Riot Games is considering banning G2A from sponsoring League of Legends professional teams, leaving the game key reseller in limbo.
G2A has run into trouble with the game developer thanks to a listing on its site promoting services from a third party called LoLBoost.net, which sells League accounts and offers elo boosting services, both of which are direct violations of the Riot Games terms of service and the League Championship Series rulebook.
At Riot's request, teams that G2A sponsors, including Cloud9, Counter Logic Gaming, H2K, and paiN Gaming have removed G2A’s logos from their merchandise at the 2015 League of Legends World Championships.
G2A has told the teams that, if it fails to settles it disputes with Riot, it will drop sponsorship across the board.
I hate Tv tropes the most of any non-social media website. The whole idea of it is to reduce things to their commonalities no matter how much it results in misunderstanding the individual works. I literally cannot think of a worse way to evaluate media than to say "these ten very different shows used X trope." It doesn't tell toy anything pf value IMO.
Good writing is always deliberate. It's important for authors to know which tropes they are using and why. Thoughtless, unaware trope usage is a major indicator of amateur writing.
This doesn't mean, however, that identifying tropes is some sort of next-level form of media criticism, which is the mistake that tvtropes users and the internet make constantly.
Why is unaware trope usage bad? Couldn't they not know something is a trope? According to tvtropes, literally everything is a Trope.
Because a trope handled badly is a cliche.
But it isn't the author's fault. If I wrote a book and I was happy with it and the critics said that the characters were too much like other characters, I would find that a hurtful and unhelpful criticism, not a constructive criticism. Maybe I never even saw the works people are comparing mine to!
If an author writes a cliche, I'm not sure who else you blame? Generally if you've manage to have a cliche it's because you've failed to do something interesting with it. When Jeepguy talks about unaware trope usage, it's because the person took an idea and threw it in without thinking about how do I make this interesting. And the reality is that books, movies, TV shows may have anywhere from dozens to hundreds of tropes. One cliche out of a hundred isn't the end of the world. But if you get to the point where a critical review is focusing on your cliches, you may have deeper issues as a writer. So yes, it is helpful criticism. Spend more time thinking about what you're doing.
The reality is most writers don't need to sit down and count tropes. They may never consciously think about this is a trope, that is a trope, another trope. But they do need to think about how do I present this idea and the things that support it in a way that isn't stale.
Tv tropes was sorta interesting at the start.
But now it is like 70% obscure anime references.
I got annoyed with it because I felt like everything was a trope and nothing would ever be original again.
You can do a lot with a lack of originality. Let us consider the novel Red Harvest. It's the story of a Pinkerton who ends up playing two rival gangs off of each other until they destroy each other. This idea pops up in a number of films and we'll look at five of them. Yojimbo, Miller's Crossing, A Fistful of Dollars, Fresh and Last Man Standing. Four of those films are fantastic and one is merely entertaining. All of them employ the same basic concept but in radically different settings. Japan in the 1860's, an unstated city on the East Coast in the 1920s, the American West in the 1870's, NYC in the 90's and 1930's Texas. Two of those films are remakes of Yojimbo.
All of them are very different films. They have different feels and are impacted by their settings. The internet grew obsessed with the idea that tropes were bad or stale and the reality is that it's much, much dependent on how you use them. How they interact with the rest of your work.
I think it's also important to realize that almost everything is composed of older parts that are classic for a reason. Like, Star Wars is a super standard hero's journey story (and the prequels are a Greek tragedy), both take the standard (I think Greek) dramatic structure of three parts where you introduce the cast, put the good guys in an awful position they can't win, and then show how they win (Lucas is on tape explicitly saying that he is following this ancient structure). The characters are all archetypes (rogue with a heart of gold, young boy eager to make something of himself, damsel in distress, bumbling oaf comic relief), and so on. Almost every part of Star Wars isn't just an old idea, they're ancient ideas that can be traced back to stuff like Greek theater. And yet, Star Wars was something new. Something can be composed of old parts and still be fresh and interesting.
Right. Much of art is presentation. It's one of the reasons that I think the internet meme of "oh god another remake" or "remakes are intellectually lazy" is a special form of stupid. As I point out two of those films are remakes of Yojimbo. But the three films are very different because of the setting they are placed in and what the director brings to the table. Even the two films that are fairly close to each other, A Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing are different because of the director's approach to morality. Leone takes a more nihilistic approach that defines the Spaghetti Western and Hill takes a more Fordian approach of a more clear cut morality in his Western.
And that doesn't take into account that Toshiro Mifune, Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis all have different approaches to acting. And how the director interacts with those acting approaches.
I think there is a difference between a variation on a story and retelling the same story over again. For example, I think the complains about reboots of super hero franchises are generally about wanting new stories with the characters, not a retelling of the origin story.
Yeah, with a remake/reinterpretation you can change things, and even if you don't the audience is in suspense because you might, while we all know Peter Parker is going to get bitten by that fucking spider.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I hate Tv tropes the most of any non-social media website. The whole idea of it is to reduce things to their commonalities no matter how much it results in misunderstanding the individual works. I literally cannot think of a worse way to evaluate media than to say "these ten very different shows used X trope." It doesn't tell toy anything pf value IMO.
Good writing is always deliberate. It's important for authors to know which tropes they are using and why. Thoughtless, unaware trope usage is a major indicator of amateur writing.
This doesn't mean, however, that identifying tropes is some sort of next-level form of media criticism, which is the mistake that tvtropes users and the internet make constantly.
Why is unaware trope usage bad? Couldn't they not know something is a trope? According to tvtropes, literally everything is a Trope.
Because a trope handled badly is a cliche.
But it isn't the author's fault. If I wrote a book and I was happy with it and the critics said that the characters were too much like other characters, I would find that a hurtful and unhelpful criticism, not a constructive criticism. Maybe I never even saw the works people are comparing mine to!
Cliches aren't just "Well, this character from your obscure book no one read is like this character in the other obscure book no one read" it's more like "This character from your book is exactly like a bunch of characters from a bunch of books with no real interesting facets."
I would even go further and say that a cliche is the employment of an archetypal dynamic without any attempt at differentiation from be base template.
Cliche is the negative version of a trope or archetype.
"Chosen One" is an archetypal character. It can be done well, or it can be hoary and cliched.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I hate Tv tropes the most of any non-social media website. The whole idea of it is to reduce things to their commonalities no matter how much it results in misunderstanding the individual works. I literally cannot think of a worse way to evaluate media than to say "these ten very different shows used X trope." It doesn't tell toy anything pf value IMO.
Good writing is always deliberate. It's important for authors to know which tropes they are using and why. Thoughtless, unaware trope usage is a major indicator of amateur writing.
This doesn't mean, however, that identifying tropes is some sort of next-level form of media criticism, which is the mistake that tvtropes users and the internet make constantly.
Why is unaware trope usage bad? Couldn't they not know something is a trope? According to tvtropes, literally everything is a Trope.
Because a trope handled badly is a cliche.
But it isn't the author's fault. If I wrote a book and I was happy with it and the critics said that the characters were too much like other characters, I would find that a hurtful and unhelpful criticism, not a constructive criticism. Maybe I never even saw the works people are comparing mine to!
Cliches aren't just "Well, this character from your obscure book no one read is like this character in the other obscure book no one read" it's more like "This character from your book is exactly like a bunch of characters from a bunch of books with no real interesting facets."
It seems like everyone wants to call everything a cliche now though. That's my whole issue with tvtropes.
I hate Tv tropes the most of any non-social media website. The whole idea of it is to reduce things to their commonalities no matter how much it results in misunderstanding the individual works. I literally cannot think of a worse way to evaluate media than to say "these ten very different shows used X trope." It doesn't tell toy anything pf value IMO.
Good writing is always deliberate. It's important for authors to know which tropes they are using and why. Thoughtless, unaware trope usage is a major indicator of amateur writing.
This doesn't mean, however, that identifying tropes is some sort of next-level form of media criticism, which is the mistake that tvtropes users and the internet make constantly.
Why is unaware trope usage bad? Couldn't they not know something is a trope? According to tvtropes, literally everything is a Trope.
The key distinction here is "according to tvtropes". :-p
But yes, unaware trope usage is bad. It tends to result in hackneyed writing.
At this point in time, if you're going to have a load-bearing villain in your story (ie: the heroes defeat the villain and it causes his villain fortress to collapse!) you should be aware how cliched that is, so if you're going to do it you will need to poke a bit of fun at yourself, or possibly not do it at all if lampshading it doesn't suit the tone of your story.
If you're going to have a damsel in distress, you should be cognizant of how hyper aware people are about that.
conscious trope usage keeps you from walking into doors. Walking into doors is bad. You should watch where you're going.
Tropers™ just rattling off a list of Tropes This Media Falls Under and using that to sneer at it because "it's already been done" can suck my TruckNutz™.
Tv tropes was sorta interesting at the start.
But now it is like 70% obscure anime references.
I got annoyed with it because I felt like everything was a trope and nothing would ever be original again.
You can do a lot with a lack of originality. Let us consider the novel Red Harvest. It's the story of a Pinkerton who ends up playing two rival gangs off of each other until they destroy each other. This idea pops up in a number of films and we'll look at five of them. Yojimbo, Miller's Crossing, A Fistful of Dollars, Fresh and Last Man Standing. Four of those films are fantastic and one is merely entertaining. All of them employ the same basic concept but in radically different settings. Japan in the 1860's, an unstated city on the East Coast in the 1920s, the American West in the 1870's, NYC in the 90's and 1930's Texas. Two of those films are remakes of Yojimbo.
All of them are very different films. They have different feels and are impacted by their settings. The internet grew obsessed with the idea that tropes were bad or stale and the reality is that it's much, much dependent on how you use them. How they interact with the rest of your work.
I think it's also important to realize that almost everything is composed of older parts that are classic for a reason. Like, Star Wars is a super standard hero's journey story (and the prequels are a Greek tragedy), both take the standard (I think Greek) dramatic structure of three parts where you introduce the cast, put the good guys in an awful position they can't win, and then show how they win (Lucas is on tape explicitly saying that he is following this ancient structure). The characters are all archetypes (rogue with a heart of gold, young boy eager to make something of himself, damsel in distress, bumbling oaf comic relief), and so on. Almost every part of Star Wars isn't just an old idea, they're ancient ideas that can be traced back to stuff like Greek theater. And yet, Star Wars was something new. Something can be composed of old parts and still be fresh and interesting.
Right. Much of art is presentation. It's one of the reasons that I think the internet meme of "oh god another remake" or "remakes are intellectually lazy" is a special form of stupid. As I point out two of those films are remakes of Yojimbo. But the three films are very different because of the setting they are placed in and what the director brings to the table. Even the two films that are fairly close to each other, A Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing are different because of the director's approach to morality. Leone takes a more nihilistic approach that defines the Spaghetti Western and Hill takes a more Fordian approach of a more clear cut morality in his Western.
And that doesn't take into account that Toshiro Mifune, Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis all have different approaches to acting. And how the director interacts with those acting approaches.
I think there is a difference between a variation on a story and retelling the same story over again. For example, I think the complains about reboots of super hero franchises are generally about wanting new stories with the characters, not a retelling of the origin story.
Yeah, with a remake/reinterpretation you can change things, and even if you don't the audience is in suspense because you might, while we all know Peter Parker is going to get bitten by that fucking spider.
Maybe we should go the Spider-Ham route. Peter Parker gets irradiated, he bites a spider, and it turns into a human with spider powers.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
I hate Tv tropes the most of any non-social media website. The whole idea of it is to reduce things to their commonalities no matter how much it results in misunderstanding the individual works. I literally cannot think of a worse way to evaluate media than to say "these ten very different shows used X trope." It doesn't tell toy anything pf value IMO.
Good writing is always deliberate. It's important for authors to know which tropes they are using and why. Thoughtless, unaware trope usage is a major indicator of amateur writing.
This doesn't mean, however, that identifying tropes is some sort of next-level form of media criticism, which is the mistake that tvtropes users and the internet make constantly.
I think Tvtropes explicitly says trope usage is neutral and serves to identify more than critique. Whether the people who link tvtropes do is another matter, but they mostly exist to let people obsessively file things into boxes, not to judge works for their originality.
This.
A trope isn't a negative thing. It's just a thing. Basically it's the modern slang term for "archetype."
The biggest use for a trope as an idea is for critical looks. I can take two films with similar tropes and use the tropes as a basis of comparison, to demonstrate commonality. And that's where you can get into all kinds of fun things. So looking at The Seven Samurai and the Magnificent Seven they both use the trope of a band of warriors defending the poor. But they differ in that the conflict between the villagers and the warriors in The Seven Samurai is about class, and the conflict between the two groups in The Magnificent Seven is about race.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Everyone should watch that scene from Rick & Morty at the lighthouse last week where the old man reads his script.
I hate Tv tropes the most of any non-social media website. The whole idea of it is to reduce things to their commonalities no matter how much it results in misunderstanding the individual works. I literally cannot think of a worse way to evaluate media than to say "these ten very different shows used X trope." It doesn't tell toy anything pf value IMO.
Good writing is always deliberate. It's important for authors to know which tropes they are using and why. Thoughtless, unaware trope usage is a major indicator of amateur writing.
This doesn't mean, however, that identifying tropes is some sort of next-level form of media criticism, which is the mistake that tvtropes users and the internet make constantly.
Why is unaware trope usage bad? Couldn't they not know something is a trope? According to tvtropes, literally everything is a Trope.
The key distinction here is "according to tvtropes". :-p
But yes, unaware trope usage is bad. It tends to result in hackneyed writing.
At this point in time, if you're going to have a load-bearing villain in your story (ie: the heroes defeat the villain and it causes his villain fortress to collapse!) you should be aware how cliched that is, so if you're going to do it you will need to poke a bit of fun at yourself, or possibly not do it at all if lampshading it doesn't suit the tone of your story.
If you're going to have a damsel in distress, you should be cognizant of how hyper aware people are about that.
conscious trope usage keeps you from walking into doors. Walking into doors is bad. You should watch where you're going.
But the salient criticism in these cases is that th author dos something bad, not that he used the trope. So why not just focus on the story he actually wrote?
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Hyper aware Trope usage is a joy to behold, though. Games like Bravely Default or Undertale, where the author is aware of the tropes of the genre and the tropes of how people play, result in very smooth storytelling and gameplay.
I ate an engineer
+1
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I hate Tv tropes the most of any non-social media website. The whole idea of it is to reduce things to their commonalities no matter how much it results in misunderstanding the individual works. I literally cannot think of a worse way to evaluate media than to say "these ten very different shows used X trope." It doesn't tell toy anything pf value IMO.
Good writing is always deliberate. It's important for authors to know which tropes they are using and why. Thoughtless, unaware trope usage is a major indicator of amateur writing.
This doesn't mean, however, that identifying tropes is some sort of next-level form of media criticism, which is the mistake that tvtropes users and the internet make constantly.
I think Tvtropes explicitly says trope usage is neutral and serves to identify more than critique. Whether the people who link tvtropes do is another matter, but they mostly exist to let people obsessively file things into boxes, not to judge works for their originality.
This.
A trope isn't a negative thing. It's just a thing. Basically it's the modern slang term for "archetype."
The biggest use for a trope as an idea is for critical looks. I can take two films with similar tropes and use the tropes as a basis of comparison, to demonstrate commonality. And that's where you can get into all kinds of fun things. So looking at The Seven Samurai and the Magnificent Seven they both use the trope of a band of warriors defending the poor. But they differ in that the conflict between the villagers and the warriors in The Seven Samurai is about class, and the conflict between the two groups in The Magnificent Seven is about race.
Is a band of warriors defending the poor really that common?
A Well Intentioned Extremist who Just Wants Their Beloved To Be Happy has to deal with The Chick and wonder What Kind Of Lame Power Is Heart Anyway while The Lancer, Smart Guy and Big Guy end up being the Unwitting Instigator Of Doom
Guess the story!
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AlazullYour body is not a temple, it's an amusement park.Enjoy the ride.Registered Userregular
Good morning [chat].
I has headache and I did not drink or smoke cigarette the previous evening.
I am not pleased by this.
User name Alazull on Steam, PSN, Nintenders, Epic, etc.
For those who are interested, http://www.copinthehood.com/ is a pretty excellent blog on law enforcement issues. The writer is a retired Baltimore police officer who became an author and then a professor of criminal justice and law.
Besides the blogging, he keeps a bunch of his class pdf's available on the website. This is for a graduate level course on Broken Windows policing - http://petermoskos.com/files/compreview.htm
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
I hate Tv tropes the most of any non-social media website. The whole idea of it is to reduce things to their commonalities no matter how much it results in misunderstanding the individual works. I literally cannot think of a worse way to evaluate media than to say "these ten very different shows used X trope." It doesn't tell toy anything pf value IMO.
Good writing is always deliberate. It's important for authors to know which tropes they are using and why. Thoughtless, unaware trope usage is a major indicator of amateur writing.
This doesn't mean, however, that identifying tropes is some sort of next-level form of media criticism, which is the mistake that tvtropes users and the internet make constantly.
Why is unaware trope usage bad? Couldn't they not know something is a trope? According to tvtropes, literally everything is a Trope.
The key distinction here is "according to tvtropes". :-p
But yes, unaware trope usage is bad. It tends to result in hackneyed writing.
At this point in time, if you're going to have a load-bearing villain in your story (ie: the heroes defeat the villain and it causes his villain fortress to collapse!) you should be aware how cliched that is, so if you're going to do it you will need to poke a bit of fun at yourself, or possibly not do it at all if lampshading it doesn't suit the tone of your story.
If you're going to have a damsel in distress, you should be cognizant of how hyper aware people are about that.
conscious trope usage keeps you from walking into doors. Walking into doors is bad. You should watch where you're going.
But the salient criticism in these cases is that th author dos something bad, not that he used the trope. So why not just focus on the story he actually wrote?
We're not talking about the author's critics though, we're talking about the author.
The author could have avoided writing something bad by being aware of the larger picture and how the tropes he's using have been used before.
You're locked in some sort of grudge match with imaginary critics and I'm talking about writers.
Hyper aware Trope usage is a joy to behold, though. Games like Bravely Default or Undertale, where the author is aware of the tropes of the genre and the tropes of how people play, result in very smooth storytelling and gameplay.
Me and my friends were at this RPG convention once, and we played an amazing adventure that poked fun at all the tropes from Mysterious Man In The Corner of the Tavern and pretty much any fantasy trope you could imagine. It could have been horrible, but we had an excellent GM.
A Well Intentioned Extremist who Just Wants Their Beloved To Be Happy has to deal with The Chick and wonder What Kind Of Lame Power Is Heart Anyway while The Lancer, Smart Guy and Big Guy end up being the Unwitting Instigator Of Doom
Guess the story!
Seinfeld?
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HakkekageSpace Whore Academysumma cum laudeRegistered Userregular
I hate Tv tropes the most of any non-social media website. The whole idea of it is to reduce things to their commonalities no matter how much it results in misunderstanding the individual works. I literally cannot think of a worse way to evaluate media than to say "these ten very different shows used X trope." It doesn't tell toy anything pf value IMO.
Good writing is always deliberate. It's important for authors to know which tropes they are using and why. Thoughtless, unaware trope usage is a major indicator of amateur writing.
This doesn't mean, however, that identifying tropes is some sort of next-level form of media criticism, which is the mistake that tvtropes users and the internet make constantly.
Why is unaware trope usage bad? Couldn't they not know something is a trope? According to tvtropes, literally everything is a Trope.
The key distinction here is "according to tvtropes". :-p
But yes, unaware trope usage is bad. It tends to result in hackneyed writing.
At this point in time, if you're going to have a load-bearing villain in your story (ie: the heroes defeat the villain and it causes his villain fortress to collapse!) you should be aware how cliched that is, so if you're going to do it you will need to poke a bit of fun at yourself, or possibly not do it at all if lampshading it doesn't suit the tone of your story.
If you're going to have a damsel in distress, you should be cognizant of how hyper aware people are about that.
conscious trope usage keeps you from walking into doors. Walking into doors is bad. You should watch where you're going.
But the salient criticism in these cases is that th author dos something bad, not that he used the trope. So why not just focus on the story he actually wrote?
We're not talking about the author's critics though, we're talking about the author.
The author could have avoided writing something bad by being aware of the larger picture and how the tropes he's using have been used before.
You're locked in some sort of grudge match with imaginary critics and I'm talking about writers.
I'm saying that whether a work is good or not is based on its own merits, not if it uses common themes. A good book using common themes will be good. A bad book that is very original is still bad. The tropes seem irrelevant to me.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I hate Tv tropes the most of any non-social media website. The whole idea of it is to reduce things to their commonalities no matter how much it results in misunderstanding the individual works. I literally cannot think of a worse way to evaluate media than to say "these ten very different shows used X trope." It doesn't tell toy anything pf value IMO.
Good writing is always deliberate. It's important for authors to know which tropes they are using and why. Thoughtless, unaware trope usage is a major indicator of amateur writing.
This doesn't mean, however, that identifying tropes is some sort of next-level form of media criticism, which is the mistake that tvtropes users and the internet make constantly.
I think Tvtropes explicitly says trope usage is neutral and serves to identify more than critique. Whether the people who link tvtropes do is another matter, but they mostly exist to let people obsessively file things into boxes, not to judge works for their originality.
This.
A trope isn't a negative thing. It's just a thing. Basically it's the modern slang term for "archetype."
The biggest use for a trope as an idea is for critical looks. I can take two films with similar tropes and use the tropes as a basis of comparison, to demonstrate commonality. And that's where you can get into all kinds of fun things. So looking at The Seven Samurai and the Magnificent Seven they both use the trope of a band of warriors defending the poor. But they differ in that the conflict between the villagers and the warriors in The Seven Samurai is about class, and the conflict between the two groups in The Magnificent Seven is about race.
Is a band of warriors defending the poor really that common?
Robin hood is an archetype specifically about that that everybody would recognize. I'd say yes.
Now I am going to stop playing games for a bit and go for a long trail run on what I can only assume is the one and only nice day we're going to get for the next four months.
+1
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Hyper aware Trope usage is a joy to behold, though. Games like Bravely Default or Undertale, where the author is aware of the tropes of the genre and the tropes of how people play, result in very smooth storytelling and gameplay.
Me and my friends were at this RPG convention once, and we played an amazing adventure that poked fun at all the tropes from Mysterious Man In The Corner of the Tavern and pretty much any fantasy trope you could imagine. It could have been horrible, but we had an excellent GM.
Self aware things need to be careful. They can be great, but I think it's easy for the joke of breaking the fourth wall to become a crutch.
spacekungfuman on
+3
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Jesus was the original Robin Hood
The first drafts of the Gospels had a lot more action and swordfights
Posts
it was okay
I liked it
but it wasn't like, beyond amazing
For a bit, I think. He hasn't posted for a couple of weeks but he logged in today.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
It was a pretty good survival horror flick.
Enjoyable if you like spaceships and terraforming and Jessica Chastain or other stuff like that.
If an author writes a cliche, I'm not sure who else you blame? Generally if you've manage to have a cliche it's because you've failed to do something interesting with it. When Jeepguy talks about unaware trope usage, it's because the person took an idea and threw it in without thinking about how do I make this interesting. And the reality is that books, movies, TV shows may have anywhere from dozens to hundreds of tropes. One cliche out of a hundred isn't the end of the world. But if you get to the point where a critical review is focusing on your cliches, you may have deeper issues as a writer. So yes, it is helpful criticism. Spend more time thinking about what you're doing.
The reality is most writers don't need to sit down and count tropes. They may never consciously think about this is a trope, that is a trope, another trope. But they do need to think about how do I present this idea and the things that support it in a way that isn't stale.
I would even go further and say that a cliche is the employment of an archetypal dynamic without any attempt at differentiation from be base template.
Cliche is the negative version of a trope or archetype.
"Chosen One" is an archetypal character. It can be done well, or it can be hoary and cliched.
It seems like everyone wants to call everything a cliche now though. That's my whole issue with tvtropes.
The key distinction here is "according to tvtropes". :-p
But yes, unaware trope usage is bad. It tends to result in hackneyed writing.
At this point in time, if you're going to have a load-bearing villain in your story (ie: the heroes defeat the villain and it causes his villain fortress to collapse!) you should be aware how cliched that is, so if you're going to do it you will need to poke a bit of fun at yourself, or possibly not do it at all if lampshading it doesn't suit the tone of your story.
If you're going to have a damsel in distress, you should be cognizant of how hyper aware people are about that.
conscious trope usage keeps you from walking into doors. Walking into doors is bad. You should watch where you're going.
Tropers™ just rattling off a list of Tropes This Media Falls Under and using that to sneer at it because "it's already been done" can suck my TruckNutz™.
Maybe we should go the Spider-Ham route. Peter Parker gets irradiated, he bites a spider, and it turns into a human with spider powers.
The biggest use for a trope as an idea is for critical looks. I can take two films with similar tropes and use the tropes as a basis of comparison, to demonstrate commonality. And that's where you can get into all kinds of fun things. So looking at The Seven Samurai and the Magnificent Seven they both use the trope of a band of warriors defending the poor. But they differ in that the conflict between the villagers and the warriors in The Seven Samurai is about class, and the conflict between the two groups in The Magnificent Seven is about race.
It's a perfect microcosm of this conversation.
@skippydumptruck
But the salient criticism in these cases is that th author dos something bad, not that he used the trope. So why not just focus on the story he actually wrote?
I love Space
It's the best
Is a band of warriors defending the poor really that common?
Guess the story!
I has headache and I did not drink or smoke cigarette the previous evening.
I am not pleased by this.
Besides the blogging, he keeps a bunch of his class pdf's available on the website. This is for a graduate level course on Broken Windows policing - http://petermoskos.com/files/compreview.htm
We're not talking about the author's critics though, we're talking about the author.
The author could have avoided writing something bad by being aware of the larger picture and how the tropes he's using have been used before.
You're locked in some sort of grudge match with imaginary critics and I'm talking about writers.
YA is garbage, largely for this exact reason
its $1 and its not those games listed
morons
space isn't in the world
world is in the space
Me and my friends were at this RPG convention once, and we played an amazing adventure that poked fun at all the tropes from Mysterious Man In The Corner of the Tavern and pretty much any fantasy trope you could imagine. It could have been horrible, but we had an excellent GM.
This is some high quality vidya!
Seinfeld?
@HappylilElf in case you are interested in this Rock Band stuff ^
NNID: Hakkekage
I'm saying that whether a work is good or not is based on its own merits, not if it uses common themes. A good book using common themes will be good. A bad book that is very original is still bad. The tropes seem irrelevant to me.
but what games then
I mean, are there any other games besides Destiny?
My experience says, "no"
Robin hood is an archetype specifically about that that everybody would recognize. I'd say yes.
Self aware things need to be careful. They can be great, but I think it's easy for the joke of breaking the fourth wall to become a crutch.
The first drafts of the Gospels had a lot more action and swordfights