[quote=@Hero]
In all seriousness, one trope I'd love to see die is the angsty, dark, disproportionate backstory of this 'tragic' character that does nothing but talk about it constantly. Like...I understand backstories shape characters but at the same time you know they do it to rack up sympathy points and have an excuse to wangst about it constantly.
[/quote]

[i]Exactly[/i]; it just makes me think about [url=https://www.vidble.com/QB6iEDpNMn.jpg]this screenshotted quote from an [i]Onion[/i] article[/url]. It's one thing if someone has a troubled backstory, but they strive to move past it--even if they stumble and fall a few times. But when someone uses their tragic past as a justification/excuse for why they deserve a free pass for sociopathic behavior ([url=http://the-linaerys.tumblr.com/post/84242144474/why-is-manpain-so-annoying]this article goes into that[/url]), that bothers me. Relatedly is when the narrative claims someone's awful behavior should be instantly forgiven because they had good thoughts (despite the character never bothering to act on them or make them manifest) and a heart of gold (that's buried beneath 50 layers of "amoral douchebag" and only prompts one good act every two years), or spent 3.4% of the time [i]not[/i] being a prick. Basically, when they want a reward for basic decency.