Arcane Elemental Academy takes a flamethrower to 7 tropes

Arcane Elemental Academy ain’t your typical YA fantasy. And there are seven tropes it reinvents to make itself stand alone in a sea of books.

Writing The Arcane Prophecy and outlining the rest of the Arcane Elemental Academy series has been fun. And one reason is that I took common overused tropes and took a flamethrower to them.

That doesn’t mean they’re not present. Everything you see below is, but I’m gonna hint what makes them different in Arcane. By the end of this article, if you’re craving something fresh, this work will be right for you.

1 – Marginalized protagonist

I won’t lie: Harry Potter was a major influence for Arcane Elemental Academy. But I didn’t want my “Harry Potter,” who I’ve called Yote Diamondback, to have the whole world against her before she attended Arcane. Yote’s got two major backers in her parents and mentor, even has her sister, Jett, and the academy she originally applied for, Lamerth, want nothing to do with her.

2 – Good vs. evil

There’s no other trope I find more annoying than “pure good” vs. “pure evil.” Not saying it doesn’t exist in the real world, since “man” (good) vs. “state” (evil) fuels my libertarian ways, but it’s more nuanced. The “evil,” whether in Arcane or our world, literally thinks it’s morally superior and, thus, doing “good.”

3 – Love triangles

Yote has one love interest, Storm Sharpe. But that doesn’t stop another character, Loki Kahne, from admitting his love for Yote. There’s competition between the two guys, but Yote’s made it clear she has zero interest in Loki. That said, she’s ironically not “all in” on Storm, despite her attraction to him.

4 – Antagonistic sympathy

I’ll give you a spoiler without giving you the full spoiler: It’s gonna be hard to show any antagonistic sympathy for what I have in store. Not that my antagonist doesn’t have a backstory that evolves throughout Arcane, and one that will make your jaw drop. In Harry Potter, you may’ve developed sympathy for Lord Voldemort, but you probably developed no sympathy for characters like Dolores Umbridge. Think along those lines.

5 – Chosen one

There’s no chosen one in Arcane. Not that Yote isn’t important because she is, but I can’t call her “The Chosen One.” That would be a stretch and it wouldn’t do the work’s integrity much good. That said, her significance won’t go unnoticed.

6 – Sibling rivalries

You might not think I’m taking a flamethrower to this trope in The Arcane Prophecy’s opening chapters. But trust me on this one: You will learn something significant about Yote and Jett, and it completely changes the series’ trajectory.

7 – Dark academia

Nah, I already got that trope going strong elsewhere, Check out Astray Mage, Book II in my Catenarian Chronicles dark paranormal fantasy series, and you’ll see what I mean. And while some authors “play it safe” and write in the same genre, tropes, and theme over and over again, I need variety. While there is some darkness here, it’s nowhere near as hopeless as Astray Mage’s plot.