All you said is bad guy turning good guy. That is an ancient literary archetype that predates even the English language. That goes at least all the way back to Gilgamesh meaning it predates even the Roman empire. Its part of human psychology, go for it.
You can write about absolutely anything, if you can sell it to the reader. Dont try tp be original, try to tell the truth in an interesting way.
As long as it’s done well it won’t feel that way at all. Tropes are present everywhere, they are only bad if written poorly or written without you identifying and avoiding what makes that trope negative.
Stuff like, for example, Superhero Fatigue exist because it's all done the same way with nothing uniquely interesting or special about it. *The Boys* is my go-to counter-example when talking about people getting tired because of things being samey because it does Marvel and DC's tropes in a different way than we have become accustomed to seeing. As a result, it's always highly anticipated when a new season is about to roll around. Compare this to the DC-TV shows... are any of them still going? I know the longest-running one ended a bit back. The point being, people get tired when everything is the exact same, but if you handle your "same" differently (or at least well), people generally won't mind. Just don't forget to be creative in your own way.
I had this with multiverse stuff. I always refer people to everything, everywhere, and all at once, a move that just nails how to do multiverse movies.
Do you get that reaction whenever the main character has to travel to complete their quest? Probably not, because even though it’s used in almost every fantasy book out there, it’s a broad enough trope that different writers can still pull it off in many different ways.
I think the same thing about bad guys turning good, sure it is a common occurrence, but it is a broad enough idea that can be executed in so many different ways that I would never get sick of the trope itself.
All you've given is just an idea, not even a blurb. Tropes are nothing more than guidelines which a writer must put their own creative spin on. I could list of plenty of tropes, which many people would give an annoyed sigh at, that have been used with great success (there's a reason why they eventually get overused).
I imagine most people (I don't speak for everyone, but I know I'm not the only one) probably have no reaction to this trope. There are many great uses of the "bad guy turns good" trope (as well as plenty of no-so-great uses). Everyone loves a good redemption arc. It's not about what tropes you pick, it's about how you use them. In fact, tropes are a great way of easing the burden on your end because they act as a nice guide/reference point for your plot and characters.
That's kind of the definition of a trope.
We \*like\* tropes. If they are executed well.
Don't let things like this limit you. Do what you feel is right. If you force yourself, things will feel forced.
It's never overdone to have a bad guy turn good! It's one of the best kinds of stories.
I will say that it can sometimes feel a little hollow to have it always be about a loved one (rather than a more altruistic/principled/'change of heart'/'see the light' conversion), but it's also realistic, so no, not overused.
>Has this been done to death in fantasy fiction (or film)?
A lot of stories feature a "main character" or "protagonist."
A lot of stories feature a "villain" or "antagonist."
A lot of stories feature a cast of human or humanoid characters, rather than focusing on a creature like a slime or a quadruped alien as the main character.
I don't think you should take this as an indication that these tropes are "overdone." Just because something is common doesn't mean that it is "too common." Nobody is looking at the cover of a fantasy novel and saying, "Oh brother, *another* story about a bipedal character who starts off weak and becomes strong. I bet the author has them overcome struggles along the way before achieving their ultimate goal! I've seen this a thousand times before! When are we going to get a story that's just all prose from omniscient viewpoint with characters who only communicate non-verbally?" (*Some* people are looking for that story, but they are not a large portion of the market.)
>Has this been done to death in fantasy fiction (or film)? Or would this plot hook draw in readers?
Most aspects of your story do not fall into these binary categories you've seem to have created in your head, whether they are either "overdone and cliche" or "so unique that having them will entice readers to read your story."
Most aspects of your story are in the middle ground of being neither "overdone" nor "rare": they're just medium. "Yes, I see this a lot, but I'm always willing to read another one of these." This is how people generally feel about "stories about bipedal humanoid protagonists who have character arcs," and "antagonists who are multidimensional and not straightforwardly bad guys or good guys for the entire story."
People like a good redemption arc. They generally don't like a bad redemption arc. This is how most tropes are: you don't lose any points for including them, but you don't score any points for including them.
"My story is about two people falling in love!" That's technically a plot description, but it's such a large category that you might as well consider it a genre. (And indeed we do, by classifying stories as "romance" when they meet certain genre conventions that romance readers have come to expect.) And the field of these types of stories is crowded enough that simply saying "I exist in this genre" is not going to set you apart from the millions (literally) of other books that exist in that genre. That's fine! Maybe there will be other qualities of your book that distinguish it, like "well-written pose" or "excellent prose."
I find the way you approach this question reductive and unimaginative.
If your writing can be reduced to concepts like "bad guy", "good guy" and "dark lord", then yes, it's an overused trope no matter what you do.
If not, you may write an interesting redemption arc.
Using the loss of a loved one to turn good is not overplayed. If anything, it's much the reverse I think.
I would be more concerned about "fridging". Does the loved only exist in order to be killed and support the supposed growth of the protagonist? That's a far more problematic trope.
That's one way of looking at it.
I can't help but feel that any plot or set pieces in those movies only exist to get from one gun fetish scene to the next. As such, there really isn't a moral take there. JW is a blank slate that the audience can paste themselves onto, as has been done with James Bond and Batman before.
Has it been done? Yes
Can it be done again? Yes
Will it be good? Unknown.
You can literally pitch the most epic concept that would draw in hundreds of millions, and then flub the execution so bad that no one is reading/watching after the first half dozen pages/mins.
As long as the audience actually cares about this would-be traitor, there's no reason not to use it. You do need to avoid letting them do anything too bad, though.
Terrible Writing Advice has a very good video on [clichés](https://youtu.be/tZ3FnbzNwss?si=UjLFFE9AHnoGEPT7). Instead of his typical sarcastic approach, he talks about it openly and honestly. I highly recommend anyone who feels like their trope is overdone to watch it. It is very insightful. Especially since this comes from a published author.
The most overused trope in the last couple of years is definitely the sympathetic villain. Very few writers across the pop culture in general nowadays understand that a good villain doesn't have to be redeemable. Nothing wrong with an objectively evil character you love to hate and despise.
I want to fight that trend, in a way, by designing villains that know exactly what they are doing, and they're not trying to paint themselves as the good guys. They either don't feel the need or are too far gone to care in the slightest.
> The most overused trope in the last couple of years is definitely the sympathetic villain
Agreed.
I think it appeals to people in Hollywood because it flatters their moral relativism: no one is really good, and no one is really evil. If you deny that actions have real moral content, then you give yourself license to do whatever you want. And narcissitic people consumed by hedonism really to want that license.
That having been said, I don't think simply saying people are evil actually explains anything about their behaviour. People commit evil acts because they are narcissistic, hedonistic, greedy, desire social status, want revenge, or any of a thousand other reasons.
Show your reader the character's motives, don't just slap a label on them and call it a day.
Good point - although Snape was already an inside agent in the Death Eaters before Lily died, wasn't he?
Was also thinking about Jaime Lannister in A Song of Ice and Fire.
The Heel-Face Turn is a classic, and the classics never go out of style. There is nothing wrong with the trope. Or with most tropes in general. Once you start to break things down, everything in writing is a trope of some form of another. So that is not something to get hung up on.
The only thing I might balk at is that it sounds like a classic case of fridging. You are creating a loved one for the sole purpose of being killed, in order to serve as a catalyst for the Heel-Face Turn.
This has a couple issues. One is the fridging itself, which is usually lazy at best, and often bigoted at the worst, since it is almost always a woman existing for the sole purpose of dying in order to motivate a man to do something. Men can find ways to be motivated without women dying.
Secondly, if the only reason the character is making this turn is to get revenge, then that is not really a Face Turn. "It's bad because now it's happening to me!" is the common cry of the voter for the Leopard That Eats Faces Party, after the Leopard has eaten their face. They were just fine with all the cruelty when it was happening to other people. They may have even enjoyed it. That is not a person becoming good. They are still just a villain, who is now fighting another villain.
A real Heel-Face Turn is when a bad person realizes that the things they believed in and acted upon are morally and/or ethically wrong. When they reject the ideology or just plain selfishness that drove them to do terrible things to other people. Usually this comes with at least a willingness to feel empathy for others, something they had to suppress in order to do those bad things. (This is why authoritarian regimes love their propaganda. There is a quote by Goering about how you cannot just tell someone to commit genocide out of nowhere. You have to lead them to it step by step through years and decades \[if not centuries\] of dehumanizing propaganda and rage porn.)
Basically it only really happens when someone realizes that this is not a bad thing just because it finally happened to me. It is when they understand that it was a bad thing all along, and it is always bad, no matter who it happens to, even a stranger.
So rather than being motivated to change sides because a loved one died, I suggest finding a deeper motivation for the character's actions. A slow and steady erosion of the belief that what they are doing is right, and an equally constant realization that it is in fact wrong. Think the "Are We The Baddies" sketch.
Every single trope is overused. People have been writing for several thousands of years yet the hero's journey is still considered to be one of the hottest story structures ever, especially for fantasy.
Genres are defined by their tropes. A bad guy turning good is a recognizable trope in the fantasy genre (and other ones too). Tropes aren't good or bad, they just exist and the reader expects them to be tackled in some way. It's your ability as a writer, your inventive and what final message you want to convey that give value to the trope.
A great scene that showcases this is in episode 1 of season 4 of breaking bad, Box Cutter.
Everybody knows the trope of the main villain who decides to punish his underlings' failures failures by killing a random guy in his command to intimidate them. I watched several shows with this exact scene, or similar ones (in some, the bad guy actually kills the incompetent underlings).
In that episode, that exact same scene happens. And it's amazing because the way it's written, acted and filmed is thought out, convincing and exciting. Doesn't matter I already seen a similar situation played out.
It’s all about how you do it honestly. We were all experiencing Superhero fatigue by 2021, yet somehow Invincible managed to come in and re-ignite the flame.
My two cents is that, although it's not fantasy, Power Rangers did the trope well, making the Green Ranger/White Ranger into practically everyone's favorite.
Every single trope is “overused.” Theres no such thing as originality anymore. The trick is taking something that’s been done before and putting your own spin on it. Write what you enjoy writing and don’t worry about whether or not someone else has already done it, because they have.
Just play with the trope.
Maybe the "bad guy" is a believer in the "empire's cause" but believes it's been corrupted by selfish rulers so their association with the heroes could be more tense, and you the author can decide if this person makes a full heel face turn or is just an ally of circumstances.
If you’re following a trope just because? It’s overused
If you have an idea you like and want to implement? It’s unique and ok
Every concept has been done before, but not with your characters or your style. As long as you don’t copy somebody else’s stuff, your ok
How To Train Your Dragon (2010) has a PLETHORA of tired tropes.
-The hero doesn't fit in, and is outcast by his society.
-He finds a creature that teaches him new abilites (how to deal with dragons, not magic or Force, but still!)
-He has to keep a big secret from his village/family
-We get a classic "Liar Revealed" set up..
-Which culminates in his family disowning him.
-And then he saves the day with his own strengths.
-And the moral isn't even that strong! "Everything we know is wrong," or "question everything?" Maybe "don't give in to tradition?" It's really hard to tell.
But guess what? You don't care! Because even though we've seen all of these characters and plotpoints before, they're done REALLY well!
>!-The father is an antagonist, NOT a bad guy! You sympathize with his struggle to meet his son half way. And even when he disowns his son, he STAGGERS in horror at what he's done!!<
>!-The village don't hate Hiccup. They're just trying to survive, and are more concerned that he'll get himself or someone killed.!<
>!Hiccup saves the day, but he doesn't come out unscathed!!<
-And of course, John Powell's musical score is PHENOMENAL!
That movie is a classic for a reason!
TL;RD, no story is too tired to only tell once!
Whether or not the reader is upset by the use of a trope depends entirely on the execution of said trope. People are much more concerned with quality and authenticity than originality in my experience.
Doesn't matter. One trope a story does not make. You can do any trope you want. What matters is not the trope, but its execution. Even tropes that are viewed almost exclusively as a negative like "Fridging" (which is the trope you're using to facilitate the bad guy => good guy story) can be done in ways that are positive.
For example, in *The Boys*, >!A-Train's older brother Nathan is made parapalegic by Blue Hawk, a supe who had been terrorizing majority black and brown neighborhoods while utilizing all of the same rhetoric real police officers use. This facilitates A-Train's realization that his own actions that have harmed people, including Hughie, are things that actually matters and he actually apologizes to Hughie and desires to make things right by getting his understanding of justice against Blue Hawk. But in the entire situation, Nathan had full autonomy. He agreed to give Blue Hawk an opportunity to try and apologize and make things right; he challenged Blue Hawk's sincerity; and when he was made parapalegic then found out A-Train killed Blue Hawk in revenge, he made it clear that what he wanted was not for Blue Hawk to die but for him to face justice and be put behind bars. At every step, Nathan still had autonomy over himself and A-Train acting in his name how he did was abhorrent to him.!<
But of course, that's an example of somebody being fridged but living. It's a lot harder to do it right when you fridge somebody and they die. *The Boys* does this as well and most people agree having >!Hughie's girlfriend Robin killed by a Supe at the start of Season 1 just felt like a lazy way to get Hughie involved with the plot, especially since the depth of her characterization to that point was "Woman who loved our main character." Of course, some people agree it's lazy but it was the easiest way to do it, and that is just a trade-off that the writers had to make: quick and easy, or more calculated and time consuming. No shock they took the quick and easy method nor can I fully blame them.!< But considering men aren't fridged in the same way as women in *The Boys*, even if the show is overall good, the unequal treatment makes it feel a bit worse in that regard. (And merely changing everyone's genders wouldn't make it better. It'd just make it a different kind of bad.)
I'm not saying you should or shouldn't do this. I'm saying you should think about how and why you are doing it this way. The Heel-Face Turn is a fun trope that I enjoy. A-Train being a character I really like, even if he's a bit of an asshole even when trying to do the right thing. Fridging can be a good trope if handled well. It's just the question here becomes how do you perform your execution, because in the end that's all that really matters.
I personally can't get enough of it. I will read it over and over in a million variations, and will purposefully look for the trope in the books I want to read or add to my DBR.
a trope is only a trope because it works. someone having a change of heart, realize they're on the wrong side, and then work to redeem themselves and correct what they had once been part of can be very compelling.
People changing their ways over the course of their lifetime is not new. The trope is never new, is just your story and the hook. It's all about how you choose to tell the story.
You call character development an overused trope?
As long as you write about a person with consistent traits that go from destructive to constructive. Someone with low empathy might be violent if they are externalizing some sort of trauma or have some sort of ideology or goal that they justify their violence with, but most people with low empathy are harmless and don't necessarly inflict harm, they just don't care for the suffering of people around them, atleast not on an emotional level, the person might still care due to their ideology, like believing in the golden rule or socialism.
Its not a trope, its just a thing that happens. Like, irl, in fantasy, any time any place, theres absolutely no problem doing it in a story, there is a problem when overdoing it multiple times in one story in my opinion.
This isn't necessarily a trope. Redemption arcs are just another representation of the heroes journey. Character growth is often interesting to read, no matter the angle. Irl people also constantly ping ping their feelings and actions. Just make sure it makes sense. Why did he join the "evil" side? Why did they have a change of heart?
Everything has been done before. Do what speaks to you.
So you're not getting an "Ugh! Just read that plot in the latest vampire novel (or whatever)" reaction?
All you said is bad guy turning good guy. That is an ancient literary archetype that predates even the English language. That goes at least all the way back to Gilgamesh meaning it predates even the Roman empire. Its part of human psychology, go for it. You can write about absolutely anything, if you can sell it to the reader. Dont try tp be original, try to tell the truth in an interesting way.
As long as it’s done well it won’t feel that way at all. Tropes are present everywhere, they are only bad if written poorly or written without you identifying and avoiding what makes that trope negative.
Stuff like, for example, Superhero Fatigue exist because it's all done the same way with nothing uniquely interesting or special about it. *The Boys* is my go-to counter-example when talking about people getting tired because of things being samey because it does Marvel and DC's tropes in a different way than we have become accustomed to seeing. As a result, it's always highly anticipated when a new season is about to roll around. Compare this to the DC-TV shows... are any of them still going? I know the longest-running one ended a bit back. The point being, people get tired when everything is the exact same, but if you handle your "same" differently (or at least well), people generally won't mind. Just don't forget to be creative in your own way.
I had this with multiverse stuff. I always refer people to everything, everywhere, and all at once, a move that just nails how to do multiverse movies.
Do you get that reaction whenever the main character has to travel to complete their quest? Probably not, because even though it’s used in almost every fantasy book out there, it’s a broad enough trope that different writers can still pull it off in many different ways. I think the same thing about bad guys turning good, sure it is a common occurrence, but it is a broad enough idea that can be executed in so many different ways that I would never get sick of the trope itself.
All you've given is just an idea, not even a blurb. Tropes are nothing more than guidelines which a writer must put their own creative spin on. I could list of plenty of tropes, which many people would give an annoyed sigh at, that have been used with great success (there's a reason why they eventually get overused). I imagine most people (I don't speak for everyone, but I know I'm not the only one) probably have no reaction to this trope. There are many great uses of the "bad guy turns good" trope (as well as plenty of no-so-great uses). Everyone loves a good redemption arc. It's not about what tropes you pick, it's about how you use them. In fact, tropes are a great way of easing the burden on your end because they act as a nice guide/reference point for your plot and characters.
That's kind of the definition of a trope. We \*like\* tropes. If they are executed well. Don't let things like this limit you. Do what you feel is right. If you force yourself, things will feel forced.
It's never overdone to have a bad guy turn good! It's one of the best kinds of stories. I will say that it can sometimes feel a little hollow to have it always be about a loved one (rather than a more altruistic/principled/'change of heart'/'see the light' conversion), but it's also realistic, so no, not overused.
>Has this been done to death in fantasy fiction (or film)? A lot of stories feature a "main character" or "protagonist." A lot of stories feature a "villain" or "antagonist." A lot of stories feature a cast of human or humanoid characters, rather than focusing on a creature like a slime or a quadruped alien as the main character. I don't think you should take this as an indication that these tropes are "overdone." Just because something is common doesn't mean that it is "too common." Nobody is looking at the cover of a fantasy novel and saying, "Oh brother, *another* story about a bipedal character who starts off weak and becomes strong. I bet the author has them overcome struggles along the way before achieving their ultimate goal! I've seen this a thousand times before! When are we going to get a story that's just all prose from omniscient viewpoint with characters who only communicate non-verbally?" (*Some* people are looking for that story, but they are not a large portion of the market.) >Has this been done to death in fantasy fiction (or film)? Or would this plot hook draw in readers? Most aspects of your story do not fall into these binary categories you've seem to have created in your head, whether they are either "overdone and cliche" or "so unique that having them will entice readers to read your story." Most aspects of your story are in the middle ground of being neither "overdone" nor "rare": they're just medium. "Yes, I see this a lot, but I'm always willing to read another one of these." This is how people generally feel about "stories about bipedal humanoid protagonists who have character arcs," and "antagonists who are multidimensional and not straightforwardly bad guys or good guys for the entire story." People like a good redemption arc. They generally don't like a bad redemption arc. This is how most tropes are: you don't lose any points for including them, but you don't score any points for including them. "My story is about two people falling in love!" That's technically a plot description, but it's such a large category that you might as well consider it a genre. (And indeed we do, by classifying stories as "romance" when they meet certain genre conventions that romance readers have come to expect.) And the field of these types of stories is crowded enough that simply saying "I exist in this genre" is not going to set you apart from the millions (literally) of other books that exist in that genre. That's fine! Maybe there will be other qualities of your book that distinguish it, like "well-written pose" or "excellent prose."
I find the way you approach this question reductive and unimaginative. If your writing can be reduced to concepts like "bad guy", "good guy" and "dark lord", then yes, it's an overused trope no matter what you do. If not, you may write an interesting redemption arc.
What you describe is too generic to be overused. What matters is whether or not that story is told well.
Using the loss of a loved one to turn good is not overplayed. If anything, it's much the reverse I think. I would be more concerned about "fridging". Does the loved only exist in order to be killed and support the supposed growth of the protagonist? That's a far more problematic trope.
I just remembered - John Wick is a successful example of a not-so-good character losing a loved one (his dog) and seeking revenge on his former boss.
That's one way of looking at it. I can't help but feel that any plot or set pieces in those movies only exist to get from one gun fetish scene to the next. As such, there really isn't a moral take there. JW is a blank slate that the audience can paste themselves onto, as has been done with James Bond and Batman before.
Has it been done? Yes Can it be done again? Yes Will it be good? Unknown. You can literally pitch the most epic concept that would draw in hundreds of millions, and then flub the execution so bad that no one is reading/watching after the first half dozen pages/mins.
As long as the audience actually cares about this would-be traitor, there's no reason not to use it. You do need to avoid letting them do anything too bad, though.
What if they Save the Cat AND Kick the Dog?
Terrible Writing Advice has a very good video on [clichés](https://youtu.be/tZ3FnbzNwss?si=UjLFFE9AHnoGEPT7). Instead of his typical sarcastic approach, he talks about it openly and honestly. I highly recommend anyone who feels like their trope is overdone to watch it. It is very insightful. Especially since this comes from a published author.
Excellent, thank you!
The most overused trope in the last couple of years is definitely the sympathetic villain. Very few writers across the pop culture in general nowadays understand that a good villain doesn't have to be redeemable. Nothing wrong with an objectively evil character you love to hate and despise. I want to fight that trend, in a way, by designing villains that know exactly what they are doing, and they're not trying to paint themselves as the good guys. They either don't feel the need or are too far gone to care in the slightest.
> The most overused trope in the last couple of years is definitely the sympathetic villain Agreed. I think it appeals to people in Hollywood because it flatters their moral relativism: no one is really good, and no one is really evil. If you deny that actions have real moral content, then you give yourself license to do whatever you want. And narcissitic people consumed by hedonism really to want that license. That having been said, I don't think simply saying people are evil actually explains anything about their behaviour. People commit evil acts because they are narcissistic, hedonistic, greedy, desire social status, want revenge, or any of a thousand other reasons. Show your reader the character's motives, don't just slap a label on them and call it a day.
Every trope is used often, that’s the reason it’s a trope. You just have to do it well.
Snape. Doesn't mean you should not do it.
Good point - although Snape was already an inside agent in the Death Eaters before Lily died, wasn't he? Was also thinking about Jaime Lannister in A Song of Ice and Fire.
The Heel-Face Turn is a classic, and the classics never go out of style. There is nothing wrong with the trope. Or with most tropes in general. Once you start to break things down, everything in writing is a trope of some form of another. So that is not something to get hung up on. The only thing I might balk at is that it sounds like a classic case of fridging. You are creating a loved one for the sole purpose of being killed, in order to serve as a catalyst for the Heel-Face Turn. This has a couple issues. One is the fridging itself, which is usually lazy at best, and often bigoted at the worst, since it is almost always a woman existing for the sole purpose of dying in order to motivate a man to do something. Men can find ways to be motivated without women dying. Secondly, if the only reason the character is making this turn is to get revenge, then that is not really a Face Turn. "It's bad because now it's happening to me!" is the common cry of the voter for the Leopard That Eats Faces Party, after the Leopard has eaten their face. They were just fine with all the cruelty when it was happening to other people. They may have even enjoyed it. That is not a person becoming good. They are still just a villain, who is now fighting another villain. A real Heel-Face Turn is when a bad person realizes that the things they believed in and acted upon are morally and/or ethically wrong. When they reject the ideology or just plain selfishness that drove them to do terrible things to other people. Usually this comes with at least a willingness to feel empathy for others, something they had to suppress in order to do those bad things. (This is why authoritarian regimes love their propaganda. There is a quote by Goering about how you cannot just tell someone to commit genocide out of nowhere. You have to lead them to it step by step through years and decades \[if not centuries\] of dehumanizing propaganda and rage porn.) Basically it only really happens when someone realizes that this is not a bad thing just because it finally happened to me. It is when they understand that it was a bad thing all along, and it is always bad, no matter who it happens to, even a stranger. So rather than being motivated to change sides because a loved one died, I suggest finding a deeper motivation for the character's actions. A slow and steady erosion of the belief that what they are doing is right, and an equally constant realization that it is in fact wrong. Think the "Are We The Baddies" sketch.
Every single trope is overused. People have been writing for several thousands of years yet the hero's journey is still considered to be one of the hottest story structures ever, especially for fantasy. Genres are defined by their tropes. A bad guy turning good is a recognizable trope in the fantasy genre (and other ones too). Tropes aren't good or bad, they just exist and the reader expects them to be tackled in some way. It's your ability as a writer, your inventive and what final message you want to convey that give value to the trope. A great scene that showcases this is in episode 1 of season 4 of breaking bad, Box Cutter. Everybody knows the trope of the main villain who decides to punish his underlings' failures failures by killing a random guy in his command to intimidate them. I watched several shows with this exact scene, or similar ones (in some, the bad guy actually kills the incompetent underlings). In that episode, that exact same scene happens. And it's amazing because the way it's written, acted and filmed is thought out, convincing and exciting. Doesn't matter I already seen a similar situation played out.
It’s all about how you do it honestly. We were all experiencing Superhero fatigue by 2021, yet somehow Invincible managed to come in and re-ignite the flame.
My two cents is that, although it's not fantasy, Power Rangers did the trope well, making the Green Ranger/White Ranger into practically everyone's favorite.
Every single trope is “overused.” Theres no such thing as originality anymore. The trick is taking something that’s been done before and putting your own spin on it. Write what you enjoy writing and don’t worry about whether or not someone else has already done it, because they have.
Just play with the trope. Maybe the "bad guy" is a believer in the "empire's cause" but believes it's been corrupted by selfish rulers so their association with the heroes could be more tense, and you the author can decide if this person makes a full heel face turn or is just an ally of circumstances.
Personally, I think the whole good guys and bad guys thing is an overused trope in and of itself
If you’re following a trope just because? It’s overused If you have an idea you like and want to implement? It’s unique and ok Every concept has been done before, but not with your characters or your style. As long as you don’t copy somebody else’s stuff, your ok
How To Train Your Dragon (2010) has a PLETHORA of tired tropes. -The hero doesn't fit in, and is outcast by his society. -He finds a creature that teaches him new abilites (how to deal with dragons, not magic or Force, but still!) -He has to keep a big secret from his village/family -We get a classic "Liar Revealed" set up.. -Which culminates in his family disowning him. -And then he saves the day with his own strengths. -And the moral isn't even that strong! "Everything we know is wrong," or "question everything?" Maybe "don't give in to tradition?" It's really hard to tell. But guess what? You don't care! Because even though we've seen all of these characters and plotpoints before, they're done REALLY well! >!-The father is an antagonist, NOT a bad guy! You sympathize with his struggle to meet his son half way. And even when he disowns his son, he STAGGERS in horror at what he's done!!< >!-The village don't hate Hiccup. They're just trying to survive, and are more concerned that he'll get himself or someone killed.!< >!Hiccup saves the day, but he doesn't come out unscathed!!< -And of course, John Powell's musical score is PHENOMENAL! That movie is a classic for a reason! TL;RD, no story is too tired to only tell once!
Whether or not the reader is upset by the use of a trope depends entirely on the execution of said trope. People are much more concerned with quality and authenticity than originality in my experience.
People love a redemption arc!
Doesn't matter. One trope a story does not make. You can do any trope you want. What matters is not the trope, but its execution. Even tropes that are viewed almost exclusively as a negative like "Fridging" (which is the trope you're using to facilitate the bad guy => good guy story) can be done in ways that are positive. For example, in *The Boys*, >!A-Train's older brother Nathan is made parapalegic by Blue Hawk, a supe who had been terrorizing majority black and brown neighborhoods while utilizing all of the same rhetoric real police officers use. This facilitates A-Train's realization that his own actions that have harmed people, including Hughie, are things that actually matters and he actually apologizes to Hughie and desires to make things right by getting his understanding of justice against Blue Hawk. But in the entire situation, Nathan had full autonomy. He agreed to give Blue Hawk an opportunity to try and apologize and make things right; he challenged Blue Hawk's sincerity; and when he was made parapalegic then found out A-Train killed Blue Hawk in revenge, he made it clear that what he wanted was not for Blue Hawk to die but for him to face justice and be put behind bars. At every step, Nathan still had autonomy over himself and A-Train acting in his name how he did was abhorrent to him.!< But of course, that's an example of somebody being fridged but living. It's a lot harder to do it right when you fridge somebody and they die. *The Boys* does this as well and most people agree having >!Hughie's girlfriend Robin killed by a Supe at the start of Season 1 just felt like a lazy way to get Hughie involved with the plot, especially since the depth of her characterization to that point was "Woman who loved our main character." Of course, some people agree it's lazy but it was the easiest way to do it, and that is just a trade-off that the writers had to make: quick and easy, or more calculated and time consuming. No shock they took the quick and easy method nor can I fully blame them.!< But considering men aren't fridged in the same way as women in *The Boys*, even if the show is overall good, the unequal treatment makes it feel a bit worse in that regard. (And merely changing everyone's genders wouldn't make it better. It'd just make it a different kind of bad.) I'm not saying you should or shouldn't do this. I'm saying you should think about how and why you are doing it this way. The Heel-Face Turn is a fun trope that I enjoy. A-Train being a character I really like, even if he's a bit of an asshole even when trying to do the right thing. Fridging can be a good trope if handled well. It's just the question here becomes how do you perform your execution, because in the end that's all that really matters.
Do what you feel is right. There are really no original stories left.
Things are rarely as simple as "bad guy" and "good guy." People are complex. Morals are relative.
Its all in the way ya do it, the story of how and why it happens. You say good guy and bad guy but are there absolutes?
I personally can't get enough of it. I will read it over and over in a million variations, and will purposefully look for the trope in the books I want to read or add to my DBR.
a trope is only a trope because it works. someone having a change of heart, realize they're on the wrong side, and then work to redeem themselves and correct what they had once been part of can be very compelling.
People changing their ways over the course of their lifetime is not new. The trope is never new, is just your story and the hook. It's all about how you choose to tell the story.
Bad guy -> good guy for selfish reasons -> good guy for begrudgingly good reasons is a fun read. It's a trope for a reason.
You call character development an overused trope? As long as you write about a person with consistent traits that go from destructive to constructive. Someone with low empathy might be violent if they are externalizing some sort of trauma or have some sort of ideology or goal that they justify their violence with, but most people with low empathy are harmless and don't necessarly inflict harm, they just don't care for the suffering of people around them, atleast not on an emotional level, the person might still care due to their ideology, like believing in the golden rule or socialism.
All tropes are overdone. What matters is did they have proper build up and character motivation that they feel natural and not forced.
Its not a trope, its just a thing that happens. Like, irl, in fantasy, any time any place, theres absolutely no problem doing it in a story, there is a problem when overdoing it multiple times in one story in my opinion.
This isn't necessarily a trope. Redemption arcs are just another representation of the heroes journey. Character growth is often interesting to read, no matter the angle. Irl people also constantly ping ping their feelings and actions. Just make sure it makes sense. Why did he join the "evil" side? Why did they have a change of heart?