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Fantasy Pet Peeves


The Wolf Maid

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The woman in the tin brassierre. Also as portrayed by the fantasy artists, not just authors. It's why I stopped reading fantasy in HS and had to be coaxed to try Martin by a friend years later. At least slap some decent armor on her for chrissake.

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Well, the callow youth that is more than he appears and will rise up to challenge the dark lord...with the help of a kindly old wizard, of course. Act One, Scene One of every fantasy novel should begin with the callow youth being eviscerated by a servant of the dark lord.

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wise uncle/aunt who always has the best interests of the protagonist at heart.

trusty and dependable (often military) sidekick who is either the butt of all jokes or a very discrete listener.

the staid, efficent castle warden.

the haughty princess who suddenly turns over a new leaf after meeting Mr. Nice Guy (aka our protagonist)

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I can't stand the cliched "boy gets pushed off tower by incestuous royalty and wakes up crippled but with special powers while blondhaired pusher loses sword hand, frees his midget bro who stands accused of killing his son/king, refuses to fuck his sister and gains humility" storyline. It's getting a little old.

Actually, I hate the storyline where someone who's never used a weapon in his life can master it in about 6-12 months and take out enemies who have been training their whole lives.

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Not so much a cliche, but I really really hate it when characters from a fantasy or other fictional world find some way of coming into the "real" world. Worst cliche's gotta be the bad guy gloating over his victims and explaining his plot. After all the jokes and piss-takes, people STILL write this scene into their books; it beggars belief!

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Elves. Dwarves, and Dark Lords.

Oh, and Black Ride clones drive me FRICKIN' INSANE. I read 4 books in a row with Black Rider clones in them, and I wanted to pull out my hair.

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I only have one word to say here

Mordsith

(and all those other times one author shamlesly rips off another concept)

Ok so thats not really a pet peeve so much as it is my statment of belife. My hope that ever single fantasy fan will join in the crusade agianst Terry "I'm really not a racist you just think I am" Goodkind.

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I can't stand the cliched "boy gets pushed off tower by incestuous royalty and wakes up crippled but with special powers while blondhaired pusher loses sword hand, frees his midget bro who stands accused of killing his son/king, refuses to fuck his sister and gains humility" storyline. It's getting a little old.

I thought I was the only one! Well it could be worse. I mean, horrid princes that gets what's coming by means of pie (variations on pigeon, pork, and chocolate) is so overplayed. ;)

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The Band of Heroes.

:cool: :D:P:tantrum:;):kiss:

A group of varied, and in many cases opposed, characters that join in a quest to achieve something important. Why on Earth destroying your local unfriendly dark lord always involves a long travel through remote areas infested with his minions?

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Word, Agulla. And over every single country on a woefully clichéd map full of geographical impossibilities. Meanwhile, the band of heroes bickers, someone dazzles someone else with their singing and someone finds true love. Ugh.

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The Band of Heroes.

That's still my ASIOAF nightmare. The bastard boy who is really the heir to the throne leads his dragonriding princess, the wisecracking dwarf, the magic using crippled boy and his brooding sister (who just happens to be a master assassin) off into the trackless north to face the great other.

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Songs! I hate it when fantasy books contain songs! We don't know what they sound like, so we have to make up our own "medievalish" sounding tune as we read words which are usually barely related/important to the story.

The farmer went to market

He did!

He did!

The whore played in his pockets

She did!

She did!

Hey! Ho! The townsfolk looked low

For what spilled out o' farmer's pockets

They did! They did!

I HATE IT!! Tolkien was the WORST at this!

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Yes, the maps. And look this land wide and plentiful, crossed by rivers and covered by forests, it's empty!

Nobody is living there, no farmers no herders, just a bunch of outposts of civilization that nobody knows what are they doing there if nobody is travelling by that road.

And of course the most sensible route is closed or watched by the enemy so the Band of Heroes has to go through one far more dangerous.

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Act One, Scene One of every fantasy novel should begin with the callow youth being eviscerated by a servant of the dark lord.

Funnily enough, when I first AGoT for the first time I was pondering if Will was supposed to be the hero of the story. When he was indeed eviscerated by a servant of the dark lord at the end of the prologue, I guessed this wasn't the case.

One thing I would like would be for stories where there refreshingly doesn't appear to be a Dark Lord to actually not have a fricking Dark Lord turn up halfway through the series. Malazan Book of the Fallen has done this (with the Crippled God), as has ASoIF (with the Great Other) and the Riftwar Saga (with the Mad God), whilst without even reading Prince of Nothing I know there is a Dark Lord-esque entity known as the No-God. Okay, Feist aside I know all of these writers are approaching the idea differently (and in Martin's case the Great Other may just be a superstition whose existence will never be proved one way or another), but still it would be nice if something else turned out to be the enemy.

I harbour fears of getting sucked into Scott Lynch's series only for somewhere around book four a character suddenly reveals the return of the Eldren God of Shadow to destroy the world or something.

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Funnily enough, when I first AGoT for the first time I was pondering if Will was supposed to be the hero of the story. When he was indeed eviscerated by a servant of the dark lord at the end of the prologue, I guessed this wasn't the case.

Ah...the very scene that marked this series as being something more than it's makers... :P

As to some of the cliches, I supposed the better question is, "How do you avoid them"? I submit it isn't possible to have good fantasy without some throwback to the age old cliches...ya'll say otherwise, I'm sure, but even Martin contains elements of the cliches, even when he is eviscerating them...

Myself? I don't mind the intrepid band of heroes cliche...I just expect more out of it...

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The exception that proves the rule. The 'thieves guild' in LLL is awesome.

I'd also add the 'band of grizzled, veteran but soft-hearted soldiers'. It's kind of okay in isolation, but in Erikson the entire 100,000-strong Malazan army is made up of them, apart from the noble officers who are naturally all incompetent bastards whom their men plot to kill continuously. Erikson does add a lot more depth than that to his credit, but I think the basic idea itself should have been used only occasionally, if at all.

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