# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2020, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/101 "2020-05-17T20:20:03Z")
Another trope which is annoying- there is some prophet, soothsayer, augury, whatever, and they come up with some balderdash- and in the end- it is ALWAYS correct. Prophecies- unless based upon educated calculations/guesswork - or extremely vague- have just about always been wrong. No writer _dares_ to drop a prophecy in his book, and at the end when someone asks “What about Mad Barkers prophecy?” - “OH, that nutcase?- they are always wrong.” On TV, when they go investigate something supernatural or UFO , etc, and find out it is totally mundane- there _has_ to be a closing shot which shows something possible supernatural etc. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2020, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/102 "2020-05-17T20:21:17Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > A man and a woman start out despising one another and then fall in love. Cheers. For a much loved show, Cheers was full of tropes. Will they won’t they, opposites attract, “dumb” character constantly with funny quips, “smart” character constantly put in his place. I preferred Barney Miller, where the dumb character was really dumb and slower, the smart character actually knew what he was talking about, and the pretentious, ambitious character actually accomplished something. Even on Gilligan’s Island, the characters actually were what they were without the Cheers type subversion that is more of a trope than not doing it. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2020, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/103 "2020-05-17T20:21:58Z")
heres 2 more … the depiction of video games by people who never played any … you see someone playing a ps2 with a sega genesis controller and there playing atari Pacman …(that’s never seen just heard ) Or the show has someone’s grandma acting like shes playing when what she’s doing and whats going on in the game has nothing do with each other … (shes just miming actions during the “attract mode” here’s another: there’s a drug dealer/courier usually a single teen/college age mom whos related or was childhood friends to the local wholesale supplier she flaky so doesn’t sell much just a few dime bags here and there to friends … maybe enough to pay the rent and the electric bill Well somehow the story gets around that shes the local cartel princess his rolling in cash so some morons decide to rob her and torture her and her kid to death because she won’t tell them where the money stash she doesn’t have is… because surprise there never was one … and god himself could come down and tell these fools she didn’t have any real money but everyone’s lying trying to get the money themselves And the morons’ defense throughout the whole thing from when they get picked up to being dragged off to prison is “if the dumb bitch has only just given up the money” (the exact line from the tv show) like that’s a defense for sodomizing her with red hot silverware for 12 hours … ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2020, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/104 "2020-05-17T20:34:11Z")
Dang! I just posted about this the other day in another thread. Here goes again: Crimes and mysteries would not get solved if it weren’t for dead people. The detective/coroner/amateur sleuth is at a dead-end (pun unintended) when his deceased wife/parent/child/victim tells him that he really CAN figure it out. The answer is obvious and he/she knew it all along. Of course, the protagonist has regular conversations with this deceased person, so it’s no surprise to the viewer. Whenever I see this, I point out to my wife that I feel cheated. I’ve never had a conversation with the ghost of my late wife, my late parents, my deceased friends, or any person of the dead variety. They simply don’t show up in my laundry room to have a casual chat. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2020, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/105 "2020-05-17T20:38:42Z")
> [@ZonexandScout](#): > > Dang! … > > Whenever I see this, I point out to _my wife_ that I feel cheated. I’ve never had a conversation with the ghost of my _late wife_, … Umm, err…:eek: Italics mine. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2020, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/106 "2020-05-17T20:43:12Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Umm, err…:eek: > > Italics mine. > > 😛 If your wife or husband dies, they do let you marry another one. So it’s entirely possible. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2020, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/107 "2020-05-17T21:45:28Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > If your wife or husband dies, they do let you marry another one. So it’s entirely possible. I hope you saw the 😛 ---
**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 17, 2020, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/108 "2020-05-17T21:50:43Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > I’d always wanted to see a movie where a bad guy has an elaborate plan that immediately falls apart the moment it starts, you see it all the time from the heroes perspective (the Scooby-Doo Plan I think it’s called) but you never see the bad guy plan to be captured to get into the heroes lair, only to find out that instead of the heroes guarding himself it’s somebody else entirely whom he has no real counter for. There is a trope where a mystery is particularly mysterious because two people have conflicting plots - or because a plan the bad guy started was changed in the middle due to emergent circumstances. A recent movie used this idea, and the Father Brown mysteries used it too (The Point of a Pin, for example). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2020, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/109 "2020-05-17T23:18:47Z")
> [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](#): > > The thermonuclear countdown girl. That is the supremely calm women’s voice with either a Middle Atlantic or English accent who voices the countdown clock of the device that is about to blow up the world. > > Action hero fighting/getting out of their shackles/racing across town > Operator voice: “The nuclear bomb will go off in… 5 minutes” > More action/ escaping/getting stuck in traffic jams > Operator voice: “The nuclear bomb will go off in…4 minutes” > > We get the juxtaposition between the frantic action and the calm voice. Just don’t. Or the even worse variant (as seen in The Dark Knight Goes Boom) The nuclear bomb will go off in five minutes! _Everybody stands around while speeches are made._ You have to travel a hundred miles out to sea so it won’t destroy the entire city! _More speeches, probably some hugging_ _Finally gets into plane that goes from 0 to 1000 in three seconds. Flies at super speed and drops the bomb into the ocean where for some reason it doesn’t cause a tsunami. However, he’s still standing right next to an exploding nuclear bomb he can’t escape from_ Waves from a cafe in Italy. That’s the worst, but legions of films have ten minutes pass during the 60 seconds the timer is ticking off. ---
**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 17, 2020, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/110 "2020-05-17T23:21:48Z")
> [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](#): > > The thermonuclear countdown girl. That is the supremely calm women’s voice with either a Middle Atlantic or English accent who voices the countdown clock of the device that is about to blow up the world. > > Action hero fighting/getting out of their shackles/racing across town > Operator voice: “The nuclear bomb will go off in… 5 minutes” > More action/ escaping/getting stuck in traffic jams > Operator voice: “The nuclear bomb will go off in…4 minutes” > > We get the juxtaposition between the frantic action and the calm voice. Just don’t. In “War Games” there’s a woman in the final scenes whose job is apparently to tell us how much of the launch code WOPR has figured out - information that is displayed on the big screen in front of all of the characters. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2020, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/111 "2020-05-17T23:38:46Z")
Pregnant women. With exceedingly rare exception, they exist in any movie for only one of three reasons: [ul] [li]to go into labor at \*exactly \*the wrong moment.[/li][li]to be taken hostage, usually eventually followed by the above.[/li][li]as purely ancillary characters who are tragically the spouse/partner of a more important character that’s going to die later. Usually involves a “last phone call” ending with “I \*promise \*you I’ll be okay.”[/li][/ul] ---
**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 17, 2020, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/112 "2020-05-17T23:39:50Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Pregnant women. With exceedingly rare exception, they exist in any movie for only one of three reasons: > > [ul] > [li]to go into labor at \*exactly \*the wrong moment.[/li][li]to be taken hostage, usually eventually followed by the above.[/li][li]as purely ancillary characters who are tragically the spouse/partner of a more important character that’s going to die later. Usually involves a “last phone call” ending with “I \*promise \*you I’ll be okay.”[/li][/ul] That’s one of the great things about Fargo - it totally subverts the pregnancy tropes. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2020, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/113 "2020-05-17T23:41:58Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > In “War Games” there’s a woman in the final scenes whose job is apparently to tell us how much of the launch code WOPR has figured out - information that is displayed on the big screen in front of all of the characters. Yes, and it is cracking a passcode one digit at a time. Which isn’t how that works. ---
**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 17, 2020, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/114 "2020-05-17T23:45:41Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Yes, and it is cracking a passcode one digit at a time. Which isn’t how that works. Yep. That issue already inspired a thread [Cliche: "What's the Code?" "We Have 4 Digits, Still Working on the Last One!" - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=513503) ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2020, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/115 "2020-05-17T23:55:03Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > That’s one of the great things about Fargo - it totally subverts the pregnancy tropes. Yes! Lovely. I saw this in the theater, and maybe two years later at home with the Ukulele Lady. She turned to me and said “If anything bad happens to McDormand, I’m going to kill you.” “Shut up and watch.” ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2020, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/116 "2020-05-18T01:53:39Z")
a bomb goes off killing a group of innocent civilians. the hero finds a piece of the detonator mechanism 1/4" x 3/'8" and can identify it as one of seven such mechanisms evr manufactured and he knows just where they were available for purchase. six of those purchase were by a personal friend of the hero and the last was from an erstwhile partner who has left the organization due to a dispute withe the hero. ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2020, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/117 "2020-05-18T01:59:26Z")
This seems to be a more recent trend: The ‘good guy’ disarms the bad guy or eliminates them as a threat, yet goes ahead and kills them and is celebrated as a hero. Sorry, you’ve just become a murderer. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2020, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/118 "2020-05-18T02:15:22Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Bad guy plans that require EVERYTHING to go right to even remotely work, even worse if his plan involves knowing exactly what the heroes will do to the very second so he can plan elaborate subterfuge/escapes days in advance. Bonus points if his plan requires him to be captured in the first place to even get the plan started. > > I’d always wanted to see a movie where a bad guy has an elaborate plan that immediately falls apart the moment it starts, you see it all the time from the heroes perspective (the Scooby-Doo Plan I think it’s called) but you never see the bad guy plan to be captured to get into the heroes lair, only to find out that instead of the heroes guarding himself it’s somebody else entirely whom he has no real counter for. I made sure the first time I wrote a complex, powerful villain with elaborate plans to make sure they didn’t survive contact with the enemy, because that’s what always happens in real life. What makes them a good bad guy is their ability to adapt, improvise and overcome, just like what makes a good good guy. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2020, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/119 "2020-05-18T02:44:46Z")
The cop and their partner are looking for Joe Blow. They go to his work place, and see him doing whatever about, and Joe’s about 10 yards from them. One of the cops says "Joe Blow? " Joe looks up and runs. Cue a chase. Next week, the same scenario. The cops never learn. ---
**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 18, 2020, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937/120 "2020-05-18T03:06:54Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > I’m _pretty_ sure that there was no scene like that in _The Lovely Bones_. I haven’t seen that one, but I’ll grant it’s unlikely. It’s compensated for in _The Hobbit_ where in the first movie [15 characters end up dangling from a tree](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h54kqvovC_w) (that’s on fire no less). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tired-fictional-tropes-you-hate/853937.md?page=7)