Cartoon characters you feel sorry for (Woobies)

Redwall is full on Black-and-White Morality. It's almost memetic how the "evil" species deserve to be killed whenever possible (with a very small number of token exceptions) while the "good" species are universally paragons of virtue. There's no Ron the Death Eater to it, the villains are pretty much always complete monsters...but even the pettiest mook gets the treatment, too. I mean, Sela isn't presented sympathetically at all; we're supposed to cheer that our heroes just sent an unarmed medic to her death for having a sociopathic son.

Eh, can't explain much to that outside incompetent writing then, or someone with a very What Measure Is a Non-Cute? complex on board.

Granted while The Dreamstone made the Urpneys sympathetic, it seem like it was trying very hard to enthasise they deserved it and the heroes were harmonious defensive-only characters with the much larger moral ground, albeit in a 'tell don't show' sense. Did Redwall have a lot of And That's Terrible by any chance?

edited 18th Dec '12 9:46:09 PM by Psi001

Been a while since I saw it, but it's worth noting that, unlike The Dreamstone, Redwall is a straight up fantasy war story with lots of death on both sides. The cartoon tries to have the tone of a more standard children's adventure cartoon, but doesn't really attempt to gloss over the sheer body count.

Should point out that in the book, she never made it into the abbey, and was killed after being caught by Cluny trying to eavesdrop on his battle plans. She almost talks her way out of it, but her son, Chickenhound lets slip something neither of them are supposed to know (he escapes the ordeal critically injured, presumed dead). Heck, in retrospect, the reason she gets punched by Constance is because her Jerkass son was the one to deliver the message about the meeting, and, well, he's a Jerkass.

I think the problem with both cartoons is they were trying to 'have their cake and eat it too' and appealing to two very different markets, but the tone they tried to make for either just didn't gel.

Redwall wanted to replicate the dark subject matter of the books while also appealing to a younger market (which likely led to them trying to enthasise such moments with the villains as light hearted and deserved, and almost certainly adding the "Everybody Laughs" Ending).

The Dreamstone I think wanted to be a Villain Protagonist show (if anything it may have made for a clever What Measure Is a Non-Cute? deconstruction) but likely tried to keep the most vague amount of sympathy towards the heroes to remain respectful to Mike Jupp's concepts (where Rufus is clearly the main character), and likely also so they could market the cutesy heroes to younger audiences for merchandise profit. So they continued making the Urpneys sympathetic while adding a half hearted effort in vain to make the heroes look admirable and provoked as well. The more I look at the show however, the more I think they just didn't have a clue how to use Jupp's ideas outside for Looney Tunes slapstick. They did the same for Bimble's Bucket from what I remember of it. He really should have sold his ideas to someone who had a real passion for them.

edited 19th Dec '12 12:52:00 AM by Psi001

I'm a reader of the Redwall books. I'm currently listening to Mossflower on audiobook - the audiobooks were narrated by the late author Brian Jacques and a full cast. Mossflower is one fo the earlier ones and quite entertaining.

I have seen the animated version (all seasons) and enjoyed it reasonably well, even despite the issues mentioned. But I tend to have something a soft spot for cartoons animated by Nelvana. I also applaud them for the show's serialized nature, which is very rare in a show like that aimed at that age group. The only other one I know of that did it successfully was Toad Patrol. (Very good show there, much underappreciated and undernoticed.)

edited 19th Dec '12 2:34:46 PM by JMQwilleran

Don't get me wrong, I also actually liked the adaptation myself (though admittedly, when I watched it the first time, I was unable to watch the third episode). I also have to say I like how seasons 2 and 3 went for an even more serialized plot. If there was one other big problem with the first season, it was how it broke up all the parallel plot threads and had them all run in a linear sequence that Matthias could take part in.

That said, maybe I need more context, but given what I know about Mossflower, isn't Fortunata's death kinda...excessive? I mean, not that she probably doesn't deserve it, but does she at least, I don't know, figure out what's going on and try to kill Mask before getting pumped full of arrows?

Nope, I think she was clueless. But she was about to travel with the Mask back to Kotir, ostensibly so that they could deliver information that would have delivered the woodlanders to doom.

edited 19th Dec '12 7:00:50 PM by JMQwilleran

I guess a lot of cartoon writers overestimate how much viewers want to see their villains get taken down. I get younger kids often have a more simplistic moral bound viewpoint (I did actually like Rufus and Amberley over the Urpneys when I was a little kid) but it seems odd so many would have such a black and white treatment of things since you think they would be compelled to make their heroes look benevolent. Redwall I suppose could be a nod to many ancient or medieval heroes I suppose, given how completely grey toned and Blood Knight-ish olden heroes could be, but they're still appealing to a modern audience.

Maybe it's just because I'm hypersensitive about how much abuse a hero can dish a villain and still look provoked (especially if said villain takes a lot more than they dish out). Even for the most likeable of heroes I usually find at least one instance they had way too much of an overzeal, either by taking their retribution completely overboard, or almost just seeming to be picking on the villain unprovoked out of reflex.

Tom And Jerry was of the few examples where writers were self aware that their hero could be a dick at times and remedied around it by actually having him lose on an unrare basis, and even then it is allegedly only because they got loads of fan letters expressing sympathy for all the abuse Tom suffered (Tom was admitedly one of the few instances of a villain I liked even when I was little, and only started to sympathise with Jerry as I grew up, though it may have just been due to my fondness for cats so What Measure Is a Non-Cute? didn't work on me that time).

edited 19th Dec '12 10:16:43 PM by Psi001

Yeah, I have no doubt Fortunata is evil, but given that, as I understand it, she's not exactly a combatant (even if she has a high rank), a small army of archers feels kind of...excessive. I mean, given her plans, I'd understand it if Mask just flipped out and killed her himself. But a hidden firing squad just for one person? With those kinds of numbers, I don't see why they just can't capture her.

I think what I sort of like is just a bit of, for lack of a better term, honesty from the heroes. I mean, I don't complain about how much murder Ezio gets away with in Assassins Creed, because, really, it's right there in the title. But a supposedly squeaky clean kids' hero who has no problem killing on a regular basis is rather...alarming. Thankfully, I'm fairly certain that's limited to Redwall.

It's the difference to me between, say, Optimus Prime in the animated Transformers movie saying "Megatron must be stopped, no matter the cost" and coming close to putting him down like a rabid dog, versus the live action movie where he's all murder happy and spouting sociopathic one liners.

I guess that's really the problem, it's Moral Dissonance in many places. As said a character like Jerry who is outright painted as mischevious and occasionally suffering after going too far seems less annoying (even if many imitators and revivals seemed to lose the point of this). I could argue he's actually more sympathetic than average Golden Age heroes since he's far more fallible as a result and shown as flawed enough to get in over his head (Bugs Bunny had similar moments, if rarer).

The Dreamstone really bugged me however since aside from their treatment of the Urpneys, the Noops were portrayed as nothing short of peaceful and kind to the point of being sickly sweet, which made them look insufferably self righteous in their overzeal (the clear 'winners vs losers' format didn't help either since they almost always kept their pedestal). If they had been painted as a more deliberately grey toned, or even something along the lines of Jerry I likely wouldn't minded nearly as much (I could argue a haughty character like Amberley would have used much more of her potential that way). Admitedly they did tone down in later episodes, they were at least more pragmatic and there were a couple of times they suffered some sort of karmic backfire when they went too far (and even a borderline case of them "losing" an episode), but they were rare and naturally far softer blows than what the Urpneys suffered.

I do remember the G1 version used Heel–Face Brainwashing in one instance however, with no real morality issue, which was not regarded well with fans (especially since the targeted Decepticon was painted so sympathetically in the same episode). Granted it was an instance of a plan almost karmically backfiring horribly and it did seem in the end they wanted Devastator to switch sides willingly (even if they still had trouble understanding why he didn't after all that).

edited 28th Dec '12 4:58:58 PM by Psi001

There was also the episode where the Decepticons kidnapped Gears and took away his perennial bad mood, making him cheerful and helpful to them. Didn't stop him from insulting Megatron, though.

• Meg Griffin. Enough said.

• Maurice from Penguins of Madagascar.

• Tootie from Fairly Odd Parents.

@Psi, I understand that feeling about Tom. I don't like cats, and in a cat vs. dog scenario, I'll always pull for the dog. Not just because I love dogs, but because the dog is always the one that gets blamed for it in the end, even if it was the cat who instigated the fight. But, in Tom and Jerry, I hated how Tom would always get blamed for everything that went wrong, and how mean everyone was to him. So, I feel sorry for Tom.

But otherwise, I feel sorry for Oscar Proud from the Proud Family. Though he was ignorant, he didn't deserve a lot of the abuse that was doled out to him.

Also, I feel sorry for Vicky from the Fairly Odd Parents. I think she's a good person at heart, but she's just had a rough life and some anger issues. And she's never actually done anything that bad to Timmy, all she really did was yell and hurl insults at him. But Timmy has tried to ruin her life on more than one occasion. That's not right.

Because she's ruined his life for two years, along with anyone else with the misfortune of knowing her. Or did you forget that even her parents live in terror of Vicky's wrath?

Let's not forget in the newer episodes she tries to seriously murder the boy.

Whoa there, partner. I'm not saying she's an angel, but aside from verbal assaults, Vicky hasn't really done much to Timmy IMO. Yeah, she's mean, and a little verbally abusive, but that seems to be a pretty common theme in the way the other characters treat Timmy. Heck, if it was a crime, Crocker would definitely be locked up for mistreating and stalking students, and Timmy's parents too for child neglect. Everyone treats Timmy badly. He's a woobie himself, but I don't feel sorry for him because he has godparents to help him deal. He's just too stupid to use them properly!

I'll admit I haven't seen some of the newer episodes. But from what I'd seen, she was just a mean girl, not a murderer. But I'll take your word for it.

Channel Chasers even show her bringing medieval weapons to have fun with Timmy.

@112 I agree with you about Tootie.

It's zig-zagged for me when it comes to feeling sorry for Timmy because in some episodes, he's a bit of a jerk.

@True Ruby: I'm mixed about cat vs dog scenarios, since usually cats seem to be the Designated Villain of most slapstick cartoons, and the dog usually gets away with beating the cat senseless for some minor tiffle. Tom and Jerry and the Sylvester shorts are good examples (though they at least try to make Spike more sympathetic as the former shorts progress, at least to the point you can kinda get where his contempt for Tom comes from). It really depends whether the dog is the protagonist or not, otherwise he's usually just an Angry Guard Dog that's set on the cat.

I remember Roobarb being kinda Woobie-ish however, depending on Custard's mood in each episode.

edited 28th Dec '12 5:09:26 PM by Psi001

Why does TV like to antagonize cats? Sure, they breed like bunnies and are lazy, but dogs can hurt your ears and hump your leg. Plus, cats are relatively easy to take care of.

I guess because it's easy? There are a lot of positives about cats, but it's very easy to accentuate their negative traits. And dogs have that positive image as "man's best friend," so they tend not to focus on the negatives of them.

edited 28th Dec '12 7:29:50 PM by JMQwilleran

Cats are known as predators, they prey on smaller weaker animals, thus are easier to portray as "bullies" to an underdog protagonist. Granted a lot of cartoons still don't get around the hypocritical undertones very well (Jerry was still depicted rather consistantly as a 'pest' that the house owners wanted rid of, both Sylvester and Tom were picked on by their 'victims' unprovoked at times, and both of them were shamed and punished for both attacking and not attacking them by bystanders).

Tom was actually one of the more tolerable examples, since it at least accepted there were points he was just too sympathetic for his own good and got a bone thrown a healthy number of times.

Tiny Toons had an interesting deconstruction. Furrball was still an enormous Butt-Monkey when chasing Sweetie, but Sweetie herself was reduced to a luckless antagonist when chasing worms, thus the show was demonizing carnivores as a whole than just cats, if that is any better.

edited 28th Dec '12 7:48:23 PM by Psi001

Zak Saturday- I just feel sorry for him. It's admirable (more or less) that his parents want to keep him safe, but i think they go a little too far with it sometimes. I mean, he lives the life of constant globe-trotting, coming face-to-face with various strange creatures, and is shown and helps build various dangerous weaponry. It just seems to me that if Zak were to not touch any of these devices, did everything his parents told him and kept away from all kinds of conflict at all times, and was always serious without making a single joke, his parents might have thought that there was something wrong with him. And if he turned out weak and unprepared for the world, that would be Doc and Drew's fault without question.

Jake Long- Like Zak, i think Jake is given too much guff just for being who he is. His Grandfather works him not stop without letting him have any semblance of a real life, and his "Animal Guardian" just lets it happen. His mother allows this to happen, still expects him to do well in school, and puts most of her loving attention on Jake's stuck up sister, who he is always expected to watch over and love without question (who, by the way, never gets punished for anything). His father and his mother keep him in lock down, even though Trixie and Spud are allowed to fully do whatever they want. His teacher looks down on him nonstop, even though he's been a failure his whole life. And to top it all off, he's expected to watch over an entire city of magical creatures and like it. The only remotely good thing Jake had in all of this madness was Rose, and fate even conspired to take her away from him, no one even thought it was a good idea for Jake to be dating her (NEWS FLASH: Jake revealed his identity to Rose just as she was about to slay him, and after seeing this, she lets him go. Furthermore, if Rose really was bent on slaying Jake, why would she have waited so long? She knows who Jake is, if she really was a bad guy, Jake and his family wouldn't have survived the night, yet the Huntsclan had to spy on her to get that info, what does that say about this "Evil dragon-slayer"?)This is all a problem for me because I've had thoughts about a crossover between "American Dragon: Jake Long", "Danny Phantom" and "The Life and Times of Juniper Lee", and every time, i had my eyes on Jake being the one in charge. However, because of the way the show portrays him, the fact of the matter is that Jake has been made to have made more mistakes that both Juniper Lee and Danny Phantom, which implies that Danny and June are more mature about what they do. This actually brings up another point, Jake is often told to take what he does seriously, but like i said with Zak, if he were too serious, did whatever he was told when he was told to and made no attempt to have social life of any kind, his friends and family would think that there was something wrong with him.

Kewl-Breeze/Matt Martin- He was getting insulted, ignored and abandoned at every turn. He is blamed for the events that caused Zevo-3 to come to be. The series makes it so that if Matt hadn't caused that happen, there would be no Stankfoot or mutant army. And Jason and Ellie continuously desert and insult him. They don't even show him being able to fight on his own, Z-Strap and Elastika have to always be there.

EDIT

edited 28th Mar '13 11:25:22 AM by MsCC93

I'll just say that you haven't seen anything yet.