The mark of guaranteed badness

[rachelmanija]

On the drive to Judy Tarr's horse camp, Sherwood and I were talking about tropes which function as a warning sign, either of extreme badness or at least of stories we are sure not to enjoy.

Sherwood's nominee was serial killers. My nominees were Satan and Satanists (unless it's a comedy) and all stories in which abortion laws lead to ridiculous dystopias. For instance, "Because abortion has been banned and it's illegal to kill fetuses, parents now have the right to kill their children after birth and before age eighteen." (Actual book. I read that on the back cover, and my eyes rolled so hard they almost flew out of their sockets and bounced against the opposite wall.) And as I have ranted about before, I generally dislike stories in which infidelity or zombies play a very large role.

The ultimate Sherwood and Rachel scarer-offer would be, "Because abortion has been banned/legalized/made mandatory, parents have the right to kill adulterers. A serial killer takes advantage of this situation to create zombies to help him worship Satan." (Abort: a YA dystopia. Also, cats have been banned and the government controls heterosexuals.)

What are your Tropes of Ultimate Loathing?

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Now watch. Someone is going to post, "I just got an advance of 500 thousand dollars based on THAT VERY PROPOSAL!"

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Rape as plot parsley. Torture as a valid method all the good guys are doing (Special shout-out to Gini Koch for having her hero taunt a prisoner with the hero's intention to kill the prisoner's loved ones).

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I hate those too!

[cafenowhere.livejournal.com]

*shudders*

[larryhammer]

"Plot parsley" -- hee!

---L,.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

Serial killers.

A main female character who was originally intended as a sex toy. See, she has autonomy now. Get it? So subversive !

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Oh how I hate that sex-toy one.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Any story in which the deaths of >100 people are used primarily as an opportunity for the protagonist to achieve personal development.

Especially where the deaths are significantly the result of the protagonist's own recklessness/negligence/stupidity/incompetence and we're still expected to sympathise with him/her.

Unfortunately this is often not obvious from blurbs.

[rosefox]

For instance, "Because abortion has been banned and it's illegal to kill fetuses, parents now have the right to kill their children after birth and before age eighteen."

Oh, Unwind. I read that book and was far more distressed by other elements of it than by the absurdity of the premise. The children in the book have been sent off to die by their parents, and they spend the whole book desperately yearning for their parents to forgive them and love them again.

It does contain one of the most superbly creepy scenes I've ever read in any horror book, but that's not nearly enough to redeem it.

My Trope of Ultimate Loathing is "love conquers death". Because it doesn't.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

The children in the book have been sent off to die by their parents, and they spend the whole book desperately yearning for their parents to forgive them and love them again.

Bleah creepy realism!

[sovay]

What are your Tropes of Ultimate Loathing?

Love triangles, especially with angst, and/or plots which depend on the protagonists not talking to one another. I give The Scarlet Pimpernel a pass on this latter trope because of the espionage (if his wife really is passing information to the Convention, then he can't confide in her without endangering his entire network) and the obfuscating stupidity (and she won't turn to him for help when she's blackmailed, if her husband really is a brainless clothes horse), but it's the only example I can readily think of and it's probably just an side effect of Leslie Howard. Otherwise I just want to smack the characters upside the head: do they have no imagination or trust? I feel about as kindly toward tragic misunderstandings.

[justice-turtle.livejournal.com]

Randomly hi-fiving for the phrase "side effect of Leslie Howard". Because AWESOME.

*is not exactly coherent*

*but LESLIE HOWARD!PIMPERNEL*

I made a list but then I had a better idea

[lionpyh.livejournal.com]

"Because abortion has been legally defined as killing your child at any time up to age eighteen, the streets are awash in zombie teenagers and also homosexuals. The only hope lies in a prophecy made 100 years ago about a young girl whose chastity would heal the world, and her fated romance with a masked man. Therefore, our story opens with a thirteen-year-old girl who has sworn to attend one hundred Purity Balls, through which she is pursued threateningly by a masked man. WHAT WILL SHE FEEL FOR HIM? Readers, you can hardly guess! In the story's thrilling climax he is revealed to be her uncle by marriage, who adopted her as a baby when her parents were killed by gay zombies. Their wedding is so beautiful that God is moved to de-animate all of the zombies as long as the homosexuals sincerely repent. MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE*: a YA dystopia."

* gosh, are there really not already any anti-abortion books under this title? Cursory Googling would indicate not. I expected a deluge, as of zombie teenagers.

Re: I made a list but then I had a better idea

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Sherwood says, "The uncle should be Satan."

Tropes of Ultimate Loathing

[justice-turtle.livejournal.com]

Evilly manipulative / unreasonable authority figures. I actually find myself unable to read Harry Potter for that reason.

Also - I have no idea if this is even a trope, but "our protagonist is Impulsive! and Easily Angered! and Bad at Self-Control! which is equated with Politics and Manipulativeness for some reason!" And the impulse control issues are portrayed as ALL OF THE BEST THINGS. Like, it makes you a Hero and not one of those annoying Little Creeps who actually make plans that work!

/overuse of capitalization

Huh. My hated tropes all seem to revolve around various portrayals of / reactions to manipulative behavior. Huh.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Graphic descriptions of violence in otherwise lyrically written books.

I think I stopped reading for like 6 months after The God Of Small Things.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

I'm with Sherwood. Few things annoy me so much as the fetishization and glorification of serial killers. One of the reasons I find NCIS the most tolerable of the TV crime shows is that most of the perpetrators are rather petty people killing for rather petty reasons; affairs, drug dealing, stuff like that. And I don't think I've ever seen them do the "the serial killer is SUCH A GENIUS he outthinks us all"

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons I find NCIS the most tolerable of the TV crime shows is that most of the perpetrators are rather petty people killing for rather petty reasons; affairs, drug dealing, stuff like that.

I never thought of it that way but you're right -- the crimes are generally realistic, and done for real reasons. And the killers definitely aren't glorified.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The Hollywood Betrayal, as my younger daughter has dubbed it (for its ubiquity in Hollywood movies) irritates the pants off me. It's not limited to love betrayals. Somewhere early on in the tale, someone hid some fact, or did something under pretense, or told a lie. Plot then unfolded, and now that bit of dishonesty is going to come back and cause discord between the main characters. Never mind two hundred pages of trust, never mind interrupting the momentum with irrelevance--no, the switch has to flip from friendship and support to self-righteous anger. And then, a half-chapter or so later, this is worked out and we get on with the conclusion of the story.

Inane example: "I dare you to go be friends with the geeky kid with braces. NOBODY LIKES GEEKY KIDS WITH BRACES!" "Okay, you're on!"

Plot unfolds. End nears. Kid with braces finds out other kid initially became friends because of a dare.

"She doesn't like me! She never did! It was only because of a dare! How come she never told me! I can never trust her again."

Storms out. Bonus irritation if there's no direct confrontation and the friend is left totally confused about what's just happened.

And then exculpatory stuff is revealed, there's forgiveness all around, and the story goes on.

HATE.

[sovay]

Never mind two hundred pages of trust, never mind interrupting the momentum with irrelevance--no, the switch has to flip from friendship and support to self-righteous anger. And then, a half-chapter or so later, this is worked out and we get on with the conclusion of the story.

The third-act breakup is annoying even when there's no ex post facto betrayal involved. I accepted it in The King's Speech (2010) only because it was believable as a defense mechanism that Bertie would pick a fight with his therapist when Lionel gets too close to the things that really scare him (and plausibly nasty the way he did it, which I appreciated on grounds of characterization). I wouldn't like it, but there should be at least one film where if you have a stupid fight that drives away someone dear to you, they don't actually come back in the nick of the finale. Because sometimes they don't.

[thecityofdis.livejournal.com]

This is an excellent question, and I really can't think of a lot of these sorts of things specifically off the top of my head.

I mean, there are tropes that annoy me, but that's different than the whole "DANGER WILL ROBINSON" feeling you get from things like this.

The only one I can articulate off the cuff is Rape As A Plot Device.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Everything you mention, especially serial killers. I was so looking forward to a new Jan Burke mystery, and then discovered in the first chapter or so it featured a serial killer. It went right back to the library.

My other drop-immediately criteria: Arthurian anything. I loved TH White and Mary Stewart, but I don't ever want to read that story again.

[sovay]

I loved TH White and Mary Stewart, but I don't ever want to read that story again.

There must be an Arthurian serial killer story. At least it won't be able to have Satanists.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I am of the school of thought that anything can be done, if tis done well! But probably everybody should be shut up with at least three other people asking in chorus and with detail 'But why?'

In dystopic fiction, for instance, with (blank) is forbidden--but why? What would the effects on society be? Wouldn't there be an easier course to take? If that is the cause, why are these the effects?

Etc. But why: for toddlers and writers. ;)

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

With the caveat, of course, that everyone just had their hot buttons: I'm much less likely to read a tale with adultery in it. Though I did just finish re-reading Mary Balogh's The Secret Pearl, which has adultery all over the shop. Ah well. (Really you hardly notice the adultery, what with the heroine being on the run for murder, forced to whore herself lest she starve, and then getting pretty brutally devirginised by the hero, who then feels lousy and hires her to governess his five-year-old kid, which she does while having nightmares about the devirginising, resulting in a scene several weeks later where he touches her arm and she throws up. Then her cousin arrives to blackmail her! And the hero's half-brother arrives to sleep with the hero's wife.)

[oneminutemonkey.livejournal.com]

A lot of good points here. I've grown tired of so many of the paranormal romance tropes, both adult and YA. The huge selection of YAs that are all the same with the dark and brooding and love triangles and sexy werewolves and too stupid to live heroines....

But there are two things which turn me off immediately: books written in verse, and ones where the narrator or love interest die at the end. Bonus hate if it involves cancer, car wrecks, or suicide. Almost always, that sort of story makes me want to throw things. I don't necessarily need a happy ending, but I like a !sad ending.

Here, have some novels in verse!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Daddy came in,
he sat across from Ma and blew his nose.
Mud streamed out.
He coughed and spit out
mud.
If he had cried,
his tears would have been mud too,
but he didn’t cry.
And neither did Ma.

Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse. Ultimate depressing Newbery winner: The heroine accidentally burns her beloved mother and baby brother to death during the dust bowl, also horribly burning her own hands. Her father becomes an alcoholic and leaves them to writhe in agony with no water because he'd rather drink. And it's the Dust Bowl.

The Screaming
flashed me back
to a time
when mom and dad
were still together
if you could call
miles apart together.

Identical, by Ellen Hopkins. Awesomely depressing YA novel in which Dad rapes only one of his two identical twin daughters. "For Raeanne, she needs to numb the pain of not being Daddy's favorite; for Kaeleigh, she wants to do everything she can to feel something normal, even if it means cutting herself and vomiting after every binge."

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

"(Actual book. I read that on the back cover, and my eyes rolled so hard they almost flew out of their sockets and bounced against the opposite wall.)"

OMG I saw that book too! I HAD THE SAME REACTION. I cannot figure out why someone - and then apparently a bunch of other someones! - thought that was a good idea...

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I'm generally tired of serial killers and rape-as-motivation, and so very over soulfully suffering grim-faced heroes whose family was all horribly murdered (with wife/daughter/girlfriend raped, of course!) to explain them being brusque to other women but somehow SO ATTRACTIVE...

But what I'm really tired of? Protagonists who make really stupid decisions because of sexual attraction. I don't care how plausible it is; rape and serial killers are plausible too, and I'm also tired of those things. And I am fine with "I will undergo terrible risks to save someone I dearly love." But the protagonist who blatantly ignores the obvious signs of Incipient Betrayal/Involvement With Bad Guys/Need For More Information because someone is so haaaawt? KILL IT WITH FIRE.

(One of my favorite books gets a pass on this one because there is arguably actual magical mind-affecting sexiness involved, not just the protagonist being stupid, and the protagonist ends up fully aware that it was a bad idea to react that way, instead of treating it as natural.)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Good guys using torture to get information. It always works, too.

This trope is all over the place.

[thinking-lotus.livejournal.com]

Protagonists who are Born Special and don't have to do anything except wait for it to be revealed (yes HP, I'm looking at you)

[isabelknight.livejournal.com]

Rape as plot device.

Love triangles.

"Strong female characters" who are hawt (but describe their conventionally attractive selves in self-deprecating ways - "oh, I'm much too lean and muscled and only C-cup endowed to be *pretty*!") , heavily armed and possibly possessed of kung-fu grips and 8 points of articulation and yet still need to be rescued once per book by/have their entire goddamn live revolve around brooding kinda abusive hot dude(s).

Illogical dystopias/angst wank for the sake of angst wank
Dystopian fiction that paints the oppressive murderous dictatorship and the resistance to the dictatorship as morally equivalent. Only the judgmental and ineffectual protagonist is morally righteous, and they are only able to effect change via deus ex machina. Or worse, they collaborate in horrible humans rights violations, but it's OK *because they feel bad as they torture people* so they have the moral high ground over the other torturers *and* the people trying to free the torture victims through armed insurrection. If I never read another fucking book like that, it'll be too soon.

[m00nface.livejournal.com]

"I'm making the decision to stay away from you... for your own good. But I won't actually tell you this or explain my reasoning... for your own good. And when we reunite unexpectedly I will pretend that I hate you... for your own good. And when we eventually reconcile, I shall refuse to burden you by sharing my thoughts or memories from that difficult time... for your own good."

Incidentally, casting an eye over current super-popular YA, this seems to be something teenagers find really interesting. I actually remember finding it appealing myself. I just have no idea why. I like it far more when people wear their hearts on their sleeves and overshare and say the wrong thing and still somehow manage to forge strong friendships and enjoy their time together.

In terms of blurb tropes, it takes a lot to interest me in a quest for vengeance. Firstly, the journey to revenge is probably full of moralising about why the thirst for vengeance is wrong and, as a natural result of this, any vengeance that is achieved is likely to be unsatisfactory. Secondly, it's my experience that said thirst for vengeance makes protagonists single-minded, short-tempered and obnoxious. I don't mind it in secondary characters, especially in the quiet "In addition to all my other character traits and backstory there is someone whom I have sworn to kill, but I'm happy to bide my time until the opportunity arises" kind of way, but as soon as it defines someone I get bored.

In conclusion: I dislike reading about people whose lives and actions are entirely for the sake of someone else. Being a bit selfish does not make a character unsympathetic.

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

Plot, plot, plot. Our heroes win and save the day and then magic goes away. I don't care whether it's Tolkien, Mary Poppins or Gaiman, I hate hate hate that ending. It's at its most egregious when it is tied to children growing up and magic is only for innocent children. I can love the rest of a book but that ending is going to make me not want to read it again. I've repeatedly described The Graveyard Book as 7/8ths of a truly great book.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Because of Scarlett? It seemed pretty clearly signaled that Bod will remain connected to the Underworld, just not literally living in it.