Misused: Creators Pet

We already had a discussion on possible Example Sectionectomy for this, and concluded it wasn't necessary since unlike Mary Sue, the trope is easily definable.

Also, Mary Sue was a living nightmare and I still get shivers remembering how many people just used it as their personal dumping ground for complaining about characters they don't like. This one isn't THAT bad.

edited 2nd Jul '13 5:51:06 PM by Rebochan

Thank you, THANK YOU! To me, I think that Mary Sue should be listed as Flame Bait because people misuse the term to bash and complain about characters. Plus, they cause a lot of arguments. Even the Naruto YMMV page had to be locked because of it. I get annoyed by misuse of tropes and I got into an Edit War over that term.

Anyway, I think Lois from Family Guy should be a Creator's Pet. Why? Because she is hated by fans, but the writers treat her better by characters shilling (always getting the characters to comment on how gorgeous she is and other compliments) and how she rarely gets punishments for her bad deeds

She sounds like she might fit, but does she fit the Character Focus requirement?

I don't think so, because I haven't watched Family guy in months.

She has been getting a few more episodes (or at least side plots) to herself as of recently, but not really enough to be exceptional, especially compared to Peter, Stewie and Brian.

Would Sally Acorn count. She is admitedly a Base Breaker at worst, but her opposers are very vocal and her shilling akin to this trope in both medias she is in is far from shrewd (eg. excess spotlight stealing, makes other characters including the lead look incompetent or redundant). Granted, many note the writers are actively trying to Rescue Her From The Scrappy Heap, albeit with mixed results, they wouldn't fix something unless they knew it was broken (outside superficial elements just to patronize fans who hate her, which would only further this status if this was the case).

edited 3rd Aug '13 3:03:42 AM by Psi001

Sally Acorn would count if we had any idea who she is.

She's from Sonic SatAM and Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog.

I think Kevin from Ed Edd N Eddy should also count as a Creator's Pet. He is the third most hated character of the show. He does get a lot of shilling from the other cast (the Cul De Sac kids always praise him) and gets more screen time in later seasons of the show.

There is a big dispute in the YMMV.The Legend Of Korra discussion page about whether Mako is a Creator's Pet. Anyone has an idea on that?

At least for the first season (second comes out next week, IIRC, and the only second season stuff is in trailers whose accuracy is uncertain), Mako fails the "put into big scenes for no reason" and "Character Shilling" aspects. Hell, his The Scrappy entry even says "he doesn't quite qualify as a Creator's Pet", and given his Hatedom I bet they want to say he qualifies as a CP but can't twist or disregard facts and context sufficiently to justify it.

If the second season comes up very soon, I'd say wait until that season is over before adding him, if needed. He doesn't seem to qualify as far as the first season goes, and I'm leery about adding that trope pre-or-mid-season.

On a different note, on CreatorsPet.Western Animation Jean Grey and Rogue are listed from X-Men: Evolution. Neither is listed on the work YMMV page, and neither is a Scrappy. Remove?

Ah! Didn't see you guys had brought this Mako discussion here. Thanks. It's still exploding all over the place on the Korra discussion page.

Season 2 has started and Mako has actually gotten less screentime in the first two episodes. He's also still failing the Character Shilling and Character Focus requirements. I'd also still argue he's not "loved by the creators" in that they acknowledged that the character didn't go over well in the first season and the defenses of him being pulled out of context on the Korra page are not defenses of Mako as a person, but defenses of how they wrote their love triangle storyline. And like I said...he's gotten a smaller role in this season if the opening two episodes are any indication.

edited 15th Sep '13 2:30:10 PM by Rebochan

Saw this linked on Ask The Tropers. Yeah, good points.

Although he's a minor character in the work (and a bad guy at that), in some ways Mako's case reminds me of this character Darkstar in A Song of Ice and Fire- the author wanted to create a character that would be an Ensemble Dark Horse and therefore had him check off a lot of "cool boxes", and was surprised when instead of loving the character, everyone hated him.

Like Mako, Darkstar is The Scrappy, but I don't get a Creator's Pet vibe with either of them because in both cases, you have the author create a character who doesn't go over well with fans. It seems to me that a Creator's Pet is a character that is created, doesn't go over well with fans, and the creator continues to shill them- basically, the author creates them for themselves and is oblivious or indifferent to fan reaction (which of course is not to say that a creator is at all obligated to alter a character fans happen to hate).

edited 16th Sep '13 12:54:43 PM by Hodor

That and Mako is apparently a major supporting character in the series (I haven't watched Korra) and as such having him get prominent appearances is expected.

Hint: It isn't a Creator's Pet if the character is important to begin with.

edited 16th Sep '13 12:54:39 PM by Fighteer

Incidentally, that Darkstar would actually be a much better candidate than Mako, since unlike Mako, the author actually has other character talk about how badass he is.

That might be putting it a bit too strongly.

Well, one of the requirements for the trope is undeserved focus. The Lancer is going to get a lot of focus by definition. It doesn't matter if fans like him or not.

I'd also add that Mako rarely gets genuine Character Focus - he's usually part of someone else's storyline. Even a recent web series focused on both him and his brother instead of Mako alone.

OK, I see there are a few entries pending review:

• The Legend of Korra: Well, when counting people on the discussion page, I see that there are 3 people agreeing on Mako being a Creator's Pet and 4 people + Ironeye and Deadbeat disagreeing with the inclusion - which would be consensus against the inclusion.
• X-Men: Evolution: Rogue's entry has too little context. Jean Grey seems fine for me, for now.

edited 17th Sep '13 5:20:56 AM by SeptimusHeap

I'm not sure if anyone here watches Dragon Ball Z, but I think Mr. Satan should qualify as a Creator's Pet. Fans dislike him, but Toriyama (the writer) admits that he likes Mr. Satan. Plus, Mr. Satan received a lot of screen time in the Buu Saga, and then he gets a lot of shilling from his fans for taking all credits for beating Cell and Kid Buu.

Well, I'm removing Rogue. She was one of the most popular characters, which the creators noticed, and gave her more screen time. Kind of contrary to the reason for labelling someone a Creator's Pet.

Korra: Mako fails the Character Shilling and Character Focus requirements for Creator's Pet.

"Although this is subjective, only blatantly obvious or creator-acknowledged examples should be listed in the pages below."

I need to expresse criticim for this idea. It's defeating entire point of having examples at all - one of most common sings of Creator's Pet is when creator gets extremely defensive whenever acusses of showing sings of favoritism, if we're going to follow rule like this, we might s well just purge all examples.

I have to wonder if it's a good part of the description, period. The "author-acknowledged" bit can easily go into the bullet point about "Loved by the writers".