Alright, I lied. It’s been more than a week, the holidays got in the way more than I figured and I needed to put myself on maternity/mental health leave. I’m almost back now and ready to delve straight into my next few top tropes! If you’re just tuning in you might want to go back and read Part 1 before continuing.
7. Evil Chancellor
My most loyal and faithful advisor, what should I do? The chances of you being evil are rather high considering you’ve been lurking in a hidden part of the castle and conspiring against me. I mean, I haven’t noticed, I’m way too busy ruling my kingdom. Plus, I rely on you more than I should.
When this character type exists it’s not always noticeable at first. They usually do seem to be friendly to the ruler, but audiences aren’t often surprised when someone close to the throne (or other seat of power) turns out to be a villain character.
The Evil Chancellor is a useful villain. They’re close enough to the seat of power that they usually know all the secret plans. Even if another character figures them out before the climax it’s usually someone that won’t be listened to, so they normally don’t run the risk of being prematurely revealed. They’re also very good manipulators and have access to many scapegoats.
6. Anti-Hero
To truly understand and enjoy this character archetype you need to know what a hero is. A hero is your knight in shining armor: defender of the weak, protector of the lowly, the protagonist who takes the moral high ground and has the physical or magical ability to stand by it.
Your basic anti-hero lacks something that your knight in shining armor has. Usually it’s a warped, absent, or even backward moral code. Make no mistake, anti-hero characters are on the protagonist’s side of the story, they just tend to make questionable choices that cause interesting consequences.
Most of the best anti-hero characters are mistaken for antagonists at some point in the story. This causes the audience to second guess their preconceptions which is always a good thing.
5. Sweet Polly Oliver
What can I say? I love a good gender swap. Any female character who is trying to pass as a male character to accomplish a goal counts as a Sweet Polly Oliver. (The inverse of this trope is Harmless Lady Disguise, but I only have space to talk about one of these.)
There are so many examples that I love but I’ll parse it down to these three: Mulan (from Mulan), Viola (from Twelfth Night or She’s the Man), and Haruhi Fujioka (from Ouran High School Host Club). Hopefully you’ve heard of at least one of them; I’m not going to go into detail, but they’d all be fun to look up and I might visit them in future posts.
The main things that all three of these stories share are an interesting motivation and a sense of suspense. Each of the character’s reasons for gender swapping is different and intriguing. Each story shares the same suspense as they are almost caught in their deception leaving the audience with anticipation of their final reveal of their true self.
4. Lovable Rogue
Swinging into our story on the heals of our main character, or often as part of a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, comes a character that you can’t help but like. Charming, swarthy, cunning, manipulative, humorous, backstabbing, stealthy, or mysterious. The Lovable Rogue plays on many elements that make a character intriguing.
Living outside the law by thieving in some way, this Rogue is not just your common thief. Often using at least one of the adjectives I listed above, he will become sympathetic to both audience and protagonist characters despite his shady past and exploits.
Lovable Rogues share some traits with anti-heroes – and they sometimes are anti-heroes – but you almost always know what side they’re on. They’re useful characters to have around because their moral codes align with the heroes but allows them to do things others cannot (like set a mansion on fire to cause a distraction for the party to escape or pick a lock with a spoon… their antics tend to be amusing).
3. Evil Gloating
Now that you have fallen into my trap, I just want to say that it was so easy. I lured you in with interesting information and amusing antics. Now you will be trapped in my blog forever as I explain in exasperating detail how this is exactly what I meant to happen all along even though nothing actually went according to anyone’s plans. Muahahahaha!!!
Oh no! I started monologuing and now my plans are ruined as you took the time to think of a way to escape! Whatever am I going to do?
Seriously though, I love a good evil monologue. This is one of the most over used tropes to the point that it has become common for a villain to make fun of it in the story. Even going as far as making fun of it as they’re doing it.
Evil gloating does serve a few purposes though. It gives the audience a clear view, or even recap, of exactly what the villain’s purpose was. It also gives the writer one last chance to show off a protagonist’s weaknesses. On top of that it gives us a common formula and point of reference to make sure everyone’s on the same page.
I Interrupt This List Once Again
Just as before it’s because my word count is getting longer than I’d like! These tropes just need more detail (and that’s not a bad thing). I promise I’ll be back sooner this time.
Just as a reminder I do offer a variety of writing and editing services.
And now for Part 3!
