Popular Things in Scifi and Fantasy that many people love but you hate.

Bear Ribs said:
I despise heroes who are special because they are special, they don't work for it, they don't earn it, they're just born special and that makes them heroes. It could be a prophecy or genetic engineering; a magic dip in a chemcial vat, or some magic gear or a blessing, but the hero didn't work for it, they're just special. This is double if they're some brat in an apparent attempt to subvert the chosen one meme by being obviously unworthy.

Give me a Heinlein-style style omnidisciplinarian or a pulpy two-fisted professor who's two passions are boxing and ancient languages, somebody who earned their skills with study and practice any day. Give me Indiana Jones and Gene Starwind, not Ben Tennyson or Rey Palpatine.
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Oh God, this. Two things that I dislike: chosen ones, and prophecies.


Another one I can't stand: swords that are somehow still relevant in a gunfight and can defeat people with guns. There are exceptions that I can accept, such as when superpowers are involved, but when I'm supposed to believe that a character (or an army) are "just that badass" that they can beat guns with swords, I end up believing that the writing is "just that bad" period, instead.
 
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Urabrask Revealed said:
I like prophecies tho, mostly when they have an unexpected twist that take everyone off-guard.
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That, or have the SW and/or 40k twist.

Star Wars: The future is always in motion.

40k: Seers can see many possible futures, but they can never see all of them, and even if they did, it would drive them mad.

There's also the classic twist dating back to Greek tragedies, and revived in modernity by Dune: to see the future is to be trapped by it. In fact, the whole story of Dune is finding a way to subvert this, as embodied by Leto II's Golden Path.
 
'Nother one that gets me is humans happening to be the exact center baseline of all species with every other race is judged in relation to humans. You have bigger and smaller races but humans are medium, smarter and dumber races but humans are average, etc. Oh, and somehow despite not having any apparent advantage humans are the most numerous species in the universe.

Sometimes you get some kind of indomitable "human spirit" that lets them out-wrestle stronger creatures, outsmart more intelligent ones, and get back up from a telepathic attack that somehow floored the actual telepath who should be specialized at handling it. That annoys me too. If you want humans to be special in some way don't make everybody stronger except humans somehow beat them down anyway due to fighting spirit or some crap like that, just make humans have their specialty from the start and stick with it.
 
Jaenera Targaryen said:
That, or have the SW and/or 40k twist.

Star Wars: The future is always in motion.

40k: Seers can see many possible futures, but they can never see all of them, and even if they did, it would drive them mad.

There's also the classic twist dating back to Greek tragedies, and revived in modernity by Dune: to see the future is to be trapped by it. In fact, the whole story of Dune is finding a way to subvert this, as embodied by Leto II's Golden Path.
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I don't care for any prophecies, twist or no twist. It's an almost childish trope, and cliche beyond belief.

It serves no real purpose to the story except for EXTREMELY lazy foreshadowing.
 
Bear Ribs said:
'Nother one that gets me is humans happening to be the exact center baseline of all species with every other race is judged in relation to humans. You have bigger and smaller races but humans are medium, smarter and dumber races but humans are average, etc. Oh, and somehow despite not having any apparent advantage humans are the most numerous species in the universe.

Sometimes you get some kind of indomitable "human spirit" that lets them out-wrestle stronger creatures, outsmart more intelligent ones, and get back up from a telepathic attack that somehow floored the actual telepath who should be specialized at handling it. That annoys me too. If you want humans to be special in some way don't make everybody stronger except humans somehow beat them down anyway due to fighting spirit or some crap like that, just make humans have their specialty from the start and stick with it.
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That's mostly due to the fact that human are the baseline; every fictional race is defined by how they are different from us, because we are the only sentient species we're familiar with in real life. It takes a very skilled writer to overcome that handicap, and avoid writing themselves into a corner when their humans have to interact with the other races they created.
 
GoldRanger said:
Oh God, this. Two things that I dislike: chosen ones, and prophecies.


Another one I can't stand: swords that are somehow still relevant in a gunfight and can defeat people with guns. There are exceptions that I can accept, such as when superpowers are involved, but when I'm supposed to believe that a character (or an army) are "just that badass" that they can beat guns with swords, I end up believing that the writing is "just that bad" period, instead.
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thing is get very advanced and war becomes obsolete because it becomes "Press the button to doom your whole species" heck we were at that point 30 years ago and had it not been for stupid bureaucrats that decided getting rid of M.A.D was a good idea we'd still be at that point and we are for lack of a better term, one step above apes. All of this to say I'm willing to give suspension of disbelief. on the whole sword to a gunfight concept for the sake of "rule of cool." especially when real fights in and of themselves are as boring as sin.
 
Hastur of Carcosa said:
thing is get very advanced and war becomes obsolete because it becomes "Press the button to doom your whole species" heck we were at that point 30 years ago and had it not been for stupid bureaucrats that decided getting rid of M.A.D was a good idea we'd still be at that point and we are for lack of a better term, one step above apes. All of this to say I'm willing to give suspension of disbelief. on the whole sword to a gunfight concept for the sake of "rule of cool." especially when real fights in and of themselves are as boring as sin.
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There was a time-period in which swords and guns overlapped - that was when guns were quite new, and nowhere as powerful as they are today. Bring a single-shot pistol to a swordfight? Better hope you down your opponent with that one shot, and that he didn't bring any back-up.
 
I think it would depend more on range nowadays. Someone with a knife can do quite a bit of damage to someone with a gun if they are close enough to them. A sword would mean they wouldn't have to be quite as close to them.
 
Hastur of Carcosa said:
thing is get very advanced and war becomes obsolete because it becomes "Press the button to doom your whole species" heck we were at that point 30 years ago and had it not been for stupid bureaucrats that decided getting rid of M.A.D was a good idea we'd still be at that point and we are for lack of a better term, one step above apes. All of this to say I'm willing to give suspension of disbelief. on the whole sword to a gunfight concept for the sake of "rule of cool." especially when real fights in and of themselves are as boring as sin.
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Swords and melee combat don't belong in a far future setting.
 
Hastur of Carcosa said:
star wars, flash gordon, firefly.
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Flash Gordon is pulp shit, proving my point.

Firefly didn't really have swords, and in Star Wars these were super-rare super high-tech swords used only by mystical elites that made them work with superpowers, nothing widespread.
 
GoldRanger said:
Swords and melee combat don't belong in a far future setting.
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Depends on the far future setting. And on the situation in the setting.
Consider: a special ops force that wants to sneak in, do stuff, and sneak out, without getting into a huge firefight with an enemy battalion. They encounter one enemy soldier on guard.
Which would make more sense: shoot him, or sneak up and knife him?
 
Scottty said:
Depends on the far future setting. And on the situation in the setting.
Consider: a special ops force that wants to sneak in, do stuff, and sneak out, without getting into a huge firefight with an enemy battalion. They encounter one enemy soldier on guard.
Which would make more sense: shoot him, or sneak up and knife him?
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That doesn't quite fall under the label of "melee". I can also make up an example of, say, ritualized duels, or minor gang warfare. I'm not talking about these kind of things though.
 
I think swords vs. guns can be justified but the writer needs to put some thought into why swords would still exist and come up with the proper justification.

Dune famously has shields that can block bullets but not a slow-enough moving blade. Outlaw Star has armor and personal shields good enough that blasters capable of use in combat will also punch through a space station wall, so pulling a gun instead of a knife inside said station will get every inhabitant after your head. Star Wars melee is mostly used by various flavors of wizards or pigmen that might not be smart enough to trust with blasters.
 
Bear Ribs said:
I think swords vs. guns can be justified but the writer needs to put some thought into why swords would still exist and come up with the proper justification.
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They can, but never in the context of hard scifi, where things like energy shields will not exist.

Even in soft scifi, unless it's an outright science fantasy like WH40K (in which case fine, it's excusable) I will tend to look down on melee with swords.
 
Jaenera Targaryen said:
Seconded; this especially annoys me, since it's as easy as watching a documentary or opening a history book to look up proper battle tactics. Even simple ones like double-envelopment, or a Cannae-style ambush.
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A properly depicted battle would also look FUCKING COOL! Imagine the visual impact on the big screen of men moving in coordinated units.
 
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