History Main / EightDeadlyWords

* This trope, along with TooBleakStoppedCaring, is one of the most common criticisms leveled against ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUsPartII'' by [[BrokenBase its detractors]]. In [[VideoGame/TheLastOfUs the first game]], there were still enough likable characters and hope for a positive outcome that players were still able to get invested in the world and narrative, with Joel and Ellie's relationship playing a big part in that. ''Part II'' however, was criticized for being much darker while also lacking the same ray of hope that the first game and its BittersweetEnding gave off. [[spoiler: Joel is brutally murdered]] early on in the game, with lots of screen-time instead being given to several new side characters, many of whom have been criticized for being [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic unlikable and unsympathetic]] (with the ones that aren't being sidelined, tortured, or killed off in some way), whilst Ellie is relegated to a cold-blooded killer on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge. Abby, the character responsible for [[spoiler: Joel's death]], is a playable protagonist for nearly half of the game, with her sections having also been criticized for being almost as dark as Ellie's--a sentiment which is exacerbated by the game's obvious favoritism towards the former over the latter, in addition to [[MoralDissonance many players finding it difficult (if not impossible) to sympathize with or root for Abby]] after she so callously murdered such a beloved character as [[spoiler: Joel]]. As a result, the game quickly became infamous for turning many players off to (and retroactively taking away any enjoyment they could derive from) the franchise, with [[WebVideo/TheAngryJoeShow Angry Joe]] and [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] both going so far as to place it on their worst games of 2020 lists.
-->'''Angry Joe''': When you completely '''shit''' on the characters that we've loved for so long; when you replace them with '''worse''' characters; when you treat your ''few'', new good characters like '''shit''' and misuse ''them'' even; when you leave everything in a worse place than before, and make us ''not even give a shit about the license anymore'', '''it is a bad fucking time''', period! And a bad fucking game! [...] And that's why, for me, ''The Last of Us 2'' was '''so''' disappointing, that it went to the worst games of the year!

Note that "not caring about what happens to" a character is not the same as "[[TheScrappy not liking]]" them -- some character archetypes, such as the UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist, HateSink, or just a really good villain, work because they are conduits for LaserGuidedKarma. In other words, even if you ''hate'' the character, you still ''[[LoveToHate care about what happens to them]]'' because you want to see them get their comeuppance. After all, the opposite of love is not hate, but '''apathy''', and this trope is about when that apathy has set in.

See also SoBleakItsBoring (originally called Darkness Induced Audience Apathy), where an excessively dark setting renders the protagonist's struggle so futile that the audience can't bring themselves to get invested in it even if the characters have some shred of likability.

* This trope, along with DarknessInducedAudienceApathy, is one of the most common criticisms leveled against ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUsPartII'' by [[BrokenBase its detractors]]. In [[VideoGame/TheLastOfUs the first game]], there were still enough likable characters and hope for a positive outcome that players were still able to get invested in the world and narrative, with Joel and Ellie's relationship playing a big part in that. ''Part II'' however, was criticized for being much darker while also lacking the same ray of hope that the first game and its BittersweetEnding gave off. [[spoiler: Joel is brutally murdered]] early on in the game, with lots of screen-time instead being given to several new side characters, many of whom have been criticized for being [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic unlikable and unsympathetic]] (with the ones that aren't being sidelined, tortured, or killed off in some way), whilst Ellie is relegated to a cold-blooded killer on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge. Abby, the character responsible for [[spoiler: Joel's death]], is a playable protagonist for nearly half of the game, with her sections having also been criticized for being almost as dark as Ellie's--a sentiment which is exacerbated by the game's obvious favoritism towards the former over the latter, in addition to [[MoralDissonance many players finding it difficult (if not impossible) to sympathize with or root for Abby]] after she so callously murdered such a beloved character as [[spoiler: Joel]]. As a result, the game quickly became infamous for turning many players off to (and retroactively taking away any enjoyment they could derive from) the franchise, with [[WebVideo/TheAngryJoeShow Angry Joe]] and [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] both going so far as to place it on their worst games of 2020 lists.

* ''Creator/JamesRolfe'' feels this way about ''Film/Halloween5TheRevengeOfMichaelMyers''. Because of how many fakeouts there are in the movie with pranksters pretending to be the killer, it undermines the presence of the real killer and makes it hard to care about him because "it could just be another trickster." For other characters, because they completely dropped the plot point of Jamie Lloyd becoming a killer presumably like Michael in the end of [[Film/Halloween4TheReturnOfMichaelMyers the previous film]] and [[spoiler:ended the movie with the unexplained Man in Black [[DiabolusExMachina appearing out of nowhere to free Michael for an unexplained reason]]]], he finds it hard to care about anyone else because, since he knows the writers are willing to drop plot points and create new ones on a whim, there's no good reason to care about anyone's actions since the only thing that really affects the plot are the spontaneous whims of the writers.

See also SoBleakItsBoring, where an excessively dark setting renders the protagonist's struggle so futile that the audience can't bring themselves to get invested in it even if the characters have some shred of likability.

See also DarknessInducedAudienceApathy, where an excessively dark setting renders the protagonist's struggle so futile that the audience can't bring themselves to get invested in it even if the characters have some shred of likability.

* The ''Webvideo/BadMovieBeatdown'' episode on ''Bear'' had Film Brain getting so annoyed at the characters he gave up on their names and started using terms such as "Twat".

* ''LightNovel/RedoOfHealer'': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HJ9NNtkFNw Scamboli Reviews]] rants in his review that [[WorldOfJerkass there isn't a single likeable character in the whole show]] as all of them are, paraphrased, one-dimensional characters with nonsensical development and written to be so evil for no real reason other than making it easier to root for them to be tortured. He also remarks [[BileFascination it's more amusing to watch the comments and reactions from viewers instead.]]

-->'''Angry Joe''': When you completely '''shit''' on the characters that we've loved for so long; when you replace them with '''worse''' characters; when you treat your ''few'', new good characters like '''shit''' and misuse ''them'' even; when you leave everything in a worse place than before, and make us ''[[not even give a shit about the license anymore'', '''it is a bad fucking time''', period! And a bad fucking game! [...] And that's why, for me, ''The Last of Us 2'' was '''so''' disappointing, that it went to the worst games of the year!

-->'''Angry Joe''': When you completely '''shit''' on the characters that we've loved for so long; when you replace them with '''worse''' characters; when you treat your ''few'', new good characters like '''shit''' and misuse ''them'' even; when you leave everything in a worse place than before, and make us ''[[not even give a shit about the license anymore'', '''it is a bad fucking time''', period! And a bad fucking game! [...] And that's why, for me, ''The Last of Us 2'' was '''so''' disappointing, that it went to the worst games of the year! And you can add on to that the overreaction from developers and industry insiders who circled the fucking wagon, calling this the best game ever made as a knee jerk [reaction] to some upset fans who voiced their concerns with some with the game after some of the leaks were shared.

* This trope, along with DarknessInducedAudienceApathy, is one of the most common criticisms leveled against ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUsPartII'' by [[BrokenBase its detractors]]. In [[VideoGame/TheLastOfUs the first game]], there were still enough likable characters and hope for a positive outcome that players were still able to get invested in the world and narrative, with Joel and Ellie's relationship playing a big part in that. ''Part II'' however, was criticized for being much darker while also lacking the same ray of hope that the first game and its BittersweetEnding gave off. [[spoiler: Joel is brutally murdered]] early on in the game, with lots of screen-time instead being given to several new side characters, many of whom have been criticized for being [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic unlikable and unsympathetic]] (with the ones that aren't being sidelined, tortured, or killed off in some way), whilst Ellie is relegated to a cold-blooded killer on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge. Abby, the character responsible for [[spoiler: Joel's death]], is a playable protagonist for nearly half of the game, with her sections having also been criticized for being almost as dark as Ellie's--a sentiment which is exacerbated by the game's obvious favoritism towards the former over the latter, in addition to [[MoralDissonance many players finding it difficult (if not impossible) to sympathize with or root for Abby]] after she so callously murdered such a beloved character as [[spoiler: Joel]]. As a result, the game quickly became infamous for turning many players off to (and retroactively taking away any enjoyment they could derive from) the franchise, with [[WebOriginal/TheAngryJoeShow Angry Joe]] and [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] both going so far as to place it on their worst games of 2020 lists.

* This trope, along with DarknessInducedAudienceApathy, is one of the most common criticisms leveled against ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUsPartII'' by [[BrokenBase its detractors]]. In [[VideoGame/TheLastOfUs the first game]], there were still enough likable characters and hope for a positive outcome that players were still able to get invested in the world and narrative, with Joel and Ellie's relationship playing a big part in that. ''Part II'' however, was criticized for being much darker while also lacking the same ray of hope that the first game and its BittersweetEnding gave off. [[spoiler: Joel is brutally murdered]] early on in the game, with lots of screen-time instead being given to several new side characters, many of whom have been criticized for being [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic unlikable and unsympathetic]] (with the ones that aren't being sidelined, tortured, or killed off in some way), whilst Ellie is relegated to a cold-blooded killer on ARoaringRampageOfRevenge. Abby, the character responsible for [[spoiler: Joel's death]], is a playable protagonist for nearly half of the game, with her sections having also been criticized for being almost as dark as Ellie's--a sentiment which is exacerbated [[MoralDissonance by many players finding it difficult (if not impossible) to sympathize with or root for her]] after she had so callously murdered such a beloved character as [[spoiler: Joel]]. As a result, the game quickly became infamous for turning many fans off to (and retroactively taking away any enjoyment they could derive from) the franchise, with [[WebOriginal/TheAngryJoeShow Angry Joe]] and [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] both going so far as to place it on their worst games of 2020 lists.

* On the ''Series/{{Community}}'' episode "[[Recap/CommunityS3E05HorrorFictionInSevenSpookySteps Horror Fiction In Seven Spooky Steps]]", this is Abed's reaction to Britta's EpicFail of an attempt at creating a horror story, saying that he doesn't finds the characters interesting at all because they are dumb. This is shot back at him afterwards when his story consist of a [[RationalFic hyper-rationalist attempt at]] [[DefiedTrope defying]] all of the regular slasher victim tropes and absolutely nothing else, completely killing the suspense.

Some people have told me that FFXIII gets good about 20 hours in. You know that's not really a point in its favor, right? Put your hand on a stove for 20 hours and yeah, you'll probably stop feeling the pain, but you'll have done serious damage to yourself. The story is paced like an ant pushing a brick across a desert, the characters are either completely unlikeable or act like they're from space, and the art design is like a painting of a fireworks display: lots of garish color and flash, but take one step to the side and you'll see it's completely two-dimensional.\\

===>'''Yahtzee:''' You know why this game is on three discs? Not because it's a complex roller coaster of an epic. It's because it's padded like a menstruating firehose. I've spent the entirety of the last five hours running down three different linear corridors. if this were Modern Warfare, I'd have curb-checked every terrorist in the free world by now. The central plot element has only just been introduced! I only vaguely know what the story's about because I made myself read all that ancillary textlog bullshit. ''(increasingly angry)'' This is ''not'' good storytelling! You're supposed to ''weave'' exposition into the narrative, '''''not hand the audience a fucking glossary as they walk into the theatre!'''''\\

* The original version of ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'' was a much darker story, where the predator/prey tension was exemplified by requiring predators to wear shock collars to keep their primitive, savage ways under control. While the creative team tried to present the existence of shock collars in a lighter, comedic tone, the audience during internal viewings kept reporting that they didn't ''want'' the city to survive the movie's conflict because of the way it was treating a portion of its citizens. The creators took the advice and removed the shock collars from the story and instead focused on social bias, prejudice and stereotyping as the source of tension between predator and prey.

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* The DVD Verdict critic who reviewed the ''WesternAnimation/MarsNeedsMoms'' Blu-Ray gave this as a reason why he felt the movie was classified as "Bad", saying it's "Emotionally Uninvolving". The description was "Despite all the high-stakes life-or-death situations described here, the story never feels substantial enough to really make us care if anyone lives or dies. The movie certainly plays with rougher-than-usual emotional territory (the death of one little boy's mother may be upsetting for some kids) but none of it manages to stick." It didn't help that none of the characters were likable when they weren't threatening to cross the dreaded UncannyValley.

--> Jesus, this movie cast maybe the two most likeable leads in the WORLD but gave them such huge character flaws that it's impossible to root for EITHER of them!

--> I don't feel sympathy for ''any'' of these characters nor do I care for their survival because they're ALL IDIOTS!!! Their causing their own death through sheer idiocy or carelessness!

--> Jurassic Park isn't just an amazing experience because ''dinosaurs'', its appeal comes from the human element. What would ''you'' do if you were stuck in a broken-down dinosaur theme park? It brings it close to home and we can easily empathize with the characters on-screen since the reactions from the actors are genuine and probably similar to how you'd react in the same situation. The dinosaurs were really secondary to the emotions of the people in the midst of the action. A movie like this is only good if you care about the people caught up in it all. It's not about "Woah better run away from all these dinosaurs on the green screen!" It's really hard to care for a bunch of badly written characters who just seem like an excuse to see more dinosaurs!

* Shows up InUniverse in the play ''Theatre/{{Seminar}}'', where Leonard, a once respected novelist turned editor gives a series of writing seminars to four aspiring writers. Leonard is infamous for his BrutalHonesty and coarseness, and he repeatedly tears down what he feels are lifeless, bloodless stories from his students. When one of them protests that he hasn't spent enough time getting to know the narrator of her story, he delivers a scathing takedown that works equally well for the writer as well as her narrator.

** Mr Enter has noted that as of the "Little Yellow Book", he doesn't care about any of the main characters of ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' at all due to how Squidward's (the last character he had any care towards) actions in the end made him out to be remorseless.

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* This was a major sore point in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', where many have felt that the game tried ''too'' hard to push GrayAndGrayMorality, giving the player very little emotional investment in the people of Kirkwall. It also doesn't help that half of your party members hate each other and much of the in-game banter involves them bickering. It's enough to make you wish the entire town got swallowed by the sea. Add in some buggy gameplay and constant reuse of environments, and you're left with the most critically-panned game in the ''Dragon Age'' franchise.

* Creator/MarkTwain's essay ''[[Literature/FenimoreCoopersLiteraryOffences The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper]]'':

* The Average Viewer [[https://theaverageviewer.home.blog/2019/02/27/john-grisham-the-reckoning-2018-a-three-part-tale-that-couldve-finished-in-one/ certainly felt this way]] about ''Literature/TheReckoning'' by the time it revealed ''why'' Pete Banning murdered Pastor Bell.

Note that "not caring about what happens to" a character is not the same as "[[TheScrappy not liking]]" them -- some character archetypes, such as the UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist or HateSink, work because they are conduits for LaserGuidedKarma. In other words, even if you ''hate'' the character, you still ''[[LoveToHate care about what happens to them]]'' (because you want to see them get their comeuppance), so you'll still follow the story. After all, the opposite of love is not hate, but '''apathy''', and this trope is about when that apathy has set in.

Many {{Horror}}/monster/{{Disaster Movie}}s try to avoid this by DevelopingDoomedCharacters, only to make the audience care ''less'' about the characters because they aren't getting [[JustHereForGodzilla the slaughter they came there to see]], and wondering why they're spending the first quarter-to-third of the movie with people they don't give a flip about. Of course, those who ''are'' JustHereForGodzilla might have the patience to wait things out.

** Held up as one of the biggest failings of ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'' in his epic 3-hour deconstruction of the film, ''Really That Bad'':

* Slacktivist's page-by-page review of ''Literature/LeftBehind'' often notes how the main characters are far less likable than the villain - who, of course, is the Antichrist. "[[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2009/09/04/tf-no-heroes/ No Heroes]]" is part of their review:

Note that "not caring about what happens to" a character is not the same as "[[TheScrappy not liking]]" them -- some character archetypes, such as the UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist or HateSink, work because they are conduits for LaserGuidedKarma. In other words, even if you ''hate'' the character, you still ''[[LoveToHate care about what happens to them]]'' (because you want to see them get their comeuppance), so you'll still follow the story. After all, the opposite of love is not hate, but '''apathy''' -- and this trope is about when that apathy has set in.

Note that "not caring about what happens to" a character is not the same as "[[TheScrappy not liking]]" them -- some character archetypes, such as the UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist or HateSink, work because they are conduits for LaserGuidedKarma. In other words, even if you ''hate'' the character, you still ''[[LoveToHate care about what happens to them]]'' (because you want to see them get their comeuppance), so you'll still follow the story. The opposite of love, after all, is not hate, but rather '''apathy''' -- and this trope is about when that apathy has set in.