Overused Types of Characters

[Dresdenus Prime]

So this was going to be a very specific question, but I figure I'd open up the space a bit. For any people aspiring to be writers, like me, what types of characters do you think should be avoided?

I, for example, would say that Vampires really need to take a backseat. I know a lot of people love them, but they're used so much in every type of entertainment form today. In my book I'm working on, I do have a vampire, but he/she is a minor role.

As for the specific character, I would like to know if anyone thinks that Valkyries are overused? I wanted to have one featured as a supporting character throughout my book and possibly sequels, but then, possible spoilers ahead,

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I look at The Dresden Files and the last couple books really talked about Odin, his warriors, and the woman Gard is a Valkyrie

. My book, just like

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TDF

, is a first person investigation narrative. Many details are different, such as my character isn't a private investigator, but I don't want people seeing something in my book and saying "Ugh I already read enough of that type of character", or is it just the matter of making the character different and unique enough?

Any opinions are appreciated.

[LizW65]

Having only encountered Valkyries in Dresden, I would say they are very far from overused--unlike vampires and werewolves, of which there is a definite glut.
My personal least favorite overused character is the Rake Reformed by a Good Woman's Love, which has been a cliche since at least the 17th century, and is just as unbelievable now as it was then.  True, you tend to get them more in romance than in fantasy/SF, but I find them generally unlikeable.  There are more examples to be found at TV Tropes, I'm sure.
However, bear in mind that a good writer can make even the most overused cliche feel fresh and exciting, so don't worry about it too much, just write what you want.

[Snowleopard]

Yeah DP, vampires, werewolves and now zombies are on the overloaded list as far as I'm concerned.
Valkyries I haven't really encountered except in TDF.

I think the character I most dislike is the one fulfilling a prophecy but without there ever being a hint of any real kind of
difficulty.  They just go blithely on fulfilling their destiny.  Makes my back teeth itch so to speak.
Or the one-dimensional villain - so bad they have absolutely NO redeeming features.  They become boring.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Or the one-dimensional villain - so bad they have absolutely NO redeeming features.  They become boring.

Making a villain well-rounded and still having no redeeming features is an interesting challenge, but I've met a couple of real people whom I'd have no hesitation characterising in such terms, so it must be possible.

[1eyedjack]

I always liked villains I could identify with, who always had reasons for what they did, even if they weren't the best.  I like villains whose road to hell was paved with good intentions.  That's why I like Marcone.  He's not entirely evil, but he'll do anything to get ahead.  He has plenty of redeemable qualities but the guy is still bad news.

I really don't like characters with too much power.  There's a point in a story where things become too much, and the "scale" of power is obliterated.  I've been satisfied with Dresden in that He's always in over his head and while he is strong there's always something to outclass him.  In the Belgariad by David Eddings it worked sort of, but the Mallorean shouldn't have been written.  If you kill a god then you are done, that's all there is to it. 

Really the Mallorean defines Snow's post on blithely fulfilling destiny and the Belgariad is guilty of that too sometimes.

I despise flawless characters as well.  Flaws are the foundation of a character and without them you don't have a character, you have a machine or a puppet.  I love to see the wrong choices made or just choices that while significant have no clear right and wrong.

[Nickeris86]

I find any character that hinges on destiny, or fate in order to work is a comp out. I also dislike deisex characters who are so awesome that the laws of nature bend in their favor. its boring when characters are so utterly perfect.

I also get tired of characters that are good/evil for no other reason other than because the author said so. Orcs are often portrayed like this, being evil scum simply because they are orcs and all orcs are scum with little to no exception. But its not just inhuman creatures either, humans are a real popular target for these types of characters, just look at the movie Avatar.

I also get sick of characters that suffer from Drizzits syndrome, or characters from some kind of evil society and forsake it to become hero's. It would be ok except these guy usually never shut up about how miserable their lot in life is and how lonely they are, even when they have scores of friends and allies that love them and the even the few begets out their grudgingly respect them even if they don't like them.

As for the dislike in vampires and werewolves. I agree they are a little over done but what i am sick of is the twit-light vampires and werewolves (sorry to any fans but the movie made me want to hurt myself. . . a lot.) I have no problems with creatures that are stereotypically villains being the good guy, heck my own novel focuses on that. But what I don't like is when they completely pervert what said character has been for hundred of years.
Vampires and werewolves are predators by their very nature and should be written as such. They can struggle with their nature but that doesn't mean they have to bitch about it every ten seconds.

"oh i am cursed and must suffer on alone never knowing love or kindness" bull you have super powers and a continence use them and maybe oh i don't know help people.

[LizW65]

@ Nickeris:  What is a deisex character?
Also, check out Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals for a very well-rounded portrayal of an orc.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I really don't like characters with too much power.  There's a point in a story where things become too much, and the "scale" of power is obliterated.

That's a relative issue.  I mean, it's the bedevilling problem of many Superman comics, but there are still good stories about Superman, and Mike Carey's Lucifer got a mostly totally awesome 75-issue story arc out of a central character who is the second most powerful in all of Creation and has both the ability and the temperament to set the world on fire if he wants to light a cigarette. Partly by giving him a great supporting cast and partly by giving him pride enough to insist on playing your game by your rules and winning anyway.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I also get tired of characters that are good/evil for no other reason other than because the author said so. Orcs are often portrayed like this, being evil scum simply because they are orcs and all orcs are scum with little to no exception.

Tolkien was doing something specific with orcs that seems to me to be worth doing, in that direction;  his orcs are Fallen elves, and his elves are very much like Miltonic angels, with what that entails in terms of free will.

Vampires and werewolves are predators by their very nature and should be written as such.

That connects to one I am very fed up with, actually.  Not thinking through the contradictions in making a character or a being predators "by their very nature" and also a thinking being, having which bits the character can control and which not vary for plot reasons and for giving them overly human-like emotional conflict rather than following through on genuinely alien thinking.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

@ Nickeris:  What is a deisex character?

I'm presuming that was meant as "deus ex", as in machina.

[1eyedjack]

That's a relative issue.  I mean, it's the bedevilling problem of many Superman comics, but there are still good stories about Superman, and Mike Carey's Lucifer got a mostly totally awesome 75-issue story arc out of a central character who is the second most powerful in all of Creation and has both the ability and the temperament to set the world on fire if he wants to light a cigarette. Partly by giving him a great supporting cast and partly by giving him pride enough to insist on playing your game by your rules and winning anyway.

I didn't think I was stating absolute fact Zur-En-Aargh, just my own personal opinions.  There are some superman story lines that are passable but for the most part I'm unimpressed.  I have found that it is a lot more difficult to take the premise of absolute power in the main character and turn that into a compelling story.  Not impossible, just less likely.  It is relative but then again all things are.  Even a tried and true method will fail at times and sometimes a longshot will end up on top.  The point was overused characters.

Tolkien was doing something specific with orcs that seems to me to be worth doing, in that direction;  his orcs are Fallen elves, and his elves are very much like Miltonic angels, with what that entails in terms of free will.

But remember, the topic is overused characters and I think orcs fall into that category.  Fantasy post-Tolkien has at the same time advanced and stagnated.  On the one hand there's more of it and it is far more widely accepted.  On the other hand elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, and many other fantastical creatures have become dumbed down Tolkien interpretations and have not strayed very far since then.  Not to say that there are no exceptions I'm sure there are.  On the whole it is still very true.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I am not sure there are characters I think are overused, but there are things that I have had enough of that often make up large parts of characters.  Things that fall under this category for me include:

- Seeing and seeking Twue Wuv as defined by a checklist of criteria that are all about ideals and not so much about individuals.
- Twue Wuv being accepted as an excuse for treating one's other friends badly-to-abominably and expecting them to think this is right and just and The Way Things Are.
- Come to think of it, thinking pretty much anything is The Way Things Are* as a central point of a character and not questioning it - in the story if not necessarily in the character's own head; fanatic characters are interesting, but worlds that conspire to prove them right, not so much.  Whether I actually agree with the philosophical point they are making or not.
- Bullheadedness as a virtue, in general.  Characters we are supposed to admire because they stick to their principles when the world presents them with evidence that those principles might not be the best way to proceed, rather than reconsidering whether their principles are actually for the best. (With a special place reserved for books that cheat to have it both ways; certain urban-fantasy protagonists who acquire harems of men to have endlessly-described sex with while still getting to feel good about their good-girl guilt issues because somehow the universe is forever conspiring to put them in situations where Terrible Things Will Happen unless they keep having sex with more men particularly irk me in this regard.  One of the downsides of successfully overcoming some of the things wrong with the culture in which I was brought up is being very short on patience for the particular shape of negativity that leads to protagonists never getting to have a simple straightforward good time.)

*The Way Things Are about human psychology, I mean.  If you want to write a story in which The Way Things Are about the world is that a deity will instantly vanish anyone who wears green because it doesn't like green, and you use this to explore some human beings thinking green is inherently Evil and others defending the right to wear green, I'm good with that - particularly if you use it to say things about human psychology and emotional responses that might be harder to say clearly if you picked an issue with more real-world contentiousness.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I didn't think I was stating absolute fact Zur-En-Aargh, just my own personal opinions.  There are some superman story lines that are passable but for the most part I'm unimpressed.  I have found that it is a lot more difficult to take the premise of absolute power in the main character and turn that into a compelling story.

I'll agree that it's a lot more difficult.

That's precisely why I think people should attempt it. There's precious little point in only taking on easy answers and solved problems.  I admire a writer who can make me sympathise with and understand someone I would not normally like much more than I admire a book that is working for me because it's hitting my emotional comfort-buttons.

[comprex]

- Bullheadedness as a virtue, in general.  Characters we are supposed to admire because they stick to their principles when the world presents them with evidence that those principles might not be the best way to proceed, rather than reconsidering whether their principles are actually for the best.

Do purely emotional arcs without a proven ability to form, change or follow personal principles fall in this category?

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Do purely emotional arcs without a proven ability to form, change or follow personal principles fall in this category?

I am finding it hard to think of an arc that pure; have you any specific examples in mind ?