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Cliches you can't stand

Heavy W. Guy said:
Then again, this might kind of work if you imagine Wallachia as a remote region where Church authority is weak and local officials just kind of ignore whatever Rome says. But even that is imperfect because what is given can be taken away and such a figure would almost certainly have been excommunicated.
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On the other hand that could work just fine as a motivation for villainous behavior on their part. The last thing they can afford is to let the word get out, after all; their power and likely survival rests on making sure the central church authorities don't bother to look into what's happening.
 
Heavy W. Guy said:
Then again, this might kind of work if you imagine Wallachia as a remote region where Church authority is weak and local officials just kind of ignore whatever Rome says. But even that is imperfect because what is given can be taken away and such a figure would almost certainly have been excommunicated.
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Yeah theirs no way Catholics in a area where they where a minority would get up with half the shit they did, the Orthodox Church would clasps down on this shit as evidence of Catholics being evil.
 
Avernus said:
On the other hand that could work just fine as a motivation for villainous behavior on their part. The last thing they can afford is to let the word get out, after all; their power and likely survival rests on making sure the central church authorities don't bother to look into what's happening.
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Exactly, it's hard to do but hardly impossible.

And tbh, the other thing is that events in the show take place so quickly that it's easy to imagine that the wheels of the Church turn too slowly for there to be any meaningful reaction.

Like just as there are reports starting to trickle in about some corrupt Bishop who is abusing his power, discussions are being made of sending an envoy to investigate these rumoured improprieties... but Wallachia is also a remote region with few Catholic faithful and the Pope is occupied with events elsewhere in Europe...

And then suddenly there's a report that some ancient vampire lord has resurfaced and suddenly embarked upon a genocidal war upon all humans in Wallachia and that he has attacked and overwhelmed the capital and slaughtered all within its walls.

All of this at a time when Rome is only just becoming aware of what is taking place.
 
Konradleijon said:
Yeah theirs no way Catholics in a area where they where a minority would get up with half the shit they did, the Orthodox Church would clasps down on this shit as evidence of Catholics being evil.
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Or, you know, the extremely powerful and rising Ottoman Empire at a time when, historically, the Porte was beginning to expand and establish itself as the premier power in the eastern Balkans.

The show itself all but openly states that the "Church" is basically in tatters after the war with Dracula and that everyone blames it for provoking Dracula. The hierarchy of the church is all but destroyed, the faithful have largely abandoned it, and many who remain are insane broken fanatics who openly worship Night Creatures and the like.

Like... this strikes me as a total power vacuum which could be exploited by competing religious institutions to win huge numbers of converts. Because, as it turns out, "We're not violently insane and offer you something beyond rule by terror," is a really convincing argument for a lot of people.
 
Though I majorly and strongly suspect priests and a bishop in a area where they are a often persecuted minority even if they were corrupt would have like try to avoid things in the first place that would open them to giving their oppressors more ammo which undoubtedly said oppressors would almost certainly be looking for to give themselves a excuse to beat on the unwanted minority because it would if nothing else threaten said clergy position and power.
 
Also, the background of the show's world, where evil witches are demonstrably real and can do evil magic that turns the inhabitants of an entire city into a Legion-fleshmoon, and where Catholic Christianity can be a legitimately supernatural force for good (Holy Water), might be a little different than RL. A religion that can go "we can bless water which will incinerate the very real creatures of the night" is probably going to spread further and be pretty well-entrenched.

In Castlevania-verse, the charge of "evil spells and witchcraft" is a legit accusation that can be proven to be true and requires action to be taken against the guilty party (see the S3 Wizard), it's just intentionally misused in Lisa's case because the Bishop is a nutjob.
 
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Shinji117 said:
Also, the background of the show's world, where evil witches are demonstrably real and can do evil magic that turns the inhabitants of an entirely city into a Legion-fleshmoon, and where Catholic Christianity can be a legitimately supernatural force for good (Holy Water), might be a little different than RL. A religion that can go "we can bless water which will incinerate the very real creatures of the night" is probably going to spread further and be pretty well-entrenched.

In Castlevania-verse, the charge of "evil spells and witchcraft" is a legit accusation that can be proven to be true and requires action to be taken against the guilty party (see the S3 Wizard), it's just intentionally misused in Lisa's case because the Bishop is a nutjob.
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That's definitely a valid point.

Though, in such scenarios, that does beg a question: does it have to be a Catholic priest?

Because I always wonder, if we're going to go the "fight evil with faith" route, what's to stop you from using a rabbi, an imam, or say, a Romanian Orthodox priest in lieu of a Catholic one? In such a world, all of these religious traditions would doubtless have long since developed their own methods of counteracting those who exploit evil magic and their summoned monsters.

It also makes any kind of religious conflict all the more strange because, theoretically, you wouldn't want to discard anyone with the knowledge or skills needed to fight demons. Suddenly, some tiny Jewish community in a village goes from being a scorned minority to being a vital potential ally against a dark wizard or the like.

This would have... some really weird and interesting effect on interfaith relations in Europe and elsewhere.
 
Hate urban fantasy stories when the narrative or the characters make fun of normal people for trying to come up with explanations for supernatural events. A lot of the time the normal people can't even see what's actually happening, do you really want detectives and authority figures to just make shit up and hope it's right? How dare the mayor not instantly know it was actually a ten foot tall soul sucking creature from a different dimension, everyone knows that the first sign of something unlikely means the most unlikely answer is obviously also the correct one.
 
Hologram Killer said:
Hate urban fantasy stories when the narrative or the characters make fun of normal people for trying to come up with explanations for supernatural events. A lot of the time the normal people can't even see what's actually happening, do you really want detectives and authority figures to just make shit up and hope it's right? How dare the mayor not instantly know it was actually a ten foot tall soul sucking creature from a different dimension, everyone knows that the first sign of something unlikely means the most unlikely answer is obviously also the correct one.
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Yeah exactly: asking people to suddenly discard their entire understanding of the world in order to accept the existence of aliens, magic, Satan, gnomes, etc. is a big ask. It's not an easy adjustment for people to make, especially when they find out that the thing that they previously thought wasn't real not only exists but is a major influence on the world and, if it's an evil force, possibly the cause of other bad things in their life. Who's to say that that tragic car accident that killed one's parents wasn't somehow the work of a malign entity? Suddenly everything you thought you knew is wrong. You can't prove that the car accident in question *wasn't* the work of malign forces.

Part of the problem with this cliché is that we as the audience have far more knowledge than most of the characters. To us, it's obvious that the museum was robbed by the evil sorcerer who used an invisibility spell because we saw it happen. And so of course, we know that some poor schmuck who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got accused of a crime they didn't commit is actually totally innocent.

But like, imagine a story where we don't have an inside track. Imagine we don't actually know that an evil sorcerer using the forgotten magic of a bygone age was behind it all. And that, for all we know, the accused thief who professes their innocence is just lying about it.
 
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Indeed. One of my cliches I hate is people explaining things in the worst way possible- "Hey there's (a bunch of names and/or technical terms that only explain things to those in the know)! Why don't you believe me?? Idiots!".

Rather than, "Hey, you need to evacuate the building! There is a lethal hazard incoming!" or "There is a person who did this and they are *very* good at hiding from security cameras (leave out that it's from invisibility spells)! And they kill people (leave out it's from soul sucking)!". You know, generic it down to what the layperson actually needs to know, rather than selling someone on supernatural first, key details second.
 
Q99 said:
Indeed. One of my cliches I hate is people explaining things in the worst way possible- "Hey there's (a bunch of names and/or technical terms that only explain things to those in the know)! Why don't you believe me?? Idiots!".

Rather than, "Hey, you need to evacuate the building! There is a lethal hazard incoming!" or "There is a person who did this and they are *very* good at hiding from security cameras (leave out that it's from invisibility spells)! And they kill people (leave out it's from soul sucking)!". You know, generic it down to what the layperson actually needs to know, rather than selling someone on supernatural first, key details second.
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See, that makes sense, most people would believe the idea that say, a master thief is planning a break-in to a museum to steal a priceless artefact. They don't need to know that it summons the Five Dodecahedrons of Doom, they just need to know that they're dealing with a professional who knows their systems and they should really keep a close eye on that creepy-looking Babylonian jar.

Or you know, pull the fire alarm or dial in a bomb threat to force an evacuation.

If you are dealing with a villain who for whatever reason must employ secrecy and cannot say: teleport into the room, steal the artefact, and teleport back out, then simply making sure that they don't get away clean is enough to significantly stymie their goals and/or give the secret modern-day organisation of heroes a chance to track down their age-old nemesis.
 
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Q99 said:
Rather than, "Hey, you need to evacuate the building! There is a lethal hazard incoming!" or "There is a person who did this and they are *very* good at hiding from security cameras (leave out that it's from invisibility spells)! And they kill people (leave out it's from soul sucking)!". You know, generic it down to what the layperson actually needs to know, rather than selling someone on supernatural first, key details second.
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"We need to contain the artifact! Anybody who touched it needs to be contained as well! It's infested with a deadly fungus!"
"Demon summoning? You mean the hallucinogens and napalm?"
"No, we don't know why the serial killer is wearing a fursuit. Probably a mascot that snapped."
 
Hologram Killer said:
Hate urban fantasy stories when the narrative or the characters make fun of normal people for trying to come up with explanations for supernatural events. A lot of the time the normal people can't even see what's actually happening, do you really want detectives and authority figures to just make shit up and hope it's right? How dare the mayor not instantly know it was actually a ten foot tall soul sucking creature from a different dimension, everyone knows that the first sign of something unlikely means the most unlikely answer is obviously also the correct one.
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There's a cliche I hate; the masquerade. More often than not the only reason one exists is so that the author doesn't have to the work of integrating fantasy elements into a modern earth setting and it's always so jarring. Especially when the in-character reason for the masquerade existing is 'regular people are to stupid to notice the nutty shit happening around them' i.e buffy.
 
Heavy W. Guy said:
Something worth noting is that the 15th-century Catholic Church was generally far more concerned with heresy than it was with allegations of witchcraft: which were viewed as superstitious nonsense at best, actual heresy* at worst.
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I don't think @Astrid Fornhoff 's post was specifically part of the Castlevania discussion, but a general statement.

And as a general statement, it is of course absolutely true. Of course, the witch burnings did not happen, as people often say, during the middle age,s but explicitly not there but the early modern age... but then, I guess in people's minds, "the middle ages" is anything before Napoleon anyway. In the Middle Ages, belief in witchcraft was absolutely treated as heresy, at least in theory, though not actually widely prosecuted as such (but then, in the Early Middle Ages, which is kinda like half of them, the Church didn't really have any institutions for enforcement, or even just any structures at all independent from worldly rulers). But that absolutely changed in the early modern age. From the 16th to 18th centuries witch burnings absolutely were part of the usual legal code, the existence of witches was seen as an obvious fact, and you periodically had witch burning crazes that saw measurable, visible population losses to single cities or areas. And while that went on in both Catholic and Protestant areas, Catholic areas burned far more witches, and worst of all were the lands directly ruled by bishops or monasteries.

Of course, saying that woman were targeted because "they were scientists and against the patriarchy" is wrong, because there was no real targetting at all, but we can all imagine, and that is in fact backed by the sources, just which sort of woman would most easily get accused of witchcraft.

*Accepting the existence of witchcraft also requires accepting the existence of magic which can be performed by humans outside of the auspices of God's will. Which is a huge no-no in Catholic theology*
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Was a huge no-no. Evil sorcery is explicitly mentioned in the Bible - King Saul visited a necromancer who even managed to raise the dead spirit of a prophet. So it is trivial to argue for the canonical existence of sorcery from there. And that was the view that became consensus in the early modern age. And I mean, that sort of is more in line with, well, everything else. Christianity has always recognized evil possession, for example, with Christians explicitly having the power to drive out demons. But if evil spirits can possess people, without that raising the argument of whether God would allow it, why can't there also be sorcery?
 
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I expect that much of the reason why people associate witch burning with the Middle Ages is the way people generally imagine human progress as this smooth, singular upward curve; the Middle Ages was older than the Renaissance, and therefore intuitively is assumed to have been worse in every way. The reality of course is different; various aspects of society have become better and worse over time with any upward trend being more of a long term average.

Susano said:
Was a huge no-no. Evil sorcery is explicitly mentioned in the Bible - King Saul visited a necromancer who even managed to raise the dead spirit of a prophet. So it is trivial to argue for the canonical existence of sorcery from there. And that was the view that became consensus in the early modern age. And I mean, that sort of is more in line with, well, everything else. Christianity has always recognized evil possession, for example, with Christians explicitly having the power to drive out demons. But if evil spirits can possess people, without that raising the argument of whether God would allow it, why can't there also be sorcery?
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As I understand it in the early Church, the theological position was that God and God alone had supernatural power. Not even angels and saints had personal powers, God was just working miracles in proximity to them. So depending on their reasoning demons or evil spirits or whatever either didn't exist, were powerless, or were carrying out God's will.
 
Yes, all those demons Jesus stuck into those pigs were just doing gods work.
Why god wanted to stick some demons into pigs and then drown them, i don't know, but that's what happened.
 
Valmond said:
Yes, all those demons Jesus stuck into those pigs were just doing gods work.
Why god wanted to stick some demons into pigs and then drown them, i don't know, but that's what happened.
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I expect that issues like that are a major reason why that theological position fell out of favor over time.

It is noticeable that people really seem to prefer settings of more-or-less evenly matched "good" and "evil" forces. There's a lot more fiction that follows that pattern than otherwise, and most of the rest is grimdark "evil exists but not good" stuff.
 
Chlof said:
There's a cliche I hate; the masquerade. More often than not the only reason one exists is so that the author doesn't have to the work of integrating fantasy elements into a modern earth setting and it's always so jarring. Especially when the in-character reason for the masquerade existing is 'regular people are to stupid to notice the nutty shit happening around them' i.e buffy.
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I admit the best Masquerade(tm) set ups are the ones where the supernatural sorts put sincere and massive effort into hiding and/or ones with the Masquerade actively breaking down if not being kicked over by one faction or another.
 
Avernus said:
I expect that issues like that are a major reason why that theological position fell out of favor over time.

It is noticeable that people really seem to prefer settings of more-or-less evenly matched "good" and "evil" forces. There's a lot more fiction that follows that pattern than otherwise, and most of the rest is grimdark "evil exists but not good" stuff.
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Yet people still cling to the omnipotent and omniscient definitions.
Fiction is not something people (usually) hold as "Unquestionable Truth™", any writer that tries for all powerful and all good god and powerless forces of evil, and then has evil stuff still keep happening, can expect lot of questions that being asked about that.
Religion can get away with lot more inconsistency because it usually gets hammered into peoples skull (usually not literally) when they are too young to really question it.
 
One thing that always irks me about urban fantasy are the names thought up to refer to normal humans. Muggles, Mundies, Normals, etc. Feels derogatory.

htgriffin said:
I admit the best Masquerade(tm) set ups are the ones where the supernatural sorts put sincere and massive effort into hiding and/or ones with the Masquerade actively breaking down if not being kicked over by one faction or another.
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Percy Jackson has, IMHO, a good handle on the masquerade because it's held up by the Mist, a magical aura that hide the mythological aspects of the world by replacing it the mundane. Hellhounds are seen as dogs, monsters can pretend to be humans, and rampaging Titans become natural disasters. It's less mortals are stupid and more they're being shown what they expect to see. The mist can also change a person's memories if need be.
 
Uncle said:
Percy Jackson has, IMHO, a good handle on the masquerade because it's held up by the Mist, a magical aura that hide the mythological aspects of the world by replacing it the mundane. Hellhounds are seen as dogs, monsters can pretend to be humans, and rampaging Titans become natural disasters. It's less mortals are stupid and more they're being shown what they expect to see. The mist can also change a person's memories if need be.
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Point, although like W:tA's Delirium it comes under the whole Effort Into Hiding category (it is just that a third party if doing the heavy lifting).

Shutting that third party down unexpectedly? That is a fun thought... from a distance.
 
Q99 said:
Rather than, "Hey, you need to evacuate the building! There is a lethal hazard incoming!" or "There is a person who did this and they are *very* good at hiding from security cameras (leave out that it's from invisibility spells)! And they kill people (leave out it's from soul sucking)!". You know, generic it down to what the layperson actually needs to know, rather than selling someone on supernatural first, key details second.
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Saying a mass shooter is coming seems like it would be most convenient. And when people in urban fantasy seeing make fun of people that believe aliens are real and he demons and vampires are just aliens. And it is like "hahahah look at these stupid idiots " everyone knows aliens are not real . But in universe ghosts and shit exist amd are kept hidden, by killing or fucking up the mind of anyone that finds out anything. So the fact that they know something is out their makes them more correct then the average smoe.

also a specific one but Set being allied or conflated with Apohis. He hates Aphohis and helps Ra every night on his sun journey! He is the only one immune to Apohis's hypnotic gaze! Looking at you Robert Howard and the World of Darkness.
 
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Q99 said:
I am entirely sure that's purposeful and working as intended, as they say.
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Yeah it's pretty normal for a specific group to have a derogatory term for "outsider" like "Gaijin", or "Gringo" but it does get to a point where writers forget the term is bad. And the process of creating a outgroup that you can mock is dangerous.
 
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