r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Calvinball08 • 3d ago
Hated Tropes [Hated Trope] Crossovers that fundamentally don’t understand the source material
When a crossover basically does the exact opposite of what the source material clearly lays out because the creators clearly just don’t care about the source material at all.
Emil - Dead by Daylight
The one that inspired this post. Emil as a character is the most hopeful, optimistic, and kind character in the entire NieR series, maybe in all of Yoko Taro’s games (maybe aside from Yonah). His goal is to help as many people as he possibly can and even when he goes through immense suffering he always comes out the other side ready to keep on helping people.
Then Dead by Daylight adds him as a killer skin, because “he looks creepy.” You know, the aspect of the character that’s his biggest struggle, that causes him to be scared of how people will judge him, and that makes him hate himself. That’s what we’ll base our entire concept on. Genius idea.
Iron Giant - Ready Player One
Technically you could argue that it’s not an example because it’s just a part of the game and Wade is the one misunderstanding the source material. To that I raise you that this is actually an in universe example of the trope, with the game including the Iron Giant as a crossover where you can use him as a weapon, thereby misunderstanding the source material.
Also it’s probably the filmmakers completely misunderstanding the source material/not caring as well.
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u/AshamedIncrease6942 3d ago
It’s because that’s not actually Emil. Cosmetic collabs fall into one of two categories with DbD. Either Legendary, where it’s actually the character themselves, see Geralt, Hinako, etc. and cosplays, which are just the original DbD characters dressing up. 2B and A2 are legendary, Emil is just a member of the Legion, a group of edgy teenagers, in cosplay.