Skeevy Tropes

So, apropos of nothing, I started reading Anthony Ryan’s Blood Song.

For those not in the know, Mr. Ryan is an alumnus of the class of self-published authors whose work was so applauded by the public that he was able to secure a deal with a major publishing house.  And surveying the evidence, it’s easy to see how this came to be.  The book is a darling of /r/fantasy, it’s received many fine reviews and accolades from the reading public at large and it was recommended to me several times even before it was picked up by a publisher.

Thus compelled, I read it.  Over the course of a few months (this is simply how I read most books; I’m not so much of a devourer as I am a piecemeal eater), I fell in love and out of love with it, dabbling here and there and nibbling on it when I thought it wouldn’t notice.

It had its moments of fast-paced, rollicking action interspersed with moments of introspection and angst that scratched an itch that has long been wriggling under my skin in this era of remorseless bastard heroes.  Likewise, it had rather depressing moments of cockney orphans and feasting (two of my most loathed devices in fantasy) combined with depressing moments of “no girls allowed” fantasy in which women were relegated either to mysterious love interests or a scheming, manipulative Cersei.

It had magic swords.  It had epic battles.  It had mysterious women in dream sequences.  It had backlogs and backlogs of worldbuilding.  It had magic wolves howling and chosen ones being chosen and scheming kings and scheming princesses and dudes who flat out hate the protagonist because of how awesome he is.

Summarily: it is everything you would ever think to find in an epic fantasy book.

When I finished it, after so many months, I walked away with the thought that this was a very important story.

But not necessarily for the reasons you think it might be.

As my last blog post might suggest, I’ve become rather fascinated with looking at that whole nebulous mess of a fantasy reader’s inner psyche: why we like the things we do, why we’re sometimes ashamed to admit we like them, why we use the word “escapist” to justify things that we enjoy, why we have such a hard time being up front about liking people with swords.

In Ode to a Dark Elf, I studied the subject of Fun, that peppy, wild-eyed dreamer who wants to tell you there’s a world out there that’s full of dragons you can ride and magicians who want you to save the world.  In this blog post, we’ll be talking about his shyer, more-organized brother who lives in the basement: Tropes.

“Tropes,” like “Fun,” is one of those words that’s become something like bad language in this genre and for much the same reasons.  If a fantasy is “Fun,” then it must have no particular meaning and be relatively unchallenging.  And if a fantasy has “Tropes,” then it must be a shamelessness of stitching together ideas that other authors have done before and better.

I disagree with that interpretation, but I don’t necessarily disagree with the fear behind it.

Tropes, when used improperly, are awful, terrible things that dance closely next to Stereotypes.  Tropes, when used as shorthand, promote lazy thinking and connote rather wretched implications.  This dude has a magic sword and a magic wolf, because of course he does, he’s the hero.  This girl is sexy and has a bare midriff because how else would you be able to tell she’s the girl.  This wizard is wise and scheming and speaks in cryptic riddles because duh, he’s a wizard.

This leads to that darkest outcome: pandering.  Where authors simply stop trying to create and are content to merely regurgitate, where publishers are content to push out anything with a sword on the cover because of course you’ll buy it, you stupid kid.  At that point, we stagnate.  At that point, we start echoing ourselves.

There are some of us as readers who have bought this argument wholesale: the anti-fans who loathe the genre’s conventions and loathe themselves for continuing to read it, and the public at large for whom the word “tropes” has become a coded word for “bad.”  In general, I fear that we have as unhealthy a relationship with the idea of tropes as we do with the idea of fun.  We think it’s something that has no value, a limitation we put on ourselves that hinders our reading.

To that end, I certainly understand when people advocate turning heel and walking in a straight line away from tropes and his ugly sibling.

And I most certainly disagree with it.

I’m of the Scott Lynch style of thinking.  I believe that cliches are cliched for a reason and that tropes are tropes because, in general, they work.  Most of us fantasy authors started from somewhere and it almost always started with a love of what made fantasy fantastic: swords, fights, giants, dragons, kings, queens, wizards, fireballs, horses, what have you.

To that end, I vehemently disagree with the idea that the only way forward is to abandon everything that made us fall in love with it in the first place.

What’s more, we have proof that they work and we have it in the form of some of fantasy’s most beloved authors working today.

Let’s say I tell you a wonderful story about a ladies’ man storyteller, a masterful chosen one who is just more special than anyone else and is simultaneously loved and loathed because of it.  Or, if you don’t like that, how about I tell you about a noble savage barbarian with an intense desire to do good if only he could master the raging tempest in his heart.  Still not sold?  How about a farm boy with a destiny bigger than himself who will eventually unite the world and save it from the forces of evil that descend from the darkness to annihilate it?

You might be scoffing at such flagrant cliches, up until I tell you that I’m talking about Patrick Rothfuss, Joe Abercrombie and Peter V. Brett.

At which point, you might join the ranks of people who are undoubtedly furiously pounding on their keyboards at that revelation, illustrating just how I have totally misrepresented their favorite authors who wouldn’t dare use such (shudder) tropes!

To those people, I beg you to pause stuffing that straw effigy you have been making of me and have a glance at my point.  You can boil anything down to a trope.  They are inescapable.

This is not to say we should merely accept tropes as they are, though, and go down that decidedly dark road of pandering and stagnation.  But if you’ll look at the most popular authors today, the ones who are actively using tropes, they are most definitely not using them at face value.

As if we’re too ashamed to admit we enjoy those tropes, though, we saddle them with words like “subversion” and “deconstruction.”  And speaking as an author who has been frequently accused of (or lauded for) both, I’m not sure if those words really do justice to the relationship between authors and tropes.

To subvert has negative connotations: identifying something stagnant, wrong or gross and changing it.  Whereas what I think we’re doing is inherently positive: we are taking something we love and sharing it with the audience.  We are not sharing that trope with the audience, we are sharing our love with the audience.

I certainly didn’t intend to deconstruct the idea of the adventurer.  I didn’t mean to point out a bunch of flaws and subvert it.  I love the idea of adventurers, I love the idea of plundering for treasure and fighting monsters.  But I also love the idea of being hated for it and I love the idea of it being a messy, difficult job with intense consequences for someone’s mental well-being.

If you pay attention at all to the fantasy genre, rife as it is with critics and anti-fans, you’ve probably heard the phrase “my elves are different” trotted out as a means of mocking authors who try to incorporate the tropes they love and shaming the audiences who read it.  But as silly as it sounds, that phrase is exactly the contract you are making with the audience as an author.  You are showing them why you’re different.  You are sharing your unique love with them.  You are giving a new and interesting insight into the subject.

Sometimes, that does mean tearing everything down.

But more often than not, I find it means building something up.

Such as it was in the case of Anthony Ryan’s Blood Song. 

And that’s why it’s an important book.  It is an unabashed love of what makes fantasy fantastic.  It is an open love letter to everything wondrous about fantasy.  It is highly emotional, unashamedly epic and wholeheartedly Mr. Ryan.

And it is pretty successful.

And that, as I see it, is a good thing.