Narrative dealbreakers

[dolorosa_12]

A discussion I was having in the comments of a previous post with merit made me realise something I'd never really thought before: just as I have tropes, relationship dynamics, and themes that are like narrative catnip to me, I also have the opposite — tropes whose presence will ruin an otherwise deeply enjoyable story for me. I'm not talking about tropes which are pretty much universally regarded (at least in the circles I hang out in) as dreadful (things like Bury Your Gays, women fridged for manpain, black characters dying first), but rather other common tropes which I dislike not because they reinforce societal inequalities, but simply because they're not to my taste.

These are the big ones for me:

A character being pressured by the other characters to forgive an abusive or neglectful family member, and welcome them back into their lives for the sake of 'closure,' 'healing,' or similar. I hate this especially if it's a child having to forgive their father (which is the most common iteration of the trope). The end result is often that the characters — and the narrative — minimises the harm which the forgiven character has done.

Heroines with supernatural powers giving up their powers at the end of the story in order to settle down and 'have a normal life'.

Immortal characters giving up immortality for love (or even wanting to). I much prefer the rarer alternative where the mortal and immortal stay together, knowing one character will die and the other will not, and accepting that consequence.

Love triangles being resolved by suddenly making one love interest a terrible person where they weren't before. This goes doubly so if it's a way to resolve a love triangle that causes a married character to be unfaithful to their spouse — I don't mind if the spouse was always terrible, but if they're suddenly written as horrible, it feels like a cop out.

Supernatural/superpowered characters keeping their identity secret from their family and loved ones out of concern for their safety.

Sisters who hate each other, especially if this is in a mundane/real-world setting. Oddly, I don't mind it if a story is about antagonistic brothers, or an antagonistic brother-sister set of siblings. (I've not seen this trope in which one or both siblings were nonbinary, so I can't speak as to my like or dislike of it with nonbinary siblings.)

Characters whose whole arc has been about finding a family and a sense of home and purpose among other people choosing at the end to give that all up and live alone (or alone with their love interest). (*shakes fist at the Obernewtyn Chronicles*) A related version of this trope has dispossessed/migrant/misfit characters choosing to return home to the land of their birth, after spending the entire narrative finding a family and sense of home in a new land or city. (*shakes fist at the Six of Crows duology)

Those are the main ones I can think of at the moment. What about you? Do you all have similar narrative dealbreakers? Is this something you've also thought about before?

Comments

[thawrecka]

I definitely have narrative dealbreakers, though most of them don't come to mind right now for some reason. Your first dealbreaker, though, with characters being pressured to forgive an abusive parent, is right up there in dealbreakers for me. I also can't stand domineering alpha male tropes in m/f romance.

[merit]

Your first one is one of my dealbreakers as well. Ruins a narrative! Related to it; I severely dislike it when a child is forced to accept an absent/neglectful parents back in their life. Generally the child rebels and narratively this is depicted as a /bad/ thing because the parent figure is trying~~ however, trust is earned not given!

When the straight white male starts learning a new skill/martial arts/magic power and is instantly better (and often the chosen one) than the girl or woman who was initially depicted as better than him. Ugh, the worst.

[author_by_night]

A character being pressured by the other characters to forgive an abusive or neglectful family member, and welcome them back into their lives for the sake of 'closure,' 'healing,' or similar. I

This trope never bothered me until I saw it happen to people online and IRL, where the forgiveness of behavior that never stopped (and probably never will) did more harm than good. It actually can hold people back, because in the eyes of a toxic parent, forgiveness doesn't mean a mutual understanding, it means you'll continue to do what they say at all times. I'm a very family oriented person, but... my family has always been caring and supportive. The same can't be said for everyone, and I think stories should reflect that.

What does ring true to me is that often there's a distance between children and parents who weren't abusive or neglectful per se, but just not wholly "there". They talk, and there's love, but it's not a close relationship. I think that level of forgiveness makes more sense in terms of narrative than full-on hugging and crying, you know?

love triangles being resolved by suddenly making one love interest a terrible person where they weren't before. This goes doubly so if it's a way to resolve a love triangle that causes a married character to be unfaithful to their spouse — I don't mind if the spouse was always terrible, but if they're suddenly written as horrible, it feels like a cop out.


Ugh, I HATE that. I also hate when the "sympathetic" party of the love triangle is just as bad, if not worse, unless it's being done deliberately.

As for my dealbreakers... I HATE disease as a plot twist. It's not really the writer's fault, I just can't and it will cause me to stop reading. I also hate when too much drama is thrown in, which does often go along with the disease plot twist.

Also, this isn't necessarily a dealbreaker, but I don't really love historical fiction that ends up focusing on romance.

[schneefink]

I've never really thought about it before... I probably have some but it's hard to pinpoint it right now.

What comes close is currently a sadly common trope in Good Omens fanfic: two people have a very close relationship for many years, and then they Realize They Love Each Other Romantically and they Have Sex and now it's a Real Relationship, and Much Stronger And More Important than before *headdesk*

[forestofglory]

Huh. I've been thinking about tropes recently. I'm very impressed by how some people can rattle off a list of catnip tropes and was trying to figure out what mine are. I think there are some but they tend not to be the romance style tropes I tend to see most when people talk about tropes. I like chacters feeding each other, and Alien Baffled by a Cat, and tense family dinners.

There must be some tropes I don't like to.... I definitely don't like the superhero secrets but I generally dislike characters keeping secrets for dumb reasons. I have a certain amount of embarrassment squick so I don't like tropes that play characters making fools of themselves in public.

[regshoe]

I agree on several of these! Really everything in the 'story dangles something interesting and unusual in front of you and then goes haha, nope, we're taking the lazy way out' meta-trope—of which I'd call the second, third, fourth and last on your list examples—is really frustrating. My least favourite variety is the one where a female character begins the story happily single and talking about how she never wants to get married or fall in love with a man, then marries/gets together with a man at the end.

[cloudsinvenice]

- "Relationships cannot succeed." I hate it when a show spends months or years gradually getting a couple together, and then once they are together, they don't know how to write interesting stories about a partnership that survives, so somebody has to have an affair or, as in your love triangle trope, become an arsehole. Or they kill one of them off.

- Keeping secrets for plot tension: the secret identity thing is a subset of this. I hate the "will they find out, wont' they find out?" thing, and I suspect it dates back to watching Lois and Clark - I'm not sure if they ever actually did a reveal that wasn't retconned away, but I remember it as this interminable situation that you knew would never change, yet they insisted on dangling the possibility in front of you forever.

- A friend brought this one up years ago in relation to Atonement and I agree: Surprise War, i.e. any story that doesn't start up being about war, but the character joins up and suddenly you're reading a bloody war book you didn't expect.

[laurenthemself]

I hear you so hard on Obernewtyn. I was super disappointed.

[goodbyebird]

I had such a sense of relief when Kara just blurted out "HI I'M SUPERGIRL" to the people important to her in like, the first episode. So removing said trope definitely increases my enjoyment. (ugh Lena, my heart)

I'm also a very cranky curmudgeon when it comes to love triangles - such a thorn in my side when reading The Hunger Games - and don't get me started on how getting romantic makes it a ~real relationship~ and oh so much deeper and more precious. :/

[naye]

What a fascinating question! I'm with xparrot and doctorskuld and we're having a great discussion about it now. None of us had a list ready, but I'm working one out now. Here's two:

- Love triangles. The traditional one where one person "has to" choose (or leads them both on) and the odd one out is cut out of the story forever/goes evil.

- When a character crushes on someone, is rejected, and the narrative has them continue to carry a torch and hit on the object of their affection every now and again. Really, anything with not taking no for an answer. Ugh.

- "Men and women can't just be friends"

- "Dark and gritty" in the Game of Thrones sense where there is lots and lots and lots of completely gratuitous violence (esp sexual).

But I don't think I have anything that will make me stop reading/watching, because some tropes can be subverted or written well enough to be worth it?

[trascendenza]

Things that will nope me out of something:

• Too much focus on any of the following: scenery/geography/setting, fight scenes, political intrigue.

• An ensemble cast where no one really likes anyone else. I can deal with this for awhile in the beginning, because I love a good antagonistic-to-friendship arc, but if it just stays relatively antagonistic I can't.

• People being awful and mostly just staying awful. Ex: I made it to S2 of Shameless and hit my limit.

• The ~cowboy~ who comes in and saves the day through impulsive, ill-planned decisions, while quieter, harder-working, and more level-headed people are completely shoved aside and narratively treated like they were "wrong" for not believing in the cowboy from the beginning. (AOS Kirk and Spock felt this way to me in the first movie. I aaalmost didn't make it far enough into B99 to get past the part where Jake felt this way to me, too.)

• When the narrative is saturated with revenge, betrayal, backstabbing... probably why I'm not super into court/political intrigue stuff.

I also agree about a lot of the ones you've listed, especially the "person creates a found family and then abandons the life they've built for themself in the end," though it's hard to nope out of that since sometimes it happens at the last minute, ugh. (Eff you, White Collar! I'm still angry at you!)