I Got 99 Problems (and Cliches in Epic Fantasy are all of them)

  1. PROPHECY AND DESTINY
  2. Women as setting pieces or rewards
  3. Blind mimicry of J. R. R. Tolkien without the work Tolkien put in
  4. “The Chosen One”
  5. Soul mates
  6. Infodumps
  7. Blatant moral lessons
  8. Good vs. Evil
  9. The father is always the mysterious and/or missing parent
  10. Good = modeling agency hot. Evil = ugly, misshapen, disgusting, pus-oozing, etc.
  11. Villainous monologues
  12. The hero and everyone of importance are blue-bloods
  13. Women never get pregnant (unless it’s convenient for drama or to reward the hero) or have their periods
  14. Trilogies
  15. Hero easily bests people who have studied swordplay/magic/dragon-riding FOR YEARS
  16. Hero-centric morality
  17. Civilizations that haven’t moved past mail, horses, and swords for 3,000 years.
  18. Villains that wait until the last book to start crushing the hero
  19. Medieval Europe setting without the basest understanding of the culture
  20. 3rd person omniscient narration
  21. The One Black Guy who loves the hero for saving his “primitive village”
  22. Genetic magic
  23. Everyone is cisgendered, white, and heterosexual
  24. No organized religion
  25. Old, white, male mentors with long beards
  26.  “Birds singing in the trees”. If you can identify deer and rabbits, you’d better fucking name those bird species. I want to hear larks and robins and tits and jays and birds of paradise, not fucking “BIRDS”
  27. Quests
  28. The Aragorn Plot (restore the ousted heir to the throne)
  29. Automaton horses that can run for 10000000 miles without stopping
  30. “They had an intelligent/maternal/evil cast to their eyes.” EYES CANNOT CAST AND THEY DON’T CHANGE COLOR WITH MOOD ARGH
  31. Elves, dwarves, (white) humans, and goblins being the only races
  32. Maps with a sea to the west
  33. Interracial (elf/human, dwarf/elf, dragon/human) children always get the best of both parents. LIGERS RARELY LIVE BEYOND 7 BECAUSE THEY’RE SO GENETICALLY FUCKED UP. MULES CAN’T REPRODUCE. ZONIES AND ZEDONKS GET DWARFISM. YOU CANNOT TELL ME TWO DIFFERENT CHROMOSOME SETS CAN INTERACT AND PRODUCE 100% OK BABY
  34. Talking animals
  35. The Noble Cripple
  36. Kingdoms
  37. Telepathic companion animals
  38. Elemental magic
  39. One god = evil religion; goddess(es) = good religion
  40. Telepathy
  41. No trade
  42. All the fables told in-story are true
  43. Assassins who give their prey a head start “for sporting sake”
  44. Heroes/heroines whose biggest fault is being clumsy
  45. The evil uncle/vizier
  46. Extremely humanized gods/goddesses. THEY’RE CELESTIAL BEINGS YOU THINK THEY MIGHT ACT A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY THAN PEOPLE!!
  47. Magic creatures thrown in without an explanation as to where they fit in the ecology
  48. NORTH AMERICAN ANIMALS and EUROPEAN ANIMALS in the same ecosystem
  49. Long journeys that start in the fall
  50. Rivers that run uphill
  51. Mountains ranges at right angles to each other
  52. Bacteria doesn’t exist. Wounds never turn gangrenous and common illnesses like the cold and leprosy never show up
  53. Incredibly friendly/intelligent/morally good wolves, horses, big cats, and hawks/eagles
  54. Insane evil villains
  55. “The Dark Lord/One/King”
  56. The traitor with “shifty eyes”
  57. Mentor dies
  58. The hero uses a sword
  59. Hero is a naïve farm boy
  60. The hero spies on the heroine while she bathes. C-R-E-E-P-Y.
  61. Constructed languages that directly translate to English
  62. Taverns
  63. Universal literacy
  64. Incorrect heraldry. Yes, there are rULES TO WHAT YOU CAN PUT ON YOUR BANNER
  65. The library with 100000000 books IN THE EQUIVALENT OF 1200s ENGLAND
  66. Love triangles with obvious outcomes
  67. Calm, patient, do-no-harm healers and their “herbs and poultices” that can cure anything from a fever to a broken bone
  68. Purple prose-y descriptions of the landscape
  69. Breaking your own magic rules for the sake of drama
  70. Hero, his love interest, and his BFFs always live
  71. The hero’s magic dick cures all problems, from not wanting to have children to being raped to having PTSD to just not trusting people. All cured!
  72. Virgin sacrifices
  73. Rebellious princesses
  74. Wizards
  75. Using a mirror or still body of water for the character to look into and ponder their own reflection so the author can explain in minute detail what the character looks like
  76. If there is a female warrior, she will almost inevitably be an archer
  77. The horse-centric culture
  78. Children solely as morality pets
  79. Rebels = good; empire/organized state = bad
  80. Teenage heroes
  81. Placing the story in a temperate woodland bordered by an ocean
  82. Making the single continent the story takes place on the only civilized place on the entire planet
  83. Suggesting the first of X race came from “the west, over the ocean”
  84. “The Common Tongue” and “the Ancient Language”
  85. Blatant shout-outs to pop culture
  86. Bickering leads to true, long-lasting love
  87. Love at first sight
  88. No mention of how any army feeds itself
  89. The “we are not so different, you and I” speech
  90. Sheer luck and ingenuity = good; long-range planning = evil
  91. Dwarves like mining, getting drunk, hating elves, and growing big thick beards
  92. The easily-overcome sentries
  93. There are never any dwarf women or goblin women mentioned, but somehow the race is still going strong
  94. The mentor hides things from the hero for “reasons” never explained in the plot besides a “you weren’t ready yet” when NOT KNOWING the secret could have gotten the hero killed
  95. Rape as drama
  96. Bar wenches
  97. Dragonriders
  98. Red hair with green eyes
  99. Beginning to write an epic fantasy story and never finishing it because you’re lazy or nervous or afraid it’s too cliché. Think of every idea you’ve ever had and then how many ideas other Tumblr users must have had and abandoned. Imagine what all those crazy, fantastic, beautiful stories could have done to bring down the racism, sexism, and every other “-ism” found in epic fantasy. Imagine what all those funny, dark, and heartwarming stories could have done to break this incestuous cycle in the fantasy market. Now go out and write! And get published! And kick clichés up the arse!

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  7. princessofharte said: @guesswhojustt it definitely would be. OP’s advice isn’t actually advice. It’s just a list of what they don’t like, which is highly subjective. Write your story how you want to write it.
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