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5"'''I don't care what happens to these people.'''"
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7A phrase coined by Dorothy Jones Heydt in a science-fiction based UsefulNotes/{{Usenet}} group in 1991 to describe an AudienceReaction to a work of fiction where the characters are either so universally bland and unengaging or so unlikable and unsympathetic that the reader simply loses interest in their fate and, by extension, the work as a whole. This can happen with or without the presence of [[WritingPitfallIndex more objective shortcomings]], but the most interesting examples tend to be those where this is a critic's main complaint, single-handedly dragging an otherwise well-made story down to where it's unengaging.
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9Note that "not caring about what happens to" a character is not the same as "[[TheScrappy not liking]]" them -- some character archetypes, such as the UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist, HateSink, or just a really good villain, work because they are conduits for LaserGuidedKarma. In other words, even if you ''hate'' the character, you still ''[[LoveToHate care about what happens to them]]'' because you want to see them get their comeuppance. After all, the opposite of love is not hate, but '''apathy''', and this is about what happens when that apathy has set in.
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11Many {{Horror}}/monster/{{Disaster Movie}}s try to avoid this by DevelopingDoomedCharacters, only to make the audience care ''even less'' about the characters because they aren't getting [[JustHereForGodzilla the slaughter they came there to see]], and wondering why they're spending the first quarter-to-third of the movie watching personal drama they don't give a flip about.
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13Also often stated with [[BoldInflation added emphasis]] as "I don't ''care'' '''what''' happens to these people".
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15See also TooBleakStoppedCaring, where an excessively dark setting causes audiences to stop caring even if they care about the characters as there's seemingly no chance of them getting a desirable ending. Likewise, see OpeningACanOfClones for when viewers stop caring what happens in a story because they can no longer be certain that any major plot development won't just be undone later.
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17Not to be confused with SevenDirtyWords, or SevenDeadlySins.
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19!!No examples, please. [[Administrivia/DefinitionOnlyPages This only defines the term]].
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