History Main / CharacterShilling

This is what is known as Character Shilling. Whether it be an attempt to make us like the character, a way of quickly establishing that someone new is a badass a level above anything we've seen before, or whatever the case may be, other people will be extremely impressed with this person and let us the viewers know about it. Whether they actually match up to the hype is optional. Sometimes they really are amazing, and sometimes we have ourselves a case of InformedAbility. Or worse, CreatorsPet.

Compare InformedAttribute, InformedAbility, and CreatorsPet, the last of which is what happens when this goes wrong and the fans just end up ''hating'' the shilled character. Also compare RespectedByTheRespected. May lead to StopWorshippingMe if it's to the person's face and they're more modest. A character who shills himself ''in-universe'' may be a FakeUltimateHero or MilesGloriosus. If it's a one-off shill of their own secret identity of some kind then it's ButHeSoundsHandsome. OverratedAndUnderleveled is a variation of this trope.

* ''Series/AmericasGotTalent'' also has a tendency to shill its contestants. 12-year-old Grace Vanderwaal was shilled repeatedly by all four of the judges no matter what, though her voice sounded like she was going through puberty at the time of the season's run and most of her performances were somewhat repetitive. She went on to win the season and is considered to be somewhat of a CreatorsPet. The next season, Angelica Hale got this so much that you could make a DrinkingGame out of it.

** Felicity was similarly shilled, especially after Laurel was RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap. Not only was she [[ItsAllAboutMe not selfless like everyone said]], she became such a CreatorsPet that even the villains were praising her. In particular, everybody feels the need to show how she's "perfect" for Oliver, and even Laurel [[spoiler:devotes her death scene to [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy proclaiming Felicity Oliver's true love]]]]. The shilling migrated over to ''Series/{{The Flash|2014}}'', with everyone ''there'' gushing about her no matter how tangentially they know her, and even Thawne gratuitously calling her "a great woman."
** Tina Boland aka "Dinah Drake" was written to be Laurel Lance's successor as Black Canary, and thus was shilled upon her introduction. The production team even went out of their way to build her up on social media to make the audiences fall in love with her. However, the coincidences of her skillset and name reeked of the writers trying to present the character as "better" than either Laurel or her AlternateSelf from Earth-2 (the fan-favorite to succeed the former) and thus perfect for the role instead made the character both a ReplacementScrappy ''and'' a CreatorsPet.

** Really, the whole series. Jayden's so great, Jayden's so important, Jayden is the best warrior ever, we love him so much, he's so bright and shiny and perfect... and just as surely as the heroes are the Jayden Cheerleading Squad, he's the only enemy the villains feel is important. Jayden's the only one who can seal them away again so he ''must'' be brought down, Jayden's the WorthyOpponent who is the only one the BloodKnight swordsman sees as worth fighting... SERIOUSLY, WE GET IT. You'd think it'd all lessen with the Lauren storyline [[spoiler:where we find that no, he CAN'T actually seal away the villains; he's been set up as a decoy for the one who can while she perfects the sealing technique]], but instead, it simply becomes 2-3 episodes of everyone whinging over how much they miss him and how nothing is the same without him and ONLY JAYDEN is the one "true" Red Ranger and it's so horribly wrong that he isn't here and... you get the picture. While he's actually ''less'' annoying than most examples on this list (where all too often, the shilling is repeating the {{Informed Attribute}}s of characters who actually display none of the positive qualities everyone gushes over), it creates a bit of a problem where your enjoyment level of this season will largely depend on whether or not you can worship Jayden as much as [[CreatorsPet the writers]] are telling you to.

** Season 3 character [[{{Jerkass}} Grace]] [[StrawFeminist Miller]], who was supposed to be the female version of Doctor Cox and supposedly a very competent surgeon and [[InformedAttractiveness treated like she was some kind of mega-hot goddess]]... She was also really petty, like making Turk do work way beneath his skill level because ''she wasn't invited to his wedding'' (and the whole reason Carla didn't want her there was because she's "too pretty"), rude, conceited, constantly treated Turk like dirt and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking wasn't funny.]] Yet Turk inexplicably really wanted to impress her, Carla never defends Turk over Dr. Miller's treatment of him [[ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend as she would have anyone else]], Dr. Cox spends quite a bit of the season panting over her even though she's basically [[OldFlame Jordan]] but without any redeeming qualities or history with him, Elliot gushes over how "cool" she is because she bullies her male surgeons team by giving them constant undeserved [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech "The Reason You Suck" Speeches]]. Thankfully the writers realised [[TheScrappy the audience hated her]] and she didn't come back after that season.

** In one particularly glaring example from a first-season episode, a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien known as "The Traveler" stopped in seemingly for the exclusive purpose of telling the crew how wonderful Wesley was. While Wesley hadn't ''quite'' become a CreatorsPet by that point, further treatment along these lines cemented him as one of the most definitive examples of CreatorsPet. He is, in fact, the [[Administrivia/RenamedTropes former]] {{Trope Namer|s}} ("Shilling the Wesley", "The Wesley" being the old name for CreatorsPet).

** In-universe, the Zakdorn rely on their reputation as master strategists, which has ensured that nobody ever dared to fight them. Characters who meet one on [=TNG=] are less than impressed with his abilities. Apparently no race had ''ever'' attempted to tangle with them just because of their reputation, which annoyed [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Worf]]:

'''Data:''' In the game of military brinkmanship, individual physical prowess is less important than the perception of a species as a whole. [[InformedAbility For over nine millennia, potential foes have regarded the Zakdorn as having the greatest innately strategic minds in the galaxy.]]\\

* Adam "Pacman" Jones, a football player who joined [[Wrestling/ImpactWrestling TNA]], was someone who nobody (be they football fans, wrestling fans, or the NFL itself) was particularly interested in seeing -- except [[CreatorsPet TNA's creative]], who had Wrestling/EricYoung (whom everyone still liked at this point) blab constantly about how Pacman is his hero.

* ''Franchise/MortalKombat'': Being Ed Boone's CreatorsPet it's not too surprising Scorpion is treated as the ultimate badass with the trailers for ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombat9 MK9]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatX MKX]]'' both having the yellow ninja brutally beating Sub-Zero and in the trailer for ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombat11 MK11]]'' he kill Raiden as well. ''[=MK9=]'' has Scorpion uppercutting in very ''the menu''. This treatment is fairly ironic, considering InUniverse Scorp might as well be the [[TheChewToy Charlie Brown of the setting]] for how commonly he is tricked, defeated and [[TheyKilledKennyAgain killed]]. The ''MKX'' DC Comic series and ''WesternAnimation/MortalKombatLegends '' are far more gratuitous with Scorpion defeating pretty much every opponent he faces and having many characters put him on a pedestal as the most awesome ninja ever.

* ''WesternAnimation/KampKoral'': Characters repeatedly talk about how great Narlene is, with Sandy saying ''twice'' that she "never stops amazing me!" Scenarios are also written so that Narlene will save the day, like [=SpongeBob=] beating Sandy at karate with her advice, or her trying to fight off a sea urchin infestation. However, it's hard to agree with the shilling because not only does she end up stealing his reward for the karate tournament, the urchin infestation was something ''she started'', and she [[KarmaHoudini never faces any punishment for the bad stuff she does]] (serving kids food without telling them the disgusting way she made it, screwing up Squidward's art lessons, letting baby Pearl endanger herself in the woods).

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': Part of the reason why Starlight Glimmer is a major BaseBreakingCharacter, especially when she first joined the main cast during Season 6, is that the show either has other characters praise her too easily or makes her look good at the expense of others by [[TheWorfEffect weakening]] them or giving them the JerkassBall. The premiere of Season 7 "Celestial Advice" particularly felt like just an excuse to praise Starlight as Twilight was not shy about how awesome and amazing she felt Starlight was and claimed she had graduated as her pupil and was "ready to make her own way in the world"... even though Starlight would [[StatusQuoIsGod continue to stay with Twilight as her pupil]] and [[AesopAmnesia continue to make the exact same friendship mistakes she made before graduating]].

* Karin Kanzuki in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterV'' gets shilled quite a lot in the Cinematic Story Mode, ''A Shadow Falls'', where she wins all of her fights and serves the BigGood. Meanwhile, experienced characters like Guile or Chun-Li keep getting hit by TheWorfEffect until the plot allows them to win with the latter only getting one win in the entire story mode.

** Played straight with some of the "good" characters. Before Asha's interview with the king to become an apprentice, Queen Amaya gives a short speech to her telling her that she recommended Asha to him because she's seen how much she cares for others. This comes on the (more comical) heels of Dahlia suggesting that Asha should say her biggest flaw is that "you care too much". However, nothing in the opening ten minutes suggests Asha cares any more for her family, friends, or the people of Rosas than anyone else the audience sees, especially given her job as a tour guide for prospective immigrants is primarily the aforementioned shilling for Magnifico.

** Asha gushes over how wonderful her grandfather Sabino is in the opening scene, and her horror at Magnifico not being willing to grant his wish when he's such a good person is the springboard for the whole conflict of the movie. But all the audience sees is a man who wanted to "inspire future generations" with his music, but rather than work on his craft chose to give that desire up to a lottery system in hopes Magnifico would grant it for him. He may be a good family man, and 100 years old, but nothing else is shown to the audience to convince it that he's more deserving than anyone else in Rosas to have his wish granted.