Jump to content

What story/character tropes do you dislike or hate?


twilit
 Share

Recommended Posts

15 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I think people are speaking over each other here because you're conflating the in universe concept of a power level with the general principle of power scaling.

...But that's kinda the point. Scouter levels aren't the only power level meter. Power Level is generally an ambiguous term used in the franchise that describes the concept of physical ability. I don't know if this is a cultural thing, but we always use the term "power level" here to refer to power scaling. Guidebooks use the term power level in this sense, even when there was no Scouter involved. Even some English communities that I frequented use the term like that.

It's like taking a temperature. Celsius and Fahrenheit are different scales, but the two can measure correctly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 159
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

43 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

...But that's kinda the point. Scouter levels aren't the only power level meter. Power Level is generally an ambiguous term used in the franchise that describes the concept of physical ability. I don't know if this is a cultural thing, but we always use the term "power level" here to refer to power scaling. Guidebooks use the term power level in this sense, even when there was no Scouter involved. Even some English communities that I frequented use the term like that.

It's like taking a temperature. Celsius and Fahrenheit are different scales, but the two can measure correctly.

Well yes and no. I think there is a difference between saying characters are relatively stronger than other characters and assigning an actual number to that value as if its quantifiable and mathematical. Especially when the story goes out of its way to demonstrate that its not, while gulfs exists between characters, fights themselves contain varying degrees of power being on display at any given time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Maof06 said:

Because their difference in power decided the outcome of the battle.

No, not only the villains cares about power levels. Every time a character says "X person is stronger than me!" its about power levels.

That's because earthlings can camouflage their Ki. When they're going to fight, they power up back. Just because they hide they presence doesn't mean that power levels doesn't matter.

Power levels permeated Dragon Ball from start to finish, even before they were properly introduced (Classic Dragon Ball) until it became muddied (Majin Buu Saga). Goku, when fighting Tien in the WT (before the concept was introduced) had a power level. Goku, when fighting Buu at the end of Z, also has a power level, although it is not stated the exact amount. That's the reason why Goku can fight Buu evenly: SS3 Goku has a similar power level to Buu's. Vegeta, for example, doesn't have, that's why when they fight he got his ass handed to Buu.

Krillin is weak. That doesn't mean he is a bad character. There is nothing said in that thread that came close to stating that a character was bad because he was weak.

You completely missed the point of what I was trying to say. Like Jotari said you confusing power scaling with what Power levels are supposed to represent within the confines of the narrative. The only characters in dragonball who care at all about their power level are villains. They flaunt their power level. They view their power level as something to be feared. The heroes aren’t like that. They don’t flaunt their power levels. To them power levels are simply just a number that doesn’t reflect the quality of who they are as people. To the villains power levels are everything. It defines them. You notice that when Vegeta becomes a good guy he stops giving a shit about power levels and starts to care more about protecting his new family which is the whole point of his character arc. 
 

You’re not supposed to take Power levels as this hard mathematical rule. That is how the villains view power levels and you’re not supposed to agree with the villains that’s why they’re villains. The point of power levels as a narrative tool is to show how little they actually matter because they don’t reflect who a person truly is. Like even in older manga like kinnikuman you see this trope where characters with supposedly high power levels are beaten by characters with extremely low power levels because the point is that power levels aren’t everything and you shouldn’t let yourself be defined by them.

Edited by Ottservia
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well yes and no. I think there is a difference between saying characters are relatively stronger than other characters and assigning an actual number to that value as if its quantifiable and mathematical. Especially when the story goes out of its way to demonstrate that its not, while gulfs exists between characters, fights themselves contain varying degrees of power being on display at any given time.

Well, the manga and the guides used mathematical values to quantify. While the numbers should not be treated as absolute, the importance of this concrete data is to compare the power between two combatants relatively. For example, when Freeza becomes his second form, he says that his power is approximately 1 million. We then use this data to compare it to other Z warriors, and we see that he is much stronger than them.

11 hours ago, Ottservia said:

You completely missed the point of what I was trying to say. Like Jotari said you confusing power scaling with what Power levels are supposed to represent within the confines of the narrative. The only characters in dragonball who care at all about their power level are villains. They flaunt their power level. They view their power level as something to be feared. The heroes aren’t like that. They don’t flaunt their power levels. To them power levels are simply just a number that doesn’t reflect the quality of who they are as people. To the villains power levels are everything. It defines them. You notice that when Vegeta becomes a good guy he stops giving a shit about power levels and starts to care more about protecting his new family which is the whole point of his character arc. 
 

You’re not supposed to take Power levels as this hard mathematical rule. That is how the villains view power levels and you’re not supposed to agree with the villains that’s why they’re villains. The point of power levels as a narrative tool is to show how little they actually matter because they don’t reflect who a person truly is. Like even in older manga like kinnikuman you see this trope where characters with supposedly high power levels are beaten by characters with extremely low power levels because the point is that power levels aren’t everything and you shouldn’t let yourself be defined by them.

Power levels are the relative measure of a warrior's battle power. They're DBZ power scaling. This is a narrative tool of the work to say more or less how strong someone is. They do not represent anything deep in "the confines of the narrative". You are making up stuff to justify your vision. Here's Word of God about the origin of power levels. Toriyama just created it and removed for simplicity's sake. Again, there's no deeper meaning. If you can't provide a source in the manga or through the author, its only headcanon.

11 hours ago, Ottservia said:

You notice that when Vegeta becomes a good guy he stops giving a shit about power levels and starts to care more about protecting his new family which is the whole point of his character arc. 

Vegeta stopped caring about the exact numbers on the Scouter at the start of the Namek Saga, while he's still clearly the bad guy. He becomes a father when he's an antihero at best. Even when he settles down he never stopped caring about power, about becoming stronger and surpassing Goku. This is true to his character to this day.

11 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Like even in older manga like kinnikuman you see this trope where characters with supposedly high power levels are beaten by characters with extremely low power levels because the point is that power levels aren’t everything and you shouldn’t let yourself be defined by them.

Dragon Ball is not like kinnikuman. There is no deeper meaning about power levels. It is not because a character is good that he will win. Farmer with a shotgun will never defeat Raditz. And again, it's not because of the thematic importance "in the confines of the narrative". There's no deeper meaning, it is just a rule of that universe.

Edited by Maof06
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/11/2021 at 5:33 AM, Maof06 said:

Farmer with a shotgun will never defeat Raditz.

That's not entirely true actually. Super has Goku get shot in the back by one of Frieza's goons who's otherwise depicted as a non combatant. And it works too. Goku's out for the count because of it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

55 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

That's not entirely true actually. Super has Goku get shot in the back by one of Frieza's goons who's otherwise depicted as a non combatant. And it works too. Goku's out for the count because of it. 

That happened because Goku lowered his guard and supressed his Ki. By the time Raditz is introduced, only earthlings can supress their Ki, so Raditz couldn't be killed by the farmer even if he wanted.

Anyway, I think I should rephrase my quote there at the beginning. When I said that x wouldn't be able to defeat y, I meant in a fair fight. Ambushing your opponents when they are off guard does not prove that you are stronger than your opponent. It's basically the "Did Vegeta beat Goku in the Buu saga?" question again.

P.s. : He didn't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

Someone being overly dense when it comes to someone having feelings towards them gets kinda old, i guess. more nitpicky than it actually bothering me, though.

I can definitely understand and agree with this. That said, I also don't like when all the other characters act like the person somehow should've been figured it out already even though the person with the crush never said anything. It's really weird how the more poorly-written examples of this can somehow make me simultaneously think both, "Notice it already!" and "Stop blaming them for not noticing when the person has yet to confess!" without any cognitive dissonance on my part.

Basically, I would really like it if there were more stories where the characters are actually open and honest about their feelings for each other. Less, "Why are you blushing?" and more of this:

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

I can definitely understand and agree with this. That said, I also don't like when all the other characters act like the person somehow should've been figured it out already even though the person with the crush never said anything. It's really weird how the more poorly-written examples of this can somehow make me simultaneously think both, "Notice it already!" and "Stop blaming them for not noticing when the person has yet to confess!" without any cognitive dissonance on my part.

 

Said much better than me but yeah, something like that! Xd

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

Said much better than me but yeah, something like that! Xd

Thanks. What did you think of the video? It's from one of only two shows I've seen this year where two characters that like each other actually communicate, and the other show was a rom-com where the premise is that they get married midway through episode 1 (and that was the only reason I decided to even try the show: that it looked like it was actually going to be creative for once, which fortunately turned out to be the case).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

This is something I dislike and Fire Emblem is super guilty of it. All the good characters are attractive. All the evil characters are either unattractive or a select few especially evil characters might be attractive. If they are attractive, then they sometimes also look evil anyway. I don't know if this changed later on but...needless to say, it makes me find it hard to take the visualization seriously as "art." In real life what you look like has little to do with your personality. People are already biased towards attractive people so making them an exaggerated feature of a video game universe doesn't help with that. The brain makes associations even when we aren't consciously aware of it. I'm also not criticizing the artists and I appreciate their talent and products. I just don't appreciate the way they are strewn together in the games. It's an issue with directing, not artists.

Edited by tacticsfan999
Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, tacticsfan999 said:

This is something I dislike and Fire Emblem is super guilty of it. All the good characters are attractive. All the evil characters are either unattractive or a select few especially evil characters might be attractive. If they are attractive, then they sometimes also look evil anyway. I don't know if this changed later on but...needless to say, it makes me find it hard to take the visualization seriously as "art." In real life what you look like has little to do with your personality. People are already biased towards attractive people so making them an exaggerated feature of a video game universe doesn't help with that. The brain makes associations even when we aren't consciously aware of it. I'm also not criticizing the artists and I appreciate their talent and products. I just don't appreciate the way they are strewn together in the games. It's an issue with directing, not artists.

I'd say the opposite, that there were more plain or unattractive looking characters earlier in the series. Like Dorothy or Gonzales. Or to just give an example with the same character in earlier and later games.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/5/58/NESDolphMac.png

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/e/eb/MishelanFE3.gif

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/1/1a/Michelan_FEAkaneiaSaga.png

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/5/58/MacellanSD.png

Macellan still isn't the picture of typical male beauty in Shadow Dragon, but I think he is designed to look more attractive and, for want of a better word, capable, than in his previous NES and SNES incarnations where there's quite a lot of jank to his face. It's mostly in his eyebrows. His NES incarnation looks like an outright simpleton with that tooth popping out.

Edited by Jotari
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

Death fake-outs; one of the things that destroyed Fairy Tail (and Mashima's aversion to death in general).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/14/2021 at 2:16 AM, vanguard333 said:

I can definitely understand and agree with this. That said, I also don't like when all the other characters act like the person somehow should've been figured it out already even though the person with the crush never said anything. It's really weird how the more poorly-written examples of this can somehow make me simultaneously think both, "Notice it already!" and "Stop blaming them for not noticing when the person has yet to confess!" without any cognitive dissonance on my part.

Basically, I would really like it if there were more stories where the characters are actually open and honest about their feelings for each other. 

I did notice this most with TMSFE, actually. It would have been way better if there was an underlying reason why Itsuki was dense as he was. Though, now that I think about it, maybe he's one of those people who just didn't have a life outside of being forced to study and get into a good university by his strict parents and all? (which isn't uncommon in Japan, considering P4 and 5 showed with Shu and Makoto respectively) 

On 4/10/2021 at 4:38 AM, Ottservia said:

I don’t understand why people like to dunk on the power of friendship so much. If anything I personally find it to be one of the most meaningful and heartfelt messages you can put into your story especially nowadays with everyone cooped up inside. It’s more realistic than you think.

I think it's more about the power of friendship manifesting as some kind of magical-power that's the problem. On the other hand, I love Persona 3-4 and its depiction of friendship and trust, because it shows how people come to trust each other, how they work together, and how things can be achieved when people bring out the best in each other. And it also shows a gradual progression of nurturing trust too.

Edited by henrymidfields
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, henrymidfields said:

I did notice this most with TMSFE, actually. It would have been way better if there was an underlying reason why Itsuki was dense as he was. Though, now that I think about it, maybe he's one of those people who just didn't have a life outside of being forced to study and get into a good university by his strict parents and all? (which isn't uncommon in Japan, considering P4 and 5 showed with Shu and Makoto respectively) 

I haven't played TMSFE, but I'm going to guess that one reason (not necessarily the only reason, but one of them) was simply because the Clueless Chick Magnet (as TV Tropes calls it) is a tired old trope that appears all the time in fiction but particularly in anime. And honestly, it is one trope that I seriously dislike.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A fantasy world that is just like an RPG or JRPG. Nothing takes me out of a story more then when the characters know what level they are or when elements of the world work on video game logic. It easily helps to make the fantasy story a lot less fantastical in the process.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, WraithReborn said:

A fantasy world that is just like an RPG or JRPG. Nothing takes me out of a story more then when the characters know what level they are or when elements of the world work on video game logic. It easily helps to make the fantasy story a lot less fantastical in the process.

Just wondering out of curiosity: what if it's a parody that's using those tropes for laughs? Would you like it then?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Just wondering out of curiosity: what if it's a parody that's using those tropes for laughs? Would you like it then?

That’s more bearable due to the fact that it’s a comedy and as such can more farcical as a result.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I like characters who are mentally intelligent but couldn't be dumber socially basically me minus the mentally intelligent part

 

I also quite enjoy claude-like characters, whatever those are

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I don't like abrasive, abusive characters. That's a major reason why I can't stand stereotypical "loud, bossy, violent anime girls" like Bulma. My family and I have been watching the classic Dragon Ball series and are in the tail-end of the General Blue arc. After seeing how Bulma treated Yamcha during the Hasky mini-arc, I lost all sympathy for her, and am glad Yamcha didn't wind up with her. (Doesn't help that the show sends extremely mixed messages about the fact she's currently an underage teenager yet insists on sexualizing her and playing her for fanservice anyway.) On a similar note, I really don't like characters like Bakugo of My Hero Academia. I've been beaten up and bullied in real life, so characters like him really set me off. The less we see of him, the better (barring times he's getting his ass rightfully kicked, especially by Midoriya).

I also hate most Double Standard tropes, particularly those which entail women abusing men and portraying it as something humorous when it would be anything but the other way around (see: anytime Bad!Launch beats up on guys in Dragon Ball, barring members of the Red Ribbon Army of course since those guys are creeps who absolutely deserve it). This is why I stick to writing pleasant relationships between men and women in fiction, particularly heroes or non-villainous protagonists.

This is also a reason why the Shantae series is starting to lose my respect, as it's becoming a thinly-veiled outlet for toxic feminism with the one guy of the group constantly being mocked, beaten up, and threatened by the girls, despite the fact he's usually just trying to help and likes most girls himself (and in Seven Sirens, he's more help than Sky, one of the girls most guilty of mistreating him!). Just try inverting that gender dynamic, with a bunch of guys constantly humiliating, beating up, and threatening the one girl of the group who happens to be a bit dim-witted yet tries to be helpful and likes men. The very thought makes you cringe, doesn't it? I still like Shantae the character, but I'm starting to grow tired of Shantae the series. I hope the next game does something to change my mind, or else I might give up on it altogether (and maybe go create my own series about a genie girl).

I'm working on my own video game IP with a mostly female cast (it's heavily inspired by magical girl shows like Sailor Moon), and I'm determined to avoid that kind of toxic double standard mentality. In my series' case, there are at least two notable guys, one of whom is nice and the heroine's closest friend, the other a self-absorbed jackass who invites upon himself the humiliation and "amusing injuries" he incurs. The nice guy is actually treated with respect by the heroine and her friends, and is presented as more sympathetic due to not being able to help much with the heroics despite how much he wishes he could. He's not made out to be a loser or an idiot except by jerks like the jackass. That said, I'm also thinking of including a female character who isn't particularly pleasant towards him either and eventually gets called out for it, making her an example of "bad feminism" in a series that's meant to convey positive messages about women and things like love and friendship.

Edited by Lord_Brand
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its more of a collection of tropes but I really can't stand the ''moeblob'' character where its clear that the writers just stuff as many ''moe'' traits into a single character for that sweet otaku money. I think Felicia's a Fire Emblem example as that though she's pretty benign and not all that bad in the grand scheme of things. The most apt example I can think of would be Naotora Ii from the Samurai Warriors series.

They're all cute looking, and their voice is super shrill, and they're a crybaby, and they constantly apologize, and they're a klutz, and they'll always find a way to get into some wacky fanservice, and they're  super submissive. Its the cynical piling up of every trope in the book that rubs me the wrong way. 

Moe characters are fun enough. Nino's undeniably great but that's because she's a character who just happens to convey ''moe'' traits rather than being a character designed to convey every single ''moe'' trait that was ever invented. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

One particular use (or in my opinion, misuse) of the Rule of Sexy is one of my biggest pet peeves. Said peeve is: having a character dress like ogle-bait without any decent in-universe justification for it. One example that always stood out to me is Mythra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. She's far from the type who enjoys being ogled, yet she dresses the way she does... and that one scene where she went hysterical on Rex for what clearly wasn't his fault? That didn't endear her to me. 

I find it extra bothersome that this trope use is so common since it's easy to avoid. Something as simple as "Oh, she likes the male attention" or "Oh, with how poor she is, she has little choice" would've been good enough, but I see such far too rarely :/ 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...