Ensemble Dark Horse Cleanup

I feel like we should be making it clear that we aren't talking about characters that are the main characters in a game/show/movie/etc in a series and aren't seen afterwards because their story is done.

^ Yeahhhh. Next time, a simple "yes" or "no" would suffice.

Edited by Erin582 on Jul 21st 2020 at 9:42:30 AM

Went through some Capcom vs. YMMV pages and removed any character that is playable.

YMMV.Star Fox 2: Fay and Miyu have pretty dedicated fans, which is fairly impressive for a pair of characters that have only shown up in a single, formerly cancelled game and nowhere else. Since the reboot, the series has had very few female characters of note.

For reference, Fay and Miyu are playable characters, but the game went officially unreleased and unacknowledged by Nintendo for twenty years until it popped up on the SNES Mini.

Them being playable should still disqualify darkhorse though

I figured, but just wanted to make sure since they've only shown up once.

Why on earth? It's ensemble darkhorse. The most popular one of the ensemble. If you want to exclude ensemble members, then we have to name it something else.

To put it another way, quoting Another Duck from the first page of this thread: "The only real automatic disqualifier is if it's a main character. That's the main protagonist, the main antagonist, and sometimes the main love interest. The best friend, lancer, or sidekick can qualify, although since those are second tier characters, they'd have to be significantly more popular than the main characters."

If it's a video game like that, and it's just one of many playable characters, how are they any less or more minor than another character?

I disagree that all playable characters are equally important. I'm not very familiar with Star Fox, but I do know that Fox is the most important character (being the main protagonist of the series and all), and I think that Falco is in second place? I'm pretty sure that Miyu and Fay are far below them in terms of importance (since it sounds like they haven't been mentioned at all in the stories of any other game).

If they manage to attain a good level of popularity despite not contributing much to the plot, then I think that makes them valid examples.

They haven't been mentioned in the other games due to Star Fox 2 originally being cancelled and was only recently finished. There's no reason they'd have been mentioned.

We'd have to look at the game itself and see how big they are to the plot. If they're playable directly in the normal story mode, there's a good chance they're very important like Falco, Peppy, and Slippy are(same with Wolf and Pigma, as well as Andross). The other characters are far smaller players in comparison, and are only lightly there. Though you can't play as anyone but Fox in story mode, they present his team front and center quite consistently, as well as multiple story paths revolving around a specific member. They're basically secondary characters, almost as important as Fox and Andross, the core characters, are.

Faye and Miyu may be more like Falco, or more like General Pepper in terms of importance. Still play a role in the story, but fairly small as a possibility.

YMMV.Be More Chill list both Michael and Brooke as darkhorses. Michael should not qualify because he's a main character with decent stage time and extremely important to the plot, though his popularity probably does eclipse that of the more prominent characters. Brooke might be able to squeeze by, but she's also plot relevant and has a good amount of time as Jeremy's temporary girlfriend. The show doesn't really have an ensemble, and even the smaller characters aren't disproportionately popular, so I don't think any of the characters really count as darkhorses. The only example I could think of would be some of the characters in the mall scene (where all the actors don goofy outfits and have silly interactions in the background).

Bringing up the following example from Prehistoric Earth:

• Ensemble Dark Horse: Nathanoraptor has admitted that he himself ended up liking Leon and Yolanda much more than he initially expected over the course of writing their dialogue in "The First Steps." And judging by how Leon and Yolanda both ended up getting enough votes in the popularity poll to end up amongst the top 5 (with Leon in particular actually ending up #1 on that list!), it would appear that the readers share his opinion. Jack also qualifies thanks to his mixture of genuine comedy value and Hidden Depths making him quite endearing to the readers. In fact, he and Leon (plus Nikolai, Yolanda, and Alice) managed to rank amongst the top 5 most popular characters amongst the readership and thoroughly eclipse the popularity of PE!Drew^note something that writer!Drew unfortunately did not appreciate.

It mentions those characters' popularity but doesn't mention how prominent they are (e.g. whether they qualify as minor characters).

YMMV.Why Charlie Brown Why

• Ensemble Dark Horse: You’d be amazed at how many people wanted Janice to make more appearances. See below for more details.

She’s a main character in this special right? This is also a ZCE, and one of those annoying “I’m not gonna tell you how, look below instead” ones.

There might be some kind of rule where a One-Shot Character that's a focus of a special or the like can't qualify for the special itself, but can qualify for the franchise at large (if the work in question is part of a franchise, that is), I think? Not sure.

Should be removed at any rate for being a ZCE.

Edited by Crossover-Enthusiast on Aug 31st 2020 at 8:48:08 AM

Bringing up the following examples from Youngblood:

• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Badrock is easily the most popular member of the team - and the only one to be in every single version of it.
  • In-universe, Troll was established as one to set up a bit of conflict between him and the equally in-universe popular Badrock. Out of universe, not so much.

EnsembleDarkhorse.Steven Universe:

• Quite a few Gems from the Art & Origins book gained a lot of attention. Not to the extent of actually wishing they would become canon, but they received fanart, simply because some of their concepts are that interesting, but Budgerite has to be the most popular of all of them, simply because she's a Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid, being part-Gem, part-Bird. While it's never specified how she came to be, the idea of another hybrid besides Steven fascinated many fans, especially since she's half-bird, meaning that Steven can keep his status as the only Half-Human Hybrid while still exploring the concept of other hybrids.
  • As surprising as that may sound, Concrete has a fair share of fans, much like Sunflower. She's usually depicted as an Adorkable Collector of the Strange, rather than the borderline racist caricature she was originally, mostly because people wanted to distract themselves from the controversy and making fun of it or downplaying it is the only way they knew how.
  • Geraldine has fans for being visually based on the Crystal Skulls from the pilot. Also for being blind.

Ignoring the misindentation and problems with Concrete's and Geraldine's examples, are any of them even valid?

I know way more people who'd rather ignore Concrete altogether than people who embrace her as a different kind of character. While I could be wrong, the only ones I've seen embrace her seemed to do it to piss off the SJW's or whatever.

YMMV.Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery lists Merula as both Ensemble Dark Horse and Base-Breaking Character. IIRC, these tropes are mutually exclusive, right?

Removed Concrete. Also removed Geraldine since searching her name plus "SU, fanart," ect, came up with almost nothing, while just searching "Budgerite" garners loads of hits.

EnsembleDarkhorse.Steven Universe lists a couple characters that are either ambiguously canon or outright noncanon, so I think it's fine?

Edited by Crossover-Enthusiast on Sep 6th 2020 at 11:05:18 AM

YMMV.Baldis Basics In Education And Learning

• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Gotta Sweep — the Crazy Awesome Mook Bouncer, and the game's Fountain of Memes.
  • 1st Prize. Despite being added in version 1.3, he's already getting popularity due to being a hug-loving Cyborg that won in a science fair, and his ability to push you around the school. The fact that he can help you escape by the end of the game certainly helps matters.
  • Baldi's family, his wife Susan and son Andrew, have been embraced by the fanbase, despite only appearing in the comics so far and Word of God saying that even he isn't sure if they are canon to the games.

The first two are main enemies. The third, I'm not really sure if they count if they're not canon.

Honestly, I think characters becoming popular despite only showing up in side material just strengthens the case for being darkhorses.

Cross posting from The Scrappy thread:

On the YMMV page for Justice League (2017), the Russian family is listed as both The Scrappy and as an Ensemble Dark Horse. Now, the Ensemble Dark Horse entry actually cites a few reviews and articles praising the family, and they're also listed on the Live-Action Films subpage as well. Nothing cited for The Scrappy and they are not listed on the any of those subpages. So what should be done? Cut one of the entries, both entries, our merge them into a Base-Breaking Character entry?

Edited by chasemaddigan on Sep 7th 2020 at 5:54:30 AM

The Ensemble Dark Horse has evidence, so cut The Scrappy.

Naturally, Sadie says:

"Ensemble Dark Horse: Like many other shows on the Disney Channel, it was rather underrated, and lasted about as long as non-Disney creations usually do on the network."

Whole shows can't be Ensemble Darkhorses.