“That’s not how real literature works”
If you think “real literature” doesn’t “work” that way, you’re not thinking substantially about literature, neither in individual instances nor in the broader scheme.
What do you think a tragic hero is? What do you think a quest narrative is? How do you think we can conceive of Seven Basic Plots? What do you think Comedy and Tragedy are? Do you think the Aeneid popped out of nowhere without referencing any of the patterns of Greek epics that made it compelling to its audience? Do you think Shakespeare was popular because his plays were “original” ideas with storylines that would have been surprising to his audience? Do you think fairy tales sprung out of the air as discrete individual units? Do you think no one has ever written anything that follows the patterns of Greek epics, Shakespeare, or fairy tales intentionally? Do you think “literature” contains no works that intentionally evoke an existing pattern in their plots and characters?
“Genre” as bookshops use it is not somehow superior to “tropes.” Fantasy, Westerns, Paranormal Romances, those categories are like, less than one or two centuries old and also damn near useless for anything except marketing. Genre is a hot fucking mess and pretty artificial. Tropes on the other hand? Those have always existed. They are, quite literally, inherent and natural parts of stories.
What “genre” is the Epic of Gilgamesh? What “genre” is the Odyssey? Fantasy? Do you think it is in any way appropriate to “genre” these stories using categories that would have been nonsense to their ancient audiences? What the fuck is fantasy?
Over and over again, we have told stories about heroes destroyed by their hubris, about mortals struggling against the inevitability of death, about the antics of trickster deities, about clever young boys outwitting giants and other malicious characters, about young girls swept into royalty, about brothers in conflict with one another, and the ability to identify these patterns and explore why they have persisted is…basically what literary and folklore studies is.
Just because you consider fanfic or romance to be “lesser” doesn’t mean they can’t be analyzed, or that the mechanical components of those things don’t exist in Real Literature. 10th grade English class clearly didn’t do any good for the people that did pay attention, if people are growing up thinking tropes were invented on fanfiction websites.
And it’s just a depressing point of view to be so preoccupied with how people “should” tell stories that how people do tell stories is not even interesting.
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