Dear Authors, Doing Tropes Differently
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 พ.ย. 2019
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Merphy's First Law of Fiction: A main character must die at the end of the story.
Merphy's Second Law of Fiction: If romance, one of the love interests must die at the end of the story.
Merphy's Third Law of Fiction: A plot arc (be it romance, coming of age, dystopian, what have you) is only as interesting as how many main characters die at the end of the story, except LotR. All protagonists (not Boromir) are allowed to survive in LotR!
xD
These are my new favorite laws
Now I know why I like my favorite book so much. The third law is true, UNLESS the main character is so epic that they make up for the lack of dead people. Assumed dead can also work to a certain extent, but only if it utterly rips out your heart and the characters' heart for a long time, like half a book. Resurrection can be used if the character is resurrected at least half a book later.
Ha! In my book, a love interest dies, she falls for more than one guy, and it's very clear that the MC is not going to survive the war. I keep killing people off and I'm only two books in! Glad to hear I'm not ruining everything.
@@merphynapier42 Another trope I am tired off is alien invasion. When H.G. Wells wrote the grandfather of the genre War of the Wars, it was mostly an allegory of British Imperialism (aliens representing the Empire and Earth the countries it dominated at the time) as well as the losing influence of religion and invasive species.
There are so many planets with resources greater than Earth in our galaxy, so what not seek out those worlds to raid, and if they are looking for a new world to inhabit, why not seek out a habitable, yet unoccupied planet to settle.
Also, have each alien race with different tribes, castes and cultures and not look human, but at the same time, act human, act more than human, but not THINK like humans.
Also, I would like to see a sci-fi story that focuses on characters and themes instead of advanced science and tech as the main focus. Also, no clones, hyper drives, lasers and more realistic technology. How about great space ships discovered on Mars, and a group of humans, sick of Earth's increasing environmental and social destruction, somehow took a couple and decide to head out to the cosmos.
Their descendants settle on habitable planets and a few centuries later, their descendant's stories and those of the alien races are told.
No wonder I've been having a hard time. Half of my characters are immortal lol
Isn't the "chosen one everyone hates" like... Shrek ?
Shrek is love, Shrek is life
@@anadoesthings2999 I'm having war flashbacks
Isn't it also the beginning of shield hero too?
SuperDude 1236
I see you’re a man of culture as well
Idk if I'd consider Shrek "the chosen one", he more of accidentally assumed the role and just rolled with it lol
Merphy: "Someone write that book!"
Me, a writer: 😏
Hahahaha same 😂👌
There is a ranobe with this exact plot. Terrible chosen one who's only capable for the task. Story's told from a side character perspective
PS. It's a "Hero is Invincible, but terribly cautious". It's writing is garbage, but the author has a very salty stance on ALL fantasy tropes, showing that from a strategic perspective they make no sense. Also hero has a ton of reasons to be a dick there. Basically, he has negative investment in the situation, but still he goes out of his way to get to the goal.
PPS. It covers tropes, like hero journey: if there is a prophecy about a hero, forces of evil should 1. monitor places where hero can safely start the journey, eliminating him at the starting point. 2. Eliminate hero's party from prophecy beforehand (using overwhelming power). 3. Secure magic artifacts necessary for fulfilling prophecy. Forces of evil should hide their actual abilities at first, attack only when it's a guaranteed overkill (not sending some progressively better henchmen). etc.
I'm totally writing the one about assassins.
Hahaha Ditto!
When I was like 13 I had this idea of writing a book following a young girl, who falls through a portal to a fantasy world. There she encounters the chosen one and his mentors in a rebel camp. The prophecy dictates the chosen one will have help from another world. And then mentors forces the girl along on the chosen ones journey. He is an obnoxious brat who is all stuck up, because he has been told for as long as he can remember that he is the chosen one, and will defeat the evil overlord. The chosen one believes he cannot die until the overlord is dead, so he constantly throws himself into danger, and she has to use her wits, and a great deal of luck to get him out of all the shit. When she tries to confront him, with how much danger he is putting them in, he simply says he cannot die, he is the chosen one, they were in no danger at all.
Eventually he is kill off by the overlord, everyone else gives up, and our main character realizes she is the only one who can finish the job.
Never could pull myself together to actually write more than 10 lines though xD
peter Rasmussen that’s cool.
Aw dude keep it going please!
Omg write it i would read that!
Dude! please continue or someone else continue the story please ahhhh. I would read this 100%%
I would read the heck out of this
"The side characters are forced to follow the chosen one, but they're so annoying and so bad at what they do. So the side characters have to pull a lot of weight because of it. But the chosen one is still given the credit for saving the world."
This is basically the premise for Inspector Gadget, lol.
Steven Alexander What about the girl Inspector Gadget
Lol, totally. 😂
Isn’t that the plot of Harry Potter?
"Sometimes people die in a war."
What an interesting and unexpected subversion.
but people die if they are killed?!
@DevilJin just because you are right it doesn't mean you are correct
Cough* apparently that’s not enough of a subversion for David Benioff and Dan Weiss.
People die when they are killed.
@@candidlyopinionated19 probably not enough people died in that war tbh.
IM WRITING A STORY ABOUT SIX PEOPLE WHO NEED TO FIGURE OUT A MAGIC SYSTEM AND I FEEL SO PROUD OF MYSELF NOW
How's it going? I would definitely read that book
Ender chapter forty seven with a sequel planned :)
Zoë Holmes ooooo good luck haha!
I’ll read it!!!
That's so cool, i'm writing something similar (just the subplot though) tell us when it's avaliable :D
8:37 I don't think I've ever actually seen someone's mind get blown in real time before.
"...Tell the story of those who first discovered magic..." Dammit, I've been working on that for a year now. Spoiler alert; It's... freakin'... hard...
Research the history of science, you'll get the base for experiments and discovery progression, plus scientists bickering. Also interesting to think about what would be the division between science and magic and if there would be any overlap (like w alchemy based systems)
Ancient Dreams 4: Marin's Codex by Benjamin Medrano ....love this series
Yeah! I've thought about writing that one too. It's great for a bit, but then you realize the whole story can't just be one great long list of what didn't work...... Or maybe it could. Hmm
well, it's basically every Superhero-origin story
@@absurdious yeah ur right
2:32 in the mind of Hermione like 99% of the time she looks at Ron and Harry: "what an idiot"
Ummmmm no
Yas
I've got some ideas:
- The Chosen One, except the expectations of being the Chosen One cause them to either gain a massive superiority complex and sense of entitlement, or it makes them incredibly stressed and insecure about their responsibility.
- Insta Love, except it isn't true love, but a short-lived infatuation that ends in tears.
-The Mentor, except he's revealed in the end to be the real villain, having lied to and manipulated the heroes throughout the whole story.
-The Comic Relief Character, except he's actually in a lot of pain and is either insecure about bungling through everything and/or being laughed at, or is a sad clown who acts as the comic relief to cover up his own suffering.
[FIRST LAW SPOILERS]
Okay, so like, this is quite spoilery for anyone who hasn’t read First Law. But for “The Mentor” one that trilogy is perfect.
That’s a good idea for a comic relief character! Could I use that for my book?
The Mentor one is great!!
The comic relief character is actually quite popular. Example: Leo Valdez from the hero’s of Olympus series is definitely like that
Skyllduggery pleasant kinda does a lot of that.
“A chosen one that’s bad at what they do so the side characters have to pull a lot of weight.”
So...Frodo and Sam?
Surprised Char well...at least he bears the ring decently...almost...
If you think he does his work badly, you didnt understand the whole evil ring thingy...Frodo was never a chosen one, thats the point. Its a story about how much can be done by the most ordinary little person out there. He was not chosen to carry the ring, because he was special. He was chosen to carry the MacGuffin, because anyone more significant and skilled than him would probably turn out misusing the ring. Gandalf needed someone, whos complete lack of ambition and good heart would handle the thing.
@@skadi6750 Therefore, the hobbits are the only candidates. Still kind of a chosen one thing but more of the type of chosen one thing where success comes to the MC not purely because of in-world reasons but because of the author's themes. A hobbit can carry the one ring much longer than any other race because of their lack of ambition; and so Frodo is *CHOSEN* to carry it.
Well kinda. Frodo isn't _bad_ at the task. It's just that the weight of The Ring becomes next to unbearable.
Funny to me how people always say frodo is the main character. Really it’s Sam, he has the most traditional character arc
Alternate title for this video
“Write that book!”
Some of y'all never watched the Barbie Fairytopia series and _it shows_
Gosh I loved this as a kid 😁
Is that the one with the little blue guy?
It's been a while. Which tropes were you thinking of
For some reason I only ever watched the spinoffs
Also Barbie and the 3 Muskerters
So what if there was some dark evil force overtaking everything and there was The Chosen One, but everyone was abusing or overworking him/her, and so they became the villain and disappeared. The book isn't told in their point of view; the book is told in the little sibling/son/daughter of one of the many people who abused The Chosen One, and they have lived their whole life believing The Chosen One has not yet been Chosen, and they find a set of letters that reveals to them the truth. The story is them coming to terms with the way their parent/older sibling treated The Chosen One, and them going on a search to find The Chosen One, and convince them to change their mind.
If anybody wants to add to this, feel free! Maybe the Chosen One is related to someone they know and they were never mentioned to the MC? Who knows!
the chosen one becoming a villain trope is done in star wars, although it's not for overworking the character but for other reasons that I don't want to spoil
@@h.arr0z Lol, I love your commitment to not spoil a series of movies that's been a huge part of Western culture for the past 46 years, and for which the plot has been common knowledge for just as long... It's like not wanting to spoil the Bible by carefully refraining from telling who gets nailed to what near the end of the book. 😂
@EvenTheDogAgrees maybe they're referring to the 3 prequels. A lot of people know the plot of the original 3 movies without having to watch them, while the plots of the prequels aren't as well known by non-Star Wars watchers. A lot of people may not even know who Anakin is, let alone what happens to him.
Ok but hear me out: there should be a book about a character with severe hallucinations and mental health problems who thinks they’re in a dream the entire book so is absolutely terrible and does things they would never do in real life, and then they realize it wasn’t a dream and go insane.
Like completely fully 100% snap
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
that is interesting. seriously, i would love a character that way
I'm on it. If it gets published I'll call it "Sometime Before Midnight."
Not to be a downer but I really REALLY do not like stories that paint mentally ill people as dangerous. Mentally ill people are much more likely to be the abused than the abuser, especially people who don’t have a good grip on reality. It’d be better if the story was about them thinking they’re in a dream as someone else chases them down, killing all their friends and family but the protagonists thinks they’re having an episode, until to realize at the end they weren’t and everyone they know is dead. The story ends with them dying too.
A very different story from yours, I admit, but one that doesn’t play into harmful and isolating stereotypes
Gilderoy Lockhardt, the boy who lived
androgynouvelle
The Chosen One and the Mouse King.
Oh yes!
Nooooo 😂😂😂
Kenneth Branagh: The Chosen One
It's about a celebrity magician who lost his memory and now getting bits of it back, he has to rediscover himself, realized he was a jerk and he had bluffed those accomplishments. There would be a low point when he wished he never got those awful memories back, but he decided to go on a journey visiting those magicians; works he took credit. Make friends, fall in love, get his self-worth back. And realize accomplishment is not everything. To quote Hermione - "There are more important things - friendship and bravery!” :)
Mine was an idea I've been playing around with for a while regarding the chosen one trope. A guy realizes he lines up with the prophecy in his home village quite a bit and fakes the ways he's different from it so he can take advantage of said village. They give him money and power and he's living it up until the actual chosen one shows up and that guy goes on the run once people realize he's a fake. Then he just becomes a con man, studying other prophecies in the world and trying his best to match other chosen one attributes. Fantasy con man. I don't know. I thought it was fun.
And yeah, the learning the boundaries of magic sounds great. I actually thought of writing a similar middle grade story a while back but I'm not too interested in writing that as much as reading it, so I hope it exists or will exist.
I love that idea! Please do write that and maybe let me know when you're done, 'cause I would for sure read it
That's awesome!
You have a fan already!
Spy kids 3 vibe anyone?
@@benparrish6157 I've not watched a single Spy Kids. Maybe you're right. Thanks if that's the case. If I ever work on it, I'll change it up if it seems close.
2:40 Imagine if we followed Harry Potter but towards the end he realized Neville was actually the chosen one somehow.
Yes.
What if they had Trelwalney teach Occulmentary
I actually had a theory while the series was still in progress of how that would turn out to be the case... See, Trelawny's prophecy says, "The Dark One will mark him as his equal," right? It never says when! The Chosen One never had to be a baby when getting this mark, it's just that Harry was! Neville could've had the same thing happen to him well into his teenage years (Maybe even the final book!), because someone else (Gran, a parent that actually recovered, or maybe even a girlfriend) sacrifices themself to protect Neville. Avada Kedavra backfires on Voldemort again, and there we go! I still feel that it was a big missed opportunity for JKR.
The person who wrote the comment about discovering magic is a genius. My dream is to become a writer, so I'm watching 'Dear Authors' to know what kind of books are great. This idea is so amazing!!! But I can't do it because It's not my idea. It just doesn't feel like. Seriously, the person who wrote that, please, please, write the book. I would love to write a book like that, but I can't because the idea is yours. Please, let the world read that amazing plot!!!
They do something similar in my book, you're never the first one to think of something. Everything has been done before you even thought of it. Write the book, nobody else will write it the exact same way as you would. A concept could be interpreted in thousands of different ways. :)
@@nennejoh Very true. There are likely hundreds of ways to write it. I've seen lots of ideas flying around here about the people who discover magic being like scientists in medieval or modern times, but I'm actually thinking of going with a story where the discoverers are early tribes of hunter-gatherers. If magic has always been around, makes sense to me people would figure out how to use it at the same time they're figuring out how to use other aspects of the natural world, like agriculture for example.
I felt the same way but, me and my friend had an idea sort of like that already
'Ideas' can't and shouldn't be owned. They aren't developed enough to be considered a plot. If undeveloped ideas are off limits, books would cease being written. There are millions more ideas never used, then there are ones developed.
@@darkwitnesslxx That. And also: not everyone has the talent to write a book. Just because you can come up with a cool concept doesn't mean you can develop it into something worth reading. I've got shittons of ideas for cool concepts. I have, however, very little actual writing talent.
I feel like the side character having to follow the terrible/moany chosen one and run around and solve their shortfalls is kinda LOTR in about 3 more drafts when it becomes the tale of Samwise Gamgee, the true badass of Middle Earth.
Love this
There is a story like this already. Except hero's terrible behaviour stays unchallenged and there are reasons for it
The last two LOTR books it already is.
woah dont disrespect frodo like this. he was doing the best he could despite the circumstances
YES Sam is soooo much cooler than Frodo. Legit.
On discovering the magic system, what if it's like discovering nuclear energy leading into the Cold War? What if two opposing sides are playing with something they don't at all understand to get the upper hand? There will undoubtedly be inhumane experimentation, unnecessary 3rd party casualties, and stakes too high to abandon the cause. If the "good guys" don't compromise their principles and as a result barely surpass a more primitive use of magic, one can reasonably expect the "bad guys" to win. This can be a huge political commentary with world-shattering ramifications.
Or this could be a fun anthology with people blowing themselves up cartoonishly like Wile E Coyote. I don't know.
underrated.
If feel like for any suggestion in this video I've gone: "I've seen this anime!" 😂
People, watch anime/ read manga and play story games - good storytelling is not exclusive to books! 😏
Yes, that how I get my most inspired ideas. I think that's why so many books sound the same, because they don't think outside the box.
This! Don't write off a whole medium, yes a medium not a genre, because you're not used to it. Everyone has preferences but writing off every anime/manga/game as bad is just like writing off all books or movies as bad. It makes no sense. You wouldn't say all movies are bad because your watched one horrible one. And if someone wrote off all books because they weren't into the genre of the first one they picked up, that'd be annoying too. Please, try new things.
-Sincerely, someone who likes just about every medium.
yes! I love how they experiment with tropes like that. for every story that follows the tropes, there is something subverting or poking fun at them. like One Punch Man or Kiss Him, Not Me. I think the way they format and distribute it helps with that, because if it doesn't catch on its not that big of a deal. where here its kind of make or break
@Marie ᶘ oᴥoᶅ Depends on the anime, but yes, sometimes. I've watched some amazing anime, but also some I could barely finish due to being boared out of my mind.
@Marie ᶘ oᴥoᶅ I know exactly the noise you mean, yeah that's kind of annoying. Personally, I dislike when a story of any medium starts getting extremely predictable. I straight up dropped a show once when I realized they were recycling the same sequence of events over and over with slight changes.
On a smaller scale, when an adverb doesn't make sense it seriously irks me. :)
The "chosen one sucks and the supporting character has to pick up the slack" is actually done quite well in the Merlin television series. Uther and (to a lesser extent) Arthur can both be so unlikable at times, and Merlin's always having to bail them out despite the fact they both do terrible things. Definitely worth a watch, although I must say the later seasons aren't as good because the show starts to take itself too seriously.
It is actually really heartwarming to see someone so passionate about reading. Love the video!
Fraser King ya. But have you seen book tube lol
I agree! I'm hear to see Merphy get totally pumped up about book ideas and stories. We can all share in the virtual squee. :D
I Love it when she gets so excited she has no more words and all she can say is "Write that book!"
Yes yes yes. I live how enthused Merph is. I am so glad I found her channel. It's given me the boost I need to take my writing from hobby to publisher. Wish me luck guys.
@@kathleenbrashier2579 That sentence very nearly went another direction.
Buffy is feminine (likes shopping, fashion, “girly” stuff), and is super badass.
She's basically a Action Girl.
Scorpia in She-ra and the Princesses of Power ! Strong and buffy, but bubbly and affectionate ^^
Me, wanting to write all these tropes
Then realizing the amount of writers that watch these videos and soon enough these super cool tropes I love the sound of become cliché XD
Cliches arent bad it just depends on how they're used
You'd be surprised how few will try, how few finish and how few are good by the end
Me: * newbie author writing my first novel and having lost motivation
Merphy Napier: Dear authors, plz -
Me : *Gained back my lost life and writing like a mad man
😀😀😀😀it works
XD as a fellow newbie author (fantasy/comedy graphic novel) I do this too, though since I’m still in the planning stages it’s more frantic notes
@@iluvlittenanimations2.010 I just watched the death video, wrote like 3 comments and realised I could copy and paste them into my notes app and use them. I now have an idea for a story that takes place in my main world and NO ONE IS SAFE *MUAHAHAHA*
Me too! Writing my first historical fiction novel... Coming on a year now of work...
The Anti-Chosen One is the basis of Hellboy.
The Anti-Anti-Christ.
Like Darth Vader, who went bad and loved it
Hellboy, the half demon destined to end the world and rule Hell, also destined to rule England because his mother(a witch) is a descendant of Mordred. He rejects his destiny, even the England one. He briefly wields Excalibur to kill one monster before he abandons it at an inn.
Insta love, BUT
The MC and the LI both have memory loss and wake up in a room together all bloody and things and instantly fall in love. The two discover where the one person who can cure their memory loss is and they find them. They do, they get cured and it turns out they hated each other, like HATED each other, but this mystical being just shipped them really badly, so made them lose their memories and has been pulling the strings since, trying to stop them from getting their memories back. Now, said mystical being is a bit pissed that their OTP now hate each other.
can the mystical being be Aphrodite
@@erinfulse7939 YES
Aphrodite would do that before breakfast
Actually reminds me of a movie where two people wake up without memories and kinda start having romantic feelings only for them both to realise the guy tried to kill her just before they lost their memories.
Or... Possibly some fanfics I've read...
No one:
Merphy after hearing something kinda cool: WrItE tHaT bOoK!!!!
5:50 - The Rising of the Shield Hero. Japans got you covered and it's my 2nd favorite series ever.
8:30 I'm writing a story like that. Magic has been gone for hundreds of years, the main characters are trying to bring it back and have to figure out how to use the magic and deal with a world that doesn't know how to cope with magic being back because no one living has used it before.
Sounds great! Love that premise :)
Sounds awesome! I will read that book
I'm writing something like that too lol
this sounds amazing! where can I follow you to keep up with this?
That's also the premise in "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell". Takes place in late 19th century England but the 2 protagonist study magic with the aim to bring it back. The magic system is also Arthurian/fairy magic and not the typical Tolkein inspired system.
They also did an excellent 3 part BBC series based on it that's true to the book.
*Murphy just starts writing a book in the middle of this video*
8:41 when I was younger and still on Wattpad there was a fairy tail fic with this exact plot and it was the most well written story I had ever read. It was strange and it was so well thought out. Still shook even now, I wish I could remember the name😖
I KNOW it’s a children’s show BUT: Ninjago does a really cool job with the Chosen One trope, following a character who is convinced that it should have been him for the first season. Meanwhile, the Chosen one does EVERYTHING he can to stop his destiny from having to happen because he never wanted it
If someone writes the assassins in a love triangle, the book needs to be a mystery, where prospective is only from one of the characters, so the reader doesn’t know the others are assassins either. Then at the end, when everything comes to a head, the characters all find out at the same time that the reader does. But there’s hints along the way so theoretically the reader could find out first.
4:34 Nathan Ball defines a love-triangle as being indecisive. If you were seducing someone to assassinate them, then you wouldn't be indecisive so how could all the members of the triangle be secretly assassins, including the indecisive one?
There should be names for different types of love-triangle.
Type 2: On a diagram, each participant is attracted to the person anticlockwise of her but must ignore him and seduce the person clockwise.
This requires that two of them are bisexual.
Or that one of them is bisexual and one is pretending to be.
Or that one of them is a convincing transvestite.
Or that all 3 are gay.
Or that there are an even number of assassins greater than 3, then they can be straight and half of them can be male.
Whichever of those sets of circumstances is least unlikely.
An advantage of writing this with 4 straight people, is that an assassin can try to eliminate her love-rival.
Seducing someone is only a viable method of assassination if you can do it quickly. If you get caught up in a love-triangle that could last for months, you would find a different way to kill someone. So the story has to be about each agent trying to get something.
I could totally see it as all of the characters were hired by the same person but none of them or the reader knows that until the end. You could have all of the characters die at the end while trying to kill each other and then the person who hired them is happy and you find out that that person is the best assassin and was trying to get his rivals killed off in the best way possible.
Epic the comment section is just free ideas
Not a fan of the idea Harry dies but I'm so down for Neville being the chosen one who saves the day. He should have his moment of glory while Harry pretty much ends up in the part of a helping or help-needing side character for once
The things is, Harry is the chosen one because Voldemort chose him over Neville.
I always wanted it to be like a random muggle or muggle born who just like showed up at the last minute and does the deed. And then everyone goes wait when's your birthday have your parents fought this guy before?!
@@rvfd807 This sounds actually fun :'D
@@ghyslainabel The thing is, J.K. Rowling is the author, so she could've just written it differently. Of course the explanation makes sense (as it should in a good book), but it's her who decides who and why he is the chosen one.
I wrote a chosen one story where everyone thought my main character was the chosen one, but she wasn't, it was her mate. Lilly Prospero And The Mermaid's Curse. Quite proud of that. JJ x
7:19 spoiler alert, but Rick Riordan manages to execute that perfectly in one of his books in his Heroes of Olympus series.
Edit: I also have to mention that Rick freaking Riordan has performed so many of these tropes(?) in so many of his books. I might re-watch this video and actually make a list.
1:49 - Percy Jackson and the Olympians(kind of)
8:14 - The Kane Chronicles !!!!!!!!!
Oh yeah! Didn't realise that!
@@ender4344 Hmm I have seen you somewhere
Tejasdeep Singh I've heard that so many times lol I need to get off youtube
@@ender4344
Lol and I remember you now you were writing some book weren't you?
Then go work on it for a bit lol
@@tejasdeepsingh456 ohhhh yeah now i remember you too. Hello again!
Also, about the guys discovering the boundaries of the magic system: make them be academics. All of them are from different fields and are better at something's than others, like: maybe a guy that loves camping and trailing is a biologist and becomes a druid, and he is the most athletic of the group; a girl that is an engineer gets telechenisys, but she is better at planning structures than actually building them with her mind, she could have been a really confident person before the Magic Event, but is now doubting her mental skills; a forensic scientist gets the ability to talk to the dead and helps solve a lot of cases, but gets depressed because he doesn't get to use his skills anymore and gets a lot of glory he feells he doesn't deserve, he could be the pessimist/realist of the group; a psicologist that gets to capt people's feelings, but can't know their source or destination, so she starts to do guess work on her patients and gets famous/infamous by it (a bit like Sherlock), when she joins the group she tries to be the emotional center, but she was a pragmatist before it all and fails miserably, so she gets to learn about her own feelings and how to treat those close to you with respect.
Daniel Lins i would SO read this!
That's blasphemy only the mc should be the most talented while the other Male characters be dumb and extras
Why are all of her fans people that I want to write new books for me to reaaad
Ahhhhh
MAAD TEE what if the main character was all of them.
Ahhhhh everybody is having such great ideas for books
I would read this
I'd like to take the "strong female character" one further, how about they just don't have to be ridiculously good at fighting but are just very traditionally feminine and their strengths aren't in being able to kill someone really fast or being "YA-sassy", but instead their strengths lie in being really emotionally strong and incredibly kind and attuned to the people around them. or maybe they know how to fight, cause they have to, but they don't really want to,,,,, basically give me more female characters like Sansa Stark.
Also The Black Jewels by Anne Bishop kinda follows the chosen one trope but the chosen one isn't one of the main characters, but the story is about the ppl around her and how they try to take some of the burden off her and help her lead a normal life.
Exactly. Positive examples of feminine qualities without 'twists' would be fantastic. I do like some tough female characters, but I think we can take a step back from the 'my eyeliner can cut a man's throat' femininity now.
Ha I was about to say "so basically Sansa Stark" and then I read the next sentence "Sansa stark"
The Winner's Trilogy does this!
Elantris has a bit of that with Sarene, I think.
Basically just write female characters as interesting characters of their own right, gender doesn’t have to come into it at all
Some Netflix shows who do the chosen one trope well:
DarK
Luna Nera
What about this: A back in time fanfiction where you find out the real story of the original timeline but a character goes back and tries to save someone that does, but they dont suceed and are sent back to their original timeline where they are dead and then have to dig themselves up or just suffocate. Actually I might write that
I got a similar idea. It's about a guy who carries the burden of dying repeatedly, like the movie Happy Death Day but 1000x worse in terms of deaths since the tension isn't coming from the MC's perils but from his friends and families.
Neville longbottom was the Chosen one. he kills nagini, Harry was just a side character in Nevilles life :)
Long live longbottom
I disagree
Part of the deal with Neville and Harry as I recall is that it was basically Voldemort's decision which of them became the chosen one
I also disagree i dont really get why people say that just because he killed nagini !Neville could have killed harry many times just because he is so dumb like at poa if Black was truly after harry harry would have died .Thats my point of view
the thing is neville actually could never be the chosen one. like harry lived because his mother didn't have to die, but she died FOR harry. if voldemort had chosen to kill neville, snape wouldn't care about sparing alice longbottom, so alice wouldn't die for neville so neville wouldn't be protected and he would die.
I LOVE how this also turned into a recommendation video..
I love your profile pic...Annabeth
PJO is my favorite series and my friends can me Annabeth. She's special to me
@@sarahsmith1097 same here.... pjo forever!!!!!
7:29 is literally Jason and Piper. I am surprised no one commented about it.
The love triangle thing where the two people realize they're worth more than being with the main person happened in the Office. Dwight, Andy, Angela.
Dwight throwing away the bobble-head was heartbreaking but effective.
It also happened in friends with phoebe
10:12 Merphy, your inner geek / fangirl side is showing 😂😂😂
I really enjoy this format, especially with the randomisation method, so people who saw the post later don't get left out!
There was some really interesting spins on this on tropes in here, and I really hope that (maybe?) someone gets inspired and delivers a story based around this.
Though I have to say, that as a reader who only recently got back into the "game", I'm not nearly as annoyed by some tropes as others may be, just because I haven't been exposed to them nearly as often. But I do also think, that whether it is a common trope or not, a little twist and originality always helps to make a book more memorable!
As a writer, I love seeing all these amazing story ideas and lowkey want to write them but at the same time I feel like I can't bc I'm essentially stealing someone's idea rip
At 3:35, that's the whole premise for the new She-Ra series, and ALL of the villains are complex. It's so good.
Love triangle: This happens among secondary characters.
Chosen one: the destiny is not known in the perspective crossover culture but there are oddball signs and they test these out.
Chosen one: the destiny is not known (and wouldn't be readily understood) in the perspective crossover culture but there are oddball signs and they test these out.
Not coming back from a sacrifice: Not all sacrifices involve death.
Evil empire/Rebels: Both become irrelevant after essentially a trade federation neofeudalist-industrial complex conspiracy takeover. Things turn into more of a grey vs grey vs grey differing viewpoints than good vs evil.
Zombie apocalypse mass death: this happens the first time the "zombies" appear.
Jesus I wish your Harry Potter headcannon was true soo gooood
Yeah! That's legit how Harry Potter should have ended.
love that version as well, but I've also always liked how in HP the Chosen One was actually chosen by Voldemort, not just by fate or some God or whatever, which is what made the prophecy self-fulfilling
Didn't JKR say at some point that HP would die in book 7? I expected something like your headcannon after I heard that. It would've made so much sense; he would've died to protect his friends just like his mother died to protect him.
I know this is dark, but as established, some people die in wars.
When I read the deadly hollows, I expected Merphy's headcannon to happen. But then we had that weird limbo thing. I like her Harry Potter headcannon more.
Your Harry Potter head cannon also adds another meaning to the line "neither can live while the other survives" which I think is so cool
Skulduggery Pleasant has the plot with the example you used of chosen one trope but destined to destroy the world. It's also my favorite book series of all time. :))
Oh my gosh someone please tell me some chosen one turns evil books. They're my absolute favorite!
But if we tell you then it's a huuuuggggeeee spoiler....I have a rec where theres two people who think they're the chosen one and you dont know which is good or bad until the middle...does that sound interesting to you?
@@gracelingaccountant oh I'm fine with a spoiler. It just makes me excited!
Yeah! That book sounds cool!
@@lostinabookcase3796 the faithful and the fallen series by John gwynne is possibly my favorite series of all time. All four books are out so you can binge them ☺️ no one is safe, everyone dies, theres awesome animal companions. Theres travel and epic battles and morally gray characters and AMAZING friendships...I just....UGH PLEASE READ IT 😭
If you're looking outside of adult fiction: The Young Elites. I loved it so much for being YA and it was an antagonist main character.
@@gracelingaccountant I second Faithful and the Fallen strongly! Epic fantasy at its best!
"Not Disney John Smith, but real John Smith." Legit LOL'ed at that part. Real John Smith was such an arrogant tool, but great inspiration for a main character readers could love to hate.
(Side thought - I never watched the show Merlin but the whole side character as main POV makes me think of that. IDK if that's how the show was, though.)
Jessica Saccone
Well, Merlin is a sort of chosen one character, but he is chosen to help the true chosen one spread peace (Albion). Yeah, I guess the show Merlin did have us see things from the point of view of a side character, and they did make the chosen one a "royal ass" (to quote Merlin), so we have those two suggestions covered.
Loved merlin
8:30 There's a bit in Korra (the sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender) that covers this, how the first bender got their power.
At 5:16 , I would recommend to that person three dark crowns♥️♥️ definitely one of my favorite series out there
Captain marvel’s finds out *spoiler*
She’s with the wrong side.
Just goes to show that a good idea doesn't necessarily make for a good product...in the end, the execution is what matters the most.
I'd take a REALLY well-written tired old trope over something unique but messily done any day.
@@sleepysera yeah the execution was really poor. Carol gets over it in like, 10 minutes.
Crab lord Yeah I liked the idea, but she bounced back from that shit really quick lol.
I would read all of these books. For the 'creating a magic system' one, I think it would have been cool to get a book on Luna Lovegood's mom and her experimentation with magic.
Hero not on the right side has been done brilliantly in The Last Samurai
“Girls with daggers that still like dresses”
Me and my obsessed self:
*COUGH* Makoto aka sailor Jupiter from sailor moon *COUGH*
Best Sailor Scout is Jupiter, for this reason among others.
Enders Shadow follows a side character with the chosen one being someone else. It’s the same story as Enders Game from a different perspective. It’s so good
I loved Ender's Shadow! It was so good following Bean and how he saw everything!
I loved the book but for me it felt to conflict with the original story. Beans interactions with Ender didn't feel right to me. Mostly because they were written before Beans character was fleshed our. I thought I heard Ender's Game was getting a rewrite as the universe expanded far further than originally thought so something's were being changed to help continuity.
Whoa. My mind just exploded. Too many amazing ideas at once!
The "Instalove but under a curse" is the plot of one of my favourite Kdramas "A Korean Oddyssey" If you plan on watching this and you don't want spoilers, stop reading. Basically, our main character puts an enchanted bracelet on a demon that makes him fall in love with her to prevent him from eating her & that he will protect her from other spirits that try to eat her. And he's hella annoyed by this whole situation. Anyway, this forces them to spend a lot of time together and she starts falling for him but doesn't know what to do since his feelings are fake. We find out towards the end of the series that the bracelet had actually stopped working about halfway through and he didn't even notice because he fell in love with her for real. So, it's from forced Instalove to real love.
7:07 This is literally the beginning of My Hero Academia
I thought the excact same thing😂
Ohhhhhh, I like your Harry Potter head canon! I've never thought of that! That would have been amazing.
The chosen one side character would be super cool!! I'd totally read that
Honestly when Merphy goes "WRITE THAT BOOK!!!" it makes me wanna sit my procrastinating butt down and get some stuff done, because it might even turn out okay and make her happy it's just so motivating
i think..... fanfiction explores more diverse and cooler tropes than.. "real" books do.... tbh
I really like in the Witcher series where very early on there are lots of signs that Ciri is a chosen one, but nobody has any idea what she is chosen for and who chose her.
Merphy mad fangirling on magic system for 2 minutes hahaha ❤️
+Merphy fangirling over assassin love triangle
+Merphy fangirling over Neville being the chosen one.
Very Much fangirling haha
Dear authors, please stop killing off characters or paralyzing them just because your main character has found a new love internet
Chronicle (2012) has a bit of "first to discover magic, learning its boundaries by trial and error"
For the idea of someone researching a magic system, there's a movie 'Frequencies' that does something similar. In this world they can measure luck, and it dictates much of your life. This guy and his friend discover a way to manipulate this, with some big unforeseen consequences.
It's more science fiction than magic, but fanciful nonetheless. It's an ok movie, but there are some nice scenes, especially the climax.
I like the one with the dickish Chosen One everyone has to follow. I'd love to read that.
Then go read shadow of the conqueror by shad m brooks. The main character in his pass life committed murder, genocide, rape and many more. He after being brought back to life he try's to change but is still a huge dick.
Hey one of my books has that ressurection idea. The character is literally on a black list from death and has an insanely slow healing ability so if they die they just lie there until their body repairs itself. Most direct mortal wounds (stabbed in the heart, shot in the head, etc) are days to weeks of them being immobilized by pain.
They actually go out of commission for 5 months after being burned alive.
"Side character being the Chosen One."
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion sorta-kinda did that. I say sorta kinda, because even though Martin Septim was overall destined to kill the Big Bad by being chosen by the chief god, the player character is also "chosen" by appearing in the the Emperor's dream before they even meet, and is given the responsibility to aid Martin.
also Martin is voiced by Sean Bean so of course he has to die at some point. haha actor tropes.
Figuring out the magic system: read Circe by Madeline Miller. World's first witch!
I Loved that book and I would certainly recommend it, but I am not too convinced it is about magic even though it is constantly present.
@@Wats06071 Not necessarily "about magic". Rather, a main focus of the story involves Circe figuring out she has a new type of magic that is wholly different from gods and mortals. She and her siblings are the first of their kind (witches) and Circe in particular goes through a lot to figure out how to actually make her magic work & have people regard her as working magic and not just destinies coming to pass.
Like when she's trapped on Aiaia trying to figure it all out:
"Let me say what sorcery is not: it is not divine power, which comes with a thought and a blink. It must be made and worked, planned and searched out, dug up, dried, chopped and ground, cooked, spoken over and sung. Even after all that, it can fail, as gods do not."
yeeeeeeesss to the magic system one!!
I think that's just called science. ;)
@@minimumviableplayer1402 lol
My favorite part of this is how into the ideas you get! So many clever little add ins to some of these as well. Saving this to my favorites playlist lol.
I just started watching your videos and the comments are giving me so many ideas for a series I’m going to be writing. So I’d like to say thank you!
This is beautiful and so amazing these ideas are so innovative and I like the random comment selector it gives everyone the chance to talk !!
And if you have read Percy Jackson please review it !!! It's a great YA series also never see the movies the books are always better
I've been waiting for this video the entire week :) Also thanks for using my comment
I really like the concept of both sides being wrong but thinking they're right. I love tragic stories with bad endings, tragic characters, tragic everything you get the point
I love you and I love the way you talk about books. It's so good to see someone so passionate about reading.
Any comments: Exist
Merphy: Write that down
Regarding the idea about discovering a magic question: isn’t that kind of Kaladin in WoR? Kind of.
What's WoR?
@@matthewroberts198 way of kings
@@slotanchivay4810 sorry, i haven't read TSA but im gonna pick it up soon, but isn't WoR Words of radianse?
@@emiloberg2110 oh yeah thats what i meant sorry
Lol the one about a person in a magical world discovering that they don't have powers is literally the plot of ELF
This video has me SO pumped up, because the ‘first people discovering magic of the world’ is pretty close to what I’m working on right now! It’s not a major theme, and more of a consequence of the way the world works, but still. These were some amazing ideas.
'Side charachter as the chosen one' was done fantastically in Red Sister by Mark Lawrence! He also broke a lot of other standard tropes and there's no frustrating love triangle. Highly reccomend, Nona (mc) is one of my favs
Spoiler question because I DNFed that book
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It really liked like our mc was gonna end up being the chosen one anyway but it was gonna be a plot twist. Is that not what happened?
@@merphynapier42 spoilers!
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Nope! She never ends up as the chosen one. She gets a bunch of really great badass moments but she stays the 'shield' to the Argatha. There's also plenty of times where she has to grow mentally as a character. She's also not the 'best fighter' which goes to Zole. Lawrence also has a few other twists with the trope at the end.
Does anyone read the warrior cats series? It's my fav series but I never see people talking about it so I wonder how many people even know the series.
I read it though I felt like when they went off on that second series it was just a bit too much. I think I read three books of that second series and I didn't like it as much as I had the first.
I use to love them when I was a kid!
There's a huge following here on TH-cam mainly in the animation community. Look up some Warrior "maps" to see some awesome Warriors content.
@@thefolktalefox5960 the third and fourth one are even worse
I'm currently rereading them and am on the third season. I like them but the writing team is really doing the fans dirty
My god, I'm in love with your excitements about stories!
I can't get enough of these videos! That one you mentioned about the new magic system kind of reminds me of a show on Netflix that stars Beverly and Stanley from IT. I can't remember what it's called, but it has a lot of those kind of vibes, where she is trying to figure out the rules of how her magic works, with nobody around who knows anything about it to guide her. It's really interesting.
A book where the main “chosen heroes” are killed in the first chapter by the evil super weapon firing off too early and the side characters such as the love interest, the mentor, and the guy who sells the enchanted gear have to pick up where they left off
That's the plot for the movie "Mystery Men".
The insta-love with potion, isin't Tristan and Isolde? There is a potion in there, if i remember correctly
It is one of the many versions of Tristan and Isolde, yes. It was changed to a potion, instead of raw attraction, when Christendom took over the isles. The Potion addition let people tell a tale of cruel pagan sorcery forcing a love triangle instead of a tale of lusty, young human beings. One was acceptable by the church (and church folk), the other was not. Potions replacing emotions, and burning witches, totally acceptable...
The difference is, I think, that the potion effect didn't wear off. They were in love till death.
This is such a fun video! Seeing you get so excited about the ideas was gold
The discovering a magic system for the first time just gave me 3 ideas. Definitely subscribing because I like getting inspired.