Well, she didn't seem to care whether her subjects of Sugar Rush became homeless or not.
I removed the entry for Big-Lipped Alligator Moment on the grounds that the "A Place Called Slaughter Race" song actually ties into Vanellope's character arc in the movie and is a direct follow-up to the Disney Princess scene where the princesses tell Vanellope about singing about your dreams. Since it has that relevance to the movie's plot, I figured that disqualified it from being a BLAM. Thoughts?
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I think you made the right call. The trope page says there shouldn't be any foreshadowing for something to be a BLAM, and it does forward the plot, since it helps Vanellope realize she wants to go to Slaughter Race.
What is the point of Ralph's entry under Designated Hero, exactly? The things listed as qualifying him were all portrayed as wrong within the film and he's only portrayed as a "hero" because he overcame his insecurities and fixed the problems he'd caused. He's not rewarded or anything, and he can't really be punished any further because he's needed back in his home game, and it's never revealed that anyone in the virtual world has the authority to govern anybody else.
So, since the mod comment wanted a discussion for Unintentionally Unsympathetic, may as well have said discussion.
Personally, I think Vanellope definitely qualifies. While Ralph is justifiably chastened for his overprotective clingyness, particularly when it results in him unleashing a virus on Slaughter Race, Vanellope's own misdeeds don't draw much condemnation from any of the characters (even Ralph, who suffers the most from them). To wit: she seems to show little appreciation for Ralph's attempts to fix Sugar Rush on her behalf, which includes raising tens of thousands of dollars in the span of a day; once the money is raised and Ralph tells her to meet him in front of eBay, she bails on him and heads to Slaughter Race instead; she decides to abandon her own game and permanently relocate to a different one (putting both at risk if someone thought her presence/absence was due to an error in the game), something that has only been done by the villain of the first movie and which said movie treated as a mortal sin, the mere mention of which prompted reactions of shock and horror; and she never bothers to discuss the move or its ramifications, either with Ralph - who she knows will be heartbroken - or with the other denizens of Sugar Rush, who might not appreciate her leaving them in the lurch. The movie more or less treats it as though Ralph was the only one of the two who screwed things up - instead of offering her own apologies for the things she did wrong, she basically just accepts Ralph's and that's that.
Vanellope basically did exactly what Ralph attempted to do in the first movie, when he decided to leave his own game and go be a hero in a different one because he was tired of the role he was given, but instead of being told off for it the way he was, the movie treated it as though she was right to "follow her dreams".
Obviously YMMV, but that's what the tab's for after all...
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I would also agree. Vanellope's actions in the movie seem quite selfish, yet unlike Ralph she never gets called out for it. It'sl a Broken Aesop from the previous movie and all of their efforts in the first movie is all rendered moot all because Vanellope is bored of being ruler of Sugar Rush.
I strongly disagree about this movie pulling a Broken Aesop, since the Aesops related to Ralph's and Vanellope's decisions to leave their games are completely different.
Ralph -temporarly- left his game because he wanted to win a medal and prove to everyone else he his more than a bad guy. He never intended to leave forever.
Vanellope transferred to Slaughter Race because she considered that place HER place, a place where she can be more than just a player's puppet, a place where she can be more, in her life, than just "Ralph's Best Friend". She DID consider the state of Sugar Rush, and she KNEW what she was doing when leaving for good. In her own words, only 9 of the 15 racers are selectable each day, and each day the selectable roster change; therefore, players wont notice if Vanellope is gone (they never did when King Candy disappeared).
Also, compare Vanellope with Turbo is really stupid. Turbo left his game (and the two NP Cs wearing blue) to hijack a game that was getting more attention. The very first thing Turbo did in that new game was causing a car accident that broke everything.
Did Vanellope ever cause intentional harm in Slaughter Race? Did she hijack it? Did she brainwash its hinabitants? No. She TALKED to them. She CONFIDED to Shank about her feelings.
If Vanellope was really acting like Turbo, she could have as well run Shank over, deleted her and taking her appearence to be the new main character.
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Broken Aesop wound up getting moved to the main page (not a YMMV entry), but I'd argue that it meets the requirements. Specifically, this example listed on the Broken Aesop page:
Distorting the moral into "It's only wrong if someone else does it" or "only if the bad guys do it."
The movie basically says game jumping is horrible when Ralph and Turbo do it, but perfectly OK when Vanellope does it.
Ralph arguably did want to leave forever, at least initially. In the Bad Anon meeting, he explained that he didn't want to be the bad guy anymore (which drew incredulous reactions from those present, including Zangief's "You can't mess with the program" line). He clearly was unsatisfied with his current role in the game, much like Vanellope became unsatisfied with hers.
And while Vanellope's situation is obviously different than Turbo's, it still puts both games at risk. Vanellope was, by all accounts, a super-popular racer - an extended absence puts Sugar Rush at risk by having people question whether her not appearing could be a result of a programming error (after all, assuming all racers have a roughly equal chance of appearing on any given day, the odds of Vanellope not showing up for a *week* are less than 1%, nevermind a longer absence). More to the point, the sudden appearance of a chibi candy-themed girl from a 90s-era kart racer in the Real Is Brown Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000 game that is Slaughter Race will immediately draw eyeballs just for how much she stands out (especially since she's running with Shank, who - based on what we see - is a common target for players to challenge), which could lead to the developers thinking the game has been hacked/infected and attempting to patch Vanellope out or otherwise alter the game in ways that could be harmful to the inhabitants.
In essence, Vanellope's decision to move games puts both at risk, as well as herself. The fact that she isn't doing so maliciously proves nothing. Ralph's decision to temporarily leave his own game in favour of another one is ample proof of that - he had the best of intentions in mind (much like Vanellope, he was just following his dreams by trying to earn a medal and prove he was more than just a Bad Guy) and was neither trying to harm his own game nor Sugar Rush or Hero's Duty, yet he nearly caused Fix-it Felix Jr. to be unplugged, messed with a player character in Hero's Duty, and unwittingly unleashed the psybugs into Sugar Rush, which nearly destroyed the entire game. That's exactly why the Bad Anon characters came down hard on Ralph - not because he intended to maliciously invade and hijack a game the way Turbo did, but because the mere act of game-jumping is so dangerous to everyone involved.
Edited by darkknight109
Is Unintentionally Sympathetic off-limits as well? While Ralph didn't handle being upset about losing Vanellope as his best friend very well, he isn't wrong to be upset, unlike how the movie seems to portray it.
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I might be the only person who sees Ralph in the wrong here...
Personally, I think it's understandable that Ralph is upset about Vanellope's decision, but intentionally unleashing a virus to ruin her favorite game as a response is a bit too far and thus I don't think he earned the 'sympathetic' part.
Sure, he didn't want Vanellope to be hurt and makes absolutely sure to ask Double Dan that the virus won't do that, but everything that happens afterward is still his own fault because he's responsible for unleashing the virus in the first place. The last time Ralph brought a virus (Cy-bug) into another game, he unintentionally put the entire arcade at risk. Now, he deliberately unleashes a virus on another game just so he could have Vanellope back, almost resulting in the total destruction of the internet (and let's not start with the offscreen damages in the real world). If anything, Ralph got off pretty lightly for the things he did in the third act.
If only he had waited to talk things through with her (Vanellope said that she'll talk to Ralph after her race. Sure, Ralph couldn't have known, but he could at least wait until she's ready), the entire climax wouldn't have happened. That's what I thought about it anyways.
Edited by Willy2537
Agreed - I think Ralph crossed a line with his actions. While the movie was still enjoyable, this is the first time I've experienced not liking the protagonists in a Disney movie.
Maybe the idea was to portray Ralph as a bumbling fool who didn't know or realise the full consequences of what he did, but to me he came across as far too clingy who didn't value Venellope as a friend but more what she represented: that he was a 'good' guy.
I don't see the confusion here — putting the virus in is a bad thing to do. He did the wrong thing.
He clearly doesn't think things through very often, and thought it was going to be a harmless glitch, like the one in Tron back in the arcade, so he's still sympathetic because he genuinely didn't know any better.
Yes, it's his own fault. Yes, he did something wrong. That's the point — the movie is about him learning both that and why how he's acting is wrong, and learning to grow past his insecurities.
Would this qualify both Ralph and Vanellope as base-breaking characters? People are divided over whether each of them qualifies as sympathetic or not, and there is plenty of evidence to support both claims.
Muddling the waters further is that like Mr Death said, doing the wrong thing and learning from it is the whole point of the movie. Both Ralph and Vanellope did the wrong thing at some point and both of them get burned from their actions: Vanellope not telling Ralph that she wants to stay in Slaughter Race results in Ralph trying to ruin her game, and Ralph putting a virus in her game results in Vanellope hating him. Learning to understand, accept each other's decisions, resolving differences in a mature way and not forcing your view on others is An Aesop of the movie. It's up to the audience to decide whose actions are more understandable and forgivable.
Kinda the epitome of the Internet as a whole, actually.
Edited by Willy2537
Is the comparison between Vanellope and Jack Skellington really warranted? Granted, I haven't seen The Nightmare Before Christmas, so there may be more of a similarity than I'm aware of, but "Disney royal who dreams of a world beyond what they're used to" sounds like the setup to a good number of Disney Princess character arcs. Why suggest a link to such a specific character as Jack Skellington?
I wouldn’t label Vanellope under those Designated Hero, Unintentionally Unsympathetic and even Esoteric Happy Ending entries because nobody actually got hurt by her decisions.
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