After spending so much of my life with my nose in a book, I have started to notice the patterns and tropes that tend to show up in a lot of books. While there are some tropes that I love and can even respect, there are some that I absolutely despise.Â
SUPRISE PREGNANCY TROPE:
To start with, I cannot stand the accidental/surprise pregnancy trope often utilized in romance novels. I have no desire to read about the “miracle of life” or any of the trials and tribulations of pregnancy. As a nineteen-year-old girl, nothing is more terrifying than a surprise pregnancy. I also don’t understand how it is in any way romantic. A romance novel’s whole purpose is to make two characters fall hopelessly in love with each other because of their sheer admiration for one another. When you make the whole reason two people fall for each other have to do with the surprise that they have a baby on the way, it makes the love feel less organic and more forced. I personally would not want my partner to have feelings for me solely because we are now saddled with this whole other human we’re bringing into the world. Personally, I find the surprise pregnancy trope to be altogether completely unromantic and annoying.
Amnesia Trope:
Next, I want to discuss my disdain for the amnesia trope. While the amnesia trope is pretty self-explanatory, for those who don’t know, it is simply when a character is suddenly hit with a bout of amnesia, usually forgetting basic facts about their lives or big plots of the story we have already had the pleasure of reading. I find this trope to be utterly ridiculous. How amnesia has become such a normalized thing that it has become a trope is truly a mystery to me. I am aware that books of fiction are meant to occasionally take on an air of ridiculousness; I just don’t understand why amnesia seems to be the thing people are so fixated on using in their novels. Not to mention, that typically contemporary fiction utilizes this trope, which makes even less sense. It’s not just the unrealistic nature of amnesia that makes me despise the trope, but also the repetitiveness that is often seen when this trope is used. This trope forces readers to rehash plot points that they have likely already read, making the whole reading experience feel laborious and repetitive. It is infuriating to watch a character continuously forget or not comprehend something because of their amnesia.Â
Fake Death/Reviving Trope:Â
Lastly, we have arrived at my least favorite trope of all time. I could probably write an entire essay on my abhorrence for the fake death/reviving trope. This trope is often seen in science fiction and fantasy novels, where a character is killed off, but wait! No, that’s not right! We couldn’t possibly kill off a character; that is much too risky. No, instead, the character either wasn’t actually dead the whole time, or there is some magical poition/spell/whatever that can bring them back to life. I have a lot of issues with this trope. To begin with, I find it insulting that an author feels the need to make their readers experience the emotional turmoil of losing a beloved character, only to take it back and explain it away with some sort of reasoning that we would have never guessed or been introduced to. I find myself screaming at the author to take the risk! Do something unexpected! Don’t treat your readers like they are stupid! I find this trope to be a cheap trick to mess with your readers’ emotions without having the guts to follow through. In addition to this trope being a cowardly way of creating a reaction in readers, it also cheapens any deaths an author decides to include further in the story. The author has lost all credibility. If they decide to kill off any other character, the reader will immediately conclude that it is just another trick or can easily be solved by whatever method was previously used to revive a character. Overall, I find this trope to be a complete waste of time and energy, displaying an author’s inability to do something unexpected.Â
While I find these tropes to be aggravating, I know that there are a select few out there that enjoy them, and I can respect that. That is what is so wonderful about reading and writing. Something one person can absolutely despise, another can find amazing.