Things in literature they really annoy you?

[changing47]

For me, it’s when characters are referred to as the X girl or the Y boy by characters who are perfectly aware of their names.

Dumbledore in Harry Potter referring to the ‘Malloy boy’. He knows his name is Draco. Just say it. In Game of Thrones Lyanna is referred to as the Stark girl by people who know her name is Lyanna Stark. It drives me mad.

Oh snap! Must have been you on that post!

This usually excuses rather backward social behaviour IMO.

I hate overly long descriptions. I don’t care that the walls are blue or that’s there’s a vase of lilies. Just tell the story.

I meant it’s often the little things that make you happy, which you now are.

Also, used to quite enjoy a Jilly Cooper - Riders and Rivals in particular, even though they were utter shite.

But whichever one she wrote about a school absolutely killed it for me. She had no fucking idea of what schools are like and her 'sexy paedophilia' was deeply disturbing. She had a 30 something headmistress lusting over a Y9 boy, in fact she was deeply infatuated by all of her Y9 students in a rough comprehensive. Every teacher in existence knows that Y9 are absolute arseholes to teach - and even if you quite enjoy the characters of the class you shouldn't be fancying them. They are 14 year olds, for fuck's sake. I've taught them for 30 years without ever wanting to shag one.

She also had some very odd ideas that said 14 year olds in a run down inner city school were actually tortured souls who wandered about quoting Shakespeare and the Romantic poets. I don't think she'd ever visited any kind of school.

Nobody is doing it in that scenario in Harry Potter either. They’re doing it in a private school setting, teacher referring to child, as some other posters have referred to.

It would be not unusual in that scenario and gives information on how the speaker thinks of the boy in question.

Er, right oh.

Except I’ve given multiple examples not taking place in a school setting, including one in the OP.

I do it. Not rudely because the identified people don't know. It's just a figure of speech -slightly disparaging I suppose, but not unusual.

Genuinely though, why don’t you just use their name?

Oh, yeah, the Game of Thrones example. That’s a good one too because of the specific setting it’s used in.

You’re right that it would seem out of place if used to refer to someone’s colleague in Tesco, for example - or your one where somebody is asking someone else out for a drink, that would be totally weird (which book was that in?!).

But Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones? Perfect.

Read my posts. There are half a dozen other examples and hundreds throughout literature. I wish people would read threads, or at least the OP properly and the OP’s other posts.

But it's an effective literary technique, as some teachers in those types of schools did speak like that and might well have referred to a pupil as "that Malfoy boy"

OP if you have a pet, do you ever refer to it as "the dog" as opposed to Rover?

We often say..."who wants to take the dog for a walk"? We know its name!

I can’t think of any specific examples, but I don’t like it when the author comes up with a short phrase or description that they presumably think is really clever, and then use it repeatedly to get maximum mileage out of it.

Similar to a pp - when they get children’s developmental stages crazily wrong. I read a book that was about a hostage situation in a private day care nursery. It was set in the autumn and yet the nursery was full of 5 year olds who should have been in school. The 5 year olds also had the language skills, understanding and behaviour of 2-3 year olds. They were key to the book (rather than appearing in just one scene) and it surprised me that it wasn’t picked up by any editors.

I think the way you’re struggling with this might be indicative of your general struggles with “literary tropes”. You only need basic comprehension skills (of explanations people have given you on this thread) and a little imagination.

“Please speak to Draco Malfoy about his misuse of the dark arts outside of classroom hours” = what it says.

”Please speak to the Malfoy boy about his misuse of the dark arts outside of classroom hours” = please speak to Draco Malfoy and remember, his dad and uncle used to misuse these privileges and went on to do terrible things to the wizarding world so take this more seriously than you would if you were speaking to Hermione Grainger. This family has form.

Do you get it?

”Please can you pick up the older Withenshaw boy on your way to karate with Ben”

>

“Please collect Elliott Withenshaw on your way to karate with Ben” + “who?” + “Elliott Withenshaw, you know, Tom’s best friend’s younger brother, that family that lives behind the Tesco before the A408”.

Can you see the point?

"Fallen Women" whose lives are ruined because they had sex with a man, while the man gets off scot-free.

At least Jane Austen comments on the disparity between society's treatment of Maria Bertram and the treatment of Henry Crawford, but it doesn’t feel satisfying. And yes, Steerforth in David Copperfield ends up drowned, but that is nothing to do with his conduct, and poor Little Em'ly's life is ruined.

But I suppose those books reflect the dreadful social attitudes of their time.

And much as I love most of Dickens (can’t get on with A Tale of Two Cities, despite several attempts), his attitude to women is dire. I love Dombey and Son, but always get furious with Florence for actually apologising to her father, and forgiving him for all his previous cruelty to her and her mother.

I read a lot of detective fiction (short attention span 🤣) and I have noticed that authors writing in this genre often describe locations and character movement using North, South, East and West. It drives me absolutely bonkers because I have little sense of direction so have to work out in my head who is where, which way they are going etc. I don’t need to know! It’s a bit like when you’re completely lost and sat nav says ‘head east along Wilkins Avenue’ when you get to a T junction. Err is that left or right? Which way am I facing? Authors - just tell me an engrossing story without me having to mutter ‘Never Eat Shredded Wheat’ under my breath every five minutes.