Ron the Death Eater and Unintentionally Unsympathetic

As I see it, both Unintentionally Unsympathetic and Ron the Death Eater describe the same thing: fans find a character less sympathetic than the creator intended. The only difference is if the writer of the example agrees with the fans or not. If they do, it's UU, if they don't it's RTDE. This is a problem because which trope you put it under is an implicit judgement of the fan reaction, which violates the rule that YMMMV pages should neutrally document fan reactions, not take sides in them. Can anyone explain the non-subjective difference between these two tropes?

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 8th 2021 at 5:53:20 AM

RTDE is a fanfic trope, isn't it?

RTDE was recently broadened to be about general fan reaction.

Yeah, that's exactly what causes this problem, both are now just about fan opinions in general.

RTDE just went through TRS to be about trends in fandom portrayals regardless of reason. A fan might portray a hero as a shitty antagonist because they find him Unintentionally Unsympathetic, but maybe also because they just straight-up hate him for reasons that have nothing to do with sympathy, or to make way for the Fan-Preferred Couple, or because it's funny to make him an asshole, or some other cause.

I'm confused what is meant by "portray" as this is not about portrayals in fan works, it's about opinions about the character. Works that make a character an asshole just because it's funny would be Adaptational Villainy, bot RTDE.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 8th 2021 at 5:59:01 AM

Yeah, but Unintentionally Unsympathetic is a reaction to the narrative of the work not lining up with how the author intends the character to be seen. Ron the Death Eater is fans choosing to interpret a character as more evil than they actually are, whether it's based on the narrative or not.

The concepts are similar, but they're not duplicates.

Whether a fan interpretation has a basis in the narrative is subjective, the distinction basically comes down to if you support the interpretation or not. If you do, you'll think it has basis in the narrative, if you don't, you'll think it doesn't.

Well, yes, but that's not really relevant to the trope distinction.

Yes it is, "is it based in the text of the work or not" is the entire basis of the distinction you gave, and my point is that that question comes down to "does the troper agree with the interpretation". I think you're saying that there could be cases of RTDE where fans essentially admit the interpretation is wrong and not based in the work at all, but would that kind of non-serious reading even count?

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 8th 2021 at 6:07:57 AM

The distinction I gave is that Unintentionally Unsympathetic is based specifically around the narrative and what the character actually does in canon. The other is purely about fan interpretation regardless of where that interpretation came from.

It doesn't matter if RTDE can come from canon events, it just matters if it's become a popular fan interpretation or portrayal of the character. The "why" behind it doesn't change the result.

Let's put it like this. In episodes where Spongebob bothers Squidward all day but is shown as the good guy when Squidward yells at him, he's Unintentionally Unsympathetic. If there was a popular fan interpretation of Spongebob being an evil monster who tortures his "friends" For the Evulz, that's Ron the Death Eater. One is a reaction to canon events, the other is the way fans paint the character in discussions, fan works, fan art, etc.

And yes, that kind of non-serious reading totally counts. The trope name itself is based on the fact that people hated Ron so much they made him a death eater, canon be damned, even though there's literally no basis for that in the books. Hatred used to be the primary motivator, but it can be anything from Die for Our Ship to "I want to write this character as evil for the sake of an interesting story".

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 8th 2021 at 6:12:23 AM

Another way to look at it would be UU as disagreement about how a work treats a character, while RTDE involves deliberate twists/changes/exaggerations to the characters on the part of the fandom. One of the reasons it got TRS'd was that it was being conflated with Adaptational Villainy.

"I want to make this character evil for the sake of this fanfic" is Adaptational Villainy, not RTDE.

I'll agree to the idea of RTDE examples that aren't UU, but are their examples of UU that aren't also RTDE. Like, in the hypothetical Spongebob episode, fans think he comes off as in the wrong in the show, so it's Unintentionally Unsympathetic. Then fans in discussion around the episode find him in the wrong, even though that's not the creator's intent, so it's Ron the Death Eater. UU is essentially a subtrope of RTDE.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 8th 2021 at 6:33:22 AM

Yes, because fans thinking a character isn't sympathetic isn't the same as fans portraying the character as evil. If anything it has more in common with Designated Hero. You can be unsympathetic at a few points without the fanbase treating you like a villain.

It's not Ron the Death Eater until it takes on an entirely new character portrayal. Saying you think Ron's an asshole isn't RTDE. Saying that Ron wants to take over the Wizarding World is.

The issue here is that you're conflating "fans think a character did something bad" with "fans treat a character as though they're evil, especially in fan works".

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 8th 2021 at 6:40:26 AM

So is a defining aspect of Ron the Death Eater that the interpretation is wrong?

The defining aspect of it is that the interpretation is basically a completely re-imagined character. "Wrong" here just means "non-canon". There's technically no right or wrong way to interpret a work, but there is canon/not-canon.

A key aspect is that Ron the Death Eater is an outright demonization of the character. Adaptational Villainy is a reimagining of the character as more devious and evil than the original. Unintentionally Unsympathetic is more about expressing disapproval of how the situation is portrayed (such as Easily Forgiven and the reaction is "that excuse worked?").

I think interpretations can be wrong in the sense that they contradict canon. Take the Trope Namer. In canon Ron and his family are despised by the Death Eaters for being "blood traitors". It's even stated in bonus materials that he lost family members during the first wizarding war. He's shown to despise Pure-Blood supremacy and even helps The Order of The Phoenix when Voldemort comes back. He participates in Dumbledore's Army, a group of students that trains to fight the Death Eaters. To claim he would become a Death Eater completely goes against his canon characterization. I wouldn't call this Unintentionally Unsympathetic because I doubt there's a moment in the series that fans can point to and say "in this scene Ron kind of sounds like a death eater".

Well, that's what I said. "Wrong" in this case means "non canon".

I think we're focusing too much on obvious cases where RTDE is not based in canon. I want to look at an edge case. Take the debate between Ron and Hermione in book four over house elves. Ron's argument that house elves like being slaves and are natural suited to slavery is presented as true, and the reader is meant to side with him. But many fans, who feel the entire subplot as having massive Unfortunate Implications, think Ron's arguments are wrong and bear resemble each to real pro-slavery arguments. This is a clear-cut case of Unintentionally Unsympathetic. If people then say "Ron is a bigot who defends slavery", which is not the intended reading of his character, are they engaging in Ron the Death Eater, even though they have parts of the text to point to?

The text doesn't present Ron's views on house elves as correct. The books present the wizarding world's treatment of house elves as wrong. In the last book Ron even gets a moment when he realizes this. He even thinks of the safety of the house elves when Hogwarts gets attacked. I think the correct reading of the character is that he's someone with ignorant views about house elves who doesn't realize that there's anything wrong with enslaving them.

Edited by RustBeard on Oct 9th 2021 at 6:02:54 AM

This is obviously not the point, but the books clearly present Ron's position of "house elves like being slaves and should remain slaves" as correct. Ron's moment in book 7 is just "we shouldn't leave them for dead", not "they shouldn't be slaves". The narrative is so okay with wizards owning house elves that Harry owns one for the last two books, and presumably beyond. That brings to mind, would "Harry is a slave owner" be Ron the Death Eater? I don't think it's a sentence we're ever supposed to think, but it is objectively true in the books.

The distinction between real and Fantastic Racism might be useful here. Harry and Ron not being opposed to house elf indenture is presented as acceptable because (in universe) they’re a race with Blue-and-Orange Morality and What Measure Is A Nonhuman, so house elf slavery is unfortunate but not entirely transferable to real world slavery as presented. Them saying Dean Thomas should be a slave would have no such asterisk and such characterization would IMO be RTDE

Edited by Synchronicity on Oct 9th 2021 at 9:10:15 AM

We're once again just using a more extreme example. I'm asking if saying "Harry and Ron being okay with owning house elves makes them bad people" is Ron the Death Eater.

No, the books don't present the idea that house elves should be slaves as the correct position. Hermione's tactics to free them are presented as misguided, but that's not the same as saying the elves should be slaves. There's a major scene in the last book where Kreacher breaks down and it's clear that the elves don't like being enslaved.

As for Harry being a slaveowner, there's some nuance here. He owned Kreacher, but only because the alternative is to send him to live with the Malfoys. Since Kreacher was privy to the Order's secrets, this would've been a win for Voldemort. He initially tried to refuse Kreacher and only kept him when Dumbledore pointed this out to him.

Edited by RustBeard on Oct 9th 2021 at 7:27:21 AM