The Scrappy Cleanup

"For non-fans" already disqualifies it.

In addition, he retained his much-hated scrappiness, leaving it an open question whether Scrappy might have been accepted as the Composite Character of Fred and Velma if he'd been less obnoxious. I sense a bias here. I'm not sure what "scrappiness" even means, especially since people can dislike a character for a wide variety of reasons. And obnoxious is YMMV, so maybe if his haters found him less obnoxious?

Trahearne is listed as a Scrappy on YMMV.Guild Wars 2, but I'm not sure he qualifies, based on my experiences with the fandom. He's pretty universally loved in the tumblr fandom.

Bringing up the following example from Hollywood (2020):

• The Scrappy: Camille is this for some, since she's supposed to be an amazing actress, but many have said her portrayer is the weakest link of the ensemble. The idea that someone as untalented as her could overcome the insane racial bias of the era and win an Oscar is laughable.

Not familiar with the show or its fandom, but the "The idea that someone as untalented as her could overcome the insane racial bias of the era and win an Oscar is laughable. " part makes me uncomfortable, at least how it's phrased.

Edited by mightymewtron on Aug 17th 2020 at 8:07:57 AM

There's a six-month waiting period on The Scrappy according to No Recent Examples, Please!. Wikipedia says it came out in May. Also, "for some" is Word Cruft.

From YMMV.Minecraft:

• Nitwit villagers - good example
• Bats - I'm not sure what the consensus is about them, but the points made are valid
• Polar Bears - not hated, seems to be a single individual's opinion rather than the fanbase's consensus
• Parrots - not hated themselves, although the same criticism has been made by many (maybe more of a case of Scrappy Mechanic?)
• Llamas - not hated, seems to be a single individual's opinion rather than the fanbase's consensus
• Wandering Trader - is indeed considered to be a Scrappy, but the example itself needs rewriting as it focuses too much on what I assume are personal experiences

Polar Bears are hated. As the entry states, they are boring and useless, generally only existing to give more life to the snowy bioms.

Especially in comparison to Pandas, which at least have fortune of being adorable, occasionally giving the players Slimeballs and having a unique AI with distinct personalities.

All the Polar Bears give you is fish and that's it. Otherwise they just attack you.

These entries are just about entire species and groups, not individual characters.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Aug 18th 2020 at 9:03:44 AM

Minecraft doesn't have characters. This the closest thing to The Scrappy the game can have.

Then it... doesn't have The Scrappy.

So...where do the entries go to instead?

I think they could be rewritten as Scrappy Mechanic entries.

All of those Minecraft examples are indeed wrong and need to be deleted.

The Wandering Trader is actually a character, so he should stay. However, his example is a bit overwrought and needs trimming. What should I do about that?

I'll move the problems with Llamas, Nitwit Villagers, and Parrots to Scrappy Mechanic, and delete the entries for Polar Bears and Bats.

Edited by FernandoLemon on Aug 18th 2020 at 11:40:30 AM

One of the requirements of The Scrappy is to be hated for narrative reasons. Minecraft doesn't even have a narrative. If he's hated for offering unfair trades, getting stuck, and stepping over your crops, that's more of a Scrappy Mechanic.

Hm, interesting point. Alright, I guess I'll clean that one too.

Hey, guys, I have an idea for an image on "The Scrappy" what if it was some kind of statistic? Like, a Venn Diagram with "Fans of Troper Tales" "Haters of Bob of Tropertales" No specific show, just literally tropertales. Like the character archetypes or the love dodecahedron have generic graphs to help the tropers understand-but I mean it's not just dry statistics, said pages add life and meaning to their pages.

To really illustrate The Scrappy the circles would have to completely overlap. That's more an issue for Image Pickin though. Though The Scrappy's current image is sort of JAFAAC (yes the other characters look upset but it's not illustrative of the audience reaction).

Does this thread also work as a cleanup thread for Replacement Scrappy? Because I've noticed, especially on the Comic Book subpage, that that trope is being abused as a lower-threshold version of The Scrappy.

I don't see why not.

Yea, it's alright to bring up misuse of its subtropes here.

A couple from the Replacement Scrappy comic-book subpage:

• Captain America:
  • Averted with Bucky Cap. When Cap's old sidekick Bucky took the mantle after Steve Rogers' death, his portrayal was done successfully and he was widely accepted by the fans. To the point where Steve Rogers' inevitable return disappointed many fans that had grew accustomed to Bucky Cap. Possibly because of this, even after Rogers came back, he declined to take up his shield again and let Bucky continue to be Captain America for a while.
  • Similarly, The Falcon becoming the new Captain America in 2014 is not particularly hated by anyone. While some fans were disappointed that Bucky wasn't returning to the role, the majority of readers looked forward to Falcap. The problem that many have with it is not with Falcon himself, but rather with the writing of his tenure itself, as Rick Remender's run was not well-received at all, and is loaded with Unfortunate Implications, while Nick Spencer was known to take swipes at any detractors of is run, very unsubtly include political commentary and turned Steve Rogers into a Nazi. Many are sad that Falcap never got a fairer shake.

Are either of these worth keeping, considering that they're both explicit aversions?

• Nova has Sam Alexander. Basically, Richard Rider had been the signature Nova Corpsman for nearly forty years, and he'd recently had an excellent run that concluded with a heroic sacrifice in The Thanos Imperative. The people who didn't want him back right away considered it a great conclusion to the franchise... so, of course, three years later, Jeph Loeb (one of Marvel's most widely-loathed writers) debuted a new Nova character. Sam Alexander won a lot of haters right away for his "arrogant hotheaded youth" personality, a far cry from the mature, experienced, and responsible Rider, and for his powers being completely inexplicable (the Nova Force died with Rider). He also got an immediate starring role in Ultimate Spider-Man, which is a Replacement Scrappy series and only dug him deeper. Gerry Dugan rehabilitated Alexander to some degree, but than when Original Sin revealed what really happened to Rider, old wounds were reopened. Now people don't hate Sam, but most still direly want Rider back anyways. Exasperating the issue is that Sam is named after Loeb's late son, meaning he probably won't be going away.

With Rider having returned from the dead, is Sam still as hated as he used to be?

From the list of Spider-Man examples:

• Carlie's successor as love interest is new character Cindy Moon, alias the heroine Silk and also a Replacement Scrappy. She is commonly criticized as having many Mary Sue traits, such as having Peter's exact power set, but superior in every aspect but physical strength, and being the star pupil of Ezekiel Sims who was never mentioned in any of his previous appearances. Adding to this, there are many fans who dislike the idea of Peter dating a fellow superhuman at all.

This seems like a stretch, because she didn't really replace anybody, did she? Her solo series also sold pretty well, if I recall correctly.

Edited by StrixObscuro on Aug 18th 2020 at 1:31:53 PM

Cindy is a case of My Real Daddy later in her appearance. I remember how she was going to rape Peter if he didn't leave in her earlier appearance. Though, Charlie isn't well received in the first place and i dont think Cindy can be considered a RS to another RS.

I don't think so. My (admittedly vague) impression is that the short-lived 2017 Nova series, which cast the former as a mentor to the latter, was well-received. It's mentioned on the Comic Books Author's Saving Throw subpage, for what that's worth.