Cliche Fantasy

Yeah, there are so many books with that word in the title, i.e. "The White Dragon, Dragon Slayer, The Dragon Hatchling, The *insert adjective here* Dragon, etc."

Rjjr_vectra wrote:I do agree with Eragon, but I never read LOTR (for angry mobs, dial 1-800-TOO-BAD) so maybe my first impression of it was "cool". Eldest did get better though, and I'm waiting for the third one.

You ain't missin' anything. Don't tell Cpt. Smurf I said that, though.

I've really not read anything besides Eragon that was so painfully cliche.

It's hard to pick out which books are cliche and which aren't because it's up to the author on how he/she presents the character. I mean, every fantasy novel has SOME cliche in it. LIke Harry potter has wizards, trolls and goblins. All of which are considered "cliche" Yet, the way JK rowling tackled the subject is impressive.

Even Twilight is cliche. Honestly, the whole vampire-werewolf rivalry is cliche..along with a vampire falling for a human...they're all "cliche" in a broad sense of the word. yet all of them are well written..I think that's what makes the difference.

I havent read Eragon and after going through some of the responses..I dont think I will..hah

I wouldn't say anything 'dragon' is cliche. I've written stories about dragoons that have lots of detail and originality in them. I personally take many shots at those people who do not clearly understand what a dragon is or use such terms befitting a wyrm or a drake or even a wyvern. Most notably Eragon for being horrible cliche, but even other sources of work like Harry Potter completely missed the point with the dragons and used them in a poor sense. Mindless creatures that are filled with rage and highly aggressive.

Also Tolkien set a horrible cliche for dragons and all adventure stories from then on, ooh the treasure horde of the dragon in the hobbit! Seriously, if you are going to a good dragon story at least go with Norse Mythology about Fafnir or maybe Nidhogg before even attempting to put dragons as these horrible lizard beasts with wings that are in almost every story.

Cliche stories exist and its funny that the OP creates this as by far the Moon Children and Faith, Courage, Joy and even the Skeletal Hand are all highly cliche themselves. Easily topping Eragon for its cliches. Thats not a cheap shot, but just an observation on my part!

Sumi H. Inkblot wrote:

Rjjr_vectra wrote:I do agree with Eragon, but I never read LOTR (for angry mobs, dial 1-800-TOO-BAD) so maybe my first impression of it was "cool". Eldest did get better though, and I'm waiting for the third one.

You ain't missin' anything. Don't tell Cpt. Smurf I said that, though.

I've really not read anything besides Eragon that was so painfully cliche.

I see and hear all. Having said that, I'm willing to forgive Sumi's dislike of LOTR in favour of our mutual loathing of Eragon *forms Inheritance-Haters usergroup, gets rebuked by admins for starting a hate group, slags Inheritance off behind closed doors*

And dragons can be used exactly how the author wants them to. I would have thought that Tolkein had broken away from the cliche by creating his own type of dragon - that of an intelligent and clever being. I don't think Rowling missed the point - her dragons fulfilled the point they were there to make. Furthermore, I don't think Rowling's dragons are 'Mindless creatures that are filled with rage and highly aggressive.' Norbert isn't particularly aggressive, he just does what is natural to him. And the Hungarian Horntail in GOF is merely doing what any wild animal would do if some ignorant human tried to get close to her young/eggs - protecting them. They are portrayed as natural, wild animals - which is one of the best ways I like dragons to be portrayed.

I think the distinction we need to make is the difference between mythological (old school dragons, the originals, thousands of years old, etc.) and fantasy (newer, modern, from the author's own head) dragons. Dragons, like vampires, werewolves, minotaurs, etc. have evolved from creatures of mythology only, into now being included in the genre of fantasy. Being creatures of fantasy, any author can take them and change different aspects of them to suit their own needs. And they do this with fantasy dragons, not those from mythology. I have never seen an author attempt to change a mythological dragon. And, surely, in creating a new type of dragon, this is the only way to ensure originality - not using dragons that have already long been created.

Wow, that was a long post.

Lord of the Rings started all the cliches. Every fantasy writer worth his salt borrows from Tolkein these days.

I do find it interesting that so many cliches seem to be a matter of dates. As in who wrote it first. I once watched a very, very, VERY old Superman cartoon with my dad, and of course the Man of Steel said something dumbly heroic, and I (in all my 12-year-old wisdom) said "That's so cliche!" Dad replied, "Not if it's the first time."

So...yeah...was there a point there?

Oh, also, can we keep the Eragon-hate here to a minimum? There are other places into which to vent your Paolini-rage, and while I'm not what you'd call a fan of his, there comes a point when we get the point, if you know what I mean.

Never read Eragon, but I saw the movie. I could predict almost every event, so damn cliche and stereotypical.

I don;t think it's the cliche of the plot and characters (or the pointy hats) I think that an author can turn any cliche into a beautiful story. Sometimes the cliche hats, robes and villains make the book better, if the author adds his or her own flair. For example: Harry Potter is an awesome story, JK Rowling puts a lot of her own stuff, the wizard school seems cliche by now, but she actually came up with that, along with the moving pictures, platform 9 3/4 and all that jazz. If you put that together with the pointy hats and wise old wizards you get a pretty cool story.

Besides Eragon (worst fantasy ever... even the names of the characters are taken from LoTR.. eragon-aragorn, arya-arwen)

there is a series called 'the lost years of merlin' by ta barron that has every cliche in it. seriously. I don't normally read fantasy but my grandma bought them for me. lol.

CLICHES MAKE ALL THE STORIES WE READ. EVEN LOTR IS CLICHE. Hey where do you think Tolkien got the idea of the dragon and all those hobbits and so on and so on. some people might get angry about this but Lotr is as Cliche as Eragon. PERIOD!.

dude your being really stupid. Tolkien made the ideas, and all the fantasy people copied him afterwords because his novels are considered the best fantasy of all time. Eragon is nothing, NOTHING, compared to LoTR. PERIOD!.

Tolkien wrote some of the earlier fantasy, before there were really any cliches. all the cliches are based after his writing, dummy. most of them, at least.

I pretty much live on Fantasy, so just to begin with regarding some of the stuff others have mentioned.

LOTR - seriously? I mean, how stupid are you? How unbelievably ignorant can you be? You can say you don't like it. You can say its not for you. You can say its overrated. But under no circumstances, EVER, can you say that it is cliche. Tolkien all but gave birth to the fantasy genre in the 20th Century, or rather, facilitated its rebirth.

Wheel of Time - Contains two cliche elements. A prophesied Chosen One and a Dark Lord on the verge of breaking free. However, those two elements are twisted in a very unique way and the sheer breadth and rich variety of characters and ingenious subplots makes this series the greatest achievement in fantastic literature - if not surpassing, then at least equaling Tolkien's masterpiece.

Sword of Truth, Terry Goodkind - A spectacular work. Just phenomenal. Extraordinarily inventive, with a mix of old and new; great characterisation and wonderful realism/pragmatism within the characters. In this series you won't find such nonsense as 'Oh, you destroyed my village, raped my nation, but I don't want to become like you, so I'm going to let you go' - that type of character reaction is not only gay and unrealistic, its just bloody annoying. No, in this series, the hero kills.

I find it both amusing and aggravating that in a thread regarding "cliche" fantasy, some of the best stuff to date was listed. If you aren't a fan of the fantasy genre; if you don't read it, think it, live it, dream it - you really aren't qualified to speak on its faults, because you don't truly know the subject matter. I don't read cliche fantasy. I can tell, just from the blurb, whether it will be any good or not. Its fairly easy to avoid such things if you know fantasy.

Leave Eragon alone it may be cliche but not as much as some other stories. Jeesh.... Anyways don't judge the book by the movie.. the movie sucked. I love all dragons both bad and evil. anywayz so what if the names are stolen Paolini isn't the first one to do so. The book is good eldest even better. I even like some cliches, like Terry Pratchet. Get off eragon it is not the most cliche book ever, I know many books more cliche. Now as for dragons... dragons are cliche, I will accept that if all of you accept the fact that also elves, trolls, gnomes, pixies, witches, wizards, princesses, princes, kings, queens, giant monsters etc. are ALL CLICHE.

CLICHES MAKE ALL THE STORIES WE READ. EVEN LOTR IS CLICHE. Hey where do you think Tolkien got the idea of the dragon and all those hobbits and so on and so on. some people might get angry about this but Lotr is as Cliche as Eragon. PERIOD!.

starrynight89 wrote:Even Twilight is cliche. Honestly, the whole vampire-werewolf rivalry is cliche..along with a vampire falling for a human...they're all "cliche" in a broad sense of the word. yet all of them are well written..I think that's what makes the difference.

"Even Twilight"? Twilight was the most horrible book, second only to Inheritance Trilogy in cliches, I ever read.

And Anzius, Eragon is the most cliched book evar, with the possible exception of Eldest. Plus, the dialogue and character development sucks, and when you can see that the villain is actually not so bad, what's the point of the story?

Someone on here had a brilliant comparison of Eragon and Star Wars, I'll try to reproduce it.

Princess Leia is being chased by Darth Vader, manages to send the Death Star blueprints off in time to be safe. Luke Skywalker finds R2-D2, who contains the blueprints. His uncle and aunt die because of the bad guys, their house burnt up and shtuffs. He travels with Obi-Wan Kenobi, who gives him his lightsaber and trains him how to use it. Obi-Wan turns out to be a former Jedi, and dies. Big, final, dramatic battle to destroy the Death Star, and the day is saved by Luke flying in a spaceship.

Princess Arya is being chased by a Shade or whatever, manages to send the dragon egg off in time to be safe. Eragon finds the egg, and hatches Saphira. His uncle and aunt or whoever the hell they were die because of the bad guys, their house burnt up and shtuffs. He travels with Brom, who gives him his sword and trains him how to use it. Brom turns out to be a former Dragon Rider, and dies. Big, final dramatic battle to protect whatever the crap it is again, and the day is saved by Eragon flying on Saphira.

Oh yeah, and Murtagh=Han Solo, though Paolini makes Murtagh evil to shake things up a bit. How original.

Can YOU spot the cliche?

What I mean about Galbatorix not being that bad is kind of obvious if you take a moment to consider anything he's actually done wrong. In fact, the main bad things he does is make people pay taxes (oooh, wow, evil), and have his soldiers wear black (AAAA OMG EVIL).

Also, not "PERIOD!". Where do I think Tolkien got hobbits and stuff from? I'll tell you where, folklore, and he used that folklore to create an new and engaging story. (don't kill me, Sumi, I'm just basing that on what everyone else says, I still haven't read it. XD)

Then, everyone copied him. In fact, even if he was alive right now, wrote it right now, and released it right now, it would still be original, because despite having orcs, and hobbits, and elves, all that, it has a unique plot and all, and that's all that really matters!

ok here we go, lets try and not get killed...

first LOTR, all i have to say is that it is NOT cliche in any way. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis were the two first real writers of fantasy(as far as i know) and most of the material they got for the stories came from mythology and folklore (and alot of Tolkien's stuff is right out of saxon folklore) or right out of their heads. I dont see how this is in anyway cliche. Besides which, as i sead before he started teh genre and thus the cliches too.

Now for Eragon. I like eragon. and a fact that most of you seem to be missing is that the author was fifteen when he started writing it and eighteen when it was published. So he is incredibly young and his writing abilities havent developed, also he doesnt have teh experience the older writers like, Salvotore, Rowling, and Jordan have. They all have writen alot of books and are very skilled writers, i would even argue that they may be some of the best in the field today, but Paolini doesn't have that experience, so i understand that you call it cliche but personally i think the books are amazingly for the age of the author.

Like it or not thats my opinion. and for me the most cliche book is... all of the conan books. They are expertly writen but the story is the same with the sxception of the bad guy. Conan is always stronger than everyone else, he always kills everyone so easy that it almost gets boring. Oh, and then he always has a different girl in every book, either a whore or a very rich slut.

Oh, Paolini. So young, so naive. Honestly, i hate it when people bring up Paolini's age. There are writers on here younger and better than he. Bottom line is: he wouldn't even be published if it weren't for his parents.

So take heart, young ones. All you need are connections!

~Annie