fantasy cliches

Jason von Evil · Post by **Jason von Evil** » 2004-02-02 10:35pm

List all fantasy cliches here.

Mine:

Elves - Always the goodie two shoes and mankinds best friend.
Orcs - Savage warmongers.

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2004-02-02 10:40pm

Swords that do uber things, especially derive the truth out of things.
Cliche'd blades of Occam one might say.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2004-02-02 10:41pm

Dragons, wizards, the heroic band of explorers, etc.

Superman · Post by **Superman** » 2004-02-02 10:42pm

Dorky zit faced fat guy wearing a dice bag on his belt while reeking of body odor.

dworkin · Post by **dworkin** » 2004-02-02 10:50pm

Typical fantasy book.

The dark lord threatens the peaceful people with his hordes and supernatural powers. An artifact garunteed to defeat him is bequeathed to a farmboy whose dad was a famous adventurer. After his home is attacked he sets off on a perilous quest aided by a wizard. Along the way he will visit a ruined city with an ancient evil, be chased across a wasteland, be captured and tortured, escape and grow into his powers.
The other major powers of the world will do little more than give advice that even the local tinker could provide and may give our hero some second hand magical artifacts.
At some point the hero recruits an army, but despite this army and the aforementioned hordes of the dark lord the final confrontation is a one on one event. The hero wins, gets a title, the dark lord is slain and everyone lives happily ever after.

With special thanks to an old friend. She once pointed out that it isn't totally cliched until the hero visits the ruin with the ancient evil.

Demiurge · Post by **Demiurge** » 2004-02-02 11:03pm

Superman wrote:Dorky zit faced fat guy wearing a dice bag on his belt while reeking of body odor.

What books was that in?

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2004-02-02 11:26pm

The story is based around an epic quest to save the world/princess/land by finding the magical doodad and/or fighting the bad guy.

There was always some advanced super-civilization long ago which collapsed leaving plenty of their uber-artifacts for any adventurer needing find a magical doohickey to save the whatever.

Thieves are respectable in some weird way.

There are good, wise kings. There are evil kings. There is little to no gray area, and so group 1 and group 2 must fight each other endlessly.

Everything is really old to ancient, from kingdoms and castles to cool weapons. The key to beating new threats is to find awesome old stuff. New stuff is such a taboo that it is never mentioned and no one even thinks of it.

The technology is medieval European (pre-gunpowder) or lower.

I can think of many more.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2004-02-03 01:03am

Everybody has their thing. The one trait they have that is special and nobody else has.

Alex Moon · Post by **Alex Moon** » 2004-02-03 01:06am

Fantasy world is in centuries, perhaps millenia long period of stagnation with seemingly no developement. Said world also was once much more technologically advanced.

Shaidar Haran · Post by **Shaidar Haran** » 2004-02-03 01:13am

Elves - Always the goodie two shoes and mankinds best friend.

There are definitely some that go against that. And a lot more in which the elves are simply aloof and don't give a crap.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-02-03 05:24am

Strange shit will always happen every 500 years, and it will happen when the main character walks into town.

If your human and you have the hot's for an Elven hottie, be prepared to go through hell and back.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2004-02-03 05:28am

Mayabird wrote: Thieves are respectable in some weird way.

There can even be a thieves guild or better yet an assassin's guild.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-02-03 05:28am

The total bastard currupt king will have a cool illegitamate heir raised by common folk...

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2004-02-03 05:30am

Demiurge wrote:
Superman wrote:Dorky zit faced fat guy wearing a dice bag on his belt while reeking of body odor.
What books was that in?

I think it's called Life or The Book of Life.

Grand Moff Yenchin · Post by **Grand Moff Yenchin** » 2004-02-03 06:42am

World devastating war happened long time ago causing <enter effect>

Evil guy wants to revive/summon an evil thing/being/lord

Dwarves -> greedy great craftsmen in caves

Dragons -> ultimate baddie animals which must be slayed

Female main characters half nude.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2004-02-03 09:51am

Tsyroc wrote:
Demiurge wrote:
Superman wrote:Dorky zit faced fat guy wearing a dice bag on his belt while reeking of body odor.
What books was that in?
I think it's called Life or The Book of Life.

Man was that ever a sucky fantasy novel.

I mean I read this one about the guy who gets a lot but has to deal with stupid shit like litter boxes and oh wait...

Still, my personal fave is nothing ever advances in either magical or technological in thousands of years of stagnation even though no more then whatever the past was, was an age of glorious invention in both parts.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2004-02-03 10:27am

Fantasy clichés?

1. They're all a very literal telling of the Hero's Journey. No-one can be bothered to think about their myth structure and what it's possible to do with it.

2. The main character is, in 90% of cases, a young man with a Special Power.

3. The world is threatened by one (or both) of either a Dark Lord, or Mysterious Dark Forces.

4. Lots of sex. Lots and lots of sex. Sex scenes are the new Elves.

Darth_Shinji · Post by **Darth_Shinji** » 2004-02-03 11:28am

When did sex enter the picture?

speaker-to-trolls · Post by **speaker-to-trolls** » 2004-02-03 11:31am

Maybe he's thinking of a different use of the word "fantasy" (?)

Darth_Shinji · Post by **Darth_Shinji** » 2004-02-03 11:54am

I mean I have noticed one new trilogy I've bought in the past few months that had sex breify described. But there's always a few that have some, I wouldn't be calling it the "new Elves". Unless of course he's looking on certain websites here and there for swords and socery fiction...

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2004-02-03 11:55am

Chicks in fuzzy underware and metal bra's.

Super-Gagme · Post by **Super-Gagme** » 2004-02-03 11:57am

Fantasy pretty much IS a Cliche' of it's own.

Shaidar Haran · Post by **Shaidar Haran** » 2004-02-03 02:26pm

Super-Gagme wrote:Fantasy pretty much IS a Cliche' of it's own.

The shitty stuff anyway. Good writers tend to have a more orginal and interesting take on things than just ripping off Tolkien for umpteen billionth time.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2004-02-03 02:30pm

Ghost Rider wrote: Still, my personal fave is nothing ever advances in either magical or technological in thousands of years of stagnation even though no more then whatever the past was, was an age of glorious invention in both parts.

One of the things I liked about Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series is that the people from our world were introducing ideas and technology from our world into a fantasy that has been stagnant for a long time.

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2004-02-03 02:32pm

Nodwick, the ultimate in cliché