Discussion What Are Your Novel Pet Peeves

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by Seli, Apr 26, 2020.

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  1. Seli

    Seli Well-Known Member

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    I haven't been reading these types of novels for a long time, but I've noticed some really irritating trends.

    1. Repetition of someone's IQ and/or EQ or lack thereof.

    2. Supposedly strong and smart FL that is actually dumb as dirt.

    3. Rape and assault between MCs supposedly in the name of love. On the other side of that, FL acting as if having sex and liking it with their partners is a sin and a chore. There is a difference between the two.

    4. Dragging out novels out for money.
    a.) There is such a thing as too much face slapping

    5. This line, " I like you, but it has nothing to do with you." What. The. F**k????

    These are just a few. What about you?
     
  2. TrueNineLives

    TrueNineLives Well-Known Member

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    Too many exclamation points in Chinese novels. Like I understand if it were really important or shocking parts but it gets ridiculous to see them for the simplest and unimportant stuff.
     
  3. lnv

    lnv ✪ Well-Known Hypocrite

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    There is way too many to list...

    Just keeping it short:

    Male MC - Polygamy

    Female MC - Super assassin that can dodge or deflect bullets with their own hands, survival expert in the most harsh terrain. Still ends up tripping on a rock walking down the street or falling for some basic trap even when told its there in advance and ML ends up catching her or she ends up bumping into the ML

    Both - Hypocrites, must murder everyone, must save everyone

    General - Everyone is completely brainless and can't think without the MC
     
  4. Not Red Yet

    Not Red Yet Well-Known Member

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    90% of tropes in JP/CN/KR novels.

    Way too many to individually list.
     
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  5. Martialegg

    Martialegg [World's most powerful Egg] [HazyPrecise's Senpai]

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    - When the MC can't learn from mistakes and relying solely on plot armor to go forward.
    - When the villain is so shallow and petty that I don't even remember their name after a few hours.
    - When there are too much info dump and afterwards we know that it is completely pointless.
    - When the author forgetting their own side characters without much reason
    - When the ML and FL are acting so unrealistic and cringey that you can't even handle to read more and closing the tab.
     
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  6. akki

    akki [Ani's C☕ffee-mate #3] [Shady Merchant]

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    Female mc novels where some girl fancies the ML. She’ll accuse the mc of stealing her boyfriend/fiancé which everyone will easily believe. I mean c’mon how fucking stupid are you?

    Japanese novels where the mc will talk to everyone like they are his grandparents. I guess super manners is a power they gain when they go to another world.

    Stupid mc’s are a novel killer for me as well. If they’re not smart then I won’t fault them. But when they’re plain stupid I can’t read any further.
     
  7. frozenlimabeans

    frozenlimabeans Well-Known Member

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    A big one is definitely "justified rape." Whether its the protagonists, villains or side characters doing it, I HATE IT. Like when a Female MC is like "Since she tried to kill me, I'll give her the humiliation of a life time" kind of thing and justifying it cause she might have died.
     
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  8. Tempest

    Tempest Well-Known Member

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    Chinese novels where the setting is cool, but the mc fucks off and goes around sleeping with girls and ending up in a giant harem
    Female characters that should probably be independent but sticks to a man and depends on them way too much
    Female protagonists that stick to the male lead even when the male lead is basically abusing them due to a 'misunderstanding'
    Self-abuse and sexism
     
  9. Suranchan

    Suranchan ♥‿♥♥‿♥

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    Mary Sue characters who make no mistakes and slays all opponents anytime, all the time!

    Harems
     
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  10. AliceShiki

    AliceShiki 『Ms. Tree』『Magical Girl of Love and Justice』

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    My only real peeve is that I hate when a novel changes its basic premise.

    If I'm reading a child protagonist novel, I don't wanna see the character grow up. (Unless it's an Otome Game Reincarnation or something, since the very premise of those is reaching the teenage years) I wanna see them live as a child, it's why I started reading something with a child protagonist! >.<

    In a similar vein, if I'm reading a fluffy slice of life, I don't wanna see a big bad war break out! Keep my fluffy slice of life away from serious politics stuffs! >.<

    Most other things I can manage, but loss of premise makes me drop stuff easily.
     
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  11. Seli

    Seli Well-Known Member

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    I stopped reading a novel once because of the exclamation points. I felt like they were yelling everything.
     
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  12. Seli

    Seli Well-Known Member

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    Facts. This reminds me of The Dragon King's Son In-law. I don't mind harems so much, but I can't stand Mary Sues with dishwater personalities and little to no backbone.
     
  13. pass1478

    pass1478 I'm in Despair!

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    Authors that try to be deep but fail at it. One dimensional romance. One dimensional characters. Stupid power scaling. Rushed endings. Failed upholding of interesting premises. Hypocrite protagonists. A lot more.
    Thank god I'm not the only one. I don't know if it's just me being immature, but whenever a sudden time skip occurs showing the MC grow up, it gives me a huge urge to just drop the novel. It's one of my biggest peeves.
     
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  14. AliceShiki

    AliceShiki 『Ms. Tree』『Magical Girl of Love and Justice』

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    I don't think it has anything to do with maturity! I think it has to do with what we signed up to read~

    A child protagonist has completely different issues to deal with when compared to a teenager... While seeing a child grow can be interesting, I'd like authors to limit that to 1-3 years or so... Making them simply timeskip from 10 to 16 years old changes their entire circumstances and I basically lose the whole thing that made me like the story in the first place! >.<

    I dropped 2 different webtoons recently because of that... I just wasn't interested in them anymore once the character became a teenager... They were so much more fun as children...
     
  15. baka8roukanako

    baka8roukanako Well-Known Member

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    -Random sexism played 'for laughs'.
    -Wish-fulfillment and Gary Stu MCs (that's why I don't read any transmigration/isekai novels, save for Log Horizon).
    -Shallow characterisation of anybody who isn't the MC.
    -The enemy side is bad and cartoonishly evil...just because.
     
  16. Shem

    Shem ┃ᐕ) ⁾⁾「Lv 69 BL Hunter」☆ Vrelty's Seme ♤♡ ꪋς꧖ ☆

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    • Polygamy/Harem
    • Love Triangles
    • Characters who do illogical or downright stupid actions, or act like evil morons, just to further the plot
    • MC doesn't learn lesson and does the same thing over and over again
    • Underdog
    • Doormat MC
    • Mary Sue
    • Antagonists are all have low IQ
    • First Person POV
    • sickly sweet/cheesy romantic dialogue between MC and love interest—cringe me to death!
    • When dialogue is written to reflect the accent of the speaker.
    • Way too much detail about something not important.
    • Protagonist addressing the reader directly
    • PHYSICAL PERFECTION!
     
  17. LockedPuppet

    LockedPuppet From the void, the circus horns~

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    For me, it's if a story has weak antagonists/villains.
    I don't mean power-wise, but character-wise.

    For example, it's pretty common in reincarnation/transmigration novels to for villains that are over-the-top selfish, evil, prideful, to an almost suicidal degree and mostly end up as nuisances at best in the end. There are two directions I'd much prefer:
    • Make the villain a legitimate threat. If they aren't meant to be one-off this should be a given. It's a good way to drive conflict and makes them much more satisfying once they're finally toppled.
    • Make the villain interesting. Give them motives, backstories, traits, or a modus operandi that makes them fascinating and entertaining whenever they're in-scene. A humanized, or to the very least entertaining, villain can pull in an audience as well as the hero.
    I've only seen a few works do this, though my read collection may be a bit small. My favorite is probably Jieun from TAE because she's a combination of the two. Not only is her situation ridiculously unfair, but she becomes a genuine rival to the MC (even if she didn't care what they were fighting for) and comes dangerously down-to-earth. No joke, I found her initial demeanor in the manhwa to be genuinely chilling.
     
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  18. eirinllrin

    eirinllrin Well-Known Member

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    Abuse. Whether it's sexual assault, rape, mental, emotional and/or physical abuse, i just cannot stand how the majority of romance c-novels treat abuse as romance, or think an episode of horrific abuse is acceptable 'angst' to serve 'dogblood' with. The MLs are sick gross perverts, but somehow the blatantly abusive behavior is potrayed as evidence of them being handsomely cool gods. Even the BAREST minimum of decency is seen as proof they have 'reformed' and the FLs happily grateful to them. The worst part is when the authors try to justify the abuse n emotional manipulation n gaslighting with some nonsense that in NO way excuses any of what they do (because they're married and it's her 'duty'/mistaken identity/revenge/he's just 'venting'/he's rich n powerful n never taken no for an answer, etc). Rape is also depicted frequently as an acceptable punishment, either targetting the FL or the villainess characters.
    It's sickening and concerning that this has become a popular trope, and way too many readers get defensive over the stories and are convinced it's 'romantic'. Especially for younger girls reading this i hope it doesn't make them subconsciously accepting of this sort of behavior. It absolutely should never be normalized.
     
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  19. Bachingchung

    Bachingchung Well-Known Member

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    So most of my pet peeves are already listed here so I'll just add something new.

    Those really smart characters without no rhyme or reason. Like in Death Flags, they are just ha in casual conversation then this particular villain suddenly seemed he knew everything like he's reading the novel with the readers. There's also a similar character on LoTM, where when you thought of him he could already spy on you and know what you're up to.
     
  20. animefan217

    animefan217 Well-Known Member

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    Quality dipping in middle or end and while might not be authors fault a novel I like getting axed or dropped.
    Bad world building.
    Romance drama.
     
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