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Cliches you can't stand

Omicron said:
Having Space Muslim stand out in otherwise humanoid mechs by having geometrically-shaped and noniconic mechs would be rad as hell, though.
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Of course this runs into the semantic problem of when a mech is still a mech. Plus, if there is an alternative to mechs (actual at least bipedal if not humanoid mechs), then why make them? After all, we're all aware with the realism problems surrounding those.

If it's a mecha show, there should be some reason why everyone is using mechas, and that reason would apply to Muslims as well, is what I'm trying to say.
 
While the discussion on Mecha Muslim is fun, I'm referring specifically to faux-deep symbolism.


Like, I dunno, having an assassin hide their identity by writing calligraphy on himself or the villain is blinded in one eye and has fire and water powers or something

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For something a bit more thread relevant.

Slugouts between 2 huge things looking like their moving super slow, feels weird to me.
 
Hykal94 said:
I'm actually somewhat very annoyed at this. "Places suck because of blood magic!" or "Nazis were evil because of demons!" or "People went mad due to corrupting stones nearby!"

Places don't suck because of blood magic, but because it's poorly run and lacks infrastructure.
Nazis weren't evil because of demons, Nazis are evil because they did horrible things despite knowing what they're doing is wrong.
People don't go mad from Red Lyrium, people go crazy due to deteriorating health, lack of healthcare and other internal/extrenal elements.

It's an extremely simplistic viewpoint to hold, in my opinion. It's something you see in immature stories. An immature story would put the blame of a crumbling kingdom due to magic or dragons or whatever. A mature story would take more from history, showing that empires divide due to economic, social or institutional reasons. Rome fell because of many things, but one of the big ones is that they used a political system that's good for administering a small area (Italy) on such a large empire. A country that believes in the concept of itself will survive. Countries that do not become warzones. See: a good chunk of Africa and the Middle East.

Now, magical reasons could work if you're going for epics. Dark Souls' multiple kingdoms fell due to the curse of the Undead, its futile attempt to curb it, and by its scope is very grand. That works because Souls doesn't go for mundane, it goes for fantastical.

But something like Dragon Age with its politics AND its hordes from hell? With its Mage-Templar thing? With its hundred of years of kingdoms and empires? It doesn't work as well.

I wish they got rid of that glyphs nonsense. Kirkwall became the way it is due to institutional failures between different factions is actually enough. A lack of cooperation, understanding and trust is exactly a symptom of a failed system: which can be applied to empires, nations, businesses, even families!

Assigning fantastical elements, to what doesn't need it, only dilutes the the conflict. It doesn't enhance it.
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I'm actually fine with the Kirkwall is blood magic glyph thing.

Because it isn't really a reduction in human agency. It's a human own goal in the first place that causes ongoing damage to the populace. Rather like how we used to burn leaded gasoline and it seems to have legitimately affected human actions. Instead here we've got some sort of wedged open door to The Bad Mojo.

It's literally decaying human infrastructure. The mechanism is just magical pollution instead of industrial pollution that no one is bothering to clean up.
 
... Alright, look, I have some things to say here.

I don't like the "cynicism isn't mature" crowd; yeah I know it's kinda dumb, but fuck it, you know that most cynics aren't like this because they're immature manbabies who can't take a little pain and they aren't deliberately trying to make themselves miserable. It's a worldview, not a philosophy, and it comes and goes.

I also can't stand the sort of people who go "look, grey and gray morality is dumb, raar", because on some level I'm pretty sure the people who hate it are either anti-hipsters (people who state opinions that are deliberately contrary to the opinions of surface level contrarians, which just means that they have almost exactly the same opinion as the vast majority of their community) or people who want their opinions to be validated/want to have opinions they can validate without criticism/want to have opinions that "win" against their opposition, thus doing one of the above. Grey and grey morality that's actually well executed and thought out leaves the audience with no guarantees as to who to easily root for, and they're often forced to use complex, mentally exhausting arguments to support the character, and even after putting in all of that effort the person who's doing the arguing has no way to completely defend themselves from criticism. This is incredibly exhausting for most people, and I get that, but it's not all that positive.

Finally, and this is a bit more down to earth, I don't like how a lot of characters in most fantasy series put more stock on their petty melodrama or mundane issues instead of focusing on the actual fantastical elements that in many cases directly affect their chances of surviving till next week.
 
Nilay said:
Finally, and this is a bit more down to earth, I don't like how a lot of characters in most fantasy series put more stock on their petty melodrama or mundane issues instead of focusing on the actual fantastical elements that in many cases directly affect their chances of surviving till next week.
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Yes. It's like, personal conflicts are often interesting, and should be granted time, but if you're neglecting either things that affect your safety or the safety of others, you come across as either draining the drama of the threat, dumbly ignoring the threat, or callous of other's safety, depending on how it's handled.
 
I'm really starting to hate "both sides/factions are bad" not because of it in and of itself but because of how often I keep seeing it used by people as a complaint while completely missing the point of what is actually being said and being blatantly clear that's not what the series is saying.
 
Nobody said:
I'm really starting to hate "both sides/factions are bad" not because of it in and of itself but because of how often I keep seeing it used by people as a complaint while completely missing the point of what is actually being said and being blatantly clear that's not what the series is saying.
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Ah yes, an indispensable element used for various hacks in multiple fandoms to make things 'more mature/profound'.
 
htgriffin said:
Ah yes, an indispensable element used for various hacks in multiple fandoms to make things 'more mature/profound'.
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... Did you not just read my post?

But yeah, I get it; a lot of shows have grey and gray morality that isn't actually grey and gray.

... For example (and people are gonna hate this) Steven Universe.
 
htgriffin said:
Ah yes, an indispensable element used for various hacks in multiple fandoms to make things 'more mature/profound'.
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OTOH have you ever seen a war where one side is composed of saints? Its not a bad thing to point out even the good guys can do some pretty heinous shit for what they think is the right reason and a good piece of fiction should either call them out on this or at least drop hints so a thoughtful reader can make their own judgment.

I mean an individual can be good, a group can be good but when you start getting into large organisations or armies or countries or resistance groups it kind of stretches plausibility that everyone's a boy scout all the time. I'd argue you can't really have a mature work without mature characters who can plausibly pass as real people. And real people are complex and do shitty things on occasion.
 
Nilay said:
... Alright, look, I have some things to say here.

I don't like the "cynicism isn't mature" crowd; yeah I know it's kinda dumb, but fuck it, you know that most cynics aren't like this because they're immature manbabies who can't take a little pain and they aren't deliberately trying to make themselves miserable. It's a worldview, not a philosophy, and it comes and goes.
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Especially since it's just a fact that sometimes there is no happy ending. "Why did the Titanic have to sink anyway? Bunch of edgelords."

There is literally an infinite space for fiction out there. Happy endings, sad endings, optimistic works, cynical works. The only thing that matters is execution.
 
Nikkolas said:
Especially since it's just a fact that sometimes there is no happy ending. "Why did the Titanic have to sink anyway? Bunch of edgelords."

There is literally an infinite space for fiction out there. Happy endings, sad endings, optimistic works, cynical works. The only thing that matters is execution.
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... Everyone should have this as a quote.

Also, I don't like these two tropes: the trope where brute force and hotbloodedness wins over thought and tactics, and the trope where a fantastical problem has an easily reached, mostly or entirely mundane solution.
 
Nilay said:
Finally, and this is a bit more down to earth, I don't like how a lot of characters in most fantasy series put more stock on their petty melodrama or mundane issues instead of focusing on the actual fantastical elements that in many cases directly affect their chances of surviving till next week.
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When it's done right, I think you can use this to make it clear that living in a Fancy Magic Elf City for elves isn't any more numinous than living in a Fancy Technological Human City. If it's just part of your world, it's not necessarily fantastical to you, no matter what it looks like on the outside.

I do think there is room for an actual elf dropping into a WB drama and being all "YOU ARE ABOUT TO RIDE A GIANT METAL DEATH-BOX AT TWICE THE SPEED THE FASTEST ELF-STEED CAN GALLOP, AMIDST A STAMPEDE OF OTHER GIANT METAL DEATH-BOXES! WHY ARE YOU NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THIS? THIS IS THE THING IN YOUR WEIRD UPSIDE-DOWN WORLD WHICH IS LITERALLY MOST LIKELY TO KILL YOU AND YOU'RE IGNORING IT!"
 
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Yeah, but if on the one hand a story could potentially focus on a cyberdragon killing an ancient star god, and on the other hand we could deal with bullshit teenage melodrama instead, I'd rather focus on the first plotline, thanks.
 
Nikkolas said:
Especially since it's just a fact that sometimes there is no happy ending. "Why did the Titanic have to sink anyway? Bunch of edgelords."

There is literally an infinite space for fiction out there. Happy endings, sad endings, optimistic works, cynical works. The only thing that matters is execution.
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That said, the Titantic sinking was fantastically set up and foreshadowed compared to a lot of bad ends I've seen.

I mean, to the point of anvilicious! "Ok, so they called it unsinkable, didn't do the best job on construction and overlooked design flaws, and then ran in into an iceberg? Could you be any more obvious?"
 
To make the post below more coherent:
Nilay said:
I also can't stand the sort of people who go "look, grey and gray morality is dumb, raar", because on some level I'm pretty sure the people who hate it are either anti-hipsters (people who state opinions that are deliberately contrary to the opinions of surface level contrarians, which just means that they have almost exactly the same opinion as the vast majority of their community) or people who want their opinions to be validated/want to have opinions they can validate without criticism/want to have opinions that "win" against their opposition, thus doing one of the above. Grey and grey morality that's actually well executed and thought out leaves the audience with no guarantees as to who to easily root for, and they're often forced to use complex, mentally exhausting arguments to support the character, and even after putting in all of that effort the person who's doing the arguing has no way to completely defend themselves from criticism. This is incredibly exhausting for most people, and I get that, but it's not all that positive.
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I'll just paraphrase Moviebob here (this is from one of his smart videos): the primary fantasy most fiction satisfies is the fantasy that the audience it's trying to appeal to is either doing the right thing, or that it's not doing the right thing right now but it can actually do the right thing if it follows this fantasy work's instructions.

Grey and gray morality... is about shooting that concept in the unmentionables; no, you're not doing the right thing, and there is no clearly defined, unquestionably correct and completely uncritiqueable idea in existence that you can turn to so that you can automatically become better. There's no completely right or wrong thing that can be done here, and you have to deal with that.
 
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