Oh, I hate this one! The few romance novels I've read had this trope, and the love interest didn't come off very interesting or loveable at all! I read one this one time basically "She noticed him as he was complaining to the waitress about his food, he had slicked back brown hair and shimmery green eyes. The waitress fumbled her words as she took his plate away from him, and he asked for the bill" like wait wtf? Not very romantic at all, why in the world would she like this guy?? OR the guy is like *so perfect* and the most perfect man to ever grace planet Earth..
He was just in my town, and from what I heard, was a HUGE ASS and all around piece of shit. I'm glad he is now gone, off to infect the next town with his crap
The main types of characters that I dislike: The character who is there for the sole purpose of being a romantic interest, and contributes nothing else to the plot or development of other characters (this usually applies to the third corner of most love triangles, which is one of the reasons I don't often like love triangles). Basically any sort of character who is a "chosen one," with some exceptions (there has to be a logical reason why they're the only one who can accomplish the task. If they're only important because a prophecy mentioned them, and they wouldn't be important at all otherwise, then it makes no sense why it has to be them. Also, they have to actually need to do something besides show up and do what everyone else tells them to do -- they have to move the plot, rather than just react to it). Characters (especially teens and young adults) who are mean just to be the mean character that no one likes. If they don't have a reason, I find it incredibly hard to believe that anyone would really act like that. Also, characters who are mean to everyone, yet everyone likes or believes them anyways. This especially applies to the "mean popular girls." If they're that mean, there's no logical reason for anyone to actually like them or believe them over the main character. "The girl." When a book deals with a group of characters, all of them should bring something to the story, so I find it pointless when a female character exists just to be the obligatory girl of the group. Diversity is great, but personally, I'd rather read a story with three male main characters over a story with three male main characters and the girl who is there just to be the girl (just to clarify, this doesn't apply to all groups with a single female character, just those where the girl doesn't do anything besides follow everyone else around and be the girl. If the story would be exactly the same without her, then she might as well not be there).
I agree. I can't stand 'chosen one' or 'prophecy' heroes. It takes away everything interesting from their story when you add 'it's your destiny.' Yeah, I get the whole idea of finding the strength to meet your destiny, but chasing an outcome simply because you're told you have to is lame. There needs to be a stronger desire and driving force. That goes for the overused trope of the 'revenge for a murdered loved one' bullshit like they added to The Revenant even though it wasn't needed at all.
I'm honestly trying to thing of ways to make the Chosen One a new thing again, but the only thing I've come up with to make it not an eye-rolling cliche is to slap the chosen character with the knowledge of- "You're not special, many others could do your job, you just got picked because of your blood/heritage/circumstance/random chance." And then, it really isn't the Chosen One anymore.
While I'm generally not too fond of the whole "chosen one" thing, I think it can be done well if there is a logical reason for it. For instance, maybe a character is considered the only one who can defeat or redeem a villain because, due to some past relationship that they had, he/she is the only one that villain will allow to get close enough to them. Or maybe the character has some sort of ability that is known to be a weakness of the villain. In cases like that, it's not 100% certain that this character is truly the only one who stands any chance of defeating the villain, but it makes logical sense that they would be more likely to than others. I guess maybe a good example would be Aang, from Avatar: the Last Airbender. There wasn't any sort of prophecy that said the avatar needed to be the one to defeat Ozai, but because he was the reincarnated spirit of the past avatars and posessed abilities that no one else did, it made logical sense that people would consider him to be their best chance.
most of main character stories who yell. " I will never give up , because good people will always win ".I cant stand this predicable and cliche characters.
I dislike: . Any sort of prophecy - 'chosen one' - type characters, I feel that characters should have more motivation than just 'fate'. Yes, they can be done well, but only if it's not a significant factor in the character's actions. . Characters with any sort of hindrance or disability that manage to overcome their problems with great ease, or gain any sort of powers because of said problems. So if a deaf character has telepathy, a blind person has heat vision etc. . Characters with a dark past, that are too dangerous to be loved - everyone around them gets killed. . Characters with no depth. The witty sidekick that has no purpose other than to crack jokes; the villain with no reason for their actions other than being evil; love interests who don't have anything else going on, that only exist to be a love interest.
I hate those characters who are just there to be cute, and thus have no concequences for the shit they do because them make the audience go 'awwwww'.
Characters who will just not grow up. Middle-aged yet still clinging to some youthful ideology that makes them look stupid and who think that the problems they experience are those caused by everyone but themselves. The only exception to this rule that I can think of right now is Rob Fleming from High Fidelity, whose predicament of that sort was the crux of this great novel.
I get irritated by the comedic sidekick. That one who happily toddles along behind our hero, never saying nay to any of their outrageous actions and always jumps at their every command. That being said, my current book has 5 comedic sidekicks. Maybe I should rethink my aversion to hypocrites.
