Unintentionally Unsympathetic and Unintentionally Sympathetic Cleanup

@:ElBuenCuate I'll cut them. Imelda for being semi acknoleged and missing key context. The parents for not explain why they were supposed to be sympathetic.

And I'll be removing the Moondancer entry on the 24th per Three-Day Rule unless I hear any objections.

UnintentionallyUnsympathetic.Western Animation

• Courtney has had a lot of trouble thrown at her, but her self-righteous nature, tendency to blame others for things that either aren't their fault or have little control, and several of her actions such as bullying Beth and Lindsay, suing her way into the contest, and cheating someone else out of it, her treatment of Gwen and Duncan even before the cheating scandal, plan to backstab Scott and Gwen, her extremely aggravating self-centered attitude and of course, her threatening to send Owen, DJ, Cody, and Tyler to their deaths for the sake of a million dollars have caused her to become more and more hated over the years.

Fails to explain why they were supposed to be sympathetic despite those things, cut? I'll also cut on the 24 unless I hear anything.

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Jan 21st 2020 at 2:46:32 AM

I think Moondancer could qualify, but not for the reasons listed. Maybe something about how Moondancer pinned all her hopes on Twilight coming to the party, then was a poor host to all the friends that did come to her party once she learned Twilight wasn't coming. Then she ended up blowing them all off in the future when they tried to engage with her.

While Twilight certainly did her wrong, seems holding Twilight as entirely the one at fault for Moondancer's reclusiveness is unfair when she did have other friends to lean on.

But I agree that the current entry is terrible and really don't care if it gets deleted entirely.

Edited by Stage7-4 on Jan 21st 2020 at 2:48:12 AM

Hey, does Uther the Lightbringer from Warcraft III come off as unintentionally unsympathetic for his actions in said game?

Situation: In mission 6 of the human campaign, Arthas, Jaina and Uther arrive at Stratholme to stop the city from falling to the Undead. Too late. The people are already eating infected grain and turning into Zombies. Arthas ordered everyone in the city to be killed to prevent the plague from spreading. Uther objected to this killing of civilians and fled with Jaina.

What did Blizzard intend with this scene? We were supposed to see the culling of Strathlome as Arthas Moral Event Horizon and the start of his descent into darkness.

However, how was the scene perceived instead? There is a large contingent of fans that argue that Arthas was, despite the horrible implications and his eventual Face–Heel Turn, doing what was right at that moment. Arthas actul Moral Event Horizon is seen somewhat later in the story by many people, when he hired thugs to burn down ships so his men won't try to leave, and then blamed it all on the thugs doing it by their own volition after he was recalled from his Northrend campaign by his father.

What arguements have they(those who view uther as unintentionally unsympathetic brought up?

• There was no known alternative to curing the plague back then, and so Uther's decision to not purge the city could be read as overtly self-righteous moral posturing, trying to preserve his moral conscience above all else.
• As of the current timeline, there is still no known alternative to curing the plague, this makes Arthas' rationale look more understandable in retrospect, even through he ended up becoming the very thing he swore to destroy.
• Arthas witnessed the effects of the plague first hand at Hearthglen. Uther and Jaina did not, it makes his stance more reasonable than it is portrayed as indirectly and Uther and Jaina being seen as naieve.
• Uther does not make an effort to do something to stop Arthas apart from arguing and storming off in a fit of rage, which again makes him appear as more of a self-righteous moral posturer—and one that dosen't even do anything to enforce his own moral codes.
• It has been argued[1] that if Uther was really serious about his moral codes, he would have killed or fought Arthas on the spot(the arguement being that "the prince has gone mad, I had to put him down, but he simply ran away, which adds to the image people have of him as doing self righteous moral posturing and trying to preserve his conscience in the most disingenuous ways possible
• In that mission, as soon as you run into a infected civilian, they turn into Zombies. World of Warcraft made things a bit more muddied in their caverns of time instance about the Culling of Stratholme by having Arthas kill many people when they aren't infected and the player hearing their screams. It didn't really work considering how most people continue to insist that there was really no alternate way forward and considering that Arthas did witness the long term effects of the plague.

So I'm wondering, is this an example of Unintentionally Unsympathetic?

Edited by xie323 on Jan 25th 2020 at 10:22:45 AM

Can we really be sure that D.W. in the Arthur episode "Arthur's Big Hit" was intended to be sympathetic to begin with? I mean her behavior in that episode (breaking Arthur's model plane and then blaming him for building it wrong instead of apologizing for what she did) is so clearly unsympathetic that I honestly can't comprehend how the writers could logically have expected her to come off as sympathetic to the audience. Yes, the episode did have an Aesop about how it's wrong to hit people, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the viewers are meant to sympathize with D.W. when Arthur hits her; it seems more likely to me that the viewer is meant to hate D.W. for what she did, while simultaneously learning the lesson that it's not okay to hit people no matter how much you hate them. And while you might think that the writers thought her actions would seem sympathetic with the same excuse that Fern and D.W. herself use (i.e. "She's/I'm just a little girl" and therefore doesn't know better), these are the same writers who had D.W. herself specifically use "I don't know better" as an excuse for her action, which, considering she specifically referred to it, means she does know better, and I highly doubt that the writers, who are grown adults, didn't realize how D.W.'s excuse is self-invalidating.

The episode did lean towards the Audience supposing to sympathize with DW being hit. However, its because of her irritation towards Arthur that caused people jot ro sympathized with her.

Well, okay then. I haven't seen that particular episode myself, but from what I'd heard about it D.W.'s behavior in it was so clearly and objectively unsympathetic that I found it very hard to believe that the creators didn't realize how unsympathetic D.W.'s behavior in it was.

Maybe she was supposed to seem sympathetic at the actual moment of the hit, but I can't really think of any reason the writers would have her give that extremely Backhanded Apology at the end if not to make the viewers despise her for her clear lack of remorse for her act.

Edited by SereneSpecter13 on Jan 25th 2020 at 7:24:57 AM

Found these on Unintentionally Sympathetic:

• Dragon Tales gave us a one-shot character Mr. Pop, who only made an appearance in "Wheezie's Last Laugh." He is meant to be obnoxious, with an Annoying Laugh and hamming up everything for no reason at all. His shtick is taking sounds and swapping them; he takes a liking to Wheezie's laugh in particular, and steals it without her permission. The problem here is that Wheezie is The Scrappy to many viewers, especially those outside the target age range, with her laugh being one of the major reasons. Since her laugh comes off as actually annoying where's Mr. Pop's laugh sounds comical, you end up rooting for Mr. Pop instead.

This sounds like misuse to me, as it's really an Unintentionally Unsympathetic entry using Mr. Pop as a proxy to attack Wheezie. And over an annoying laugh seems really petty.

• Tales of Symphonia has this in regards to Presea, when it is revealed late in the game that she still harbours a grudge against Regal for killing her sister and seems swayed by Alicia's illusion insisting Regal should be punished - even Regal himself doesn't resist when the sisters turn on him. When Lloyd appears and calls Presea and Regal out for being selfish, it can be hard to side with him in regards to Presea, as Alicia herself insisted Presea forgive Regal without thinking at all about Presea needing time to process her sister's death and grieve for her (bearing in mind Presea had only recently regained her true self and didn't even know Alicia was dead, having not seen her for years), and earlier in the game when Regal requests to join the group, it's entirely optional if you pick either "Of course!" or "If it's all right with Presea". Though Regal obviously didn't want to kill Alicia and is truly remorseful for his actions, Lloyd's admonishment comes off as kind of harsh considering Presea was never given time or an option to deal with her feelings, and it's almost treated like it was mandatory for her to forgive Regal and it's implied she's been stewing over this for a long time before Welgaia.

The scene in question (apologies for the let's play commentator, it was the best I could find so far): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A5EPFxojpQ

This entry seems fine at first glance, but with context it's basically Presea fan natter. Lloyd was stopping her from killing Regal in revenge, which is in no way an unreasonable reaction. He calls them selfish for throwing their lives away.

Heck, later in the conversation Lloyd even says not everything has to be forgiven, so this entry is just wrong.

Yea I would say cut both of those. They seemed to have been written by someone very angry at these characters, especially the first one.

YMMV.Mighty No 9

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Dr. White. At the end of the game, he comes to the prison where Dr. Blackwell is currently staying. Dr. Blackwell is in prison because years ago, he committed an act of terrorism to prevent Trinity from causing the plot of the game from happening years earlier, without a Beck to purify her. Rather than apologize for creating a robot as unpredictable and dangerous as Trinity, and leaving her in the hands of the dangerously irresponsible Gregory Graham, he coldly lectures the old man who spent years in prison when he saved everyone from White's colossal screw-up, and dismisses the old man's concerns. Made worse because Dr. Blackwell is his father. So, unless this characterization is deliberate, he's far less sympathetic than he has any right to be.

Okay, this doesn't explain how he was supposed to be sympathetic, and the last sentence puts a doubt in my head whenever he is really an example or not.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Feb 13th 2020 at 8:31:18 AM

Well, here's the scene in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVy8OPV_1D8

Context being that White unintentionally made an out-of-control super robot Trinity which Blackwell temporarily stopped but got framed as a terrorist and went to prison for. While White eventually made Beck to stop Trinity for good, showing up to your innocent imprisoned father just to brag is a dick move.

Not to mention that White disowned his father over nothing, and even now knowing the truth refuses to reconcile.

So I think the entry is deserved being as White is ultimately framed as heroic, redemptive, and a visionary that his dad doesn't believe in while Blackwell is a crotchety old man unwilling to embrace new robotics (despite being untested and the confirmed danger), but that write-up is wordy and confusing.

Edited by Stage7-4 on Feb 14th 2020 at 11:17:30 AM

So all this needs a rewrite to explain how Dr. White is supposed to be sympathetic, and what he did wrong to make the audience hate him.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Feb 15th 2020 at 4:43:44 PM

YMMV.My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic S 7 E 21 Once Upon A Zeppelin

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Twilight Velvet. Twilight Sparkle is effectively put in a position where she has to choose between doing things she's not comfortable doing or letting down her family and those who idolize her as a princess because Twilight Velvet didn't bother to Read the Fine Print, and Twilight Velvet doesn't even remotely care, spends the rest of the episode enjoying the cruise and being Innocently Insensitive about it, and never gets called out for this or suffers any repercussions. Night Light as well to a lesser extent, but he at least tries to have the cruise turned around once he learns that it requires the princesses to work for it.

I intend to cut because 1. the "didn't bother to Read the Fine Print" was intentional 2. They do show removes even if they are Innocently Insensitive about it and work to make it up to Twilight Sparkle best they can in the ending 3. They would have supported Twilight Sparkle not going through this, but Twi choose to do this against their advice. Objections?

UPDATE: Removed per Three-Day Rule. It also fails to explain why they were supposed to be sympathetic here.

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Feb 19th 2020 at 8:03:03 AM

UnintentionallyUnsympathetic.Western Animation

• Jesus christ, the Diamond Authority, especially White Diamond They had been set up as purely sociopathic villains with no redeeming qualities with the exception of Blue, with White Diamond in particular draining the life force of her OWN children in an attempt to fight Steven. While they were clearly intended to be villains, that alone doesn't put up the fact that they murdered millions of their own citizens, corrupted their minds, and used their OWN corpses in order to destroy one of thousands of planets they had already annihilated for resources. During the Human Zoo arc, they are depicted as being torn up for their sisters's (faked) death, and somehow depicted as sympathetic by the show, including Yellow Diamond, who is still a completely and utterly emotionally dead psychopath. It gets worse with White Diamond, who was advertised up to this point as being a Complete Monster in tier with Ragyo Kuryuin, who is explicitly meant to draw up comparisons to nazi white supremacy, and imprisoned her youngest daughter for decades at a time. Then, after nearly killing him, Steven convinces her to drop all the horrible, repulsive things she's done because she blushed a different color, revealing herself to be a hypocrite. She goes completely back on her word and willingly turns Homeworld into a republic solely because of this, and is depicted as an adorably doting grandmother for Steven in the movie. Needless to say, a lot of fans were absolutely outraged at how easily the show had rehabilitated a horrible dictator, since Jasper and Lars had been depicted as being far more realistically in that regard.

I toned down some of complaining, but I question if it's an example given it's a notoriously controversial issue. I believe it's misused (at least as written) as this trope must explain why they were supposed to be seen as sympathetic despite the circumstances . Those traits are why they were supposed be be unsympathetic as villain until they begin to redeem themselves. It's just complaining about being Easily Forgiven. From my limited understanding of the series it sounds like it exaggerating their negative personality traits.

With the caveat that my knowledge of the entire thing is purely secondhand, this does very much sound like shoehorned complaining about Easily Forgiven. Making Unintentionally Unsympathetic about audiences not buying into redemptions seems like a serious distortion from its normal use.

That gets like five things wrong in the first sentence alone, and also backpedels, calling all the Diamonds sociopaths but then saying Blue was the only good one. It's clearly negatively charged; even if the Diamonds fit, I'd just strip it since it's a giant white wall of over-exaggeration, misinformation, and complaining. The rest of those examples might also need a look-over, except, humorously enough, Lars' (though his does need a small rewrite).

Edited by Crossover-Enthusiast on Feb 20th 2020 at 2:19:10 PM

Like I said on the ATT thread, I'm unsure if we should blanket-ban all "unsympathetic before redemption" examples, because a lot of time the narrative is aiming for us to find the character sympathetic, if not the entire time, then retroactively; we're meant to see them as people who can be redeemed. So if people legitimately thought the Diamonds were too unsympathetic to be sympathetic after redemption, I don't see why it's a shoehorn just because they were unsympathetic as villains... as, well, the very fact that they were redeemed meant that they were, at some point, meant to be sympathetic. If their villainous traits were too extreme, well...

I'm not saying this to argue against the example itself being bad; it's too wordy, it's contradictory, it doesn't explain why they may have been intended as sympathetic— I'm just saying this as a general note; even obviously-unsympathetic villains could be Unintentionally Unsympathetic if the writing expects the audience to like them after a seemingly unearned-redemption.

I still think it's a serious shift of what the trope normally means. I remember earlier a similar example coming up for Darth Vader, and that seemed equally shoehorned.

Decided to rewrite Lars' example while I had it on my mind. How does it look?

• Lars' character involves him masking his insecurity and anxiety issues by acting like a jerk to those around him, partially in a misguided attempt to seem "cool"; his arc has him move one step forward, two steps back until he eventually realizes that his behavior is driving away those he loves, and only then does he make efforts to improve himself and face his issues. While the intent behind his character is clear, the execution is incredibly lackluster, with Lars more often than not coming off as an actual jerk that never learns his lesson.

I guess so; most of the misuse I see comes from examples where the character wasn't meant to be sympathetic in the first place, or utterly fails to explain how; but I'll admit that looking back, it seems the idea here is more than just "character fails to earn audience sympathy when the work wants them to", or at least it isn't "character gets redeemed, but the audience still finds them evil".

If that's just how we're defining the trope, it makes sense; just seems more restrictive an the title implies.

Seems fine to me.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 20th 2020 at 2:26:39 PM

Removed the Diamond Authority per this thread and two other inquiries. They might be this trope, but as written is was overly focusing on intentional flaws and came off as bashing.

Maybe we should standardize a UU format like was done for What An Idiot?

Describe the character, situation, and intentional unsympathetic traits
Meant to be ympathetic as: Why we were intended to sympathies with them despite the above.\\ However: Why audiences digressed.

At least all UU entries should start with explaining why they were supposed to be sympathetic despite the circumstances.

Replaced the Lars example.

By the way, the person who added the Diamond Authority wall was Orangutans. They should be sent some notifiers if they haven't already.

Edited by Crossover-Enthusiast on Feb 21st 2020 at 7:43:25 AM

YMMV.Beast Wars features an entry that I'm unsure about. It's been a while since I watched the show, so I can't vouch for the accuracy, but something feels off:

• In the third season, the writers focused on Blackarachnia's redemption arc and while she was meant to be rooted for, there were several factors that worked against her and she didn't quite come off as a fully sympathetic character. For one, Blackarachnia complained how the Maximals didn't trust her but she had spent two seasons attacking the Maximals and unlike Dinobot, she had much more bad blood with them. Plus, she had been the one who had (unintentionally) led Megatron to the Ark in the first place in a quest to get the power of the Ark for herself, allowing Megatron a chance to try to assassinate Optimus Prime and create a timestorm so when she turned against Megatron out of self-preservation, she didn't build a strong foundation of trust with the Maximals to begin with. There was also the fact that she didn't act any differently under the Maximals than she did Megatron, secretly stealing equipment from the ship and the TMII driver Depth Charge had thrown into the lava to work her own agenda in secrecy. And despite some mistrust between her and the Maximals, they did make some attempts to give her a chance because in "Proving Grounds," Rattrap relented and allowed Silverbolt to go retrieve Blackarachnia without snitching on them, despite his dislike for her. At the end of the episode, Optimus tells Blackarachnia that the choice to be reprogrammed into a Maximal was her choice alone.
  
  Later on in Beast Machines, Blackarachnia would attack Rattrap and call him a traitor when he made a weapons deal with Megatron, despite being a former Predacon herself and having an opportunity to reach out to Rattrap and understand what drove him to such lengths. She also forcibly changes Jetstorm back into Silverbolt despite expecting characters like Silverbolt and Optimus to give her the chance to make her own choices. Given all the things that have happened and will happen in the sequel series, Blackarachnia in the third season of Beast Wars can come off as less of a sympathetic Anti-Heroine trying to find her place in life and more of a whiny, entitled hypocrite who's not willing to extend to others the same chances and opportunities based on free will and individual sovereignty that she expects to receive herself.

Aside from being a giant Wall of Text, information from the sequel series Beast Machines is included in the second paragraph to make otherwise-pointless information in the first paragraph relevant, suggesting that some of the unintentional-unsympathetic stuff is retroactive. The closing statement is also solely about the sequel instead of how it relates to Beast Wars (the YMMV page this entry is put in). What do you guys think?

For the Arthur's Big Hit example, one thing a lot of people leave out is that Arthur is being rude to D.W. at the beginning of the episode, even before she breaks the plane. And he could've put it somewhere safe instead of just laying out in the open if he really didn't want D.W. to touch it.

YMMV.My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic S 7 E 23 Secrets And Pies

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Pinkie Pie is suppose to be in the right for being upset that Rainbow Dash tried to conceal her dislike of pies since she made those pies just for her, but given how possibly everypony else likes her pies (yet she shows no concern for that) and the fact that she basically forces Rainbow Dash try her pies against her will, it’s hard to side with her when she’s harassing Rainbow Dash over a pretty trivial matter.
  • Even Twilight and Applejack aren’t exempt from this as they call Rainbow out for concealing her hatred of pies from Pinkie Pie despite knowing she likes it when Rainbow trie her pies, they never consider that Rainbow is entitled to not like whatever type of food and don’t even call out Pinkie for making such a big deal about Rainbow not liking her pies.

I previously cut Pinkie Pie as "Pinkie 1. goes through a lot of self-inflicted misery as a result 2. reconciles with Rainbow as soon they're able to establish their reasons 3. the sequel comic which released before the episode is all about Pinkie's Jerkass Realization over it. That's a lot of evidence it's not unintentional." It was never replied to so I cut per Three-Day Rule.

This one ignores that Rainbow was the one who made it a big, non-trivial deal by not admitting to not liking pies sooner (that's what Twilight and Applejack are chewing her out for, not not liking her pies). This sounds more like Rainbow being Unintentionally Sympathetic or Strawman Has a Point due to how overly seriously everyone takes it. Should I change it?

For RWBY there are some fans who sympathize with ozpins situation and think the main cast is too hard on him and some rooting for ironwoods plan to abandon mantle seeing it as the logical choice in the current situation and that ruby and the others are being hypocritical for lying to ironwood despite hating ozpin for Lying to them.

Is it safe to delete all these?

YMMV.Mother 3

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • The Magypsies thought it was funny that they were sending Claus to his possible actually Fate Worse than Death death to avenge his mother. Human lives are so small anyways.
  • Alec cracks jokes as he and Flint are searching for Claus. His daughter died last night, he berated one of his grandsons for being unable to stop the other from a possible suicide mission, and his grandson is in danger.
  • Wes constantly verbally abuses Duster.
  • Except for Lighter, Fuel, and Reggie, most of the citizens of Tazmily Village weren't the nicest to begin with. Lou and Bud mooch off their boss (Lighter), Butch is a Jerkass who delights in bad things happening and unwittingly began sowing the seeds of corruption by trusting Fassad, the mayor and his wife are insufferable snobs who think only of themselves, Isaac cheerfully joins up with the Pigmasks, Bronson breaks the news of Hinawa's death in a very inappropriate way by saying that it's both good news and bad news that he found the Drago Fang pierced through her heart, Matt's an alcoholic who uses his drinking as an excuse for everything, Wess abuses Duster emotionally and possibly physically, Thomas is a worrisome dolt who states the obvious too much, and just about everyone thinks Wess is useless because he's an old man and Duster's sketchy because he's (in name only) a thief.
    • Could be intentional, as Porky himself says that it was stupid for humans to try and erase memories of their mistakes and faults, thinking it would make them better. Giving up their memories of what they did wrong instead of learning from them would make them more prone to having the same faults that made them ruin the world in the first place, which happens when Fassad is easily able to manipulate them.

All the entries fail to explain how they were supposed to be sympathetic, and with the last one, I don’t think groups can count for this reaction, can it? There’s also a Justifying Edit right below it too.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Mar 5th 2020 at 6:37:23 AM