Misused: Creators Pet

I get the impression he's too main, yes.

Alice is also too main. Sure, she steals the canon stuff much like the previously mentioned Genesis, but the difference is that the FFVII spinoffs at least try to follow canon, while those RE films don't give a crap. There's no real illusion that they follow some previously plotted course, and just having a new protagonist who take a lot of space isn't new in RE games either.

That said, I agree she's maybe the worst part of those films, but that's another issue.

It is kinda funny the director is near-literally married to her, though.

Re Alice: Another difference between Alice and Genesis is that the former is the main protagonist of her show, while Genesis is the main antagonist of his. Protagonists are meant to be the focus characters, antagonist generally are not (their main focus of their character is the conflict they create with the actual protagonist rather than the character themselves). Crisis Core is about Zack, not Genesis, so giving him all those CGI cutscenes for himself does hog the spotlight from the one the game should actually be focusing on (i.e. Zack).

Can something that isn't a character be a Creator's Pet? Like, for instance, a game mechanic? The microtransactions for RuneScape are listed. I definitely know these are hated, mostly because the developers at first promised they would never implement microtransactions and then broke that promise, and shilled, with a ton of promotions that sometimes seem to outnumber actual gameplay updates some months, but they're not really characters, obviously.

edited 17th Jan '15 10:52:07 AM by HamburgerTime

No, that is far wrong. Creator's Pet is a character trope.

Yeah Microtransactions might be more evil than Satan and extremely shilled but that isnt this trope. It is an even greater evil.

Reporting that I deleted an entry added to Super Smash Bros. about Palutena since she is not a Scrappy (she's a tier-induced one but I'm pretty sure that doesn't count because that trope is weird sometimes), doesn't receive a huge amount of focus, and isn't shilled.

I deleted the RS example, but it was swiftly re-added, this time rewritten to focus on the character that "hosts" the microtransaction feature. Surely that's cheating?

Reverted and suspended that user.

Thanks.

There's one other character still there, the Hidden Agenda Villain Sliske. I'll confess I haven't interacted with this character in the game myself, as he's in very high-level quests I wasn't anywhere near strong enough for when I left the game, so does anyone know anything about him and fan reaction to him? The quests he's involved in were themselves well-received, I know that much.

Further down that page, Sliske is listed (and probably better explained) under Villain Sue.

Took a look. Still doesn't say much. He killed two fan-favorite characters (because he's a villain), and he has yet to be foiled (because his arc isn't over yet). It doesn't sound like he's done much out of the ordinary to me...

I don't want to pull this thread away from being a rather necessary discussion on misuses of Creator's Pet, and this is probably better discussed on the dedicated discussion page for RuneScape. However, with regards to Sliske:

• He started off (Sept. 2011) by killing a prominent ally of the Player Character in an attempt to "collect" the player as a wraith, and in the game lore had used the other Barrows Brothers as his pawns for centuries.
• In his second quest appearance (March 2013), he basically manipulated the player into letting him get close enough to kill off one of the three central deities of the entire game (and the only one of those three who wasn't a Jerkass). He used a weapon which was widely seen as an Ass Pull to have been in his possession, let alone even intact at all, and it was long speculated that he had ascended to godhood as a result.
• In his third major appearance (Oct. 2013), he quickly and easily manipulated all of the other major gods in the game and their followers into starting a new global war over a powerful MacGuffin.
• During all of this, your character and others are helpless to stop him or to foil his plots in any way, and he has no trouble whatsoever pulling off his schemes.
• He was the sole subject of at least one entire Q&A session (June 2013) by the Jagex quest developers, whose general reaction whenever he came up in podcasts, etc. was thinly veiled squeeing.

Granted, Sliske eventually got a proverbial slap on the wrist at the end of his fourth quest role (March 2014), but there's more than enough above for at least some players to see him as a Creator's Pet and a Villain Sue, and both of those are YMMV tropes for a reason.

Uh, are we still allowing examples to be listed for Villain Sue? Pretty sure it'd gone the way of the rest of the Mary Sue... pages.

I thought Mary Sue tropes are still allowed on YMMV pages?

Yeah, Mary Sue be still allowed on YMMV pages. We never got to disallowing them.

Last I had heard via Ask The Tropers (Oct 19, 2014; quoted below for ease of access since there's no direct link to ATT queries), the Mary Sue tropes were considered "nuke on sight" anywhere. That they're not tagged as such with the banner is a technical issue.

The Sues are still a matter of discussion.

@ Sliske: I did know he jerked around literal gods. Didn't know about the podcast where the devs gushed over him; that could be shilling.

[[redacted entry]]

edited 4th Feb '15 4:15:09 AM by MagBas

Someone added Sam Alexander, the new Nova created by Jeph Loeb, due to being an insertion of Loeb's deceased son. I'd like to dispute this for two reasons: first, he's the main character, and second, he's the best-received Loeb character in years. Most of the hate seems to be from fans of his predecessor, who's had the mantle since the '70s, being killed to make way for him.

Good argument for removal. Go ahead.

edited 7th Feb '15 6:58:36 AM by AnotherDuck

I have a nominee, if you don't mind, though this character is rather obscure. It's Kem Likasu, who appears in seasons 10 and 11 of ER.

She is a love interest for John Carter, one of the main characters, and is introduced as the manager of an AIDS clinic in the DR Congo, where Carter is with Doctors Without Boarders. Her introductory episode is basically a big, long diatribe about how badly the US treats developing countries, with Carter as the dumb, ign'ant American getting lectured at by Kem and other characters. Her and Carter's animosity leads to wild hatesex, which leads to her getting pregnant. So, Carter brings her back to the US, where she proceeds to dazzle the doctors with how good she is at medicine, despite, as mentioned, just being the head of a small clinic in a developing country. She's also used for various scenes of making other characters look racist, especially Carter's creepy father, and when Carter ultimately leaves the show, it's to be with her (they break up offscreen).

The only thing I'm unsure on is how the fans received her, though I know the Doctors Without Borders arc was itself badly-regarded. Thoughts?

edited 16th Feb '15 7:48:58 PM by HamburgerTime

Seems like a decent case, at least. She sounds like a pet character.

• The Scrappy: If her main arc is mostly hated, there's a good reason to believe she's at least part of the cause. Considering the show lasted for 15 seasons, and she was only in two, I think that may also be an indicator for that. Of course, it depends a lot on the reasons, since actors having their life situation change can easily influence that as well.
• Creator's Favorite: If she serves as an Author Tract character, then I'd say that's good enough.
• Character Focus: How much of the plot did she take over? I mean, it's reasonable for a character to feature a lot in her own introductory arc, but how excessive was it compared to other characters?
• Character Shilling: If other characters are mainly agreeing with her and say stuff that cements her opinions as the right ones, I'm inclined to give that a pass.