What? Nooooooo! I thought everything in books and on TV was real until you said that 
Many tropes are used because writers and directors are lazy, and fall back on crap theyâve uncritically read or seen used before. Not all of them are even plot devices, such as the inaccurate gun handling I described in the OP.
Words of warning, tvtropes.org is perhaps one of the internetâs biggest k-holes.
I think this thread is more about generally overused tropes, or tropes that are generally useful but seem to be constantly abused and misused.
There certainly are a lot of generally bad tropes though. Most of them are so obvious nobodyâs realized they should post them here yet.
We need to find a better substitute for the training montage. Itâs a terrible device. Or rather it was a wonderful device the first few times and now everyone uses it in everything for stupid shit.
How dare you even speak its name. Do you want all of us to be found weeks from now, slumped in our chairs, having succumbed to dehydration starvation and exhaustion?
Like a common World of Warcraft player?
Sorry, but we canât have a tropes thread without invoking Its Name at least once.
You heathen.
Iâm not sure what you mean here. Maybe @anon61221983 should post a few dozen more John Barrowman images just to give me a better idea of what youâre trying to get across. You know, just for reference or something.
Seinfeld had an episode about that. Not the towing, but the spending vastly more time looking for a convenient spot than it would have taken to park a littl farther away and walk.
Off the top of my head, Flight Of The Conchords, Donât Trust The B In Apartment 23, 2 Broke Girls, Sanford & Son, All In The Family, and The Honeymooners all had realistic New York living situations appropriate to the charactersâ low economic status. That trope exists mostly in (other) multi-camera sitcoms I think more for practical shooting reasons than some kind of aspirational wish-fulfillment. You couldnât shoot Friends in realistic apartments for baristas or whatever the hell they did (Ross was a paleontologist, right? How much do they make if theyâre not Richard Leakey or Stephen Jay Gould?) without upending the entire show the creators were going for.
I canât recall ever seeing a waitress living in a palatial SoHo loft in a movie or novel.
âDumpy Simpleminded Slob With an Improbably Hot Wifeâ is another sitcom-specific one.
ETA: The Walking Dead is set in the deep South. They donât have winter as such.
How about Capt. Jack kissing Capt. Jack!
Only the middle photo is a battle shot (and I believe it is when Jon and the free folk are caught unawares). The other two are well before or after battle. I get what you were saying, just donât know if GoT is a good example. (I donât know about the GoT showrunners, but GRRM is pretty respectful of medieval history and makes a substantial effort to research for the books and keep it realish in that regard). Off topic, one thing I love about the show and books is that the proles get a lot of page space. A lot of fantasy (most Iâve read) is strictly the business of aristocrats/chosen ones/kings/Disney peasants etc. Feels like GoT allows class some room to breath.
Yes and no. There have been some extremely pointed critiques by medieval scholars at the total warfare mindset of the various factions. In the time period that he explicitly based this series off ofâthe Hundred Years War and War Of The Rosesâthe nobility didnât go around slaughtering the other groupâs peasantry for the âcrimeâ of supporting their masters. Instead, they took the peasants and associated land for their own support. The tendency towards slaughtering masses of peasants to deny them to the enemy didnât show up until centuries later (30 Years War and such).
Iâm not sure what you are referring to specifically in GoT. The Lannisters, in particular, engage in âforagingâ, sweeping villages to loot food and sundries. Gregor Clegane was the only lord (on the orders of Tywinn to forage for food and supplies) who generally revelled in brutalizing peasants, that I can remember. I donât think itâs fair to criticize Martinâs plot decisions as not being historically accurate, since itâs fiction. I was referring to the material reality of the period, e.g. how people lived, tools, weapons, social constructs, food, customs, warfare techniques, travel, buildings, etc. Curious what the other criticisms are now 
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Iâve heard this complaint about Scott McCloudâs comic The Sculptor. He says the character is based on his wife. I know his wife, and this is accurate. Also his daughters are actual pixies.
Per my sweetie: Now thereâs a trope I could get behind!
I have to agree with her on that.
Iâm referencing the books specifically; there are whole villages killed off at multiple occasions, which wouldnât be a thing that would have been done in the time period that GRRM specifically stated he patterned the books after (1200s to 1400s). That was more of a tactic embraced centuries later (1600s and onward).
I donât remember that I guess (aside from the Mountain and his shitbags). I certainly remember villages being abandoned, pillaged, etc, usual dogs of war stuff, but I donât recall whole villages being killed in the way you describe. I guess it doesnât matter.
I still donât understand what liberties GRRM took with history (dragons, you say?). Iâm not trying to be difficult, Iâm just curious. I sent a lot of time between the Ice and Fire novel reading about medieval life, and Iâm interested in knowing what he got wrong.
Speaking of the War of the Roses, Iâve heard The Accursed King series is excellent. Have you read any of them? Iâm hoping to check them out this winter.
Itâs literally been years since I read the books, but, grain of salt aside, both the Starks and Lannisters engaged in mass murder of peasantry on multiple occasions. I recall one instance in particular with the tree full of executed women with the sign âthey laid with lionsâ or something like that. And, essentially, that sort of systemic slaughter wouldnât be done of the lower classes. One or two to make an example of, possibly, but that degree of humanization and assumption of independence of the peasantry didnât really exist at the time. But itâs commented on in the books, that so many villages are being killed off that theyâre going to have difficulty bringing in the harvests before winter comes because the labor isnât available.
