The Dog Has To Die ( A Discussion on Common and Upsetting Tropes)

[LuckycoolHawk9]

So, I just came off of reading a book with a dog in it. Take a guess what happened. Yup, the dog died. I would say what book, but technically it's a spoiler, but it got me thinking, why is the dog dying such a common trope? Or for that matter, why did it become a trope? So, for this, I wanna ask all of you.

What Trope do you see a lot that you just hate or makes you generally upset?

 

[Chilli Pepper]

Killing the dog's just a lazy way of getting a reaction out of the audience. Pretty much everyone likes a good, faithful dog, so it hurts, but at the end of the day, we should be cut up over the deaths of people too... except most characters aren't universally likeable enough for that to work. When someone dies, there's usually at least some section of the audience that's glad to see the back of them.

For me, there's any number of lazy tropes. I know they're tropes for a reason and they're tried and tested, but when characters become little more than stick figures with one or two traits (stupid fat man, lusty redhead, know-it-all child) then it's going to get on my wick.

 

[Kuno]

Character A is a complete asshole to Character B for 90% of the book, and yet Character B falls madly in love with them by the end of it.

WHY

 

[Chilli Pepper]

Character A is a complete asshole to Character B for 90% of the book, and yet Character B falls madly in love with them by the end of it.

WHY

Evil is sexy.

Which, when diluted, because evil isn't really a redeeming feature, gets turned into "jerks are sexy". Blech.

 

[Spammy]

At least in children's books I think that there is a place for the dog to die as learning to deal with the death of a pet is something that children will probably have to deal with at some point. So presenting it in a fictional context for them to think about or maybe helping them if the family dog or cat just passed away has a place.

It should still be good on its own but I'm open to children's or young adult media presenting ideas that I feel children/teens should be exposed to as part of growing up.

 

[foodforpigs]

Reviving characters directly from death, it's a fake out, or the death is retconned.

When a main character "dies", my trust that the character is really gone doesn't exist because of how common it seems to be. It should be rare that pronounced dead characters come back. I'm not saying narratives can't use this, but when most narratives use it, it's an annoying trope.

I do understand though. Creating a character that's lasting is difficult, and companies that own franchises want longevity, but there is a place for fitting deaths.

 

[Kitti]

Tired of nerdy people who are allergic to physical activity. Please just give me a nerd who uses their infinite smarts to realise that being in good shape improves the trajectory of their future health and watches their recorded Advanced Fluid Dynamics lectures while they take a spin class.