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.

It isn’t a troupe. As your own thread demonstrates @changing47 - many of us just on this thread have real life experience of it. I certainly do. Maybe it’s a regional thing?

I don’t like a very long list of characters, especially when a few of them have similar names that begin with the same letter. I end up constantly flicking back through the book to remind myself - who the hell they are!

I find your title annoying to read 🙈

That’s also a real life experience. Lots of people, lots of names starting with the same letter.

I don’t think it’s a troupe

I am saying I don’t like it

ie personal preference

Indeed that can happen irl but it happens by chance usually

I have yet to see the literary benefit of choosing that when writing a story. It’s not communicating anything.

I don’t like a very long list of characters, especially when a few of them have similar names that begin with the same letter. I end up constantly flicking back through the book to remind myself - who the hell they are!

I hate it too but I assumed it was down to my dyslexia.

In RL context tends to mean there is little to no confusion or annoyance as it's clear who is who even people who actually share names.

My recent peeve is books supposedly professionally edited and published by actual reputable publishers having vary minor characters ones we may not ever meet directly but just referenced like husand of a minor character have name changes mid way through the book.

It's obvioulsy a mistake but I often know at most two of three things about this character there relationship to a minor one and their name and perhaps what they reported to have said to minor character- and now ones changed.

And neither is it a trope, as I'm sure has been pointed out numerous times!

Yes. That’s right.

I'm a teacher and when I'm talking to other teachers we will regularly identify pupils by surname (eg the youngest Malfoy boy) if we either can't remember their first name or want to make a point about them based on their siblings or wider family. If a pupil has 4 extremely poorly behaved siblings, 'the youngest/oldest X girl' has more widespread impact amongst the staff as at least one of them will have encountered one of the others. Or perhaps if the child has a very well known parent in the area (local businessperson, head of PTA etc) using their surname helps identify them in a way their first name wouldn't. We have surnames for a reason and many people choose to use them for an effect...

Why do you read anything if you only believe your own direct experience? Surely this limits the joy and benefit of literature?

do you believe things written in any newspaper? On TV or YouTube?

its such a strange thing to think so many people would lie over

I’m certain that both Snape and Dumbledore know exactly who Draco Malfoy is given he’s trying to murder one of them.

It doesn’t open happen in school settings either.

🙄

Of course they know who he is! They haven't both been stricken with amnesia, any more than Uncle Vernon has when he habitually addresses Harry as 'boy'!

The person I think I remember referring to DM as 'the Malfoy boy' is Tonks, and it's surely fairly obvious why JKR would have her not use his first name. She's an anti-Voldemort activist, horrified he's her first cousin and is anxious to distance herself from someone whom she considers a bigot and proto-Death Eater.

I mean, it's not that complicated.

Read my reply to this post.

It’s Dumbledore who calls him the Malfoy boy.

Tonks also calls him that in Half-Blood Prince, just after Dumbledore's death, when she's explaining what happened up the Astronomy Tower to Harry and the others in the infirmary

"The Malfoy boy vanished, he must have slipped past, up the stairs... then more of them ran after him, but one of them blocked the stair behind them with some sort of curse... Neville ran at it and got thrown up into the air --"

She hasn't just forgotten her first cousin's name, either.

Well I read your thread title and it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

No. So she can easily just say Draco.

Must be challenging going through life not being able to figure out a straightforward typo. No wonder you’ve got nothing about books to contribute.