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Unintentionally Unsympathetic and Unintentionally Sympathetic Cleanup

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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

Riley1sCool Since: Dec, 2014
#1176: Feb 20th 2022 at 7:44:15 AM

Honestly, all of them seem like they can go to me... maybe Endeavor should stay and I'd keep an eye out for that cropping up again, but the rest of them are just "Character does thing that could be unsympathetic if you really lean into it and/or miscontextualize it."

Or, in the case of Dabi, "Character is a psychopathic, lying murderer who is nonetheless a Tragic Villain due to a horrible past of abuse." Dabi's many things but Unintentionally Unsympathetic isn't one of them.

Edited by Riley1sCool on Feb 20th 2022 at 7:44:49 AM

GenericGuy2000 I’m here, I guess. from a generic place. Since: Jul, 2021 Relationship Status: Cast away
I’m here, I guess.
#1177: Feb 20th 2022 at 9:39:43 AM

I'll go ahead and cut Dabi, Rei, Fuyumi, and Natsuo. I'll wait for more opinions on Endeavor. I'm still unsure if he counts because I'd say Horikoshi does a good job of acknowledging his prior horrible actions while humanizing him, but maybe I'm just overthinking the qualifications for this trope.

Honestly between Dabi and the Demon Slayer demons, I have to ask, what exactly is the stance on Tragic Villains being U.U.?

I’m gonna put some Gloom in your eye.
HappyMan (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#1178: Feb 20th 2022 at 10:20:06 AM

I'm against removing Bakugo, though. Being a Base-Breaking Character isn't mututally exclusive with this trope. And last time I checked, even after apologizing for bullying Izuku, many people still felt it wasn't enough due how late in the manga the apology came and the fact that Bakugo never suffered any kind of retribution for his past behavior.

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#1179: Feb 20th 2022 at 10:53:02 AM

Is Bakugo apologizing meant to make him sympathetic, tho? There's a difference between a character you're meant to like and a character you're meant to feel sorry for.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
PlasmaPower Piece of Cake. Since: Jan, 2015
Piece of Cake.
#1180: Feb 20th 2022 at 11:38:01 AM

YMMV.One Piece

  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
    • Boa Hancock can fall under this, being an extremely self-centered misandrist and petty bitch who embodies Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful! to such a degree that it's almost painful to watch. Her Freudian Excuse that she was enslaved by World Nobles doesn't make her misandry any less irrational, as there are plenty of female World Nobles and male slaves, and the later Fish-Man Island arc's narrative is quite adamant about not judging humanity as a whole based on the World Nobles. This is kind of weasel wordy. Also, slavery is a pretty serious thing so you can’t just disregard it as something inconsequential.
    • While it's easy to feel sorry for Luffy as his brother Ace is killed by Akainu, many fans don't feel the same way for Ace himself because, not only did he go after Blackbeard against Whitebeard's orders because he couldn't stand that Blackbeard had disgraced their father by betraying the crew like that, but when he's finally freed after no small amount of bloodshed, over which he wangsted for the first half of the arc, he stops escaping because Akainu has insulted Whitebeard. Despite his allies, including Luffy of all people, pleading with him to ignore the jibes, he fights the Admiral and is killed by him. It can be difficult to feel terribly sorry for him when not only did he disregard the sacrifice of the dozens if not hundreds of his allies that died for his sake, he gets himself killed in a glaring case of Idiot Ball, rendering all their efforts pointless.. This doesn’t even explain how he’s meant to be sympathetic, and seemingly just blames Ace for his own death.
    • Momonosuke on paper is a poor orphan kid whose parents were killed horribly, his country was taken over, and has a massive amount of responsibility laid on his shoulders as heir to his clan. But Momonosuke is also a Dirty Kid who exploits his apparent innocence to grope Nami and Robin and acts like such a Bratty Half-Pint that most readers/viewers would rather throw him under a bus than respect and sympathize with him. Don't know about this, his negative traits don’t really outweigh what he’s been through.
    • Fujitora is clearly meant as a complex old blind man who sees right through the corrupt Marines and World Government and wishes to reform it completely with his plan. However, his completely passive attitude during the Dressrosa arc, doing nothing while citizens are threatened by Donquixote's bird cage and at one point accidentally crashes a meteorite caused some readers to completely despise him, despite Fujitora having made clear his refusal to act is because he doesn't want the World Government to take the credit for solving a problem caused by its own Warlord system. Not sure about this. The Misaimed Fandom pothole suggests that some people do sympathize with him. It has Weasel Words too.

Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#1181: Feb 20th 2022 at 2:10:48 PM

[up][up][up][up] If they're meant to be seen as villainous and bad people, then it probably doesn't count. Arguing whether a morally gray character got more sympathy than they deserved is the bane of YMMV discourse, so we try to save it for really egregious dissonance, or for scenes where the work overtly treats the character as forgiven or not at fault but for which audiences widely disagreed.

While Demon Slayer likes to pull the post-death Freudian Excuse flashback pretty often, I don't know of any instances of the work actually trying to argue that it made the villains were blameless for their actions, so much as explaining their fall from grace because of its assumption that people are not born evil. They all still go to Hell when they die, which is the clearest statement we can get that the villains are still horrible people. The only argument is whether we're supposed to feel at least some Alas, Poor Villain pity or not, which honestly says more to me about the viewer having a punitive justice mindset, than the work itself.

Edited by AlleyOop on Feb 20th 2022 at 5:16:44 AM

Riley1sCool Since: Dec, 2014
#1182: Feb 20th 2022 at 7:20:34 PM

Okay, with Endeavor, I personally firmly feel the manga does not for one second let him escape his past actions— in fact, Dabi outright says at points that he created him. Like, Dabi as a character exists to take Enji's actions into account. While I do see the issues people have with him as a character, I'll admit I can't personally see him still keeping here. The audience is meant to recognize that, though Endeavor may have changed, he created his own struggle.

As for Bakugo... I still say cut. He's highly divisive and I'm sure many people think he counts and think he doesn't, but frankly, the argument here for UU is "Well, he does apologize and does change as a person but it wasn't under the circumstances some people wanted" which... doesn't work for me.

GenericGuy2000 I’m here, I guess. from a generic place. Since: Jul, 2021 Relationship Status: Cast away
I’m here, I guess.
#1183: Feb 21st 2022 at 3:09:28 PM

In that case, if there is no further objection, I'll go ahead and cut the duo of controversy's entries, since their cases both seem to be acknowledged. Also I'm going to cut Bakugo and Rei's entries on the main U.U. page. Especially Rei's, as it blames her for not being able to be be around Shoto for resembling like Enji, which is basically blaming Rei for her abuse-indused mental health problems.

Also I don't like to call removals guaranteed until I get more feedback, but I feel pretty confident in saying that not many will mind this entry on the main page being removed as well.

If you reversed the genders, La Brava would have few defenders for stalking a boy at her school. And we know this because Mineta has few defenders both in and out of universe for very similar behaviour. It really does seem however from the sad music that we were meant to find said boy being creeped out and reporting her to his friends as an overreaction. Again, if this was Mineta and Jiro, the former would receive the exact same treatment and a punch to the mouth amid cheers for that.

It uses "we" when this is clearly just the troper gushing, and seems to be making a mountain out of a molehill. Like, a 1mm tall molehill. La Brava sending one overly ambitious love letter to a boy she liked in middle school isn't really comparable to high school student Mineta's repeated perverted antics on his female classmates. Not saying that such a double standard doesn't exist, but that feels like a rather unbalanced comparison. It doesn't even read much like a U.U. entry and more like a rant against what they see as a double standard.

I’m gonna put some Gloom in your eye.
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#1184: Feb 21st 2022 at 3:11:29 PM

Plus, her quirk is literally triggered by love and so she seeks out close relationships in the same way that Toga seeks out blood. It's sort of just how her quirk works.

Mineta, meanwhile, is just a creep.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
YoriIroy Always serious, 'cause someone has to be from Canada Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Always serious, 'cause someone has to be
#1185: Feb 21st 2022 at 3:59:51 PM
Thumped: Wow. That was rude. Too many of this kind of thump will bring a suspension. Please keep it civil.
I can't draw
GenericGuy2000 I’m here, I guess. from a generic place. Since: Jul, 2021 Relationship Status: Cast away
I’m here, I guess.
#1186: Feb 21st 2022 at 4:16:13 PM

It wasn't purely because he eventually apologized. I mentioned before that Horikoshi stated Bakugo was still intended to be seen as horrible and needed to apologize for eventually for his treatment of Midoriya. So his awful behavior doesn't meet the "unintentional" requirements.

Edited by GenericGuy2000 on Feb 21st 2022 at 8:16:52 AM

I’m gonna put some Gloom in your eye.
chucknormie Meh. from DEMACIA! Since: May, 2015 Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
Meh.
#1187: Feb 21st 2022 at 4:41:21 PM

[up][up][up][up][up][up] I think the main point of contention with the Demon Slayer demons is that so many of them obviously didn't choose to become people-eating monsters, so it feels a lot like Cartesian Karma when they get treated as no different from human villains.

I remember the story saying something at the beginning about how demons have to eat people or they go mad and lose their rationality, and later I thought Nezuko being able to stay sane without ever eating anyone was why others called her unique and special.

If anything, I think Tamayo and Yushiro could count—they developed a medicine that can cure demons from their need to eat people, then refused to give it to anyone else because they were evil. That's like inventing a cure for drug addiction, then refusing to give it to drug addicts because they're drug addicts.

Edited by chucknormie on Feb 23rd 2022 at 4:21:55 AM

"Blowing it up always works" -RIP Goblin Boommaster, 2014-2015
Riley1sCool Since: Dec, 2014
#1188: Feb 22nd 2022 at 10:07:01 AM

Agreed, La Brava isn't this at all. Her actions aren't that bad and it feels like trying to point out a double standard where there isn't one - or at the very least, when the difference is wide.

And yeah - Bakugo is intended to be a bully and The Rival throughout much of the story, until he develops otherwise. For him to be UU that would have to not be an intentional arc. Whether people like the character and his arc or not is their own opinion, but he's not Unintentionally Unsympathetic.

Edited by Riley1sCool on Feb 22nd 2022 at 10:07:58 AM

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#1189: Feb 22nd 2022 at 10:09:08 AM

Bakugo is also very polarizing. Some people feel bad for him when he's, say, breaking down over All Might's power loss, well before he ever apologized. Other people loved him from the start as a cool rival, and others have always hated him.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
mightymewtron Word Up from New New York Since: Oct, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Word Up
#1190: Feb 22nd 2022 at 10:12:26 AM

I don't actually watch this anime, but I think the fans not forgiving a character even after their more sympathetic side is shown still counts as UU even if they were not written as sympathetic initially.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#1191: Feb 22nd 2022 at 10:13:26 AM

Like I said; he's a Base Breaker. Some people really took a liking to him and felt bad for him, while others didn't think it was enough.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Riley1sCool Since: Dec, 2014
#1192: Feb 22nd 2022 at 10:13:51 AM

I mean, part of the issue with Bakugo is that he's meant to be a complex and rounded character - something that UU doesn't fit in with well at all. There are moments when Bakugo is an asshole that we're supposed to empathize with him, but they're not meant to absolve him. He's meant to be a complex and layered character.

Unfortunately, UU tends to get reduced to "Character who narrative wants us to sympathize with at all does bad things sometimes." Part of that is the "hot take" culture of the internet, part of it is the difficulty of nuance, and part of it is always just gonna be opinion. IMO everything with Bakugo is better covered in Base-Breaking Character. Horikoshi doesn't mean for the audience to suddenly forgive Bakugo everything. For some people, what he does is gonna be too much to ever feel sympathy but he's not UU so much as really divisive.

Also, to address this point I missed - while he did indeed never experience external consequences... Bakugo outright admits to All Might that he recognizes that what he did was wrong and feels guilty for it, up to and including nearly giving his own life to save Izuku during the Paranormal Liberation War. I don't think it can be argued that there's no consequences there seeing as he himself draws a line and declares his guilt, as well as apologizing later.

Edited by Riley1sCool on Feb 22nd 2022 at 10:43:34 AM

Ordeaux26 Since: May, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#1193: Feb 22nd 2022 at 11:53:27 AM

This issue often comes up with sympathetic villains as well where the narrative wants you to sympathize with them but still see the actions as horrible but in some cases, the audience can't do so due to those actions which aren't well covered under Unintentionally Unsympathetic as you aren't supposed to see those actions as sympathetic.

GenericGuy2000 I’m here, I guess. from a generic place. Since: Jul, 2021 Relationship Status: Cast away
I’m here, I guess.
#1194: Feb 22nd 2022 at 4:33:51 PM

Taking this into account, there are a lot more villain characters that I may bring up soon, but I'll save it for now.

Does anyone know enough about One Piece to answer Power Plasma's concerns? I know a bit about the general story, mostly the pre-time skip stuff, but not enough to give reliable evaluations. From an outsider's perpective:

  • Boa Handcock - Is her Freudian Excuse meant to make this behavior understandable but still wrong or justified? Also, I don't know how U.U. is judged in regards to the excuse's severity.
  • Ace - If this was framed as a stupid thing to do, then I wouldn't think it counts, especially since Ace paid the ultimate price for it.
  • Momonosuke - Again, not sure whether the severity of the character's Freudian Excuse is at play, plus this reads more like Unintentionally Unlikable than Unintentionally Unsympathetic.
  • Fujitora - How does the narrative frame this deliberate inaction? Is it seen as morally ambiguous or overly reasonable. If it's the latter than he definitely counts, but I'm guessing it isn't.

Edited by GenericGuy2000 on Feb 22nd 2022 at 12:03:18 PM

I’m gonna put some Gloom in your eye.
Riley1sCool Since: Dec, 2014
#1195: Feb 25th 2022 at 6:25:22 AM

Don't know enough about One Piece to comment there, but there's ooooone last entry on the UU tree for MHA I think bears mention:

  • Kotaro Shimura. Sure, his reason for hating his mother isn't totally irrational, but the way he treats his son for wanting to be a hero is utterly monstrous. Even before resorting to beating him, he coldly leaves Tenko outside where his allergies act up, refusing to let him in for meals until he apologizes to him. And as a reminder, Tenko is five years old, and it's all but stated outright that Kotaro has been doing this to him for a long time. Tenko would end up murdering him when his Quirk activated for the first time.

Thing is, Kotaro's a Troubled Abuser but I don't think the manga ever expects the audience to well and truly sympathize with him. All this stuff is displayed as horrible abuse and the catalyst for Tenko eventually offing him and becoming Shigaraki. Yes, there's humanized traits there and he has reasons - plus he's willing to apologize and try to make amends - but the manga goes out of its way to highlight how bad he is and how his abuse formed the next Symbol of Evil.

I say cut.

Edited by Riley1sCool on Feb 25th 2022 at 6:32:03 AM

GenericGuy2000 I’m here, I guess. from a generic place. Since: Jul, 2021 Relationship Status: Cast away
I’m here, I guess.
#1196: Feb 25th 2022 at 9:52:08 AM

I actually noticed that this entry for Kotaro and the one on the main Anime/Manga tree have a glaring difference. This one says that his hatred of his mother isn't irrational but the one on the main tree says it is.

For the entry itself, yeah, agreed. I was thinking of bringing it up in the future but I was still debating if I should bring up Aizawa and the other entries with it. Even with his humanized traits and legitimate desire to have a happy family, he's still called out on his abusive and controlling behavior by his wife, we see the direct consequences of his abuse, and the last thing he does before he dies is hit his son in the face with a shovel. I think it's clear he wasn't meant to be wholly sympathetic.

I’m gonna put some Gloom in your eye.
mightymewtron Word Up from New New York Since: Oct, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Word Up
#1197: Feb 25th 2022 at 5:12:24 PM

Rarely does a work for adults want you to totally 100% agree with a character. These items, at least the way I see them, seem to be for characters who are sold as sympathetic in a particular scenario but the audience does not sympathizd with them in that particular scenario. Not so much whether the character as a whole is sympathetic or not.

I don't know the series here but would it could if the issue is that they just don't think the character was called out enough?

Edited by mightymewtron on Feb 25th 2022 at 8:13:05 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#1198: Feb 25th 2022 at 5:15:14 PM

Kotaro literally only exists in the backstory to explain why the villain is so screwed up, as well as to add some tragedy to Nana Shimura's own backstory. He's not a character. He's never expected to be sympathized with- we literally are only told about how bad his son's life was.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Riley1sCool Since: Dec, 2014
#1199: Feb 25th 2022 at 8:48:30 PM

Frankly... yeah, Kotaro is never meant to be sympathized with. This isn't a case of "Well, he was meant to be sympathized with in this scenario." We experience the flashback through Tomura's POV and Kotaro does everything in his power to be a deserving Asshole Victim for the boy's Start of Darkness.

MasterHero Since: Aug, 2014
#1200: Mar 5th 2022 at 9:52:47 AM

I previously deleted the Unintentionally Sympathetic entries, which included Jordan and Lois, from the YMMV page of Superman & Lois (but later added them back) because I personally believe that they are meant to be sympathetic in their respective situations.

  • Jordan is treated as unreasonable for being upset that his girlfriend Sarah kissed someone else, but he has the right to be angry that he was cheated on.
  • Lois is seen to be in the wrong for not reporting that Lucy had a vision in line with what Ally preaches, treating it like she only shared the parts of the story that would let her go after Ally. Considering that Lucy supposedly had said vision after a drug overdose that nearly killed her it makes perfect sense that Lois didn't say anything about it. Reporting that her sister had a genuine vision of another version of herself, which near anyone would think would be a result of the drugs or the near death experience, would have seen Lois laughed out of the room by any editor. Not helping are the other stunts Lucy pulls in the scene, like blaming Lois for their mom leaving and revealing she's pulled this at Ally's behest, which makes it look less that she's bothered by Lois' supposedly hypocritical journalistic integrity and more that she's interested in getting back at her sister out of resentment over completely imagined slights.

Lois' example is pretty self-explanatory, but I think Jordan's needs to be elaborated on a bit further. I've watched the show and I don't see Jordan being that angry over Sarah's cheating. Yes, he was upset and mildly betrayed, but he was later consumed by guilt that Sarah was honest with him, while he can't tell her that he has superpowers. In fact, he wants to tell her because he admires her for her bravery and honesty (I'm paraphrasing), but Clark tells him not to because the secret isn't actually Jordan's to share. Jordan's brother and Natalie Irons even compare Jordan and Sarah's secrets, which strikes me as a false equivalance for the reason I've stated above. One secret is simply infidelity, while the other could put an entire family, maybe 2, in danger. This could be Informed Wrongness or something.

But still, I want to know what you guys think.


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