The Scrappy Cleanup

I don't know about you, but The Scrappy pages have room for improvement.

1. A number of examples seem to boil down to "I personally hated the character, therefore everyone hates the character!" Every character has a defender as well as an attacker.
2. The page is supposed to be about unintentionally hated characters. So wouldn't examples about villains be a poor fit for the pages?
3. Wouldn't a better title for those pages be "Unintentionally Hateful Character"? There were examples that existed before Scrappy-Doo. I personally liked Scrappy a lot more than I liked most other characters in Scooby Doo. Also, I thought it was terrible the way they treated him later on, turning him into the bad guy, and then disavowing his entire existence.

Isn't this better for Short Term cleanup?

And no, a rename needs a) a Trope Repair Shop thread and b) it's not really going to happen.

edited 3rd Feb '13 6:03:31 AM by SeptimusHeap

So...what's the difference between short-term and long-term? What, is short-term something that can be done in a week? Is long-term something that takes a year to do? I honestly don't know the difference!

Also, I tried to set up a thread for The Scrappy in the Trope Repair Shop, but it has exceeded the 100 thread limit...at this time. Well, I am patient. I can wait. When the time is right, I will set up my thread, and then we'll know which one of us is right.

Eh, the current distinction is really The Same But More. But since we are dealing with few pages, it goes first into Short Term.

The Scrappy is unlikely to be renamed - it would handily pass the Trope Renaming Guidelines.

Do we have any definition of what a scrappy is, in terms of how many people needs to hate him? It says hatedom, which I'd interpret as a significant enough number to form groups on forums. I don't think we need a [citation needed] for all examples, but in terms of people disagreeing if a character is a scrappy or not, how do we decide?

Or I could go with my definition: If it's a character I like, there's a 50% chance of scrappiness.

It's simple: When a significant percentage of the reviews of a show (or discussions about it) involve a character being singled out for criticism, then that character is probably the show's Scrappy. It's like how So Bad, It's Horrible is about things that are universally panned and loathed: An informal consensus is reached that X sucked and should be thrown off of a tall building. After getting shot. In the face. While on fire.

edited 3rd Feb '13 10:04:55 AM by JHM

Re: your second point: A villain could be more hated than even the writers intended, surely?

Anyway, there's nothing on the page saying villains can't be included, and plenty of reasons explicitly listed that could make one a Scrappy (e.g. being a Karma Houdini, "overly recurring" whatever that means, being a Smug Snake.)

The name is old and popular, and it's one of the Tropes Of Legend. I'm pretty sure this is one case where a character-named trope will pass.

I don't doubt the existence of "I don't like this guy so no one does" examples, though. I'm just not sure how to prove someone's a Scrappy, short of requiring citations.

edited 4th Feb '13 4:59:27 PM by InsanityPrelude

I think there are too many villains. The trope isn't "I don't like this villain and I want her burned at the stake or worse". That's a good feeling for a villain. Many villains are supposed to be hated.

The trope is "I want this villain gone from the continuity, because she's ruining the story". Too much seems to be the former, reading the descriptions.

That's a good argument. Personally, I think a good example of a villain being a scrappy is if they don't have much depth. For instance, I loathed Gaz from Invader Zim, not because she was cruel or psychotic, but because her personality pretty much amounts to "beat up people and play video games", while rarely contributing to the plot. Also, unlike Zim, Dib, and Tak, she receives no punishment in any form to balance out her actions.

Yeah, a villain can't be a scrappy for being evil, just for ruining the work.

On another note, the formula most audience reactions work alike is this: Someone adds an example, and it's considered to be right by default until someone disagrees. Only then popularity polls or hard evidence become important.

I just nuked some examples from Ed Edd N Eddy and Family Guy...I think some tropers just use the page to shoehorn and whine about characters they don't like. Half of the examples are legitimate, but some characters are Base Breakers. Some examples need to be rewritten in order to sound less whiny and more formal.

PERSONAL OPINION: I do remember creating a thread about why Eddy and Jimmy never became Scrappies (here it is), simply because I thought everyone hated them. Thank God I found this thread lol.

edited 17th Feb '13 6:15:54 PM by MsCC93

I'd say popularity polls aren't indicative either. There's a difference between characters no one has as a favourite character, and a character most people hate. Popularity polls only indicate the former. Hate polls, on the other hand...

I think Google searching, looking at the forums on wikis, and thread searching for the show would count, to see which characters get the most complaints. If one character always comes up, but isn't the most hated and has fans, then he or she may be a base breaker, but if you see sh*tload of complaints about a specific character with few admirers, then he/she may be a scrappy. I also found a tumblr about controversial characters here...this may help.

edited 18th Feb '13 6:08:56 AM by MsCC93

Question: Lemongrab in Adventure Time is a pure example of The Scrappy or is a example of Base Breaker? The same question about Itachi in Naruto.

I don't watch those shows, but try to take it to the forums to find out.

I believe Itachi is a Base Breaker. It says so on the YMMV page.

just gather proof and links for your claim and the character can either be removed or added to the list.

PS: Someone tried adding Diamond Tiara from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic back..I'm sorry, although I hate Diamond Tiara's guts, I despise when people shoehorn characters they don't like in tropes.

I also removed Sasuke and Itachi from the list and only Sakura qualifies.

edited 12th Mar '13 9:31:06 AM by MsCC93

I'm not sure any prominent characters in Naruto doesn't have significant fanbases of their own that would disqualify them. I'm not too familiar with the series, though.

Everything I've seen shows that Diamond Tiara is a hated character in the fandom. Why doesn't she qualify as a Scrappy? Especially since someone claimed that a 'Draco in Leather Pants' can't qualify as a Scrappy. Yet that hadn't been mentioned at all on this topic.

I think Lemongrab is a Base Breaker. From what I understand the fan reaction to him was more positive than the creators had anticipated from the first episode, which is why get got more. He is only in like 3 episodes out of 5 seasons anyway.

The thing about Lemongrab, he has a very vocal minority. The vast majority of the Adventure Time fanbase hate his guts, see him as an evil person who is using his mental illnesses as an excuse, and they see him as a ungrateful, whiny, annoying voice, not taking responsibility type of character.

Well yeah, he is not supposed to be a good person, really. But I find it hard to argue he ruins the work when he appears so rarely.

For Sasuke and Itachi, I'd say the latter qualifies as a Scrappy during the War Arc. After all, even the Itachi fans themselves agreed that his fight with Kabuto was one of the worst in the series.

@ Super Saiya Man I only deleted them because of what I read on the YMMV page for Naruto, respectively. Plus, as for Diamond Tiara, yes she gets hate, but some fans like her and see with no flaws, making her a Draco in Leather Pants, since she's a jerkass with little redeeming qualities.

Even though the vast majority hate Diamond Tiara, just because she has a minor fanbase she shouldn't qualify? That doesn't make sense since even Wesley had fans, yet he qualifies. So did Scrappy himself.