Complaining: Designated Hero

Designated Hero is a trope about a "heroic" character who doesn't act heroic or do any heroic things. Unfortunately, it is also a giant complaining magnet. Tropers often use it to complain about heroic characters they personally don't like. Other times, they list characters who weren't even strictly heroes to begin with, which is misuse. This wick check of 56 wicks done by myself and War Jay 77 specifically revealed the following:

• 10.71% of examples were both correct and didn't complain or use complain-y language
• 51.79% of examples were used to complain in some way
• 12.5% of examples were for characters who weren't strictly a hero
• 1.79% of examples were better fits for other tropes
• 21.43% of examples were ZCEs, and
• 1.79% of examples were unknown

As for what to do about this trope, it was suggested on the wick check thread by War Jay 77 that the trope may either need to be retooled in some way to help deal with the complaining, or alternatively may need to be moved to Flame Bait altogether. I prefer the latter personally, but whatever ends up being done this trope needs help.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Feb 9th 2021 at 10:46:26 AM

Opening this as it's the oldest thread, although I note the usual demarcation problem between "complaining" and "legit example" that appears to be at full display in the wick check.

I’m on mobile so I can’t really poke around as well; how much of the “complaining” folder would be correct examples if rewritten?

Well, we discussed this ourselves. I pointed out that complaining isn't necessarily misuse but does count as a problem in and of itself.

Ona very brief scan through, looks like quite a few.

The other thing learned: Someone Reeealy doesn't like Fanfic.My Brave Pony Starfleet Magic... (Not having read it, I have no comment)

Edited by underCoverSailsman on Mar 10th 2021 at 11:19:05 AM

Well, My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic was written by Dakari-King Mykan, who is very, very infamous fanfiction writer with a HUGE hatedom. And even that is an understatement.

Agreed, but "largely used correctly except we need to rewrite some stuff to remove complaining" is a different problem from "half the wicks are solely used to bash characters".

How does this whole thing relate to Protagonist-Centered Morality?

I'm genuinely curious. How would you define the difference between "entry is used to bash" and "entry uses complain-y language, but can be cleaned up"?

I'm using this from the wick check as a 'correct example' standard:

• YMMV.Secrets Of Da Vinci The Forbidden Manuscript: We're supposed to root for player character Valdo, even though he's an admitted forger and something of a con man. In fact, those very skills are required to solve the mystery. Correct example written in a non-complaining way.

Consider:

• Alex Mc Heroguy is supposed to be The Chosen One, but he's rude, ruthless, and has little care for the people he is supposed to protect.
• Alex Mc Heroguy is supposed to be The Chosen One, but he's a terrible person. He's rude, ruthless, and doesn't care about other characters at all. It's a wonder the show lasted long with him as the "hero".

If an example reads like the latter but can be rewritten to be like the former, I'd consider that correct with the caveat of "needs to be rewritten".

A complaining example from the wick check followed by a suggested more neutral rewrite (I don't know this work so I'm fudging it).

• YMMV.Danganronpa Togami: Byakuya is an even bigger Jerkass than normal in the novel, insulting and belittling practically everyone despite his life being on the line. What makes this worse is that he decides to Take Over the World, and sees nothing wrong with this in spite of how immoral his behavior is. Despite this, he is still meant to be the hero. (Actually this doesn't even look that bad?)
• YMMV.Danganronpa Togami: Byakuya is meant to be the hero of the novel. However, he's a bigger jerkass than normal: he insults and belittles everyone despite his life being on the line and later decides to Take Over the World.

I'm not denying it's a complaint magnet, but I'm trying to put into perspective if it can be saved, especially since the OP proposed moving to Flame Bait.

Edited by Synchronicity on Mar 10th 2021 at 1:44:14 PM

Interesting. Thanks for explaining it to me, I'll keep this in mind for future wick checks.

Anyway, I still think this trope attracts a lot of complaining. What does everyone think should be done?

Making the trope Flame Bait is a bit of a stretch. We could retool the trope, cut out shoehorns, and clean up the examples. Maybe even getting the page locked.

Is there a cleanup thread for this audience reaction? That could work either way!

Edited by callmeamuffin on Mar 10th 2021 at 7:37:17 PM

Maybe a rename to something that doesn't use the word "designated" would help (Designated Protagonist Syndrome was renamed to Vanilla Protagonist because of complaining, though it's possible that "syndrome" was more problematic than "designated" in that case), though I don't have any ideas. I don't think this should be Flame Bait because being unlikable isn't part of the definition; it's merely about heroes not acting like heroes.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 10th 2021 at 3:59:14 AM

There is not one for this or its counterpart. A long-term cleanup thread is an acceptable solution in my opinion.

Vanilla Protagonist still attracts complaining despite the rename, so I'm not sure renaming Designated Hero will solve the problem.

I also disagree with making this Flame Bait because that index means "tropes that are forbidden from being listed because they start massive edit/flame wars by their mere presence on pages." It does not mean "tropes that are blacklisted because they facilitate complaining."

Edited by Kevjro7 on Mar 10th 2021 at 2:23:14 AM

Note that I did not originally come up with the idea to make it Flame Bait, I just was quoting one of two suggestions made not by me on the wick check thread. A retool might work, though to what?

I'm also open to a cleanup thread. Maybe it could be for Designated Villain too. We could call it Designated Hero/Villain Cleanup.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Mar 10th 2021 at 5:33:43 AM

I'm aware that Vanilla Protagonist still attracts complaining. I added it to Tropes Needing TRS for that reason a while back (two or three years ago a thread was made for that reason, but wasn't able to get anything done).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 10th 2021 at 4:56:27 AM

I think I was the one who suggested Flame Bait, but it was more like a possible thing we maybe might do, more than a solution I actually support.

I still think that most of the complaining examples aren't actually using the trope wrong, but are still written to bash. "Complaining" is a weird gray area, because it doesn't necessarily mean the trope is misused, just that the examples aren't well written. So the issue at hand is to cut down on the amount of complaining the trope attracts.

A possible solution for the complaining that was suggested by this thread, and that I agree might be a good idea, is to create a cleanup thread for this trope and Designated Villain. That seems like a good idea IMO for cleaning out complaining and misuse that does not necessarily require TRS. I'm open to it personally, though I'd like to find out what everyone else here thinks about the idea.

I personally don't oppose this idea.

One thing I really want to do is get ride of the MST3K header in the DesignatedHero.Live Action Films page.

What about the other major issue that it's being used for characters who were intended to be morally ambiguous ?

I think we could stand to examine the wicks some more and tease out why it attracts complaining.

Are these the requirements of the trope? (Going off the description here)

• Narrative marks them as the person to root for
• They are unheroic in some way (actions, attitudes)
• The audience dislikes them for it

Given #3 I am not surprised it attracts complaints and I am not sure a cleanup thread will solve all the problems. Looking through the complaining wicks, examples tend to skimp on context for #1 as well.

Can we do anything to clarify #3 as that seems to be the gist of the reaction?

Edited by Synchronicity on Mar 11th 2021 at 9:02:05 AM

Do we even need #3 to be part of the definition? Wouldn't it still work if we just defined it as "The Audience finds the character to not be heroic, despite the work's claims"? Then it wouldn't necessitate a negative response or write-up.

I'm pretty sure that's the case. Plus, we already have Unintentionally Unsympathetic for when a character who isn't portrayed unsympathetically still comes across that way to audiences. Likewise, Designated Villains aren't necessarily Unintentionally Sympathetic.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 11th 2021 at 3:34:10 AM

And this reaction doesn't apply to works with Grey-and-Grey Morality, Black-and-Grey Morality, Evil Versus Evil, etc, since the audience isn't supposed to root for anybody, right? I recently deleted this example from YMMV.Hunter X Hunter, for example:

• Designated Hero: Gon can be considered this. He risks his and Killua's lives (not that Killua doesn't follow Gon willingly) just so he can meet a father that admitted to abandoning him, and yet he refuses to acknowledge his birth mother because she didn't raise him without knowing anything about her. He sweeps the fact that Killua murdered a handful of innocent people during the Hunter Exam under the rug. He makes Hanzo forfeit his battle by forcing him to make a Sadistic Choice. He threatens to murder an innocent, already-injured girl just so Pitou can heal Kite. When Kite turned out to be fine, he shows no regrets for the lines he crossed just so he could avenge him being All for Nothing.

Gon is supposed to be a deconstruction of the Stock Shōnen Hero (naive, friendly, well-intended, but unlike most, he takes his determination to Machiavellian extremes). I guess this could be the Intended Audience Reaction version of this?