Base Breaking Character Cleanup

This was recently added to Frozen II:

• Base-Breaking Character: Downplayed. While Mattias has been a hit with fans thanks to his fleshed-out personality, importance to the story, and Sterling K. Brown's voice performance, there are still some who feel his presence was forced in to diversify the cast, something hard to deny considering he's the only black guy in a medieval setting populated predominantly by white characters.

Playing with a Trope + Audience Reaction = burn it.

Not to mention the only complaint they have against the character is that black characters exist, which is way too unrealistic for a world where a lady shoots ice from her hands. I'm sure some people complain about that, but a) I've barely seen any complaints from fans about that - most people were happy to see a black character in a film franchise criticized for being really white, and b) he's not even the only character of color in the movie because the Northundra tribe exists and the racism against them is a huge part of the film.

On JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency's YMMV page, a troper named 227someguy removed two examples of Base-Breaking Character from the page, citing them as cases of Square Peg, Round Trope. Since there didn't seem to be any discussion on whether these examples were cases of this and if they should be removed, I decided to come here and get some other opinions.

• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Kars is either one of the more interesting and sinister villains in the series with a compelling backstory and understandable motivations, or a boring villain who was too mysterious for his own good and got overshadowed by the secondary villains of this part.
  • Caesar is well-liked by one part of the fanbase for his chemistry with Joseph and his tragic fate. While others consider him an undercooked character who doesn't actually accomplish much for all they build him up to be.

Edited by lpk675 on Dec 9th 2020 at 9:09:47 AM

Also the comment about "forcing diversity into the cast" is uh a bit off sounding...

At least in my experience Kars is the one who inspires debate. While most people are positive-to-neutral about Caesar, and those who think he's not there enough nevertheless accept him for what he is.

I agree with that. While I do know there's a lot of people who don't like Ceasar, I wouldn't say its enough to consider him a Base-Breaking Character. Kars, on the other hand, I know to be rather devisive, especially when compared to other villains in the series such as Dio and Kira. Personally, I think we should restore Kars' entry and leave Ceasar's entry cut.

I agree that Double Trouble's entry should be added to Broken Base. I've never seen anybody dislike the character in any circle of the fanbase, but there is division over whether they're good representation.

Dunno if you said that specifically because of me, but but I had just edited the YMMV page to migrate Double Trouble from Base-Breaking Characters to Broken Base this morning.

Edited by AlleyOop on Dec 14th 2020 at 3:20:08 PM

YMMV.Kirby Star Allies has contradictory examples about Hyness.

• Base-Breaking Character: Hyness, especially in regards to the good ending to Heroes in Another Dimension. Some people thought he got off way too easily for what he's done, others think he deserves a second chance, and a third party thinks he's been Brainwashed For the Greater Good (like many characters that get hit with the Friend Heart) rather than actually redeemed.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Hyness himself is beloved as well, due to being a brilliant balance between a remarkably goofy, crazy antagonist and a violently insane, incredibly dangerous antagonist. His boss battle is also fondly remembered, showing him sucking the energy from his Mages and tossing them around as weapons, his own variation of the Friend Circle, and its overall higher difficulty than most bosses; especially with said Friend Circle flying about in unpredictable directions.

Hyness is the main villain. So he cant be an ensemble darkhorse. I'd change that entry to Evil Is Cool instead.

These are on The Muppet Show:

• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Kermit's nephew Robin isn't universally hated by any means, but some Muppet fans can be a little bit testy when he shows up. That being said, he's still more well-liked overall than Bean Bunny or Pepe from later productions.
  • Miss Piggy can be this way to some fans. Some of her more self-absorbed and violent tendencies tend to rub some people the wrong way, especially in later productions where she tends to be Flanderized to the point of these being her only traits, not to mention this kind of behavior, even from a female character, is considerably more unacceptable today.

While I'm not going to argue that these characters aren't examples, I think the way these are written comes off as one-sided...

On the sister thread, I dealt with everything on BrokenBase.The Last Of Us Part II except for these entries, which are more appropriate for this thread. As I said there, I haven't played either game, so I'll do my best with my limited knowledge.

Base-Breaking Character

• Abby. She became so controversial that her voice actor, Laura Bailey, was sent death threats by detractors, and even supporters of the game, just for voicing her. She got a lot of flack right away for killing Joel in cold blood in front of Ellie. To make matters worse, gamers had to play as Abby in order to understand her point of view. Is she an irredeemable psychopath who deserves to lose everything, or is she actually a sympathetic character who realized the error of her ways and tried to redeem herself by taking care of Lev like Joel did for Ellie? Even those camps can be split even further: Does the relationship with Lev even make sense for Abby and Lev? Who is best described as Isaac's "top Scar killer" and had killed countless of Lev's people and children in the past, and yet Lev(who, admittedly, has been marked for death by the Seraphites) is somehow okay with this? The Closer Look details in his analysis that Abby never displays any remorse in killing anyone she comes across, and will even gun down her former allies without even the slightest hint of hesitation or remorse, but the sheer fact that Lev gives Abby a stern look is somehow enough to dissuade her from killing Dina. To many detractors, this came off as a complete Ass Pull in a desperate attempt to give Abby sympathetic traits. To top it off, Laura Bailey herself doesn't even like her, expressing her belief that Abby wasn't supposed to be liked in this article. Needs to be trimmed, but valid. Keep.
• Lev is also controversial in the fanbase as well. He is either a sympathetic and likable portrayal of a transgender character, and his relationship with Abby is what help her develop from a ruthless killer and into a kinder individual. Others find that Lev's character is both derivative and offensive, as his backstory shows his suffering over being transgender and not much else, where the character Bill from the first game was met with more positive reception due to his more layered portrayal as a homosexual. His relationship with Abby may also come across as a shallow parallel to Joel and Ellie's relationship, only more nonsensicial due to her willingness to torture and kill Seraphites adult and children before she defected for Lev, who she had only met for a couple of days at best. Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment and I'm not sure if the conflict is vicious enough anyway. Cut.
• Ellie's portrayal in this game proved quite divisive at least. Is she a jerkass psychopath who only cares about herself and abandons others for her own sake of revenge, or a sympathetic Woobie that was forced to watch Joel get murdered in cold blood and had to endure all the hardships caused by herself and Abby? Some are also divided on whether or not Ellie deserves living her biggest fear at the end of the game: being alone. Keep.
• Dina. Is she an amazing and kind companion for Ellie with good Character Development, or an unsympathetic person who disregards someone else's feelings? Or a completely pointless character with a horrible case of Plot Armor? Not vicious or vocal enough. Cut.
• Tommy. Is he one of the biggest Jerkass Woobies who has lost everything just like Ellie, or is he a big out-of-character idiot who was stripped of everything that made him special in the first game? Not vicious or vocal enough. Cut.
• Mel. Is she a big hypocritical moron who always puts her crew in constant danger and always tries to gain the moral high ground when arguing with others, especially Abby? Or is she one of the likeable and sympathetic members of Abby's crew, who rightly calls Abby out on being a terrible person? Not vicious or vocal enough. Cut.

Anyone wanna take an assessment on BaseBreakingCharacter.SCP Foundation?

All the arguments listed under Abby are 100% valid but perhaps it could be written to focus more on her positive traits for balance's sake.

Which ones?

Edit: As this point, I'm not sure how many entries does it required to have a Broken Base section being tied off into its own page.

Edited by Siegfried1337 on Feb 3rd 2021 at 2:57:59 AM

This was added to YMMV.Jojos Bizarre Adventure Stardust Crusaders:

• Vanilla Ice/Iced/Cool Ice is very controversial. On one hand, his haters find that he's a repulsive Hate Sink with a psychotic and blind fanatic loyalty to DIO, having killed Avdol and especially Iggy in very brutal ways, unnecessarily brutal in the case of the latter, taking the usual Kick the Dog schtick to uncomfortable levels. Other people like his no-nonsense, serious personality compared to the more wacky enemies faced before him, his unique and frightening Stand with a uniquely awesome power at the time and being a far more effective Hero Killer than DIO himself.

I haven't seen many people who actually hate Vanilla Ice as a character. Yeah, he's definitely despicable, but I think that very few people would prefer it if he wasn't in the story at all.

(Also, when this example was first added, it didn't even bother spoiler-tagging the major characters that he kills. I had to do that myself.)

As far as I know he's quite popular, and closer to a Love to Hate figure. The people who genuinely dislike him don't fixate on him enough to be a real counterpoint, because they just see him as another horrible minion on Dio's list of horrible servants.

Exactly, I don't think I've ever seen anyone say Vanilla Ice is a bad character. I think he's actually considered one of Dio's most popular minions, and his Stand ability is well-liked as well. The way the example is written doesn't get across the type of hatred that makes someone a Base-Breaking Character, it's more of "is he a Hate Sink or Evil Is Cool?". Pretty much everyone agrees that he's one of Part 3's better antagonists. At most, the example brings up that maybe the death scenes he's involved in are seen as too brutal by some fans, which would maybe be a Broken Base example, but even then, I don't think it's divisive enough to qualify for that.

Edited by Zuxtron on Feb 7th 2021 at 8:22:25 AM

Can I please re-add Diane to BoJack Horseman? She was cut a while ago by the now-banned High Crate despite consensus agreeing she was one of the only valid BBC listed, and in my time as a BoJack fan (as in I regularly interact with other fans in dedicated fandom spaces), I don't think I've ever met somebody who didn't either really love or really hate her, and she's an even more contentious character than BoJack himself (who at least everybody can agree is meant to be a bad person).

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 2nd 2021 at 5:29:59 AM

Go ahead.

YMMV.Kirby Buckets

• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Dawn. At the time the show began, she was reviled by much of the fandom for being utterly cruel and disgusting towards Kirby, as she was meant to be. As the show went on, opinions on her became more mixed, as she became much less successful in humiliating him and a major Jerkass Woobie. A lot of her fans are just guys who find Olivia Stuck attractive. While she still gets some hate for being a bad friend to Belinda, especially in Season 3 after the latter got locked in a dungeon for several episodes, she's gotten more than her fair share of fans for helping Kirby rescue his parents and defeating Lord Mitchell, and putting aside her ego to comfort a lonely Big Ricky after his friends were turned evil and finally getting together with him at the end of the series.
  • A lot of fans find that Kirby has become just as bad as Dawn and a Designated Hero at best, as he's shown little interest in trying to mend relations with his older sister, especially in "Tunnel Babies" after he refused to be nice to Dawn after it was revealed she saved his life when they were younger^note which all turned out to be one big lie.
  • Principal Mitchell is seen as a hilarious or a boring paranoid.

I don't know if these examples work. Given that the show is pretty obscure, I'm not sure that there are enough fans for Kirby and Dawn to each both have sizable fandoms and hatedoms. This entry just seems to be me contrasting my own views on these characters with the Intended Audience Reaction, and as I've said in previous posts on the show I may be too biased in favor of Dawn to be neutral on the issue. Also, this entry seems pretty long and messy.

I shortened out Dawn's entry a bit:

• Dawn is supposed to be hated by the audience for being an annoying and selfish Bratty Teenage Daughter (and a bad friend to Belinda), and anything that happens to her is supposed to be seen as well deserved. While she does have a lot of haters, she also has a sizable fandom who see her as The Woobie and are sick of seeing her put through the wringer every episode, regardless of whether or not she did anything to deserve it. Some people on both sides, however, will conclude she's a Jerkass Woobie but only focus one one half of the trope.

Does this look better? Or does it still come off as biased and/or my own personal opinion?

(Kirby's entry doesn't look as badly written, so I won't be rewriting his entry for now. The Principal Mitchell example though isn't mine, and I can't really vouch for him, though I generally find him very funny — and like Dawn I don't see him as a truly villainous character.)

The entry for Dawn is too biased in favor of her, the entry for Kirby is too biased against him, and the principal's entry needs more elaboration if it even counts. If you think the entries were just you projecting your personal beliefs, then cut them. Remember that a Base-Breaking Character entry should explain both sides of the argument in an equal manner. What you wrote just reads like Unintentionally Sympathetic and Unintentionally Unsympathetic.

Edited by mightymewtron on Mar 2nd 2021 at 1:27:17 PM

OK, so I came up with these.

• Dawn is supposed to be hated by the audience for being an annoying and selfish Bratty Teenage Daughter (and a bad friend to Belinda), and anything bad that happens to her is supposed to be seen as Laser-Guided Karma. While she does have a lot of haters, she also has a sizable fandom who see her as The Woobie and are sick of seeing her put through the wringer every episode, regardless of whether or not she did anything to deserve it. Some people on both sides, however, will conclude she's a Jerkass Woobie but only focus one one half of the trope.
• Kirby himself is seen by his fans as he was intended to: a lovable Everyman Kid Com protagonist who serves as the surrogate to the show's target audience. To his detractors, however, he's a hypocritical and sanctimonious Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist who does things as bad as the antagonists on the show and usually gets away with it.

Are these better and more balanced entries? Or are they still too one-sided in favor of Dawn and against Kirby?

Edited by LaptopGuy on Mar 2nd 2021 at 4:54:53 AM

The Dawn entry is still a bit biased but the Kirby one is better. But are you sure this is a serious concern among fans of the show?