1. Wether we admit it or not, every conflict is a "war," but the way it takes place is the interesting part. 2. Nah, a story is always better when something goes boom! 3. Haven't seen that much. 4. Downright implication is rarer than 3.

To be perfectly fair... 1. War is a perfectly valid form of conflict to set a backdrop for a story. It doesn’t have to provide the main motivation behind any of the actions of the main characters (or maybe it does - that’s what makes a war novel a war novel), but the background and setting are colored by that. 2. Erm... IMO, bombs are really modern. Most fantastical stories don’t have “bombs”, per se. 3. The only novels I’ve seen overpopulation used in were dystopian novels that were set way into the future. They’re actually usually really insightful on our current society, often commenting on where our current path might lead should we ignore the warnings now. 4. And finally, I think the way an antagonist decides how they are going to be deceitful is often the more important bit. In that war novel, terrorists are definitely going to lie about weapons they’ve got or things like that. It wouldn’t make sense for them to be truthful. In something like a psychological horror novel, I could see an antagonist willfully lying to play with the protagonist like a cat with a mouse. It’s more malicious rather than self-preserving. I will agree, however, that really good villains don’t need to outright lie to be good villains. They are good at twisting, distorting, or hiding the truth. They’ll claim to be “someone of no significance” or something to that effect. They’ll legitimately aid the protagonists in a way that eventually helps themselves. The protagonist doesn’t think about that villain lying because they don’t - they simply lie in a much sneakier and less “black-and-white” manner.

Tyrants, don't forget tyrants

Generally speaking, a story won’t call its deceitful antagonist a deceitful antagonist, so that last one doesn’t really work.

How is a bomb a cliche keyword?

Literally all of the nouns used in Destiny. I get it’s supposed to be some pseudo-mythological sci-fi mix, but I don’t understand how people can still be calling strange magical forces ‘Light’ and ‘Darkness’, some terrible event that caused the end of a golden age ‘The Collapse’ and the hero(es) of the tale ‘Guardians’. Whenever I hear another cliché word, accompanying it is the sound of another nail in the story’s coffin. ‘House of Wolves’? Really? Are they a gang of edgy teen BFMV fans? It’s like the ‘writers’ went: ”Well we couldn’t think of anything original so we plucked all the bland and unimaginative words, concepts and phrases from all the forgettable dark fantasy lands in the world and threw them together because at least then people might not notice so much that we don’t really know what we’re doing”