If you still have a functioning story, no one cares. If you don't like stereotypical barbarians in your story why are you including them? In fact, the example you gave had no examples of any of the tropes you mentioned as being a pet peeve, and if you hadn't mentioned the character was intended to be a subversion I don't think anyone would have ever noticed at all. If you don't like the tropes, just don't include them in the story. No one is forcing you to write a story filled with stereotypical barbarians, Lovecraftian horrors, abnormally aggressive animals, and what have you. If you hate the tropes so much, then why are you including them in your story? The problem arises when I have to make the actual barbarians, where my biases will be apparent, biases I want to hammer out without wasting an eternity on reading Weird Tales an asking people what they like about the stories within them. This works because Kaz can exist without the barbarian stereotype I was opposing. You see, it's not the stereotype barbarian with the tropes sUbVErtEd but still having the same premise, rather, Kaz is the opposite of that, a city-dweller with a loving family who is a capable fighter but not a glory hog. His family took Kaz's decision with mixed feelings, though they now While his status can make peopleĪround him uneasy, he also has trouble initiating small talks. He had a successful career and saw battle a few times, never a pitchedĮventually, he joined the militia/garrison of his home city to serve Thanks to his physiqueĪnd skills that came from previous combat training with his siblings, Set out to be a soldier instead of a knight. Not wanting to follow in the steps of his parents, he Kaz is a draconian (humanoid dragon, basically) born to a fairly You see, when I had the image of a "noble savage" barbarian who seems to be repulsed by the thought of wearing proper clothing, I didn't make the parody of that character, I made a counterpart. So far, not knowing what I despise first-hand wasn't a problem. How am I supposed to understand why people like Jaws, Lovecraft, and pulp so much? They're garbage as far as I'm concerned and I haven't seen any prominent figure try to understand why someone would like something they themselves didn't. Skimming through stuff I actually dislike is going to feel like a waste of time, especially if it's "pulp". I like Hokuto no Ken, but it's 190-episodes long, so I couldn't get into it. He was a low-key racist who wrote about things he barely understood (non-euclidian geometry just means you're drawing on a globe instead of a sheet of paper) and almost all his characters are so weak-willed, they can't go five pages without snapping in the most ludicrous, over-the-top fashion possible. Similarly, you can't make me like Lovecraft. Those movies are stupid and should burn in hell. However, you just simply can't make me like Jaws or any other movie featuring killer versions of IRL animals. Though Springtime for Hitler and anything made by Mel Brooks with nazis in it flies in the face of that. Namely, It will be difficult to make a parody of something without understanding why people like it. One of my previous questions got an interesting answer.