I guess this isn't a trope, but I don't like the "the characters use some specific ability just once despite numerous other situations where it'd make sense to use it." It totally takes you out of the story because it removes all logic from the world they are trying to create. It's like when you watch a movie and a character uses a smart phone at some point in the movie, but then doesn't use it later when it'd make sense because not using it is needed to drive the plot forward.
Like having antagonists shown to kill someone with a snap of their fingers yet don't do it against the protagonist. Or otherwise waste clear opportunities to kill the hero.
so I'm totally cool with mentors in fantasy, sometimes you need the help, guiding and training from someone a bit wiser or more experienced to learn from. That being said, I do agree that the old white long bearded wizard trope has been done to death. Why not have a mentor that's a woman or what if the mentor is actually younger than the MC, because if the mentor is training the mentee it's because they have extensive knowledge in a skill the MC doesn't that's why they're getting training. Why can't the mentor be a friend or family member, or formal rival or enemy? Those types of scenarios make this trope a lot more interesting
@@amylynnsgraphics Well, the protagonist being pretty young themselves is a huge, sometimes sub-genre defining trope. So if the MC is 16-21, do you want a 14yo mentor? This isn't anime. Women however should be a no-brainer.
@@Alias_Anybody I tend to read adult books over YA, and in those cases I think it would be fine if a 30 year old is mentored by a 25 year old. In YA, yes, I agree the mentor needs to be older or at minimum their same age, but the mentor doesn't need to be ancient either, like why can't their mentor be a college student or late 20s/early 30s?
my only "mentor" character (at time of writing) is a eleven year old dragon who decided to become an expert in engineering because she got bored. that one good?
In my story I have shifters as their own species that split off from humanity 200k years ago, and were gifted their shifting powers by the gods that they harness through magical stones. They have various tribes based on what animal they can turn into and their own cultures and traditions, the male and female dynamics are reflective of the animals they're connected to, as well as their diets and lifespans. So a vampire bat shifter can ONLY drink blood, rodent shifters only live about 40-50 years, etc. Shifters are cool and they need to be developed properly as their own thing.
I was thinking of doing a werewolf detective story where shifters are like a secret minority and they're not as contagious as in the legends and the "magic" isn't exactly _magic._
I have a story in progress that has the mc, a werewolf, as a high ranking member of a magical organisation created to protect the rest of the world who are terrified of magic. his story focuses more on his human side and him rejecting his wolf side as it was responsible for the death of a loved one. I haven't seen stories where a shifter actively hates their other form due to something they did in that form and it has a lot of potential. I also have another one in which shifters are just regular beings who enchant candles. once these candles are lit, they stay in an animal form until the flame is extinguished, on top of that, these candles are very difficult to make, so they have to limit their time in other forms. further, any intelligent being can use them, so some of my shifters are dragons, elves, dwarves etc. those are some interesting ideas you could use.
One Punch Man has an interesting take on OP characters. It focuses more on Saitama's normal, non-hero, life and on how being so powerful is so boring. It also makes Saitama the side character to his own story. The stakes are usually Saitama not being there so another hero (usually Genos) has to do it and take some severe hits before Saitama shows up.
@@someguyfromanotherplanet5284 you say it's repetitive, not interesting. if you actually have watched one punch man, you'd agree completely with what I said in the original comment.
@@someguyfromanotherplanet5284 You can have OP main characters and still tell an interesting story with it, One Punch Man is an okay example, but Mob Psycho 100 is way better. The main character technically can overpower any person they get into a conflict with, but their personal beliefs and internal struggles are the main focus point instead of "Will they win this fight?". Same author for both works, and Mob Psycho is the one they worked on after One Punch Man. Generally agreed that Mob Psycho does the same gimmick in a much more interesting way than One Punch, although both are good.
Tolkien wrote that he kept his magic rules amorphous and soft because magic was the wonder in his story and as soon as you chain down wonder you've lost the fantasy.
He was wrong idc he's legendary. Hard magic doesn't lose the fantasy, it just gives an idea of what is plausible without taking away the wonder (if done right).Tolkien's magic had possibilities that were or were not, just... because.It kinda cheapened the stakes. Not to say he was a bad writer
Being a fan of soft magic, hard magic still has its merit and fair share of fans. Plenty of people enjoy reading about super complex systems. It's just really hard to execute in a novel format
Tolkien’s stories were also never about the magic users, which makes a huge difference. You don’t usually have to explain how the magic works if the main characters aren’t doing the magic. Tolkien was much more interested in the more mundane characters persevering through extraordinary challenges, so he often had the bad guys have their magic or supernatural abilities but removed the good magic users entirely from the scenario (see: Gandalf, in any context). 🧙♂️
I personally really like hard magic but if it should be used depends on each story so to each his own. The appeal of hard magic for me is that characters have to be innovative while still being within what limitations they're given. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood does this and they do it really well. There are only a few main hard rules that the viewer needs to remember and those rules affect everyone in the story. In comparison, soft magic typically does best when it is not one of the defining aspects of the story.
As a huge fan of shapeshifters in fictional media, finding out that they're this poorly executed in fantasy makes me really sad. Fantasy writers really can't think of any other ideas than "shapeshifters vs themselves/other race" or "shapeshifter animal sex"!? Jesus christ writers, you have such a cool superpower in your hands, and you're putting it to WASTE! Though this isn't fantasy, I have a shapeshifter character (human turned alien mutant disguised as his human self) who uses his powers to infiltrate organizations, blend in with his surroundings, turn parts of his body into weapons, change size, dodge attacks by shifting, etc. To balance him out, electricity makes his body unstable, and he can be detected by thermal vision (which are both exploited by villains at times). In terms of plot, can't fantasy writers use shapeshifters to infiltrate some evil kingdom/clan, blend in with wildlife to stay away from enemies, disguise themselves as some feared god/mythical monster to scare away the villains/manipulate them into worshipping the shifter, etc? Even with the limits of fantasy, there should be much more that can be done with this incredible power than racism and red rockets. If Beast Boy can use animal transformation to his fullest advantage to complete tasks, so can your own shapeshifters. What a shame.
With the animal sex thing....That’s creepy. It feels like it’s fulfilling the disgusting fantasies of Zooiphiles. (I’m not talking about furries. By the way. At least their thirsty over anthro characters who are at least able to consent. Because they can speak fluently. If you changed them into humans they wouldn’t change unless the story specifically involves them being animals heavily to drive conflict. Beastars, zootopia, etc.) but having LITERAL animals. Like they can’t talk. Their not bipedal. Etc. Is really weird. At least to me.
I have shapeshifters who can only do it for limited time and kinda just exist, no one cares. and another one is the last remaining werewolf on planet earth who is trying to find a way to destroy his wolf side because it indirectly killed someone he loved. there are people trying to do shapeshifters justice, I promise you.
Star Wars the Clone Wars animated show did a cool episode where Obi-Wan "shape-shifts" into the person who "kills" him so he can get arrested and gather information from inside the space prison system.
I did shapeshifters differently. I made shapeshifters more in a horror genre than fantasy. They're called mimics and they are made by cult sacrifices. They shapeshift into human beings so they can lure people into a place were nobody can hear them scream. They have weaknesses how ever. In their disguised form, they have the same weaknesses as human beings. So a simple headshot can kill them, but when they are in their true form, they are resistant to what humans have to go through. However in that form, they are slow as hell and not hard to spot (thanks to their pale skin and very tall height). These shapeshifters don't really have any wars on anything or try to screw anything, they're just feasting on human flesh to survive. If you don't like it, it's fine. I have plenty of other species to play with.
Not to mention shapeshifter animal zeggs is also super morally dubious. If they're a werewolf or Kajjiit then it's fine, but 4 legged animals is mega weird. Like man if you want people to root for your characters and not have your fandom explode into a burning trash fire of discourse, don't have them do weird shet lol
What about Discworld's "the purpose of wizard school is to keep wizards too fat and content to particularly want to use magic very often (because that usually results in planetwide magical wars that reshape the local laws of physics for eons to come and which attracts the attention of the cosmic horror who reside in the Dungeon Dimensions)" variation on that theme?
I've heard that one of the best ways to make a magic system is to answer these 3 questions: What can your magic do? What can it NOT do? What is the cost?
The mentors I like are older female characters. I love my mom but mothers in books are usually either dead, abusive or have no personality aside from “mother”. Female mentors are also often mother figures but they’re much more wise and complex. And not completely overdone.
You just reminded me of my split personally mage, who was literally a mother and her 2 children trapped in the same body. And the only way they could communicate with each other is using a memento styled diary. This was a character I used in a role playing game, and I thought it might be worth writing about.
I totally agree with the last one. For the overpowered magical protagonist, GIVE. THEM. LIMITS. If a protagonist can shoot magical beams from their hands and eviscerate anything in its path, make there some sort of repercussion to that power. Maybe it’s straining on their bodies if the magic comes from them or maybe overusing can stop them from using it entirely. Like she said, magical powers shouldn’t feel like a “get out of jail” card but more of an asset for the protagonist
TDLR: i dont like it when characters have too many random powers and i like it when certain powers are a result/side effect of other powers i agree. Me and my best friends like to create characters and draw comics, J frequently creates characters that have too many random powers. One of her characters had a) the ability to make anything into a weapon, b) the ability to make other character's fly and c) the ability to boost other character's powers. Powers b and c could be a result of the items in power a. (i can tolerate 2 or 3 powers if theres a reason like shoto todoroki in my hero academia, he has 2 powers because his dad wanted him to be the strongest superhero and was a dck about it)
To be fair, firing lazer that eviscerate everything is a really limited power outside of lethal combat. You could actually make some really fun things with it like have the character focus on destroying stuff around people and play around with mirrors and stuff. But I'm just being pedantic here :p
I think my idea might sound interesting: A character who gets an op ability but doesn't know half a scalp about how to use it, which ultimately makes them absurdly useless.
I have a running theme of that kind of power being possible, but almost always leads to insanity for both heroes and villains. it's interesting to see how I can have my characters forcefully limit themselves in an effort to stay sane.
Honestly I love the ‘old sage wizards’ that are just flat out senile and slightly crazy. Are lessons hard to learn? Sure, but at least they come from someone interesting who would sell you out for a snickers
I had that in a story I started writing in high school but never did anything with. The protagonist was learning magic from an extremely elderly couple. The woman was too frail to actually cast spells anymore, but could explain the theory/history, provided she didn't nod off to sleep mid-sentence. The man was physically fit enough to demonstrate actual casting technique, but had trouble remembering who he was, where he was, or what he was doing. Mid-fireball, he might suddenly stop teaching and start questioning a flowerpot in Latin about the positioning of the ninth legion's cavalry auxiliaries or something.
My favorite storytellers use a lot of these tropes but turn them upside down and present them “shaken, not stirred.” Old man mentor who knows magic theory but has no capacity for magic, just a lot of experience with failure. Or the grandfatherly mentor who turns out to the villain. Or the old mystic woman who honestly hates being around people but can’t abandon the baby she finds abandoned in the forest, so she raises her on her own until she catches up with her.
@@DankworthBalthazar Dude, I wanna read that 😂 It gives School for Good and Evil in the third book. It's the whole school with armies of battle-prepared children with evil monstrous fairytale villains that came to life led by a ruthless dictator versus..... the protagonist and the League of Thirteen. A bunch of wrinkled, wheelchair-ridden and argumentative old grannies and grandpas who can't walk straight much less participate in war 😂❤
My problem with overcomplicated magic systems is when the author wants to explain it in detail to the reader. Having an overcomplicated magic system is fine, but it should be quick and easy to explain the fundamentals. All the complicated specifics should stay in the design/resource docs for the author to reference and make sure they aren't breaking their own rules. The reader doesn't need to know what these rules are, and if they do, you can drip feed them as they become important to the plot. A glossary on the specifics at the back isn't a problem, in my opinion, but it should be a little bonus rather than necessary to understanding the basics.
Those are my favorites in particular because a character can't know everything so all that they need to know can be clearly explained. It also stops character's from being overpowered because what each form of magic can do is clearly defined, unless someone innovates in which case it's probably pretty groundbreaking stuff in that world.
@caitlyncarvalho7637 In the Thieves world series, mages of one order are required to have a secret. Anyone who discovers their secret can take their power (this happens at least once, although he is killed almost immediately).
one fun thing I had happen in a D&D campaign, was we were told we were the chosen ones. Turns out they told that to about 5 different groups and figured that one of us would succeed or they would find a new group of "chosen ones"
That could be a very interesting thing handled with care. Imagine it. The cconflict in programmed into the idea. What happenes when multiple groups that all think of themselves as "the chosen ones" and all have their own goals, suddenly meet ? Chaos. Could be very intertaining.
@@sierrasteadham760 It is an anime, "11 eyes". Also "X/1999", I think... but I could be wrong about the last one, it's been almost a decade since I watched it but I remember some kind of big plot twist that left me with a similar feeling.
I’m getting a little annoyed with the parents hiding that their kid comes from a magical family. It’s been done to death, and this is coming from someone who liked turning red
Yeah. At least in turning red it could be considered a metaphor for “that time of month” though it is a bit loose. Only the females in the family get this transformation. The males don’t seem to. And biological men don’t get it unless their intersex i think. I could be wrong.
Here's my idea of a justified excuse: only one parent is magical, and they don't know if the kid is, and knowing about the magic would be dangerous in-universe so they don't tell the kid until they know the kid needs to know…which of course comes too late to be useful because the plot needs to be interesting, but still (I haven't seen Turning Red so I don't know if that's what they already did there).
@@BioniclesaurKing4t2 📺 Ah, I believe 'Teen Wolf' did that with Arden Cho's character who had a mortal human father and an immortal kitsune mother. 🎞 In 'Halloweentown,' the mother and her grandmother kept their magical lineage a secret because the mother was married to a mortal and wanted her kids to grow up normally.
The mentor trope is overused because we've been using it since literally the dawn of time, the old wizard even is an old trope seen in ancient mythology, the modern synthesis and distilled version of this mythical character is Gandalf, who is perfect and a VERY complex mentor-ish figure. However, the reason it's overplayed today is that everyone and their mother started ripping off LOTR and adding in their own old wizard character as mentor figure and the entire genre got saturated with them.
And it's actually kind of funny how everyone ripped off the one old wizard mentor who barely ever did anything magical. Gandalf's usefulness was mostly as a guide and leader and never really did any of the spell-slinging. He did more swordfighting than pretty much anything else!
Shifters also use the whole "Alpha" thing way too much. There's always an alpha leader /boss personality that everyone has to cater to... Despite the fact that the very person who made that study in wolves disproved it, it's still wildly popular and overdone.
Ok, so we've got 1. Deus ex machinas, 2. 'Nobody Stays Dead' trope, 3. Jenna's not into furries (reasonable), but then we get one that doesn't seem like it has anything to do with the actual trope. The reasons she gave for not liking mentors is that they are old white guys and she's had bad experiences with real people trying to mentor her. Real people though. Nothing to do with fictional. There wasn't any criticism of the actual mentor trope. It's fiction, the mentors aren't some random creep online, they have the qualification (if they were written to). Obi Wan, Gandalf, Dumbledor, Uncle Iroh! (nobody can hate Uncle Iroh!) are beloved fictional characters. Mentors are typically older because they're spose to have experience they can pass on to the protagonist or guide them along the way. It's an extremely useful trope in fantasy and real people isn't a criticism of it. It's also a fun trope to subvert. There are also several well-known mentor figures who aren't all three (white, old, men): Morpheus from the Matrix, Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid, Teacher Izumi from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Moirane from the Wheel of Time, and there are multiple in Avatar the Last Airbender such as Uncle Iroh; these are just examples off the top of my head. Btw, the word mentor comes from the Mentor of Greek mythology who was actually Athena (the Greek goddess of knowledge and craft) disguised as an old man.
the problem with "nobody stays dead" is that they confirm the kills. if you leave a character's survival debatable, people would have no problem with them coming back. e.g. mace windu
@@tbnrrenagade9507 nah, that might be part of the problem but the core of it is the oversaturation of the trope. Both Marvel and DC (for example) do it constantly. Characters never stay dead. Any the ways they get brought back keep getting worse. In the current run of the X-Men, they live on an island that can bring mutants back to life whenever they die. Death is no longer a problem for them. And that's not even the worst part. The X-Men are basically now the villains in their comic but they are written like they're still the heroes. They literally let a character stab a guy in the neck and shrugged it off saying she just did what she thought was right! It's insane (got off topic a little).
@@Andrewtr6 fair, there's "nobody stays dead", and there's "dead doesn't exist" I would say comics are the second one. my way of putting this is "nobody stays dead" is only problematic when they confirm the kill or do it too often, then it becomes "dead doesn't exist"
@@tbnrrenagade9507 For me, the problem largely is how often it's done in comics, especially superhero comics. Bringing a character back can be fine if it's not done too often and when it is done, there should be a consequence. Making it easy to cheat death means all the characters are basically immortal. Death feels empty in DC and Marvel because of this. I have a pretty strict rule about resurrection in my stories. The only reason I would do it is if I had a good story to tell with the character and there was no other way I could tell it.
I have to disagree with the mentor part of this. Mentors have been an important part of my life, so I relate to this when I see it in fiction. In high school, I had my wrestling coach. In college there were certain professors I considered mentors. As a missileer, I had a combat crew commander. As a cop, I had a field trainer. All of these people helped me grow both in the particular skills they were responsible for teaching me but also as a person so I really like mentor characters.
That point really collapses when you realize a mentor is just Any teacher. I think she's just jaded because as a public figure people want to leech off her success and they do that by pretending she needs a "mentor" when really they just want to mooch. It's a thing everyone that succeeds has to deal with, it doesn't mean teachers are invalid.
Agreed. Also the list is a bit redundant for two reasons. 1. Most of these were done by Tolkien. 2. Most of them she only didn't like because of a lack of creativity and skill. It's ridiculous to complain about tropes like this. Originality is not, not using these tropes, it's using them well and in interesting new ways to explore a particular point/message/philosophy/ethic etc. No trope should be the core of your story, merely a tool to tell the story. They're not good or bad.
@@TheEarlofBronze1 Its impossible to not use tropes. Not using a trope...is a trope. THe "Overly Original Trope" If thats not a trope it just became one because anything can be a trope. Fucking everything is a trope. There is no real originality now. YOu have millions of people making millions of stories...everything will be used. Its up to you to create your own original spin on something thats already being used.
I dont think she meant remove mentors as a whole lol. Cuz there is in fact no way to write a good story without one. I think she mostly meant the trope of old powerful wise white men, because it is a trope that's been used many times and at this point is overdone. Like change it up a bit and at least make him black, or a little Asian girl that's actually been alive for hundreds of years that somehow go stuck in this incomplete immortal state. Just change it up basically lol
Double Trouble from She-Ra is an amazing shapeshifter. They view shape shifting as an art and a performance that requires character study in order to really shift into a person.
If you want a good Shifter work, I recommend the good ole Animorphs series. I also kind of want to see a magic mentor story where they're basically barely a college professor. Just a "Really? I have to teach them?"
Animorphs was my jam growing up, some of the morphing descriptions just sticks in your mind. As a kid I was like 'this sounds so cool' thinking back as an adult I'm like 'that's actually horrifying.'
A burned-out mentor that's just 100% sass who is just done with the main character's optimism and excitement and teaches lessons completely by accident would be entertaining. Spewing out random platitudes mixed with insults that the main character somehow manages to extract useful information from against all odds even if it should be outright sabotaging them!
Related to the last point, it drives me nuts when the system of magic either has no apparent limits or the limits are inconsistently enforced. This is my #1 annoy with Star Wars - you have magic throw-things-around powers but don't use it to, idk, throw malicious saw droids off your ship's hull? Does The Forks not work through your windshield? It's not that I think all magic needs to be modest, but it should be consistent in-world so that your character's actions have consequences that make sense.
the buzz droid thing is because the force requires concentration and flying Starfighters through a battlefield while you're a priority target is difficult and requires a lot of concentration. also, a concept often subtly explored in legends is that it is difficult to multitask with the force, which is why yoda could only save obi-wan and anakin in AOTC and couldn't grab dooku's ship as well. sorry for being a star wars nerd.
According to lore (unless it's been retconned), Jedi Starfighters have no shields, they rely on the Jedi's Force instincts to avoid enemy fire, so they're already half-distracted just by avoiding getting blown up by a stray shot, and if the first reply is right about it being difficult to multitask, well there you go, their one slot of Force power is already in use. To explain any of this onscreen would've been helpful, though.
@@BioniclesaurKing4t2 they couldn't explain it on screen without anyone breaking character. George Lucas couldn't find a way to do it in the prequels. legends does a good job of it though.
I always get the impression the Force doesn't work on command. Sometimes... well, sometimes it's just flowing the wrong way. The Jedi describe it as their 'ally', not their servant, which suggests a give and take relationship. The Sith, now, the Sith just grip the Force and make it do what they want all the time, but the Jedi are seemingly more considerate.
The explanations given make sense well enough, and are fine for books in which these limits can be explained, even explored (by putting characters in positions where This Is A Problem), but not so great for movies. Saw droids are kindof a dumb anti-ship weapon anyway (why not just make sticky seeker-grenades that explode?), but they're worse in a setting where telekinesis is one of the basics of the magic system. Also, Anakin deals with the droids via fancy piloting, which would surely require as much if not more concentration than a simple Force Pull/Push. In short: if you give your characters a power, don't put them in situations where their power provides an easy solution, then temporarily pretend that power doesn't exist or can't be used for reasons (when they use it in other situations where those reasons would still apply). Put them in situations where their power isn't useful (e.g. laser eyes, but they have to use diplomacy in a situation where frying or threatening to fry the other person isn't an option), or where it even makes their situation worse.
Mentor trope opinion seems so personal, it doesn't seem to be about books... That's like saying Hero trope is bad, because you met a shit fire fighter who didn't save your cat.
She's giving personal examples of unfortunately common scenarios that women face. She's also clear about it being her opinion to not like mentors in general and that she's knows she's in the minority. This whole video is pointing out cliches, and the "old white man wizard" mentor absolutely is one.
"What if their magic evolves alongside puberty?" Exactly. The magical characters, four sisters, in the series I'm writing were born with their gifts, but they evolve as they age. Plus, the girls grew up in a setting where they could use their gifts freely but end up amongst us humans and have to navigate keeping them on the down-low.
@@dando541 They're the daughters of an alchemist, created by their father's arts and raised on an airship that's disguised as a cloud. When the girls are 17, they're sent out into the world to help humans, either to shield them from outside negative influences or guide them away from their own self-destruction.
“White man old mentor.” I get that since every story rips off lotrs this has been a thing but the mentor trope had little to do with age, sex or skin color and it actually came off as kind of petty.
Yeah I didn't understand how an experience with a real life incompetent creep invalidates the idea of having mentors in fantasy. If anything interesting mentors are underused imo, too commonly they're just rip offs of Gandalf and Obi-Wan, but that doesn't make the whole trope bad
A few more tropes that I don't like: 1- The only "side effect" of magic is that the character passes out from using it. So instead of seeing the exciting effect of their spell in the pivotal moment, they can wake up in a hospital bed days later and be told about it by the other characters. 2- Magic that has huge implications outside of the main quest, but is never used in that way. For example, weather magic that could be used to end droughts and save crops. Or fire magic that could be a clean energy source for an entire city. You never see a healer working in a hospital, they always own a bookshop or something.
Totally agree. Especially your second point's first example. If you really don't want such a thing to happen (those writers who decide that "yeah, weather magic can manipulate the weather on a massive scale"), like, tone down the effects of your magic, please! It's infuriating knowing that some characters can casually cause a whole rainstorm in a city yet don't utilize it where common sense and practices would normally do. Just, make the weather magic or something effect a lot less of an area or become weaker overall to counteract that. And please, make the healers work in the hospital. I beg you. Unless your magical world has some weird thing where everyone born has a perfect job that matches them inscribed into their soul and healing magic is only given to those who aren't going to do something medical, please add a slight grain of realism!
I have an area of my world were people with certain magical abilities tend to work certain jobs such as those with healing powers working in places like hospitals and those who are immune to fire work as fire fighters along with some people with water powers
@@hunterlawrence3573 and like plant magic, illusion magic, bard magic, beast magic those all could be typical stuff. Whats this there's abomination magic? there's a cooking coven (and presumably cooking magic?) okay this is odd and kinda fun
With the shifting thing, I think the biggest issue is that writers make "being a shifter" the focus, rather than having shifting as an ability and tool to solve problems. It's the difference between using the ability to shapeshift to get out of situation or solve a puzzling situation, compared to having the danger simply be negated by being a shifter and having regen or strength or some baseline state increase. If the big benefit of being able to change your physical form is that you are stronger or have faster reflexes, then you just are doing a standard physical enhancement superhero with extra fur. This works fine in a superhero focused story, but in a supernatural story that is the most dull and generic thing possible.
One thing I like about the opening scene in Final Fantasy 14 is that, while it starts with a sort of prophetic dream, it's a warning not the inciting incident. It starts with a man in a red mask and dark robe appearing and attacking you, you fight back with "a blade of light" then you wake up in a boat/carriage depending on the class you picked. So clearly you're setting off to hunt down dream man right? Nope, you set out because you wanted to strike out as an adventurer and that's exactly what you do. Though you're a little rookie adventure you start to awaken to some powers and eventually find out your a chosen one, not THE chosen one, *A* choose one. It's not until the third act that the player actually meets the dream man through the natural progression of the story. You fight him at the climax and recalling the dream you know that to beat him you need to summon the "blade of light". I thought that was a good way of doing both a chosen one story and a prophetic dream. Oh and dreams and visions happen more than once, are actually pretty integral to the story, expansions included and is directly tied to the chosen one powers. It's a consistent part of the whole story. Edited for so many typos.
Prophetic dreams could also work if they do something other than the same exact dream for a week straight. Yeah its fantasy but most of the times dreams don't necessarily work like that. You could have a series of dreams over the course of 2 weeks with a unifying theme. For example, I keep having nightmares that I didn't complete high school and hvae to do it over again. It's never the same dream though. Sometimes it's me being in a classroom. Sometimes I'm stading looking at the school from across the street. Once it was exactly that I had to take 1 or 2 more classes because my diploma was considered invalid for some reason. But the point is that dreams are fragmented, and maybe you can have bits of a theme interspersed and the MC has to put them together somehow.
I'm actually so glad that i managed to avoid most of these tropes, leave it to jenna to reassure me that my book is gonna turn out fine😅 but im hoping to make the talisman more interesting than just a book or staff
To be fair, why don't people use things that are creepier? I would love to see a book in which the talisman is a body part or something. Like "The heart of Melinda" and it's literally the heart of a witch called Melinda.
@@ーテイル Well, there is the "monkey's paw", and Full Metal Alchemist did have the philosophor's stone and its imitations made from the sacrificed life energy of countless lives... But, despite being done before, it certainly is underutilized.
Wow... That's some spite for mentors you got going there. I can't say I agree on that one. Mentors are a great aspect to a story which can really grant some further insight into the world, whether it be a system (magical or otherwise), a philosophy or something else. Want to know what is more 'unrealistic' than a 'old sage white man'? A plucky teenager figuring out a centuries old philosophy and its intricacies on their own. Edit: Also, tell me you hate Harry Potter without telling me you hate Harry Potter.
Mentor's definitely have their well-earned place. As much as I enjoy capable heroes and heroines who work hard, I can't stand it when young characters gain the knowledge and skills of the masters just because plot. Kids these days are eating tide pods and twerking on TikTok. Authors expect me to believe the same 16 year-olds can outperform someone who has trained for decades? Please no. I'm looking at you, Six of Crows. lol
I don't hate mentors either, and I agree that a teenager figuring out all the wisdom in the world on their own would strain my suspension of disbelief. But I also think that learning process can be made more interesting than the usual "old sage white man" or slight variation thereof. Like, have the main character learn from multiple "mentors", each with different skillset and worldview. Then have the main character organically develop their philosophy based on these differing worldviews and own personal experiences. I think it's more compelling than MC learning from a single mentor-role character and only interacting with that mentor's worldview (whether by accepting or rejecting it).
While I do agree with you, and while I don't mind it that much (I'll still read books if they have tropes, long as they aren't utterly obnoxious), the 'old sage white man' mentor type is a bit overdone. A slight change would be nice, even if it was like an 'elderly widowed white women'
@@requiem3160 Making it about gender/ethnicity at all is what irks me the most. She clearly has some issues she felt she needed to vent, but to call that "advice" just doesn't feel appropriate at all. Almost makes her come across as more spiteful than insightful.
@@thebroker95 I agree, and while what she did go through was not good, it just does covers this topic with too much bias. I personally am fully fine with this trope (I don't mind them too much), it's just kind of overdone but I simply don't mind. If it were about how much it was done, I would agree with her, and while I somewhat agree on its placement in this video I do not on the justification.
"Ask any woman about their experience with old white men who want to mentor them and I guarantee you it will be the biggest crock of shit..." I'm a woman and "old white men" have been some of my most treasured mentors, teachers, professors, and father figures, and it makes me happy when people from any generation, race, or gender want to help me develop my skills, thank you for asking. Why do so many modern writers have such ridiculous hangups about people that happen to be white and/or male? It's so gross and dehumanizing...
I can't help but notice that while this youtuber seems to love responding to and upvoting comments that actively agree with her old white men discussion, she doesn't seem to respond at all to comments that dispute it or offer differing viewpoints. She's got a lot of good information, but I have to say, she seems to love injecting her own biases into her talking points. I hate to be negative, but it's more than a little annoying to see resources for writing where the authors/presenters use their personal beliefs and biases to color what they're often projecting as objective advice. There were way better ways she could've presented that topic, especially when sharing her negative experiences in the past, and what she says sounds more than a little insensitive and arguably even sexist. Just because she had negative experiences with men in that role, it doesn't inherently apply it to all women or even really anyone at all, and it doesn't feel like she properly addresses that many of her points are highly based on personal experience that may or may not be applicable to other people. Are elderly white men a common sight in mentor characters? Yes. Are there often ways a writer can avoid playing off that trope to make something more creatively interesting? Equally yes. But is there something inherently wrong with making said character? No.
I also don't get how this is part of a "magic system". Like... should people just not have... mentors? Or teachers of any kind? Unless they're nonwhite and not male?
You saved me from the "convenient" trope. I had my main charater healing people when it was convinent for the story. She only did it twice, so I got rid of it because there wasn't anything else. Thank you!
5:06 That's funny because none of the shifter books I've read have any of those plots. Shapeshifting into creatures is one of my favorite ideas. In fact, that's what my story is about and I intend to explore it in an interesting way. I love to examine what it means to be human and the battle against ferocity, plus it's such a fun power.
I like the Owl House's mentorship dynamic since it kinda subverts the trope or at least alters it in a way where instead of immediately killing off the mentor for the drama and giving the MC trauma, Dana makes Eda into her own character rather than making her existence to be only to serve Luz as her teacher/guardian
Can you talk about the soulmate tropes in the future I would love to hear your thoughts on it. My favorite magic building tool is to use the belief that a observer changes the outcome of the experiment. So character a wants to burn a building they can't throw a fireball at it because character b believes that according to our world that can't happen and by them watching it causes character a to fail. And to suffer magical consequences.
So the mentor trope is bad because you had maybe two bad experiences of people who don't have any experience and came to you requesting to guide you, you know something a mentor doesn't do. A mentor is highly experienced and probably already retired and also YOU ask the mentor if he can guide you, not the other way around so it's obvious he wasn't in any position to mentor anybody. And somehow you think a bad experience with 1 fraud pretending to be a mentor is enough to discard the idea of all mentor relationships out?
She gave specific examples of her own personal experiences, but you might want to rewatch the beginning of that section again, because she clearly states that a lot of women have negative experiences with "old white men who want to mentor them". She also said she's not fond of mentors in general and knows she's in the minority with that. If you enjoy mentors, that's fine. But there is also something to be learned from the experiences she shared. And yes, a lot of people, especially women, will have similar stories and experiences, so a lot of readers may not like or connect with such a character and probably more than you realize. Does that mean you need to remove all mentors? No, of course not. But being willing to listen to such concerns can give you the opportunity to connect with more readers and also allows you the freedom to choose a more creative mentor than just biting off of Tolkien, as many people do. It's your story. Do what you want. But she's just offering her opinion, and she's very clear about the fact that it's *her opinion*.
@@zanzaboondahere's the problem with her argument about mentors: it makes no sense when you place it within a story. And also, those people who wanted to mentor clearly aren't actual mentors, which invalidates the point.
@@tuluppampam Maybe you can elaborate further? I'm always open to good discussion, but it's been a couple of months since I've commented, and I'd have to rewatch the video and don't have time atm. But IIRC, she said she's (mostly) tired of seeing the same "old white man" mentor and that as a lot of women in particular share similar experiences that she had - someone IRL who pretends to be a mentor but has ulterior motives - that there is a risk of alienating a good portion of your audience. Yes, someone like that would be a false mentor, but if you are taken advantage of or betrayed by someone who presents/ed themselves as a mentor, it's still a mentor-student relationship, even if they were ultimately an IRL "trickster" character. That does not invalidate the experience of the person who was betrayed. Ultimately, she's talking about her personal preferences and stated so. Take her advice or don't. But I don't think taking note of a potential cliche and considering how it might make a potentially not-small portion of your audience (I doubt there any stats on this specific scenario - maybe sexual harassment in the workplace would be the closest) feel would be a bad thing. She's just expressing an opinion. No one is holding a gun to someone's head and saying they need to take this advice.
@@zanzaboonda it is more about how she is using her personal experience to talk about mentors as bad cliches. While it can be important to keep in mind for writers, she talks as if her personal experience (which is in a real life) matters when discussing a general trope found in stories. If I break my leg playing football I will probably not consider it in the same way I would have before, but that doesn't make it bad within a story. The problem is the complete lack of argument on her part without even a warning to writers to be mindful (which I do not use meaning to cater to that audience, but merely to be aware) of people's experiences. Her other disliked tropes have some arguments supporting them, but in the case of mentors she has none that matter (in my opinion) for writers. It feels to me that she's merely letting her emotions talk in this specific case, which is not something I consider desirable in this intellectual exercise. It is also, logically, a very strange trope to dislike and to then put in such a video which explores much more problematic tropes, as either you have a mentor system or a more academic system to teach people. I don't think the idea of injected knowledge or autonomous research is versatile enough for such a general discussion.
Another thing about Old Mentors™: The trope arises from the fact that the sorts of things characters usually need mentors for, such as learning how to master a martial art or a system of magic "realistically" requires a long time. Martial arts masters (an abbot of the Shaolin Monastery, a high-degree black belt in a traditional Eastern art), yogis, top-level adepts in occult lodges, etc. in the real world tend to be middle-aged or older even if they started out as small children because there are difficult mental and physical disciplines involved. But then, in fiction, our Young Protagonist™ can learn the whole thing in the space of a musical montage (🎶It's a montaaaaaaage!🎶) in time for the Big Fight Scene, which isn't years or decades away. In short: Mr. Miyagi could have just as easily been a college girl.
This part about you not being fond of the "mentor trope" made me wonder about how would you write your stories, since the mentor figure is not only important for magical stories itself, but on the whole Hero Journey in general, regardless of the genre (sci-fi, superhero, steampunk...)
Decentralized mentorship can work very well. Basically the power of friendship in that the hero takes bits and pieces from everyone they meet rather than all from one character... or they can just bumble their way through the story and figure things out the hard way!
It's from a rejection of classical aspects of the human meta-narrative (so all the facts of human history/civilization.) Old white men (ancient Greece onward) created and propagated civilization. Jenna is tired of that, or doesn't like that fact, so she wants everyone to do something different. But in reality, from Alexander the Great to your own life, old men have made excellent mentors. Many were probably some shade of white (though I'd love to study with Ashurbanipal myself). I find it all racist and I don't like when she begins to tell me to stray from real life, since it's boring.
@@Kyavatafor most of european and around history, the people who could learn and teach were men, which is why you wouldn't see women mentors in stories (that would be absurd). Fighting against history is impossible, and Jenna is more petty than actively doing something useful (such as trying to change tradition by having young female mentors, although that can be a risk as well).
I feel like the Carry On trilogy by Rainbow Rowell does verbal spells pretty well, actually! The character’s magic (usually) comes from expressions, words, songs, etc, that are popular in our own mundane human world! Pretty interesting, actually.
As much as I adore shapeshifter stories, the tropes you mentioned are tiring to me as well. Especially when a female is pursued by a lusty male. Even real animals back off when the females claw them in the face. And then there's the fated mate trope, it's not great... And for once, I'd just like to see a shifter story where their beast form is not just an animal. Make the werewolf walk on two legs and not be afflicted by both mange and a rabid bloodlust, PLEASE!
I have a story where werewolves(the underworld type) are just a thing(nobody really knows their origins) and girl gets together with the guy. The guy is a werewolf and the girl seek him out because she wants to learn more about them. The point of the story is that the girl isn't afraid of him and they fall in love very slowly. and I pretty much just wanted to write a story of a guy turns into the bestest boy after someone scratching his ears...
I have a werewolf who is essentially just a person. She looks and acts like a regular human, but she has wolf ears and a tail. She also ages slower, as werewolves in my story only age when the full moon is out, and she has a bipedal wolf-monster form she can change into at will. She doesn’t lose control while in that form, she just becomes a bit more brutal.
The fated or assigned male that the girl immediately hates for being really good looking, super competent and admired by all the other girls, but even though she's a complete bitch to him, he (for some unknown reason) decides that he'll win her over by being a long suffering doormat - in between saving her, the town, and the country with her helping only at the very crucial moment but otherwise being a burden.
@@aronnemcsik well, not really yandere. She is already married, after all. She does playfully flirt with some of the guys, but she doesn’t mean anything by it and is quick to end things when the guy takes it too seriously, because at the end of the day, she does still love her husband, who is also a werewolf
I don't disagree with the point about mentors because that trope can suck bad, but the reason given for it is... Hm. "I met this ridiculous stereotype of an ignorant and misogynistic baby boomer once, and really, isn't that the same thing as Gandalf?"
Yeah, same thoughts. Not really a valid argument from her part, but I do agree that a mentor should be not someone who is so overdone (an olden man who is usually some wizard)
I hate to disagree with most of this list, but I'm going to have to disagree. There is a difference between a trope and basic elements of the hero's journey mono-myth. There are reasons we still read Beowulf and the Iliad or many of the ancient myths and draw on timeless stories to provide inspiration for our own. It's almost never the devices and tools a writer uses, it's in how they deftly they use these tools.
I know some great "overpowered magical protagonist"-stories, where the real conflicts aren't simply solved by being stronger. They're about finding your purpose in life, about inevitable tragedy, or about social conflicts. Being overpowered is a great catalyst for philosophical questions too. And of course, having power is just a great feeling!
Just as I was writing my own fantasy book there… with its own magic… Ah well, let’s see where this goes Edit: alrighto nothing I couldn’t easily subvert and deconstruct with a few twists and additional ideas… have actual ridiculous spells in your world? Let them be the equivalent of using a cheatcode whose effects you don’t know, or something that helps you in the short term but seriously hinders your own understanding of the magic system in the long run! Have an old white man mentor? Let him be the one whose arrogance started the whole mess your protagonist got into in the first place! Magically overpowered protagonist? Turn them into a menace of an antagonist your MC now has and wants to get rid off desperately! Have a magical trinket/Talisman of mcguffin importance? Let it shit talk your protagonist on every step of their journey or treat it as if it were a Character of its own! Literally.
"Have actual ridiculous spells in your world? Let them be the equivalent of using a cheatcode whose effects you don’t know, or something that helps you in the short term but seriously hinders your own understanding of the magic system in the long run!" That reminds me how in my setting there's two types of healing magic - cool and neat restorative magic and also arduous and boring lifeshaping magic. Except restorative magic can only bring a person's body to a past state - it can't grow a limb of a person born without it, for example - and becomes more costly the longer time has passed. That's because it's actually a misunderstood time magic, and since everyone associates it with healing they don't explore other time magic spells. In contrast, lifeshaping magic requires lots of knowledge and precision to pull off right - especially with more complex tasks - but it allows treating pretty much any physical condition, acquired or present from birth, and isn't as time-sensitive. Thus, restorative magic reputation as the superior healing magic misled people away from its true nature as time magic and the merits of lifeshaping magic. In truth both have their applications, and sometimes they can be used in tandem (e.g. lifeshaping magic would provide a basis for surgery, while time magic can put the patient in a stasis, and also recover them from an emergency situation if such arises). (on a side note, that setting also has resurrection spell, but the only thing it does is rebinding a soul to its body and requires the caster to have "divine factor"; so if the soul isn't around anymore or the body wasn't healed to a usable state, resurrection won't work)
Because you can't tell the difference between an actual mentor and some old guy who's trying to impress you, I don't think your opinion on the mentor trope is valid. A mentor is someone you can look up to and ask advice from, if you don't understand that dynamic you shouldn't try to comment on it. Also Gandalf is not really a good example of a mentor. If you looked into someone like Uncle Iroh than I think you would understand the concept better.
The Magical Artefact thing is one I've always wanted to tackle as more satire of the usual. Like the artefact being sentient, and being the most maladjusted, unlikable, absolutely insufferable prick. And the protag is supposed to protect said artefact, whilst also being driven up the wall by the very same. The temptation to just yeet the magical artefact isn't even "I want to get rid of it because it's putting me in danger, having this magical macguffin." It's "I want to get rid of this magic ring because it won't stop singing 'Baby Shark' until I agree to sneak laxatives into my boss's coffee for calling the ring 'tacky'."
I like this 😆 The best magical artefact I've encountered in writing was a magic sword that was supposed to get imbued with the soul of a powerful warrior, ended up with that of a cave troll instead, which in this universe are cowardly, sneaking and lying little thieves, who called itself "Löwenzahn". Which means dandelion. Not lion's tooth. It was amazing.
Make a whole world that wants to kill the relentlessly optimistic main character trying to save it... The mentor? A coward that is purposefully providing bad advice so he can use sabotaging you as an excuse if the evil overlord catches you! The artifact? Definitely trying to kill you and make everyone hate you. The friends? Actually jerks who are only following you for the fame and money and will sell you out the moment someone makes them a better offer. The cute companion that accompanies you on your journey? Continually is trying to stab you in the back when you look away and is only foiled by pure chance! The evil overlord? More pleasant than everyone else and actually kind of a nice guy, but his plans require the main character's death and he's not budging on that even when he's holding a dinner in the main character's honor for being a worthy opponent!
@@rhokesh4391 Theres a sword like that in the Forgotten Realms universe called "Lilarcor" which basically just rants and raves about killing people and tells lewd jokes, and you dont know if the sword is sentient, or if someone was trapped IN the sword...only that its obnoxious and loud and brash and a pain in the ass... Its a good sword though so you probably wouldnt get rid of it. It WANTS to kill, so it helps the user kill. THe inverse of that being if the sword doesnt like you it would probably turn the wrong way at the last moment and get you beheaded. Generally so long as you keep it happy you should be fine.
@@KertaDrake "Make a whole world that wants to kill the relentlessly optimistic main character trying to save it" Stranger in a Strange Land. Basically.
Regarding Mentors: "Animorphs" decided to have the wise mentor character get eaten alive thirty pages in. I wouldn't complain if more authors remembered how effective that is.
One example of the Overpowered protagonist done extremely well imo is the Overlord series, the protagonist, Ainz, is an essentially all powerful immortal necromancer, and to our knowledge through the first 14 novels so far, he has no equal in terms of combat, but it doesnt hinder the story whatsoever because his real opponent isnt another being and his real battle is mental, Ainz is the embodiment of how far someone is willing to go in the face of lonliness, and despite being the main protagonist, he is also the main villain, committing progressivly more heinous and inhumane acts to try and find the people he once called comrades. A fantastic example of an overdone trope done right
Well here's my three 1) When magic seems to exist purely for the sake of combat, it's one thing if that's explicitly the case but it's pretty weird when the magic could be used for tones of different things, such as agriculture, construction or transport but it's solely used to kill monster and villains. 2) inconsistent rules. Don't say magic has to fallow a set of rules or that magic is a specific thing and then only have that be true half the time. 3) When having magic automatically making you a hermit, you seriously going to tell me that the evil sorcerer or sorceress is the only one actually interested in using there phenomenal to effect the political landscape?
Magic really should not make you a hermit unless the society you're in has already reached a "Burn the witch" stage of hatred of magic. There should be secret societies using it for personal gain, public charitable societies, or even just people using magic for performance art if the costs of using it are on the non-debilitating side of the scale!
If you criticised how all of them are Gandalf/Merlin lookalikes that rarely do anything interesting I would understand, but your issue with mentors is that they're... old white men, which you have had personally bad experiences with IRL, not even in fiction. That's the crappiest complaint I've heard this week.
"I had a few bad experiences with this group of people, so therefore they are all bad and no one should write stories about them and any story showing them in a positive light is obviously completely unrealistic" She's literally just a bigot. How can someone be so absolutely lacking in self awareness to make a video about criticizing story tropes and then justify one with just straight up bigotry and no actual justification.
The shifter one… I at first thought you meant shapeshifters alias taking on the appearance of another person through a potion or a magical ability, etc. alias mystique from X-men, but with the werewolf and were-other-animal thing… it does kinda make more sense why it would be bad… I somehow actually forgot about *that* type of trope there XD
Right? Like, I have shifters in my story, but they aren’t anything like what she mentioned. No were whatever, no vampires. And they’re severely limited because shifting has implications for the safety of those around them, the environment around them, is hell on their bodies (super painful), and is draining to maintain. They aren’t at war with anyone outright, but they are isolationists who prize combat and mercenary work as honorable careers. It seems like she zeroed in on your werewolves and things similar to that/your Druid types, not shapeshifters in general. An interesting take, and I never really lumped them with shifters, even though I guess they kinda are.
@@matonano yesss and Sounds so cool! I have werewolves and People who can shift into Birds but Like.. they aren't hot, sexualized, they dont have a war against another Fantasy species.. They are Just existing and dont need Magic to shapeshift or something. I Just Love the Idea of shapeshifting
@@matonano My one werewolf is trying to get rid of his wolf side and constantly complains throughout the book about how painful it is to be a werewolf.
For the "well that was convenient" trope, the best way to have something show up without explaining it ahead of time is to have it confuse the characters at first, and then explain the reason later. You can have Jack suddenly be immune to fire magic, if you later hit us with the twist that Jack is half dragon and can turn into a giant fire-breathing reptile at will. But stuff like that has to be planned ahead of time; it can't be used to write yourself out of a corner.
I particularly enjoy when there's set up you don't notice the first time around, like if there's a scene where Jack quickly picks up something out of a mundane fire and doesn't realize it wasn't his speed that kept him from getting burnt.
1. Deus Ex Magicka 2. Resurrection to cheat the audience 3. The three generic shapeshifter plots 4. Discount Gandalf 5. Chosen magic user inciting incident #8274749 6. Incantations in the authors crappy fake language/bad poetry 7. Dreaming of the future inciting incident 8. AP Wizardry & Sorcery 9. Standard MacGuffin foci plot #98765 10. Violations of Sanderson's second law
that's an interesting debate that is sure to have a lot of different opinions. personally, I'd say go with it. it's not every fiction you have a relative or adopted relative as a mentor.
I think it can count as a peeve. “Oh look, this guys your mentor? Place your bets for how long he lasts until he dies! :D Oh, he’s your dad too?? Delightful! Get ready for a tragic parental sacrifice scene! :D And let me guess, he’s going to pass on a talisman to you as he dies, &/or die right before teaching you the superpowered magical technique? Get ready for some more plot! :D “
adoptive father, specially if they're old weary reluctant mentor type are one of the hottest tropes in fiction right now think of Logan, Joel from last of us, the Mandalorian, Vander from Arcane you can't really go wrong with it
@@matheussanthiago9685 just because something is popular does not mean it "can't really go wrong". that's what "overdone tropes", "dated trends", and "cliches" are.
Magic that has no consequences! Magic is just energy that is manipulated, and all energy comes from somewhere. If it's not an external price like "a life for a life", then an internal price like exhaustion.
Well, it's _kind of_ the opposite; magic is a shortcut (you rub the lamp and wish for a castle, the genie has _something_ build or get you a castle), the "price" is up to the author, it can be nothing.
@@tbnrrenagade9507 Or you strike the magic tinderbox and summon the three magic dogs with large eyes, or open the golden snuff-box to release the three little red men, or collect the dragonballs and summon the dragon, or you blow out all the candles on your birthday cake with one breath or drop a coin in a wishing well or get the bigger part in a wishbone contest or use the Zoltar machine.
Broken Earth goes all the way with this. Starts off with heat and kinetic energy in the earth, and then using the energy from the user's own body (and slowly turning to stone).
I can't say I'd agree about mentor characters. If you want the magic system to be believable you have to give a believable reason for the main character to know how to use the magic. It would also make sense that the mentor would have to be older and more experienced. That can mean the old white guy or it could be the old Yoda or Granny Weatherwax. That said a lot of mentors get misused for exposition dumps and have about as much personality as a printer spewing out pages so I can see where the hate comes from;). As for spoken spell chants the best way I've seen it handled was in a Japanese light novel and anime series called "Is it Wrong to try and Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon" (cheesy sounding I know but actually a good story;) . In it the spells are prayers to the caster's respective patron gods. I'll put a link to a good scene from the anime where it's illustrated (warning it is the culmination of the first series so there would be spoilers). th-cam.com/video/0KNT1l5WPSA/w-d-xo.html
If you haven't run into them before the 'Mordant's Need' series has a very interesting take on magic that I haven't seen before. It's set in a world where glass is itself somehow magical, so if you make a mirror it doesn't show a reflection of what's in front of it, it shows you what's happening at a specific spot somewhere in another world (if the mirror is curved) or from somewhere in the Mordant's Need world (if its flat). Some people are known as "imagers" because they can teleport something they can see in one of their mirrors to them, and they can allow themselves or others to step into the mirror, teleporting them to that location (note that this second ability isn't used as often because stepping into another world with no easy way back can be dangerous and virtually everyone who's tried stepping into a flat mirror has successfully teleported but been driven mad by the process).
I mean one thing is to say that you don't like the wizard mentor because is misused or overrepresented. I think if you had framed as seen unrealistic that old people wouldn't be "out of touch" and unable to see some of their flaws, it would be understandable. But drawing their race and a bad personal experience you had with one, isn't helping explain why you dislike it. If someone say they don't like old black woman as mentors because of a bad experience it also wouldn't sound like a good decision.
Read a story where one of the main characters was assasinated by a shape shifter taking his form. There was a funeral and everything. Plot twist is, the guy they burried WAS the shapeshifter and the character was just using this opportunity to fake his death and shake off the villians. That was was quite the good execution of a fake out death and shifter
I love the concept of animal shapeshifters but I hate how, most of the time, the animal side is portrayed as something evil, violent and wild that must be controlled or destroyed. I can’t think of any story where the animal side is the personification of somebody’s goodness. It’s always a curse and never a blessing. This is especially true if the animal in question is a wolf. Why can’t we have wolf shapeshifters that are skittish and sensitive just like the real animal, and live in family packs instead of a hyperviolent interpretation of the alpha concept? I’m getting tired of it.
That reminds me how in one of my (yet to be written...) stories a werewolf herbalist/potionmaker is transported to another universe. The old universe had the concept of wolves as these solitary, brutal and somewhat large beasts, and the potionmaker had to drink specific potions around the full moon to contain her beast aspect, as she lost self-consciousness during transformation. The principles of her shapeshifting had to be adapted when she entered the new universe. Rather than transforming during full moon time, she'd react to full moon light instead - thus, she would avoid it to prevent transformation altogether (and because moon there is on synchronous orbit, she'd hide herself every night). That world's concept of wolves was of these wholesome pack animals, even with their own language. When the situation would force the werewolf to be exposed to moonlight, she'd also find that she can retain her self-consciousness and even understand wolfspeak (courtesy of the being who transported her and adapted her to the new world's physics and society).
I like how this is done in Animorphs, in Animorphs, when morphing into another animals, you get the whole instinct of the animals, be it the always happy, cheerful of dogs; the single , cold and simple mind of shark; the lack of individual identity mind of ants, or even the never ending hunger of an alien race that makes you always fear of starvation,... There is even an instance when an ant , yes an ant got the power to morph, and it morph into human of all thing, but because the ant mind can't handle all of the new sensation and instinct of human, it just scream until it morph back into an ant just to be killed by the person it morph into. Great stuffs And some major spoiler for a really good book of that series, book #26 The Attack, it is such an eye opening book for me So here we go, the main character/the narrator of that book is fighting a group of aliens called the Howler to save another alien race. The Howlers are basically the shock troop of an evil alien god called Crayak, who has ordered the Howlers to commit genocide to countless life forms around the universe. They have a collective memory, the memory of one Howler in battle can be shared with every other member of the species, making them quite deadly creatures for having experience of hundreds years of combat, it is also rumoured that they never know defeat. So our protagonist here, in an attempt to learn to defeat the Howlers decided to morph into one of them and get directly access to their collective memories. And the truth he he learns is quite terrifying. Like I said above, morphing give you the animals's instinct as well, so the main character excepted a creature who enjoyed killing to be really bloodthirsty, crazy and full of rage. But in contrast, the Howler's mind is happy, cheerful, like dog or dolphin, who enjoy playing, having fun. Accessing to their memories is when the true horror reveal, the Howlers are all children, who are created in lab, they have no mature phase, and will all die before can become adults. They are raised to think that killing is just a game, so when committing genocide to other species, they think it is just like playing to have fun, thus not feeling remorse. Because they will never reach adulthood, they will not have time to realize how messed up their actions are, the one who actually question it, feeling remorse will be erased from existence by their god Crayak to not taint the collective memories. That's also why they never know defeat, all of the battles they lost are erased from their memories as well.
You know what I don't hate? The clear "This is not a death!" They tend to be few and far between but characters can be gone, away and even in real deep shit that other characters react to in much the same way and it can be clear that they are still around and alive.
The main character in my book has the power to resurrect themselves but not anyone else and there is limitations to this power, they can also heal most injuries with flowers but they never learn this
The part about healing injuries with flowers makes me wonder, how this ability would become relevant to the plot. In particular, at which point the ability would be used without the main character finding out, and how it would be foretold/foreshadowed so that the flower healing isn't just a convenient plot device to treat this one heavily injured character when the plot needs it. (not saying you can't execute this never-known ability properly, just that I can see some writers falling into a pitfall of writing about an ability which has no relevance to the plot or is just introduced in the most convenient moment)
I'm writing an entire book series about a group of college-aged students who are rediscovering magic centuries after magic was lost. The effects of magic are still around (A group of wizards bound spells to their bloodlines in order to survive an apocalypse) but spellcasting itself is seen as an urban legend.
on my story, healing magic can be used on the caster, but it is more draining than if used on other people, and it is told when healing magic is first mentioned, the risk is often you don't have enough energy to heal yourself
About the overpowered protagonist, I think it can be good without limitations - there just needs to be a focus different than simple powerfantasy. For example, a powerful but highly benevolent character who struggles to not harm their opponents too badly; a character who blames themselves for not having courage or wisdom to use their power in some global-scale conflict; an immortal who hates that immortality was given only to them and not to their loved ones... The list goes on. The overpowered character's story can still be filled with problems and difficulties - unless they're an overpowered a-hole who cares about no one but themselves. There are situations where just being powerful is necessary, but not enough.
I already know this video is going to be good. I know my magic system is going to be a mix of mystic and science. Magic is like matter but it also has mystic properties in what I'm writing!
"I think shapeshifters are boring" You're only saying that because you haven't seen me play a Changeling in DnD yet. WHOA BOY I GET WEIRD! This shit gets marsupial.
I completely understand Sage Mentors being overdone and often poorly done, ESPECIALLY the, "Must die so the MC gets their a$$ in gear" cliche. My person favorite iteration of this trop was done was in Tamora Pierce's "Protector of the Small" quartet. The main character is the first girl to attempt becoming a knight since someone pulled a Mulan over two decades prior and got the (only a couple generations old, so people really should have known better already) no-girls-allowed law changed. She spent the first four years of her training in the capital city with some forty other boys. She started training before them so already had more of a foundation to work from, but still had to deal with all their preteen sexist bullsh!t. She's not a complete prodigy in absolutely everything, just had more experience to begin with. She spent those four years working harder than everyone else and holding herself to higher standards (and also wearing dresses to dinner specifically because she didn't want anyone to think she was ashamed of her gender). [[Also, she had very specific challenges and trauma she had to work through in addition to everything else, which her teachers and commanding officers didn't judge her for. Not related to the trope, it's just INCREDIBLY rare to see a character have panic attacks and nightmares without being seen as emotionally immature or useless.]] When she was ready to become a squire, she prayed that she'd get picked by Sir Mulan, but Mulan didn't even pop in to say "hi and good luck". In fact, none of the dude knights came to test or consider her either. But eventually, the commanding knight of the king's force of elite soldiers come back from the war front and revealed he already called dibbs on her and was just late getting back. This dude interacted with her multiple times while she was a page, and was notably impressed that her lance skills (a talent she focused heavily on perfecting) were arguably better than his. After he took her on, there was very little in the way of continuing her combat training outside of actual combat experience. Instead, he focused on teaching her leadership, communication, and command skill. Logistics of supply management, maaaath, military strategy and tactics (which she had already started studying as a page, because the main guy in charge of the pages recognized how seriously she was taking everything), and when to tell a 6'7 linebacker-sized career soldier that she's had enough of his attitude and give him latrine duty for a week. After she was knighted, she found out Mulan (who had magic) had been barred from interacting with her because the conservative counsel members thought she would cast a cheaty spell. Which everyone who mattered agreed was completely stupid, but it had been tolerated to prove the point. The knight who did take her on as his squire had been friends with Mulan while they were pages together, and he recognized the same "Oh yeah? WATCH ME!" fire in her eyes. And he was basically the most calm and respectful "Fuck yeah! WATCH HER!" not!dad character I have ever seen. Also, her parents were both alive, and at one point her mom gave him the Mom Look of Judgement and he got suuuuper formal, and it was absolutely adorable and everyone needs to go read that series.
Oh my god I used at least 3 of those 10 tropes in my books. No one has ever complained about it yet, so I think some of those tropes are actually not bad unless you can implement them with caution and precision. For example, your character dreamt a prophecy? Don't make them actually see when and how this dream became real or make that prophecy changeable with time. I made one of my characters see the book's ending in his dream, but the ending kept changing in my head, so I kept changing his prophetic dream too. That way, the dream didn't spoil the actual ending of my book and kept stuff interesting enough to follow through.
Thats what editing is for. Though id finish the book first then see if whats revealed is necessary or gives away too much, or perhaps the hero treats it as a warning to prevent a bad outcome.
I have some possibly unique ideas, but I do not have the patience for writing so anyone can use them: 1.) For the poetry/weird spells, have it later revealed that it's basically just a placebo, and the magic doesn't need words, just will and concentration. I feel like the reveal could be funny. 2.) Have a magic system based on emotions. (This idea was particularly inspired by a mechanic in the game Omori, but it isn't really magic per se, nor the main focus). Certain types or of "emotion magic" could give you different abilities. Anger magic could involves increased strength, happiness involves energy, sadness involving defense, ect. And you could have certain negatives come with certain emotion spells, like an "anger spell" that makes you really strong and fast, but you get hurt more, like a glass cannon spell. (You can fine tweak the specific abilities and weaknesses, depending on how strong or costly you want the spell to be). A central point in learning emotion magic would be controlling your own emotions. Additionally, if you want a character to be "unique" in the world (doesn't have to be protagonist), you could have them use "Apathy" magic, which could reduce the affects of other emotion magic.
I disagree with the mentor thing. I had an amazing grandfather who was a carpenter and taught me how to make stuff from wood, and is one of the most gentle people ever. He was also an amazing father to my mom and my 4 aunts who all love him and still take care of him (instead of throwing him into a nursing home). Just because there are vile "old white men" doesn't mean we should just throw a blanket racist and sexist term willy nilly cause "they did it first". Half of the population are men, and half are women. Anyone has the potential to be deplorable, but blanket extremely "gatekeep-y" statements should be avoided. I mean if you sincerely believe you are better than these "old white men" then act like it. Hypocrisy really robs one of their credibility. Be the change you want to see, don't just become the villains you hate.
I have five basic levels of combat magic. Channeling: the user can absorb or give off magic, this can be seen like emiting a glowing , steamy, fluid-like, or shard-like aura from the body or taking them in based on the user or opponents magic (So if you have ice magic you can emit an ice shard aura or a cold aura) Projectile: the user can shoot a projectile of magic at something. What it hits has the chance to be afflicted with the elemental status depending on the element of the magic. (Like firing a beam of light at opponents) Shape: the ability for the user to change the shape of a projectile made from their magic. (So imagine firing an orb or drill instead of a beam or whatever) Element combination: the user can combine other elements of magic together. (Fire + water = steam) Aspect/property manipulation: the user can change, add, remove, or create parameters that create different types of magical attacks. (Like a trip mine or a string that applies a status condition when touched) Other forms of magic might have different stuff. But that's my magic system for pure combat. Others might be based on vocalizations or writing. I don't know if its good or bad but hey. I think its pretty functional.
In trying to avoid the forgotten heir and predestined/ prophesied one trope, I introduced talismans to help my nonmagical MC against the demigod villain. I tried, but It doesn't look like I'll get out of having one 'search for the magic object' part of the story😅. I have, at least, incorporated talismans as part of the magic system, and it's introduced pretty early on.
A dude who self-published one book offered to collaborate with me and mentor me on writing my first book. Except that I would have to create the plot, do the world-building, create the characters, pretty much write the entire book. I didn't have a problem with that at all since that was my whole intent, but he insisted that he would use is insane old dude wisdom to guide my writing hand. The only thing he did was criticize how I dressed and "accidentally" guided my hand towards his crotch. So that "collab" didn't work out very well and I threw out the whole story, because I didn't want his taint on my work.
Haven't been this early in a while. I definitely want to see a "Part II" for this. Jenna video's are one of my weekly highlights. I say we change Wednesday to "Jenna-day" :) I do disagree with what you say about the mentor trope to a degree, however, I will concede that it can generate a Gandalf clone far too easily.
I got a story which has a main character who is the "chosen one" but after a series of events instead of him accepting his inherited power from an angel he decides that the only power that he can trust is his own therefore he rejects his birthright and assumes to beat the antagonist with his own power.
Not saying thats bad but what if you change the story to where the protagonist eventually becomes the villain or that he/she finds out that their trapped in a cycle of prophecies set up by the supposed angels and must find a way to break the cycle.(though I know the evil creator trope has been done to death.)
Wow! Do you have a *narrow* view of mentors. While the "old man" mentor is a meme in itself, mentors come in all shapes and sizes. In Margaret Atwood's "The Testaments," Aunt Lydia acts as a mentor to Aunt Victoria. In "A Clash of Kings" by by GRR Martin, Cersei Lannister mentors Sansa in the Red Keep during a battle they're losing. In Dr. Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," the Grinch is mentored by Cindy Lou. The butthead who offered to "mentor" you in your story was just a grifter.
Throwing this out there in the form of a question: what if a non-magical protagonist has to go up against a mysterious magic user whose powers no one can understand because they haven't for the last thirty years?
I have few rules for my magic system: - no resurrection. - no spirits and undeads. - no shapeshifters. - time travel only foward. And then I have space for exceptions, but the circumstances are so specific, the cost so high and the knowledge so unknown, that I use the exceptions as trouble and not as solutions
Great points. I find I hate magic systems where you have to be born into magic. Not because they’re necessarily bad but because I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be born with magic and that makes me sad. I don’t mind a mentor if they’re an interesting character. I’m seeing more female mentors lately who don’t have tone for anyone’s shit. That’s fun
I don't mind the "born magical" trope too much personally. Stories with magic almost always run into the question of "how come not everyone uses this, surely it would overhaul society?" and being born with the ability is the easiest way to answer that without creating a bunch more questions.
@@Robbinson98 Protagonist: wait, if everybody can perform magic, Why don't people use this more often? Random: Humans are stupid. Tell them that the universe could be on the palm of their hand just by reading a book or living a calm life, and they would immediately turn down the opportunity. - Said ol' Betsy with a sad smile on her almost crumbling face.- You see, we believe that in order to be great, to accomplish things, we have to suffer and feel bad all the way through. We punish ourselves because we tend to think that answers only come after great sacrifices... That's why people dismissed me as a crazy old lady... That's why people will dismiss you as a crazy old man one day.
@@Robbinson98 Well, either way you have Dumbledore and co selling magic items for muggles to use or there's literally no gene for magic so Dumbledore and co send owls to the Hermione Granger, Lily Evans etc. to secretly come to Hogwarts.
The thing with born-magic systems is that it usually has ugly underlying themes of supremacy and eugenics that authors either totally gloss over or unintentionally support with their work, stating only those specific people born the ‘right’ way are better than those who aren’t. It’s a whole other thing if the author is aware of it and intentionally goes out of their way to combat that mindset, but when the entire cast of a book is all born magic and those who aren’t are shown as being inferior, stupid, and jealous of people with magic, it doesn’t exactly paint a good picture for the author’s intentions. Like, can anyone actually name more than one good muggle in the Harry Potter series? :(
@@Casey-No Lily's parents. Hermione's parents. That waitress Harry was crushing on. Seamus' dad. That's not many, of course, but it'd just be dragging out the story really.
I think a pretty cool twist to the magical prophecy dream would be someone in the world is giving multiple people who are prone to delusions of grandeur the same "prophecy dream" in order to get their own dirty work done. Then again, I don't read books that often, so for all I know this could already be done to death as well 😅
Finding things on your own is kinda dumb. I know we are talking about fantasy settings, but how would a kid learn all the magic they need to constantly save them without sounding like a cheap deus ex maquina mechanism. Terrible take in my opinion. HUmans learn from others, and older poeple usually know more about the world even if they know less about specific crafts. All this tropes are inspired in real life.
I get most of the critics, but the part about the mentor made me realize how people get their trope wrong, probably because the Obi-Wan and Gandalf stereotype being so strong and, since most people don't read or don't study about this, the only ones most know. The mentor can be ANYONE. According to Vogler, the mentor is "a character that helps and train the hero. This archetype can be anyone and anything that teach, protect and/or give the hero presents." Before you say anything, a "present" don't need to be a physical one. But anyway, the thing is: the mentor can be ANYTHING and ANYONE. Even if a character, let's the the protagonist best friend, teach the protagonist something, they're being a mentor in this moment. Willow, from Pocahontas, IS A FREAKING TREE, and she's a mentor. The REAL problem, is that most people became lazy and just stick with the ONLY mentor image they have (Obi-Wan and Gandalf) for whatever reason (they thing it's cool, they want their "version of Gandalf" to be cool/recognized, etc.), instead of studying and analyzing stories and understand the variety of the archetypes to make their own.
I guess this isn't a trope, but I don't like the "the characters use some specific ability just once despite numerous other situations where it'd make sense to use it." It totally takes you out of the story because it removes all logic from the world they are trying to create. It's like when you watch a movie and a character uses a smart phone at some point in the movie, but then doesn't use it later when it'd make sense because not using it is needed to drive the plot forward.
Agreed
that's why I tend to have characters with very few things they're really good at and have them decide the best one for every situation.
one of the reasons i dont really like hard magic systems. it feels like a preconceived puzzle.
*cough* the time turner *cough*
Like having antagonists shown to kill someone with a snap of their fingers yet don't do it against the protagonist. Or otherwise waste clear opportunities to kill the hero.
@@parvonik1359 Funny enough, find what Andrew said more prevalent in soft magic
Isn't the mentor issue mostly that it's always either a Gandalf or Obi-Wan ripoff? Older brother type or "tough but motherly" mentors are underused.
so I'm totally cool with mentors in fantasy, sometimes you need the help, guiding and training from someone a bit wiser or more experienced to learn from. That being said, I do agree that the old white long bearded wizard trope has been done to death. Why not have a mentor that's a woman or what if the mentor is actually younger than the MC, because if the mentor is training the mentee it's because they have extensive knowledge in a skill the MC doesn't that's why they're getting training. Why can't the mentor be a friend or family member, or formal rival or enemy? Those types of scenarios make this trope a lot more interesting
@@amylynnsgraphics
Well, the protagonist being pretty young themselves is a huge, sometimes sub-genre defining trope. So if the MC is 16-21, do you want a 14yo mentor? This isn't anime.
Women however should be a no-brainer.
@@Alias_Anybody I tend to read adult books over YA, and in those cases I think it would be fine if a 30 year old is mentored by a 25 year old. In YA, yes, I agree the mentor needs to be older or at minimum their same age, but the mentor doesn't need to be ancient either, like why can't their mentor be a college student or late 20s/early 30s?
I think all the main characters in the book I'm writing could be considered the mentor to all the other main characters in my book.
my only "mentor" character (at time of writing) is a eleven year old dragon who decided to become an expert in engineering because she got bored.
that one good?
For the shifter point I feel so sad that I agree. I really wish writers did something more with such a fun concept. …Wait, I’m a writer……
I made the shape shifter the villain and gave them the objective of destroying humanity because humans are just cancer.
Does that work for you?
In my story I have shifters as their own species that split off from humanity 200k years ago, and were gifted their shifting powers by the gods that they harness through magical stones. They have various tribes based on what animal they can turn into and their own cultures and traditions, the male and female dynamics are reflective of the animals they're connected to, as well as their diets and lifespans. So a vampire bat shifter can ONLY drink blood, rodent shifters only live about 40-50 years, etc. Shifters are cool and they need to be developed properly as their own thing.
I was thinking of doing a werewolf detective story where shifters are like a secret minority and they're not as contagious as in the legends and the "magic" isn't exactly _magic._
I have a story in progress that has the mc, a werewolf, as a high ranking member of a magical organisation created to protect the rest of the world who are terrified of magic.
his story focuses more on his human side and him rejecting his wolf side as it was responsible for the death of a loved one.
I haven't seen stories where a shifter actively hates their other form due to something they did in that form and it has a lot of potential.
I also have another one in which shifters are just regular beings who enchant candles.
once these candles are lit, they stay in an animal form until the flame is extinguished, on top of that, these candles are very difficult to make, so they have to limit their time in other forms.
further, any intelligent being can use them, so some of my shifters are dragons, elves, dwarves etc.
those are some interesting ideas you could use.
@@Mansplainer2099-jy8ps I haven't heard that one before.
"we will watch your career with great interest."
One Punch Man has an interesting take on OP characters.
It focuses more on Saitama's normal, non-hero, life and on how being so powerful is so boring.
It also makes Saitama the side character to his own story.
The stakes are usually Saitama not being there so another hero (usually Genos) has to do it and take some severe hits before Saitama shows up.
How is that interesting? It just repeats the same shit again and again.
@@someguyfromanotherplanet5284 this is how we can tell if someone doesn't pay attention.
@@tbnrrenagade9507 ???🤔🤔🤷🤷🤷
@@someguyfromanotherplanet5284 you say it's repetitive, not interesting.
if you actually have watched one punch man, you'd agree completely with what I said in the original comment.
@@someguyfromanotherplanet5284 You can have OP main characters and still tell an interesting story with it, One Punch Man is an okay example, but Mob Psycho 100 is way better.
The main character technically can overpower any person they get into a conflict with, but their personal beliefs and internal struggles are the main focus point instead of "Will they win this fight?".
Same author for both works, and Mob Psycho is the one they worked on after One Punch Man. Generally agreed that Mob Psycho does the same gimmick in a much more interesting way than One Punch, although both are good.
Tolkien wrote that he kept his magic rules amorphous and soft because magic was the wonder in his story and as soon as you chain down wonder you've lost the fantasy.
He was wrong idc he's legendary. Hard magic doesn't lose the fantasy, it just gives an idea of what is plausible without taking away the wonder (if done right).Tolkien's magic had possibilities that were or were not, just... because.It kinda cheapened the stakes. Not to say he was a bad writer
Being a fan of soft magic, hard magic still has its merit and fair share of fans. Plenty of people enjoy reading about super complex systems. It's just really hard to execute in a novel format
Tolkien’s stories were also never about the magic users, which makes a huge difference. You don’t usually have to explain how the magic works if the main characters aren’t doing the magic. Tolkien was much more interested in the more mundane characters persevering through extraordinary challenges, so he often had the bad guys have their magic or supernatural abilities but removed the good magic users entirely from the scenario (see: Gandalf, in any context). 🧙♂️
Hello Future Me made an entire video about the strengths of soft magic systems.
I personally really like hard magic but if it should be used depends on each story so to each his own. The appeal of hard magic for me is that characters have to be innovative while still being within what limitations they're given. Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood does this and they do it really well. There are only a few main hard rules that the viewer needs to remember and those rules affect everyone in the story. In comparison, soft magic typically does best when it is not one of the defining aspects of the story.
As a huge fan of shapeshifters in fictional media, finding out that they're this poorly executed in fantasy makes me really sad. Fantasy writers really can't think of any other ideas than "shapeshifters vs themselves/other race" or "shapeshifter animal sex"!? Jesus christ writers, you have such a cool superpower in your hands, and you're putting it to WASTE!
Though this isn't fantasy, I have a shapeshifter character (human turned alien mutant disguised as his human self) who uses his powers to infiltrate organizations, blend in with his surroundings, turn parts of his body into weapons, change size, dodge attacks by shifting, etc. To balance him out, electricity makes his body unstable, and he can be detected by thermal vision (which are both exploited by villains at times).
In terms of plot, can't fantasy writers use shapeshifters to infiltrate some evil kingdom/clan, blend in with wildlife to stay away from enemies, disguise themselves as some feared god/mythical monster to scare away the villains/manipulate them into worshipping the shifter, etc? Even with the limits of fantasy, there should be much more that can be done with this incredible power than racism and red rockets. If Beast Boy can use animal transformation to his fullest advantage to complete tasks, so can your own shapeshifters. What a shame.
With the animal sex thing....That’s creepy. It feels like it’s fulfilling the disgusting fantasies of Zooiphiles. (I’m not talking about furries. By the way. At least their thirsty over anthro characters who are at least able to consent. Because they can speak fluently. If you changed them into humans they wouldn’t change unless the story specifically involves them being animals heavily to drive conflict. Beastars, zootopia, etc.) but having LITERAL animals. Like they can’t talk. Their not bipedal. Etc. Is really weird. At least to me.
I have shapeshifters who can only do it for limited time and kinda just exist, no one cares.
and another one is the last remaining werewolf on planet earth who is trying to find a way to destroy his wolf side because it indirectly killed someone he loved.
there are people trying to do shapeshifters justice, I promise you.
Star Wars the Clone Wars animated show did a cool episode where Obi-Wan "shape-shifts" into the person who "kills" him so he can get arrested and gather information from inside the space prison system.
I did shapeshifters differently. I made shapeshifters more in a horror genre than fantasy. They're called mimics and they are made by cult sacrifices. They shapeshift into human beings so they can lure people into a place were nobody can hear them scream. They have weaknesses how ever. In their disguised form, they have the same weaknesses as human beings. So a simple headshot can kill them, but when they are in their true form, they are resistant to what humans have to go through. However in that form, they are slow as hell and not hard to spot (thanks to their pale skin and very tall height). These shapeshifters don't really have any wars on anything or try to screw anything, they're just feasting on human flesh to survive. If you don't like it, it's fine. I have plenty of other species to play with.
Not to mention shapeshifter animal zeggs is also super morally dubious. If they're a werewolf or Kajjiit then it's fine, but 4 legged animals is mega weird. Like man if you want people to root for your characters and not have your fandom explode into a burning trash fire of discourse, don't have them do weird shet lol
Might you include "let's get rid of magic at the end, so that you can learn to do things yourself"? It's an easy way to kill any intrigue.
whats even worse is when they do this,and make up some dumb explanation about why it back so they can make spin offs
Is this a common trope? I haven’t come across it myself but I’m curious. Do you know of any examples?
What? But I like that idea! It forces the character not to rely on their supernatural abilities so they have to use their brains for once
"star vs the forces of evil" comes to mind. That show's ending was an utter disgrace.
What about Discworld's "the purpose of wizard school is to keep wizards too fat and content to particularly want to use magic very often (because that usually results in planetwide magical wars that reshape the local laws of physics for eons to come and which attracts the attention of the cosmic horror who reside in the Dungeon Dimensions)" variation on that theme?
I've heard that one of the best ways to make a magic system is to answer these 3 questions:
What can your magic do?
What can it NOT do?
What is the cost?
Brandon Sanderson lecture series? I am pretty sure that is where I heard those ideas mentioned.
@@JustinDLink maybe? I don't fully remember
Which is honestly way too vague tbh.
@@kayleighbrown459 is it though? If you pin it down too much you limit the creative options. It's just a basic frame to build upon. A foundation.
@@JustinDLink could be, I've heard it before and it does sound like him.
The mentors I like are older female characters. I love my mom but mothers in books are usually either dead, abusive or have no personality aside from “mother”.
Female mentors are also often mother figures but they’re much more wise and complex. And not completely overdone.
Ooh the oracle in the matrix. Dope
I think Toriel is a good example of this.
@@Hello-hello-hello456 yes definitely! I was also thinking of the soothsayer from Kung fu panda 2!
You just reminded me of my split personally mage, who was literally a mother and her 2 children trapped in the same body. And the only way they could communicate with each other is using a memento styled diary.
This was a character I used in a role playing game, and I thought it might be worth writing about.
I'm proud of a character of mine who is both the protagonist's adoptive mother and mentor as well.
I totally agree with the last one. For the overpowered magical protagonist, GIVE. THEM. LIMITS.
If a protagonist can shoot magical beams from their hands and eviscerate anything in its path, make there some sort of repercussion to that power. Maybe it’s straining on their bodies if the magic comes from them or maybe overusing can stop them from using it entirely.
Like she said, magical powers shouldn’t feel like a “get out of jail” card but more of an asset for the protagonist
TDLR: i dont like it when characters have too many random powers and i like it when certain powers are a result/side effect of other powers
i agree. Me and my best friends like to create characters and draw comics, J frequently creates characters that have too many random powers. One of her characters had
a) the ability to make anything into a weapon,
b) the ability to make other character's fly
and c) the ability to boost other character's powers. Powers b and c could be a result of the items in power a.
(i can tolerate 2 or 3 powers if theres a reason like shoto todoroki in my hero academia, he has 2 powers because his dad wanted him to be the strongest superhero and was a dck about it)
To be fair, firing lazer that eviscerate everything is a really limited power outside of lethal combat. You could actually make some really fun things with it like have the character focus on destroying stuff around people and play around with mirrors and stuff.
But I'm just being pedantic here :p
I think my idea might sound interesting:
A character who gets an op ability but doesn't know half a scalp about how to use it, which ultimately makes them absurdly useless.
I have a running theme of that kind of power being possible, but almost always leads to insanity for both heroes and villains.
it's interesting to see how I can have my characters forcefully limit themselves in an effort to stay sane.
@@eeperrrrrrrr I feel you on the todoroki thing. When people have a bunch of powers, it’s really hard to keep track of
Honestly I love the ‘old sage wizards’ that are just flat out senile and slightly crazy. Are lessons hard to learn? Sure, but at least they come from someone interesting who would sell you out for a snickers
I had that in a story I started writing in high school but never did anything with. The protagonist was learning magic from an extremely elderly couple. The woman was too frail to actually cast spells anymore, but could explain the theory/history, provided she didn't nod off to sleep mid-sentence. The man was physically fit enough to demonstrate actual casting technique, but had trouble remembering who he was, where he was, or what he was doing. Mid-fireball, he might suddenly stop teaching and start questioning a flowerpot in Latin about the positioning of the ninth legion's cavalry auxiliaries or something.
Of course King Bumi, whatever you say
My favorite storytellers use a lot of these tropes but turn them upside down and present them “shaken, not stirred.”
Old man mentor who knows magic theory but has no capacity for magic, just a lot of experience with failure.
Or the grandfatherly mentor who turns out to the villain.
Or the old mystic woman who honestly hates being around people but can’t abandon the baby she finds abandoned in the forest, so she raises her on her own until she catches up with her.
@@DankworthBalthazar Dude, I wanna read that 😂 It gives School for Good and Evil in the third book. It's the whole school with armies of battle-prepared children with evil monstrous fairytale villains that came to life led by a ruthless dictator versus..... the protagonist and the League of Thirteen. A bunch of wrinkled, wheelchair-ridden and argumentative old grannies and grandpas who can't walk straight much less participate in war 😂❤
My problem with overcomplicated magic systems is when the author wants to explain it in detail to the reader. Having an overcomplicated magic system is fine, but it should be quick and easy to explain the fundamentals. All the complicated specifics should stay in the design/resource docs for the author to reference and make sure they aren't breaking their own rules. The reader doesn't need to know what these rules are, and if they do, you can drip feed them as they become important to the plot. A glossary on the specifics at the back isn't a problem, in my opinion, but it should be a little bonus rather than necessary to understanding the basics.
Those are my favorites in particular because a character can't know everything so all that they need to know can be clearly explained. It also stops character's from being overpowered because what each form of magic can do is clearly defined, unless someone innovates in which case it's probably pretty groundbreaking stuff in that world.
@caitlyncarvalho7637
In the Thieves world series, mages of one order are required to have a secret. Anyone who discovers their secret can take their power (this happens at least once, although he is killed almost immediately).
one fun thing I had happen in a D&D campaign, was we were told we were the chosen ones. Turns out they told that to about 5 different groups and figured that one of us would succeed or they would find a new group of "chosen ones"
That could be a very interesting thing handled with care.
Imagine it. The cconflict in programmed into the idea. What happenes when multiple groups that all think of themselves as "the chosen ones" and all have their own goals, suddenly meet ?
Chaos.
Could be very intertaining.
This actually would make for a conflict 😂 especially an anime I think lol great idea
@@sierrasteadham760 It is an anime, "11 eyes". Also "X/1999", I think... but I could be wrong about the last one, it's been almost a decade since I watched it but I remember some kind of big plot twist that left me with a similar feeling.
I’m getting a little annoyed with the parents hiding that their kid comes from a magical family. It’s been done to death, and this is coming from someone who liked turning red
Yeah. At least in turning red it could be considered a metaphor for “that time of month” though it is a bit loose. Only the females in the family get this transformation. The males don’t seem to. And biological men don’t get it unless their intersex i think. I could be wrong.
Here's my idea of a justified excuse: only one parent is magical, and they don't know if the kid is, and knowing about the magic would be dangerous in-universe so they don't tell the kid until they know the kid needs to know…which of course comes too late to be useful because the plot needs to be interesting, but still (I haven't seen Turning Red so I don't know if that's what they already did there).
@@BioniclesaurKing4t2 thats basically the plot of Turning Red yes
@@BioniclesaurKing4t2 📺 Ah, I believe 'Teen Wolf' did that with Arden Cho's character who had a mortal human father and an immortal kitsune mother.
🎞 In 'Halloweentown,' the mother and her grandmother kept their magical lineage a secret because the mother was married to a mortal and wanted her kids to grow up normally.
(Looks away guiltily but for good reason and actually subverts the trope)
The mentor trope is overused because we've been using it since literally the dawn of time, the old wizard even is an old trope seen in ancient mythology, the modern synthesis and distilled version of this mythical character is Gandalf, who is perfect and a VERY complex mentor-ish figure. However, the reason it's overplayed today is that everyone and their mother started ripping off LOTR and adding in their own old wizard character as mentor figure and the entire genre got saturated with them.
And it's actually kind of funny how everyone ripped off the one old wizard mentor who barely ever did anything magical. Gandalf's usefulness was mostly as a guide and leader and never really did any of the spell-slinging. He did more swordfighting than pretty much anything else!
It's Dangerous To Go Alone. Take This! 🗡
Shifters also use the whole "Alpha" thing way too much. There's always an alpha leader /boss personality that everyone has to cater to... Despite the fact that the very person who made that study in wolves disproved it, it's still wildly popular and overdone.
Ok, so we've got 1. Deus ex machinas, 2. 'Nobody Stays Dead' trope, 3. Jenna's not into furries (reasonable), but then we get one that doesn't seem like it has anything to do with the actual trope. The reasons she gave for not liking mentors is that they are old white guys and she's had bad experiences with real people trying to mentor her. Real people though. Nothing to do with fictional. There wasn't any criticism of the actual mentor trope. It's fiction, the mentors aren't some random creep online, they have the qualification (if they were written to). Obi Wan, Gandalf, Dumbledor, Uncle Iroh! (nobody can hate Uncle Iroh!) are beloved fictional characters. Mentors are typically older because they're spose to have experience they can pass on to the protagonist or guide them along the way. It's an extremely useful trope in fantasy and real people isn't a criticism of it. It's also a fun trope to subvert.
There are also several well-known mentor figures who aren't all three (white, old, men): Morpheus from the Matrix, Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid, Teacher Izumi from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Moirane from the Wheel of Time, and there are multiple in Avatar the Last Airbender such as Uncle Iroh; these are just examples off the top of my head.
Btw, the word mentor comes from the Mentor of Greek mythology who was actually Athena (the Greek goddess of knowledge and craft) disguised as an old man.
the problem with "nobody stays dead" is that they confirm the kills. if you leave a character's survival debatable, people would have no problem with them coming back.
e.g. mace windu
@@tbnrrenagade9507 nah, that might be part of the problem but the core of it is the oversaturation of the trope. Both Marvel and DC (for example) do it constantly. Characters never stay dead. Any the ways they get brought back keep getting worse. In the current run of the X-Men, they live on an island that can bring mutants back to life whenever they die. Death is no longer a problem for them. And that's not even the worst part. The X-Men are basically now the villains in their comic but they are written like they're still the heroes. They literally let a character stab a guy in the neck and shrugged it off saying she just did what she thought was right! It's insane (got off topic a little).
@@Andrewtr6 thank you for your comment about the mentor trope, glad that someone mentioned and clarified that. Completely agree with you.
@@Andrewtr6 fair, there's "nobody stays dead", and there's "dead doesn't exist"
I would say comics are the second one.
my way of putting this is "nobody stays dead" is only problematic when they confirm the kill or do it too often, then it becomes "dead doesn't exist"
@@tbnrrenagade9507 For me, the problem largely is how often it's done in comics, especially superhero comics. Bringing a character back can be fine if it's not done too often and when it is done, there should be a consequence. Making it easy to cheat death means all the characters are basically immortal. Death feels empty in DC and Marvel because of this.
I have a pretty strict rule about resurrection in my stories. The only reason I would do it is if I had a good story to tell with the character and there was no other way I could tell it.
I have to disagree with the mentor part of this. Mentors have been an important part of my life, so I relate to this when I see it in fiction. In high school, I had my wrestling coach. In college there were certain professors I considered mentors. As a missileer, I had a combat crew commander. As a cop, I had a field trainer. All of these people helped me grow both in the particular skills they were responsible for teaching me but also as a person so I really like mentor characters.
That point really collapses when you realize a mentor is just
Any teacher.
I think she's just jaded because as a public figure people want to leech off her success and they do that by pretending she needs a "mentor" when really they just want to mooch. It's a thing everyone that succeeds has to deal with, it doesn't mean teachers are invalid.
Agreed. Also the list is a bit redundant for two reasons. 1. Most of these were done by Tolkien. 2. Most of them she only didn't like because of a lack of creativity and skill.
It's ridiculous to complain about tropes like this. Originality is not, not using these tropes, it's using them well and in interesting new ways to explore a particular point/message/philosophy/ethic etc.
No trope should be the core of your story, merely a tool to tell the story. They're not good or bad.
@@TheEarlofBronze1 Its impossible to not use tropes. Not using a trope...is a trope. THe "Overly Original Trope"
If thats not a trope it just became one because anything can be a trope. Fucking everything is a trope.
There is no real originality now. YOu have millions of people making millions of stories...everything will be used.
Its up to you to create your own original spin on something thats already being used.
I dont think she meant remove mentors as a whole lol. Cuz there is in fact no way to write a good story without one. I think she mostly meant the trope of old powerful wise white men, because it is a trope that's been used many times and at this point is overdone. Like change it up a bit and at least make him black, or a little Asian girl that's actually been alive for hundreds of years that somehow go stuck in this incomplete immortal state. Just change it up basically lol
@@sierrasteadham760 So it's bad because they're a white guy and no other reason? So long as they're not WHITE MEN it's fine?
That's not racist.
Double Trouble from She-Ra is an amazing shapeshifter. They view shape shifting as an art and a performance that requires character study in order to really shift into a person.
Love Double Trouble! They're hilarious, and they're really just doing it for the drama, but they're also passionate about their craft.
Actually I think "artisticly expressive shapeshifter/illusionist" is still a pretty obvious trope
But fun one none the less
@@georgeuferov1497 It's still done pretty well though.
Love double trouble he's amazing
If you want a good Shifter work, I recommend the good ole Animorphs series.
I also kind of want to see a magic mentor story where they're basically barely a college professor. Just a "Really? I have to teach them?"
YES! Animorphs handles both the young protagonist trope AND the shapeshifter one so well!
They don't even need to be proffesors at this point! What abput a college student trying to earn credits? 😂😂 All my high school tutors were students
Alfweird the disgruntled Teacher's Assistant... I'm keeping this?
Animorphs was my jam growing up, some of the morphing descriptions just sticks in your mind. As a kid I was like 'this sounds so cool' thinking back as an adult I'm like 'that's actually horrifying.'
A burned-out mentor that's just 100% sass who is just done with the main character's optimism and excitement and teaches lessons completely by accident would be entertaining. Spewing out random platitudes mixed with insults that the main character somehow manages to extract useful information from against all odds even if it should be outright sabotaging them!
Related to the last point, it drives me nuts when the system of magic either has no apparent limits or the limits are inconsistently enforced. This is my #1 annoy with Star Wars - you have magic throw-things-around powers but don't use it to, idk, throw malicious saw droids off your ship's hull? Does The Forks not work through your windshield? It's not that I think all magic needs to be modest, but it should be consistent in-world so that your character's actions have consequences that make sense.
the buzz droid thing is because the force requires concentration and flying Starfighters through a battlefield while you're a priority target is difficult and requires a lot of concentration.
also, a concept often subtly explored in legends is that it is difficult to multitask with the force, which is why yoda could only save obi-wan and anakin in AOTC and couldn't grab dooku's ship as well.
sorry for being a star wars nerd.
According to lore (unless it's been retconned), Jedi Starfighters have no shields, they rely on the Jedi's Force instincts to avoid enemy fire, so they're already half-distracted just by avoiding getting blown up by a stray shot, and if the first reply is right about it being difficult to multitask, well there you go, their one slot of Force power is already in use. To explain any of this onscreen would've been helpful, though.
@@BioniclesaurKing4t2 they couldn't explain it on screen without anyone breaking character. George Lucas couldn't find a way to do it in the prequels.
legends does a good job of it though.
I always get the impression the Force doesn't work on command. Sometimes... well, sometimes it's just flowing the wrong way. The Jedi describe it as their 'ally', not their servant, which suggests a give and take relationship.
The Sith, now, the Sith just grip the Force and make it do what they want all the time, but the Jedi are seemingly more considerate.
The explanations given make sense well enough, and are fine for books in which these limits can be explained, even explored (by putting characters in positions where This Is A Problem), but not so great for movies. Saw droids are kindof a dumb anti-ship weapon anyway (why not just make sticky seeker-grenades that explode?), but they're worse in a setting where telekinesis is one of the basics of the magic system. Also, Anakin deals with the droids via fancy piloting, which would surely require as much if not more concentration than a simple Force Pull/Push.
In short: if you give your characters a power, don't put them in situations where their power provides an easy solution, then temporarily pretend that power doesn't exist or can't be used for reasons (when they use it in other situations where those reasons would still apply). Put them in situations where their power isn't useful (e.g. laser eyes, but they have to use diplomacy in a situation where frying or threatening to fry the other person isn't an option), or where it even makes their situation worse.
Mentor trope opinion seems so personal, it doesn't seem to be about books...
That's like saying Hero trope is bad, because you met a shit fire fighter who didn't save your cat.
She's giving personal examples of unfortunately common scenarios that women face. She's also clear about it being her opinion to not like mentors in general and that she's knows she's in the minority. This whole video is pointing out cliches, and the "old white man wizard" mentor absolutely is one.
"What if their magic evolves alongside puberty?"
Exactly. The magical characters, four sisters, in the series I'm writing were born with their gifts, but they evolve as they age. Plus, the girls grew up in a setting where they could use their gifts freely but end up amongst us humans and have to navigate keeping them on the down-low.
coughs every spiderman story ever
AMONG US??????!!?!??!?!?
@@matheussanthiago9685 I'm not a comics reader, so I don't care about that.
@@dando541 They're the daughters of an alchemist, created by their father's arts and raised on an airship that's disguised as a cloud. When the girls are 17, they're sent out into the world to help humans, either to shield them from outside negative influences or guide them away from their own self-destruction.
@@AliciaNyblade sounds like a pretty cool story
“White man old mentor.”
I get that since every story rips off lotrs this has been a thing but the mentor trope had little to do with age, sex or skin color and it actually came off as kind of petty.
Yeah I didn't understand how an experience with a real life incompetent creep invalidates the idea of having mentors in fantasy. If anything interesting mentors are underused imo, too commonly they're just rip offs of Gandalf and Obi-Wan, but that doesn't make the whole trope bad
"should I do a part two?"
Jenna, do you even have to ask? It's like you don't know us. YES
A few more tropes that I don't like:
1- The only "side effect" of magic is that the character passes out from using it. So instead of seeing the exciting effect of their spell in the pivotal moment, they can wake up in a hospital bed days later and be told about it by the other characters.
2- Magic that has huge implications outside of the main quest, but is never used in that way. For example, weather magic that could be used to end droughts and save crops. Or fire magic that could be a clean energy source for an entire city. You never see a healer working in a hospital, they always own a bookshop or something.
Totally agree. Especially your second point's first example. If you really don't want such a thing to happen (those writers who decide that "yeah, weather magic can manipulate the weather on a massive scale"), like, tone down the effects of your magic, please! It's infuriating knowing that some characters can casually cause a whole rainstorm in a city yet don't utilize it where common sense and practices would normally do. Just, make the weather magic or something effect a lot less of an area or become weaker overall to counteract that. And please, make the healers work in the hospital. I beg you. Unless your magical world has some weird thing where everyone born has a perfect job that matches them inscribed into their soul and healing magic is only given to those who aren't going to do something medical, please add a slight grain of realism!
@@requiem3160 Exactly! It's just sloppy world-building.
I have an area of my world were people with certain magical abilities tend to work certain jobs such as those with healing powers working in places like hospitals and those who are immune to fire work as fire fighters along with some people with water powers
@@GACHAShadow-cb5kf That sounds like a cool world!
@@grutarg2938 Thank you
One of my favorite recent magic systems is in The Owl House. It's really diverse and creative
yeah drawing circles in certain ways creates unique spell combinations, its so cool!
Plus the mentor trope was thoroughly demolished early on in TOH. Don't trust bearded old guys in sandals!
@@albyzee1396 not to mention Eda herself isnt the typical run-of-the-mill mentor
And the students studying different types of magic like illusions, abominations, plant, etc. It's so much more interesting than just "magic"
@@hunterlawrence3573 and like plant magic, illusion magic, bard magic, beast magic those all could be typical stuff. Whats this there's abomination magic? there's a cooking coven (and presumably cooking magic?) okay this is odd and kinda fun
With the shifting thing, I think the biggest issue is that writers make "being a shifter" the focus, rather than having shifting as an ability and tool to solve problems. It's the difference between using the ability to shapeshift to get out of situation or solve a puzzling situation, compared to having the danger simply be negated by being a shifter and having regen or strength or some baseline state increase. If the big benefit of being able to change your physical form is that you are stronger or have faster reflexes, then you just are doing a standard physical enhancement superhero with extra fur. This works fine in a superhero focused story, but in a supernatural story that is the most dull and generic thing possible.
One thing I like about the opening scene in Final Fantasy 14 is that, while it starts with a sort of prophetic dream, it's a warning not the inciting incident. It starts with a man in a red mask and dark robe appearing and attacking you, you fight back with "a blade of light" then you wake up in a boat/carriage depending on the class you picked. So clearly you're setting off to hunt down dream man right? Nope, you set out because you wanted to strike out as an adventurer and that's exactly what you do. Though you're a little rookie adventure you start to awaken to some powers and eventually find out your a chosen one, not THE chosen one, *A* choose one. It's not until the third act that the player actually meets the dream man through the natural progression of the story. You fight him at the climax and recalling the dream you know that to beat him you need to summon the "blade of light".
I thought that was a good way of doing both a chosen one story and a prophetic dream. Oh and dreams and visions happen more than once, are actually pretty integral to the story, expansions included and is directly tied to the chosen one powers. It's a consistent part of the whole story.
Edited for so many typos.
Prophetic dreams could also work if they do something other than the same exact dream for a week straight. Yeah its fantasy but most of the times dreams don't necessarily work like that. You could have a series of dreams over the course of 2 weeks with a unifying theme. For example, I keep having nightmares that I didn't complete high school and hvae to do it over again. It's never the same dream though. Sometimes it's me being in a classroom. Sometimes I'm stading looking at the school from across the street. Once it was exactly that I had to take 1 or 2 more classes because my diploma was considered invalid for some reason. But the point is that dreams are fragmented, and maybe you can have bits of a theme interspersed and the MC has to put them together somehow.
I'm actually so glad that i managed to avoid most of these tropes, leave it to jenna to reassure me that my book is gonna turn out fine😅 but im hoping to make the talisman more interesting than just a book or staff
To be fair, why don't people use things that are creepier?
I would love to see a book in which the talisman is a body part or something. Like "The heart of Melinda" and it's literally the heart of a witch called Melinda.
@@ーテイル Well, there is the "monkey's paw", and Full Metal Alchemist did have the philosophor's stone and its imitations made from the sacrificed life energy of countless lives... But, despite being done before, it certainly is underutilized.
what is your talisman?
@@shieldgenerator7 i'm thinking keys, but i might change it
Make it a scythe >:D
That story about the guy who tried to mentor you was... wild. I genuinely feel embarrassed to be part of the human species sometimes.
many humans are no more than a waste of biomass.
@Diego Palacios paiva I think here judgement on the trope if muddled by her experience and thus unfair.
@@ThatGuyKumbirai While her point was pretty clouded, the trope itself being here is justified, just because of how overdone it is.
Wow... That's some spite for mentors you got going there. I can't say I agree on that one. Mentors are a great aspect to a story which can really grant some further insight into the world, whether it be a system (magical or otherwise), a philosophy or something else. Want to know what is more 'unrealistic' than a 'old sage white man'? A plucky teenager figuring out a centuries old philosophy and its intricacies on their own.
Edit: Also, tell me you hate Harry Potter without telling me you hate Harry Potter.
Mentor's definitely have their well-earned place. As much as I enjoy capable heroes and heroines who work hard, I can't stand it when young characters gain the knowledge and skills of the masters just because plot. Kids these days are eating tide pods and twerking on TikTok. Authors expect me to believe the same 16 year-olds can outperform someone who has trained for decades? Please no. I'm looking at you, Six of Crows. lol
I don't hate mentors either, and I agree that a teenager figuring out all the wisdom in the world on their own would strain my suspension of disbelief.
But I also think that learning process can be made more interesting than the usual "old sage white man" or slight variation thereof. Like, have the main character learn from multiple "mentors", each with different skillset and worldview. Then have the main character organically develop their philosophy based on these differing worldviews and own personal experiences. I think it's more compelling than MC learning from a single mentor-role character and only interacting with that mentor's worldview (whether by accepting or rejecting it).
While I do agree with you, and while I don't mind it that much (I'll still read books if they have tropes, long as they aren't utterly obnoxious), the 'old sage white man' mentor type is a bit overdone. A slight change would be nice, even if it was like an 'elderly widowed white women'
@@requiem3160 Making it about gender/ethnicity at all is what irks me the most. She clearly has some issues she felt she needed to vent, but to call that "advice" just doesn't feel appropriate at all. Almost makes her come across as more spiteful than insightful.
@@thebroker95 I agree, and while what she did go through was not good, it just does covers this topic with too much bias. I personally am fully fine with this trope (I don't mind them too much), it's just kind of overdone but I simply don't mind. If it were about how much it was done, I would agree with her, and while I somewhat agree on its placement in this video I do not on the justification.
"Ask any woman about their experience with old white men who want to mentor them and I guarantee you it will be the biggest crock of shit..."
I'm a woman and "old white men" have been some of my most treasured mentors, teachers, professors, and father figures, and it makes me happy when people from any generation, race, or gender want to help me develop my skills, thank you for asking.
Why do so many modern writers have such ridiculous hangups about people that happen to be white and/or male? It's so gross and dehumanizing...
I agree.
I can't help but notice that while this youtuber seems to love responding to and upvoting comments that actively agree with her old white men discussion, she doesn't seem to respond at all to comments that dispute it or offer differing viewpoints.
She's got a lot of good information, but I have to say, she seems to love injecting her own biases into her talking points. I hate to be negative, but it's more than a little annoying to see resources for writing where the authors/presenters use their personal beliefs and biases to color what they're often projecting as objective advice. There were way better ways she could've presented that topic, especially when sharing her negative experiences in the past, and what she says sounds more than a little insensitive and arguably even sexist. Just because she had negative experiences with men in that role, it doesn't inherently apply it to all women or even really anyone at all, and it doesn't feel like she properly addresses that many of her points are highly based on personal experience that may or may not be applicable to other people.
Are elderly white men a common sight in mentor characters? Yes. Are there often ways a writer can avoid playing off that trope to make something more creatively interesting? Equally yes. But is there something inherently wrong with making said character? No.
Because they're racists.
@@Can_O_Crayola Agreed, agreed👍
I also don't get how this is part of a "magic system". Like... should people just not have... mentors? Or teachers of any kind? Unless they're nonwhite and not male?
You saved me from the "convenient" trope. I had my main charater healing people when it was convinent for the story. She only did it twice, so I got rid of it because there wasn't anything else. Thank you!
5:06 That's funny because none of the shifter books I've read have any of those plots. Shapeshifting into creatures is one of my favorite ideas. In fact, that's what my story is about and I intend to explore it in an interesting way. I love to examine what it means to be human and the battle against ferocity, plus it's such a fun power.
"A jerk offered to teach me things I knew more about than him, therefore f*ck Gandalf."
I like the Owl House's mentorship dynamic since it kinda subverts the trope or at least alters it in a way where instead of immediately killing off the mentor for the drama and giving the MC trauma, Dana makes Eda into her own character rather than making her existence to be only to serve Luz as her teacher/guardian
Can you talk about the soulmate tropes in the future I would love to hear your thoughts on it. My favorite magic building tool is to use the belief that a observer changes the outcome of the experiment. So character a wants to burn a building they can't throw a fireball at it because character b believes that according to our world that can't happen and by them watching it causes character a to fail. And to suffer magical consequences.
6:00 Yeah that wasn't a mentor, that was a groomer. There's a difference
So the mentor trope is bad because you had maybe two bad experiences of people who don't have any experience and came to you requesting to guide you, you know something a mentor doesn't do. A mentor is highly experienced and probably already retired and also YOU ask the mentor if he can guide you, not the other way around so it's obvious he wasn't in any position to mentor anybody. And somehow you think a bad experience with 1 fraud pretending to be a mentor is enough to discard the idea of all mentor relationships out?
She gave specific examples of her own personal experiences, but you might want to rewatch the beginning of that section again, because she clearly states that a lot of women have negative experiences with "old white men who want to mentor them". She also said she's not fond of mentors in general and knows she's in the minority with that. If you enjoy mentors, that's fine. But there is also something to be learned from the experiences she shared. And yes, a lot of people, especially women, will have similar stories and experiences, so a lot of readers may not like or connect with such a character and probably more than you realize. Does that mean you need to remove all mentors? No, of course not. But being willing to listen to such concerns can give you the opportunity to connect with more readers and also allows you the freedom to choose a more creative mentor than just biting off of Tolkien, as many people do. It's your story. Do what you want. But she's just offering her opinion, and she's very clear about the fact that it's *her opinion*.
@@zanzaboondahere's the problem with her argument about mentors: it makes no sense when you place it within a story. And also, those people who wanted to mentor clearly aren't actual mentors, which invalidates the point.
@@tuluppampam Maybe you can elaborate further? I'm always open to good discussion, but it's been a couple of months since I've commented, and I'd have to rewatch the video and don't have time atm. But IIRC, she said she's (mostly) tired of seeing the same "old white man" mentor and that as a lot of women in particular share similar experiences that she had - someone IRL who pretends to be a mentor but has ulterior motives - that there is a risk of alienating a good portion of your audience. Yes, someone like that would be a false mentor, but if you are taken advantage of or betrayed by someone who presents/ed themselves as a mentor, it's still a mentor-student relationship, even if they were ultimately an IRL "trickster" character. That does not invalidate the experience of the person who was betrayed. Ultimately, she's talking about her personal preferences and stated so. Take her advice or don't. But I don't think taking note of a potential cliche and considering how it might make a potentially not-small portion of your audience (I doubt there any stats on this specific scenario - maybe sexual harassment in the workplace would be the closest) feel would be a bad thing. She's just expressing an opinion. No one is holding a gun to someone's head and saying they need to take this advice.
@@zanzaboonda it is more about how she is using her personal experience to talk about mentors as bad cliches. While it can be important to keep in mind for writers, she talks as if her personal experience (which is in a real life) matters when discussing a general trope found in stories.
If I break my leg playing football I will probably not consider it in the same way I would have before, but that doesn't make it bad within a story.
The problem is the complete lack of argument on her part without even a warning to writers to be mindful (which I do not use meaning to cater to that audience, but merely to be aware) of people's experiences. Her other disliked tropes have some arguments supporting them, but in the case of mentors she has none that matter (in my opinion) for writers.
It feels to me that she's merely letting her emotions talk in this specific case, which is not something I consider desirable in this intellectual exercise.
It is also, logically, a very strange trope to dislike and to then put in such a video which explores much more problematic tropes, as either you have a mentor system or a more academic system to teach people. I don't think the idea of injected knowledge or autonomous research is versatile enough for such a general discussion.
Another thing about Old Mentors™: The trope arises from the fact that the sorts of things characters usually need mentors for, such as learning how to master a martial art or a system of magic "realistically" requires a long time. Martial arts masters (an abbot of the Shaolin Monastery, a high-degree black belt in a traditional Eastern art), yogis, top-level adepts in occult lodges, etc. in the real world tend to be middle-aged or older even if they started out as small children because there are difficult mental and physical disciplines involved. But then, in fiction, our Young Protagonist™ can learn the whole thing in the space of a musical montage (🎶It's a montaaaaaaage!🎶) in time for the Big Fight Scene, which isn't years or decades away. In short: Mr. Miyagi could have just as easily been a college girl.
This part about you not being fond of the "mentor trope" made me wonder about how would you write your stories, since the mentor figure is not only important for magical stories itself, but on the whole Hero Journey in general, regardless of the genre (sci-fi, superhero, steampunk...)
Decentralized mentorship can work very well. Basically the power of friendship in that the hero takes bits and pieces from everyone they meet rather than all from one character... or they can just bumble their way through the story and figure things out the hard way!
It's from a rejection of classical aspects of the human meta-narrative (so all the facts of human history/civilization.) Old white men (ancient Greece onward) created and propagated civilization. Jenna is tired of that, or doesn't like that fact, so she wants everyone to do something different. But in reality, from Alexander the Great to your own life, old men have made excellent mentors. Many were probably some shade of white (though I'd love to study with Ashurbanipal myself).
I find it all racist and I don't like when she begins to tell me to stray from real life, since it's boring.
@@Kyavatafor most of european and around history, the people who could learn and teach were men, which is why you wouldn't see women mentors in stories (that would be absurd). Fighting against history is impossible, and Jenna is more petty than actively doing something useful (such as trying to change tradition by having young female mentors, although that can be a risk as well).
I feel like the Carry On trilogy by Rainbow Rowell does verbal spells pretty well, actually! The character’s magic (usually) comes from expressions, words, songs, etc, that are popular in our own mundane human world! Pretty interesting, actually.
As much as I adore shapeshifter stories, the tropes you mentioned are tiring to me as well. Especially when a female is pursued by a lusty male. Even real animals back off when the females claw them in the face. And then there's the fated mate trope, it's not great...
And for once, I'd just like to see a shifter story where their beast form is not just an animal. Make the werewolf walk on two legs and not be afflicted by both mange and a rabid bloodlust, PLEASE!
I have a story where werewolves(the underworld type) are just a thing(nobody really knows their origins) and girl gets together with the guy. The guy is a werewolf and the girl seek him out because she wants to learn more about them. The point of the story is that the girl isn't afraid of him and they fall in love very slowly. and I pretty much just wanted to write a story of a guy turns into the bestest boy after someone scratching his ears...
I have a werewolf who is essentially just a person. She looks and acts like a regular human, but she has wolf ears and a tail. She also ages slower, as werewolves in my story only age when the full moon is out, and she has a bipedal wolf-monster form she can change into at will. She doesn’t lose control while in that form, she just becomes a bit more brutal.
@@dededeletethis9940 so essentialy you gave us a nigh immortal Yandere Wolfgirl Waifu???
Where do I sign up???
The fated or assigned male that the girl immediately hates for being really good looking, super competent and admired by all the other girls, but even though she's a complete bitch to him, he (for some unknown reason) decides that he'll win her over by being a long suffering doormat - in between saving her, the town, and the country with her helping only at the very crucial moment but otherwise being a burden.
@@aronnemcsik well, not really yandere. She is already married, after all. She does playfully flirt with some of the guys, but she doesn’t mean anything by it and is quick to end things when the guy takes it too seriously, because at the end of the day, she does still love her husband, who is also a werewolf
I don't disagree with the point about mentors because that trope can suck bad, but the reason given for it is... Hm. "I met this ridiculous stereotype of an ignorant and misogynistic baby boomer once, and really, isn't that the same thing as Gandalf?"
Yeah, same thoughts. Not really a valid argument from her part, but I do agree that a mentor should be not someone who is so overdone (an olden man who is usually some wizard)
I hate to disagree with most of this list, but I'm going to have to disagree. There is a difference between a trope and basic elements of the hero's journey mono-myth. There are reasons we still read Beowulf and the Iliad or many of the ancient myths and draw on timeless stories to provide inspiration for our own. It's almost never the devices and tools a writer uses, it's in how they deftly they use these tools.
I know some great "overpowered magical protagonist"-stories, where the real conflicts aren't simply solved by being stronger. They're about finding your purpose in life, about inevitable tragedy, or about social conflicts. Being overpowered is a great catalyst for philosophical questions too.
And of course, having power is just a great feeling!
As for number 4, you need to check yourself. Not every mentor is a white old dude. And not every white old dude is an ass. Please, be reasonable
Just as I was writing my own fantasy book there… with its own magic…
Ah well, let’s see where this goes
Edit: alrighto nothing I couldn’t easily subvert and deconstruct with a few twists and additional ideas… have actual ridiculous spells in your world? Let them be the equivalent of using a cheatcode whose effects you don’t know, or something that helps you in the short term but seriously hinders your own understanding of the magic system in the long run! Have an old white man mentor? Let him be the one whose arrogance started the whole mess your protagonist got into in the first place! Magically overpowered protagonist? Turn them into a menace of an antagonist your MC now has and wants to get rid off desperately! Have a magical trinket/Talisman of mcguffin importance? Let it shit talk your protagonist on every step of their journey or treat it as if it were a Character of its own! Literally.
"Have actual ridiculous spells in your world? Let them be the equivalent of using a cheatcode whose effects you don’t know, or something that helps you in the short term but seriously hinders your own understanding of the magic system in the long run!"
That reminds me how in my setting there's two types of healing magic - cool and neat restorative magic and also arduous and boring lifeshaping magic. Except restorative magic can only bring a person's body to a past state - it can't grow a limb of a person born without it, for example - and becomes more costly the longer time has passed. That's because it's actually a misunderstood time magic, and since everyone associates it with healing they don't explore other time magic spells. In contrast, lifeshaping magic requires lots of knowledge and precision to pull off right - especially with more complex tasks - but it allows treating pretty much any physical condition, acquired or present from birth, and isn't as time-sensitive.
Thus, restorative magic reputation as the superior healing magic misled people away from its true nature as time magic and the merits of lifeshaping magic. In truth both have their applications, and sometimes they can be used in tandem (e.g. lifeshaping magic would provide a basis for surgery, while time magic can put the patient in a stasis, and also recover them from an emergency situation if such arises).
(on a side note, that setting also has resurrection spell, but the only thing it does is rebinding a soul to its body and requires the caster to have "divine factor"; so if the soul isn't around anymore or the body wasn't healed to a usable state, resurrection won't work)
Because you can't tell the difference between an actual mentor and some old guy who's trying to impress you, I don't think your opinion on the mentor trope is valid. A mentor is someone you can look up to and ask advice from, if you don't understand that dynamic you shouldn't try to comment on it. Also Gandalf is not really a good example of a mentor. If you looked into someone like Uncle Iroh than I think you would understand the concept better.
Yeah, Gandalf is more of a guide than a teacher.
The Magical Artefact thing is one I've always wanted to tackle as more satire of the usual. Like the artefact being sentient, and being the most maladjusted, unlikable, absolutely insufferable prick. And the protag is supposed to protect said artefact, whilst also being driven up the wall by the very same.
The temptation to just yeet the magical artefact isn't even "I want to get rid of it because it's putting me in danger, having this magical macguffin."
It's "I want to get rid of this magic ring because it won't stop singing 'Baby Shark' until I agree to sneak laxatives into my boss's coffee for calling the ring 'tacky'."
I like this 😆 The best magical artefact I've encountered in writing was a magic sword that was supposed to get imbued with the soul of a powerful warrior, ended up with that of a cave troll instead, which in this universe are cowardly, sneaking and lying little thieves, who called itself "Löwenzahn". Which means dandelion. Not lion's tooth. It was amazing.
Make a whole world that wants to kill the relentlessly optimistic main character trying to save it... The mentor? A coward that is purposefully providing bad advice so he can use sabotaging you as an excuse if the evil overlord catches you! The artifact? Definitely trying to kill you and make everyone hate you. The friends? Actually jerks who are only following you for the fame and money and will sell you out the moment someone makes them a better offer. The cute companion that accompanies you on your journey? Continually is trying to stab you in the back when you look away and is only foiled by pure chance! The evil overlord? More pleasant than everyone else and actually kind of a nice guy, but his plans require the main character's death and he's not budging on that even when he's holding a dinner in the main character's honor for being a worthy opponent!
@@rhokesh4391 Theres a sword like that in the Forgotten Realms universe called "Lilarcor" which basically just rants and raves about killing people and tells lewd jokes, and you dont know if the sword is sentient, or if someone was trapped IN the sword...only that its obnoxious and loud and brash and a pain in the ass...
Its a good sword though so you probably wouldnt get rid of it. It WANTS to kill, so it helps the user kill.
THe inverse of that being if the sword doesnt like you it would probably turn the wrong way at the last moment and get you beheaded. Generally so long as you keep it happy you should be fine.
@@KertaDrake "Make a whole world that wants to kill the relentlessly optimistic main character trying to save it"
Stranger in a Strange Land. Basically.
Regarding Mentors: "Animorphs" decided to have the wise mentor character get eaten alive thirty pages in. I wouldn't complain if more authors remembered how effective that is.
One example of the Overpowered protagonist done extremely well imo is the Overlord series, the protagonist, Ainz, is an essentially all powerful immortal necromancer, and to our knowledge through the first 14 novels so far, he has no equal in terms of combat, but it doesnt hinder the story whatsoever because his real opponent isnt another being and his real battle is mental, Ainz is the embodiment of how far someone is willing to go in the face of lonliness, and despite being the main protagonist, he is also the main villain, committing progressivly more heinous and inhumane acts to try and find the people he once called comrades. A fantastic example of an overdone trope done right
Sausage, Ainz-sama
Sasuga, Ainz-sama
Well here's my three
1) When magic seems to exist purely for the sake of combat, it's one thing if that's explicitly the case but it's pretty weird when the magic could be used for tones of different things, such as agriculture, construction or transport but it's solely used to kill monster and villains.
2) inconsistent rules. Don't say magic has to fallow a set of rules or that magic is a specific thing and then only have that be true half the time.
3) When having magic automatically making you a hermit, you seriously going to tell me that the evil sorcerer or sorceress is the only one actually interested in using there phenomenal to effect the political landscape?
Magic really should not make you a hermit unless the society you're in has already reached a "Burn the witch" stage of hatred of magic. There should be secret societies using it for personal gain, public charitable societies, or even just people using magic for performance art if the costs of using it are on the non-debilitating side of the scale!
If you criticised how all of them are Gandalf/Merlin lookalikes that rarely do anything interesting I would understand, but your issue with mentors is that they're... old white men, which you have had personally bad experiences with IRL, not even in fiction. That's the crappiest complaint I've heard this week.
"I had a few bad experiences with this group of people, so therefore they are all bad and no one should write stories about them and any story showing them in a positive light is obviously completely unrealistic"
She's literally just a bigot.
How can someone be so absolutely lacking in self awareness to make a video about criticizing story tropes and then justify one with just straight up bigotry and no actual justification.
The shifter one… I at first thought you meant shapeshifters alias taking on the appearance of another person through a potion or a magical ability, etc. alias mystique from X-men, but with the werewolf and were-other-animal thing… it does kinda make more sense why it would be bad…
I somehow actually forgot about *that* type of trope there XD
Haha I am the only one who loves shape-shifting into animal-things? 😭
Right? Like, I have shifters in my story, but they aren’t anything like what she mentioned. No were whatever, no vampires. And they’re severely limited because shifting has implications for the safety of those around them, the environment around them, is hell on their bodies (super painful), and is draining to maintain. They aren’t at war with anyone outright, but they are isolationists who prize combat and mercenary work as honorable careers.
It seems like she zeroed in on your werewolves and things similar to that/your Druid types, not shapeshifters in general. An interesting take, and I never really lumped them with shifters, even though I guess they kinda are.
@@matonano yesss and Sounds so cool! I have werewolves and People who can shift into Birds but Like.. they aren't hot, sexualized, they dont have a war against another Fantasy species.. They are Just existing and dont need Magic to shapeshift or something. I Just Love the Idea of shapeshifting
@@matonano My one werewolf is trying to get rid of his wolf side and constantly complains throughout the book about how painful it is to be a werewolf.
@@TGOTWhihi there's a lot of grey area in shapeshifters that more writers should utilise.
For the "well that was convenient" trope, the best way to have something show up without explaining it ahead of time is to have it confuse the characters at first, and then explain the reason later. You can have Jack suddenly be immune to fire magic, if you later hit us with the twist that Jack is half dragon and can turn into a giant fire-breathing reptile at will. But stuff like that has to be planned ahead of time; it can't be used to write yourself out of a corner.
I particularly enjoy when there's set up you don't notice the first time around, like if there's a scene where Jack quickly picks up something out of a mundane fire and doesn't realize it wasn't his speed that kept him from getting burnt.
1. Deus Ex Magicka
2. Resurrection to cheat the audience
3. The three generic shapeshifter plots
4. Discount Gandalf
5. Chosen magic user inciting incident #8274749
6. Incantations in the authors crappy fake language/bad poetry
7. Dreaming of the future inciting incident
8. AP Wizardry & Sorcery
9. Standard MacGuffin foci plot #98765
10. Violations of Sanderson's second law
For the #4: Does it count as a peeve if the mentors are the main character's (adopted) father, and/or grandfather?
that's an interesting debate that is sure to have a lot of different opinions.
personally, I'd say go with it. it's not every fiction you have a relative or adopted relative as a mentor.
I think it can count as a peeve.
“Oh look, this guys your mentor? Place your bets for how long he lasts until he dies! :D Oh, he’s your dad too?? Delightful! Get ready for a tragic parental sacrifice scene! :D And let me guess, he’s going to pass on a talisman to you as he dies, &/or die right before teaching you the superpowered magical technique? Get ready for some more plot! :D “
@@UGNAvalon Unless none of those things happen lol, which that itself could be a great subversion
adoptive father, specially if they're old weary reluctant mentor type
are one of the hottest tropes in fiction right now
think of Logan, Joel from last of us, the Mandalorian, Vander from Arcane
you can't really go wrong with it
@@matheussanthiago9685 just because something is popular does not mean it "can't really go wrong". that's what "overdone tropes", "dated trends", and "cliches" are.
Magic that has no consequences! Magic is just energy that is manipulated, and all energy comes from somewhere. If it's not an external price like "a life for a life", then an internal price like exhaustion.
Well, it's _kind of_ the opposite; magic is a shortcut (you rub the lamp and wish for a castle, the genie has _something_ build or get you a castle), the "price" is up to the author, it can be nothing.
@@Mansplainer2099-jy8ps I'm getting djinn vibes from that.
@@tbnrrenagade9507 Or you strike the magic tinderbox and summon the three magic dogs with large eyes, or open the golden snuff-box to release the three little red men, or collect the dragonballs and summon the dragon, or you blow out all the candles on your birthday cake with one breath or drop a coin in a wishing well or get the bigger part in a wishbone contest or use the Zoltar machine.
I agree that exhaustion should, at least, be a minimum.
🔋 Experience matching power level is another.
Broken Earth goes all the way with this. Starts off with heat and kinetic energy in the earth, and then using the energy from the user's own body (and slowly turning to stone).
Pubes & Puberty. X'D That got me. Entertaining as always.
I had to XD
I can't say I'd agree about mentor characters. If you want the magic system to be believable you have to give a believable reason for the main character to know how to use the magic. It would also make sense that the mentor would have to be older and more experienced. That can mean the old white guy or it could be the old Yoda or Granny Weatherwax. That said a lot of mentors get misused for exposition dumps and have about as much personality as a printer spewing out pages so I can see where the hate comes from;).
As for spoken spell chants the best way I've seen it handled was in a Japanese light novel and anime series called "Is it Wrong to try and Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon" (cheesy sounding I know but actually a good story;) . In it the spells are prayers to the caster's respective patron gods. I'll put a link to a good scene from the anime where it's illustrated (warning it is the culmination of the first series so there would be spoilers).
th-cam.com/video/0KNT1l5WPSA/w-d-xo.html
you cloud give them books that they read to learn the magic
Why does it matter what race the mentor is?
If you haven't run into them before the 'Mordant's Need' series has a very interesting take on magic that I haven't seen before. It's set in a world where glass is itself somehow magical, so if you make a mirror it doesn't show a reflection of what's in front of it, it shows you what's happening at a specific spot somewhere in another world (if the mirror is curved) or from somewhere in the Mordant's Need world (if its flat). Some people are known as "imagers" because they can teleport something they can see in one of their mirrors to them, and they can allow themselves or others to step into the mirror, teleporting them to that location (note that this second ability isn't used as often because stepping into another world with no easy way back can be dangerous and virtually everyone who's tried stepping into a flat mirror has successfully teleported but been driven mad by the process).
I mean one thing is to say that you don't like the wizard mentor because is misused or overrepresented. I think if you had framed as seen unrealistic that old people wouldn't be "out of touch" and unable to see some of their flaws, it would be understandable.
But drawing their race and a bad personal experience you had with one, isn't helping explain why you dislike it. If someone say they don't like old black woman as mentors because of a bad experience it also wouldn't sound like a good decision.
Read a story where one of the main characters was assasinated by a shape shifter taking his form.
There was a funeral and everything.
Plot twist is, the guy they burried WAS the shapeshifter and the character was just using this opportunity to fake his death and shake off the villians.
That was was quite the good execution of a fake out death and shifter
I love the concept of animal shapeshifters but I hate how, most of the time, the animal side is portrayed as something evil, violent and wild that must be controlled or destroyed. I can’t think of any story where the animal side is the personification of somebody’s goodness. It’s always a curse and never a blessing. This is especially true if the animal in question is a wolf. Why can’t we have wolf shapeshifters that are skittish and sensitive just like the real animal, and live in family packs instead of a hyperviolent interpretation of the alpha concept? I’m getting tired of it.
That reminds me how in one of my (yet to be written...) stories a werewolf herbalist/potionmaker is transported to another universe. The old universe had the concept of wolves as these solitary, brutal and somewhat large beasts, and the potionmaker had to drink specific potions around the full moon to contain her beast aspect, as she lost self-consciousness during transformation.
The principles of her shapeshifting had to be adapted when she entered the new universe. Rather than transforming during full moon time, she'd react to full moon light instead - thus, she would avoid it to prevent transformation altogether (and because moon there is on synchronous orbit, she'd hide herself every night). That world's concept of wolves was of these wholesome pack animals, even with their own language. When the situation would force the werewolf to be exposed to moonlight, she'd also find that she can retain her self-consciousness and even understand wolfspeak (courtesy of the being who transported her and adapted her to the new world's physics and society).
You know, that's absolutely a great idea! I've never thought of it like that.
I like how this is done in Animorphs, in Animorphs, when morphing into another animals, you get the whole instinct of the animals, be it the always happy, cheerful of dogs; the single , cold and simple mind of shark; the lack of individual identity mind of ants, or even the never ending hunger of an alien race that makes you always fear of starvation,...
There is even an instance when an ant , yes an ant got the power to morph, and it morph into human of all thing, but because the ant mind can't handle all of the new sensation and instinct of human, it just scream until it morph back into an ant just to be killed by the person it morph into. Great stuffs
And some major spoiler for a really good book of that series, book #26 The Attack, it is such an eye opening book for me
So here we go, the main character/the narrator of that book is fighting a group of aliens called the Howler to save another alien race. The Howlers are basically the shock troop of an evil alien god called Crayak, who has ordered the Howlers to commit genocide to countless life forms around the universe. They have a collective memory, the memory of one Howler in battle can be shared with every other member of the species, making them quite deadly creatures for having experience of hundreds years of combat, it is also rumoured that they never know defeat.
So our protagonist here, in an attempt to learn to defeat the Howlers decided to morph into one of them and get directly access to their collective memories. And the truth he he learns is quite terrifying. Like I said above, morphing give you the animals's instinct as well, so the main character excepted a creature who enjoyed killing to be really bloodthirsty, crazy and full of rage. But in contrast, the Howler's mind is happy, cheerful, like dog or dolphin, who enjoy playing, having fun. Accessing to their memories is when the true horror reveal, the Howlers are all children, who are created in lab, they have no mature phase, and will all die before can become adults. They are raised to think that killing is just a game, so when committing genocide to other species, they think it is just like playing to have fun, thus not feeling remorse. Because they will never reach adulthood, they will not have time to realize how messed up their actions are, the one who actually question it, feeling remorse will be erased from existence by their god Crayak to not taint the collective memories. That's also why they never know defeat, all of the battles they lost are erased from their memories as well.
You know what I don't hate? The clear "This is not a death!"
They tend to be few and far between but characters can be gone, away and even in real deep shit that other characters react to in much the same way and it can be clear that they are still around and alive.
The main character in my book has the power to resurrect themselves but not anyone else and there is limitations to this power, they can also heal most injuries with flowers but they never learn this
The part about healing injuries with flowers makes me wonder, how this ability would become relevant to the plot. In particular, at which point the ability would be used without the main character finding out, and how it would be foretold/foreshadowed so that the flower healing isn't just a convenient plot device to treat this one heavily injured character when the plot needs it.
(not saying you can't execute this never-known ability properly, just that I can see some writers falling into a pitfall of writing about an ability which has no relevance to the plot or is just introduced in the most convenient moment)
@@AlphishCreature another character form a prologue story mentions healing flowers, I’m not planing on using it in the book I’m writing now though
@@SkykiUwU save it for a later story and just have it there in case you need it?
@@tbnrrenagade9507 yep
@@SkykiUwU you should always have at least three things like that ready just in case.
About the dream trope... Patrick Ness actually did this really well with "A Monster Calls"
Now we need the 10 best magic tropes.
I'm writing an entire book series about a group of college-aged students who are rediscovering magic centuries after magic was lost. The effects of magic are still around (A group of wizards bound spells to their bloodlines in order to survive an apocalypse) but spellcasting itself is seen as an urban legend.
on my story, healing magic can be used on the caster, but it is more draining than if used on other people, and it is told when healing magic is first mentioned, the risk is often you don't have enough energy to heal yourself
About the overpowered protagonist, I think it can be good without limitations - there just needs to be a focus different than simple powerfantasy. For example, a powerful but highly benevolent character who struggles to not harm their opponents too badly; a character who blames themselves for not having courage or wisdom to use their power in some global-scale conflict; an immortal who hates that immortality was given only to them and not to their loved ones... The list goes on.
The overpowered character's story can still be filled with problems and difficulties - unless they're an overpowered a-hole who cares about no one but themselves. There are situations where just being powerful is necessary, but not enough.
I already know this video is going to be good. I know my magic system is going to be a mix of mystic and science. Magic is like matter but it also has mystic properties in what I'm writing!
So it's like mana in RPGs?
"I think shapeshifters are boring"
You're only saying that because you haven't seen me play a Changeling in DnD yet.
WHOA BOY I GET WEIRD!
This shit gets marsupial.
I completely understand Sage Mentors being overdone and often poorly done, ESPECIALLY the, "Must die so the MC gets their a$$ in gear" cliche.
My person favorite iteration of this trop was done was in Tamora Pierce's "Protector of the Small" quartet. The main character is the first girl to attempt becoming a knight since someone pulled a Mulan over two decades prior and got the (only a couple generations old, so people really should have known better already) no-girls-allowed law changed.
She spent the first four years of her training in the capital city with some forty other boys. She started training before them so already had more of a foundation to work from, but still had to deal with all their preteen sexist bullsh!t. She's not a complete prodigy in absolutely everything, just had more experience to begin with.
She spent those four years working harder than everyone else and holding herself to higher standards (and also wearing dresses to dinner specifically because she didn't want anyone to think she was ashamed of her gender).
[[Also, she had very specific challenges and trauma she had to work through in addition to everything else, which her teachers and commanding officers didn't judge her for. Not related to the trope, it's just INCREDIBLY rare to see a character have panic attacks and nightmares without being seen as emotionally immature or useless.]]
When she was ready to become a squire, she prayed that she'd get picked by Sir Mulan, but Mulan didn't even pop in to say "hi and good luck". In fact, none of the dude knights came to test or consider her either. But eventually, the commanding knight of the king's force of elite soldiers come back from the war front and revealed he already called dibbs on her and was just late getting back.
This dude interacted with her multiple times while she was a page, and was notably impressed that her lance skills (a talent she focused heavily on perfecting) were arguably better than his. After he took her on, there was very little in the way of continuing her combat training outside of actual combat experience.
Instead, he focused on teaching her leadership, communication, and command skill. Logistics of supply management, maaaath, military strategy and tactics (which she had already started studying as a page, because the main guy in charge of the pages recognized how seriously she was taking everything), and when to tell a 6'7 linebacker-sized career soldier that she's had enough of his attitude and give him latrine duty for a week.
After she was knighted, she found out Mulan (who had magic) had been barred from interacting with her because the conservative counsel members thought she would cast a cheaty spell. Which everyone who mattered agreed was completely stupid, but it had been tolerated to prove the point.
The knight who did take her on as his squire had been friends with Mulan while they were pages together, and he recognized the same "Oh yeah? WATCH ME!" fire in her eyes. And he was basically the most calm and respectful "Fuck yeah! WATCH HER!" not!dad character I have ever seen.
Also, her parents were both alive, and at one point her mom gave him the Mom Look of Judgement and he got suuuuper formal, and it was absolutely adorable and everyone needs to go read that series.
I love Tamora Pierce books. She's one of my inspirations as an aspiring author.
Still waiting on the second Numair book.
I absolutely loved your little review. Might take the book series to read one day!
Yess do part 2! (Hides when shifters come up). 🤣 pubes and potions. Magical tampon 🙈. Great video 😘
Your complain over mentor is absolute cringe. Give me a solid argument
It's just "I hate old white men". Such a generalization
Oh my god I used at least 3 of those 10 tropes in my books. No one has ever complained about it yet, so I think some of those tropes are actually not bad unless you can implement them with caution and precision. For example, your character dreamt a prophecy? Don't make them actually see when and how this dream became real or make that prophecy changeable with time. I made one of my characters see the book's ending in his dream, but the ending kept changing in my head, so I kept changing his prophetic dream too. That way, the dream didn't spoil the actual ending of my book and kept stuff interesting enough to follow through.
Thats what editing is for.
Though id finish the book first then see if whats revealed is necessary or gives away too much, or perhaps the hero treats it as a warning to prevent a bad outcome.
Working on magic for my story right now and I'm happy to say in dodging all of these tropes
I have some possibly unique ideas, but I do not have the patience for writing so anyone can use them:
1.) For the poetry/weird spells, have it later revealed that it's basically just a placebo, and the magic doesn't need words, just will and concentration. I feel like the reveal could be funny.
2.) Have a magic system based on emotions. (This idea was particularly inspired by a mechanic in the game Omori, but it isn't really magic per se, nor the main focus). Certain types or of "emotion magic" could give you different abilities. Anger magic could involves increased strength, happiness involves energy, sadness involving defense, ect. And you could have certain negatives come with certain emotion spells, like an "anger spell" that makes you really strong and fast, but you get hurt more, like a glass cannon spell. (You can fine tweak the specific abilities and weaknesses, depending on how strong or costly you want the spell to be). A central point in learning emotion magic would be controlling your own emotions. Additionally, if you want a character to be "unique" in the world (doesn't have to be protagonist), you could have them use "Apathy" magic, which could reduce the affects of other emotion magic.
I'd love to see a part two!
Also here for a part two
no. 10
my solution, make everyone OP.
"When everyone's super, no one is" - Syndrome
So basically almost this entire video is an assassination of new Star Wars writers. Rightfully so.
Great video. I love complicated magic systems.
I disagree with the mentor thing. I had an amazing grandfather who was a carpenter and taught me how to make stuff from wood, and is one of the most gentle people ever. He was also an amazing father to my mom and my 4 aunts who all love him and still take care of him (instead of throwing him into a nursing home).
Just because there are vile "old white men" doesn't mean we should just throw a blanket racist and sexist term willy nilly cause "they did it first". Half of the population are men, and half are women. Anyone has the potential to be deplorable, but blanket extremely "gatekeep-y" statements should be avoided. I mean if you sincerely believe you are better than these "old white men" then act like it. Hypocrisy really robs one of their credibility.
Be the change you want to see, don't just become the villains you hate.
I have five basic levels of combat magic.
Channeling: the user can absorb or give off magic, this can be seen like emiting a glowing , steamy, fluid-like, or shard-like aura from the body or taking them in based on the user or opponents magic (So if you have ice magic you can emit an ice shard aura or a cold aura)
Projectile: the user can shoot a projectile of magic at something. What it hits has the chance to be afflicted with the elemental status depending on the element of the magic. (Like firing a beam of light at opponents)
Shape: the ability for the user to change the shape of a projectile made from their magic. (So imagine firing an orb or drill instead of a beam or whatever)
Element combination: the user can combine other elements of magic together. (Fire + water = steam)
Aspect/property manipulation: the user can change, add, remove, or create parameters that create different types of magical attacks. (Like a trip mine or a string that applies a status condition when touched)
Other forms of magic might have different stuff.
But that's my magic system for pure combat.
Others might be based on vocalizations or writing. I don't know if its good or bad but hey. I think its pretty functional.
In trying to avoid the forgotten heir and predestined/ prophesied one trope, I introduced talismans to help my nonmagical MC against the demigod villain. I tried, but It doesn't look like I'll get out of having one 'search for the magic object' part of the story😅. I have, at least, incorporated talismans as part of the magic system, and it's introduced pretty early on.
A dude who self-published one book offered to collaborate with me and mentor me on writing my first book. Except that I would have to create the plot, do the world-building, create the characters, pretty much write the entire book. I didn't have a problem with that at all since that was my whole intent, but he insisted that he would use is insane old dude wisdom to guide my writing hand.
The only thing he did was criticize how I dressed and "accidentally" guided my hand towards his crotch. So that "collab" didn't work out very well and I threw out the whole story, because I didn't want his taint on my work.
Haven't been this early in a while. I definitely want to see a "Part II" for this. Jenna video's are one of my weekly highlights. I say we change Wednesday to "Jenna-day" :) I do disagree with what you say about the mentor trope to a degree, however, I will concede that it can generate a Gandalf clone far too easily.
Early? You were four days late...
I got a story which has a main character who is the "chosen one" but after a series of events instead of him accepting his inherited power from an angel he decides that the only power that he can trust is his own therefore he rejects his birthright and assumes to beat the antagonist with his own power.
Not saying thats bad but what if you change the story to where the protagonist eventually becomes the villain or that he/she finds out that their trapped in a cycle of prophecies set up by the supposed angels and must find a way to break the cycle.(though I know the evil creator trope has been done to death.)
@@firenze6478 interesting, thanks for the idea, I will look into it
Wow! Do you have a *narrow* view of mentors. While the "old man" mentor is a meme in itself, mentors come in all shapes and sizes.
In Margaret Atwood's "The Testaments," Aunt Lydia acts as a mentor to Aunt Victoria.
In "A Clash of Kings" by by GRR Martin, Cersei Lannister mentors Sansa in the Red Keep during a battle they're losing.
In Dr. Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," the Grinch is mentored by Cindy Lou.
The butthead who offered to "mentor" you in your story was just a grifter.
Throwing this out there in the form of a question: what if a non-magical protagonist has to go up against a mysterious magic user whose powers no one can understand because they haven't for the last thirty years?
I have few rules for my magic system:
- no resurrection.
- no spirits and undeads.
- no shapeshifters.
- time travel only foward.
And then I have space for exceptions, but the circumstances are so specific, the cost so high and the knowledge so unknown, that I use the exceptions as trouble and not as solutions
Yes!! You should make a part 2! I love watching your videos!!🙌🙌
Great points. I find I hate magic systems where you have to be born into magic. Not because they’re necessarily bad but because I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be born with magic and that makes me sad.
I don’t mind a mentor if they’re an interesting character. I’m seeing more female mentors lately who don’t have tone for anyone’s shit. That’s fun
I don't mind the "born magical" trope too much personally. Stories with magic almost always run into the question of "how come not everyone uses this, surely it would overhaul society?" and being born with the ability is the easiest way to answer that without creating a bunch more questions.
@@Robbinson98 Protagonist: wait, if everybody can perform magic, Why don't people use this more often?
Random: Humans are stupid. Tell them that the universe could be on the palm of their hand just by reading a book or living a calm life, and they would immediately turn down the opportunity. - Said ol' Betsy with a sad smile on her almost crumbling face.- You see, we believe that in order to be great, to accomplish things, we have to suffer and feel bad all the way through. We punish ourselves because we tend to think that answers only come after great sacrifices... That's why people dismissed me as a crazy old lady... That's why people will dismiss you as a crazy old man one day.
@@Robbinson98 Well, either way you have Dumbledore and co selling magic items for muggles to use or there's literally no gene for magic so Dumbledore and co send owls to the Hermione Granger, Lily Evans etc. to secretly come to Hogwarts.
The thing with born-magic systems is that it usually has ugly underlying themes of supremacy and eugenics that authors either totally gloss over or unintentionally support with their work, stating only those specific people born the ‘right’ way are better than those who aren’t. It’s a whole other thing if the author is aware of it and intentionally goes out of their way to combat that mindset, but when the entire cast of a book is all born magic and those who aren’t are shown as being inferior, stupid, and jealous of people with magic, it doesn’t exactly paint a good picture for the author’s intentions. Like, can anyone actually name more than one good muggle in the Harry Potter series? :(
@@Casey-No Lily's parents. Hermione's parents. That waitress Harry was crushing on. Seamus' dad. That's not many, of course, but it'd just be dragging out the story really.
I think a pretty cool twist to the magical prophecy dream would be someone in the world is giving multiple people who are prone to delusions of grandeur the same "prophecy dream" in order to get their own dirty work done. Then again, I don't read books that often, so for all I know this could already be done to death as well 😅
Finding things on your own is kinda dumb. I know we are talking about fantasy settings, but how would a kid learn all the magic they need to constantly save them without sounding like a cheap deus ex maquina mechanism. Terrible take in my opinion. HUmans learn from others, and older poeple usually know more about the world even if they know less about specific crafts. All this tropes are inspired in real life.
I get most of the critics, but the part about the mentor made me realize how people get their trope wrong, probably because the Obi-Wan and Gandalf stereotype being so strong and, since most people don't read or don't study about this, the only ones most know.
The mentor can be ANYONE. According to Vogler, the mentor is "a character that helps and train the hero. This archetype can be anyone and anything that teach, protect and/or give the hero presents." Before you say anything, a "present" don't need to be a physical one.
But anyway, the thing is: the mentor can be ANYTHING and ANYONE. Even if a character, let's the the protagonist best friend, teach the protagonist something, they're being a mentor in this moment. Willow, from Pocahontas, IS A FREAKING TREE, and she's a mentor. The REAL problem, is that most people became lazy and just stick with the ONLY mentor image they have (Obi-Wan and Gandalf) for whatever reason (they thing it's cool, they want their "version of Gandalf" to be cool/recognized, etc.), instead of studying and analyzing stories and understand the variety of the archetypes to make their own.