In last week’s Blog for a Bindlestiff, we raised the topic of fantasy and travel, asking, “What fantastic journeys would you like to take – and which would you avoid at all costs? What would you pack to take along?”
In the course of discussion we came up with a possible new fantasy series of novels in which the messengers are the heroes. Chuck noted:
I’ve always wanted to solve the “kill the messenger” problem with heavily armed messengers who are thoroughly trained in the combative arts (naturally, they’ll also be trained in message delivery … or something).
He went on to describe the plot arc:
Book 1 (perhaps titled “KILL THE MESSENGER”): The messenger delivers a message. Someone tries to kill him. What follows is a pages-long account of flight (not by dragon) and survival as the recipients scour the land and try to kill him. (Or are they trying to silence him? Perhaps shades of conspiracy to reveal themselves later, but our messenger is too young and naive to realize this at the time.) Stumbling around on his last legs, he happens upon a mysterious old man (will there be a “mysterious woman” later?) living alone in the forest. The old man (who maaaaaaaybe is the last of a shadowy, secretive order of messengers) instructs the young messenger in the combative arts. The messenger vows that neither he nor anyone else in his profession will never be pushed around again.
Despite the charm of Randy Henderson’s description of Adult Dragon Deficit Disorder, last week’s prize goes to Chuck – how could it not? As always, Chuck, mail us with your Paypal address so we can send your Fabulous Prize of ten dollars along.
Book 2: The messenger begins teaching other messengers everything he learned, and they slowly become a formidable delivery force, successfully defending themselves in both individual combat and smaller melees after delivering their messages. (Although some of the messengers find themselves coming under mysterious attacks away from their delivery duties — assassination attempts?) The messengers score greater and greater victories … er, I mean deliveries, even as the hostility to the messages themselves grow. (Although, perhaps — as you insinuated — the ultimate meaning and importance derived from the messages may be diminished with the higher survival rate achieved by the messengers. But this isn’t stated outright at the time.)
Book 3: Despite their successes (and survival), the messenger find that greater and greater forces are being mobilized against them. Shadows are moving behind the scenes. The messengers accept strange assignments, commissioned by agents of other shadowy figures, to deliver messages into what places and situations that appear to be obvious traps. But, of course, the messengers have a duty to perform. In other cases, recipients of seemingly harmless message fly into what looks like feigned outrage, and attack the messengers. At some point the head messenger, who we met in the first book, comes home at night to find that a leader from the enemy camp (also shadowy) has sneaked into his home; but rather than start a fight, this shadowy leader begins giving a strange relating to your idea about how sometimes the messenger has to die.
Book 4: Is this where the messenger dies and comes back from the dead? Or will he come back from the dead in Book 5?
So this week, we’ve taken our cue from Marshall Payne’s interview with J. Kathleen Cheney about her story, Early Winter, Near Jenli Village, and her declaration that “I’ve never wanted to be mythical.” What fantasy tropes do you want to avoid, what sends you screaming from the room? Go ahead – tell us your darkest fears. We promise not to capitalize on them (much).
1 • Jeremiah Tolbert said:
April 24th, 2009 at 11:04 am, permalink
I hate elves. Can’t stand them. I can’t stand any of the crutch races that have been developed by other authors and then blithely borrowed by newer writers. Create your own fantasy aliens. We don’t go around using Vulcans in our science fiction, or if we do, we at least file the serial numbers of. Why it’s acceptable to use all those horrid fantasy tropes that turn a fantasy novel into a glorified Dungeons & Dragons module, I have never been able to figure out.
2 • Adam Rakunas said:
April 24th, 2009 at 11:11 am, permalink
Put me down for service in the War Against The Elves, the load of serene bastards.
3 • Ami Chopine said:
April 24th, 2009 at 11:26 am, permalink
Jeremiah: Aren’t Vulcans elves in space?
A pet peeve of mine is the monster/villain who is the top dog of evil, the hardest thing to fight against. They are handily defeated by the hero only to find in the next book that there is yet another villain above that who must be defeated. If I see that pattern in the early books of a long series, I’m gone.
4 • Paul Jessup said:
April 24th, 2009 at 12:23 pm, permalink
Chock me up for some elf hate as well. I even wrote a story about it-
http://www.farragoswainscot.com/2007/applemagick.html
Pet Peeves-
Pointless nonsensical naming schemes that are random gooblydegook that doesn’t actual resemble any actual language combined with normal human names (cough- sword of truth – cough- Richard Cypher and Darken Raul?)
Aimless travels over vast tracts of european lands
Dragons! Not enough or too much.
Nordic/Teutonic mythos
Steampunk. I’m really just sick of it.
Strong female characters who are:
-Strong but get their strength from abuse by men
-Men with boobs
-Subservient to stronger men/villian
Weak male characters who are-
-Effemanite and played for laughs
-Killed fast.
-Have violence within them
Also, the whole S&M master/slave vibe of most male/female relationships in the genre.
5 • Clint said:
April 24th, 2009 at 12:41 pm, permalink
Talking animals. Cheshire cat had his charms, as does Scooby Doo, the Cowardly Lion, Mrs. Brisby, etc. But any time I open up some new fantasy novel which features talking cats, ferrets, or other fuzzy-wuzzies, I want to dropkick the $29.99 tome across my front yard.
If I have offended authors who specialize in talking pets, I apologize, but seriously this has got to stop. Consider this an intervention. We love you. But we won’t tolerate the talking pets bullsh*t any longer. Especially talking ferrets.
Tough love.
6 • Cat Rambo said:
April 24th, 2009 at 12:42 pm, permalink
HEY!
7 • Cat Rambo said:
April 24th, 2009 at 12:42 pm, permalink
Oh, goddammit, I’d changed my name to “Talking Ferret” in the comment above, but it didn’t stick.
8 • Sophy said:
April 24th, 2009 at 12:43 pm, permalink
Jeremy, I agree. I don’t read anything with a Tolkienesque cast. That’s why I invented my own fantasy aliens. Alas, not one of those three stories have been picked up yet, which makes me conclude that they’re too unfamiliar.
9 • Clint said:
April 24th, 2009 at 12:53 pm, permalink
Cat, the effect was enough. I read “Cat” and thought, “oh hell, I offended a talking cat!”
I should clarify. Some stories with talking animals indeed work. Kij Johnson’s “The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change” was great. The talking dog worked. Many stories I’ve seen here with talking animals have worked because a) they are crucial to the fantastic element b) they are well written c) they aren’t usually nauseatingly cute, often they are sinister.
But the stories with the kitty-cat companion, the quizzical intrepid ferret, the wizened owl. Jeez! It’s like a frakkin’ tootsie pop comercial! “Mr. Turtle, how many swings of my vorpal sword will it take to slay the dragon?”
“I dunno, ask Mr. Owl.”
“One, two-hoo! Three!”
Next thing you know, Nathan Lane is a voicing cartoon squirrel and Elton John is pouring his heart into a moving ballad about how hard it is to be an artichoke.
10 • J. Cheney said:
April 24th, 2009 at 12:54 pm, permalink
Humans with wings.
I’m not talking about angels or fairies or anything else that uses magic to fly. I’m talking about humans with wings just slapped onto their shoulders…..especially if we’re exepcted to believe they can fly. The bone structure is all wrong for that.
11 • Michael Gordon said:
April 24th, 2009 at 1:07 pm, permalink
I usually embrace any and every trope (as long as there’s a good explanation for it), but I’ve got to agree with Clint. Animals should not talk. I can believe animals with human-level intelligence in a fantasy setting, but unless you give them a new larynx they should not be able to create anything resembling human speech.
12 • Randy Henderson said:
April 24th, 2009 at 4:37 pm, permalink
Talking elvish were-ferrets with wings.
13 • Michael Gordon said:
April 24th, 2009 at 4:45 pm, permalink
Randy, everyone knows that elves cannot be turned into were-ferrets. Unless it’s just a culturally-elvish were-ferret. (They are the most cosmopolitan of weres.)
Does a type of scene count as a trope? Because I hate the requisite urban fantasy scene where someone first becomes aware of the supernatural and refuses to accept it.
14 • Clint said:
April 24th, 2009 at 4:51 pm, permalink
The scene I’ve grown to hate is the magic user comes to town to find the hero, and at the same time, the baddies are in the area looking for the hero too. the hero is usually a farmer, sometimes of mixed ancestry, usually the issue of some second son of the last good king or something.
The Lord of the Rings
The Hobbit (sans baddie)
The Black Cauldron
The Sword of Shannara
The Eye of the World
and so on and so on and so on.
It was cool like the first 40 times.
Also, the typical Dungeons and Dragons meet-cute in the Tavern.
15 • Daniel Ausema said:
April 24th, 2009 at 5:20 pm, permalink
Or an elvish-talking were ferret with wings? Which would be worse?
My eyes usually glaze over when I see the word “elf.” It must be a magical word somehow, because it turns whatever story it’s in, no matter how good or bad, into adolescent wish-fulfillment. If Melville had begun Moby Dick, “Call me Ishmael, the wood-elf,” it would go from being a novel of deep-diving things (reportedly…not that I ever read the whole thing…) to a story where every boy and girl reading would picture themselves as valiant, magical-harpoon-wielding, sigh-inducing crew members seeking some pale lord of the deep, returned from the ancient past to terrorize everyone. All else would be subservient to that narrative.
Oh, I slipped into what might be even worse than elves–ancient evils returning from the past. Even if it’s not a stereotypical dark lord, you’re starting the football/soccer game one goal down if you have a resurgent evil fixated on humanity’s destruction. I mean, at least make it a Lovecraftian kind of evil that’s a threat not out of malice but simply because humans are insignificant, beside the point.
Scratch that–elves are worse.
Occasionally a writer has slipped an elf by another name past me and managed to create an excellent story, though. Usually then, the elf-like people play the role of tricksters, and there’s never a whiff of wish fulfillment to them.
Kathleen, Steph Swainston’s character Jant has wings growing out of his lower back–I don’t know if that was done because there’s a logical reason it would make more sense or just to be different, but there it is. Is that more acceptable or just as bad?
16 • Randy Henderson said:
April 24th, 2009 at 5:21 pm, permalink
Wise but eccentric old mentor (often with a secret relationship to hero).
Farmboy/girl or castle servant (usually orphan, or orphaned in story) is thrust into great quest, and usually discovers that the folks s/he thought were his/her parents were, in fact … wait for it … NOT!
Fantasy races that are without the full range of emotional, moral, ethnic, linguistic, and other forms of diversity that you see in real humans. This includes the evil races. There are no teenage vegetarian peace-loving artistically inclined Orcs? Really?
Anti-heroes. Sorry, I know this makes me uncomplicated and un-deep and all, but I like my heroes to be likeable (if flawed) people who are actually trying to do the right thing. Snarky and nonconformist? Sure. But not serious kicking and moaning anti-hero. And not frickin depressing.
Untrained hero (or hero with about a month’s worth of training) takes on soldiers and wizards with years of experience and not only holds own but defeats them.
Princesses.
Travelers between worlds or nations that do not have to deal with foreign diseases or languages (or where it is not explained how they are protected from such concerns).
Trilogies.
And I mentioned in a previous Fantasy Friday the Innkeeper cliches.
Yes, at one point or another I’ve written all of the above. And may use variations on them again at some point, because even the oldest and most overused tropes can be made fresh with a twist and good writing.
17 • Randy Henderson said:
April 24th, 2009 at 5:24 pm, permalink
Well, the elvish princess Ferret Fawcette set a whole trend with her bangs and feathered wings.
18 • Clint said:
April 24th, 2009 at 5:43 pm, permalink
Yeah, the princess motif is irritation. I know I come off around here as a Miyazaki geek, but Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind had a princess that truly kicked butt. Her birthright did little for her, other than allow others to think they could control her.
Princesses are usually spoiled critters, beautiful beyond compare, and could have been played by any comely village girl, yet somehow, the Princess is the thing. At that point, she becomes an object. But the stories miss the point. The Princess just dilly-dallies around, capturing the heart of the hero and displaying just enough moxie to get herself throw into the dungeon by the bad guy. Then she’s a nice excuse for a rescue and a final push to beat the bad guy.
At the end, she’s usually got her lands and money to fall back on. So, the hero lands a nice dowry for his efforts. If she dies, he gets to pine away for her. Not that she’ll stay dead for long.
Maybe the Princess works in High Fantasy, because every other young woman of virtue has probably been married off since she was 13 and now has a bad back from working in the fields all day long.
“Find the Jewel of Smegmar? Are you kidding me?! I’ve got nine kids to feed!”
19 • Ide Cyan said:
April 24th, 2009 at 7:25 pm, permalink
I am sick to death of prophetic dreams used as narrative crutches. Characters’ dreams are extremely overused to establish theme, plot points, communicating infodumps to the reader, linking characters together, flashing back to traumatic memories containing key information, astral projection, etc. etc. and all that crap. Sick of it. And I *like* the whole Nightmare on Elm Street series, which is predicated entirely on this concept, but come ON, people, find other ways to move your stories along and stop overloading extraneous significance into sleep-state brain activity. Unless you mean to evoke Freddy Krueger, give dreams a rest.
20 • Randy Henderson said:
April 24th, 2009 at 7:42 pm, permalink
Ide Cyan, I had a dream you were going to say that.
I will go one further and say that even worse than using dreams in novels is singing about dreams in movies, particularly animated ones.
And even worse than that is hearing anyone tell you about their dreams. Because no matter how interesting or weird that dream was when you had it, it does not make for an interesting story in the real world.
No, not even that one.
No, not that one either.
No, I don’t care if Salma Hayek was (barely) dressed as a winged ferret furry princess. I still say not that one.
21 • J. Cheney said:
April 24th, 2009 at 8:35 pm, permalink
Daniel, as long as there’s a decent skeletal and muscle structure to support it, I’m happy. Otherwise, I put the book down ;o)
22 • Katherine Sparrow said:
April 24th, 2009 at 8:52 pm, permalink
Farmer boys destined to greatness because of their lineage.
Come on, people! Generations of people worked and fought and died to get rid of royalty in order for us to all dream about being born as one of the chosen few?
Puke.
23 • Edward Brock said:
April 24th, 2009 at 10:52 pm, permalink
I can stomach just about any standard Fantasy character as long as the storyline is good.
What does annoy me is the stereotype that is associated with these individual races–tall albino elves, dwarves (always male) with heavy beards/axes, old frail white-haired wizards, witches that are either pale & skinny or haggard & old. So rarely are they anything else.
I want to see dwarf women (pale white from living underground).
I want to see elves with dark skin who prefer to use swords/axes/maces instead of magic or bows, and live in the jungle, not the forest.
I want to see wizards with beer-bellies & bald heads who spend so much time studying magic they never exercise (they just eat a lot).
I want to see full-figured, chubby females that can kick the shit out of their male counterparts with sheer brute strength and would rather wrestle you to ground than cast a spell.
And I wouldn’t mind the occasional dragon that doesn’t talk, fly, possess magical abilities or is the last of a dying race. Can’t we just have dragons that simply kill & eat?
24 • Cat C. said:
April 24th, 2009 at 11:26 pm, permalink
Hear, hear for the killing/eating dragon types. Seriously, enough with the small talk. Char, chew, swallow, repeat (preferrably if the character being charred is an elf).
I get sick of poorly written brogues in Celtic fantasies. They’re usually a weird Irish/Scottish hybrid with some random 18th century English phrasing mixed in for good measure, and I find that it tends to detract from the story rather than add to it. It usually feels really forced, at least in a lot of the stories I’ve read. I bought a Celtic fantasy book a few months ago but I couldn’t get past the dialogue…I ended up returning the book after only reading a few pages.
25 • Kathy Hurley said:
April 25th, 2009 at 2:32 am, permalink
No matter what kind of fantasy trope you examine, you’ll find someone who is sick of it or just out-and-out hates it for some reason or other.
What I’m really sick of right now is the whole fur-n-fangs brigade. After all, supposedly vampires are no longer undead monsters of the horror genre; they’re now sexy fantasy heroes. Werewolves aren’t quite as bad with regard to the ick factor, but there sure are a lot of them. It isn’t that the occasional heroic vamp or were can’t make a good story, but lately they’re like yesterday’s news–plastered all over the page everywhere! Poor, misunderstood, ultimately desirable fanged bad boys (or girls)!
They’ve jumped the fence from historic or gothic horror to modern day heroic fantasy and paranormal romance, even bat-winging their way into the epic fantasy genre as well. Next, we’ll be hearing about the obscure farmboy who finds out he is really descended from an ancient virtuous vampire cult and is now the chosen one who can save the world from the invading armies of the evil elves.
When this trend ebbs, you’ll find me in the deserted halls of Rivendell, waiting out the years of my long life, meditating on how all things come full circle eventually.
26 • Rae Bryant said:
April 25th, 2009 at 12:07 pm, permalink
Friendlies. They get me every time. I can’t stomach the sickeningly sweet, life is so pretty if only you’d eat rainbows, characters.
27 • Glenn said:
April 25th, 2009 at 10:16 pm, permalink
I had to weigh in on the whole talking animals issue. I agree. It’s overdone and it hasn’t been done well since Ellison’s A Boy and His Dog. On the other hand, I have to point out that there are talking animals. Whales and dolphins have been talking to us for ages. We’re just not smart enough to figure out what they’re saying. It probably has something to do with the foolish of poisoning the planet.
My personal peeve would be more in the sci-fi genre. I can’t stand robots, cyborgs or androids who develop human emotions. It just rubs me the wrong way. I’d be much happier to see human beings begin to develop and refine human emotions.
Just a thought; and a slightly intoxicated one, at that.
28 • David Steffen said:
April 25th, 2009 at 11:02 pm, permalink
Edward Brock,
He addresses all of your points:
Regarding you list of pet peeves, if you haven’t read any of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series you should try it.
dwarf women coexist with dwarf men, but they all look the same, with heavy beards and everything. Traditionally all the dwarves are addressed as “he”. Even the dwarves are very secretive about their own genders, which makes for potentially embarrassing honeymoons.
fat, balding wizards who don’t do much except eat? That sounds like the faculty of Unseen University.
full-figured women who can beat up their male counterparts? That sounds like Lady Sybil, Sam Vimes’s wife.
Dragons that don’t talk, fly, have magic, or last of dying race? Swamp dragons. They do tend to explode if they get overexcited.
29 • David Steffen said:
April 25th, 2009 at 11:08 pm, permalink
My ultimate biggest pet peeve: enemies who are pure evil. I much prefer a villain who has a backstory and a reason for being the way he is. I don’t have to like the guy, but if he’s not real enough, I won’t believe in him.
Even worse? A conflict that will destroy the whole world if it’s not resolved. This is ESPECIALLY annoying in series of books when this happens repeatedly. It’s like the author couldn’t think of anything in particular that meant something to the character so he said “Aw hell, there’s got to be SOMETHING in the world that means something to him, let’s just put the whole damned thing at risk.” And then it happens again in the next book. And again in the next book. And again. If planet-threatening evils were that common, we would all have been dead a long, long time ago. The original Shannara series is an example. The Sword of Shannara may have been alright, since it was the first. But then it happened again in Elfstones of Shannara and Wishsong of Shannara, and it really grated. Especially when each conflict was resolved just by the skin of the teeth, if one more thing had gone wrong in the quest, everything would be over for everyone everywhere.
30 • Megan Arkenberg said:
April 26th, 2009 at 8:51 pm, permalink
Orbs. Dear God please, no orbs. No big glass orbs that channel magic. No little glass orbs that let evil wizards communicate with yet-more-evil wizards. No little gelatinous orbs controlled by extraocular muscles that glow violet when exposed to the possessor’s love interest (and yes, I am talking about eyeballs–er, eye-orbs).
In fact, can we just outlaw the word orb? How horrible must it be to go through life in fantasy-land, where you are unable to perceive anything faintly spherical without thinking ‘Orb!’? How do they shell peas? How do they eat plums? How do they watch the Harlem Globetrotters—er, Orb-trotters? Where will the madness end?
So long, cruel Orb,
Megan
31 • Rachel said:
April 27th, 2009 at 1:34 pm, permalink
I would like to add how sick I am of the fact that elves and dwarfs seem to be the ONLY non-human races used in fantasy. Why can’t we see some gnomes or brownies or nymphs or naiads? Or for bad guys, how about banshees, chimeras, goblins, or harpies? Authors don’t necessarily have to invent completely new races, but they can and should draw from a wider pool than elves, dwarfs and dragons. Even though I am a well-established lover of dragons, I would like to see other races get thrown into the mix.
Kathy, I completely agree with you on the vampire/werewolf issue. I now refuse to pick up any books with those type of characters b/c I am so tired of them and want the market to move on already.
The other thing I’m really sick of is the sexy female protagonist shown on covers. Really, I’ve seen more than enough of the women in a sexy dress or cropped shirt. Please, can we get something else on covers? I swear I can’t find anything but paranormal romance at the bookstore anymore, and I’m really tired of it.
32 • Rachel said:
April 27th, 2009 at 5:16 pm, permalink
Megan’s comment just came up, which made me think of another one: the all-powerful thingamajig. Please, enough is enough! I don’t care if it is a sword or an orb or a wand or cap or broomstick, put some limits on it! It’s lazy writing to have something that can fix any problems and do everything. Someone died? Use the magic thingamajig to bring them back to life. Need food in the desert? Thingamajig to the rescue! Limits make the item much more interesting.
Also, there needs to be a cost. Whether in energy or time or blood, there has to be a cost to using the magical thingamajig. Everything wonderful has a cost, a catch, and forgetting to put one in makes your item not only less believable, but less interesting.
For example, the sword Need in the Valdemar series. It can only be wielded by a woman and gives her either protection against magic (no offensive stuff) or fighting expertise, whichever one the woman lacked. However, there are catches. It can only be used in defense, and can’t be used against another women. Plus it will make you go help women in need, and if you don’t go help you get a debilitating headache. Doesn’t that sound so much more interesting that a magic sword that just makes you invincible?
33 • David Steffen said:
April 27th, 2009 at 5:20 pm, permalink
Rachel,
Good one on the all-powerful thingamajig. In the movie The Mummy 2, it really pissed me off when Edie (I think that was her name) got raised from the dead with no cost–nobody else died in return, the spellcaster suffered no detriment to health or fortune, she didn’t come back as a flesh-hungry zombie. She just got back up and was fine and dandy and they all went on with their lives as though nothing had happened. How convenient.
34 • Rae Bryant said:
April 27th, 2009 at 6:25 pm, permalink
“In fact, can we just outlaw the word orb?” (Megan)
How about we just change the attribution to erb, and make them elliptical.
35 • Jonathan Rock said:
April 27th, 2009 at 8:22 pm, permalink
Stories that begin with a grim smoking swordsman pouting in the corner of a dim tavern. You know there will be little more than gore and if there is a romantic interest it will be disturbing.
I really dig prophecies as long as they are ambiguous enough to keep me wondering how they will be fulfilled. I ’bout barfed when Stephen King ended the Dark Tower series with Flagg saying: Yup, just lied. Other problem is when the first book has so many prophecies that they lose meaning and become a chore to recall a la Wheel Of Time.
And don’t bag on talking animals. A talking mouse can make a wonderful fiance. I wouldn’t listen to the talking snake though…
36 • Tropefails « Rockblog said:
April 27th, 2009 at 9:07 pm, permalink
[...] | In Uncategorized | No Comments Tags: Slush, Tropes, Fail So over at Fantasy Magazine they have a blog post asking commentors what fantasy tropes they want to [...]
37 • Hel said:
April 28th, 2009 at 12:05 am, permalink
All writers should refrain from verse,
too many don’t.
38 • Fantasy Magazine » Blog For A Brass Button said:
May 1st, 2009 at 11:06 am, permalink
[...] people hated included chosen ones, dragons, elves, fur and fangs urban fantasy, humans with wings, poetry, princesses, prophetic [...]
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September 5th, 2009 at 1:01 pm, permalink
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