The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Clichés: Difference between revisions

It should be noted that these are not "clichés" in the sense that we describe them. Clichés are a priori bad; trite and overused. What is described below is merely a list of Tropes, which are neither [[Tropes Are Not Good|good]] nor [[Tropes Are Not Bad|bad]].▼

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Those of us who have read or seen a lot of [[Science Fiction]] have seen certain story elements pop up [[Seen It a Million Times|over and over and over]]. Some of these elements were [[Tropes Are Not Bad|actually pretty good ideas]] - indeed, some of them are even [[Truth in Television]] now, thanks to [[Science Marches On|the marching on of science]] - and [[Unbuilt Trope|when handled well make for a pretty entertaining story]], but have become hackneyed from overuse by the unimaginative. Others came into being through the deliberate effort to avoid another cliché. Still other ideas were [[Dead Horse Trope|lame from the get-go]], and should have been dismissed from the author's thinking. ▼

[[Tropes Are Not Bad|Clichés are not in themselves necessarily bad]], but their overuse shows that the writer has forgotten what separates the strong tale from the hollow: "the human heart in conflict with itself," as Faulkner said. Where there is this conflict, the tale stands; where the conflict is absent, the tale falls flat, and in neither case does it matter [[Rule of Cool|how many ships get blown up]]. ▼

The sophisticated reader will note that some of these clichés are [[Omnipresent Tropes|not found solely in SF]], but in other genres as well, and of course the [[Playing with a Trope|lampooning of clichés]] is a time-honored part of [[Rule of Funny|good comedy]].▼