Cliché Storm: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"At this point the turbolift opens, revealing [[Cowboy Cop|a cop-on-the-edge who doesn't play by the rules]], [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|a greedy corporate big-wig looking to get rich]] [[Green Aesop|by poisoning the water supply,]] and [[Uncle Tomfoolery|a skinny black guy]] whose job it is [[Jive Turkey|to say 'Dayymn!' and refer to 'My black ass!']]"''
|'''[[SF Debris]]''', reviewing the ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' episode "Twisted"}}
You are watching something like ''[[Starship Troopers (film)|Starship Troopers]] 2: Hero of the Federation'' and it strikes you that you have heard every single line of this somewhere else. Every trope is presented without [[Subverted Trope|irony]] or [[Lampshade Hanging|acknowledgment]]. ''All'' the situations and setups are clipped out of another story and pasted in as-is.
You are in a '''Cliché Storm'''. Do not worry. The pain will soon pass. A bug will soon scrag the [[Ensign Newbie|inept Lieutenant]]. Security will soon come to the perimeter. [[You Shall Not Pass|The line will soon be held]]. It will be over, soon.
Remember, this is [[Tropes Are Not Bad|not always a bad thing]]
See also [[A Space Marine Is You]], a specific form of a Cliché Storm; see also [[Deconstructor Fleet]], for works that tear through dozens of tropes en route from Cliché Storm to originality. Compare [[Medieval European Fantasy]], a common setting in some Cliché Storms. Compare [[Strictly Formula]], [[Reconstruction]]. Compare and contrast [[Troperiffic]], which is a more fun version of this trope, although the lines between the two are blurry and kind of subjective.
An important thing to note is that, as we enter the 21st century, the sheer number of works created makes it nearly impossible to write something "original". Also, our ability to securely store books and films in libraries makes it easy to access old works. That can make the newer material ''appear'' to be cliché storms, simply because we could see the similarity to countless older stories. With all that,
{{examples}}
▲== Anime/Manga ==
* This is the ''point'' of ''[[Kujibiki Unbalance]].'' In fact, many examples of [[Show Within a Show]] are full of clichés, possibly so that they seem "more fictional" than the show they're part of.
* See also ''[[Gekiganger 3]]'' from ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' which is even more of an example. Practically every attack and character is lifted from some famous [[Super Robot]] series, mostly ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' (for robot design and attacks) and ''[[Getter Robo]]'' (the characters and just about everything else).
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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* [[Rob Liefeld|Rob Liefeld's]] infamous ''Youngblood'' featured a team whose only [[Badass Normal|non-powered member]] was also its leader, several Wolverine [[Captain Ersatz|rip-offs]] including a [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]], characters layered in [[Too Many Belts|pouches]] and [[Shoulders of Doom|shoulderpads]], [[Dark Age of Supernames|names]] like "Darcangel" and "Badrock," gun-toting [[Nineties Anti-Hero|anti-heroes]] with religious-sounding names (the hot new character when the book debuted was Marvel's gun-toting antihero
* The ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' and ''[[Angel]]'' comics, which continue the story after both series end, reuse a good number of the best one-liners and comebacks from the TV episodes. They're meant to invoke familiarity, but the problem is that they end up doing them way too often. After the nth [[Meaningful Echo]], you start to wonder if the writers can come up with any new witty dialogue.
* Well Spoken Sonic Lightning Flash briefly notes that "they thought of everything! No cliche left unturned!" when he sees his team's new headquarters in ''Final Crisis Aftermath: DANCE''. The series itself doesn't exemplify the trope, however, nor does the team.
== Fan
* [[In-Universe]] in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes:
* Parodied in the [[Harry Potter]] fic ''When in Doubt, Obliviate'' when Snape took exception to several standard cliches during a teacher's meeting.
{{quote|'''Snape''': "I'm not going to start off irrationally hating Potter because of his parents even if he did make a pained face and cover his eyes the minute he saw me."
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'''Dumbledore''': "Well, now I think you're just limiting yourself. Would it really be so bad if that did happen?"
'''Snape''': "It doesn't really matter if it would or would not be since it ''won't''. And finally, I will most certainly not become his favorite teacher and or his mentor. I simply will not do it and this will not become an inspirational story. It will not." }}
* ''[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/6878/A-Perfectly-Ordinary-Day-in-Ponyville A Perfectly Ordinary Day in Ponyville]'' is a ''[[My Little Pony:
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* Surely [[Video Game Movies Suck|part of the reason]] for the catastrophic bomb dive of ''[[Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within|Final Fantasy the Spirits Within]]'' was that, outside of the [[Uncanny Valley]] CG characters, the writers seem to have simply taken the [[The Lifestream|Gaia theory]] philosophy from ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' and mined the rest of the script straight from ''[[Aliens]]''.
{{quote|''"All right, Deep EYES, this is a [[Bug War|bug hunt]]! You heard the man and you know the drill... lock'n'load, move out, and [[Stay Frosty]]!"''}}
* ''[[Dungeons
* The complete filmography of Roland Emmerich, [[Michael Bay]], and Stephen Sommers, but [[Tropes Are Not Bad|that's not to say they aren't entertaining]].
** Sommers in particular [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] the hell out of this. In his commentary for ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy Returns]]'', he notes that if you have a jungle full of ruins, you ''have'' to have shrunken heads.
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** So did [[Street Fighter (film)|the original movie]], but unlike ''Legend of Chun Li'', [[So Bad It's Good|it didn't suck as hard]].
* The 2007 hard sci-fi epic ''[[Sunshine (film)|Sunshine]]'' borrows heavily from both ''2001'' and ''2010'', along with a host of other influences in the serious science fiction family of movies. The movie works though, mostly because you don't see its type very often anymore.
* ''[[Sleepover]]''. Mind you, it ''is'' a preteen chick flick comedy, but this is ridiculous. It doesn't help that most of the actresses are fresh out of Barbizon and don't even realize how many [[Dead Horse Trope
* Parodied in ''[[Loaded Weapon 1]]'' with this exchange:
{{quote|Gen. Morters: Where's the microfilm, Mike?
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Mike McCracken: What you see is what you get.
Gen. Morters: Loose lips, sink ships...
Mike McCracken: [[The Beatles (band)|Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing or fighting, my friend.]]
''[Gen. Morters, cornered, looks to Mr. Jigsaw]''
''[Mr. Jigsaw consults Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, shakes his head]''
Gen. Morters: Sorry Mike, no good. }}
* Discussed in ''[[Serenity]]'' as the setup for an action punchline:
{{quote|'''The Operative''': "The Alliance isn't [[The Empire|some evil Empire]]; he is ''not'' [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|the plucky hero]]; this is ''not'' the grand arena--"
'''Inara''': "--and that's not incense."
''BOOM!'' }}
** Oddly enough, The Alliance ''is'' an evil empire, and Mal ''is'' the plucky hero and the rest of the movie goes pretty well as you would expect, albeit with enough emotional twists and turns to engage the audience.
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* ''[[Resident Evil]]: Apocalypse'' contains so many cliches from every zombie, sci-fi and buddy action film in the past ten years before release that it is near impossible to find something original in the film.
* ''[[Alpha and Omega]]''. Entire movie in a nutshell: Male falls in love with female. Male realizes he can't be with female because their love is forbidden due to them being different. Male and female get captured, wake up in a new location, and have to find their way home. Then throw in a bunch of kiddie humor during their adventure. Male and female finally arrive home, but the female dies. Oh wait, she didn't actually die. Male and female, despite their differences, fall in love, and live happily ever after. The end.
* [[Roger Ebert]]'s review of ''[[Stargate (film)|Stargate]]'' was basically [https://web.archive.org/web/20130311122751/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=
* The trailer for the new Steven Soderbergh actioner ''[[Haywire]]'' (starring MMA hottie Gina Carano) promises a cliché storm the likes of which even God has never seen, despite a terrific supporting cast including Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas and Michael Douglas.
* ''National Lampoon's Senior Trip'' is the bad/lazy version of this as the entire [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|class]] is just one big checklist of student cliches from the [[High School Hustler]] leader to [[The Stoner]] sidekick(s) to the [[Schoolgirl Lesbians]] with special emphasis on [[Big Fun|Miosky,]] who's trying everything in his power to be the next John Belushi, plus [[Politically Incorrect Hero|"date a blonde Jap."]] The ''only'' saving graces to this film is Matt Frewer as their [[Badly-Battered Babysitter|teacher,]] [[Lilo and Stitch|Kevin]] [[The Kids in The Hall|McDonald]] playing an [[Ax Crazy]] Star Trek fan out to kill them and [[Tara Strong|Carla]] [[Catch Phrase|asking guys if they "want to screw."]]
* ''[[Christian Mingle]]''. E. Reid Ross of ''[[Cracked.com]]'' wrote in [http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/4-reasons-new-christian-mingle-movie-will-be-hilarious/ 4 Reasons the New Christian Mingle Movie Will Be Hilarious] that the trailer of this film "May Have Set the All-Time Record for Cliches".
* ''[[The Scarecrow (2000 film)|The Scarecrow]]'' by Richard Rich has been criticized for being too similar to a [[Disney]] movie, namely ''[[Beauty and the Beast (1991 film)|Beauty and the Beast]]''. [[Tropes Are Not Bad|It's far from being horrible, though]] - the animation is surprisingly good, and the main villain Grisham is just different enough from Gaston to stand out ([[Large Ham|though no less hammy]]).
==
* [[Defied Trope|Defied]] by ''[[Codex Alera]]''. Yes, it is a story about a [[Farm Boy]] who becomes a sword-wielding badass, learns the magic system, gets a hot girlfriend, saves the world from an [[
* ''[[In The Hall Of The Dragon King]]'' by Stephen Lawhead fits this to a T. Peasant boy who becomes heir to the throne? Check. Old, wise mentor figure? Check. [[Supporting Leader]]? Check. Completely evil, slightly insane villain who wants to take over the world? Check. [[Evil Prince]]? Check. Liberal use of both the [[Idiot Ball]] and [[Villain Ball]]? Check. Despite all that, [[Tropes Are Not Bad|it's still a rather well written book]].
* The ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]'' often comes across as this. One of main reasons [[The Film of the Book|the movie]] was worse was that it took anything vaguely original from the book and replaced it with [[Narm
** Christopher Paolini actually said at one point that he was attempting to pay homage to the vast store of high fantasy archetypes. Given that he said this about a book he wrote when he was in his early teens, and that that was the least painful book of the series, this troper is inclined to believe that he actually just writes really clichéd works.
* The ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series. Everything from a common man of [[Luke, I Am Your Father|mysterious lineage]], to a [[The Obi-Wan|wise old wizard]] with robes and white hair, to a character that was turned into a small, fanatical creature when deprived of the artifact that was precious to him. The live-action TV adaptation (''[[Legend of the Seeker]]'') is, if possible, worse.
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** Unfortunately all of his works have a more than certain familiarity to each other...
* ''[[Maximum Ride]]''. So what if you've never read it? In some form, you already have.
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' is notorious for being mistaken as a
* Nicely [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] and then subverted in the [[Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms]] series by [[Mercedes Lackey]]. Here, the "cliche storm" is almost literal: a metaphysical force called The Tradition which gathers around significant events and people, directing magical energy to flow in [[Archetype|archetypal]] directions and following certain tropes that have been set down through folklore and that consequently reinforce themselves by inspiring even ''more'' folklore! Characters throughout the series find themselves guided by, opposed by, and sometimes rebelling against The
* ''[[Jim Springman and the Realm of Glory]]'' has a [[Show Within a Show|book within a book]] that purports to be about 'A unique fantasy world of hope and fear, good and evil, beauty and barbarity', where 'A teenager armed only with a magic sword and a stout heart takes up this impossible quest'. The (fictional) book is filled with cliches.
* ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'': [[Mary Sue|Awkward, clumsy girl]] moves to new school and is instantly adored by all? ''Check''. New girl falling in love with the [[Relationship Sue|hottest (cough) guy in school]]? ''Check''. Hot boy falls in love with new girl? ''Check''. Girl is so in luv she will do anything for her twu wuv? ''Check''. And that's just the beginning...
* Grahame Coats of ''[[Anansi Boys]]'' is a walking
* Played with in George R. R. Martin's story ''The Hedge Knight''. It begins with every possible cliched circumstance around a knight joining a tournament. Then every single element of the story is revealed to actually be something else.
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'''Sam:''' Nothing ventured, nothing gained. }}
*** Then Vala says "Life is too short", a statement repeated throughout the episode (and Daniel and Vala's {{spoiler|time-erased relationship}}) but supposedly forgotten when the [[Reset Button]] was hit. Suggesting, interestingly, that somehow Vala remembers what happened.
* [[McLeaned|Col. Blake]] of ''[[
{{quote|'''Trapper:''' Welcome to the Henry Blake Cliche Festival.}}
* ''[[Prison Break]]''
* ''The Post-Modern Prometheus'' in ''[[The X-Files]]'' is one giant, spiral-sliced, and deliciously smoked ham.
* ''[[Legend of the Seeker]]'' is a fantasy cliche ''hurricane''.
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** That's because the episode was an [[Affectionate Parody]] of the old Universal monster movies, right down to the way it's shot.
* Alton Brown's commentary in ''[[Iron Chef America]]'' have been this from the start. The Chairman's conversations with the challenger have turned into this.
* ''[[The A-Team]]'' is an example of an effectively ''fun''
* The ''[[Charmed]]'' episode "Chick Flick" parodies all the typical slasher movie cliches when a demon releases psycho killers from horror movies and sends them after the sisters. Since their powers don't work on the killers, the sisters have to follow the typical cliches. And there's a nice little shout out to ''Psycho''.
{{quote|'''Piper:''' "I'm being stalked by psycho killers and I hide in the shower?"}}
* ''[[Perfect Disaster]]''. A short [[Mockumentary]]-styled [[Documentary]] series that focuses on horrible natural
* In the season 3 finale of ''[[Leverage]]'', the team writes a speech for a politician that is intentionally made up of nothing but political speech cliches. The public eats it up.
** Granted, it was a small country with a one-party democracy, so the public wasn't yet disillusioned with political cliches, and the team took advantage.
* ''[[T. J. Hooker]]'' is very guilty of being this for cop shows. Every storyline, you've seen before. All of the character types and stereotypes are here. The villians tend to have no characterization, largely being [[Complete Monster|inhumane monsters]]. The show is such a
* ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'' has an episode when Rory is moving into her college dorm and another student has lost a bet between him and his girlfriend and must only speak in cliches. A cliche storm follows.
== Music ==
* The careers of many pop-punk
* [[The Beatles (band)|The Beatles]]' song "I Will". Still a pretty song, though.
* The charity single "Just Stand Up!" Justified in that the song was written so that sales could go to the cause (''Just Stand Up For Cancer'') and for inspirational purposes, and therefore wasn't intended to be original.
* Every line of Cascada's "Every Time We Touch." You know, we could just place the last nail in the coffin and admit that the weather forecast for every pop music station is 100% chance of Cliche Storm. Forever.
* The story of the Mannheim Steamroller album and TV special ''The Christmas Angel: A Family Story'' seems built from a list of Christmas fantasy cliches: [[The Nutcracker (theatre)|living toys]] (including a teddy bear, a [[Frosty the Snowman|snowman]], and a [[Babes in Toyland|toy soldier]]); a [[How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (novel)|monster who hates the holiday]], wrecks the town square and steals the eponymous angel from the top of its Christmas tree to ruin everything (because it represents the spirit of the holiday); a trip by the heroine and toys to the icy north to confront him; and a happy ending wherein the villain is reformed by the power of goodness.
* [[Celine Dion]]'s albums are a veritable clichefest. Her first seven albums (not counting her Christmas Album) feature no fewer than 27 songs with the word love in the title. That's about 1/5th of the songs she recorded. She outdid herself on "The Colour of My Love" where half of the songs (and the title of the album) feature the word love.
** Toto are pretty similar; about half their songs follow the formula of 'I love you very much <insert female name as title of song>.' It got so bad, they named one song (admittedly a good one) ''99''. On their second album.
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* The lyrics Cosmos' ([[Dark Reprise|and Chaos']]) themes in ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'' might as well have been a long list of cliched fantasy phrases run through a computer algorithm and edited by a non-native English Speaker. [[Tropes Are Not Bad|The songs are still catchy]], though they owe far more to the [[Crowning Music of Awesome|kickass score]] and excellent performance than the written content.
* [[Michael Jackson]] could fall into this.
** His last large-scale video, "You Rock My World", is a rehash of elements from his ''Bad''/''Dangerous''-era videos: 1930s/'40s gangster motif ("Smooth Criminal"), Jackson having to prove he's tough ("Bad"
** While many regard it as a tearjerker, "Gone Too Soon" is really just a list of tired similes ("Like a perfect flower/That is just beyond your reach/Gone too soon").
* Most of [[Tenacious D]]'s songs are made of Cliche Storms. [[Tropes Are Not Bad|Not that that makes them any less awesome...]]
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== Tabletop Games ==
* Official ''[[Dungeons
* Hey, look! It's another [[Euro Game]] about farming, trading, or something set in medieval times.
* Hey, look! It's another American game about fantasy, combat, or something set in ''fantasy'' medieval times.
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== Video Games ==
* ''[[
** The ''Wings of Liberty'' campaign itself isn't much better. The characters are, at best, paper-thin
** This is exacerbated by the fact that not only is it a cliche storm on its own, its plot is the exact same cliche storm you saw in the previous Blizzard RTS. [[Play the Game, Skip the Story|Not that people noticed]].
* ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]''. This may have been part of its charm; damn near everyone that played the game loved it. The cliché storm came at a time where every other RPG in a five year radius -- [[Follow the Leader|following the lead]] of ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]''
** ''[[Grandia (video game)|Grandia]]'', a much earlier RPG, may well have beaten ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]'' to the decision to stop trailing after ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]''... though really, in ''Grandia'''s case it feels more like the writer just wanted to have fun rather than having a specific intention of being different. The hero's a mischievous young lad, who runs away from home chasing the legacy of his dead father to become an adventurer, carrying his [[Orphan's Plot Trinket]] (the Spirit Stone), fights the evil empire... and it is awesome in very much the same way as [[Skies of Arcadia]]'s lack of fear for the use of cliché lead it to be.
** Also the whole point of the aptly-named ''[[Nostalgia]]''.
* ''[[Eternal Sonata]]'' seems to teeter between this and [[Troperiffic]], with varying opinions as to which side it leans more heavily towards. It has many elements of the traditional JRPG, but it could be argued that this was intentional.
* A fair few people argue that the first ''[[Atelier Iris]]'' game, and maybe the second one, work on this level as
* ''[[
* Likewise, ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]''. A somewhat unusual development by the team that brought you the [[Deconstructor Fleet
** Mask of the Betrayer makes more sense if you think of it as the deconstructor to ''Neverwinter Nights 2'''s cliche-storm.
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' is this in game form, although that's the
** That and the writers show an awareness to all the cliches and play with them constantly. The writing is also so strong, that it never feels cliche or unoriginal. The game always feels nice and fresh.
** ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' on the other hand, is much [[Darker and Edgier|darker]], [[Deconstructor Fleet|deconstructive]], and subversive than the first game.
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* ''[[Grandia II]]'', ''[[Luminous Arc]]'', and ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' are, like, ''the'' threesome of cliché storms, being built around identical framing devices and having largely the same plot twists.
* ''[[Legend of Dragoon]]''. When it first came out, many fans couldn't stop comparing it to ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]''. [[Follow the Leader|There is a good reason for this]]. It didn't help that the few "original" elements were downplayed. One of the "big revelations" ({{spoiler|one of the members of your group has been mass murdering anybody that comes in contact with The [[Reincarnation|Reincarnated]] [[The Chosen One|Chosen One]] for hundreds of years}}) was just flat out ignored immediately afterwards without even so much as a chiding.
* Done intentionally in ''[[Fable (video game)|Fable I]]'', which essentially was a [[
* ''[[Live a Live]]'' is like this for most of the game, with chapters made up of incredibly cliched characters and plots. Then you unlock another chapter that starts like this but turns into an exceptionally brutal [[Deconstruction]].
* ''[[Just Cause (video game)|Just Cause 2]]'' falls into the category, most likely as a stylistic choice. Having the good guys really wrestle between helping the average Panauan and serving the Agency? Resolving the [[Excuse Plot|"plot"]] with something more sensible than the vile oppressive evil ''slimy toad'' of a dictator pulling a nuclear threat along an international struggle over a huge oil field that was totally there all along? Come on now, it'd just distract you from the ridiculous car chases and the [[Impressive Pyrotechnics|80's style]] [[Made of Explodium|gasoline explosions.]]
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* ''[[Dead Space (series)|Dead Space]]'', which played everything so very straight that it ''actually included'' the line "[[As You Know]]" without irony or [[Lampshade Hanging]]. Hell, the designers admitted that Isaac's suit was inspired by the [[Alien|Power Loader]], to which one imagines the world replied "Yeah, we know."
* ''[[Black Sigil]]'' is pretty much every late-80s/early-90s JRPG cliche rolled into one really slow DS game. It also suffers from the "One [[Random Encounters|random fight]] every three steps" syndrome that plagued a lot RPGs of the era.
* ''[[Red Steel]]'' is one of the most shameless examples of a
* ''[[Wet]]''
* The first 10 hours or so of nearly every single ''[[Tales (series)|Tales]]'' game. Then it hits you that the game [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle|is supposed to end now but]] [[Disc One Final Dungeon|you're still on Disc 1]]. Cue [[Wham! Episode]]. And therein lies ''why'' they have a fanbase. The ''[[Tales (series)]]'' series are great at [[Deconstructed Trope|deconstruction]] and [[Subverted Trope|subversion]], so, for fans of the series, part of the fun is waiting to see just how many cliches they are going to utterly demolish by turning them on their heads, or exposing the downright nasty sides of them. (Sadly, most people only seem to play the first two hours and then say "The plot is a
* ''[[Last Scenario]]'' works sort of like the ''[[Tales (series)]]'' in this respect. A [[Mysterious Informant]] shows up to tell the [[Farm Boy]] that he is [[Heroic Lineage|the descendant of a legendary hero]] and must help [[Good Republic, Evil Empire|fight the Empire]] to gain strength for the inevitable [[Sealed Evil in a Can|awakening of the demons]]. He goes off to fulfill his destiny, overjoyed to be saving the world. By the end of the game, he's found out that {{spoiler|a) he isn't related to Alexander, b) the demons [[Written by the Winners|aren't]], and c) Zawu was an agent for the Kingdom, whose up-and-coming [[Magnificent Bastard|General Castor]] was [[Playing Both Sides]]}}. Even {{spoiler|''the intro text scroll''}} was a lie.
* The [[PlayStation 2]] game ''[[Shining Tears]]''.
* ''[[Sands of Destruction (video game)|Sands of Destruction]]''. The first 50 minutes of the game are pretty
* ''[[Forty Winks]]'' for the [[PlayStation]].
* ''[[Dragon Age]]''. Granted, the game ''does'' have quite a few original things, but when one looks at the setting...with few exceptions...it's practically every Tolkienian-inspired [[Medieval Fantasy]] plus a few things, minus a few things. Forest-dwelling elves who are big on Archery and hunting? Check. Subterranean Mountain-dwelling dwarves with a fondness for alcohol and crafting? Check. Mage towers? Check. Humans who speak with British accents? Check. Obvious influence from the British Isles or Western Europe? Check. Mages wound up destroying the world and creating Darkspawn? Check. Dwarven warriors? Check. [[Fantastic Racism]]? ...eh, mark it but not fully played out. [[Real Is Brown|Green and brown-stained landscapes?]] Check. Evil dragons that are just giant animals in terms of intelligence? Check. Last in the line of kings? Check.
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* ''[[The Saboteur]]'' seems to have been made intentionally with every [[World War 2]] cliche in mind.
* ''[[Disaster: Day of Crisis]]'' plays every single [[Disaster Movie]]-Cliche known to mankind painfully straight. And somehow, it [[Narm Charm|still works.]]
* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' is particularly guilty of this, [[Play the Game, Skip the Story|though it doesn't get much attention.
** Although there are some subversions. (Varesh Ossa is actually [[The Dragon]] rather than a pawn of Abaddon, despite being Chosen, it's heavily implied literally ''any'' of the Chosen could have done what the player character does, the player character [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|unintentionally screw over Elona in time for Guild Wars 2]]) Nightfall in particular has the most
* [[The Feeble Files]] is kinda cross between genuine cliché storm and parody of it.
* [http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/495903 Super PSTW Action RPG] is this for video game RPGs.
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* ''[[Darksiders]]'' has been noted for mainlining on [[Grimdark]] tropes: set [[After the End]], featuring a stoic [[Badass]] on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]], fighting against the [[Legions of Hell]], and so on and so forth. General consensus is that it ''works''.
* ''[[Baten Kaitos]]: Eternat Wings and the Lost Ocean''. You have Kalas, a teenage orphaned [[Anti-Hero]] out to avenge his family who was killed by [[The Empire]]. He meets up with Xelha, a [[Mysterious Waif]] who is trying to stop said empire from acquiring the five [[Artifact of Doom|End Magnus]]. About a third the game is like that, then it turns out that ''[[Playing the Player|nothing is as it seems]]''.
* The ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' series is split between
** To be fair, ''[[Fire Emblem Akaneia]]'' wasn't [[Seinfeld Is Unfunny|as cliche in their day as they seem now]] - consider Akaneia helped establish the genre it's a part of; compare ''[[Fire Emblem]] 6'' and ''8'', which were about a decade and a half after Akaenia.
** Fire Emblem 9 was, backstory and setting aside, pretty much this to Fire Emblem games. However, it's interesting to note that about half way through the game, they start playing with the Fire Emblem tropes, such as having the princess instead of being a plot figure don armour and become full out playable. Fire Emblem 10 meanwhile goes into full-on [[Deconstructor Fleet]].
** ''[[Fire Emblem: Awakening]]'' was actually ''mistaken'' as one, on basis of having the main character being a blue-haired sword-wielding prince. However, it quickly begins to subvert this/
* ''[[Diablo]]'' intentionally does this as part of the charm. Then again though, at this point (By Diablo 3), Blizzard probably knows that [[Play the Game, Skip the Story|they could somehow bring Chaucer back from the dead and have him write the plot, and 95% of their players still won't pay attention to it.]]
==
* A ton of
* Everything in ''[[Sonichu]]'' that doesn't [[All There in the Manual|fail to make any sense unless the author explains it]] has been seen before in so many other, better works.
* Parodied on ''Hiro'' with [http://drunkduck.com/hiro/index.php?p=414050 Lo, the Cliche King]{{Dead link}}.
* Done deliberately and for laughs in Jango's [[Evil Gloating]] [http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0276.html here] in ''[[Darths and Droids]]''.
* The GM's story in ''[[DM of the Rings]]''.
* ''[[Mitadake Saga]]'', like the original game, glorifies itself on Anime tropes quite often.
* ''[[The Black Blood Alliance]]''
* Done in-story in ''[[The Noob]]'' with the MMORPG ''ClicheQuest''
* [http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2003/10/02/ In universe] for ''[[Pibgorn]]''.
* An in-universe example was done by [[Real Life Comics]] during a dimension-hopping adventure where they wound up in a world where "everything is a ''[[Sliders]]'' cliche!". Naturally, this involved their dimension-traveling device fizzling out, a doomsday scenario, joining and fighting a rag-tag resistance group led by a double of someone they knew, getting involved with and solving the world's problems and a last second escape. Well, '''almost''' all their problems.
{{quote|'''Alt Dave''': That's great, but what about the '''''huge freaking asteroid''''' about to hit the planet?!
'''Tony''': Sorry, pal! You're on your own! }}
* Catch a Mad in ''[[Narbonic]]'' not spouting off every ''[[Mad Scientist]]'' cliche ever and you will find a Mad letting the side down. If you can't rant for at least an hour about
== Web Original ==
* Judging by what can be gathered about ''[[Satina (Wants a Glass of Water)]]'' after watching its first official episode (''Bring Your Demon to Work Day''), said show is absolutely ''made'' out of [[Sitcom|sitcom]] cliches.
** However, said show uses its utter cliched-ness as a humorous contrast to the fact that it is about [[Improbable Species Compatibility|a human and a demon taking care of their human/demon hybrid baby]], so it more-or-less works.
== Western Animation ==
* The animated ''[[The King and I]]'' was one big fat cliché from start to finish.
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* ''[[Three Delivery]]'', the Nicktoon. Think of ''[[Xiaolin Showdown]]'', but with food puns and even ''more'' cliches.
* ''[[Skeleton Warriors]]'' hits most every fantasy cliche it can reach.
* Whether intentional or not, ''[[The Fairly
* Pretty much the entire point of ''[[Total Drama Island]]'' is to be a Category-5 Cliche Hurricane, especially for [[Reality TV]] tropes. [[Played for Laughs]].
* The character of [[Evil Sorcerer|the Archmage]] on ''[[Gargoyles]]'' was a deliberate
* The [[LEGO]] [[Hero Factory]] mini-series, also called "''Rise of the Rookies''". A great cast with some big names and CGI models with over-detailed textures a good story do not make. It relied so much on recycled formulas and rolled so well on clichés, that it neglected to explain the very driving force behind its plot: {{spoiler|Just ''what'' did Von Nebula want revenge for? Nobody has done ''anything'' to him.}} Heck, the first episode included a scene during which the characters tell us just how awesome the main hero is, and that he ''will'' end up saving the day. Just in case you feared that the series would have something interesting and unexpected in stall for him (and surprise, surprise, his whole character development was also wrapped up in the same episode).
** Arguably, its p-redecessor ''[[Bionicle]]'' started out this way, playing all the tropes very, very straight in the first few years, [[Tropes Are Not Bad|although still managing to be enjoyable]]. It's only in the later years that it became more subversive and ascended to [[Troperiffic]]. There's still a chance for HF to do the same.
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* ''[[Cars]]'' is this for [[Pixar]] movies. It's easy to imagine a little counter in the corner dinging whenever you see a Pixar cliche. Stranger in a community or group? Check. Brooding moment from a side character? Check. Wacky sidekick who forms a comedic duo with the main character? Check. Said group full of wacky members with their own quirks? Check. All of the development threatens to go downhill when something happens to separate or alienate the stranger? Check.
** ''[[Brave]]'' also seems to be heading down this road considering it stars [[Everything's Better with Princesses|a rebellious princess]] and has glaring similarities to previous films such as ''[[Tangled]]'' and ''[[How to Train Your Dragon (animation)|How to Train Your Dragon]]''. This is probably intentional due to the fact that John Lassater has said that since all of the heads of Pixar are male, they have an easier time writing male characters and they just went with a familiar formula when they started writing a story with a female lead, but this ''is'' Pixar so this might be a case of [[Tropes Are Not Bad]], or just plain [[Troperrific]].
* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' is a cliche storm for the superhero genre. [[Ordinary High School Student]] in a [[Freak Lab Accident]] becomes a [[Half-Human Hybrid]] and must now [[Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World]] and maintain his [[Secret Identity]] while dealing with [[Hero with Bad Publicity|bad publicity]]. To help him are his [[Two Guys and a Girl|best friends]] as he fights a variety of villains with [[Pun
** Probably because the show had a heavy emphasis on comedy; the writing made it clear that they knew it was all cliched, so at times it could come off as an [[Affectionate Parody]] of the superhero genre.
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''; the basic plot is one you've heard before. The world is in danger, there is a single [[Chosen One]] who has to defeat the legion of evil despite his young age, and he only has a year to do it! But like other cliche storms, like ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'', by giving characters good back-stories and depth and creating a fleshed out world, [[Tropes Are Not Bad|it still works]].
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* ''[[My Life Me]]'' is this to [[Anime]] tropes '''and''' [[Slice of Life]] tropes.
* ''[[Johnny Test]]''
*
* The first season of ''[[Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi]]''. This was removed in the second season.
* Do ''not'' be fooled by the insect-populated [[Scavenger World]] that ''[[The Buzz on Maggie]]'' takes place in; it is about as cliched and stereotypical as animated sitcoms get.
* While ''[[Courage the Cowardly Dog]]'' might not be an actual [[Cliche Storm]], it certainly is one ''hell'' of a [[Troperiffic|Trope Storm]].
== Other ==
* Subverted so much in online text-based RP games that it's almost starting to come full-circle. Everyone seems so terrified of making their character a [[Mary Sue]] that they're going to ridiculous heights to make their characters/plots blandly average... even in genres and settings where everyone having some measure of the fantastic is not only forgivable, but ''preferred''. These often end up producing [[Anti-Sue|Anti Sues]] that still [[Suetiful All Along|dominate the spotlight unfairly]] in spite of the total ''lack'' of anything noteworthy of them.
** This is ''especially'' prevalent mostly due to the misuse of the [[Mary Sue]]
* The fourth installment of ''[[Bunny Kill]]'' is chock full of various anime cliches, including over the top violence, super modes, ninja jutsu, and {{spoiler|the [[Disposable Woman]]}}. [[Word of God]] states this was intentional.
* All the reviews for ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]'' seem to be loaded with glowing, poster-ready cliches:
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* [[Cirque Du Soleil]]'s ''[[KA]]'', their only show to put its [[Excuse Plot]] front and center, is a conventional heroic journey: royal twins are separated when their kingdom is attacked and their parents killed by evil forces; they and their sidekicks (some wacky, some serious) go through a variety of adventures to be reunited and help defeat the army. Each finds romance along the way, the Twin Brother with a villain's daughter and the Twin Sister with a Tarzan-like forest hero. The pleasure of the show is watching it unfold without intelligible dialogue and with oodles of [[Scenery Porn]] and acrobatics; the familiarity of its story is kinda to its benefit.
* [http://youtu.be/WAG9Xn5bJwQ This] hilarious [[Real Trailer, Fake Movie]].
* [[World War II|Bernard Montgomery's]] [http://www.remuseum.org.uk/corpshistory/part16/el-alamein-personalmessage.jpg address to the British Eighth Army]{{Dead link}} shortly before the battle of El Alamein was filled with cliches, and he was known for being fond of using them in general.
* [http://nylawblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834516c2469e20153901a011d970b-pi This] [http://nylawblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834516c2469e20153901a0218970b-pi brief].
* ''[http://the-toast.net/series/how-to-tell-if-youre-in-a-novel/ How To Tell If You’re In a Novel]'' series on The Toast classifies it by genres.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Dialogue]]
[[Category:Home Page/YMMV]]▼
[[Category:YMMV Trope]]
[[Category:Cliche Storm]]
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[[Category:Example as a Thesis]]
[[Category:Sturgeon's Tropes]]
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