- Location
- Just passing through.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
And deconstruction isn't a trope thing too?
Cliches you can't stand
- Thread starter Mithras
- Start date
- Location
- Busan Metropolitan City, Republic of Korea
Eh, no. Deconstruction came before Tvtropes, although admittedly the common usage of Deconstruction has moved far from its root that they may as well as completely unrelated. Still, I have not seen the word 'Reconstruction' used in regard to media outside of Tvtropes or Tvtropes-related subjects.
- Location
- Just passing through.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Fair enough.
Though I can't image another way to think about the deconstruction of a deconstruction.
Creating different results from popular deconstructions, maybe? Like instead of a superman archetype becoming evil, they become a hermit because they're scare of hurting the people around them, for example?
I think it's a combination of the belief that grimdarkism is more realistic and artistically valid, and the conviction that things like happy endings and characters being genuinely decent people are "cliche", and therefore a deconstruction has to be the opposite of that "cliche".
Which of course ignores that it's been a long time since grimdark was anything but a cliche itself, and that the "noble heroes and happy endings" style of story is if anything the rarity now.
Staff Notice: There is an alt-history thread of a similar nature to this that you can express your negative sentiments about alt-history related topics in. Please try to keep topics like this in the proper threads.
Ah...cliches - I think I'm gonna go a bit off-script here and also include the various plot points and things people bring up in discussions about alternate history
Red Flags Everywhere, and No One Notices
Red Flags Everywhere, and No One Notices
- Sexual and social norms bouncing forty years ahead as a result of a revolution, or just because socialists reach power. (Who knew that the average union worker does not have the social opinions of a 1970's Hippie?)
- (American) socialists solving the tensions that existed between fx. Irish and Germans by glorious class consciousness (and between them and African-Americans, and them and hispanics, and them an-, you get the point)
- In a civil war having the Not-Socialists being something approaching frothing-at-the-mouht fascists (Because this is a civil war, and in a revolt, a lot of people will be fighting because they earnestly believe in the nation they live in)
- Any place outside of Russia in the 1910's-1920's recreating the USSR 1:1
- Stupid things like "Consensus Democracy", "Libertarian Socialism" and whatever buzzword of the week suddenly working great
- Cybersyn becoming some sort of crazy Amazon of the 70's. It was largely a spreadsheet software with one computer in Santiago and a bunch of fax machines. With 20-40 years? Maybe. But not in 197X
- Eurocommunism out of nowhere. It came across because Berlinguer saw Allende being couped and concluded that you had to make a broad front to stay alive.
- Imperial German restoration any time after 1930. I don't need to elaborate on this.
- Monarchies in larger powers gaining power after first losing them after circa 1800.
- Clockwork Orange (the coup) actually working. Just no. No.
- In general, big domestic conspiracies to undermine a party or ideology. Usually those things happen in the open and/or by several actor working independently from one another.
- Genocide Olympics: "Country A is worse than Country B, because Country A killed X more people - But Country B is worse because they killed Y people in Z years, which is faster than Country A"
- Cold War Mentality, and the ideological American thinking of it specifically. Foreign Policy is national first and ideological second. Attlee was a socialist, yet he shook hands with Truman and Adenauer. The Khmer Rouge were supported by the US and UK in the UNSC, and in the French presidential elecitons of 1965 and 1974, the US was rooting not for the conservative candidate, but for the Socialist. On the flipside, the USSR ran around backing first the KMT over the CPC in the 1930's, then the SRP in Germany in the postwar era, preferred De Gaulle to practically anyone but the PCF afterwards, etc. All this goes double before the advent of nuclear weapons.
- The political paradigm of America, and specifically the United States being forced onto European, Asian or anywhere else. This includes ethnic conflicts, class struggles, and social norms.
- America-centric writing of the world, and the idiotic idea everything revolves in relation to such.
- Importing an American political view to practically everywhere else. Not even Canada is polarized along the same lines as America
- The US Navy doing much of anything in wartime on a longer stretch. It was notoriously shit at operating very far beyond the coast until about 1935.
- Britain giving up the Royal Navy. Anyone who knows even the smidge of British history knows that the Royal Navy is Britannia's sword and shield. Anyone seeking to scuttle it would have to do so in London, at gunpoint.
- Ideological shoehorning in interactive stories for Rah-Rah [Ideology] or Get Dunked On, [Ideology]
- American Caesar Douglas MacArthur. Pompous ass, and with a messed-up idea of command. Also democratized Japan and legalized the JCP amongst others. American Caesar he was not.
- America as a big good on the world stage, who swings their power around and single-handedly starts decolonization together with Other Superpower.
- And on the flipside, America as the Great Satan who will topple anyone, even in Western Europe or Oceania that looks at them funny. Neither are very funny to read, and both are gross misunderstandings of America in the world.
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
Something something Family Guy clip about how the ideal Oscar winning movie is about a special needs Jewish boy with cancer in the Holocaust something something Critics are just as prone to monke brain neuron activation as the rubes they despise.
More so if anything; arrogance is a heck of a drug.
- Location
- Busan Metropolitan City, Republic of Korea
Staff Notice: All of this is a lot of unnecessary spaghetti posting. Please refrain from doing it in the future.
Yeah, while most Socialists are social progressives to some degree, not everyone is, and even the progressives might not follow the Western definition: See Stalin, who reverted back much of social progress made by the Revolution.
Ageed.
I disagree. If one faction is visibly Socialistic, I can see at least one other faction becoming hardline anti-Socialists to counter that, especially in the case of the Socialist Revolution.
Agreed. Even Cuba and NK developed differently from the USSR.
Maybe for now. But given enough time and socio-cultural changes, in the future, we may actually see the self-identified Socialists declaring that Monarchy is the best form of governance that can reflect the will of people.
Not just the genocides. That happens with a lot of things.
Isn't Attlee heavily disliked by the modern Left because of that?
Unfortunately, American privilege means that if they shout and believe hard and long enough, it eventually becomes a reality, whether because the rest of the world starts believing them, or because they badger us until we follow them.
I mean, that kinda happened? Royal Navy is certainly powerful even today, but it's far from its former self.
Agreed. I can see him running for president and getting elected, though. And probably do badly.
Probably not very popular here on SV, even if I agree.
Last edited:
I imagine you have some words about the now near memetic "Aaand, scoop!" scene from a recent work?
Kinda, though I am more referring to a plot point in a story set in the 1910's and 20's. You're right, the Royal Navy is not the all encompassing world patrol it once was today
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
I mean the thing is this is kind of exactly what happened in Asia, though. Japan certainly made a good start on breaking colonialism and probably deserves credit for most of the Asian mainland but the United States went around fucking up the mechanisms of existing colonialism in Asia with a thoroughness that was probably deliberate. While none of it (with the exception of the Philippines having been on a glide path to independence even before World War 2 started) was particularly grand in gesture, the US bypassed existing colonial authorities and power structures (and their supporters) wherever possible, down to a policy of individual hiring and individual payment in the South Pacific that completely blew up the power structure the UK and Australia had arranged for decades of hiring through, and paying, tribal chiefs to secure their loyalty.
Despite being on opposite sides, by the time WW2 was over the US and Japan had destroyed European colonialism in Asia and the attempt to bring it back was obviously foredoomed.
- Location
- Busan Metropolitan City, Republic of Korea
I'd careful with that, considering that they did it so they can be the colonial master instead of the Europeans.
The end does not absolve the intention.
Last edited:
Night
Widow Null
- Location
- Hoff
I invite you to point out where I suggested it did? If anything, Japan's success at that one stated war goal is at the root of their ongoing problems with being unable to address what they were actually doing. Nonetheless, by their actions, Japan destroyed the underlying legitimacy of the European colonial project, as well as a good deal of the infrastructure.
SpookyBoy
no
- Pronouns
- He/They
How do you end up trying this hard to complain about Reds! without directly mentioning it
FortePlus
The THRILL from Green Hill
- Location
- Toronto
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- He/They
If you want to complain about Reds! just come out and say it, instead of vagueposting about it.
Reds! is far from the only thing I have on my chopping block there. There's TNO, Red Flood, Krasnacht, Bring the War Home, Crimson Banners Fly, The Glowing Dream, New Deal Coalition Retained and a few others.
Last edited:
I mean, yes, it being some effort is part of the point. It signals to the audience the character is willing to make genuine effort for the sake of this person.
Plus, it's not THAT outlandish. Like, I've done it a couple times myself. At one point carrying my cousin (and she was taller than I am) up a full six floors of stairs because she had hurt her leg, when we were like thirteen. And I'm a stick with a bit of asthma, so if I can do that, an athletic shonen anime protagonist carrying someone for a long distance doesn't seem even remotely outlandish.
Last edited:
To add to this, don't forget this amazing scene from Lord of the Rings involving one character carrying another character:
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
There's really two different carry methods commonly seen in anime. (Well, there are more, but for most cases those other methods are done for comedy, or between adult and child.)
The one that's easy enough for basically anyone even marginally fit to do is carrying someone on your back. This is the sort of carry that is probably the default when it comes to one character carrying another for whatever reason.
The other is the so-called "princess carry", which has the carrier pick up the carried in their arms, supporting their lower back and thighs. This does require some muscle, so perhaps that is what is meant by "carrying someone is hard". Usually this type of carry is done for romantic reasons, of the "swept off your feet" sort.
The one that's easy enough for basically anyone even marginally fit to do is carrying someone on your back. This is the sort of carry that is probably the default when it comes to one character carrying another for whatever reason.
The other is the so-called "princess carry", which has the carrier pick up the carried in their arms, supporting their lower back and thighs. This does require some muscle, so perhaps that is what is meant by "carrying someone is hard". Usually this type of carry is done for romantic reasons, of the "swept off your feet" sort.
- Location
- That place in the thing
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I like how you give no actual reason for either of those things being "stupid" or for them not to work, it's just self-apparent that they don't.
Also:
Last edited:
Sarissa
OwO
- Location
- Washington, D.C.
While I'm generally not bloodthirsty when it comes to fiction, the whole "Don't kill him, you'd just be giving him what he wants!" has always felt really dumb to me because if he's dead, he won't want anything anymore, while he dude killing him pretty clearly wants to kill him, and unlike the bad guy will actually be alive to savor it. Who cares if the bad guy gets to be satisfied for a couple seconds (if that) until he's dead.
- Location
- Somewhere
Depends, is this a setting with confirmed afterlife where his evil god rewards him, or possibility of badguy returning with unstoppable hell magic or something?