Tropes and the Theory of Tropeism
Tropes: Common patterns in narrative fiction; tools used by writers to write stories.
Theory of Tropeism: The overarching framework that understands stories primarily as collections of tropes, and their various subversions, divorced from all other context.
From TVTropes.com: Tropes are Tools.
Tropes and the Theory of Tropeism
Many writers rely heavily on an explicit understanding of tropes in their writing. The rest rely on tropes just as much, their understanding is just more implicit. Tropes aren’t bad.
There has been a rise in writers who understand stories only or primarily through the lens of tropes. In my opinion, this is often a bad thing. The common and popular framework that arises here is inadequate for anyone that wishes to write good fiction.
Tropes are, basically, anything that stories can have in common. Car chases are a trope. A character that is a charismatic leader is a trope. A twist ending is a trope. A villain’s cackling laugh is a trope. Anytime a pattern, character, plot point, setting, or anything else can be adapted into the context of another story, it is a Trope.
When you include a regular Trope, that’s ‘playing it straight’. When you turn it on its head, that’s ‘subverting’ the Trope.
Not everyone who uses Tropes subscribes to the Theory of Tropeism. Even people who think in terms of Tropes constantly can avoid all the problems I’m about to outline. What distinguishes regular writers from serious Tropeists, as I’ll call them, is the extent to which they allow Tropes to produce blind spots in their understanding of narrative.
The Theory of Tropeism is a network of beliefs shared by writers, readers, and fandoms who often use the internet, followers of Brandon Sanderson’s YouTube lectures, and especially by keen users of the site TVTropes.com. While each individual has their own opinions, the framework looks something like this:
(See ‘Tropes are Tools’ ) Tropes are neither good nor bad, they are tools. They can either be ‘played straight’ or ‘subverted’. They can be used well or used poorly, and have no inherent quality.
Stories can be defined, discussed, understood, and analysed based on their tropes.
Similarities and differences between stories are the most important things about them. Intertextuality, meta-references, and subversions of Tropes are the most interesting things to discuss.
Really well-written stories are those which use the right tropes in the right way.
There is a pervasive and intense interest in magic systems and worldbuilding in the predominantly Sci-Fi/ Fantasy wing of this framework.
I’m being as fair as I can on purpose, especially because a lot of smart and capable people use Tropes in at least some of the above ways. Because I’m being fair though, it might not be apparent why any of this is a problem.
I saw a weird comment one time on Reddit. It’s perhaps not the most convincing argument to quote one thing I saw one time on Reddit, but I’ll do it anyway. It’s okay if this doesn’t convince you right away. My main goal is to start with an extreme example to set the tone.
One user wrote (paraphrasing): “I always hated the magic system of Hamlet. Shakespeare never bothered to give the ghost any kind of explanation or consistent rules. It just reeks of lazy writing.”
I was gobsmacked by the sentiment when I first read it. I was shocked when I saw that others responded with agreement (it had 50 or so upvotes!). This was no isolated, fringe opinion. I won’t link to it because people deserve their privacy, and as a result you can believe that this particular comment is a fiction or exaggeration, and that’s fine. I’ll link to real sources later as I build my case.
For now, let me walk through the problems I have with this comment, and how it ties in to Tropeism.
Stories can be defined, discussed, understood, and analysed based on their tropes.
Really well-written stories are those which use the right tropes in the right way.
There is a pervasive and intense interest in magic systems and worldbuilding in the predominantly Sci-Fi/ Fantasy wing of this framework.
These three points are most relevant. This user has expressed their dislike for the play Hamlet in terms of its magic system.
Let me say that again.
The play Hamlet’s magic system. The Shakespearean tragedy written around 1599, HAMLET, has problems with its MAGIC SYSTEM.
THE MAGIC SYSTEM OF SHAKESPEARE’S PLAY HAMLET.
They call this lack of magic system ‘lazy writing.’
It seems to have escaped this user’s attention that the website TVTropes was actually first created within the past few decades, and not in the late 1500’s. They seem displeased that Shakespeare did not use a ‘hard magic system’ akin to the tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons, or the new literary genre called LitRPG.
They have taken extremely modern ideas about storytelling and applied them to a play written centuries ago. This isn’t bad in itself. Sometimes new ideas help us to understand the old.
What is bad is saying that Hamlet is bad because of its lack of magic system. In doing that, they took the play out of its habitat (the late 1500s) and transported it to the present Tropeist analysis of stories without a second thought.
To sum it up:
Tropeists are Anti-Context
There is a paradox here.
The Theory of Tropeism is obsessed with context in one way. It cares intensely—almost exclusively—about the context stories share with each other. That is, any context that is related to Tropes. If any contextual information can be analysed in terms of Tropes, then Tropeists can tell you all about it.
On the other hand, it disregards all other forms of context entirely. This includes context within a story quite often, but perhaps more commonly context between the story and the real world. They don’t mistakenly leave context out in the cold. They deliberately ignore context whenever it serves them, even if it means ignoring the full definition of a particular Trope.
Missing the context within a story might go something like this. The Tropeist may have heard the term ‘Deus Ex Machina’ before. It’s a notoriously bad thing to do in a story. It is cheap, it resolves all the tension without pay-off, and it’s an important thing to avoid.
From the above link:
“Deus Ex Machina is when some new event, character, ability, or object solves a seemingly unsolvable problem in a sudden, unexpected way … In its most literal interpretation, this is when a godlike figure or power, with all the convenient power that comes with that, arrives to solve the problem.”
For a Tropeist, if the ending of a particular story even slightly resembles the Trope of Deus Ex Machina, it is always bad and never excusable. They will not forgive the use of this Trope even if it fits the wider context of the story perfectly. Many great stories use plot events that very closely resemble ‘Deus Ex Machina’ without actually being that Trope. The reason they can do this is always because of the context of the rest of the story.
Example: Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the climax, Indiana Jones is tied up. As the Ark of the Covenant is opened, he shuts his eyes and the Nazis are killed by the divine powers of the Ark.
See, this appears like Deus Ex Machina because God literally intervenes to save the hero at the last moment. This is precisely the sequence of events that are prohibited, right?
In the Tropeist understanding of this moment, it shouldn’t work. Indeed, on the relevant TVTropes page, they note that Raiders of the Lost Ark includes an instance of Deus Ex Machina. This analysis is divorced from the relevant context. It also has to ignore the fact that it’s a great movie that is enjoyed by many people who haven’t heard of DEM before. Curiously, only people who have heard of DEM have a problem with the movie’s ending.
What make Deus Ex Machina bad and unsatisfying is not the intervention of God or any other overwhelming force at the 11th hour to save the heroes. What makes Deus Ex Machina bad is the fact that heroes are granted unearned and unforeshadowed salvation.
Here’s another line from the above page on DEM:
“A Divine Intervention need not always be a Deus ex Machina or the sole way this trope plays out however.” (Divine Intervention basically being Deus Ex Machina with appropriate context and foreshadowing)
Here’s how salvation can be earned.
In stories, internal character arcs are as essential as the external hardships characters endure. Indiana Jones started the movie being highly sceptical of divine powers. To him, the Ark of the Covenant is an item of academic, historical value, and nothing more. In the end, after coming into contact with divine forces, he actively decides to close his eyes — it’s forbidden to look upon the Ark of the Covenant. The Nazis earn their deaths by foolishly looking at the Ark as it’s opened. Indiana and his companion Marian look away, and are spared. These divine forces were foreshadowed throughout the film.
Indiana Jones doesn’t use his whip or his gun to save the day. Rather, his internal journey is what saves him. In terms of narrative, he has earned his salvation.
If context is ignored, any Trope can be used to ‘prove’ that a story is good or bad.
Now, a counter-example of a type of ending that better fits the problem posed by Deus Ex Machina.
A common sitcom situation:
Say Ross wants to ask out Rachel. However, Rachel has been hanging out with a very handsome man. Ross sees them having dinner, going out for coffee, visiting each other’s houses. As a result, Ross mopes around and doesn’t ask Rachel out.
Then Rachel reveals that the man was actually her brother! And she asks Ross out. The End.
I don’t think this is an actual episode of FRIENDS, but the structure should be familiar.
As far as I’m concerned, this is an example of Deus Ex Machina and it’s actually bad. It has nothing to do with intervening gods, and everything to do with the anti-climax.
Ross goes through no internal change. The stakes are simply removed at the climax, and Ross doesn’t have to do anything to make it happen. He simply gets what he wants. What makes Deus Ex Machina bad is the fact that heroes are granted unearned and unforeshadowed salvation.
What’s more unearned and unforeshadowed than ‘Oh, him? He’s just my brother! Want to go out with me?’
Tropeism and Armchair Critics
Many writers of stories are also readers of stories. They also watch films and television.
Most viewers and readers, however, are not writers. When it comes to Tropeism though, both groups tend to have a lot in common. One of these is a tendency to take superficial elements of a story relating to its Tropes, and form a highly orthodox and homogenous set of opinions about the entire story.
Let’s say a film comes out and the protagonist is accused of being a Mary Sue.
Whether or not the character is a Mary Sue is neither here nor there. What happens next is a witch-hunt led by Tropeists.
All that is required to condemn that film is for people to accuse it of having a Mary Sue protagonist. There’s no need to prove that it’s the case. There’s no need to understand the film’s context, internally or externally. There’s not even any need to learn from the film’s mistakes or discuss what could have fixed it. No, it has a Mary Sue, and it’s bad.
Just like Shakespeare’s weird magic system problem, this one is divorced from context.
(Again I’ll not that not all people who use the term Mary Sue are Tropeists. You can safely assume that if you ever see someone talking about Mary Sue’s with a sensitive analysis of context, you are not dealing with a Tropeist. A Tropeist is anti-context).
When so many armchair critics level such accusations (even when they’re well-founded), it has an effect on emerging writers.
Young, novice, beginner writers always go too far the other way.
If we take the common understanding of a Mary Sue to be a character written without flaws, this next part ought to make sense instantly.
Emerging writers on internet forums will wax poetic about how intensely flawed their characters are, and how much punishment the characters are subjected to.
Don’t misquote me—it is important for characters to have flaws and endure hardships.
However, when I see people going on and on about the depths of their character’s misery, they are very clearly reacting to an anxiety of being accused of having written a Mary Sue.
I have read a lot of stories by people who talk like this, and I’ve seen the trend creep into prestige TV and films. Maybe the tendency has always been there, but I feel convinced that it’s more common lately.
These stories always include a hopelessly flawed—terrible, unlikeable, irredeemable—character. Often, it’s the protagonist or another major character. The problem is there’s never any reason for it.
Oh, your character’s a pessimistic unemployed alcoholic hot mess who steals their roommate’s prescription pills to sell them to children outside the school? Cool, good for you. I’m not against a character like that. There are a lot of stories you could tell about that. But the thing is, you haven’t done that to your character to tell a story. You’ve done it to have an anti-Mary Sue.
The flaws are there, without any context or reason, just to be flaws. Just to give the character an aesthetic that goes against the naïve idealism of Mary Sues.
As time goes on, I haven’t actually seen audiences respond to these terrible, intentionally overcooked characters any better. Maybe I talk to a particular type of people, but cynical, pessimistic, anti-Mary Sues aren’t actually engaging according to anyone I know.
But I have seen writers get more and more enamoured with the idea of them. If only I could fit more flaws into this character bio, I’d have a hit. The last one must have not been a hit because there weren’t enough flaws. Next time, more flaws, and more, and more …
Why Tell Stories?
This is the context that Tropeism most ignores.
Again, clever and beautiful stories have been told by people who understand and use and talk about Tropes.
Anti-Context Tropeism, however, is a theoretical framework that excludes meaning, theme, context, and heart from stories.
So why do we tell stories?
Why do humans tell stories? Why do I, Timothy S Currey, tell stories? Why do all these directors and screenwriters and authors and playwrights spend so much time slinging all these words around? Why do we tell our friends funny little anecdotes?
I’ll give my answer to that later.
For now, let me just point out that the Theory of Tropeism, as I’ve observed it, is incapable of answering this question.
Other theoretical frameworks can address the question; many frameworks start with this question. (Think of the Hero’s Journey framework, for example)
The Theory of Tropeism understands stories as collections of isolated, unrelated, atomic Tropes. It discusses these Tropes without a proper regard for context, and the interconnected nature of elements within a story.
Tropeism cannot define stories because stories cannot be separated from their context.
I would even go as far as to say that stories are context, but I’m at least aware enough to know how weird that sounds. You don’t have to go as far as me.
Since Tropeism cannot adequately explain why we tell stories as humans, what are we left with in its place? Let’s first remember these points in particular:
Stories can be defined, discussed, understood, and analysed based on their tropes.
Similarities and differences between stories are the most important things about them. Intertextuality, meta-references, and intentional subversions are the most interesting things to discuss.
Really well-written stories are those which use the right tropes in the right way.
There is a pervasive and intense interest in magic systems and worldbuilding in the predominantly Sci-Fi/ Fantasy wing of this framework.
On an unrelated note, isn’t it strange how so many emerging writers get trapped building worlds, designing complex writing systems, and filling out character bios?
Isn’t it also strange that many share these lists, fact sheets and biographies with friends on the internet in lieu of writing? Isn’t it odd that these conversations are focused on how different the characters, tropes, worlds, and magic systems are ….
When people get truly stuck in the quagmire of Tropeism, they write Tropes instead of stories. They write the Tropes, their subversions and quirks and relations to other stories and inspirations, and they write it all without any knowledge of context. Filling out endless lists, character sheets, magic systems, worldbuilding …
When they do this … aren’t they just filling in a pretend entry for their story on the site TVTropes.com?
Say what you want about Shakespeare being lazy with his magic system. At least he didn’t get stuck at the step of designing it.
The Theory of Tropeism can teach you a lot about stories. I won’t dispute it on that count. There is a lot of information within the framework. But it can never teach you how to build the connective tissue that binds these elements together into a cohesive story. It can’t teach you to understand, much less build, the context of a story.
Brandon Sanderson’s YouTube Lectures
These lectures are well worth watching, and very valuable. Even if you’re very familiar with stories and how they work, Brandon Sanderson brings a perspective that’s interesting and useful enough to justify a watch. I’m being sincere here. I’m not throwing Brandon Sanderson under any kind of bus or blaming him for doing wrong.
I’m only going to interrogate why so many of the people who are big fans of his books and his lectures are adamant and fanatical Tropeists.
Many of his fans are regular people, and many people who watch his lectures simply get value from them and go on to live their lives.
Some of them go on to become people that say things like, “Shakespeare’s bad magic system is a sign of lazy writing, and therefore Hamlet is 0/5 stars.”
I’m going to draw a comparison between Brandon Sanderson and the TVTropes.com website here. That comparison is that the original source always contains disclaimers, but under the Theory of Tropeism, caveats are contextual and therefore ignored.
The actual content of Brandon Sanderson’s lectures is, again, valuable. He’ll say over and over that his way of teaching is not the only way, and that you should seek out other styles. He’ll include a lot of caveats and explanations of things that promotes contextual learning. If a student asks a tough question in a lecture, he’ll almost always say, “It depends…” before continuing. He’ll never force anyone to accept an idea as undisputed fact.
Then, on the other hand, his lectures will be structured like this: (Taken from his 2016 lectures on YouTube)
#1 Course Overview
#2 Cook vs Chef (A whole damn lecture about understanding context above all else!!)
#3 The Illusionist Writer (A kind of philosophy of writing)
#4 World-Building
#5 The Box (narration, 1st vs 3rd person etc.)
#6 The Business of Writing
#7 Character
#8 Magic Systems
#9 Brandon Mull Guest Lecture
#10 Plotting
#11 Dialogue and Agents
#12 Q&A
I’ll reiterate that not only will he throw in asides about respecting context, he also has at least one full lecture that can mostly be understood as a warning to always pay attention to what you are doing and why. (The Cook vs Chef lecture—a great perspective that I think everyone should learn from)
What is happening here is not something Brandon Sanderson is doing wrong. It is something that, for any number of reasons, is going on in the unconscious biases of Tropeists.
The problem is the idea of taking the lecture called ‘world building’ or the TVTrope page called ‘Mary Sue’ and treating them as isolated, context-less, unintegrated ideas that stand apart. It is a mindset that divides and dissects until constituent parts are rendered meaningless. It is a bias that leans toward separation, division, individualisation, and a bias that leans hard away from context.
TVTropes is clear that the ideas expressed there are contextual, and what happens in one context may not apply in another.
All humans share a vulnerability which we have identified in the die-hard Tropeists. It is hard to remember the thoughtful, complex ideas of the caveat. It is easy to remember the blurry outline, the article heading, the attention-grabbing quip.
When Tropeists cut the heart out of storytelling as a way of exploring its ventricles with a scalpel, they commit a sin that seems universal. They distil the complicated truth down to a series of digestible factoids.
And what could Sanderson or TVTropes do differently? They’ve done just about everything they can to make sure people take the contextual information away with them! Is Sanderson supposed to give lectures with strangely esoteric titles that wander around different topics? Is TVTropes supposed to get rid of lists and headings?
It’s just a common bias we all have that’s finding a home among a subset of people who subscribe to Tropeism. A common bias, but one worth resisting.
After all, we have to contend with things that Tropeism produces. It doesn’t end with the magic system in Shakespeare. Tropeism has colonised the minds of prestigious TV and film writers, producers, and many of our beloved authors.
Maybe the problem didn’t start with the website TVTropes.com. Maybe the problem is far, far older.
Society is to blame. If I am to blame, it is because society made me that way.
Tropeism exists at the crossroads between certain beliefs about world-building, magic systems, TVTropes.com, and certain types of story criticism popular on the internet. The foundation under it all is the tendency to be Anti-Context.
I am Pro-Context.
I think understanding context is not only valuable and important, but actually crucial. I also acknowledge that it’s messier, more complicated, and doesn’t instantly solve all our problems.
The extreme ends of Tropeism cause the most problems. This is where people get weird ideas about magic systems. It’s where people label a character ‘Mary Sue’ or a plot point ‘Deus Ex Machina’ or anything else, and use it as a rallying cry to trash a story. It’s where people get stuck writing page after page of trivia about the story in their head rather than actually writing the story.
The root cause doesn’t lie with those things. It lies in a curious little detail I touched on earlier: the fact that lectures on writing are most often split into categories: Plot, Character, Theme, Setting …
It’s not that the lectures are inherently the problem. It’s the fact that we feel so comfortable separating plot from character from setting from theme. Different lectures, different headings, different web pages. It comes so naturally that I bet nobody questions it.
Maybe I’m a kooky extremist, but I think we would benefit from blurring the lines between these ideas. Or at least, we’d benefit from the ability to see them as intertwined.
Here’s one way of defining these ideas:
Plot is a series of events that happens in a story
Character is a person that is in a story
Setting is where the story happens
Theme is an idea that relates to the story somehow.
These are all accurate, but they are also all compatibly with a fanatically Tropeist view. I believe that by putting context first, we can take one step towards improving things:
Plot is the series events which Characters participate in, governed by a particular Theme/s within a Setting.
Character is a person that participates in plot, governed by particular Theme/s within a Setting.
Setting is …..
You see, they all define each other once we adopt a slightly different perspective.
Plot events in a story should relate intimately to each other. There should be cause and effect and other relationships that link them together. And a major part of the cause and effect should be the characters, who they are as people. And the way plot and character interact in this way ought to be in keeping with the thematic ideas being explored. And the setting should be a supporting piece for plot, character, and setting.
AND all the characters should interact with each other and play certain roles that are complementary, both with each other and with the other elements of the story. I could go on and on, but let’s leave it with this: everything should be interconnected and sensitive to context.
There’s inner context, within a story. Intertextual context, between different stories (Tropes included). Then there’s the context of real life, which is a huge topic on its own, and equally important. What makes a story or character ‘relatable’ but the fact that we’ve seen it, experienced it, lived it in the real world?
The End of Tropeism
Maybe Tropeism is just a phase for writers that are still learning. Maybe Tropeist online critics are just firing off Tropeist Tweets (and CinemaSins videos …) without thinking of the consequences. Maybe everyone does understand context better than these issues would imply.
Maybe Tropeism will never end.
Maybe the amount of people who are completely absorbed in this Anti-Context mentality are in a very small but vocal minority.
I still think it’s worth countering Tropeism in all its forms. It shows itself in all sorts of subtle ways. It’s in syllabuses, internet comments, YouTube videos, writing guides, and all other places where stories are discussed.
It’s no conspiracy, it’s just a consequence of accepting business as usual. The discussions we can have about all the particulars can be exceptionally complicated. Shifting to a different way of thinking can be a long and difficult process. But in the end, the solution boils down to a simple question you can ask whenever you come across an iffy statement.
What’s the context, here?