Deleting some Undertale examples: Toriel doesn't even come close to qualifying, at least not for the reasons listed. People being fine with her not forgiving Asgore is not downplaying the bad points of a villain. Her grievances with Asgore aren't even portrayed as *wrong*, much less *evil*, by the game.
(You *could* make an argument that fans downplaying her kidnapping the player and holding them against their will at the beginning of the game qualify, but that's something entirely different, and I feel like few people would really make that argument anyway.)
Asriel also does not qualify. It's made clear in several lines of dialogue that you can decide for yourself if his actions as Flowey were really "his" fault, and you're outright given the option of forgiving him in-game. Also, considering he undoes all his evil actions *and* breaks the barrier at great personal expense, he's a reformed villain at worst, and treating him as such is hardly DILP. This isn't fans going crazy just because he's cute, this is an explicitly intended interpretation of the character.
Hide / Show Replies
Agree, Flowey isn't a DILP example at all
Hi,let's divide fiction and reality in tropes for others to see. Put down the sword pickUp the pen.I still don't know the meaning of life
- Sans from Undertale was hit with this hard after the Genocide got properly known on the internet and people realized that Sans wasn't just a wacky comedian, but ended up becoming the last boss of the Genocide run . Many fans take a special liking to him being apparently hugely depressed, and his entire comedic personality being a front. Especially his left eye, which begins to glow during certain parts of the final battle, has been the main focus for many artists.
I don't think Sans can really count for DILP, seeing as how he's a friendly character who only fights you when you've murdered everything in your path, then left the path to find more people to murder. If anything, The Player/Chara is the villain, he's a straight up Hero Antagonist.
Lost in time and space
Bison from the Street Fighter games is mentioned but not Vega (Balrog/Claw)? I suppose there must be a lot more fans giving leather pants to the pretty, crazy assassin than putting them on the power hungry dictator? Vega began as one of the game's final bosses without any redeeming qualities except for the fact that he was Canonically Beautiful. Fans liked him (well, some did) so much even Capcom stuck the good old Freudian Excuse on him (step-dad abused and killed his mother, young Vega snapped and killed him in return which caused an immense trauma) , which made matters only worse (or better, depending on the perspective), because now it was canon. And then Capcom went further and made him save Cammy, which hints to some goodness left in him. What happened was that fanon became canon to an extent. For the most part he's still a bloodthirsty narcissist and not the mind-controlled or misunderstood pretty boy sometimes fans want him to be. So, does having an excuse and random acts of kindness exclude from fitting this trope?
Ok seriously, am I the only one sick of people screaming that Rufus and the Turks are worse than Hitler? The former does a Heel–Face Turn and the latter are the poster people for Punch-Clock Villain. Get over it.
Shamelessly plugging my comics, Oh yes. Hide / Show Replies
In Advent Children they really go through a Heel-Face Turn, that doesn't change what they did during FF VII. Because in AC they all look great, suddenly fans seem to very easily accept the change and tend to forget the previous events. Because of the H-F Turn I'm just not sure how much they still qualify as pure DILP material, but I feel that they do. I've lost count of how many drawing and fics I've seen about how cute, sweet, funny, adorable, oh so kawaii! Reno is, completely ignoring the fact that he's yet to manifest any sort of remorse, regret or even acknowledgement about setting a bomb that destroyed part of the city, killing lots of people. We never got his motivations in FF VII and we still don't get them in AC; like you say, he's a Punch Clock Villain, but because he looks good fans will either ignore what happened or find all sorts of Freudian Excuses.
Well, seems I'm the first to start a new discussion in almost 4 years. Not that that's really an achievement, but I digress. So I added an entry involving Roxanne Wolf from Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach, and I'd like to hear how accurate what I wrote is. Should I have mentioned that the character she insults, Gregory, is a child?
Hide / Show Replies