Cliche's in fiction that annoy you most
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I don't mind that much... it is just a label to distinguish a certain type of setting from other... I guess they don't mean standard as in "required to be considered..." but as "so commonly used its a cliche". A lot of books could be considered fantasy but are not because the term is so commonly associated with a set of rules that those are considered "standard de facto"Subbies said:
The same thing can be said with "roleplaying"... every game involves roleplaying: in Call of Duty you play the role of a soldier, in chess you play the role of a general and in monopoly you play the role of a millionare. However, some things are so commonly associated within gaming culture that everyone knows what to expect from an RPG.
Turns out the cake is a lie.ZombieDeadNoMore said:
Really.
How often do you see them eating delicious cake?
What gets me with guns, mostly in books rather than movies, is conversations. People get long lines of dialogue and deep conversations and rants and exposition and everything else to deliver during gunfights.spartandude said:
Try firing a 5.56mm from the shoulder, with your cheek resting on the cheekpiece so your ear is acoustically coupled to the barrel, and what you'll hear is a very soft creak, a very loud bang and: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Try this with real ones:
... and you'll both have blood running from your ears. You'd have to sight-read that last conversation.
Also in that scene: where did the bullets go? Alright, maybe those were plasterboard walls, but so many people fire bullets in densely-populated cities without side-effects that we have to assume they're in game world where the server can't handle tracking actual bullets and just scans a 50m straight line forwards from the gun at the moment of firing.
Shrapnel: in movies, shrapnel is not an issue.
For just about any movie: "How the **** did you not see that one coming?"
I know it's accepted that nobody in a horror movie has ever seen a horror movie or read the horror movie survival guide, but they have to be seriously stupid in many cases.
For some movies and a lot of Anita Blake books: "Oh, just shoot him and have done with it. You know you're going to have to anyway."
Good-looking = good.
Bullet impacts: except in the case of soft-chested vampires (From Dusk Til Dawn mentioned this peculiarity of vampires) they tend to launch people backwards through the air. See, for example, Casino Royale's opening scene. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epxYm3OouQA#t=2m49s] Newton's third law of motion just gets ignored there, doesn't it? Maybe not. Maybe that was a head-shot and the guy's legs just kicked really hard when it smashed up that part of his brain.
Incompetent soldiers: aren't they all? What the heck's going on in The Hurt Locker I don't know.
Ditz!
Yes, just that. Ditz. Belle (Beauty and the Beat) and San (Princess Mononoke) get a pass here, and Snow White has some excuse because she was probably only twelve, but really, someone give the girls a clue occasionally, please?
...
Edit to add one thing that's not really in fiction but was really annoying:
Just imagine my voice is four octaves lower for this.
"Imagine a wurrrrrld in which your ears must provide your sight, silence is the key to survival and the only way out ..... is terror!"
"Imagine a wurrrrrld in which nobody is who they seem to be, anyone could be your enemy and the only person you can trust ..... is your worst nightmare!"
"Imagine a wurrrrrld in which birds eat seed, deer nibble grass, trees sway gently in the breeze and puppies ..... chase balls!"
"Imagine a wurrrrrld in which one man does all the trailer voiceovers, they all sound the same no matter what kind of movie it is and every one of them includes ..... a dramatic pause!"
Imagine how glad I was to hear that he's DEAD!
That's what I'm saying. Almost every book, game, or movie use the same setting even though medieval fantasy has so much more to offer. Why are elves all noble and close to the forest when in some mythologies they were flying wind spirits and in others small creatures that lived under ground? Why are dwarfs always small with beards and axes? Were did the fairies go? I could go on but it would get tiring. What I meant to say is that with all the folklore and mythologies from those times, it's to bad that we keep talking about the same orcs, elves et tutti quantti. For example go look at what the people of the middle ages thought the rest of the world was. Full of dog men, creatures whose face were on their torso, manticores and other crazy stuff like that yet I haven't found a game with any of those creatures and lands. I find it pretty sad.MiracleOfSound said:
Thats true but I find it sad that with the wealth of material from medieval lore we still sit to the same setting when we could be visiting other aspects of what the middle age people thought the world was like (there's some incredible stuff that no one has bothered to use cause when they think fantasy, they immanently think of the settings that have been used and reused).hermes200 said:
Mine mostly revolve around action scenes:
"Bottomless magazines" scenes, where you see a revolver fire upwards of 10 rounds, or a Kalashnikov fire the equivalent of an entire truck made of bullets, without ever reloading.
"Magic silencer" scenes where silencers have the magic property of removing any all sound from gunshots.
In fact... this article sums most of them up really well [http://www.cracked.com/article_18576_5-ridiculous-gun-myths-everyone-believes-thanks-to-movies.html]
"Bottomless magazines" scenes, where you see a revolver fire upwards of 10 rounds, or a Kalashnikov fire the equivalent of an entire truck made of bullets, without ever reloading.
"Magic silencer" scenes where silencers have the magic property of removing any all sound from gunshots.
In fact... this article sums most of them up really well [http://www.cracked.com/article_18576_5-ridiculous-gun-myths-everyone-believes-thanks-to-movies.html]
Most. Hated. Cliche.higgs20 said:
Although, "What do you mean, our boss is working for the enemy?" comes VERY close.
And the perpetual misunderstanding of irony.
Bust sizes in any media form (But especially video games, since it can be taken to extremes. Major understatement there, but I'll leave it at simply "extremes".) with larger combined size and mass than the head, and potentially hair, of the female in question.
Nekomimi (Or catgirls, if you prefer the less proper, more wide-spread, and sex-specific term.), that have ear, tail, and head hair mismatch somewhere. White ears and tail, green hair, anyone? How about blonde hair, but black ears and tail? Yes, it could simply be them dressing up in a fetish "outfit", that I don't mind; but when they biologically have the parts, and the hair color is mismatched (How the hell would they end up with two radically different hair-colors, in different places? Presumably they were born with the parts, hair should have grown in (Relatively.) the same color, all around. Y'know, just like it does EVERYWHERE ELSE.), it really, really, REALLY irks me. Singular involuntary eye twitch territory, for me.
And yes, the whole walk slowly into the sunset/at the camera with an explosion in the background thing is at double facepalm territory.
And the whole "Oh, wow! Your mysterious benefactor/old friend/squad leader/team leader/companion/commander/sex slave/spouse/child/pet/what-have-you is actually EVIL! Oh teh NOES!" thing really...Argh, just apply something really hurtful said by Yahtzee about something, anything to this....Bonus shit list points if the person in question who was your ally, wasn't an American. And you were. Double the points if they were British, or Russian.
Nekomimi (Or catgirls, if you prefer the less proper, more wide-spread, and sex-specific term.), that have ear, tail, and head hair mismatch somewhere. White ears and tail, green hair, anyone? How about blonde hair, but black ears and tail? Yes, it could simply be them dressing up in a fetish "outfit", that I don't mind; but when they biologically have the parts, and the hair color is mismatched (How the hell would they end up with two radically different hair-colors, in different places? Presumably they were born with the parts, hair should have grown in (Relatively.) the same color, all around. Y'know, just like it does EVERYWHERE ELSE.), it really, really, REALLY irks me. Singular involuntary eye twitch territory, for me.
And yes, the whole walk slowly into the sunset/at the camera with an explosion in the background thing is at double facepalm territory.
And the whole "Oh, wow! Your mysterious benefactor/old friend/squad leader/team leader/companion/commander/sex slave/spouse/child/pet/what-have-you is actually EVIL! Oh teh NOES!" thing really...Argh, just apply something really hurtful said by Yahtzee about something, anything to this....Bonus shit list points if the person in question who was your ally, wasn't an American. And you were. Double the points if they were British, or Russian.
This, SO MUCH. I sometimes group this together with the rule that the lead characters in opposite genders must fall in love, even if there is no logical or artistic reason.EeveeElectro said:
Not only are cliches like this stupid, but they could potentially warp someone's idea of what love should be, especially since it's always the heros who act this way. It's sad when the most realistic presentation of human relationships I've seen (outside of works that expressly explore that concept) was in Mass Effect, and only then because relationships formed slowly out of coversation instead of contrivance.
"You're not my real Dad!" or "You killed my father!", just Daddy issues in general get on my nerves in films. Especially if it has no real bearing on the plot and is only there to make the film appear to have more depth than it actually does.
For me its - One shot kill = realism. You see this all the time in movies and video games like in Hardcore mode in Modern Warfare 2. Unless its a shot to the brain it actually makes it less realistic. I mean we know movie characters don't have to reload it doesn't seem that hard to put an extra shot or two in the bad guy.
Also the ethnically mixed gangs in Hollywood films. This is kind of the opposite of real world gangs. Family Guy made a good jab at this one time.
I guess another one for me is in books where the author seemed to base the hero character heavily off of themselves. I just find it kind of funny.
Also the ethnically mixed gangs in Hollywood films. This is kind of the opposite of real world gangs. Family Guy made a good jab at this one time.
I guess another one for me is in books where the author seemed to base the hero character heavily off of themselves. I just find it kind of funny.
The most omnipresent and silly one of all: "Conflict".
I guess I should qualify:
I don't mean stories should be completely free of it either. I mean yeah, you have to drive a story somehow, and a little conflict is sure to be involved, but the problem as I see it is when there is one central conflict that drives everything at all times. If you have characters you care about, a well developed world, and a particular direction the story is headed in, there is no need for one central "good vs. evil" or "man vs. nature" type conflict to drive the story, because each character should have their own conflicts or reasons, the world has it's own rules, and the events unfold based on that.
Taking a "oh we are going to have this story about this conflict" approach essentially turns the story into a boring series of plot devices rather then a real world we can explore through narrative. Even worse is when that conflict is stretched out or each character is written only to be a conflict generator, which turns the story into a long boring soap opera without any substance (read:Lost, Battlesar Galactica, etc).
Fiction should be treated better then that, especially the characters. I want to see more characters treated as people, not dramatic devices.
I guess I should qualify:
I don't mean stories should be completely free of it either. I mean yeah, you have to drive a story somehow, and a little conflict is sure to be involved, but the problem as I see it is when there is one central conflict that drives everything at all times. If you have characters you care about, a well developed world, and a particular direction the story is headed in, there is no need for one central "good vs. evil" or "man vs. nature" type conflict to drive the story, because each character should have their own conflicts or reasons, the world has it's own rules, and the events unfold based on that.
Taking a "oh we are going to have this story about this conflict" approach essentially turns the story into a boring series of plot devices rather then a real world we can explore through narrative. Even worse is when that conflict is stretched out or each character is written only to be a conflict generator, which turns the story into a long boring soap opera without any substance (read:Lost, Battlesar Galactica, etc).
Fiction should be treated better then that, especially the characters. I want to see more characters treated as people, not dramatic devices.
It's been said already but guns that fire wayyy more bullets than their magazine should allow. I like to count the number of bullets people fire with each weapon before they reload.
Oh! Also the fact that reloading is only ever used to make dramatic, threating sounds (pumping a shotgun before firing) or to show that the hero is in trouble and must reload before the villain gets to him from around the corner that he is inevitably hiding behind.
Oh! Also the fact that reloading is only ever used to make dramatic, threating sounds (pumping a shotgun before firing) or to show that the hero is in trouble and must reload before the villain gets to him from around the corner that he is inevitably hiding behind.
I don't like his decibel numbers for unsilenced and silenced weapons. He hasn't specified the weapon and ammo. A .22LR from a Browning Model 22 target pistol is a loud enough bang to hurt but has nothing on the palpable shock wave from a .44Mag from a revolver with a 4" barrel. That I could feel in my chest and it wasn't even me firing it.Caliostro said:
How effective the silencer is will also depend on the muzzle velocity of the bullet. Subsonic bullets can be made a lot quieter than supersonic ones.
Oh, while we're on "bullets" can we clear something up?
The case or cartridge is the little brass cup or bottle.
The primer is the little bomb in the bottom of it.
The propellant is the flammable stuff inside.
The bullet is the chunk of lead, with or without copper jacket, polymer ball, phosphorus on its arse or whatever, sat in the top of the cartridge.
All of these put together are a round of ammunition.
You load round of ammunition into a weapon. Generally speaking, the bullets come out of the thin end and the cartidges come out of the side, or get retained in the cyliner if it's a revolver.
A clip is a strip of metal like a miniature children's slide with the sides curled in and a little tab at each end folded up so it holds rounds.
A magazine is either the tube under the barrel of a rifle like the '66 Winchester or of a pump-action shotgun or a box with a spring-loaded platform in it.
For an SA80 or similar weapon, you get three empty magazines, nine clips of ammunition and one speed-loader if you're lucky enough to have one (fragile things, they are). You put the speed-loader on an empty magazine. You put a clip in the speed-loader and push the rounds down out of the clip into the magazine [http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-load-an-AR15M16-magazine-using-Stripper-Cl/step4/Load-you-magazine/]. You then flick the empty clip away to pollute the environment and put another clip in your speed-loader. Once you've shoved the 30 rounds from 3 clips into that magazine, you move the speed-loader to another magazine. When you want to load the rifle, you fit a magazine to the weapon. If you've got the last one I had, you actually have to take the last round back out of each magazine or it just won't work, but hey, that's loose engineering tolerances from the lowest bidder for you. What you don't do is put the clip in the weapon.
In Enemy At The Gates and Saving Private Ryan, you can see clips being loaded into rifles. They're old rifles with single magazines, and loaded by shoving a full clip down through the breech. Once we got the idea of replacing the magazine with a full one instead, we stopped doing it that way. Unless you're using an M1 Garand or something similar from the 1885-1965 period, you're not supposed to be shoving clips into the weapon.
Right. Where was I? Oh, silencers. That shotgun? The silencer is NOT making it louder. The muzzle report of an unsilenced shotgun is a lot louder than the sound of the action being cycled.
Very different noise levels.
