Misused: Creators Pet

If there is no more debate, I will erase those examples.

I was wondering about Brian from Family Guy.

I do not watch the show but I do not think he fits since he is part of the main cast which automatically disqualifies any character from being a creator's pet.

Correct.

I have to say, every time I see that rule being applied, it makes me wonder: wouldn't it have technically disqualified Wesley Crusher, the original trope namer? I know we shouldn't necessarily define a trope based off its original name, and honestly I think the more restrictions on these whiny YMMV items, the better. But still, that seems a little weird to me.

It's not that cut and clear when it comes to ensemble shows. "Main character" isn't a single, solid definition that holds true unmodified for any show. ST:TNG had a rather large cast, with the focus not being entirely even amongst the characters, and differing depending on what kind of roles were important for the plot. The problem with Wesley was that he got put into situations where it didn't fit the plot, even after taking into account how major (or minor) of a character he was. Which is also mentioned in his own example, as the times where the plot was around his character, it wasn't that bad.

edited 1st Jun '15 7:07:24 AM by AnotherDuck

Exactly. ST:TNG had a "bridge crew" that constituted the main characters: Picard, Riker, Data, Worf, and LaForge. Other characters were important, to be sure, but not as much as those five.

edited 31st May '15 10:35:00 PM by Fighteer

Aren't you forgetting the women, Dr. Crusher and Consouler Troy? The Bridge Crew was seven.

Crusher and Troi weren't a part of all the episodes.

A list of main character non-appearances suggests the most frequently absent characters, percentage-wise, were actually LaForge and Troi.

Digression aside, I get the point, but it still seems odd that "main character" is so imprecise. I mean, he was in the opening credits.

The definition for the trope isn't "main character" (or not). It's about receiving an unduly amount of focus and screentime. Being the main character of a work does give the character a fair amount of legitimately warranted focus. The more characters you have, the less this warranted focus becomes. It's also more likely you get tiers of main characters, as in TNG, since the captain is always going to be the mainest character, and if he wants more focus, he'll make it so. Lesser main characters still have a much higher bar to qualify for an unduly amount of focus than side characters, but it's not insurmountable.

Counting appearances can be faulty, since it doesn't account for actual focus. A Living Prop could have a ton of appearances, yet contribute to very little and get no more focus than the plot requires.

edited 1st Jun '15 11:28:48 AM by AnotherDuck

My point, Crusher and Troy was part of the principal case even if they weren't in every episode. I would argue that Wesley was too since he appeared in the opening credits and had an entire plot thread with becoming a man. But that's another discussion.

In cases with a large case there are tiers. You have the main characters, the secondary characters, and then the supporting case. There could also be arc or saga main characters like Pokemon. Although it's hard to explain here you can tell who the main characters are when you watch or read a work.

I've noticed that Fubuki in Kantai Collection is listed as Creator's Pet. She's the point-of-view protagonist. And however clumsily written, she didn't get any shilling or suddenly save the day. I think it should be changed to Vanilla Protagonist, if the complaint is that others are more colourful.

edited 2nd Jun '15 7:08:00 PM by Reymma

She's also not The Scrappy. While not the most favourite characters, I know a lot of people noted that she worked relatively well as a protagonist. A bland protagonist, but not that mishandled.

She would definitely fit Vanilla Protagonist, though.

Because I'm a bit confused on it myself, can a Base Breaker or Americans Hate Tingle character qualify as a Creator's Pet? For example, Milla Maxwell from Tales of Xillia is, granted, one of the main characters in her game, but Namco Bandai gives her a disproportionate amount of representation in spin-off games and series-wide promotional material, and within her own game at least (can't say about spinoffs) she gets shilled basically every ten minutes. Problem is, she's not quite a full Scrappy. Again, she's more of a Base Breaker or Americans Hate Tingle character, but otherwise she fits.

There will always be some fans that like a character; that doesn't by itself disqualify the character from The Scrappy. If it meets the criteria for that trope and satisfies the others, than it can be a CP.

As I understand it, Milla gets a lot of the extra exposure in side materials due to popularity, and she's popular enough to not qualify for The Scrappy and therefore also isn't a Creator's Pet. She fits the other aspects of a Creator's Pet, though, but then she should be added to those tropes instead.

Personally I've just finished the first game the second time (as in, a few hours ago), so I've mostly avoided looking at tropes for that game, considering possible spoilers for the sequel. Definitely shilled, probably loved by the creators, has a split fandom/hatedom, and very visible in the series as a whole. The last I'm not sure how disproportionate it is, as I'm not that familiar with the series as a whole, and she is still the main character of one of the main games, so she should have an amount of focus that people who don't like her would complain about.

An Americans Hate Tingle character wouldn't count unless the author is trying to appeal to the "America."

The key to Creator's Pet is the creator ignoring negative feedback, or even worse, combating it by giving the disliked character more focus. Americans Hate Tingle is a Periphery Hatedom, so the creator doesn't really worry about them.

Americans Hate Tingle is not Periphery Hatedom, because the haters are still within the targeted audience but happen to be in a different country than the one native to the work.

Also of it was it'd be Flame Bait and we wouldn't be allowed to list examples.

Americans Hate Tingle is however about a region outside the home region of the work, which makes Creator's Pet more than dubious on that account, since Americans Hate Tingle implies the character is popular in the home region, and adding focus to a popular character is not Creator's Pet.

But being from another country puts them into a different audience. First and foremost, creators generally try to appeal to their own country. There are exceptions, of course (Metal Gear Solid comes to mind in that it was increasingly western-focused), but generally creators aren't creating their works for export.

@ Another Duck: I say Milla's addition to games is disproportionate mostly because of how long her game's been out (only 5 years) compared to how long most of the other characters who get included in so many works have been around (8-20) and how little people hate the rest of those characters. (Example: Yuri Lowell and Leon Magnus are pretty much auto-includes for all spin-off material because of how popular they are) Being a main character is by no means a way of immediately getting into a game, in fact, most characters commonly included aren't the mains (except, again, Yuri and maybe Cress). But ever since Xillia came out Milla's been very heavily pushed in promotional material and is becoming an auto-include in spin-offs despite just not having the same fandom love as the other commonly included characters do. Even in Japan, she never made top five in popularity polls, which is odd for a main character. So combined with all the shilling in Xillia it looks like Bamco favours her.

edited 17th Jun '15 8:44:59 AM by PhiSat

Five years is a long time in video games, and time isn't exactly relevant either. If anything, a shorter time would mean the characters are more current and a bigger reason to include them.

But however it may be, she's not The Scrappy, and therefore not Creator's Pet. Also, The Scrappy is rather bloaty and whiny for the game.

For the record, I've never played a Tales Series game in my life, but I've watched Lets Plays for many of them.

It sounds like this character is too much of a Base Breaker and Americans Hate Tingle to qualify, plus she's a main character so that means she would be disqualified by definition.

edited 23rd Jun '15 6:42:31 AM by katethegr8

I need some advice on these entries:

• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: Crow, commonly hated for being a Canon Sue due to his Common Marty Stu Traits—childhood friend of The Hero and The Rival, Game-Breaker deck, a flying D-Wheel, and is adored by the children of the city. His importance to the series and the hatred he got from the fans would only increase as he became the Fifth Signer and got a Blackwing-themed Dragon to go with the position, both events retconning the backstory that is the basis of the entire series. As of the second season Crow was the third-billed hero of the show second only to Yusei and Jack, but his character was nowhere near as explored or developed.
  • To twist the knife more, he's also a Replacement Scrappy to the former third-billed hero Aki, a Dark Magical Action Girl with a much deeper character arc and more interesting backstory. Aki was Demoted to Extra once Crow arrived and her character arc became weaker and lost focus as a result. The end credits are almost mocking of this—in a montage of the heroes Yusei, Jack and Crow are listed as their positions on Team 5Ds (Third Wheeler, First Wheeler, Second Wheeler) while Aki is listed as "Benchwarmer". Furthermore, several of the episodes where Aki got to shine again still somehow involved Crow in their plots.
  • The production crew members' Twitters have shed a bit more light on this: turns out Crow wasn't a Creator's Pet at all! Rather, his deck was a marketing executive's pet. After his first appearance, nobody predicted that the Blackwing cards would sell as well as they did, and when the numbers came in, the card company execs ordered the anime crew to make him a main character. This ended up torpedoing a lot of things the creators intended to do, including a rematch between Rua and Bommer that would've presumably resulted in Rua getting his dragon a season earlier than he actually did as well as a full backstory for Demak, who ended up a Generic Doomsday Villain in the final product. No matter what side of the Crow debate you're on, it wasn't the creators' fault at all; they were probably as annoyed as his haters.

This entry confuses me since Crow is not really a Creator's Pet and more a produce of Executive Meddling who the creators did the best with what they had, so he fails Creator's Favorite.

And this entry:

• Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Johan/Jesse Anderson was the first undisputed Creator's Pet (not to mention Marty Stu) of the franchise, stealing the spotlight from Judai's friends and becoming the secondary protagonist during the third season. It was hinted that Johan may have known Judai before, and he was The Chosen One of something (possibly the Crystal Beasts he duels with), however neither point was elaborated on. Thus in essence, Johan became Judai's best friend in only a few episodes, but there was no real reason given why he was so important. A major part of the season revolved around the protagonists getting sent to an alternate dimension and trying to find a way home. And they did...by having Johan get his ultimate monster Rainbow Dragon. Oh yes, and when he and Judai dueled the Big Bad, Johan performed a Heroic Sacrifice to send him home. From there on the series focused on Judai and his friends getting back to the alternate dimension to save Johan who had been left behind. He would return in the 4th season, where once again teamed up with Judai to duel the main villain again. (Incidentally, this made him unique among the surviving characters introduced in the third season; O'Brien was severely Demoted to Extra and Jim was Put on a Bus despite both of them being far less hated.)
  • It should be noted that if any other character had dared showing up so suddenly just to be perfect he or she would have been hated instantly. Johan on the other hand, while somewhat of a Base Breaker, is nonetheless very popular.

If Johan is popular among the base, he can't be a Creator's Pet going by this last bullet. And the entry doesn't mention anything about Creator's Favorite or Character Shilling. And by the reading he disappears for an entire season before returning, so how many screens did he steal? This entire bullet reads like someone complaining about a popular character they don't like.

Yeah, those are a clear-cut no, if the additions are correct. The examples contradict themselves, which means either the contradictions have to go, or the entire examples.