3 ms·

Genuinely interested, why does everything have to be a "trope" when we are discussing TV media. Can't they sometimes be character patterns?

• ShamelessC 7y ago
  I suppose trope has a negative connotation but I view them as tools in a writer's toolbox, not as an indicator of lazy writing. Having said that, tropes are usually a little more specific or identifiable than just the concept of "mean characters", so it probably wasn't the best use of the word.
  • unixhero 7y ago
    Actually it's not just this comment here, I see trope being used everywhere. Google ngram search for the word: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Trope&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CTrope%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Trope&year_sta...
    • ShamelessC 7y ago
      Why exactly are you upset by this? It's a word that describes commonly used narratives. It's incredibly common to tweak or reuse commonly known narratives and there's nothing inherently negative about that.