We've all heard someone say and or said ourselves that we hate a specific trope or cliche in a movie or show. If you think long enough, you can probably think of at least one that you'd say this about for whatever reason you might have. But what if I told you...it's not necessarily the trope/cliche that you have a problem with...but the way that it's done? Trope and cliches become so because they are part of storytelling, and you can't really remove them as easily as people might want to. You can boil down pretty much every story to its barest form and you'll find that most stories follow the same pattern. However, rather than the average person saying that they're terrible and boring (those who do just need to lighten up just a bit and come down from their high horse) we still enjoy these stories that are basically being told over and over again.
What makes us love these movies/shows/books/games isn't that they necessarily do anything revolutionary with the formula, but rather that they spin the formula into a different and interesting way. Every hero should follow the path of the hero's journey to show the audience where they came from, how they learned what they needed to, what they did with that knowledge and skill and finally where their story ends (gross oversimplification, but this isn't about the hero's journey). The amount of times the hero's journey is used is enough to be considered a trope, but most people will agree that the hero should follow it to make them a well-written character.175Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡipkhqmV6yC
Other famous tropes include things like the evil advisor who plans to overthrow their master and the wise old mentor. Both extremely classic characters that are in a not unsignificant amount of media with characters such as Jafar, Wormtongue, Dumbledore and Gandalf respectively. People still love these characters and the fact they fall into these tropes doesn't hurt the character because they are unique in their own ways. 175Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeoU8toLPNt
This entire part is more like an offshoot of the part where I said that originality is practically impossible these days, but I want to build upon that. Being original doesn't mean that you have to create something that is 100% unique with nothing like it, but rather taking a tried and tested trope/cliche and twisting it to make it yours. Even then, it might not be 100% unique but there's still a few things that you might figure out to make your character/situation unique enough for your satisfaction.175Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuwwbrDcUSI
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