The criteria for Unintentionally Unsympathetic says:
"When a character's supposed insecurities or embarrassing quirks are supposed to inspire sympathy, but fail to impress the audience because they're mishandled or plain written badly. It can be made even worse if they have to learn a lesson. Without being at least somewhat invested in the characters, the audience might have passed the point of caring when the character finally comes around."
This is the basic criteria of the trope. There is more after but I am not sure what was present from the start and what was edited in afterwords to expand the definition. This trope is becoming more popular, with the page starting to be split-off into sub pages and such. And like all popular YMMV tropes this is causing an influx of bad examples that are probably just one-sided complaining, shoehorning, and bashing which is not in the spirit of this wiki. You can see this is causing issues just by looking at the pages discussion thread. I felt that the trope needed a dedicated cleanup thread. This way edits can be done without causing edit wars and getting people banned.
Some guidelines if a character or event is Unintentionally Unsympathetic.
1. It has to be unintentional on the authors part. It is in the title. All examples that were intentional on the author's part are disqualified by definition.
2. The example should state exactly why the author or narrative intended the subject to have been sympathetic and why it failed to resonate with the audience. If the example can not clearly state these two points, it is a bad example and needs to at minimum be rewritten.
3. Neutral tone: No insults. I know it is fun to complain about stuff but complaining is not in the spirit of the wiki. So long as one side isn't promoting hate speech examples should be written without taking a side. Examples that are heavily favoring one side or insulting the other side are probably not valid examples.
4. There should be a wide accepted disagreement between the audience and the author to be a valid example. By that I mean that there should be large consensus in the audience disagreeing with the author over why the character is unsympathetic instead of sympathetic. If the audience is too divided and one section thinks agrees with the author and the other doesn't, the example could be a pet peeve of a single person, which isn’t noteworthy.
Lastly, always consider Square Peg, Round Trope and be mindful if the example may fit better under a different trope such as Base-Breaking Character, Broken Base, and The Scrappy. Please visit other cleanup threads if you have questions about tropes that do not involve Unintentionally Unsympathetic.
Feel free to help if you spot some bad examples or can point out more rules for the trope. Or argue with me over the definitions, this is a cleanup thread after all.
MOD NOTICE: As of October 26, 2022, this thread now covers Unintentionally Sympathetic as well.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 26th 2022 at 8:15:48 AM
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
What's the work? That sounds like it could also fit under, say, Designated Villain.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
A minor dwarf character who literally wiped out an entire tribe of natives (literal genocide and with a disturbing realitySubtext as the victims were a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to indigenous people) and killed prostitutes out of racism, is given heroic dialogue in the next expansion and zero of his many horrible crimes/atrocities are given any sort of mention, with him basically You Bastard! to the player faction he opposes.
Note an orc character who opposed him was given evul dialogue contrary to his prior characterization as a good guy and is described as the the "murder of a great many lives by a neutral NPC."
The same neutral NPC who makes zero mention of Dwarf SOB's numerous warcrimes to the Horde player.
The same person also deleted a Beauty Equals Goodness entry, when again the orc character definitely was derailed, seemingly as the strawman for the disgusting dwarf.
If the writer of that quest in that expansion, really intended that Dwarf to be a Knight Templar the Horde player was supposed to hate, why doesn't it mention that Dwarf started the conflict, his home was a fortress of death built on land from slaughtered natives and his son was a warcriminal.
Instead all we get to hear is him complain about how his home was destroyed, the evil Horde murdered his son and he is here to protect the tauren.
And why make the orc who in his last appearance was a good person, an generically evil bigot who wants to enslave the Pandaren?
Again I can't see it as anything else than the quest writer, perhaps due to not checking upon these minor characters, assumed the dwarf was a good person and was trying to go for a You Bastard! moment.
Edited by Monsund on Oct 11th 2021 at 3:24:59 AM
Who exactly are these characters?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
This seems to be the original entry in World of Warcraft, for context.
RE: nrjxll
Warlord Bloodhilt (Orc) and High Marshall Twinbraid, can I show my post on why the narrative treats the latter as sympathetic (and not a Knight Templar) when this is very much undeserved?
The entry was removed by ~Duke Presley. I sent them a notifier that the deletion is being questioned by another troper and to come to this thread to weigh in.
It would probably also help to have more people familiar with the game weigh in as well.
Twinbraid is not a hero and nothing about him is heroic or refered to in positive terms.
Wrathion only describes Twinbraid in his quest using military terms about how "he was a pivotal figure in the Alliance push through the Southern Barren" and "struck back at the Horde after the loss of Bael Modan" Which by the way are consistent with Cataclysm. He's said to be one of the best Alliance generals and built Alliance settlements in the Barrens. "Struck back" just means retaliation and Twinbraid did just that after the destruction of Bael Modan.....by massacring Goblin civilians. Does that make him effective military officer? Yes. Does it make him a hero? Hard no on that.
His lines in Mists of Pandaria are just him being hypocritical and self-righteous Knight Templar. He expresses satisfaction in revenge against the Horde and claims "crushing the Horde would save innocent lives" as his justification. Yet this comes from a Dwarf who built his military career on killing Tauren and Goblin civilians, all of whom had friends, family, and close ones grieving for them.
Here are the links:
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Twinbraid
- the character in question
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/A_Change_of_Command_(Horde) - The quest for Horde players to kill Twinbraid. Wrathion only describes him using military terms.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Journal_of_High_Marshal_Twinbraid - His journal where he expresses satisfaction in revenge against the Horde and claims "crushing the Horde would save innocent lives" as his justification.
It's no secret that this particular Dwarf was jerk. Twinbraid proves to be a jerk, villain, and a low-functioning psychopath. He's about as "heroic" as the Separatists from Star Wars series. He's pretty much an expy of Lord Farquaad from Shrek.
Edited by DukePresley on Oct 11th 2021 at 5:01:12 AM
I also talked with another user Tzao about this topic and they gave some helpful views on it. I will cite the reply as it for sake of clarity. Here's what they wrote:
"Yes, Wrathion indeed does not refer to Twinbraid in positive terms, but only focuses on his military history and that part of the entry therefore doesn't hold up. Same goes for the claim of "beautiful is good" as there's little basis for it, or the mentioned gutpunch about the Horde which I cannot find.
I think that, while the entry is wrong on a number of points, some parts have merit, just not the way they're presented by the original troper.
My reasonings (sorry if it's a bit long and repeats several of the points you've already made):
The quest involving his death (and his log) doesn't paint Twinbraid in a positive light initially, but as a vindicator (which to many is an understandable position, setting the impression that he's got a reason to fight the Horde). Twinbraid is indeed responsible for civilian casualties, both during wartime (the goblin miners, though the quest "The Deed Is Done" shows he doesn't even know if it has any strategic value, he just wanted them dead) and in time of relative peace (the tribe of Tauren that inhabited the lands of Bael Modan but were driven out/butchered (Considering the quest "Report To Twinbraid" refers to Twinbraid as the commander of Bael Modan, then the assault upon the Stonespire is his responsibility by default)). I disagree that this makes him an effective military officer btw, but rather an opportunistic terrorist. His journal entries show that he is completely indifferent to the killing, and looks forward to causing more deaths, but using the argument that it'll save other from the tragedy that befell Twinbraid himself, losing a child to the Horde (despite his son being an active combatant and certainly no child). But this perspective does indeed paint Twinbraid in a sympathetic light, that of a grieving father, while ignoring his previous atrocities which not every player will be aware of (I myself originally had to check out the quest chain again to remember Twinbraid at all, or his son for that matter).
The fact that Twinbraids' actions in the Southern Barrens are omitted in the Mo P narrative does grant the original entry leverage, especially since Twinbraid was promoted to High Marshal of the Alliance, heavily implied by Varian himself. This makes it appear that the atrocities mentioned above are either ignored or swept under the rug by an otherwise honorable faction and leader. Considering that the Alliance has the SI:7 (basically the foremost intelligence agency on Azeroth), it's unlikely that Varian wasn't aware of Twinbraids actions.
To summarize, Twinbraid is indeed a bloodthirsty Knight Templar and certainly a hypocrite, but the fact that his actions which makes him so goes unmentioned in the narrative as presented to the players, makes it look like he's being painted as a hero by the writers (especially compared to his counterpart warlord Bloodhilt whose own battlelog paints the orc as both paranoid and a racist towards his own troops). It doesn't help that this is part of a broad trend for Blizz writers, to not allow/acknowledge the Alliance to have committed any wrongdoing, while making the Horde commit warcrimes every battle, flanderizing both factions heavily (which a lot of fans are sick of) and which was breathtakingly prevalent in Mo P.
Admittedly, omitting things can often be a matter of time/space constraints rather than actual disregarding facts, so that's a caveat on that front. But the same could be said about a number of entries on the "unintentionally unsympathetic" page which us tropers have gotten to through reasoning and logic, or "fridge".
but it's time for a conclusion:
Twinbraid is indeed more monster than hero, everyone agrees on that, which is exactly what makes him unsympathetic to begin with, but his actions that make him so, are ignored/unmentioned in the narrative while also highlighting his losses, thus making Twinbraid actions seem understandable to the player base, thereby assummingly garnering sympathy and making him appear heroic to a casual player unaware of his past deeds. And he's part of the "good" faction, which makes this an odd situation given his background.
With some heavy tweaking (a focus on Twinbraid being promoted despite his assault on goblin and tauren civilians and that this goes unmentioned while the fact he lost his son is played up (in a blatant attempt at garnering sympathy)) then part of the entry could stand, but the rest (Twinbraid referred to in positive terms, the heavyhanded accusation of writers thinking "beauty is good" when planning the storyline, or the mention of some gutpunch) should simply be scrapped as it appears unfunded."
Sadly i can't really contribute, i haven't played Wo W in years. While i keep up with major lore stuff, i can't remember anything about twinbraid, so i won't say anything.
I think Ordeaux 26 made a fair point about the trope.
Adding Villains to the trope is something that should be done with extreme caution, even if a villain has sympathetic traits or is intended to be seen as sympathetic in some way you are usually not supposed to see their actions as sympathetic or right in any way. Courtney and Dave from Total Drama are some examples.
With Twinbraid, nothing about him is tragic or sympathetic or makes him a hero. He's a delusional hypocrite who brought his so-called "tragedies" on himself and blames others for the consequence. To him, everyone is to be blamed except himself.
Professor Gigachad
I can't really give much insight on this character but one thing I will say is that him being opposed by a villain doesn't always mean the character is meant to be seen as a hero I mean Evil vs. Evil does exist for a reason.
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
RE: Duke Presley
I’m fine with cutting out part of the entry, if that what is you what you want.
Whilst I agree Twinbraid is a disgusting person, the big thing is nowhere acknowledged by the narrative of Mists of Pandaria and Wrathion does gloss over his crimes.
What makes him unintentionally unsympathetic in MOP is that the narrative makes no mention of his many, many warcrimes.
Warlord Bloodhilt in the expansion prior to MOP, that also introduced him, mourned the death of his non orc allies and called goblins his friends, so Mists having the character randomly spout about how he hates all non-orcs races, yell things like "the panderen will tremble before our might" for seemingly no reason other than to be reduced him to strawman in a shallow attempt to make that disgusting colonist sleaze ball look better.
Bloodhilt also makes no mention of things done by the Alliance that he mentioned in the past as angering him, so again the writing was going out its way to demonize him for no reason.
There’s zero reason for Wrathion to go out of his way to describe some random dude as the murderer of ‘’’a great many lives’’, whilst blasely describing a genocidal colonist war criminal and making zero mention of his genocide of native people and countless civilian murders because said war criminal was too much of a Dirty Coward to attack those who could fight back.
The only conclusion we can make from this is Too Many Cooks Spoil the Soup and the quest writer for that quest in Mists of Pandaria didn’t research either character, simply assuming Twinbraid was good because he was a human-like dwarf and Bloodhilt was evil because was an ugly monster, thus the writer wrote the war criminal sympathetic, whilst demonizing the random dude defending his home.
Again hence the reason for the Unintentionally Unsympathetic and Beauty Equals Goodness entries. Its really creepy that the narrative would try to paint anyone who wiped out an entire tribe of native people to steal their land and build a military fortress, than later murdered random civilians as even remotely sympathetic, whilst one of the people defending against said literally genocidal warcriminal, is demonized for no particular reason.
Its not as if this stuff was new for ‘’Mists of Pandaria’’, which frequently changed pre-existing characters, especially orcs, to fit a more simplistic morality without much nuance.
RE: Ordeaux 26
The thing is Twinbraid’s horrific crimes are given zero mention, even though by all means they should be mentioned to the Horde player and I'm assuming you mean Bloodhilt by villain, correct me if I'm wrong?
The thing is, Bloodhilt was depicted as a good person before this expansion, come Mists of Pandaria, he's randomly described as the murderer of countless people by the neutral questgiver Wrathion and has become a fantastic racist, the character only killed a couple military personal attacking his people in their homes and was shown to count many difference races as his friends before.
Similarly it would make more sense for Twinbraid to talk about educating the pandaren savages as opposed to Bloodhilt talked about enslaving them and Twinbraid wanting to protect them. For reference, Twinbraid has a history of exploiting native people, including wiping out an entire tribe of people, stealing their land and building a fortress of death on it.
So again it seems like a different writer didn’t do a proper research on either character and just assumed "attractive humanlike character=good" and "ugly monstrous character=Evil", thus the unintentionally unsympathetic and Beauty Equals Goodness entries.
Edited by Monsund on Oct 12th 2021 at 4:16:45 AM
Professor Gigachad
I don't really know what to say then I haven't played the game so I will probably just stay out of this.
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
It looks more like faction imbalance and bias on the part of the writers (as explained in the Broken Base entry for the franchise).
As Tzao mentioned, you could argue that this is part of a broad trend for Blizz writers, to not allow/acknowledge the Alliance to have committed any wrong doing, while making the Horde commit war crimes every battle, flanderizing both factions heavily. But the rest such as Twinbraid being a hero, tragic, or being referred to in positive terms, the heavyhanded accusation of writers thinking "beauty is good" when planning the storyline should simply be scrapped as it looks off base and appears to be unfounded.
It could probably fall under another trope instead.
With Beauty Equals Goodness, it is when attractive heroes face against ugly villains in a work. This is prevalent in some works like the Teen Titans series as an example. Now if it was something like Superman facing against an evil monster to defend a city that would be a case. But this is not really an example of the trope.
RE: Duke Presley
How does it not count?
A less experienced writer took two pre-existing characters and assumed the good looking one was good because he was attractive and from a good race, whilst assuming an uglier one was evil because he was unattractive and from an "evil race." Thus he depicted the misogynistic and racist warcriminal as "sympathetic" and an honorable general as "unsympathetic."
Its shafting characterization of characters because of their surface level appearances, hence why it has a place on the Beauty Equals Goodness page.
Twinbraid's crimes are never mentioned, he's given "sympathetic" dialogue with no one calling him out for his Victim Blaming unlike say Gendo Ikari from Anime/Evangelion and Wrathion describes him neutrally whilst condemning a random orc for no reason at all.
Mists of Pandaria was known for an extreme lack of moral nuance.
Edited by Monsund on Oct 12th 2021 at 6:27:31 AM
I'm inclined to agree with your analysis in general, but I also agree with the people who are unsure Beauty Equals Goodness is the right trope here. Baselessly assuming the dwarf is the good guy and the orc is the bad guy is more likely more of a problem coming from standard fantasy tropes than appearances.
RE: nrjxll
Thats fair, I mentioned standard fantasy tropes in the Unintentionally Unsympathetic entry.
Perhaps a little offtopic, but do you think this is worthy of also being put as an inversion of Graying Morality instead?
What's 'unintentionally unsympathetic' about Twinbraid exactly? He seems very intentionally unsympathetic, Warcraft isn't subtle about this!
The argument being made (I only casually follow the lore and have personally never heard of this guy) is that Mists of Pandaria suddenly started portraying him as sympathetic, apparently just because whoever wrote the quests didn't do the research. Which understandably didn't fly for fans who did remember that he was originally a racist asshole.
Edited by nrjxll on Oct 13th 2021 at 12:52:05 PM
From Hunter × Hunter
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: Netero is painted this way, because of his comment of the bottomless malice within the human heart, just as he sets off the Miniature Rose bomb to kill Meruem, along with himself. A little after the explosion, the narrator mentions that dictators funded the mass production of the Miniature Roses to conquer other countries. As vile as this weapon is, Netero deemed its use necessary to kill Meruem, whose Nigh-Invulnerability wasn't something to take lightly. He also made sure to detonate it in a remote area with no civilians around. Given Meruem's lack of empathy prior to this battle and his overall unpredictability, several fans completely understood why Netero went through with his actions.
I think the bottomless malice was a reference to humans in general
RE: Lightysnake
MOP gives him lots of dialogue about protecting the pandaren when he was a bigoted monster before and makes zero mention of his horrific atrocities. Meanwhilst both Wrathion and the writing do all they can to demonize a random orc who defended the tauren.
Keep in mind, this was the same era of expansion that:
- Retconned corrupt human politicians into innocent brainwashed victims.
- Labeled firebombing Tauren in their homes as a perfectly acceptable military tactic and having the tauren's leader exile the survivors.
- Whilst simultaneously depicting fighting back against an invading force of humans as unacceptable crime.
Mists Of Pandaria started a pattern of whitewashing or straight up not acknowledging any kind of wrong doing by the Alliance, particularly humans and dwarves.
In other words, the writers doubled down on Always Lawful Good and Always Chaotic Evil.
From 'Ell's 'eart Oi stab at ye!
@ Marshal Twinbraid: I understand your concerns Monsund, but this man's entry does not need to be so thick. I think we can simply mention (as a microcosm) what he did, point out how he was portrayed in Cataclysm, mention how incongruous it is that he be portrayed differently in Mists and leave it at that.
If anything Twinbraid's issues seems like just one aspect of the moral mess rife within Mists of Pandaria, where being an Orc whose name wasn't Thrall Eitrigg or Varok Saurfang meant you were an Ax-Crazy Blood Knight or blind loyalist like Nazgrim and Shokia, while the hapless Tauren and Baone were reduced to ineffectual peace-keepers, and the do-nothing, weak Darkspear Trolls and compromised Blood Elves whose agents helped Garrosh out either directly or through inaction were expected to be the true voices of reason and moral authority within the Horde. Oh and Sylvanas and Gallywix, the Horde's resident douchebag leaders? Not relevant. And of course, Jaina is wrong to want to hold the Horde to account even though they repeatedly demonstrate that all their leaders are corrupt or incompetent. (Seriously we went through thjs whole cycle AGAIN in BFA with Sylvanas.)
I'm ok with trimming the entry down if that is what you mean?
From 'Ell's 'eart Oi stab at ye!
Yeah pretty much. It's fine to document the reaction, but let's try to keep the complaining to the forums.
Is this thread open to E Ps.
There's one character, one person disagrees with being here, but I really think they count because the story never calls them out for their many awful atrocities, whilst the character's foil was randomly flanderized into a generic villain and was called out by neutral characters for crimes that never actually happened.
I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in weighing in or if I should go to ATT?