Superpowered Evil Side.
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Some fights have rules. Most don’t. However, a lot of people will still fight as though there are rules.
Heh…suckers.
I just hate Honor Before Reason (specially when it actually works).
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I’m a sucker for the Betty & Veronica trope especially if Betty & Veronica get a sex change Then @Lizzy can’t take them from me
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Personally I love seeing karma-related tropes being executed properly. Be it Karma Houdini ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KarmaHoudini ) or Laser Guided Karma (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LaserGuidedKarma ) they are absolute best.
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@StarshinaSokolov
I’d say the opposite. Except I appreciate “Honor Before Reason” more when it doesn’t work. Because doing the right thing is so much more meaningful when it’s hard and unrewarding.
It’s a real pain in the keister when a game always goes out of the way to reward a “good” choice no matter what, even when the choice is dumb, and should lead to real consequences. It’s counterproductive because it encourages meta-gaming and discourages role-playing.
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The opposite also holds true:
- Kill the king because you think it might work to solve your problem
- Get the general to kill the king because you think it might work to solve your problem
- (3rd run only) Go read a book on the problem, seeming as the royal library is right there
Idiot Ball and Distress Ball are my most hated tropes. I do live for fluff, though. Or WAFF as TV Tropes call it.
I love so many tropes though. How can I choose!?
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Who said the Combat Pragmatist isn’t doing the “right” thing by fighting pragmatically? Just because their opponent took a knife to a gun fight it’s the “right” thing to throw out your gun? It’s the "right’ thing not to attack someone from behind? It’s the "right’ thing not to use bites and groin/eye-attacks?
If the future of the world is at stake and you have the villain under your sights, not just shooting the bastard and foiling their plans just because they asked for a fist-fight would be the “wrong” thing to do, in my opinion…
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I neglected to clarify, I wasn’t talking about “Honor Before Reason” as it relates to fighting etiquette.
As far as I’m concerned if you can save the world by punching the bad guy in the dick when he isn’t paying attention, then great. 
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What if the character is an Ubermensch with their own set of “rights” and “wrongs” that they follow so strictly that it falls in “Honor Before Reason” territory, but that can’t actually be considered “Honorable” by anyone aside from themselves? 
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Then that’s what they are. All morality is subjective. That why I put “good” in quotes. Easier than saying “what is generally accepted as good by human society”.
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Then I guess basically everyone is Honorable in their own heads…
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Villains don’t typically consider themselves evil, do they?
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Most do. That’s what sets them apart from the Well-Intentioned Extremists and Knight Templars.
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Big Damn Heroes. I’ve always loved that tense scene where the good guys are outnumbered and are just about to get beat when, at the last second, the badass/es show up as epic music plays, spit out something cool and save everyone.
I love when there’s a character who normally seems like a total goof, but when they get serious, you see how much of a badass they are. For example, Gai and Jiraiya in Naruto, or Captain Jack Sparrow.
Close friends or couples who often bicker, but underneath the surface they can’t live without one another, especially when they work/fight beside each other and have impeccable teamwork, even though five minutes earlier they were arguing.
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One of my all time favourites is Don’t Fear the Reaper. I love sympathetic personifications of death. I consider there’s something really deep and poetic in trying to portray such a difficult concept in a more human and even friendly way.
Sometimes, I think that the Cerebus Syndrome is really interesting to analyze, although I would not necessary want to see a story affected by it.
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I hate most tropes. They make the plot seem simplistic and one dimensional at times…One exception is in creepy pastas. I think it’s occurred enough for it to be considered a trope, it’s where the villain is at some point later on, even just in spin off stories, it’s revealed they’re not evil for the sake of it but usually have some tragic backstory. I also like that trope as villains who are just evil because reasons really annoy me 
. Oh and also another trope I like in creepy pastas is where the villain is portrayed in a vague mysterious way, where it’s unclear if they’re supernatural, a monster etc but then it turns out they’re just a regular human. I think for both tropes they only really work though in really long creepy pastas as then they can be done justice properly and not just seem there for the sake of it or over used.
Not really. I can’t say I’ve seen many villains whose motivation amounts to “because I’m evil!”, outside of satire.
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You asked if villains consider themselves evil, not if they’re evil just for the sake of being evil. You can acknowledge your ways of achieving your goals (or even your goals themselves) are evil, but work to achieve them for reasons other than “because I’m evil”.
Knight Templars don’t see themselves or their means as evil, and most Well-Intentioned Extremists might believe that, because their goals are good, they can’t be labelled as evil despite their questionable methods of achieving these goals.
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I have a love/hate relationship with tragic romance where the MC ends up dying in the most heart-breaking manner and their lover soon follows or succumbs to a deep sorrow. If I’m not crying tears and snot then its not doing its job. I guess I’m an emotional sado-masochist.
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A story without tropes would be a pretty boring story. The tropes themselves aren’t bad (well, some are), but rather it’s when they become cliches, or are used without any kind of thought that they’re bad. For example, as you mentioned, a villain who is a villain just because can be very badly done, but they can also be funny, or even terrifying simply because of their lack of any clear motivation beyond “I enjoy it”. Meanwhile, a villain with a tragic backstory can be done badly, especially if the story uses the tragedy to excuse the villain’s actions. Likewise, a monster turning out to just be human can be very poorly done, and quite often leads to an unsatisfying anticlimax.
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