Subverting Fantasy Tropes

[Valhalla Erikson]

Has anyone ever took a common trope in the fantasy genre and completely change it to make what was a cliche into something more interesting? If so what kind of changes? 

I have a story I am working on that the wise mentor who would guide the protagonist isn't a kind and super good mentor. In fact the reasons why he'd go out of his way to train the protagonist are pretty selfish. Prior to becoming the mentor of the heroic MC he was a Dark Lord who got overthrown by someone who wanted to claim his position as The Dark Lord.

[Alatariel]

Apr 6, 2024 22:36:10 GMT -6 Valhalla Erikson said:

Has anyone ever took a common trope in the fantasy genre and completely change it to make what was a cliche into something more interesting? If so what kind of changes? 

I have a story I am working on that the wise mentor who would guide the protagonist isn't a kind and super good mentor. In fact the reasons why he'd go out of his way to train the protagonist are pretty selfish. Prior to becoming the mentor of the heroic MC he was a Dark Lord who got overthrown by someone who wanted to claim his position as The Dark Lord.

My OG fantasy world was build around subverting ALL the tropes (originally) but it had to change as I wrote the story. 

I wanted a world with a female MC and I wanted to write YA, so I made her as old as possible for YA which would be 19. Once a character is 20, it's technically an adult novel. She's in college, not high school, and she gets transported to a fantasy world with her academic nemesis- also a girl, not a hot guy. I wanted an assassin character who has never killed anyone and who never wants to kill anyone and who ultimately chooses a completely different path, giving up everything he's ever been taught in order to do what he believes is right. I wanted a fantasy world with new emerging technology based in around an energy source that used to be considered magic but it's now understood to just be a type of energy derived from the world itself and not so mysterious. With science and study comes understanding. I wanted an antagonist who wasn't evil and who would later be reformed but is doing things for his own understandable reasons. I wanted a world without war among humans and the different species are finally forming an alliance after the marginalized species won the war 15 years ago. 

I still have all of that! And honestly, writing it all down makes me excited to dive back into it. I put it on the back-burner because I got discouraged. I didn't think it was good enough. But I think I should try again to breathe life into it.

Thanks!

[ScintillaMyntan]

You could say the low fantasy I'm working on subverts the trope of magical main characters in general by having the protagonist have hardly any direct dealings with the magic. It's mostly about her psychological relationship with the fantastical phenomena from a distance.

[saintofm]

Tolken surprisingly enough did this with his work. Bilbo and several of the dwarven characters complain during the trek about roughing it out in nature, something that would be unheard of prior to him. He also didn't focus a lot on the war scenes, especially when compared to his contemporaries or say the films as he lived though war (the War to End All Wars in fact) as a soldier in the trenches and didn't see any glory in war.

I haven't read it, but A Connecticut Yankee in King Aurther's Court does some subversion as the story is meant to be a critique on how the lower classes end up getting themselves manipulated by the upper ones, and used medieval times to emphasis this.

Star Wars also has some of it as outside of the pristine cities like Upper Crust Curosant or Cloud City, its a very dirty grimy lived in world (Han's go to fix for the Millenium Falcon in Empire Strikes Back is to hit it till it works).