# Story Memes or Themes You Just Can't Stand **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 1, 2012, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808 "2012-06-01T19:13:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/101 "2012-06-06T19:44:44Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > The TV show \*Supernatural \*springs to mind. Tulpas and ghosts and genus loci etc… are all real - but naturally a lone angel can destroy a roomful of _actual Hindu gods_ without breaking a sweat (actually, I forget the exact circumstances of that particular scene, but it was very, very :dubious: when I watched it) Wow, now I’m doubly glad I stopped watching the show. That would have made me :mad: ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/102 "2012-06-06T21:02:33Z")
The plucky “Lois Lane” reporter who stops at nothing to get the story. I loved Kolchak but it’s a stupid trope. “I’m aware of his work” re: Woodward and Bernstein 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/103 "2012-06-06T21:30:47Z")
Any story that takes place in a dystopian future. I just can’t stomach the thought of spending an entire story in such a place; it’s too depressing. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/104 "2012-06-06T23:23:47Z")
A series built around a premise that couldn’t possibly get resolved (or significantly advanced) without ending the show—like “we need to get the ship back to Earth”/“escape the island”/“prove our innocence”/“find a cure”/“break the curse.” More importantly, shows with such a premise that _still devote lots of episodes to it._ The audience _knows_ it’s not going to work out; that it’s going to be a red herring of hope, or something’ll get screwed up at the last minute, or something. But we’re still just getting strung along with the characters. This can be averted in a series with a set story arc, true, but even then it often just replaces “impossible” with “very drawn out, and still filled with dead ends.” ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/105 "2012-06-07T00:04:55Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > A series built around a premise that couldn’t possibly get resolved (or significantly advanced) without ending the show—like “we need to get the ship back to Earth”/“escape the island”/“prove our innocence”/“find a cure”/“break the curse.” More importantly, shows with such a premise that _still devote lots of episodes to it._ > > The audience _knows_ it’s not going to work out; that it’s going to be a red herring of hope, or something’ll get screwed up at the last minute, or something. But we’re still just getting strung along with the characters. Are you including the Coyote/Roadrunner cartoons in this? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/106 "2012-06-07T17:09:12Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Are you including the Coyote/Roadrunner cartoons in this? Just [this one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJJW7EF5aVk) ---
**Author:** ![Imago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@Imago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imago)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/107 "2012-06-07T23:54:47Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Parents whose children are threatened or only _perceived to be threatened_ and they do crazy or insane things in response. I don’t know if this hysterical response is truth or is caused to be worse by media. I mean, if your child is in danger, it really isn’t helpful to go crazy, not listening to the people that can help you, and hurting everyone around you in the process of trying to save your kid. Half the time the hysteria doesn’t even help. > > I never watch these and skip these parts. I was warned by working paramedics before applying to paramedic school that no matter what condition the kid is in, if you’re answering a call about a kid, the parent(s) will _always_ be the ones making your job difficult. Probably because they saw this shit on TV and now they think it’s okay. ---
**Author:** ![florez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@florez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/florez)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/108 "2012-06-08T00:26:58Z")
A lovely heart-of-gold streetwalking hooker attracting a single and decent family type guy, who brings her home to babysit or cook, which changes her completely, and makes her suitable to fall in love with and marry. A twist on Cinderella. Also, the same vivacious and charming hooker finding her way into the heart of a super rich man, who loves her just for her, and not only for the great sex. And we are led to believe that he never gets mad and throws it in her face what she was doing when he found her. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/109 "2012-06-08T02:49:25Z")
> [@Cumberdale](#): > > An episode of Zena had this. Zena was trying to prevent a man killing his child because a “god” told him to. In the end you hear a voice say basically, nevermind, then it is implied the one true god stopped it. And this show had other gods everywhere, yet the Christian one was actually real. It has been a while since I saw it, but that episode stood out for that reason. I think you’re misremembering this episode. _Xena_ did eventually get into a stupid, tedious decline of the Olympians/rise of pseudo-Christianity story arc, but IIRC the episode you’re thinking of didn’t give the god of this monotheistic religion any special status relative to other gods who’d appeared on the show. The people who worshiped this god (they definitely weren’t Christians, and I don’t think they were explicitly identified as Jews although Xena and Gabrielle did meet Israelites in other episodes) referred to him as the “one true god”, but there’s no evidence that this god is more powerful than the Olympians and it’s not totally clear that he even exists. ---
**Author:** ![scratch\_llll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@scratch\_llll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scratch_llll)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/110 "2012-06-08T04:10:40Z")
I can stand any plot no matter how trite except no plot, which would be any reality show. Unless it ends with everyone being beaten to death with a spiked club. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/111 "2012-06-08T04:40:43Z")
I read a lot of adventure novels. Standard formula is for the lone male character to be forced to work with the single female, and romance develops. At that point I just start skipping pages until the story starts again. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/112 "2012-06-08T09:53:43Z")
> [@andrew\_1](#): > > Not sure if I explained that very well but I do get kind of a meh feel in any story where someone’s actions and character aren’t what make them special, and instead it’s an accident of birth the same has blue eyes or brown hair. I think I know what you mean, let me tell you about Fran: two weeks ago there was a series of simultaneous chess matches here. My flatmate Fran, who was just out of a 12h shift as a security guard, was one of the players; he was also the only person who got to beat the chess master on the other side of the board. The chess master got people asking questions, but the one who’s been having two weeks of local fame is Fran, because people assumed the master would win a lot of his matches; nobody assumed that a tired rent-a-cop would win any. He’s amazed by how many people have gone up to him and said “hey, you’re the guy who beat the chess master, right?” > [@Kobal2](#): > > The TV show \*Supernatural \*springs to mind. Tulpas and ghosts and genus loci etc… are all real - but naturally a lone angel can destroy a roomful of _actual Hindu gods_ without breaking a sweat (actually, I forget the exact circumstances of that particular scene, but it was very, very :dubious: when I watched it) > [@Anaamika](#): > > Wow, now I’m doubly glad I stopped watching the show. That would have made me :mad: The one episode similar to that which I remember is the one where we find out that Loki/Gabriel and Kali used to have a thing going on; there’s a bunch of gods from different religions coming together (to a meeting called by Kali), some leave, some get killed-or-whatever\* by others of the bunch, and Satan kills-or-whatever Kali. - I mean, when talking about gods, demons and angels, I’m reasonably sure that “kill” doesn’t mean the same thing as when talking about either The Reboot Brothers (as Ash once tells them, “you die more than anybody else I know”) or a normal, living being. These people seem to be more into X-Men Death than the regular kind. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/113 "2012-06-08T10:54:47Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Shows where the tough women (“[Vasquez Always Dies](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VasquezAlwaysDies)”) and the sexually active women die first; or worse, exclusively. Why do you want Michelle Rodriguez to be unemployed? 😉 Personally, I frigging hate the Sickly Saint theme - someone is dying/ill and that makes them completely loveable/wise/irreplaceable. It was tiresome when it was women in garrets with consumption, it’s tiresome now when it’s cancer/brain tumours/AIDS ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/114 "2012-06-08T11:34:36Z")
Attractive Trendy Twenty/Thirtysomething women (invariably living in London, New York, LA, or maybe Paris and working in some trendy fashionable and unrealistically paid job like fashion, PR, journalism, or something ill-defined but corporate) Who Can’t Get A Guy. You know why you can’t get a guy? Because you’re a high-maintenance, whiny, vapid, immature, entitled princess. Knock that shit off and watch your “man-drought” evaporate. Doesn’t make for good TV/Movies/Chick Lit, though. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/115 "2012-06-08T12:37:41Z")
I hate every entry in TV Tropes. And the lampshading of every entry in TV Tropes. Mostly I just sit around and stare at the walls. Seriously though, I hate where time is of the utmost essence and yet the various protagonists fart around resolving personal issues and giving speeches and staring intently into each others’ eyes. This usually results in me shouting at the screen “Aren’t you people supposed to be DOING something right now?”. Man, that last episode of _Spooks_ was just terrible, and don’t get me started on _Armageddon_. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/116 "2012-06-08T14:14:55Z")
A cop or detective show, supposedly set in the real world, where a psychic shows up to help with a case. Everybody is skeptical and dismissive at first, but the psychic actually ends up cracking the case, and in the end we’re left with the impression that the psychic was really and truly psychic after all. Usually ends with a lighthearted moment in which the psychic says to the most skeptical detective something like “Oh, and sorry about your date tonight.” Then the phone rings and it’s his girlfriend cancelling the date. Ha ha! I don’t mind shows with supernatural elements if that’s the established universe they inhabit. In fact, I really liked _Medium_ until the last couple of seasons, when it had grown somewhat tedious. But if a show is set in a realistic world, introducing apparently real magic and/or ghosts is lame and lazy. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/117 "2012-06-08T14:36:52Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Seriously though, I hate where time is of the utmost essence and yet the various protagonists fart around resolving personal issues and giving speeches and staring intently into each others’ eyes. This usually results in me shouting at the screen “Aren’t you people supposed to be DOING something right now?”. Man, that last episode of _Spooks_ was just terrible, and don’t get me started on _Armageddon_. While we’re at it, there’s the LOST trope which is similar. Character A: My GOD–I’m glad to see you! You have all the answers to the mystery I’ve been trying to unravel. Let me ask you…what the hell is up with such-and-such? Character B: You must come with me now. Look! Something shiny! Character A: Oooo! :eek: Ok. I’ll never ask again. Just once (and it never happened in all six seasons) I wanted to see a character say “Fuck that. I’m not budging until you answer these three (four, five, whatever) questions with meaningful answers. Once you do, we’ll talk on the way and you can explain more.” ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/118 "2012-06-15T12:28:10Z")
Thought of another one, pertaining to vampires and sometimes other supernatural creatures. When it becomes clear that there really are supernatural creatures in the world and a human picks a traditional\* method to try to defeat them, invariably the first method selected fails horribly and the vampire laughs at the naivete of the attacker. “Oh, you thought we hated garlic? You’re pretty gullible” [vampire later gets defeated by holy water] or conversely “Oh, you thought we’d be turned by your nonexistent god? What superstitious dreckery” [vampire later turns out to dissolve in light] There’s no reason one traditional method should be naive versus another one. Although I understand why the creatures would say that in that world, it comes off as a cheap ploy to build up suspense by having the first method not work, and slightly insulting those members of the audience who think that one traditional method might work, when it turns out that it was another traditional method. \*I almost put “folkloric” instead, but despite being traditional, some of these methods are quite recent in folkloric terms, being only 80 so years old. ---
**Author:** ![Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swords_to_Plowshares)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/119 "2012-06-15T12:39:15Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > A series built around a premise that couldn’t possibly get resolved (or significantly advanced) without ending the show—like “we need to get the ship back to Earth”/“escape the island”/“prove our innocence”/“find a cure”/“break the curse.” More importantly, shows with such a premise that _still devote lots of episodes to it._ > > The audience _knows_ it’s not going to work out; that it’s going to be a red herring of hope, or something’ll get screwed up at the last minute, or something. But we’re still just getting strung along with the characters. > > This can be averted in a series with a set story arc, true, but even then it often just replaces “impossible” with “very drawn out, and still filled with dead ends.” Me: Wait, there’s four seasons of Prison Break? Didn’t they break out of prison in one season? Them: Yes, but then they break back in to prison. Then they break back out of prison. Then they’re on the lam. Me: They should have just quit while they were ahead. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2012, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/120 "2012-06-15T12:51:39Z")
> [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](#): > > Me: Wait, there’s four seasons of Prison Break? Didn’t they break out of prison in one season? > > Them: Yes, but then they break back in to prison. Then they break back out of prison. Then they’re on the lam. > > Me: They should have just quit while they were ahead. Wiggum: First we’ll break you down. Then we’ll build you back up again. Then we’ll break you down again. Then we’ll break for lunch. Then, if there’s time, we’ll build you back up again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808.md?page=7)