Literary Tropes I Hate

Welcome to another booktube trend! Today I’m listing book tropes that I really don’t like to see in books.

When I was doing some research and watching Book Tropes I Hate videos on Youtube, I noticed a lot of them included things that boiled down to genuinely bad writing. I’m going to try to avoid that. The following tropes are not objective mistakes authors often make, like lack of character depth or straying from character integrity. It’s not even what I think should be objective mistakes, like the author being too preachy (bleh). These are just common tropes that I dislike that boils down to simply personal preference. 

1. Other characters obstinately believe that the protagonist is lying. The other characters refuse to believe that a specific event happened, and they have no reason to disbelieve the protagonist except for the sake of contrived conflict. And of course the protagonist never obtained proof, or the proof was conveniently lost. Even if lying doesn’t fit with the character profile, it’s still a plot point, and it frustrates me so much. It’s such an annoying conflict.
2. This is a bit similar to the first one, but I hate when miscommunication lasts waaaaay too long. When a conflict can be fixed with a simple sentence or phrase, why does the conflict exist for more than a page?
3. When someone takes the credit for someone else’s work. My hate for this could be a result of my pride. Or maybe because it hits too close to home. Just kidding… kind of. But I hate when characters don’t get their due recognition. It’s so unsatisfying.
4. Insta love. This is a commonly hated trope and pretty self-explanatory. Two people meet and fall in love at first sight or just way too quickly to be realistic. I much prefer a slow burn. 
5. Mental health problems are healed because of love. Looking at you, Tolkien. I’ll never forgive you for Eowyn. Love can’t magically bring you out of depression or heal your anxiety. Meeting someone who supports you can help, but healing takes much more personal work. If an author doesn’t show all of that and instead attributes it to the magic healing powers of love, consider that author stained in my eyes.
6. Love triangle with a weak leg. So I recently read a book (I actually think it was a manuscript) that had two viable, good romantic options for the protagonist, and I found it really refreshing. It wasn’t a situation where one was obviously toxic and bad for her and the other was an angel, and yet the protagonist still had trouble choosing. The two men were genuinely good, strong candidates for a romantic partner. And I actually enjoy a good love triangle. I know a lot of people hate it, but I don’t mind it at all if both legs of the triangle are worth considering.
7. A superperson loses their power. I don’t read a lot of fantasy, but I used to, and this trope is used a lot in TV shows, and I absolutely hate it. All it does is give me anxiety. Which is definitely the point of the trope, but it’s not the good anxiety that comes with investment in a story; it’s the bad anxiety that I don’t want in my life.
8. Hero Complex. This one is straying into an authorial mistake rather than a personal dislike of a trope because often, a character’s hero complex is a direct result of the author’s inability to construct a believable, nuanced character. But not always. Sometimes it’s the character that takes on a hero complex, and I just don’t want to read about that character. For me, arrogance is one of the worst character flaws a person can have, whether it’s in a book or in real life. If a character thinks too highly of himself or his abilities, and there’s no additional nuance to his character, no thank you.
   • I know that Raskolnikov from my favorite classic Crime and Punishment had serious arrogance, but his arrogance was psychologically explored in depth along with all of his other issues, and his hero complex was treated as the illness it is, so it doesn’t belong in the trope. My irritation of the trope also doesn’t apply to characters who wear arrogance as a mask; I typically adore those characters.