One Hundred Fantasy Clichés That Really Need To Rest In Peace

#85: Actions Do Not Have Consequences

  Imagine this average Joe kind of person in real life, who works alongside you in a diner.  You and the average Joe (let us call him Jimmy) are both waiters with the same amount of experience.  Both of you got hired the same day, as management was short of employees due to a recent protest for higher minimum wage pay.  While you try your best and be as kind to the customers as possible, Jimmy is the complete opposite.  He is rude, a potty-mouth, and does not know the first thing about hygiene.  However, management loves him a lot more than you, despite being an honest worker, and has raised his salary on multiple occasions.  This is despite the fact he should have been fired weeks ago for a slew of bad behavior.  Jimmy two weeks ago called an elderly lady the curse that rhymes with hunt for complaining that her clam chowder had a band-aid clearly floating in it.  Days later, Jimmy hacked up mucus on a steak a young woman asked to be cooked due to it being too rare.  The cherry on top of all of these mean spirited acts was the final one, which occurred only five days ago.  He purposefully made a middle aged couple wait over two hours for their food just because they were not in the same political party as him.  Despite all this, management has not done a thing and has actually praised him for his dirty work.  Meanwhile, you are punished for accidentally not putting bread on the table for one customer and are forced to work overtime for the next month completely unpaid.  You wonder to yourself why Jimmy can get away with the equivalent of murder while you suffer for making a simple mistake.  Shouldn't there be any consequences to the disgusting actions he has committed?

  If you replied yes, it would make complete sense.  No one would want to be treated like dirt for no reason at all while a nasty person benefits.  His actions should have had a consequence.  That would be what happened to Jimmy in real life if he ever committed any of the crazy actions depicted above.  Then why in the story did he get away with it?  Sadly, in a lot of fiction, actions rarely have any true consequences for most of the main characters.  If it is the protagonist, this case is a lot worse.  It is commonplace for most authors to let their characters get away with juvenile actions that normally would result in some dire consequences.  This kind of cliché to me and probably a lot of other people is a huge annoyance when reading any type of fictional story, even fantasy.

  This annoyance can be best summed up with the reason as to why some people do not like the manga series Death Note after the middle of the seventh volume.  Besides the death of a fan favorite character, some people became increasingly annoyed that main character Light Yagami was not receiving any type of punishment for his self-centered usage of the Death Note.  After death ten thousand and one, Light still had not gained an ounce of suspicion from the police or felt any pity for the multiple people he killed off.  They may have mostly been criminals, but it was still murder.  By writing the names into the special notebook with the intention of killing the said person, Light played a role in their deaths.  This is why most people prefer rooting for L over Light, as L is trying to stop these deaths from continuing and Light is causing every single one to occur.  It is also why some people consider only the first half of the story great and the second half to be as dull as sandpaper.  If Light had received some type of consequence for continually writing names in the Death Note, even if it was just the self-guilt of killing all of these people, the audience would have received the later parts of the manga much better.

  Giving any character consequences for an act deemed wrong helps to create real stakes for the storyline.  If the character does not get caught for breaking a rule or law, there is the potential fear of getting caught.  One slip-up could mean the end for them.  This creates a great opportunity to better diversify the character, knowing how they are going to act under the pressure of doing something that is deemed unacceptable.  In the case of protagonists trying to enlighten those brainwashed in dystopian-like settings, these feelings help to strengthen their resolve, knowing under the pressure that the sacrifice was worth it in order to try doing the right thing.  With a protagonist in a regular fantasy setting, it makes their story arc more complex and relatable to the audience.  When the character does get caught, they either must change their ways after facing the music or fall into despair for feeling the punishment was wrongly given.  Whether we like to admit it or not, we have done at least one thing we have regretted for years to come.  These events mold us into the person we are going to be, like a character in a story.  It is the ultimate test as to whether we will overcome our wrongful act by becoming a better person or drown in it by becoming scum like Jimmy in the beginning example.  Letting any character just get away with their deed takes away all of this potential material.

So the next time you write a story, ask yourself this; do you want your character to be an annoying Jimmy or complex and relatable to the audience, like L was to Death Note readers?  It is your choice whether or not you want to break the cliché or be the one to contribute to it.