One Hundred Fantasy Clichés That Really Need To Rest In Peace

#69: The Emotionless Loner

A very common fantasy character trope is none other than that of the emotionless loner.  These characters simply are individuals who do not follow the established moral status quo.  They prefer to be alone, always keeping themselves in the shadows.  On the moral plane, the emotionless character is a wild card, who is either defined as a classic anti-hero or a simple one dimensional villain.  Appearance wise, the character will wear darker colored clothing and have a creepy, ghost-like aura to them.  Most of the time, the emotionless loner identifies as either the common goth or someone who feels lacks empathy.  A traumatic event brought upon their characterization, leaving them mere shadows of their former selves.  In every conversation, they talk in a low, disinterested voice with a mysterious chilling choice of foreboding words.  They are the dark character that many authors feel make a great addition to their cast.

  However, these loner characters are far from an essential writing element.  Nine out of ten times, these characters become an unavoidable, annoying cliché that the best of authors should avoid at all costs.  The emotionless loner is not a character trope that should be used often, if at all.

  The first issue with the emotionless loner is their over-saturation in fiction, especially in fantasy.  If you want to read some fictional story about an enchanted, far off land, you will always encounter at least one example of these characters.  Sol was a male variant of the character trope in the Warriors' book Eclipse.  Foreshadowing about an upcoming fearsome event (a solar eclipse) to the four cat Clans, he disappears into the shadows after merely making an appearance in ShadowClan territory for a chapter.  After the eclipse occurs as said, he reappears and is seen as the cat world version of Rasputin; mysterious and secretly quite cunning.  A female variant of the emotionless loner occurs in the anime and manga series Puella Magi Madoka Magica in the form of Homura.  Introduced at the beginning of the series, Homura plays the role of the emotionless magical girl who forewarns the titular character Madoka that becoming such a being will destroy everything that is important to her, life included.  Although Homura is also a trope breaker of the emotionless loner through her character development in the series that leads to her by the end fighting graciously in the memory of her now dear friend Madoka, there is no denial that at least in the beginning of the series she was the definition of this trope.  No matter where you look, some form of the emotionless loner will go into play, for the better or worse.

  The second and final problem surrounding these characters are that most are an example of weak writing.  Making the character only a mysterious loner that from time to time contributes to the plot does not equal diversity in their characterization.  They are one dimensional pieces of cardboard that could be replaced with really any other character.  Their purpose to the overall storyline is a weak one.  Unless character development or more definitive character traits are given to the character (like in the case of Homura), the emotionless loner is a stick in the mud to an otherwise solid plot.

  Writing is not an easy process.  It is an art that truly takes even for the best of us years to master.  There are no shortcuts to making a strong story.  The emotionless loner is an example of a shortcut that in the end does not always create a strong story.  Time and devotion are the true keys to mastery in the writing arts.