The Scrappy Cleanup

Holdo also sits in the center of two clumsily-delivered Aesops. Poe is supposed to learn to trust his superior officers... except that trust is earned, not given blindly, and neither Poe nor the audience has any reason to trust this stranger, and Holdo's first, last, and only response to his distrust is appeal to authority. In the Rebel Alliance. The narrative wants us to see her as a leader worth following, but she demonstrably sucks at inspiring loyalty or trust in her subordinates.

Finn is supposed to learn that heroic sacrifices aren't the way to win... about 15 minutes after Holdo was lauded for hers.

None of that has anything to do with gender, but it has everything to do with the slapdash writing of this character the audience is supposed to like.

Edited by HighCrate on Jul 9th 2018 at 1:07:44 AM

My point is that her gender is irrelevant, as you say, and I'm not even going to argue with the other points you make.

I've seen her "badass" scene at the front of another Broken Base argument too, about whether the method of her Heroic Sacrifice was cool or an Ass Pull. But this still puts her in Base-Breaking Character territory.

Whatever we feel about Holdo personally is irrelevant to whether we count her as a Scrappy. After all, this thread exists so people don't just throw that at any character they don't like.

Edited by RAlexa21th on Jul 9th 2018 at 1:16:39 AM

Edit: It is undeniably awesome no matter what you think of the continuity or the character. It's absolutely not an Ass Pull, because it's clearly planned throughout the film: we get tons of buildup. This is what I mean about using the right tropes. Here's what it is: a giant retroactive Plot Hole against the entire film franchise up to that point.

Edited by Fighteer on Jul 9th 2018 at 4:19:56 AM

I still can't say I've seen anybody actually defending her. Poking holes in facetious arguments against her, sure— as in one popular tweet asking whether a purple-haired dress-wearing admiral is believable, with the response that this is the franchise where nobody questioned a fishman admiral— but not actually saying, "I like the character, the character is awesome."

That doesn't mean it hasn't happened, I'm just saying I've never seen it. I've seen good and bad arguments against the character, but no arguments for.

I'm cutting these examples from Chorno Cross due to them being groups:

• To some of the detractors, most of the unnecessary characters, I.e. thirty-five of them. Especially because a good number of them are mechanically clones of each other and thus serve to be simply checkmarks on your list of character recruitment.
• The dwarves. They appear to have been written to have sympathetic qualities, but their extreme bigotry, rampant hypocrisy (which the game NEVER acknowledges), and the outright murder of the fairies at their hands affords them absolutely no love. It hurts that if the player decides to bring Razzly along the second time they're met (which considering her involvement in the area the player is likely to do) causes them to get off scot-free for what they've done.

As for the Dwarves, some of the writeup could be transferred to Unintentionally Unsympathetic.

Not in the mood to get into a stupid argument but Holdo defenders do exist. If we're going off of personal experience bias I've seen them and even know a couple.

Seconding. I've seen plenty of Holdo defenders and fans who think the character is awesome.

On the subject of Star Wars:

• L3-37, Lando's companion droid in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Even with that film's Love It or Hate It reception, nearly everyone across the board has panned L3 as being one of the most annoying, unlikable characters in the franchise. She is only in the film for a short amount of time but in the entire time she's on-screen, she rants continually about droid rights, has an attitude with almost every character and is only an inconvenience to everyone. It has been argued the character may be a parody of Kathleen Kennedy and the perception of her insisting on filling Star Wars films with social justice warrior views. But even with that aside, most people have a lot of difficult defending the character.

I'd say cut since "being one of the most annoying, unlikable characters in the franchise" reeks of hyperbole. And there's arguments for it being intentional.

She sounds like she may be a Hate Sink.

Her behavior was clearly Played for Laughs, so make of that what you will.

Having recently seen the film, L3 is not supposed to be a Hate Sink. I agree that a lot of her scenes are played for laughs, but her eventual death and how it impacts Lando are treated with weight meant for a sympathetic character. I don't how the rest of the fandom views her, so I don't know if she's universally hated. For what it's worth, I liked L3, but I don't know if I'm a minority on that.

Almost everyone I know either liked the character or disliked that she wasn't played seriously enough. Put together with the last couple of sentences, and I'm inclined to think we just have a lone misogynist soapboxer behind the example.

Edit: I will say, though, that I'm unaware of the film having a particularly Love It or Hate It reputation (it was a box office failure, but people who actually saw it generally seem positive in my experience), so I could be talking to the wrong people. Though OTOH the tone here, again, sort of makes me wonder whether these are even people we want around.

Edited by nrjxll on Jul 9th 2018 at 10:42:54 AM

I have seen people defend Scrappy Doo... People will defend anything and there is always a fan of something, the key thing is how much of a minority they are. Holdo fans are so few its not really meaningful.

Also yeah Holdo was basically a bad attempt to pull a Captain Jelico and shake things up. However Jelico was meant to be a Hate Sink but ended up being loved, Holdo was meant to be loved but ended up The Scrappy.

The key reason is Jelico actually bended when he needed to, he straight up earned his leadership position. Although the story treated it as a win for Riker, it was really a loss since it made Riker look petty, it was more a major win for Jelico.

EDIT: Mixed feelings on L3. she was pretty badly done really they should have either toned her back more or went all in, it came off so wishy washy to where I can see the hate both directions.

Edited by Memers on Jul 10th 2018 at 12:04:40 PM

Going to need some hard numbers on the "Holdo fans are so few." I should point out that Internet communities are generally not good indicators of what the fanbase thinks as a whole. When you have a fanbase consisting of millions of people, even a couple thousand people would still count as a minority.

TBH, everything he's saying seems completely personal. I could identify a number of Holdo fans quite easily, and I'm not even really one of them. Like I said, I'm not interested in debating the character; I just find the assertion that there are no fans (or no "non-mindless" fans) to be laughably in contrast to reality.

Edited by nrjxll on Jul 10th 2018 at 2:30:00 PM

I am not the only one who said they haven’t seen Holdo defenders... at least 2 other people in this thread have said the same thing.

Also cool it with the personal attacks.

Which is still a rather insignificant number and doesn't really prove the vast majority of the fandom hates the character. The Scrappy is not "the vast majority of the loudest members of the fandom hate this character."

Confirmation bias is a thing, especially as fans (like everyone else) tend to congregate in like-minded circles that amplify every opinion.

Holdo is a BBC. She has plenty of fans and plenty of haters. I personally loved the character and hated her plotline. That's all I have to say.

I'm cutting this example from Dies Irae(Visual Novel), due to lack of detail: "The Scrappy: Ayase Kasumi, or, as Shirou calls her, Bakasumi ('Twitsumi' in the English release)."

YMMV.My Little Pony Equestria Girls Rollercoaster Of Friendship:

• The Scrappy: Vignette Valencia is largely considered the worst part of the special, and has become one of the worst-received Equestria Girls villains. Highlights of distaste include her selfish, shallow personality, her constant fast-talking and love for made-up acronyms, and she recycles a lot of character beats from previous antagonists without doing anything interesting or new.

I think it's too recent to judge and "has become one of the worst-received" is a hyperbole alarm. Half of the complaints are intentional. And I think they also did the previous worst-received EG villain, making it look more knee jerk.

And is least popular (compared to the previous, I think too soon to say) the same has having a hatedom which is what this trope is about (every work has characters less popular than others but not all are scrappies). And since Base-Breaking Character has a waiting period now, why not Scrappy?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Jul 12th 2018 at 6:49:58 AM

Not sure how a villain can be The Scrappy. Aren't they supposed to be disliked?

Theoretically, if a villain were disliked for very different reasons than intended, I could see one being The Scrappy.

Ramsay Snow/Bolton from Game of Thrones, for example, is supposed to be disliked because he does bad things to characters that we do like, but a vocal segment of the viewership hates him instead because he's a Villain Sue that the plot contorts itself around to make him more effective and threatening. Instead of going, "Oh, no, what's this Big Bad Evil Guy going to do next?" we roll our eyes, "Oh, boy, what supposedly smart character is going to grab the Idiot Ball so that Edgy McEdgerson can win again?"

A good villain makes the show better even as we hate them; we hate a The Scrappy villain because they make the show worse.

(Not suggesting Ramsay in particular as The Scrappy— that point of view isn't quite universal enough for him to count— just offering it as an example.)

Edited by HighCrate on Jul 13th 2018 at 5:36:15 AM