History UnintentionallyUnsympathetic / LiveActionTV

* Debra Barone on ''Series/EverybodyLovesRaymond'' was supposed to come off as a long-suffering CloserToEarth housewife who has to put up with her [[BumblingDad idiot husband]] and ObnoxiousInLaws. Instead, she frequently came off as a hypocritical harpy who belittled and bullied her husband, [[{{Flanderization}} especially as the series went on]].

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* ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'' TV shows:
** ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': Jemma Simmons during the Framework arc. [[spoiler:Yes, she is trapped in a world completely alien to her, and she is correct about the Framework being a simulated reality, and that everyone is running on limited time, but she doesn't even consider that to the people living there (whom she brushes off as just pieces of data) it is indeed very real, and her approach of just telling Mace and Ward - without any real proof other than her say-so, and expecting them to just believe, is a little frustrating. Coulson himself pointed out that Mace and the others didn't have his previous tampering to help him break through the illusion. She comes off as especially mean when she calls the fight against HYDRA, led by the resident versions of Jeffrey and Ward, meaningless, and her insults toward Ward also just seem to go into plain IrrationalHatred territory as this version of Grant Ward has shown himself to be a good enough man who genuinely loves Daisy/Skye and even apologizes for his deceased real-world counterpart's terrible actions. Also, when Ward makes the valid point that Jemma not letting him take the shot was what got Agnes killed, Simmons tries to justify her actions by saying the real Fitz would have never done it]].
** The Royal Family of ''Series/{{Inhumans}}'' seem to have been intended as morally grey sorts, with a side of the murky politicking and good-things-for-bad-reasons inherent to being the nobles of a CrapsackWorld a la ''Series/GameOfThrones.'' However, the fact that their main antagonist is Maximus, a revolutionary intending to end a gruelingly awful FantasticCasteSystem where much of their society is slaves, while they're the ones who want to keep the system in place, makes them very hard to root for. Throughout the series, they come across as selfish, entitled, cruel, prejudiced, and smug, and have no scruples about hurting others or resorting to crime to get what they want. Their exile to Earth, meant to seem like a grievous fate, comes across as a fairly softball punishment. Their personalities and actions are too repugnant to seem like {{Noble Demon}}s, and their goals are too self-centered to be {{Unscrupulous Hero}}es. At best, they're {{Nominal Hero}}es, and that's only because Maximus wants to invade Earth at some point and they don't (because Maximus wants to invade Earth for its resources, while the Royal Family's solution to the resource crisis seems to be to whip the slaves harder).
** Some found ''Series/IronFist2017'''s Danny Rand to be this. He's suffered a lot and is trying to reclaim his identity, but the way he goes about it mixes naivety with entitlement. A standout moment is the third episode, when he angrily asserts his ownership of Rand Industries as something his father wanted him to have - in other words, declaring that he should be a billionaire by right of birth. He says that it's about reclaiming his own name but never tries to negotiate keeping that without the money and teams up with a cutthroat lawyer. The obvious ArtisticLicenseEconomics doesn't help, as in reality someone who's been missing for 15 years and been declared dead would certainly not be able to do this. When Colleen allows him to stay in her dojo he takes it upon himself to lecture her students uninvited, and proudly declares himself the Iron Fist even though by going to New York at all he's abandoned the duties of that role.
** ''Series/JessicaJones2015'':
*** The title heroine can often come off like this. While she's clearly and understandably [[BrokenBird a damaged wreck of a person]] thanks to the traumatic experiences she endured while under [[TheSociopath Kilgrave's]] [[MindRape control]], she often comes off as a needlessly hostile JerkAss to everyone around her and her [[TherapyIsForTheWeak refusal to get any therapy]] for her trauma makes it feel like she's doing way more damage to herself than Kilgrave has. Not helping matters was that the ArcFatigue of the series dragged out Jessica's character development. And it really didn't help that the flashbacks showed she was almost exactly the same before she met Kilgrave, nor that the second season (which [[AuthorsSavingThrow did make an effort to mitigate this]]) revealed that Jessica was ''always'' like this even ''before'' the car accident, despite Jessica's insistence that her closed-off personality is the result of traumas like Stirling's death and Kilgrave.
*** Many people also have professed to feel little to no sympathy for Jeri Hogarth in Season 2. Her ALS storyline is supposed to make her more sympathetic, but it doesn't change the fact that she is a supremely horrible person who did many cruel things without remorse in the previous season, and even in this one. Some even accuse it of being a DoubleStandard, since they doubt the narrative would have framed her as sympathetically if she was a man like in the comics. Thankfully, the writers seem to have realized this and Season 3 re-affirmed her as intentionally unsympathetic, ending her on the note that her dying alone and miserable from her ALS will be entirely her own fault.
*** For a while, it seemed that Kilgrave had a textbook FreudianExcuse: his own parents treated him as a lab rat and performed extremely painful experiments that, while giving him his powers, irreparably warped him into [[TheSociopath the sociopathic]] PsychoticManchild he is as an adult. His parents were his first victims, with him using his new mind-controlling powers to enslave and eventually forced his mother to burn herself during a tantrum, leading them to abandon him. Then "AKA The Sin Bin" revealed that his parents were actually trying to ''save'' him; their experiments were to cure his neurodegenerative disease that would have left him a vegetable by twelve, thus turning them into people who, while still making a terrible mistake, were still fundamentally good people and didn't deserve their son's evil... except they still, you know, performed extremely painful experiments on him. That didn't change, and, if anything, the truth behind their actions makes those experiments even ''worse'', since it means they couldn't be bothered telling him why or giving him painkillers like anyone with even a cent of common sense and decency would have done.
** ''Series/{{Daredevil|2015}}'':
*** One does have to question if Jack Murdock ever considered the traumatizing effect his death would have on his recently blinded son when he set up his ThanatosGambit. Enough that for Season 3, the writers had to go back and add a little more depth to his decision, to establish that Jack was a good but flawed man who made a bad decision rather than a heroic one.
*** Karen Page taking Ben to see Fisk's mother is often seen as a jerkass move on her part. Not only is it a severe [[YankTheDogsChain moment that exploits his love of his wife]] and makes him think there's a new option for her (when there isn't at all), it put him in Fisk's crosshairs.
*** Karen constantly tells off Matt and Foggy for lying and keeping secrets, [[{{Hypocrite}} despite keeping some pretty big secrets of her own]], such as that she killed James Wesley and lying about Frank kidnapping her when she really ran off with him.
*** At first, Foggy Nelson has quite a few legitimate criticisms about Matt's nighttime activities. But then he has the nerve to suggest that the real reason Matt wants to save Frank Castle from death row is not that saving a man's life is Matt's (and by extension Foggy's) moral and ethical obligation as a lawyer to do, but because Frank is a fellow vigilante... who uses methods Matt has made perfectly clear he does not approve of.
*** In Season 2, Matt has it when he's shown to be more interested in beating up bad guys than helping out at Nelson & Murdock (which the first episode shows takes on a lot of poor and underprivileged clientele), then showing more interest in hunting down the Punisher (who the audience knows only goes after criminals) than general purpose super heroics, then outright abandoning his law firm and friends for the rest of the season to help out his crazy and manipulative ex-girlfriend. While Matt does try to dissuade Elektra's attempts to invade his life, it's clear he's not trying as hard as he could and that she's very easily roping him into things with little prodding. He also doesn't find some way to tell Karen about Elektra, leading to him looking like a dumbass when Karen walks in and sees Elektra in Matt's bed, with no idea what was going on.
*** DA Samantha Reyes. Her mistakes during a sting got Frank Castle's family killed, and while it is implied she regrets this, afterwards she tries repeatedly to kill Frank simply to save her own career, acts like a complete bitch, and threatens to ruin the careers of three innocent, well-meaning people, plus her assistant. And yet we're supposed to feel sorry for her simply because her daughter was threatened. Few tears were shed at her death.
*** In season 3, all of the elements are there to show Ray Nadeem is supposed to be a sympathetic character... the relative with cancer (which has financially impacted him heavily), the difficulties at work, his family being terrified of the latest developments, and then being manipulated by Fisk. The problem is that the character comes off sort of shallow and bland, rendering these just a collection of cliches that have less impact than they would if he seemed a deeper or more thoughtful person; so when he makes arguments to get Fisk things he wants or goes around hassling Karen and Foggy because Fisk fingered Matt, he comes off as more of a jerk and a pest than a principled FBI agent doing his best in trying circumstances.

* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'':
** Leonard, Howard, Raj, Penny, Amy, and Bernadette are supposed to be sympathetic for having to put up with Sheldon. The thing is, they're no better than him and enjoy tormenting him, bullying him, and insulting him (and each other) to his face. This also makes the many, many episodes where they "stand up to Sheldon" unsatisfying, they rarely if ever take his {{Jerkass}} behavior lying down and they come across as massive {{Hypocrite}}s who can dish it out but can't take it.
** "The Panty Pinata Polarization" has Sheldon and Penny getting into an EscalatingWar over the rules at Sheldon's apartment. We're supposed to side with Penny, but she's acting just as awful and petty as Sheldon, taking advantage of his many quirks to drive him insane.
** Another example of Penny being this comes in an episode where Leonard sneaks a look at and fixes her bad history paper. She gets angry at him because she wanted to do it herself... then proceeds to enlist the help of Amy and Bernadette to rewrite it just to stick it to him. Hypocrisy, thy name is Penny.
** Howard is this in "The Apology Insufficiency", where he gets ticked off at Sheldon because Sheldon accidentally told a government agent that Howard crashed the Mars Rover trying to impress a date, and as a result, Howard didn't get security clearance to work on a project. Howard [[NeverMyFault was the idiot who crashed the Mars Rover trying to impress a girl in the first place, and he didn't even have clearance to enter the control room in the first place]]. Sheldon told the agent - by accident - something completely true about Howard that demonstrates that he is indeed an irresponsible person who really shouldn't have security clearance. And yet we're supposed to side with Howard.
** Amy in "The Habitation Configuration", where she acts like an enormous {{Jerkass}} towards Wil Wheaton, and yet when Sheldon is understandably annoyed he and Wil are treated as the ones in the wrong.
** Raj after breaking up with Emily. He spends the rest of the episode as a thoroughly depressed mess, but he only broke up with her after obsessing over another woman (who clearly told him she wasn’t interested) for days before breaking up with Emily right before Valentine’s Day. He then went crawling back to her when this stupid decision blew up in his face. All in all, he comes across looking more like a sleaze than someone you should feel sorry for.

** Rachel, who we're meant to feel sorry for because she keeps losing Ross and has to watch him date other women...except she's the one who broke up with him (and refused to take him back), malevolently manipulates TheUnfairSex, and backstabs any woman he tries to move on with.
*** We're also meant to sympathize with her 'empowering' journey of getting over her spoiled upbringing and breaking into the fashion industry. That works early on when she's vulnerable and hard-working but not much later when she's unprofessional, lazy, and 'empowering' equals taking Ross's daughter to a different continent from him. It doesn't help that Monica is clearly more hard-working, Chandler more capable and Ross more intelligent in their respective jobs but she's still the 'Career' character. Rachel even hires a man she is attracted to rather than someone who has the qualifications, and has an affair with him.
*** However, it should be noted that both Ross and Rachel have been called out on several occasions throughout the show for their shortcomings and [[NeverMyFault refusal to take fault]], arguably more spectacularly and exceptionally than the others. While maybe not proportionately to their actions, there are times they are intentionally played as {{Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist}}s.

* ''Series/CobraKai'':
** Johnny can fall under this at the beginning of season 1. While the first episode tries to paint him in a [[SympatheticPOV sympathetic light]], ultimately, all of Johnny's misery comes from the fact that he never got over losing one karate tournament as a teenager. He's had more than enough chances to move on with his life by this point, yet he blames [[NeverMyFault everyone but himself for his misery.]] Not helping his case, is that at this point in the story, he's still the pompous JerkAss he was back in the '80s.
** Demetri in Season 2 crosses between this and RonTheDeathEater. He's a self-proclaimed nerd and social outcast whose best friend became his bully and got beaten by Johnny and Kreese the two times he tried to join Cobra Kai. But considering he often acts like an obnoxious KnowNothingKnowItAll, it's easy to believe that he's unpopular and his few friends abandoned him because he was unpleasant, not because he's a nerd. And when the adults hit him, he's not exactly blameless either because he mocked Johnny for teaching them and [[GodwinsLaw called him a Nazi]] in his own dojo and put his hands on Kreese's arm and touched his tattoo completely unprompted, [[HypocriticalHumor despite claiming to have personal space issues himself.]]
** While Tory has been the main instigator in her rivalry with Sam, much like Daniel during the first ''Karate Kid'' movie, Sam did her fair share of instigating with Tory such as trying to rifle through Tory's purse to get her mom's stolen wallet when she had no proof the wallet was even stolen in the first place (although her suspicions were not unfounded given how Tory had been very upfront about stealing a bottle of vodka).
** In Season 3, Tory is supposed to come off as sympathetic when the full extent of her home and family life is revealed, namely the fact that her mother is bedridden from dialysis and her brother is too young to work himself, she's got a predatory landlord who is trying to extort sex from her, along with a comment from Miguel when they talk at the sushi restaurant implying that she's mentally ill. However, the reveal of this information ends up actually highlighting the selfishness of her behavior and makes her actions in Season 2 look worse in hindsight because it means she did everything, including instigating the school brawl that got her expelled and arrested, fully knowing how much it could put her family at risk, and did so over a boy who cheated on her and was clearly in love with Sam this whole time. Not helped by the fact that she acts entitled by refusing to take responsibility and help Miguel after her stunt indirectly put him in the hospital, and she spends much of season 3 continuing to willingly do things that could remove her ability to take care of her family, such as committing crimes and repeatedly seeking out physical fights with the girl she's on probation for fighting and maiming, despite Sam no longer trying to pick a fight with her.
** Hawk undergoes a HeelFaceTurn in the Season 3 finale, which is supposed to be seen as cathartic but instead comes off as unearned or an outright AssPull to those who don't see this as the show laying the foundation for his season 4 story arc. Despite apologizing to Demetri (whose arm he reluctantly broke in the arcade fight), it comes off as pretty half-assed and rushed. [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation It also comes off as him only switching sides because of the fact that Robby was taking his place as Cobra Kai's alpha]] rather than actually feeling bad for the bullying he had committed against Miyagi-Do students. There's also the fact that he’s committed more onscreen crimes than any of the other students and suffered the least legal consequences[[note]]for instance, Tory may have started the school fight, but it was Hawk who turned it into an all-out brawl[[/note]] and even though he changed sides during the home invasion brawl, he still chose to participate in the home invasion itself, making him complicit in any injuries Miguel suffered from Kyler's beating.
** Johnny can fall into this with regard to Robby. A lot of the time, when Johnny is reaching out and trying to fix things with Robby, it can feel like he's not doing so out of love and care for his son, but rather because he doesn't want to feel bad about not being a good father. This is much more prominently on display in season 3 when compared to prior seasons. And much like Mr. Miyagi's neglect of Daniel led to Daniel joining Terry Silver in ''The Karate Kid Part III'', it plays a big part in Robby's decision to join Cobra Kai and side with Kreese.
** "Different but Same"'s handling of things when Johnny mentions how Sam and her "friends" hit his car. Amanda grounds Sam for it and confiscates her phone without getting her whole side of the story as to what happened, but cuts off Sam before Sam has a chance to explain how Johnny was drunk, parked illegally in the street, and his drunk behavior (screaming and banging on the windows of a car full of teenage girls) was what scared them into driving off, as if the writers are attempting to downplay Johnny's share of the blame for what happened.
** While Sam certainly has a fair amount of blame for her relationship with Robby falling apart by not being honest that she was still pining after Miguel and eventually cheating on him with Miguel at Moon's party, some viewers feel Robby's feelings of betrayal in 3x08 when he realizes that she has reunited with Miguel in his absence are unearned. This stems from the fact that Robby didn't inform Sam about the Medal of Honor immediately when Miguel returned it, a lie by omission that started his relationship with her on the premise that Miguel was no longer "good", and deprived Sam of the ability to make an informed decision about her love life while she was in a sound state of mind.

* ''Series/ThirteenReasonsWhy''
** One of the many complaints about the show is how unsympathetic many found the subject character, Hannah Baker. The premise of the show is that she commits suicide because she was bullied into it, and creates 13 tapes with each tape directed at people she believed were responsible for her fatal choice. The problem is, the tapes slowly reveal that Hannah could have avoided most of the problems herself, takes minor things way too seriously, and can't seem to learn from her mistakes and take accountability for her own actions. Not to mention several TooDumbToLive moments, where she keeps trying to befriend many of the popular teens whom she knows don't like her and are responsible for ruining her reputation at her high school. A common theme is that she keeps going to parties of popular teens, even though every time she does so, bad things happen to her, [[spoiler:resulting in her eventually getting raped by Bryce at his house, which completely breaks her. And this is after witnessing him raping Jessica during another party at his house in the past and knowing how dangerous he is.]] As a result, many find her character unrealistic when compared to a real-life victim who was tragically bullied into ending their life.
*** While she had perfect reasons to have people like Bryce and Marcus on her tapes, her reasons for everyone else having tapes were pretty minor. When it comes to Justin's tape she had the gall to blame him for [[spoiler: Jessica being raped and not helping her instead of Bryce ''who actually raped her'' [[{{Hypocrite}}even though she was in the same room as them and did nothing to help Jess afterwards nor did she report it]] whereas Justin attempted to stop Bryce. Not to mention that later on she was involved in the accident that killed Jeff.]] She also made a lot of poor choices like continuously [[InWithTheInCrowd wanting to party with the popular crowd]] and pushing away the ones that tried to connect with her and then blaming everyone else but herself for her suicide. Had she gotten her act together and made smart, logical choices she'd probably be still alive. Then there's her treatment of Clay which can come across as her being verbally abusive as every other conversation has her criticizing things about him like his social skills. Keep in mind that Clay is her best friend and crush. And then there's Hannah including him in the tapes to tie everything together which severely damaged his mental health despite the fact that he did ''nothing'' wrong to deserve it (which was something she herself knew).
** Season One saw a small niche of critics and bloggers who found Clay a bit problematic at times. While he definitely suffered from a SanitySlippage throughout the season and was grieving the loss of [[spoiler:two friends]], he engaged in some pretty terrible behavior, not limited to circulating actual child pornography [[spoiler:with his revenge photo of Tyler]] and deeply disturbing Courtney by taking her to Hannah's grave and essentially telling her she caused Hannah's death. Instead of asking Courtney questions and inviting her to talk, he accuses her, and condescendingly tells her, an Asian lesbian with two gay dads, that she has no reason to be afraid of coming out because it's the 21st century.
*** This view of Clay ''really'' ramped up in Season 2, practically bordering on hatedom among older viewers and online critics. Many saw Clay's likeability drop significantly in this season, from the very first episode. When he began having visions of Hannah, rather than be even partially honest with Skye, he flat-out lied and told her he "never thought about" Hannah. He spent most of the season badgering Jessica into going forward about her assault, not because it would help her but because it would help ''Hannah's'' case, although it would also have been vital for bringing Bryce to justice. He didn't even grasp basic concepts – like the fact that Hannah was allowed to be interested in (and have sex with) guys who weren't him. Much of Clay's torment that season was caused by himself. Even in the very first episode, he becomes upset simply because Tyler told a story about Hannah he refused to believe. As the season goes on, Clay also lashes out at Justin while in recovery (even implies that he hates him right after Justin has saved his life), tries to pressure Sherri into going back to the clubhouse despite being ''clearly'' disturbed by it, and treats his own incredibly supportive parents like dirt (he flat-out ''tells them'' to get him a car). Hell, he's even a jerk to [[spoiler:Hannah's ghost]].
*** Clay becomes this again in Season 4. He's going through some serious mental health problems, so a lot of it isn't his fault, but he's a danger to himself and others and pretty much faces no negative consequences or even gets the help he needs. He pulls an officer's gun off him and taunts it with him, ''lights a car on fire,'' escapes from a psychiatric ward, psychologically tortures his friends, beats the shit out of a stranger almost completely unprovoked, crashes Zach's car and leaves him for dead. The most help he gets is a higher amount of weekly therapy sessions. Him being admitted to a psych ward is seen as an injustice of some sort. Even at the end, he tries to hold up a police precinct with a fake gun and is just talked down with no charge. Despite all that Clay has gone through, it still feels like the end of the series rewards him as though he's much more of a hero than he is. He gets into an Ivy League school despite slipping grades and a terrible interview, he is picked as his graduating class speaker despite inciting a riot and ''lighting Bolan's car on fire,'' his friends never stop talking about what a great guy he is and he even meets a cute girl at the end of it all.
** Jessica becomes this in Season 3 when she gets back together with Justin instead of Alex purely because of how he understands her body and does sex better than Alex does (even though she now knows that Justin was involved in her being sexually assaulted). She also proves to be a hypocrite by dismissing Alex's suicide attempt trauma until he received a threatening poster, criticizing Chloe for not testifying against Bryce, and attempting to ban male aggressive sports because she claims it promotes sexism and rape culture, despite the fact that she's with a jock who let her get raped and said nothing about it for months. Many people called her out on this (including Alex and even Justin himself) and even she calls herself out on it but she ultimately does nothing about it. Lastly, she was never called out on keeping the secret that [[spoiler:Alex killed Bryce even though Clay was about to go to jail for it]].
** Even Alex falls into this due to him [[spoiler: being Bryce's killer. While Bryce is far from a saint and Alex does show some regret when listening to his tape, Bryce was trying to become a better person. Also, murdering him by pushing him into a river and watching him drown after he was beaten to a bloody pulp and had both of his legs broken by Zach was [[CruelAndUnusualDeath utterly cruel]]. Lastly he was initially willing to let Clay and Zach take the fall for said murder, and ultimately lets Ani and the others pin it on Monty. His murder of Bryce also means that he can never be truly brought to justice legally for his crimes, especially considering he was finally grasping the gravity of his crimes and had actually confessed on tape to raping Jessica and several other girls]].
** The show attempts to make the audience sympathize with '''Bryce Walker''' of all people in the third season. While he does seem to feel some remorse and attempts to make amends for his actions, many viewers felt it was far too little, too late. For the first two seasons, Bryce has been portrayed as nothing but a selfish, arrogant, and entitled SerialRapist, who left [[spoiler:Jessica]] traumatized and was the catalyst for Hannah killing herself, on top of being a violent bully as well, who never expresses any remorse for the lives he's ruined. Due to being a privileged rich kid and he got off with what was effectively a mild slap on the wrist for the heinous crimes he committed. As a result, a lot of viewers had a very hard time sympathizing with him in any way; many people doubted the sincerity of his remorse seeing as he continues to act in scummy ways such as traumatizing a young boy, and breaking Zach's leg out of spite, or felt that he had long since passed the MoralEventHorizon to warrant any pity. Hell, even Justin Prentice himself thought that Bryce was beyond redemption.
** In addition to Bryce, Season 3 tries to make us feel bad for Monty, too, who is about on par with Bryce in terms of loathsomeness. He's yet another sadistic JerkJock and bully, who actually witnessed Bryce raping [[spoiler:Hannah]] but did nothing to intervene, later wages a campaign of terror on Bryce's many victims to try and silence them and becomes a rapist himself, [[spoiler:brutally assaulting Tyler with a mop pole...because he ''[[DisproportionateRetribution inadvertently got the championship season cancelled]]'']] (to the point where even [[EvenEvilHasStandards Bryce himself was disgusted]] when he found out about it and warned him to stay away from Tyler). Season 3 gives him a FreudianExcuse by showing more scenes with his abusive father and revealing that he is [[spoiler:deep in the closet]], but many viewers felt this wasn't enough to make us pity such a vile character, especially considering he still does crappy things throughout the third season such as [[spoiler:[[DomesticAbuse beating up]] a person he slept with]] because he thinks people will [[spoiler:realize he's gay purely from Winston ''talking'' to him]]. Also, while Bryce starts showing remorse for his actions and at least ''tries'' to become a better man, Monty only apologizes to Winston for beating him up and doesn't show any remorse for any of his other horrible actions, nor does he make any attempt to change.
** Ani, who was introduced into the show in Season 3. Although she doesn't do anything remotely as horrible as Bryce or Monty, she does take some actions that many viewers found rather morally questionable. She's not only very sympathetic towards [[SerialRapist Bryce]] [[TheSociopath Walker]], she's even happy to [[spoiler:have sex with him]] despite knowing he's raped multiple girls (among other nasty things) and that one of his victims was [[spoiler:Jessica]], who is supposed to be her best friend. For the same reason, viewers also found her to be a bit of a hypocrite in that she's fine hanging around with Bryce -- a violent and repeat sex offender -- but says she's afraid to be around Clay, her other supposed best friend, because he's suspected (wrongly) of killing Bryce. Ani is also viewed as unsympathetic for continually defending Bryce, insisting he was trying to become a better person (with ''very'' mixed results) and even suggesting that Clay and the others are wrong for judging Bryce solely for "the worst thing [he] did"; the fact that she's making these arguments to ''Clay and co'' makes her seem particularly insensitive and delusional, seeing as they all knew Bryce much longer than she has and suffered greatly at his hands either directly or indirectly. It's also revealed she's spent the whole season lying to the police to protect [[spoiler:Alex after she finds out he murdered Bryce and helps set up Monty for it]].

* Many of the so-called victims of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' fall under this.
** Megan Ramsey from “Repression” is a great example due to just how convenient her situation turned out. Megan was an unrepentant drug addict who was cut off. She goes to therapy and recalls her childhood molestation by her father, she reports the incest hoping it would spare her younger sisters from suffering the same fate, and the threat of this seems credible because her middle sister implies she may have walked in on her father just after molesting the youngest. In the end, the middle sister accidentally shoots the father shortly after falsifying evidence of molestation against him, and we find out that Megan's memories were falsely coached by her therapist and the father was innocent; the therapist is arrested for reckless endangerment, but Megan gets exactly what she wanted from the beginning: to be allowed back in her rich parents' house with her mother taking care of her, despite the fact that this means that her drug addiction had nothing to do with any childhood trauma on her part.
** In "Influence", a teenage girl falsely accuses two classmates of rape, makes advances on a third, and hits nine pedestrians with her car, killing one. Medical tests reveal that she recently stopped taking her medication for bipolar disorder, but since the HollywoodPsychology presentation of bipolar disorder includes following a consistent pattern of behavior to avoid responsibility, it makes her look more like a sociopath using the media circus surrounding her case to get away with it.
** The basic premise of "Transitions" has a trans girl (born male, identifies female) being constantly, violently angry, but only against females, particularly a group of girls who didn't want her to use the girls' bathroom, and proudly declare she beat her (entirely supportive) mother in order to "strike a blow for her freedom" after being caught sneaking into the house at two in the morning. She also has a host of other mental problems, a history of self-harm, attempted suicide, virulent hatred of her father, and generally having serious anger issues that, while exacerbated by the stress of being a transgender adolescent, had nothing to do with her actually being transgender. And this all served to be an attempt to justify the attempted murder of her father by her school counselor, who is also a transwoman, and who tried to kill him in order to get some kind of displaced revenge for hate crimes she had experienced when she was younger. The writers at least seemed to realize this as Greylek stated not every person that has been a victim can have an automatic get-out-of-jail-free card when they go looking for retribution. The end result is that the episode tried to show the plight of transgender people by making one of them insane and the other one a murderer, who both want a man dead essentially because [[StrawmanHasAPoint he's not as supportive as they think he ought to be]].
** And yet another episode is about a girl from a privileged background, who is put into a school for gifted smart students and expected by her parents to be the best student there. However, the girl can't handle the pressure and eventually snaps, killing another who she was jealous of, because she was the top student in her class, and no matter how hard she studied, [[AlwaysSecondBest she couldn't outscore her on test]]. Rather than the show pointing out how cold, and psychopathic such an action like that is, they try to put the girl in a sympathetic light, claiming the pressure drove her to prescription drug abuse that caused a psychotic break due to sleep deprivation. Even lampshaded during the episode, when some pointed out how the situation would be different, if it was a boy, a person of color, and from a poor background. However, the tone of the show makes them look like [[JerkassHasAPoint jerkasses, instead of people who raised a valid point.]] In the end, the girl gets a slap on the wrist and is sentenced to a medical center for treatment. Directly afterwards, another case is brought up about a young boy who raped and murdered a young girl, raising the question, [[{{Hypocrite}} will he get the same biased treatment]] the rich girl got.
** In a male example, after a boxing legend is caught trying to have sex with underage teenage girls, he gives them information for a lesser sentence, which leads to the arrest of a high-ranking member of law enforcement who is part of a pedophile ring. However, the episode takes a sympathetic spin on the matter, showing how tragic him getting caught is for the wife and children. The fact he isn't very popular within his field, and he might have been set up is also highlighted as tragic. Even Olivia Benson, who is usually gangbusters against male predators, acts depressed during the whole episode and even admits that she feels bad for breaking up his family when she never cared before when dealing with other pedophiles. The violins play heavier when he tries to kill himself, once he realized no one would help him beat the charges. In the end, the guy gets a slap on the wrist but has to register as a sex offender, thanks to how much Olivia Benson was guilt-tripping the district attorney through the whole episode not to permanently destroy the family by taking him to trial. The kicker? Olivia is more upset that the boxing legend got a good deal as well.
** The episode "Pretend" had a full-grown adult who pretended to be a high school student for ''years'', essentially to avoid having to grow up, and in the process, had enough "high school sweethearts" she manipulated and slept with to fill a calendar. She was still seen as the victim for not being able to adjust to adult life, with her arrest for statutory rape being more of a legal formality with the victim's complaint not about being personally violated as much as being embarrassed for sleeping with an old bag (and it was primarily a legal strategy to set up a [[NeverMyFault psych defense for his own crime]]). Although the ending seems to imply she's also ''batshit'', it tends to fall in line with TheUnfairSex stance the show often takes.

* ''Series/TheOfficeUS'':
** Nellie Bertram. Already something of a CreatorsPet from the get-go, attempts at giving her a sympathetic backstory rang hollow since they didn't come close to covering her awful behavior, and moreover, many of her problems were of her own doing, leading to this trope.
** Erin in Season 9. In the show's frequent attempts to recreate [[SuperCouple the Jim/Pam romance]], the writers attempt to portray her as neglected and mistreated so she could be pushed towards the supposedly nicer and more understanding Pete instead. However, the handwave they used to explain why [[DerailingLoveInterests Andy would inexplicably start treating her that way]] so soon after ''risking his job to win her back'' involved him going through exceptionally difficult circumstances that made his behavior actually somewhat understandable while making Erin come off as heartless for abandoning him during such a rough period in his life, and over a temporary bout of JerkAss behavior that obviously wasn't entirely his fault. [[WordOfGod Ellie Kemper herself said]] that Erin's choice to be with Pete was supposed to show her growing up by choosing a more stable guy, but it feels less like Erin's actually matured inasmuch as her immaturity was just dumped on Andy, and it especially rings hollow in the scene where, in the midst of their breakup, Erin bursts into Andy's office and demands that he "just get over it", sounding like a spoiled little girl, after [[{{Hypocrite}} she had already proven in the previous season that she was completely incapable of doing that herself when the situations were reversed]]. And ''then'' she throws a tantrum over losing a paper airplane contest and storms off when Jim and Pam refused to go on a double date with her and Pete, making the aforementioned maturity arc fall flat on its face.
** Phyllis in the party-planning subplot between her and Angela. To show how she is being mistreated by Angela, any episode that involves a party tends to include multiple scenes of Angela berating Phyllis for a mistake she made in the preparations. However, this happens so often that it quickly comes across as though Phyllis spectacularly fails at every single task she's given, [[JerkAssHasAPoint making it hard not to see where Angela's frustration is coming from.]] Moreover, when Phyllis starts blackmailing Angela over her having an affair with Dwight behind Andy's back in order to take over the party-planning committee, she proceeds to really KickTheDog with how far she takes it, never mind that she spent months knowing Andy was being cheated on but decided to keep that information private for ''her'' own benefit.
** Toby's crush on Pam and subsequent resentment of her relationship with Jim in Season 4 would be a lot easier to sympathize with if he'd ever said anything to her about it.
** It can be hard to sympathize with Pam's jealousy towards Katy given that the only reason why Jim dated her is that Pam is engaged to Roy and refuses to break off what is clearly an unhappy relationship. Then when Jim finally breaks up with Katy and confesses his true feelings to Pam, Pam ''still'' refused to end her engagement to Roy until Jim has left Scranton for Stamford.
** Jim himself falls into this. His pranks are meant to be silly and amusing to the audience, but so many of them come across as downright mean-spirited, over the top, and uncalled for, making him seem like a bully instead of a lovable prankster. This was especially highlighted when he tries agitating Andy right after the guy had just come out of anger management.
*** This works well enough very early on in the show when Jim clearly has nothing better to do with his time, a very prankable bully in Dwight, a boss who plays his own "pranks" indiscriminately on the staff which make everything Jim does look modest by comparison, and a girl who appreciates Jim's pranks as a distraction from her issues. The problem is as these things disappear from Jim's life, he seems to double down on the pranking as a constant.

* ''Series/StrangerThings'':
** Joyce Byers, to those who got weary of her emotional outbursts.
** A certain moment where Dustin describes [[spoiler:Eleven knocking Lucas unconscious, to the point where everyone was briefly afraid he had been killed]], as [[RuleOfCool awesome]]. To his ''face''.
** Early on, it may seem a little hard to feel sorry for Nancy Wheeler's overwhelming concern for Barb after her disappearance, considering that she did have her best friend personally drive her to a party Barb didn't want any part of, and then went to blow Barb off to have sex with Steve afterwards. This caused Barb to stay behind out of concern for Nancy's well-being due to her having been drinking during the party, leading to Barb being abducted and killed by the monster shortly afterwards. In fairness, Nancy had no way of knowing that a monster was lurking around the town kidnapping people, and the timing of the attack was unfortunate, but Nancy's actions and initial dismissal of Barb did indirectly lead to her being taken and killed by the monster. She becomes much more sympathetic come Season 2, where she acknowledges all of this, feels guilty about it and redeems herself for it by getting closure for Barb's parents.
*** On the flip side, there are viewers who didn't feel much sympathy for Barb herself in this situation. While her concerns about Nancy going to Steve's party, drinking beer, and possibly getting asked for sex by Steve were certainly valid, some viewers feel they weren't actually out of Barb's concern for Nancy's wellbeing but out of fear that Nancy could get in with the "cool kids" clique and thus become too cool to hang out with ''her'', and Barb didn't want Nancy to change herself too much so that she could still be ''her'' friend. Barb's line of "Nancy, this isn't you" in response to Nancy making her own decision based on what she desired and thought was best for herself at the time (to have sex with Steve) is often cited, as is Barb sitting around moping by the pool even when Nancy told her she could go home at least twice (which ends up leading to her death), and her attitude towards Nancy wanting to lose her virginity coming off as SlutShaming.
** Mike in Season 2 falls into this, considering his behaviour towards Max with his only reasoning being that he thought she was trying to replace Eleven, even with Max knowing almost nothing about her, as well as being dismissive and rude about her lack of knowledge about Dungeons and Dragons. His treatment towards Dustin and Lucas when they like Max is also unfair and awful, despite them supposedly being two of his oldest friends. And then, after he sees Eleven again, he tears into Hopper for hiding her away, despite him doing it primarily to keep her safe and away from the reach of Hawkins Lab, and refuses to listen to Hopper's reasoning, just yelling at him about how unfair it was that he didn't get to see Eleven. And when Steve is trying to keep them inside the house and safe from the demo-dogs, Mike just insults and ignores him.
** For a number of viewers, the attempt at RedemptionEqualsDeath for Billy in the Season 3 finale doesn't land, with critics arguing that Billy didn't redeem himself at all, and deep down was still the same sociopath that we'd seen in Season 2.
** Karen Wheeler in Season 3 falls into this since she considers cheating on her husband with Billy (who is roughly ''the same age as her daughter Nancy''). Granted her husband is lazy and unappreciative and she ''does'' ultimately change her mind, there's still the fact that she, a grown woman, thought about cheating on her husband with a high school student.
** Hopper's behavior in the first two seasons of the show could come off this way to some fans who aren't fond of his short temper and tendencies to get violent with people in order to further his investigations, to say nothing of the show glossing over the fact that he sold out Eleven and the other kids' location to the lab agents in the first season finale, while his harsh treatment of Eleven in season 2 has been viewed by some as bordering on emotional abuse.
** That said, it was in season 3 that Hopper fell into this trope for a lot of fans, who felt that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3cBJBhrpok the show's reliance on 1980s "action hero" tropes]] caused him to come off like a walking bundle of relationship red flags. A couple standout examples in particular:
*** Hopper is bothered by the relationship that Mike has formed with Eleven. Joyce suggests that Hopper have a heart-to-heart with the kids and talk out his issues with them. He deviates from the plan by luring Mike into his car to talk to him. What starts as a TwerpSweating gets worse as he proceeds to intimidate and threaten Mike. Mike is clearly very much afraid of Hopper because he's a teenage boy trapped in a car with a grown and armed man who is three times his size. When Mike is too scared the next day to meet Eleven, Hopper sings happily that no one dares to mess with him. And while Mike may have been arrogant to Hopper before, a lot of that could arguably be viewed as Hopper's fault, given that he wasn't being very respectful to Mike either. To some viewers, Joyce standing him up when he tries to ask her out on a date feels like a karmic punishment for him.
*** In episode 4, Hopper barges into [[SmugSnake Mayor Kline]]'s office and interrogates him into giving up information, breaking his nose, and threatening [[{{Fingore}} to cut off his finger]]. Sure, Kline is a CorruptPolitician and an arrogant asshole who's in bed with the Russians, but what Hopper does with him borders on [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique torture]]. Although Hopper is supposed to be someone who proves that GoodIsNotNice and has shown a capability for violence in earlier seasons, he generally used it as a last resort (such as knocking out the guard at the morgue to get to Will's "fake" body in season 1 after his attempt to bluff said guard failed). Him being quick to resort to violence in this scene doesn't reflect well on him, especially considering that Kline is much weaker than he is and in no position to fight back.
*** His behavior towards Joyce in general has been viewed by some fans and reviewers as coming off less like BelligerentSexualTension a la [[Series/{{Cheers}} Sam and Diane]], and more like [[https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/stranger-things-3-hopper-ending-spoilers-review-1202155392/ the actions of an abusive and controlling boyfriend]], such as refusing to listen to Joyce's reasons for standing him up on a date when she went to see Mr. Clarke, trying to push her into dating him while she's still clearly mourning Bob's death in the previous season, and then proceeding to belittle her, {{gaslight|ing}} her, and outright call her crazy (a sharp contrast to the Hopper of seasons 1 and 2 who was firmly on Joyce's side and was a constant source of moral support for her and her family).

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
** "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E15Progress Progress]]" features the Bajoran government getting ready to tap the core of one of its moons for energy (which will render it uninhabitable), and Kira dealing with one farmer who is refusing to leave the home he had made on said moon. The conflict is treated as a common TheNeedsOfTheMany scenario, but that falls apart when one [[FridgeLogic examines the details]]. Intentionally ruining a habitable world and [[ApocalypseHow/Class6 destroying all of its indigenous life]] seems an astonishingly cold-hearted decision for the Bajoran government to take, especially considering that there are famines all over Bajor and they need all the farmland they can get, and the benefits of the project (powering "[[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale a few hundred thousand homes]]", something any nuclear plant can outdo, and most likely a small percentage of Bajor's overall energy needs) don't seem to outweigh the costs. One can't help but wonder whether there were any ''other'' planets or moons in their solar system[[note]]There are fourteen planets in total, and Bajor itself has five moons[[/note]] that would have worked for the energy project and also don't have any indigenous life forms to complain.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E20InTheHandsOfTheProphets In the Hands of the Prophets]]" centers around Keiko's new school, and some of the Bajorans (led by Vedek Winn) taking offense to her teaching their children about the wormhole and the Prophets in a scientific context (in a [[{{Anvilicious}} not-so-subtle allegory]] for the creationism vs. evolution debate). As the conflict escalates, Sisko tries to get Jake (and presumably the audience) to sympathise with the Bajorans by pointing out that they have been free to practice their religion for only about a year. However, Keiko's science classes do not in any way infringe on the Bajorans' religious freedom -- Sisko had previously pointed out that students could simply receive religious education separate from the secular education that Keiko provides (which is the compromise widely used in the real world). Plus there's the [[{{Hypocrite}} blatant hypocrisy]] of having victims of religious oppression turn around and try to censor ideas that conflict with their religion. As such, it can be difficult to see the opposition to Keiko's school as anything more than [[BeliefMakesYouStupid rabid anti-intellectualism]].
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS02E10Sanctuary Sanctuary]]", The Skrreeans believe Bajor is ThePromisedLand Kentanna based on Haneek's interpretation of an old religious legend that Kentanna is "a planet of sorrow", and they take that to mean Bajor. The Federation offers them the planet Draylon II to settle and claim as their own, but the Skrreeans refuse because they are certain Bajor is Kentanna. When the Bajorans refuse them on the grounds they have a lot of their own problems to resolve, the Skrreeans are extremely upset. Haneek spitefully accuses the Bajorans of being paranoid and suspicious and accuses Kira of betraying her. This all makes the Skrreeans come off as extremely entitled and ungrateful, spitting on the Federation's offer of Draylon II and demanding the Bajorans take them in. It doesn't help that the Skrreeans have been largely unsympathetic throughout the episode, with Haneek's condescending misandry and the males' pugnacity.
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E06TheAbandoned The Abandoned]]", Quark purchases a load of salvage which, unknown to him, includes what is later revealed to be an infant Jem'Hadar. Sisko self-righteously and incorrectly accuses Quark of purchasing a child, ignoring Quark's truthful protests that he had no idea. When Quark objects to the rest of his property being summarily seized by Starfleet, Sisko only shoots him a DeathGlare. You'd think if it were anyone else, he'd be more professional and assure them that their property rights would be respected once the investigation was complete.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E16ProphetMotive Prophet Motive]]" has Grand Nagus Zek show up having been mysteriously transformed from a typical greedy {{Jerkass}} Ferengi into a paragon of generosity (later revealed to be the result of him contacting the prophets trying to gain knowledge of future events, and them taking offense to Ferengi greed). Though there are moments when the "good" Zek comes across as just as much of a jerk as the regular Zek. Notably, he discards every object in Quark's quarters because it was "getting in the way" and then screws Quark out of a perfectly legitimate business deal. He doesn't seem at all concerned with the effect this has on Quark.
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E11Homefront Homefront]]", O'Brien discusses the recent bombing of a diplomatic conference on Earth, lamenting how frustrating it can be to see something you care about in danger and be powerless to help. Quark attempts to empathize by talking about the dwindling of his financial investments during an economic crisis, but O'Brien and Bashir dismiss it as typical Ferengi greed. Yet for someone who does not live in a post-scarcity utopia, living through an economic crisis actually can be a severely stressful experience (just ask anyone who lived through the 2008 recession). As such, the reactions of O'Brien and Bashir come off as insensitive.
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS06E23ProfitAndLace Profit and Lace]]", Ishka spends much of the episode being incredibly ungrateful to Quark about everything up until she has her heart attack. Never mind that Quark had made an honest effort to accommodate her with her feminist agenda despite personally disagreeing with it. And this is not long after [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS06E10TheMagnificentFerengi Quark risked his own life to rescue her from the Dominion]].

* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': Missy in "The Wild and Woolly World of Nonlinear Dynamics". She pulls a JerkassBall being even more hostile than usual [[MisplacedRetribution taking her heartbreak-induced anger out on her whole family]] (especially Sheldon) to the point [[NoSympathy very few people really have sympathy for Missy]] for the way she's behaving.
---

** Clara in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E12NightmareInSilver Nightmare in Silver]]", when she gets angry at the Doctor for putting Angie and Artie in danger. Considering they're only there because she gave in to their blackmail and allowed them to accompany her, it's hard to sympathise with her.
* ''{{Series/Euphoria}}'': While nobody argues that Maddy deserves to be abused, there are a lot of fans who find it hard to sympathize with her when she ruins other people's lives in order to escape from the consequences of her own terrible decisions.

** During Benny's trial, George brought Benny's mother to the stand and try and make Benny sympathetic to the jurors. While on the stand, she proceeds to mock Benny and shows how bad a mother she was to Benny. This was done to make Benny seem like a JerkassWoobie at the most since how bad she grew up in a broken home and being a single mother. The problem was that Benny was just as bad at raising George. Being emotionally and physically abusive to him, being neglectful of his feelings, disregarding his learning disability, not supporting his goals, and lying to him constantly. And as an adult, she is still a {{Jerkass}} to him and his family. It is pretty hard to sympathize with her.
** Another example of Benny falling into this is another episode where George completely remodels her bathroom, free of charge (and even throws in some custom stuff). When she complains about this and he rightfully calls her out for being ungrateful, she launches into a rant about all the bad things that happened in her life. The logic gap between being angry at people in your past and never saying thank you to your son is pretty blatant.
* One thing commonly criticized about the short-lived ''Series/{{Girlboss}}'' was that Sophia, the main protagonist, could come across as this. She was intentionally written to be a flawed yet still interesting character, with her idiosyncrasies intended to be amusing or endearing. However, many viewers found her so-called quirks irritating or off-putting instead; they also felt her flaws tended to outweigh her positive traits or were so glaring, she came across as very entitled, self-absorbed, and generally out-of-touch with reality, making it difficult for viewers to root for her or even tolerate her character. Nor does it help that many of her hardships are more her own fault than due to factors outside her control (e.g. she gets fired for turning up nearly half an hour late, spending her shift messing around on her phone and even eating her employer's food). The controversy surrounding her real-life counterpart did not exactly help endear Sophia to some viewers.[[note]]Sophia was based upon Sophia Amoruso, founder of Nasty Gal, who was accused of mistreating her employees, including firing pregnant employees and not addressing the toxic work culture; Nasty Gal also went bankrupt shortly before the show's debut due in part to Amoruso's mismanagement of the company[[/note]]

*** While she had perfect reasons to have people like Bryce and Marcus on her tapes, her reasons for everyone else having tapes were pretty minor. When it comes to Justin's tape she had the gall to blame him for Jessica being raped and not helping her instead of Bryce ''who actually raped her'' even though she was in the same room as them and did nothing to help Jess afterwards nor did she report it whereas Justin attempted to stop Bryce. Not to mention that later on she was involved in the accident that killed Jeff. She also made a lot of poor choices like continuously wanting to party with the popular crowd and pushing away the ones that tried to connect with her and then blaming everyone else but herself for her suicide. Had she gotten her act together and made smart, logical choices she'd probably be still alive. Then there's her treatment of Clay which can come across as her being verbally abusive as every other conversation has her criticizing things about him like his social skills. Keep in mind that Clay is her best friend and crush. And then there's Hannah including him in the tapes to tie everything together which severely damaged his mental health despite the fact that he did ''nothing'' wrong to deserve it (which was something she herself knew).

** Kara in "Jessie's Story", as while she genuinely loves her daughter Jessie, her behavior regarding Jessie's desire to learn who her biological father is was ''highly'' manipulative and controlling, making her come across as an emotionally abusive ControlFreak trying to force Jessie to be dependent solely on her. [[spoiler:It's only made worse with the reveal that Dominic is Jessie's father, not a sperm donor, and that Will is her [[SurpriseIncest half-brother]], as her reasoning has larges shades of ItsAllAboutMe, and is so {{wangst}}y that it makes it sound like she wanted to have her cake and eat it too, only to have a meltdown when that predictably didn't work out (not helped by her being a KarmaHoudini by the end of the episode).]]

* In Series/AmericanHorrorStoryDoubleFeature the way the scene is filmed the audience is meant to sympathize with the college professor after Ursula chews him out, but minutes early he very rudely cussed out a student and told him to leave his classroom after he questioned an aspect of writing.

* While the title character in ''Series/BeingMaryJane has her moments, her niece, Niecy, is a better example. Although she mostly grew up without her father and is a single mother of two, she feels that she's owed something because of her circumstances. Aside from being morbidly obese (which unfortunately could make her unsympathetic alone), she has a huge chip on her shoulder, [[NeverMyFault rarely takes responsibility for her actions]] and has virtually no ambition for herself. Even in the third season finale, after she's pulled over by the police for blasting her music too loudly and driving without any license plates (the latter which is illegal just about ''everywhere''), she mouths off to them, tries to drive away and once being ordered to step out of the car, thinks it was a good idea to shove one of the officers, causing him to taser her. Even though in-universe it's treated like a case of PoliceBrutality and she's given compassion, the fans don't agree.

* While the title character in ''Being Mary Jane'' has her moments, her niece, Niecy, is a better example. Although she mostly grew up without her father and is a single mother of two, she feels that she's owed something because of her circumstances. Aside from being morbidly obese (which unfortunately could make her unsympathetic alone), she has a huge chip on her shoulder, [[NeverMyFault rarely takes responsibility for her actions]] and has virtually no ambition for herself. Even in the third season finale, after she's pulled over by the police for blasting her music too loudly and driving without any license plates (the latter which is illegal just about ''everywhere''), she mouths off to them, tries to drive away and once being ordered to step out of the car, thinks it was a good idea to shove one of the officers, causing him to taser her. Even though in-universe it's treated like a case of PoliceBrutality and she's given compassion, the fans don't agree.

** One of the many complaints about the show is how unsympathetic many found the subject character, Hannah Baker. The premise of the show is that she commits suicide because she was bullied into it, and creates 13 tapes with each tape directed at people she believed was responsible for her fatal choice. The problem is, the tapes slowly reveal that Hannah could have avoided most of the problems herself, takes minor things way too seriously, and can't seem to learn from her mistakes and take accountability for her own actions. Not to mention several TooDumbToLive moments, where she keeps trying to befriend many of the popular teens whom she knows don't like her and are responsible for ruining her reputation at her high school. A common theme is that she keeps going to parties of popular teens, even though every time she does so, bad things happen to her, [[spoiler:resulting in her eventually getting raped by Bryce at his house, which completely breaks her. And this is after witnessing him raping Jessica during another party at his house in the past and knowing how dangerous he is.]] As a result, many find her character unrealistic when compared to a real-life victim who was tragically bullied into ending their life.
*** While she had perfect reasons to have people like Bryce and Marcus on her tapes, her reasons for everyone else having tapes were pretty minor. When it comes to Justin's tape she had the gall to blame him for Jessica being raped and not helping her instead of Bryce ''who actually raped her'' even though she was in the same room as them and did nothing to help Jess afterwards nor did she report it whereas Justin attempted to stop Bryce. Not to mention that later on she was involved in the accident that killed Jeff. She also made a lot of poor choices like continuously wanting to party with the popular crowd and pushing away the ones that tried to connect with her and then blames everyone else but herself for her suicide. Had she gotten her act together and made smart, logical choices she'd probably be still alive. Then there's her treatment of Clay that can come across as her being verbally abusive as every other conversation has her criticizing things about him like his social skills. Keep in mind that Clay is her best friend and crush. And then there's Hannah including him in the tapes to tie everything together which severely damaged his mental health despite the fact that he did ''nothing'' wrong to deserve it (which was something she herself knew).

** Jessica becomes this in Season 3 when she gets back together with Justin instead of Alex purely because of how he understands her body and does sex better than Alex does (even though she now knows that Justin was involved in her being sexually assaulted). She also proves to be a hypocrite by dismissing Alex's suicide attempt trauma until he received a threatening poster, criticizing Chloe for not testifying against Bryce, and attempting to ban male aggressive sports because she claims it promotes sexism and rape culture, despite the fact that she's with a jock who let her get raped and said nothing about it for months. Many people called her out on his (including Alex and even Justin himself) and even she calls herself out on it but she ultimately does nothing about it. Lastly, she was never called out on keeping the secret that [[spoiler:Alex killed Bryce even though Clay was about to go to jail for it]].

** The show attempts to make the audience sympathize with '''Bryce Walker''' of all people in the third season. While he does seem to feel some remorse and attempts to make amends for his actions, many viewers felt it was far too little, too late. For the first two seasons, Bryce has been portrayed as nothing but a selfish, arrogant and entitled SerialRapist, who left [[spoiler:Jessica]] traumatized and was the catalyst for Hannah killing herself, on top of being a violent bully as well, who never expresses any remorse for the lives he's ruined. Due to being a privileged rich kid and he got off with what was effectively a mild slap on the wrist for the heinous crimes he committed. As a result, a lot of viewers had a very hard time sympathizing with him in any way; many people doubted the sincerity of his remorse seeing as he continues to act in scummy ways such as traumatizing a young boy, and breaking Zach's leg out of spite, or felt that he had long since passed the MoralEventHorizon to warrant any pity. Hell, even Justin Prentice himself thought that Bryce was beyond redemption.

* When [[spoiler:Tony Almeida]] underwent a FaceHeelTurn in ''Series/TwentyFour'' he was clearly supposed to be seen as some sort of TragicVillain who has had his family violently taken from him. But it's so quickly thrown in [[AssPull out of the blue]] that he doesn't come off sympathetic at all. It also doesn't look much better when you compare it to [[spoiler:Jack Bauer]]'s FaceHeelTurn period in the final season. Both of them endangered innocent people, but in completely different ways. [[spoiler: Jack]] did become a danger to others during his attacks, but only because at this point they had become so reckless that innocent people were now running the risk of getting harmed in the crossfire - the only people he ''directly'' tried to harm were [[AssholeVictim enemy agents]] the whole time. [[spoiler: Tony]] on the other hand had no qualms about killing anyone and everyone to further his goals, at one point even being willing to [[spoiler: infect a crowd of innocent men, women and children in a subway station with a lethal virus]].
* Michael Bluth from ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'' is clearly meant to be the character the audience sympathises with, and it works to an extent, at least in the first three seasons. But anytime he interacts with a character outside of his family it becomes apparent that he's only "the nice one" by comparison - just a quick run-down of his first few romantic relationships shows him attempting to seduce his brother's girlfriend, sleeping with his son's crush (and later blaming said brother when his son finds out), and giving a fake name to a one-night stand (and later lying to her about losing her dog when he discovers she's blind). He's also not above manipulating his relatives' insecurities to get them to do what he wants, and as an employer is shown to expect everyone to be as much of a workaholic as he is, calling for long hours and weekend work even when he can't afford to pay people on time. The fact that he's most often contrasted with his brother GOB, who is largely viewed by fans as an UnintentionallySympathetic JerkassWoobie, probably doesn't help this trope.

** In Season 4, Felicity becomes this full-force. We are suppose to feel sorry for her when she learns that Oliver [[spoiler:has keep his long-lost illegitimate son]] a secret. But she comes off very entitled with a nasty ItsAllAboutMe attitude. She accuses him of being untrustworthy (even though he just learned about it a day prior), only thinking of himself and not caring about what she feels, ignoring what he's going through over this knowledge, and breaks up with him over it. And she gets upset with him going behind her back, even though she was doing the same thing at the beginning of the season when she was still assisting Team Arrow without his knowledge. Many fans feels she went too far when the first thing she does after being able to walk again is turn her back on Oliver and walk away, [[spoiler:right after he had to record a heartbreaking message to William telling him why he can never be a part of his life]].

* This was a serious problem with the early episodes of ''Series/Batwoman2019''. Kate refuses to apprehend [[BigBad Alice]], a terrorist who's killed many and tried to blow up a park full of men, women and children in her debut, and even actively stops others from doing so, all because [[spoiler: Alice is her long lost sister,]] and she thinks, without evidence, that she can redeem Alice and that bringing her in will hurt her chances at that (and maybe that Alice will be killed if she's in police custody, but the Crows would likely be far more careful after the first time that was attempted, especially once they knew [[spoiler: she was their boss's daughter]]). She's only slightly more bothered when Alice breaks her word to stop killing and tortures and tries to kill other members of her family, whom for the most part, she continues to treat poorly and blame for what happened to Beth, [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation making one wonder if part of Kate]] ''[[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation wants]]'' [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Alice to punish her family for their various slights against her]]. Kate does [[ArcFatigue eventually get over this,]] but her qualifications as Gotham's new protector is never called into question because of this, and [[spoiler: she's made the [[Series/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths2019 paragon of courage in the chronological next episode after this revalation]]]] despite her obvious moral and emotional cowardice.

** Leonard, Howard, Raj, Penny, Amy and Bernadette are supposed to be sympathetic for having to put up with Sheldon. The thing is, they're no better than him and enjoy tormenting him, bullying him, and insulting him (and each other) to his face. This also makes the many, many episodes where they "stand up to Sheldon" unsatisfying, they rarely if ever take his {{Jerkass}} behavior lying down and they come across as massive {{Hypocrite}}s who can dish it out but can't take it.

** Howard is this in "The Apology Insufficiency", where he gets ticked-off at Sheldon because Sheldon accidentally told a government agent that Howard crashed the Mars Rover trying to impress a date, and as a result Howard didn't get security clearance to work on a project. Howard [[NeverMyFault was the idiot who crashed the Mars Rover trying to impress a girl in the first place, and he didn't even have clearance to enter the control room in the first place]]. Sheldon told the agent - by accident - something completely true about Howard that demonstrates that he is indeed an irresponsible person who really shouldn't have security clearance. And yet we're supposed to side with Howard.

** Phoebe, who the show insisted was the victim of Cole's actions, despite being technically responsible for his descent into insanity and preventing him from attempting a HeroicSuicide at least ''twice'', because he felt he was in danger of becoming evil again. We're meant to sympathise with her, but the large majority of the audience felt that she was the bigger villain.
* Cirilo Rivera from ''Series/{{Carrusel}}''. His [[AllloveIsUnrequited unrequited crush]] on [[{{Tsundere}} Maria Joaquina]] sometimes bordered on obsession. He never stalked her -- let alone hurt her -- [[DoggedNiceGuy but he did not give up on her no matter how much she turned him down]]. And let's face it -- she was out of his league, which has NOTHING to do with their being of different races or even socioeconomic statuses; she, well, just didn't like him that way. But '''he would not stop''', and kept showering her with gifts and attentions that she ''clearly'' didn't want and either upset her or creeped her out. Viewers were supposed to take Cirilo's side... but Maria Joaquina ended up [[UnintentionallySympathetic being the one often favored by the audience instead]], since in practice, nobody blamed her for not loving a kid ''that'' clingy (and borderline creepy) back.

** Johnny can fall under this at the beginning of season 1. While the first episode tries to paint him in a [[SympatheticPOV sympathetic light]], ultimately, all of Johnny's misery comes from the fact that he never got over losing one karate tournament as a teenager. He's had more than enough chances to move on with his life by this point, yet he blames [[NeverMyFault everyone but himself for his misery.]] Not helping his case, is that at this point in the story, he's still the pompous JerkAss he was back in the 80's.
** Demetri in Season 2 crosses between this and RonTheDeathEater. He's a self-proclaimed nerd and social outcast whose best friend became his bully and got beaten by Johnny and Kreese the two times he tried to join Cobra Kai. But considering he often acts like an obnoxious KnowNothingKnowItAll, it's easy to believe that he's unpopular and his few friends abandoned him because he was unpleasant, not because he's a nerd. And when the adults to hit him, he's not exactly blameless either because he mocked Johnny for teaching them and [[GodwinsLaw called him a Nazi]] in his own dojo and put his hands on Kreese's arm and touched his tattoo completely unprompted, [[HypocriticalHumor despite claiming to have personal space issues himself.]]

** In Season 3, Tory is supposed to come off as sympathetic when the full extent of her home and family life is revealed, namely the fact that her mother is bedridden from dialysis and her brother is too young to work himself, she's got a predatory landlord who is trying to extort sex from her, along with a comment from Miguel when they talk at the sushi restaurant implying that she's mentally ill. However, the reveal of this information ends up actually highlighting the selfishness of her behavior, and makes her actions in Season 2 look worse in hindsight because it means she did everything, including instigating the school brawl that got her expelled and arrested, fully knowing how much it could put her family at risk, and did so over a boy who cheated on her and was clearly in love with Sam this whole time. Not helped by the fact that she acts entitled by refusing to take responsibility and help Miguel after her stunt indirectly put him in the hospital, and she spends much of season 3 continuing to willingly do things that could remove her ability to take care of her family, such as committing crimes and repeatedly seeking out physical fights with the girl she's on probation for fighting and maiming, despite Sam no longer trying to pick a fight with her.
** Hawk undergoes a HeelFaceTurn in the Season 3 finale, which is supposed to be seen as cathartic but instead comes off as unearned or an outright AssPull to those who don't see this as the show laying the foundation for his season 4 story arc. Despite apologizing to Demetri (whose arm he reluctantly broke in the arcade fight), it comes off as pretty half-assed and rushed. [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation It also comes off as him only switching sides because of the fact that Robby was taking his place as Cobra Kai's alpha]] rather than actually feeling bad for the bullying he had committed against Miyagi-Do students. There's also the fact that he’s committed more onscreen crimes than any of the other students and suffered the least legal consequences[[note]]for instance, Tory may have started the school fight, but it was Hawk who turned it into an all out brawl[[/note]] and even though he changed sides during the home invasion brawl, he still chose to participate in the home invasion itself, making him complicit in any injuries Miguel suffered from Kyler's beating.
** Johnny can fall into this with regards to Robby. A lot of the time, when Johnny is reaching out and trying to fix things with Robby, it can feel like he's not doing so out of love and care for his son, but rather because he doesn't want to feel bad about not being a good father. This is much more prominently on display in season 3 when compared to prior seasons. And much like Mr. Miyagi's neglect of Daniel led to Daniel joining Terry Silver in ''The Karate Kid Part III'', it plays a big part in Robby's decision to join Cobra Kai and side with Kreese.

* ''Series/ControlZ'': Rosita threw a birthday party at her house, ignoring Sofía's warnings to call it off because that's where the avenger would attack next. Since the perpetrator tampered with a vodka bottle, Sofía's attempts to save the day were misinterpreted by Rosita as excuses of wanting to ruin everyone's night. Also, Rosita showed no concern for María's wellbeing, only telling her that if she needed to throw up she could use the bathroom. It doesn't help that she rushes over to María alongside the others just after she overdoses and remain indifferent over someone's wellbeing is not what should be expected from a friend, let alone the kind who has lots of fun. In short, she should've taken Sofía's advice.

** Rose Tyler falls into this category for a lot of the fanbase, despite a lot of them liking her in Series 1. She gets angry at any women who speaks to the Doctor, treats her boyfriend Mickey horribly in her first appearance, and doesn't seem to care that due to her [[YearOutsideHourInside disappearing for a year]] he got accused of murdering her. Her losing the Doctor by being trapped in another Universe may be a TearJerker but she implies she would be willing to destroy both worlds to get back to him. And "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd Journey's End]]" when she returns to her Universe due to the Daleks collapsing reality her dialogue clearly shows she was trying to get back before this happened, despite the Doctor telling her it would destroy both worlds. It doesn't help any that her own mother is also in this alternate universe, and she now essentially has her father back when the one in her own universe died when she was a baby, ''and'' her family is now fabulously rich, yet Rose acts remarkably ungrateful about all this.

** The Tenth Doctor's attitude to regeneration being equivalent to death in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime The End of Time]]" makes him come across a whiny brat. Not helping his case is his outrage at the fact that he has to perform a HeroicSacrifice and how no Doctor in the past reacted in this manner and neither did the Eleventh. No other Time Lord (and, for that matter, no other incarnation of the Doctor) does this either in the entire history of the show; at one point Twelve compares it to "man flu" and when his time to regenerate comes, he's defiant because he's ''tired'' of the endless cycle and just wants to die for good (but decides to regenerate with dignity in the end).

* In ''Series/FateTheWinxSaga'', Vanessa in the flashbacks in "[[Recap/FateTheWinxSagaS1E1ToTheWatersAndTheWild To the Waters and the Wild]]", is presumably intended to be a sympathetic adoptive mother who has to put up with Bloom's teenage angst. However, in the main flashback, she seems to be extremely judgmental in shaming Bloom for having unconventional hobbies and not having friends. When Bloom is understandably offended and calls her a "basic bitch", Vanessa responds by ''taking away the door to her room''. It's hard not to see getting third degree burns in Bloom's fire as LaserGuidedKarma.
* Shows up with Martin Crane in the HalloweenEpisode of ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' where the cast have to dress up as their heroes for a party. Niles Crane, paying tribute by dressing up as Martin, becomes drunk and begins badmouthing both Frasier and himself, expressing what he thinks is his father's feelings towards his sons. Martin becomes upset, angrily declaring Niles is putting words in his mouth and that he always loved his sons. The problem is there are several episodes before and after this point in the show where Martin has no problem openly stating his disdain for his sons' less than macho behavior and more highbrow tastes, even openly mocking them when he doesn't feel their problems warrant much concern. There are also strong hints that he wasn't any less judgmental of the two when they were younger and he couldn't manage to find anything to bond with them over. It comes off less like he's upset Niles is putting words in his mouth and more like he doesn't like hearing his own words thrown back in his face.

** Rachel, who we're meant to feel sorry for because she keeps losing Ross and has to watch him date other women...except she's the one who broke up with him (and refused to take him back), malevolently manipulates TheUnfairSex and back stabs any woman he tries to move on with.
*** We're also meant to sympathize with her 'empowering' journey of getting over her spoiled upbringing and breaking into the fashion industry. That works early on when she's vulnerable and hard-working but not much later when she's unprofessional, lazy and 'empowering' equals taking Ross's daughter to a different continent from him. It doesn't help that Monica is clearly more hard-working, Chandler more capable and Ross more intelligent in their respective jobs but she's still the 'Career' character. Rachel even hires a man she is attracted to rather then someone who has the qualifications, and has an affair with him.
*** However it should be noted that, both Ross and Rachel have been called out on several occasions throughout the show for their shortcomings and [[NeverMyFault refusal to take fault]], arguably more spectacularly and exceptionally than the others. While maybe not proportionately to their actions, there are times they are intentionally played as {{Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist}}s.

** During Benny's trial, George brought in Benny's mother to the stand and try and make Benny sympathetic to the jurors. While on the stand, she proceed to mock Benny and shows how bad a mother she was to Benny. This was done to make Benny seem like a JerkassWoobie at the most since how bad she grew up in a broken home and being a single mother. The problem was that Benny was just as bad at raising George. Being emotionally and physically abusive to him, being neglectful of his feelings, disregarding his learning disability, not supporting his goals, and lying to him constantly. And as an adult she still a {{Jerkass}} to him and his family. It pretty hard to sympathize with her.
** Another example of Benny falling into this is another episode where George completely remodels her bathroom, free of charge (and even throws in some custom stuff). When she complains about this and he rightfully calls her out for being ungrateful, she launches into a rant about all the bad things that happened in her life. The logic gap from being angry at people in your past and never saying thank you to your son is pretty blatant.
* One thing commonly criticized about the short-lived ''Series/{{Girlboss}}'' was that Sophia, the main protagonist, could come across as this. She was intentionally written to be a flawed yet still interesting character, with her idiosyncrasies intended to be amusing or endearing. However, many viewers found her so-called quirks irritating or off-putting instead; they also felt her flaws tended to outweigh her positive traits or were so glaring, she came across as very entitled, self-absorbed and generally out-of-touch with reality, making it difficult for viewers to root for her or even tolerate her character. Nor does it help that many of her hardships are more her own fault than due to factors outside her control (e.g. she gets fired for turning up nearly half an hour late, spending her shift messing around on her phone and even eating her employer's food). The controversy surrounding her real-life counterpart did not exactly help endear Sophia to some viewers.[[note]]Sophia was based upon Sophia Amoruso, founder of Nasty Gal, who was accused of mistreating her employees, including firing pregnant employees and not addressing the toxic work culture; Nasty Gal also went bankrupt shortly before the show's debut due in part to Amoruso's mismanagement of the company[[/note]]

* ''Series/GossipGirl'': Viewers are meant to sympathize with Dan Humphrey for being an underprivileged outcast struggling to be accepted by the rich, cool kids and for having to work hard for everything he gets while the Upper East Side characters get everything handed to them because they are wealthy and know the right people. He was even referred to as "the pauper" in promos at one point. We're also supposed to sympathize with him on account of him being the moral compass on a show filled with people stabbing each other in the back and going to any lengths to pursue their own selfish interests. This quickly falls apart on all accounts, starting with the fact that he's able to attend an expensive private school on Manhattan, lives in a large loft in Brooklyn, for a while took a limo to school and had a rich stepmother who paved the way for him. He oftentimes sabotaged other characters, including his own long-time best friend and (at the time) girlfriend Vanessa when she got accepted into Tish and he didn't, not to mention he sabotaged Blair's wedding via a Gossip Girl blast but when she thought it was Chuck's doing Dan not only allowed her to keep thinking that, he ''encouraged'' it. Then there's the fact that [[spoiler:he was Gossip Girl and thus responsible for much of the misery in the other characters' lives, including putting their lives at risk on occasion]].

** Then there is how she acted after receiving the information from Cobblepot. After he stated that Fish had the necklace before it was found on Pepper and flat out admitted he is using this information to get rid of his boss. What does Montoya do? Does she follow up on this information? Does she take it with a grain of salt from a guy that is most likely lying to her? Does she go to Gordon to find out if he was even aware of this? No. She takes this very flimsy information and jumps to the conclusion that Jim must have been fully aware and even planted the evidence on Pepper. Then instead of bring this to the police she goes right to Barbara and flat out tells Barbara with no evidence that her fiance is guilty to get them to break up. Gordon wasn't even aware of this theory until after he hears it secondhand from Barbara which means after using this information to try to break up Barbara and Gordon, she did absolutely nothing else with it.

* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': Towards the end of season 3, Ted temporarily ends his friendship with Barney after learning he slept with Robin and broke the "bro code" in the process. However, this moment notwithstanding, Ted never takes the bro code seriously and treats it like a joke. Not to mention, he never holds this against Robin in spite of her consenting to it equally. While Barney may take the bro code seriously, he only ever broke it in the heat of the moment to console Robin, and had no intention of hurting anyone. Futhermore, by the final season, Ted breaks the bro code himself just hours before [[spoiler:Barney and Robin's wedding]] and he treats it like it's [[{{Hypocrite}} just another thing and no big deal.]]

*** [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Gai Amatsu]]'s FreudianExcuse is that [[EducationPapa his dad]] told him to study more and spend less time playing with his RobotDog. While it's somewhat sad to see him put his robot dog, it's hard to sympathize with Gai as a character given how [[KickTheDog horrific]] a lot his actions throughout the show are, which include but are not limited to [[AIIsACrapshoot corrupting an AI]] and setting it loose so it kills a bunch of people just to sabotage his business rival, {{Mind Control}}ling and abusing his [[TheDragon right-hand woman]], [[ColdBloodedTorture torturing someone]] for funsies, commandeering a government agency to use as his own private hit squad and [[TheManBehindTheMan enabling a terrorist group to run rampant]] all so he can exploit it to drive down his competitor's stocks. Not helping matters is that [[spoiler:even post-HeelFaceTurn, Gai only gives an incredibly vague apology for his actions and [[KarmaHoudini gets off scot-free]] in the end, even though it's not an exaggeration to say he [[GreaterScopeVillain caused everything bad that happens in the show]].]]

* The titular character of ''Series/KirbyBuckets'' is supposed to be designed as an AudienceSurrogate for the show's main demographic of preteen boys, whose interests always seem to come into conflict with girls' and aren't given the same mainstream acceptance (a theme Creator/DisneyXD leans heavily into with their original shows; in fact it's kind of a RealitySubtext for the network's breakaway from the girl-oriented Creator/DisneyChannel). This cultural clash is best exemplified in the show's central conflict, Kirby's SiblingRivalry with his older sister Dawn. Dawn is supposed to be a symbol of a "girl culture" that looks down upon Kirby's unique boy interests (itself an inherently sexist message), and Kirby is intended to be seen as a plucky underdog fighting back against a BigSisterBully. The only problem? The power dynamic is more often than not, completely backwards: InUniverse, Kirby is usually a very popular guy as he is a prominent cartoonist, while Dawn is liked by very few people. Even their own parents constantly show more favoritism towards Kirby and berate Dawn constantly. And because of that, "Dawnzilla", Kirby's caricature of Dawn, seems to come off as Kirby being a bully more than anything else. So yeah, it's no surprise that many viewers have a hard time taking Kirby's side on the show.

** Stephanie Harker in the episode “True North” certainly counts; she has her soon-to-be ex-husband, young stepdaughter and the friend who did the killings murdered, then it's revealed that she killed the man's first wife years earlier just so she can marry him. She tries to explain at her trial a sob story about being looked down for being working class and a rich boy getting her pregnant in high school and she having to terminate the pregnancy due to him refusing to marry her, but even that displayed [[GoldDigger her true nature from back then.]] [=McCoy=] himself said prior to her [[spoiler: being sentenced to death]], "Stephanie Harker doesn't push my pity buttons."
** This was combined with TheUnfairSex in "Good Girl" where the murderer was treated sympathetically despite the fact if the genders in this situation were reversed (a man had an affair and killed the woman when she tried to end it) he would have never been depicted sympathetically, especially if he claimed that he did it because he couldn’t live without her. When you add to that the the fact that she seems to have a race fetish and the first thing she did after she was arrested was accuse him (the person she claimed to love) of trying to rape her, it's hard to take her crying seriously.

** Megan Ramsey from “Repression” is a great example due to just how convenient her situation turned out. Megan was a unrepentant drug addict who was cut off. She goes to therapy and recalls her childhood molestation by her father, she reports the incest hoping it would spare her younger sisters from suffering the same fate, and the threat of this seems credible because her middle sister implies she may have walked in on her father just after molesting the youngest. In the end, the middle sister accidentally shoots the father shortly after falsifying evidence of molestation against him, and we find out that Megan's memories were falsely coached by her therapist and the father was innocent; the therapist is arrested for reckless endangerment, but Megan gets exactly what she wanted from the beginning: to be allowed back in her rich parents' house with her mother taking care of her, despite the fact that this means that her drug addiction had nothing to do with any childhood trauma on her part.

** The basic premise of "Transitions" has a trans girl (born male, identifies female) being constantly, violently angry, but only against females, particularly a group of girls who didn't want her to use the girls' bathroom, and proudly declare she beat her (entirely supportive) mother in order to "strike a blow for her freedom" after being caught sneaking into the house at two in the morning. She also has a host of other mental problems, a history of self-harm, attempted suicide, virulent hatred of her father, and generally having serious anger issues that, while exacerbated by the stress of being a transgender adolescent, had nothing to do with her actually being transgender. And this all served to be an attempt to justify the attempted murder of her father by her school counselor, who is also a transwoman, and who tried to kill him in order to get some kind of displaced revenge for hate crimes she had experienced when she was younger. The writers at least seemed to realize this as Greylek stated not every person that has been a victim can have an automatic get out of jail free card when they go looking for retribution. The end result is that the episode tried to show the plight of transgender people by making one of them insane and the other one a murderer, who both want a man dead essentially because [[StrawmanHasAPoint he's not as supportive as they think he ought to be]].
** And yet another episode is about a girl from a privilege background, who is put into a school for gifted smart students and expected by her parents to be the best student there. However, the girl can't handle the pressure and eventually snaps, killing another who she was jealous of, because she was the top student of her class, and no matter how hard she studied, [[AlwaysSecondBest she couldn't outscore her on test]]. Rather than the show pointing out how cold, and psychopathic such an action like that is, they try to put the girl in a sympathetic light, claiming the pressure drove her to prescription drug abuse that caused a psychotic break due to sleep deprivation. Even lampshaded during the episode, when some pointed out how the situation would be different, if it was a boy, a person of color, and from a poor background. However, the tone of the show makes them look like [[JerkassHasAPoint jerkasses, instead of people whom raised a valid point.]] In the end, the girl gets a slap on the wrist and sentenced to a medical center for treatment. Directly afterwards, another case is brought up about a young boy who raped and murdered a young girl, raising the question, [[{{Hypocrite}} will he get the same biased treatment]] the rich girl got.
** In a male example, after a boxing legend is caught trying to have sex with underage teenage girls, he gives them information for a lesser sentence, which leads to the arrest of a high ranking member of law enforcement who is part of a pedophile ring. However, the episode takes a sympathetic spin on the matter, showing how tragic him getting caught is for the wife and children. The fact he isn't very popular within in his field, and he might have been setup is also highlighted as tragic. Even Olivia Benson who is usually gangbusters against male predators, acts depressed during the whole episode and even admits that she feels bad for breaking up his family when she never cared before when dealing with other pedophiles. The violins play heavier when he tries to kill himself, once he realized no one would help him beat the charges. In the end, the guy gets a slap on the wrist, but has to register as a sex offender, thanks to how much Olivia Benson was guilt tripping the district attorney through the whole episode not to permanently destroy the family by taking him to trial. The kicker? Olivia is more upset that the boxing legend got a good deal as well.
** The episode "Pretend" had a full grown adult who pretended to be a high school student for ''years'', essentially to avoid having to grow up, and in the process, had enough "high school sweethearts" she manipulated and slept with to fill a calendar. She was still seen as the victim for not being able to adjust to adult life, with her arrest for statutory rape being more of a legal formality with the victim's complaint not about being personally violated as much as being embarrassed for sleeping with an old bag (and it was primarily a legal strategy to set up a [[NeverMyFault psych defense for his own crime]]). Although the ending seems to imply she's also ''batshit'', it tends to fall in line with TheUnfairSex stance the show often takes.

** Then we have Karna, another one of Duryodhan’s allies. His ParentalAbandonment, exclusion from the Kshatriya warrior class, his famous generosity and his unmatched skill as a warrior are meant to endear viewers to him. His curse from Parashuram to forget all his advanced archery knowledge when he needs it the most, for no fault except displaying a trait which Parashuram cannot attribute to someone who isn’t a Kshatriya warrior, pushes him into [[TheWoobie Woobiedom]]. His UndyingLoyalty to Duryodhan because the latter gifted him a kingdom and formally inducted him into the warrior caste is endearing and you can’t help but feel for him when princess Draupadi rejects him as a suitor for being a “charioteer’s son”. But that said, he was taught archery so he can be a VigilanteMan taking down corrupt and evil warriors; instead he gatecrashes a private ceremony for the Kuru princes and challenges Arjun to a duel for no reason whatsoever. He feels indebted to Duryodhan who buys his loyalty by gifting him a minor province to rule. And during the dice game, he is the one who [[SlutShaming shames Draupadi for having five husbands]], calls her a prostitute and rhetorically asks if she could be [[ShamefulStrip brought naked before the court]]. When given a chance for a HeelFaceTurn, he refuses out of loyalty to Duryodhan and even participates in the dog piling on a defenseless Abhimanyu. And his second curse, which actually dooms him is well deserved. He had fired an arrow into the open with no consideration for what it might hit, and it ended up killing a defenseless calf - a huge sin in Hinduism.
** Yudhistir is supposed to be sympathetic for being a cerebral wise statesman who would rather govern a kingdom than fight battles. But it is his gambling addiction that leads to utter ruination for him, his brothers and Draupadi. In the dice game, he could have stopped playing after losing some wealth. Instead he [[AbsurdlyHighStakesGame stakes his entire kingdom]]. And then [[LostHimInACardGame stakes his brothers, then himself and finally Draupadi]], without even asking them if they wanted to assume such a risk. And then [[BetrayalByInaction prevents his brothers from doing anything to stop Draupadi’s disrobing]]. Then he [[HereWeGoAgain stakes everything again]] in a Loser Goes Into Exile game. And once his exile begins, he starts spouting the need to [[{{Forgiveness}} be the better man and forgive Duryodhan]], even saving the latter from judgement and execution by the Gandharva tribe [[InsaneTrollLogic to spare Duryodhan’s mother Gandhari the grief]].

** ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': Jemma Simmons during the Framework arc. [[spoiler:Yes, she is trapped in a world completely alien to her, and she is correct about the Framework being a simulated reality, and that everyone is running on limited time, but she doesn't even consider that to the people living there (whom she brushes of as just pieces of data) it is indeed very real, and her approach of just telling Mace and Ward - without any real proof other than her say-so, and expecting them to just believe, is a little frustrating. Coulson himself pointed out that Mace and the others didn't have his previous tampering to help him break through the illusion. She comes off as especially mean when she calls the fight against HYDRA, led by the resident versions of Jeffrey and Ward, meaningless, and her insults toward Ward also just seem to go into plain IrrationalHatred territory as this version of Grant Ward has shown himself to be a good enough man who genuinely loves Daisy/Skye and even apologizes for his deceased real world counterpart's terrible actions. Also, when Ward makes the valid point that Jemma not letting him take the shot was what got Agnes killed, Simmons tries to justify her actions by saying the real Fitz would have never done it]].

** Some found ''Series/IronFist2017'''s Danny Rand to be this. He's suffered a lot and is trying to reclaim his identity, but the way he goes about it mixes naivety with entitlement. A standout moment is the third episode, when he angrily asserts his ownership of Rand Industries as something his father wanted him to have - in other words, declaring that he should be a billionaire by right of birth. He says that it's about reclaiming his own name, but never tries to negotiate keeping that without the money and teams up with a cutthroat lawyer. The obvious ArtisticLicenseEconomics doesn't help, as in reality someone who's been missing for 15 years and been declared dead would certainly not be able to do this. When Colleen allows him to stay in her dojo he takes it upon himself to lecture her students uninvited, and proudly declares himself the Iron Fist even though by going to New York at all he's abandoned the duties of that role.

*** For a while, it seemed that Kilgrave had a textbook FreudianExcuse: his own parents treated him as a lab rat and performed extremely painful experiments that, while giving him his powers, irreparably warped him into the [[TheSociopath the sociopathic]] PsychoticManchild he is as an adult. His parents were his first victims, with him using his new mind controlling powers to enslave and eventually forced his mother to burn herself during a tantrum, leading them to abandon him. Then "AKA The Sin Bin" revealed that his parents were actually trying to ''save'' him; their experiments were to cure his neurodegenerative disease that would have left him a vegetable by twelve, thus turning them into people who, while still making a terrible mistake, were still fundamentally good people and didn't deserve their son's evil... except they still, you know, performed extremely painful experiments on him. That didn't change, and, if anything, the truth behind their actions makes those experiments even ''worse'', since it means they couldn't be bothered telling him why or giving him painkillers like anyone with even a cent of common sense and decency would have done.

*** Karen constantly tells off Matt and Foggy for lying and keeping secrets, despite keeping some pretty big secrets of her own, such as that she killed James Wesley and lying about Frank kidnapping her when she really ran off with him.
*** At first, Foggy Nelson has quite a few legitimate criticisms about Matt's nighttime activities. But then he has the nerve to suggest that the real reason Matt wants to save Frank Castle from death row is not because saving a man's life is Matt's (and by extension Foggy's) moral and ethical obligation as a lawyer to do, but because Frank is a fellow vigilante... who uses methods Matt has made perfectly clear he does not approve of.

*** DA Samantha Reyes. Her mistakes during a sting got Frank Castle's family killed, and while it is implied she regrets this, afterwards she tries repeatedly to kill Frank simply to save her own career, acts like a complete bitch, and threatens to ruin the careers of three innocent, well meaning people, plus her assistant. And yet we're supposed to feel sorry for her simply because her daughter was threatened. Few tears were shed at her death.
*** In season 3, all of the elements are there to show Ray Nadeem is supposed to be a sympathetic character... the relative with cancer (which has financially impacted him heavily), the difficulties at work, his family being terrified of the latest developments, and then being manipulated by Fisk. The problem is that the character comes off sort of shallow and bland, rendering these just a collection of cliches that have less impact than they would if he seemed a deeper or more thoughtful person; so when he makes arguments to get Fisk things he wants, or goes around hassling Karen and Foggy because Fisk fingered Matt, he comes off as more of a jerk and a pest than a principled FBI agent doing his best in trying circumstances.

** Some viewers find Midge hard to sympathize with because of the minimal amount of attention she seems to give to her children. We hardly ever see her interacting with her kids. As the show goes on, more screen time is dedicated to showing Midge's struggle to balance her budding professional life with her parental responsibilities as well as Joel's increasing willingness to pitch in while Midge is away. The subject of parenthood gets brought up a lot by fans, and the cast and crew have had to point out that the show's focus isn't on parenthood, so it simply gets less screen time.

* Maxwell Sheffield from ''Series/TheNanny'' can come off as this. Yes, he is dealing with the death of his wife and had to deal with less than ideal and emotionally distant parents. And yes, being a Broadway producer is a stressful job. Regardless, anytime Fran messes up something for him, no matter how minor, his response is always to yell [[CatchPhrase "Miss Fine!"]] and threaten to fire her or sometimes with implied physical abuse, even if she apologizes for it. Fran Drescher admitted she wanted the show to be like ''Series/ILoveLucy'' so he was probably doing what Ricky always used to do, but [[ValuesDissonance that kind of behavior wasn't as accepted in the 90's as it was in the 50's]].
** Probably the biggest example of this would be his infamous [[NeverLiveItDown telling Fran he loved her, then taking it back]] from season 4. His justification is he was worried about how it would affect his kids if their relationship failed, and "Samson, he Denied Her," tries to spin as though he was so worried about losing her that he chose not to have a relationship. However, it comes off more as "there's the slightest chance the relationship won't work, so it's better not to have one at all," essentially the romance equivalent of [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons "work was hard, so we quit."]] Also, later that season, when Fran starts attending therapy to get over her need for marriage, Max basically admits he's happy for the therapist, because it means he doesn't have to make a commitment; while C.C. is supposed to come off as a bitch in a later episode for implying that Max is stringing Fran along, the truth is, she's not wrong. [[note]]To be fair though, this seems to be a case on DependingOnTheWriter, as Max's reception to Fran's affections during this season fluctuate between either mild reciprocation or not giving a crap.[[/note]]

** Erin in Season 9. In the show's frequent attempts to recreate [[SuperCouple the Jim/Pam romance]], the writers attempt to portray her as neglected and mistreated so she could be pushed towards the supposedly nicer and more understanding Pete instead. However, the handwave they used to explain why [[DerailingLoveInterests Andy would inexplicably start treating her that way]] so soon after ''risking his job to win her back'' involved him going through exceptionally difficult circumstances that made his behavior actually somewhat understandable, while making Erin come off as heartless for abandoning him during such a rough period in his life, and over a temporary bout of JerkAss behavior that obviously wasn't entirely his fault. [[WordOfGod Ellie Kemper herself said]] that Erin's choice to be with Pete was supposed to show her growing up by choosing a more stable guy, but it feels less like Erin's actually matured inasmuch as her immaturity was just dumped on Andy, and it especially rings hollow in the scene where, in the midst of their breakup, Erin bursts into Andy's office and demands that he "just get over it", sounding like a spoiled little girl, after [[{{Hypocrite}} she had already proven in the previous season that she was completely incapable of doing that herself when the situations were reversed]]. And ''then'' she throws a tantrum over losing a paper airplane contest and storms off when Jim and Pam refused to go on a double-date with her and Pete, making the aforementioned maturity arc fall flat on its face.

** It can be hard to sympathize with Pam's jealousy towards Katy given that the only reason why Jim dated her is because Pam is engaged to Roy and refuses to break off what is clearly an unhappy relationship. Then when Jim finally breaks up with Katy and confesses his true feelings to Pam, Pam ''still'' refused to end her engagement to Roy until Jim has left Scranton for Stamford.

*** This works well enough very early on in the show, when Jim clearly has nothing better to do with his time, a very prankable bully in Dwight, a boss who plays his own "pranks" indiscriminately on the staff which make everything Jim does look modest by comparison, and a girl who appreciates Jim's pranks as a distraction from her issues. The problem is as these things disappear from Jim's life he seems to double down on the pranking as a constant.

** Hook can come across as this for much the same reasons as Regina. The show has a tendency to ignore some of his more villainous acts and make it seem like he is a completely different person post HeelFaceTurn than he was before it, a notion which ironically he ''himself'' seems uncomfortable with. This is not getting into the fact that he is EasilyForgiven for [[spoiler: his actions as the Dark One and killing David's father, and while it might make sense for the former when all things are considered, it does ''not'' for the latter given David's murderous rage toward King George when he thought that ''he'' had been his father's killer, and yet then just shrugs off the revelation that Hook actually did it.]]

** Belle herself for quite a long time was seen as this too, as she was constantly excusing Rumple's actions from both the past and in the present. Since the mid-season finale of Season 4, however, she [[CharacterDevelopment finally wised up]] and stopped doing this, being more than willing to call Rumple out on his behavior during his future transgressions.
** Prince Charming. He operates on BlackAndWhiteMorality and it reaches BlackAndWhiteInsanity and IdiotBall at times, especially when the villains in the middle of a HeelFaceTurn are concerned. In Season 2, his tendency to blame Regina for everything, including a wraith dragging Emma and Snow into the Enchanted Forest which was not her fault, did nothing except isolate Regina and almost make her turn evil again when she genuinely wanted to change. The Neverland arc would have also gone much smoother if he was not constantly belittling Regina and Hook when they were trying to help. It reaches it's nadir in season 4B where it is him who is spearheading attempts to cover [[spoiler: what he and Snow did to Maleficent]] and even more adamant about it than Snow.
** On the flipside, Snow is often seen as having become far ''too'' forgiving and accepting of Regina, to the point where she ignores her own daughter in order to cater to the woman who ripped Snow apart from said daughter for 28 years.
** [[Literature/TheLittleMermaid Ursula the Sea Witch]] in the "Queens of Darkness" story arc. While her backstory shows that she used to be a kind mermaid until Hook stole her voice, her transformation into a monster was self-inflicted yet she [[NeverMyFault puts all the blame on Hook]]. Just as she’s about to strangle Snow, Hook brings her voice back and makes her reconcile with her father. She’s suddenly considered as good and [[KarmaHoudini free to leave the town]] even thought she express no remorse in actively helping Rumplestilskin and the other Queens [[spoiler: to turn Emma into a villain]]. Not helping is the later revelation that she and Cruella [[MoralEventHorizon left Maleficient’s baby daughter to die]].

* In the 2002 LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek ''The Pact'', we meet a young man, Chris Harte, who was charged in the murder of his [[spoiler: pregnant, which was unbeknownst to him until after her demise]] girlfriend, Emily Gold, whom he killed in a failed suicide pact she initiated. Instead of him being portrayed as the conflicted and [[TheMourningAfter heartbroken boyfriend who just lost the love of his life]] and plagued by [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone confusion and guilt over the situation]] [[spoiler: who was sent off to prison, like he was in the original book the movie was based off of]], he comes off as a sneaky, creepy, [[TheUnfettered emotionally-detached]] [[JerkAss douchebag]] [[spoiler: who who ends up [[KarmaHoudini getting away with his crime]] due to the father of a dead girl testifying on his behalf.]] Perhaps if a better actor had portrayed Chris, he would been seen in a more sympathetic light.

** ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce'' has many fans see Time Force themselves as this for propping up the racist government that makes threats like Ransik possible. In [[Series/MiraiSentaiTimeranger the Sentai source material]], the Rangers' superior Captain Ryuya (the analogue to Captain Logan) is [[spoiler:actually the true BigBad of the show]], and as such it's very easy to spin the main characters' bosses as villains.

** ''Series/PowerRangersOperationOverdrive'': The Overdrive Rangers are meant to come off as sympathetic in "Once A Ranger" when they lose their powers and feel useless enough that they quit. However: 1) They still have their civilian powers, 2) Their mission was not to be just Power Rangers, but to find the jewels, which they could still do while the veteran rangers dealt with the monsters, 3) All of them, save for Tyzonn, were gloating about how awesome it is to be Power Rangers before being reminded it's about saving lives, 4) They only return because they found returning to their old lives boring rather than wanting to actually do something heroic, and 5) Mack, unmorphed, uses Excelsior to slash through a giant monster in half. While Excelsior's power is hyped up this episode, the fact remains that Mack had to jump several hundred feet in the air, and perform a slash powerful enough to one shot the monster. With civilian powers this strong, why complain about not having Ranger powers?

* ''Series/PrimevalNewWorld'': Mac at the end of his RoaringRampageOfRevenge in Episode 5, when he shoots the male Lycaenops dead in utter cold blood, right when the creature is mourning the death of its mate. The latter moment was meant to show how badly [[TheLostLenore Samantha's death by the female Lycaenops]] has gotten to Mac and make the audience pity him, but for the majority of viewers, it seemed like a [[KickTheDog completely asshole move]] of him. You'd think Mac would relate to the Lycaenops' pain of losing a loved one at least for a moment, besides the fact that it's the already-slain female who killed Samantha. Not helping the fact is Mac handling the JerkassBall earlier in the episode, when he tried to innocently trick Toby into flattening the unconscious female Lycaenops with a truck (directly after the rest of the team had explained to him why they weren't killing the creature), which almost makes the same female later killing his loved ones seem like a disproprortionately-overblown helping of karma for Mac. Fortunately, the next episode did a bit to make up for Mac's actions here.

* ''Series/{{Reba}}'' has Kyra. It's hard to deny that she gets the short end of the stick at points, but this is often because of ''very'' justifiable reasons, such as trying to help the teenaged mother in the family get on her feet, and raising a new born child. In addition, with all the complaining Kyra does, she almost ''never'' does anything to ''help improve'' the situation, or at least help make things easier on everyone. The closest thing that can remotely count was [[spoiler: moving out to her dad's place, which only succeeded in causing ''even more stress on the family'' and bringing Reba to tears]]. Combine this with her slowly sliding into the TeensAreMonsters trope during her teenaged years and her DeadpanSnarker tendencies being taken up to near {{Jerkass}} levels in the later seasons, and it's a bit hard to feel bad for her at times when she starts complaining about things.
* ''Series/RipperStreet'' has Susan “Long Susan” Hart. At first, she comes off as a sympathetic brothel owner who cares for her girls. This ends in the third season when she a) helps organize a train accident that kills and injures hundreds, just so she and her partner can profit from the insurance. b) almost kills detective Reid by shooting him in the head when he gets close to discovering the truth. And c) effectively kidnappings Reid’s amnesiac daughter and lies to him about it. In the end her hanging seems more like a well deserved end than a sad event.

** At the end of season two, Guy of Gisborne stabbed Maid Marian to death, sending his CharacterDevelopment and [[StoryArc Redemption Arc]] back to square one. Season Three tried to turn him into a HeartbrokenBadass, ignoring the fact that for a significant portion of the fanbase, he had already crossed the MoralEventHorizon when he ''stabbed Maid Marian to death'' and thus forfeited any right to the goodwill of the audience. Even [[Creator/RichardArmitage the actor]] hated him.
** On the same show, the death of Kate's brother did not carry the emotional weight it should have done thanks to Kate's refusal to utilize common sense in her repeated attempts to rescue him. The writers were going for "headstrong" and "impulsive" in their characterization of Kate -- unfortunately, all they really managed was "stupid." The ridiculous swinging between {{Wangst}} and trying to romance Robin didn't help her either.

* ''Series/Runaways2017'': Gert often runs into this. Even if we accept that her biggest character flaw is her [[StrawFeminist self]]-[[SoapboxSadie righteousness]], it doesn't entirely excuse the fact that she treats her on-and-off boyfriend Chase like complete and utter garbage and treats him like a dumb jock even after it's clear that he's brilliant. And yet, Chase does nothing but respect her and is constantly begging her to take him back. Given his own upbringing with an abusive father and a longsuffering mother, it quickly becomes uncomfortable to watch.

** It's obvious from the way her stories tend to end that the writers think Elliot is supposed to be sympathized with. Yet sometimes, she does end up looking like a jerk so [[AesopCollateralDamage other people can learn their Aesops]]. An early episode has her berating Carla for underestimating her, and not apologizing, and another has her acting high-and-mighty at her new private practice job so J.D. and Cox could learn to deal with their jealousy. In the end, even the writers noticed they had taken this too far with Elliot and Keith's relationship, where she's practically just using and abusing him, breaks up with him when they are engaged and then laughs it off at work - they had her give a big apology to Keith a few episodes afterwards but to many viewers it was too little, too late.

* Debbie during Season 7 of ''Series/ShamelessUS''. The viewer is obviously supposed to feel bad for her as she struggles to find ways to earn money while taking care of her baby daughter Franny on her own (with Fiona coldly refusing to help in any way), and Ian and Lip even both accuse Fiona of being too hard on Debbie when Fiona threatens to kick Debbie out of the house for not pulling her weight. But many found it hard to really sympathize with Debbie, as Fiona did make it extremely clear with Debbie during the latter's pregnancy in Season 6 that she was not going to was not going to be responsible for the baby or support what she considered a bad decision, as Debbie was [[TeenagePregnancy barely 16 years old]] at the time and had gotten pregnant ''on purpose'' to invoke TheBabyTrap on her boyfriend ([[DisappearedDad who ran out on her when he found out]]) and was still choosing to keep her baby in spite of her family's [[PerpetualPoverty constantly poor financial state]]. Debbie's lackluster attempts at finding honest work (a single Dunkin Donuts interview), choosing instead to either demand Fiona give her a job (while refusing to take orders from her), trying to find a boyfriend to mooch off of, or steal from other mothers at the park, didn't quite endear her to the viewers. It also didn't help that Debbie's reputation with many viewers as TheScrappy because of those aforementioned actions was already longstanding by then.
* In yet another example of a LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek, ''Sins of the Mother'', has a BrokenBird who grew up with a single alcoholic mother. While you may sympathize with her at first, the fact that her mother, in the present day, is a responsible, sober woman [[TheAtoner trying to make amends with her and her past actions]], she herself remains bitter and antagonistic towards everyone, including her innocent five-year-old half-sister and repeatedly rebuffs her mother's (genuine) attempts at reconciliation makes her this. [[spoiler: Fortunately, she forgives her mother by the movie's end and has become more optimistic and likable.]]

** The worst case of this being Ralph Cifaretto, a depraved, AxCrazy mobster. We are supposed to feel sorry for him during his [[JerkassWoobie sympathetic moments]] [[spoiler:before his death]]. However, its difficult to side with Ralph when you realize that this is the same man who [[spoiler:killed a pregnant woman with his bare hands]].
* Many of the older alien races in the ''Franchise/StargateVerse'' are meant to be seen in a sympathetic light, but come bit short.
** The Nox, an ancient race who were once members of the [[TheAlliance Four Great Races]], who keep to themselves in modern times. They claim to have an advanced pacifist philosophy due to their stance of never fighting anyone even to defend themselves. Of course they have the ability to render themselves invisible and revive the dead, but never offering these wonders to those countless innocents suffering under the Goa'uld every day makes them come across as selfish at best. Many of them claim that the Earthlings' policy [[WeHelpTheHelpless "the strong defend the weak"]] as self-righteous and stupid, often calling them "very young". At the end of their introductory episode it comes across as extremely hypocritical when their leader tells the team that "Your way is not the only way".

** The series best example would most likely be the Ancients, an [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin ancient]] and super-advanced race who built the Stargates and later evolved into EnergyBeings. They'd often claim that they never use their powers to help un-ascended beings because they do not wish to abuse that power and turn out like their evil cousins, [[BigBad the Ori]]. They still come across as extreme NeglectfulPrecursors who never own up to their responsibility to repair the damage ''they themselves'' caused even before their ascension, such as the creation of the [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Wraith]] and Replicators, among others. It's made worse because apparently, if you're an Ancient, it's all right to not dismantle unbelievably hazardous or dangerous technology (or at least put safeties in), such as the machine that would download the entire Ancient database into one's head (with the only safety being "Had the Ancient Tech Gene," and would eventually kill you in a day or so), the exploding tumor machine, an infinite time loop device, and a healing device that will turn you into a zombie. [[FantasticRacism To top it off many of them also appear to have a rather low opinion of non-ascended beings]].

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E22HalfALife Half a Life]]", Lwaxana Troi tries to persuade Timicin (who had dedicated his life to researching a method to [[SolarCPR rejuvenate the dying sun]] of his homeworld Kaelon II) to reject his cultire's tradition of euthanasia on his 60th birthday. The Kaelons are portrayed as rightfully offended by Lwaxana interfering in their culture, but it's hard to grant them any sympathy when they imply that [[HonorBeforeReason they'd rather go extinct than compromise their traditions even slightly]]. They refuse to allow Timicin any more time to continue his work, even while acknowledging that anyone else trying to learn his method might take too long to properly refine it, and go so far as to state that their scientific community will reject his work if he refuses to kill himself as per tradition.
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E16Ethics Ethics]]", Worf is paralyzed in an accident, and is intent on performing ritual suicide in accordance with Klingon tradition (as by their standards, being disabled such that one cannot fight is a major dishonor). Understandably, Riker and Dr. Crusher do not approve of him killing himself. How they handle the situation is, however, rather questionable: Riker chews out Worf for being determined to follow Klingon tradition without regard to how his suicide would affect his friends and family, citing examples of recently deceased crewmembers who fought for life until the end. Crusher expresses a willingness to put Worf in restraints to prevent him from doing the deed. Yet neither of them are ever shown making any attempt to actually convince Worf that he could potentially achieve a life worth living in his condition. As such, their behavior can easily come off as them blindly upholding the human paradigm of "suicide bad" with little to no actual concern for Worf's quality of life.

** "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E20InTheHandsOfTheProphets In the Hands of the Prophets]]" centers around Keiko's new school, and some of the Bajorans (led by Vedek Winn) taking offense to her teaching their children about the wormhole and the Prophets in a scientific context (in a [[{{Anvilicious}} not-so-subtle allegory]] for the creationism vs. evolution debate). As the conflict escalates, Sisko tries to get Jake (and presumably the audience) to sympathise with the Bajorans by pointing out that they have been free to practice their religion for only about a year. However, Keiko's science classes do not in any way infringe on the Bajorans' religious freedom -- Sisko had previously pointed out that students could simply receive religious education separate from the secular education that Keiko provides (which is the compromise widely used in the real world). Plus there's the [[{{Hypocrite}} blatant hypocrisy]] of having victims of religious oppression turn around and try to censor ideas which conflict with their religion. As such, it can be difficult to see the opposition to Keiko's school as anything more than [[BeliefMakesYouStupid rabid anti-intellectualism]].

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E11Homefront Homefront]]", O'Brien discusses the recent bombing of a diplomatic conference on Earth, lamenting on how frustrating it can be to see something you care about in danger and be powerless to help. Quark attempts to empathize by talking about the dwindling of his financial investments during an economic crisis, but O'Brien and Bashir dismiss it as typical Ferengi greed. Yet for someone who does not live in a post-scarcity utopia, living through an economic crisis actually can be a severely stressful experience (just ask anyone who lived through the 2008 recession). As such, the reactions of O'Brien and Bashir come off as insensitive.

** Early on, it may seem a little hard to feel sorry for Nancy Wheeler's overwhelming concern for Barb after her disappearance, considering that she did have her best friend personally drive her to a party Barb didn't want any part of, and then went to blow Barb off to have sex with Steve afterwards. This caused Barb to stay behind out of concern for Nancy's well-being due her having been drinking during the party, leading to Barb being abducted and killed by the monster shortly afterwards. In fairness, Nancy had no way of knowing that a monster was lurking around the town kidnapping people, and the timing of the attack was unfortunate, but Nancy's actions and initial dismissal of Barb did indirectly lead to her being taken and killed by the monster. She becomes much more sympathetic come Season 2, where she acknowledges all of this, feels guilty about it, and redeems herself for it by getting closure for Barb's parents.

** Karen Wheeler in Season 3 falls into this since she considering cheating on her husband with Billy (who is roughly ''the same age as her daughter Nancy''). Granted her husband is lazy and unappreciative and she ''does'' ultimately change her mind, there's still the fact that she, a grown woman, thought about cheating on her husband with a high school student.

*** In episode 4, Hopper barges into [[SmugSnake Mayor Kline]]'s office and interrogates him into giving up information, breaking his nose and threatening [[{{Fingore}} to cut off his finger]]. Sure, Kline is a CorruptPolitician and an arrogant asshole who's in bed with the Russians, but what Hopper does with him borders on [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique torture]]. Although Hopper is supposed to be someone who proves that GoodIsNotNice and has shown a capability for violence in earlier seasons, he generally used it as a last resort (such as knocking out the guard at the morgue to get to Will's "fake" body in season 1 after his attempt to bluff said guard failed). Him being quick to resort to violence in this scene doesn't reflect well on him, especially considering that Kline is much weaker than he is and in no position to fight back.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' flirts with this with a great deal since its protagonists are written to be morally ambiguous. However, a particularly egregious example occurs in Season 8 when Sam quit hunting and moved in with a woman named Amelia. For starters, Amelia is shown pressuring Sam into adopting a dog that he has no apparent means to care for which made fans hate her more than they usually hated love interests on the show, which is saying something. Moreover, Sam doesn't even look for Dean and Castiel, who are trapped in Purgatory. He doesn't look for Kevin Tran or Meg, who both have been captured by Crowley. He doesn't even check his messages, which include a message from Kevin begging for help after Kevin escapes Crowley. This was initially written as a sorrowful attempt to start a new life away from hunting, and a blatant rip off of Dean's arc between Seasons 5 and 6, but fans recognized that the circumstances were very different since Dean was fulfilling a promise to Sam while Sam simply outright abandoned Dean and his other friends. Even Creator/JaredPadalecki criticized the storyline as being wildly out of character for Sam. Writers recognized it, too, and many characters called Sam out for his actions.

* ''Series/TeenWolf'': A problem some had regarding Theo Raeken's redemption arc in seasons 6A and B. Theo spent all of season five being an unrepentant and power hungry murderer, whose crimes include willingly assisting the Dread Doctors in their chimera experiments; stoically watching his sister freeze to death just so he can take her heart, as a young boy; manipulating Scott to turn him against Stiles; temporarily killed Scott when his plans went south; attacked Lydia and rendering catatonic; sacrificed his own "pack" and girlfriend for the sake of power. Season six tries to redeem him by putting him in situations where he’d team up with Scott and his pack, against TheWildHunt and Gerard's army, which even then Theo came off as more self serving than altruistic. There are moments where they try to play Theo for sympathy, but this falls flat as Theo never shows or expresses any remorse for his past, even when called out to his face. His one genuinely good deed - taking to pain of a mortally wounded teenager - is also remarkably small fry compared to his previous wickedness, that it’s a little jarring that he’s seemingly accepted into the pack in the end.

* Gwen Cooper in ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' got a bad case of this trope a few episodes in to Series 1, when she decides that the only way to cope with all the new and frightening things she's discovering about the universe is to [[spoiler:cheat on her basically decent boyfriend with the office {{Jerkass}} womaniser]] and then [[spoiler:confessing to said boyfriend to assuage her guilt, only to drug him so he'd have no memory of the event and she could feel better without facing the consequences]]. Though most everyone agrees she came back as one of the more sympathetic characters on the show later on, this event put a lot of fans off of her for a while.

* In one story arc in the third season of ''Series/TheWestWing'', it's revealed that C. J. Cregg is opposed to affirmative action, with the reason being given that her father, a schoolteacher in the 1960s, kept being passed up for promotion due to the school favoring less qualified black women. This is treated by the narrative as a perfectly sensible reason to be opposed to it, even if it ultimately comes down in favor of affirmative action. But affirmative action or no, the idea of a well-educated and well-qualified white man being passed up for promotion in favor of a black woman, multiple times, in 1960s Ohio, sounds implausible at best. To a good number of viewers, it seemed more likely that her father was passed up because he was just bad at his job in favor of actually qualified people who managed to beat the odds and take positions he'd seen as ''fait accompli'' for him. It's also noted that he didn't even lose his job; he just didn't get promoted much and ended up somewhat low on the totem pole, which makes her anger at affirmative action having ruined her father's life feel even less deserved.

* Diana Prince, aka Franchise/WonderWoman, came off this way in [[Series/WonderWoman2011Pilot the failed 2011 pilot]]. We're supposed to feel sorry for her because [[ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies she had to leave her boyfriend for his own safety]], and her life as an ordinary person is limited. That sympathy doesn't last long when one realizes that she has a SecretIdentity in Diana Prince that she apparently only uses to watch movies and spend time on Facebook and that she's publicly known to be the CEO of Themyscira Industries which means all her employees have targets on their backs. We're supposed to feel sorry for her because she thinks a doll reduces her to a sex object. That sympathy doesn't last long when one realizes that she had approved the doll's design before suddenly changing her mind, deliberately dresses the same way for marketing purposes, and tries to use sex appeal to get someone to open a door for her. We're supposed to feel sorry for her because she's expected to be perfect all the time. That sympathy doesn't last long when one realizes that she's not expected to be a good role model due to anything beyond her control, but due to her own decision to be a superhero. And all this is ''before'' getting into the unsavory things she does during her superhero work: namely, torturing hospitalized suspects, bullying cops who are only doing their jobs, slandering rivals with no evidence to back up her claims, and killing security guards who are just workers for hire and otherwise uninvolved in the villain's plot.

* ''Series/YoungSheldon'': Missy in "The Wild and Woolly World of Nonlinear Dynamics". She pulls a JerkassBall being even more hostile than usual [[MisplacedRetribution taking her heartbreak-induced anger out on her whole family]] (especially Sheldon) to the point very few people really have [[NoSympathy sympathy for Missy]] for the way she's behaving.

** "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E20InTheHandsOfTheProphets In the Hands of the Prophets]]" centers around Keiko's new school, and some of the Bajorans (led by Vedek Winn) taking offense to her teaching their children about the wormhole and the Prophets in a scientific context. As the conflict escalates, Sisko tries to get Jake (and presumably the audience) to sympathise with the Bajorans by pointing out that they have been free to practice their religion for only about a year. However, Keiko's science classes do not in any way infringe on the Bajorans' religious freedom -- Sisko had previously pointed out that students could simply receive religious education separate from the secular education that Keiko provides (which is the compromise widely used in the real world). Plus there's the [[{{Hypocrite}} blatant hypocrisy]] of having victims of religious oppression turn around and try to censor ideas which conflict with their religion. As such, it can be difficult to see the opposition to Keiko's school as anything more than [[BeliefMakesYouStupid rabid anti-intellectualism]].

** "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E20InTheHandsOfTheProphets In the Hands of the Prophets]]" centers around Keiko's new school, and some of the Bajorans (led by Vedek Winn) have taking offense to her teaching their children about the wormhole and the Prophets in a scientific context. As the conflict escalates, Sisko tries to get Jake (and presumably the audience) to sympathise with the Bajorans by pointing out that they have been free to practice their religion for only about a year. However, Keiko's science classes do not in any way infringe on the Bajorans' religious freedom -- Sisko had previously pointed out that students could simply receive religious education separate from the secular education that Keiko provides (which is the compromise widely used in the real world). Plus there's the [[{{Hypocrite}} blatant hypocrisy]] of having victims of religious oppression turn around and try to censor ideas which conflict with their religion. As such, it can be difficult to see the opposition to Keiko's school as anything more than [[BeliefMakesYouStupid rabid anti-intellectualism]].