Term for stereotype stories
Is there any term to describe stories where the "evil" characters are extremely evil, and the good characters are extremely good?
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If you're referring to older, unsophisticated stories, where the author was being quite straightforward, then "clichéd" is probably what you want. (Plain old unsophisticated works too, or broad or simplistic.)
If you're referring to current stories, or your own, where you're aware of such stereotypes and you're parodying them, you might say you're being "ironic." That only works if you actually are being ironic and you're mocking the stereotypes by overplaying them rather than writing as though it's correct.
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The answer depends on the work's intent. If the characters are thinly characterized and stereotyped because the work's main attraction is a sensationalist plot crammed with dramatic events, then we call this a melodrama. Wikipedia reports that a Professor Ben Singer has identified "moral polarization" as one of the key elements of melodrama.
On the other hand, if the characters are presented as contrasting moral opposites because they are intended to illustrate some larger philosophical idea, we call this an allegory. A famous example is John Bunyon's Pilgrim's Progress, where nearly every character personifies some virtue or sin.
EDIT: Based on your comments to your original post, I would note that Star Wars is basically a fairy tale, populated with archetypal characters. This style is sometimes called mythopoeic (sometimes rendered as "mythopoetic"). As far as Indiana Jones, I'm not sure it matches the request --the bad characters may be extremely villainous, but the good characters aren't exactly saintly...
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/19780. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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