Blog 4: Stereotypes

Character Idea

In a lot of fantasy videogames and other media, the main character either is or knows a wizard. Generally they are seen as wise or smart and "very old, the implication being that it takes one that much time studying before one can really be considered a true wizard" (TV Tropes). For the character I thought of creating, I want to go against the trope. The wizard would meet the main character and seem like an old wise wizard and then reveal that it was just a ruse and make the wizard foolish, clumsy, and young. This would be trope subversion because the "trope is set up to occur, but then the writer pulls a fast one on the audience, and the trope does not occur after all." (TV Tropes). 

In order to flesh out my character as "real, believable, multi-faceted people, rather than shells which serve a purpose for the player" Wawro, A. (2021, August 24), I would create a reason for them to not be old and wise like they're a young aspiring wizard who happened to flunk out of their academy. Since the character never completed going to wizard academy, they never learned all the tricks, hence why they're more foolish and clumsy.   

Playing With Tropes

Other ways to play with this trope could be inverting it, "The trope (or its elements) are reversed and then used. Some tropes have more than one possible inversion. (TV Tropes), and make the wizard stupid. I could also use double subversion, "The trope is Subverted, and then Subverted again so that it occurs after all." (TV Tropes), where I have the character start off pretending to be smart and powerful and end up being dumb until a later part of the game where they show off that they really are smart and powerful. 

Here is a quick sketch I did of the subverted trope wizard.