The Scrappy Cleanup

So the game has only been out a month, which might disqualify characters from being suggested here—I'm not sure if there's a waiting time like Base-Breaking Character. If so, disregard this. If not...

Cyril from Fire Emblem: Three Houses is proving himself to be massively unpopular with the fanbase. Reasons include being a bad unit, having a one-note personality, being a "yes-man" to the divisive Rhea, and having some yucky undertones in his S-support, given his youth. He's always brought up in topics about least favorite characters and consistently scores poorly on fan polls—he was judged the third-most hated character in Korea and has the dubious honor of scoring dead-last, with -144 points, on a recent reddit poll based off net popularity.

... Cyril is 19 by the time you can S-support him. how is that "yucky"?

I think it just sits wrong with people after the Awakening/Fates second-gen debacle.

What's his reception like in Japan? Because if he's voted third-most hated in Korea, that's not The Scrappy, that's Americans Hate Tingle.

Also, that entry sounds like someone has an axe to grind with the character.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Aug 29th 2019 at 11:34:49 AM

I'm not familiar with Japanese, so I can't say what their opinion on him is. They didn't have a "hated" poll like Korea either, just a "top ten favorites". Which he didn't get into, so I guess that's something?

Also sorry, that wouldn't have been the entry. Just an infodump of what was dropped into the YMMV page + what I've seen of the community's reaction to him.

Edited by Apocrypha on Aug 29th 2019 at 11:35:43 AM

Not getting into a top 10 liked characters poll doesn't say anything about how hated a character is. Those polls only measure how many people consider a character to be their #1 favorite; it doesn't take into account how much you like all the other characters.

Yeah, I know, which is why I just said "that's something?" instead of "that's evidence". I don't know anything about Japan's stance on Cyril to say they hate him for sure, but Korea and the West sure seem to.

Cyril is the only character from Fire Emblem: Three Houses I've seen no one say anything positive about, so if he isn't better received in Japan, he's a definite scrappy.

So should I go ahead and add him as a scrappy, and if later evidence that Japan actually does like him pops up, we can change that to Americans Hate Tingle?

tbh id rather play it safer and try to get some information about Japanese opinions before adding either trope, but if no one else agrees, ill of course bow to consensus.

incidentally, i didn't like Cyril, but i couldn't put my finger on why, so i chalked it up to the possibility that i was just being a douche, so it feels nice to be vindicated.

Don't do that. With an audience reaction as badly misused as The Scrappy, going the "Let's assume they're a Scrappy now and change it later maybe" is not the right thing to do.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Aug 29th 2019 at 9:42:26 AM

Gotcha!

Found this under YMMV for Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars:

Is Willy THAT hated? First, i never saw that many people hating him, second what does it mean by "for people who thought that the show would've done fine without him"? Like how many of those around?

Edited by VeryVileVillian on Aug 31st 2019 at 10:55:16 PM

As a ZCE, that should be at least commented out on principle anyway. You’d have to get someone familiar with the work’s fandom to determine if it can even be salvaged at all, though.

What do you mean?

The example doesn't give any reasons why Willy is hated, so it should be hidden until someone can explain what makes him The Scrappy. I went ahead and did it.

I would like propose a scrappy (as in being hated not because the creators wanted us to) candidate from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and that would be Delphine.

Who is she and what has she done?

Delphine, one the last member of Blades who swores their oath to serve the Dragonborn (as in you, the Player Character) but throughout the game is shows to be rude & pompous Jerkass and often belittles the PC and boss them around to do whatever she wants. But the epitome of her jerkassery (as well as the reason why she is a candidate of being a scrappy) comes when she orders the PC to kill Paarthurnax (a dragon who used to be The Dragon of Alduin before he turned against the latter to aid against humanity, in fact he is the reason why humanity is triumphs against the dragons and in the present, he's nothing but helpful to the Dragonborn, much more than she even did) just because he is dragon, refusing to to be convinced otherwise, even cutting off all ties with you unless you do the deed for her, despite everything you did for her before.

How does the narrative treats her?

Now all this would make you guys think that she is created for us to hate, however, the game never the PC the opportunity to call her out on her actions nor be able to murder them because the game marked her as an essential character (in Skyrim, named NPCs can be killed by the PC, except those with an essential tag). The quest won't even disappear and permanently stays in the list unless you kill the dragon. She is also supposedly portrayed in a positive light as Paarthurnax, upon being informed of this, praised the Blades as he acknowledges that they were right about him while we're also supposed to sympathize with her because she has a hard life after the rest of her group were massacred by the Thalmor. Contrast this with Nazeem who is created as someone you wanted to punch in the face with every other characters, including his wife openly express their hatred of him and when he gets killed, his death is mourned by no-one.

Does the majority of the player base hates her?

Even most of the internet hates her as the majority of videos about her you could find in Youtube is how the player can kill her despite her essential tag while the majority of the users in other forums and posts express their hatred of her, many declaring that they want to see her dead or at least, being verbally beaten to the ground by reminding her of the Dragonborn's status. Heck, one of the most popular mods in the game involves giving the "Paarthurnax" quest a proper resolution by either giving you the option to kill her or call her on her actions while demanding that Paarthurnax be spared.

Conclusion

All this makes her a candidate for a character hated not because we are meant to but because she is a badly written character that we're supposed to sympathize.

Edited by Loekman3 on Sep 8th 2019 at 8:57:06 PM

Delphine

for Delphine.

Edited by MsCC93 on Sep 8th 2019 at 5:28:03 AM

Someone put the Death Knight from Three Houses as well with this entry.

In a game where most antagonists are loved for either being complex and well-written or Love to Hate, the Death Knight isn't particularly well-liked. In addition to being a frustrating Bonus Boss to fight and the only source of Dark Seals, many fans see him as a thinly-veiled Expy of Tellius' Black Knight, with none of the former's depth, memorability or plot-relevance. This is best shown on both the Blue Lions and Crimson Flower routes. For the former you can miss his Alas, Poor Villain scene if you don't unlock a specific Paralogue, and nothing in the story changes for it and for the latter he is quickly Put on a Bus during the time-skip and makes no further physical appearances.

Removed it because from my understanding, people generally like him as a challenge and like his other interactions.

@Cyril discussion: According to a poll ran for the most popular characters from Japan, Cyril is not even on the list, and one of the few playable males not on there in fact, so he does have some credit as not being popular. List to poll here. I should preference this by saying this is one source I found.

Edited by keyblade333 on Sep 12th 2019 at 11:28:09 AM

I can't help but shake my head at the person's edit reason for adding the Death Knight. "I might be premature here..."

Really? Just couldn't wait the six months and do a deep dive into what people actually think about the character, huh?

YMMV.Borderlands 3

• Ava, for being a stereotypical character archetype of a kid that refuses to listen to the more experienced elders, and as a direct result of that gets Maya killed. Topped off by her refusing to acknowledge her wrong-doing and blaming it on others.
• Many people especially fans of the previous Borderlands games, dislike Troy and Tyreen, seeing them as legitimately annoying unlike Jack, who was someone you loved to hate

Is a week old game too soon? What happened to the proposal to give Scrappy a waiting period?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Sep 17th 2019 at 3:05:35 AM

It's been suggested in the No Recent Examples Please thread and had a lot of support, but no firm consensus on the length of the waiting period was ever reached. The shortest waiting period suggested was two weeks, which does make one week look ludicrously early.

No Recent Examples, Please! does have a "soft" note warning against adding Audience Reactions too quickly after release. I'd support removing them on that basis.

Edited by HighCrate on Sep 17th 2019 at 6:30:31 AM

For this trope, do we allow single episode characters to count (with the caveat they have to be a major part of the episode)? I would be adding this prospective example to the ymmv of the recap page not the general ymmv of the show.

Several characters on TheScrappy.Sonic The Hedgehog seem more like Base Breaking Characters. I don't think characters like Shortfuse and Marine are true Scrappies.