What’s your least favorite trope?

Mine is “All a dream.” (And its variants “All a psychotic delusion,” “All a VR simulation”)

When I was eleven years old, a TV show based on the Wyndham novel Box of Delights caught my imagination. It had all the Celtic folklore stuff I loved (I was also addicted to The Dark is Rising at the time, thank you Susan Cooper).

In fact, it was quite similar to The Dark is Rising until the kid woke up at the end still on the train.