I was planning on having a minor wild creature who's a mischievous little shit when it meets one of the characters (he zaps her when she tries to pet him), but she's pretty much like "He's a bastard... let's take him back home." XD
Most of my characters are human that were turned into monster but still have humanity in them. They're not evil but they are super chaotic and wild. One of them is a literal gremilin.
It's a common theme. "Bubba the Redneck Wearwolf" has the human phase a lame loser with puppy poop in his hair. In wolf form, he saves the day and gets the girl in the end. ("Have a seat!" "No thanks; I think I'll stand for a day or two.") It probably isn't about being a monster. More about being powerful as compared with being civilized, and the fangs and claws and bulging muscles and extra facial hair are easy differences to show graphically.
I think that is mostly because we spent most of the movie with the beast version, so the human prince was resting a little too close to the uncanny valley.
I wouldn't want to kids Beast, but honestly, his human form had the weirdest looking lips ever when he first looked at her. They were large, but flat. He looked normal afterwards but that initial "WTF is wrong with his lips?" never went away.
#5 -- autism, yes, if the changeling survives, but there's also a subgenre of changeling stories where the parent has to try to kill the changeling in infancy (whereupon the fairies whisk it away and restore the real baby). In _those_ stories, the way you tell a changeling from a human baby is by a bunch of signs that look suspiciously like the symptoms of diseases like diphtheria and whooping cough. It's been theorized that "it wasn't my baby, it was a changeling" started out as an excuse for overwhelmed caregivers who did things that would otherwise have gotten them hanged. (I have even more horrifying information about the origin of the werewolf myth if anyone's interested.)
Well, spoiler: it's another "turns out this myth was dreamed up as an excuse for horrible real-world behaviour" kind of thing. Content warning for extreme domestic abuse, grievous bodily harm, and religious bigotry. OK. Here's the background. Late 15th century. The belief in witches, rejected by the Church for much of the Middle Ages on the grounds that it would give the Devil power over God's creation, has now become official doctrine. Two guys called Kramer and Sprenger write a book called "The Hammer of Witches", _Malleus Maleficarum,_ laying out what witches are and why they're so bad and why you have to torture them and set them on fire. Not an official Church document, but blessed by the Pope and becomes very popular. Also, incidentally, absolutely batshit insane. But I digress. One form of witchcraft described in the book is lycanthropy: at this point werewolves are believed to be people who voluntarily use magic to turn themselves into wolves. There follows basically the standard werewolf folk-tale: guy out in the forest attacked by wolf, chops its front paw off in self-defence, paw turns into a human hand with a suspiciously familiar wedding-ring on it. Guy gets home, finds his wife missing a hand. Wife dragged off and burned at the stake. As is typical of the _Malleus Maleficarum_ this story is presented as true without question. However, in this particular case the writer swears he has personally seen the severed hand. This admits of two possible explanations, both of them horrifying: (1) The writer was knowingly lying, in furtherance of the cause of torturing people and setting them on fire; or (2) Some abusive fucker chopped his wife's hand off and made up the werewolf story so she would get executed for it instead of him.
As an aspie myself I always suspected, though let me add some old changing stories do seem to critique this idea of the violence against different kids being bad. I remember an one old changing story I read. Where the mother was about the put the changing in the fire. The faerie mother show up snatches her kid back and screams " How could you, i'd never treat your kid so cruelly" frankly I think the faerie should have kept the women's actual child as well as taken her own back but that probably would of been too much for fifteenth century sensibilities. Still its a nice take that moment!
There's a photographer who's based her whole profitable career on this concept. I think her name is Anne Geddies, but I don't think about it enough to care. As long as you aren't drinking the teacup humans.
And even for those of us for whom motherhood is a significant aspiration, and those of us who have very tragically lost a child (before or after birth) and it was a defining trauma in our lives... let's think about the implication that child loss turns us into ACTUAL MONSTERS. like how gross is that? child loss, like many traumas, actually makes some people (probably most) MORE compassionate... not a fucking swamp creature. sheesh.
Not just Witcher, there are a number of fantasy concepts of child monsters, and most of those are based off of folklores around the world. Mind there are a number of women turn into monsters after the loss of their child. It is gross but even in ye olden days they must have realized extreme trauma was a possible pathway for a tragic descent into madness. Probably it was intended as a warning against committing abuse or to encourage people to keep an eye on people who have undergone tragedies back before therapy was a thing. Ideally giving someone direct attention would have generated sympathy and create a support network for those people. Or it gives people an explanation for why someone is other and gives them a justification for burning them as a witch. Whichever, it ultimately started as an excuse and eventually became an over used trope.
Yeah I agree I think it'd be more interesting if the 'monster' was a good guy, maybe the 'ghost/witch/whathaveyou' goes out protecting children not kill them :=)
I wanted to do that with La Llorona because I hate the original myth. In the original myth, she drowns her own kid to take revenge on her husband for cheating on her, then feel guilty and turns into a ghost to drown more kids. No loving mother would even think of doing that. Instead have taking her kids to the river to drown them, she takes them there so they can take their minds of her husband's affair. However, she didn't realized that river currents were violent that day, so her kids were washed away by the current. The town's people didn't help her, even blaming her for death of her children. In her sadness, she contunued to look for her children in the river until she disappeared in the river. Now she screams to kids to stay away from the river and saves them from drowning.
Hi, I'm an Irish person and I would just like to say that the Faye or fairies even today are still a part of our culture. People still refuse to build over fairy circles out of fear of angering the Faye. Also despite how terrible it is, as someone who both has autism and loves mythology I love the idea that since changeling are most likely an allegory for autism, I'm possibly a mythical creature. I'm still waiting for some magic powers though.
Yup! I dislike how people now think the fae are just hot dudes now, rather than.. You know. Creatures that will steal your children and make you dance until you die.
_"I promise you. From the bottom of my heart... I don't give a shit."_ *That* is what being real from the beginning of your channel will get you: 260K+ subs.
Funnily enough, I'm actually doing a PhD in monster studies, specifically in medieval literature. A lot of these clichés go way further back then most realize.
How far back do the big monsters go? Like vampires seem to be a subset of zombies, if they had brains. Did werewolves come out of older mythological creatures that were half human, half animal? Why only wolves, though? Why do most cultures seem to have an 'otherkin' beautiful human, like faeries, elves, dwarves, etc?@@bradstev14
I'd like to see a unicorn wreaking bloody havoc and impaling people on that horn (that I don't think I've ever seen them actually use) for a change. That would be a great twist for a horror fantasy.
I like zombies but I also like it when they do different thing with them like instead of being a virus they are zombie cybogs like the strogg ROM the quake series
@@MissEarthling Yes! That series is awesome! Some of the members of my school's anime club (myself included) have been going to meetings early watch the second season! (Since our new members weren't there when we watched the first season, we agreed it wouldn't be fair to watch it during the actual meetings since it would just confuse them)
You: *blames it on the beauty and the beast* Me: I don't think it's because of-- **flashbacks to my child self finding beast hotter as beast over his human form**
@@somethingbig3797- Same thing in the famed Cocteau adaptation. The Beast struggles to be better, tries to be gentle, to be what Beauty (or any woman) wants.
I love fae tbh. I'm working on a novel which includes many different mythical creatures from many different cultures and two of the characters are fae (although one of them is only half-fae, but still fae), but I'm not following the same pattern as I think a lot of stories do. I've actually made them somewhat like dryads, in that they have an area that they cannot permanently stray from. In their birth place (still coming up with a name to better suit it) they must perform a ritual each year to replenish their magic and prevent themselves from Withering (I'm trying to come up with a better name, but so far it's just called Withering because that's basically what they do- wither away like flowers). I'm actually adding a twist to a lot of the magical creatures in the story to add more complexity to their existence. Edit: I feel like magic with a 'k' looks prettier 😢
4. Aliens can be anything, depending on thier gravity and atmosphere....and they wouldn't even look humanoid....they would be so far out there, you wouldn't think of them such. Our oceans hold a great example to this one.
@@chaotixthefox No there isn't. Or, well, the only possible reason for that is "humans were kidnapped from Earth long ago and were gene-edited to look like this".
How a species would actually evolve should be considered though. And then convergent evolution enters the room and makes everything more complicated. If the aliens evolved on a very Earth like planet they might look way more familiar then we think.
@@chaotixthefox This is assuming non-humans can't become sentient, yeah? Dogs and corvids are extraordinarily smart. I wouldn't be shocked to see a beaked alien covered in feathers with janky legs or something.
I agree with the zombie part they have been done so many times in novels. Although the way they have been doing it has been done so many times gets rather annoying because here's how the story goes. "Massive plague wipe out the human population or half of the human population. Now you have dumb asses or a dumb ass that some how is immune to the illness (sometimes but no all the times but most likely never get bitten through the series) with no skills how to live around with zombies or the fact how to kill one but lucky accidentally kill one." In the olden days of zombies people believe zombies rises from their grave because of witchcraft and this trope isn't that common than the whole plague wiping out people turning them into zombies which it gets old rather quickly.
@@sarahackroyd2150 The whole bewitching the dead is more interesting than the whole plague wiping out the modern world and turning them into zombies. If you going to do the whole plague turning people into zombies shit at least put in a different world or different timeline that way it makes the trope better and fresh. The sad part is zombies have been sexualized aren't their body rotting and decaying?
As a D&D enthusiast, I even find the whole necromancy trope around zombies to be cliche. Especially if there are summoning entire army of them. I think part of the problem is, because zombies are mindless and react on instinct. So their presence really only serve as a setting element. Either the real villain is a necromancer, or a mega corp. Or the story is just about survival.
@@erikschaal4124 Well..! The whole zombie apocalypse is more cliche than the necromancer in my opinion. At least you put a spin off with necromancer by making the necromancer a lost soul that create undead creatures as friends or family, or companies since you know the person is lonely. You could create undead servants or pals depending on the story; that aren't mindless because of magic reason (you have to explain it yourself how that works) and that way you can create the undead as a characters than mindless ghouls. You know make the readers care for the undead they are in neutral side. Yet again I see don't that as much in story when it comes to necromancer or necromancers in general when it comes to novels not DnD I meant. It's always horror and if kept on making them in horror genre they wouldn't be scary anymore unless you twist it.
I'm surprised we don't get more evil unicorns because there are some very old legends that describe unicorns as dangerous and hostile. They were much stronger and faster than your average horse, couldn't be tamed, and could impale people with their horn. Scary unicorns who is always covered in the blood of their victims, get on that someone.
"Number 8: Dragons" Me, who's literally writing a book entirely centered around dragons: **chokes on coffee** (Btw, I'm not saying I'm offended by this, I was just surprised. I 100% agree with her points on that. I'm actually trying to do something different with them, where instead of having their cultures be either entirely 'burn down village' and 'GOLD', or basically exactly like a human's, they have their own unique culture, language, and behaviors. I also just really like dragons... though I actually don't like the classic 'evil dragon' trope. If it has a reason to be evil, cool, but I feel it should be deeper than greed. Greed is overused in fiction).
"He's hot because he scares me" Every time I see this trope I just want to scream "There's a difference between fake scary and real abusive! Just find a caring and knowledgeable Dom!" I get it, sexuality and healthy expression of such is so repressed in this country that when a someone gets tingly feeling while reading domineering or aggressive characters, it's confusing and feels "wrong". So people stop at "It's hot because they're scary...but they aren't bad? But like, they are?...It's true love, OK?!" instead of pushing through to "Ah, a new kink to add to my list. Fantastic. Next!" I don't know, I'm pushing 40 so maybe I'm projecting. I hope the next generation is able to learn important lessons about themselves earlier than I did, as well as healthy vs not healthy ways to pursue them.
0.24: Yes, good dress up...baby is a terrifying monster lol. Bringer of bedlam, the goo spreader, the creator of chaos, the doom spreader, the headache bringer, the sandman killer, the messy creator, the smell maker, the noise bringer, the fear controller, the night-time giveth, the feeding time massacre, the horror maker, the insane caper.
"#4 - aliens that are just humans with wings/horns/blue skin/scales. They're made like that so they can make out with humans without people thinking it's weird, I guess. But it's not very creative." That annoys me in both fantasy and sci-fi, when a race is made just to be a kink to exploit. There's so much that could be done, you can make an alien or mythical race whatever you wanted, but instead you just get some boring humans with the skin tone of a smurf. It's more noticeable if the alien/mythical race is solely represented by the female alien/mythical character of the group, or if said female is the only female of the group.
The other side of that, of course is that all the aliens are whispering and texting each other to stay away from the humans cuz they'll try to do you if you get within speaking distance of them.
I understand it, at least on an intellectual level, about why things are written that way, but in-universe wise I don't understand why it would be viewed differently than bestiality in most cases. At least in fantasy, sci-fi makes a little more sense.
@@davidbaker6482 beastiality is bad bc animals aren’t intelligent enough to consent. Aliens are as intelligent as humans, ergo its nothing like beastialiy. Harkness test :3 Plus ancient humans interbred with Neanderthals so technically humans have already bred with other species
@@davidbaker6482 it's the same reason, why we love to shower, yet hate to get wet in the rain: consent. An animal is never able to fully grasp what it is consenting to (at least the first time), so animals were defined by law as being unable to consent, just like children. With aliens, you don't have that problem if they're sentient. If they're as intelligent as humans (± minor deviations) they can consent or not. In my honest opinion, sex should be legalized by law with any entity that is able to consent. Funnily enough that wouldn't change anything on earth right now (with children and animals and stuff), but we would get ourselves out of a lot of trouble if the first inter-species relationships establishes itself with an extraterrestrial intelligence...
LMFAO! You called them “Teacup Humans”!!! My wife and I refer to ours as “Sleep Terrorists” Love your videos Jenna, have a great Halloween and Día De Los Muertos! Ciao
Agreed. True fey lore is actually scary and weird, especially Celtic faeries. Done well, it can be both inspiring and/or terrifying. But it must be strange, not Disney-ish or plain. Study of actual faery lore is instructive. Tell it a unique way and it still works. Rehash basic fairies and it’s cliche.
I love how horrified she is about the dysfunctional and dangerous relationships as a true love trope because I'm too. But personally, I don't think there are enough stories about dragons. But I agree I want to see more different monsters. Come on! So many mythical monsters in several different cultures!! Pick some interesting unused ones and give them to us in book form! Or... pick boring ones that are not used because boring and give them a makeover for us!
Hell, here's an opportunity for writers from non-Western cultures. What sort of revenants and bogies inhabit your nightmares? What lurks in that area just at the corner of your vision?
I love you and always will, but when it's enthusiastically consensual, some monsters are just hot. There is way too much out there about women who aren't consenting though, and that's nasty. I guess it depends on how it's written.
On "white good, black bad," I've always thought that both colors can work for either side, but with different types of heroes/villains. Instead of the good/evil axis, I associate them with the lawful/chaotic axis. For example, many vampire or monster hunters are frequently depicted as scrappy heroes in black (or at least dark colors), while more modern interpretations of Lucifer tend to go for the shining white power suit.
One little known fact about fear and sexual arousal: they're both mediated through the same, extremely old and primitive structure in the brain stem. It's a place of such rudimentary instinct there's no real 'language' to interrogate what goes on in there. I suspect if we all weren't so terrified of sexuality (and some of us considerably more than others), we'd understand our urges better and spend less time in dangerous and dysfunctional relationships.
Huh, this is good to know. I'm a poor confused asexual and this explains a LOT. Also completely agree with you that we should all try to be less afraid and try to understand sexuality better. There would be less dangerous, dysfunctional relationships, and also LGBTQ+ people would be treated a lot better...
number seven got me thinking on alternatives if you want your villain to have a dead baby as the cause of their villany that isnt just "my baby died so im gonna kill everyone else" (and because i'm writing an antagonist who fits most of these points and wanted to share lol) -maybe associate it with a certain group of people that have wronged your villain countless times in their life, think of any group of people. because they're a villain, perhaps make that group of people be where your hero hails from -make your villain have trouble having of a baby of their own either through adoption or biologically, so that when their baby dies it will hit many times harder -that certain group of people i mentioned above, yeah have them murder that baby or have a part in making it die, like denying it medical attention or straight up just killing it themselves -have the group of people try to justify it in mass, making your villain more angrier at the group of people -make your villain hold that grudge for years, decades, centuries even, up until where your hero comes in -don't just make them female, spice it up and make it a dude or mix-match to create a good villain that people sympathize with (because they lost their baby and they sad ykyk) but also want them to stop what they're doing. like with any villain, don't just make them 100% evil, since in this villain's eyes, they're doing justice. child loss doesn't make anyone a monster or a murderous crime lord, since (as child loss is a sort of trauma) trauma most of the time "softens" someone's personality and make them sympathize for people who have a smaller version of what they went through. which is why making the hero's social group kill or have a part in killing your villain's baby and have them keep wronging them even before that point is something that can cancel out the "mother had a miscarriage so she turns into an evil witch to take it out on people who had nothing to do with it"
The entire premise of the newest FFXIV expansion Shadowbringer was that light won in the world, and basically took over, killing anything that isn't pure. Humans aren't pure. Very cool IMO.
And while Doctor Who's Black Guardian is portrayed as a villain, it turns out that the White Guardian dominating would have been _just as bad_ and they functioned as necessary counter balances of each other, neither being purely good or evil in themselves.
I wouldn't say it just killed anything that "wasn't pure", it killed literally everything. If you go to the Empty during the Eden raids, there's no life, not even plants.
I've actually been thinking about the whole Fae situation and realised that people only go for fairies for some reason? Which is odd? Because if a wonderful floral area is to exist, a hellish run of lava through another is to exist. There's other monsters and mythical beasts to work with, like Lamia's. Or maybe there should be more original monsters that aren't??? Fairies with a different name???
Lamias are basically off brand vampires though. At least for all intents and purposes of the entertainment industry. If you make a movie or book about Lamias, you can also write about Wyvern. Congratulations, you made something unique! But they're still sky lizards.
@@agentwolfo101 that would be the better case scanario, but never underestimate horny people looking for more un appealing critters to transform into spank material
I love Jenna's videos, her sense of humor, and the way she dispenses knowledge. That said, I got to disagree about zombies. I love zombies! I think they need a new angle, a new way of approaching them, but having the ominous undead lurking in the darkness is always a turn-on for me! :)
#1 - YEESSS I am so damn tired of zombies. Especially in video games where, even if the game isn't about zombies, they're like a required level in a graveyard or something.
I haven't been this early in a long time. Considering your feelings on dragons.... I must hold back the catchphrase from Shadiversity.... "But What about Dragons?" lol.
@@mirjanbouma Very True. But whenever he discusses fantasy weapons in his videos... somebody always asks "But what about dragons?" So much so that its now on a T-Shirt in his Merch store.
5:04 Actually, it's because they were easier to make on a '60s TV budget. Writers just continued that trend in other media and sexualized it even more.
It's older than that. ERB's red, yellow, white, and black Barsoomians, and his humanoid inhabitants of Venus. The Tsath of Lovecraft's _The Mound._ Numerous other pulp stories with humanoid aliens who differ only in skin color and a few cosmetic bits.
To add to number 7, there are a lot of urban legends of ghosts who kill people because they lost a child. The one that came to my mind when you introduced this point is the Mexican urban legend of La Llorona (“the weeping woman”). There are many different versions of the story, but the bare-bones version is that her children drowned, and she drowned herself to be with them. Some versions say that she drowned her kids so she could spend her evenings with men, others say that she was a native woman who mourns not only her children, but also the loss of her civilization. Mexican parents often use La Llorona as a boogyman to scare their kids into behaving, saying that La Llorona will get them if they misbehave. There are definitely more urban legends like this worldwide, so you can see why it’s such a staple in horror movies.
He heard she intentionally drowned her own children because she found out her husband was cheating (but probably later regret it). Although I only heard it from the internet
Superman - Injustice gods amongst us Superman becomes a villain after he kills the Joker. Why does he kill the joker? Because Joker manipulated him into killing Lois, who was pregnant at the time.
Have you on in background while at work, minimized you (I know, sorry) while I had an I.T. person remote-into my desktop. My cursor just barely grazed over the Chrome icon and your Baby-clad face popped up for just enough time for him to see. It was as if he was cut off mid-sentence, his tone drastically changed and there was a long pause, I don't want to know what he thought of me at that moment and I sure as hell didn't justify it with the truth because it made no fucking sense - so THANKS for that LOL!
Not always, there are a lot of fantasy books and games that have nothing to do with real world Wicca belief that still spell the word magic weird to look "unique". I've seen Magik, Magicka, Magick, Majic, Majik and Magika. Those are just the ones I've seen trying to replicate the word Magic, it's not including aaaaalllll the other words used to just replace magic despite it still basically being magic... Energy, Bending, Spirit/ Soul Power to name a few...
I'm very pro spelling magick with a k. Magick feels much more ethereal, innate, and fantastical, while magic feels like it can include trivial tricks and optical illusions.
I like the changeling stories where the child grows unnaturally fast. It might be a modern adaptation but of so, I don't care. It adds an otherworldness to the changeling without being a reference to a common illness/type of person.
I think stories about dark romance is for people to deal with their personal traumas. Or its just a Fantasy, (just because they like it in fiction doesn't mean they like it irl)
Tragic monsters are the best. Too big, too strong, too out of place. They dont choose to be monsters but are out cast and commit horrific acts because they dont fit into the natural order. Something that sparks simpathy but is terrifying and needs to be overcome.
I really wish when it comes to the Fae people would look into the actual mythology behind it. The Fae are a fascinating mythology and I hate how it's so abused. Fun fact though, in my country (Wales) witch hunts never happened, because instead of believing in evil witches, we believed in fairies!
I almost got sad when you mentioned Fairies because I just wrote a story that has Fairies in it....but then you kept on going and I completely understand why. Thankfully, that's not the direction I went with.
Subverting tropes can make for excellent stories! "Accidental sorcerer" is a favourite example of mine. It has a wizard, with a familiar (sort of) who has to rescue the princess and slay the dragon and save the kingdom. And it's nothing like you're imagining right now. If you enjoy funny in your fantasy, I recommend it.
Being scared can be good and fun, but think rollercoaster and haunted house, not stranger in the back alley. It's all about the illusion, the issue with *those* erotica books is that while we have the safe distance because it's a book, the characters don't. If you want to write kidnapping and nonconsent stuff, just implement a layer of safety, make it a pre-negotiated courtship ritual in a fey realm where the agreement can't be broken because *magic*
I got into an argument with a friend about if dragons are mandatory in fantasy I told him no there not and he said name one fantasy story with out dragons and I couldn’t 😂 😂 😂
With all the real and media stories of overprotective dads, you'd think father becomes a monster b/c their child died. But it's always more metaphorical to them isn't it.
The snark is strong with this one. Thank you, Jenna, for calling out ablest bias (and all the others). That is one of my pet peeves (as someone who has to strap mobile furniture to my butt every day).
my only point of contention is small: the -k in magick vs magic. its used to differentiate from the common definition and the legitimate religious practice of neo-pagans and wiccans. small thing, but as a former catholic and as a former wiccan i felt like it would be good to spread here. liked the video, hope to see more!
Not always, there are a lot of fantasy books and games that have nothing to do with real world Wicca belief that still spell the word magic weird to look "unique". I've seen Magik, Magicka, Magick, Majic, Majik and Magika.
@@RiveroftheWither Fair enough. I'm familiar (septimus heap was an old favorite of mine), but was simply trying to apply a bit of real world context. 19th century occultists began using it first, as i understand it, but you're correction is actually more immediately relevant.
“he’s scary so I’m attracted to him” tbh I thought that was more of a guy thing because it’s literally a meme for guys to be like “please destroy me waifu”
Yes. Zombies need to go. The white and black thing also definitely NEEDS TO GO. Did you know that in Persian mythology, there's a unicorn that eats humans (well, mostly meat). It looks more like a one-horned antelope than the western unicorn, but damn isn't it cool for spooky stuff (did I write a piece of flash fiction with it devouring unsuspecting humans? Yes, yes I did). Ah, number 5. I have one I read. You can know if a person has been "possessed" by a djinn if they exhibit depression symptoms. Fun fun. Actually, as a woman, I've been traumatized by HAVING a baby, sooooo... (yes, childbirth is traumatizing, having to deal with a baby virtually alone while being depressed is also traumatizing, not having support while having to deal and care for a baby is traumatizing, freaking breastfeeding can be traumatizing if you're not supported enough). Dragons are the best, and I will never not love them (says the person that doesn't actually wrote anything with a dragon. YET.).
Agree with the black and white thing, but I think what really needs to be remembered is that symbolism originally came from the portrayal of yin and yang. There’s so much more to the black and white yin and yang symbolism, and together they make balance. It’s the entire point, neither is good or bad, it’s just balance, and I wish that was shown more rather than “black is evil and white is pure”.
@@Teahillmusic black sometimes means good in some cultures. In Europe is has more to do with moral cleanliness being associated with white. Because white shows all dirt, true moral cleanliness is reflected in true white.
Undertale did the lost child good. Monster couple loses their child and the one becoming a villain for revenge is the father, while the mother is like "ok no, you too mad, bye"
anybody else find it weird how Jenna's always saying she doesn't care if we get offended by her opinions and then shares lots of opinions about how we shouldn't offend others. Also there's a Drake in TSC. He's a pretty notable character
As a self identified Asexual I must defend dragons. Before rambling this is my personal opinion I am not saying Jenna's wrong. While I agree dragons shouldn't be the only reason someone is drawn to a book, I think the problem with dragons is how people use it. They can really be interesting! You can go so many ways with their design, their culture, their morality! Dragon evil cus big and greedy is not interesting but blaming dragons as a whole? Nah. Dragons are like elfs dwarves or swords. Used a lot in fantasy. And as such should be used in new interesting ways.
(That's the second comment I see that links asexual people with dragons... What's the connexion exactly? ^^' Honest question, by the way. I've just never seen that before!)
Most accurate monster #1, a disgusting, wealthy, powerful, sociopathic politician/business person/cult leader who kills hundreds of thousands of people while saying "I know it's deadly but I'm gonna play it down because it might affect my popularity and stock dividends." #2 , sociopathic cult followers. You could argue that sociopaths are brain-damaged, but we're not buyin' that this year. Sorry, not sorry. RIP mother.
Your video about monsters last halloween helped me so much with crafting a monster. You mentioned making monsters based on personal fears, mine being drug dependency & pregnancy. While my monster isn't evil because she's pregnant, I really hope my monster still doesn't fall in this trope just because she's pregnant. :/
I think iZombie is an exception to the "I hate zombies" rule. (A rule I agree with, by the way. Though the game Planescape Torment has some cool zombies in it.)
#1: Zombies are actually a result of any human who is grievously wounded. In one of my stories, humanity possesses an emergency survival mechanism that whenever they're mortally wounded, they enter a state of undeath where their brains go dull and they shamble around everywhere until their bodies recover enough for them to actually not die, they are ravenous, but they don't eat human flesh and there are hospitals dedicated to the rehabilitation of zombies. #3: Also in said story, the good guys wear black metallic suits of armor, and need to move at night and cosntantly hide during the day in order to not get accosted by the monsters that dominate the planet. #4: Well, in one of my sci-fi stories, they're related to humans, so... #5: One of the most pwoerful good guys high up the totem pole in my debut novel was attacked by the villains when he was a kid and was left a mauled wreck because of it, didn't stop him from becoming a soldier and getting revenge until he was promoted to Director of Defense. Due to his backstory and history as a veteran, the guy has a decent amount of prestige at his back, even if he's so ugly he's legitimately pinaful to look at. #6: Hypnosis, and in one of my stories after my debut novel, one of the bad guys basically hypnotizes women to make them into his tools. #7: Well, it wasn't just losing her babies, everyone she loved was murdered when those she considered her closest allies betrayed her and sacked her home. #8: Dragons are...circumstancial in my stories, it'll be a surprise when they show up in my stories. #9: In my debut novel, they not only see them, they fight them.
Not related to this video but I just wanted to say I finished your first book and am now on the second of the series!! I love it so far. Your work is fucking amazing.
See this is why I liked Warm Bodies....it was a zombie story with an interesting spin on it and was far more than just the generic 'unexplained cause makes the dead rise, dead eat the living, etc etc'
"I know you're pissing your pants at this one, but try not to get it on the floor" i swear i about lost my shit at that! i love dragons personally, though it's totally valid for you ( or anyone) to be over them. but i gotta agree with you about zombies. PLEASE do something else. ANYTHING but zombies. it's the same old tired story over and over, and i'm so sick of it. also getting very tired of the whole fae thing as well.
I recommend Wicked Lovely for a GOOD fey book. The series was finished before the trend started, it actually goes into fey lore, world building for the fey realm, the politics of the faery courts and the main character DOESN'T end up with the faery douche boy, I don't want to spoil anything but out of the multiple couples that form only 1 is abusive and it makes sense because they are Dark Court faeries that literally feed off pain and pleasure to live.
I have an antagonistic fairy duo that play with the douche lover trope, but like Jareth from Labyrinth, the Heroine finds them repulsive (morally, not physically) and rejects them due to the fact that they harmed her family and that there is a massive power imbalance between them.
![THE 5 WORST CHARACTER DESIGN TRENDS [in cartoons, movies + games]](/img/n.gif)
Friendly monsters are goddamn underrated
So true
I was planning on having a minor wild creature who's a mischievous little shit when it meets one of the characters (he zaps her when she tries to pet him), but she's pretty much like "He's a bastard... let's take him back home." XD
Most of my characters are human that were turned into monster but still have humanity in them. They're not evil but they are super chaotic and wild. One of them is a literal gremilin.
@Kyle Lee You got me!!
Especially when the monster is a big marshmallow who wants hugs
“I blame Beauty and the Beast for this.” Not gonna lie, Beast was more attractive in the Disney animated movie than when he turned back into a human.
The Beast is usually more interesting than the human he reverts to. It's the same in other adaptations.
It's a common theme. "Bubba the Redneck Wearwolf" has the human phase a lame loser with puppy poop in his hair. In wolf form, he saves the day and gets the girl in the end. ("Have a seat!" "No thanks; I think I'll stand for a day or two.")
It probably isn't about being a monster. More about being powerful as compared with being civilized, and the fangs and claws and bulging muscles and extra facial hair are easy differences to show graphically.
I think that is mostly because we spent most of the movie with the beast version, so the human prince was resting a little too close to the uncanny valley.
I wouldn't want to kids Beast, but honestly, his human form had the weirdest looking lips ever when he first looked at her. They were large, but flat. He looked normal afterwards but that initial "WTF is wrong with his lips?" never went away.
@@Xandycane that's why I want attracted!!! I couldn't put my finger on why and that's it!
A few people took "F*ck Cthulhu" way too literally. I mean, if you are into tentacles Japan already got you covered.
#5 -- autism, yes, if the changeling survives, but there's also a subgenre of changeling stories where the parent has to try to kill the changeling in infancy (whereupon the fairies whisk it away and restore the real baby). In _those_ stories, the way you tell a changeling from a human baby is by a bunch of signs that look suspiciously like the symptoms of diseases like diphtheria and whooping cough. It's been theorized that "it wasn't my baby, it was a changeling" started out as an excuse for overwhelmed caregivers who did things that would otherwise have gotten them hanged. (I have even more horrifying information about the origin of the werewolf myth if anyone's interested.)
GIVE ME THE HORROR
please give us more horrific information
Well, spoiler: it's another "turns out this myth was dreamed up as an excuse for horrible real-world behaviour" kind of thing.
Content warning for extreme domestic abuse, grievous bodily harm, and religious bigotry.
OK. Here's the background. Late 15th century. The belief in witches, rejected by the Church for much of the Middle Ages on the grounds that it would give the Devil power over God's creation, has now become official doctrine.
Two guys called Kramer and Sprenger write a book called "The Hammer of Witches", _Malleus Maleficarum,_ laying out what witches are and why they're so bad and why you have to torture them and set them on fire. Not an official Church document, but blessed by the Pope and becomes very popular. Also, incidentally, absolutely batshit insane. But I digress.
One form of witchcraft described in the book is lycanthropy: at this point werewolves are believed to be people who voluntarily use magic to turn themselves into wolves.
There follows basically the standard werewolf folk-tale: guy out in the forest attacked by wolf, chops its front paw off in self-defence, paw turns into a human hand with a suspiciously familiar wedding-ring on it. Guy gets home, finds his wife missing a hand. Wife dragged off and burned at the stake.
As is typical of the _Malleus Maleficarum_ this story is presented as true without question. However, in this particular case the writer swears he has personally seen the severed hand.
This admits of two possible explanations, both of them horrifying:
(1) The writer was knowingly lying, in furtherance of the cause of torturing people and setting them on fire; or
(2) Some abusive fucker chopped his wife's hand off and made up the werewolf story so she would get executed for it instead of him.
@@danielcopeland3544 damn that's messed up
As an aspie myself I always suspected, though let me add some old changing stories do seem to critique this idea of the violence against different kids being bad. I remember an one old changing story I read. Where the mother was about the put the changing in the fire. The faerie mother show up snatches her kid back and screams " How could you, i'd never treat your kid so cruelly" frankly I think the faerie should have kept the women's actual child as well as taken her own back but that probably would of been too much for fifteenth century sensibilities. Still its a nice take that moment!
Me: *Casually listening*
Jenna: "Teacup humans."
Me: *spits out coffee*
There's a photographer who's based her whole profitable career on this concept. I think her name is Anne Geddies, but I don't think about it enough to care. As long as you aren't drinking the teacup humans.
@@geraldfrost4710 That would make a horrifying (or hilarious) novel.
That may have been a True Blood reference. There was a scene where a vampire character referred to children as "teacup humans" lol
"The most vile monster to ever exist.... babies"
Strong pitch, xenomorph's at least can fend for themselves
I mean, in defence of babies, they weren't designed as bioweapons...
I cackled at this part as I was watching this with my infant daughter lol
And even for those of us for whom motherhood is a significant aspiration, and those of us who have very tragically lost a child (before or after birth) and it was a defining trauma in our lives... let's think about the implication that child loss turns us into ACTUAL MONSTERS. like how gross is that? child loss, like many traumas, actually makes some people (probably most) MORE compassionate... not a fucking swamp creature. sheesh.
That's an excellent point to add.
It's notable that in Witcher, losing children every now and then turns the baby into a monster, especially when they die from human inflicted abuse.
Not just Witcher, there are a number of fantasy concepts of child monsters, and most of those are based off of folklores around the world.
Mind there are a number of women turn into monsters after the loss of their child. It is gross but even in ye olden days they must have realized extreme trauma was a possible pathway for a tragic descent into madness. Probably it was intended as a warning against committing abuse or to encourage people to keep an eye on people who have undergone tragedies back before therapy was a thing. Ideally giving someone direct attention would have generated sympathy and create a support network for those people. Or it gives people an explanation for why someone is other and gives them a justification for burning them as a witch. Whichever, it ultimately started as an excuse and eventually became an over used trope.
Yeah I agree I think it'd be more interesting if the 'monster' was a good guy, maybe the 'ghost/witch/whathaveyou' goes out protecting children not kill them :=)
I wanted to do that with La Llorona because I hate the original myth. In the original myth, she drowns her own kid to take revenge on her husband for cheating on her, then feel guilty and turns into a ghost to drown more kids. No loving mother would even think of doing that.
Instead have taking her kids to the river to drown them, she takes them there so they can take their minds of her husband's affair. However, she didn't realized that river currents were violent that day, so her kids were washed away by the current. The town's people didn't help her, even blaming her for death of her children. In her sadness, she contunued to look for her children in the river until she disappeared in the river. Now she screams to kids to stay away from the river and saves them from drowning.
Hi, I'm an Irish person and I would just like to say that the Faye or fairies even today are still a part of our culture. People still refuse to build over fairy circles out of fear of angering the Faye.
Also despite how terrible it is, as someone who both has autism and loves mythology I love the idea that since changeling are most likely an allegory for autism, I'm possibly a mythical creature. I'm still waiting for some magic powers though.
Yeah
Yup! I dislike how people now think the fae are just hot dudes now, rather than.. You know. Creatures that will steal your children and make you dance until you die.
I'm Irish American and Faye scare me.
@@WhenTheWorldFallsDown Fair enough. They might not be evil (Mostly) but they are still incredibly dangerous.
@@James-nr2hi oh I know. I've been to Ireland. That's why I believe in the "urban legends" from around the world.
_"I promise you. From the bottom of my heart... I don't give a shit."_ *That* is what being real from the beginning of your channel will get you: 260K+ subs.
8 months laterr: 270k+ subs.
Funnily enough, I'm actually doing a PhD in monster studies, specifically in medieval literature. A lot of these clichés go way further back then most realize.
Tell. Me. Everything.
@@brittvaughn9447 Sure, do you have any questions? It's been a while since I posted this comment so my memory is a little rough on the context.
How far back do the big monsters go? Like vampires seem to be a subset of zombies, if they had brains. Did werewolves come out of older mythological creatures that were half human, half animal? Why only wolves, though? Why do most cultures seem to have an 'otherkin' beautiful human, like faeries, elves, dwarves, etc?@@bradstev14
I'd like to see a unicorn wreaking bloody havoc and impaling people on that horn (that I don't think I've ever seen them actually use) for a change. That would be a great twist for a horror fantasy.
Hahaha
Equoid has killer unicorns
UA-cam Cabin in the Woods Unicorn
Try Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett.
SHE RA!!!
Jigsaw had the lost his child backstory, but I agree with every point you made Jenna :) But I love dragons, especially Drake the Dragon (well kinda..)
And in Taken Liam Neeson has his baby or his older adult daughter Taken and he becomes a monster.
@@TallicaMan1986 Oh yeah cause thats when he says the iconic line "I will find you and I will kill you" right? :)
You mean Drake from Dragonheart New Beginnings? If you do, I liked him too. But I loved Draco the most. And I love dragons as well.
@@racheltoler3895 No sorry I meant Drake from Jenna's book, the saviours champion.
@@Boobert_dude Pretty sure it's both
Lol, yeah I'm kind of done with zombies too. Only exception is when they give me zombies that are actually intelligent and function in normal society.
Zombieland saga?
iZombie. I'm on season 3 right now. Liv Moore is a delightful character
I like zombies but I also like it when they do different thing with them like instead of being a virus they are zombie cybogs like the strogg ROM the quake series
Me too but I did love the movie version of Pride, Prejudice and Zombies - I haven’t read the book or the book that spawned it.
@@MissEarthling Yes! That series is awesome! Some of the members of my school's anime club (myself included) have been going to meetings early watch the second season! (Since our new members weren't there when we watched the first season, we agreed it wouldn't be fair to watch it during the actual meetings since it would just confuse them)
You: *blames it on the beauty and the beast*
Me: I don't think it's because of--
**flashbacks to my child self finding beast hotter as beast over his human form**
Guilty... I was so disappointed when he turned back into a human. I think Disney did a number on our generation lol.
@@somethingbig3797- Same thing in the famed Cocteau adaptation. The Beast struggles to be better, tries to be gentle, to be what Beauty (or any woman) wants.
@@somethingbig3797 Same, I think the story would've been even more impactful if they just left him as beast too.
I love fae tbh. I'm working on a novel which includes many different mythical creatures from many different cultures and two of the characters are fae (although one of them is only half-fae, but still fae), but I'm not following the same pattern as I think a lot of stories do. I've actually made them somewhat like dryads, in that they have an area that they cannot permanently stray from. In their birth place (still coming up with a name to better suit it) they must perform a ritual each year to replenish their magic and prevent themselves from Withering (I'm trying to come up with a better name, but so far it's just called Withering because that's basically what they do- wither away like flowers). I'm actually adding a twist to a lot of the magical creatures in the story to add more complexity to their existence.
Edit: I feel like magic with a 'k' looks prettier 😢
hey withering sound pretty cool to me !! keep up the good work !
4. Aliens can be anything, depending on thier gravity and atmosphere....and they wouldn't even look humanoid....they would be so far out there, you wouldn't think of them such. Our oceans hold a great example to this one.
There is enough possibility that a very human looking alien is an entirely valid take.
@@chaotixthefox True but it's kinda boring in my opinion
@@chaotixthefox No there isn't. Or, well, the only possible reason for that is "humans were kidnapped from Earth long ago and were gene-edited to look like this".
How a species would actually evolve should be considered though. And then convergent evolution enters the room and makes everything more complicated. If the aliens evolved on a very Earth like planet they might look way more familiar then we think.
@@chaotixthefox This is assuming non-humans can't become sentient, yeah? Dogs and corvids are extraordinarily smart. I wouldn't be shocked to see a beaked alien covered in feathers with janky legs or something.
I agree with the zombie part they have been done so many times in novels. Although the way they have been doing it has been done so many times gets rather annoying because here's how the story goes.
"Massive plague wipe out the human population or half of the human population. Now you have dumb asses or a dumb ass that some how is immune to the illness (sometimes but no all the times but most likely never get bitten through the series) with no skills how to live around with zombies or the fact how to kill one but lucky accidentally kill one."
In the olden days of zombies people believe zombies rises from their grave because of witchcraft and this trope isn't that common than the whole plague wiping out people turning them into zombies which it gets old rather quickly.
yeah!!! go back to zombie original addition, where they're bewitched people and if you kill the person that raised them they return to normal.
@@sarahackroyd2150 The whole bewitching the dead is more interesting than the whole plague wiping out the modern world and turning them into zombies. If you going to do the whole plague turning people into zombies shit at least put in a different world or different timeline that way it makes the trope better and fresh. The sad part is zombies have been sexualized aren't their body rotting and decaying?
As a D&D enthusiast, I even find the whole necromancy trope around zombies to be cliche. Especially if there are summoning entire army of them.
I think part of the problem is, because zombies are mindless and react on instinct. So their presence really only serve as a setting element. Either the real villain is a necromancer, or a mega corp. Or the story is just about survival.
@@erikschaal4124 Well..!
The whole zombie apocalypse is more cliche than the necromancer in my opinion. At least you put a spin off with necromancer by making the necromancer a lost soul that create undead creatures as friends or family, or companies since you know the person is lonely.
You could create undead servants or pals depending on the story; that aren't mindless because of magic reason (you have to explain it yourself how that works) and that way you can create the undead as a characters than mindless ghouls.
You know make the readers care for the undead they are in neutral side.
Yet again I see don't that as much in story when it comes to necromancer or necromancers in general when it comes to novels not DnD I meant.
It's always horror and if kept on making them in horror genre they wouldn't be scary anymore unless you twist it.
@@sarahackroyd2150 I would understand if they are vampires because their bodies are rot or decayed for some reason.
I'm surprised we don't get more evil unicorns because there are some very old legends that describe unicorns as dangerous and hostile. They were much stronger and faster than your average horse, couldn't be tamed, and could impale people with their horn. Scary unicorns who is always covered in the blood of their victims, get on that someone.
That you needed a virgin as bait to catch one does rather indicate that they were not the nicest of critters.
"Number 8: Dragons"
Me, who's literally writing a book entirely centered around dragons: **chokes on coffee**
(Btw, I'm not saying I'm offended by this, I was just surprised. I 100% agree with her points on that. I'm actually trying to do something different with them, where instead of having their cultures be either entirely 'burn down village' and 'GOLD', or basically exactly like a human's, they have their own unique culture, language, and behaviors. I also just really like dragons... though I actually don't like the classic 'evil dragon' trope. If it has a reason to be evil, cool, but I feel it should be deeper than greed. Greed is overused in fiction).
It sounds like you have some interesting ideas.
There's a book called Seraphina that does Dragons in a really interesting way.
@@quinnsinclair7028 Ooo, that sounds interesting
Your ideas sound super different to the norm, I'd so read this!!!
She may be tired from the trend but dragons will be an evergreen for fantasy , maybe forever.
"He's hot because he scares me"
Every time I see this trope I just want to scream "There's a difference between fake scary and real abusive! Just find a caring and knowledgeable Dom!"
I get it, sexuality and healthy expression of such is so repressed in this country that when a someone gets tingly feeling while reading domineering or aggressive characters, it's confusing and feels "wrong". So people stop at "It's hot because they're scary...but they aren't bad? But like, they are?...It's true love, OK?!" instead of pushing through to "Ah, a new kink to add to my list. Fantastic. Next!"
I don't know, I'm pushing 40 so maybe I'm projecting. I hope the next generation is able to learn important lessons about themselves earlier than I did, as well as healthy vs not healthy ways to pursue them.
"I would love to see beautiful black beings"
Me: Jennnaaa, you're making a brotha blush😊
0.24: Yes, good dress up...baby is a terrifying monster lol. Bringer of bedlam, the goo spreader, the creator of chaos, the doom spreader, the headache bringer, the sandman killer, the messy creator, the smell maker, the noise bringer, the fear controller, the night-time giveth, the feeding time massacre, the horror maker, the insane caper.
just starting to design some monsters as part of worldbuilding so this is coming in handy! thanks, cursed baby jenna :-)
"#4 - aliens that are just humans with wings/horns/blue skin/scales. They're made like that so they can make out with humans without people thinking it's weird, I guess. But it's not very creative."
That annoys me in both fantasy and sci-fi, when a race is made just to be a kink to exploit. There's so much that could be done, you can make an alien or mythical race whatever you wanted, but instead you just get some boring humans with the skin tone of a smurf. It's more noticeable if the alien/mythical race is solely represented by the female alien/mythical character of the group, or if said female is the only female of the group.
The other side of that, of course is that all the aliens are whispering and texting each other to stay away from the humans cuz they'll try to do you if you get within speaking distance of them.
people eat this stuff up. I know writers who pump this out like candy and make bank. No appeal for me at all, as a reader or a writer
I understand it, at least on an intellectual level, about why things are written that way, but in-universe wise I don't understand why it would be viewed differently than bestiality in most cases. At least in fantasy, sci-fi makes a little more sense.
@@davidbaker6482 beastiality is bad bc animals aren’t intelligent enough to consent. Aliens are as intelligent as humans, ergo its nothing like beastialiy. Harkness test :3
Plus ancient humans interbred with Neanderthals so technically humans have already bred with other species
@@davidbaker6482 it's the same reason, why we love to shower, yet hate to get wet in the rain: consent.
An animal is never able to fully grasp what it is consenting to (at least the first time), so animals were defined by law as being unable to consent, just like children.
With aliens, you don't have that problem if they're sentient. If they're as intelligent as humans (± minor deviations) they can consent or not.
In my honest opinion, sex should be legalized by law with any entity that is able to consent. Funnily enough that wouldn't change anything on earth right now (with children and animals and stuff), but we would get ourselves out of a lot of trouble if the first inter-species relationships establishes itself with an extraterrestrial intelligence...
LMFAO! You called them “Teacup Humans”!!!
My wife and I refer to ours as “Sleep Terrorists”
Love your videos Jenna, have a great Halloween and Día De Los Muertos! Ciao
I resent that, I love fairies.
Though to be fair, fey romance is really tired and only seems to have one plot.
Agreed. True fey lore is actually scary and weird, especially Celtic faeries. Done well, it can be both inspiring and/or terrifying. But it must be strange, not Disney-ish or plain. Study of actual faery lore is instructive. Tell it a unique way and it still works. Rehash basic fairies and it’s cliche.
Or you can subvert expectations by starting out as a fey romance and turn it into horror!
@@anonymousperidot7446 fey vampires, anyone?
@@geraldfrost4710 as long as it sticks to fey lore
I love how horrified she is about the dysfunctional and dangerous relationships as a true love trope because I'm too.
But personally, I don't think there are enough stories about dragons. But I agree I want to see more different monsters. Come on! So many mythical monsters in several different cultures!! Pick some interesting unused ones and give them to us in book form! Or... pick boring ones that are not used because boring and give them a makeover for us!
Hell, here's an opportunity for writers from non-Western cultures. What sort of revenants and bogies inhabit your nightmares? What lurks in that area just at the corner of your vision?
I love you and always will, but when it's enthusiastically consensual, some monsters are just hot. There is way too much out there about women who aren't consenting though, and that's nasty. I guess it depends on how it's written.
On "white good, black bad," I've always thought that both colors can work for either side, but with different types of heroes/villains. Instead of the good/evil axis, I associate them with the lawful/chaotic axis. For example, many vampire or monster hunters are frequently depicted as scrappy heroes in black (or at least dark colors), while more modern interpretations of Lucifer tend to go for the shining white power suit.
One little known fact about fear and sexual arousal: they're both mediated through the same, extremely old and primitive structure in the brain stem. It's a place of such rudimentary instinct there's no real 'language' to interrogate what goes on in there. I suspect if we all weren't so terrified of sexuality (and some of us considerably more than others), we'd understand our urges better and spend less time in dangerous and dysfunctional relationships.
Huh, this is good to know. I'm a poor confused asexual and this explains a LOT. Also completely agree with you that we should all try to be less afraid and try to understand sexuality better. There would be less dangerous, dysfunctional relationships, and also LGBTQ+ people would be treated a lot better...
number seven got me thinking on alternatives if you want your villain to have a dead baby as the cause of their villany that isnt just "my baby died so im gonna kill everyone else" (and because i'm writing an antagonist who fits most of these points and wanted to share lol)
-maybe associate it with a certain group of people that have wronged your villain countless times in their life, think of any group of people. because they're a villain, perhaps make that group of people be where your hero hails from
-make your villain have trouble having of a baby of their own either through adoption or biologically, so that when their baby dies it will hit many times harder
-that certain group of people i mentioned above, yeah have them murder that baby or have a part in making it die, like denying it medical attention or straight up just killing it themselves
-have the group of people try to justify it in mass, making your villain more angrier at the group of people
-make your villain hold that grudge for years, decades, centuries even, up until where your hero comes in
-don't just make them female, spice it up and make it a dude or mix-match to create a good villain that people sympathize with (because they lost their baby and they sad ykyk) but also want them to stop what they're doing. like with any villain, don't just make them 100% evil, since in this villain's eyes, they're doing justice.
child loss doesn't make anyone a monster or a murderous crime lord, since (as child loss is a sort of trauma) trauma most of the time "softens" someone's personality and make them sympathize for people who have a smaller version of what they went through. which is why making the hero's social group kill or have a part in killing your villain's baby and have them keep wronging them even before that point is something that can cancel out the "mother had a miscarriage so she turns into an evil witch to take it out on people who had nothing to do with it"
The entire premise of the newest FFXIV expansion Shadowbringer was that light won in the world, and basically took over, killing anything that isn't pure. Humans aren't pure. Very cool IMO.
And while Doctor Who's Black Guardian is portrayed as a villain, it turns out that the White Guardian dominating would have been _just as bad_ and they functioned as necessary counter balances of each other, neither being purely good or evil in themselves.
I wouldn't say it just killed anything that "wasn't pure", it killed literally everything. If you go to the Empty during the Eden raids, there's no life, not even plants.
I've actually been thinking about the whole Fae situation and realised that people only go for fairies for some reason? Which is odd? Because if a wonderful floral area is to exist, a hellish run of lava through another is to exist. There's other monsters and mythical beasts to work with, like Lamia's. Or maybe there should be more original monsters that aren't??? Fairies with a different name???
Or Redcaps? They're fae and are also terrifying. Im surprised theres no horror movies about those
Lamias are basically off brand vampires though. At least for all intents and purposes of the entertainment industry. If you make a movie or book about Lamias, you can also write about Wyvern. Congratulations, you made something unique! But they're still sky lizards.
@@pheenixgryphon7857 oh count on some author to make them hot somehow
@@unluckyone1655 or they make them so ugly that they come back around to being cute, like pugs
@@agentwolfo101 that would be the better case scanario, but never underestimate horny people looking for more un appealing critters to transform into spank material
I love Jenna's videos, her sense of humor, and the way she dispenses knowledge. That said, I got to disagree about zombies. I love zombies! I think they need a new angle, a new way of approaching them, but having the ominous undead lurking in the darkness is always a turn-on for me! :)
#1 - YEESSS
I am so damn tired of zombies. Especially in video games where, even if the game isn't about zombies, they're like a required level in a graveyard or something.
I haven't been this early in a long time. Considering your feelings on dragons.... I must hold back the catchphrase from Shadiversity.... "But What about Dragons?" lol.
Well he wrote an excellent fantasy book with original worldbuilding and with exactly zero dragons in it.
@@mirjanbouma Very True. But whenever he discusses fantasy weapons in his videos... somebody always asks "But what about dragons?" So much so that its now on a T-Shirt in his Merch store.
@@walteroakley9115 that's funny! I love it when channels get their own inside jokes.
“I know you’re pissing your pants over this one, but try not to get it on the floor.” 😂😂😂😂
"Teacup humans" Oh, man, I'm stealing that one!
8:00
When a woman looses her child, she becomes a monster.
When a man looses his child, he becomes a super hero.....
5:04 Actually, it's because they were easier to make on a '60s TV budget. Writers just continued that trend in other media and sexualized it even more.
It's older than that. ERB's red, yellow, white, and black Barsoomians, and his humanoid inhabitants of Venus. The Tsath of Lovecraft's _The Mound._ Numerous other pulp stories with humanoid aliens who differ only in skin color and a few cosmetic bits.
To add to number 7, there are a lot of urban legends of ghosts who kill people because they lost a child. The one that came to my mind when you introduced this point is the Mexican urban legend of La Llorona (“the weeping woman”). There are many different versions of the story, but the bare-bones version is that her children drowned, and she drowned herself to be with them. Some versions say that she drowned her kids so she could spend her evenings with men, others say that she was a native woman who mourns not only her children, but also the loss of her civilization. Mexican parents often use La Llorona as a boogyman to scare their kids into behaving, saying that La Llorona will get them if they misbehave. There are definitely more urban legends like this worldwide, so you can see why it’s such a staple in horror movies.
He heard she intentionally drowned her own children because she found out her husband was cheating (but probably later regret it). Although I only heard it from the internet
@@zakosist that makes sense
Superman - Injustice gods amongst us
Superman becomes a villain after he kills the Joker.
Why does he kill the joker? Because Joker manipulated him into killing Lois, who was pregnant at the time.
Have you on in background while at work, minimized you (I know, sorry) while I had an I.T. person remote-into my desktop. My cursor just barely grazed over the Chrome icon and your Baby-clad face popped up for just enough time for him to see. It was as if he was cut off mid-sentence, his tone drastically changed and there was a long pause, I don't want to know what he thought of me at that moment and I sure as hell didn't justify it with the truth because it made no fucking sense - so THANKS for that LOL!
Magic with a K exisits to distiguish between magic in fiction and those that practice Wicca and/or Witchcraft.
Not always, there are a lot of fantasy books and games that have nothing to do with real world Wicca belief that still spell the word magic weird to look "unique". I've seen Magik, Magicka, Magick, Majic, Majik and Magika. Those are just the ones I've seen trying to replicate the word Magic, it's not including aaaaalllll the other words used to just replace magic despite it still basically being magic... Energy, Bending, Spirit/ Soul Power to name a few...
Yeah, but it’s ok to offend certain groups. No hypocrisy here, move along 🤣
When Gardner invented the Wicca, he was trying to sound fancy, so it counts.
@@RiveroftheWither bending works differently from magic.
As far as I'm aware, magick was first used by Aleister Crowley to refer to the magic he did in the bedroom
I'm very pro spelling magick with a k. Magick feels much more ethereal, innate, and fantastical, while magic feels like it can include trivial tricks and optical illusions.
I like the changeling stories where the child grows unnaturally fast. It might be a modern adaptation but of so, I don't care. It adds an otherworldness to the changeling without being a reference to a common illness/type of person.
Vulcans have hearts where their livers should be and vice versa. ✨
They're my favorite aliens....
Having a favorite is not logical.
I think stories about dark romance is for people to deal with their personal traumas. Or its just a Fantasy, (just because they like it in fiction doesn't mean they like it irl)
I think there's a situation where not seeing the monster is okay, if it's psychological horror where the question is was it real?
Tragic monsters are the best. Too big, too strong, too out of place. They dont choose to be monsters but are out cast and commit horrific acts because they dont fit into the natural order. Something that sparks simpathy but is terrifying and needs to be overcome.
8: Sorry then: My world features dragons. They protect the sky cities and sometimes we cross paths...and no, they don't always breathe fire either.
That’s true
I really wish when it comes to the Fae people would look into the actual mythology behind it. The Fae are a fascinating mythology and I hate how it's so abused. Fun fact though, in my country (Wales) witch hunts never happened, because instead of believing in evil witches, we believed in fairies!
I almost got sad when you mentioned Fairies because I just wrote a story that has Fairies in it....but then you kept on going and I completely understand why. Thankfully, that's not the direction I went with.
Now I want to write these tropes just to parody them 💀
Subverting tropes can make for excellent stories! "Accidental sorcerer" is a favourite example of mine. It has a wizard, with a familiar (sort of) who has to rescue the princess and slay the dragon and save the kingdom.
And it's nothing like you're imagining right now. If you enjoy funny in your fantasy, I recommend it.
Being scared can be good and fun, but think rollercoaster and haunted house, not stranger in the back alley. It's all about the illusion, the issue with *those* erotica books is that while we have the safe distance because it's a book, the characters don't. If you want to write kidnapping and nonconsent stuff, just implement a layer of safety, make it a pre-negotiated courtship ritual in a fey realm where the agreement can't be broken because *magic*
I got into an argument with a friend about if dragons are mandatory in fantasy I told him no there not and he said name one fantasy story with out dragons and I couldn’t 😂 😂 😂
I did not expect Chuck Tingle to be brought into this, but I did die laughing when it happened.
So you're a zombie typing this now? Figures... :D
@@Keyboardje Zombies are not the sole variety of undead beings. And anyway, can zombies even type?
With all the real and media stories of overprotective dads, you'd think father becomes a monster b/c their child died. But it's always more metaphorical to them isn't it.
The snark is strong with this one. Thank you, Jenna, for calling out ablest bias (and all the others). That is one of my pet peeves (as someone who has to strap mobile furniture to my butt every day).
why am i crying at "mobile furniture" lmfao
I've never thought of it like that before 😭 Yeah, Jenna's a queen 💓😊
Never thought I would arrive so quickly lol your videos are amazing Jenna❤️❤️❤️
I love your channel and your speaking style and humor.
my only point of contention is small: the -k in magick vs magic.
its used to differentiate from the common definition and the legitimate religious practice of neo-pagans and wiccans. small thing, but as a former catholic and as a former wiccan i felt like it would be good to spread here. liked the video, hope to see more!
Not always, there are a lot of fantasy books and games that have nothing to do with real world Wicca belief that still spell the word magic weird to look "unique". I've seen Magik, Magicka, Magick, Majic, Majik and Magika.
@@RiveroftheWither Fair enough. I'm familiar (septimus heap was an old favorite of mine), but was simply trying to apply a bit of real world context. 19th century occultists began using it first, as i understand it, but you're correction is actually more immediately relevant.
"Who hurt you and why do you crave habitual punishment?"
I was raised Catholic, next question
“he’s scary so I’m attracted to him” tbh I thought that was more of a guy thing because it’s literally a meme for guys to be like “please destroy me waifu”
Yes.
Zombies need to go.
The white and black thing also definitely NEEDS TO GO. Did you know that in Persian mythology, there's a unicorn that eats humans (well, mostly meat). It looks more like a one-horned antelope than the western unicorn, but damn isn't it cool for spooky stuff (did I write a piece of flash fiction with it devouring unsuspecting humans? Yes, yes I did).
Ah, number 5. I have one I read. You can know if a person has been "possessed" by a djinn if they exhibit depression symptoms. Fun fun.
Actually, as a woman, I've been traumatized by HAVING a baby, sooooo... (yes, childbirth is traumatizing, having to deal with a baby virtually alone while being depressed is also traumatizing, not having support while having to deal and care for a baby is traumatizing, freaking breastfeeding can be traumatizing if you're not supported enough).
Dragons are the best, and I will never not love them (says the person that doesn't actually wrote anything with a dragon. YET.).
Agree with the black and white thing, but I think what really needs to be remembered is that symbolism originally came from the portrayal of yin and yang. There’s so much more to the black and white yin and yang symbolism, and together they make balance. It’s the entire point, neither is good or bad, it’s just balance, and I wish that was shown more rather than “black is evil and white is pure”.
Black and white meaning good and evil didn't descend from yin and yang. Other cultures could and did develope their own color symbolism.
@@unigaming9921 I always thought it was a primal thing like wight good because sun and light and black bad because shadows and predators
@@Teahillmusic black sometimes means good in some cultures.
In Europe is has more to do with moral cleanliness being associated with white. Because white shows all dirt, true moral cleanliness is reflected in true white.
@@unigaming9921 that’s really interesting I need to look into that
Undertale did the lost child good. Monster couple loses their child and the one becoming a villain for revenge is the father, while the mother is like "ok no, you too mad, bye"
My only problem with these books are why does it alwsys have to have a leading lady instead of a leading man? Always?
"Number 9: We don't get to see the monster."
.
Gareth Edwards: "And I took that personally."
When Godzilla's finally revealed, the scene is frustratingly dark. Wasn't a fan.
anybody else find it weird how Jenna's always saying she doesn't care if we get offended by her opinions and then shares lots of opinions about how we shouldn't offend others. Also there's a Drake in TSC. He's a pretty notable character
Being offended by an opinion on a trope and telling someone to stop using offensive stereotypes in fiction are two _very_ different things.
@@Acidfrog475 Thank you! 😅 Common sense is an unfortunately rare treasure
Jenna: “and number 8 dragons”
The asexual community: “you have made a terrible enemy.”
Asexual and also love dragons! Is this an actual thing for all asexuals??
WoF Fans:
@@livjones2917 Well it’s either dragons or dinosaurs depends on the ace. But the community as a hole love both.
But aces agree with her last point😂😂😂
nah, i'm ace/aro and write/read minimal dragons. take away the cake though and then we have some war to wage...
Jenna: “white for good guys and black for bad guys” is an overused trope
Anime that does the opposite: am I a joke to you
Number 7 reminds me of the Wilis scene from Giselle
Love your openers, Jenna :^)
As a self identified Asexual I must defend dragons.
Before rambling this is my personal opinion I am not saying Jenna's wrong.
While I agree dragons shouldn't be the only reason someone is drawn to a book, I think the problem with dragons is how people use it. They can really be interesting! You can go so many ways with their design, their culture, their morality! Dragon evil cus big and greedy is not interesting but blaming dragons as a whole? Nah.
Dragons are like elfs dwarves or swords. Used a lot in fantasy. And as such should be used in new interesting ways.
(That's the second comment I see that links asexual people with dragons... What's the connexion exactly? ^^' Honest question, by the way. I've just never seen that before!)
“Teacup humans” made me choke on my drink. Very well done!
Looking forward to this one 👍🏼
Drakes are male dragons, they usually stay at the nest and protect the drangonlings while the female dragon goes off and hunts :)
I love "teacup humans" for babies! I shall never call them anything else again.
Ngl cursed baby Jenna is kinda fucking iconic
“Fuck a fish Del Toro is delighted” 🤣🤣🤣🤣 that had my ass laughing.
"fuck a fish? Del Toro is delighted." Omfg I died😂😂😂😂😂
Me: presses play on this video
Jenna: *pacifier in mouth*
Me: *screams* NOT THE BABIESSSS
Most accurate monster #1, a disgusting, wealthy, powerful, sociopathic politician/business person/cult leader who kills hundreds of thousands of people while saying "I know it's deadly but I'm gonna play it down because it might affect my popularity and stock dividends." #2 , sociopathic cult followers. You could argue that sociopaths are brain-damaged, but we're not buyin' that this year. Sorry, not sorry. RIP mother.
Your video about monsters last halloween helped me so much with crafting a monster. You mentioned making monsters based on personal fears, mine being drug dependency & pregnancy. While my monster isn't evil because she's pregnant, I really hope my monster still doesn't fall in this trope just because she's pregnant. :/
I think iZombie is an exception to the "I hate zombies" rule. (A rule I agree with, by the way. Though the game Planescape Torment has some cool zombies in it.)
Black phoenix does sound pretty cool. But that might be because I'm already a fan of black flames.
#1: Zombies are actually a result of any human who is grievously wounded. In one of my stories, humanity possesses an emergency survival mechanism that whenever they're mortally wounded, they enter a state of undeath where their brains go dull and they shamble around everywhere until their bodies recover enough for them to actually not die, they are ravenous, but they don't eat human flesh and there are hospitals dedicated to the rehabilitation of zombies.
#3: Also in said story, the good guys wear black metallic suits of armor, and need to move at night and cosntantly hide during the day in order to not get accosted by the monsters that dominate the planet.
#4: Well, in one of my sci-fi stories, they're related to humans, so...
#5: One of the most pwoerful good guys high up the totem pole in my debut novel was attacked by the villains when he was a kid and was left a mauled wreck because of it, didn't stop him from becoming a soldier and getting revenge until he was promoted to Director of Defense. Due to his backstory and history as a veteran, the guy has a decent amount of prestige at his back, even if he's so ugly he's legitimately pinaful to look at.
#6: Hypnosis, and in one of my stories after my debut novel, one of the bad guys basically hypnotizes women to make them into his tools.
#7: Well, it wasn't just losing her babies, everyone she loved was murdered when those she considered her closest allies betrayed her and sacked her home.
#8: Dragons are...circumstancial in my stories, it'll be a surprise when they show up in my stories.
#9: In my debut novel, they not only see them, they fight them.
Not related to this video but I just wanted to say I finished your first book and am now on the second of the series!! I love it so far. Your work is fucking amazing.
See this is why I liked Warm Bodies....it was a zombie story with an interesting spin on it and was far more than just the generic 'unexplained cause makes the dead rise, dead eat the living, etc etc'
I didn't even know that abusive fairies were a thing.
FINALLY SOMEBODY SAID IT! Zombies have been so overused to the point its cringy just to hear about it.
Jenna: Uploads a video about monster tropes
Me: In the process of outlining a zombie/apocalypse book for nanowrimo.
Also me: Sees the first point 🤦♀
Me: still plans on writing my zombie story because I want to
Me writing a monster story: *surprised pikachu face*
I'm also in the process of outlining and writing a zombie book.
Ngl i absolutely loooove stories that feature zombies or dragons lol. Still, Jenna videos are always entertaining to watch!
Hearing you rant about #10: I have no respect for you for kinkshaming me like that.
"I know you're pissing your pants at this one, but try not to get it on the floor" i swear i about lost my shit at that! i love dragons personally, though it's totally valid for you ( or anyone) to be over them. but i gotta agree with you about zombies. PLEASE do something else. ANYTHING but zombies. it's the same old tired story over and over, and i'm so sick of it. also getting very tired of the whole fae thing as well.
wanna bet after the fae phase we gonna get a wave of orc, ogre, or troll romance novels
NOOOO! They'll ruin them by making them all sexy and stuff! 😱
@@Newfiecat Bright sorta did it with Jacobi. Orc guy with a sweet personality and a bit of a dork? Lots of women were down to smash.
I recommend Wicked Lovely for a GOOD fey book. The series was finished before the trend started, it actually goes into fey lore, world building for the fey realm, the politics of the faery courts and the main character DOESN'T end up with the faery douche boy, I don't want to spoil anything but out of the multiple couples that form only 1 is abusive and it makes sense because they are Dark Court faeries that literally feed off pain and pleasure to live.
I have an antagonistic fairy duo that play with the douche lover trope, but like Jareth from Labyrinth, the Heroine finds them repulsive (morally, not physically) and rejects them due to the fact that they harmed her family and that there is a massive power imbalance between them.
How you could even talk slightly serious with that thing on your head is a skill in itself XDD
5:21 not me being a human without a bellybutton . Y'all I guess I rlly was an alien after all......