I recently rewatched Disney’s Princess and the Frog movie and I think it’s a great example of how to fix the last trope. At least in terms of the rivals vs friends angle. Tiana and Charlotte are very different people but they’re best friends throughout the whole movie. Charolette is definitely a traditional “girly girl.” She likes pink, fluffy dresses, fairy tales, romance, etc. Tiana is much less enthralled with what she considers unrealistic fairy tale depictions of life in favor of hard work, determination, and competence. She’s very good at her jobs and is shown to be very independent, even to a fault. Despite their drastic personality differences, they not only start as friends, but they remain friends at the end even though it means Charlotte doesn’t get to marry a prince like she’d wanted. She could have been selfish but she chose Tiana’s happiness over her own because she saw how much she and Naveen loved each other. I love how Disney chose to keep their friendship intact because they so easily could have made Charlotte shallow and flat as a character. I feel like her decision gave her depth and made her a better character for it. Sorry this was long. I just love that movie and wanted to talk about one of my favorite characters relationships lol
I mean, I get what you’re trying to go for, though you have to remember that a big part of why *they* both have these dynamics is indefinitely due to how, where, and why they were raised…in 1920s America…? (I don’t think I should have to explain that further, but I also understand that not everyone is familiar with US history, haha.)
@@Aesos3429i feel that’s even more reason to appreciate their friendship- their lives are worlds apart despite being so close, yet their friendship pushes through
The evil offscreen thing gave me an idea. I want a character that has an extremely evil aesthetic, dark capes, high collars, black and purple color scheme, the whole nine yards, but is actually extremely sweet. They aren’t evil, they didn’t used to be evil, they aren’t hiding anything and they aren’t morally grey in the slightest, just a genuine paragon character who loves the dark aesthetic. I want to see someone who looks like the dark lord save a kitten from a tree and then help a kid with their homework. Bonus points if they’re extremely socially oblivious and don’t realize they look like a villain. They just like darkness and dramatic capes.
Might I suggest Nimona? It’s on Netflix and one of the main characters is definitely meant to have like a stereotypical villain vibe with the dark clothing and he even ends up having a sort of “evil lair” and everyone thinks he’s evil but he’s actually really sweet and is trying to save everyone
Titles in full caps often catch people's attention faster, thus usually getting more views. That's why you see a lot of channels where their titles are always in caps
I HATE misunderstanding tropes. When characters either over hear or see only a small part of a conversation or scene then jump to conclusions and get mad at eachother when all along if the characters just talked it out there would be absolutely no problem at all.
My most hated trope is the one shot tough girl. The woman character that always has a stick up her ass, acts super tough, talks big, refuses to accept help especially from a man, has supposedly killed hundreds of enemies with ease off screen... and goes down in one hit and needs to be saved, immediately making them a love interest for the main guy. It just feels like a complete mockery.
yes i hate that one too!!!! like the author will make big talk of this girl being amazing but when it comes to any action or taking down any bad guys suddenly she’s even worse at it then the main character who usually has just started the career she’s experianced in! and it’s salt on the wound when they immediately toss her with the guy who just one upped her on this first day.
@@nyowomofdoom5062 And it's so easy to fix too and in a way that could have her actually make sense as the love interest. Just tone down the sour, aggressive attitude a little and make her competent and willing to work with others. It's so rare to get an actual strong female character, either they're an incompetent birch side character or they're a stiff, emotionless main character with no personality. I want more Mulan's (animated) and Bayonettas in the world.
that’s why the ‘Inheritance Cycle’ (Eragon books) are so good. They make it clear that Arya is way stronger than Eragon and could take him down due to her training and race (elf)
@@RiveroftheWither exactly, because why, there are sometimes those ‘wasted potential’ guys in fiction there will usually be more male characters to fall back on who aren’t wasted potential. The wasted potential on a girl character is usually used on the token girl character ie the only girl character.
The third trope also sucks because polite evil characters can be really interesting if both the politeness and evilness are shown. Like the mayor from Buffy, who was really into manners and didn't like swearing but also wanted to turn into a giant snake and eat children lol. The politeness was a really interesting character trait to mix with that because it showed how shallow a lot of those gestures are when made by a giant snake that wants to eat children
Literally his manners are the main reason why he's such a great character! It's terrifying, it's believable, it fits his backstory. It shows us HOW he got to be mayor without explicitly telling us anything. It shows a desire to control everything and everyone as a key part of his motivation. Political and personal manipulation obviously comes naturally to this man, and that makes you question so much about Sunnydale! I also LOVE that Faith never actually stops loving and missing him, even in the comics. He 100% manipulated her and it was SO creepy but they let Faith hold onto that complicated part of her story, and it adds so much value to her character that we wouldn't have got otherwise Plus, All-American counterpart to Giles vibes is peak
Or Xanatos who is always courteous because he’s just so confident he will come out on top and there really are very few times where he fails and is genuinely put out because of it, most of his schemes are more about pushing the limits so either he breaks them or he finds the new ones he must break, it’s a game of thrills and profit
I have a character like this in a story I’m writing. He’s meant to be very charming and polite (very cliche, I know) but he’s also actively trying to harm all of the other characters. In this same story, however, I have a different “gentlemanly” character, only he’s not a villain, he’s just narcissistic and oblivious
Omg the mayor from Buffy TERRIFIED me His calm demeanor was so frustrating and scary because with his ton you couldn't tell if he was about to talk about his love for good cuisine or how he was going to turn you inside out 😭
Dear Dumb Diary does a really good subversion of the feminine = bad idea. The main character, Jamie, really dislikes the pretty popular girl at her school, Angelica. She thinks Angeline is evil, trying to steal her crush, self-absorbed, etc. But a few books in, we find out that Angeline is actually very sweet, hardworking, and puts a lot of effort into her appearance because she had low self-esteem when she was younger. Eventually the two become friends.
As someone who grew up reading dear dumb diary, the pretty popular girl is named Angeline, not Angelica( Angelica is the bully toddler of the rugrats). Also, while Jaime may have been wrong about the other things, she kinda wasn't wrong about the whole " trying to steal her crush" as, if you reread the book where she fixes Jaime's hair, it says that Angeline stoped doing it when she realized that the crush in question was developing a crush of his own on Jaime. Angeline and Jaime eventually got on better terms because Jaime's aunt married Angelina's uncle so they became step-cousins. However, the mere fact that Jaime never stops treatening Angeline at the start of each diary (instead of just telling her to stop reading like she does with Isabela) tells me that they are not quite in the... Friends territory quite yet.
@@tiredcaffeine4610 it has a musical movie... That i sadly haven't watched because its not avaliable in my country. But i did listen to the songs: my favorites are dear Dumb diary and thanks for listening
One trope i hate is when theres a massive secret that the protagonist always has an urg to tell, so instead of building the tension to tell that secret to drive the plot forward and telling at the right time. They tell that secret at the wrong time or right before a fight, making the plot very messy and it doesnt give any time for the characters to process the information they've been given.
I mostly agree, but if it's revealled by someone with the *intention* to make the protagonist's life more complicated, then I think it's great. But if it's intentional by the protagonist, then yeah, no, icky.
That or the infamous "character got within earshot at the exact wrong moment to take something out of context that ends up creating pointless conflict" trope.
13:26 That’s why I LOVE Legally blonde, Elle woods is the girliest girl ever and is also super smart, ambitious and kind. She is pitted against Vivian but they become friends.
I just watched that movie and I LOVED it! There’s so much stuff saying that you can love yourself and it’s fine if you’re ugly, but never before that movie had I seen something saying that it’s hard to be pretty I’m really self conscious about how naturally pretty I am because it means people see that before anything else, and it also means I’ll get attention from boys that I don’t want It’s also a problem you can’t talk about because it will sound like “oh I wish I wasn’t so DROP DEAD GORGEOUS it’s really a curse… 😏” when that’s not what you’re doing That movie made me feel very seen in a good way
Girly girls who are femenine and strong >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The media really tries to push this "Girl boss" things and then just makes a men with boobs who's masculine so she cool
Ms. Congeniality too where Sandra Bullocks character starts off as gruff, tomboyish, and with deep contempt for the the beauty pageant contestants before really getting to know them and realizing how legitimately deep, smart, and complex they are as people.
When learning how to write, you end up noticing these tropes more and more and it can become vexing. Especially from companies that have many talented writers working on a project.
@stale123 0 days for people asking this question 😅 this video came out for members only yesterday. After you subscribe, you get an option to be a member for a small fee.
The whole thing of "being traditionally feminine and cute = bad" actually affected me for a while when I was younger. I thought I needed to like zombies and blood and 'boy things'. I've always loved princesses and cute things but felt like I shouldn't based on a lot of media that I watched and stuff Edit: I just remembered this time where in class during free time I drew a zombie chasing after a princess due to this little belief. I heard about breaking the gender norms in a lot of shows I watched. Obviously, that's a good message but I kinda felt like I *had* to be into boy stuff or something. I might've just been a stupid kid but idk
me but with the color pink. i used to HATEEEE it when i was little not bcs i thought it was ugly but because i wanted to be different. now its my favorite color lol
Fr- I personally liked both traditionally considered “girlish” and “boyish” things, but I noticed those traditionally feminine characters would always be taken less seriously than tomboys or just boys in general, so I stopped liking pink and other “girly” things as much as I used to
I've always liked the polite villain trope, but I hate when they don't ever show the character doing anything evil. A good example of a polite villain that still does evil things is in the princess bride which I highly recommend watching if you haven't. You get fantasy, romance, wrestlers, sword fights, etc. It's really well done and you get to watch the hero and villain have a threatening conversation in the most polite way possible. 100000000/10 really well written and great for taking writting notes on.
I honestly love writing villains like this. Make them polite and likeable, but evil at the same time. Have the readers fighting over whether they're good or bad ✨
The fourth trope reminds me of when I was watching Danny Phantom and the main girl was lowkey giving 'im not like other girls' Like, she uses her goth aesthetic less like an aesthetic and more like a way to be different, plus any interaction she had with a girl was always hostile. Not to mention that the girls that were hyper feminine were portrayed as dumb bullies.
Something I keep seeing in webtoons that drives me insane are cartoonishly evil schoolyard bullies turned villains that are supposed to be manipulative but they have zero self control/self preservation. This leads to them doing stupid things that get them quickly and easily defeated by the main character making them feel more like a minor inconvenience than an actual threat.
Omg I hate characters that are supposed to be really smart and cunning and intimidating but at the same time act stupid as hell like you can't be scary and comically dumb at the same time. (Example: Valentino from Hazbin hotel. We see him act terrifying with Angel but a complete dumbass with Vox)
This is actually a trope I noticed in my own writing! (A story I've been working on since I was 13, and that I'm finally reworking as an adult.) Well, this comment makes me feel better about overhauling my project, lol.
@@spooket8464whats really infuriating about this is that like, well thought out characters like Spot from ATSV go from “dumb silly” comedic TO extremely evil and cunning. Its such a great shift that can really get under your skin when the humour comic relief character suddenly becomes an actual threat and menacing. The problem is that this is one of the ONLY times you can make a comedy relief character actually properly menacing. The more you put in comedy into something or someone, the harder it will be to give them impact, specifically power and intimidation. People have to be prepared for this. There is some media that mixes being comedic and threatening with its themes and characters really well, however that is because they think out HOW to do this and find ways to make it work. But it takes much more skill and work to do, an example of how hard it can be is Murder Drones, which often struggles to blend the two, yet you can see the potential and the effort.
And then there is the "not like not like other girls" effect, where if you are a girl and you like anything remotely unconventional or guy-ish, like spiders or cars, people accuse you of only doing it to attract attention and boys, and trying too hard to be different. Moral of the story: you really can't win as a girl. So don't even bother and do what you like anyways, because some people will take issue with that no matter what.
When it comes to the whole “masculine woman = good, feminine woman = bad” I think a lot of people immediately will picture a Katniss Everdeen type as the “masculine woman”. I find this really ironic, because although The Hunger Games started a lot of trends in the YA fiction world, most of those trends revolve around people not understanding the point of The Hunger Games, it’s characters, and it’s themes. There are many female characters in The Hunger Games who are traditionally feminine, and yet they are still seen as good (or at the very least, they are charismatic and likable). Where Katniss is a good example of a masculine woman, her little sister Prim has always seemed more feminine to me. Prim is loving, kind, gentle, and a healer, all traits which are typically associated with women. (Whether you think it’s fair to associate those traits with women is another conversation entirely). The same is true of Rue, who Katniss compares to Prim multiple times in the text. Rue heals Katniss, is reluctant to fight in the games, and is quite literally described as looking like an Angel. Katniss feels no jealousy or bitterness towards either girl. Instead, she only ever wants to protect both of them. They aren’t hardened by the world the way she is, and instead of resenting them for that, Katniss seeks to save them from being affected by the worst parts of the world the way she has been. There are more examples of feminine girls/women, but Rue and Prim are some of the most notable examples. It just upsets me so much that The Hunger Games is blamed for starting the “insufferable, boys’ girl YA protag” trope when really the characters are deep, complex, and not petty in the way the YA genre can tend to be.
@@mythyk_4316 that’s very valid. I think I see her as more masculine because she has been forced by her circumstances to take on a more traditionally masculine role. Honestly, I don’t like gender roles or people being forced into specific boxes and personality types based on their sex assigned at birth. However, I do think that, as far as how Western society typically views masculinity, Katniss fits some of the stereotypes pretty well.
On the books there's also Madge who, while no over the top girly, she is someone with more typical femenine hobbies, mostly because she can afford them. If I remember well, the only women being put down for being traditionally femenine are Katniss mom, and Glimmer from the first book. Even those aren't purely for said traits. Katniss resents her mother because she believes her weakness let them starve. By the end of the trilogy, she has more perspective of that moment. Glimmer is the closest we have to what most YA fiction do, and even then it's on the context of a death game where being pretty and charismatic is an actual asset. And this too adquires a lot of darker implications on the series.
Also Katniss does have some traditionally feminine passions. She’s really invested in Cinna’s clothes that he makes. She goes into a ton of detail when describing them that clearly shows that when she likes fashion (when it’s not the overtop Capitol styles).
@@Rowieismellow Yes, she does! In Katniss' case, it's less than she rejects them and more than she can't afford them (there's a line in the first book I think about how songs, rainbows and ribbons are in a low rank of usefulness in Twelve, but that they are useful all the same).
10:50 Jax from TADC is a great example of subverting this trope. At first people loved him, then the second episode came out and everyone hated him. They didn't realize that in the end, he's meant to be an *sshole. He isn't supposed to be likeable, he's a piece of sh*t. That's the entire draw of his character. A dude who has to tag along with a bunch of good guys and do what they want him to do when in reality he just wants to ruin everything.
a trope i DESPISE is when a show just will not stop making fun of a character bc of something like their race, gender, weight, height or whatever. especially if the character is a perfectly good person who doesn’t deserve it. like shut up please stop bullying them every 5 seconds for something they can’t control let them breatheeeee
I see this especially with characters with any kind of mental/non-physical disorder (there is also quite a bit of physically disabled characters that get this). Like anxious and asd/ocd “coded” characters just getting bullied specifically FOR that part of them, like being the butt of the joke because “haha they were the ones super anxious and methodical about doing this thing but instead the other stable characters do it perfectly while they suck.” Like it can be fun to make it comedic to an EXTENT, but people do it so much that it just becomes literal bullying of said disorder/illness An example, though not notably a specific disorder coding, is Moxxie from Helluva Boss. Hes often the butt of jokes for being annoying, overthinking and worrying. But the show just keeps bashing him for these things while also like, showing how those traits are things he is very insecure about and struggling to get better with. You see from his story that he comes from a home where his effeminate traits were things that made him easier to get hurt. Alot of his behaviour is revealed to be deeply troubling for him and make him feel inept and useless from childhood. And what does the show then do after?? CONTINUE to bash him for having said traits. Its no longer comedic and just becomes cruel and weakens the impact and plot.
2:46 Toga from MHA is a good recent example of this. Like in my opinion she was done so dirty by the end. As she was basically proven right that the MHA world won’t accept people like her no matter what
I thought twice was kinda similar as well like most of the time we see him he is very loving and loyal though I kinda think he is a good example of this trope since it kinda shows that he is more villain by alignment
(Spoilers) We do see in the last chapter in the time skip that Ochako set up a foundation to help people like Toga, so things like that don't happen again, and that she does really good work. So in the end, people like her do end up being accepted, and I'm sure she would have wanted that
@@SammyRobinson62232 I wish Toga could have lived as well, but think it was to A) show Ochako's determination to save other people, because she could not save Toga, and B), show that Toga was really, at heart, a good person, because she was willing to sacrifice her life to save Ochako's. It was a beautiful, meaningful end, as sad as it was.
Some of the scariest evil characters are the ones who commit their evil acts on screen, with full seriousness. It shows they’re not afraid to hide themselves while doing these acts, and that they don’t care what others or the audience thinks of them.
ProjectMoon villains [CANTO IV SPOILER] literally manifests EGO because he's a complete douche and accepts that fact. Also every arbiter is an asshole but they sure are ✨slaying✨ 💅💅
@@withercat1801yes! Please! We can not only recognize a character who does evil things on screen but also sympathize with and/or enjoy them as well. I love a good villain who just delights in their evil, like Ratagan, from the Great Mouse Detective (rewatched it last night) and you can also have someone do monstrous acts and then also be like a caring family-man or something in the next scene as another aspect of them. Two different villain rants in one
Honestly Elsa saying you can't marry a man you just met if taken out of context of all the rest of movies that's a perfectly normal thing to say like if my brother said he was marrying someone he just met I would probably say the same lol
It also fits with Anna’s character being a naive and sheltered princess. It makes sense Kristoff and Elsa would call this out for being weird while Anna thinks it’s romantic.
Yeah I was gonna say, I don’t think this was a good example. There are so many more recent examples that Disney has done that better fit the bill imo, but I don’t think that was one of them. In the context of the movie, it’s a fitting line that shows frustration with her sister’s naivety and is executed in a way that wasn’t at all taking the mick of traditional Disney princess shenanigans. I personally think the princess scene in Wreck it Ralph 2 or the entirety of Wish shows better “genre shame” than that individual line. I do absolutely get where she’s coming from though, it’s a strange trend that’s trying to be “with the times” or whatever but just ends up feeling cringey or pandering.
It was a well done way of putting us in Anna's shoes, having us feel the rejection she felt in that moment. But yeah, out of context, Elsa is totally right.
I do think it’s a bit silly that the movie seems to have created Hans for the entire purpose of saying “A Princess Romance? How ridiculous! How unrealistic!” but then they still make Anna have romantic tension with Kristof?!? Not to mention Hans is just kind of a bad character. His evil twist doesn’t really make any sense if you think about it.
@kaleenar963 OOOO I AGREE WITH THIS like wasn't Anna just as naive with trusting Kristoff as she was with Hans?? Girl just got lucky that Kristoff happened to be more trustworthy. Idk what Disney was cooking there, feels like they wanted to give off two contrasting messages lol. I'm happy with either but maybe just pick one direction to go in?
Honestly if ppl just like the aesthetic of an "evil" character but don't wanna commit to making them evil they should just make their protagonist(s) a crazy looking goth/punk/alt person and save the villainy for another character, I think that would be more interesting than the tell-don't-show villain
EXACTLY! But i think some people like ,,the bad boy" or ,,the cool dangerous villain" yet they don't have the guts to make then evil becouse evil people are not very nice, they usually hurt the innocent and most viewers will not like their cute bad boy if he liked destroyed orphanages and killed cats or smth
There's a Webtoon called "How to Be a Mind Reaver" where the main character looks like a mindflayer and talks a lot about "mind manipulation magic" but he's actually really nice and the aforementioned "magic" is just stuff like manners, empathy, and persuasion through logic and kindness.
Lmao that's one of my characters. Bro's a crazy punk-esque criminal but is pretty much just a goober because I don't have the heart to make him a true villain
Some of these tropes really drive me insane as a writer and artist, it gets really repetitive and it loses flavor, those sweet sunshine’s that are 100% gonna die in the end, those villains who are probably broken, you can use character tropes but maybe add a few of your own spices, add flavor, you can’t keep people hooked on the same thing
@@carelessdreamer exactly, tropes is what makes a story, but if you use them wrong the story could go down the range, looking at a lot of stories you’ll realize they have a lot of the same tropes used differently, you just need to make the trope interesting and not bland
@@jjackmn1that reminds me of the whole “papyrus is just as strong as sans, but we don’t see it because he never got pushed far enough to” theory in undertale. The general idea is that in genocide/neutral route, if you could kill sans first, suddenly papyrus would show a side of him thats angry, serious and vengeful, suddenly turning harsh at the murder of his own brother. Its such an interesting idea for a character that I absolutely always love to see. Even if theres barely evidence of this papyrus theory, just thinking about it gives papyrus this sudden depth and mystery.
oh my gosh I get the redeemed just to die plot is SO ANNOYING. it’s unfair to the readers a little too if you think about it. You have to read this guy’s entire plot, see him through all this evil, and then when you see him FINALLY redeemed, they’re killed. (Usually saving the heroine, which is cool… but it’s overused) 😭😭 it hurts my soul sitting through their redemption arc only for them to be killed off. It hurts my heart 💔
I personally hate this trope because it makes it difficult to have complex conversations about their actions. Like if you die doing something good, suddenly none of your previous actions matter? It drives me crazy!
its also annoying because then its like they ONLY had a redemption arc so it would be sad when theyre killed off instead of a compelling reason for why they had to be redeemed to serve the plot in an intersting way. it drives me INSANE and my favourite part of redepemtion arcs are seeing how the redeemed person veiws themselves and suffers the concequences of their actions despite being reformed
@@CasperCanvas eh, with him it's different since it pays off because he goes to heaven and still be used throughout the show versus other characters who are permanently killed
14:20 i would love to see a female relationship where the feminine one gives bows or something to the MC and the MC wears them during battle. Also, to contradict the "stupid and feminine" trope, the feminine girl could complain about others being silly or not understanding her because they wont listen. This would fix the trope
And maybe show that they aren't dumb, that they have skills. They could have hobbies that are both "girly" or simply not traditionally masculine, and extremely useful. For example, if they are good at make up or making clothes, they can help with disguises, or they're a good dancer and can infiltrate a performance without being suspected. Being a master of fashion, they'd probably be able to recognize if someone is lying about their social class, because they could tell if someone is wearing a fabric or clothing that is expensive or cheap in their region, or if they're wearing it wrong or just in a certain way. Dress historians today already point out strange inaccuracies in historical films, so I'd imagine a fashion expert of the time would be able to pick up that "this strange guy they just met" might be a time traveler, even if they were transported with a costume. It doesn't even need to be a "girly" skill, just something that shows that they are intelligent. They can be an active member of the community, like working in a bakery or soup kitchen, or being a medic or healer. They might be really good at painting or music, skills that might not seem to have any uses until they're in a situation where it does. Or not, just show that they are skilled at something. And the "not being honest" bit is extremely useful if you're trying to deceive your enemies, being a good liar can be helpful in a pinch. It's not being girly that's a problem, it's the lack of depth.
Especially big industry movies. The fear of being called out I feel like has ruined some potentially great stories and or characters. Like the whole thing of having to check off specific representations. I love to see different people and situations represented in media, but authentically not a caricature of some box you needed to check off thrown in haphazardly.
8:02 the worst example of Disney doing this was in Wreck it Ralph 2 during that princess dressing room scene. one of the characters goes "does everyone assume all your problems got solved because of man?" while literally half of the characters in the room DID have their problems solved because of man 😭like ffs the Disney PRINCESS line is 90% of their market.
I think the point was not to claim that a man didn't help them solve any of their problems, but rather that people assume ALL their problems were solved when said man showed up- the implication being that they have other problems but that people's perception of them flattens them to just the ones that a man solved.
@@SuperEasywalkeryea, but not every single one of her problems was solved because of that, if men were the magical cure for everything more people would get married lol
Gustavo Fring is one character that I LOVED the politeness about. It was unnerving how calculated but polite he was and how he could switch from that facade to being absolutely terrifying in SECONDS. this is oh so hard to get right and you'd have to really make your character commit to it - which means the writer has to commit to it. we need more terrifying villains like that and this trope that we see just feels very animated and it makes me feel like im robbed of something.
Redeemed just to die? Tired. Died just to come back a second later? Seen it. Redeemed just to fakeout die and then come back and have to deal with the consequences? Now we’re talking 👀
Does anyone have any good examples of _this_ trope? My research only comes up with Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I haven't seen it, so I don't know how well it fits.
Catra may be a good example. She sacrificed herself and then Adora saved her and Catra was like "oh shit I have to be an actual person now instead of a trauma-fuelled gremlin"
I actually did an entire school project on the ‘evil only offscreen’ character trope!! I did it because this trope is a lot more common than a lot of people think, it is in multiple forms of media. It’s a trope as old as time and it’s only now beginning to cause some serious issues, in a few words, this trope tends to suggest that people capable of murder, torture and other awful crimes are good people as long as they are traditionally kind. You could use damon Salvador from vampire diaries as an example. He is a vampire who kills multiple people throughout the serious for his own personal gain and even expresses joy in taking part in this behaviour, yet as he becomes a more traditionally kind character throught the series, the other characters sympathise with him, forgive him and even grow to love him. It’s clear that the writers expect the audience to do the same, forgetting he has taken the lives of MULTIPLE INNOCENT PEOPLE. Even if the writers intention is just to create an ‘evil’ character that is still loved by the audience, it causes problems as it focuses on small wrongdoings like bad manners as more criminal and downplays serious crimes like murder and torture, which can cause poeple to wrongly judge people in the real world, causing abusive relationships, romanticisation of criminals and an overly forgiving attitude towards violence. 😭
THAT IS SO TRUE!!! It also encourages the "I can save them," "I can change them," and the "I can bring out the good I see in them" mindset, or the "savior" complex, that so many people have when dating awful people who have sprinklings of kindness/politeness. ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO STAY IN ABUSSIVE RELARIONSHIPS! 🤦♀️
As someone who fell in love with super heroes at an early age, the “super hero movies are embarrassed of themselves” thing gets to me SO much. It’s been happening for like, 25 years. I can’t stand watching the movies now because it feels like they’re constantly going, “comic books are silly and dumb, which makes you silly and dumb for seeing this movie! But we still want you to see it though please watch our movie”
Just imagine at the end of iron man 1, when tony drops the "i am iron man" and after the reporters swarm him, it cuts to Pepper like "Really? That's what he's going with?" IMAGINE how lame that'd be, completely robbing that utterly raw moment just to turn to the audience and point out how aware you are.
Honestly the "tomboy vs girly girl" thing was part of the problem I had with both the live action Winx Club and Monster High adaptations were they not only stripped Bloom and Clawdeen of their femininity and made them more masculine but then kept Stella and Cleo (who were the most feminine characters in the og) feminine but also made them both into mean girls who bully our main characters even though they were nothing like that in og and it's especially worse because they both had in the og show been written as subversions to that trope
I hate the 'tomboy vs. girly girl' thing so much tbh. I just want a show or movie that shows that girls can enjoy different things and still be friends. Or at the very least be cordial. I never understood why being feminine was automatically seen as a bad thing. Plus, sometimes the "tomboy" character isn't even a tomboy. All they do is wear pants and throw their hair in a ponytail. 😭
i mean cleo was always a bully but i get yr point lol. whats interesting is they also made torelei way more feminine than she was in the og, giving her longer hair and taking away her punk fashion for the most part. you cant be alt or a tomboy but you also can't be TOO feminine and confident in that femininity like clawdeen was. draculaura also lost her bubbly hyper femme girlyness :(.
What's ridiculous is that winx club and monster high are two shows that celebrated femininity above all else. There was always high emphasis on fashion, makeup, more traditionally girly things like shopping or talking about boys, etc. Winx had girls fighting monsters while in pretty dresses. Both shows are super girly to their core, and it shows that these modern adaptations couldn't comprehend even a little bit of that because they want to shove women into this box of what they think is ideal.
as a musical fan, the second one you mentioned drives me CRAZY. every movie musical and sometimes even stage musicals these days are like “HUAHAHAHA WHy aRe wE sInGiNg??? XD” its the worst
Nobody comes to a musical to see a critique of musicals, or at least very few people. People come to musicals to watch people sing and dance and maybe it's a little cheesy but the people who watch musicals, sUrpRisIngLY, LIKE them singing and dancing!
The only time I've seen this executed correctly is in "the guy who didn't like musicals", but that one is a double satire of musicals and space horror so the audience knows what they are getting into beforehand.
Agreed. I think the idea that women need to have masculine traits to be valuable is the reason a lot of young women feel themselves identifying more as men instead of just being their authentic female self, however “manly.”
The last one is a reason why i LOVE Buffy the Vampire Slayer tv-show, she's the first example i've seen of a feminine girly girl being a hero who fights! And the friendships in that show are heartwarming
6:03 I think Elsa telling Anna not to marry Hans is very in character and natural, Elsa has been supressed for over a decade and taught to have caution and fear as a core value (this is a big overarching theme too). I think it could also possibly stem from Elsa wanting to protect her sister after probably spiralling over the accident when she was literally 10 but idk
the amount of manga/webtoons titled something like "the evil empresses" or "the demon queen" and they dont do anything more evil that make a pun about someones name is annoying, evil is wiping entire towns and villages off a map, not building a harem of identical overly buff twinks
Yeah you Look one Look at History and you have Queens called Saints or freedom fighters WHO have Like 200 Times the Body Count compared to These evil empresses. Like Boudicca,i can understand why she was Mad but she goes really wild.
2:05 I really feel like this is most of the demons in Demon Slayer. Right when they die, they realize the bad things they've done and change to be better in the afterlife :{ I still love kny sm though ! Edit :: Alright, I am aware this is not the case, thank you for clarifying in the replies ! :`)
The demons in demon slayer aren't meant to be redeemed though and we get to see their backstory not for redemption but for understanding that they were once humans too and to sympathise with them and the unfortunate situation they've been put in.
@@janakh7402 True ! You have a point there, but it still would be interesting to idk get a redemption arc or something of that sort, I dunno it was also one of the only things I could really think of { I am stupid tired }
10:28 Lucifer from hazbin hotel. He's not necessarily supposed to be a bad guy, but he was supposed to be a bad dad. But then they never actually showed him being a not good parent in the actual show so you get really confused as to why they never reconnected until Charlie was an adult.
Well, depression is one heck of a miserable state of being. Lucifer did not believe in Charlie's idea and saw sinners as hopeless, too, and he's obviously spent a lot of time to himself, probably not communicating much with his daughter. It isn't until Charlie actually invites her dad that they have a proper talk, as I see it, and only in the finale does Lucifer actually see that the Hazbin Hotel has brought the good out in the likes of Angel Dust, Husk and Sir Pentious. Also, I'm not sure he was supposed to be a "bad father", just distant and damaged.
@@iclynnx Distant and damaged enough to emotionally neglect his daughter for hundreds of years since she was a child. I get it, I've had pretty bad depression myself, but I'll be damned if I let it get in the way of raising my kid
@@ajthewildwolf To be clear, I'm not excusing his actions or lack of action, just saying, depression can be extremely difficult for some people. It's a mental illness that can get _really_ bad, to the point you neglect important things, even if you deep down care. At the height of my depression and heartache, I tried to push away my best friend, and my only friend, believing she was better off without me and I deserved to be alone. I think Lucifer might have had a similar case, but actually managed to push away others.
@@ajthewildwolf This might be weird but I appreciate this response, thank you for being civil and respecting my perspective. I hope I also came across that way, I'm not the best with words and tone.
When it comes to the "meta-shame of your own genre" I feel like thee's no better example than musicals, esp movie musicals and reboots. There's always the "oooh, how does everyone know the choreography?" and "wait uh... Are you actually singing right now?" that's so on the nose and full of disdain for its own genre. Like the writers and directors turning to the audience and trying to act like the cool parent with "ugh, I know it's cringe, I'm sorry that this is a musical" which is upsetting, because the musical is what I wanted.
I think in my opinion the worst example was in Star wars Rebels when they Made the meme that "stormtroopers cant aim" Canon. IT wasnt true in the OT and they only missed because they Shot at Main Characters i already hate that Thing in parodies but making IT Canon was a garbage move
13:05 This is actually kind of the source of recent desires to become a man/present as masc for me. I hate the girl stereotypes but I definitely do feel more “guyish” in the traditional sense. idk, personal opinion but being a girl has more negativity about it than being a guy (but both genders suffer equally dont get me wrong)
Fascinating how I almost have the exact opposite. I’m a guy that has never really been too attached to their masculinity- Heck, I find a lot of typically masculine things rather annoying. I find a lot masculine fashion dull. I think certain ‘masculine’ mind sets are outdated and sometimes plain toxic, so on so forth. I’d just really like to detach myself from that. Probably (definitely) has something to do with the fact that like 90% of all the bad people in my life that have deeply effected me are guys, meanwhile so much of the good in my life has come from girls (my best freinds, caretaker figures, family, etc). And in case it sounded as such: I defiantly don’t think guys are bad, at all. There are some great guys in my life who I love. This is just my own experience and how it’s led me to perceive guys as a whole. I think your thoughts are completely valid too.
You both shouldnt Focus on masculine feminine and Focus on what values the characteristics are based Off. Being strong doesnt Always have to mean you have to physically lift stuff , being caring doesnt mean you have to Babysit. Truth, Strength, Honor,Empathy,Loyalty,etc IS expressed by men and women in different ways but the values stay the Same. You dont have to Force yourself into some role.
Not cuz that's so accurate, wanting to escape being a girl not because I don't like femenine things or being one but I don't like the way (I will say the word) SOCIETY perceives this things in women People look at femenine women as weak and all sort of things so naturally girls want to be the opposite (men)
The second trope you talked about is called lampshading. Overly Sarcastic Productions has a video discussing it if you ever want to try it out. Highly recommend!
I feel like a redeemed to kill could be a compelling way to make a protagonist more interesting. The death of the redeemed character makes the protagonist more bitter, and then they go through an arch of being evil / morally inept. Then they become redeemed and have to work through the problems the killed character might have had. So ig the Shadow the Hedgehog arc but the person killed was bad first.
One subversion that I love is "village sacrafices maiden to the dragon, but the dragon isn't evil and doesn't know why the villagers do that, so he sets the girls free and they run away" I think I've seen it maybe twice? And it's honestly just brilliant. I love the idea of a character everyone thinks is evil, but they're actually just a really chill guy Or an evil villain who really does do horrible things, but is very polite or maybe has *some* morals. Like, he'll take out a whole city, but leave the children untouched and open up an orphanage for them. Or takes in lost kids, but only to raise them to be killers/assassins
I think there's an anime of it i forgot the title but it was about an ancient dragon who people were always scared of and sends a sacrifice to the dragon in hopes of giving the village mercy from being slaughtered. But as it turns out the dragon is a vegan and just wants to live peacefully, so it's confused when a sacrificial girl came into it's cave to be eaten. Dragon tried to let go girl but the girl was determined to get sacrificed cause she replaced her friend who was supposed to be sacrificed instead
@Xherion I know exactly the show you're talking about, because I have the myanimelist website open to it. It's called "shi cao lao long bei guan yi e long zhi ming" or "a herbivorous dragon of 5,000 years gets unfairly villainized"
that sort of reminds me of the movie ‘i am dragon’ this princess gets kidnapped by a dragon but throughout the movie you learn more about the dragon and how he never wanted to be evil (it’s really tropey/cheesy but a fun watch)
I feel like the 'Evil But Only Offscreen' villain is usually just shy of the bad guy trope I love - where the good manners are a very thin facade, and they slip whenever inconvenienced, provoked, there aren't enough people around they care about impressing, etc. Even if/when they do slip publicly, they lie, charm, and gaslight their way out of the hot seat, usually to the disbelief of the person that sees through their act. Invader Zim captures this perfectly for me.
i think mha has a great subversion of the first trope with endeavor. there's a few points in the story where it seems like he's gonna die doing something heroic but he actually survives to the end and he's never given "the easy way out" like the characters who die after doing one good thing. i really like endeavor's arc in general because while the story leans more towards "he's changed for the better now" it still treats not forgiving him for his past actions as valid through natsuo and toya. he also has to do a lot to earn his redemption and even at the end it's shown that he's still working on being better and making things right and will continue to do that for the rest of his life even if people won't forgive him in the end.
14:07 Minecraft Alex (totally agree btw, but I do think those female characters were probably born from the societal expectations to be super feminine. A lot of women still do get pushback against even those more socially acceptable ways of nonconformaty and they probably identify a lot with these type of female characters.)
Exactly!! Butches and other forms of gnc women get *so* much hatred and pushback still, that I honestly can’t help but feel sceptical when I hear people complain about NLOGs and similar tropes. Yes it sucks seeing femininity get shat on, and no I don’t think hyper femme characters deserve to be mocked or turned into villains, but if people seriously think femme women are treated worse overall than masc ones then I’m sorry but they need to step into the real world for a second
Shoutout to The Owl House for taking an axe to every trope on the list (spoilers ahead!): Redeemed just to die - Philip tries to pull this after he gets defeated in his titan possessing form, but it just ends up being an act to save his own skin that absolutely nobody buys, and he dies as the puddle of sludge he is. Meta-shaming - while the show does poke fun at general isekai/fantasy story tropes (the rusty smidge from S1Ep18 being a particularly hilarious example), it also unashamedly embraces them for all it's worth, and most of it's meta humor comes from playing the tropes in interesting ways. The Lumity kiss scene is taken directly from an old fairytale, and it's wonderful. Evil but only offscreen - Belos does this amazingly. He doesn't do anything directly in S1 as he's mostly just giving orders to his subordinates, but he comes in clutch in S2. When he has his mask off for a conversation in S2Ep9 and seems gentle and polite on a surface level, there's this underlying sense of unease the entire time (straight up telling Hunter "it would be a hassle to find a replacement" becomes incredibly morbid in hindsight of Hollow Mind) Heck, one can even argue him doing a face reveal in S2Ep11 is his way of feigning this trope, to gain public favour. Girly=Bad - while the more feminine Amity was initially a bully to the tomboyish Luz early on, that's completely out the window by mid S1 at least, and the even end up being partners by the finale. Even the other supposed "mean girl" characters subvert this: Bosha and Skara are both quite fashion-forward and sports-loving, yet the more brash Bosha is the meanest one, while the comparably more feminine Skara (my favorite) is an absolute sweetheart.
My favorite version of doing the making fun of heroes trope is definitely Megamind (Dreamworks used to be really good at stuff like this) Not only is our main character seen as the villain, but it also has all the typical tropes of a hero story, with added jokes about how a hero doesn't always want to be a hero, and they did it in a funny way of Metro Man to Music Man
the off screen villain is literally alastor and vox from hazbin hotel. both characters are supposed to be intimidating and at least come from some evil background but we never see alastor actually exhibit any of this and we never see vox do anything. we never see vox and alastor actually have a reason to clash, we just see them talk about it.
Thats a very fair point,but Al is considerably powerful(he is still an overlord despite his absense,even if it was from a deal),literal seen eating a deer while hes kinda one,decided to beef with the king of hell for no reason,manipulated Charlie in hells greatest dad,and has gone on cannibalistic rampages in the past(it could be proven wrong but eh) Vox works and is supossedly dating a 🍇ist,hypnotizes people,and were apparentlly gonna see more of them in season 2
@@Unknown3D0ors al's "cannibalistic rages" we dont even see happen, thats part of why the off screen villain trope fits him. in the pilot he supposedly doesn't care for the safety of the hotel or its residents, hes greatly feared, and not someone that can be controlled. but in the show hes just magically friendly with everyone and when he goes out in public its as if hes like any other pedestrian. we dont ever see how he went from evil to literally 0 real flaws. he just has this evil backstory as a plot device for the hotel and to justify his aesthetic. theres no drawback to keeping one of the most feared and evil beings in all of hell at the hotel. and with vox, theres the facts about his character but the "villain off screen" trope refers to their actual actions. what we see them physically say and do, not the simple facts tacked on. vox is flat. i cant even recall this ability to hypnotize he apparently has. in the show we have no reason to think he has actual power. we dont see him do much of anything that would suggest his motives. hes just there to beef with alastor.
@@scourgatory Now while I dont disagree about Al not murdering anyone on screen, I would like to point out that he is known for being manipulative - and manipulative people (sociopathic??) tend to blend in to a crowd and are difficult to identify. Which means that many of his manipulative behaviors aren't registered by many people unless they have prior experience with it [Vaggie, Husk, Angel] Just wanted to give my two-cents :]
I mean there are moments where Alastor does dark things but not enough to really understand why he's as scary as Vivziepop is trying to make him out to be. Vox literally isn't shown to do anything evil, aside from brainwashing but it feels more like a petty rivalry. Alastor is implied to be very manipulative through some of his actions but you never actually see why he chooses to do those things.
@@littysavior9181 to me that honestly seems like an excuse by the writers so al can continue to just be an easy fix for any problem without anyone having to make any sacrifice by having him around. if a character was literally known by everyone to be manipulative and committed atrocities that all of hell knew about, theres no way theyd be able to walk down the street and hang out in public or be the face for a hotel without any backlash
14:36 I could see this sterotypes evolving perfectly in an enemies to lovers kinda thing. The girlboss is somewhat good at everything and effortlessly beautiful, but dispite multiple boys have a crush on her, she doesnt like any of them back. The feminine one is extremely jealous of the girlboss' natural looks and talent, and so she starts to try and take her down. Until one day, they find eachother being alone togheter, so they start to talk. Then slowly, the fem one softens(?) and decides to learn some "boy" hobbies, the girlboss tries more feminine thing etc until they balance eachother out and realize that by teaching themselves to the other person, they've fallen in love. (Or they could remain as friends. Its fun that way too.)
I just realize a pair of OCs simultaneously use and subvert the last trope. I have two characters that operate as foils, sometimes rivals. One is a more feminine woman, but she isn’t exactly mean or ditzy. She’s a socially perceptive person that can often figure out exactly what someone else is thinking. The tomboy is the woman’s subordinate, basically the brawn to her brains. They need each other but can sometimes experience friction since the prim and proper woman can’t always get the roughneck girl to listen to her plan.
A trope that I hate, is when the Female Lead picks the awful guy, the one that treats her like garbage. Then that same trashy guy starts acting all "nice", it grosses me out so much. Please pick the guy that treats you right and is respectful, is it that difficult!??? 😅
Literally Frozen. Hans and Anna had great chemistry, they shared the same interests, shared the similar trauma of growing up as neglected spars, and even had a great song. Then Kristoff comes along, a borderline misanthropic ice harvester with poor hygiene, who ridicules her for wanting to marry a guy she just met although she is a naive young woman starved of love. The only reason he helps her out is so she can buy him a new sled. He doesn't do it out of compassion or concern that this vulnerable woman is all by herself. The writers then have Hans turn abruptly psychotic so Anna can be with Kristoff. Its gross because Anna is basically a prize to Kristoff, a reward for helping her up that mountain. He is the heroic male lead, so he should get the girl, right?
@@Nopeasaurus It always boggles me that people idolize Frozen and Frozen 2. They're good stories, I like how they break some walls down in Disney, but man - at the end of the day, they're both massively confused movies where the conventionally good-looking characters defeat a villain who's a child with an extremely abusive back-ground and another who's a man basically body-shamed for being short and weird looking the whole time. It was obvious to me when I watched that they changed the script halfway through making the film, and they could have had a great angle to work at in 2 if they had dared make the trolls morally grey and more force-of-nature than paragon. It would have explained so much if the trolls actually had cursed Hans to turn evil.
The funny thing is that a huge part of the story I'm writing revolves ENTIRELY around the idea of making ammends, true redemption and how even good people can do horrible things. How to cope with it afterwards ect
14:37 you know can turn those two into main characters in a comic, but make their tropes interesting and flesh out their characters. They can start out as enemies, stuff happens, and became friends
Some of my least favourite tropes: >Main Character moral privilege: The MC's actions, choices and opinions are always the right ones, even if they might actually be wrong, toxic or downright villainous irl. This is mostly because the author might not want to have their character be wrong/flawed or have to make difficult choices that result in loss or conflict. >Suddenly Sympathetic Villain/Morally-Grey Villains done poorly: "You've killed my parents, insulted my mom, attacked us at every opportunity and are now trying to destroy the entire universe!" "Yeah, but I'm gonna suddenly trauma-dump my conveniently sad backstory on you to make you feel bad, and the author is going to actually expect you to gloss over my sins and see it from my perspective and sympathize with me! Who knows, you might even let me off the hook and we might even become friends after this!" _"No."_
Suddenly sympathetic villain/morally gray works when one character believes them and one doesn't, and it makes a little conflict between two main/good characters. That's my opinion tho
A little spoiler In Kamen Rider Saber, when Touma confronts Master Logos about his motive for destroying the world, he replies with a speech that broadly talks about losing a loved one, only to ask Touma "That's what you want to hear, right?". He then revealed that he did it out of boredom, directly mocking the suddenly sympathetic villain trope.
One character I love who has had so much character development is ocean from ride the cyclone. Before her death (and into it) she was super obnoxious, only caring about herself. The thing is when she learns about her choir members lives and hardships she ends up realising just how much she had it well, and when given the choice to send someone back to live again, she chooses someone else. I really love her character and I wish more characters in media would have that much development.
Still not a fan. I neither like the message of ‘the best thing you can do for other people around you is die’ or ‘man sacrifices himself instead of having to put in actual work of making himself better’. The trope doesn't always turn out like that, but I’ve seen it end up as one of those two things enough times.
@@HiBuddyyyyyy Yeah, I agree. Although I think I have a bit of a soft spot for the specific character I'm referring to, and I would explain, but I don't want to bother you with my infodump lol.
for the first trope, i think it only works well if we actully get to see some of the antagonists character arc of changing, but the protagonist doesn't or maybe they only get to see snippets of how this character starts to act off, etc this makes the antagonist have their character arc, without it feeling forced then it also hurts much more when they die, because they couldn't get their full happy ending
2:26 a good almost reverse trope of this character is Marcy Wu from Amphibia. SPOILERS!!!!!!! She's seen as a good and smart person, but right before she's killed, she admits to reading about the music box that trapped Marcy Sasha and Anne there. She traps them in Amphibia because she didn't want to leave them by moving away. She willingly did something 'evil' because she wanted it, then was stabbed. I'm not saying she's fully evil from this, but it's nice to think abt it
Ooo, I hate that last trope too. I wrote a friendship dynamic between two characters, one was the masculine girl who never fit in, the other was the feminine one who did what was expected of her. But I wrote it to show why they were still friends - feminine girl wanted more freedom, but didn't want to disappoint her family, so she admired the other girl. Masculine girl wanted to fit in and be liked, but she was too stubborn and independent, and envied the other girl. They didn't always agree either, but they had such a great dynamic that could be teasing but never mean.
one of mine is when they have a truely evil villan but at the end they redeem them! Like can we not just have an evil villan? Do they always have to be “good” deep down?
Thats why palpatine IS the goats He has a Backstory. Summary He was Always an evil bastard since birth and believes himself to BE the sith'ari aka the Chosen one of the DARK Side , has a blast Killing His own Family with His bare Hands.
He literally hurt Husk and Sir Pentious, wanted to k!ll the egg minions inhumanely, took advantage of Charlie being emotionally vulnerable to make a deal that will likely bite her in the butt later, he ate the demons after Mimzy, and tried to replace Lucifer as Charlie's father figure.
@@iclynnx but it feels so glossed over, to me at least. I can only recal the scene where Alastor pulls Husk by "chains of their deal" as a scene that I thought "welp, fuck", because the other ones you've mentioned were either funny or we didn't got to see the bad outcome (yet, at least)
I think the “polite but evil character” can be interesting depending on how it’s done because I don’t think evil always looks evil and most bad people still have people they care about and will do good things sometimes. Alastor from Hazbin Hotel is like that, he’s very polite and well mannered… but he’s also an overlord who owns peoples souls and was a cannibalistic serial killer in life. I guess the difference from what you described though, is that you do see Alastor’s dark side on screen. He puts on a “mask” and is charming and polite in a way that gains peoples trust… so they’ll make a deal 😈 Real psychopaths are like that, they have excellent social skills that they use to manipulate people into getting what they want. I personally find that kind of evil scarier than anything on the nose because you just don’t know if the person is good or bad.
there are so many people in the comment section saying "alastor didn't actually do anything evil he's an example of this trope!!" Like he literally kills multiple people on screen horribly. Polite doesn no simply mean that he didn't do anything wrong on screen like he manipulates people and kills people and owns slaves. He isn't even that polite, it's like passive agressive politeness that he uses to assert that he's in control of the situation.
@@Embibuiltdifferent Agreed! Do people forget the flashbacks to him coming to hell? The way he treats Husk? The sheer joy he got in throwing those loan sharks about… Not to mention that he wouldn’t tell Charlie how to save the Hotel without her agreeing to make a deal with him. Alastor does plenty of bad things, he’s just likeable so people forget. I love Alastor, he’s my favourite character, but he’s not a good person by any stretch of the imagination
Wow, I'm insanely early. About that evil only off screen one, It's often used to turn said character into a love interest for the (usually) naive teen girl character. Which I do find annoying, as it's so overused. However, the thing with tropes is that there's no such thing as a 'bad' trope, just poorly used/copy paste tropes.
Additionally, that last one really annoys me as well - it's definitely an example of a legitimately bad, toxic trope that can't really be redeemed (except to be used as character development about a girl who has a lot of internalized misogyny, which I would definitely like to see!)
I'm trying to play of this a little. In the novel I'm writing the main villain does actively do bad things, but he'd manipulated and brainwashed the naive teen girl MC into believing everything that comes out of his mouth, so he lies or tries to play it off. One little example is he goes away for a while and comes back with a box of chocolates. There's both milk and dark chocolates in there. MC only likes dark, but MV likes milk. He told her the candy store only sold them in mixed boxes like that. She believed him without question
Interestingly enough, 3 out of those tropes are basically writer being like “Look at me! I’m so different/alt/unique/quirky by doing the exact opposite of traditional writing while ironically falling into being a carbon copy of other artist thinking they’re special.” 😂
Lol like when kid shows show a performance competition and they want to be different so the decide to do some wacky combination of like classical ballet and hip hop thay has never been done before to be sooo different 😂
12:17 I’m writing (and drawing) a webtoon where the main character is actually best friends with this ‘stereotypical blonde girl’ and such. Because I really like writing the blonde girl.
I disagree. SPOILERS for RDR2: Arthur’s redemption starts to play out near the beginning of Chapter 6, immediately after he’s diagnosed with TB. Chapter 6 is where Arthur goes through the most character development in the game, and you’re there with him all throughout. He doesn’t die immediately after one or two good things, he goes through a whole process of trying to right as many wrongs he and the gang have committed as he can. And chapter 6 is a fairly lengthy chapter too. Lavender seems to be talking about characters who are just starting to go on their redemption arc but die shortly afterwards. This doesn’t fit with Arthur because he actually does go on a lengthy road to redeem himself before he goes and does impact a lot of people’s lives for the better.
You'll LOVE the main villain of the novel I'm writing, then. It's a Rapunzel retelling but the "mother gothel" is a toxic lover rather than parent figure type guy named Kennon. He kidnapped MC as an 8-year-old, magically suppressed her memories, chains her to the floor of her tower, and manipulates her into thinking he loved her. I'll spare you the details, but what else will a selfish man do with complete access to a woman who can been groomed into seeing no wrong in him? Towards the end of the story, he kills a side character's dog and continues to try to play the MC into believing he loves her and she loves him. She stabs him in the heart uwu
honey have u seen how the entire twitter tried to burn Vivziepop on stake for making a villain doing actually unforgivable things (yes i'm talking about Valentino); I don't think they're prepared for anything beyond that lmao
1:10 This trope is so annoying. I hate it when the villain gets redeemed then just dies. What is funny is a friend and I were doing a roleplay. I had this horrible villain guy have a redemption arc. After his redemption arc, there was this dangerous situation so he told the heroes. “Bye! I am going to get myself to a safe place. I am not dying after this redemption arc” XD My friend and I sometimes joke about it due to how funny it was.
14:34 I think these tropes aren’t bad themselves. It’s all about how it’s executed on. Like the whole “satire” thing. Try to make an actual point about what you’re satiating. For example if you’re doing a hero movie. Try to have it where it’s super heros that solve the problem by punching the bad guys going against villains and problems that are more complex and can’t be solved by punching the villain really hard in the face. I also agree on the whole more female friends thing especially ones that are opposite from each other when it comes to gender presentation. I think the villain being evil on screen isn’t that bad. As sometimes it’s done intently. Like a villain trying so hard to be villainous but they can’t as they’re an actually good person. Like doof from Phineas and Ferb. And that’s all I can think of right now.
Doof is a bad example as he actually does evil things. They aren't off screen nor is he just saying he did a bad thing and that's it. It's not about the villian being bad at a villian it's the writer being bad at writing one and not wanting to actually write them being a villian.
Intently making a villian character that never does anything villainous but thinks they are one for the sake of plot is bad. Doing it on purpose makes it even worse. It only works/make senseif the character is shown thinking all the good they're doing is evil or they're loving a double life.
@@ClownHoundII But what about a villain that’s want to be evil but all of his evil schemes just end up being good at the end. And it’s on purpose by the writer.
Whenever I watch these “tropes that annoy me” videos I’m always anxiously hoping I don’t have any in my story XD relieved to find it so here. Though I do think most tropes can be done well if you’re smart about it! Some tropes are just really hard to execute.
I saw the first one and was like 'oh no, is that my character?' But then I remembered she has a lot of time between her (slow) redemption arc and her death, and I spend time on writing her characterisation and arc, not just using her death to avoid doing that lol I was also worried she might be 'evil only offscreen' but she isn't, I think some people have mistaken that for 'evil out of the protagonist's/general public's view' which isn't what it's about. Maybe the thing LavenderTowne brought up about politeness threw some people off, but like it's fine to have a secretly evil character who acts nice, there are loads of those, it's about when you hide the evil from the AUDIENCE not the other characters in the story (sorry I got a bit off track, but that was because my character is a 'secretly evil' character and I got confused about that too for a sec lmao) And yes 100% agree with you on tropes! Some people need to learn the difference between tropes and clichés and how even clichés can be made less so if they're done interestingly
SAMEEE. I constantly get worried that my characters fall into tropes. I had to remind myself about the last thing though. Relieved to say I’m also safe from any of these tropes in my story so far ^ ^
Like someone else wrote, have a char with the dark vampire aesthetic be a true sweetheart. But then have the sweetheart looking one be like "Okay I helped you, now pay up or you are going right back to where you were."
I think a well-done edition of the villain one was Mr. Villain's Day Off. It's a slice-of-life manga focusing on the days off that a standard power rangers-esque villain gets when he's not fighting the hero organization. Because of the slow pace of the story, we're focusing on his personal life outside of his "job" but we get snippets of his bias towards Earth in many of his earlier thoughts. As time goes on, you slowly see him accepting a lot of Earth's ways, wishing to take over Earth less and less. I think what makes this story work so well is that we're not given a primarily evil villain who wants to destroy the world, but a villain that is trying to adapt to the world that they want to take over. Instead of being pure evil, he's more of a neutral evil born from a comical trope of characters.
I personally love Rowena from supernatural because of how she subverts a lot of tropes surrounding femininity, particularly with how its presented in the show. Shes an extremely feminine character. She has long hair throughout the series, is always in full glam and rocking beautiful dresses and capes. BUT shes also an older woman. Shes also a witch. Shes a mother (not a good one, but its relevsnt to to plot and makes for a really interesting character. "Despite" her femininity shes a really well developed, crazy interesting character, who isnt seen as lesser than by fans because of her femininity, but is actually a badass. She runs the show in a floor-length gown, and its AWESOME.
9/10 times the "cute" villian is an attempt at "cute but deadly" trope. Wished more would go for "goofy but deadly" as it's easier to do and it's more fun to read. Imagine a villian that makes up songs while committing crimes or Bug's bunny their way out of court.
Today you can Tell which villains will stay evil and which gets redemption. Just ASK this question are they attraktive or Not? If they are ugly congrats you have a true villains (sadly today they are often one Off lazy written villains) If they are hot you will get to hear an Emo whiny sobald Backstory missunderstood blablabla for hours and the Heroine or Hero(yes WE men are that Desperate too Just Change Abs for boobs) will try to "fix them".
Live-action cartoon movies also love making self aware "cartoon logic" jokes too, it feels like these writers are soo ashamed of being in these projects which explains why they feel soulless to many people
The whole fear of sincerity in media thing is funny to me because one of the few superhero movies that actually took itself 100% seriously, took concepts as ridiculous as a ninja trained by a secret society running around a city in a bat costume beating up criminals and mobsters with boomerangs and treated it like a fully on dramatic film with so few jokes you could count them on one hand, throwing in random philosophical discussions about themes of corruption and hope (yeah, you know exactly the movie I'm talking about now), is now very widely considered one of the best superhero movies ever made. It just proves that yes, you can treat something conceptually silly with complete sincerity, if it's written well people will like it.
"The Tomboy = Good, Girly Girl = Evil" trope is just the feminine form of "Nerdy Guy = Good/Smart, Jock = Evil/Dumb" trope. It's people who don't fall in line with societal gender norms lashing out at those the people who do because they are made to feel inadequate. Sadly, I'm somewhat talking from experience.
I totally hear you but I feel like the “tomboy= good, girly girl= evil” trope is based more in internalized misogyny and seeing masculine behaviour and hobbies as better and more valuable than stereotypical feminine hobbies. like being good at sports is seen as masculine (for some reason) and thats valued more than say being good at reading emotions or making clothes because they’re seen as feminine traits. also “nerdy guy” isnt rly a crazy subversion of gender roles since smartness is a trait assigned to men usually, it’s their lack of athleticism, or strength, that is seen as emasculating. if a guy was actually subverting gender roles by maybe being good at making clothes (which is a useful skill) he would be criticized or at least seen as less masculine. tl:dr i dont think it’s people who dont fall in line with societal gender norms that are lashing out, rather our collective idea of masculinity as superior and enforcing them that harm everyone
Dont blame misogyny for everything especially when These tropes are way more often written by women , Like the "I am Not Like Other Girls" trope its the female Version of a Harem protaginst a Power Fantasy where they somehow have attractive people desiring them for No reason besides they are the Main Character. Its Just a Power Fantasy and of course everyone the authority doesnt Like IS evil and ugly
bro…just because the author is a woman doesn’t mean she didn’t grow up in sexist world being taught sexist ideals and believing in sexist values of men and masculinity.
@@solilobye Well a lot of the those girly girl=bad ideas actually com from radical feminist from the 70's, actually i actually find weird that people believe that the girly girl=bad trope comes from consevative mysoginism because those guys actually want a feminine girly girl because that fills their strict views of gender roles and how a woman must act and look.
@@Ms666slayer genuinely a really good connection to make to 70s feminism!! i think a base idea behind the movement was to allow women to participate in activities they were previously discouraged from due to the activities, rights, and career paths only being for men because men are naturally superior in them (of course because of their superior intellect, something, something, gender essentialism). this does not negate those stereotypically masculine activities as being seen as superior than feminine activities. if anything, we still see the trend of women wearing pants or a suit as “empowering” and men wearing feminine clothing as degrading and automatically weaker (let’s keep in mind these are drapes of cloth we are talking about). that’s definitely still routed in misogyny even if it is a rebuttal to a different form of sexism like gender roles. I think there’s a third layer of reaction to sexism with the pick-me girl trend where if you’re traditionally feminine girl you’re a pick-me snd if you act masculine you’re a pick-me. the idea probably comes from pic-mes being girls who try to please and vy for male attention…which isn’t usually the case when a girl just wants to express herself in any way.
1) If the writer plants the seeds of the character's redemption and makes is a secondary part of their arc, then the author killing them off can work. But if they start having their doubts like 20 minutes sooner it just slams the door in the audience's face. 2) There seems to be this universal fear of playing a character 100% genuine. Like in the back of their mind, the characters know they're in a show. I noticed a lot of 00's cartoons would do something similar, where once they got comfortable with the formula they were using they would have the characters comment on the cliches. It is a bit more palatable there because again, it's after the show has its pattern down. 3) Anime can be really bad about that. The bloodthirsty demon army with their sinister plans to...grow enough wheat. Anyway, you can have a character be both incredibly polite and a cold-blooded. It either requires you have them do it in tandem like apologetically torturing someone or only showing the after effects until the reveal that they're the monster they are. 4) A rivalry/friendship between the two archetypes works best if each one is allowed a context for them to be the "smarter" one. If one is a clear winner all of the time, that's when it gets annoying.
I might not be in the MHA fandom and haven't seen much of the show however the character arc of Endeavor was something that really amazed me. Seeing someone accept the consequences of their actions was really interesting to see and made my invested in anything surounding the character. I remember people talking about the War Arc while I haven't seen it and remember the fear they just gonna kill him as a way of gloryfication. I would literally pray so it wouldn't end that way becouse the entire character arc would end up meaningless. I'm really happy with the ending he get and that he wasn't redeemed fully and still has room to improve. Lots of movies could try this aproach as well. (Sorry for my bad english since it is not my first language. I wish everybody a good day)
In regard to the second trope: To be fair, I think Frozen actually does it well. In Frozen, the "Can't fall in love with someone you just met" bit isn't just brought up at random for laughs or "see kids we are c00l now"'s sake, it's an active part of the plot: there's a specific reason why Anna wants to immediately marry a guy she just met (the trauma of having been left alone and isolated for many years), the cautionary tale not being against "love at first sight" but rather about completely committing yourself to it (Kristoff and Anna also fell in love in a day, but Anna didn't marry him right away), and the plot also ties that into a "there are many types of love" (the love between two sisters that, despite having grown apart and a conflicting relationship, still care for each other). In that sense, for as much as I dislike the movie (and also agree that the romance with Kristoff feels forced since the "falling in love in a day vs. marrying in a day" isn't a very intuitive contrast due to how strong both things are on a sentimental level), I think it actually succeeds in subverting this particular element while still remaining a traditional princess fairy tale. I guess the tl;dr would be: I think Frozen actually does the trope n°2 well, because it feels less like "satire" or "self-criticizing" and more like just "subversion of expectations" that actually serves, and is actively part of, the plot, rather than just being a random joke.
Get the limited edition plush here!!! :3 ~ www.makeship.com/products/lavendertowne-plush-mischief-edition
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@@kfjellyjaymehopkins4746 bro same
I gotta have it
I need it
Finally a way to not lose my stylus and I can hug it
If only I wasn’t an artist (aka broke)
*eats it*
I recently rewatched Disney’s Princess and the Frog movie and I think it’s a great example of how to fix the last trope. At least in terms of the rivals vs friends angle. Tiana and Charlotte are very different people but they’re best friends throughout the whole movie. Charolette is definitely a traditional “girly girl.” She likes pink, fluffy dresses, fairy tales, romance, etc. Tiana is much less enthralled with what she considers unrealistic fairy tale depictions of life in favor of hard work, determination, and competence. She’s very good at her jobs and is shown to be very independent, even to a fault. Despite their drastic personality differences, they not only start as friends, but they remain friends at the end even though it means Charlotte doesn’t get to marry a prince like she’d wanted. She could have been selfish but she chose Tiana’s happiness over her own because she saw how much she and Naveen loved each other. I love how Disney chose to keep their friendship intact because they so easily could have made Charlotte shallow and flat as a character. I feel like her decision gave her depth and made her a better character for it. Sorry this was long. I just love that movie and wanted to talk about one of my favorite characters relationships lol
yes Charlotte and Tiana are great examples!!! I also just love the animation in that movie~
@@skitten02tapp99 that is 100% valid Princess and the frog is my favorite Disney movie. (Great story and the peak of Disney 2d animation) ❤️
I mean, I get what you’re trying to go for, though you have to remember that a big part of why *they* both have these dynamics is indefinitely due to how, where, and why they were raised…in 1920s America…?
(I don’t think I should have to explain that further, but I also understand that not everyone is familiar with US history, haha.)
@@Aesos3429 weird flex but okay
@@Aesos3429i feel that’s even more reason to appreciate their friendship- their lives are worlds apart despite being so close, yet their friendship pushes through
The evil offscreen thing gave me an idea. I want a character that has an extremely evil aesthetic, dark capes, high collars, black and purple color scheme, the whole nine yards, but is actually extremely sweet. They aren’t evil, they didn’t used to be evil, they aren’t hiding anything and they aren’t morally grey in the slightest, just a genuine paragon character who loves the dark aesthetic. I want to see someone who looks like the dark lord save a kitten from a tree and then help a kid with their homework.
Bonus points if they’re extremely socially oblivious and don’t realize they look like a villain. They just like darkness and dramatic capes.
Might I suggest Nimona?
It’s on Netflix and one of the main characters is definitely meant to have like a stereotypical villain vibe with the dark clothing and he even ends up having a sort of “evil lair” and everyone thinks he’s evil but he’s actually really sweet and is trying to save everyone
@@starberryplant it’s also a book!
i would EAT THIS UUPP
Dr. Orpheus from Venture Bros.!
AHHHHH I LOVE THIS SOOO MUCH!!
I love how the titles are always "I AM FILLED WITH UNDBRIDLED FURY"
And the video is just "erm yeah guys, this is kinda annoying."
Ur so calm.
She's so soft-spoken, i'm kinda scared she might raise her voice.
Titles in full caps often catch people's attention faster, thus usually getting more views. That's why you see a lot of channels where their titles are always in caps
@@tomdata3340i wanna see a video where its just a lowercase word like hi and then the video is like very angry
That would be funny
Behind the calm voice is pure unadulterated anger.
I HATE misunderstanding tropes. When characters either over hear or see only a small part of a conversation or scene then jump to conclusions and get mad at eachother when all along if the characters just talked it out there would be absolutely no problem at all.
ohhhhhhh I HATE that trope oh my GOD
where they overhear something bad and walk away right before the 'but' 😭😭 like why would you walk off?? just keep listening 😭
EXACTLY these drive me up the WALLS. Sometimes I just divert my attention until it's over cause like 😭😭 what is the reason
THIS. Batman Vs Superman springs to mind but there are SO MANY examples.
Shrek
My most hated trope is the one shot tough girl. The woman character that always has a stick up her ass, acts super tough, talks big, refuses to accept help especially from a man, has supposedly killed hundreds of enemies with ease off screen... and goes down in one hit and needs to be saved, immediately making them a love interest for the main guy. It just feels like a complete mockery.
yes i hate that one too!!!! like the author will make big talk of this girl being amazing but when it comes to any action or taking down any bad guys suddenly she’s even worse at it then the main character who usually has just started the career she’s experianced in! and it’s salt on the wound when they immediately toss her with the guy who just one upped her on this first day.
@@nyowomofdoom5062 And it's so easy to fix too and in a way that could have her actually make sense as the love interest. Just tone down the sour, aggressive attitude a little and make her competent and willing to work with others.
It's so rare to get an actual strong female character, either they're an incompetent birch side character or they're a stiff, emotionless main character with no personality. I want more Mulan's (animated) and Bayonettas in the world.
that’s why the ‘Inheritance Cycle’ (Eragon books) are so good. They make it clear that Arya is way stronger than Eragon and could take him down due to her training and race (elf)
@@Sesuaki19 Maybe because it's not the same, nor is that statement true and you're being disingenuous and irrational on your views on women?
@@RiveroftheWither exactly, because why, there are sometimes those ‘wasted potential’ guys in fiction there will usually be more male characters to fall back on who aren’t wasted potential. The wasted potential on a girl character is usually used on the token girl character ie the only girl character.
The third trope also sucks because polite evil characters can be really interesting if both the politeness and evilness are shown. Like the mayor from Buffy, who was really into manners and didn't like swearing but also wanted to turn into a giant snake and eat children lol. The politeness was a really interesting character trait to mix with that because it showed how shallow a lot of those gestures are when made by a giant snake that wants to eat children
OH YEAH THAT GUY IS A REALLY GOOD VILLAIN /gen
Literally his manners are the main reason why he's such a great character! It's terrifying, it's believable, it fits his backstory. It shows us HOW he got to be mayor without explicitly telling us anything. It shows a desire to control everything and everyone as a key part of his motivation. Political and personal manipulation obviously comes naturally to this man, and that makes you question so much about Sunnydale! I also LOVE that Faith never actually stops loving and missing him, even in the comics. He 100% manipulated her and it was SO creepy but they let Faith hold onto that complicated part of her story, and it adds so much value to her character that we wouldn't have got otherwise
Plus, All-American counterpart to Giles vibes is peak
Or Xanatos who is always courteous because he’s just so confident he will come out on top and there really are very few times where he fails and is genuinely put out because of it, most of his schemes are more about pushing the limits so either he breaks them or he finds the new ones he must break, it’s a game of thrills and profit
I have a character like this in a story I’m writing. He’s meant to be very charming and polite (very cliche, I know) but he’s also actively trying to harm all of the other characters. In this same story, however, I have a different “gentlemanly” character, only he’s not a villain, he’s just narcissistic and oblivious
Omg the mayor from Buffy TERRIFIED me
His calm demeanor was so frustrating and scary because with his ton you couldn't tell if he was about to talk about his love for good cuisine or how he was going to turn you inside out 😭
Dear Dumb Diary does a really good subversion of the feminine = bad idea. The main character, Jamie, really dislikes the pretty popular girl at her school, Angelica. She thinks Angeline is evil, trying to steal her crush, self-absorbed, etc. But a few books in, we find out that Angeline is actually very sweet, hardworking, and puts a lot of effort into her appearance because she had low self-esteem when she was younger. Eventually the two become friends.
As someone who grew up reading dear dumb diary, the pretty popular girl is named Angeline, not Angelica( Angelica is the bully toddler of the rugrats). Also, while Jaime may have been wrong about the other things, she kinda wasn't wrong about the whole " trying to steal her crush" as, if you reread the book where she fixes Jaime's hair, it says that Angeline stoped doing it when she realized that the crush in question was developing a crush of his own on Jaime. Angeline and Jaime eventually got on better terms because Jaime's aunt married Angelina's uncle so they became step-cousins. However, the mere fact that Jaime never stops treatening Angeline at the start of each diary (instead of just telling her to stop reading like she does with Isabela) tells me that they are not quite in the... Friends territory quite yet.
It’s been awhile since I heard about that movie🫡
@@tiredcaffeine4610 Wait it has a movie?? I've only known the books
@@tiredcaffeine4610 it has a musical movie... That i sadly haven't watched because its not avaliable in my country. But i did listen to the songs: my favorites are dear Dumb diary and thanks for listening
wait i fucking loved that movie (ik its the book series as well) i havent seen it mentioned often
One trope i hate is when theres a massive secret that the protagonist always has an urg to tell, so instead of building the tension to tell that secret to drive the plot forward and telling at the right time. They tell that secret at the wrong time or right before a fight, making the plot very messy and it doesnt give any time for the characters to process the information they've been given.
omg that one drives me crazyyyy
I mostly agree, but if it's revealled by someone with the *intention* to make the protagonist's life more complicated, then I think it's great. But if it's intentional by the protagonist, then yeah, no, icky.
I hate that one too.
That or the infamous "character got within earshot at the exact wrong moment to take something out of context that ends up creating pointless conflict" trope.
@@Sergei_Ivanovich_Mosinyou when tropes
I read the “Evil F-Boy” looking confused and said to myself “Evil Femboy? That’s a trope?”
LMAO
It can be if you make an evil femboy lmao
new trope just dropped, someone better write this
Griffith
lol, if i actually write and don't keep my self-made universe on my head, i will do this
The only good subversion of a superhero trope: Supervillain starts long monologue, hero punches them immediately, villain keeps monologuing
Or when ultron goes "Yes, let me explain to my evil plan" and just cuts himself off and lasers tony.
I imagine a video game cutscene that’s ingame. That makes it very plausible to happen and also very funny.
I think this could also be a great "oh sh*t" moment if the punch genuinely does nothing.
13:26 That’s why I LOVE Legally blonde, Elle woods is the girliest girl ever and is also super smart, ambitious and kind. She is pitted against Vivian but they become friends.
I just watched that movie and I LOVED it!
There’s so much stuff saying that you can love yourself and it’s fine if you’re ugly, but never before that movie had I seen something saying that it’s hard to be pretty
I’m really self conscious about how naturally pretty I am because it means people see that before anything else, and it also means I’ll get attention from boys that I don’t want
It’s also a problem you can’t talk about because it will sound like “oh I wish I wasn’t so DROP DEAD GORGEOUS it’s really a curse… 😏” when that’s not what you’re doing
That movie made me feel very seen in a good way
Girly girls who are femenine and strong >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The media really tries to push this "Girl boss" things and then just makes a men with boobs who's masculine so she cool
Ms. Congeniality too where Sandra Bullocks character starts off as gruff, tomboyish, and with deep contempt for the the beauty pageant contestants before really getting to know them and realizing how legitimately deep, smart, and complex they are as people.
REAL!!! I love characters that are very intelligent and have passion that are also hyperfemme 💕
When learning how to write, you end up noticing these tropes more and more and it can become vexing. Especially from companies that have many talented writers working on a project.
how is the commment one day ago
I think the video was released early to channel members@@stale123
Even if you just reading them it's grating, they're just so cliche
@stale123 0 days for people asking this question 😅 this video came out for members only yesterday. After you subscribe, you get an option to be a member for a small fee.
@@stale123 because they're a patron I think so they get videos early
The whole thing of "being traditionally feminine and cute = bad" actually affected me for a while when I was younger. I thought I needed to like zombies and blood and 'boy things'. I've always loved princesses and cute things but felt like I shouldn't based on a lot of media that I watched and stuff
Edit: I just remembered this time where in class during free time I drew a zombie chasing after a princess due to this little belief. I heard about breaking the gender norms in a lot of shows I watched. Obviously, that's a good message but I kinda felt like I *had* to be into boy stuff or something. I might've just been a stupid kid but idk
Omg same I was like that from kindergarten all the way to like 6th grade
Omg was literally me and so many other ppl I knew 😭 why can't we have more cute/pretty strong female characters??
me but with the color pink. i used to HATEEEE it when i was little not bcs i thought it was ugly but because i wanted to be different. now its my favorite color lol
Fr- I personally liked both traditionally considered “girlish” and “boyish” things, but I noticed those traditionally feminine characters would always be taken less seriously than tomboys or just boys in general, so I stopped liking pink and other “girly” things as much as I used to
Oh how the turns have tabled
I've always liked the polite villain trope, but I hate when they don't ever show the character doing anything evil. A good example of a polite villain that still does evil things is in the princess bride which I highly recommend watching if you haven't. You get fantasy, romance, wrestlers, sword fights, etc. It's really well done and you get to watch the hero and villain have a threatening conversation in the most polite way possible. 100000000/10 really well written and great for taking writting notes on.
I honestly love writing villains like this. Make them polite and likeable, but evil at the same time. Have the readers fighting over whether they're good or bad ✨
Another one that kinda fits into this is Gus Fring from breaking bad
✨️Doofenshmirts✨️
@@wafflebean9828 yessssssss
The fourth trope reminds me of when I was watching Danny Phantom and the main girl was lowkey giving 'im not like other girls' Like, she uses her goth aesthetic less like an aesthetic and more like a way to be different, plus any interaction she had with a girl was always hostile. Not to mention that the girls that were hyper feminine were portrayed as dumb bullies.
Bad rep for real goths, all the ones I’ve met are the sweetest and most accepting people ever
Something I keep seeing in webtoons that drives me insane are cartoonishly evil schoolyard bullies turned villains that are supposed to be manipulative but they have zero self control/self preservation. This leads to them doing stupid things that get them quickly and easily defeated by the main character making them feel more like a minor inconvenience than an actual threat.
Omg I hate characters that are supposed to be really smart and cunning and intimidating but at the same time act stupid as hell like you can't be scary and comically dumb at the same time. (Example: Valentino from Hazbin hotel. We see him act terrifying with Angel but a complete dumbass with Vox)
Like that white jacket dude in reincarnated as a slime?
This is literally Chloe Bourgeois.
This is actually a trope I noticed in my own writing! (A story I've been working on since I was 13, and that I'm finally reworking as an adult.)
Well, this comment makes me feel better about overhauling my project, lol.
@@spooket8464whats really infuriating about this is that like, well thought out characters like Spot from ATSV go from “dumb silly” comedic TO extremely evil and cunning. Its such a great shift that can really get under your skin when the humour comic relief character suddenly becomes an actual threat and menacing. The problem is that this is one of the ONLY times you can make a comedy relief character actually properly menacing. The more you put in comedy into something or someone, the harder it will be to give them impact, specifically power and intimidation. People have to be prepared for this. There is some media that mixes being comedic and threatening with its themes and characters really well, however that is because they think out HOW to do this and find ways to make it work. But it takes much more skill and work to do, an example of how hard it can be is Murder Drones, which often struggles to blend the two, yet you can see the potential and the effort.
11:30 this trope is literally what we call “I’m not like other girls”
Yep and I really don’t like that trope
This! All it is is internalized misogyny masquerading as feminism, which is especially disappointing when female writers/creators do it :/
And it’s a sexist trope that is sometimes ironically labeled as “empowering”
And then there is the "not like not like other girls" effect, where if you are a girl and you like anything remotely unconventional or guy-ish, like spiders or cars, people accuse you of only doing it to attract attention and boys, and trying too hard to be different.
Moral of the story: you really can't win as a girl. So don't even bother and do what you like anyways, because some people will take issue with that no matter what.
You mean "pick me girl".
When it comes to the whole “masculine woman = good, feminine woman = bad” I think a lot of people immediately will picture a Katniss Everdeen type as the “masculine woman”.
I find this really ironic, because although The Hunger Games started a lot of trends in the YA fiction world, most of those trends revolve around people not understanding the point of The Hunger Games, it’s characters, and it’s themes.
There are many female characters in The Hunger Games who are traditionally feminine, and yet they are still seen as good (or at the very least, they are charismatic and likable).
Where Katniss is a good example of a masculine woman, her little sister Prim has always seemed more feminine to me. Prim is loving, kind, gentle, and a healer, all traits which are typically associated with women. (Whether you think it’s fair to associate those traits with women is another conversation entirely).
The same is true of Rue, who Katniss compares to Prim multiple times in the text. Rue heals Katniss, is reluctant to fight in the games, and is quite literally described as looking like an Angel.
Katniss feels no jealousy or bitterness towards either girl. Instead, she only ever wants to protect both of them. They aren’t hardened by the world the way she is, and instead of resenting them for that, Katniss seeks to save them from being affected by the worst parts of the world the way she has been.
There are more examples of feminine girls/women, but Rue and Prim are some of the most notable examples.
It just upsets me so much that The Hunger Games is blamed for starting the “insufferable, boys’ girl YA protag” trope when really the characters are deep, complex, and not petty in the way the YA genre can tend to be.
I don't think I ever saw Katniss as a tomboy (though I understand people who do). She was just a girl trying to survive in a harsh environment.
@@mythyk_4316 that’s very valid. I think I see her as more masculine because she has been forced by her circumstances to take on a more traditionally masculine role. Honestly, I don’t like gender roles or people being forced into specific boxes and personality types based on their sex assigned at birth. However, I do think that, as far as how Western society typically views masculinity, Katniss fits some of the stereotypes pretty well.
On the books there's also Madge who, while no over the top girly, she is someone with more typical femenine hobbies, mostly because she can afford them. If I remember well, the only women being put down for being traditionally femenine are Katniss mom, and Glimmer from the first book.
Even those aren't purely for said traits. Katniss resents her mother because she believes her weakness let them starve. By the end of the trilogy, she has more perspective of that moment. Glimmer is the closest we have to what most YA fiction do, and even then it's on the context of a death game where being pretty and charismatic is an actual asset. And this too adquires a lot of darker implications on the series.
Also Katniss does have some traditionally feminine passions. She’s really invested in Cinna’s clothes that he makes. She goes into a ton of detail when describing them that clearly shows that when she likes fashion (when it’s not the overtop Capitol styles).
@@Rowieismellow Yes, she does! In Katniss' case, it's less than she rejects them and more than she can't afford them (there's a line in the first book I think about how songs, rainbows and ribbons are in a low rank of usefulness in Twelve, but that they are useful all the same).
10:50 Jax from TADC is a great example of subverting this trope. At first people loved him, then the second episode came out and everyone hated him. They didn't realize that in the end, he's meant to be an *sshole. He isn't supposed to be likeable, he's a piece of sh*t. That's the entire draw of his character. A dude who has to tag along with a bunch of good guys and do what they want him to do when in reality he just wants to ruin everything.
a trope i DESPISE is when a show just will not stop making fun of a character bc of something like their race, gender, weight, height or whatever. especially if the character is a perfectly good person who doesn’t deserve it. like shut up please stop bullying them every 5 seconds for something they can’t control let them breatheeeee
Yikes…that’s definitely the worst one.
I see this especially with characters with any kind of mental/non-physical disorder (there is also quite a bit of physically disabled characters that get this). Like anxious and asd/ocd “coded” characters just getting bullied specifically FOR that part of them, like being the butt of the joke because “haha they were the ones super anxious and methodical about doing this thing but instead the other stable characters do it perfectly while they suck.” Like it can be fun to make it comedic to an EXTENT, but people do it so much that it just becomes literal bullying of said disorder/illness
An example, though not notably a specific disorder coding, is Moxxie from Helluva Boss. Hes often the butt of jokes for being annoying, overthinking and worrying. But the show just keeps bashing him for these things while also like, showing how those traits are things he is very insecure about and struggling to get better with. You see from his story that he comes from a home where his effeminate traits were things that made him easier to get hurt. Alot of his behaviour is revealed to be deeply troubling for him and make him feel inept and useless from childhood. And what does the show then do after?? CONTINUE to bash him for having said traits. Its no longer comedic and just becomes cruel and weakens the impact and plot.
@@James_the_mpa YES EXACTLY. kinda like entrapta from she-ra
@@gaysquirrel710 was she the like, tech-savvy one? I watched it briefly a couple of years ago.
@@James_the_mpa yeah! she is canonically autistic :)
2:46
Toga from MHA is a good recent example of this.
Like in my opinion she was done so dirty by the end. As she was basically proven right that the MHA world won’t accept people like her no matter what
I thought twice was kinda similar as well like most of the time we see him he is very loving and loyal though I kinda think he is a good example of this trope since it kinda shows that he is more villain by alignment
(Spoilers)
We do see in the last chapter in the time skip that Ochako set up a foundation to help people like Toga, so things like that don't happen again, and that she does really good work.
So in the end, people like her do end up being accepted, and I'm sure she would have wanted that
@@Yoimiya_Lover29
But why did she had to die.
Couldn’t see live and see that for herself
I CAME DOWN HERE TO SAY THAT
@@SammyRobinson62232 I wish Toga could have lived as well, but think it was to A) show Ochako's determination to save other people, because she could not save Toga, and B), show that Toga was really, at heart, a good person, because she was willing to sacrifice her life to save Ochako's. It was a beautiful, meaningful end, as sad as it was.
Some of the scariest evil characters are the ones who commit their evil acts on screen, with full seriousness. It shows they’re not afraid to hide themselves while doing these acts, and that they don’t care what others or the audience thinks of them.
Abijah Fowler from Blue Eye Samurai embodies this. He’s so unabashedly evil that he’s just a joy to watch
ProjectMoon villains
[CANTO IV SPOILER] literally manifests EGO because he's a complete douche and accepts that fact.
Also every arbiter is an asshole but they sure are ✨slaying✨ 💅💅
@@ebluegamer5397 PROJECT MOON MENTIONED
I would like to add Slade, from Teen Titans, to this
@@withercat1801yes! Please! We can not only recognize a character who does evil things on screen but also sympathize with and/or enjoy them as well. I love a good villain who just delights in their evil, like Ratagan, from the Great Mouse Detective (rewatched it last night) and you can also have someone do monstrous acts and then also be like a caring family-man or something in the next scene as another aspect of them.
Two different villain rants in one
Honestly Elsa saying you can't marry a man you just met if taken out of context of all the rest of movies that's a perfectly normal thing to say like if my brother said he was marrying someone he just met I would probably say the same lol
It also fits with Anna’s character being a naive and sheltered princess. It makes sense Kristoff and Elsa would call this out for being weird while Anna thinks it’s romantic.
Yeah I was gonna say, I don’t think this was a good example. There are so many more recent examples that Disney has done that better fit the bill imo, but I don’t think that was one of them. In the context of the movie, it’s a fitting line that shows frustration with her sister’s naivety and is executed in a way that wasn’t at all taking the mick of traditional Disney princess shenanigans. I personally think the princess scene in Wreck it Ralph 2 or the entirety of Wish shows better “genre shame” than that individual line. I do absolutely get where she’s coming from though, it’s a strange trend that’s trying to be “with the times” or whatever but just ends up feeling cringey or pandering.
It was a well done way of putting us in Anna's shoes, having us feel the rejection she felt in that moment. But yeah, out of context, Elsa is totally right.
I do think it’s a bit silly that the movie seems to have created Hans for the entire purpose of saying “A Princess Romance? How ridiculous! How unrealistic!” but then they still make Anna have romantic tension with Kristof?!? Not to mention Hans is just kind of a bad character. His evil twist doesn’t really make any sense if you think about it.
@kaleenar963 OOOO I AGREE WITH THIS like wasn't Anna just as naive with trusting Kristoff as she was with Hans?? Girl just got lucky that Kristoff happened to be more trustworthy. Idk what Disney was cooking there, feels like they wanted to give off two contrasting messages lol. I'm happy with either but maybe just pick one direction to go in?
14:42 i was BORN to hear lavendertowne pronounce amongus skibidi
14:42 shoutout to amongus skibidi they a real one fr
real
Honestly if ppl just like the aesthetic of an "evil" character but don't wanna commit to making them evil they should just make their protagonist(s) a crazy looking goth/punk/alt person and save the villainy for another character, I think that would be more interesting than the tell-don't-show villain
EXACTLY! But i think some people like ,,the bad boy" or ,,the cool dangerous villain" yet they don't have the guts to make then evil becouse evil people are not very nice, they usually hurt the innocent and most viewers will not like their cute bad boy if he liked destroyed orphanages and killed cats or smth
,,,nimona
There's a Webtoon called "How to Be a Mind Reaver" where the main character looks like a mindflayer and talks a lot about "mind manipulation magic" but he's actually really nice and the aforementioned "magic" is just stuff like manners, empathy, and persuasion through logic and kindness.
😎
Lmao that's one of my characters. Bro's a crazy punk-esque criminal but is pretty much just a goober because I don't have the heart to make him a true villain
Some of these tropes really drive me insane as a writer and artist, it gets really repetitive and it loses flavor, those sweet sunshine’s that are 100% gonna die in the end, those villains who are probably broken, you can use character tropes but maybe add a few of your own spices, add flavor, you can’t keep people hooked on the same thing
As always, tropes are tools. It’s how you use them that can make or break a story.
@@carelessdreamer exactly, tropes is what makes a story, but if you use them wrong the story could go down the range, looking at a lot of stories you’ll realize they have a lot of the same tropes used differently, you just need to make the trope interesting and not bland
Funny thing is that I kinda beat the “happy one dies and the tough one avenges them” trope by switching the roles lmao
@@jjackmn1 honestly that sounds pretty good, way to mix things up a bit
@@jjackmn1that reminds me of the whole “papyrus is just as strong as sans, but we don’t see it because he never got pushed far enough to” theory in undertale. The general idea is that in genocide/neutral route, if you could kill sans first, suddenly papyrus would show a side of him thats angry, serious and vengeful, suddenly turning harsh at the murder of his own brother. Its such an interesting idea for a character that I absolutely always love to see. Even if theres barely evidence of this papyrus theory, just thinking about it gives papyrus this sudden depth and mystery.
oh my gosh I get the redeemed just to die plot is SO ANNOYING. it’s unfair to the readers a little too if you think about it. You have to read this guy’s entire plot, see him through all this evil, and then when you see him FINALLY redeemed, they’re killed. (Usually saving the heroine, which is cool… but it’s overused) 😭😭 it hurts my soul sitting through their redemption arc only for them to be killed off. It hurts my heart 💔
I personally hate this trope because it makes it difficult to have complex conversations about their actions. Like if you die doing something good, suddenly none of your previous actions matter? It drives me crazy!
Yeah exactly, like why walk us through all this character development just to kill them off😭
its also annoying because then its like they ONLY had a redemption arc so it would be sad when theyre killed off instead of a compelling reason for why they had to be redeemed to serve the plot in an intersting way. it drives me INSANE and my favourite part of redepemtion arcs are seeing how the redeemed person veiws themselves and suffers the concequences of their actions despite being reformed
It reminds me of Sir Pentious. It’s like I just watched all his development for nothing.😭
@@CasperCanvas eh, with him it's different since it pays off because he goes to heaven and still be used throughout the show versus other characters who are permanently killed
14:20 i would love to see a female relationship where the feminine one gives bows or something to the MC and the MC wears them during battle. Also, to contradict the "stupid and feminine" trope, the feminine girl could complain about others being silly or not understanding her because they wont listen. This would fix the trope
And maybe show that they aren't dumb, that they have skills. They could have hobbies that are both "girly" or simply not traditionally masculine, and extremely useful. For example, if they are good at make up or making clothes, they can help with disguises, or they're a good dancer and can infiltrate a performance without being suspected.
Being a master of fashion, they'd probably be able to recognize if someone is lying about their social class, because they could tell if someone is wearing a fabric or clothing that is expensive or cheap in their region, or if they're wearing it wrong or just in a certain way. Dress historians today already point out strange inaccuracies in historical films, so I'd imagine a fashion expert of the time would be able to pick up that "this strange guy they just met" might be a time traveler, even if they were transported with a costume.
It doesn't even need to be a "girly" skill, just something that shows that they are intelligent. They can be an active member of the community, like working in a bakery or soup kitchen, or being a medic or healer. They might be really good at painting or music, skills that might not seem to have any uses until they're in a situation where it does. Or not, just show that they are skilled at something.
And the "not being honest" bit is extremely useful if you're trying to deceive your enemies, being a good liar can be helpful in a pinch.
It's not being girly that's a problem, it's the lack of depth.
You are right on point with your Disney princesses.
Movies have become deeply insecure and include those self-aware meta jokes to ward of criticism.
Especially big industry movies. The fear of being called out I feel like has ruined some potentially great stories and or characters. Like the whole thing of having to check off specific representations. I love to see different people and situations represented in media, but authentically not a caricature of some box you needed to check off thrown in haphazardly.
8:02 the worst example of Disney doing this was in Wreck it Ralph 2 during that princess dressing room scene. one of the characters goes "does everyone assume all your problems got solved because of man?" while literally half of the characters in the room DID have their problems solved because of man 😭like ffs the Disney PRINCESS line is 90% of their market.
I think the point was not to claim that a man didn't help them solve any of their problems, but rather that people assume ALL their problems were solved when said man showed up- the implication being that they have other problems but that people's perception of them flattens them to just the ones that a man solved.
@@zoro115-s6bSnow White and Sleeping Beauty were saved by their Prince’s love
@@SuperEasywalkeryea, but not every single one of her problems was solved because of that, if men were the magical cure for everything more people would get married lol
Same with Aurora, Ariel@@SuperEasywalker
@@exaltedfalcheon1793 Aurora is Sleeping Beauty
Gustavo Fring is one character that I LOVED the politeness about. It was unnerving how calculated but polite he was and how he could switch from that facade to being absolutely terrifying in SECONDS. this is oh so hard to get right and you'd have to really make your character commit to it - which means the writer has to commit to it. we need more terrifying villains like that and this trope that we see just feels very animated and it makes me feel like im robbed of something.
Redeemed just to die? Tired. Died just to come back a second later? Seen it. Redeemed just to fakeout die and then come back and have to deal with the consequences? Now we’re talking 👀
Does anyone have any good examples of _this_ trope? My research only comes up with Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I haven't seen it, so I don't know how well it fits.
Catra may be a good example. She sacrificed herself and then Adora saved her and Catra was like "oh shit I have to be an actual person now instead of a trauma-fuelled gremlin"
@@awarlockunkindlyborn1353 Loki is a good example I think. He helps Thor save Jane, fake dies, and the comes back later.
this kind of reminds me of apollo in trials of apollo (percy jackson) tho its been a while since i read that book
There's a big example of this in Bojack Horseman. If you've watched it, you know when.
I actually did an entire school project on the ‘evil only offscreen’ character trope!! I did it because this trope is a lot more common than a lot of people think, it is in multiple forms of media. It’s a trope as old as time and it’s only now beginning to cause some serious issues, in a few words, this trope tends to suggest that people capable of murder, torture and other awful crimes are good people as long as they are traditionally kind. You could use damon Salvador from vampire diaries as an example. He is a vampire who kills multiple people throughout the serious for his own personal gain and even expresses joy in taking part in this behaviour, yet as he becomes a more traditionally kind character throught the series, the other characters sympathise with him, forgive him and even grow to love him. It’s clear that the writers expect the audience to do the same, forgetting he has taken the lives of MULTIPLE INNOCENT PEOPLE. Even if the writers intention is just to create an ‘evil’ character that is still loved by the audience, it causes problems as it focuses on small wrongdoings like bad manners as more criminal and downplays serious crimes like murder and torture, which can cause poeple to wrongly judge people in the real world, causing abusive relationships, romanticisation of criminals and an overly forgiving attitude towards violence. 😭
THAT IS SO TRUE!!! It also encourages the "I can save them," "I can change them," and the "I can bring out the good I see in them" mindset, or the "savior" complex, that so many people have when dating awful people who have sprinklings of kindness/politeness. ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO STAY IN ABUSSIVE RELARIONSHIPS! 🤦♀️
Also Notice how These "i can fix them" Characters are Always attractive Not once does this trope happen for an ugly Guy.
As someone who fell in love with super heroes at an early age, the “super hero movies are embarrassed of themselves” thing gets to me SO much.
It’s been happening for like, 25 years. I can’t stand watching the movies now because it feels like they’re constantly going, “comic books are silly and dumb, which makes you silly and dumb for seeing this movie! But we still want you to see it though please watch our movie”
It’s like the writer’s are embarrassed of the source material, which is insulting and alienating to movie-goers who love the comics
Just imagine at the end of iron man 1, when tony drops the "i am iron man" and after the reporters swarm him, it cuts to Pepper like "Really? That's what he's going with?" IMAGINE how lame that'd be, completely robbing that utterly raw moment just to turn to the audience and point out how aware you are.
Honestly the "tomboy vs girly girl" thing was part of the problem I had with both the live action Winx Club and Monster High adaptations were they not only stripped Bloom and Clawdeen of their femininity and made them more masculine but then kept Stella and Cleo (who were the most feminine characters in the og) feminine but also made them both into mean girls who bully our main characters even though they were nothing like that in og and it's especially worse because they both had in the og show been written as subversions to that trope
I hate the 'tomboy vs. girly girl' thing so much tbh. I just want a show or movie that shows that girls can enjoy different things and still be friends. Or at the very least be cordial. I never understood why being feminine was automatically seen as a bad thing. Plus, sometimes the "tomboy" character isn't even a tomboy. All they do is wear pants and throw their hair in a ponytail. 😭
i mean cleo was always a bully but i get yr point lol. whats interesting is they also made torelei way more feminine than she was in the og, giving her longer hair and taking away her punk fashion for the most part. you cant be alt or a tomboy but you also can't be TOO feminine and confident in that femininity like clawdeen was. draculaura also lost her bubbly hyper femme girlyness :(.
@@awhimsyreader9015 And I thought the only problem the monster high adaptation had was the design for clawdeen
@@Not_Mady_ Instead of "tomboy vs. girly girl" it should be "tomboy x girly girl".
What's ridiculous is that winx club and monster high are two shows that celebrated femininity above all else. There was always high emphasis on fashion, makeup, more traditionally girly things like shopping or talking about boys, etc. Winx had girls fighting monsters while in pretty dresses. Both shows are super girly to their core, and it shows that these modern adaptations couldn't comprehend even a little bit of that because they want to shove women into this box of what they think is ideal.
as a musical fan, the second one you mentioned drives me CRAZY. every movie musical and sometimes even stage musicals these days are like “HUAHAHAHA WHy aRe wE sInGiNg??? XD” its the worst
Nobody comes to a musical to see a critique of musicals, or at least very few people. People come to musicals to watch people sing and dance and maybe it's a little cheesy but the people who watch musicals, sUrpRisIngLY, LIKE them singing and dancing!
The only time I've seen this executed correctly is in "the guy who didn't like musicals", but that one is a double satire of musicals and space horror so the audience knows what they are getting into beforehand.
Ughhhh truuue a random thrown in meta ‘self hate’ joke like that in an otherwise like normal musical just doesn’t feel right
fr we need to leave the "tomboy vs. girly girl" behind us.
Now I’m wondering why we can’t mix and match the two. Women are just as diverse as men, and I don’t see men getting put into “manly men” vs “femboys”.
@@tuojiangoman3228
Ok, yea, that would be kinda funny
Agreed. I think the idea that women need to have masculine traits to be valuable is the reason a lot of young women feel themselves identifying more as men instead of just being their authentic female self, however “manly.”
@@tuojiangoman3228 twitter is basically that xD
The last one is a reason why i LOVE Buffy the Vampire Slayer tv-show, she's the first example i've seen of a feminine girly girl being a hero who fights! And the friendships in that show are heartwarming
6:03 I think Elsa telling Anna not to marry Hans is very in character and natural, Elsa has been supressed for over a decade and taught to have caution and fear as a core value (this is a big overarching theme too). I think it could also possibly stem from Elsa wanting to protect her sister after probably spiralling over the accident when she was literally 10 but idk
the amount of manga/webtoons titled something like "the evil empresses" or "the demon queen" and they dont do anything more evil that make a pun about someones name is annoying, evil is wiping entire towns and villages off a map, not building a harem of identical overly buff twinks
Yeah you Look one Look at History and you have Queens called Saints or freedom fighters WHO have Like 200 Times the Body Count compared to These evil empresses.
Like Boudicca,i can understand why she was Mad but she goes really wild.
2:05 I really feel like this is most of the demons in Demon Slayer. Right when they die, they realize the bad things they've done and change to be better in the afterlife :{ I still love kny sm though !
Edit :: Alright, I am aware this is not the case, thank you for clarifying in the replies ! :`)
Same I love it but it bugs me
@@Oktopus549 yeah
I dont feel like they're the same.
The demons in demon slayer aren't meant to be redeemed though and we get to see their backstory not for redemption but for understanding that they were once humans too and to sympathise with them and the unfortunate situation they've been put in.
@@janakh7402 True ! You have a point there, but it still would be interesting to idk get a redemption arc or something of that sort, I dunno it was also one of the only things I could really think of { I am stupid tired }
10:28 Lucifer from hazbin hotel. He's not necessarily supposed to be a bad guy, but he was supposed to be a bad dad. But then they never actually showed him being a not good parent in the actual show so you get really confused as to why they never reconnected until Charlie was an adult.
Well, depression is one heck of a miserable state of being. Lucifer did not believe in Charlie's idea and saw sinners as hopeless, too, and he's obviously spent a lot of time to himself, probably not communicating much with his daughter. It isn't until Charlie actually invites her dad that they have a proper talk, as I see it, and only in the finale does Lucifer actually see that the Hazbin Hotel has brought the good out in the likes of Angel Dust, Husk and Sir Pentious.
Also, I'm not sure he was supposed to be a "bad father", just distant and damaged.
@@iclynnx Distant and damaged enough to emotionally neglect his daughter for hundreds of years since she was a child.
I get it, I've had pretty bad depression myself, but I'll be damned if I let it get in the way of raising my kid
@@ajthewildwolf To be clear, I'm not excusing his actions or lack of action, just saying, depression can be extremely difficult for some people. It's a mental illness that can get _really_ bad, to the point you neglect important things, even if you deep down care. At the height of my depression and heartache, I tried to push away my best friend, and my only friend, believing she was better off without me and I deserved to be alone. I think Lucifer might have had a similar case, but actually managed to push away others.
@@iclynnx Oh yeah, okay you're good then. I love me anyone with a nuanced view
@@ajthewildwolf This might be weird but I appreciate this response, thank you for being civil and respecting my perspective. I hope I also came across that way, I'm not the best with words and tone.
When it comes to the "meta-shame of your own genre" I feel like thee's no better example than musicals, esp movie musicals and reboots. There's always the "oooh, how does everyone know the choreography?" and "wait uh... Are you actually singing right now?" that's so on the nose and full of disdain for its own genre. Like the writers and directors turning to the audience and trying to act like the cool parent with "ugh, I know it's cringe, I'm sorry that this is a musical" which is upsetting, because the musical is what I wanted.
I think in my opinion the worst example was in Star wars Rebels when they Made the meme that "stormtroopers cant aim" Canon. IT wasnt true in the OT and they only missed because they Shot at Main Characters i already hate that Thing in parodies but making IT Canon was a garbage move
13:05 This is actually kind of the source of recent desires to become a man/present as masc for me. I hate the girl stereotypes but I definitely do feel more “guyish” in the traditional sense. idk, personal opinion but being a girl has more negativity about it than being a guy (but both genders suffer equally dont get me wrong)
Fascinating how I almost have the exact opposite.
I’m a guy that has never really been too attached to their masculinity- Heck, I find a lot of typically masculine things rather annoying. I find a lot masculine fashion dull. I think certain ‘masculine’ mind sets are outdated and sometimes plain toxic, so on so forth.
I’d just really like to detach myself from that.
Probably (definitely) has something to do with the fact that like 90% of all the bad people in my life that have deeply effected me are guys, meanwhile so much of the good in my life has come from girls (my best freinds, caretaker figures, family, etc).
And in case it sounded as such: I defiantly don’t think guys are bad, at all. There are some great guys in my life who I love. This is just my own experience and how it’s led me to perceive guys as a whole. I think your thoughts are completely valid too.
You both shouldnt Focus on masculine feminine and Focus on what values the characteristics are based Off. Being strong doesnt Always have to mean you have to physically lift stuff , being caring doesnt mean you have to Babysit. Truth, Strength, Honor,Empathy,Loyalty,etc IS expressed by men and women in different ways but the values stay the Same. You dont have to Force yourself into some role.
@@laisphinto6372 Honesly: Completely valid statement.
Not cuz that's so accurate, wanting to escape being a girl not because I don't like femenine things or being one but I don't like the way (I will say the word) SOCIETY perceives this things in women
People look at femenine women as weak and all sort of things so naturally girls want to be the opposite (men)
The second trope you talked about is called lampshading. Overly Sarcastic Productions has a video discussing it if you ever want to try it out. Highly recommend!
I feel like a redeemed to kill could be a compelling way to make a protagonist more interesting. The death of the redeemed character makes the protagonist more bitter, and then they go through an arch of being evil / morally inept. Then they become redeemed and have to work through the problems the killed character might have had. So ig the Shadow the Hedgehog arc but the person killed was bad first.
One subversion that I love is "village sacrafices maiden to the dragon, but the dragon isn't evil and doesn't know why the villagers do that, so he sets the girls free and they run away"
I think I've seen it maybe twice? And it's honestly just brilliant. I love the idea of a character everyone thinks is evil, but they're actually just a really chill guy
Or an evil villain who really does do horrible things, but is very polite or maybe has *some* morals. Like, he'll take out a whole city, but leave the children untouched and open up an orphanage for them. Or takes in lost kids, but only to raise them to be killers/assassins
I think there's an anime of it i forgot the title but it was about an ancient dragon who people were always scared of and sends a sacrifice to the dragon in hopes of giving the village mercy from being slaughtered.
But as it turns out the dragon is a vegan and just wants to live peacefully, so it's confused when a sacrificial girl came into it's cave to be eaten.
Dragon tried to let go girl but the girl was determined to get sacrificed cause she replaced her friend who was supposed to be sacrificed instead
Lien-da
@Xherion I know exactly the show you're talking about, because I have the myanimelist website open to it. It's called "shi cao lao long bei guan yi e long zhi ming" or "a herbivorous dragon of 5,000 years gets unfairly villainized"
@@krishnavinesh5638 huh? Who?
that sort of reminds me of the movie ‘i am dragon’ this princess gets kidnapped by a dragon but throughout the movie you learn more about the dragon and how he never wanted to be evil (it’s really tropey/cheesy but a fun watch)
I feel like the 'Evil But Only Offscreen' villain is usually just shy of the bad guy trope I love - where the good manners are a very thin facade, and they slip whenever inconvenienced, provoked, there aren't enough people around they care about impressing, etc. Even if/when they do slip publicly, they lie, charm, and gaslight their way out of the hot seat, usually to the disbelief of the person that sees through their act. Invader Zim captures this perfectly for me.
i think mha has a great subversion of the first trope with endeavor. there's a few points in the story where it seems like he's gonna die doing something heroic but he actually survives to the end and he's never given "the easy way out" like the characters who die after doing one good thing. i really like endeavor's arc in general because while the story leans more towards "he's changed for the better now" it still treats not forgiving him for his past actions as valid through natsuo and toya. he also has to do a lot to earn his redemption and even at the end it's shown that he's still working on being better and making things right and will continue to do that for the rest of his life even if people won't forgive him in the end.
7:47 this is why I loveee Deadpool and Wolverine because it’s a love letter to the superhero movie
If you're going to be a superhero movie or any other category of movie, it's okay to just own it.
Yes! This! I love how the Deadpool movies aren’t ashamed of their source material. Too many superhero movies are and I hate it so much.
14:07 Minecraft Alex
(totally agree btw, but I do think those female characters were probably born from the societal expectations to be super feminine. A lot of women still do get pushback against even those more socially acceptable ways of nonconformaty and they probably identify a lot with these type of female characters.)
well said.
Lol wait why minecraft alex
@@Muffinn_Cakes the red hair, pale skin, green top and brown pants made me think of Minecraft Alex immediately
@@nyphoxe OH I thought you were saying that the trope was like minecraft Alex, and I was like, do the minecraft skins have lore to them or something??
Exactly!! Butches and other forms of gnc women get *so* much hatred and pushback still, that I honestly can’t help but feel sceptical when I hear people complain about NLOGs and similar tropes.
Yes it sucks seeing femininity get shat on, and no I don’t think hyper femme characters deserve to be mocked or turned into villains, but if people seriously think femme women are treated worse overall than masc ones then I’m sorry but they need to step into the real world for a second
The plush looks soo evil/positive
xd i thought the same thing
Stop using ''/pos'' as "positive''. It literally defaults to "piece of shit".
@Teuwufel I usually see people use it to mean postive I'll edit it anyway I think most will understand
Shoutout to The Owl House for taking an axe to every trope on the list (spoilers ahead!):
Redeemed just to die - Philip tries to pull this after he gets defeated in his titan possessing form, but it just ends up being an act to save his own skin that absolutely nobody buys, and he dies as the puddle of sludge he is.
Meta-shaming - while the show does poke fun at general isekai/fantasy story tropes (the rusty smidge from S1Ep18 being a particularly hilarious example), it also unashamedly embraces them for all it's worth, and most of it's meta humor comes from playing the tropes in interesting ways. The Lumity kiss scene is taken directly from an old fairytale, and it's wonderful.
Evil but only offscreen - Belos does this amazingly. He doesn't do anything directly in S1 as he's mostly just giving orders to his subordinates, but he comes in clutch in S2. When he has his mask off for a conversation in S2Ep9 and seems gentle and polite on a surface level, there's this underlying sense of unease the entire time (straight up telling Hunter "it would be a hassle to find a replacement" becomes incredibly morbid in hindsight of Hollow Mind) Heck, one can even argue him doing a face reveal in S2Ep11 is his way of feigning this trope, to gain public favour.
Girly=Bad - while the more feminine Amity was initially a bully to the tomboyish Luz early on, that's completely out the window by mid S1 at least, and the even end up being partners by the finale. Even the other supposed "mean girl" characters subvert this: Bosha and Skara are both quite fashion-forward and sports-loving, yet the more brash Bosha is the meanest one, while the comparably more feminine Skara (my favorite) is an absolute sweetheart.
My favorite version of doing the making fun of heroes trope is definitely Megamind (Dreamworks used to be really good at stuff like this)
Not only is our main character seen as the villain, but it also has all the typical tropes of a hero story, with added jokes about how a hero doesn't always want to be a hero, and they did it in a funny way of Metro Man to Music Man
Yesss!!!!
the off screen villain is literally alastor and vox from hazbin hotel. both characters are supposed to be intimidating and at least come from some evil background but we never see alastor actually exhibit any of this and we never see vox do anything. we never see vox and alastor actually have a reason to clash, we just see them talk about it.
Thats a very fair point,but Al is considerably powerful(he is still an overlord despite his absense,even if it was from a deal),literal seen eating a deer while hes kinda one,decided to beef with the king of hell for no reason,manipulated Charlie in hells greatest dad,and has gone on cannibalistic rampages in the past(it could be proven wrong but eh)
Vox works and is supossedly dating a 🍇ist,hypnotizes people,and were apparentlly gonna see more of them in season 2
@@Unknown3D0ors al's "cannibalistic rages" we dont even see happen, thats part of why the off screen villain trope fits him. in the pilot he supposedly doesn't care for the safety of the hotel or its residents, hes greatly feared, and not someone that can be controlled. but in the show hes just magically friendly with everyone and when he goes out in public its as if hes like any other pedestrian. we dont ever see how he went from evil to literally 0 real flaws. he just has this evil backstory as a plot device for the hotel and to justify his aesthetic. theres no drawback to keeping one of the most feared and evil beings in all of hell at the hotel.
and with vox, theres the facts about his character but the "villain off screen" trope refers to their actual actions. what we see them physically say and do, not the simple facts tacked on. vox is flat. i cant even recall this ability to hypnotize he apparently has. in the show we have no reason to think he has actual power. we dont see him do much of anything that would suggest his motives. hes just there to beef with alastor.
@@scourgatory
Now while I dont disagree about Al not murdering anyone on screen, I would like to point out that he is known for being manipulative - and manipulative people (sociopathic??) tend to blend in to a crowd and are difficult to identify. Which means that many of his manipulative behaviors aren't registered by many people unless they have prior experience with it [Vaggie, Husk, Angel]
Just wanted to give my two-cents :]
I mean there are moments where Alastor does dark things but not enough to really understand why he's as scary as Vivziepop is trying to make him out to be. Vox literally isn't shown to do anything evil, aside from brainwashing but it feels more like a petty rivalry. Alastor is implied to be very manipulative through some of his actions but you never actually see why he chooses to do those things.
@@littysavior9181 to me that honestly seems like an excuse by the writers so al can continue to just be an easy fix for any problem without anyone having to make any sacrifice by having him around. if a character was literally known by everyone to be manipulative and committed atrocities that all of hell knew about, theres no way theyd be able to walk down the street and hang out in public or be the face for a hotel without any backlash
14:36 I could see this sterotypes evolving perfectly in an enemies to lovers kinda thing. The girlboss is somewhat good at everything and effortlessly beautiful, but dispite multiple boys have a crush on her, she doesnt like any of them back. The feminine one is extremely jealous of the girlboss' natural looks and talent, and so she starts to try and take her down. Until one day, they find eachother being alone togheter, so they start to talk. Then slowly, the fem one softens(?) and decides to learn some "boy" hobbies, the girlboss tries more feminine thing etc until they balance eachother out and realize that by teaching themselves to the other person, they've fallen in love. (Or they could remain as friends. Its fun that way too.)
i love how the offscreen villain from the third trope looks like the redeemed just to die person from the first trope. cool detail
I just realize a pair of OCs simultaneously use and subvert the last trope. I have two characters that operate as foils, sometimes rivals. One is a more feminine woman, but she isn’t exactly mean or ditzy. She’s a socially perceptive person that can often figure out exactly what someone else is thinking. The tomboy is the woman’s subordinate, basically the brawn to her brains. They need each other but can sometimes experience friction since the prim and proper woman can’t always get the roughneck girl to listen to her plan.
A trope that I hate, is when the Female Lead picks the awful guy, the one that treats her like garbage. Then that same trashy guy starts acting all "nice", it grosses me out so much. Please pick the guy that treats you right and is respectful, is it that difficult!??? 😅
Literally Frozen. Hans and Anna had great chemistry, they shared the same interests, shared the similar trauma of growing up as neglected spars, and even had a great song. Then Kristoff comes along, a borderline misanthropic ice harvester with poor hygiene, who ridicules her for wanting to marry a guy she just met although she is a naive young woman starved of love. The only reason he helps her out is so she can buy him a new sled. He doesn't do it out of compassion or concern that this vulnerable woman is all by herself. The writers then have Hans turn abruptly psychotic so Anna can be with Kristoff. Its gross because Anna is basically a prize to Kristoff, a reward for helping her up that mountain. He is the heroic male lead, so he should get the girl, right?
Counterpoint He has Abs
WE Humans endure a Lot of nonsense Just because the spouse IS hot. Goes both ways
@@Nopeasaurus It always boggles me that people idolize Frozen and Frozen 2. They're good stories, I like how they break some walls down in Disney, but man - at the end of the day, they're both massively confused movies where the conventionally good-looking characters defeat a villain who's a child with an extremely abusive back-ground and another who's a man basically body-shamed for being short and weird looking the whole time. It was obvious to me when I watched that they changed the script halfway through making the film, and they could have had a great angle to work at in 2 if they had dared make the trolls morally grey and more force-of-nature than paragon. It would have explained so much if the trolls actually had cursed Hans to turn evil.
The funny thing is that a huge part of the story I'm writing revolves ENTIRELY around the idea of making ammends, true redemption and how even good people can do horrible things. How to cope with it afterwards ect
Idk if you're writing or animating or what, but if this is getting publicized lemme know! It sounds fuckin awesome
@@Deoxy81 ofc!!!
@@CrysPhoenix thankya!
14:37 you know can turn those two into main characters in a comic, but make their tropes interesting and flesh out their characters. They can start out as enemies, stuff happens, and became friends
Some of my least favourite tropes:
>Main Character moral privilege: The MC's actions, choices and opinions are always the right ones, even if they might actually be wrong, toxic or downright villainous irl. This is mostly because the author might not want to have their character be wrong/flawed or have to make difficult choices that result in loss or conflict.
>Suddenly Sympathetic Villain/Morally-Grey Villains done poorly: "You've killed my parents, insulted my mom, attacked us at every opportunity and are now trying to destroy the entire universe!"
"Yeah, but I'm gonna suddenly trauma-dump my conveniently sad backstory on you to make you feel bad, and the author is going to actually expect you to gloss over my sins and see it from my perspective and sympathize with me! Who knows, you might even let me off the hook and we might even become friends after this!"
_"No."_
first one reminds me of Brambleclaw/star from Warriors
Suddenly sympathetic villain/morally gray works when one character believes them and one doesn't, and it makes a little conflict between two main/good characters.
That's my opinion tho
A little spoiler
In Kamen Rider Saber, when Touma confronts Master Logos about his motive for destroying the world, he replies with a speech that broadly talks about losing a loved one, only to ask Touma "That's what you want to hear, right?". He then revealed that he did it out of boredom, directly mocking the suddenly sympathetic villain trope.
First one is marinette
First one is literally Persephone from Lore Olympus and noone can convince me otherwise
One character I love who has had so much character development is ocean from ride the cyclone. Before her death (and into it) she was super obnoxious, only caring about herself. The thing is when she learns about her choir members lives and hardships she ends up realising just how much she had it well, and when given the choice to send someone back to live again, she chooses someone else. I really love her character and I wish more characters in media would have that much development.
0:19 *cough cough* Luke Castellan- *cough cough*
Cough cough yes cough cough
cough real cough cough
I saw him and immediately saw Luke with the scar lol
cough cough *correct* cough cough
I saw that scar !!!! You ant subtle
The "Redeemed just to die" trope somewhat reminds me of my favourite character's death from a book. What if his death is his redemption?
there's a lot of really good discussions around the implications of redemption through death. Is death justice?
Ok now i need to know who you were talking about lol
@@isacocca3187 Grantaire from Les Misérables :-)
Still not a fan. I neither like the message of ‘the best thing you can do for other people around you is die’ or ‘man sacrifices himself instead of having to put in actual work of making himself better’.
The trope doesn't always turn out like that, but I’ve seen it end up as one of those two things enough times.
@@HiBuddyyyyyy Yeah, I agree. Although I think I have a bit of a soft spot for the specific character I'm referring to, and I would explain, but I don't want to bother you with my infodump lol.
for the first trope, i think it only works well if we actully get to see some of the antagonists character arc of changing, but the protagonist doesn't or maybe they only get to see snippets of how this character starts to act off, etc this makes the antagonist have their character arc, without it feeling forced then it also hurts much more when they die, because they couldn't get their full happy ending
“we all love lavendertowne” we say in unison
WE ALL LOVE LAVENDERTOWNE
We all love lavendertowne
We all love lavendertowne
we live we laugh we love lavendertowne
Lavendertowne love all we
2:26 a good almost reverse trope of this character is Marcy Wu from Amphibia. SPOILERS!!!!!!! She's seen as a good and smart person, but right before she's killed, she admits to reading about the music box that trapped Marcy Sasha and Anne there. She traps them in Amphibia because she didn't want to leave them by moving away. She willingly did something 'evil' because she wanted it, then was stabbed. I'm not saying she's fully evil from this, but it's nice to think abt it
Ooo, I hate that last trope too. I wrote a friendship dynamic between two characters, one was the masculine girl who never fit in, the other was the feminine one who did what was expected of her. But I wrote it to show why they were still friends - feminine girl wanted more freedom, but didn't want to disappoint her family, so she admired the other girl. Masculine girl wanted to fit in and be liked, but she was too stubborn and independent, and envied the other girl. They didn't always agree either, but they had such a great dynamic that could be teasing but never mean.
i hate it when they make such a good character with devolpment which is a fan favorite and they just die
one of mine is when they have a truely evil villan but at the end they redeem them! Like can we not just have an evil villan? Do they always have to be “good” deep down?
95% the time they aren't even adequately doubted or punished.
THE DIAMONDS FROM STEVEN UNIVERSE!!! Thanks I hate it!!
Thats why palpatine IS the goats He has a Backstory. Summary He was Always an evil bastard since birth and believes himself to BE the sith'ari aka the Chosen one of the DARK Side , has a blast Killing His own Family with His bare Hands.
lol the evil offscreen is so alastor from hazbin
AND VOX
He literally hurt Husk and Sir Pentious, wanted to k!ll the egg minions inhumanely, took advantage of Charlie being emotionally vulnerable to make a deal that will likely bite her in the butt later, he ate the demons after Mimzy, and tried to replace Lucifer as Charlie's father figure.
@@iclynnx but it feels so glossed over, to me at least. I can only recal the scene where Alastor pulls Husk by "chains of their deal" as a scene that I thought "welp, fuck", because the other ones you've mentioned were either funny or we didn't got to see the bad outcome (yet, at least)
@@iclynnxThe demons attacked first no? All of that mentioned we either haven't seen the bad outcomes or were glossed over.
That "evil but only offscreen" section is definitely a vaguepost about Alastor and even as a HH fan I agree.
9:48 I like when characters are only evil to certain people
I think the “polite but evil character” can be interesting depending on how it’s done because I don’t think evil always looks evil and most bad people still have people they care about and will do good things sometimes.
Alastor from Hazbin Hotel is like that, he’s very polite and well mannered… but he’s also an overlord who owns peoples souls and was a cannibalistic serial killer in life. I guess the difference from what you described though, is that you do see Alastor’s dark side on screen. He puts on a “mask” and is charming and polite in a way that gains peoples trust… so they’ll make a deal 😈
Real psychopaths are like that, they have excellent social skills that they use to manipulate people into getting what they want. I personally find that kind of evil scarier than anything on the nose because you just don’t know if the person is good or bad.
Exactly!
there are so many people in the comment section saying "alastor didn't actually do anything evil he's an example of this trope!!" Like he literally kills multiple people on screen horribly. Polite doesn no simply mean that he didn't do anything wrong on screen like he manipulates people and kills people and owns slaves. He isn't even that polite, it's like passive agressive politeness that he uses to assert that he's in control of the situation.
@@Embibuiltdifferent Agreed! Do people forget the flashbacks to him coming to hell? The way he treats Husk? The sheer joy he got in throwing those loan sharks about…
Not to mention that he wouldn’t tell Charlie how to save the Hotel without her agreeing to make a deal with him. Alastor does plenty of bad things, he’s just likeable so people forget. I love Alastor, he’s my favourite character, but he’s not a good person by any stretch of the imagination
Wow, I'm insanely early. About that evil only off screen one, It's often used to turn said character into a love interest for the (usually) naive teen girl character. Which I do find annoying, as it's so overused. However, the thing with tropes is that there's no such thing as a 'bad' trope, just poorly used/copy paste tropes.
Additionally, that last one really annoys me as well - it's definitely an example of a legitimately bad, toxic trope that can't really be redeemed (except to be used as character development about a girl who has a lot of internalized misogyny, which I would definitely like to see!)
I'm trying to play of this a little. In the novel I'm writing the main villain does actively do bad things, but he'd manipulated and brainwashed the naive teen girl MC into believing everything that comes out of his mouth, so he lies or tries to play it off. One little example is he goes away for a while and comes back with a box of chocolates. There's both milk and dark chocolates in there. MC only likes dark, but MV likes milk. He told her the candy store only sold them in mixed boxes like that. She believed him without question
Interestingly enough, 3 out of those tropes are basically writer being like “Look at me! I’m so different/alt/unique/quirky by doing the exact opposite of traditional writing while ironically falling into being a carbon copy of other artist thinking they’re special.” 😂
Lol like when kid shows show a performance competition and they want to be different so the decide to do some wacky combination of like classical ballet and hip hop thay has never been done before to be sooo different 😂
12:17 I’m writing (and drawing) a webtoon where the main character is actually best friends with this ‘stereotypical blonde girl’ and such. Because I really like writing the blonde girl.
0:19 RDR2 in a nutshell:
I disagree.
SPOILERS for RDR2:
Arthur’s redemption starts to play out near the beginning of Chapter 6, immediately after he’s diagnosed with TB. Chapter 6 is where Arthur goes through the most character development in the game, and you’re there with him all throughout. He doesn’t die immediately after one or two good things, he goes through a whole process of trying to right as many wrongs he and the gang have committed as he can. And chapter 6 is a fairly lengthy chapter too. Lavender seems to be talking about characters who are just starting to go on their redemption arc but die shortly afterwards. This doesn’t fit with Arthur because he actually does go on a lengthy road to redeem himself before he goes and does impact a lot of people’s lives for the better.
We need more truly evil villains mannnnn. I love me an irredeemable monster
You'll LOVE the main villain of the novel I'm writing, then. It's a Rapunzel retelling but the "mother gothel" is a toxic lover rather than parent figure type guy named Kennon. He kidnapped MC as an 8-year-old, magically suppressed her memories, chains her to the floor of her tower, and manipulates her into thinking he loved her. I'll spare you the details, but what else will a selfish man do with complete access to a woman who can been groomed into seeing no wrong in him? Towards the end of the story, he kills a side character's dog and continues to try to play the MC into believing he loves her and she loves him. She stabs him in the heart uwu
honey have u seen how the entire twitter tried to burn Vivziepop on stake for making a villain doing actually unforgivable things (yes i'm talking about Valentino); I don't think they're prepared for anything beyond that lmao
twitter loses it's shit when you draw happy white heterosexual couple
but vivzie has a huge writing problem
that short guy from the Lorax with a bob
Well, Ghetsis exists and no one on Reddit seems to be complaining...
She-ra makes you think they’re gonna do that and in the last moment lesbian Jesus saves the day
(The first trope)
And Shadow Weaver was awful till the end (even though she changed sides quite early interestingly enough) so she also doesn't count.
I pray to lesbian Jesus everyday 🙏
1:10 This trope is so annoying. I hate it when the villain gets redeemed then just dies. What is funny is a friend and I were doing a roleplay. I had this horrible villain guy have a redemption arc. After his redemption arc, there was this dangerous situation so he told the heroes. “Bye! I am going to get myself to a safe place. I am not dying after this redemption arc” XD
My friend and I sometimes joke about it due to how funny it was.
What about Darth Vader? He sacrificed his life to save his son’s.
the evil off screen thing is SO every villain in hazbin hotel.
I told my friend about the video and she said, “yeah, I agree- but I want a movie about a girl wanting to be a plumber, not a fashion designer”
14:34
I think these tropes aren’t bad themselves. It’s all about how it’s executed on.
Like the whole “satire” thing. Try to make an actual point about what you’re satiating. For example if you’re doing a hero movie. Try to have it where it’s super heros that solve the problem by punching the bad guys going against villains and problems that are more complex and can’t be solved by punching the villain really hard in the face.
I also agree on the whole more female friends thing especially ones that are opposite from each other when it comes to gender presentation.
I think the villain being evil on screen isn’t that bad. As sometimes it’s done intently. Like a villain trying so hard to be villainous but they can’t as they’re an actually good person. Like doof from Phineas and Ferb.
And that’s all I can think of right now.
Doof is a bad example as he actually does evil things. They aren't off screen nor is he just saying he did a bad thing and that's it. It's not about the villian being bad at a villian it's the writer being bad at writing one and not wanting to actually write them being a villian.
Intently making a villian character that never does anything villainous but thinks they are one for the sake of plot is bad. Doing it on purpose makes it even worse. It only works/make senseif the character is shown thinking all the good they're doing is evil or they're loving a double life.
@@ClownHoundII
But what about a villain that’s want to be evil but all of his evil schemes just end up being good at the end. And it’s on purpose by the writer.
Whenever I watch these “tropes that annoy me” videos I’m always anxiously hoping I don’t have any in my story XD relieved to find it so here. Though I do think most tropes can be done well if you’re smart about it! Some tropes are just really hard to execute.
I saw the first one and was like 'oh no, is that my character?' But then I remembered she has a lot of time between her (slow) redemption arc and her death, and I spend time on writing her characterisation and arc, not just using her death to avoid doing that lol
I was also worried she might be 'evil only offscreen' but she isn't, I think some people have mistaken that for 'evil out of the protagonist's/general public's view' which isn't what it's about. Maybe the thing LavenderTowne brought up about politeness threw some people off, but like it's fine to have a secretly evil character who acts nice, there are loads of those, it's about when you hide the evil from the AUDIENCE not the other characters in the story (sorry I got a bit off track, but that was because my character is a 'secretly evil' character and I got confused about that too for a sec lmao)
And yes 100% agree with you on tropes! Some people need to learn the difference between tropes and clichés and how even clichés can be made less so if they're done interestingly
SAMEEE. I constantly get worried that my characters fall into tropes. I had to remind myself about the last thing though. Relieved to say I’m also safe from any of these tropes in my story so far ^ ^
Like someone else wrote, have a char with the dark vampire aesthetic be a true sweetheart. But then have the sweetheart looking one be like "Okay I helped you, now pay up or you are going right back to where you were."
I think a well-done edition of the villain one was Mr. Villain's Day Off. It's a slice-of-life manga focusing on the days off that a standard power rangers-esque villain gets when he's not fighting the hero organization. Because of the slow pace of the story, we're focusing on his personal life outside of his "job" but we get snippets of his bias towards Earth in many of his earlier thoughts. As time goes on, you slowly see him accepting a lot of Earth's ways, wishing to take over Earth less and less.
I think what makes this story work so well is that we're not given a primarily evil villain who wants to destroy the world, but a villain that is trying to adapt to the world that they want to take over. Instead of being pure evil, he's more of a neutral evil born from a comical trope of characters.
I personally love Rowena from supernatural because of how she subverts a lot of tropes surrounding femininity, particularly with how its presented in the show. Shes an extremely feminine character. She has long hair throughout the series, is always in full glam and rocking beautiful dresses and capes. BUT shes also an older woman. Shes also a witch. Shes a mother (not a good one, but its relevsnt to to plot and makes for a really interesting character. "Despite" her femininity shes a really well developed, crazy interesting character, who isnt seen as lesser than by fans because of her femininity, but is actually a badass. She runs the show in a floor-length gown, and its AWESOME.
10:54 I LOVE A REALLY FUCKING HORRIBLE CHARACTERRRRRRR! Like, just give me the worst! I want them to be evil and wretched, and horrible.
9:20 I am so tired of this trope. LET THE EVIL CHARACTER BE EVIL, NOT A CUTE NICE CHARACTER!
9/10 times the "cute" villian is an attempt at "cute but deadly" trope. Wished more would go for "goofy but deadly" as it's easier to do and it's more fun to read. Imagine a villian that makes up songs while committing crimes or Bug's bunny their way out of court.
Today you can Tell which villains will stay evil and which gets redemption. Just ASK this question are they attraktive or Not? If they are ugly congrats you have a true villains (sadly today they are often one Off lazy written villains) If they are hot you will get to hear an Emo whiny sobald Backstory missunderstood blablabla for hours and the Heroine or Hero(yes WE men are that Desperate too Just Change Abs for boobs) will try to "fix them".
Live-action cartoon movies also love making self aware "cartoon logic" jokes too, it feels like these writers are soo ashamed of being in these projects which explains why they feel soulless to many people
The whole fear of sincerity in media thing is funny to me because one of the few superhero movies that actually took itself 100% seriously, took concepts as ridiculous as a ninja trained by a secret society running around a city in a bat costume beating up criminals and mobsters with boomerangs and treated it like a fully on dramatic film with so few jokes you could count them on one hand, throwing in random philosophical discussions about themes of corruption and hope (yeah, you know exactly the movie I'm talking about now), is now very widely considered one of the best superhero movies ever made.
It just proves that yes, you can treat something conceptually silly with complete sincerity, if it's written well people will like it.
"The Tomboy = Good, Girly Girl = Evil" trope is just the feminine form of "Nerdy Guy = Good/Smart, Jock = Evil/Dumb" trope. It's people who don't fall in line with societal gender norms lashing out at those the people who do because they are made to feel inadequate. Sadly, I'm somewhat talking from experience.
I totally hear you but I feel like the “tomboy= good, girly girl= evil” trope is based more in internalized misogyny and seeing masculine behaviour and hobbies as better and more valuable than stereotypical feminine hobbies.
like being good at sports is seen as masculine (for some reason) and thats valued more than say being good at reading emotions or making clothes because they’re seen as feminine traits.
also “nerdy guy” isnt rly a crazy subversion of gender roles since smartness is a trait assigned to men usually, it’s their lack of athleticism, or strength, that is seen as emasculating. if a guy was actually subverting gender roles by maybe being good at making clothes (which is a useful skill) he would be criticized or at least seen as less masculine.
tl:dr i dont think it’s people who dont fall in line with societal gender norms that are lashing out, rather our collective idea of masculinity as superior and enforcing them that harm everyone
Dont blame misogyny for everything especially when These tropes are way more often written by women , Like the "I am Not Like Other Girls" trope its the female Version of a Harem protaginst a Power Fantasy where they somehow have attractive people desiring them for No reason besides they are the Main Character. Its Just a Power Fantasy and of course everyone the authority doesnt Like IS evil and ugly
bro…just because the author is a woman doesn’t mean she didn’t grow up in sexist world being taught sexist ideals and believing in sexist values of men and masculinity.
@@solilobye Well a lot of the those girly girl=bad ideas actually com from radical feminist from the 70's, actually i actually find weird that people believe that the girly girl=bad trope comes from consevative mysoginism because those guys actually want a feminine girly girl because that fills their strict views of gender roles and how a woman must act and look.
@@Ms666slayer genuinely a really good connection to make to 70s feminism!! i think a base idea behind the movement was to allow women to participate in activities they were previously discouraged from due to the activities, rights, and career paths only being for men because men are naturally superior in them (of course because of their superior intellect, something, something, gender essentialism). this does not negate those stereotypically masculine activities as being seen as superior than feminine activities. if anything, we still see the trend of women wearing pants or a suit as “empowering” and men wearing feminine clothing as degrading and automatically weaker (let’s keep in mind these are drapes of cloth we are talking about).
that’s definitely still routed in misogyny even if it is a rebuttal to a different form of sexism like gender roles. I think there’s a third layer of reaction to sexism with the pick-me girl trend where if you’re traditionally feminine girl you’re a pick-me snd if you act masculine you’re a pick-me. the idea probably comes from pic-mes being girls who try to please and vy for male attention…which isn’t usually the case when a girl just wants to express herself in any way.
1) If the writer plants the seeds of the character's redemption and makes is a secondary part of their arc, then the author killing them off can work. But if they start having their doubts like 20 minutes sooner it just slams the door in the audience's face.
2) There seems to be this universal fear of playing a character 100% genuine. Like in the back of their mind, the characters know they're in a show. I noticed a lot of 00's cartoons would do something similar, where once they got comfortable with the formula they were using they would have the characters comment on the cliches. It is a bit more palatable there because again, it's after the show has its pattern down.
3) Anime can be really bad about that. The bloodthirsty demon army with their sinister plans to...grow enough wheat. Anyway, you can have a character be both incredibly polite and a cold-blooded. It either requires you have them do it in tandem like apologetically torturing someone or only showing the after effects until the reveal that they're the monster they are.
4) A rivalry/friendship between the two archetypes works best if each one is allowed a context for them to be the "smarter" one. If one is a clear winner all of the time, that's when it gets annoying.
i got soooo excited to see this because im designing cgaracters rn haha
I might not be in the MHA fandom and haven't seen much of the show however the character arc of Endeavor was something that really amazed me. Seeing someone accept the consequences of their actions was really interesting to see and made my invested in anything surounding the character. I remember people talking about the War Arc while I haven't seen it and remember the fear they just gonna kill him as a way of gloryfication. I would literally pray so it wouldn't end that way becouse the entire character arc would end up meaningless. I'm really happy with the ending he get and that he wasn't redeemed fully and still has room to improve. Lots of movies could try this aproach as well.
(Sorry for my bad english since it is not my first language. I wish everybody a good day)
In regard to the second trope: To be fair, I think Frozen actually does it well. In Frozen, the "Can't fall in love with someone you just met" bit isn't just brought up at random for laughs or "see kids we are c00l now"'s sake, it's an active part of the plot: there's a specific reason why Anna wants to immediately marry a guy she just met (the trauma of having been left alone and isolated for many years), the cautionary tale not being against "love at first sight" but rather about completely committing yourself to it (Kristoff and Anna also fell in love in a day, but Anna didn't marry him right away), and the plot also ties that into a "there are many types of love" (the love between two sisters that, despite having grown apart and a conflicting relationship, still care for each other).
In that sense, for as much as I dislike the movie (and also agree that the romance with Kristoff feels forced since the "falling in love in a day vs. marrying in a day" isn't a very intuitive contrast due to how strong both things are on a sentimental level), I think it actually succeeds in subverting this particular element while still remaining a traditional princess fairy tale.
I guess the tl;dr would be: I think Frozen actually does the trope n°2 well, because it feels less like "satire" or "self-criticizing" and more like just "subversion of expectations" that actually serves, and is actively part of, the plot, rather than just being a random joke.