The Broken Base cleanup thread discusses about examples in Broken Base, but this talks about examples in YMMV pages of works containing Base-Breaking Character, (despite being an Example Sectionectomy, this can still be seen in the YMMV pages of works) where the details on what is suitable is also vague.
Here is the criteria for Base-Breaking Character:
- A long-term, sustained conflict: Characters that were simply hated and loved, then had their interest evaporated away (both positive and negative) after a few months doesn't count. Characters in upcoming works also don't count.
- A vicious conflict: Factions that have little problem co-existing and doesn't mind about what the other faction likes or dislikes about the character doesn't count. If it's not particularly vicious and heated, then it would be cut or be listed as a Downplayed Trope.
- Two (or more) vocal, almost equally sized factions: A tiny Vocal Minority that doesn't shut up their pet peeve, whilst being outnumbered by more reasonable fans don't count. Nor does a Silent Majority who doesn't make a big deal with the other side count. If one of the hating factions is significantly bigger than the other, it would be classified as The Scrappy or an Ensemble Dark Horse.
- Little to no Middle ground: Scenarios where most of the fandom doesn't care about the character, don't count.
Base-Breaking Character is when half of the fandom likes a character, yet another equally sized half dislikes it. Now that happens, but the problem is, some entries aren't really contentious (thus not resulting in flame wars when someone says they "liked that character"). Also, several entries are one-sided towards the negative or the positive side describing that only side in detail, but then wrapping up with a single line saying "But the other half likes that character". A correct way would be describing it like "a split in the Fandom on who likes it or not", with details on both sides why they're liked and disliked.
Here's an example from YMMV.Undertale:
- Alphys. A lot of players find her character gimmick of constant messages and attempts to help more annoying than funny, especially on repeat playthroughs. And even though she has sympathetic reasons, the reveal that she's been experimenting on sick monsters to create the Amalgamates and manipulating the player to feel better about herself doesn't help, especially since she never directly apologizes for the latter.
While it may have annoyed players due to these reasons above, there has been a considerable amount of fanarts and comics or her, and not only that, the like-dislike situation hasn't been so contentious (compared to Sans, whom he's popular, now he sucks.)
edited 21st Feb '18 1:46:31 PM by AppleGates
Showtime!
Read rule one, dude
Anyways, they shouldn't be removed, they're still base-breakers
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?
Sorry, didn’t notice that tone. It’s just like everyone dumping me and all I want is to be noticed
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
So, a while back we hid this entry on YMMV.She Hulk Attorney At Law:
- Base-Breaking Character: She-Hulk herself, aka Jennifer Walters. Putting aside the dodgy CGI viewers are divided on how well-written she is. Fans of Jen cite her snarky fourth wall breaks as a highlight of the show, with these fans finding Jen's struggles as both a hero and lawyer make for relatable well-developed drama. Detractors, however, find Jen's comedic quirks to be annoying and find Jen's grievances in her career and personal life to be at best, overblown, or at worst, acts of entitlement.
We did so because it was hard to tell if it was actually fans of the show or if it was people who already hated the show. I thought it would be good to rediscuss it since the show has since been cancelled and I don't see her appearing again soon. Do we want to keep and unhide it or get rid of it until she appears again if she does?
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
From H₂O: Just Add Water:
- Zane in season 3, big time. He basically goes back to being a snobby, scammy, arrogant jerk, even going as far as kissing Will's "evil" sister Sophie right in front of Rikki, his GIRLFRIEND, and then declaring "it was nothing" to her when she rightfully called him out on that. Later he tries to blackmail her back into the relationship, throwing in such hints as if he doesn't need to "keep the secret anymore". And that's while still keeping Sophie close. It's like he was stripped off of his previous character development where he could be mean and pushy, but never as bad.
Should we cut this or just reword it?
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That just reads like a Character Derailment example (which is Flame Bait). It doesn't explain why some people like him. I'd just cut it, unless you know enough about the show to rewrite it (and he actually is a valid example).
Angry babby
From The Emoji Movie:
- Poop is the most popular of the emojis, only due to having the voice of Patrick Stewart. Many viewers would have preferred he take the place of Hi-5 in the mission, as he would have been at least a little more tolerable. Others, however, don't see the appeal in a role that essentially amounts to "Patrick Stewart is a talking piece of poop that does nothing but make poop jokes".
- Jailbreak does admittedly have a few fans (someone even shipped her with Wyldstyle, a character she tends to get compared to) due to her cool tomboy design and personality, but like almost everything else in the movie, she certainly is not without her haters for the belief that she's a carbon copy of Wyldstyle and that her being a princess was stolen directly from Vanellope.
- Gene himself, even to detractors. Some still find him one of the more tolerable characters in the film due to his well-meaning nature, while others feel that his character flaws are far too blatant to completely ignore and find it one of the contributions to the movie's bad quality.
I'm sure there is a very niche unironic fanbase for Emoji Movie somewhere, but these read like hater opinions, and tend to seem more like "they're terrible" versus just apathy.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
I found this under Teen Titans YMMV:
- Base-Breaking Character:
- Slade. He's either the most compelling and chilling depiction of the character to date, with his reinterpretation as The Chessmaster and Manipulative Bastard who runs on Creepy Awesome, or he's an unfaithful adaptation who completely misses what made the comics character likeable, an antiheroic mercenary and contract killer. There's also the fact of Slade often using Sladebots rather than fighting his own fights that is another matter of contention.
Does anyone else feel that this entry sounds like somebody was just complaining? I’ve never seen any conflict with this character.
I do not see any complaints or one sided moments of people from Slade if anything. To be honest I barely see any hate for him and he is considered to be the best part/villain from what I saw. So cut him.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Indeed I have never seen him hated.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Now we're so young, but we're probably gonna die
- SpongeBob SquarePants: Rube Goldfish, a character introduced in Season 11 who's become recurring character ever since. Some think that he's a funny character and do not mind his inclusion in newer episodes, or find him an obnoxious Creator's Pet that the writers have used in too many episodes.
Rube was introduced in early season 11 and hasn't actually appeared that much since then: here's the list
, with most of these being cameos. Outside of major roles in "No Pictures Please", "SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout" and "FUN-Believable", he appears for about a minute or two in "Potato Puff", "Spatula of the Heavens", and "SpongeChovy" — that's not really much in 148 episode segments and 6 and a half years on the show. Granted, he appears a bit on The Patrick Star Show, but these are usually just one or two scenes and then he goes away.
Plus, I think most people actually do like Rube? He's just a Nice Guy tourist, he doesn't really do anything annoying. I know "FUN-Believable" gets a bit of flack (I'm neutral on it) but it's more due to its slow pacing and odd jokes, nothing really from Rube specifically. I think we can cut this entry.
The things in my dreams wish they could chase me!
I’d say delete the the Emoji Movie stuff and Rube. Not sure about Slade
Angry babby
These are the examples from Futurama:
- Base-Breaking Character:
- Zapp Brannigan. Depending on who you ask, he's either hilarious or the worst character on the show.
- Zoidberg. Despite his large fanbase, many people hate him just as much as the other characters do.
- Relatedly, Hermes. Some find him a funny subversion of stereotypes around Jamaican people, but others feel his constant Kick the Dog moments towards Zoidberg completely destroy any likeability he has.
- Kif in later seasons. Some fans don't mind his relationship with Amy, while others didn't like how his personality changed from a Deadpan Snarker to an Extreme Doormat.
- Bender. Some people love him for how much of an unapologetic Jerkass he can be. However, some, especially after the first revival when Flanderization set in, see him as a Creator's Pet who gets too much focus and too much lenience for his sociopathic behavior.
The only one I might be able to get here is Zapp and Kif, but honestly I don't think any of these characters have big enough hatedoms. I have seen complaints about Bender sucking up more screentime in later seasons (or at least his episodes being more repetitive/forgettable), but Bender as a character is still extremely popular.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
I visit the Futurama fandom spaces on Tumblr and Reddit and I don't see hate for most of these characters here, so maybe it existed on older fan sites, since this seems to stem from the Comedy Central characterizations (I do not see people hate on the Fox characterizations for any of them).
Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 21st 2024 at 11:23:54 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
the Retromancer
This would require some researching, I can see them having sizable detractors.
Edited by Amonimus on Mar 20th 2024 at 7:53:12 PM
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
I'm Sad Frogerson.
I honestly haven't seen anyone really hate Zoidberg. He's definitely one of the most popular characters from the series.
Yeah, Zoidberg is a very popular character and there isn't tons of hate towards him regardless of the circumstance.
On Ringo Starr
- Base-Breaking Character:
- Right from the early days in Liverpool when he replaced Pete Best, resulting in brawls between Pete's many fangirls and those who preferred him. The argument now is more about his exact level of skill, since, depending on who you ask, he ranks anywhere from "the best and most influential drummer in music history" all the way down to "a fortunate no-talent who got scooped up by the other three at the last possible second because he was there."note
- Musicologists and musicians tend to agree that Ringo was a good drummer, on the grounds of his mastery of subtle things like tempo and timbre control; he was constantly retuning and messing with his kit in order to get different sounds out of it, he always tailored his part for each song, and while drummers in popular culture are expected to be crazy cool, Ringo disliked showing off. He only has one drum solo in the entire Beatles discography, on "The End", and even then he had to be persuaded to take it. The reason why the general public isn't unanimously agreed that he was a good drummer is that these are not the kind of drumming skills that impress non-musicians.
I don't think this qualifies since Ringo is not a fictional character, but on the other hand these are reactions within the Beatles fandom.
Angry babby
It could be moved to Broken Base.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
He/Him
I agree Move it to Broken Base
Animu
From Wonderful Everyday Down The Rabbit Hole:
- Base-Breaking Character: Takuji. Either he's one of the most fascinating and complex characters in the story, or an insufferable Holier Than Thou villain who goes too far over the Moral Event Horizon to become tolerable.
Should I cut it? I can't see much conflict because the fandom of Wonderful Everyday/ Subarashiki Hibi is very niche.
Edited by animuacid on Mar 22nd 2024 at 11:00:34 AM
Seems to be one of those cases from what you have said if that’s the case so go ahead and cut that example.
I just needed some clarification for this write-up that I just saw.
The Looney Tunes Show
- Lola Bunny has been this since she was introduced in Space Jam, and this initially continued when this new iteration was introduced. Those who weren't fans of her original one-note Ms. Fanservice personality incarnation see this Denser and Wackier version as a vast improvement, while those more nostalgic for her original version (or felt that it needed, at best, a little improvement) find her blatant stupidity annoying and her stalker tendencies outright offensive. It didn't help that the writers admitted they'd never even seen Space Jam and just wrote the new version of Lola to play to Kristen Wiig's strengths. To be fair, the arguments have died down in later years, with opinions of the new Lola leaning much more towards positive.
I am a bit confused and at the same time nowadays I do not see even tons of hate towards her last I have checked. Most of the time I see this version better than the other version if anything. Even the last part is tingling me when it comes to the trope. I would say cut her if those are the case and my reasonings.
Edited by Echidna on Mar 24th 2024 at 11:44:47 AM
Stark Holmes
Lola is way more Character Perception Evolution than being divided. I have rarely seen hate for the character (with exceptions), or even debate about her later appearances in the Looney Tunes Show.
and : This entry can be fixed by writing that some find her anticts entertainming, while some are annoyed by her presence.
Father Brown:
This entry is all about why people hate her, giving no reason why people like her. Also, there's a pothole to Damsel Scrappy which should only apply to characters who are universally hated.