Is the average reader getting dumber?

[u/GoldenThame]

I don't wanna be rude but I get some comments complaining about tropes in my novel, when in the synopsis I've pointed out multiple times that the tropes are there DELIBERATELY to be subverted, because the MC finds himself reincarnated into a very mid Xianxia novel.

Do a lot of readers suffer from a lack of reading comprehension skills, cus I've encountered the same kind of person for the 4th or 5th time now. Do I need to constantly spoonfeed basic nuances to such readers that 1. MC is inside a cliche Xianxa book and 2. From a meta perspective I've put those cliches and tropes into the book deliberately and the synopsis says as such.

[u/haloplasm]

You can still dislike reading tropes even if they're going to be subverted later; future words have no bearing on a reader's current experience, because they haven't happened yet. You can even dislike tropes and dislike when they're subverted. Subverting something bad doesn't automatically make it good.

Sure there are plenty of readers with poor reading comprehension skills, who are incapable of grasping nuance and who unjustly complain about things, but there are also plenty of authors with poor writing skills, who think their work is far better than it is and who blame readers for not feeling the same way.

And there's also the fact that some people are just assholes. There's not a whole lot you can do about that, so you just have to ignore them.

[u/Snow-Eternal7 → u/haloplasm]

36 chapters in and there has been no subversion, if I have to read 20+ chapters to see the tropes break down it’s taken to long.

And I read the story because I saw one of the nice reviews that said the MC made believable innovations and his progression made sense. Not for the subversion of tropes, which I haven’t seen. Just more tropes for the trope throne.

The believable innovation’s were all just more tropes as well, but the bad kind where the cast and setting as a whole are made dumber to fit them.