Line #22 YMMV/TheFamiliarOfZero


1	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Is Saito an exaggerated form of an ExtremeDoormat that takes Louise's abuse because he loves her or is he a masochist that likes it? The author himself doesn't believe either. That said, it was semi-confirmed in Volume 8 when [[spoiler: he had a dream of Tabitha abusing him.]]
2	* BaseBreakingCharacter: Louise and Saito ''both'' qualify, depending on who you ask. Louise has the DomesticAbuse angle and Saito gets the WishFulfillment angle that [[StockLightNovelHero Light Novel heroes]] often get.
3	* DesignatedHero:
4	** Louise herself. She abuses Saito and treats him like dirt for the slightest to stupidest reasons non-stop to the point where she may as well punish him for breathing. She is rude, obnoxious and unpleasant to other females usually out of jealousy and arrogance, and she is ''never'' punished for her actions. Yet, we're still expected to root for her for some reason.
5	** Saito also counts after his attempted rape of Louise because of all the factors which insist that it's not really his fault such as Louise [[MasterOfTheMixedMessage sending mixed signals]] or his familiar runes influencing his actions.
6	* DieForOurShip:
7	** Siesta treats Saito much better than Louise, but is ''loathed'' by some of the fandom for that. Part of the reason is {{flanderization}} in the anime.
8	** Louise suffers from the people who prefer Siesta, Kirche, Henrietta, Tiffania, or Tabitha, or just about anyone else over her. Louise isn't popular among the fans of the others in the female cast.
9	* DracoInLeatherPants: Fanfics tend to do this a lot for any number of characters in the series. Kirche tends to get her CharacterDevelopment moved forward so that she starts the series as, say, VitriolicBestBuds with Louise rather than a mere AlphaBitch.
10	* EsotericHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Saito and Louise become lovers in the end, even though the latter spends a large portion of the series abusing the former.]]
11	* FandomSpecificPlot:
12	** The amount of {{Crossover}} stories where Louise summons someone else instead of Saito is mind-boggling, making up the overwhelming majority of fanfics for the series. It could even be argued that such works helped contribute to the rise of {{isekai}} stories where protagonists are forcibly summoned to a fantasy world that would come to populate the website Platform/ShousetsukaNiNarou (which originally allowed fanfiction, but would later ban it in 2012 to encourage posting original works) in the years afterwards.
13	** Another popular setup for crossover fics has Louise manage to summon ''herself'' to the other universe (usually seen by herself InUniverse as an EpicFail of unheard-of levels), usually followed by her getting massive CharacterDevelopment and TookALevelInBadass. Whether she makes it back home or not varies.
14	** Additionally, Siesta's ancestors are usually changed to be from wherever Louise's familiar is from.
15	* FanNickname:
16	** Pope Vittorio Serevare St. Aegis of Romalia is ''not'' well-liked on Website/SpaceBattlesDotCom, where the prevailing nickname for him is "Pope [=McDongcopter=]" due to his questionable actions and manipulations.
17	** "Titania" for Tiffania. Bonus points for StealthPun.
18	** [[BoobBasedGag Melon-chan]] for Tiffania and [[Manga/YumeiroPatissiere Lemon]]-[[{{Expy}} chan]] for Louise.
19	* FanworkOnlyFans: Thanks to the various criticisms levied towards the characters and plot, it's not uncommon to see fans that have only read/watched a little bit of the source material before quickly switching to the myriad of crossover fics.
20	* GeniusBonus: If you can read runes, you can identify Saito as Gandálfr long before Colbert.
21	* HilariousInHindsight: The ending of the first season can as such, if you know that [[Creator/SatoshiHino Saito's Japanese VA]] is the dub voice of [[Series/{{Arrow}} Oliver Queen]]: [[spoiler:Saito almost got killed by a '''RainOfArrows''']].
22	* JustHereForGodzilla: There are a lot of people who watch this anime just for [[BestKnownForTheFanservice Kirche, Siesta, or Tiffania]].
23	* {{Moe}}:
24	** Tabitha; to quote someone from animeblogger:
25	--->"Tabitha has taken over Siesta as my favorite character, and not just because she is channeling [[Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya Yuki]]. She is made of pure win, I don't usually like the stoic silent types, but something about Tabitha just makes my inner moe meter go berserk."
26	** [[{{Tsundere}} Louise]] counts when she's in dere-dere mode. [[DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale When she is in tsun-tsun mode]], [[BaseBreakingCharacter on the other hand]]...
27	* NeverLiveItDown:
28	** There are fans that lost sympathy for Louise after the first time she whipped/exploded Saito... or the Nth time afterward.
29	** Some fans think Saito became an irredeemable creep after his {{attempted rape}} of Louise.
30	* OlderThanTheyThink: Tabitha owes a lot to Rei (from ''[[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Evangelion]]''). So at first glance her mother's story looks like a tie-in to Rei's Red Oni counterpart. Actually the reason for her mother's madness is directly taken from Princess Kushana's story in ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'' manga (which is also where Eva adapted it from).
31	* OneTrueThreesome: Among those who don’t hate [[BaseBreakingCharacter Louise]] with a passion, Louise/Saito/Siesta is a popular pairing, because [[MistressAndServantBoy Louise]] and [[{{Meido}} Siesta]] balance each other out. This was teased a little in the 12th volume, where Louise says she would be disappointed if Siesta gave up on winning Saito so easily.
32	* QuestionableCasting:
33	** The European Spanish dub was made with amateur voice actors, something that was highly controversial. The fact that said voice actors also did the critically panned 2013 redubbing of ''Manga/ElfenLied'' didn't help.
34	** The English dub of Season 1 featured a mostly AmateurCast with poor direction, despite industry veteran Creator/TonyOliver helming, which most likely played a part in why the other seasons were subbed only.
35	* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap:
36	** For many, this happened to Louise after she gave up her nobility to save Tabitha, and went uphill from there.
37	** Louise's scrappiness is often watered down or removed entirely in fanfiction. It was done first by ''FanFic/TheHillOfSwords'' and then by [[FollowTheLeader about a good number of all [=ZnT=] fanfics that came after it]]. In most cases, it's due to her having to deal with a character that isn't a lecherous doormat and stands up to her, so her violent tsundere behavior won't fly and she lacks the motivation to act that way.
38	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: The familiars of the void from past generations (Vindálfr, Mjöðvitnir and Lífþrasir) were never shown except for the first gandalfs sasha.
39	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
40	** The series as a whole often comes under fire for squandering a terrific premise, mostly due to the focus being on the [[HaremGenre harem antics]] centered on a boring OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent everyguy and his [[DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale violently abusive]] and [[BaseBreakingCharacter generally unlikable]] main girlfriend. All the things people like about it are just the window dressing.
41	** Aside from the main plot, the setup of the world itself could have worked well without the [[TrappedInAnotherWorld isekai]] angle. It's a fantasy Europe on the verge of full continental warfare, orchestrated by a mad king who wants the world to burn so he can feel ''something''. Lurking in the background are the questions of the nature of Void magic and its abrupt reappearance and the distant threat of the legendary and reclusive elves. This could easily have been a grand war epic or intrigue without the harem overwriting it.
42	** The anime works at a conversion ratio of three to four volumes per twelve episodes. Due to this, at least two thirds of the source material have been outright omitted, and the rest truncated or chopped up. The manga and novels aren't immune to this criticism, either.
43	** An important element of the series that set up its premise was that each magician character had their own familiar. Except for the class of Louise and the familiars of the void, the ones of characters such as the Princess Henrietta, Professor Colbert, Louise's sisters, and other nobles are never revealed.
44	** The interesting history of Tiffania's parents is never revealed in full. What is known is that an elf escaped from her home until she reached Albion, and a member of royalty (the uncle of Henrietta and Wales, and therefore a descendant of the founder Brimir) fell in love with her.
45	* TooBleakStoppedCaring: Louise's constant abuse of Saito ended up making this series very hard to enjoy for most people, with most of the other characters being annoying and unlikable. And the characters that are likable [[TookALevelInJerkass take a level in jerkass]] as the story progresses.
46	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Louise, unsurprisingly. We're supposed to sympathize with her because of her enormous insecurity complex, her miserable school life, an abusive older sister, and emotionally distant and incredibly strict parents who are more interested in their daughter as an asset than as a person. Not to mention that being a noblewoman of minimal magical talent makes her a complete laughingstock due to the norms of Halkeginia society. So while Louise has plenty reasons for the audience to side with her, she '''still''' drives off many supporters due to her infamously brutal and non-stop abuse of Saito; which is not only horrible on a basic human level, but also makes her a blatant hypocrite given her home life. As a result, she comes across as an outright bully, rather than a JerkWithAHeartOfGold the story expects us to view her as. While this is eventually addressed in Volume 11 of the light novels, in the anime adaptation, this behavior not only goes unexamined, but is amplified.
47	* ValuesDissonance:
48	** While it's meant to be funny, Saito's abuse and overall treatment is horrifying to modern audiences, especially because the other Familiars are not treated nearly as badly as he is. However, Louise is not acting different from what nobles did during Ancient Rome and European Middle Ages. At one point killing a commoner (not to mention beating them up if they displeased you) was not a crime '''at all''' (that usually didn't apply to townsfolk, who were under protection of law to the extent that you had to have a valid reason to kill them).
49	** In a completely different but similarly controversial light, [[DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale one has to wonder if the series would be successful at all if Louise's and Saito's genders were reversed]].
50	* {{Wangst}}: The author tries to justify Louise's abuse by showing her poor self-esteem, but most people don't see that as a good excuse to beat someone.
51	* TheWoobie:
52	** Saito, because of the abuse heaped upon him by Louise. Hell, even the other familiars feel sorry for Saito, and see his treatment as both a familiar and a human as horrible. Unfortunately, he can also be callous and cruel in his own right in response to his treatment, which can kill any sympathy for him.
53	** Tabitha qualifies, once you learn of [[spoiler:what happened to her parents and what her uncle does to her]].
54	* {{Woolseyism}}:
55	** The Mexican Spanish dub does this regarding the nicknames of many of the characters, who received more realistic-sounding nicknames compared with both the original Japanese and English ones, while keeping the meanings intact. Character-wise, Saito, while keeping his characterization from the Japanese version, also sounds like a stereotypical Mexico City teenager, without going overboard with it, and is capable of sounding more angry and freaked out in a somewhat more realistic way than in Japanese. Louise and the nobles, on the other hand, sound more mean and arrogant, possibly because that's how many Mexicans tend to depict people of higher social levels in Mexican media, especially in comedy.
56	** The European Spanish dub, on the other hand, translated more or less everything literally, without reaching TooLongDidntDub levels [[InconsistentDub with mixed results]].

Context YMMV / TheFamiliarOfZero