Character Derailment Cleanup

Per this ATT, creating a thread for Character Derailment as despite it being contentious enough to be Flame Bait it had no dedicated cleanup efforts.

The biggest sort of misuse is that it used for complaints about changes when it is supposed to be (complaints?) about the unexplainedness/inexplicability of the change. Anything beyond removing misuse that can mitigate this?

Examples can be brought here to discuss or debate. While here there are also these questions that have been asked about it to try and sort out.

• Why does Character Derailment allow examples unlike some other Flame Baits despite its contentiousness? And Should it?
• How do we draw the line for drastic/inexplicable enough changes to count? Like the line between Flanderization which are exaggerating established traits and Derailment which is out of nowhere traits, at what point do they/can they overlap?
• As Out-of-Character Moment and sub-trope (like Idiot Ball) are different than Derailment in they are one-off moments as opposed to character changes, how long does it have to last to instead cross over to Derailment? Like if they act OOC for a episode or arc only to get back to normal afterward, is that just OOC or Derailment?
• What do we do with fanwork examples which are a major grey area on if they are supposed to be the same canon or fall under Adaptation Personality Change?

All right. I think we can start with the following example:

• Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water: The infamous island/Africa arc is notorious for distorting the characters' personalities and relationships with each other. Nadia herself suffers from this the most. While she is a troubled character in the central plot of the story, the filler arc changes her personality from a Not Good With People sort of character to a totally unlikable, selfish, psychotic, cartoonish buffoon. It is hard not to watch any of these episodes without noticing how many times the writers press "reset" on the characters' personalities and relationships with each other. (The Lincoln Island and Africa arcs are especially insulting, for sidestories that feel very out of place with the main story arc, not to mention poorly thought out.)

Thoughts on what to do with this one?

Edited by gjjones on Feb 26th 2023 at 12:01:01 PM

Guess I'll get the ball rolling since I brought it up at ATT. Here's three entries for Bleach from the Anime & Manga page.

• Bleach:
  • Uryu seemingly has forgotten about how Mayuri tortured his grandfather to death. Instead of displaying open hatred for Mayuri when they meet up again, he only seems mildly annoyed with Mayuri, and his reaction is Played for Laughs. The show seems to be glossing over the first time they met and what Mayuri did to his grandfather and his entire clan. Sure, Uryu in the second meeting wasn't in a position to do anything about his hatred of Mayuri, being too badly injured to even stand up, but if anything that should make him him even angrier.
    • Vote to axe. Entry isn't about Uryu's actual character, it's about a plot point seemingly not being treated as seriously as it should be. Uryu however already got catharsis by nearly killing Kurotsuchi back in the Soul Society Arc, and he never is shown forgiving or even liking Kurotsuchi, barely tolerating him like everyone else does.
  • Yukio and Giriko from the Fullbring arc. They are each calm and quiet normally, but after receiving Ichigo's power, it went to their heads, causing them to become loud and boastful, Yukio declaring himself a god. Yukio, at least, seemed to return to normal after having the extra power taken away, so it may be a case of Drunk on the Dark Side.
    • Vote to axe. This situation is more accurately a result of retcon. The arc made clear that, with the exception of Tsukishima himself, all of Xcution had been under the effects of his Fullbring to give them Fake Memories and alter their personalities so as to aid the deception towards Ichigo. Giriko is subsequently shown to have always been twisted since the first use of his Fullbring was to impulsively kill his wife, whereas Yukio is shown to be slightly unhinged but not too different from his normal self, to the point it's pointed out his behavior is somewhat an act still and the he's really Just a Kid putting on airs, hence Hitsuguya not killing him like Zaraki did to Giriko. So it's overall a retcon with In-Universe reasoning, namely that Giriko's original personality was fake, and Yukio's turn isn't as bad as described.
  • As Y: Ruler of Time points out, Orihime undergoes by this for the Hueco Mundo arc. She started the series having a lot of Character Development, by learning how her powers work, being The Pollyanna in front of her bullies or enemies and being the optimistic Bunny-Ears Lawyer. Once the Arrancar Arc started, Orihime was demoted to Living MacGuffin Damsel in Distress, who could only wait to be rescued and cry for Ichigo to save her.
    • Vote to axe. Orihime is shown to still be like her original self after that arc is over, to the point some accused her of Angst? What Angst?, when it's made clear her change in personality was a result of the drastic situation, namely being taken hostage under threat of everyone she loves being killed, trapped in a foreign location, and constantly being belittled, emotionally abused, or flat out assaulted by her jailers, making her personality shift make sense, and be not that different from when Rukia had become impressioned and grimly accepted her execution.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Feb 26th 2023 at 2:56:35 PM

Just wanted to take issue with this example from Warrior Cats:

Warrior Cats: Double subverted in Twilight when some of the characters are confused about how Onestar became such an ass overnight. It's at first dismissed as him asserting Wind Clan's independence, but it's still ongoing seven books later. In fact he's even worse now.

With Onestar it's debated by the fandom whether this is character derailment or a realistic development. For context the Clans have a pretty xenophobic and militaristic culture, but Onestar as a warrior is nice and willing to work with cats from another Clan who they are normally supposed to keep at arm's length, like his friend Firestar, the leader of ThunderClan. Him changing to be more antagonistic is preceded by him being suddenly named the next leader despite not being the second-in-command who would normally get the position, when said position is one he doesn't even want, and then the cat who got shafted out of the leader position, Mudclaw, launches a coup/civil war with some allies from their own Clan, WindClan, and others, against him trying to kill him, explicitly motivated by seeing him as a puppet of Firestar who was installed as leader under suspicious circumstances to help ThunderClan. So given that a lot of people think him pivoting to being a more aggressive leader towards the other Clans made sense given the pressures of leadership and paranoia over cats from his own Clan trying to kill him, even if it happens off screen because none of the POV characters are from his Clan.

It can count as Derailment if the justifications you provided are not provided/treated by the work as such (if it can be rationalized that just means it's not a deal breaker for fans). If CD require a threshold (higher than counts as Broken Base?) is a topic for consideration.

This ATT gave the best explanation I've seen to date for why CD allows examples. Other Flame Bait involves hatedom/attacks on fandom but not this. Seem valid?

Thoughts about these examples?

• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Twilight Sparkle is a kind, moral and intelligent individual who is protective of her friends, to the point where she was willing to hand over godlike power to a malevolent demon so he'd let them go. In the IDW My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic comic, she's possessed of an extremely arbitrary and obstructive morality that she'd do things like not intervene when her friends were getting assaulted, or not intervene when a bunch of thugs were terrorizing a town, or scold her friends when they tear up a legal document that the aforementioned thugs were using to acquire a piece of property despite their blatant campaign of terror against the townsfolk that should get them laughed out of court, or concocting a plan that involves them kidnapping and impersonating the notary to commit fraud so she would have an excuse to use her magic. This is also under Out-of-Character Moment, and she does return to her normal character immediately after this arc/episode. So how long does the derailment have to last for it to count as CD as opposed to just OOC?
• Bloo in the Pilot of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and Bloo during the main show are practically two different characters. Bloo in the pilot and some of the earlier episodes is a friendly and well-meaning but mischievous imaginary friend who likes to have fun. In the rest of the series, he's just a Jerkass who will do anything to get what he wants and loves being stupid and breaking the rules. What are/should be the limits on Characterization Marches On (not yet establishing a consistent characterization to derail) disqualifying Derailment?

I don't think the first counts because it seems too brief. I'm not sure about the second one, though I'm leaning on saying it's just Took a Level in Jerkass. (For the record, I have watched the show, though that was a while ago.)

Any input on the Bleach examples I brought up?

I agree Uryu isn't an example and I agree it's more about the plot point. I also feel Orihime doesn't count and to me it sounds like someone complaining about her role. As for Yukio and Giriko, I'd cut that too because there's a reason why they changed.

Moving ahead with all three then.

Okay, saw this on the ATT thread and it kind of blew my mind, but checking the description it's actually there. Which definitely makes me wonder whether the 'Broken Base over whether it counts is fine' stuff is okay, because when that's put together this with it REALLY feels like a very disingenuous, deliberately two-faced attempt to allow for unchecked complaining. In practice Character Derailment is an entirely negative page - I have never seen it used positively or even neutrally and it's literally Flame Bait.

Bringing this over from the ATT thread, I saw this on CharacterDerailment.Western Animation:

• Diesel 10, who currently provides the page image, is a very unique case of derailment. In his debut in Thomas and the Magic Railroad, he was a murderous monster who was out for blood, wanting to completely and utterly destroy the steam engines. In his unexpected second appearance in Calling All Engines, he's somehow become nicer with almost no given explanation, and quite willingly helps Thomas repair the new Sodor Airport. In his defense, it was related more to necessity since a decline in tourists brought in by the airport in question would've spelt doom for the entire railway, including him. Even so, he doesn't display any sort of gruffness or malice, and again, does it with a big smile on his face. However, when brought in for the CGI series, he became more of a mix of the two. Whilst he certainly wasn't nice like he was in CAE, it wasn't up to his TATMR persona, as he's now become more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist in that he wants his fellow diesels to receive more praise and attention than what they have, believing that they've become overlooked in favor of the steam engines, and while he certainly doesn't like them, he does realize when he's gone too far whenever he deals with them. It has given him more of a personality though, as some felt that his TATMR appearance was more of a Generic Doomsday Villain than an actual character. His appearance in Day of the Diesels returns him to his original villainous persona, where he and his band of diesels seize control of the Steamworks.

I think the problem I have with this entry is that it doesn't factor the fact that Thomas and the Magic Railroad is Canon Discontinuity. Nothing from that movie is ever mentioned in the starting with the season after the movie aside from lifting a couple of characters from it. It's one thing for a character to suddenly change personalities in the actual show, but it’s also another for a non-canon character brought into canon to have a completely different personality.

So, I want to ask, does an entry a character debuts in being rendered Canon Discontinuity disqualify it from Character Derailment if they go on to display a different personality in an entry that is part of canon?

Its been ages since I've seen Thomas but I recall Thomas already knew who Diesel 10 was when he made his tv show debut, which indicates to me 'that "The Magical Railroad'' happened in canon, or at least a Broad Strokes version of it. But if I'm reading too far into this, I'd say delete it because it is a separate continuity.