Unintentionally Unsympathetic and Unintentionally Sympathetic Cleanup

But if you are one of those fans who thinks Bob is a raging misogynist, you will perceive it as a case of Unintentionally Unsympathetic, so it just comes down to the opinion of the person writing the example.

Let's see if I can lay out the difference between the two tropes.

If Bob is supposed to be treated as someone who's sympathetic, but the fans don't agree due to various factors, that's Unintentionally Unsympathetic.

If there's a trend in fan works to portray Bob as evil or more of an asshole than he actually is in-canon, that's Ron the Death Eater.

This is an ongoing point of disagreement, whether Ron the Death Eater needs to reference specific fan works of just general fan reception. There are plenty of examples that just reference fan perceptions and not specific fan works.

It boils down to two positions:

1. RTDE and DILP are objective tropes that apply to specific fanworks that make characters more/less sympathetic than they are in canon.

2. RTDE and DILP are YMMV tropes that deal with fans in general interpreting characters as more/less sympathetic than they are in canon.

The current write ups for both tropes are a weird mix of these two, as are their examples across the site.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Aug 31st 2020 at 3:11:15 PM

But ignoring the canon and projecting a completely new interprtation isn't what we want for Unintentionally Unsympathetic. We want examples that point to specific moments in canon and explain how they come across in context. Not Fridge Horror-type spiels on how this might mean the characters could act worse.

Like I said, though, the second option is just bad. It makes the trope unnecessarily contentious and unnecessarily vague, it's got a whole Examples Are Not General thing going on for no good reason, and it strikes me as essentially giving into misuse. Just purge the general reception examples.

I mean, when what you're saying is "if we make this change to Trope A it makes a whole bunch of problems for Trope B"... isn't that in itself a clear argument against changing Trope A?

Edited by nrjxll on Aug 31st 2020 at 2:15:21 PM

option 1 is not the status quo of the tropes, as I said the status quo is a weird mix of the two that makes no one happy. The tropes are YMMV, not objective, and there are a lot of examples that just reference general perceptions. The pages also clearly treat these interpretation as objective wrong, instead of merely different for the purposes of fan works. You and I are currently discussing one of those in a different thread.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Aug 31st 2020 at 3:30:09 PM

I've never seen either trope referenced as anything other than being about depictions in fanworks, which is leading me to assume that any confusion is the product of tropers messing things up along the way - but even if that's not true (and TBF, it's not like good writing for audience reactions has traditionally been a thing on this site), I fail to see anything remotely positive about going with option 2.

I mean, for god's sake, you're saying making the tropes overlap with Unintentionally Sympathetic / Unsympathetic is a viable option in a long-term cleanup thread for the latter. I don't understand why this is a discussion.

Edited by nrjxll on Aug 31st 2020 at 2:39:40 PM

Guys, I think we should table the RTDE discussion. It's literally on the sandbox for nobody knowing what it means or should mean.

Reposting from the previous page since all that overshadowed it:

I’d like to contest this from Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Candace Against the Universe (spoilered because the movie hasn’t even been out a week yet)

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Candace in this movie is revealed to have a I Just Want to Be Special status, which is the reason why she is so obsessive over getting Phineas and Ferb in trouble because of how they can do so many things that she could never do, and she is jealous over them. Regularly, this kind of way of showing off some Hidden Depths of Candace would be a plus for her characterization, except there's one problem: This reveal came WAY too late in the series, especially five years after the show ended. Had this reveal about her came during when the show was still running and probably even in the early seasons, it would have made her more sympathetic all the way through and not come off as an Ass Pull attempt to bring sympathy to Candace at the last second.
  • Whenever in the show that Candace would try to bust her brothers, it never once made it seem like she was jealous of them and more that she just wanted to see them get in trouble for her amusement, and her I Just Want to Be Special status is never even revealed in episodes where she successfully bust her brothers, especially when she learns in them that her brothers are not the source to her problems and busting them is not going to solve her problems. So the film's plot of her once again blaming all of her problems on her brothers and realizing it's actually her own fault that she's that way just comes off as her having another case of Aesop Amnesia.

Ignoring the problems with indentation (which was how it was on the page), Candace’s I Just Want to Be Special did come up in the show, though not really spotlighted, like when she felt overshadowed by her brothers’ celebrations for their mom’s birthday or in “Gi-Ants” where she sulks about how nobody thinks her creative ideas are cool like those of her brothers. Additionally, though at the start of the show she may have wanted Phineas and Ferb to get in trouble just for the sake of it, as the show went on, due to a combination of character development and shifting vision for the show, her motive came across more as just wanting to be believed by their mom.

Edit: And a third party commented it out saying, basically, that it feels like a knee-jerk.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Aug 31st 2020 at 9:11:09 AM

Just watched the movie! I take Candace very seriously as a character because, again, I related to her a lot as a kid (hell, I still relate to her), so I'll weigh in here. (more spoilers just to be safe)

I think there's a possibility Candace could be Unintentionally Unsympathetic, since she acts pretty selfish and cold to her brothers without considering what could happen to them, resulting in them getting sent to prison, and also makes a stupid move by mentioning everyone exhales CO 2 on Earth, even though she also admits that it was a terrible thing to do. However, it doesn't seem unrealistic for a girl her age to be so self-centered and make impulsive decisions (the movie clearly shows her to be scatterbrained at a few points). Plus, she ends up saving the day and saves her brothers from getting in trouble as well, which I think might make up for her earlier selfishness. The entry is very wrong that her I Just Want to Be Special status is something new, because she's shown jealousy towards her brothers several times in the series and one of her defining traits is insecurity that nobody likes her. The point about Aesop Amnesia might be something but I don't think it belongs here; it's just harder to take her Character Development knowing that this still takes place before "Last Day Of Summer" where she's still doing the same old shtick.

Spoiler-free summary: the example might be able to stay if it talks about her specific actions in this movie alone, but it doesn't have enough information in the entry as written and it also underestimates the original series.

Edited by mightymewtron on Sep 1st 2020 at 2:21:53 PM

I don't think we came to an agreement on what to do with Linda from a while back, but someone added "gaslighting" to her list of crimes... Can someone gaslight unwittingly? I can see the thought process behind the addition, but...

Gaslighting is horrifically misused even off of this wiki. I can definitely see how Linda's behavior could trigger victims of gaslighting given how she insists Candace is crazy for telling the truth, but she doesn't believe the truth so it's more a lack of respect/faith at worst (and as much as I dislike how Linda talks about Candace, I can understand why she acts that way).

Geez, that feels like it was copy-pasted from LS Mark’s review.

If anyone is gaslighting Candace, it's the Universe itself.

I was going to add this to main Unintentionally Unsympathetic page: "Contrast Karma Houdini who's intentionally portrayed as getting unfairly well off despite their specific misdeeds and being unrepentant for them."

Cleanup stated KH has to be intentional, which is what separates it from UU. Is there any way they can overlap (if there's unintentional thing in addition to the intentional)? Is this good to add?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Sep 7th 2020 at 12:09:39 PM

Found this on Thundercats 1985

• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The Mutants of Plun-Darr - Slythe, Monkian, Jackalman, Vulture-Man - even though they're evil they're just so Blessed with Suck that sometimes you just can't help feeling sorry for them. This is not the case with their 2011 counterparts, however.
  • Mumm-Ra, himself, in the later seasons. Despite his evil goals, he really works and plans tirelessly to achieve them and please his dire masters, while all the ThunderCats seem to do is just keep using The Sword of Omens over and over to inexplicably and conveniently undo all his efforts.
  • This was taken up to eleven in the last episode of the five-parter "Return to Thundera", when finally convinced he had succeeded despite all odds, he was suddenly faced with the Ancient Spirits of Evil's wrath for his failure, and could only say: "I... I don't understand!". At that moment, the show felt less like "good will always triumph over evil" and more like watching the desperate struggles of one determined being against an elitist group with a handheld Plot Device.

This feels like draco characters who are evil.

Definite cut. None of those offset the reasons they were supposed to be evil.

This was added back for a 3rd time to Main.Unintentionally Unsympathetic:

• RWBY: Jaune is considered less sympathetic by some fans, due to various factors such as his cheating his way into Beacon, constant attempts to flirt with Weiss in the early years and his failure to protect Amber during the climax of Volume 3.

It was first removed as "his flirting doesn't go anywhere near harassment, and his character arc involves him trying to get over his flaws." It also failed to explain that/why they were supposed to be seen as sympathetic in the first place. It was added back verbatim, which I cut for the same reason, but it was just added back verbatim.

I intend to re-cut for the previous reasons. Any objections? If not I'll cut and add a note saying not tov add them back without approval.

Yeah, that can go. Personally, I find Jaune annoying, but he's certainly not Unintentionally Unsympathetic.

Also from RBWY:

• RWBY, JNR and Qrow's groups's actions actions towards Ozpin during Volume 6. They had every right to be angry when the Awful Truth is revealed, but their actions and words towards him still rubbed many viewers the wrong way (especially for Yang given how it's been ambiguous if she told the team that Raven was the true Spring Maiden), especially how Qrow and Jaune both hurt Oscar because of their anger towards Ozpin.

Since RBWY bashing is an ongoing problem, I find this suspect as less than half explain why they "rubbed many viewers the wrong way" and questionable formatting. Thoughts?

No, that one's always seemed legit to me; the show places so much emphasis on how Ozpin is so morally gray but... he's not and they come off as extremely unreasonable for the way they treat him, especially with them hurting Oscar for it. That said, I have an extreme love-hate relationship with the show so you should probably get a second opinion.

Edit: It could definitely use a rewrite though.

Edited by Riley1sCool on Sep 19th 2020 at 10:19:01 AM

Found this example on Gotham High:

• Bruce's shift in characterization and callousness towards everything makes him come off as a brooding "edgy" teen.

very little contxt, I think there needs to be a better explanation. Cut it.

On the subject of the RWBY examples. On the YMMV.RWBY page, the entries are as follows:

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Jaune is considered less sympathetic by some fans, due to various factors such as his cheating his way into Beacon, constant attempts to flirt with Weiss in the early years and his failure to protect Amber during the climax of Volume 3.
    • Given the above, are you okay with me cutting this?
  • Blake's arc in Volume 4 saw her being harshly criticised for her hostile demanour towards Sun, which stems from a miscommunication where Sun thought Blake was going on a revenge quest against the White Fang when she was in fact running away. Her attitude across the season is far more short-tempered than she was, which made sense given Volume 3's finale, but many fans felt the show went too far in making her unlikeable. Her slapping Sun (which due to a stated miscommunication between the writing and animation teams made the slaps far harsher than intended) and then telling him to shut up after he takes an injury for her only made the situation worse. While Volume 5 did salvage Blake for many fans by having her be kinder and more considerate, the damage had been done.
    • This is a new entry. Is it a valid one?
  • RWBY, JNR and Qrow's groups's actions actions towards Ozpin during Volume 6. They had every right to be angry when the Awful Truth is revealed, but their actions and words towards him still rubbed many viewers the wrong way (especially for Yang given how it's been ambiguous if she told the team that Raven was the true Spring Maiden), especially how Qrow and Jaune both hurt Oscar because of their anger towards Ozpin. This is exacerbated in Volume 7 due to them deciding to keep the same secret from Ironwood that Ozpin kept from them, abusing his trust and exacerbating his trust issues when their lying and secret-keeping is revealed.
    • This is the entry referenced above, although it's written slightly differently. If the main trope entry is rewritten, does this one need to be?

• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • Ozpin in Volume 6 and 7. Yes, he didn't tell the group the relics attract Grimm or that Salem is apparently immortal. However, the group learned this by essentially playing a 3D movie of his greatest regrets and mistakes (including having to watch his children die), and the trauma drove him to tears. Even knowing his backstory and despite the clear trauma of the whole ordeal, the group tears into him. He even told them why he's not telling them certain things, only for history to repeat itself, exactly as Ozpin feared it would. Because of this, alot of fans think the group was too hard on the professor, to say nothing of how Oscar is assaulted through being Oz's vessel with no one apologizing besides Jaune.
    • This is the twin to the RWBY versus Ozpin entry under Unintentionally Unsympathetic, but from Ozpin's perspective. Keep? Reword?
  • Sun in Volume 4. Blake slapping him seemed to be intended to be at the very least funny, the way Sun reacts to the hits and the episode taking place right before this one had another character getting slapped in a serious way made the scene look anything but. It's much easier to feel sorry for him than it is to laugh about it.
    • This is the twin to the Blake entry under Unintentionally Sympathetic but it's existed for a while. Is this valid?

Question from this: am I right in thinking that it won't automatically be the case that one character being either trope means the other characters involved will become the other trope?

Edited by Wyldchyld on Sep 25th 2020 at 5:37:35 PM

First, one side being UU or US doesn't necessarily mean the other is the opposite. A UU character can oppose a Complete Monster who by definition is past any (legit) S intentionally or otherwise.

• Jaune: Cut for the same reason as cut elsewhere.
• Blake's arc in Volume 4: Blake is called out by Sun for this so it doesn't sound unintentional. The miscommunication by staff part seems legit. It might be salvaged it rewritten to start by explaining how Blake was supposed to be seen as sympathetic despite this, then give objective reasons as to fans thought otherwise. I'd say cut for now/otherwise.
• RWBY, JNR and Qrow's groups: Valid and better than the other as it gives a more detailed explanation. It would be better if "their actions and words towards him still rubbed many viewers the wrong way" was given a more objective explanation.
• Ozpin: Not sure about. Leave for now.
• Sun: Cut as about humor as opposed to intended sympathy level so stealth complaint about Dude, Not Funny! (which is in-universe only).