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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]

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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] 9 points 5 months ago

The tacit acceptance of monarchism and aristocracy as normal and legitimate things

Something that I thought dealt with this well was The Magicians.

spoiler

After becoming kings and queens of legally-distinct Narnia the protagonists decide “Hey this is real fucking weird” and decide to hold elections, at which point the high king is booted back to Earth because the creature that created legally-distinct Narnia is insane and made it a fundamental law of the universe that the rulers must be from Earth.