Bothersome Fantasy

I'm in the mood to write about something that bothers me. So let's talk about a few fantasy tropes that I don't like or annoy me.

Fantasy is one of my favorite settings. It's right there with Sci-fi as far as liking it is concerned. It lets you explore strange and bizarre worlds with unique histories. Morality and religion can be explored in unique ways bringing questions into the mind of the reader that they may never have asked otherwise. I've used fantasy books to explore my own beliefs plenty of times before. The black and white moralities of most high/epic fantasy down to the grey haze of anti-hero sagas really help you question your own views of what's right and wrong without letting things like the real world get in the way.

The telling of a fantasy story let's you explore these questions as you write them. That, and let you come up with amazing worlds full of (relatively) unique nations and organizations who do cool things. There's nothing quite like a good fantasy setting that makes you want to take up a sword and go monster hunting.

Unfortunately the genre is full of stupid tropes that bother the crap out of me and make it difficult for me to just pick up a series out of the blue. Some of them are just come with the territory, while others just get overused because of people not wanting to stray away from the basic formula of The Hobbit. Dungeons and Dragons might also be partially to blame since how many people who write fantasy have played that game?

Anyways, onto the whining!

The overuse of magic:

Don't get me wrong, magic is integral to an enjoyable fantasy adventure story. Without it how could you explain how the world has become imperiled by the random dude of dark desires? No magic tends to make a fantasy story less interesting to me, but when an author or director uses it in such casual ways I get irritated by it.

I'm having trouble coming up with specific examples right now, all that's coming to my mind is random Animes. Games (Final Fantasy you easily come to mind) can be very guilty of this. I know I've read some books like that before though. I think Eragon was like that, but I only read it once and really didn't like it for a lot of different reasons.

Anyways, what I mean by overuse is when magic is commonplace. DnD is a perfect example of what I see as magic being too commonplace. I have a big problem with how powerful magic is at relatively low levels. Come 8th level you can raise people from the dead. At 5th level Clerics can cast 3rd level spells that make them on par with the major miracles supposedly performed by the prophets/deities of real world religions.

Granted that type of thing is to be expected in a fantasy world, but still having mid-level priests exist that are able to just shrug after a fight because they have to perform a resurrection, like it's a common thing, really bothers me. It's like when comics resurrect characters with convoluted reasons (e.g. Aunt May), is mastery of the mortal coil really that simple and common place that all you need is some gold or a handful of spell components?

I could probably go on for hours on this subject alone just talking about each individual example that bothers me. So, I'll just get to the point. Having too much magic waters down its impact and tends to introduce plot holes. It's something that I've always felt should be wondrous, mysterious and, well, magical. It shouldn't be used as a technology replacement nor used as a way to make things generally easier on the protagonist. Magic shouldn't remove conflict from a story. It should just be a rare tool at the disposal of a few.

When magic gets overused it leads to the next problem.

Deus Ex Machina:

The God Machine. The Macguffin. The "I can't figure out how the protagonists are going to get out of this on so I'm just going to make an extremely contrived reason that they do that defies all logic and introduces gigantic plot holes that make you wonder why they couldn't do that before" maneuver.

Every storyteller is guilty of it at some point in their lifetime. Sometimes you just can't help it or it actually is needed in the story for a particular reason. So I can understand why it happens and why it gets done. It doesn't change the fact that more often than not it's used for a get out of consequences free card.

[Possible Spoilers here if you haven't read the Sword of Truth Series]

One example that really bothers me is the Sword of Truth series of books by Terry Goodkind. I love the series. It is well written with well plotted characters, beautiful descriptions, complex and poignant plots, with great ethical and political questions brought up. The problem though is that at the end of almost every book in the series Richard solves the problem with of the book with the sudden appearance of his magic talent out of nowhere that just wrap everything up nice and perfect.

The last book in the series is the absolute worst offender of the worst type too. I won't go too deeply into it here but there is seriously an entire chapter where it is nothing but a lecture by [Okay, SPOILERS AHEAD!!!] Richard as he uses magic in such a way that he is a deus ex machina as he reshapes reality to his whims and beliefs and makes everything everywhere better and more free and gives everyone what they would want, and a pony. [END SPOILERS]

Drove me up a fraggin' wall reading the ending to that book. Every single struggle, trial, conflict, difficulty undone by the wave of the infinite powers wand.

Dragons:
This is a point of contention between myself and most of nerdom. I don't like dragons all that much. I recognize why they're loved as a fantasy staple. They're powerful creatures that inspire fear and awe. They fly, breath fire, are intelligent and otherworldly, are an unstoppable force, and live for freaking ever. As a villain or antagonist they could be devastating. As an ally, amazing and a turner of the tide.

The problem though is that once the get brought into a story they're usually used as deus ex machina. Especially when used as an ally of the protagonist. Some stories do it right, I particularly like the way Dragonheart does it. Most of the time though it ends up overdone.

I think the best example of the comparison of a good use of dragons vs a bad use are the 2 live action Dungeons and Dragons movies. The first one is a good example of a bad use while the second one is a good use. The first one they're used as a background plot point and it eliminates half of what makes them a legend, they're basically enslaved by a human created magic device eliminating their free will and turning them into nothing more than aerial artillery pieces. The second movie uses an epic leveled Dracolich as the final antagonist that was driving the main antagonist onward. Eventually he is released and wrecks havoc upon those in his way.

The one dragon is able to take on an entire kingdom on its own and can only be put down with extreme effort outside of combat by the use of a dangerous deus ex machina device that took an appropriate amount of effort to be able to be used (the device gets a pass because its only purpose was to stop the dragon and was next to impossible to unravel its secrets).

Ridiculously sexy warrior-princesses:

This is a trope that Hollywood is overusing like crazy right now. It's used in place of good writing to show a woman as a hero. A 90 pound supermodel cannot wield a bastard sword and shield while wearing plate armor and still be able to go toe to toe with hardened combat veterans. It just isn't physically possible.

Also, distraction isn't an AC bonus. Women can wear armor that doesn't show off their tits. It's okay. They can protect their body from injury, it's allowed.

The new Snow White movie with Kristen Stewart actually looked bearable (everything but Stewart looked good) until she wanders out onto the battlefield in full plate. That dropped it from a "see in theatres" down to a "maybe rent it" in my mind.

The warrior princess trope is just lazy writing, substituting actual character and motivations with flashy sword moves and a "liberated until the plot requires a man to save her" personality. This type of thing is even more common in video/tabletop gaming. Female Shepard is the only recent female protagonist I can name off the top of my head that is well written enough to avoid this trope in recent memory. Can anyone else think of any?

Hell, Shaundi from Saint's Row is better written than most Hollywood heroines these days. At least she doesn't drop her bad ass skills if she gets into trouble.


These are only some of the thoughts I've had regarding these things. This entry is really just meant to get the ball rolling not only for a nerdverse discussion, but for the blog in general. So please excuse the rambling nature of this entry. I promise I'll work hard to improve the writing in the future. Now feel free to comment below or start a conversation/argument/bitchfest up on my Facebook.