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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] 7 points 5 months ago

You're absolutely right. I wouldn't mind seeing it explored in fiction and fantasy in particular, which seems to me like the perfect genre to explore those dynamics. The only other story I can think that does it also features a sort of throuple, though the two women have a more sisterly relationship while both are in a romantic relationship only with the male (the Honorverse series)

I hope with queerness and non-heteronormativity becoming more "mainstream" (well, talked about more openly outside of niche spaces) that we'll start to see more of an exploration of what being poly means