It is no secret that tropes exist and a lot of people complain when they are used and writer’s try to avoid them at all cost. But, I want to offer an alternative. What if a writer used a trope or cliche as a characters defense mechanism to who they really are.
This idea brings up a lot of ideas. Having a heroic character actually be a psychotic murderer. A person who uses adventuring as an excuse to kill indiscriminately or every D&D character ever. Or you could take the jolly male character and make him terribly depressed, using the humor like most real people do to cover the suffering they feel inside. Or what about the coward, this is an interesting trope. Taking the Paris character and turning them into someone who is brave and will lay down their life for the right cause can be tricky.
I see this as a way to write a fantasy book or really any book and not focus on straying away from tropes and cliches but rather using them, more than usual, and then using different possibly darker chapters to show that the trope is a mask, a facade, or any other defense mechanism. It’s not often that a fantasy book would get as self aware as what I am describing but I think it could be an interesting adventure.
Tell what you think. Should authors take this direction? Should they go the more Martin route and disregard them or become the trope ridden fantasy novel?
Grayson C. Beane 