What are some tropes, cliches and plots you are tired of seeing?

[fluttershy300]

A lot of over used cliches I dislike are from anime. But mostly, Abusive tsunderes, main character falling on the female character and they end up in a weird position that would get the MC called a pervert and get hit or beat, Little sister having a crush on her big brother, and minors sexualized.

 

[Kuroh]

When two characters with no chemistry are forced together to add unnecessary romance...
(//cough// Hulk and Black Widow)

 

[rubyrubert]

Characters getting mortally wounded but having the convenient ability to stay alive despite it all to be able to give a speech or something. It can be done well depending on the case, but not every writer can pull it off.

Spoiler: Infinity Wars Spoilers

Iron Man’s death was super cheesy… like I’m sorry I don’t care about his suit’s nanotech or whatever, his butt would have been toast as soon as he snapped

 

[seularin]

- irrelevant badasses
- love at first sight
- girl trips, boy picks up books
- the guy / girl who plays ‘hard to get’ (aka tsunderes)
- rags to riches
- ‘the chosen one’

 

[Irelia]

I feel like a good way of describing this is comparing Avatar the Last Airbender to the Legend of Korra.
I watched both series.

I think I've watched ATLA 6-7 times, and I could watch the entire series again. LOK I don't think I could.
In ATLA you have plenty of dynamic characters where their development isn't so drastic. In soooo many shows/movies you see a turning point for an antagonist and suddenly they change / make a controversial decision but it all happens so quickly it's like oh... cool. I really do like what they did with Zuko where they put him in a lot of different situations that could've been his "turning" point. I really like how the writers created this push and pull with him where you're constantly either frustrated or feeling sympathy for him. They keep doing this and building him up until finally he's transformed but it's really meaningful because you really feel his change as a character.

I feel like Korra lacked this which kind of made it less interesting to watch. Don't get me wrong, the plot in season 2-3 was really good in my opinion and I enjoyed watching those seasons (the others had cringe endings imo but anyways) Korra's base character as a headstrong, tempered woman is fine. Very different from your typical female protagonist, sure all good. But regardless of her gender, the fact that her approach to literally every situation is -headstrong, charge in without thinking, and scream at them- is so annoying to watch. Through 4 seasons, she's barely changed to be honest. She didn't feel stronger, and I didn't feel a connection to her at all personally. She really lacked composure in situations where she was supposed to be empowered from what she learned/gained. She was incredibly boring to me despite being a gender defying norm MC

TLDR sick of abrupt, forced, or the lack of character development especially in main characters

 

[Corrie]

School setting
Tsunderes
Childhood friend
Harems
Whiny MCs
Nosebleeds
Sexualizing minors
The drunk at a party scene where they end up smoking weed too or getting a tattoo/piercing
The cute ditz who trips a lot
Mary Sue
Love triangles
Chick loves a douche guy. Her best friend likes her. At the end of the movie, she realizes what a douche the other guy is and dates her best friend instead cause he's a nice guy
The mystery twin that gets introduced solely to fill in some secret in the plot
A misunderstanding that is so corny/stupid/poorly written and that would never happen in real life and was just added to add a conflict
Characters introduced only for plot reasons and they get no development otherwise
Characters that are their set trope and that's it

I could go on lol

 

[Xara]

the cliche where if a guy is being a d!ck to a girl, it’s eventually revealed that he was like that because he’s in love with her. i don’t see this cliche very often as i don’t watch much that would involve this sort of scenario but i’ve still seen a bit of it and it’s stupid. being an ass to someone should not be a result of loving them - if you love somebody, maybe don’t treat them like garbage lmaoo

 

[frogslime]

- When something technical is being explained and a character says “in English!”

Holy crap, that one. I don't really like it, either. Though, admittedly, I've probably said it once or twice myself ironically...

 

[Shellzilla_515]

When a boy and girl character like each other. Do you always have to put romance in just about every opportunity? A platonic relationship as good friends is fine but going beyond that for extra drama is just cheap in my opinion. Either that or maybe it doesn't appeal to my tastes.

 

[Corrie]

When a boy and girl character like each other. Do you always have to put romance in just about every opportunity? A platonic relationship as good friends is fine but going beyond that for extra drama is just cheap in my opinion. Either that or maybe it doesn't appeal to my tastes.

Now I'm a sucker for romance but I agree with you that there are movies out there where the romance is just so forced and would be better left out.

 

[Millysaurusrexjr]

I both love and hate The Chosen One.

What I REALLY hate is when the good guys are at war with the bad guys or whatever, and at some point the good guys say something like, "But if we do that, then are we any better than (insert bad guy group name here)?"

It's a dumb question honestly.

 

[MarzipanDragyn]

I'd add my two cents, but everybody else has beaten me to it

I can think of a few, however:

• "stupid=funny".

Doing dumb things does not mean it's humorous; it might get a laugh or two at first, but after that it's just downright annoying, and takes away from the characters in question. I can think of more than a few "children's shows" guilty of this. I don't like the feeling of my brain cells frying.

• Villain redemption arcs for EVERY VILLAIN

They're the antagonists for a reason, and not every antagonist deserves a shot at redemption. Some people are truly evil, and there's no coming back from that. Sometimes, they need a good swift kick to the rear and that's final.

• Knocking up the female protagonist

WHY. There is LITERALLY NO REASON FOR THIS UNLESS IT'S A ROMANCE NOVEL! I'm tired of reading and seeing good female characters get completely NERFED THROUGH THE ROOF by the good 'ol "Being a mother is the most and only important thing a girl will ever go through in her life!" I call BULL; they just ran out of friggin ideas and decided to use a cheap shot for more money. It's ANNOYING. I'm SICK OF IT (and while we're at it, they really need to stop doing this to UNDERAGE CHARACTERS; that's DISGUSTING).

 

[zeoli]

To name a few:

• That a lot of anime are set in middle school/high school settings. It gets old really quick and I'm pretty sure real middle schoolers can't do whatever is happening.
• I'm just sick of all these boring as heck super hero stories. Sure, they follow the hero's tale plot line like most things but can we just... go without them for a bit longer and THEN bring them back if we must?
• I'm with everyone on the power of friendship being boring. Ah yes, lets give a speech to the dying best friend who will suddenly be fine enough to not die now. Or that you think they died and then they show up at the last minute, alive and totally not mortally wounded like they were. Friendship is wonderful, but it isn't death defying or anything of that sort.
• The trope where the uncool character pretends they aren't friends with their actual friends to try to fit in with the "cool" crowd. It's just such a dumb thing to do irl and I cannot stand it in movies either.

 

[MoogleKupo]

One I really wish would stop is what Cabin in the Woods did. BUT that movie had a twist which I really appreciated.
The formula was 5 main characters,
the virgin (innocent, brought along for the fun, doesn't know what to do most of the time but helps everyone get out of trouble, most likely does not die)
the whore (excuse my language) (killed early, very promiscuous, hot but usually adorable)
the athlete (good looks, kind of intelligent or really intelligent, money or connections, star sports player, either a nice guy or a jerk)
the scholar (Intelligent, knows what not to do in bad situations, perhaps ends up with the virgin, I forget how else to describe him but somewhat similar to the athlete)
and finally the fool (silly, friends with all, foolish character, possibly a stoner or outcast of some sort.)
That is a VERY general, basic overview of the five archetypes for the horror movies, Cabin in the Woods played it the same way, but that was because of another twist. Not spoiling for those that haven't seen it.
Basically they need to be the five archetypes for the formula to work.

The fact that some movies can be explained all in one sentence when telling a friend.

Slow. burn. movies. I hate when a movie makes me wait 55 minutes for something to happen, especially when I'm not even put on the edge of my seat. It's annoying, I love to be captivated by movies, feel the emotions of the characters, see the scenery, enjoy the ride with the actors. When it doesn't do that, I'm out and I can't finish the movie if it doesn't enthrall me by the 30 minute mark. Perhaps I'm picky and I usually skip forward or see it till the end, but I like to enjoy my movie, not feel like I'm in a never-ending business meeting.

I simultaneously get annoyed when characters are basically super-humans and don't die from any and all attacks. Heck no I (usually) don't want them to die, perhaps it's the main character than no, but if it's a villain sometimes the final forms take way too long to address and delete from life. This isn't Dragon Ball Z...which was really good personally.

 

[DeltaLoraine]

I’m a bit tired of characters that look like their personality...
As soon as you see a character, it’s like you know exactly who they are. Which isn’t the case in real life. People can dress completely differently to their interests.

Like give me a girl that dresses in dark clothes and chokers but is the bubbly friendly one. Or a tall buff dude that is the smart nerdy friend. And maybe have the skinny girl be the one that really loves food.

I just feel like that makes it so much more real, ya know?

 

[KrazyKarp]

Forced romance. Not every movie, TV show, etc. needs to have romance in it, and more often than not it feels very forced. Particularly in anything action, fantasy, mystery, etc. it feels very forced a lot of the time.

Also anything superhero is just the same recycled idea with nothing new and unique. Marvel movies are particularly terrible at this, I watch them and think "Ah, I've seen this before. Weak story, cliche characters, boring humor, all for an excuse to make some flashy battle scenes." It'd be incredibly easy for anyone to write a script for a Marvel movie because they're all so generic.

 

[Romaki]

Love triangles and cheating are the worst, it immediately makes your character so bad.

 

[MapleSilver]

When characters are explicitly pronounced dead, then resurrected later. Most of the time it makes death meaningless, like just another injury. If you want to have your character out of commission for a while, put them in a coma or something because it accomplishes the same thing. Especially if you plan on actually killing off a character later.

 

[deleted]

I don’t like how people who were dumped grovel to their exes and then everything is magically okay and they’re back together. It sends a bad message. Sometimes breakups need to happen but media always portrays them so negatively.

 

[FinalArcadia]

My absolute least favorite plot is probably when there's a sequel to something and the main cast features the kids of the previous cast. It's just extremely off-putting to me, for some reason. Also really tired of the main male character and main female character in a lot of media being a foregone conclusion that they'll probably get together by the end. Kinda tired of the need for romance in nearly everything in general tbh.