I know this is probably a common topic. For me, I’m not sure if it’s a “trope” or just totally misinformed writing, but it’s how many authors approach alcoholism. Some examples are Girl on the Train and The House Across the Lake, among HUNDREDS. If anyone else here has struggled with alcoholism, you know it’s not just "i woke up after downing an entire bottle of whiskey but was able to shower, down a cup of coffee, and solve a murder. "
I find enemy to lovers absolutely ruins a book 9/10 and the 1/10 it’s because I didn’t realise they hated each other in the first place.
I can’t read straight enemies to lovers because the main male love interest is always unforgivably asshole-ish
I have a friend, she LOVES this trope, IDK why.
Because people enjoy the journey from hating each other to having a happily ever after. There’s a lot of drama, it’s fun to see how it eventually all gets worked out.
Enemies to lovers is never actually enemies to lovers and it’s so annoying. It’s always just “they said a mean thing a few years ago and the protag hasn’t forgiven them for it.” That’s hardly enemies. Also, Romeo and Juliet is not an enemies to lovers story, yet so many enemies to lovers books are retellings of it. The whole point of their story is that they were the only ones who weren’t enemies!!
Lol right, contemporary “enemies” to lovers is almost always like, guys who looked at her funny in the elevator once
There’s always something stupid, like a misunderstanding from when MC and the LI were seven years old.
“Oh he threw an apple at me in school and I’ve hated him ever since. I can’t stand his stupid face!”
As a sci fi reader, the self proclaimed “totally objective, emotionless, logic based” AI character that turns out to not be objective and has its own motivations. You see it coming from a mile away every time because a truly emotionless character would be boring as fuck.
Baymax I my favorite subversion of the trope. OSP had a great video that goes over this
You see it coming from a mile away every time because a truly emotionless character would be boring as fuck.
I would disagree with that sentiment. A truly “totally objective, emotionless, logic based” character can work, but the author needs to understand how AI, analysis and algorithms work and the limitations and quirks of such AIs. I am no AI scientist, but in my field of study, Economics, we do a lot of empirical analysis, which could be supplemented with AI. In Empirical Economics a lot of policies are analysed, and we are able to achieve objective results of those policies, but the evaluation of said results cannot be done by purely objective means.
As an illustrating hypothetical, there is a policy that affects two groups of people, A and B. The policy subtracts income from the A group and gives it to the B group through a transfer. Should you implement the policy? In most cases, unless you have a situation in which the policy makes both groups worse off, you cannot objectively evaluate the policy, because you need to assign welfare weights to these groups.
Further AIs and algorithms can be objective, emotionless and logic-based but still be wrong or biased, because data can be biased, incomplete or incorrect. It’s why collecting good data is so important for science. Further, why in Economics there is always the question of intuition. Certain result are more plausible than others and those results that run counter to intuition need to be double-checked.
All of this could be explored in such an AI character.
Haha you’re giving me flashbacks to micro. I studied Econ as well. That is a good point and an AI that operates by logic in spite of its emotions could be a compelling story, but in my reading (Hyperion, Blindsight, Ancillary Justice) it’s used more of a plot twist than explored as a theme.
I am not even talking about an AI with emotions that acts against them. I am talking about an AI has no emotions, but acts on pure logic, and the goals and axioms given to it by its creators. You can explore all sorts of questions with such an AI.
As for your examples, I know the sapient AI trope is used very often. I was much more “annoyed” at you stating that an emotionless AI character would always be boring.
Hey, you leave Murderbot out of this!
But the most logical thing is to murder EVERYONE! It is the most logical beep boop beep boop
Murderbot hardly self identifies as objective and emotionless though.
Those types of characters actually work great as villains, so long as the writer commits. T-1000 from Terminator 2, The Judge from Blood Meridian, Baron Harkonnen from Dune…
The real trope is when they suddenly develop empathy at their defeat. That’s what devalues the entire character imo.
The bad boy with a heart of gold as a love interest. Jesus Christ I hate it. Hated it when I still read mainly YA and even more so when I’m dealing with supposedly mature characters. And I’m not talking reserved, cold, sarcastic. I mean the one’s that are just unnecessarily rude and demeaning. It’s a turn off. I don’t care if it’s supposed to be “his way of protecting his vulnerable side”. Well find another way, or better a therapist instead of a relationship.
I dislike it, too. It encourages young women to orbit around men like this, waiting for them to be nicer, but usually it doesn’t happen.
Yes, absolutely. Any kind of “enemies to lovers” trope ruins a book for me.
For a second, I read that as the love interest with the heart of gold was Jesus Christ.
Raised by a single mum, has major daddy issues, but is willing to literally die for you
Oh Jesus! I don’t know what it is about you, but you resurrected my heart!
I just finished a book where the “heart throb” guy was an absolute asshole. And she couldn’t help but fall for him because it was all just a cover because he was just protecting her from himself. Like he was straight up rude and demeaning and threatened to kill her and she’d be like, “but his smouldering eyes said something else”… girl, no.
A certain thing we desperately need to help our quest only happens every 100 years.
Luckily for us it’s happening tomorrow night
I haven’t read this book, but from what I’ve heard about it, it’s sounds similar to the premise of Lightlark lol
I know a lot of stories are based on heroes foiling some evil ritual or plan, so their learning about said event helps add some tension as they realise the villain is about to win.
National Treasure plot.
Rich person bad. Poor person “righteous”
I hate this shit in real life too. I’m very far from rich but it bugs me to see rich people so constantly vilified for being successful.
Ender’s game and it’s sequels: every character is supposed to be a genius and the next character is even bigger genius. Gets nonsensical really fast.
Having one or both parents death, even if both are alive is very common that one or both end up dead because the author doesn’t know how to create another conflict
I just finished the Paris Apartment…and even though i raced through it…the ending left me feeling blah…not going to touch another book of this genre.
Any sort of “chosen one” prophecy. It reeks of classism (being better by virtue of birth).
Liar revealed
The superficial trope of the big happy family where whatever happens, the parents’ love for each other is never even challenged by mistakes, misunderstandings, third parties, boredom, financial issues, etc. They still adore each other after decades, so much so that they are making out in front of the kids, or they are hiding from them for this purpose, hahaha, so very naughty. OR, if there is any challenge, it’s solved ridicoulosly easily within one week between them.
The orphan, or about to be orphan that’s the chosen one.
The male character saves the female character from an attempted rape, and she falls in love with him instantly, without any trauma whatsoever.
I really hate the oppressed-under-class-lives-in-horrible-oppressive-conditions-that-actually-turn-out-to-be-perfect-training-conditions-for-overthrowing-the-oppressors trope.
Frank Herbert did it best in Dune. Since then it’s been done so many times and seems to have taken over a significant proportion of YA and fantasy in general. At this point it just feels like lazy writing.
There’s a funeral of someone close to a main character at some point in the book, but the grief is never mentioned again.