I have a few:

  • Chosen ones, fate, destiny, &c. When you get down to it, a story with these themes is one where a single person or handful of people is ontologically, cosmically better and more important than everyone else. It's eerily similar to that right-wing meme about how "most people are just NPCs" (though I disliked the trope before that meme ever took off).
  • Way too much importance being given to bloodlines by the narrative (note, this is different from them being given importance by characters or societies in the story).
  • All of the good characters are handsome and beautiful, while all of the evil characters are ugly and disfigured (with the possible exception of a femme fatale or two).
  • Races that are inherently, unchangeably evil down to the last individual regardless of upbringing, society, or material circumstances.
  • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    6 months ago

    "If we beat the bad guys using their own tactics, we're no better than them"

    The related trope of the hero not killing the villain after the villain has spent a whole story possibly killing, and the hero themselves just probably killed a ton of nameless goons to get to the villain, drives me up a wall