Ferretclaw wrote:At the same time, it is terribly agonizing for me, because many of these things are extremely hard to avoid while still having a good tale.
So here's what you do: you start to use the cliche, but then you turn it on its head. My favorite fantasy series of all time is the Discworld series because of how well the author, Sir Terry Pratchett, does this. It plays with the "lost heir to the throne" trope by having the guy turn up and be everything the populace would hope for in a lost heir to the throne...but he's not interested in ruling. He's happier being a policeman
and he probably does more good for the people that way than if he were sitting on a throne. Meanwhile, the city carries on being ruled by a black-clad dictator...who figured out a long time ago that the best way to remain in power was to make sure that things ran well and the people were happy and not oppressed, so no one would be keen to assassinate him. Any fantasy convention you can think of, Pratchett has taken it and turned it inside out into something really refreshing and often quite funny. The Discworld is built to be fundamentally absurd, but it often comes out more realistic than any Tolkien-imitator on the shelf.