Following tropes or not in fantasy

[mollyringle]

Something I've been pondering: when reading fantasy, how far do you like authors to veer from established traditions for a supernatural creature? If we're dealing with vampires, say, then they can't NOT drink blood. They aren't vampires unless they do. But can the author change other traditions and still make it work for you? It seems to have been voted a bad idea to decide they sparkle in sunlight instead of burning up, so apparently readers do have limits. :D

I'm not actually pondering vampires, though. For my own current idea-in-progress I'm thinking about faery lore. For example, how attached are people to the notion that iron repels fae? Is that a tradition readers like to see, or one they're tired of seeing? When it comes to faeries, what features are you tired of reading about, and what features must be included or else it isn't properly fae for you?

Comments

[travels_in_time]

I like the "iron-repels-fae" trope, or more generally, "fae don't like iron because it burns them/messes with their senses/some other reason to be explained". In fact I like it more if it's some other reason that I haven't heard before but that's believable in the context of the story.

Other traditions...I don't care about anyone setting out bowls of milk for them. I mean, who wants milk that's been out all night? Bleah. Other gifts or things to appease them, I'd want to know about. What works, and why? What things do humans think works and faeries just laugh at? What things do humans not even know about but faeries love? WHAT ARE THEY USING ALL OUR SPARE SOCKS FOR?

I'm not a huge fan of the child-stealing or switching, but I enjoy it if it's done in a way that makes sense in context. Not just because someone felt like playing a prank. As a parent, I don't see volunteering to take on the care and feeding of yet another brat without a darn good reason. Especially when the stereotype of faeries is that they don't care at all about humans. Stealing them for a trick and then forgetting about them and abandoning them to die, sure. If the faeries are keeping them, I'm gonna need a reason.

What must be included or it isn't properly fae...glamour. Maybe not full-on hypnotizing, but they have to have at least a limited ability to make people see what they want them to see, even if it's only during certain times or in certain places, or only applying to their own personal appearances, or whatever.

[mollyringle]

lol! Seriously, what good are all these room-temperature bowls of milk and random socks? I don't foresee using that trope so much.

Anyway, yes, I'm pretty much of the same opinion for all this. I can get behind changeling stories if they're explained adequately, and I like the idea of people getting lost in the fae realms and never seen again, mainly because I figure the fae realms are very dangerous places. And I definitely like the ability of faeries to mess with our senses, with glamour and similar magic. That's the cool part!

[peripety]

It's fun for me as a reader when an author takes a traditional element and reinterprets it or gives me an explanation about how it came to be a part of folk-lore tradition in a way I haven't encountered before.

As for the Fae, I've always liked it when something like cold iron is used as a means to disrupt magic because it makes it more interesting to me that beings who might seem unconstrained have, in fact, their own limitations to contend with. And I've always liked Fae (at least some of them) presented as being at times slightly sinister or at the least single-minded when it comes to their own self-interests.

[mollyringle]

Agreed! There's probably a fair amount of wiggle room in the area of mixing established traditions with new ideas. I think the fae should seem a bit alien. That is, while cool and magical, they should have unbendable rules and cultures that can be a problem when dealing with humans. That seems in keeping with old-time faery lore, wherein you have to treat them with caution.