A Question of Tropes

So, my plan to make this blog a weekly thing has kinda already been thrown out of the window, not even three entries in!

I tried people, I tried.

So, as I was reading the other day, I had a thought. Now, in a lot of books, we all know that there are certain tropes that tend to crop up with alarming regularity. Perhaps the most prominent example I can think of would be the 'Chosen One'.

Ahhh the Chosen One. A popular trope that has cleaved its way through literature from the dawn of time to Harry Potter. Though the trope has had a considerable measure of success, as one can observe through a variety of media, it has become a victim of its own popularity, parodied to no end.

"Oh Valhadan, you have been chosen to defeat the darkness. Years of struggle and strife you shall have, loved ones you shall lose, and even then... you may die... or worse, be lumped with a horde of ungrateful bastards who have the audacity to only nod their thanks after you defeated the greatest evil their world had ever seen *cough cough* post-Voldemort death scene of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt.2 *cough cough*

Yeahhhh, hard pass on that opportunity of a lifetime I think!

Of course, though such tropes may have taken a vacation from more modern fantasy tellings, they are arguably still popular. Which ultimately gives rise to a question I've been hoping to ask you all: would you prefer a book rife with tropes? One that denies the majority of them? Or one that toes the line between familiarity and defiance?

Let me know what you think in the comments below!

- Farrell