I have a few:
- Chosen ones, fate, destiny, &c. When you get down to it, a story with these themes is one where a single person or handful of people is ontologically, cosmically better and more important than everyone else. It’s eerily similar to that right-wing meme about how “most people are just NPCs” (though I disliked the trope before that meme ever took off).
- Way too much importance being given to bloodlines by the narrative (note, this is different from them being given importance by characters or societies in the story).
- All of the good characters are handsome and beautiful, while all of the evil characters are ugly and disfigured (with the possible exception of a femme fatale or two).
- Races that are inherently, unchangeably evil down to the last individual regardless of upbringing, society, or material circumstances.
I love Star Wars but this is so core to it and I hate it. “He’s more machine now than man; twisted and evil.”
Yeah I really don’t like that. I do appreciate that in the end part of why Luke and Anakin are able to overcome their hatred and fear is seeing that they share the same disability from the same origin of violent conflict. You could explain that in a positive light, with Luke realizing that Vader is just a man. An old man with disabilities that mirror his own. And Vader in turn realizing that he maimed his son the same way he was maimed long ago, and relfecting on the futility and misery that came from pursuing vengeance.