My most hated troupe is when the creator presents a hardened, tough female character who is difficult and hesitant, and gives off 100% dom aura to just have a male character break her down into a submissive mess
Oh, yeah, I hate that too! Or when she's built up to be this kick-ass cool character, but she needs to be saved all the time. Author, make up your mind! Is she cool or a damsel in distress? She can't be both!
@@lillianclark2159 I’d be fine with that if it’s been expressed from the start that she wants to have a simple life after everything, but if she’s an action-y gal who seems to thrive on danger, she’ll probably still be doing action-y danger filled stuff. Also yeah, the suddenly submissive woman bugs the hell out of me, like, if she’s the more domineering one, let her be the domineering one!
lets be fair here Zukos arc is one of the few that works because from the very beginning he was shown to be redeemable. nearly everything in season 1 set it up, season 2 was development and season 3 was the culmination and switch. its Azulas redemption thats the difficult thing--some of the stuff she did you cant go back from, even if it was a result of her fathers manipulation...
zuko actually had to face Consequences TM, and he also had to bond with the gaang before they trusted him. most ppl just make their "redemption" arcs like, villain: "omg sorry :( i was bad" (exhibits no actual understanding of why what they did was wrong) hero/es: "omg we totally forgive you sweet child!!!" (has no problem with villain for some reason, even tho they hated them in the episode right before this one and also the villain has probably killed and/or injured their friends/them previously)
Avatar in general spawned TONS of copy cats who missed everything that made the show good, including it's own live cation adaption. Also RWBY is basically "what if ATLA was re-written by someone who has never worked as a writer before in their life"
Redemption Arcs I can maybe tolerate. But literally nothing angers me more when the said villain is literally irredeemable yet still gets an arc of redemption often times because he/she's hot.
or the star wars version; i'll redeem myself by sacrificing my life! that'll make all the murder and genocide better! like...first time you do it...fine...but how much more interesting would it have been to see kylo ren actually have to atone for what he did??
@@kerricaine My fav redemption arc is Faith from Buffy, precisely because the only way she can move forward is to accept the consequences of her actions and choose to pay the price for them. There's no "easy out," like dying to redeem herself. Her only option is to make the hard choice and pay for her sins.
Would you want to see that as the hero dies early on and the mentor is real main character, or have it go to the end and the hero dies and the mentor steps in to save the day?
I'm actually planing something like that in my timewriter series. I'm gonna have venandi, one of the heroes, train someone to be a hero in tylus (the timewriter)'s absence but tylus deems him unworthy and has him killed by a dragon and venandi has to be the hero on her own while tylus tries to erase something from time to prevent a doomsday level event that his enemy wrote into the future.
@@Lilitha11 I was thinking more that the story plays out normally. The hero starts out their journey, finds the mentor and we get the usual training montage. Then the villain arrive and rather than killing the mentor as is what usually happens they instead think "well why don't I kill this young hero and solve the problem before it starts." So we then have the mentor, possibly well past their prime, having to stop the villain instead.
Iroh doesn't die. And he doesn't make a hero out of Zuko from nowhere, either. He's putting out Zuko's fires and trying to lead him onto a better path. Which is why he's the best mentor.
@Add E Uncle Iroh is dead in Legend of Korra but it was of old age, not the typical "died to protect the hero whose not ready yet". Iroh was the most iconic character voiced by a legend.
Still counts because he was trying to capture the avatar for his dad. Many villains (of any franchise) were abuse victims themselves, but not necessarily redeemable.
was a villain in the gaangs eyes, Katara makes that pretty clear. But yeah from an audience perspective that angle is realy clear. unfortunately its sparked a new "this character went through abuse so their actions arent their fault/are excused" wave that just...like way to miss the point of the arc
Okay, about the "best friends to lovers" trope: it is actually not that unlikely to suddenly see a friend in a different light. I am demiromantic which means that I cannot fall in love with a stranger or someone I have only known for a short period of time. I have to establish a meaningful and trusting relationship first: a friendship. It has happened to me more than once that I just kinda woke up one day and saw a former "just friend" as more than that.
I have to agree because of personal experience. You can fall in love with a friend after months, even years of continually getting to know them better and getting closer with them. And confessing at that point is damn scary, especially with a best friend, because you risk damaging/destroying your friendship.
Okay, yeah agreed, I wouldn't mind that one actually. Problem is that I've NEVER seen it used that way. Probably because dEmIsExUaLitY iSn'T rEal or something >_> Tbh I could probably accept almost any trope at this point if it gave LGBT+ identities (especially lesser known ones such as demi and aro/ace) accurate and fair representations.
Hannah I whole heartedly agree with this. Also, for some, no amount of “sudden” hotness can make up peeing in the kitty-pool together, other factors need to apply. Factors like a change in maturity or life perspectives, it doesn’t have to be sexual. Or there are people like me, I just wasn’t interested in dating when I was a teenager. I liked my now husband throughout high school and he liked me but we didn’t want a relationship. We didn’t start dating until I was 23 but we were really close friends before that.
Yeah, this might have been the most vapid and un-empathetic of the complaints. Its not an uncommon story. I knew a pair who missed each other for like 20 years - one was always coming free when the other was already in something serious. I knew a guy who finally got his chance with his lifetime friend when he was over 50. It ultimately didn't work out for the weirdest of reasons (he felt too short in her home country, after a lifetime of feeling tall). Also, people change in what they are looking for... she might not be old enough to realize or accept that yet. After most of a year growing to really like Jenna, I am glad this is not something I saw early.
@@thanesgames9685 I agree, but how old is "not old enough to realize or accept that yet", exactly? She's 34, not saying that's old AF but that's a decent amount of life experience. Not trynna start a debate, just curious.
@@yojojolovesyou No idea. I'm sure it varies by exposure. Old enough to know that there are a lot more paths to love than romance novels would indicate, I guess. If you read through the rest of the comments, you can see a lot of examples of people talking about how the things she resents are actually their own life's story.
I've left a few book series that I used to love because there just came to the point where there was no threat to anyone. Not even the villains. After two of the main characters returned from the death and the others survived a multitude of inescapable situations, and then three villains did the same, I had to put the series down.
9/ 10 I absolutely hate both - I almost always hate resurrection the most because it just usually comes off as so much cheap ‘drama’. But for me, though- the exception to ‘the character didn’t actually die’, is when the _misapprehension_ that someone died is **believable** , but not an absolute certainty- yet characters still have to find a way to go on with their lives, especially if it’s in a time of conflict, or when their world’s ‘in flux’ for other reasons- & the lack of communication is also for realistic reasons; that feels much more believable to me... & yet writers almost always go with the whole ‘I COULDN’T contact _anyone_ - but not really, I totally could have’ - like, there’s no real sense of _an impetus_ for _why_ the character literally *cannot* make contact with their loved ones, & that just makes them seem like absolute mongrels...
Guilty of loving the friends to lovers trope, because it's the only way I can find myself catching feels. If we don't vibe as friends, we won't vibe as lovers. Hands down. So it's nice when people who already appreciate each other find moments where they go "oh hey, you're actually making my heart flutter. When did that happen?" I understand the problem though, it does have to be handled well, and it can't just be because they're pretty.
This is where my next favourite trope "idiots in love" comes in. The best friends have taken years to realise because they're actual idiots and everyone knows except them.
Unless it's a romance story, I'd prefer writers avoid this trope. I'd like a guy and girl to just be friends and not have any feelings for each other. This is why Aang and Katara's romance in ATLA pissed me off I would have much perfered they just be friends
@@heroofthewinds7765 TRUEE their friendship was so good, and I just couldn't care less about the romance back then. The hinting/teasing was just so forced to me at times, too
The worst part about the mentor is they usually have no life or arc outside of teaching the protagonist. If you're going to write one, please treat them like a human being at least.
Mine is the main characters great great grandmother who’s a complete manipulative sociopath, who gets a bunch of children killed... good concept, or does it need to be changed up a bit?
I get so cranky when a story has someone who's absolutely reprehensible, but then they get a crush on a good guy, do one or two nice things, and the narrative treats that as if they're good now and have gone through some incredible personal growth. Like, no, you were less terrible than usual to someone you're interested in, that's maaaaaybe the beginning of a redemption arc, depending on where the story goes, but you don't get to rush there. Writers don't seem to want to actually write redemption arcs, they just want to give the impression of one happening so they can get on with shipping villains with good guys without writing the hard part of "no but seriously, you've tried to kill me a lot, why should I be interested?"
I hate " love at first sight / instantly smitten " stories, like shit make your characters less shallow than falling in love with an attractive face/body. Misery loves company.
@@GuineaPig361 True aren't the start of relationships where ppl usually test their partners boundaries to see where they are? simple " they were hot and I love them now" is boring
Me, too! I could understand a, "Hey, that person across the room's cute," sort of thing, where the first noticing is portrayed simply as what it is, a flicker of lust. But for that first brief glance to be, "And then I saw MY TRUE LOVE!", no.
@@BEEDRILL303 I blame "Romeo and Juliet". But even that could have an interesting angle, presented as two teens who might have been able to explore their attraction/potential romance at a slower and more natural pace if not for the whole feuding families thing.
Gotta hard disagree on the childhood friends to lovers. I don’t know about you but i had no romantic or sexual desires growing up. So if I were to have fallen in love with a “childhood friend” it wouldn’t have happened till my like late teens or early twenties. How the heck are kids supposed to know they’re in love? That’s what’s cute about it. Watching them slowly change from silly little kids to young adults who end up having feels fro the other. (Or in some case you have the one kid who was always in love and the other one was just like a late bloomer or something) either way. They’re are tons of reasons and ways a childhood to lovers can work. I prefer it way over the “meet cute” but that’s just me. 😂
yeah I agree. as a former child who is yet to tell my best friend of 5 years that I like her, it was pretty funny to see jenna describe my exact reasons for being really frightened to tell her and frame them as unrealistic. you need a huge spine to take that risk of ruining your treasured friendship when you've been friends for a long time.
I agree 100%. "Childhood/longtime friends to lovers" is way more realistic and adorable than a "meet cute". To me, even, a meet cute seems more contrived and unrealistic. I've never walked away from a random encounter with a guy thinking, "Hm, I wonder if he'll end up being my boyfriend". All the times I developed feelings, it was after I'd known the guy for a long time and we'd established a friendship first.
That isn't what she meant.... Most of those tropes these people are already in their late 20s or early 30s.... She stated that these were adults who have known each other for years and years and just now magically see each other in a different light. Stop trying to make an argument over something that was never stated or implied. On top of that, people who have known each other for that long and then developing romantic feelings almost never happens, yet for whatever reason, it happens all the time in stories. It's stupid, it's unrealistic, it's not cute, and it's old and boring.
Also, my little sister had her first crush when she was 9 and started dating a girl she developed a crush on when she was 11. I think you are highly underestimating kids and how smart they are and what they are able to feel and know what that feeling is. Gays, Lesbians, bis, pans, and trans know that they are that from a really young age. Just because YOU were like that does not mean the rest of the 7 billion people are like you. Kids develop love and romantic feelings really young.
As someone who is demisexual and demiromantic, best friends to lovers is probably the most realistic trope to me. I can't imagine falling in love with someone I've just met and it really irritates me when stories speedrun a romance. And the whole "meet cute" thing just seems cliche and unrealistic to me. Like, oh they locked eyes and were both immediately attracted to one another. Maybe that does happen in real life but it sure as hell isn't ever going to happen to me. You know what is going to happen to me? Falling in love with whoever my best friend is.
@@dodgyyoutuber9560 it is when someone is physically unable to feel any romantic or sexual attraction towards anyone without having a very strong emotional bond with them first
I've always been a redemption arc guy. Always been my fav, but only when it is done right and for the right people. Like madam cyborg mentioned Zuko. He was set up from the beginning and wasn't just dude that gets one for fun. But, yeah, if done poorly I hate it too
It helps he wasn't an outright monster like his father/grandfather were. Zuko caused a lot of pain, yes, and destruction. But he was often chastised by his uncle for his brashness and cruelty. The scene with him finding Oppa still serves as a great example of Iroah being such a great teacher for him. Hell, Iroah is probably a better example of how to write a mentor character, now that I think of it.
I always hate, “this girl was lonely, she never felt any sexual feelings or romantic desires and hated every guy she was with, thinking she would be alone for the rest of her life she gave up hope, but he was different.”
I've got a desperate need for a romance between a shy book-smart good girl and a bad girl who is all leather jackets and rebellion (Though obviously not toxic and possessive, because come on.) Or a good boy and a bad girl. Just... Come on
Oddly enough the new Duck Tails has a low-key lesbian relationship between a nerdy goofy Webby and a badass rebellious girl named Luna. It's very "gals being pals" but still with painfully obvious adorable undertones.
The story am writing is good guy x bad girl... not bad like leather jackets and abusive.. but bad as in she does her own thing and gets in trouble for it a lot and isn’t what his parents envision for his future.
@@Ika0713 well, of course Feminists love that trope - that's what they do in real life: policing men's behavior by shaming them into doing what they want.
@Leon Russell Yup! It's a new field of study, so different colleges approach it differently. Mostly you get a mix of classes in history, philosophy, and contemporary global/political issues. I call it "a degree in all the ways our world if f*cked, how it got there, and potential ways to fix it."
One of my least favorite tropes is when the author shamelessly uses every common cliched trope under the sun but switches the genders around (and nothing else).
I agree, I have never been able to get into the romance genre at all because I always find all of the common tropes either annoying or full blown toxic and dangerous. I often get criticized by both men and women for not liking romance, which is so damn annoying. Just let me read my fantasy adventures in peace. Chandler and Monica were cute though.
@@RiveroftheWither The "adults who can't possibly get through the necessary life or death exposition to each other because they keep flirting and swooning like 14 year olds" trope is a pretty vomit inducing break point for romantic fiction. Monica and chandler was an awesome romance arc.
I read one of those "ownership romances" back when I was in middle school and it ended way different, which is probably why I remember it. The girl is sold off to her captor, fighting tooth and nail every step of the way, and when she gets to his town finds many women who had been in her same boat, all of them telling her that its better to give in and that he'll treat her well should she follow the rules. She realizes that as long as her captor is alive, she'll never get out of there and fakes her "giving in" and lures them all into a false sense of security. When she's finally trusted to work in the kitchens with the other women, she sneaks a knife and, later that night, kills her captor in his sleep and runs away. I liked the way it showed that a person could work around a power imbalance and that it wasn't brute force or "true love" that saved the day, but her own smarts and skills. I can't remeber the name of the story, but I think it was taken off the site for excessive violence anyway, so it doesn't matter.
dont give villains tragic backstories, give MORALLY GRAY characters tragic backstories. Show them doing absolutely irredeemable things, but reveal that due to outside circumstances they feel they have no choice but to do such irredeemable things
Sounds like AOT, because no one considers themself a villain, and all are considered morally gray since they have both done terrible things on both sides to win the war that is going on. I wish that was done more often.
@@Henry258654 The thing about Eboshi is that she's not the villain, she's an antagonist. The difference is that she's not a bad person, she's only the antagonist because she goes against the goal of the main character.
Best Friends to Lovers is one of the best imo. Just this sudden realization that you really want this friend in your life for the rest of your life can be such a cute, sweet "d'aww" moment. Nothing can really compare.
One trope I'm getting tired of seeing is this one sided gender bashing, so far the worst offenders have been movies like Charlie's Angels, but I've noticed a rise of it in circles. Either women being portrayed as these perfect, god like beings where all men are bad, or men have to do everything and /only/ the man can. I don't get why it's hard to make things balanced between male and female characters. That best friends to partners things has gotten pretty old too. Never liked it, don't think I honestly ever will for the same reasons explained. Best friends IMHO are that; best friends. It just seems lazy and like a way to avoid writing a well though out out development between two characters. I'm also getting a bit fed up with the "ice queen trope" too. Why can't a female character be prissy and bad ass? Why does she have to be 'manly' and reject her femininity? I like bold, strong women but they don't all have to copy Samus. Let her kick ass in high heels and look good doing it and give her a battle skirt.
@Tom Ffrench You're free to have your own opinion, I just personally see the best friends to lovers things as a bit too common in fiction, and when something is too common it gets... eh.
The modern "female empowerment" trope is pretty toxic and not empowering at all. It seems so much more focused on belittling men or enacting violence against men, but their depictions of "strong women" tend to just be hateful, spiteful, angry, hot-headed, amoral women. They act like they're the "good guys" or the ones we should be rooting for, but they come off as bad people. Sometimes they're even worse than the supposed "bad guys". They complain so much about "toxic masculinity" yet, they give those attributes to their female protagonists quite often. It's just weird that these people who say they want to portray women as strong cannot seem to weave strength, femininity, and morality into their characters.
Steven Universe broke redemption arcs, change my mind. When every singe villain ever gets redeemed immediately after being genocidal space terrorists for millennia with no consequences, it’s broken.
It's the theme of the show and leans into the creator's personal beliefs and as it is their story, I disagree that anyone has the right to complain about this. Plus it's always realistically done and dosn't ALWAYS happen the same way.
I'm a sucker for the brooders, though he does have to have more than one emotion. I don't want to date them lol. Though I have to admit, I can be a sucker for cliched tropes. I don't know why, I just do. But I like unique ones too.
That would probably be one of the setups where flashbacks work well. Another is where one character asks about what happened to cause thing B and character A would have to tell a whole long story, so flashback for a more interesting and detailed version of that story, and then the reader skips the conversation. I think both are in Avatar the Last Airbender, which is an example of how to do pretty much anything right.
I don't see tragic people becoming villains unrealistic, broken people can lash out and the constant torment can lead you jaded. Toxic environments can breed toxic mindests and not all trauma leads to empathy
Agreed. Trauma can lead to both bad and good people. My main antagonist is actually not an evil person, but he does evil things sometimes simply to reach his goals which he finds more important (and those goals are fed by hate because of trauma). Then he feels bad about it afterwards. He does that, how's the saying... something about the means justifies the goals.
That sounds good.. another one with good flashbacks was Behind Her Eyes.. it’s a psychological supernatural thriller.. i normally hateee flashbacks, but i fell in love with the character that only showed up in the flashbacks and he became very essential to the story.. (if you’ve read the book- you know)
On the point of hardship breeding empathy: not always. Fast version: - All 3 were probably psychopaths or sociopaths. - Abusive+absent fathers - Seemingly enjoyed violence or being in danger - From what info we've got, good or at least not that far below average for the time mums - Sibling death. - Stalin and Hitler didn't found the ideologies they committed atrocities in the name of, they found extremist ideologies while their loved ones were dead or separated from them, joined them and quickly became extreme radicals. In Hitler's case he got leadership due to (I personally don't see it) "speaking skills" and Stalin pulled a sneaky followed by a lot of shooty/poisoning/he killed his rivals after Lenin died. - Not born into power. Took power and then did anything they could to maintain and expand it. - Not mentioned below but now that I've looked it up all 3 of them also had illegitimate children. In the case of Genghis a LOT of illegitimate children. Genghis Khan killed more people than Stalin and Hitler put together and at a time when there were far fewer people to kill. It was unclear who his biological father was because his mother was kidnapped while travelling with her newly wed husband, with Genghis being raised as the son of the kidnapper, and that combined with him having older brothers from his step?/dad's other wives likely contributed to a very difficult childhood. After his father died (I can't remember how but if I remember correctly the whole kidnapping thing caused or was a part of a family feud against either Genghis's ma's family or Genghis's maybe-daddy's family, plus he was a known warrior and likely sworn in service to a local chieftain/lord who could've called on him to fight for him. Point is it was probably a violent death), he and one of his brothers killed the eldest for taking food from the rest of the family for himself. Some rank-rising, saving his own wife after she was kidnapped which caused a lack of clarity over whether his first son was his own, a lot of fighting and killing and the rough and unsteady unification of the Mongol people under him later and the first thing he did after his first conquest on non-Mongols was kill every man and boy taller than a wheel-barrel in the region he conquered so that it wouldn't be able to rise against him and would have weaker fighters if it did. Joseph Stalin was the only one of his parents' children that lived past infancy. His dad was a shoemaker and his mother a domestic servant, and his dad was known to be an abusive alcoholic who left his wife and child to work in a city factory (I'm assuming he sent back his wages but it doesn't clarify either way), who then lived in the house of a priest. Smallpox left his face scarred for life and blood poisoning made one of his arms shorter than the other, which paired with being undernourished contributed to him being smaller than the other children in his class when photographed and wearing platform shoes to seem taller and more imposing as an adult. That said, his life did improve because of his ma and the priest taking extreme effort to get him educated so that he could earn better money, although he still got in trouble with school authorities quite a lot due to being a right dickhead towards fellow students. After he helped Lenin gain power, Lenin made a note explicitly stating "do not let this fucking monster get control of the USSR"... so anyway it was only found after Lenin was already dead and Stalin had seized power. Lenin wasn't exactly averse to killing shitloads of people to achieve his aims either so for him to be going "for fuck's sake do not let this guy be in charge when I kick the bucket" makes all the shit Stalin did pretty predictable. Also he robbed a bank and killed 40 people in the process. Adolf Hitler probably had it the easiest (dad make a lot of money in customs) and compared to most other big mass murderers was probably the least competent in military matters, though then again it's not easy to argue that Stalin's "who cares about casualties?" approach is exactly an instance of military genius. The only time he personally led in a battle was the Putsch, in which he was utterly wrecked, which contrasts a lot with Stalin personally leading Red Army troops in the Russian civil war and Genghis most likely dying in his 70s because of an injury from an arrow he got to the leg while leading soldiers through a desert getting infected. He had 5 siblings, only one of which survived, had an abusive father and went from getting top grades in primary school to flunking secondary school when there was a bigger focus on maths and science, so he dropped out and got turned down from art school for being mediocre. His dad died when he was a teenager and his mum died as he was coming into adulthood. He moved to Germany just before WW1 and used a petition to get into the German army, where he got shot in the leg in 1916 and was temporarily blinded by a gas attack in 1918, which he was still in the hospital from when Germany surrendered, which he was big mad about because "oh boy can't wait to go get shot or gassed again". Joins Nazi party, becomes a leading member, gets arrested for trying to start a revolution which was stopped more or less immediately by police, sentenced to 5 years, starts writing Mein Kampf, gets let out after 9 months, gets votes, takes over from President during perceived crisis, and then literally everyone knows the rest.
Yeah I'm so over redemption arcs let the bad guy be bad... I love writing my villains cuz they are no redeemable qualities whatsoever. However I do like a villian who doesn't realize they are the bad guy. Like they are so devoted and convinced they are doing the right thing they stop at nothing to achieve their goals and the only difference between them and the "heroes" of the story is how they achieve this goal giving the "heroes" a moral dilemma
@@Henry258654 That’s peak morally grey. It’s like the trolley problem. You could kill some orphans to stop the Dark Lord from killing many more people, but then their blood will be on your hands. Or you could save the orphans, allowing the Dark Lord to rise. More people died, but at least your hands are clean.
@@twxx460_ tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption I think it was in the crossover with The Darkness, Superman says: "The choice between the lesser evil is no choice at all"
@@Henry258654 good point. I didn’t think of possible other options. But at the same time, there may be no other options. Sometimes when you try to have the best of both worlds, you get nothing.
@@AvengerAtIlipa I read the saga multiple times and I can tell you that they already broke the lore for no reason even though the actual story didn't even start. That's pretty impressive...
@@AvengerAtIlipa There's an essay to be written about it and I don't think I'm gonna waste my time. There's plenty of good videos on youtube already about that topic. Enjoy the show if you so chose too.
@@AvengerAtIlipa The Netflix show is only one season long and allready inrevorerably diverged from the source, and kicks it in the mud in every instance it gets. Fify, don't have to tank.
I hate, when one of the characters (usually male) is in love in a woman and pursues her until he wears her down. No matter, how many times did she show lack of interest.
Sometimes I get annoyed at overused tropes, whether played straight of subverted, but sometimes that makes me all the more appreciative when they're done WELL, or with more depth and insight than usual.
I would like to give a quasi pushback on friends to lovers just because it is literally my wife and my's story. We were friends for almost nine years, good friends for six, and best friends for three before we started dating. I do agree, that the most common reason for the change can be summed up as "I saw them in a swimsuit for the first time" and that is tired. Also, your mention of the lack of seeing and getting the meet cute is a very good point. But I would say the trope is still valid, people just need to shake up the reason for the sudden interest in changing the relationship. In my case, what changed was after years of knowing each other, we were both single at the same time for the first time. This didn't lead to a relationship of convenience, but our friendship deepened into best friendship. When you're in a relationship, you tend to keep an emotional guard up around friends of the opposite sex because you don't want to create an emotional bond rivalry. It's a way that cheating often begins. So that was the first time that we were both without that guard and our friendship became really special. This led to me realizing that once one of us started dating someone else, that guard would go back up, and the still single one of us would need to pull back because to do otherwise would sabotage the relationship. I didn't want this and the only way to maintain our friendship was to start a relationship together. Now we're eight years together, seven years married and three kids later. Long story most of you didn't care about to say, maybe just re-examine the cause of friends to lovers. Oh. And most of that predating interim was spent texting because of distance, so physical attraction/hormones wasn't even a factor.
bonus points for the redemption arc if it is completely unwarranted. One of the reason Zuko's redemption arc worked so well was because the only reason he was bad to begin with was because his dad twisted him up so bad. Zuko would have been good all along if he had a normal upbringing and once he stopped seeking his father's approval he was able to make changes for the better and start doing.... actual redemptive acts. contrast that with some redemption arcs where the person just enjoys murdering, and still does, but does it for the right reasons. Is that them being redeemed, or the protagonist stretching the definition of "good" as for tragic backstory, there are something something that can never explain. When it's just kind of shoved in there, and doesn't explain any of the characters choices, it's even more infuriating. Sometime the last thing someone with a tragic backstory wants is to be a jerk, sometimes the thing they want most is peace, or to help those in the same situation they were. see uncle Iroh, because Avatar the last air bender absolutely nailed it's characters.
You made my day. I was mad all day because one of my friends kept asking me to write them into my book and had so many ideas for them I was going insane. Thank you for your content ❤️
Was hoping you'd like the novel I'm planning. I guess not. Sorry, but I think it's quite realistic for friends to fall in love. I've totally had friends I was interested in for long periods, but never acted on those feelings. If they suddenly found interest in me, even if it was because I became hot, I'd be super excited. Obviously a new physical attraction would lead into attraction to the persons personality, especially if you already appreciated that personality as a friend. It's just as shallow as meeting someone you find attractive and then getting to know their personality because you find them physically attractive.
Very interesting perspective on the mentor trope! Personally, I do enjoy that trope for largely the same reason you hate it - my personal experience with mentor figures has largely been terrible. So when the protagonist is blessed with a mentor they don't have to be terribly disappointed in and hurt by later on it just... makes me happy. At least in books the whole thing works. Edit: Also, a secret family member was an IRL thing for me X))
I’m writing the mentor trope into my book.. in my life I’ve had many mentors being grown up around so many different people but i never included the trope because of that.. but i did think about it when Jenna said that’s not related.. i find it very relatable.. when i was young i declared i had 3 moms at one point.. people who were just good to me even though we weren’t related
ok i agree with most of what you said about the "historically accurate" fantasy but i actually /love/ when people talk about the way the normal people live in their world!! i love the expositions on farming and politics and religions and folklore!! but i just hate when that's tied to a needlessly patriarchal society like no thaaaaankss
Yeah it seems Jenna just likes cut-and-dry books that don't have much depth outside of the story. Those details she hates so much are the meat and potatoes of worldbuilding, which I'm guessing she doesn't like.
trope #4 ticks me off mostly because I am writing a historical fantasy in the Victorian era (and it took me quite a good while to research customs, fashion and etc). also not a fan of #6 mostly because it just makes me feel uncomfortable. I saw happen #9 irl with a very good friend of mine and my sister (they have been friends for many years) and the two decided to start dating once they both have graduated from high school as things got a bit complicated during the middle to high school era.
1. Enemies to lovers/bully- I don’t understand why people find it romantic to be treated like trash. Like what? 2. Surprise baby- There is nothing, I repeat *nothing*, more of a romance and sexy time killer than kids. And when you don’t know it’s coming in a book? I RAGE. 3. Dub/noncon- again, I have no idea how assault is sexy or romantic. Ugh. 4. Mafia/bad boys as romantic love interests- why do people think that criminals and bad people are love interests? I don’t get it. 5. Heroine who is so independent that she’s TSTL- Don’t go rushing into danger if you aren’t trained. It’s ok to hide and stay out of the way when trained men take care of a dangerous problem. It doesn’t make her less powerful, independent, or whatever. It makes her a smart person who understands her limits and vulnerabilities. I’m sure I could think of more.
Jenna: 'bEsT fRiEnDs tO lOvErS iS tHe WoRsT' Me, about to drop yet another couple of quirky teenagers realizing that they are in love: 'I GOT NO CHOICE'
"Friends to lovers? Make it make sense!" Easy : make the relationship gay. Two boys, friends since childhood in a conservative family/city/state/country/etc. It's now high school time, hormones kicks in, and the paranoia start as they realise they are falling for their best friend. But it's difficult to confess when both of them desperatly try to pass for heteros so they don't get beaten up at school, or worse, kicked out of their house. So they both start to date girls they don't even like, making them think the other is hetero, and soon they are convince their friend will act disgusted if they confess to them, ruining not only their friendship, but risking the truth being exposed to everyone else (and the violence that come with it). Then you have the slow unravelling of all the fears and internalize homophobia that keep them appart until they finally start dating (publicly or secretly, depending of the story). And boom, perfectly valid reason. Now let's just hope that one day, this exemple will stop existing in our day to day life so that trope become a distant memory. =_=
1) Imaging a brooding hero expecting for him to have a traumatic past or something, but the more you learn about them the more you realize that their life was completely normal and their just born like that. 2)What if the "good" character was the actual predator? 3)A Flashback should serve to deliver information that changes the characters actions. 4)A also hate Lazy world building. 5)Depends on how it's done. 6)Wut? That's a thing? 7)Depends on how its done. 8)Oh, you are going to LOVE my villain! She has committed every crime you can think of without remorse at all, from the pettiest of crimes to Genocide to Red Room level shit. She's an unrepentant entitled genocidal cannibal rapist pedophile. She's the Witch Queen. 9)Best friends to lovers is actually my favorite romance. 10)Depends on how its done.
Sometimes the story doesn’t work the same without flashbacks; I think very hard about where they occur- often it’s comparative, & serves to contrast with the previous emotional state of the character, or illustrate- without a massive exposition-dump- why they feel as they do, about a person or situation. I also vary the length of them, but they are never longer than 2-3 paragraphs. Flashbacks that take up most of a chapter??? Why?! I’ve also converted one or two flashbacks to dreams- not the whole ‘it was all a dream’- thing, but- we think about our dreams at times; ‘Why has this come to me, _now_ ?’ ‘What is my subconscious trying to puzzle out, about what’s going on in my life?’- kind of thing - I get not everyone views their dreams this way, but still...
Me, someone who loves redemption arcs: :( I gotta say though what kinda bothers me about it is how often all the villians (or almost all of them) get redeemed when that trope is used.it makes each of them feel less special smh.I think there should be both redeemable villians and total douches in a story.
THANK YOU. I'm hating the trend of redeeming nonredeemable characters. Oh, you were a genocidal nazi-like villain and you killed, directly or indirectly, thousands of people? Aw, but you look sad, so i'll forgive you! UGH i hate it! It lowers the value of well-written stories about characters getting redeemed, because now for some reason it's just expected. And i particularly hate stories in which every-single-bad guy gets to be redeemed. There are no stakes in a story like that! No repercussions, no consequences, because if there were consequences, then the redemption may not be possible.
I personally enjoy the best friends to lovers trope. Don't get me wrong, I do love the meet cutes. BUT, I love slow burners even more. There's something I love about watching people slowly fall in love with each other
I dont redeem my Big Bad or the antagoninsts that are evil to the core.. but there are two or so people in my story who were doing what they were told to do or doing what they thought was best when they were being evil and i think that’s a good reason for a redemption arc.. they’re breaking away from their warped sense of morality.. while still remain a bit... mean
The absolute worst: She’s sooo strong and stands up for herself, but when the dominant wolf boy/ vampire dude shows up and says “you’re mine! I’ll kill anyone who tries to touch you” the chick is like “you can’t tell me what to do! I’m an independent woman!”, but she still spreads her legs and let this guy control her life, because “he just loves her so much that he can’t control himself. It’s not his fault!”
I just kinda realized my MC never gets a mentor. He's a vampire, but the master vamp just sorta leaves and he's gotta fend for himself. XD Shitty move, but at least I don't have this trope in my book. :P
@@lustforlife7792 Haha, thank you! XD It's on Wattpad if you really wanna. Not the most edited version, but still. It's a dark fantasy tragedy, so not the classic wattpad-romance stuff. XD
I really appreciate how you really emphasize audiobooks, one of the biggest problems I have had in the past years is not having an audiobook available for a lot of books that I would like to read but am unable to without the audiobook. While I am not visually impaired I do have a learning disability that makes reading difficult, so I really appreciate this advocacy. Also, I totally downloaded and started The Savior's Champion because of this. Thank you.
I never liked reading friends to lovers books. It’s never as fun. However, I adore the enemies to lovers trope. Like, that “oh no they’re hot” moment between two people who hate each other really butters my biscuit, you know?
I’m living the best friends fall in love with each other (at least from my side) trope right now and let me tell you, it’s angsty as hell, especially because both of our parents would disown us if she did love me back and they found out we were in a romantic relationship. Please send help. I’m drowning in the angsty sea.
idk but i love the best friends to lovers trope. i just couldn't date someone if we don't have a super deep emotional connection and know each other's darkest secrets beforehands. it doesn't make sense - why would i devote myself to someone if i don't know every little thing about them and we haven't shared at least 3 years of memories so i know for sure what kind of person they are? it's irresponsible and risky! i think the romantic feelings will just... naturally follow from such a deep and loving relationship. maybe im demiromantic lol sorry for the rant
I agree with all of these, though I do have a weakness for the Bad boy x good girl couple, though only if the dude isn’t abusive but simply just troubled and rebellious and the girl is more on the shy side (but still has a freaking personality... ‘cause ya know... shy girls can have personalities I’ve heard) A trope I also absolutely hate are love triangles. They just frustrate me and also: In my entire life, I’ve never liked two people at the same time and “had to choose” or that kind of bullsh*t. I just hate it. (There are exceptions ofc, it can be done right like almost every other trope, but most of the time it just frustrates and bores me)
Yeah, I don't like seeing them try to redeem a villain who's crossed the moral event horizon. I'd rather see that kind of villain get that look of surprise on his face when the protagonist runs him through with a sword.
The only 'best friends to lovers' angle I'll accept is them having to first accpet their sexuality or something along those lines before even admitting they have feelings for their best friend
Honestly, I agree with all of them for at least the most part except the ninth one. I honestly love best friends to lovers, one of my favorite books executed it super well. Especially when they were friends from kids for a while and then had a falling out, but are now friends again & like each other, like that makes sense to me, idk.
I love the best friends to lovers trope tbh. It's not unusual irl and not growing a spine in 10 years is very real. When you know someone for that long and they are such an important part of your life and romantic feelings have a chance of ruining it, the fear is real. It's the same as lovers who can't imagine their lives without each other. Would you really risk your current closeness for maybe going out, not even knowing it that could work in the long run? A romantic trope I hate is LOVE TRIANGLES, or any sort of geometrical figure. I'm so over them!
Nooo I love Geralt 😂 he's not emotionless! He actually just acts that way because people think witchers can't feel anything and will pay him more since they can't appeal to his sympathetic side. He's actually so lonely and I love when he finally has Ciri to care for! :)
My least favourite troupe: Bland white bread teenage girl in dystopia fiction who despite being described as small and sometimes under weight can beat up pros in hand to hand combat with zero combat experience and is able to lead a revolution by doing absolutely nothing
The majority of Author tube or the authorities of writing and editing are from the West or Countries that treasures reading and the writing industry. Here in the region of Cordillera in the Philippines, it took me about 8 years to write and publish my book. The main reason is the Arts in general like writing, music, painting, sculpture, acting and the like are considered as "hobbies" and not a "real careers". People are focused on what they consider as "real careers" that are "paying jobs" like farming, carpentry, professions, businesses and the like. This is mainly due to the low standard of living or poverty that are prevalent here. It was difficult for me to find editors, beta readers, critic partners, support systems (family and friends who believed on my career choice), time to write (have to hustle in the real world to fulfill basic needs and to exhausted in my free time) and others. I end up skipping some steps and submitted my manuscript this year in a publishing company willing to help me publish as a novice writer. I don't know if this is necessary but it is my reality as a writer.
The Best Friend trope always annoys me so much. Especially when they've known each other since they were like five and seen each other every day since then. That's not how humans form bonds with people. Friends to lovers is great, but childhood best friends to lovers is... Unlikely.
Hello person I view as a sibling, I'm suddenly sexually attracted to you... Nope, no thanks. Also, this person bullied me as a child, and now they've "changed," so I'm going to marry them. Nope, no way in hell, I've already seen the worst of you and I will never forget it. Both of these happen in Harry Potter and are good examples of why JKR should never write romance.
Flashbackwise I really love how mad max fury road ( I know it isn't a book) has maxes memories flash for a second or two instead of being a full-fledged scene. Admittedly it does make max more shallow but it also adds to the ambiguity of him and tells his story without shoving it in your face.
In my story, protagonist and antagonist have the same mentor (they are not completely mentor, they are side hero's and protagonist's mother), antagonist since the beginning acts to be their friend (she was the only one who knew her magical abilities since beginning).. So, protagonist would definitely get trouble killing her, he kills her by deceit.
I will say i love when theres a flashback that a character is repressing and fighting to not remember and then something triggers the memory and they are forced to relive it, its so heartbreaking and i love it. Best example of this is in salt to the sea by ruta sepetys when a character was covering up her sexual assault in her memory with a relationship she wish had been the cause of her pregnancy, it was so tragic and heartbreaking and that flashback scene was some of sepetys' best writing imo
I often hear that prologues are a BAD thing from most agents and editors I've talked to. They tell me to put the information in the body of the work. Also, sometimes the clues contained in the flashback can only come out at certain times in your book (for pacing and plotting reasons). Often times, most flashbacks I've read or use bring information that is previously unknown that you need to go further in the story (or to piece it all together). I do agree, however, that they can be jarring...especially if done wrong. I think if your book is divided into parts (for example) you could slide a flashback into the beginning or end of that part. That way it's not so bumpy. OR you can use a good segue that delivers the reader into the flashback. (The heroine sneaks into a cave belonging to the witch, looks into the witch's scrying pool and sees...) I rather like character's telling a story within a story though. The past is transposed through someone's words. "Over a hundred years ago, when I was a wee sprite, I was dancing amongst the willows, singing my song, when..." I write a lot of stories about immortal creatures, so balancing time jumps is important to me. As far as villains having a sympathetic background...I don't think of some of my villains as "Villains". I think of them as antagonists. Antagonists don't have to be evil...they just have to get in the way. Some of my antagonists do evil things (irredeemable things), but no matter how sympathetic an antagonist's background are, they often get what's coming to them. Of course, I don't write romance. Romance is more of a subplot created out of deep friendships. But that's how I like it. I 100% agree with the redemption arcs. There are many characters that do irredeemable things and then they are once again accepted by the characters (because that's what make them good at heart). Oh my God, it pisses me off every time. You kill somebody I love, you ain't getting anything from me except my loathing. Zuko and a few other "redeemed" characters also showed a struggle with what they did vs. who they were brought up to be. You could see his change and his struggle for every bad decision he made. That's a HUGE difference. The real antagonist becomes his father, who uses him as a pawn and we can understand his fear and isolation. In other words, he was written well, which I can't say for most other "redemption arcs" I see on TV or in books lately. They're trying to be too "grimdark".
Honestly, most people would probably say a flashback is better than a prologue. Flashbacks can fit seamlessly into a story without disrupting the flow, while a prologue almost by definition don't fit within the flow of the main story, which is why it is taken outside of the main story. The fact that both flashbacks and prologues are easy to do poorly is another matter altogether however.
Love your videos, Jenna! Not sure I've ever commented before, but I have something to say about redemption arcs. They need to be set up properly, and I feel like that's something that's missed 99 times out of 100. Many authors and screenwriters seem to think that by having a former villain do one good thing and then die, they've redeemed themselves because even though they lived a bad life, they died for a good cause. I'm so glad you brought up Zuko because he's the perfect demonstration of how to make this arc work. By and large, he always balked at doing horrible things. That's the reason for his trauma and his role in the story. The potential for good in him is shown almost from the beginning. Not only that, but we're shown that he has someone in his life who is doing everything he can to support him and subtly guide him onto the path of redemption. Throughout the series we watch Zuko struggle with one moral choice after another. Sometimes he does the right thing. Sometimes he does the wrong thing. Sometimes he does the right thing for the wrong reasons and sometimes he does the wrong thing for the right reasons. Ultimately his redemption is the culmination of lots of hard work that he does to become a better person, including confronting truths about himself and his people that he could have easily turned a blind eye to. Contrast this to Kylo Ren, who (spoilers) just kind of kisses Rey and then dies fighting Palpatine and we're supposed to think "Oh he was a good person in the end." Nope. No way. Not good enough. It would have worked far better to have him turn near the start of the movie, work his ass off to prove himself to the resistance, join them in their fight, survive, and then in the end we watch him do the hard work of helping rebuild the new republic, and maybe he and Rey take on a friendship (not a romance, that wasn't earned either) where they support each other in learning to wield the force, seek out other potential Jedi, and start a new academy. That would be a possible redemption.
I don't like when the main character is strong because he was destined to be strong, like because he is the chosen one or because he comes from a legendary family or whatevs I love it when the hero is just a simple person who works hard to achieve their goals and turns out to become strong because they earned it, not because it's their destiny
I like reading villain point of views, but only when it's showing all the bad things they're doing and their scheming while the heroes are trying to take them down. I don't really care about their background, I just want to see them being evil, ya know?
this is a really good point- I was thinking that I like scenes from an evil or morally grey character's pov, but I realize the scenes I'm thinking of is where they're just being morally grey or evil, or working together with a 'good' character because their goals line up for the moment. I like seeing them doing or thinking evil things, and scenes from their pov have way more opportunity to show their thoughts.
11:30 I mean, I can agree with most of this, but 2 of my best friends of all my life (I know them an they know each other for about 17 years) were great friends until 3 years ago that they started dating and now are gettin married, so I guess it does happen
honestly though, i love friends to lovers but childhood friends to lovers is one of my least favorite tropes bc you don't get to see their relationship develop!!
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My most hated troupe is when the creator presents a hardened, tough female character who is difficult and hesitant, and gives off 100% dom aura to just have a male character break her down into a submissive mess
Oh, yeah, I hate that too! Or when she's built up to be this kick-ass cool character, but she needs to be saved all the time. Author, make up your mind! Is she cool or a damsel in distress? She can't be both!
It's double worse when she's a warrior with skills for a wide range of jobs and the author makes her a house wife in the epilogue. :/
@@lillianclark2159 Now I want an epilogue where the widely-skilled female protagonist becomes like, a mechanic or something.
@@lillianclark2159 I’d be fine with that if it’s been expressed from the start that she wants to have a simple life after everything, but if she’s an action-y gal who seems to thrive on danger, she’ll probably still be doing action-y danger filled stuff.
Also yeah, the suddenly submissive woman bugs the hell out of me, like, if she’s the more domineering one, let her be the domineering one!
YES. Totally hate that.
Jenna: i HAtE reDEmpTion TRopEs
Zuko: That's rough buddy.
"My girlfriend turned into the moon."
Best avatar meme!
I think Zuko works because he’s never actually killed anyone. He’s had so many opportunities to do something truly awful but never fully commited
And he was good in his heart, he just wanted his honour back. He even saved the avatar as that blue spirit guy.
lets be fair here Zukos arc is one of the few that works because from the very beginning he was shown to be redeemable. nearly everything in season 1 set it up, season 2 was development and season 3 was the culmination and switch. its Azulas redemption thats the difficult thing--some of the stuff she did you cant go back from, even if it was a result of her fathers manipulation...
Honestly, I blame zuko for the popularity of redemption arcs... they just don’t get what made zukos arc good
zuko actually had to face Consequences TM, and he also had to bond with the gaang before they trusted him. most ppl just make their "redemption" arcs like,
villain: "omg sorry :( i was bad" (exhibits no actual understanding of why what they did was wrong)
hero/es: "omg we totally forgive you sweet child!!!" (has no problem with villain for some reason, even tho they hated them in the episode right before this one and also the villain has probably killed and/or injured their friends/them previously)
The downside of success.
Anything successful will spawn countless imitations that fail miserably on a fundamental level.
Don't blame Zuko. Hasn't he suffered enough?
can someone explain what redemption arcs are?
Avatar in general spawned TONS of copy cats who missed everything that made the show good, including it's own live cation adaption.
Also RWBY is basically "what if ATLA was re-written by someone who has never worked as a writer before in their life"
Redemption Arcs I can maybe tolerate. But literally nothing angers me more when the said villain is literally irredeemable yet still gets an arc of redemption often times because he/she's hot.
I hate redemption arcs where the villain gets killed off mere moments after they've redeemed themselves
Cough cough Steven Universe
or the star wars version; i'll redeem myself by sacrificing my life! that'll make all the murder and genocide better! like...first time you do it...fine...but how much more interesting would it have been to see kylo ren actually have to atone for what he did??
You lose a rap battle against Todoroki and now everyone hates Zuko. A shame
@@kerricaine My fav redemption arc is Faith from Buffy, precisely because the only way she can move forward is to accept the consequences of her actions and choose to pay the price for them. There's no "easy out," like dying to redeem herself. Her only option is to make the hard choice and pay for her sins.
I'd like to see a book where the hero gets killed and it is now up to the mentor to save the day.
I'd love that.
Would you want to see that as the hero dies early on and the mentor is real main character, or have it go to the end and the hero dies and the mentor steps in to save the day?
@@Lilitha11 good question
I'm actually planing something like that in my timewriter series.
I'm gonna have venandi, one of the heroes, train someone to be a hero in tylus (the timewriter)'s absence but tylus deems him unworthy and has him killed by a dragon and venandi has to be the hero on her own while tylus tries to erase something from time to prevent a doomsday level event that his enemy wrote into the future.
@@Lilitha11 I was thinking more that the story plays out normally. The hero starts out their journey, finds the mentor and we get the usual training montage.
Then the villain arrive and rather than killing the mentor as is what usually happens they instead think "well why don't I kill this young hero and solve the problem before it starts."
So we then have the mentor, possibly well past their prime, having to stop the villain instead.
I love the mentor, I just think of Uncle Iroh
Iroh doesn't die. And he doesn't make a hero out of Zuko from nowhere, either. He's putting out Zuko's fires and trying to lead him onto a better path. Which is why he's the best mentor.
@Add E Uncle Iroh is dead in Legend of Korra but it was of old age, not the typical "died to protect the hero whose not ready yet". Iroh was the most iconic character voiced by a legend.
@@RiveroftheWither It would be a different bad trope if he wasn't dead in LoK.
@@RiveroftheWither correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Iroh went to the spirit world voluntarily? Meaning that he never died of old age.
Me too
Zuko is not a redemption arc, it's an abuse victim climbing out of his abusive situation, in this essay I will...
Still counts because he was trying to capture the avatar for his dad. Many villains (of any franchise) were abuse victims themselves, but not necessarily redeemable.
Also, he was more of an antagonist than a villain. He did a few reprehensible things, but never anything irredeemable
Same with Catra
was a villain in the gaangs eyes, Katara makes that pretty clear. But yeah from an audience perspective that angle is realy clear. unfortunately its sparked a new "this character went through abuse so their actions arent their fault/are excused" wave that just...like way to miss the point of the arc
👌👏👏👏
Okay, about the "best friends to lovers" trope: it is actually not that unlikely to suddenly see a friend in a different light. I am demiromantic which means that I cannot fall in love with a stranger or someone I have only known for a short period of time. I have to establish a meaningful and trusting relationship first: a friendship. It has happened to me more than once that I just kinda woke up one day and saw a former "just friend" as more than that.
Same! I'm dating my best friend for 15 years...that one trope was a bit of a slap! haha
I have to agree because of personal experience. You can fall in love with a friend after months, even years of continually getting to know them better and getting closer with them. And confessing at that point is damn scary, especially with a best friend, because you risk damaging/destroying your friendship.
Okay, yeah agreed, I wouldn't mind that one actually. Problem is that I've NEVER seen it used that way. Probably because dEmIsExUaLitY iSn'T rEal or something >_>
Tbh I could probably accept almost any trope at this point if it gave LGBT+ identities (especially lesser known ones such as demi and aro/ace) accurate and fair representations.
Hannah I whole heartedly agree with this. Also, for some, no amount of “sudden” hotness can make up peeing in the kitty-pool together, other factors need to apply. Factors like a change in maturity or life perspectives, it doesn’t have to be sexual. Or there are people like me, I just wasn’t interested in dating when I was a teenager. I liked my now husband throughout high school and he liked me but we didn’t want a relationship. We didn’t start dating until I was 23 but we were really close friends before that.
Not to mention you’re not gonna be thinking about romance with them until your teens anyway so that knocks off the years.
“In 10 years you couldn’t grow a spine?” Me who spent 9 years chasing after one dude and never confessing 👩🏼🦯
Yeah, this might have been the most vapid and un-empathetic of the complaints. Its not an uncommon story. I knew a pair who missed each other for like 20 years - one was always coming free when the other was already in something serious. I knew a guy who finally got his chance with his lifetime friend when he was over 50. It ultimately didn't work out for the weirdest of reasons (he felt too short in her home country, after a lifetime of feeling tall).
Also, people change in what they are looking for... she might not be old enough to realize or accept that yet.
After most of a year growing to really like Jenna, I am glad this is not something I saw early.
@@thanesgames9685 I agree, but how old is "not old enough to realize or accept that yet", exactly? She's 34, not saying that's old AF but that's a decent amount of life experience. Not trynna start a debate, just curious.
@@yojojolovesyou No idea. I'm sure it varies by exposure. Old enough to know that there are a lot more paths to love than romance novels would indicate, I guess. If you read through the rest of the comments, you can see a lot of examples of people talking about how the things she resents are actually their own life's story.
@@thanesgames9685 yeah, i disliked the video after seeing those compaints.
PLEASE
Jenna’s sass is sort of the best sass.
Why does it make me so happy to see you here?
She who sasses last, sasses best.
Fancy seeing you here.
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Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that you're using a thinly-veiled code word for something else?
I really hate when a character I thought was dead gets resurrected or just “didn’t die” because it takes away from the actual death
I've left a few book series that I used to love because there just came to the point where there was no threat to anyone. Not even the villains. After two of the main characters returned from the death and the others survived a multitude of inescapable situations, and then three villains did the same, I had to put the series down.
I hate this so much, but it’s especially worse when the death was so powerful to the themes and the character themself for it to all be for nothing.
@@jinxglow6695 ikr
9/ 10 I absolutely hate both - I almost always hate resurrection the most because it just usually comes off as so much cheap ‘drama’.
But for me, though- the exception to ‘the character didn’t actually die’, is when the _misapprehension_ that someone died is **believable** , but not an absolute certainty- yet characters still have to find a way to go on with their lives, especially if it’s in a time of conflict, or when their world’s ‘in flux’ for other reasons- & the lack of communication is also for realistic reasons; that feels much more believable to me... & yet writers almost always go with the whole ‘I COULDN’T contact _anyone_ - but not really, I totally could have’ - like, there’s no real sense of _an impetus_ for _why_ the character literally *cannot* make contact with their loved ones, & that just makes them seem like absolute mongrels...
Cough cough Avdol cough cough
Guilty of loving the friends to lovers trope, because it's the only way I can find myself catching feels.
If we don't vibe as friends, we won't vibe as lovers. Hands down. So it's nice when people who already appreciate each other find moments where they go "oh hey, you're actually making my heart flutter. When did that happen?"
I understand the problem though, it does have to be handled well, and it can't just be because they're pretty.
Totally agree.
This is where my next favourite trope "idiots in love" comes in. The best friends have taken years to realise because they're actual idiots and everyone knows except them.
Unless it's a romance story, I'd prefer writers avoid this trope. I'd like a guy and girl to just be friends and not have any feelings for each other. This is why Aang and Katara's romance in ATLA pissed me off I would have much perfered they just be friends
@@stephr5914 stop exposing my most searched ao3 tags right now or I'll have to sue...
@@heroofthewinds7765 TRUEE their friendship was so good, and I just couldn't care less about the romance back then. The hinting/teasing was just so forced to me at times, too
Jenna: I hate redemption arcs
Me: WAIT WHAT ABOUT ZUKO
Jenna: *mimics me* what about Zuko?!
Me: ...you know us too well
The worst part about the mentor is they usually have no life or arc outside of teaching the protagonist. If you're going to write one, please treat them like a human being at least.
Mine is the main characters great great grandmother who’s a complete manipulative sociopath, who gets a bunch of children killed... good concept, or does it need to be changed up a bit?
@@estelletheartkid1984 It certainly avoids cliches and catches one's attention. I say go for it.
@Sepheroth 7VII romance between family members or who?
Most of these tropes aren't bad... Just usually shittily done. And yeah, the redemption arc is WAY overdone and usually poorly handled.
I get so cranky when a story has someone who's absolutely reprehensible, but then they get a crush on a good guy, do one or two nice things, and the narrative treats that as if they're good now and have gone through some incredible personal growth. Like, no, you were less terrible than usual to someone you're interested in, that's maaaaaybe the beginning of a redemption arc, depending on where the story goes, but you don't get to rush there.
Writers don't seem to want to actually write redemption arcs, they just want to give the impression of one happening so they can get on with shipping villains with good guys without writing the hard part of "no but seriously, you've tried to kill me a lot, why should I be interested?"
Spike from Buffy is a great example of like 4 of the things she hated on, who was a fantastic character.
*cough* The Deep *cough*
I hate " love at first sight / instantly smitten " stories, like shit make your characters less shallow than falling in love with an attractive face/body.
Misery loves company.
Plus, it's kinda lazy? I find hijinks that lead to love more fun.
@@GuineaPig361 True aren't the start of relationships where ppl usually test their partners boundaries to see where they are? simple " they were hot and I love them now" is boring
Me, too! I could understand a, "Hey, that person across the room's cute," sort of thing, where the first noticing is portrayed simply as what it is, a flicker of lust. But for that first brief glance to be, "And then I saw MY TRUE LOVE!", no.
@@AliciaNyblade Right, like how does you liking the symmetry of their face = Love ?
@@BEEDRILL303 I blame "Romeo and Juliet". But even that could have an interesting angle, presented as two teens who might have been able to explore their attraction/potential romance at a slower and more natural pace if not for the whole feuding families thing.
Gotta hard disagree on the childhood friends to lovers. I don’t know about you but i had no romantic or sexual desires growing up. So if I were to have fallen in love with a “childhood friend” it wouldn’t have happened till my like late teens or early twenties. How the heck are kids supposed to know they’re in love? That’s what’s cute about it. Watching them slowly change from silly little kids to young adults who end up having feels fro the other. (Or in some case you have the one kid who was always in love and the other one was just like a late bloomer or something) either way. They’re are tons of reasons and ways a childhood to lovers can work. I prefer it way over the “meet cute” but that’s just me. 😂
EXACTLY
yeah I agree. as a former child who is yet to tell my best friend of 5 years that I like her, it was pretty funny to see jenna describe my exact reasons for being really frightened to tell her and frame them as unrealistic. you need a huge spine to take that risk of ruining your treasured friendship when you've been friends for a long time.
I agree 100%. "Childhood/longtime friends to lovers" is way more realistic and adorable than a "meet cute". To me, even, a meet cute seems more contrived and unrealistic. I've never walked away from a random encounter with a guy thinking, "Hm, I wonder if he'll end up being my boyfriend". All the times I developed feelings, it was after I'd known the guy for a long time and we'd established a friendship first.
That isn't what she meant.... Most of those tropes these people are already in their late 20s or early 30s.... She stated that these were adults who have known each other for years and years and just now magically see each other in a different light. Stop trying to make an argument over something that was never stated or implied. On top of that, people who have known each other for that long and then developing romantic feelings almost never happens, yet for whatever reason, it happens all the time in stories. It's stupid, it's unrealistic, it's not cute, and it's old and boring.
Also, my little sister had her first crush when she was 9 and started dating a girl she developed a crush on when she was 11. I think you are highly underestimating kids and how smart they are and what they are able to feel and know what that feeling is. Gays, Lesbians, bis, pans, and trans know that they are that from a really young age. Just because YOU were like that does not mean the rest of the 7 billion people are like you. Kids develop love and romantic feelings really young.
As someone who is demisexual and demiromantic, best friends to lovers is probably the most realistic trope to me. I can't imagine falling in love with someone I've just met and it really irritates me when stories speedrun a romance. And the whole "meet cute" thing just seems cliche and unrealistic to me. Like, oh they locked eyes and were both immediately attracted to one another. Maybe that does happen in real life but it sure as hell isn't ever going to happen to me. You know what is going to happen to me? Falling in love with whoever my best friend is.
What’s demi sexual/ romantic?
@@dodgyyoutuber9560 it is when someone is physically unable to feel any romantic or sexual attraction towards anyone without having a very strong emotional bond with them first
I've always been a redemption arc guy. Always been my fav, but only when it is done right and for the right people. Like madam cyborg mentioned Zuko. He was set up from the beginning and wasn't just dude that gets one for fun. But, yeah, if done poorly I hate it too
It helps he wasn't an outright monster like his father/grandfather were. Zuko caused a lot of pain, yes, and destruction. But he was often chastised by his uncle for his brashness and cruelty. The scene with him finding Oppa still serves as a great example of Iroah being such a great teacher for him. Hell, Iroah is probably a better example of how to write a mentor character, now that I think of it.
I always hate, “this girl was lonely, she never felt any sexual feelings or romantic desires and hated every guy she was with, thinking she would be alone for the rest of her life she gave up hope, but he was different.”
BECAUSE SHE WAS A WOMAN! >:D ( In my series ) /hj
I've got a desperate need for a romance between a shy book-smart good girl and a bad girl who is all leather jackets and rebellion (Though obviously not toxic and possessive, because come on.) Or a good boy and a bad girl. Just... Come on
Oddly enough the new Duck Tails has a low-key lesbian relationship between a nerdy goofy Webby and a badass rebellious girl named Luna. It's very "gals being pals" but still with painfully obvious adorable undertones.
Leena, not Luna.
The story am writing is good guy x bad girl... not bad like leather jackets and abusive.. but bad as in she does her own thing and gets in trouble for it a lot and isn’t what his parents envision for his future.
Actually kind of reminds me of the game life is strange. Chloe is a bit toxic, though more of a self destructive way than toxic towards her love.
Bad girl? Is that just every femme fatale in Noir style? Not complaining, I love that character.
"A dame with a past, and a hero with no future."
Jenna: "These are tropes most people like!"
Also Jenna: "Sexism"
Tragic but fairly accurate.
@Francis Andrijašević oh look, I found an incel.
@Francis Andrijašević based
meatiest On bullshit, mostly.
@@Ika0713 well, of course Feminists love that trope - that's what they do in real life: policing men's behavior by shaming them into doing what they want.
“Brooding”
“Skink face”
“Big boy face”
“I just shit myself”
Someone had to say it.
what is this referring to
@@Scarabola every generic brooding guy in movies.
This has me laughing. 😂 I’m glad Jenna said this.
“I just shit my pants!”
When I tell you I WHEEZED.
Sounds like Bidennnnn
"The 'historically accurate' fantasy world that isn't historically accurate."
Me, with a B.A. in both history and social justice: BITCH, YES.
@Leon Russell Yup! It's a new field of study, so different colleges approach it differently. Mostly you get a mix of classes in history, philosophy, and contemporary global/political issues.
I call it "a degree in all the ways our world if f*cked, how it got there, and potential ways to fix it."
One of my least favorite tropes is when the author shamelessly uses every common cliched trope under the sun but switches the genders around (and nothing else).
Or makes it gay as if that changes anything.
In my entire life, I loved only one romantic story and it was Monica and Chandler's love story because they were best friends and only then lovers...
I agree, I have never been able to get into the romance genre at all because I always find all of the common tropes either annoying or full blown toxic and dangerous. I often get criticized by both men and women for not liking romance, which is so damn annoying. Just let me read my fantasy adventures in peace. Chandler and Monica were cute though.
@@RiveroftheWither The "adults who can't possibly get through the necessary life or death exposition to each other because they keep flirting and swooning like 14 year olds" trope is a pretty vomit inducing break point for romantic fiction.
Monica and chandler was an awesome romance arc.
I read one of those "ownership romances" back when I was in middle school and it ended way different, which is probably why I remember it. The girl is sold off to her captor, fighting tooth and nail every step of the way, and when she gets to his town finds many women who had been in her same boat, all of them telling her that its better to give in and that he'll treat her well should she follow the rules. She realizes that as long as her captor is alive, she'll never get out of there and fakes her "giving in" and lures them all into a false sense of security. When she's finally trusted to work in the kitchens with the other women, she sneaks a knife and, later that night, kills her captor in his sleep and runs away. I liked the way it showed that a person could work around a power imbalance and that it wasn't brute force or "true love" that saved the day, but her own smarts and skills. I can't remeber the name of the story, but I think it was taken off the site for excessive violence anyway, so it doesn't matter.
dont give villains tragic backstories, give MORALLY GRAY characters tragic backstories. Show them doing absolutely irredeemable things, but reveal that due to outside circumstances they feel they have no choice but to do such irredeemable things
Or just allow them to do something nice once in a while, like Eboshi from Princess Mononoke
@@Henry258654 such a well written "villain"... I don't even know if I COULD consider her a villain. Such a masterpiece of a movie!!
Sounds like AOT, because no one considers themself a villain, and all are considered morally gray since they have both done terrible things on both sides to win the war that is going on. I wish that was done more often.
@@SodaPopJX I mean, she wanted to destroy nature... xP
I love her, though.
@@Henry258654 The thing about Eboshi is that she's not the villain, she's an antagonist. The difference is that she's not a bad person, she's only the antagonist because she goes against the goal of the main character.
06:40 BUT JENNA! You're now the Mentor to about 240K people! 🤣
Must be self hate.
*Write that down! Write that down!*
Best Friends to Lovers is one of the best imo. Just this sudden realization that you really want this friend in your life for the rest of your life can be such a cute, sweet "d'aww" moment. Nothing can really compare.
“I find mustache twirling villains more believable.”
Bruh lmao
I know, right? Jenna seems to have a personal problem with people with more social status/money than her, judging from other videos.
@@Henry258654 I completely agree
Wait, when did she say this? I’ve zoomed through it twice and keep missing it.
@@izstrella She didn't use those words, but it was implicit.
• Oh okay, but what part did she find less believable than “moustache twirling villains”?
One trope I'm getting tired of seeing is this one sided gender bashing, so far the worst offenders have been movies like Charlie's Angels, but I've noticed a rise of it in circles.
Either women being portrayed as these perfect, god like beings where all men are bad, or men have to do everything and /only/ the man can.
I don't get why it's hard to make things balanced between male and female characters.
That best friends to partners things has gotten pretty old too. Never liked it, don't think I honestly ever will for the same reasons explained. Best friends IMHO are that; best friends.
It just seems lazy and like a way to avoid writing a well though out out development between two characters.
I'm also getting a bit fed up with the "ice queen trope" too. Why can't a female character be prissy and bad ass? Why does she have to be 'manly' and reject her femininity?
I like bold, strong women but they don't all have to copy Samus. Let her kick ass in high heels and look good doing it and give her a battle skirt.
@Tom Ffrench You're free to have your own opinion, I just personally see the best friends to lovers things as a bit too common in fiction, and when something is too common it gets... eh.
The modern "female empowerment" trope is pretty toxic and not empowering at all. It seems so much more focused on belittling men or enacting violence against men, but their depictions of "strong women" tend to just be hateful, spiteful, angry, hot-headed, amoral women. They act like they're the "good guys" or the ones we should be rooting for, but they come off as bad people. Sometimes they're even worse than the supposed "bad guys". They complain so much about "toxic masculinity" yet, they give those attributes to their female protagonists quite often. It's just weird that these people who say they want to portray women as strong cannot seem to weave strength, femininity, and morality into their characters.
Steven Universe broke redemption arcs, change my mind. When every singe villain ever gets redeemed immediately after being genocidal space terrorists for millennia with no consequences, it’s broken.
It's the theme of the show and leans into the creator's personal beliefs and as it is their story, I disagree that anyone has the right to complain about this. Plus it's always realistically done and dosn't ALWAYS happen the same way.
I'm a sucker for the brooders, though he does have to have more than one emotion. I don't want to date them lol. Though I have to admit, I can be a sucker for cliched tropes. I don't know why, I just do. But I like unique ones too.
I love the moment the brooding *breaks* wide open and the storm of emotion comes ...
What if the flashback is an actual PTSD flashback and the character struggles with this and other PTSD symptoms throughout the novel?
That would probably be one of the setups where flashbacks work well. Another is where one character asks about what happened to cause thing B and character A would have to tell a whole long story, so flashback for a more interesting and detailed version of that story, and then the reader skips the conversation. I think both are in Avatar the Last Airbender, which is an example of how to do pretty much anything right.
that seems fine tbh...just keep in mind this is just her own opinions in a video. if you need to use the trope don't let others stop you
@@mel4957 yeah.. just be smart about what youre adding
I don't see tragic people becoming villains unrealistic, broken people can lash out and the constant torment can lead you jaded. Toxic environments can breed toxic mindests and not all trauma leads to empathy
Agreed. Trauma can lead to both bad and good people. My main antagonist is actually not an evil person, but he does evil things sometimes simply to reach his goals which he finds more important (and those goals are fed by hate because of trauma). Then he feels bad about it afterwards. He does that, how's the saying... something about the means justifies the goals.
@@SysterYster ends justify the means
@@becuaseimbored3481 Yes, that! Thank you! :D
I have a mentor that I'm killing off. Only they are the villain's mentor and the villain hates the heroes' guts for killing her.
Bro basically the same
I read a book at some point that had flashbacks as PTSD that the character was currently experiencing and I thought that seemed natural enough
That sounds good.. another one with good flashbacks was Behind Her Eyes.. it’s a psychological supernatural thriller.. i normally hateee flashbacks, but i fell in love with the character that only showed up in the flashbacks and he became very essential to the story.. (if you’ve read the book- you know)
On the point of hardship breeding empathy: not always.
Fast version:
- All 3 were probably psychopaths or sociopaths.
- Abusive+absent fathers
- Seemingly enjoyed violence or being in danger
- From what info we've got, good or at least not that far below average for the time mums
- Sibling death.
- Stalin and Hitler didn't found the ideologies they committed atrocities in the name of, they found extremist ideologies while their loved ones were dead or separated from them, joined them and quickly became extreme radicals. In Hitler's case he got leadership due to (I personally don't see it) "speaking skills" and Stalin pulled a sneaky followed by a lot of shooty/poisoning/he killed his rivals after Lenin died.
- Not born into power. Took power and then did anything they could to maintain and expand it.
- Not mentioned below but now that I've looked it up all 3 of them also had illegitimate children. In the case of Genghis a LOT of illegitimate children.
Genghis Khan killed more people than Stalin and Hitler put together and at a time when there were far fewer people to kill. It was unclear who his biological father was because his mother was kidnapped while travelling with her newly wed husband, with Genghis being raised as the son of the kidnapper, and that combined with him having older brothers from his step?/dad's other wives likely contributed to a very difficult childhood.
After his father died (I can't remember how but if I remember correctly the whole kidnapping thing caused or was a part of a family feud against either Genghis's ma's family or Genghis's maybe-daddy's family, plus he was a known warrior and likely sworn in service to a local chieftain/lord who could've called on him to fight for him. Point is it was probably a violent death), he and one of his brothers killed the eldest for taking food from the rest of the family for himself.
Some rank-rising, saving his own wife after she was kidnapped which caused a lack of clarity over whether his first son was his own, a lot of fighting and killing and the rough and unsteady unification of the Mongol people under him later and the first thing he did after his first conquest on non-Mongols was kill every man and boy taller than a wheel-barrel in the region he conquered so that it wouldn't be able to rise against him and would have weaker fighters if it did.
Joseph Stalin was the only one of his parents' children that lived past infancy. His dad was a shoemaker and his mother a domestic servant, and his dad was known to be an abusive alcoholic who left his wife and child to work in a city factory (I'm assuming he sent back his wages but it doesn't clarify either way), who then lived in the house of a priest. Smallpox left his face scarred for life and blood poisoning made one of his arms shorter than the other, which paired with being undernourished contributed to him being smaller than the other children in his class when photographed and wearing platform shoes to seem taller and more imposing as an adult.
That said, his life did improve because of his ma and the priest taking extreme effort to get him educated so that he could earn better money, although he still got in trouble with school authorities quite a lot due to being a right dickhead towards fellow students.
After he helped Lenin gain power, Lenin made a note explicitly stating "do not let this fucking monster get control of the USSR"... so anyway it was only found after Lenin was already dead and Stalin had seized power. Lenin wasn't exactly averse to killing shitloads of people to achieve his aims either so for him to be going "for fuck's sake do not let this guy be in charge when I kick the bucket" makes all the shit Stalin did pretty predictable.
Also he robbed a bank and killed 40 people in the process.
Adolf Hitler probably had it the easiest (dad make a lot of money in customs) and compared to most other big mass murderers was probably the least competent in military matters, though then again it's not easy to argue that Stalin's "who cares about casualties?" approach is exactly an instance of military genius. The only time he personally led in a battle was the Putsch, in which he was utterly wrecked, which contrasts a lot with Stalin personally leading Red Army troops in the Russian civil war and Genghis most likely dying in his 70s because of an injury from an arrow he got to the leg while leading soldiers through a desert getting infected.
He had 5 siblings, only one of which survived, had an abusive father and went from getting top grades in primary school to flunking secondary school when there was a bigger focus on maths and science, so he dropped out and got turned down from art school for being mediocre. His dad died when he was a teenager and his mum died as he was coming into adulthood. He moved to Germany just before WW1 and used a petition to get into the German army, where he got shot in the leg in 1916 and was temporarily blinded by a gas attack in 1918, which he was still in the hospital from when Germany surrendered, which he was big mad about because "oh boy can't wait to go get shot or gassed again".
Joins Nazi party, becomes a leading member, gets arrested for trying to start a revolution which was stopped more or less immediately by police, sentenced to 5 years, starts writing Mein Kampf, gets let out after 9 months, gets votes, takes over from President during perceived crisis, and then literally everyone knows the rest.
Yeah I'm so over redemption arcs let the bad guy be bad... I love writing my villains cuz they are no redeemable qualities whatsoever.
However I do like a villian who doesn't realize they are the bad guy. Like they are so devoted and convinced they are doing the right thing they stop at nothing to achieve their goals and the only difference between them and the "heroes" of the story is how they achieve this goal giving the "heroes" a moral dilemma
There's no dilemma. If he wants to sacrifice an orphanage to stop the dark lord, he's an enemy.
@@Henry258654 That’s peak morally grey. It’s like the trolley problem.
You could kill some orphans to stop the Dark Lord from killing many more people, but then their blood will be on your hands. Or you could save the orphans, allowing the Dark Lord to rise. More people died, but at least your hands are clean.
@@twxx460_ tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption
I think it was in the crossover with The Darkness, Superman says: "The choice between the lesser evil is no choice at all"
Villains who are convinced they're the heroes are the BEST.
@@Henry258654 good point. I didn’t think of possible other options. But at the same time, there may be no other options. Sometimes when you try to have the best of both worlds, you get nothing.
2:30 "BUT JENNArally speaking" am I hearing it right 😂
Geralt does have an amazing journey but not in the netflix series.
The Netflix series so far is only one season long and follows a collection of short stories set before the first book so...
@@AvengerAtIlipa I read the saga multiple times and I can tell you that they already broke the lore for no reason even though the actual story didn't even start. That's pretty impressive...
@@Synthia17 Oh boy. Can't wait.
@@AvengerAtIlipa There's an essay to be written about it and I don't think I'm gonna waste my time. There's plenty of good videos on youtube already about that topic. Enjoy the show if you so chose too.
@@AvengerAtIlipa The Netflix show is only one season long and allready inrevorerably diverged from the source, and kicks it in the mud in every instance it gets.
Fify, don't have to tank.
I hate, when one of the characters (usually male) is in love in a woman and pursues her until he wears her down. No matter, how many times did she show lack of interest.
Sometimes I get annoyed at overused tropes, whether played straight of subverted, but sometimes that makes me all the more appreciative when they're done WELL, or with more depth and insight than usual.
I hate many of these troupes and the ones I don't hate, aside from one which I love, I feel kinda meh about :) Great Video Jenna!
I forgot early access was a thing and I was like ????? The video was posted 10 seconds ago
@@lukasnovella9001 I am a time traveller 😂😂
I would like to give a quasi pushback on friends to lovers just because it is literally my wife and my's story. We were friends for almost nine years, good friends for six, and best friends for three before we started dating. I do agree, that the most common reason for the change can be summed up as "I saw them in a swimsuit for the first time" and that is tired. Also, your mention of the lack of seeing and getting the meet cute is a very good point. But I would say the trope is still valid, people just need to shake up the reason for the sudden interest in changing the relationship. In my case, what changed was after years of knowing each other, we were both single at the same time for the first time. This didn't lead to a relationship of convenience, but our friendship deepened into best friendship. When you're in a relationship, you tend to keep an emotional guard up around friends of the opposite sex because you don't want to create an emotional bond rivalry. It's a way that cheating often begins. So that was the first time that we were both without that guard and our friendship became really special. This led to me realizing that once one of us started dating someone else, that guard would go back up, and the still single one of us would need to pull back because to do otherwise would sabotage the relationship. I didn't want this and the only way to maintain our friendship was to start a relationship together. Now we're eight years together, seven years married and three kids later.
Long story most of you didn't care about to say, maybe just re-examine the cause of friends to lovers. Oh. And most of that predating interim was spent texting because of distance, so physical attraction/hormones wasn't even a factor.
When she said 'mentor' my mind immediately went to Shifu. Best mentor hands down.
In the end, though, he's the one who got mentored.
Iroh is pretty high up there too
I second this
bonus points for the redemption arc if it is completely unwarranted. One of the reason Zuko's redemption arc worked so well was because the only reason he was bad to begin with was because his dad twisted him up so bad. Zuko would have been good all along if he had a normal upbringing and once he stopped seeking his father's approval he was able to make changes for the better and start doing.... actual redemptive acts.
contrast that with some redemption arcs where the person just enjoys murdering, and still does, but does it for the right reasons. Is that them being redeemed, or the protagonist stretching the definition of "good"
as for tragic backstory, there are something something that can never explain. When it's just kind of shoved in there, and doesn't explain any of the characters choices, it's even more infuriating. Sometime the last thing someone with a tragic backstory wants is to be a jerk, sometimes the thing they want most is peace, or to help those in the same situation they were. see uncle Iroh, because Avatar the last air bender absolutely nailed it's characters.
Kinda agree for most of these, unless they are done well. HOWEVER, I laughed out loud at the best friends to lovers, as that’s me and my husband 😅
You made my day. I was mad all day because one of my friends kept asking me to write them into my book and had so many ideas for them I was going insane. Thank you for your content ❤️
Was hoping you'd like the novel I'm planning. I guess not. Sorry, but I think it's quite realistic for friends to fall in love. I've totally had friends I was interested in for long periods, but never acted on those feelings. If they suddenly found interest in me, even if it was because I became hot, I'd be super excited. Obviously a new physical attraction would lead into attraction to the persons personality, especially if you already appreciated that personality as a friend. It's just as shallow as meeting someone you find attractive and then getting to know their personality because you find them physically attractive.
Very interesting perspective on the mentor trope!
Personally, I do enjoy that trope for largely the same reason you hate it - my personal experience with mentor figures has largely been terrible. So when the protagonist is blessed with a mentor they don't have to be terribly disappointed in and hurt by later on it just... makes me happy. At least in books the whole thing works.
Edit: Also, a secret family member was an IRL thing for me X))
I’m writing the mentor trope into my book.. in my life I’ve had many mentors being grown up around so many different people but i never included the trope because of that.. but i did think about it when Jenna said that’s not related.. i find it very relatable.. when i was young i declared i had 3 moms at one point.. people who were just good to me even though we weren’t related
i love how happy jenna is when she's talking about her books :)
ok i agree with most of what you said about the "historically accurate" fantasy but i actually /love/ when people talk about the way the normal people live in their world!! i love the expositions on farming and politics and religions and folklore!! but i just hate when that's tied to a needlessly patriarchal society like no thaaaaankss
@John Walker ok well people are allowed to dislike/be uncomfortable with things lol
@John Walker "Wahhh, how dare people criticize a book for uncritically upholding sexism"
*gestures to rosey posey* Thank you!!!
Yeah it seems Jenna just likes cut-and-dry books that don't have much depth outside of the story. Those details she hates so much are the meat and potatoes of worldbuilding, which I'm guessing she doesn't like.
trope #4 ticks me off mostly because I am writing a historical fantasy in the Victorian era (and it took me quite a good while to research customs, fashion and etc). also not a fan of #6 mostly because it just makes me feel uncomfortable. I saw happen #9 irl with a very good friend of mine and my sister (they have been friends for many years) and the two decided to start dating once they both have graduated from high school as things got a bit complicated during the middle to high school era.
1. Enemies to lovers/bully- I don’t understand why people find it romantic to be treated like trash. Like what?
2. Surprise baby- There is nothing, I repeat *nothing*, more of a romance and sexy time killer than kids. And when you don’t know it’s coming in a book? I RAGE.
3. Dub/noncon- again, I have no idea how assault is sexy or romantic. Ugh.
4. Mafia/bad boys as romantic love interests- why do people think that criminals and bad people are love interests? I don’t get it.
5. Heroine who is so independent that she’s TSTL- Don’t go rushing into danger if you aren’t trained. It’s ok to hide and stay out of the way when trained men take care of a dangerous problem. It doesn’t make her less powerful, independent, or whatever. It makes her a smart person who understands her limits and vulnerabilities.
I’m sure I could think of more.
I literally hate everything you mentioned, I can't believe you listed all of them. It was like winning the lottery, number by number
Jenna: 'bEsT fRiEnDs tO lOvErS iS tHe WoRsT'
Me, about to drop yet another couple of quirky teenagers realizing that they are in love: 'I GOT NO CHOICE'
"Friends to lovers? Make it make sense!"
Easy : make the relationship gay. Two boys, friends since childhood in a conservative family/city/state/country/etc. It's now high school time, hormones kicks in, and the paranoia start as they realise they are falling for their best friend. But it's difficult to confess when both of them desperatly try to pass for heteros so they don't get beaten up at school, or worse, kicked out of their house. So they both start to date girls they don't even like, making them think the other is hetero, and soon they are convince their friend will act disgusted if they confess to them, ruining not only their friendship, but risking the truth being exposed to everyone else (and the violence that come with it). Then you have the slow unravelling of all the fears and internalize homophobia that keep them appart until they finally start dating (publicly or secretly, depending of the story).
And boom, perfectly valid reason. Now let's just hope that one day, this exemple will stop existing in our day to day life so that trope become a distant memory. =_=
It'll be romanticized by future romance authros who love forbidden romance though..
xD Yep, guess we can't escape that phenomenon no matter the era. Maybe it'll get as popular as the "historical" romances of today, who knows.
1) Imaging a brooding hero expecting for him to have a traumatic past or something, but the more you learn about them the more you realize that their life was completely normal and their just born like that.
2)What if the "good" character was the actual predator?
3)A Flashback should serve to deliver information that changes the characters actions.
4)A also hate Lazy world building.
5)Depends on how it's done.
6)Wut? That's a thing?
7)Depends on how its done.
8)Oh, you are going to LOVE my villain! She has committed every crime you can think of without remorse at all, from the pettiest of crimes to Genocide to Red Room level shit. She's an unrepentant entitled genocidal cannibal rapist pedophile. She's the Witch Queen.
9)Best friends to lovers is actually my favorite romance.
10)Depends on how its done.
Sometimes the story doesn’t work the same without flashbacks; I think very hard about where they occur- often it’s comparative, & serves to contrast with the previous emotional state of the character, or illustrate- without a massive exposition-dump- why they feel as they do, about a person or situation.
I also vary the length of them, but they are never longer than 2-3 paragraphs.
Flashbacks that take up most of a chapter??? Why?!
I’ve also converted one or two flashbacks to dreams- not the whole ‘it was all a dream’- thing, but- we think about our dreams at times; ‘Why has this come to me, _now_ ?’
‘What is my subconscious trying to puzzle out, about what’s going on in my life?’- kind of thing - I get not everyone views their dreams this way, but still...
Disrupting people's expectations about tropes is a dangerous business, I've found...
Me, someone who loves redemption arcs: :(
I gotta say though what kinda bothers me about it is how often all the villians (or almost all of them) get redeemed when that trope is used.it makes each of them feel less special smh.I think there should be both redeemable villians and total douches in a story.
THANK YOU. I'm hating the trend of redeeming nonredeemable characters. Oh, you were a genocidal nazi-like villain and you killed, directly or indirectly, thousands of people? Aw, but you look sad, so i'll forgive you!
UGH i hate it! It lowers the value of well-written stories about characters getting redeemed, because now for some reason it's just expected. And i particularly hate stories in which every-single-bad guy gets to be redeemed. There are no stakes in a story like that! No repercussions, no consequences, because if there were consequences, then the redemption may not be possible.
One trope I love is "A dame with a past, and a hero with no future." The femme fatale and the broken gumshoe detective.
I personally enjoy the best friends to lovers trope. Don't get me wrong, I do love the meet cutes. BUT, I love slow burners even more. There's something I love about watching people slowly fall in love with each other
I dont redeem my Big Bad or the antagoninsts that are evil to the core.. but there are two or so people in my story who were doing what they were told to do or doing what they thought was best when they were being evil and i think that’s a good reason for a redemption arc.. they’re breaking away from their warped sense of morality.. while still remain a bit... mean
The absolute worst: She’s sooo strong and stands up for herself, but when the dominant wolf boy/ vampire dude shows up and says “you’re mine! I’ll kill anyone who tries to touch you” the chick is like “you can’t tell me what to do! I’m an independent woman!”, but she still spreads her legs and let this guy control her life, because “he just loves her so much that he can’t control himself. It’s not his fault!”
I just kinda realized my MC never gets a mentor. He's a vampire, but the master vamp just sorta leaves and he's gotta fend for himself. XD Shitty move, but at least I don't have this trope in my book. :P
Remember Tropes are tools and aren't inherently bad and now you have something that makes your book different
I kinda want to read your book now 😂
damn I wanna read your book and I'm guilty my vamp had a mentor hahah
@@lustforlife7792 There's nothing wrong with having tropes
@@lustforlife7792 Haha, thank you! XD It's on Wattpad if you really wanna. Not the most edited version, but still. It's a dark fantasy tragedy, so not the classic wattpad-romance stuff. XD
I’m so on with you on the redemption arcs and backstory parts so hard. House of night is filled with all of these
But I love friends to lovers... when it's done right it's such a good trope.
I really appreciate how you really emphasize audiobooks, one of the biggest problems I have had in the past years is not having an audiobook available for a lot of books that I would like to read but am unable to without the audiobook. While I am not visually impaired I do have a learning disability that makes reading difficult, so I really appreciate this advocacy. Also, I totally downloaded and started The Savior's Champion because of this. Thank you.
I never liked reading friends to lovers books. It’s never as fun. However, I adore the enemies to lovers trope. Like, that “oh no they’re hot” moment between two people who hate each other really butters my biscuit, you know?
I read "10 Covid tropes that I hate", and I was like, is it really that deep of a facet of life now? lol
I’m living the best friends fall in love with each other (at least from my side) trope right now and let me tell you, it’s angsty as hell, especially because both of our parents would disown us if she did love me back and they found out we were in a romantic relationship. Please send help. I’m drowning in the angsty sea.
idk but i love the best friends to lovers trope.
i just couldn't date someone if we don't have a super deep emotional connection and know each other's darkest secrets beforehands. it doesn't make sense - why would i devote myself to someone if i don't know every little thing about them and we haven't shared at least 3 years of memories so i know for sure what kind of person they are? it's irresponsible and risky! i think the romantic feelings will just... naturally follow from such a deep and loving relationship.
maybe im demiromantic lol
sorry for the rant
I agree with all of these, though I do have a weakness for the Bad boy x good girl couple, though only if the dude isn’t abusive but simply just troubled and rebellious and the girl is more on the shy side (but still has a freaking personality... ‘cause ya know... shy girls can have personalities I’ve heard)
A trope I also absolutely hate are love triangles. They just frustrate me and also: In my entire life, I’ve never liked two people at the same time and “had to choose” or that kind of bullsh*t. I just hate it. (There are exceptions ofc, it can be done right like almost every other trope, but most of the time it just frustrates and bores me)
as a shy person I can confirm that they do have personalities
Same
So many good tropes to hate here.
Yeah, I don't like seeing them try to redeem a villain who's crossed the moral event horizon. I'd rather see that kind of villain get that look of surprise on his face when the protagonist runs him through with a sword.
6:49
"Mentors are paternal or maternal, they bring the warm, fuzzy feelings..."
Baghra: *coughs*
The only 'best friends to lovers' angle I'll accept is them having to first accpet their sexuality or something along those lines before even admitting they have feelings for their best friend
Honestly, I agree with all of them for at least the most part except the ninth one. I honestly love best friends to lovers, one of my favorite books executed it super well. Especially when they were friends from kids for a while and then had a falling out, but are now friends again & like each other, like that makes sense to me, idk.
I don't mind the best-friends-to-lovers thing, but that may just be because meet cute is MY trope everyone else loves that I hate...
I love the best friends to lovers trope tbh. It's not unusual irl and not growing a spine in 10 years is very real. When you know someone for that long and they are such an important part of your life and romantic feelings have a chance of ruining it, the fear is real. It's the same as lovers who can't imagine their lives without each other. Would you really risk your current closeness for maybe going out, not even knowing it that could work in the long run?
A romantic trope I hate is LOVE TRIANGLES, or any sort of geometrical figure. I'm so over them!
Nooo I love Geralt 😂 he's not emotionless! He actually just acts that way because people think witchers can't feel anything and will pay him more since they can't appeal to his sympathetic side. He's actually so lonely and I love when he finally has Ciri to care for! :)
My least favourite troupe: Bland white bread teenage girl in dystopia fiction who despite being described as small and sometimes under weight can beat up pros in hand to hand combat with zero combat experience and is able to lead a revolution by doing absolutely nothing
#9. He saw her without her glasses for the first time.
Which doesn't even make sense, as glasses don't even make someone ugly. A hot librarian girl? Sign me in ;)
@@DS-mi9ru What if it was the other way? He saw her with her glasses on the first time.
@@Lilitha11 A main character with a fetish for nerdy looking girls with glasses, interesting...
The majority of Author tube or the authorities of writing and editing are from the West or Countries that treasures reading and the writing industry. Here in the region of Cordillera in the Philippines, it took me about 8 years to write and publish my book. The main reason is the Arts in general like writing, music, painting, sculpture, acting and the like are considered as "hobbies" and not a "real careers". People are focused on what they consider as "real careers" that are "paying jobs" like farming, carpentry, professions, businesses and the like. This is mainly due to the low standard of living or poverty that are prevalent here. It was difficult for me to find editors, beta readers, critic partners, support systems (family and friends who believed on my career choice), time to write (have to hustle in the real world to fulfill basic needs and to exhausted in my free time) and others. I end up skipping some steps and submitted my manuscript this year in a publishing company willing to help me publish as a novice writer. I don't know if this is necessary but it is my reality as a writer.
The Best Friend trope always annoys me so much. Especially when they've known each other since they were like five and seen each other every day since then. That's not how humans form bonds with people. Friends to lovers is great, but childhood best friends to lovers is... Unlikely.
Hello person I view as a sibling, I'm suddenly sexually attracted to you... Nope, no thanks.
Also, this person bullied me as a child, and now they've "changed," so I'm going to marry them. Nope, no way in hell, I've already seen the worst of you and I will never forget it.
Both of these happen in Harry Potter and are good examples of why JKR should never write romance.
Flashbackwise I really love how mad max fury road ( I know it isn't a book) has maxes memories flash for a second or two instead of being a full-fledged scene. Admittedly it does make max more shallow but it also adds to the ambiguity of him and tells his story without shoving it in your face.
I don't think Geralt of Rivia is emotionless. I saw plenty of emotions in Cavill's performance
In my story, protagonist and antagonist have the same mentor (they are not completely mentor, they are side hero's and protagonist's mother), antagonist since the beginning acts to be their friend (she was the only one who knew her magical abilities since beginning).. So, protagonist would definitely get trouble killing her, he kills her by deceit.
I agreed with you for about 90% of the list! I do love the friends to lovers trope, though, because ... reasons ;-)
I will say i love when theres a flashback that a character is repressing and fighting to not remember and then something triggers the memory and they are forced to relive it, its so heartbreaking and i love it. Best example of this is in salt to the sea by ruta sepetys when a character was covering up her sexual assault in her memory with a relationship she wish had been the cause of her pregnancy, it was so tragic and heartbreaking and that flashback scene was some of sepetys' best writing imo
I often hear that prologues are a BAD thing from most agents and editors I've talked to. They tell me to put the information in the body of the work. Also, sometimes the clues contained in the flashback can only come out at certain times in your book (for pacing and plotting reasons).
Often times, most flashbacks I've read or use bring information that is previously unknown that you need to go further in the story (or to piece it all together). I do agree, however, that they can be jarring...especially if done wrong. I think if your book is divided into parts (for example) you could slide a flashback into the beginning or end of that part. That way it's not so bumpy. OR you can use a good segue that delivers the reader into the flashback. (The heroine sneaks into a cave belonging to the witch, looks into the witch's scrying pool and sees...)
I rather like character's telling a story within a story though. The past is transposed through someone's words. "Over a hundred years ago, when I was a wee sprite, I was dancing amongst the willows, singing my song, when..."
I write a lot of stories about immortal creatures, so balancing time jumps is important to me.
As far as villains having a sympathetic background...I don't think of some of my villains as "Villains". I think of them as antagonists. Antagonists don't have to be evil...they just have to get in the way. Some of my antagonists do evil things (irredeemable things), but no matter how sympathetic an antagonist's background are, they often get what's coming to them. Of course, I don't write romance. Romance is more of a subplot created out of deep friendships. But that's how I like it.
I 100% agree with the redemption arcs. There are many characters that do irredeemable things and then they are once again accepted by the characters (because that's what make them good at heart). Oh my God, it pisses me off every time. You kill somebody I love, you ain't getting anything from me except my loathing.
Zuko and a few other "redeemed" characters also showed a struggle with what they did vs. who they were brought up to be. You could see his change and his struggle for every bad decision he made. That's a HUGE difference. The real antagonist becomes his father, who uses him as a pawn and we can understand his fear and isolation. In other words, he was written well, which I can't say for most other "redemption arcs" I see on TV or in books lately. They're trying to be too "grimdark".
Honestly, most people would probably say a flashback is better than a prologue. Flashbacks can fit seamlessly into a story without disrupting the flow, while a prologue almost by definition don't fit within the flow of the main story, which is why it is taken outside of the main story. The fact that both flashbacks and prologues are easy to do poorly is another matter altogether however.
@@Lilitha11 Agreed.
Love your videos, Jenna! Not sure I've ever commented before, but I have something to say about redemption arcs. They need to be set up properly, and I feel like that's something that's missed 99 times out of 100. Many authors and screenwriters seem to think that by having a former villain do one good thing and then die, they've redeemed themselves because even though they lived a bad life, they died for a good cause.
I'm so glad you brought up Zuko because he's the perfect demonstration of how to make this arc work. By and large, he always balked at doing horrible things. That's the reason for his trauma and his role in the story. The potential for good in him is shown almost from the beginning. Not only that, but we're shown that he has someone in his life who is doing everything he can to support him and subtly guide him onto the path of redemption. Throughout the series we watch Zuko struggle with one moral choice after another. Sometimes he does the right thing. Sometimes he does the wrong thing. Sometimes he does the right thing for the wrong reasons and sometimes he does the wrong thing for the right reasons. Ultimately his redemption is the culmination of lots of hard work that he does to become a better person, including confronting truths about himself and his people that he could have easily turned a blind eye to.
Contrast this to Kylo Ren, who (spoilers) just kind of kisses Rey and then dies fighting Palpatine and we're supposed to think "Oh he was a good person in the end." Nope. No way. Not good enough. It would have worked far better to have him turn near the start of the movie, work his ass off to prove himself to the resistance, join them in their fight, survive, and then in the end we watch him do the hard work of helping rebuild the new republic, and maybe he and Rey take on a friendship (not a romance, that wasn't earned either) where they support each other in learning to wield the force, seek out other potential Jedi, and start a new academy. That would be a possible redemption.
God I fucking hate Rise Of The Skywalker
@@JazzSicaa Yeah but I sure like the idea that I pitched in my comment! lol
@@screamingtongue Yeah. I sadly watched this movie in the theaters. One of the worst experiences I had....
My favorite booktuber has uploaded, best birthday present ever!
I don't like when the main character is strong because he was destined to be strong, like because he is the chosen one or because he comes from a legendary family or whatevs
I love it when the hero is just a simple person who works hard to achieve their goals and turns out to become strong because they earned it, not because it's their destiny
I like reading villain point of views, but only when it's showing all the bad things they're doing and their scheming while the heroes are trying to take them down. I don't really care about their background, I just want to see them being evil, ya know?
this is a really good point- I was thinking that I like scenes from an evil or morally grey character's pov, but I realize the scenes I'm thinking of is where they're just being morally grey or evil, or working together with a 'good' character because their goals line up for the moment. I like seeing them doing or thinking evil things, and scenes from their pov have way more opportunity to show their thoughts.
11:30 I mean, I can agree with most of this, but 2 of my best friends of all my life (I know them an they know each other for about 17 years) were great friends until 3 years ago that they started dating and now are gettin married, so I guess it does happen
There's only ONE mentor I can get behind!
Haymitch Abernathy.
Legend.
And he doesn’t die! Even better!
honestly though, i love friends to lovers but childhood friends to lovers is one of my least favorite tropes bc you don't get to see their relationship develop!!