I actually can't think of many examples for this trope, but I kind of hate it when it happens.
Basically, there's a character who is a total piece of shit for the entire show. Like. Even in a cast full of generally bad or annoying people, they're up there as one of the worst. But rather than have them take responsibility for anything they do or actually have satisfying on-screen development into a better person, the writers just make them suffer a bunch to try and make the viewers feel sympathy for them.
I assume this works on some people, but it doesn't work on me.
Example 1: Angela Martin (The Office)
Angela is -- as Creed puts it -- the office bitch. She's a sanctimonious, homophobic, racist, hypocritical, vaingloriously religious jerk whose worst traits are often ones she projects onto other people. Near the end of the show there's an arc where she marries a state senator, Robert Lipton, and... to say that she gloats about this excessively would be an understatement.
Despite generally just being a complete asshat for the entire show, even having a child with Dwight and going to great lengths to lie to him about the existence of his own son to cover up her infidelity, the show just puts her through a veritable humiliation conga where it's revealed her husband is gay, announces his intention to leave her at a press conference on live television, she loses all her cats, and has to live with Oscar (who she tried to have crippled with a lead pipe by a shoddy hitman, by the way)... the conclusion of the series has her finally get together with Dwight, she's immediately forgiven for everything, and lives happily ever after. The end.
This isn't really the only time the Office is guilty of this, and I already know I'm going to get some people who tell me "it's a sitcom stop taking it so seriously their horribleness is done for comedy." Except here's the thing: there's nothing about Angela that I find remotely funny. Even Michael, horrible person as he was, still got laughs out of me. The sheer absurdity of his manchildish behaviour were so unrealistic that you just couldn't help but chuckle at how surreal it all was. Angela is just awful everything, and I've met a lot of people like her.
Example 2: Joseph Seed (Far Cry: New Dawn)
A reckless idiot who terrorised, butchered, and pillaged the small region of Hope County in Far Cry 5 no basically no good reason. He returns in the direct narrative sequel, New Dawn, and is reframed as a tragic hero who lost his entire family, struggles to connect with his son, and is despairing over the inability to make a kinder, more godly world due to the presence of the antagonistic Highwaymen.
The thing is, Joseph hasn't actually changed. Not really. The game says he has, but he's still leading a cult full of adults and children alike under false premises. He's still doing nonsensical bullshit like piling up any and all modern technology he can find (even something as simple as microwave ovens) and throwing them into big piles to burn them since he thinks they'll lead to another apocalypse. He mind-raped the previous game's protagonist until they became an utterly subservient human weapon in his arsenal. And everything he's built once again falls apart because he refused to embrace even the simplest of solutions, and his son betrayed him.
This example is a double whammy since, despite being totally irredeemable and a complete moron in Far Cry 5, the story presents everything he did entirely in earnest. It genuinely expected the viewer to think he had a point, and spends its last fifteen minutes narratively validating him, with the last shot being him smugly gloating about how he was right before the credits roll. New Dawn somehow decided to take this even further, and pivots such that he's the holy man you need to embrace to save the day, even though the entire premise of the game proves him wrong. The decision to kill him is framed as the tragic end of a broken man, not the long-overdue comeuppance of an incompetent basket case with a saviour complex.
Example 3: Kylo Ren (Star Wars Sequel Trilogy)
This entire one feels like a mess caused by there being too many cooks in the kitchen... or maybe they just had no idea what to do with him. It's hard to say. Anyway. Kylo is presented in the first film as the son of Han and Leia, who turned to the Dark Side and joined the First Order as its top enforcer. Essentially a miniature Vader 2.0. The thing is, the murder of his father is presented as a critical moment in his character. His hesitance clearly shows he knows what he's doing is wrong, but the fact that he goes through with it anyway seems like it's cemented his character as a full blown villain, right?
He survives in the Last Jedi, and betrays Supreme Leader Snoke to save Rey, who he feels a spiritual connection with, and offers her the chance to join him. This is not necessarily framed as a heroic moment for him. He's seizing control of his own life and getting free from his past... by choosing to be the villain on his own terms. He does not abandon the darkness. He grabs it by the throat and makes it his own. Say what you will about the Last Jedi, but it felt as though they were actually approaching an interesting idea here. That being, a conflicted person is not always a redeemable person. Sometimes they have a period of questioning whether what they're doing is right or wrong... and the conclusion they come to is to do the wrong thing the right way. Sometimes it's not worth the wasted effort trying to fix them. The best you can do is protect others from what they're going to end up doing. Kylo freeing himself of his manipulator, but deciding that the path he was manipulated into taking was the path he wants anyway could've been an interesting direction for his character.
Anyway, in the Rise of Skywalker, somehow Palpatine returned, turns out Kylo was being double manipulated all along, Leia dies, he gets his ass kicked by Rey again, he... I guess hallucinates Han telling him to forgive himself, and... suddenly he's on the side of good again. He helps Rey defeat Palpatine, kills his own order of knights, revives Rey with force healing, dies doing so, I guess he's redeemed, the end.
This doesn't feel like it works because TRoS took the trajectory of his character arc from TLJ, that being someone who liberates themselves from deception and manipulation only to stay on a path of evil of their own accord... and just circles back around to "nope he was still being manipulated all along, he was always good inside, and he'll turn nice after a little more pain." I don't even know if Han Solo appeared as a force ghost. Kylo specifically says Han showing up is just a memory. What even happened here? Did Rey knock him over the head and give him brain damage? It doesn't matter, in any case, it feels like we're supposed to pity him for getting his ass kicked so often and that if Rey forgives him (even though she's previously said she won't anymore), we will too. There's no proper build up to his change because they keep flip-flopping on what they want to do with him. I don't know if I was supposed to feel sad when he died, but I didn't.
Poor Adam Driver, seriously. Daisy Ridley too. Not only did they not know what to do with him, and he's a good actor, but Daisy's character undoubtedly suffered too since they were inherently connected to each other by the plot, however sloppy that plot was.
