Tropes Gone Bad | When Cliches Become Rip-Offs

Let us all take a moment to reflect on certain, familiar storyline that I’m sure many of us will recognize without much prompting:

•    A young farm boy meets an old and wise mentor who hints at having a mystical past.

•    The mentor tells the farm boy that he too shares this mystical power.

•    The farm boy flees from pursuing forces with his mentor after his family is murdered.

•    The farm boy is trained in the ways of combat and mysticism by his mentor.

•    A scruffy, adventurous character is introduced who travels with them.

•    Together, they save a princess from a terrible prison, where the old mentor meets his fate.

•    The princess leads the remainder of the team (as well as the enemy) to a hidden location that houses a rebellious force that stands to challenge an oppressive and decidedly evil government entity ruled by a half-insane man that is out to corrupt or destroy the farm boy.

•    The farm boy is called to a mysterious forest psychically by the last of their ancient, knightly order.

•    The farm boy studies under the tutelage of the master as his friends proceed to have their own adventures.

Sound familiar?  Of course it does.  It’s the story line of Christopher Paolini’s Eragon – the first book of the Inheritance Cycle.

Why?  What did you think I was talking about?

While Paolini’s debut novel series certainly contained many, many, many tropes that I found myself very fond of, the story as a whole was a direct and none-too-subtle rip-off of Star Wars.  Many have said that Star Wars itself was a rip-off of classical Greek monomyth story structures – which may be true, but at least George Lucas had the courtesy to not entirely retell a story that already existed.

The fact of the matter is, reading Eragon and its sequel, Eldest, shows that the entire storyline was just ripped and reset into a medieval atmosphere.  Star Wars with metal swords, magic, demons, dragons, and demihumans.

I honestly did enjoy the Eragon and Eldest novels, but I have no intention of reading the third book and forward.  I figure that re-watching Return of the Jedi will pretty much fill the rest of the story out.

For these reasons, I was never able to fully respect Paolini as a serious writer.  This may be because he was very young when he began the series, and was only 19 when Eragon was published.

Interestingly enough, Christopher Paolini is almost exactly 1 month older than I am.  Looking back at some of the drivel I wrote in my teenage years makes it easy for me to relate to the guy on some fundamental level.  I might even be willing to give him a second chance if and when he moves on from Inheritance into a new series of novels.

But, for now, I will have to settle for the vague illusion of good storytelling by mixing in science fiction tropes with fantasy tropes.  Good luck on your future endeavors, Mr. Paolini.

Races of Fantasy | Part One: The Origin of the Dwarf

A loyal friend – if not too loyal a reader (*shakes fist) –solicited this article based on a conversation that we had some time ago as he played a now venerable Dwarf character in D&D named Thāgor.  Yes, I’m that kind of geek as well.

Expanding on that request, I have decided to create a periodic series of articles that delves into the history and origin of classical high fantasy demihuman races that I call “Races of Fantasy.”  This first installment of the series focuses on one of my all-time favorites – the Dwarves.

As with most of the classic demihuman races, J.R.R. Tolkien set the standard for Dwarves in The Hobbit, and later, The Lord of the Rings (as well as several subsequent installments that I’m too embarrassed to mention).  This standard has been ripped off many times, and a few authors have attempted to reformat the culture of the Dwarves – all of which, in my opinion, failed miserably.

However, over the years, I have been happy to read through dozens of fantasy novels by various authors that featured the diminutive, yet fearsome and honorable, race.  From Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle to the endless novelizations of the Dungeons & Dragons shared universe, the many retellings of Tolkien’s Dwarves have won a well-deserved place in the hearts of fantasy lovers.

So how did Tolkien create such wondrous creatures as these – so intrinsically foreign yet easy to identify with?  Well, strictly speaking, he didn’t.

Dwarves as we know and love them today are indeed the brainchild of Tolkien – no arguments here.  However, Dwarves had existed long before Tolkien in the form old Scandinavian mythology – and many of their most famous traits were inspired by either those mythologies or the real-life Scandinavian cultures of history.

Let’s take a moment to examine some of these traits:

•    Great Stone & Metal Workers – The Dwarves of Middle-Earth – and by extension almost all Dwarves in the genre – were known as the greatest stone and metal workers of the world.  The Old Norse dvergr, on which the Dwarves were based, were also associated with great stone and metalwork.

•    Greed – The Dwarves of Moria, as any fantasy fan can tell you, were driven by greed to dig so deep under the mountains that they fell to ruin when they released the formidable Balrog demon.  The dvergr were also known to be greedy even unto their own destruction.

•    Beards – Dwarves have beards.  Even Dwarven women have beards – seriously, well known fact.  The dvergr, by what few classical representations we have to judge by, were also seen almost exclusively as having beards.  Did dvergr women have beards?  I don’t know, they’ve never been seen by modern men.

•    Armor – Dwarves were often seen as wearing mail and lamellar armors, as well as clad in leathers and fur.  The Vikings of Scandinavia were purported to make use of all of these in their battles and various shenanigans.

•    Helmets – Even more important than Dwarven armor, are their helmets.  The helmets of the Dwarves are blatantly obvious to have been inspired by Viking helms – with some fantasy depictions going as far as to add the stylized horns or wings.

•    Weapons – Battleaxes and warhammers are the staple weapons of almost any Dwarf imaginable.  Though the battleaxes are highly stylized – perhaps to lend credence to the Dwarven smithing abilities – they are similar to the bearded axes wielded in combat by – you guessed it – Vikings.

Warhammers, on the other hand, are a decided English style weapon.  They too were likely used by Vikings, as many Viking tools and implements of war were seized by the aforementioned shenanigans.  Also, there is a certain Norse god that wields a certain weapon of choice.

•    Deity – The god of Tolkien’s Dwarves was a wise master of smithing called Aule.  A similar figure is found in Norse mythology, known as Volundr.

•    Language – Though the language of the Tolkien’s Dwarves was apparently a jealously guarded secret, the few words that are known in Khuzdul (Khasad, Nogrod, Belegost, Nargothrond, etc.) have very similar phonetics to names and words in various Scandinavian languages.

•    Runes – Even the written language of the Dwarves, Cirth, is a runic language that looks similar to the Norse and Germanic runes still used today in magical formulae.

•    Clans – Dwarves exist almost exclusively in clan social structures.  Scandinavian and Germanic Migratory cultures, such as the Scotch and Irish, are most famous for practicing a similar clan structure.

Irrefutable evidence that Tolkien based his Dwarves from Scandinavian culture:  The names of twelve of the thirteen Dwarves from Bilbo Baggins’ party in The Hobbit, taken directly from an Old Norse tale known as Voluspa.  Oh, and Gandalf, too.

As a side note, I know that I have failed to use many special phonetic characters for both Norse and Dwarven words.  But, as I’ve said before… not your monkey.

Welcome To Tropes Of Sci-Fi & Fantasy

This post serves as little more than a bookmark – but welcome to Tropes.  In coming months, this blog will feature articles and short stories featuring the overused plot devices and character types that fans of the science fiction and fantasy genre so love… and are normally rejected outright by other publications.

I, however, have a special place in my heart for things like warp drive, elves, magic, and stories where everything is wrapped up nicely in the end… as long as you can accept that aliens did it.

Check back often!  Content will begin to appear soon!