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Cliches you can't stand

Vejut said:
Which one, if its not gonna be too much of a derail or something to take over to the Battletech thread?
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Nah, no big deal.

Summing up simply, Marshal Sharon Bryan, commanding general of the 11th Lyran Guards Regimental Combat Team, is a minor character in a number of the Classic Battletech novels. She's consistently portrayed as, well, to put it as succinctly as I can, an abrasive, biased, bull-headed and stubborn nationalist jerk (if one with some actual principles). Which is fair enough, but in her final appearance, the novel Operation Audacity, she ends up getting killed due to suddenly becoming an indecisive turtler - when her biggest character fault previously, and the one from which all her prior mistakes and a lot of the jerk moments came, was being over-decisive and aggressive (at least once during the earlier novels, she gets her 'Mech shot out from under her while personally leading a counter-attack; and when it comes to last stand time for the Star League forces on Huntress in Shadows of War, despite a broken arm and a possible concussion insists on strapping into a cockpit and dying fighting if it comes to it), with no indication within the text that the sudden indecisiveness actually represents a sudden character/personality change.

This is annoying, because for what the author of Operation Audacity, Blaine Lee Pardoe, wanted within the story, this character change was completely unnecessary (seeing as how being over-aggressive against the Clans tends to get people killed); well, except admittedly as a means of bigging up the military smarts of his main characters. The best rationalisation that myself & @Rogue 11 have been able to come up with is a mental or nervous breakdown due to the surrounding events of the FedCom Civil War, but that's a thin one that we're pretty sure isn't the intended reading of the text.
 
I dislike those fictional moments where idealistic and kind-hearted characters receive verbal abuse from their more violent and "hardened" companions and the narrative itself presents this turn of events as correct.
 
Suzu said:
I dislike those fictional moments where idealistic and kind-hearted characters receive verbal abuse from their more violent and "hardened" companions and the narrative itself presents this turn of events as correct.
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It can go both ways for me.
I find stories swing way too hard either towards cynicism (grim, gritty, "realistic") or idealism (everything works out like magic).

And on related note, i hate how idealistic characters are often portrayed as naive.
Even in the works that are all in on idealism, and the whole setting bends over backwards to make the idealists right, idealists come of naive people who simply can't comprehend that not everyone is decent person at their core who just need an understanding listener and a hug to join the forces of good (some hyperbole employed here).

Give me idealists who know they are not guaranteed success, who don't think victory is assured, who know how bad things can be, and how much worse they can get. But hold to their ideals anyway, because those ideals are worth upholding. And when they do succeed and their ideals triumph, the knowledge that they might not have, makes it all the more impactful.
 
Valmond said:
And on related note, i hate how idealistic characters are often portrayed as naive.
Even in the works that are all in on idealism, and the whole setting bends over backwards to make the idealists right, idealists come of naive people who simply can't comprehend that not everyone is decent person at their core who just need an understanding listener and a hug to join the forces of good (some hyperbole employed here).
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From my experience, when works present some kind of scenario where everyone is defeated by hugs and kisses, it is more often than not simply a twisted caricature used to bash something not sufficiently "gritty" - a straw man for punching down.
 
Suzu said:
I dislike those fictional moments where idealistic and kind-hearted characters receive verbal abuse from their more violent and "hardened" companions and the narrative itself presents this turn of events as correct.
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I would like to a more cynical character admit to the idealist that if the world had more people him, it would be better place.
 
Uncle said:
I would like to a more cynical character admit to the idealist that if the world had more people him, it would be better place.
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The FoxHound webcomic has Sniper Wolf say this to Otacon in regards to his belief no one would be allowed to be hurt during the take over of Metal Gear. She tempers this somewhat by adding "Much more stupid, but beautiful."
 
DAv said:
The FoxHound webcomic has Sniper Wolf say this to Otacon in regards to his belief no one would be allowed to be hurt during the take over of Metal Gear. She tempers this somewhat by adding "Much more stupid, but beautiful."
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It's something that Kenshin says in the very first volume of his manga as well. When the villain asks if he's here to spout off about the same idealistic nonsense as Kaoru, he replies that no, swordsmanship is the art of killing, and that what she had said was a sweet naive lie for children. But he adds that he would prefer that her lie became the truth of the world.

He then informs everyone in the room that if they don't like seeing the surgeon, that they should leave now.
 
Alex said:
Like... a harry potter parody that portrayed the good guys as total pacifists who want to win through the power of friendship and sparkles and then mocks the concept as lame and weak.
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I feel like Harry Potter had multiple Power of Friendship and Sparkles moments. Harry's Mommy saved him with a spell powered by her love for him or some silly thing like that. Harry makes some BFFs and they somehow overcome challenges by being normal high school students. Cue Sparkles. The sparkles are how Ms. Rowling follows the tired theme of shoujo shows/manga/movies of the Power of Love (Sparkles) and Friendship overcomes everything. And it's not really lame and weak IMO but I don't see how it helps Harry, Ron or Hermione when they face an enemy like the Basilisk or something. A Dementor may think Love (sparkles) and Friendship are lame and weak and then eat it out of your soul. LOL.

Not hating on Harry Potter but the author just grates my nerves.

That said, I'ma take a break from this thread, unless somebody wanna say anything to me.
 
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kittygirl said:
A Dementor may think Love (sparkles) and Friendship are lame and weak and then eat it out of your soul.
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...Dementors are literally defeated by the power of happiness though?

Expecto Patronum, the spell use to scare them away uses the happiest memory the caster has to power up, and the happiest the memory, the more powerful the spell.
 
Oh, gotcha. I remember Expecto Patronum just not that it defeated Dementors. I was thinking about Prisoners in Azkaban tho. The Dementors there might think happiness was lame. But a power of happiness spell is pretty much better than anything I said, thank you.
 
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VolantRedX said:
So I've decided that the new worst sort of mission in a video game is where you're told to follow a character, fight a small number of enemies, then travel to a new location and fight a slightly higher number of enemies and do it several different times. It's just needless padding.
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Word of advice:

Never play an FPS.

Or a Platinum-style spectacle fighter.

Or, indeed, any game where combat is the main focus and the game spaces are designed to facilitate and focus on that. Which seems to be...uh...quite a few of them. :V
 
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Mechasaurian said:
Word of advice:

Never play an FPS.

Or a Platinum-style spectacle fighter.

Or, indeed, any game where combat is the main focus and the game spaces are designed to facilitate and focus on that. Which seems to be...uh...quite a few of them. :V
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I have no issue about a game about fighting being about beating waves of enemies. I hate games like Shadow of War or some other open roam game where the mission is "follow Slapnuts McGee to area 1 kill three bears. Now follow Slapnuts to area 2 and kill 5 bears. Finally, advance to area 3 and kill 8 bears and Queen Bitch Bear to complete the mission." It's just tedious and artificial and rarely comes up other than in those missions.
 
Reading books = underrated genius
Watching TV = dumb simpleton
 
Suzu said:
Reading books = underrated genius
Watching TV = dumb simpleton
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Yeah, books are cool but the whole "reading master race" bs always seemed like pathetic wanking to me. If the best evidence of intelligence you have is basic literacy then maybe you aren't actually smart.

Not to mention it's vaguely classist. When you're tired after a long day of work watching TV is much easier than reading a book. The idea that the former is intrinsically inferior to the latter definitely seems designed to denigrate the working class.
 
Is this even a trope? When was the last time have you actually seen dur hur TV dumb. If anything with the rise of streaming content, it's become more popular. Must be a dead cliche then.
 
Hykal94 said:
Is this even a trope? When was the last time have you actually seen dur hur TV dumb. If anything with the rise of streaming content, it's become more popular. Must be a dead cliche then.
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Today, in fact. And it reminded me of all times I had to sit through this same cliche as a child.
 
If almost as if books can contain more information than TV and is more useful as sources for learning various important subjects in extreme depth. :V
 
It's almost as if not all books actually contain important information and not all TV programs are made to mindlessly entertain people. Big shock.
 
The Laurent said:
Do they? Documentaries are actually really great, y'all.
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I actually had a lecturer who did a documentary on local history. He basically told the class that he had to cut down all relevant info to 20% because it didn't fit the timeframe. Documentaries are good piquing interest but you still need books to get into the nitty gritty of stuff.

Documentaries that is actually shown on dedicated streaming platforms that has like 12 episodes and are basically recorded lectures are top tier stuff. Historical podcasts? Also great. But the stuff you see on TV? Not so much.
 
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