![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Book meme! Day 7
Jul. 27th, 2010 07:21 pmDay 07 - Least favorite plot device employed by way too many books you actually enjoyed otherwise
Honorable points have to go to the woman-in-fridge and big-misunderstanding mentioned by others, and to the magic hoo-ha!
But I think my least favorite plot device employed by otherwise enjoyable books is the "suffering will make you nicer" plot.
This is really a classic fairy tale device (think King Thrushbeard, where the proud princess learns to be a humble man's wife and then finds out that, surprise, he's not really so humble). It doesn't bother me as much in fairy tales, but the more realistic a novel tries to be, the more I object to it.
Losing your money/status/good looks/power/etc. does not necessarily make you nicer or cause you to reconsider your place in the world and become more generous and giving. If you're going to do that to a character to instigate transformation, I feel like you owe me as reader some framing - who interacts with them during their suffering? what's their internal monologue about it all?
Children's and YA books are particularly prone to this when the book is a fairy tale novel. Adult fantasy often has heroines or heroes who reveal that their horrible pasts are the cause of their present niceness.
I say hooey.
( Book meme list )
Honorable points have to go to the woman-in-fridge and big-misunderstanding mentioned by others, and to the magic hoo-ha!
But I think my least favorite plot device employed by otherwise enjoyable books is the "suffering will make you nicer" plot.
This is really a classic fairy tale device (think King Thrushbeard, where the proud princess learns to be a humble man's wife and then finds out that, surprise, he's not really so humble). It doesn't bother me as much in fairy tales, but the more realistic a novel tries to be, the more I object to it.
Losing your money/status/good looks/power/etc. does not necessarily make you nicer or cause you to reconsider your place in the world and become more generous and giving. If you're going to do that to a character to instigate transformation, I feel like you owe me as reader some framing - who interacts with them during their suffering? what's their internal monologue about it all?
Children's and YA books are particularly prone to this when the book is a fairy tale novel. Adult fantasy often has heroines or heroes who reveal that their horrible pasts are the cause of their present niceness.
I say hooey.
( Book meme list )
