History Main / EightDeadlyWords

%%This is not a complaining platform. Please only add examples of specific reviews or works where this reaction is actually played out InUniverse, not works about which you personally felt this way.
%%

!! InUniverse or Cited Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''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, [[FlatCharacter 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.]]
-->'''Scamboli Reviews''': The whole anime exists just to be a brutal revenge-wish fulfillment, which by itself would be fine if the show has literally anything else to offer.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'': Linkara cites this as one of the reasons he dislikes the works created or inspired by Creator/RobLiefeld. None of the grizzled NinetiesAntiHeroes are anything more than props that fire massive guns and spew one-liners. He hardly has a clue who any of the characters are, what they like or dislike, what their hobbies are, or whether or not they like piña coladas. And they only seem capable of displaying one emotion: [[TheBerserker pissed off]]. They're all so interchangeable that Linkara makes a running joke of referring to individual early Image comics as any of the other, similar early Image comics by "mistake".
* [[http://mightygodking.com/2011/08/31/so-flashpoint/ One reviewer]] about ''{{Comicbook/Flashpoint}}'':
--> "I mean, how much killing does it really take to underscore the point that Earth-Flashpoint is a horrible place? At a certain point it all just fades into meaninglessness, a body count for the sake of a body count, all of it entirely without heft or import because it’s effectively an "imaginary story" giving the serial reader no point at which to sympathize or otherwise care about the dead bodies left in its wake. For a comics company that has predicated its existence on the idea of stories that "matter" to create an enormous MacGuffin of a story that only exists to propel the company into its reboot is shocking for all the wrong reasons."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
* 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.
* Jeremy of ''WebVideo/CinemaSins'' feels this way about the two main characters of ''WesternAnimation/{{Trolls}}'' because he finds Poppy to be such a complete idiot and Branch to be such a jerk that he doesn't care to see either of them succeed:
--> Jesus, this movie cast maybe the two most likable leads in the WORLD but gave them such huge character flaws that it's impossible to root for EITHER of them!
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* [[Creator/BobChipman Moviebob]]:
** On ''The Escapist'', they make this observation of the movie ''Film/{{Monsters|2010}}'', noting that both leads are unsympathetic {{Flat Character}}s.
** Their opinion of the human characters in ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen''.
** For ''Film/LesMiserables2012'' as well, despite praising Creator/AnneHathaway's performance.
** Held up as one of the biggest failings of ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'' in his epic 4-hour deconstruction of the film, ''Really That Bad'':
--->A movie ''killed [[Characters/SupermanTheCharacter Superman]]'' and I felt '''nothing!'''
* [[http://chromagic.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/review-battleship.html This review]] of ''Film/{{Battleship}}'' outright invokes this trope, nearly word for word.
* Peter Bradshaw expresses [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/sep/06/lawless-review this view]] of ''{{Film/Lawless}}'', calling it "an empty exercise in macho-sentimental violence", describing the supposed heroes of the film as flat heroes and the villain as "a pantomime baddie".
* Creator/RogerEbert:
** Creator/GeorgeARomero's ''Film/DayOfTheDead1985'' received [[http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19850830/REVIEWS/508300302/1023 one and a half stars]] in part because much of the movie consists of "unpleasant, violent, insane" or ridiculously noble characters shouting at each other. And while he doesn't utter the eight words out right, he does imply it by noting that, in Romero's [[Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968 previous]] [[Film/DawnOfTheDead1978 movies]], "we cared about the characters."
** Ebert sums this trope up in a review for another movie: "''Film/TheAdventuresOfFordFairlane'' [[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-adventures-of-ford-fairlane-1990 is a movie about a hero I didn't like, chasing villains I didn't hate, in a plot I didn't understand]]."
** In [[http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-usual-suspects-1995 his negative review]] for ''Film/TheUsualSuspects'', Ebert notes that "[[KudzuPlot To the degree that I do understand]], I don't care."
** For ''Film/ErinBrockovich'', he said that the film "lacks focus and energy, the character development is facile and thin."
** Ebert's review of ''Film/ExitToEden'' mentions that his notes start out remarking that the film was slow and uninvolving; by the fourth page he's writing a grocery list instead.
* WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows had such an opinion of ''Bloodhounds of Broadway'', summing it up in one word: "POINTLESS". His reason is that it's a compilation movie without any unifying story; the only common thread between the multiple plotlines is that the characters all eat at the same restaurant, and the film switches from story to story so abruptly that there's no reason to get invested in any of them.
* ''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic'':
** His harshest criticism about ''Film/TheAvengers1998'' evokes this, because he finds it next to impossible to care about the characters or what happens to them since the characters in the movie don't seem to care either:
---> If you haven’t figured it out yet, this whole entire movie is based on one friggin' joke: They’re polite. They perform incredibly dangerous stunts and react with a calm, friendly retort. That’s it! That’s where all the humor in this movie comes from. Now, let’s take out the fact that this is all based on one joke—and a particularly weak one at that—and ask one question: If nobody in this movie becomes passionate or excited about what they’re doing, ''why should we?'' Why should we care if they make it out of a situation when clearly they have as much energy and drive as Victorian senior citizen porn? Do they ever become interested in anything? Nope! They just talk politely about it throughout the entire movie.
** As does his harshest criticism about ''Film/{{Alaska}}'', where he doesn't care at all about any of the characters save for [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic immensely hating Sean]]:
---> Worst of all, it’s the lack of any interesting interaction that really sinks it. Maybe if it was just about a family in Alaska dealing with the loss of their mother while traveling in the mountains, that would have been fine. That actually would have been interesting if it was done right. But they make no attempts to have these people talk to each other like they’re family at all. The brother and sister almost never speak, the mean-spirited boy is just way too rotten, the father is forgettably bland, and they never take the time to show how what they’re going through is affecting them. It’s just set up for standard boring action scenes. Yeah, Alaska looks nice, but it’s not worth sitting through this rotten story to see it.
** For ''Film/TheLastAirbender'', they note that the movie is nothing but exposition and gives the audience no reason to care about the characters themselves:
---> '''I DON'T FUCKING CARE!''' And you know why? Because I never once heard anyone in this movie say "I 'feel' this" or "I 'like' this" or "I 'wonder' this". There are no emotions being addressed. Traditional storytelling is setting up a character, sending them on their journey, and learning more about them through their journey. ''The Last Airbender'' is just chess-piece storytelling: Character goes here, character goes there, character says this, pawn to king four.
** For ''Film/JupiterAscending'':
---> Yes, a lot of epics have big talks and complicated storylines, but the story of Myth/KingArthur works because we see our flaws and strengths in the character. ''Franchise/StarWars'' works because we like these people and want to see them get through alive. Thus, we’re with them when they’re thrown in these complex and dangerous worlds. Here, you don’t care about anybody, so you don’t care about the backstories or the made-up worlds. It attempts instead to sound big instead of feel big. It tries too hard in lesser areas and not hard enough in the ones that really matter. If there is one thing that’s epic in this film, it’s what an epic disaster it gave us in the end. It really is the Valhalla of botched epic stories.
* WebVideo/ChrisStuckmann:
** He stated in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo5NETEV0S0 his review of]] ''Film/FantasticFour2015'' that the film's poor world-building prevented him from caring about Earth as ComicBook/DoctorDoom began to destroy it, noting that a DownerEnding would have been more interesting than the actual outcome. Uninteresting characters and [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil a lack of spoiler-warning-worthy events]] hardly helped.
** He also finds this to be one of ''Film/BlackChristmas2019'''s many issues. Along with many viewers, he doesn't find ''any'' of the characters likable. The male characters are all misogynistic jerks and/or murderers (and even the sympathetic male characters end up being mostly useless), while the main characters are superficial and insufferable. Although Riley generally gets a warmer reception, even she's not enough to get most viewers invested.
--->'''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaHBX-VUc3o From the review]]:''' [Riley] is pretty much the only character in the film that you can feel some sympathy for because you understand where she's coming from and you side with her because [[RapeAsBackstory that's]] fucked up. But everyone else in the movie is basically an asshole. People just walk around and treat everybody like shit; the women talk about the men poorly, the men talk about the women poorly. There's like two nice people in the movie.
* The ''WebVideo/ScreenJunkies'' crew ''severely'' criticized ''Film/IndependenceDayResurgence'' for its lack of compelling characters and interaction. They found it hard to care whether or not the Earth is blown up, unlike the first movie. Heck, some even wish the aliens [[RootingForTheEmpire had succeeded]] if only for the studio to not churn out any more lackluster sequels.
* Creator/BradJones, in his ''WebVideo/MidnightScreenings'' review of ''Film/JasonBourne'', argued that much of the ''[[Film/TheBourneSeries Bourne]]'' series falls flat for him as he finds the main character to be an absolute bore, simply existing to get into fight scenes and lacking the charisma of comparable characters from ''Franchise/JamesBond'' or ''Film/MissionImpossible'', and pursued by government agencies that are equally uninteresting. He gave some praise to ''Film/TheBourneLegacy'' for shifting the focus to the more compelling character of Aaron Cross.
* ''WebVideo/{{Phelous}}'' reviews horror films, spewing a lot of hate at the ''Film/{{Hostel}}'' movies especially for this flaw.
* ''WebVideo/CinemaSins''' 130th sin about ''Film/{{Lucy}}''.
-->''"This movie should be f*cking OVER. Lucy wins and becomes air. I don't f*cking care what happens, except that what's actually happening is ludicrous.''
* The ''Webvideo/BadMovieBeatdown'' episode on ''Bear'' had Film Brain right at the start showing the cast is terrible ("the characters soon open their mouths, and you wish they stayed silent for the rest of the movie"), and he never even cares to bother with their names, instead calling them Whiny, Prick, Bland, and Slut.
* ''WebVideo/JonTron's'' largest complaint about ''Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark'' is that all the characters are so [[IdiotPlot monumentally stupid]] and so directly responsible for causing every single bad thing to happen with their constant idiotic decisions that he's unable to sympathize with them and simply doesn't care if they survive. The only thing he actually admits to liking is the scene of the T-Rex running amok in the city, but feels like the rest is just "going through the motions" and didn't actually understand what made the [[Film/JurassicPark first film]] such a success:
-->I don't feel sympathy for ''any'' of these characters nor do I care for their survival because they're ALL IDIOTS!!! They're causing their own death through sheer idiocy or carelessness!\\
(And later)\\
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 onscreen 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 "Whoa, 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!
* ''WebVideo/TheCriticalDrinker:''
** He felt this way about ''Film/TombRaider2018'' in his review "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL-N2Girifg Tomb Raider: The Movie Everybody Forgot]]", explaining how they made her too much of a PinballProtagonist to care about her, while every other interesting character in the film isn't in it enough to have an impact on the audience, ultimately ending in a movie where [[SoOkayItsAverage it's hard to even remember what happened to its characters, let alone care]]:
---> Lara just seems to be along for the ride on this one, bouncing from place to place until the next character or plot event comes along to tell her what to do next, and the more time I spent with her the more I realized that I didn't particularly care what happened to her. She's just not very interesting.
** In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5qh8wEa6mc The Rise of Skywalker, The Fall of Star Wars]], he claims how unlike ''Film/TheForceAwakens'' and ''Film/TheLastJedi'' which actually made him feel angry with how bad he found them to be, ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'' made him feel nothing at all:
---> There was absolutely nothing in this movie that delivered tension or drama. I never cared for a single moment about what was happening. I didn't worry about the characters or whether they would survive. I didn't feel sadness when some of them died, or relief when others came back to life. The dramatic journey in this film was a complete flat line for me and I think that speaks volumes for how badly it failed.
* Creator/JamesRolfe, on the ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}'' series:
** He 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.
** Similarly, he finds it impossible to care about the characters from ''Film/HalloweenResurrection'' simply because they never once act like real people actually would, making the movie just seem "off".
---> It tries to make the series scary again by giving it a raw, homemade feel and put us in the character's perspectives. Maybe it didn't work so well, but I have to at least give them credit for trying something new. The biggest problem is the characters all ''suck!'' We don't care if they live or die! The situations just don't seem right. Like, why are they getting nude when they know they're being watched live all over the internet? Why don't the police ever show up? Why don't they leave the house? Something just feels off the whole time.
* ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'': In Linkara's review of ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice: Ultimate Edition'', the entire movie is such a ''slog'' for him that, by the time the movie hits the titular fight, he just doesn't ''care'' for the characters anymore.
* Anthony Lane of the New Yorker ended his review of ''Literature/{{Hannibal}}'' with, "He would kill me for saying it, but he's a bore."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* The premise of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' is that the characters are forced to watch bad movies. The films are usually so bad that Joel/Mike/Jonah and the bots have zero engagement in the plot or characters, which allows the riffs to become bitingly funny. But once in a while, this would be averted, and they'd find themselves swept into the movie despite its shortcomings. ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S05E07IAccuseMyParents I Accuse My Parents]]'' and ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S05E09TheGirlInLoversLane The Girl in Lovers Lane]]'' are memorable examples of this.
* Alan Sepinwall gave a [[http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/fall-tv-reviews-mom-hostages-the-blacklist nearly word-for-word recitation]] of the trope name while reviewing ''Series/{{Hostages}}''.
* [[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/06/ryan-murphy-s-american-horror-story-is-the-craziest-show-on-tv.html Too nasty to be likable]] but not unlikable enough that you enjoyed seeing ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryMurderHouse'' characters get killed off.
* [[http://www.hitfix.com/monkeys-as-critics/sons-of-anarchy-season-six-finale-recap-a-mothers-work Geoff Berkshire, writing for Uproxx]] hit this with the season six finale of ''Series/SonsOfAnarchy'', due to it being a standout example of IdiotPlot.
--> At some point in the final season Jax will surely find out what Gemma did to Tara. And what Gemma did to John Teller. And what will Jax do?\\
I don’t care.\\
I’m not interested in another season of overstuffed episodes full of characters who alternate between boring and stupid on the whim of the writers, punctuated by childish acts of violence inserted for shock value, convoluted gang wars, endless pontificating about what makes a good man, and musical montages.
* 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 find the characters interesting at all because they are dumb. This is shot back at him afterwards when his story consists of a [[RationalFic hyper-rationalist attempt at]] [[DefiedTrope defying]] all of the regular slasher victim tropes and absolutely nothing else, completely killing the suspense.
-->'''Annie''': Ugh! Do these people ever ''die'' or what?!

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* Dorothy Heydt:
** [[TropeNamers Coined the words]] when reading [[http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/c67003d462c72a07?dmode=source Volume Two of]] ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime''
** [[http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/c0c86ef8c3d067df?dmode=source Reviewed]] a ''[[Literature/TheFionavarTapestry Fionavar Tapestry]]'' book by reusing her words.
* Creator/MarkTwain's essay ''Literature/FenimoreCoopersLiteraryOffences'':
--> 10. They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But the reader of the "Deerslayer" tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.
* 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. This is because Carpathia (said Antichrist) is a dynamic character in the sense that he is trying to change the setting's status quo through his plans and machinations. Whether his evil plots succeed or not, he is enacting them, and therefore putting events into motion because of it, so whenever he is on screen things are moving. The majority of the quote/unquote "heroes" enact no such inertia; since they believe in the biblical prophecies that the Antichrist is destined to succeed in his plans for world domination for a time before he is cast down, they believe that his ascent is unstoppable, and therefore, they don't even try. The context of the below quote comes from a scenario where Buck and Raymond discuss what to do with Buck having an upcoming face-to-face, one-on-one meeting with Carpathia. They decide to either duck the meeting, or how to go about it without making anyone mad. The review states that ''any'' other hero who is given a meeting with the villain would either stop them or redeem them: [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Buffy]] would march in with a sword and tell Carpathia that his plans stop now; [[Series/DoctorWho The Doctor]] would give him one chance to stop before he has to step up and take action, and so on. ''Any'' hero would move to stop the villain ''except the ones in these books''. The reader cannot root for them, because they take little to no action to better their situation. In fact, "[[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2009/09/04/tf-no-heroes/ No Heroes]]" is the title of their review of the chapter in question:
-->''These are books without heroes because they are set in a world without heroism — without the possibility of heroism. A world of inexorable prophecies and inevitable doom.''
* A short online story described a writer being visited by a flat character, on behalf of all the characters who have been killed by the eight deadly words, and seeking the author's help in revitalising them and making their stories engaging. The writer declines to help, since he doesn't care what happens to them either.
* 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 ''The Reckoning'' by the time it revealed ''why'' Pete Banning murdered Pastor Bell.
-->''...His wife banged the pastor—after being convinced that Pete was dead, by the way. Pete's reasoning was not only flawed, but also so inherently stupid that it makes for bad storytelling, leading to not only a unsatisfactory conclusion, but you groaning out loud at the stupidity of the author who thought that it was a good idea. And it turns out, the wife didn't even bang the pastor. She fucked the slave, which doesn't make anything better, story-wise. [[IdiotPlot If anything, it makes things worse because you realise the whole story, from Pete killing the pastor, to us reading about his time in the war and him being brave amounted to nothing because he was an idiot. I don't mean that in terms of his personality; idiots can be made into convincing characters. No, he was an idiot character, spun from nothing and given the slightest substance and depth.]]''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theatre]]
* ''Theatre/TheMusicalOfMusicalsTheMusical'' registers this complaint about the works of Music/StephenSondheim ("Unlikable people with lives that are hollow / It's all food for thought, but a bit hard to swallow...")
* 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.
-->I know who your narrator is. She's an over-educated, completely inexperienced, sexually inadequate girl who has rich parents who give her everything. She's got nothing to say so she sits around and thinks of Creator/JaneAusten all day. I don't give a '''''shit''''' about her.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''WebVideo/{{Retsupurae}}''
** LetsPlay/{{Diabetus}} declares a variation in the ''VideoGame/DarkSeedII'' wrongpurae, about the protagonist, Mike Dawson, who is suspected of murder.
--->'''LetsPlay/{{slowbeef}}:''' To be honest, do you think he did it?\\
'''Diabetus:''' I would think no.\\
'''slowbeef:''' Who do you think did?\\
'''Diabetus:''' Well the problem is I don't really care. It's like an episode of ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'', I don't really care who ''did'' it, [[{{Metaphorgotten}} I just want to see the thrilling chase.]]
** They declare the same thing when they tackle Creator/ZapDramatic's ''Ambition'' series of flash games - they hate pretty much ''every character in the series'', save for DesignatedVillain Duke Crabtree.
* This is a common criticism leveled against ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' by [[BrokenBase its detractors]]. Due to the game's exceptionally SlowPacedBeginning and the [[AllThereInTheManual reliance on datalogs]] in order to [[LostInMediasRes understand the events of the first several chapters]], many players simply give up on trying to follow the story, who the characters are, what they are doing, and ''why''. Add that to the [[NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom incredibly restrictive gameplay and level-design]], the fact that many of the protagonists [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic fail to make good first impressions]] and [[WithFriendsLikeThese all seem to hate each other]], topped off with some extremely repetitive dialogue, and you end up with a huge number of players who soon become not only ''disinterested'' in the story and characters, but intuitively ''[[TheScrappy sick of them]]''. Basically, you need ''a lot'' of empathy and patience in order to enjoy the game and see it through to the end, which, obviously, not all players are going to have.
** Even worse, it can leave such a bad impression that the Eight Deadly Words can carry directly over to its sequels. Case in point, WebVideo/JesseCox has stated that he doesn't really care for any of the characters in the ''FFXIII'' games, but it wasn't until ''VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII'' came out that he finally couldn't stand them anymore.
** ''[[WebVideo/TheSpoonyExperiment Spoony]]'' expressed the exact same sentiment [[https://youtu.be/5ys9YNgBE28?t=2009 in his review]], best summarized by this line:
--->'''Spoony:''' You have to have exposition to avoid completely alienating your audience. If they don't ''know'' anything, they can't ''care'' about anything. There's nothing, not even a brief text-crawl or introductory monologue to form even the most rudimentary base of a narrative. I don't know where we ''are''! I don't know who anyone ''is''! I don't know what the rules are, and [[ShowDontTell I shouldn't have to read]] [[AllThereInTheManual a fucking novella of footnotes to have this explained]]. And when the ''footnotes'' fail to explain its own fucking terms, I don't even know ''how'' to define what a complete failure at even the most fundamental aspects of storytelling this fucking is!
** Then there's [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee Croshaw's]] reaction:
--->'''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!'''''\\
\\
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.
* Ross Scott had this problem in his AprilFoolsDay [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4LaR1C6Xds review]] video of ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein2009'' in ''WebVideo/RosssGameDungeon''. Nobody seems to really ''react'' to or have any sense of urgency regarding the horrors around them, which fails to invest him in the characters, which in turn fails to invest him in the game itself. That on top of the characters being badly voiced and unmemorable. It was bad enough that he couldn't bring himself to finish the game, a first for the series.
** This sentiment came back full force in his look at Episode 1 of ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange''. The soap opera feel of the story, annoying and/or pretentious characters, and the bland protagonist killed his interest. He didn't even complete Episode 1 before calling it quits on the game.
* This comes up a lot in [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee's]] reviews of games (Yahtzee, as a writer himself, being a very story-based gamer), perhaps most amusingly cited in his own review of ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein2009'' (which was entirely delivered in limerick form):
-->I guess the ultimate question is “Why\\
Should I even bother to try?”\\
Every last NPC\\
Fills me with apathy.\\
Am I expected to care when they die?
* Played with in-universe in ''VideoGame/WurmOnline'', whose PVP servers have an ExcusePlot about three [[CosmeticallyDifferentSides largely interchangeable]] factions fighting a low-key ForeverWar over land and resources, with some sort of CosmicChessGame between the gods going on in the background that seems not to affect anything in the gameworld besides periodically spawning a new raid boss... But the non-PVP servers are explicitly described in the lore as being their own separate faction, formed of people who've decided that the war is stupid and pointless and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere walked away to go do their own thing.]] One cannot help but suspect a bit of RealitySubtext there, given how many players PlayTheGameSkipTheStory.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Max-Vader, veteran of the Project A.F.T.E.R. forum and sometimes co-host of the podcast ''The Other Side'' has this as one of his main reasons why he hates ''Webcomic/SugarBits'' by Creator/{{Bleedman}}.
-->''"I could forgive a bad story or clichéd writing if only the characters were likable and interesting. You see, in order to give a shit about the story, we need someone we can relate to — a protagonist with human character traits. A good example would be [[Franchise/StarWars Luke Skywalker]]. In the beginning we get to know him, learn about his hopes and dreams, and start to care about him. I can't stress this enough: Be sloppy with your writing when it comes to your protagonist, and you can kiss the slightest hope for quality storytelling goodbye. Bleedman doesn't give a shit. [[{{Wangst}} Emotional baggage]], [[DarkAndTroubledPast "tragic" pasts]] or JerkAss behavior do not make a likable, deep or interesting character."''
* ''Webcomic/DMOfTheRings'' is an InUniverse example. The comic is ostensibly about a group of people playing a TabletopGame, but the Game Master is the king of {{Railroading}} -- he expects the players to follow his script to the letter, has Gandalf as an overpowered {{GMPC}} with a death grip on plot's steering wheel, and resists any attempts to deviate as if his life depended on it. As a result, the only player even mildly invested in the plot is [[TheRoleplayer Gimli]], and even he has his limits; Aragorn and Legolas are constantly grumbling about how much they hate the game, the Hobbits quit the game after the events of ''Fellowship'' to play ''Franchise/StarWars d20'', and Frank (Boromir) left after his character died because choosing '''not''' to roll up a new character was [[IDieFree the first time he'd had anything resembling agency in the entire campaign]].
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[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''Blog/JohnKStuff'': Creator/JohnKricfalusi reviews Creator/BobClampett's black & white cartoons with animator Milt Gray, [[http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2008/06/milt-grey-on-clampetts-black-and-white.html focusing on Porky Pig]]. He claimed that WesternAnimation/{{Porky|Pig}} was basically a [[FlatCharacter boring prop character]] in the hands of Creator/TexAvery and Creator/FrankTashlin, and that Bob best understood how to make the character truly likable and sympathetic.
-->"Porky, in both Avery and Tashlin's cartoons is just this animated thing that shit happens to. You don't care about him at all. He's merely the focus of the story. In Clampett's cartoons the characters cause the story and what happens always seems spontaneous and immediate - and as a result, unpredictable. It is happening now, unplanned by a tyrannical director who merely needs characters to plug into his plot and gag structure. Clampett's unique talent is to make it appear that you are watching something in real time; animation that is shot live. He was also handicapped in this by having been forced to star Porky in every single cartoon. He did the best Porky, but Porky is basically a straight man, so Clampett had to create tons of other characters who could carry more comedy. There are some cartoons that star Porky only in name, because he got tired of ONLY directing Porky cartoons and wanted to try something different. But my point is, that only in his cartoons at the time did any of the characters seem like they were causing the action, rather than the writer and director causing the action and just plopping any old characters into the storyline."
* ''Webvideo/TheMysteriousMrEnter'':
** 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 for whom he cared at all) actions in the end made him out to be remorseless.
** In ''WesternAnimation/MrPickles'', he notes that with its first episode, he already doesn't care about any of the characters shown because they focus more on ones who won't be seen again, rather than showcasing the titular Mr. Pickles or any other main cast member.
** He outright invokes the trope when reviewing ''WesternAnimation/DaBoomCrew''; citing that the leads were all some variation of a stereotypical FlatCharacter and he didn't care about their journey because next to no identity was established for them, not to mention the ClicheStorm the story was, and the incomprehensible dialogue made them totally unsympathetic and unrelatable.
** He expresses a similar sentiment towards ''WesternAnimation/LegendsOfChamberlainHeights'' for many of the same reasons, albeit to a greater extent; to the degree that he found the series ''worse'' than the above-mentioned ''Mr. Pickles'' on the grounds that every character was an unsympathetic and unlikable imbecile.
[[/folder]]

* Max-Vader, veteran of the the Project A.F.T.E.R. forum and sometimes co-host of the podcast ''The Other Side'' has this as one of his main reasons why he hates ''Webcomic/SugarBits'' by Creator/{{Bleedman}}.

** [[TropeNamer coined the words]] when reading [[http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/c67003d462c72a07?dmode=source Volume Two of]] ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime''

* The ''Webvideo/BadMovieBeatdown'' episode on ''Bear'' had Film Brain right at the start showing the cast is terrible ("the characters soon open their mouths, and you wish they stayed silent for the rest of the movie"), and he never even cares to doesn't even bother with their names, instead calling them Whiny, Prick, Bland, and Slut.

--> I don't feel sympathy for ''any'' of these characters nor do I care for their survival because they're ALL IDIOTS!!! They're causing their own death through sheer idiocy or carelessness!
--> (And later)
--> 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 onscreen 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 "Whoa, 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!

* ''WesternAnimation/TheEmojiMovie'' is ''infamous'' for this. With almost all of the characters being {{flat|Character}}, [[TheScrappy annoying]], and/or just plain [[{{Jerkass}} unlikable]], you can't find yourself rooting for anyone to make it through in the end, with the exception of [[EnsembleDarkhorse Akiko Glitter]], [[spoiler:who is, of course, the ''only'' character to die]]. There is also the fact that Gene has what WebVideo/{{Bobsheaux}} claimed is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja2egaTGOwE#t=11m00s "probably the most depressing character motivation I've ever heard in my life."]] Add to it that WebVideo/TheMysteriousMrEnter said that it doesn’t remind him of ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'', ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'', ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie'', or even ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'', but it actually reminded him of the Creator/SeltzerAndFriedberg films, which are {{Shallow Parod|y}}ies notorious for being unfunny.

* The premise of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' is that the characters are forced to watch bad movies. The films are usually so bad that Joel/Mike/Jonah and the bots have zero engagement in the plot or characters, which allows the riffs to become bitingly funny. But once in a while this would be averted and they'd find themselves swept into the movie despite its shortcomings. ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S05E07IAccuseMyParents I Accuse My Parents]]'' and ''[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S05E09TheGirlInLoversLane The Girl in Lovers Lane]]'' are memorable examples of this.

* WebVideo/TheCriticalDrinker felt this way about ''Film/TombRaider2018'' in his review "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL-N2Girifg Tomb Raider: The Movie Everybody Forgot]]", explaining how they made her too much of a PinballProtagonist to care about her, while every other interesting character in the film isn't in it enough to have an impact on the audience, ultimately ending in a movie where [[SoOkayItsAverage it's hard to even remember what happened to its characters, let alone care]]:
--> Lara just seems to be along for the ride on this one, bouncing from place to place until the next character or plot event comes along to tell her what to do next, and the more time I spent with her the more I realized that I didn't particularly care what happened to her. She's just not very interesting.

See also TooBleakStoppedCaring, where an excessively dark setting causes audiences to stop caring even if they care about the characters as there's seemingly no chance of them getting a desirable ending.

* [[WhatCouldHaveBeen 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 (Nick would have run an illegal park where predators could take off their collars). 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 quite sensibly took the advice and removed the shock collars, toning down the conflict into a more mundane tale of social bias and unconscious prejudice that just so happens to feature FunnyAnimals.

* Creator/MarkTwain's essay ''The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper'':

See also TooBleakStoppedCaring (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.

I’m not interested in another season of overstuffed episodes full of characters who alternate between boring and stupid on the whim of the writers, punctuated by childish acts of violence inserted for shock value, convoluted gang wars, endless pontificating about what makes a good man, and musical montages.\\

* Part of the problem some faced with ''Series/GameOfThrones'' due to its grim nature, but this was especially exacerbated by Season 8 for many fans, when Breaker of Chains Daenerys turns into a mad dictator within the space of two episodes, and the Starks - generally considered the heroes of the series due to being more noble than the other ruling house, the Lannisters - become more self-centred and only willing to look out for their own house, which was the exact same flaw that the Lannisters have. This is especially noticeable when their army retakes King's Landing and Jon Snow has to restrain some of his men from sexually assaulting the civilians living there, leaving the audience to feel as though there is no one left to root for. YMMV as to whether this was the IntendedAudienceReaction.

--->'''Annie''': Ugh! Do these people ever ''die'' or what?!

* Part of the problem some faced with ''Series/{{GameOfThrones}}'' due to its grim nature, but this was especially exacerbated by Season 8 for many fans, when Breaker of Chains Daenerys turns into a mad dictator within the space of two episodes, and the Starks - generally considered the heroes of the series due to being more noble than the other ruling house, the Lannisters - become more self-centred and only willing to look out for their own house, which was the exact same flaw that the Lannisters have. This is especially noticeable when their army retakes King's Landing and Jon Snow has to restrain some of his men from sexually assaulting the civilians living there, leaving the audience to feel as though there is no one left to root for. YMMV as to whether this was the IntendedAudienceReaction.

[[/folder]]

--->'''Spoony:''' You have to have exposition to avoid completely alienating your audience. If they don't ''know'' anything, they can't ''care'' about anything. There's nothing, not even a brief text-crawl or introductory monologue to form even the most rudimentary base of a narrative. I don't know where we ''are''! I don't know who anyone ''is''! I don't know what the rules are, and [[ShowDontTell I shouldn't have to read]] [[AllThereInTheManual a fucking novella of footnotes to have this explained]]. And when the ''footnotes'' fail to explain it's own fucking terms, I don't even know ''how'' to define what a complete failure at even the most fundamental aspects of storytelling this fucking is!

* Anthony Lane of the New Yorker ended his review of Hannibal with, "He would kill me for saying it, but he's a bore."

** He stated in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo5NETEV0S0 his review of]] ''[[Film/FantasticFour2015 Fant4stic]]'' that the film's poor world-building prevented him from caring about Earth as Doctor Doom began to destroy it, noting that a DownerEnding would have been more interesting than the actual outcome. Uninteresting characters and [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil a lack of spoiler-warning-worthy events]] hardly helped.

-->'''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaHBX-VUc3o From the review]]:''' [Riley] is pretty much the only character in the film that you can feel some sympathy for because you understand where she's coming from and you side with her because [[RapeAsBackstory that's]] fucked up. But everyone else in the movie is basically an asshole. People just walk around and treat everybody like shit; the women talk about the men poorly, the men talk about the women poorly. There's like two nice people in the movie.

** Even worse, it can leave such a bad impression that the Eight Deadly Words can carry directly over to its sequels. Case in point, ''WebVideo/JesseCox'' has stated that he doesn't really care for any of the characters in the ''FFXIII'' games, but it wasn't until ''VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII'' came out that he finally couldn't stand them anymore.

* ''The Critical Drinker'' felt this way about ''Film/TombRaider2018'' in his review "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL-N2Girifg Tomb Raider: The Movie Everybody Forgot]]", explaining how they made her too much of a PinballProtagonist to care about her, while every other interesting character in the film isn't in it enough to have an impact on the audience, ultimately ending in a movie where [[SoOkayItsAverage it's hard to even remember what happened to its characters, let alone care]]:

* ''Creator/JamesRolfe'', on the ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}'' series:

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'': In Linkara's review of ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice: Ultimate Edition'', the entire movie is such a ''slog'' for him that, by the time the movie hits the titular fight, he just doesn't ''care'' for the characters anymore.
[[/folder]]

* ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'': Linkara cites this as one of the reasons he dislikes the works created or inspired by Creator/RobLiefeld. None of the grizzled NinetiesAntiHeroes are anything more than props that fire massive guns and spew one-liners. He hardly has a clue who any of the characters are, what they like or dislike, what their hobbies are, or whether or not they like pina coladas. And they only seem capable of displaying one emotion: [[TheBerserker pissed off]]. They're all so interchangeable that Linkara makes a running joke of referring to individual early Image comics as any of the other, similar early Image comics by "mistake".

** LetsPlay/{{Diabetus}} declares a variation in the ''VideoGame/DarkSeed II'' wrongpurae, about the protagonist, Mike Dawson, who is suspected of murder.

* ''Webcomic/DMOfTheRings'' is an InUniverse example. The comic is ostensibly about a group of people playing a TabletopGame, but the Game Master is the king of {{Railroading}} -- he expects the players to follow his script to the letter, has Gandalf as an overpowered {{GMPC}} with a death grip on plot's steering wheel, and resists any attempts to deviate as if his life depended on it. As a result, the only player even mildly invested in the plot is [[TheRoleplayer Gimli]], and even he has his limits; Aragorn and Legolas are constantly grumbling about how much they hate the game, the Hobbits quit the game after the events of ''Fellowship'' to play ''Franchise/StarWars d20'', and Boromir left after his character died because choosing '''not''' to roll up a new character was [[IDieFree the first time he'd had anything resembling agency in the entire campaign]].

-->'''Chris Stuckmann:''' [Riley] is pretty much the only character in the film that you can feel some sympathy for because you understand where she's coming from and you side with her because [[RapeAsBackstory that's]] fucked up. But everyone else in the movie is basically an asshole. People just walk around and treat everybody like shit; the women talk about the men poorly, the men talk about the women poorly. There's like two nice people in the movie.

* WebVideo/ChrisStuckmann stated in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo5NETEV0S0 his review of]] ''[[Film/FantasticFour2015 Fant4stic]]'' that the film's poor world-building prevented him from caring about Earth as Doctor Doom began to destroy it, noting that a DownerEnding would have been more interesting than the actual outcome. Uninteresting characters and [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil a lack of spoiler-warning-worthy events]] hardly helped.