# Tired fictional tropes you hate **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 16, 2020, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937 "2020-05-16T19:07:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2020, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/241 "2020-05-24T14:24:47Z")
How about the classic “horror movie jump scare false alarm” trope? Protagonist hears a sound or sees a flash of movement in a darkened, empty house and decides to investigate. Suspenseful soundtrack music while the person pokes around. Suddenly “RAWRRRR!” a cat jumps out of its hiding place while giving a loud yowl. I’ve lived with plenty of cats over the years and they generally only make a sound like that when you step on a paw or they are seriously pissed off. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2020, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/242 "2020-05-24T16:57:04Z")
> [@solost](#): > > How about the classic “horror movie jump scare false alarm” trope? Protagonist hears a sound or sees a flash of movement in a darkened, empty house and decides to investigate. Suspenseful soundtrack music while the person pokes around. Suddenly “RAWRRRR!” a cat jumps out of its hiding place while giving a loud yowl. Yeah, that one’s trite and old enough to get AARP junk mail. Many are even lamer than that, and I’ve seen some vapid “thrillers” where the whole false alarm bit was so overused that anybody with an IQ above 75 would become jaded and and just groan. It’s like the movie just bumped from one lame false alarm to the next: all sizzle; no steak. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2020, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/243 "2020-05-24T17:12:12Z")
> [@solost](#): > > How about the classic “horror movie jump scare false alarm” trope? Protagonist hears a sound or sees a flash of movement in a darkened, empty house and decides to investigate. Suspenseful soundtrack music while the person pokes around. Suddenly “RAWRRRR!” a cat jumps out of its hiding place while giving a loud yowl. I’ve lived with plenty of cats over the years and they generally only make a sound like that when you step on a paw or they are seriously pissed off. This trope is parodied by Community here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxauTJpY-hg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxauTJpY-hg) ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/244 "2020-05-26T14:41:07Z")
> [@BrickBat](#): > > Yeah, that one’s trite and old enough to get AARP junk mail. Many are even lamer than that, and I’ve seen some vapid “thrillers” where the whole false alarm bit was so overused that anybody with an IQ above 75 would become jaded and and just groan. It’s like the movie just bumped from one lame false alarm to the next: all sizzle; no steak. They should have the cat turn out to **be** the monster. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/245 "2020-05-26T16:14:40Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > The hero who sacrifices his life to defeat the “macguffin” menace, BUT we don’t have to feel bad about that because he had a fatal illness. Bonus points for wretchedness if the hero happens to be the oldest person in the cast. > > (Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, someone else I can’t remember in a film about a meteor going to hit the earth… > Any other examples will be greatfully received. ) Armageddon? But I don’t remember the guy who sacrificed himself having a fatal illness… ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/246 "2020-05-26T18:00:04Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > I used to think that was a played out cliche, then I actually grabbed a kitchen knife off of the counter a few years ago and completely unintentionally, it _actually made that sound_ as the blade lightly brushed against the surface of the countertop. I actually thought to myself, “wow, it actually happens.” I have one knife that does that just about every time I pull it out of the knife block. It’s a bread knife. _Badass._ ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/247 "2020-05-26T18:01:39Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > Armageddon? But I don’t remember the guy who sacrificed himself having a fatal illness… In “Space Cowboys” the guy with a fatal disease sacrifices himself. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/248 "2020-05-26T19:02:59Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > Armageddon? But I don’t remember the guy who sacrificed himself having a fatal illness… Parenthood, duh! Specifically, Overbearing Father Syndrome. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/249 "2020-05-26T19:14:05Z")
Here’s one: Any plot involving time travel always takes the hero to a point in time when something significant happened. Sometimes it’s some major historical event, like WWII. Sometimes it’s just something significant in that person’s life, like Marty arriving in 1955 the exact week his parents met. A time traveler never arrives in the past on some random boring day when nothing much important happened. I recently rewatched the Voyager episode “Shattered”, in which some temporal anomaly causes different parts of the ship to exist in a different period of time. And every one of there time periods was during the events of past episodes where some major disaster befell Voyager (it almost felt like a clip show in a way). None of them were just some random day on Voyager when nothing much happened. If this anomaly split Voyager into random time periods, it seems awfully improbably for all of them to be during major significant events. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/250 "2020-05-26T19:18:30Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > Here’s one: Any plot involving time travel always takes the hero to a point in time when something significant happened. Sometimes it’s some major historical event, like WWII. Sometimes it’s just something significant in that person’s life, like Marty arriving in 1955 the exact week his parents met. A time traveler never arrives in the past on some random boring day when nothing much important happened. I recently rewatched the Voyager episode “Shattered”, in which some temporal anomaly causes different parts of the ship to exist in a different period of time. And every one of there time periods was during the events of past episodes where some major disaster befell Voyager (it almost felt like a clip show in a way). None of them were just some random day on Voyager when nothing much happened. If this anomaly split Voyager into random time periods, it seems awfully improbably for all of them to be during major significant events. I remember some SF story about a immortal neanderthal?- anyway when asked about important historic events and personages, he said he never met any and wasnt around for any of them, except maybe a plague. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/251 "2020-05-26T19:22:58Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I remember some SF story about a immortal neanderthal?- anyway when asked about important historic events and personages, he said he never met any and wasnt around for any of them, except maybe a plague. Are you sure it was a Neanderthal and not… just some guy? Because then it sounds like it could be [The Man From Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth). But then he was at least one notable past individual himself, so… _shrug_. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/252 "2020-05-26T19:25:49Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Are you sure it was a Neanderthal and not… just some guy? Because then it sounds like it could be [The Man From Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth). But then he was at least one notable past individual himself, so… _shrug_. No, that’s not the one, but that is interesting. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/253 "2020-05-26T20:04:17Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I remember some SF story about a immortal neanderthal?- anyway when asked about important historic events and personages, he said he never met any and wasnt around for any of them, except maybe a plague. L. Sprague DeCamps’s [The Gnarly Man - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gnarly_Man) ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/254 "2020-05-26T20:38:39Z")
Related to the _Time Travel to Significant Dates_ trope is _Your Past Life is a Significant Person_. Luckily, it’s a trope that you see a lot less of these days, but as a kid I remember a lot of “past life regression” (often using hypnotism) on TV. As well as in real life, used by psycho-babble charlatans. We used to laugh at how many ordinary housewives were Joan of Arc or Cleopatra, or at least in the court of a French king. NO ONE regressed to the 1300s and discovered they were “Mary of the Bog, peat peddler of Lower Nemobbin”. ---
**Author:** ![mheine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@mheine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mheine)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/255 "2020-05-26T20:46:47Z")
Outrunning an explosion. Not gonna happen. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/256 "2020-05-26T20:50:52Z")
> [@LurkMeister](#): > > L. Sprague DeCamps’s [The Gnarly Man - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gnarly_Man) That’s it! _I-ah-don’t suppose you could give me the real story of RichardIII and the princes in the Tower?"“Why should I? I was just a poor blacksmith or farmer o rsomething most of the time. I didn’t go around with the big shots. I gave up all my ideas of ambition a long time before that. I had to,being so different from other people. As far as I can remember, the only real king I ever got a good look at was Charlemagne, when he made a speech in Paris one day. He was just a big tall man with SantaClaus whiskers and a squeaky voice.”_ ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/257 "2020-05-26T20:56:36Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Related to the _Time Travel to Significant Dates_ trope is _Your Past Life is a Significant Person_. > > Luckily, it’s a trope that you see a lot less of these days, but as a kid I remember a lot of “past life regression” (often using hypnotism) on TV. As well as in real life, used by psycho-babble charlatans. > > We used to laugh at how many ordinary housewives were Joan of Arc or Cleopatra, or at least in the court of a French king. NO ONE regressed to the 1300s and discovered they were “Mary of the Bog, peat peddler of Lower Nemobbin”. Oddly, my parents were friends of a woman who did that. She claimed I was a number of slightly important people, but no one who was in any way famous- A member of the Witan and Harold’s army in 1066, a backbencher senator in late Republican Rome,a London DI during Victorian times, a German Army Doctor in WW2- sent to the Russian front due to a vague connection to the plot vs Hitler, and so forth. She said that was my destiny, to always be slightly important but never majorly so. Since I am slightly noted now IRL, I guess so. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/258 "2020-05-26T21:02:43Z")
A corollary to Time Travel to Significant Dates: If the heroes don’t travel to a significant date, they will meet significant people. In the TNG episode “Time’s Arrow” Data travels to San Francisco on August 11, 1893 according to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time%27s_Arrow_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)). As far as I know that’s not a particularly important date in San Francisco’s history. But then while there he just coincidentally happens to meet Jack London and Mark Twain. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/259 "2020-05-26T22:54:02Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Another is impossible bird calls. Foley editors love to fill outdoor audio with birds, uncaring that every species has a unique voice and limited range. The common loon never calls in migration through Louisiana swamps, but they,re in every bayou film. And every desolate landscape has the scream of a [Red-tailed Hawk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyZZAD4tWDk) in the background. It’s the Wilhelm Scream of bird calls. It used to be that every jungle movie featured an Australian [Laughing Kookaburra](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0ZbykXlg6Q). But now they’ve branched out and started to use the Amazonian [Screaming Piha](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW6Ly7fSKTQ). I’ve seen a couple of “mistakes” that I think might have been deliberate. _A.I. Artificial Intelligence_ takes place in a future global-warming world. A forest scene in the central US features a Screaming Piha in the background, appropriate for the new climate. In _Charlie’s Angels_, they figure out exactly where a kidnapped Bosley is being held by hearing the call of a Pygmy Nuthatch in the background when they are able to communicate with him. Of course, this wouldn’t work because the species is found all over western North America. [But the funny part is, they use a tropical Troupial as a stand-in for the nuthatch.](https://youtu.be/k-mbJhVl2Xc?t=115) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/260 "2020-05-26T23:09:12Z")
One thing I find jarring is when people in the distant past talk about things that are modern concerns, but wouldn’t have been then. No, ancient Spartans aren’t going to be concerned with “liberty” or “freedom,” and medieval couples aren’t going to be seeing their relationships in terms or modern advice columns. Most movies don’t make any attempt to convey the different world views of other times or cultures; everyone speaks and reacts like people of the current time. (And that changes with the culture as well: Roman society as depicted in movies in the 1950s is different than that in current movies.) Of course, this is understandable so that people can relate to the people in the movie. However, I find it much more interesting in those movies that actually try to depict a different worldview than our own. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937.md?page=14)