5 Cliches in Portal Fantasy that Need to Stop

Hello again!

We’re back with the old “5 cliches” blog series. Originally, I wanted to do “5 cliches about fantasy,” but fantasy is such a broad genre, I decided to focus on one specific subgenre– portal fantasy!

What is Portal Fantasy?

Portal fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy.

Specifically, portal fantasy is about the portals between different worlds.

This could include a real life world and a magical world, like in “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.”

Or it could include multiple magical worlds, like in the Shades of Magic trilogy by V.E. Schwab.

As you might know, these are usually my favorite types of fantasy books. I love the idea that a magical universe could be right there, and all I have to do is climb into a wardrobe, or wipe the blood of a magician on my wall.

And what better way to celebrate my favorite subgenre than by making fun of it?

So without further ado, here are five cliches in portal fantasy that need to stop.

1. Portals Require a Token or Object.

I guess this one is just a conventional thing. It would be difficult for the characters to jump between worlds without some sort of physical portal.

But what if the characters just got randomly sucked into the different worlds?

What if portals could crop up anywhere, and you could accidentally walk through one at any time?

Imagine if the hero has to get inside a building to defeat the villain, but a random portal shows up on the doorstep and whisks them away to a different world, at the worst possible moment.

Or if you can’t wash your hair because a stupid portal showed up in the shower and you don’t want to vanish into another realm right now.

A lot of times, portals are connected with one item or place. For example, the wardrobe in “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.”

Other times, the portal requires some sort of token, as well as magical activation to make it work.

In the Darker Shades of Magic series, this is how magical portals work. A magician needs a token from the world they want to reach (such as a coin). Then they must smear their blood on it in order to create the portal.

What if you created a portal system that didn’t require a physical object or place? It’s a good recipe for chaos, but chaos in books is fun, right?

2. The Portal Always Works, Forever and Ever, Amen.

This gif is from the beginning of Dr. Strange, before he learns how to use magic. Once he learns how to use portals, they never malfunction again.

So many portal fantasy books do this!

The portal to a different world is fixed in one object, place, or spell, and it never malfunctions.

Alternatively, it only malfunctions when the characters don’t believe. Like Dr. Strange struggling to open a portal, or Peter and Susan saying that there is no Narnia in the back of the wardrobe.

But once all the characters open up their narrow minds, the portal is always there, and it never stops working.

Mix it up and make your characters suffer!

Maybe the portals are finnicky, and they only work when the weather is just right and there’s 62% humidity in the air.

Maybe they can’t find the portal when they need it.

Maybe the portal is malicious and opens/closes of its own free will, just to make things harder for the heroes.

Your portals don’t have to be super faulty, but they shouldn’t always be reliable, either. If the portals are too reliable, and the hero could escape danger at any time, that makes things too easy.

We don’t worry about a character who can just leave whenever things get dangerous.

3. The Worlds Speak a Common Tongue.

When you have a story that deals with multiple different worlds, what are the chances that all of those worlds have one common language?

Especially assuming that the common language is English?

Multiple worlds means multiple languages.

I mean, Earth has over 7,100 languages that are spoken today, and that doesn’t count all of the dead languages.

There are over 1,600 languages spoken in the country of India alone.

So how come all the people in these fantasy worlds all speak a common language?

The most commonly spoken languages in our world are English, Mandarin, and Spanish. Does that mean I’m trilingual, in three different “common tongues?”

Absolutely not. I am stupid and I took French in college, and proceeded to never speak it again.

The people in your fantasy world will not be fluent in the “common tongue” as well as three other regional languages.

They might know a handful of key phrases in the common language, but they would mainly speak the language of their family and village.

And there is no way that every peasant farmer would know how to speak fluent American English, in order to communicate with your main character.

So let the characters struggle with miscommunication! Let there be language barriers! Let them slowly teach each other their native languages! Please!

4. We Must Save the Portal World. But Not Earth.

Our heroes and heroines step through the portal into the fantasy world, only to watch it crumble under an evil dictator.

So they do what any world-hopping humans would do and join the war to save this alternate dimension from tyranny.

I guess this is because of their heroic nature or whatever, but frankly, if I fell into a different world and found out that this world was on the brink of collapse, I’d just leave.

The heroes from Earth save the day, and defeat the evil overlords, and free the common folk.

Then they go home.

You do realize that there are lots of problems on Earth that you could be fighting for, but you decide to travel to an alternate universe to save those people instead?

I know, I get it. Fantasy is about escapism. And recently, I’ve needed a lot of that in my life. I don’t want to hear any more about Earth. These days, I’m pretty sick of my fellow planet dwellers.

But where’s the sequel that shows the people from the fantasy world, coming to Earth to fight terrorists? When do the alternate dimension people show up and start toppling the human trafficking rings and destroying drug cartels and reuniting refugees with their families?

Not gonna lie, I would read that book in a heartbeat.

This section turned into a bit of a rant. But yeah.

It’s a pretty big cliché for all the heroes to focus more on someone else’s world, rather than their own. Then they come back to earth, put their feet up, and reward themselves with a pina colada for their hard work.

I want to see some real reasons why the people in the fantasy world can’t handle things by themselves. Why do they need Earth heroes to save them?

Or maybe a portal fantasy that focuses on anything besides saving the world.

Perhaps the fantasy world is fine, but the story centers around a family or a small group of characters who are struggling. Maybe there’s a kidnapping, or the love interest goes missing.

There’s a lot of things that could make a good story goal, besides “save the world.”

5. There is Only One Villain in the Portal World.

And last but not least, my all-time favorite of the portal fantasy clichés.

There is only one villain in this fantasy world.

Only one bad dictator in the entire world? Sign me up!

If you’re in the process of planning or writing a portal fantasy book, why stop at just one villain?

(And I don’t mean adding a bunch of henchmen for your main bad guy. I mean adding more dictators. More evil sorcerers. More competition for the title of villain.)

Make it a struggle for the heroes. Don’t make things too easy for them.

Plus, remember international politics– if one country has an evil dictator, they probably have several allies in other countries.

The heroes should not be fighting just one bad guy.

When it comes to fictional villains, the more the merrier. That’s what I always say.

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What are some clichés you’ve noticed in portal fantasy? Do you agree with the ones on this list? Let me know in the comments!

It’s been a while since I did a clichés post, and I’m glad to be back.

As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time with a new post.

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