r/TopCharacterTropes • • 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/R0b0uteGuilliman 3d ago

All of Ready Player One is literally just 98% references and 2% story… The book is even worse.

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u/PeppercornWizard 3d ago edited 3d ago

“Wade moved North, just like in Zork. His friends were behind him, just like a Centipede. They moved quickly, like the sprites in Joust. He thought about playing Dungeons and Dragons, he had moved North sometimes in that too. He felt a Rush (like the band) as he moved 2112 steps forward… was this Pac-Man? Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Atari Pong Zeppelin. Godzilla Godzilla.”

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u/Nerdwrapper 3d ago

“Godzilla Godzilla” is my new favorite sentence in the english language

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u/pupetmeatpudding 2d ago

my brain immediately heard "Godzilla Godzilla" to the tune of "Maria Maria" by Santana