Q: Hi, I was wondering what are the common problematic tropes that you see in book?

Q: Hi, I was wondering what are the common problematic tropes that you see in book? 

A: Hey there! Thank you so much for asking this question; the short answer to your question is, I’m not sure ^^”

I’ve written lots of articles about problematic tropes (mainly when it comes to indigenous cultures), and the main one that comes to me is them being “savages”.

This one is straightforward: the main hero discovers a tribe of natives. The natives become hostile, barbaric savages—you get the point. They attack the hero, the hero defends themselves, and the story moves on.

Why is this one so bad in particular? What I just described was Christopher Columfuck's encounter with my people (the Taíno) and his discovery of Native Americans.

Indigenous people throughout history have always been shown as uncivilised. They attack the good people of [INSERT COLONISER COUNTRY HERE], so when we see this pop up in media, it kind of reinforces the stereotypes that all indigenous people are savages.

Now, let’s move on to disability. Disability tropes aren’t my thing, but if you have any disability questions about writing, I’d highly recommend going to the Cy-Cyborg Tumblr page and typing in the hashtag (#Writing disability with Cy Cyborg), as there’ll be several posts about disability tropes.

However, since it’s Disability Pride Month (This article was originally written in July of 2023), let’s talk about the “Being Disabled Is A Fate Worse Than Death” trope. This trope is written in a way that being disabled is so horrible the only thing you can do to escape it is to either kill yourself or let fate have mercy on your poor soul and take your life instead.

Such examples could be found if you watch the movie “Me Before You,” where the entire plot of the film is the main character is a billionaire who’s disabled, despite having all of the money in the world, despite falling in love, he hates being disabled so much he kills himself.

The second example is what happened to Snowkit from the Warriors series.

Snowkit is barely even a character, but it is notable in that it was the first deaf-named character in the series. They died in a single chapter because of their disability after a hawk garbed them. Several characters within the story claimed this was for the best. Keep in mind this is a children's story. If a deaf child saw this, it would send a message they could never be warriors and that they're better off dead.

There are several other problematic tropes in media, like the “Damsels in Distress”, which is pretty bad, or the reverse damsel in distress, where a hot woman kicks ass but is just there for the male gaze. (Think of any Michael Bay movie)

And here’s one that might shock you: “Love at First Sight/True Love Kiss” (Think of any Disney movie). The main character often has never been in a relationship before, finds the partner of their dream, and lives happily ever after. The problem is that love is messy, and the number of people staying with their first partner is so low I don’t think they’ll even appear on a stat board.

This trope teaches people (mainly children and teens) that their first love will be the love for them; it’ll be perfect, and when it doesn’t work, they get depressed, like really depressed. So yeah, in a way, I’ll add this as problematic for giving several teens false hope in their first love.

If you want to know more about any trope or writing question, please let me know, and I’ll do my best to answer it.