Unintentionally Unsympathetic and Unintentionally Sympathetic Cleanup

Yeah, you might have a point Threedogs but you need to relax a little. Things around here get solved by discussing calmly.

Actually hold up I want to check something with the mods.

Edited by miraculous on Nov 8th 2020 at 5:02:22 AM

I was not trying to sound mad or anything, I was just stating the facts and reasons why viewers feel that way. I'm not mad at anyone. I just felt I had to be very elaborate on the explanations. I'm not trying to force anything.

You want their opinion?

Discord is not a Karma Houdini because he is not treated as such by the work, it's not a subjective trope. Discord owned up to that karma not through punishment, but atonement by risking his own life to save the others.

UU may only apply to Discord for how he punished the villains as that's the part that's unacknowledged by the narrative. I would agree but a mod and ATT said no and another entry was cut by this thread as too much a Broken Base to count. The entry should address those concerns before being added back.

The entry did address that point though:

"While he is called out for endangering Equestria with his stunt, the narrative does not make any attempt to put his actions against Cozy Glow and Tirek (forcibly breaking them out of Tartarus and using them to benefit himself and the heroes via confidence boost) as being in the wrong. In fact, the narrative expects the audience to cheer when he suggests that the princesses turn them and Chrysalis to stone, despite the fact that he enabled all of their new crimes while they were already serving their sentences in Tartarus and wouldn't be in the situation if not for him, and their new crimes weren't really any worse than their old ones, which makes turning them to stone instead of sending them back to Tartarus seem overly harsh. Celestia and Luna get this for agreeing to the new punishment while giving Discord no punishment whatsoever and effectively sweeping Discord's actions under the rug to frame his followers as completely responsible for everything despite them only ever doing exactly what he broke them out of Tartarus to do. We are supposed to feel no pity for the villains simply because they're villains."

I don't see what would need to be changed beyond the part about them only doing what he told them to, since they did turn against him in the end and continue on their own volition. Is there anything else that would need to be changed?

The entry is mostly good. (I'd cut the "Celestia and Luna get this for agreeing to the new punishment while giving Discord no punishment whatsoever and effectively sweeping Discord's actions under the rug to frame his followers as completely responsible for everything despite them only ever doing exactly what he broke them out of Tartarus to do. We are supposed to feel no pity for the villains simply because they're villains." as redundant/bashy, but that's a later issue.)

My hold up is why add it despite the prior precedent and word of mod arguing otherwise? What was the justification for removing the "Tanks for the Memories" UU entry over BB but not this? How does it address the reasons the mod argued against it?

Getting late, might take till tomorrow to reply.

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Nov 8th 2020 at 9:14:06 AM

...can't say I'm shocked.

Still, I do think the case has been made by neutral parties that something along the lines of the entry is an actual reaction from some fans, so what happens to it now?

So we shouldn't use their writeup at all. Quite a Shaggy Pony Story here.

Someone can write their own entry if they can describe it better.

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 9th 2020 at 3:40:04 PM

Well I guess we should move on from that (Figured as Much).

& , I agree enough feel this way the issue deserves acknowledging, but my question regarding how to do so (if/when UU/US applies for Broken Base issues) never got traction before this particular issue came up.

I'm with , move on and come back to it at a better time.

Can I try my own write-up for those entries?

I don't see a problem with it.

Here goes:

Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The finale paints Discord as sympathetic, despite him having used the villains, including a child, as expendable pawns in his plan to boost Twilight's confidence, using physical abuse and threats to coerce them into following his orders. We're expected to agree with Discord when he says he was well-intentioned, with none of the heroes showing any concern regarding his treatment of the villains, but a good portion of the audience lost any sympathy for him when this was revealed. The fact that he suggests the villains' punishment, and performs it himself, when he instigated all of their crimes only worsened the issue for these viewers.

Are Celestia and Luna being removed from it then?

Edited by Ordeaux26 on Nov 13th 2020 at 6:28:36 AM

Btw I found this on Unthinkable

• Special Agent Brody spends the whole film chewing H and the people who use him out for their compromised morals, and advocates for a more humane approach towards Steven. Not only does her approach completely fail more than once, but it actually backfires on them and plays into Steven’s hands. But in all of this she never learns from any of it and, in the end, her refusal to allow H to torture Steven’s children in front of him results in millions of deaths. You can easily argue that she is more responsible for the Downer Ending than anybody.

Is this entry saying the characters are wrong for not letting somone torture a guys children in front of him. For real?

The problem isn’t the entry, it’s that this thread, mods, and ATT have said this and other Broken Base examples were not allowed as too divided to say they're UU or not. Before coming up with an entry we need a reason to keep it separate from the BB entry that addresses the arguments made against it prior.

Otherwise, removing the Princesses from the entry as they less presented as sympathetic then as the barometer for showing Discord as sympathetic.

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Nov 14th 2020 at 1:33:11 AM

I checked both threads that you linked to, and it doesn't look like Discord being UU was declared off-limits. The first one was only about the villains being US (which is a different issue), and the mod only said that if it was deemed too divisive, it should be moved to the discussion page. The second thread is a year old and Discord being UU was debated there, but it looks inconclusive.

Edited by Javertshark13 on Nov 15th 2020 at 3:22:45 PM

YMMV.South Park: Questioning this subbullet out of the four.

• The boys themselves, while we're supposed to sympathize with them because they have to deal with the chaos and idiotic adults in the world, they come off as no better as they are often prone to selfish, sadistic, and other heinous acts.

Whether the boys are depicted as sympathetic depends on the episode. Most episodes where they do bad things make it clear that they're bad things, and many episodes have them either call each other out or get called out by others. Therefore I don't think this is valid, at least not in this general state.

Agree.

I'm questioning an entry from YMMV.Spider Man Miles Morales:

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Phinn Mason a.k.a The Tinkerer. She begins her storyline fairly well with Miles and she having some Ship Tease as well as a longstanding childhood friendship. However, her constant berating of Miles and actual atrocities quickly undermine any sympathy she has. Despite the fact she's a Well-Intentioned Extremist, her arming a ruthless gang of criminals and plans to blow up a major building in Harlem swiftly eliminate any sympathy the player has. Most are ready to write her off as a lost cause well before she finally turns on Miles.

Like yeah she does have sympathetic moments but IIRC, she gets called out on her attempts to get revenge on them with even Miles point blank tell her that Rick would be disappointed in what she had become so she definitely isn't wholly treated in a positive light.

Edited by Loekman3 on Nov 18th 2020 at 11:23:06 PM

Doesn't sound unintentional to me Tbh. Sounds like that stuff was meant to be called out and not synpathwyic.

I've confirmed the mods objections over these entries was just over their being in ATT as opposed to dedicated cleanup threads. With that I'm ready to add these entries after final consideration:

• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow's actions were supposed to prove them Beyond Redemption with their being Taken for Granite a deserved Fate Worse than Death ensuring they would never threaten anyone again. But Discord, as Grogar, recruited and threatened them into partaking in an identical Evil Plan that was supposed to end with them identically defeated without giving them a chance to redeem themselves as Discord was. Thus several saw the villains fate unfair as they were forced into a position where they would have been punished as harshly even if they haven't willingly and independently committed such evildoing. Not helping is they had brief Pet the Dog moments toward each other suggesting they could have been redeemable if not for no-one attempting to encourage it. Cozy Glow got this extra hard as she was already seen a Unintentionally Sympathetic for her prior evildoing with the issue persisting here^explaination never questioning why the child was so evil and if they had any mitigating backstory along with her having committed fewer acts of evildoing than Tirek and Chrysalis without establishing why it was worse yet is identically punished.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Discord was revealed to have impersonated Grogar and brought together the villains for Twilight Sparkle to defeat thus teaching her confidence, only for them to become a genuine threat. After being called out for endangering Equestria and redeeming himself by risking his life, Discord's turning Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow to stone as a Fate Worse than Death, was met with approval from the heroes as they have proven so evil and irredeemable their prior punishments were insufficient,. But "Grogar" had used Implied Death Threats and their powers to force them into adding his plan that wasn't shown as less bad than what they did independently, their crimes didn't come off as worse then their previous evildoings^Explanation They brought The End Of The World scenarios before (Chrysalis indirectly) before but wanted to prevent the one they unwittingly caused here as a threat to them. Their attempt to kill the heroes was seen as evil as ever just averting Bond Villain Stupidity. , and were never given a chance to redeem themselves as Discord was. This caused many fans to consider Discord's punishing them as unfair given he forced them into a position where they would have been punished just as harshly even if they hadn't proven themselves so irredeemable.

Is it redundant to list both entries? I'd go with Unintentionally Unsympathetic as the villains had shown they would have turned out as unrepentantly evil even if they were given a fair chance to redeem themselves. Any other additions/changes to make to them?

Awhile ago, this thread removed a UU entry from "Tanks for the Memories" over it being too much a Broken Base to count. I'm no longer pressing the issue but I would like to know if there's a reason that doesn't apply here. Maybe we should leave them off the episodes YMMV page as redundant with the Broken Base entries but put them elsewhere?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Nov 23rd 2020 at 11:56:35 AM

Speaking of MLP, it's kind of 50/50 for 2, 4, 6, Greaaat's portrayal of Rainbow Dash being US as there are plenty of people who see her as unsympathetic and unlikeable for her ditching the cheer squad and causing Ocellus to cry, but there's also people who see her as justified like myself, for being given a job she repeatedly says she has no interest in doing. Meanwhile a lot more people blame Twilight for giving her the job, so should we cut the Rainbow Dash US entry and replace it with an entry about Twilight under Unintentionally Unsympathetic?

Cut the US entry. UU needs an explanation for how Celestia forcing Twilight out of her comfort zone at the start of the series was good but Twilight doing it to Rainbow Dash was seen otherwise.