History Main / ScapegoatCreator

[[WMG:[[center:[[AC:This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1614614682014089300&page=1 under discussion]] in the [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1597830869030327400&page=1#1 Trope Repair Shop]].]]]]]]
->''"Some people think I'm in charge of every decision, design or no, of ''Magic''. I'll get angry letters, for example, where they blame me personally about packaging or translation or tournament software. But hey, it comes with the territory of being one of the faces of the game."''
-->-- '''Mark Rosewater''', head designer for ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' (link [[http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/86120261643/so-do-some-people-think-youre-in-charge-of-every here]])

In TV shows or other works produced by a team of people, or where a LongRunner has a long succession of different creators, the fandom or part of it sometimes decides to hate one individual creator to an unhinged degree and blame him or her for everything that ever went wrong with the work. Often, the alleged flaws in the person's run/episodes are [[FranchiseOriginalSin more generally present in the work as a whole]], or habitual to the genre. Still, it is easier to focus the rage upon a single entity, than to admit to that.

Often the result of actual or perceived [[PanderingToTheBase taking sides]] in a BrokenBase situation. Frequently the result of perceived responsibility for a DorkAge or CanonDisContinuity. Can happen when a person becomes a lightning rod for general FanDisillusionment, resulting in them being {{Misblamed}}.

Of course, if you set yourself up as the public face concerning a work, franchise or even a particular decision, you have to expect this to come with the territory. And if you've made a habit of deliberately needling fans in other areas, it is not wise to expect much charity from them. In Hollywood, it's historically producers who have been targeted, although now thanks to UsefulNotes/TheAuteurTheory it's commonly directors and at times even actors.

Contrast ProtectionFromEditors and CreatorWorship.

[[noreallife]]
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!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* For arguably the ''worst'' example of this, look no further than ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny'' and the [[CreatorCouple husband and wife team]] of director Mitsuo Fukuda and head scriptwriter Chiaki Morosawa. They are responsible for some of the problems that afflicted the series; rather infamously, late in the show's run, an animator blogged about Morosawa's perpetual tardiness with the scripts, which turned out to come from [[IllGirl her bad health]], which forced them to add lots of {{Padding}}. However, the fandom tends to exaggerate this wildly, and gladly parrots off a number of unflattering and '''never''' confirmed rumors on request, out of pure hatred for both of them ("Fukuda hates America because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and based off Blue Cosmos and ZAFT over them"; "Cagalli got [[{{Chickification}} demoted to extra]] because Morosawa hates her [[Creator/NaomiShindo voice actress]] personally"). All this is on top of the accusation that Kira Yamato and Lacus Clyne are their MarySue {{Author Avatar}}s, used to explain why they win and look good doing so (The fact that Creator/RieTanaka said that Lacus is a difficult role for her in [[http://www.animevice.com/news/nyaf08-interview-with-rie-tanaka/78/ an interview]] certainly didn't help matters.) Some have even gone so far as to whine about [[IllGirl Morosawa's perpetual illness]] and blame her for the DevelopmentHell that's delayed the rumored ''SEED'' conclusion movie for over five years - to the creepy point of ''hoping she dies of it as "punishment" for "ruining" the series!''
** There are also rumors about other "fans" '''deliberately mistranslating canon material''' to make Fukuda and Morosawa look worse than they actually are or were; i.e., some "invented" how Fukuda insulted Creator/KenichiSuzumura and Creator/MaayaSakamoto through Twitter when they got married when in reality he merely said he was surprised that their relationship had reached that point.) It's not helped by the infamous "Morosawa interview" that circulated around '''was''' proved to be completely fake.
** When [[AuthorExistenceFailure Morosawa DID fall victim to her illness]] in early 2016, [[http://khandri.tumblr.com/post/85172578225/things-i-wish-the-gundam-fandom-would-stop-doing some fans started poking fun at her demise]]. '''[[FelonyMisdemeanor All because the SEED series didn't develop the way they wanted!]]'''
* Speaking of Fukuda, he's blamed for everything wrong with ''Anime/CrossAnge'', despite only being the creative producer and mecha director. Actually came to a head with the broadcast of Episode 22, where [[spoiler:two characters who were supposedly killed off in the previous episode [[UnexplainedRecovery reappear with little to no explanation]]; it also doesn't help that one of them looks suspiciously similar to [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED Kira Yamato]] (see example above.)]] No one ever suggests blaming the director or writer for any of the show's problems.
* Chiaki Kon is responsible for most of the problems that plagued the anime adaptations of ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' and ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' (so much so that the original writer had to step on board and supervise the second season of the former). But that doesn't stop the fans of the Sound Novels for portraying her in the most negative light possible and some even put the blame also on Creator/StudioDEEN as well, never mind the studio ''only'' produces the anime of the 2 adaptations.
* Many ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' fans hold Creator/TiteKubo responsible for the anime fillers (and for the anime in general, including openings/endings), despite the fact that he has nothing to do with the anime aside of sometimes designing characters for fillers. Probably because he's said he's "more involved" with the anime than normal mangakas. But that doesn't mean he has to be much more involved. (In fact, the TroubledProduction of the fourth movie had him asking to have his name removed from the movie credits, as his ideas were ultimately disregarded and he felt he wasn't involved ''enough'' in it.)
* For that matter, similar to the ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' example, manga authors are often credited with/blamed for anything that happens to the animated version of their work. Yes, some like Kubo actually ''do'' have involvement with the anime, but sometimes, they're often blamed for parts of the anime that they don't have any control over, ''especially'' fillers and pacing.
* Creator/ShojiKawamori is a very strange example: around the time ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'' was airing, quotes and interviews popped up that annoyed fans so much it started the meme "Kawamori trolled my fandom!" Then it turned out that [[GodNeverSaidThat he never actually said any of those things]], [[http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?p=2585414#post2585414 because they were fiction made up by a disgruntled member of the fandom.]] This doesn't stop people from treating Kawamori like mocking the fandom is his one true love.
* Several shipping moments in the ''Manga/FairyTail'' anime earn a lot of complaints towards Hiro Mashima. Many of them were anime only, or minor, but greatly played up by the anime. One of the biggest ones even came right after the anime staff proved that they weren't consulting with Mashima for every little change they made either.[[note]]They changed a spiky-haired silhouette seen in the crowd to a cloaked girl in order to keep consistent with a reveal of who a figure that several characters had been sensing was, only for it to turn out within a few weeks later in the manga that they had been detecting two different people, and it was a man that had been spotted in the crowd.[[/note]]
* It's not uncommon for mangaka to be criticized for story elements/ideas/etc. that were actually the editor or publisher's idea (or vice-versa)
* Creator/NaokoTakeuchi has been getting a ''lot'' of blame fired at her for ''Anime/SailorMoonCrystal'' not living up to fandom's expectations. The truth of the matter is, Naoko doesn't have nearly as much control as people think she does.
* ''Several'' people in charge of ''Anime/BloodC'' got smacked with this:
** Creator/{{CLAMP}} gets usually blamed by ''Blood'' franchise fans for tainting the series's plot with their characteristically controversial writing shenanigans. It got worse when it was leaked that Junichi Fujisaku, one of the pioneers of the saga, worked in ''Blood C'' only to direct the fight scenes, thus allegedly limiting his chances of getting the series right. Then it turned out in an [[http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interview/2011-09-01/blood-c-tsutomu-mizushima-and-junichi-fujisaku/2 ANN interview]] that, while he certainly wasn't in charge of the screenplay, the series's story was outlined by himself before CLAMP, and more specifically, the controversial reinventing of the show was ''his'' own idea. It's very telling that Junichi Fujisaku is again in charge of the screenplay of the 2015 stage play and 2017 live-action movie while CLAMP are only credited as original co-creators.
* Inverted with ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': For shipping fans who disliked the canon pairing of Naruto/Hinata, Creator/StudioPierrot has become the lightning rod of their hate, in great part because previously several of the staff from the studio had publicly declared themselves as [[CreatorsFavorite Hinata fans]] and they were the ones who originally came up with the idea of making the {{canon}} movie ''Anime/TheLastNarutoTheMovie'' (which details the story of how Naruto and Hinata became a couple), as such they blame them for [[ExecutiveMeddling forcing]] [[RunningTheAsylum their preferred pairing]] into the author Creator/MasashiKishimoto. Actually the opposite is true: Studio Pierrot had no control over the source manga, and for this case, they had to follow the author's directions (unless the movie was declared [[NonSerialMovie non-canon]]), and also to top it all Kishimoto himself [[WordOfGod has claimed]] that the main OfficialCouple was ''his'' idea and it was decided from a while ago.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Card Games]]
* While Richard Garfield is largely exempt (he even had a card made of him with the art portraying him as Jesus) from the RAGE of the UnpleasableFanbase, the current head designer of TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering Mark Rosewater is often blamed for breaking the game's balance.
** This is especially funny because he's only the lead ''designer'', not the lead of ''development''. While design tries to get in the general area, it's really development's job to hone the balance to just right.
*** He catches blame for ''anything'' players dislike about the game, whether it involves card design or not! Price of packs goes up? Blame Rosewater. Bad piece of artwork? Blame Rosewater.
*** Well, okay, you can blame him for [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=9771 one bad piece of artwork.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* Ron Marz reportedly received death threats from Franchise/GreenLantern fans upset about the ''ComicBook/EmeraldTwilight'' storyline (which had the hero going through a FaceHeelTurn, [[EverybodysDeadDave massacring most of the secondary characters]] and then being killed off). This was especially unfair since Marz had the plot [[ExecutiveMeddling imposed on him by more senior writers]]. Marz himself has since gone on the record saying it was [[MoneyDearBoy something he did for pay]], and was rather glad when much of Emerald Twilight was retconned. Also, it was Kevin Dooley who came up with the original concept for ''Emerald Twilight''.
** It was more than just Dooley. ''Several'' DC bigwigs contributed to the ''Emerald Twilight'' we got after they nixed Gerard Jones' original version[[note]](which, in a funny bit of irony, was due to the fact that Jones' version "brought up continuity that 'no one would get', ie the Zamarons", which would later become one of the Green Lantern books' greatest strength)[[/note]]. In fact, Paul Levitz, Mike Carlin, Archie Goodwin, and even Denny O'Neil helped Dooley write the outline that Marz was forced to fully write. In fact, infamously in the letters section in ''Green Lantern Vol 3 #50'', a blurb was written that even O'Neil, who had famously written great stories with Hal & the Corps, said that Hal Jordan was "too hard to write" and was "either too nice or a jerk, leaving no lasting impression", while another (from Dooley) stated that Hal was essentially a FlatCharacter and that things were going to be okay since "nobody was talking about [this] book or even cared about its central character to any great extent".
* Creator/DanDiDio, DC Comics editor-in-chief, gets ''huge'' amounts of flack for any unpopular turn any DC title takes. While the man has made more than his share of editorial blunders, he gets the blame for just about everything, regardless of whether it was his idea, another exec's, or the writer's, or whether it was something that happened before he came to DC. His antagonistic statements to fans don't help.
** And now that he's been bumped up to co-publisher, it's likely he'll get a lot more Mis Blame (Bob Harras is now DC's editor-in-chief and Bobbie Chase is the executive editor while Creator/GeoffJohns is Chief Creative Officer).
* And it's pretty much the same as Creator/JoeQuesada. Again, he did do some really bad stuff, just that many other things are the fault of others like [[Creator/MarkMillar Millar]] and [[Creator/BrianMichaelBendis Bendis]]. His antagonistic statements to fans don't help either.
* Creator/BrianMichaelBendis has been blamed by fans for doing ''ComicBook/AvengersVsXMen'' and ''ComicBook/CivilWarII''. He also gets most of the hate for ComicBook/BattleOfTheAtom, even though Jason Aaron was a main architect of the event - Bendis was doing the most heavy lifting to someone else's story, had his own ideas shot down by Aaron or editor Nick Lowe and apparently disliked it so much that the moment these two were gone he went ArmedWithCanon on several things.
* Creator/DwayneMcDuffie during his run on ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica''. Fans would blame [=McDuffie=] for every change that happened in the series, such as John Stewart's inclusion over fan favorite [[Franchise/GreenLantern Hal Jordan]]. In response to these complaints, [=McDuffie=] started a question and answer thread on message boards, where he would answer fans' questions. It was here that he revealed a lot of roster changes were the result of [[ExecutiveMeddling Editorial Interference]]. Though, after all his comments were [[http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=21073 compiled]], DC Staff were not happy and he was promptly taken off the title.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* In the months following the completion of ''Fanfic/PrehistoricEarth'', former main writer turned co-writer Drew Luczynski has become the easiest of the fic's two writers to blame for everything that went wrong in both the story itself as well as the [[CreativeDifferences behind the scenes conflict]] that ensued between him and former co-writer turned main writer Nathanoraptor. For as revealed in a retrospective that Nathanoraptor posted in the time period surrounding the 4th anniversary of the fic's initial publication, Luczynski was personally responsible for a sizable number of the story's more poorly received elements (particularly amongst those present in the fic's earliest chapters) and also heavily pushed for several other potentially unpopular ideas and creative decisions that Nathanoraptor subsequently chose to put on the cutting room floor. The fact that the readers largely believe that the story [[GrowingTheBeard grew its beard]] after the two writers switched places so that [[MyRealDaddy Nathanoraptor was now the main writer instead of the co-writer and vice versa on Luczynski's end]], and Luczynski's subsequently expressing his own thoughts in the retrospective in a [[CausticCritic somewhat unnecessarily harsh and seemingly mean-spiritedly judgmental fashion]] haven't helped Luczynski's case either. However, as Nathanoraptor himself has stated, Luczynski was arguably suffering from major inexperience in writing for certain specific elements that he got arguably the most criticism over, that there were several mistakes and potentially unpopular ideas that Nathanoraptor himself ended up coming up with that were either successfully placed in the final product or changed into something more workable on Luczynski's own suggestion, and both writers were able to get along and work on writing the story together just fine and never once underwent HostilityOnTheSet even while in the midst of their arguments.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* Creator/SteveKloves, the screenwriter of all the ''Film/HarryPotter'' movies (except [[Film/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix the fifth]]), gets blamed for deviating from the books too much, when the blame should go to the [[ExecutiveMeddling executives]] -- earlier drafts of the scripts tended to be rather more faithful to the books than the finished product.
* Creator/JoelSchumacher, director of ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'', gets blamed for turning Franchise/{{Batman}} into a ridiculous {{camp}}fest, when the blame should go to the [[ExecutiveMeddling executives]], who wanted to use the movie for [[MerchandiseDriven product placement]]. In particular, Akiva Goldsman is responsible for the [[HurricaneOfPuns blizzard of puns]] spouted by Mr. Freeze, despite claiming to be a lifelong Batman fan who [[PromotedFanboy particularly enjoyed the original 1989 film]]. Schumacher claimed that the ''Batman'' films he directed were so heavily storyboarded that he had very limited creativity as a director. That being said, Schumacher (and the film's star Creator/GeorgeClooney) have [[OldShame apologized repeatedly and profusely]] for their part in the film's creation.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'' fans blame Creator/GeorgeLucas for everything they don't like about the franchise, except for everything after Creator/{{Disney}}'s acquisition of Creator/{{Lucasfilm}}. There are many ways this shakes out, all of them misdirected:
** Lucas is often blamed for story elements he had no say in. Part of this derives from him characterizing the film series as part of a grand story and taking credit for ''everything'' in the films, including the things people didn't like (''e.g.'' [[DoingInTheWizard midichlorians]], [[StrangledByTheRedString sand-hating]], [[TheScrappy Jar-Jar]]). However, the same cannot be said for the Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse, which he never really thought of as canon and in which he had almost no input (with a few notable exceptions like ''Literature/ShadowsOfTheEmpire'' and ''VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed''). Basically, he was just the guy signing the checks. Lucas' tendency to defend his "grand vision" would bite him again in the rear end when he took credit for everything in ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'' and Creator/StevenSpielberg was happy to let Lucas take the fall for everything people didn't like about it (excepting the infamous "nuking the fridge" scene, which Spielberg has admitted was his idea).
** Lucas is also blamed generally for killing the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood era of films driven totally by AuteurLicense, leading the way for the theaters to be dominated by the SummerBlockbuster. However, Lucas was very much a part of New Hollywood, was friends and collaborators with such auteurs as Creator/FrancisFordCoppola and Creator/JohnMilius, and exerted as much control over ''Star Wars'' as he could.
** Kathleen Kennedy, for her part, is just a producer and doesn't really have any input into the storyline of the films. Fans blamed her for writing decisions that really should have been pinned on people like Creator/JJAbrams, Creator/LawrenceKasdan, and/or Creator/RianJohnson. Fans have also blamed her for business decisions that could have very well have come from Disney head honcho Bob Iger, who Kennedy reports to. In fact, some fans have turned their disdain for Lucas on its head and blame Kennedy for ruining Lucas' grand vision. A particularly strange accusation is that Kennedy forced the series to become more [[ActionGirl outwardly feminist]] and/or "woke" when it had been that way since 1977.[[note]]In fact, according to J.W. Rinzler's ''The Making of ''Film/ANewHope'''', Lucas was so worried about not having enough female roles that he seriously considered making Luke a female protagonist.[[/note]] An even stranger accusation is that Kennedy is somehow opposed to ''Series/TheMandalorian'' despite being a massive success amongst fans and casual viewers, and that its showrunners Creator/JonFavreau and Creator/DaveFiloni are waging some sort of war on Kennedy and her "faction" of Creator/{{Lucasfilm}}.
* Creator/RichardLester, director of ''Film/SupermanII'' and ''Film/SupermanIII'', gets blamed for injecting too much {{camp}} into the ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' film series, when the blame should go to the [[ExecutiveMeddling executives]] (are you sensing a pattern here?), in particular producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind, who insisted on the slapstick in the hopes of aping the 1960s ''Series/Batman1966'' series. In fact, they brought on Lester in part because the previous director Richard Donner refused to comply with their demands. Why they insisted on this when [[Film/SupermanTheMovie the original film]]'s DoingItForTheArt approach made it a critical and box-office success is anyone's guess.
* Creator/TimBurton, director of the 2010 ''Film/{{Alice in Wonderland|2010}}'' film, gets blamed for the script deviating too much from [[Literature/AliceInWonderland the original]] when he didn't actually write the script. That would be Linda Woolverton, who admitted in interviews that it was her goal to completely shake up the original story. In fact, Burton has never had a screenplay credit in ''any'' of his movies.
* Creator/BrettRatner, director of ''Film/XMenTheLastStand'', gets blamed for everything fans hated about the movie, when he joined the film at a relatively late stage of production and would have had relatively little creative input. Most of the legwork was done by Matthew Vaughn. Despite this, he gets a ''lot'' of hatred from fans for "ruining" the ''Film/XMenFilmSeries'', just for that movie; the rest of the blame goes to former Fox president Tom Rothman. In later years it emerged that Ratner actually ''did'' cause numerous problems with the film's shoot -- including causing the initial cinematographer to quit, and being openly homophobic towards Creator/ElliotPage -- just not the ones he's widely blamed for by fans.
* Catherine Hardwicke, director of the first ''Film/{{Twilight}}'' film, gets blamed for the film not living up to the expectations of the rabid fans of [[Literature/{{Twilight}} the original book]] when most of the film's problems were beyond her control. The lack of a budget was a particular issue, and in fact, her angling for a bigger budget got her fired from the sequel. The passing years have been kinder to Hardwicke, though, if only because the fans at least acknowledge that she was trying and didn't sign on [[MoneyDearBoy just for the money]].
* Creator/MichaelBay seems to get this a lot:
** For directing the ''Film/TransformersFilmSeries'', he gets blamed for everything people didn't like about the films, when a lot of the blame should go to (take a guess) [[ExecutiveMeddling the executives]], who were banking on a MerchandiseDriven series. It's particularly strange how the fans blame Bay for characters transforming into less iconic cars than they usually do when many car manufacturers didn't want their products to be featured in the films (something Hasbro had to deal with for their previous ''Alternators'' line where certain manufacturers not wanting their cars to be associated with "war toys" forced them to cancel or adjust planned designs). In the case of ''[[Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen Revenge of the Fallen]]'', there was also a writer's strike which was completely beyond Bay's control and played a significant role in the end result. Blame for the poor writing in the second, third, and fourth films could also more properly be attributed to screenwriter Ehren Kruger.
** For being a partner in horror film studio Platinum Dunes (best known for remakes such as ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre2003'' and ''Film/FridayThe13th2009''), the blame for every movie they make is put on him, even though he had nothing to do with them creatively.
** For producing the 2014 reboot of ''Film/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|2014}}'', he gets blamed for everything in the film, even though he was just a producer and not a director (that was Jonathan Liebesman, although you'd be forgiven for missing that because Bay was billed a lot more in the promotional materials). Bay reportedly even vetoed ideas that would have likely made the film even worse-received, such as the turtles being extraterrestrials rather than mutants.
* ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'':
** Creator/DavidFincher, director of ''Film/Alien3'', gets blamed for the film, when he was brought in late to what was already a famously TroubledProduction and just steered it to the finish line. Fincher had to contend with very zealous [[ExecutiveMeddling meddling executives]] who tried to micromanage the production, forced him to continually rewrite the script at short notice, demanded a ton of reshoots, and even locked him out of the editing room during post-production. Fincher would later claim in an interview that if it were up to him, he would have restarted from scratch.
** Creator/JeanPierreJeunet gets blamed for everything in ''Film/AlienResurrection'' when he was brought in late into a TroubledProduction and ended up being thrown under the bus for the film's failure. The blame should mostly go to the studio or to screenwriter Creator/JossWhedon (who in turn blames the studio and the director). The experience caused Jeunet to swear off Hollywood, and he hasn't returned since.
** Writer Damon Lindelof gets the blame for ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'', but he only rewrote drafts by Jon Spaihts. The one with the bigger role in the story was Creator/RidleyScott.
* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:
** Creator/JossWhedon, director of ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'' and ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'', gets blamed for everything in the film. Some things he did have control over and were genuinely divisive and unpopular creative decisions. Others he did not, including the heavily criticized Thor subplot and the copious number of {{Sequel Hook}}s in the second movie -- those were studio mandates. He also got some criticism for the lack of diversity in the lineup in the [[Film/TheAvengers2012 first movie]], even though the team was decided on before he even signed on to direct.
** The Marvel executives get the blame for everything the fans don't like about the series as a whole, but the fans can't decide ''which'' executives should get the most blame. Some heap it all on the Marvel Creative Committee, consisting of Alan Fine, Dan Buckley, Creator/BrianMichaelBendis, and Creator/JoeQuesada (whom the fans already don't like much for their comic book decision-making). Others particularly dislike Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter, who made a ton of decisions to save money or angle for certain demographics -- he was particularly criticized for his adherence to the GirlShowGhetto (not very smart when DC's ''Film/{{Wonder Woman|2017}}'' became a critical and commercial success). Still, others point towards producer Kevin Feige, who is the chief architect and "face" of the whole franchise.
* The Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse has quite a few favorite scapegoats:
** Creator/ZackSnyder gets blamed for mishandling the DCEU and tarnishing the image of the franchise at its debuts given the mixed to negative reaction to the landmark films that he directed. His second movie in the franchise, ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'', was particularly decried for its [[DarkerAndEdgier very dark tone]], poor characterization and overstuffed plot. Snyder himself was responsible for several divisive elements in that movie like [[ContinuityLockout Bruce Wayne's Knightmare sequence]], and [[spoiler:ComicBook/JimmyOlsen's death]], which he added seemingly just for shock value. Other things weren't actually his fault, such as the original cut of the film missing 30 minutes (restored in the Ultimate Edition, which was better received). Furthermore, some thought he matched up poorly with screenwriter David S. Goyer, who worked on ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'' (although some DC fans thought he didn't respect the material either, and he didn't help matters with his infamous statements like calling ComicBook/SheHulk a [[https://www.themarysue.com/david-goyer-calls-she-hulk-sex-fantasy/ "giant green porn star"]] and VirginShaming people who wanted ComicBook/MartianManhunter in the movies, and Jonathan Nolan is often credited as the true great writer of the ''Dark Knight'' trilogy). The films that followed his, ''Film/WonderWoman2017'', ''Film/Aquaman2018'', and ''Film/Shazam2019'' all got good-to-great critical reception (and ''SHAZAM!'' being the first DCEU film not to involve Snyder in any capacity). The jury is still out whether or not ''Film/ZackSnydersJusticeLeague'' can change that perception.
** Creator/JossWhedon, who took over for Snyder mid-production on ''Film/{{Justice League|2017}}'', gets more blame for everything wrong with ''that'' film than even Snyder. Part of it might be fans' sympathy toward Snyder (he left production after his daughter's death), and part of it was the lighter, zanier footage totally clashing in tone with Snyder's existing darker/more serious footage. Not everybody liked the gags and jokes he added either, particularly some about Wonder Woman (the FunbagAirbag with Flash most notoriously, and how it was made without telling Creator/GalGadot about it) or the Russian family that's built up for apparently no reason since there's no real payoff to it.
** Creator/GeoffJohns has emerged as this for many fans of the Snyder movies hold him responsible for spearheading the ExecutiveMeddling that bogged down both ''Film/{{Suicide Squad|2016}}'' and ''Justice League'' (and for scrapping Snyder's vision entirely while still cashing in on perfectly cast actors who were chosen by Snyder). Creator/RayFisher's claims of [[HostilityOnTheSet unprofessional]] conduct towards the cast and crew by Johns, Jon Berg and Joss Whedon only added fuel to that fire.
* Many fans of the [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender original Nickelodeon series]] blame Creator/MNightShyamalan for everything bad related to ''Film/TheLastAirbender'', especially the controversial casting. However, [[https://www.mnightfans.com/the-true-story-of-the-last-airbender-revealed/ testimonials online]] indicate that many of the more unpopular decisions were really the product of executive interference, with Shyamalan taking full responsibility instead of admitting that he didn't have total creative control over the film. Other people have pointed out the fact that Hollywood has had a [[YellowFace long history of systematically excluding Asian actors]], so it would be unfair to blame everything on Shyamalan.
* After the [[Film/Scream1996 first]] [[Film/Scream2 two]] ''Film/{{Scream}}'' films were written by Kevin Williamson, [[Film/Scream3 the third]] was written by Ehren Kruger, as Williamson was busy working on other projects at the time (specifically, ''Film/TeachingMrsTingle'' and the short-lived series ''Wasteland''). His version of the film wound up diverging heavily from the outline that Williamson left him, and so many fans blame him for that film being a disappointment, ignoring the fact that the [[UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} Columbine High School massacre]], and the resulting [[TheNewRockAndRoll backlash against violence in the media]], had forced the studio to throw out Williamson's outline (which had one of the killers from the first film surviving and orchestrating a new teenage murder spree from prison at the hands of a group of obsessive SlasherMovie fans) and have Kruger hastily rewrite it just a few weeks before production started. The scapegoating of Kruger really came out in force with [[Film/Scream4 the fourth film]], where some fans will blame anything they dislike about it on Kruger's rewrites even though Williamson wrote the bulk of the film. Notably, Kruger agrees with his critics to an extent, saying that not having worked with the actors on the first two films made it harder for him to remain true to their previous characterization.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Franchise/StarWars'', Creator/RASalvatore got criticisms up to and including death threats for writing the death of Chewbacca, even though it was collectively agreed upon by the higher-ups that [[TonightSomeoneDies someone had to die]] to establish that AnyoneCanDie in ''Literature/NewJediOrder'', and GL did not expressly tell them not to kill him. One can only imagine what would have happened had the higher-ups been allowed to kill off their first (tentative) target, Luke Skywalker. This was reportedly nixed by Creator/GeorgeLucas himself.
** Karen Traviss is savaged by a number of fans and ex-fans alike of the StarWars ExpandedUniverse, but a number of what they dislike about "her" writing is not necessarily due to her. For example, [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale the numbers of the Grand Army of the Republic vs. the Trade Federation's droid army are 3 million and 4 QUADRILLION]], respectively. These are not Traviss' numbers, however; she was told to use them by the people in charge of canon for the Clone Wars era, and she did.
*** Perhaps as a form of irony, the former was one of the ones that first penned the clone numbers the latter is blamed for (see the ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' novelization and junior novelization).
*** In fact, the numbers of the droids are repeatedly questioned and written off as propaganda by several characters in her novels. And she at least tries to justify the low numbers of the Grand Army of the Republic.
* Among overzealous of the ''Literature/WarriorCats'' fans, Victoria Holmes gets blamed for everything [[UnpleasableFanbase that they think is wrong with the series]]. Insults range from calling her sexist, insulting almost every word that comes out of her mouth, and the most mindboggling of them all: Fans claiming that she steals all the credit from the other authors, despite the fact that they think she deserves to receive all the blame.
** Their hatred of her is even more confusing since she is responsible for all the concepts and ideas behind the series, which the fans love, as well as the plotting and creating the characters. Kate and Cherith, on the other hand, are responsible for the actual writing of the books, which is generally agreed upon to be SoOkayItsAverage.
** Taken UpToEleven after the release of ''Spottedleaf's Heart'', a novella written by Vicky herself. To say that this installment was poorly received would be a major understatement [[UnfortunateImplications (for all the right reasons, mind you.)]] However, the backlash got so bad that Vicky announced her plan to leave the series for good shortly after. That's right, an author got ''[[UpToEleven cyberbullied out of her own fandom.]]''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* A large portion of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' fandom, long after the series' conclusion in 2003, can still be guaranteed to meltdown at the name of Marti Noxon, whom they hold responsible for the divisive [[SeasonalRot sixth]] [[DorkAge season]], during which she took over showrunner duties while Creator/JossWhedon was giving the majority of his time to ''Series/{{Angel}}'' and ''Series/{{Firefly}}.'' For many of them, the failure of subsequent series ''Series/PointPleasant'' was often held up as "proof" that she was out of her depth helming a TV show. Creator/JossWhedon came to her defense, saying the most divisive story elements ultimately came from him. David Fury and Steven [=DeKnight=] sometimes also get this, although in their cases it's more down to off-screen interactions with fans that went bad.
* ''Series/ICarly'': Creator/DanSchneider. Usually by shippers, and also those who are upset by ''Series/{{Victorious}}'', his next work.
** And now people upset that Victorious has been cancelled for the ''Series/SamAndCat'' SpinOff.
*** And then those upset that Dan and the network burned out the cast of ''Sam & Cat'' and forced it to be canceled after one season; expect '''those''' fans to be upset about ''Series/HenryDanger'', and on and on...
* For different factions of ''Series/DoctorWho'' fans, either Creator/JohnNathanTurner, Eric Saward, Creator/ColinBaker, Creator/SylvesterMcCoy, or Bonnie Langford are personally responsible for everything that went wrong with the show in the later 1980s, up to and including the cancellation in 1989. In the new series, certain old school fans believe that Creator/RussellTDavies personally planned his every sentence to defecate on their cornflakes (despite the fact there wouldn't ''be'' a new series without him).
** The John Nathan-Turner example is particularly odd, as he was producer for a whole decade and there are nearly no fans who hate every single episode of that time. This tends to lead to slightly strained attempts to argue that Nathan-Turner had no involvement in the bits they like and was solely responsible for everything they hate. Usually, these claims boil down to something like "for the first couple of years he was finding his feet and had a lot of help, and for the last couple of years he'd given up and Andrew Cartmel did all the work." However, while a lot of this is skewed to pander to prejudices or unfairly cast blame / deny credit, there is arguably a kernel of truth here; by the late eighties Nathan-Turner had been doing the job for almost a decade and was eager to move on to other things, but for various reasons was kept in the role, meaning his overall level of enthusiasm was perhaps understandably not as high as it once was.
** Some of the 'blame JN-T / Colin Baker for everything' attitude stems from an interview Eric Saward gave to ''Starlog'' in 1986, in which among other comments he basically called Nathan-Turner a complete incompetent and outright said that he thought Colin Baker was terrible in the role of the Doctor and should never have been cast. Plenty of fans were quick to use this as evidence that Nathan-Turner and Baker were deliberately ruining the show, apparently not stopping to consider that not only were Saward's actions incredibly unprofessional but that, as script editor, he had his own axes to grind and responsibilities for what was going on behind the scenes, both of which were curiously downplayed. Indeed, several fans have noted that the high-points of Nathan-Turner's era tend to be at the beginning and the end, when he was working with other script editors (Christopher H. Bidmead early on, Andrew Cartmel at the end), while a lot of the low-points tend to be found in the middle -- when he was primarily working with Saward. It also doesn't help that many people have pointed to the scripts as the most notable weakness of the mid-80s, and that was the one thing Saward ''was'' in a position to fix.[[note]]Though even then it's easy to feel for the man. His television experience before "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E4TheVisitation The Visitation]]" was... nothing, just some radio drama. And his television experience before becoming the Script Editor, the main creative voice of the series, was "The Visitation". He was catapulted into creative direction of the series after writing a ''single'' serial, because Nathan-Turner wanted to avoid working with his predecessors' writers. One begins to suspect ThePeterPrinciple was at work. Especially since many people think Saward showed a lot of promise as a DW writer that he never got to develop, as he never had an editor who could mentor him.[[/note]]
** Producer Graham Williams replaced Creator/PhilipHinchcliffe's highly acclaimed tenure and was given the job of toning down the horror element and playing up the humour and whimsy. In additon, his era oversaw a whole slew of behind-the-scenes troubles, none of which were his fault. While his era is regarded as divisive at best, it's agreed that he did the best he could under very trying circumstances.
** Naturally, after Creator/StevenMoffat took over, the official role of ''Series/DoctorWho'' Chief Scapegoat passed to him. In addition to the old-school types who blamed Creator/RussellTDavies for absolutely everything bad ever, they were joined by a certain subset of hardcore RTD fans who seem to feel that he destroyed everything that RTD worked for and planned every single thing he did to destroy the show and spite them personally, never mind that Moffat and RTD still fanboy over each other even after leaving the show.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** A sizable portion of the fandom hates and despises Rick Berman and Creator/BrannonBraga. They are referred to jointly as "Bermaga", and much of the fanbase rejoiced that those two weren't involved in [[Film/StarTrek2009 the 2009 movie]] in any way, shape or form. This has shifted a little over the years, with opinions towards Braga having improved considerably for the most part -- his work on ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' always had a good reputation, and much of his ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' work is now considered VindicatedByHistory -- with most of the fan ire having moved towards Berman alone. It doesn't help Berman's case that, as the years go by, more people involved in the series have felt able to talk candidly about Berman without fear of undermining the show, revealing certain unsavoury personal aspects like homophobia and (per Terry Farrell) a fixation with female castmembers' breast size.
** Some people hate Ira Steven Behr for taking a franchise about exploration and science fiction and turning it into a [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine space soap opera]].
** Fred Freiberger inherited ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' from Creator/GeneRoddenberry for its 1968-1969 season. Yes, season three, which OPENED with "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E1SpocksBrain Spock's Brain]]" and later gave us "Plato's Stepchildren". This was also the season in which their per-episode budget was cut by (approximately) sixty thousand dollars, several of the original writers had left, and the show was moved to [[FridayNightDeathSlot Friday night at 10]]. There was no fourth season. Freiberger was quoted in an interview in the mid-nineties that to the effect that he'd spent three years in a German POW camp during WWII, but that his time with ''Star Trek'' was well into its third decade since many fans of the original series have continued to blame him for the show's cancellation.
** Creator/GeneRoddenberry himself has been spared this, [[DeadArtistsAreBetter though his sudden passing may have something to do with that]]. The two areas he had the most control of post-TOS were the first movie and the first season of ''Next Generation'', both of which are reviled by most fans. Yet ''Trek'' fans seem to mostly forgive him for these (at least compared to what many ''Star Wars'' fans think of George Lucas).
** Creator/AlexKurtzman has become a popular Trek fandom punching bag as ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' has generated a big BrokenBase. For ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' as well on a lesser level.
* Of both ''Series/StargateSG1'' and ''Series/StargateAtlantis'', Joe Mallozi and Paul Mullie have fallen into this too, even so far as fans looking down on an episode ''just because they wrote it''.
* Jim Mallon came in for a lot of this during ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''[='=]s run, getting a reputation as a tyrannical producer who had personal issues with just about every cast member, resulting in each of them being fired. It seems slightly more plausible when you consider that Mallon himself was the longest-running original cast member, not relinquishing the role of Gypsy until midway through the eighth season. But when you consider that people accused him of firing ''Joel Hodgson'', it seems a little silly -- Hodgson ''created'' the show, confessed shortly before his departure that he was getting a little bored with it, and agreed to come back for a cameo appearance in the final season.
** Mallon earned a {{hatedom}} to the point where, when ''WebVideo/CinematicTitanic'' (a SpiritualSuccessor using most of the "fired" [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST3K]] cast members) released its first episode, it was reportedly released as a torrent under Mallon's name with a note to make it look like he was doing this as revenge against Joel.
** And Mallon has recently gotten heat for starting an [=MST3K=] website featuring Flash cartoons of the 'bots, voiced by a different group of actors.
** In recent interviews, Hodgson's been more candid in saying that he and Mallon had some major disagreements starting around season 4 (mainly because Mallon was pushing hard for TheMovie and Hodgson wasn't interested), but still emphasizing that his quitting was entirely voluntary and a very difficult decision.
* Doug Naylor gets bashed to no end for Series VII and VIII of ''Series/RedDwarf'', which were written after the splitting-apart of his writing partnership with Rob Grant and were not as well-received as the previous six series. The lazy assumption is that Rob Grant was the source of all the best and most sophisticated humour and stories, while Doug Naylor was a lowbrow drooling deadweight leeching off Grant's success. Honestly, one has to assume they've never read Grant's ''Red Dwarf'' novel "Backwards", which contains more gross-out humour than all of Series VII and VIII combined.
** A rather more charitable -- if still probably somewhat simplistic -- interpretation is that Grant was responsible for more of the 'comedy' aspect of the series whereas Naylor focused more on the 'science fiction'. It's notable that these seasons (and Series VII especially) tend to focus more on the science fiction concepts than the humour.
** Alternatively, it could just be that they work better as a team than apart; it's worth noting that Grant's post-''Series/RedDwarf'' CV, while more varied and somewhat better received, hasn't exactly set the world on fire either.
** There were many factors working against Doug Naylor in Series VII and VIII, including last-minute budget cuts, the need to make the series more saleable in foreign markets, and the temporary departure of Rimmer actor Chris Barrie. Series X, produced on a low budget for cable network Dave, is generally agreed to be of a far higher quality.
* Ryan Murphy, one of the three creators/writers for ''Series/{{Glee}}''. To be fair, he arguably screws up the worst and he appears to play LyingCreator the most.
** Not helping is the fact that if an artist turns down having a song on "Glee" for whatever reason, Murphy tends to...[[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/26/glee-creator-ryan-murphy-talks-masturbation-says-f-you-kings-of-leon_n_814114.html overreact somewhat]].
* For fans of ''Franchise/PowerRangers'', everything that went wrong between ''[[Series/PowerRangersSPD SPD]]'' and ''[[Series/PowerRangersJungleFury Jungle Fury]]'' can be blamed on Executive Producer Bruce Kalish. It didn't help his case that, immediately after he left the show, ''[[Series/PowerRangersRPM RPM]]'' was made, which became an instant fan favorite.
** Also not helping Kalish was an interview conducted early on into his taking over the reins of the show. He made himself the face of the season (in this case, ''SPD''). ''SPD'' is generally considered a polarizing season, so the critics latched onto his earlier statement when expressing their displeasure. As he has admitted, Kalish also hurt himself by not watching ''any'' of the preceding twelve seasons when he took over (though that was reportedly later rectified) and being under the misconception that he was supposed to outright translate (rather than adapt) ''Franchise/SuperSentai''.
*** Kalish is slowly getting his due, though, thanks to the revelations of Disney's growing disillusionment with the franchise that led to the episode count and funding cuts and its near-cancellations, and the fact that his [[CutAndPasteTranslation cut and paste]] tenure's looking more and more ambitious compared to the watered-down [[ShotForShotRemake translation]] ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai''. And Jonathan Tzachor was a base breaker in the first Saban Era...
* ''{{Series/Charmed|1998}}'' fans tend to loathe Brad Kern, who took over after Constance M Burge left between Seasons 2 and 3. He tends to be blamed for the SeasonalRot of later seasons, despite him being responsible for the popular Cole/Phoebe pairing (which is what Burge left the show over in the first place). If you're a fan of the show, how much you loathe Brad Kern will depend on how big a fan you are of Creator/ShannenDoherty. Kern fired Doherty due to creative differences (she sided with Burge's vision for the show). Likewise, Alyssa Milano gets rather a lot of hate since the tension between her and Doherty was infamous. Ironically, Constance M Burge gets no hate whatsoever for being the one responsible for the near-universally despised Piper/Dan romance.
* Creator/JJAbrams got a lot of this from casual fans of ''Series/{{LOST}}'' throughout the run of the series, despite only being involved for about half of its first season, and then again briefly to co-write the third season premiere. Creator/DamonLindelof, who co-wrote the pilot with Abrams, went on to run the series with Carlton Cuse after Abrams left. Fans who were in the loop knew to blame Cuse and Lindelof for their frustrations with the series, but the news media often [[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer still referred to it as if it were Abrams' show]]. (To be fair, Abrams was responsible for introducing a few of the show's earliest mysteries, and then leaving it to other writers to explain them.)
* Creator/JulianFellowes has become this among the ''Series/DowntonAbbey'' fandom. Fans even hold him responsible for [[spoiler:Matthew's death, even though Dan Stevens was the one who left the show and it's generally agreed that there was no way to write Matthew out that ''didn't'' involve killing him]]. Of course, they also blame him for plenty of things that ''are'' his fault, such as his [[SpotlightStealingSquad increasing focus on Lady Mary at the expense of other, arguably more interesting characters]] and the fact that the soap opera quotient has been steadily rising over the past two series and [[spoiler: Sybil's death, which - even though the actress was leaving - could have been easily avoided]].
* Julie Plec has gotten this since she took over as head writer of ''Series/TheVampireDiaries''. Roughly half the fandom considers to be worse than a Serbian war criminal. She has been blamed for pairing Damon and Elena and accused of treating loved characters poorly (Bonnie comes to mind), and favoritism towards Damon. She has done herself no favors by making various remarks that she considers the onetime AntiVillain Damon to be a hero and believes that his needs come first. Some fans see her as being every bit as dangerous and deluded as Creator/StephenieMeyer.
** And things have only gotten worse with ''The Vampire Diaries''[='=] spin-off, ''Series/TheOriginals'', which has quite the vocal Hatedom.
* Josh Safran tends to get the "credit" for the decline of ''Series/GossipGirl''. During his time as showrunner, he broke up [[SuperCouple Chuck and Blair]], the couple that was the reason many fans watched the show in the first place and introduced the Dan/Blair ship instead. To his credit, he did manage to make Dan/Blair somewhat popular for a while but on the flip side, many other fans disliked the pairing to such a degree that ratings plummeted below one million per episode and never really recovered. He gained a lot of fan ire by openly admitting he [[CreatorsPet saw Dan as a self-insert and wanted him to have the most popular female character as his love interest and for him to be the most popular character]], blatantly disregarding continuity in order to prop the Dan/Blair pairing and for accusing anyone who didn't prefer Dair to Chair of not being true fans of the show. In the process, he also managed to turn Blair from fan favourite to one of the least popular characters on the show. Once he was booted as showrunner a lot of efforts were taken to undo the damage but it was too late in the game and the show did about as poorly in its final season as it had during Safran's run. However, those who never shipped Chuck and Blair to begin with found it refreshing that Safran didn't make them the focal point of the series, many were pleased with the character development of Serena during his run (and, to a degree, Chuck's as well) and fans of Dan were pleased to see him getting more of the spotlight.
* According to the book ''Brady Brady Brady'', since Sherwood Schwartz created ''Series/TheBradyBunch'', he gets blamed for lesser works he had no involvement in, such as ''Series/TheBradyBunchHour'' and ''Film/AVeryBradySequel''.
* If any TV show set in the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse fails and/or receives bad reviews (''Series/IronFist2017'', ''Series/{{Inhumans}}''), everyone (even TV Tropes) will blame Ike Perlmutter. No matter the different behind-the-issues going on at Marvel Studios regarding their television branch, as far as the overzealous fans is concerned, everything is Perlmutter's fault.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** When director Alex Graves commented that including [[spoiler:Lady Stoneheart]] in the fourth season's finale would have been "a waste," fans blamed him for the decision in spite of the fact that he's an episode director, not a writer or showrunner, so the decision wasn't up to him.
** Following the show's SeasonalRot and infamously underwhelming finale, it almost seems to be accepted as standard among fandom that everything good about the series was just the writers doing a copy-paste from Creator/GeorgeRRMartin's books, and that everything bad about the series was purely the fault of creators and showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. While this is something of an over-simplification, since Benioff and Weiss made plenty of changes that fans and even Martin himself agreed were improvements, it's one that's difficult to rebut entirely, since the show's quality is widely agreed even among those who've never read the books to have gone downhill the more they deviated from them, and then totally disintegrated when they had to move beyond the books and come up with stories completely from scratch.[[note]](On a similar note, some fans are fond of dragging up Benioff's being credited as co-writer on ''Film/XMenOriginsWolverine'' as proof that he was a totally incompetent hack all along and should never have been allowed near the series. This ignores the massive amount of ExecutiveMeddling that ''Origins: Wolverine'' had to put up with, as well as the fact that Benioff was only one of two credited writers on that film)[[/note]]
* Good lord, Marc Guggenheim from ''Series/{{Arrow}}''. He is ''the'' go-to punching bag for everything bad happening in the series since the SeasonalRot that was Season 4, and [[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing some rejoiced]] when he left the series after Season 6 (although he returned for the final season). Never mind that Guggenheim had been in the series since the very beginning (as in, he ''pitched'' the series), long before the rot took place. The hatred mostly stemmed from his role as the spokesperson of the creative team, his tendency to [[LyingCreator lie]] about plot developments in the series[[note]]Notably the Black Canary's death and the [[RomanticPlotTumor Olicity]] pairing debacle. To be fair, he admitted that the pairing wasn't handled well.[[/note]] but also because he was the only one of the original showrunners not to depart after Season 3 (Greg Berlanti decided to concentrate on producing shows, while Andrew Kreisberg moved to ''Series/{{The Flash|2014}}'' and ''Series/{{Supergirl|2015}}'' before [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor seeing his career crash and burn after his sexual misconduct allegations were brought to light]]). Since Season 4 was when the rot was felt in full force, the blame fell squarely on him and screenwriter Wendy Mericle, who was promoted as showrunner the same year. Thanks to this scapegoating, people tend to forget that the two still served as showrunners when the show rebounded the following season.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Multiple Media]]
* Greg Farshtey, the most prolific writer of ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}''. Certain fans blame him for the story's decline -- they can't agree when it happened, only that it was his work. Some even falsely believe that he was a late addition to the writing team, but Greg has been there since day one; others think he was the series' head writer, but he was just one member of the Story Team. He gets complaints for [[DoingInTheWizard shifting out the fantasy aspects]], but that decision had nothing to do with him. He's also often held responsible for enforcing a NoHuggingNoKissing rule and making the story DarkerAndEdgier. While he did have a large say in the story, mostly in convincing LEGO to expand it beyond their intended single year, the direction of the main plot was always decided by the entire Story Team. Greg even commented that he was fiercely opposed to at least one story arc, [[spoiler:Vakama's temporary FaceHeelTurn]], and revealed he was the one most committed to the story and the devoted fanbase, whereas many other Lego employees thought it was disposable fluff that fans didn't care for.\\
There is ''some'' merit to the complaints: alleged faults in the later years' characterizations, the writing style of the books and comics, and the entirety of the online serials were mostly Greg's doing, and he's made some controversial decisions and fan-inspired canonizations. One sour point was him not planning ahead when writing the serials (and recommending this as a writing tip to kids) and introducing major lore-changing {{retcon}}s on a whim.\\
Post-2010, as more of the original franchise creators came forward to detail their contributions, the fandom's "hate" against Greg peaked and turned into a sort of joke. "Because Greg" became a stock phrase for whenever someone questions the franchise's absurdities or plot holes. Certain fans condemn the novels due to his writing while praising the comics that he ''also'' wrote. Others dislike many of his story ideas that clash with the fan-favorite ''Mata Nui Online Game''. Despite all these, Greg still likes talking to fans and answering their questions even to this day, and a major part of the fandom still listens to his words.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* Music/RedHotChiliPeppers' Anthony Kiedis has got a hell of a lot of flak from fans for avoiding the band's first three albums and ''One Hot Minute'' live, as well as not playing the popular singles "Knock Me Down" and "Taste The Pain", meaning that the band's setlists were very static for a period. This is evidenced on the ''Live In Hyde Park'' album; exclusive songs notwithstanding, most of the songs are from the albums ''Californication'' and ''By The Way'', with a couple from ''Blood Sugar Sex Magik'' and the Greatest Hits contribution "Fortune Faded". He seems to be aware of this, because on the ''I'm With You'' tour he brought back "Me And My Friends" and "Higher Ground" on a semi-regular basis, put the fan favorites "Sir Psycho Sexy" and "They're Red Hot" into the set more often and allowed Josh and the rest of the band to tease older songs that they hadn't played in years.
** John Frusciante, to an extent has caught the flak for the band's focus on melodic balladry starting with ''By The Way''. It's interesting to note, however, John's original plan for ''By The Way'' was to make it a punk-funk album and he was voted out by the rest of the band and Rick Rubin. ''Stadium Arcadium'' was partly so funky because he wanted it that way. John also catches the flak for not playing ''One Hot Minute'' songs live whilst in the band, but there are no real indications that he wouldn't have played them if Anthony had insisted on it.
** Jack Sherman has caught the flak for the band's first album when he actually took Hillel's place very well and taught Flea various funky techniques he didn't know before. It was the band's general lack of experience, poor choice of producer, label's lack of faith in them, and antipathy towards Sherman (due to him having the opposite of Hillel's personality) that made the album not work the way they had intended. However, he held the band together at a time when they could have broken up.
** Dave Navarro similarly gets the flak for ''One Hot Minute'', but what is not realised by fans is that Anthony Kiedis was badly addicted to heroin in this period, and delayed the sessions by months, meaning that Navarro, Flea, and Chad ended up writing most of the music themselves unlike the usual jam sessions the band would have with Anthony. The music became heavier due to the fact all three band members liked heavier music, and Anthony's heroin use meant that the lyrics were darker too.
* Music/{{Genesis}} fans who don't like the band's '80s output often point fingers at Music/PhilCollins for changing the band's musical style from {{progressive rock}} to pop. The change in musical style actually wasn't entirely on him; his bandmates also wanted to try experimenting with new musical styles, and a lot of their pop material came out after they had decided to start writing more as a group.
* Traditionally, Music/PaulMcCartney gets the blame for Music/TheBeatles' sappy, poppy streak, being slated as the yin to Music/JohnLennon's rocker yang. This of course does not take into consideration that actually they are more or less evenly split in the MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness with [=McCartney=] writing and covering some of the more edgy songs from the Beatles catalogue and Lennon even delving dangerously into corny territory whenever he shilled his romantic relationship with Music/YokoOno.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* The ''ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse'' "newruns." Creator Lynn Johnston had wanted to retire for real, but the syndicate, not wanting to risk losing a slot on the funny pages to another syndicate's strip, decided to put the strip in reruns, with various things updated for the times. However, the {{retcon}}ning that's been going on in these strips is definitely Johnston's own writing.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
* ProfessionalWrestling has Wrestling/VinceRusso. Although a lot of his ideas (especially in 2000 in Wrestling/{{WCW}}) were mind-breakingly bizarre, ''anything'' that is even remotely wrong in Wrestling/{{TNA}} is blamed exclusively on him (when he's arguably the sanest of the writers there).
* Likewise, Wrestling/VinceMcMahon tends to get blamed for everything in Wrestling/{{WWE}}, as if he's the one who handles everything. Given Vince's reputation for nepotism and micromanagement, the fandom may have a point here but men like [[Wrestling/JohnLaurinaitis Johnny Ace]] and Kevin Dunn tend to get overlooked simply because no one knew the former worked there and no one knew who the latter even was.
* Wrestling/TheGreatMuta tended to get blamed for everything wrong, real or perceived, with Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling during the 2000s by fans outside of Japan who simply couldn't accept that maybe Giant Baba's death simply left them in a bad state and weren't willing to consider Makoto's conflicts with the locker room even after said locker room left for Wrestling/ProWrestlingNOAH with former nominal company head Wrestling/MitsuharuMisawa.
* Following Gabe Sapolsky's departure from Wrestling/RingOfHonor, Adam Pearce, Wrestling/JimCornette, and/or Sinclair Broadcast Group got most of the blame for everything people who were otherwise fans of the promotion did not like about it.
* Sapolsky in turn became a scapegoat to Wrestling/DragonGate fans after all of its wrestlers were pulled out of the USA branch, which subsequently died off with only EVOLVE to remember it by.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sports]]
* In UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts, {{UsefulNotes/UFC}} President Dana White is blamed for everything that happens in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, despite the heavy involvement of matchmaker Joe Silva and the actual owners of the UFC, the Fertitta brothers.
* Similarly, on the Big Four U.S. Leagues, the commissioner is often blamed for whatever problem they're experiencing.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* Holden Lee Shearer or John Chambers of ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' get blamed by various circles for various things. Usually it goes like this: if you hate John Chambers, you blame everything bad about Exalted on him and sing praises of Holden. If you don't like Holden, he gets blamed for ruining favorite topics. (That said, it is entirely possible to be sceptical about both of them, and about some of original Exalted developer Geoffrey Grabowski's decisions as well.)
** Holden effectively performed a bait-and-switch with collaborator and fellow Ink Monkey John Mørke, which made it harder to criticize.
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''
** Mike Mearls gets blamed for every decision that the fans do not like. For example, he is blamed for the 4th Edition of D&D being "simplified" and allegedly focusing entirely on combat mechanics rather than roleplaying mechanics, thus making 4e "more like [=WoW=]" than D&D. He's also blamed for eventually killing off 4e entirely at the behest of a "vocal minority" in favor of returning to the allegedly more cumbersome and "inaccessible" rules of previous versions and destroying the "uniqueness" of 4e. He just can't win.
** Monte Cook, his predecessor, is blamed for the "powercreep" and "Munchkining" of versions 3.x of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons.'' Mearls stated in several design documents and blog posts that the game was designed to reward specific combinations of feats, classes, and skills, as well as setting up "traps" of sub-optimal combinations, in order to reward rule mastery. His statements about the superiority of wizards over all other classes have also earned him some blame from fans about the broken-ness of wizards in those versions.
* One of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' and ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'''s most notorious writers was Matt Ward, who spawned a substantial HateDom that accused him of creating {{Gamebreaker}} units and army lists, [[CreatorsPet ruining the Ultramarines for the fans]], turning the Grey Knights into {{Purity Sue}}s who nevertheless feel a need to butcher and wear their allies as holy ointment for additional protection, {{Retcon}}ning the Necrons into [[RecycledInSpace Space]] [[AncientEgypt Egyptians]], and general CanonDefilement in the works with his name on them. That said, Ward couldn't do any of this without Creator/GamesWorkshop's consent, and then there were some who blamed him for anything else they don't like, such as the [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys the Jokaero]] featured in the 6th edition Grey Knights codex (those "space orangutans" date back to the game's 2nd edition), or the more androgynous appearance of the plastic [[HornyDevils Daemonettes of Slaanesh]] (the new design is a throwback to the oldest metal models for them, and more to the point, Ward's not a sculptor). Perhaps in response to this, rulebooks are now credited to "the Games Workshop design team" rather than a single author. Ironically, Ward himself is no longer employed at GW, with some speculation that he was made a scapegoat by his former bosses as well. He came back later, following a major shakeup in their management.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* First played straight, but then surprisingly [[InvertedTrope inverted]] with ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM''. Some uninformed reviewers blamed Team Ninja for most of the game's controversial bits when it first came out until team head Yosuke Hayashi explained that his hands were tied and series co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto was the one who insisted on, for example, the clunky control scheme. Samus' voice actress Jessica Martin got slammed for her DullSurprise delivery until it was revealed that Sakamoto directed her to read her lines that way. Furthermore, Martin became an active member of the fandom, even recording a Happy New Years message for the 2010/2011 New Years to the fans at the height of the backlash to her acting, and when Nintendo let ''Metroid'''s 25th anniversary [[ForgottenAnniversary pass without incident]], both she and Hayashi recorded personal congratulations messages for the series. As a result, fans started warming to Martin, and the game's BrokenBase focused its attention on Sakamoto.
** ... where this trope began to be played straight. Some of ''Other M'''s critics have tried to retroactively label any troubles or continuity errors in the ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' subseries as Sakamoto's attempts to "sabotage" the games for not fitting with his "vision" -- but Sakamoto wasn't even involved in the ''Prime'' games, and Creator/RetroStudios only contacted him once in a while. Some even accuse him of trying to kill the series as early as ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'', widely considered the crown jewel of the franchise, and try to de-emphasize his actual involvement in any other ''Metroid'' game for fear that it might paint his career and abilities in a positive light.
* A lot of ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' fans blame Eiji Aonuma, the current main producer of the series, for every single thing that is supposedly wrong with the series nowadays. Of course, when they see something that goes right for them, then they praise Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto for it. Classy, isn't it...?
* It seems like, if anything wrong happens with ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'', it's Creator/MasahiroSakurai's fault. One of the worst cases, Ice Climbers being cut from the roster and the addition of Dark Pit in ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU 3DS/Wii U]]''. People kept claiming that he was being biased for his own game series (''VideoGame/KidIcarus''), but Sakurai already admitted he couldn't put Ice Climbers in the game because of the 3DS hardware limitations, and Dark Pit is just a clone so it's much easier (and faster) to put in the game.
** Many people seem to believe that Sakurai is a literal one-man team when he's often made it clear that there are other people involved in the development of ''Smash Bros.'' and that everything in the game has to be approved by the original teams of each series.
** Even further to point with Sakurai, people tend to always think that he does literally everything on his own for every game he has worked on, even his non-''Smash'' games. There are people who will have you believe that he designed every single Franchise/{{Kirby}} character on his own, and did all the artwork for ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising''. (The artist of this game's artwork is actually Hirooka Masaki, who previously worked on titles like ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'' and ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}''.)
* An arrant case is the hatred towards Creator/SquareEnix over ''VideoGame/LufiaCurseOfTheSinistrals''. The fact that Neverland ''developed'' the game seemed to go unheard of to most fans, who somehow believe the same team that worked on ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' or ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' were working on Lufia...
* Some fans of ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' would have you believe that Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto personally designs every single Pokémon and creates every single game. No mention of Game Freak, the company that ''develops'' the games. He helped produce the Generation I games and was a friend and mentor of the actual creator Satoshi Tajiri, a name that most people outside of the Pokémon fandom probably don't seem to recognize -- all of which was back in TheNineties.
** On a similar note, with all of the complaints about the designs of the Pokémon and the humans themselves, you'd think Ken Sugimori was the only person on their art team. He's still on it, and he supervises the art, but the credits to ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' reveal there have been at least 40 people who have done character design for the series. (This is inverted too--Sugimori will also get the credit for every compliment.)
** Nowadays, everything fans don't like about ''Pokémon'' tends to be put upon series director Junichi Masuda, to the point that he (and only he, mind, not any other Game Freak game directors, not the executives at TPCI, etc.) is frequently blamed for the decidedly controversial decision to not include every Pokémon in the main series games from ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' onward and accused of being a hack who is simply too lazy to include every Pokémon in the games anymore and willfully blind to what the fanbase wants out of the games.
** Game Freak as a whole seems to be getting this with some people upset with the art style of the Gen 4 remakes, even though the remakes are being developed by another company so they can focus on other projects.
* Nintendo always gets yelled at for ''not'' having ''[Insert Game here]'' on the Wii's UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole, despite the fact that the submission is the original publishers' decision and permission. Nintendo merely licenses more games than it actually publishes and develops.
** And not everyone seems to know that sometimes the publishers aren't actually still around. And sometimes, if they are, they may not ''always'' be second or third-party. (Sony and Creator/{{Rare}}, for example.)
** And back to Nintendo again, there are people who believe the company consists solely of Shigeru Miyamoto and nobody else. His ExecutiveMeddling of ''VideoGame/PaperMarioStickerStar'' (which ended up being regarded as the worst of the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' series) certainly didn't help, either. A character could be written out of a game for completely legitimate reasons, and yet fans will assume the worst and call for his head.
* If you want to be a game developer without having to deal with criticism, it's pretty much a safe bet that you should work for Creator/ElectronicArts or get them to publish you. That way, any criticisms with your game will be treated like it was all ''EA's'' doing, even if their involvement in the game was limited to financial support and marketing at ''best''. Sure, they've had their screw-ups, but they're not responsible for everything.
* Statesman, also known as Jack Emmert, former lead designer of ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'', is pretty much the de facto hate target for anything anyone dislikes ([[{{Nerf}} power changes]], necessary or not, game direction, AT design, you name it) until roughly Issue 13, even after Issue 7 when he stepped down to focus on other things. To this day, he ''still'' is reviled, and his habit of being blunt to the point of club didn't help things any.
** This perception of him hasn't improved since he started work on another superhero MMO, ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'', which intends to compete with ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes''. Especially as many of the design details revealed so far indicate that he's ready to make many of the same mistakes all over again.
** Castle is rapidly becoming the new Hate Target for the playerbase, being the guy who works on (and consequently sometimes makes [[{{Nerf}} downward changes]] to) Powers.
** And now, the trope has come full circle -- Matt Miller, AKA Positron, is now being blamed for everything bad about the game.
** MMORPG lead devs in general are likely to end up targets of this. It's perhaps for this reason that the lead developer of ''Clichequest'', the fictional MMO in ''Webcomic/TheNoob'', is portrayed as a SmallNameBigEgo, {{Jerkass}}, and PointyHairedBoss.
* Reggie Fils-Aimé, the former president of Nintendo of America, tended to get a lot of (mostly) undeserved flack from the ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' community, many of whom seem to have decided that he was the sole obstacle to an English release of ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}''. Some fans also claimed that he was actively trying to prevent ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'', ''VideoGame/TheLastStory'', and ''VideoGame/PandorasTower'' (the "Operation Rainfall" games) from reaching North America. Just look at the comments made on Nintendo World Report's news page about ''The Last Story'' being published by XSEED for a North American release... Some fans took it even further, and claim that it was all Reggie's fault that there weren't a lot of games released for the Wii in 2012, despite the fact that NOA ''doesn't make the games.''
* Not one of the more high-profile examples, but there are those who blame any bad bit of level design in ''VideoGame/{{Doom}} II: Hell on Earth'' on Creator/SandyPetersen. He also worked on quite a bit of the original ''Doom'', but that game is generally more highly revered than its sequel.
* ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' fans got angry at Yoshinori Ono when he revealed that not only would ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'' be modeled more closely after ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'' than ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'', but that the character roster wouldn't include any fighters from ''SF III'' due to the setting being a prequel. This was actually an executive mandate from Ono's supervisors, as they wanted to recapture the mainstream popularity and nostalgia of the earlier ''SF II'' games instead of focusing only on core players like the ''SF III'' trilogy. Ono eventually addressed the lack of ''SF III'' fighters by bringing a few of them back for ''Super Street Fighter IV''.
** Due to various fiascoes that popped up over the course of ''VideoGame/StreetFighterXTekken''[='s=] development, it was not uncommon for fans to shovel the blame on top of Ono either. However, this mostly dissipated due to Ono's genuine zeal when it came to the titles he was working on as well as news that Ono was so overworked by Capcom that he collapsed of exhaustion and had to be rushed to the hospital (he has since recovered and is back on the job).
* The title of scapegoat for ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' seems to change every expansion. In the first few years, people generally blamed developers Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan and Alex "Furor" Afrasiabi for any and all of the game's shortcomings. In the Burning Crusade era, this title shifted to Tom "Kalgan" Chilton. Since the release of Wrath of the Lich King, however, players have been calling for Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street's head whenever they're particularly unhappy.
** Though it has to be said that Furor and Tigole (famous VideoGame/EverQuest raiders) actually *were* responsible for the shortcomings of the vanilla version because Blizzard (inexperienced with creating [=MMOs=]) put far too much faith in their judgment, thus creating an endgame that pandered solely to members of big raiding guilds and pigeonholed all existing classes into specific roles. Only with BC did all of this change.
** Ghostcrawler hate originated pretty much solely due to the now-famous "[[MemeticMutation To the ground!]]" nerf of Retribution Paladins. Oddly enough, Ghostcrawler's existence has rather neatly bisected the community between those that dislike him for [[{{Nerf}} nerfing]]/ruining their favourite class and those that appreciate that at least one member of the development team is supportive enough to at least publicly inform them that their favourite class will be [[{{Nerf}} Nerfed]]/ruined beforehand. That, and he is funny, which in itself is a dividing factor ("OMG be serious!"/"Hahah, cool.").
** Way back in [=WOW=] classic, Eyonix was the liaison between the shaman community and developers. Just after promising that shamans were to be reviewed and have some problems fixed, he was laid up in the hospital for weeks. Lacking his input, the developers didn't make the promised changes. He came back to the forums to face a metric ton of hostility, including a wish for him to be hit by a bus. This inspired a "Bus Shock" meme, based on the shaman's fire/frost/earth shock spells.
** Another example of misplaced blame was Tseric. Albeit he was little more than a glorified errand boy for the developers, he took lots of heat for controversial decisions he wasn't responsible for. It didn't help that he usually overplayed his own importance, made promises he couldn't keep, displayed an astonishing amount of ignorance about the classes he was supposed to represent and tried to be a snarky wisecracker towards (partially justified) complainers when it was completely uncalled for.
** A good portion of the fanbase will blame every misstep on Creator/ChrisMetzen, the Vice President of Creative Development, even when it's obviously outside of his department, with the belief that he writes the entire game.
*** Dave "Fargo" Kosak, lead quest designer in ''Cataclysm'' and ''Mists of Pandaria'' and now as of ''Warlords of Draenor'' the Lead Narrative Designer (a new position, no one is quite sure what it entails yet), has replaced Metzen as the scapegoat for any storyline complaints. Not helping is that he is an AscendedFanboy with all that entails.
** Christie Golden who has written several of the tie-in novels is periodically blamed for disliked plots and characterizations. However, all of her plots and characterizations are determined by the Blizzard staff and provided in advance for her to write a story around.
* And nowadays, almost everyone's pointing fingers at Creator/{{Activision}} for stuff ''[[Creator/BlizzardEntertainment Blizzard]]'' does. DPS Being "Dumbed down" in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' by making Intellect function the ''same way as Strength and Agility'', meaning Mages will actually ''look'' at it when determining their gear? Activision's fault! Never mind that even ''before'' the merge people were screaming for that.
** Nevermind, either, that Activision-Blizzard is still essentially two distinct entities that are united on paper for record-keeping purposes. Neither group is in charge of the other, and both operate independently. The most that they share besides a letterhead is likely a pool of playtesters and artists.
** And likewise, ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'''s "Always online". Look at all the comments and you'll see "It's Activision's fault." No, that was ''Blizzard's'' choice.
* Creator/TetsuyaNomura:
** Most people who voice disappointment at later ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games tend to heap their scorn on Tetsuya Nomura, despite the fact that Nomura was only the character designer for most of these games and not the director. And even then, he wasn't the sole artist or even the art director for these games that he's credited with directing. They will even blame him for games he wasn't even involved in, such as ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII''. Nomura has a habit of making outrageous untrue statements in interviews which are likely meant as jokes and do not always come off as such, like his comments about his desire to turn ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIIIVersus'' into a musical or about how he had no idea he was the director of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'' until he saw the trailer. This sometimes extends to him claiming responsibility for a huge array of overall design decisions in the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series that were certainly nothing to do with him. He has said himself has said that he doesn't mind being the scapegoat because it protects the rest of the staff from the abuse, death threats, and people screaming at him in the street that they will never forgive him for killing Aerith.
*** Ironically enough, ''FFVII'' director Yoshinori Kitase admitted in an interview that he and writer Kazushige Nojima were originally planning to kill off most of the protagonists late in the game, but Nomura convinced them that it was a terrible idea because of how much it would upset the fans.
** The same thing happens with the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series (though there he is at least the director), and some think he even does the art for ''VideoGame/DragonQuest''. Chew on ''that'' for a little while.
** This especially got bad for people saying ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' was a "Nomura game" when his involvement was drawing pictures of the characters. He did not direct it, he was not even the sole artist for the game... it even says so '''right there in the opening credits within the first ten minutes of gameplay'''. When you're talking about ''XIII'', at ''least'' mention the game he's ''actually'' directing. (Eg. ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV''...oops, not even ''that'' anymore, since he's stepped down and given the role to Hajime Tabata.)
** Nomura's seen as a pretty "bad" director because ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' was in DevelopmentHell for so long. Actually, Disney [[ExecutiveMeddling had some pretty strict rules as to how their characters could be portrayed]] (leading to ''Frozen'' and ''Tangled'''s plots being retellings of the movies, including shot-for-shot remakes of particular scenes), Pixar took several years to respond to the idea of their inclusion into ''Kingdom Hearts III'' (Which Nomura [[WhatCouldHaveBeen wanted to do as early as the first game]]), and the fact that someone ''higher'' than Nomura made them scrap what they had done up to that point to swap to the Unreal Engine 4 mid-development.
** Much outrage about the ending of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'' is based around the idea that Nomura made it too "''Franchise/KingdomHearts''", despite the fact that the story decisions were made as a group with the scenario writer who wrote the part of the original game ''Remake'' is based on, the head writer on ''VII'', and the director and co-writer on ''VII''. The only person who was a major player on that part of the original who wasn't also on ''Remake'' is Creator/HironobuSakaguchi and he gave ''Remake'' his blessing.
* The ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' community tends to blame all problems with the game on global online producer Sage Sundi due to him being the target of most interviews about the game. The truth is that the reason interviews are so uninformative is more due to ExecutiveMeddling from the higher-ups. Sundi does know about the problems with the game and has tried to get them fixed but for the most part, the devs don't listen to him.
** Similarly, everything wrong with ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' is Hiromichi Tanaka's fault, despite who's really responsible for any of the game's many troubles between the [[ExecutiveMeddling executives]], the developers, and sheer misfortune being ''very'' muddy indeed. This is somewhat understandable given Tanaka volunteered to take responsibility for all of the game's problems (his fault or otherwise) when he stepped down as producer.. except he ''still'' sometimes gets loudly and [[{{Hatedom}} enthusiastically]] blamed by the community for issues introduced ''since Naoki Yoshida replaced him''. Yoshida also gets the blame for anything wrong in the game currently, even though the game is made by a team rather than just him.
* Creator/JohnRomero gets a lot of flak for his blunders with ''VideoGame/{{Daikatana}}''. Many of them are justified, but a lot of the level design failures can instead be attributed to the head level designer (and Romero's girlfriend at the time), Stevie "Killcreek" Case.
** Not to mention the people calling him some sort of [[SmallNameBigEgo egoist]] for the tag line "John Romero Is About to Make You His Bitch", even though that and the general exaggeration of his involvement/how much he did was more marketing than anything else.
** All of this culminating in a ridiculous event where ex-Romero fans rallied behind Ion Storm's marketing director for insulting him over the phone in an over the top way... even though the marketing director was ''one of the people responsible for running Ion Storm into the ground and putting the game into DevelopmentHell.''
* You know ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia2008''? If you're one of the fifty percent that didn't like it, odds are you blame or know people who blame Ben Mattes for this. For most [[SarcasmMode true PoP fans]] Ben Mattes has been a curse to the franchise ever since he came in with ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheTwoThrones'', and built fan expectations for the 2008 game just so he could crush them with the actual product. The kicker? He's the producer!
* Yuji Naka may have been responsible for a number of ''VideoGame/{{Sonic|TheHedgehog}}'' quality issues during the Classic era, but he'll even get blamed for games he was clearly never involved in. A particularly egregious example of this is giving him flack for 2008's ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' when Naka hadn't even been part of Sonic Team since 2005 (and had little to no involvement with any ''Sonic'' game since ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'').
** Other Classic-era games Naka was never involved in: [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD Sonic CD]][[note]]Amusingly, Naoto Ohshima has said that this game (fondly remembered by fans) would have turned out even better had Naka been part of the development team[[/note]], ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogSpinball Sonic Spinball]]'', any of the 8-bit Master System/Game Gear titles, ''[[VideoGame/Sonic3DFlickiesIsland Sonic 3D Blast]]'', and ''VideoGame/SonicR''.
** Nowadays, the person most likely to get the blame for anything going wrong in the ''Sonic'' franchise is Takashi Iizuka, longtime producer for the series. However, his involvement in some of the series' worst games was limited (in the credits for ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006 Sonic '06]]'', Iizuka's name only appears in the "Special Thanks" section, and ''VideoGame/SonicForces'' lists him as an ''executive'' producer.)
*** If it's not Iizuka drawing the ire of ''Sonic's'' infamously unpleaseable fanbase, it's Creator/{{Dimps}}, the developers of all the portable ''Sonic'' titles since 2001. Common complaints tend to focus on the use/misuse of momentum and the overabundance of dash-pads (and cheap death). The fact that the ''Rush'' engine was the base for ''Sonic 4'' caused a large segment of the fandom to go ''ballistic'' even before the game was released.
** A rather baffling case is that on rare occasion, Creator/RogerCraigSmith, who's simply the voice of Sonic, will receive blame for Sonic games not living up to what the fans wanted. Much of this appears to be general rage that [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks he isn't Sonic's previous voice actors]]. Smith's immediate predecessor, Creator/JasonGriffith, was a scapegoat back in the late-2000s for the same reasons.
* Natsume is often blamed for every bad thing in the ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' franchise. While their localizations do tend to have glitches the originals don't, features are sometimes taken out, they {{Bowdlerise}}, and their translations are far from perfect, they ''do not'' make the games. Marvelous does, and even then they began with the UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance (before it was in the hands of ''Pack-In-Video'' and later ''Victor Interactive Software''; the latter which was eventually acquired by Marvelous).
* Ever since brought to infamy by ''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd'', Creator/LJNToys has been blamed for the (mostly [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames licensed]]) games they published, even though most weren't made by them.
** Creator/LordKaT actually referenced this during one of his "Until We Win" segments, noting that one particularly bad game, although it had the LJN rainbow on the box, was actually developed by Rare.
** However, people can counter-argue that while LJN doesn't develop the games themselves, they are the ones who hire the developers and choose the budget and deadline, and it's their decision if the game is going to get published in this state or not.
* If a [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames video game adaptation sucks]], gamers tend to blame either the game makers or the original IP holder. The game makers, may it be the publisher or developers, would be blamed for not caring about the property and instead uses the IP for simple brand recognition for selling as many units as possible. The IP holders would be blamed for [[ExecutiveMeddling placing creative restraints to protect their brand image]] or pressuring the game makers to [[ChristmasRushed rush out the product to promote upcoming events]].
* David Gaider is this to certain portions of the ''Franchise/DragonAge'' fandom, mostly because he is the most well-known person involved with the franchise (having written the accompanying books and well as writing for the games). Despite the fact that he is a writer, he will often be blamed for programming mistakes and blamed for characters that he didn't write. When fans aren't blaming him for every fault in the story anyway.
** A very specific case of this is when he is erroneously blamed for the lack of a dwarven romance option in the first three games. This is based entirely on an anecdote where he expressed being creeped out by the GirlishPigtails on a dwarven character romancing Alistair.
** Much of this is because, until shortly after the release of ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'', he was actually Lead Writer of the franchise, as well as his history of being a TrollingCreator on social media, particularly on Website/{{Tumblr}}. His announced replacement as ''DA'' Lead Writer is Patrick Weekes, a fan favorite writer in Creator/BioWare circles due to his previous work on ''Franchise/MassEffect'', particularly the [[AuthorsSavingThrow Extended Cut DLC]] that was very well received by fans unhappy with the original ending to ''VideoGame/MassEffect3''. Only time will tell if Weekes will continue to enjoy the fandom's goodwill, or if the notoriously UnpleasableFanbase will have him replace Gaider in this trope's role too.
* Insomniac Games have been blamed for ''VideoGame/SpyroEnterTheDragonfly'' even though they had nothing to do with it or any of the following Spyro games.
* The cancellation of ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends 3'' has caused absolutely no shortage of anger at Creator/{{Capcom}}. Some of that anger, however, was misdirected at Creator/KeijiInafune, creator of the franchise and leader of the ''Legends 3'' project (this being a game Inafune, himself, wanted to create for years): a major reason for the flack, according to his detractors, is that his leaving Capcom prompted them to cancel ''Legends 3''.
** Well, speaking of Inafune, the big failure of ''VideoGame/MightyNo9'' paved way for the disappointed fans to think that he's to blame in just about everything, even if some of it wasn't his idea (such as the disastrous "Cry like an anime fan in a prom night", that was really not his idea, but the trailer announcer's). However, Inafune admits and enforced the trope on himself, if the disappointed fans need something to blame, they should blame him. The franchise's positive reception in the ''VideoGame/MightyGunvolt'' series got the opposite reaction, with fans citing anything good from the original game that carried over to Beck's routes as entirely Creator/IntiCreates' ideas. Inafune instead is given credit for letting them use the game without any legal worries.
* In the case of ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', executive producer Casey Hudson and lead writer Mac Walters has been blamed for nearly every single of the fandom's issues with the game. This stems from a forum post by someone impersonating one of the writers and claiming that Walters & Hudson were the ones behind the ''very'' controversial ending to the game, and didn't reveal their plans to the other writers until it was too late to change things.
** They ''do'' share some of the fandom hate... with EA. Broadly speaking, there are two popular opinions: that it's entirely and solely the fault of EA's {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s, or that it's entirely and solely the fault of the writers and their ProtectionFromEditors. The two factions... [[FlameWar don't get along]], especially because they tend to put whoever they aren't blaming on a pedestal, convinced that the game would be perfect if it weren't for those ''other'' guys. The DLC as well as the widely loathed endings were the most common things people blamed EA/Bioware for, though the actual responsibility (probably) falls on both parties -- Casey Hudson would be to blame for the GainaxEnding, and EA for the attempt to turn a very popular offline franchise into an online cash cow.
* In the case of Creator/{{SNK}}, the illustrators and character designers Nona and Tatsuhiko "Falcoon" Kanaoka have caught ''lots'' of flack from people who don't like their artwork or question their decisions in regards to art and developments in the company's fighting games, specially the much-beloved ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters'' series. In the case of Nona, the fans question his problems with the rest of the KOF staff in regards to his drawing style, which apparently [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere led him to leave SNK]] as he felt they were asking him to "simplify his style"; in the case of Falcoon, they have even been cruel enough to use the rumors about his homosexuality [[note]](which, understandably, have neither been denied nor confirmed by him in interviews)[[/note]] to pick apart his work as designer and producer.
* Notch, creator of ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' gets blamed for nearly any change that fandom hates. Notch had stepped down from the game back in November 2011 and had let Jeb take over, yet people will still praise or hate Notch for anything that changes in the game.
* David Goldfarb, one of the lead developers of ''[[VideoGame/PAYDAY2 PAYDAY 2]]'', was routinely blamed for any changes made to the game that the fandom didn't like. They blamed the "downfall" of the game on David just because of his previous involvement with the ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield}}'' games, and how David said he had some influence on the developers during the alpha stages of ''PAYDAY 2''. However, most changes made to the game are decided by the development team as a whole rather than just one or two people.
** After Goldfarb's departure from Overkill Software in July 2014, Marketing Director and Producer Almir Listo became the community's new target, due to his appearance in most update/behind the scenes videos, and his communication with the fanbase in general.
* Quick: want to generate a FlameWar among ''Franchise/SilentHill'' [[BrokenBase fans]]? Ask who caused the series' DorkAge: Tomm Hulett, or Creator/{{Konami}}. To one half of the fanbase, Hulett, the man who took over as the director of the series after the original development team, Team Silent, disbanded following [[VideoGame/SilentHill4TheRoom the fourth game]], was responsible for everything that went wrong with the series from ''VideoGame/SilentHillOrigins'' onward, from questionable creative decisions to changes in gameplay mechanics to the PortingDisaster that was the ''Silent Hill HD Collection''. To the other, Hulett has been the only person keeping the series alive, and it was Konami that broke up Team Silent and passed the franchise off from studio to studio while destroying everything that made the original games great. The only thing they can agree upon is that the series went downhill after Team Silent broke up, and that ''someone'' is to blame.\\\
The Hulett-bashing has, however, mostly gone dormant and shifted to a focus on Konami ever since the ''VideoGame/SilentHills'' debacle. Pretty much ''everybody'' agrees that that mess was Konami's fault, especially in the wake of their abandonment of most AAA game development in 2015-16 to focus on mobile gaming and slot machines. While Konami's fraught relationship with Creator/HideoKojima, the director of ''Silent Hills'', tends to be portrayed as a one-way street a bit too often (Kojima had gone seriously overbudget on ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain''[='=]s TroubledProduction, putting him very much in Konami's bad graces), Konami's announcement of a ''Silent Hill'' slot machine just months after they canceled ''Silent Hills'' read like a deliberate insult towards the franchise and its fans.
* The UsefulNotes/{{Atari 2600}} game ''Karate'' is often considered to be one of the worst video games ever made due to its blocky graphics, ButtonMashing gameplay, and extreme difficulty. Many have blamed publisher Froggo Games for ''Karate'', as they're the company that released the most common version of the game in 1987, but in reality, they just re-released a far rarer Ultravision title from 1983, similarly to what they did for all of their other 2600 games. This lifts much of the blame and explains why the graphics were so bad for a "1987" release, though one could still blame Froggo for making such a bad game more common.
* While he also receives a lot of CreatorWorship, Creator/{{Valve}} co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell is often blamed for everything Valve does to its games or UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}. The most infamous example is the [[MemeticMutation memetic]] status of ''[[VideoGame/HalfLife Half Life 3]]''[='=]s DevelopmentHell, where Gabe is accused of intentionally delaying the game because people are making fun of his weight. In 2014, an indie developer accidentally had his title released on Steam as an Early Access title, even though it was finished. He became [[BerserkButton furious]] and tweeted a death threat to Gabe Newell, which caused a lot of controversy and got Valve to take his game off Steam [[PersonaNonGrata and cut all future relations with him.]]
* Ever since [[VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes Yusuke]] [[Anime/SpeedGrapher Kozaki]] became the character designer for ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' and ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'', the UnpleasableFanbase has been [[http://agoddamn.tumblr.com/post/149636896530/the-view-that-design-professionals-are-all constantly whining against him and only him]] for the [[HotterAndSexier increase]] of FanService, even [[http://flamingopuuuunch.tumblr.com/post/122017610935/and-are-you-really-trying-to-excuse-blatant calling him a "pedophile" (among other things)]] [[http://agoddamn.tumblr.com/post/137128258180/are-people-actually-directly-concern-trolling solely for]] [[http://agoddamn.tumblr.com/post/136348413640/it-honestly-depresses-the-shit-out-of-me-when-i his designs]]. This shows quite a bit of ignorance about how character designing is ''actually'' made, nevermind how [[WordOfGod Kozaki himself]] [[http://gaming.moe/?p=162 has explained how he does his work]] ''and'' how it's been shown that he follows the instructions given to him by the FE art director, [[http://agoddamn.tumblr.com/post/149637369440/kozaki-still-made-some-pretty-gross-comments-on Toshiyuki Kusakihara.]]
* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' has head developer Al "[=CaptainGeko=]" Rivera. It's not uncommon for players to paint "Geko" as a Federation-loving, DPS-only man who is ready to snub the Klingon and Romulan player bases at every opportunity and if someone dares challenge his way of thinking, he'll gladly find a way to harm the player base, usually with more grinds.
* ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcomInfinite'', due to its controversial release, ended up with multiple scapegoats (including a few returning names from elsewhere on this page):
** Yoshinori Ono was once again blamed for Capcom's side of the roster being seen as weak and mostly just rehashes from ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'', even though he had nothing to do with the game. According to [[LetsPlay/YoVideogames Maximilian Dood]], part of the blame really deserves to go to Capcom Japan for not understanding the Western fanbase; for example, they keep including [[VideoGame/DeadRising Frank West]] and [[VideoGame/BionicCommando Spencer]] in the series because they think Americans are much fonder of the characters than they actually are, and for a very long time let the ''Franchise/MegaMan'' series fall by the wayside simply because they didn't think American and European fans liked it very much when it is and always has been one of their most popular franchises.
** Plenty of fans blame Capcom as a whole for the fact that VideoGame/MegaManX isn't a top-tier character, saying it was just another example of them trying to screw over the ''Franchise/MegaMan'' franchise out of spite. Never mind the fact that X's partner Zero, who was already a top-tier character in ''[=MvC3=]'', is '''even better''' in ''Infinite'' to the point of being considered a GameBreaker by some...
** Making his fourth appearance on the page, Marvel's Ike Perlmutter gets a lot of blame for the game being "Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse vs. Capcom", with ''Infinite'' dropping the comic book aesthetic of ''[=MvC3=]'' in favor of a more realistic art style[[note]]Which, combined with Capcom's more anime-styled characters, produced some major examples of UncannyValley[[/note]], replacing the iconic background music with more generic "theatrical" tracks, and demanding that the entire Marvel side of the roster (with the lone exception of Comicbook/{{Nova}}) are characters who've either appeared in or will be appearing in the MCU. Not helping matters is the fact that this meant the ComicBook/XMen and ComicBook/FantasticFour characters, who have been mainstays of the ''VideoGame/CapcomVs'' franchise since the start, with Capcom admitting that their hands were tied and the best they could do would be ''maybe'' getting those characters back as {{DLC}}.
** Pete "Combofiend" Rojas, a member of the FGC and the community manager for ''Infinite'', took a ton of heat for the infamous "Functions" interview which was full of absurd statements (such as "Modern gamers don't really know who the X-Men are" and "People play fighting game characters for how they function, not their appearances or history"). The general feel of the interview is that Rojas had to address the ElephantInTheLivingRoom while also trying to avoid saying anything that could piss off Marvel like blaming them for the lack of X-Men characters. However, "Functions" ended up becoming a derisive [[MemeticMutation meme]] for ''Infinite'', and a few players blamed Rojas for the game's roster, even though he was simply the community manager and thus had absolutely no input into the game.
* This was {{invoked}} with VideoGame/TabulaRasa to the point of legal proceedings: the publisher Creator/NCsoft [[ScrewedByTheNetwork intentionally sabotaged the fairly healthy MMO]] and forged a resignation letter from Richard Garriot written in a manner implying he was pulling a TorchTheFranchiseAndRun in an attempt to get out of paying him the millions in stock he was owed and deflect the anger of the player base onto him. This backfired royally when the truth came to light and remains a black mark on the company's reputation.
* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'' has two, one for the gameplay aspect, one for the story side:
** Gameplay-wise, lead designer Geoff Goodman is heavily disliked by the community for some comments that were dismissive toward fans of D.va (after she received a heavy nerf), for another comment that implied he wanted to remove/replace D.va with another character filling her niche and another dismissive comment toward the Ana fiasco.
** Lead writer Michael Chu has received this treatment from a ''very'' vocal portion of the fanbase that he might [[NeverLiveItDown never live down]] as a result of some conflicting choices with the lore, including its [[ArcFatigue incredibly slow pace]], {{Retcon}}ing of the lore here and there, supposed favoritism of certain characters, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking supposed favoritism of]] [[RescueRomance Mercy/Genji]] [[ShipToShipCombat over other ships]], etc., to a point where when Alyssa Wong was announced to join the team as a lead story writer, bashing Michael Chu was practically the go-to response while hoping that Wong will do better. On the other hand, Chu is still the story director and writer for most of the ''very'' well-received characters, comics, and animated shorts that have been released, and it's often forgotten that his status as a writer doesn't make him fully in control of how Blizzard develops the rest of the game, which is a multimedia project with concurrently-developed aspects beyond his field, including that of animations, comics, and other supplementary lore videos.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* ''VisualNovel/ShinyDays'' had a Scapegoat Publisher in ''Jast USA''; while most of the game is uncensored, the English translation was initially buggy and had the scenes with Kokoro and her friend (both underage characters) removed. While the former is the fault of Jast USA's quality check team not doing their job, the latter ''is not'' the fault of Jast USA, but an issue with laws in other countries where the game may be sold. This is because LoliconAndShotacon content, unlike Child Pornography, falls under the protection of the US American constitution as artistic expression, but in countries like Australia or the UK they are considered the same thing, thus illegal. So to get the game sold officially at all and not make their customers risk their own lives, Jast USA had to remove that content. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that Jast made the most money by selling articles of Kokoro herself and still did after the game's release.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* John Baku tends to take a lot of crap for the FetLife feed going down on a regular basis, and how slow updates and new features are to come...the fact that the man basically put a kinky Facebook together using barbed wire and spit, and barely has the budget to keep it up at all, goes uncommented upon.
* Whenever something goes wrong with Website/{{Facebook}}, users are quick to blame everything on Mark Zuckerberg.
* Creator/DougWalker. Because he's the face of Website/ChannelAwesome, he gets way more blame than Michaud and Rob, who everyone (even themselves) has said are the actually abusive heads of the site while Doug just works for them. This was averted during the "Change The Channel" controversy; the Channel Awesome mismanagement was Michaud and Rob's fault.
* Ever since the video-making website Website/GoAnimate starting being over-hauled to be more business-friendly and less for casual use, the casual userbase (namely, those who use the website to make the legendary "X Gets Grounded" videos) has made the website's founder, Alvin Hung, their personal whipping boy (or, more accurately, one of the most popular Grounded video targets) for every little change that happens to the website. (Especially if it hampers the users' ability to make Grounded videos, and regardless if it was something reasonable like the licensing on some of the text-to-speech voices used in the program expiring.)
* Many fans of the show ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' often blame Miles Luna for whatever flaws the show has, whether he was actually to blame or not. This includes ''any'' screentime [[DescendedCreator Jaune Arc]] gets in the show (when not only has focus not been on him since season 2, but most of the Jaune scenes were developed by creator Creator/MontyOum and co-writer Kerry Shawcross), the death of [[spoiler:Pyrrha Nikos]] in Volume 3 (when Monty had planned their fate from the start) and [[spoiler:the seemingly AssPull-ish Silver Eyes reveal]] (which had in fact been foreshadowed in the very first episode). It's gotten to the point where Miles is hesitant to develop any scenes with Jaune, and he considers ''RWBY'' [[https://twitter.com/TheMilesLuna/status/962142256600944640 "the most stressful show [he] works on."]]
* During the Website/GameFAQs contests, if things go wrong in a way (from technical problems to [[HostileShowTakeover outside interference]]) the blame will go with who runs the site (at first, founder [=CJayC=], since 2006 his successor [=SBAllen=]).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Creator/JohnKricfalusi is widely blamed for the failures of ''WesternAnimation/TheRippingFriends'' and ''[[WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow Ren and Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon]]'' -- ignoring that the former show suffered from horrific meddling (which included throwing out all of the custom poses that Spumco is known for), and the latter show was pushed to be DarkerAndEdgier due to Spike TV wanting it to be another moneymaker along the lines of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''.
** As for the original ''Ren and Stimpy'', Bob Camp was the major scapegoat for getting John fired from the show. Some former Spumco artists claimed that Nickelodeon gave him a higher raise. Alternatively, there is the other side that claims that John was fired because he didn't finish the episodes in time.
* Showrunner Mike Scully is usually blamed for ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''' nadir in quality and [[{{Flanderization}} characterization]] in seasons 9-12. [[UnpleasableFanbase Of course, the fans have been saying the most recent season is the worst ever more or less since the series began]] (Comic Book Guy's catchphrase "worst episode ever" was coined in relation to ''The Simpsons'' in response to a fourth season episode, the fourth season now being considered to be something of a Golden Age). Also, the last episode he wrote was "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation" - which first aired in ''2002''.
** Creator Matt Groening also gets a big heap of blame from unhappy fans. The primary complaint is that he should have ended the show years ago. But Matt was complaining as early as season 5 that how long ''The Simpsons'' continues is totally out of his hands. He doesn't have the power to end the show and never did. That's Fox's call. He instead went on to create ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' and be heaped with praise for taking a more hands-on approach.
** Current showrunner Al Jean gets a lot of blame for the latest quality drop, especially considering the fact that he has ''been'' the showrunner for over seven years, far longer than anyone else, not to mention that Al Jean was, with then-partner Mike Reiss, showrunner on Seasons 3 and 4, as well as some episodes produced on the side for Season 6 when they did ''WesternAnimation/TheCritic'' and Seasons 8 & 9 when they did ''Series/TeenAngel'' for Creator/{{Disney}}. Jean decided to return to ''The Simpsons'' in Season 10 when he felt he wanted to return to the show, and Reiss has since returned to ''The Simpsons'' as a co-producer.
** There's a small but very vocal group of fans that blame writer Ian Maxtone-Graham for the show's decline, as he joined the writing staff around the time of the decline and admitted a few years later that he had barely seen the show before being hired. This despite Maxtone-Graham only writing one or two episodes per season, and these episodes generally being considered among the better post-decline episodes.
* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}: WesternAnimation/BeastMachines'' head writer Bob Skir is generally blamed for not doing much to make the series a continuation of ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'', even though then Creator/MainframeEntertainment president Dan Didio (yes, THAT Dan Didio) told him ''not to watch WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' before becoming involved. His strong online presence at the time backlashed (in part thanks to the jerkass admin of his message board) into him getting most of the blame, while his writing partner Marty Isenberg, who keeps a low profile, was spared most of the flak (and went on to be the head writer for WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated).
* Creator/SethMacFarlane is mistakenly thought to be responsible for everything and anything wrong with the UnCancelled ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'', ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'', and ''WesternAnimation/TheClevelandShow''. Everything good is someone else's work. Fans of ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' in particular seem to believe the show is superior and that this is because Seth has checked out of it. That's not true, obviously: he has equal power over all three shows.
** You know "Not All Dogs go to Heaven"? The one that's most criticized here for being an AuthorTract for Macfarlane? [[http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/Not_All_Dogs_Go_To_Heaven Yeah, he neither wrote nor directed that episode.]] Same with the second-most-criticized episode, [[http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/Road_to_the_Multiverse "Road to the Multiverse".]] Both episodes were directed by Greg Colton, and the writers of "Heaven" and "Multiverse" were then-showrunner Danny Smith and Wellesley Wild, respectively.
** Whether or not he's credited as writing or directing an individual episode isn't as important as one might think. As the executive producer, he oversees the creation of the scripts and approves them before they enter into production, sometimes rewriting them. That said, the original writer(s) tend to escape any blame in favor of targeting Seth.
*** Also, it is not uncommon for a showrunner or producer to do rewrites or make contributions to an episode but forgo a formal writing credit.
** He is very frequently MisBlamed for the chicken fights and repeated callbacks. Per DVDCommentary, he's not a big fan of either and must be convinced by the rest of the writing staff that those jokes should go in to a given episode.
* Creator/DonBluth has often been blamed for allowing several of his movies to have been given sequels. While ''[[WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail Fievel Goes West]]'' is sometimes considered watchable (partly due to nostalgia reasons), all the other stuff—especially ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfNIMH 2''—is often blamed on him. Other than ''WesternAnimation/BartokTheMagnificent'', Bluth had nothing to do with any of these sequels. [[labelnote:Funny fact]]Bluth once said that if he ever ''did'' direct a follow-up to ''Secret of NIMH'', he listed a few ideas that were present in the actual sequel, but flipped around—i.e. he wanted ''Timothy'' to be the villain and ''Martin'' to be the protagonist.[[/labelnote]]
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E8TheMysteriousMareDoWell "The Mysterious Mare Do-Well"]], a controversial episode, induced so many PeripheryDemographic fans to rant against its credited writer, Merriwether Williams, that the lead moderator of Blog/EquestriaDaily (the fandom's major news and fanwork blog) had to [[http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/12/pre-episode-pony-service-announcement.html tell the fans to cut it out]]. Never mind the huge chain of people from then-executive producer Creator/LaurenFaust down to each individual writer and animator who are actually responsible for each episode. The success of "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS3E7WonderboltsAcademy Wonderbolts Academy]]" seemed to have caused the hate to die down, though she would never fully escape this, as Season 4's "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E7Bats Bats]]" would suddenly get more of a negative reception from certain fans once they found out that she wrote it. For context, the episode was originally misattributed to Meghan [=McCarthy=], a well-respected writer of the show.
** And after Faust stepped down, some fans started making new showrunner Meghan [=McCarthy=] out to be a creatively bankrupt Hasbro shill[[note]]you know, just like they said Lauren Faust was when she started[[/note]] obsessed with pandering to fans by approving what are ''clearly'' [[OriginalCharacter OC]] pony designs[[note]]i.e. any pony with the slightest bit of creative flair[[/note]] and having popular antagonist Trixie or even ''background ponies''[[note]]Specifically, Cloudchaser and Bulk Biceps, two rather unique ponies, appearing in "Wonderbolts Academy". The irony is they had even fewer lines than in their initial appearance[[/note]] reappear!
** People who dislike the infamous [[spoiler: Alicorn Twilight]] twist in the Season 3 finale often place the entirety of the blame on the episode's head writer, M.A. Larson, despite the fact that the writers decided ''as a team'' on the direction to take the show. More moderate members of the fanbase recognize that the decision wasn't entirely his and that at worst all he can be blamed for is trying to cram too much material into a single episode. At least Larson had [[https://www.derpibooru.org/451663 tons]] [[https://www.derpibooru.org/253115 of]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPW9ki-IfZ8&feature=youtu.be&t=1h5m31s fun]] with it.
* Chris [=McCulloch=] (aka "Jackson Publick", of ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'') got the brunt of the hate and blame over several contested writing decisions in ''WesternAnimation/{{Superjail}}'' season 2. While he was story editor and did have the last say on the scripts, some of the ideas that the fans had blamed him for or insisted were ExecutiveMeddling (revelations of backstories, some personality changes, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Lord Stingray]]) wound up actually being the creators' own intent, as they'd wanted to try to break away from a repetitive formula (although the network also encouraged them to find a newer direction as well).
* Christina Miller, former president of Creator/CartoonNetwork has become this, as fans criticise her for the channel focusing on [[WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo more]] [[WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls2016 comedic]] [[WesternAnimation/Ben102016 cartoons]] than airing more action-oriented stuff. Plus the decision to have the recent cartoons[[note]]With the main exceptions of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersRobotsInDisguise2015'', ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'', ''Toys/NexoKnights'' and (for its first 10 seasons) ''WesternAnimation/{{Ninjago}}''[[/note]] with 11-minute episodes than 22-minute episodes along with ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' {{channel hop}}ping to Creator/DisneyXD haven't gone too well with fans. Some viewers go as far as to accuse her of being a MoralGuardian who [[ScrewedByTheNetwork actively sabotages shows]] that are even ''slightly'' action-based or have slightly more mature subject matter or humor just because they aren't what she thinks the viewing audience wants. This is despite the fact that action-based shows were [[OlderThanTheyThink already in decline]] on the network before Miller took the helm, with examples including ''WesternAnimation/GreenLanternTheAnimatedSeries'', ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCats2011'', ''WesternAnimation/SymBionicTitan'' and ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'', all of which were cancelled during the Snyder era. Although ''Young Justice'' did eventually [[UnCanceled come back]], but not on Cartoon Network.
** The fanbases of less-action based shows (or even ones that ''are'' in fact, purely comedy-based) that have been ScrewedByTheNetwork, such as ''WesternAnimation/UncleGrandpa'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Clarence}}'', also often blame Miller for their shows getting screwed over. In this case, though, they don't even have the excuse of being primarily action-based and this can be chalked up to the shows' respective fanbases just wanting to find someone to blame for their favorite show ending. This even happens for series that [[MisBlamed weren't cancelled by the network executives at all but ended at the decision of their creators]] (''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' and ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', to name two.)
* Thomas Astruc is frequently the only one blamed for problems regarding the writing in ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'', despite the fact that there are multiple writers credited on each episode. His controversial behavior on Twitter likely hasn't helped him in this regard.
[[/folder]]
----

** Kathleen Kennedy, for her part, is just a producer and doesn't really have any input into the storyline of the films. Fans blamed her for writing decisions that really should have been pinned on people like Creator/JJAbrams, Creator/LawrenceKasdan, and/or Creator/RianJohnson. Fans have also blamed her for business decisions that could have very well have come from Disney head honcho Bob Iger, who Kennedy reports to. In fact, some fans have turned their disdain for Lucas on its head and blame Kennedy for ruining Lucas' grand vision. A particularly strange accusation is that Kennedy forced the series to become more [[ActionGirl outwardly feminist]] and/or "woke" when it had been that way since 1977.[[note]]In fact, according to J.W. Rinzler's ''The Making of ''Film/ANewHope'''', Lucas was so worried about not having enough female roles that he seriously considered making Luke a female protagonist.[[/note]] An even stranger accusation is that Kennedy is somehow opposed to ''Series/TheMandalorian'' despite being a massive success amongst fans and casual viewers, and that its showrunners Creator/JonFavreau and Creator/DaveFiloni are waging some sort of war on Kennedy and her "faction" of Creator/Lucasfilm.

** Kathleen Kennedy, for her part, is just a producer and doesn't really have any input into the storyline of the films. Fans blamed her for writing decisions that really should have been pinned on people like Creator/JJAbrams, Creator/LawrenceKasdan, and/or Creator/RianJohnson. Fans have also blamed her for business decisions that could have very well have come from Disney head honcho Bob Iger, who Kennedy reports to. In fact, some fans have turned their disdain for Lucas on its head and blame Kennedy for ruining Lucas' grand vision. A particularly strange accusation is that Kennedy forced the series to become more [[ActionGirl outwardly feminist]] and/or left-leaning when it had been that way since 1977.[[note]]In fact, according to J.W. Rinzler's ''The Making of ''Film/ANewHope'''', Lucas was so worried about not having enough female roles that he seriously considered making Luke a female protagonist.[[/note]]

** The Marvel executives get the blame for everything the fans don't like about the series as a whole, but the fans can't decide ''which'' executives should get the most blame. Some heap it all on the Marvel Creative Committee, consisting of Alan Fine, Dan Buckley, Creator/BrianMichaelBendis, and Creator/JoeQuesada (whom the fans already don't like much for their comic book decision-making). Others particularly dislike Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter, who made a ton of decisions to save money or angle for certain demographics -- he was particularly criticized for his adherence to the GirlShowGhetto (not very smart when DC's ''Film/{{Wonder Woman|2017}}'' became a critical and commercial success). Still, others point towards executive producer Kevin Feige, who is the chief architect and "face" of the whole franchise.

** Some of the 'blame JN-T / Colin Baker for everything' attitude stems from an interview Eric Saward gave to a fanzine in 1986, in which among other comments he basically called Nathan-Turner a complete incompetent and outright said that he thought Colin Baker was terrible in the role of the Doctor and should never have been cast. Plenty of fans were quick to use this as evidence that Nathan-Turner and Baker were deliberately ruining the show, apparently not stopping to consider that not only were Saward's actions incredibly unprofessional but that, as script editor, he had his own axes to grind and responsibilities for what was going on behind the scenes, both of which were curiously downplayed. Indeed, several fans have noted that the high-points of Nathan-Turner's era tend to be at the beginning and the end, when he was working with other script editors (Christopher H. Bidmead early on, Andrew Cartmel at the end), while a lot of the low-points tend to be found in the middle -- when he was primarily working with Saward. It also doesn't help that many people have pointed to the scripts as the most notable weakness of the mid-80s, and that was the one thing Saward ''was'' in a position to fix.[[note]]Though even then it's easy to feel for the man. His television experience before "The Visitation" was... nothing, just some radio drama. And his television experience before becoming the Script Editor, the main creative voice of the series, was "The Visitation". He was catapulted into creative direction of the series after writing a ''single'' serial, because Nathan-Turner wanted to avoid working with his predecessors' writers. One begins to suspect ThePeterPrinciple was at work. Especially since many people think Saward showed a lot of promise as a DW writer that he never got to develop, as he never had an editor who could mentor him.[[/note]]
** Naturally, after Creator/StevenMoffat took over, the official role of ''Series/DoctorWho'' Chief Scapegoat passed to him. In addition to the old-school types who blamed Russell T. Davies for absolutely everything bad ever, they were joined by a certain subset of hardcore RTD fans who seem to feel that he destroyed everything that RTD worked for and planned every single thing he did to destroy the show and spite them personally, never mind that Moffat and RTD still fanboy over each other even after leaving the show.

** A sizable portion of the fandom hates and despises Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. They are referred to jointly as "Bermaga", and much of the fanbase rejoiced that those two weren't involved in [[Film/StarTrek2009 the 2009 movie]] in any way, shape or form. This has shifted a little over the years, with opinions towards Braga having improved considerably for the most part -- his work on ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' always had a good reputation, and much of his ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' work is now considered VindicatedByHistory -- with most of the fan ire having moved towards Berman alone. It doesn't help Berman's case that, as the years go by, more people involved in the series have felt able to talk candidly about Berman without fear of undermining the show, revealing certain unsavoury personal aspects like homophobia and (per Terry Farrell) a fixation with female castmembers' breast size.

* J. J. Abrams got a lot of this from casual fans of ''Series/{{LOST}}'' throughout the run of the series, despite only being involved for about half of its first season, and then again briefly to co-write the third season premiere. Damon Lindelof, who co-wrote the pilot with Abrams, went on to run the series with Carlton Cuse after Abrams left. Fans who were in the loop knew to blame Cuse and Lindelof for their frustrations with the series, but the news media often [[CowboyBebopAtHisComputer still referred to it as if it were Abrams' show]]. (To be fair, Abrams was responsible for introducing a few of the show's earliest mysteries, and then leaving it to other writers to explain them.)
* Julian Fellowes has become this among the ''Series/DowntonAbbey'' fandom. Fans even hold him responsible for [[spoiler:Matthew's death, even though Dan Stevens was the one who left the show and it's generally agreed that there was no way to write Matthew out that ''didn't'' involve killing him]]. Of course, they also blame him for plenty of things that ''are'' his fault, such as his [[SpotlightStealingSquad increasing focus on Lady Mary at the expense of other, arguably more interesting characters]] and the fact that the soap opera quotient has been steadily rising over the past two series and [[spoiler: Sybil's death, which - even though the actress was leaving - could have been easily avoided]].

* A strange case for the ''Franchise/{{James Bond}}'' franchise: A minority of fans gave every bit of praise to cinematographer Roger Deakins for ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'' to the point where he's regarded as the auteur for that film, even though he never wrote the screenplay nor was he in charge of any directorial decisions. When Hoyte Van Hoytema stepped in for Deakins to shoot ''Film/{{Spectre}}'' (which, like ''Skyfall'', was also directed by Creator/SamMendes and written by John Logan), they doubled down on their reasonings and blamed the film's quality solely on Deakins' absence, while criticising Mendes’ direction for both ''Spectre'' and ''Skyfall'' to an extent. Some even blame the absence of film editor Stuart Baird, who edited ''Casino Royale'' and ''Skyfall''. A troubled production that had nothing to do with either of them being absent on that film would say a lot about how the final product went. This would later happen again with Mendes' next film, ''Film/NineteenSeventeen''; as Deakins was Mendes' cinematographer on that critically acclaimed film, his fans once again came out in force.

*** If it's not Iizuka drawing the ire of ''Sonic's'' infamously unpleaseable fanbase, it's {{Dimps}}, the developers of all the portable ''Sonic'' titles since 2001. Common complaints tend to focus on the use/misuse of momentum and the overabundance of dash-pads (and cheap death). The fact that the ''Rush'' engine was the base for ''Sonic 4'' caused a large segment of the fandom to go ''ballistic'' even before the game was released.

** Creator/AlexKurtzman has become a popular Trek fandom punching bag as ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' has generated a big BrokenBase. For ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' as well on a lesser exrent.

** Creator/GeoffJohns has emerged for this as many fans of the Snyder movies hold him responsible for spearheading the ExecutiveMeddling that bogged down both ''Film/{{Suicide Squad|2016}}'' and ''Justice League'' (and for scrapping Snyder's vision entirely while still cashing in on perfectly cast actors who were chosen by Snyder). Creator/RayFisher's claims of [[HostilityOnTheSet unprofessional]] conduct towards the cast and crew by Johns, Jon Berg and Joss Whedon only added fuel to that fire.

* A sizable portion of the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' fandom hates and despises Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. They are referred to jointly as "Bermaga", and much of the fanbase rejoiced that those two weren't involved in [[Film/StarTrek2009 the 2009 movie]] in any way, shape or form. This has shifted a little over the years, with opinions towards Braga having improved considerably for the most part -- his work on ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' always had a good reputation, and much of his ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' work is now considered VindicatedByHistory -- with most of the fan ire having moved towards Berman alone. It doesn't help Berman's case that, as the years go by, more people involved in the series have felt able to talk candidly about Berman without fear of undermining the show, revealing certain unsavoury personal aspects like homophobia and (per Terry Farrell) a fixation with female castmembers' breast size.

** Fred Freiberger inherited ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' from Creator/GeneRoddenberry for its 1968-1969 season. Yes, season three, which OPENED with "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E1SpocksBrain Spock's Brain]]" and later gave us "Plato's Stepchildren". This was also the season in which their per-episode budget was cut by (approximately) sixty thousand dollars, several of the original writers had left, and the show was moved to [[FridayNightDeathSlot Friday night at 10]]. There was no fourth season. Freiberger was quoted in an interview in the mid-nineties that to the effect that he'd spent three years in a German POW camp during WWII, but that his time with ''Franchise/StarTrek'' was well into its third decade since many fans of the original series have continued to blame him for the show's cancellation.
** Gene Roddenberry himself has been spared this, [[DeadArtistsAreBetter though his sudden passing may have something to do with that]]. The two areas he had the most control of post-TOS were the first movie and the first season of ''Next Generation'', both of which are reviled by most fans. Yet ''Trek'' fans seem to mostly forgive him for these (at least compared to what many ''Star Wars'' fans think of George Lucas).

* Creator/JeanPierreJeunet gets blamed for everything in ''Film/AlienResurrection'' when he was brought in late into a TroubledProduction and ended up being thrown under the bus for the film's failure. The blame should mostly go to the studio or to screenwriter Creator/JossWhedon (who in turn blames the studio and the director). The experience caused Jeunet to swear off Hollywood, and he hasn't returned since.

Of course, if you set yourself up as the public face concerning a work, franchise, or even a particular decision, you have to expect this to come with the territory. And if you've made a habit of deliberately needling fans in other areas, it is not wise to expect much charity from them. In Hollywood, it's historically producers who have been targeted, although now thanks to UsefulNotes/TheAuteurTheory it's commonly directors and at times even actors.

** Nowadays, the person most likely to get the blame for anything going wrong in the ''Sonic'' franchise is Takashi Iizuka, longtime producer for the series. However, his involvement in some of the series' worst games of Sonic's DorkAge was limited (in the credits for [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006 Sonic '06]], Iizuka's name only appears in the "Special Thanks" section, and VideoGame/SonicForces lists him as an ''executive'' producer.)

** Nowadays, the person most likely to get the blame for anything going wrong in the ''Sonic'' franchise is Takashi Iizuka, longtime producer for the series. However, his involvement in some of the series' worst games of Sonic's DorkAge was limited (in the credits for [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006 Sonic '06]], Iizuka's name only appears in the "Special Thanks" section, and VideoGame/SonicForces lists him as an executive producer.)

** Nowadays, the person most likely to get the blame for anything going wrong in the ''Sonic'' franchise is Takashi Iizuka, longtime producer for the series. However, his involvement in some of the series' worst games of Sonic's DorkAge was limited (in the credits for [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006 Sonic '06]], Iizuka's name only appears in the "Special Thanks" section).

* Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, creators of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', got positively vilified by fans for the general shittiness of season 5, oddly enough, both for creating and for breaking up the Barney/Robin pairing. It went worse after [[EndingAversion the series finale aired]].