Fantasy writers? Cliches!

[Blessed-one]

any fantasy writers out there? shall we start this game by listing down some outrageous and incredibly funny cliches in the genre?

i think it'd be interesting (and fun) to see what we can come up with and see whether we might have that in our own stories.

 

[Paladin Dave]

Teenage elves in LOTR settings. Tolkien's elves didn't even hit puberty until 50, so not only is this lame, but its impossible.

 

[Alternate Carpark]

Casting Principal Skinner as Darth Vader in the last Star Wars episode was just so wrong !

 

[Blessed-one]

names that look good on paper but are hard to pronounce.

Teenage elves in LOTR settings. Tolkien's elves didn't even hit puberty until 50, so not only is this lame, but its impossible

woh, i didn't notice that.

add another one, all main characters are usually under the age of 30.

 

[Lessien]

Killing the hero's parents (or whoever's raising him/her) early on in the book.

 

[GodFlute2]

Making Elves good guys. And very few Evil Elves.

 

[Solomon Kane]

We all know that dwarves live in mines and caverns. So why is that their favored weapon is an axe?

If I ever write a story with a dwarf character he's using a mining pick as a weapon.

 

[Paladin Dave]

Tolkien explains(or atleast one of the books did) that they had shorter arms than goblins, so axes were easier for them to weild than swords. Now, as for mining tools, dwarves may be miners, but they are also craftsmen, so they can make weapons better suited for combat.

 

[Blessed-one]

If I ever write a story with a dwarf character he's using a mining pick as a weapon.

Now, as for mining tools, dwarves may be miners, but they are also craftsmen, so they can make weapons better suited for combat.

cliches! why can't dwarves be gardeners?

another one: most female characters are good looking.

 

[oncewaslost]

how about elves in general?

 

[Paladin Dave]

To build on the good looking thing...

If there is a good looking female that stays with the group, she is most likely going to fall in love with the hero.


All muscular guys are slow. What the heck made people think of this one?! I know I didn't get slower when I started working out. Muscles allow faster movement, not hinder it. People just seem to think its dead weight, like fat, I guess. :/

 

[Lessien]

And all of the girls are either good-looking or ugly. And if they're ugly, then it's because of some scar or other deformity, not genetics. None of them are average.

 

[GodFlute2]

All muscular guys are slow. What the heck made people think of this one?! I know I didn't get slower when I started working out. Muscles allow faster movement, not hinder it. People just seem to think its dead weight, like fat, I guess. :/

I heard somewhere that muscle atually weighs more than fat.

 

[Paladin Dave]

It does, but its what allows you to move, so its more ability to move around.

 

[chipmunk]

Some things I find cliche:

The main character was not raised by his/her parents.
One of the parents is evil, or they died trying to save the child.


And worst of all mentioning prophecies about your character ALL the time and referring to them as the "chosen one." *gags* There are ways to incorporate the "chosen one" idea without making it awful.

All muscular guys are slow. What the heck made people think of this one?! I know I didn't get slower when I started working out. Muscles allow faster movement, not hinder it. People just seem to think its dead weight, like fat, I guess. :/

Musle IS for movement. Weight lifting is for strength and gives one the bulky body. For fluidity and speed one MUST incorporate stretching. Stretching will strengthen, lengthen, and lubricate your muscles. Stretching is a very core tenet of ballet, yoga, pilates, martial arts, etc. There is a very real phenomena of people (usually men) trying to bulk up and not doing their stretches--this gives them strength and not very much fluidity. It is from them that we get the stereotype of the slow super muscle man.

 

[DailyBlessings]

Tolkien's elves in other people's stories.

Heroes who discover dark secrets connected to their mysterious heritage.

Bizarre names like Hrodolfo and Niggledwibbit. Also any sort of name with an unnecessary apostrophe and too many vowels.

 

[jasperbound]

Are there fat elves or even just slightly overweight ones? I'd say slender elves have become cliche.

 

[Lyle]

cliches.....

Elves
Trolls
Dwarves
Note: None of these were made by Tolkine.. In fact, most of everything Tolkien used was not made by Tolkine but borrowed from other works (Beowulf, the fairie Queene, ect.)
Wizards
Long, flowing blonde hair and blue eyes. In most period works, it's nasty, ratty hair...
wow, there are so many. There are general archetypes that Carl Jung picked out.. such as..

the trickster
the hero
the wise old man

These can be found in almost all stories.

 

[Blessed-one]

Are there fat elves or even just slightly overweight ones? I'd say slender elves have become cliche.

oh, i'm cracking up so bad... and plus i've just read PD's muscular stupid men..

by the way, i think that's a 'most used' because when people concentrate too much on building their muscles and stuff, they might not get time to do other things like study politics, art etc.
maybe that's how it is in real medieval time?

i just read this one today, and thought it classifies as one: stew
people eating stew all the time, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
*check manuscript for any stew related scenes*

 

[Paladin Dave]

Stew was very common in the middle ages. It was usually easy to make, and made your ingredients go around better. If you didn't have enough meat or potatoes for everyone to get a full serving of it, you could pool resources and make a lot of stew. They did this in the early USA in their forts, because they recieved a food ration of meat, and it wasnt too uncommon to get some rancid meat. So just incase one person got a bad share, they would all use their meat for a stew to ensure everyone got enough to eat, and had no problem sharing with a guy who got bad meat. Because hey, they knew it could very well happen to them one day too.

They didn't have gyms back then. People either got muscular by working hard all day long or fighting hard all day long. It was often genetic too, since people can just naturally be prone to growing large amounts of muscle. But seriously, a lot of people think strong=smart as 3 yr old.(Remember Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds?) Why? I have no idea. I can tell you all one thing, your brain does not shrink as your muscles grow. Or vice versa.