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And There Was Only One Bed: A Talk On Tropes

Written by: Tara De Wet

 

Firstly, what is a trope? A trope is a recurrent theme or story element used often in fictional writing, three examples of which are given below.


Mary Sue


Have you ever read a book or watched a movie featuring a main character that just seems a bit too over-powered or likeable to be realistic? A character with no flaws and the world wrapped around their little finger? There’s a word for that character: Mary Sue (or Marty Stew if it’s masculine). The term Mary Sue dates back to one 1973 Star Trek self-insert fanzine where a character named Mary Sue was created with no flaws or depth. The story is centred around the Mary Sue and therefore makes the story boring for everyone except the author. There is no plot; there is only reaffirming how great your Mary Sue is! However, despite this base idea of the Mary Sue, there are multiple versions of her. With the first Sue receiving backlash from readers, writers sought to change the character to avoid the criticism. That is how the mean Mary Sue was born. As well as the villain Sue and OOC (Out of character) Sue. The mean Sue version of Mary Sue is a huge jerk but everybody that knows and loves her only sees the best in her and her rudeness does not at all change their relationship. The villain Sue is really just a villain around which the plot is centered. The villain will be smarter, prettier, and more competent than the heroes of the story. And, finally, the OOC Sue is a rebranded character from an already existing franchise that the author changes to match their vision and subsequently bases the plot around them entirely without giving any other characters time to shine or revealing any character flaws.


Main Character death


The death of a character can be one of the most crushing points of a story, especially if the audience has invested a good amount of their time into getting to know that character. Main character death is a trope often used in fiction as a means of subverting the expectations of the reader, making the story more gritty and interesting and giving the rest of the characters more emotional depth. It is often used in combination with realism, realism being taking into account negative consequences that normally would have been ignored in fiction such as negative psychological reactions to traumatic events and real-world physics. When done properly, character deaths can drive the story forward in a way that empowers the other characters to seek revenge. A prime example of a failure of this trope is when Superman dies in the 2016 film Batman vs Superman. The death should have been tragic and heartbreaking for the audience, but personally, it only annoyed me because, firstly, it could have been avoided, and, secondly, it felt very cheap and lazy on the part of the writers. A good example of this trope can be found in the book The Midnight Star by Marie Lu where the main character sacrifices herself at the end of the series to bring back her sister who died on their quest. It was unexpected, the consequences of her death felt real and tragic (I use that word lightly considering she wasn’t a good person and was actually kind of an antihero), and the emotional responses felt genuine. I cried. If that isn’t an example of emotional investment in a character I don’t know what is.


Friends to lovers


You’ve probably heard many people say that they married their best friend. While in real life you don’t have to be privy to whatever chemistry the couple has, in fiction it can be a bit hard to keep your characters in character while establishing a relationship. Say you’re an author and you want the two leading protagonists to couple up at the end of the story. There are a few prepackaged steps you have to follow in order for the audience to believe what you’re selling. Luckily, all of those steps can be boiled down to establishing a bond! Show that these characters truly care for each other in a way that the audience can expect a deep, meaningful relationship to bloom between them. In the friends-to-lovers trope, this can be done easily since their caring relationship has already been established, but if the characters are unable to be fully themselves in the relationship or feel out of character when they are together then they probably shouldn’t be in a relationship.




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