Which race seems most cliched?

[Terenia]

Mary/Gary are often self-inserts. Or completely original characters that lack originality (aka 7th Animorph who is accepted and liked by everyone and has extra powers and manages to save Rachel from dying and Jake from going insane and because of her existence the Animorphs get a happy ending). Blaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

[wotw2112]

(*Mary-Sue and Gary-Stue run off into the sunset with evil plans of destroying fiction everywhere*)

Lol, the image that formed in my head when I read this was hilarious.  I will be laughing at it for some time...

[Phoenix004]

Somebody on fanfiction.net just told me that my character was a bit Gary-Stu-ish. I would have been offended except for the fact that it was kind of intentional! My main character is based on me, although I don't plan on making the story boring or cliche.

I can see how some people might see the Animorphs as cliche, although I wouldn't necessarily agree. Everybody has a part of their personality that is similar to somebody else's, but that doesn't make them a cliche person.

[Essam 293]

Animorphs may have been a bunch of cliches, but it was a bunch of cliches done well. IMO, it was able to use the best elements from them all and work to keep things fresh, which is what set it apart from other kids book series at the time.

[RYTX]

The humans: what with the whole "It is our differences that make use strong and we can still over come the worst things with human spirit and resourcefulness and blah blah blah"

The yeerks to, the supposedly harmless thing that spreads like a virus and takes of the world.
But still,like he ^ said, well done cliches

[wotw2112]

Didn't really think of including the humans...but that's a great point.  They probably are the biggest cliche of all.

[Kelran-Isthinar]

I dunno... The Andalites arrogance seems cliche at first glance, but imagine the burden they carry and it quickly becomes apparent that its a psychological backlash.. not so cliche or simple after all....

Yeerks seem cliche, the idea of the enemy among us, but
A; theyre so well executed it makes up for this and
B; the ethical quandries battling a controller creates MORE than make up for this.

Hork-Bajir Seem a bit cliche; but their biology helps this, and theyre paired with either the main good or bad guys in most instances, so they can be forgiven as they are supporting characters....

The Taxxons were something Id never seen before, so not so cliche for me...

Visser 3 was incredibly... I hesitate to say cliche so Ill say refreshingly traditional. Classic if you will  and ya can't argue witht he classics. 

And after that I cant think of anything remotely cliche....

[Dameg]

may be a little off-topic, but what is Gary-stue? (somebody explained me about Mary-Sue, but not for that one...)

[morfowt]

Um...I'm guessing a Gary-sue is just a male version of a mary-sue.

[Terenia]

Yup. It's the male Mary-Sue. You don't see Gary's as often, but they lurk around.

[wotw2112]

Yup. It's the male Mary-Sue. You don't see Gary's as often, but they lurk around.

Any idea why they're not so prevalent?  Or were you just referring to the phrase?

[Kharina]

Visser Three is definitely cliche. He's the typical "I'm so evil that I have no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and I will never change" villain. Someone so destructive that it's a wonder why anyone follows him instead of killing him off.

I know some people have tried to kill Visser Three/have him killed off, like that guy in book eight. However, in real life everyone would just say "Ok, this guy has to die" and kill him during a speech in front of everyone.

But yeah. He's a big cliche.

Well, Hitler ended up killing himself, no-one assassinated him...

I think the bit of narration we saw by V3 in HBC gave him slightly more depth, but he was slightly cliche.

I don't think any of the aliens were really cliche, though, they all were pretty interesting to me.  Maybe the Hork-Bajir were, but I still liked them.  I think Ellimist and Crayak were the most cliche, but then do they exactly count as species?

[Starsword]

Helmacrons: A race of short, nay, microscopic beings with napoleonic complex. 'Nuff said.

[Terenia]

Yup. It's the male Mary-Sue. You don't see Gary's as often, but they lurk around.

Any idea why they're not so prevalent?  Or were you just referring to the phrase?

No idea. I think it may simply have to do with the fact that in a lot of genre's there are more female fanfic writers than males, so if you read a self-insert story the insert is more likely to be female. I suppose in the novel world you would see a lot of Gary-Stu's in romance novels and whatnot.

[wotw2112]

Yup. It's the male Mary-Sue. You don't see Gary's as often, but they lurk around.

Any idea why they're not so prevalent?  Or were you just referring to the phrase?

No idea. I think it may simply have to do with the fact that in a lot of genre's there are more female fanfic writers than males, so if you read a self-insert story the insert is more likely to be female. I suppose in the novel world you would see a lot of Gary-Stu's in romance novels and whatnot.

Thanks.  It's something to look out for...nice to have a name to put to this unfortunate despicable phenomenon!