoid unwanted spoilers, and list some of the plot and the tropes in the book.
For me, one of the most trope filled series I have read is the Summoner series. It starts out with an orphan being left outside a remote town and adopted by a kind yet stern man, who helps him grow into a good moral boy. This trope often occurs so that we feel empathy for the protagonist but they still have a guiding figure. The boy, named Fletcher, is very hard working and kind. He is fairly poor and is enemies with the son of the richest man in town. This is a huge trope; sometimes it seems that every poor child in a novel has a rich enemy. The rich kid tries to murder him after Fletcher beats him in a tavern brawl with the help of a tramp that the rich kid mocked, but Fletcher discovers he can summon demons in this moment of need. He is forced to flee town and goes to a magic academy where he learns to cast spells and summon more demons. He makes a friend group from other unpopular kids, and they are often picked on by the snotty nobles, because there's no such thing as a nice high-born person. Oh, except the elf Fletcher has a crush on but the nobles hate. So here we have the tropes of the rich and the poor at odds AND a forbidden love type trope. They work hard and catch up to the nobles despite their advantages, and Fletcher manages to win the final magic competition at the end of the year despite the judges cheating and showing favor to the nobles. Another example of the rich vs poor trope, where the hard working poor boy beats the nobles in a "surprise turn of events". He also learns that the demon he owns is very rare and slightly more powerful than average, and one that has only ever been wielded by their enemies. This is another trope, where the protagonist has unusual and slightly dark powers that no one really understands. My summary here is obviously biased towards showing the tropes, but they're apparent at every turn in this novel. (Also, this book has a similar plot and similar tropes to Harry Potter, but I won't go into that)
Another novel with an even more unbearable trope for me is The Ship of the Dead, the last book of the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series. In this book, Magnus has to defeat the god Loki, and challenges him to an insult contest that shrinks the loser down to the size of a powerless bug. But Magnus doesn't win the insult contest through insults, oh no, he does it through telling Loki about how wonderful Magnus's friends are and about the power of friendship, and telling Loki that he is all alone. This is a lovely message, but very, very common. It's also much too in-your-face. Magnus is quite literally saved by "the magic of friendship". Not even by his friends themselves, but by essentially the concept of friendship. If this was through a sacrifice or finding strength in his friends this would be fine, but it's not. It's quite literally a speech/rant that defeats a god.
Well that's all I have, I look forward to learning about other tropes filled books!
As Mikey Neumann recently put it, "if you repeatedly tear stories down to their bones, all stories look like nothing but bones". To me, it doesn't necessarily matter that genre or stylistic tropes are present in a given work. Far more important is what the author or actor or director or whatever is doing with them. Otherwise, you're not engaging with the work. You're just going THIS HAPPENED SOMEWHERE ELSE DING.
I'll admit that I was very sarcastic about the tropes in these two books, partly for humor and partly because they are very predictable tropes. What I was trying to do with this post is get a collection of books with tropes and the tropes in them as a way to get a sense of what tropes are most common in books, and what genres have a lot of tropes in general. I also wanted to see if I recognized any of the books listed as a way to learn more about the books I like. I definitely wasn't trying to create a list of "bad books"; I enjoyed both of the series that I mentioned. I don't think that having a lot of tropes necessarily makes a book bad, but I do think that it can often make a book predictable and less engaging since you can guess what's going happen. I agree with what you say about only looking at the tropes in a book. I don't read through books looking for tropes, I just notice them while looking back on the book.
Just a little, though. While it does help to have a realistic or less-used portrayal of the trope, seeing something you've seen before can make you start predicting what's going to happen next, which in turn detaches you from the story. Unless it's satire, in which case you end up loving it more.
That's why, when my writer friends use common tropes, I warn them to be careful on not just how they handle these things, but, yes, how many they use.
-Twistey
I don't enjoy stories less because of that. I'm a technically minded person, and I enjoy looking at the nuts and bolts of things. I also think there's information to be gained from looking at the similarities and recurring patterns among works, mainly about the cross-cultural propagation of ideas and parallel development in literary styles.
Specifically, between the Summoner and Harry Potter series. Examining tropes can be a valuable tool for the comparison of stories.
Its also interesting to consider the differences between works in similar genres, like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.
(Warning: Both of these games are quite edgy. The latter is even NSFW. Tread carefully.)
Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion is about horror tropes. I mean, just look at its monsters. You have murderous science experiments, a Japanese ghost girl, a demon summoned by a cult, another demon living in a fast food restaurant, and many others. And then there's the DLC where you're in a mental hospital. Much trope.
Yandere Simulator is about high school anime tropes, and even stars one, the infamous yandere archetype. Among the other characters are the other dere types, the Japanese equivalent to a mom friend, the genki girl, a bunch of busty women who are in one way or another linked to sex, and of course, your senpai, who everyone else really wants. Better sharpen those knives.
-Twistey
I remember when that was making the rounds.
For an unknown reason it was introduced to my schools servers. It just got weird after a while seeing kids get caught playing it.
Mostly with new cheat code modes and other Easter eggs, but definitely with a lot of new content, too. YandereDev is pretty intent on fleshing out his tropey world. And I'm impressed by the amount of work he's put into it. But I can still see why the folks at your school didn't like people playing a game about violence at a high school.
-Twistey
The teachers were rather strick, and they had just tried to stamp out the Halo epidemic. Unsurprisingly, they failed.
Since a lot of students had copies, not just on the server.
Cracked versions of course, but those were it.
Combat Evolved, then Halo 2 for Windows Vista. I hear Halo Wars 2 is also for PC.
Not something I'd like to play, but I can appreciate their message.
Here's TV tropes list of media with the most tropes per page. Enjoy:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropeOverdosed
I didn't recognize a lot of them though, or all the terminology at the top...