I think that we are definitely conditioned to expect certain tropes to pop up in books, tv, cinema - everything. Even if the trope is then subverted, that is still a way of acknowledging its existence.
I think the TV Tropes site gives a very good definition of trope as distinct from cliche:
"Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite". In other words, dull and uninteresting."
As for the specific example you have linked to - the unintended romantic storyline - given that shippers can link any two characters regardless of age, gender, species, sexual preference, sanity, etc - I'm not surprised that a reader felt that she was being cued for a romance with a bickering male/female partnership. It is fairly classic - Beatrice and Benedick, Lizzy and Darcy, Maddie and David, Mulder and Scully, etc.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 04:22 pm (UTC)I think the TV Tropes site gives a very good definition of trope as distinct from cliche:
"Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite". In other words, dull and uninteresting."
As for the specific example you have linked to - the unintended romantic storyline - given that shippers can link any two characters regardless of age, gender, species, sexual preference, sanity, etc - I'm not surprised that a reader felt that she was being cued for a romance with a bickering male/female partnership. It is fairly classic - Beatrice and Benedick, Lizzy and Darcy, Maddie and David, Mulder and Scully, etc.