Characters
[Interesting Trope] The Writers Wanted You To Sympathize With Them But The Audience Still Doesnt
The Boys Lamplighter is supposed to be seen as a tragic character, who killed Mallory's grandchildren by mistake, and between that and his dreams of becoming famous for his father, has become a depressed Death Seeker. However, some felt this failed to make sympathetic, because he is introduced helping test Compound V, even killing people who Stormfront is displeased with, and isn't shown doing anything to help people he himself claims need it. This isn't helped by the fact that when he and Hughie are in the Seven Tower, Lamplighter sets himself on fire activating the alarms and alerting the building with little regard to what might happen afterward. Worse, his personality after escaping and hiding with the Boys makes him seem like an asshole who forces Hughie to watch porn that makes him uncomfortable. These traits make it hard to see him as a tragic character for some viewers.
Victoria in the Season 4 finale tries to pull a "Not So Different" Remark on Hughie, calling him on Butcher chopping off Sameer's leg so he could make more of the supe-killing virus, never mind that she was the one who put him in that position in the first place. In any case it pales in comparison to the numerous people she murdered and deceived during her rise to power, as well as turning her own daughter into a monster, who then committed murder herself. Given that her attempted turn to good was brought about more because she realized she'd have no power if she got elected president, she comes across less as being motivated to protect Zoe and more trying to dodge consequences now that her Karma Houdini Warranty has run out. Her sudden death comes across as very karmic rather than the Villain's Dying Grace it was ended as.
Justice League Cadmus the writers of this show has stated that Project Cadmus, the anti-Justice League government think tank in the fourth season, were supposed to be sympathetic Anti Villains with a strong point about the dangers of unrestricted superhumans. In fact, the writers found Cadmus so sympathetic that they introduced a Conflict Killer in the form of Brainiac so he could be revealed as having been manipulating both sides to avoid having to paint either Cadmus or the League as in the wrong. Fans, on the other hand, overwhelmingly sided with the League, considering Cadmus's deeds included attempting to nuke an inhabited island simply to kill Superman and Doomsday, creating Doomsday to begin with, manufacturing an army of cloned Slave Mooks and sending them to massacre the League, including the completely innocent Watchtower staff, and teaming up with supervillains including Lex Luthor, all before the League had done much of anything to them. If anything, the audience viewed Cadmus causing all that shit just to get justification for what they do.
It really felt the show wanted us to sympathize with them in the later seasons. But if you remembered everything they've done up to tht it can be hard to sympathize with them
If you want to see what SHOULD be Jaime's character development, read the books. A lot of his internal thoughts (and a fair amount of actions) are utterly absent from the show. It's hard to believe that Book Jaime would reach the same conclusion as Show Jaime.
If it wasn't for aria. She ALSO wants to kill cersie, and frankly deserves it more than Jaime. I think the finale for the two should have been aria kills cersei, while Jaime stays away with Brienne.
Or that's would I would say if aria didn't come in with the steel chair last second and kill the night king god that last season sucked so fuckin bad it's actually incredible
That honestly goes for quite a few characters (seasons 7 and 8 notwithstanding, they butchered literally everyone there). Renly is completely different, Jon Snow is very different, Daenerys is quite different, etc
Yea, if you binge watch GoT, you can mostly see Jamie's arc, and can empathize with Cersei when she loses Myrcella and does the walk of atonement, but it's nowhere near enough to grieve their deaths, esp given Jamie's about-face when leaves Winterfell
To be clear, Jamie turned against the Mad King because he was going to use wildfire against Tywin. When Cersei deployed it against the the Sept of Baelor, he didn't give a shit.
He also threatens to murder a woman and her child if her husband doesn't surrender his home to the people who betrayed and murdered his sister and his nephew.
Jaime might have a few moments of decency but he is still a piece of shit overall.
I was pissed off with the way they set up Cersei (and Jaime’s) death! I spent a lot of years hoping she’d get a brutal and fulfilling death that felt poetic, the way characters like Joffrey and Ramsey died! Only for it to end where the show is forcing us to think we should feel sorry for her.
Candy Smalls from Santa Inc.: Candy Smalls is the first woman elf to ever hold her rank, she has her heart set on being the first woman to be Santa. She is also completely and totally insufferable and demonstrates over and over again why she is a terrible fit for the role even though she is trying to climb a ladder in a male-dominated industry and the writers want us to root for her because of it.
Edit: Yeah, pretty important to mention she wants to be Santa and hates children.
Not just behind the scenes. He offered her the power. The actual leadership role. And turning his own name and legacy into a mascot. And she told him to go fuck himself.
If I remember right, that was the case, and it was a genuinely good moment (I don't even hate that Candy rejects it, it would make sense for her character, allowing the finale to be about her reflecting and realising that she's been projecting all her negative traits onto others).
The problem is, the show turns around and says "actually, Santa is actually a jerk, and Candy is entirely justified."
Yes, and that would have been a great moment of introspection for her and what she actually wants, specially since Santa gives some pretty good points regarding her strengths and weaknesses.
Instead she tells Santa to go Fuck himself without retort as if that was a triumphant gotcha moment.
To be fair, I feel like this was more a a failure of the world building by the end of the series. Sasuke 100% had a right to be mad at a corrupt system. But once Danzo dies, all the world leaders are just nice and chill will each other. So his angst doesn’t make as much sense
Danzo is a sin-eater to keep the system of Konoha (that our protagonist wants to uphold) pure while still letting Sasuke have his revenge on the system that wronged him. It's very sloppy.
I'm reading the manga now and I feel like he and Naruto's friendship just wasn't super convincing either. These guys have said like 10 things to each other by the time Shippuden starts and I'm supposed to think they're tragically estranged besties?
I think initially it was because Sasuke was this stoic, competent, intelligent person who didn’t make mistakes. Compared to the clumsy, idiotic, and immature Naruto, Sasuke was this cool guy that anime fans wanted to see themselves as. In Shippuden he was very much a dick as you say, and kind of insane, but I can see some fans thinking the whole “lone wolf, I don’t need friends I’m powerful enough on my own” as being cool in its own way.
It's not just you, Sasuke is an example of Americans Hate Tingle in action, he's a much more divisive character in America and Europe than he was in Japan. His brooding was exaggerated outside of Japan and his other qualities were diminished, meaning he's far more tolerable in the Sub, than he is in the Dub.
Does Paul from Spider-Man count? I've heard all the hate around him, and the bits and pieces I've heard definitely makes it feel like Marvel expected people to empahtise with him, but I haven't read those comics myself, so I need someone more qualified to weigh in.
From what I heard the author was going through a rough divorce, and Paul was his self-insert fantasy where he has a happy marriage. But for some reason he wrote it so he's married to Spider-Man's love interest, so Spider-Man fans hated him.
Bryce from 13 reasons why. I genuinely don't understand what the fuck the writers were smoking.
Spoilers I guess
3rd or so season starts with him already dead and we essentially follow the events of it happening. For those who don't know, Bryce has raped multiple women in the show. Namely Hannah Baker who kills her self in the first season. For some ungodly reason, the show begins to start a redemption phase for this guy. To make matters worse, there is a new character introduced who's a bit of a red herring for the main protagonist. She doesn't end up with him but instead some how leads to having sex with said rapist and forms some kind of relationshipm I swear she ends up vouching for his redemption as well.
But all that doesn't matter because by the end of the season, he goes back to his old self and permanently breaks the leg of another character then dies after a fight that lead him to drown.
I probably got a lot of details wrong but the gist is they spent a season trying to redeem an unreemable character just to drop that development.
I get wanting to make Bryce a more nuanced character, but that really should have happened before remembering that he raped someone gave him an erection.
In every appearance she’s in after Clone Wars Season 5 they really want us to sympathize with her on how her world keeps getting either conquered by tyrants or glassed and how her people are divided and scattered, to busy at each others throat then fixing things. However it’s hard to sympathize with her when you remember she used to be a member of Death Watch, a Mandalorian terrorist group, and even became second in command of the group as she participated in the plundering and pillaging of several villages, as well as the murder of several different people and actively worked with Maul as well as several different criminal organizations like the Pykes and Black Sun to take over Mandalore by force and how she only left when Maul took over cause he was an outsider (even though he won both the Darksaber and throne fairly in combat) and meant less power for her.
Honestly Mando would’ve been a lot more interesting if she got called out more for plunging mandatore into chaos and getting her sister killed. Could’ve been interesting if people actually pushed backed against her for that.
The problem with Bo I think is that that the writers don't do a very good job of showcasing how she's learned from her mistakes. In fact is she ever really shown expressing remorse?
This is also not helped since she uses her only appearance in Rebels to chastise Sabine for making a weapon that targets mando armor, despite never showing remorse for death watch, which led to the current power struggle on Mandalore Sabine is trying to help with
Thank you. I hated how they pushed Mando to the side on his own show to make her feel like the main character. Her whole arc of “retaking her home world” is stupid when you know that she helped plan her sister’s dethroning and death. She is the reason the mandolorians lost their world to the empire and she had no right to reclaim the throne.
Waller in My Adventures With Superman isn't half bad.
Still not quite at JLU Waller's level because at least the JLU version was willing to look at evidence and change her mind on things. But My Adventures Waller is getting there, slowly.
Yeah, she was supposed to be a 'normal' person who decided she would do anything to be 'special.' This led to her doing terrible stuff when she could have just lived a quiet life. I could understand doing reckless stuff to change your fate, but she is seriously twisted.
She's treacherous, manipulative, and does nothing but use and betray those who she's tricked into liking her. Including the main character, who up until the start of the series had basically only ever known her.
Single worst dialogue in existence, there is no other comparison. I so wish this dumbass went through what those people went through to see if she'd say this shit again. A lot of post endgame characters suffered way too harshly due to abysmal writing
She raises genuine grievances but then has to murder innocent people in a heel face turn so that we know for sure she's the bad guy and we shouldn't sympathise with her.
That's kind of the opposite. MCU villain highlights a very real problem or social ill, but has to go about trying to fix it as badly as possibly so that the audience doesn't sympathize with them against the heros.
Nah man see her's is an issue where there's no real solution and 2 sides of people having to cope with something impossible.
Her group's terrorists acts and falcon's "do better" to the politician were both bad ideas on how they logical would go about what they want.
On on side you have ppl who moved on and rebuilt life from a decade of half the world gone. Now you have the other half of ppl back a decade later who want things back as they were.
They pretty much made Jean Grey into a psychopath and made all fear and hate against mutants (telepaths, at least) seem very valid… and it becomes more painful after finding out the part she played was originally written for Shadow King, a body snatching telepathic mutant.
It's not an X men project, she's obligated to be a rampaging asshole, like all x men do when it's not their book
Also the mcu is loosely based on the (old) ultimate universe, and she's a asshole to him there as well, she's ultimately responsible for the famous panel of spider-man calling the x men assholes
say what you will man but I honestly feel the movie would do far better with less of a cast. Throwing in hulk, punisher and jean all in the same story was too much. Just having 1 of them would make it far better.
To me Jean felt like an accurate teen who was told to be proud about being special going crazy doing whatever to save her only remaining family. Not that it takes away anything from your point.
The pro registration side from Marvel’s Civil War (comics). The writers assumed that they would be the only sympathetic side and everyone would agree with them so they had them do some cartoonishly villainous and out of character things to try and balance the scales. Only problem is that most people thought they were wrong already so adding the crazy unethical things they ended up doing turned them into straight up villains
Shit so unethical, that Daredevil (though it was Danny rand in the suit not Matt, but iirc the writer of the event wasn't aware of that) compared Tony to Judas to his face, and Hank Pym became a in-universe hero to neo nazis
Its funny because the pro-registration side for mutants is pretty much the bad guys in their own universe. And the difference between mutants and other superheroes is wafer thin in the greater scheme of things.
So many people don't understand this distinction. A reason and an excuse are not the same thing. Justification requires both, not one or the other.
A person can have an explanation/reason to do terrible things, but not have an excuse for it (e.g., generational abuse).
Conversely, a person can have an excuse to do terrible things, but not have an explanation/reason for it (e.g., not being accountable in a mental health crisis).
Nah man I cared and even got depressed about at least the two street urchin brothers gotten stomped flat (along with the all refugees that Eren & Co. had a great time with in flashback just in the previous episode).
The rumbling was fucking TERRIFYING, regardless everyone who died by it deserved it or not. And freaking 80% of the world population cannot be ALL evil.
We're supposed to sympathize with her and her cause, even though the show never actually SHOWS us what evil the GRC is supposedly committing.
At one point, Karli blows up a building with low level GRC employees tied up inside it. In the final episode, she's one second away from shooting Sam in the face before she's killed by someone else, even though Sam was the only one trying to reach out to her.
The show still tries to treat her death as some great tragedy, even though we've seen nothing that would put us on her side.
Something similar happen with Jean Grey in brand new day. Of course she's fighting against an evil organization, but she's doing it by take control of innocents and force them to kill innocents to find what happened with her sister. Sorry if i believe that she's not better than damage control
Sister Sage from the boys. The writers want you to sympathize with her experiences with racism and being underestimated as a black woman, but her crimes of assisting in the rise of a fascist regime, rape (if you follow Gen V) and planed OMNICIDE along with her overall shit writing will probably leave you angry that she was allowed to get away with it all.
The Hornsent in the Elden Ring DLC SHadow of the Erdtree
When we start the DLC we are told that the Hornset were "betrayed" by Marika and the Golden Order and that they got basically genocided and doomed forever to wander undead. As we play the game, we learned that the Hornsent were religious fanatics that made unimaginably evil stuff to Marika's people, and we are left to infer that the Hornsent genocide was more a revenge than a random evil act ordered by a mad God.
Abby from The Last of Us. There's a lot that could be said about this example but I'll just focus on how the story wants to present shades of gray scenarios where Abby is as justified in her actions as others. But people generally don't feel sympathy for her or her actions even if they understand and empathize with it.
I feel like It would have been REAL easy to like Abby if Joel and Ellie were NOT the first things shown, or ever shown, period, until the game launched.
Imagine this, first intro to Abby is them doing a scavenging run, at the end, things go awful, people die, and when Abby manages to get home, she finds out her Father's funeral is about to begin. The game is styled as a completely separate story, all about revenge over whoever killed her father, can cover different themes over the game, hatred, lingering trauma, losing somebody and how it effects you early on instead of years later, how a support group like friends lets you recover, and it's all well and good. Then you see Joel.
and suddenly you realize who you are and who you're about to kill.
Honestly? I think the story of The Last of Us 2 would work incredibly well if it wasn't Ellie and Joel but it was just a different father and daughter combo. It would've made it work really well but people were too emotionally attached to Joel and the reasonings for what The Fireflies did was terrible to make them seem even remotely sympathetic.
I understand the arguments made for her, to an extent. However even without killing Joel and the (imo) floppy justification of her father’s actions. She supported killing children! If not had taken part in it herself. There’s some dialogue she has about the (is it WLF?) opening fire on children who were throwing rocks. Though of course this makes sense given Neil being an IDF sympathiser I suppose.
The original 2000s X Men Trilogy is a good example of both tropes. 'Wow the 3rd film is rubbish compared to the previous 2!' and the director is actually evil.
'Wow the first 2 X Men films are so good!' and the director turns out to also be evil as well as talented.
I find the concept of her kind of interesting, a villain who from their own point of view would be on a typical action hero quest of vengeance and treats the people we know and care about like a typical expendable mook, in a sort of "hey wouldn't be fucked up if a self righteous vigilante came after you because they had recieved faulty information" kind of way.
I feel like the capitalisation of specific named tropes like that is something only a classic copy/paste could retain, and it shares the same general cadence as well.
Everybody in Mixtape. The writers tried so hard for you to sympathize with them, but they're all just dicks. Hell, there's a lot of discussion over who is the most unlikable of them.
The player was supposed to not only understand her revenge and her background, but also feel empathy for her. However, this failed, and the writers even tried to adjust the ending of the first part in hindsight to make her look more sympathetic after the fact. At the end of the first game, it was unclear, if not unlikely, that the Fireflies would have found a cure or a vaccine (the player could even read about their failures in the game), which was ultimately changed to "they would have definitely made it and Joel was just selfish". They even changed the visuals from an improvised hospital trying to find a cure in a Hail Mary attempt, to a clean and top-notch operating room in Abby's flashback.
You, like seemingly most people here, are completly missing the point of TLOU1 ending.
Framing it as “it was gonna fail anyway, saving Ellie was the logical correct thing to do” is just dumb as hell, because it nullifies the emotional weight of ending, and also Joel as a character.
He didn’t do it because it was a measured comparison of chance of success. Whether or not is was gonna work was not part of Joel’s decision making process. He was ok with any cost, even Ellie hating him and refusing to talk to him for years. “I’d do it all over again”.
But for some reason people feel super uncomfortable with that, and have to justify it with “logical” reasoning about how there was no other sensible option, and making him into a righteous saint of objectively correct for all of humanity choices. Instead of what it actually was: “fuck you, I’m not letting you kill her”.
I don’t know why so many people can’t understand that, and feel the need to headcannon it into an objectively correct action from all perspectives, which then has flow on effect of making anyone on other side irdeemable villian who can’t be looked at any deeper than that.
Really should have let us see her story before what she did in the opening of the game, it would have worked much better. But then again the whole game felt like a hamfisted boundle of ragebait so it was probably their intention.
That's like the opposite seriusly. Abby's arc is the strength of the game. The way the story is told was a bold choice and i understand not everyone liked it, but i dont understand people saying they cant like Abby.
Honestly it even worked beyond there expectations on me, i found it extremely hard to sympathise with Ellie and Joel in my rerun while i keep enjoying the nice change of pace of the parts with Abby.
i feel similarly! after i finished tlou2 ellie annoyed me so bad. seeing ellie constantly making bad decisions versus abby helping lev, really endeared me to abby as a character. i love the swap of ellie’s destructive nature versus abby’s redemption.
I find it so easy to sympathize with both of them. They're both in horrible situations, and both make horrible decisions, but neither is truly ever too far gone.
In hindsight, I think Vision might GENUINELY be the victim through Wandavision along with the people she tormented. Also, it doesn’t help that she’s the reason why Civil War happened (Because she indirectly created Ultron by mind lacing Stark to create him, in which Ultron caused Sokovia incident leading to the Sokovia Accords causing the team to drift apart) Oh, and don’t forget possessing an alternate version of herself (who was innocent) and killed the Illuminati
The one bit of sympathy I had for Wanda was when the government agent took her to see Vision, and he’s in this machine that may as well have been flaying and dissecting him in a horrific way. When Wanda wants to do a memorial or something for Vision, the agent tells her that Vision is his property to do with as he wants.
If Wanda wasn’t consciously controlling the people of Westview, I could accept it as trauma from everything she went through. Wanda being in complete control was a shock. The show trying to tell me that she’s as much a victim as everyone she controlled was just dumb.
I feel like you must have been given an ai summery of justice league. Amanda Waller was meant to be morally ambiguous and the motivations behind Cadmus were meant to be understandable but the organization itself was clearly meant to be evil. Eiling’s attempt to nuke an island was stated in the episode by Amanda Waller to be an evil act. The way she referred to the ultimen as property was said to be a “poor choice of words” by lord. When question was tortured, that was meant to be shown as evil. When Hamilton was confronted by Superman, he said that the people he was working with were bad but the reason he does it is because he was afraid of Superman after Superman threatened him in the Stas series finale. Hamilton himself, while meant to be somewhat morally ambiguous, is shown to be amoral through the character of Galatea, a sadistic clone of supergirl created and raised by him. His violation of supergirl was addressed. Cadmus itself was revealed to being funded by Lex Luthor who was using them to discredit the justice league.
In the final season of Justice league, there is a coda on the whole arc called The patriot act. It goes over the fact that Cadmus was in the wrong. Amanda Waller admitted to being wrong.
Basically, there was meant to be a questioning of the justice league and its potentially authoritarian measures, something it did well. But Cadmus was always meant to be in the wrong overall, even if they had a point.
Cadmus isn't necessarily meant to be sympathetic (even tho they slightly are) but they are shown to be an antithesis to the Justice League.
The DCAU with the Justice League always used the Justice League as a critique of centralised power, especially because the JL was feared by beeing to strong compared to the rest of the globe, the attack from the Watchtower, the Justice Lords, the Starro incident in Beyond, etc. Are examples of the Justice League getting power out of their own control by being an independent power, Cadmus doesn't exist because it's their job to annoy, but because you are meant to disagree with Superman believing there's no problem by being a centralised super power, Green Arrow already does it from INSIDE the league.
You don't sympathise with Cadmus as a group, but with why they exist.
One of most hated characters in Code Geass. To be fair Nina is important to show on the dangers xenophobia and prejudice and the dystopia of Code Geass. The problem is that we don't get enough insight on her racism. And she ends up causing the events to occur because she's too busy seeing Euphemia as a goddess
Yes it's implied it's due to her experiences in a Japanese Ghetto but that's it. Also the infamous table masturbation scene and her bootlicker obsession with Princess Euphemia. When Euphemia dies she losses her marbles and tries to eliminate Zero despite it risking the lives of everyone in Ashford Academy.
The lady made the FLEIJA project after Euphemia passed away. And that weapon would go on to destroy millions of lives. They attempt to have her join Zero. But because this isn't acknowledged she's a karma houdini.
A girl named Shania is among the soldiers that helps the main team ouroborus into the agnian castle to rescue ghondor, but she rats out the group and joins the villains known as moebius. Her reasoning for this is that she couldn't really keep up with others such as ghondor and that she'd rather join an eternal war so she could eventually have a chance at a life of glory than just living out one life achieving nothing of worth. There's also mention later on that her mother was abusive and played a part in setting these high expectations, but I could never feel bad for her, especially since the first thing she does after revealing herself as a traitor is give off an evil laugh. The first of a few evil laughs.
Someone beat me to the punch, but later deleted their comment because they didn’t provide context. So I’ll do that now because I can’t pass up the opportunity to hate on this fuckass bird.
The character is Stolas Ars Goeita from the YouTube web series Helluva Boss (although it’s on Amazon prime now)
He’s a demon prince who was stuck in a loveless and abusive marriage for most of his life. Shortly before the main plot of the series began, he entered a sexual relationship with the main character: Blitzo (the titular Helluva Boss).
The relationship is quid pro quo in nature, Blitzo runs an assassination business of which the special gimmick is killing humans from Earth, of which he needs the Grimoire (a special book) to make portals to. The agreement is that Blitzo has sex with Stolas every month, and Stolas in turn gives him the book to do his job
All sympathy kind of goes out of the window for him when he’s actively putting the main character into a situation ship most would agree is rape.
This of course just the set up for the series though. Stolas is wildly unlikable for being classist, sexually harassing, a pretty un-present father to his daughter, and in this most recent season: breaking up with Blitzo (they got a relationship upgrade of sorts) and then immediately entering a sexual relationship with someone else
Wasn’t it later clarified that Stolas thought the grimoire was just an excuse b/c he thought the sex was a mutual thing. Especially with the new pilot that is more in-line to the show.
And when Blitz brought up how Stolas just wants sex in the s1 finale, stolas started to look into ways to break their deal by getting an asmodean crystal.
As for the grimoire, That is Stolas’ property, and Blitz wasn’t supposed to have it in the first place. Blitz didn’t have to stake his livelihood on that book/deal.
And the latest new episodes show they are NOT a thing, they didn’t enter a relationship upgrade at all. That was made clear.
There are numerous examples of Stolas sexually harassing Blitz CLEARLY to his annoyance and disgust. Most notably Loo Loo Land, where he specifically offers money instead of sex because he knows Blitz would have no interest in sex. The Stolas didn’t know is a terrible retcon.
Stolas didn’t have to offer sex in exchange? It would be one thing if Stolas simply said no, fuck off, it’s my property, but offering it with strings attached makes him look INCREDIBLY predatory
I was talking about the end of season 2. They obviously aren’t together by Season 3 (which also feels like a lazy post acknowledgement of how Stolas threw his life away without thinking of daughter)
I personally didn’t mind Isaac in Sex Education after a while, but I know for a fact that the fandom when this show aired refused to let him deleting Maeve’s voicemail message from Otis slide.
Even when Maeve forgives him for that herself, and starts to develop a closer connection with him! Fans did not give a shit!!
Worse, his personality after escaping and hiding with the Boys makes him seem like an asshole who forces Hughie to watch porn that makes him uncomfortable. These traits make it hard to see him as a tragic character for some viewers.
One of my biggest pet peeves about that show is how they insisted on making Hughie the butt of jokes. Worst of all, trying to use him being sexually harassed or assaulted as comic relief. Lamplighter is bad, but the scene in Tek Knight's basement is way worse.
I dislike Hop (2011) for a variety of reasons, but one of the biggest is that the bunnies - who are allegedly the good guys alongside James Marsden - are actually the most unlikeable characters in the entire film
Velma Dinkley is an ordinary 15 year old Indian American high school student whose grades and mental state declined after her mother, Diya, mysteriously disappeared. She suffers from frequent panic attacks and visual hallucinations.
She is forced to navigate a complicated strained friendship-turned-romance dynamic with Daphne Blake and Norville Rogers. But, unlike the classic heroic version of the character, this incarnation is self-centered, cynical, dismissive of her peers and quick to insult people she views as beneath her (Velma)
I could be wrong but I feel like Mindy Kaling wanted to make an adult animated comedy show about her high-school years and HBO said no but you can do a Scooby-Doo show.
The result was her being extremely resentful of not getting what she wanted hence why Velma took a hot steaming shit all over the franchise.
Maggie is a secondary character that it's supposed to represent John's Stuart and accountability and guilt related to the rushville incident.
From her perspective, her hometown was destroyed and her father died because of these two assholes(hall and John) that showed up to ruin the perfect thing they had in their town, since Maggie doesn't know the full picture of the situation, she understandably blames them for what happened.
However the point of the character was overshadowed by her(a white rural Nebraskan woman) asking John Stewart (a black man) for "reparations".
I think this was just a poor choice of dialogue from the writers and people would have been more willing to engage with her character arc if she didn't say those words
I think that's a very childish take. Endeavour is absolutely a horrible human being and everyone in his life has the right to hate him, I don't blame the 2nd oldest son for cutting contact. But that doesn't mean that's all Endeavour has to be.
People can change, and while nothing will ever undo the harm he's caused, he's not wrong for trying to improve and make amends. I think it's actually a very fair and realistic portrayal of a piece of shit person struggling to change.
If you only hold people to the worst version of themselves, what's the point of anyone getting better?
I say all of this as the child of two abusive parents, one of whom hasn't changed, and one of whom has. We're not on the warmest terms, but I've chosen to move on even if I can't fully forgive my dad for all that happened. He's not perfect, but he has changed, and he's trying.
Yeah the narrative doesn't try to make what he did sympathetic or justifiable in any way. His actions have severe consequences that are not fully resolved by the end of the series. But it does show that he is actively doing the hard part of trying to not just be better but to try and salvage what's left in his wake. And to be clear, no one forgives him completely, but they do show compassion and love in a way that doesn't hurt them.
He had a quality redemption arc in my opinion and the fact Natsuo still doesn't forgive him is the best part. Those kinds of endings are drastically underdone. Yes people who try to make amends and they should work to be better, but they are not entitled to be forgiven even if they put in the work and change.
I disagree, my hero really don't try to make you sympathize with endavor, hell they activity put a magnify glass on how shitty of a person he is. we never is put in a place with enji is seen as sad, or being mistreated, or that we meant to feel bad that something happen to him. What they do is humanize him and feel like those are two different things
Brother Stain is too much a coward to go aftwr the top 2 hero, dude onlt goes after low tier heroes, if Stain went after Endevor he would get destroyed.
I feel like Moash from Stormlight Archives is a character Sanderson wants you to sympathize with to some degree and seeing him spiral. Of course, not a single fan does, I think he is more hated than The Lord Ruler, who is a character that is literally supposed to be John Evilman
Captain Jonathan Archer from Star Trek: Enterprise for...I mean, a LOT of reasons, but I want to highlight one instance in particular; The season season 1 episode "Dear Doctor." It's this episode that cements the Prime Directive as an excuse for letting a species die because "We can't share our technology with them." And cements Dr. Phlox and Captain Jonathan Archer as irredeemable assholes.
a TL;DR recap;
There are these two races on a planet. One race, the Valakians, is dying off due to a plague that turns out to be a species-wide genetic flaw that will lead to their extinction within three hundred years. The other is a primitive, kind of medieval society called the Menk.
Now what makes this episode and the actions therein so horrific is that Dr. Phlox, the Enterprise's doctor, creates a cure for the plague that could save the Valakians. Archer orders him not to use it because there's some bullshit about how the Menk are going to evolve to be the dominant species on the planet and preventing MASS SPECIES EXTINCTION OF A SAPIENT RACE IS INTERFERING WITH EVOLUTION.
This is presented as the morally correct thing to do by the episode. It's presented as Archer and Phlox ultimately doing the right thing.
We're supposed to agree with them. We're supposed to agree with eugenics.
I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I sure as hell wanted Archer to get kicked in the balls for this. At the very least.
He is an Rapist, Narcisist, Gaslighter, Manipulator and Emotionally neglectful father, YET the creator still thinks he is an good person just bc he has an sad backstory and is "trying his best to get better" even if he continues to hurt everyone around him, is never punished by the narrative and is also frequently victimized by the same narrative.
(Reposting cuz i didn't explain previously, my bad)
He coerced Blitz into monthly prostitution in Episode 1 Season 1 otherwise he would get back the very thing Blitz needs to keep his job and live decent live conditions. Blitz was in a live or death situation and couldn't think clearly to truly consent.
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u/Specialist-Issue1615 1h ago edited 1h ago
Jaime and Cersei Lannister.
It really felt the show wanted us to sympathize with them in the later seasons. But if you remembered everything they've done up to tht it can be hard to sympathize with them