clichés within ficticious works of fantasy

[Toefur]

I would like to know everyones ideas of overused ideas, concepts, characters, storylines, etc. that one may find in any work of fantasy (novels, movies, etc. not that theres really anything other than novels or movies, but have at it).

I know theres lots but I can't remember anything at the moment. I'm after really obvious or cheesey stuff, too. Whether it be certain lame plots involving wizards, or the fact that the main protagonist is always an unexperienced young man thrust headfirst into a thick and dangerous fantasy world...

cheesey.
overused.
overdone.
lame.

got any?

[Evil]

Star Wars Spinoffs. Some are good but there are too many... Same goes for mad scientists... And as for characters, I hate crappy job, low lifes. Its all been done before.

[Ali]

On the enemy front, fantasy/sci-fi villains are all too often:

English,
Intelligent,
Ironically polite,
Theatrical/artistic,
Well read,
Of indeterminate Sexuality,
Wearing black.

I mean, I'm English, polite and wearing all black, but I'm quite nice. George Bush isn't any of those things and he's the most dangerous man on the planet. Let's see some villains who are stupid and brutal, like in real life.

Heroes are always:

American.

The more heroic the character, the more American the accent. Check out the (no longer from Baghdad) Sinbad the Sailor.

[Hobbes]

All I can say is: Read Tigana from Guy Gaviel Kay. Or, even better, read The Lions of Al-Rassan. It shows you how archetypes *should* be handled. He paints the most vivid worlds I've ever read. Many, many miles better than that disgusting Robert Jordan.

Ok.. Overdone Stuff.

In no particular order.

1. Wizard: "Whee! I'm a wizard! Here goes Fireball # 2030! Tiring? Me? No, sirree! Mwahaha!"

2. Author: "Hmm... Let's whip up a fantasy world populated by men, Elves, Dwarves oh... and Orcs too! Orcs are cool! They're my friends!"

3. Hero: "I'm really smart. I am, really. Look, I manage to overcome the most stupefying odds! It comes with the job... read here: H-E-R-U. Errr. Something like that!"

4. Author: "Huh? You mean it doesn't neccessarily have to be a trilogy?"

5. Evil bad guy: "I'm EVIL! MWAHAHAHA... Get me? I'm EVIL!!! Why? How? What do you mean? I just AM!!! MWAHAHAHAA!!! etc. etc. etc."

6. Author: "Motivation of Bad Dark Bad Guys? What do you mean? It's in the name, right?"

7. Secret Society: "We didn't ask for it either... we seem to be in every novel..."

etc.

[AGA]

Now you die! Why do you call Robert Jordan disgusting?!

[Hobbes]

Er.

Because he's so.... imaginative in coming up with the same plot over and over again.

I'll admit, the first one was really good. But after that?

Huh.

Kinda like reading Feist. First books: Good. After that: Repetive stuff.

It almost seems as if these so-called "best-seller" authors are afraid if trying something new. Read Faery Tale by Feist, for example. It's (I think) the only novel where he tries something different. It's prolly one of his best books.

Did he ever do that again? Nope. Prolly didn't make enough money.

[Barcik]

Good vs. Evil! Evil threatening to ruin the world!

However, a cliched setting is not all bad.

One week ago I finished reading Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game". The setting: There is a war between the human beings and the alien 'buggers', all threatening to destroy each other. Anything original there? Not really. And with all that the author develops a very wise and interesting novel, putting the war to the side of the amazing character development.

[Trapezoid]

Hmmm. Are there any non-ficticious works of fantasy???

[Darth Mandarb]

I was talking to my brother about this very thing the other day.  We were discussing how Feist constantly has the heros backed into a corner and just when it seems like they're about to be over-run the reinforcements show up and save the day.  He does this over and over again.

The only thing is, I love it!  I never get bored of it happening.  I loved the Riftwar Saga all the way through the Serpent War Saga.  That's truely (in my humble opinion) some great reading.

Jordan's the Wheel of Time is still on the top of my favorites list though I must admit that last few have been extremely disappointing.

What's the saying?  "It's all been done before"?

Somebody once told me that every piece of fiction is based (loosely) off the Bible.  (I'm not calling the Bible fiction!!)

The Wheel of Time (The Eye of the World through The Shadow Rising) are sooooo similar to the Lord of the Rings.

I find that everything has been overdone.  But then again, if something works, and you enjoy it, why not continue with it?  Although, when I come across something new and original I love it!  But I don't necessarily mind the over-done stuff.

cheers,
dm

[Barcik]

I am with Darth here. Yes, it's totally cliche. Yet if it's done well, I like it.

[Ali]

Hmmm. Are there any non-ficticious works of fantasy???

The war on Saddam?

I hope I don't upset anyone here, but a few thinkers are arguing that there is such a thing as non-fictitous fantasy.

I know it's not quite what you meant, but here's an interesting article called 'welcome to the desert of the real' by Slavoj Zizek. He shows the way the US dealt with an attack upon it's fantasy world - not by acknowledging the truth, but by abandoning it.

http://www.venus.co.uk/weed/current/zizek.htm

Sorry if I went off topic a little there ... Ahem ... fantasy cliches: Heroine with low cut and figure hugging armour which offers little defence and is probably quite chilly to wear.

[Trapezoid]

"Fantasy" by definition is something ficticious. I was just saying that the phrase "ficticious works of fantasy" is redundant.

Heroine with low cut and figure hugging armour which offers little defence and is probably quite chilly to wear.

I think there's about 50 of those in Neole's art thread.

[DragonRose]

The Orphan Who Saves the World and Revenges His Parents

We have David Eddings' Garion, R. A. Salvatore's Elbryan and Pony, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter, Mercedes Lackey's Tarma... oh, I KNOW there's more, but I can't think of any right now.  

Just once I'd like to see the mysterious orphan be told that his parents were killed by evil people, and instead of grabbing the nearest sword and running off into a duel arcane, just think to himself "Well, ain't that a kick in the pants."

[Captain Mostly]

I think it's interesting that I have complete patience with hidious clichés in fantasy literature, but can't read even half of a pot-boiler derivative sci-fi novel.

I just treat Fantasy as mills-and-boon for nerds (and I include myself in the nerd-grouping. I AM on a computing degree course...) and it makes for an easy choice for what to take on long train journeys.

This is something I think that Terry Pratchett (spelled wrong sorry) isn't given enough credit for. I know lots of people say his books are stupid, his voice as an auther is irritating and so on, and while I don't agree, I can see their point. But every singe Diskworld book is full of excellent and well balanced satires and attacks on Fantasy cliché (obviously, considerably more overtly in the earlyer books). I can't get enough of the Diskworld books, and I don't care who knows it. They ain't works of literary genious, but then I read too many of those!

As for clichés, how about "WE MUST GO TO A DANGEROUS FAR AWAY PLACE AS A GROUP TO COLLECT AN ITEM! AND IN DOING SO WE WILL FACE UN-CONNECTED YET DANGEROUS EVENT AFTER UN-CONNECTED YET DANGEROUS EVENT!!!"

That one dates back to the ancient greeks and beyond!

[Gonzo]

Thoughts on clichés and whether they make fiction worthless or not:

'The Lord Of The Rings' story pretty much opened everything up for people to write fantasy fiction of that type, and (correct me if I am wrong) Tolkien was the original author who devised a basic 'world' which has been semi-copied by fantasy writers ever since. That is, the elves/orcs/dwarves racial mix, and a medieval setting with magic and wizards thrown in. Each author puts some sort of their own spin on that, but the big influence is totally undeniable I think. So you could say the Tolkienesque world has become the root of most fantasy cliché. Though not all - Ali's theory on villains doesn't ring true, because Sauron isn't really 'ironically polite', the Uruk-Hai leader isn't 'of indeterminate sexuality' and Saruman isn't 'wearing black' .

Anyway, back to the point, I don't think a fantasy novelist should necessarily be criticised if their novel's basic premise bears similarity to Tolkien's LOTR. Even if their storyline itself is close in parts, that doesn't make their work redundant. There's plenty of other elements that can make a fantasy novel a worthwhile read, be it sharp dialogue, or especially strong characters, or a really great vivid descriptive style.

I think this 'clichéd can still be good' argument applies to most entertainment pretty well. For example, I thought 'Pirates Of The Carribean' was a great piece of cinema, even if it faithfully involved just about every pirate story cliché. A big part of it being great was Johnny Depp giving a typically great performance. Another case in point, the 'Indiana Jones' trilogy tried to mimic old adventure serials and ended up even copying itself in parts, but that didn't detract from it at all, partly because on the levels of cinematography, dialogue, acting, musical score etc. it was brilliant. But also partly because whilst being heavily 'clichéd' it had its own very strong identity. That's actually possible, seems to me: to be original whilst being clichéd. Sounds totally stupid, and it's hard to articulate these things, but I think there's truth in it.

-
Re: Robert Jordan - A couple years ago, I read the first two Robert Jordan 'Wheel Of Time' novels, I enjoyed them a lot. I actually meant to pick up more as I was enjoying the story but somehow never got round to it. Anyway, I don't really remember being struck by any overwhelming sense that he'd filled his plot with tired clichéd elements. I have only just remembered I read the books reading this thread, but maybe now I will get book 3...

[Barcik]

Gonzo, book 3 you can skip. The first 2 are fun, but in the 3rd the whole development stops, much like with other fantasy franchizes. There is pretty much no progress of the plot at all, except making it a bit more 'complex' until book 9.

[Darth Mandarb]

Gonzo - I would suggest reading book 3 because you have to read book 4 (The Shadow Rising).  It's the best book in the series in my opinion.  It wouldn't make much sense if you don't read book 3.

But after that ... well ... it sort of went downhill.  Jordan does a masterful job with his characters and you want to keep reading 'cause you care about them.  But after book 4 he just starts throwing characters at you like he's rivaling War and Peace and the plot sort of drags on.  Don't get me wrong there's some truely great parts though.

dm

[TheYak]

As far as fantasy clichés go, I can't name too many movies I've seen in the fantasy genre.  The last 3 were Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, LOTR-The Two Towers & Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell.  

I'll just stick to literature.  I think most points I would make have been made, but I'll echo them.  Why must we always have elves and dwarves, orcs and trolls, wizards and warriors?  If we do feel the need to include them, what stops an author from making them his own?  Why must they always have the same characteristics.  You can read novels by 10 different authors and if they happen to mention elves, you can pretty much assume they'll be very similar in physical and social characteristics.  

I normally prefer to read fantasy that escapes the status quo at least to some extent.  Piers Anthony - uses clichés like mad but uses a fantasy (or sci-fi) world to explore moral and social difficulties.  Harlan Ellison - Writes Sci-Fi but has dabbled in Fantasy.  Not much he's written can be accused of entering a cliché status.  I loved Tolkien's work because his generation of character types was so in-depth and unique (at the time) that you could at least feel that the different species had a right to be part of the story and not just fodder for a thrown-together plot-line.  

Since this is AGS, I  would encourage any that are creating a fantasy-oriented game to try and expand their characters, screw with the plot-lines and devote at least as much time to originality as the art and scripting.  

[Nine Toes]

"Fantasy" by definition is something ficticious. I was just saying that the phrase "ficticious works of fantasy" is redundant.

Actually, wouldn't it be more like a double negative?...  you know, "Don't not lie to Neil", which really says, "Do lie to Neil"... so, "fictitious works of fantasy" would probably really mean "non-fiction"...

...hoo-boy... gotta stop smoking out of a copper pipe...

Anyways, some cliches that I see way too often:
1. The whole main-character has amnesia (or can't remember anything before one point in his life). and has all these strange abilities that he/she can't explain.
2. "The villian killed my father/my family/destroyed my village/etc" scenario.
3. Laser guns, too Flash Gordon-ish.
4. It seems like every story I read, or game I play, the protagonist always has to save the world from something evil... I wish I would come across a story where the main character wouldn't be playing the hero, or would be the villain, or have a more personal agenda. (... bah... this one is starting to sound stupid...)

Somewhere on RPGToolkit forums, one member's signature was one big list of cliches that you often find in common, garden variety RPG's... lemme see if I can track it down...

[Las Naranjas]

Perhaps it's largely because the market doesn't want anything new. Mostly's comment about it being Mills and Boon does ring true when it is taken inot consideration that fantasy sells at a comparitive rate, in some places exceeding Romance.
I'm not saying that fantasy cannot be used as a genre for greater things, nor that it can be well developed within those confines, just as Indy was a well made collection of clichés, but publishers must see that the formulaic escapism is going to sell guaranteed, whereas something new is a more risky prospect. It's more or less pop corn literature, or at least that's how it palys out.

The formulaic nature of Fantasy can be bizaare when it is taken into account that of all the genres, Fantasy is the one which should, theoretically, have no bounds whatsoever, unlike say, the close structure of crime novels. The latter too sells enormously, but revels in finding creativity in the very very small boundaries available.
Fantasy has infinite worlds to play in, and whilst they might put it on a different planet, they still seem to fail to escape from the shadow of a man who would have loathed everything they wrote.


---edit---
I'll mention a title my Grandma had [she indulges in fantasy] called "The Rough guide the fantasyland" which did a humourous job of catalouging the greater number of clichés.

[Trapezoid]

"Fantasy" by definition is something ficticious. I was just saying that the phrase "ficticious works of fantasy" is redundant.

Actually, wouldn't it be more like a double negative?...  you know, "Don't not lie to Neil", which really says, "Do lie to Neil"... so, "fictitious works of fantasy" would probably really mean "non-fiction"...

No, because "fictitious" and "fantasy" aren't negatives, they're just adjectives. It's more like saying "a tiny atom".

[Las Naranjas]

tautology being the appropriate term.

[Trapezoid]

Redundant tautology!

Ok, enough, back to the topic.

[MrColossal]

http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

this could help

91. I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.

99. Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.

hehe

oh to be an evil overlord

[remixor]

Up until I was in junior high or so, I was really into fantasy/sci-fi books.  Eventually I got tired of the exact same thing again and again.  I haven't read one in years now (except for re-reading LOTR, so sue me), because it feels like fantasy authors don't really need to come up with very original concepts, despite the fact that it would seem to me that the whole POINT of writing fantasy is to do brand new things.  Unfortunately, most fantasy/sci-fi authors just change the names of the different races and put a slightly different spin on things, then write about 39052 books per month rehashing the same stuff they established in their first novel.  I don't mean to say the genres are worthless or anything, and I don't mean this to be offensive even though it may sound that way, but it seems like it would take less skill to write a "good" fantasy novel than a "good" realistic fiction novel (and, yes, "good" is a subjective term, oh well), since the fantasy author can rely on just inventing random new technologies or magics or races or whatever, which I could honestly do on a pad of paper in a matter of minutes.  On the other hand, the realistic fiction author has to come up with truly compelling stories or characters or whatever; since the books take place in our world, we will not be impressed by the author spending forty pages describing the mystical intertangled world wide web--we're already familiar with that, so the author music impress us with actual substansive situations.
Now, I don't mean to say that fantasy/sci-fi authors can't provide aspects of great literature, but I do believe (based on a hell of a lot of experience reading MANY genres of literature) that it is much easier to get away with writing a fairly hollow piece of fantasy than of standard fiction by relying on tried-and-true cliches not ONLY in plot and so forth (which is a problem that also plagues ANY genre of fiction), but in aspects of environment, technology, travel systems, species, etc.--all things that can fill page upon page upon page (hence these 930209-page fantasy "epics") without really saying much at all.

A good example of a good idea that could have been dumb is Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray".  It's about a guy who inadvertently transfers his soul over to a very lifelike portrait of himself painted by his artist friend.  As a result, he does not age or suffer the physical effects of corruption; instead, the painting takes on these characterists (and ends up really old gross and nasty as a result).  Without taking into account setting or anything, a fantasy author would have written the book with the strange properties of the picture as the core along with the physical powers it grants Dorian (and for anyone who's seen the retarded film adaptation of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", it probably seems like this would be the case).  Wilde could have done that, but he doesn't; in fact, the picture is not mentioned nearly as much as one would expect.  The novel is basically a psychological study of Dorian as he sinks into moral corruption without accountability, and the results on his psyche.  There are a thousand more books I could bring up, but this is an example of the type of thing I realized I was never getting out of fantasy novels.

Now, as simply a form of entertainment, it's hard to criticize any medium over another; after all, if it entertains, who cares?  From that point of view, I don't mean to suggest anyone's reading habits are somehow invalid.  This whole unnecessarily long post was just my own personal and very general take on the artistic "value" (another obviously subjective judgment) of certain genres.

Again, please, nobody take offense to my opinions about fantasy books, assuming anybody even bothered to read this crap.  Just my two cents, of course.

[Captain Mostly]

I read the picture of Dorian Grey just recently, and I can happily say it probably wasn't worth it. Sure, it's nice to know the story (it's definatly a good story) but the way Oscar Wild writes is excruciating! None of the characters are at all sympathetic, and they all speak in exactly the same way!!! ARRRG!!!!

Interestingly, I only really read it to warm myself up for Will Self's recent re-working of the story, and the parallels between Wild and Self are un-missable. They BOTH are un-able to write dialogue in a way that isn't EXACTLY the same way as they speak (I'm only guessing about the way Wild spoke, but you definatly get the impression he spoke like that. And will Self DEFINATLY talks the way he writes). They both manage to often lose the interesting and exciting part of the story under a quagmire of irritating and dull meandering. I won't go on.

But whilst I'm on Will Self, does "Great Apes" count as Fantasy? Or do we only include goblin fantasy etc?

Oh oh oh, STARDUST by Niel Gaimen is definatly fantasy, and that's bill (althogh it DOES have a strong element of go-someplace-to-get-something and seriese-of-unconnected-dangerous-events to it...)

[Trapezoid]

Actually, fantasy is a wider genre than ya think... The wizards 'n' swords variety is full of cliches, of course, but look at some of the highest rated fantasy films:
http://www.imdb.com/Charts/Votes/fantasy

Toy Story, Being John Malkovich, Spirited Away, Brazil.... There are plenty of "fantasy" stories which are so far away from those cliches that you can forget that they're "fantasy".

[Captain Mostly]

It's tricky, since you have to distinguish between fantasy as the dictionary would define it, and Fantasy as in the genre people asociate with the word. If only people would bother to make new words when they make new genres, as it gets pretty darn confusing when you have to take into account the popularly accepted meaning of a word as seperate but equally widly used as it's REAL meaning!!

I suspect that films catagorised fantasy are less selected on the basis of their Fantasy connections, and more for their being a bit wacky.

It's pretty obvious that this thread is about Fantasy clichés though, and with a view to that, I'd ask:

Can anybody here (seeing as this is a reasonably creative society in theory) come up with a Fantasy premice/story that DOESN'T feel clichéd?

The problem is that any story told in that Fantasy setting imediatly starts to feel clichéd, and in fact, whenever I read one where they're trying to break with convention, I react baddly and toss the book aside out of the train window. Also, if the story centers on characters and literary type issues (y'know what I mean, broken homes, depression, head lice etc) people expecting a fantasy novel will be let down, and people who would read that sort of thing wouldn't even pick it up, because of the setting... I'd like to know how anyone would suggest the Fantasy genre is able to progress without losing it's audience, or feeling clichéd...

[Hobbes]

To reply to what Gonzo said earlier on stuff being "based on Tolkien", I beg to differ. Not that I am a Tolkien-freak (his long-windedness is particularly bothering to me... as is his lack of characterbuilding), but I feel I must point out the following:

Lots of authors claim to write "high fantasy". When, in fact what they write is akin to the lightest fiction around (we call them Bouquet-books here in Holland). The only thing is, they simply duplicate the setting of man, elves and dwarves, give 'em weird-sounding names and call it "high fantasy".

High Fantasy is a trend started by Tolkien, I believe. It means a thoroughly thought-out setting, blending existing myth and legends into an original piece of work. It also builds on grand themes such as "sacrifice" and heroes, not unalike the popular medieval works of Beowulf.

It seems to me that popular fantasy author (insert Feist and Jordan here) have no concept of such a setting. Feist openly admits to using his D&D playground to write his novels in! True, Midkemia is a fun world, but it clearly shows it somewhat sloppy "architecture".

Now, as a counter to these so-called "good" writers, I would once again like to name Guy Gavriel Kay. And even, to a lesser degree, Robin Hobb. Kay in particular showed the world what High Fantasy truly means when he wrote The Fionavar Tapestry back in the '80ies. Those three books still inspire me a great deal. His wonderful prose and carefully constructed characters, worlds and plots have moved me on many occasions.

Robin Hobb, too, dares to be creative. Her Liveship-trilogy shows that she is willing to go into the unknown as by the end of the second book, I really had *no* idea how it was going to continue. And then by the end of the third, she proved all my theories about the ending completely *wrong*.

That's what fantasy writing should be about. Exploring psychological and sociological themes in an alien setting. Kay gives a very profound insight into the human psyche, and I even dare to call his writing literature. There. It *is* really that good.

And Jordan and Feist and all the others who are the so-called bestsellers? No thank you.

[remixor]

Actually, fantasy is a wider genre than ya think... The wizards 'n' swords variety is full of cliches, of course, but look at some of the highest rated fantasy films:
http://www.imdb.com/Charts/Votes/fantasy

Toy Story, Being John Malkovich, Spirited Away, Brazil.... There are plenty of "fantasy" stories which are so far away from those cliches that you can forget that they're "fantasy".

I never intended to criticize fantasy films; two of those movies (Being John Malkovich and Brazil) are among my all-time favorites, and Terry Gilliam is among my favorite directors.  I enjoyed Spirited Away and Toy Story for their visual aspects mainly, although both were complete films.

[Trapezoid]

My point was that the "fantasy" genre is actually a lot wider than Tolkien-style stories. I guess this thread concerns THAT brand of fantasy, then, right? In that case, yes, of course there are cliches, because that brand is based off of what people associate with fantasy. Namely, wizards, elves, heroes, and all that stuff. That style of fantasy world environment is a cliche itself.

[Las Naranjas]

On Dorian Gray, I think it's interesting to note the similarities with American Psycho, if only because the themes are somewhat similar.


But on "it could have been a dumb idea", think about the plots of most great literature.
The Old Man And The Sea - An old man goes fishing. After a long time he catches a huge fish but sharks eat it before he gets back. He goes to sleep
Pride and Prejudice - Rich and handsome man meets high spirited girl. Initially there is mutual dislike based on perceived arrogance. Girl finds out something about man's past that changes perception. They fall in love.

The former sounds banal and the latter is the plot of almost every romance novel ever written, but both a intensley admired.
The idea, or the plot, has almost nothing at all on the quality or success of the finished product. Often the more acclaimed the book, the more banal the idea or plot.

[Barcik]

I thought about it and I agree with Trapezoid. All fantasy seems cliche to us, because all that we regard as fantasy is elves & orcs & magic & good & evil etc.

However, works such Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita", Carrol's "Alice in Wonderland" and Herbert's "Dune". All these works can be classified as fantasy, according to its definition, but it's hard to do so because it is not the 'fantasy' we know.

[Captain Mostly]

Y'know, I remember thinking about wether American Psyco was based around Dorien Gray when I was reading it, but then I forgot about it untill organes just reminded me. He's so clever!

[Las Naranjas]

The important thing is that there's an ATM that says "Feed me a stray kitten"

[Captain Mostly]

Yeah, but that happens in so many fantasy novels. It's prolly just coincidence.