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
She / Her
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Seconded. That and, I feel her backstory is intended to explain rather justify, or at least I think it's closer to that.
Berserk Button: misusing Berserk Button
So, an example of mine got deleted and I never brought it up, so here it is, from Blood+:
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Diva is supposed to be a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who turned evil after being twisted by the evil men in her life, and is genuinely sympathetic for most of the story... until she rapes and kills Riku, a 13-year old boy. The show still tries to give her an Alas, Poor Villain moment as Saya cries for her after killing her, but by that point a good chunk of viewers lost any ability to feel sympathy for her.
The edit reason was “It doesn't sound like she was intended to be sympathetic for said act in the first place. Unintentionally unsympathetic only applies if what they were intended to be sympathetic for doesn't work.”
Considering that Saya outright cries on top of her corpse for her, it is clear that the story DOES want us to feel bad for a literal rapist (ie, the same problem with Bryce Walker), and the story portrays her as pitiable for wanting a family that would have been born from said rape. Notably, the fans are not the only one who feels this way- the writers of the official manga adaptation outright removed this scene as part of the manga's general rewriting of her character to make her more legitimately sympathetic.
Edited by MasterN on Oct 1st 2022 at 2:58:17 AM
One of these days, all of you will accept me as your supreme overlord.
She / Her
I believe she counts, given there was an attempt to make you pity her.
Berserk Button: misusing Berserk Button
And now for an example that I would like to contest, from YMMV.Saya No Uta:
- The game would really be a lot more touching if the two main characters weren't horrible, monstrous people who are all too willing to throw away everyone else in the world for the sake of their "love", going from torture to cannibalism to attempted murder to horrific rape, even to people they once considered friends. There's only so much callousness one can write off with "horrific brain disorder", after all.
- Given his situation, it's understandable that Fuminori would be drawn to Saya, since she's the only thing that looks normal to him. That still doesn't explain the fact that he's drawn to her sexually, though, since he sees her as a prepubescent girl. In fairness to him, however, Saya fully returns his feelings and is even more lustful than he is, and when someone does rape her, he gets VERY violently protective. It still doesn't stop some fans from forming a sour impression of him and wondering if there was something off about him even before his life went to hell.
- Yosuke, however, is far less sympathetic. Killing his wife and daughter after just being inflicted with the same mental condition as Fuminori and having no idea what's going on is understandable. Meeting Saya in her humanoid form and immediately trying to rape her? Not so much.
Having played it myself, I can say that their characters are... complicated, but the game does stop treating them sympathetically when they escalate to becoming rapists. Yosuke is killed and just kinda forgotten about afterwards, with no sympathy given to his death, and while Fuminori and Saya are shown to love each other dearly, it is in a very much Unnervingly Heartwarming manner, and they are otherwise portrayed as people who need to die for the sake of all humanity (Alas, Poor Villain moment not withstanding- and unlike Diva, nobody cries for Fuminori and Saya). There are a lot of people who still root for them and think their relationship is the best thing ever, but that’s more Draco in Leather Pants and Rooting for the Empire.
Bottom line, I don’t think they were intended to be fully sympathetic, or only until they cross the Moral Event Horizon and start being treated as monsters.
Edited by MasterN on Oct 4th 2022 at 7:10:02 AM
One of these days, all of you will accept me as your supreme overlord.
She / Her
I feel your reasons are enough for them to be cut.
Berserk Button: misusing Berserk Button
Any more opinions, though? I want to be sure.
One of these days, all of you will accept me as your supreme overlord.
I noticed these characters have both Unintentionally Sympathetic and Unintentionally Unsympathetic tropes on different pages.
- Vanitas
- YMMV for Kingdom Hearts III: Vanitas spends his final moments boasting about how he accepts his inhuman nature yet the game paints it as a sad moment with Sora and Ventus trying to plead the Sadist to stand alongside them.
- Video Game Page for Unintentionally Sympathetic: When Xehanort divided Ventus's heart into a light half and a dark half, both were, of course, incomplete. Ventus (the light half) was able to use Sora to "fill in" the missing part of his heart, making it complete again, whereas Vanitas (the dark half) had no such luck. This leaves him with a sense of emptiness that can only be assuaged by recombining with Ventus; accomplishing this is the only thing he cares about. Ventus, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with him. Although it's never brought up in canon, fans realize that Vanitas is just as much "Ventus" as Ventus himself is—they're the same person, so from Vanitas's perspective he's being stripped of his own identity and rejected by himself.
- The last part in the Unintentionally Sympathetic page is actually addressed in Kingdom Hearts III: Re𝄌Mind, when Ventus tells Vanitas he's coming back home into his heart because they're the one and the same. Vanitas rebukes this, claiming that he was always an individual being within Ven's heart and Xehanort simply tore him out. The Kingdom Hearts χ games seem to support this by implying that Vanitas is actually one of the thirteen original Darknesses that plagued the Dandelions, hiding away with Ven's heart just before he took the Ark and traveled into the future. Master Xehanort even suspects the same thing, though Vanitas doesn't confirm or deny it. Should the latter trope be deleted? And what should be done with the former trope, since the YMMV page for Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep still has Vanitas (the novel's take on him) listed as The Woobie?
- Killer Croc
- YMMV page for the series: The games try to present Killer Croc as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds and a Tragic Villain. Problem is he's still an Ax-Crazy cannibalistic serial killer who never shows any remorse for his crimes and is a complete Jerkass, so there's few if any reasons to care about his tribulations.
- YMMV page for Batman: Arkham Asylum: Killer Croc earns a little sympathy from some Batman fans due to his primary motivation being his search for a cure to his hideous physical condition.
- The only time Killer Croc is ever given sympathy in the series as far as I know is when he's tortured and experimented on by Warden Ranken, though Batman and Nightwing still note he has to pay for his crimes. That being said, Warden Ranken isn't let off the hook either, with Batman reassuring Croc that the Warden will face justice for his crimes against him, making good on that promise by locking him up in a cell next to Croc for extra karma. Should the Unintentionally Sympathetic trope be deleted?
This UU entry was added to this page
:
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The rest of the Simpsons bar Homer, some think their reasons for wanting to return to Springfield are extremely petty when compared to the "perks" of living at Cypress Creek:
- Bart is a constant underachiever, when put into a school that actually cares about it's students and their learning, is put into remedial class, Bart could've learned from this experience, as he is shown to be able to become extremely academical when pushed, it's just that Springfield Elementary staff don't really care.
- Lisa has an allergic reaction to the plants in Cypress Creek, it's not fatal, just some ramped up hay fever, nobody suggest anti-allergies until the system shock of going from living in a polluted dump like Springfield to a clean environment like Cypress Creek passses.
- Marge, worst of all, never attempts to find anything else to do with her newfound free time, this is despite her being shown to have a myriad of hobbies that she couldn't do in Springfield due to being a Stay at Home Mother taking up a lions share of her time, she never even goes to introduce herself to her neighbours, or anything outside of cleaning the house.
The UU entries on this page have been debated multiple times and deleted at least once each due to shoehorned complaining and/or misuse, but now they've been added back, only to be even more shoehorned and nitpicky than they were before.
I seen the episode and i can understand why Simpsons minus Homer can be seen as UU since their problems could be manageable.
She / Her
Seconded.
On the YMMV.RWBY page, the following entry was added to Unintentionally Unsympathetic for Blake by ~Charmed Deception. I removed it on the grounds that Blake doesn't meet the "unintentional" part (Sun was not okay with her behaviour and Word of God confirmed that the audience wasn't meant to sympathise with her because the slapping was hold-over from the toxic relationship she'd had with Adam, her Psycho Ex-Boyfriend).
~Charmed Deception added the entry back with the following edit reason: "I'm aware the creators mentioned Adam's toxic influence affected Blake and how she acts. The issue is that it was only mentioned by Word of God and Blake's actions were never called out in-series, nor did she take a step back to realize her actions or even apologize for her actions. Her treatment of Sun has basically been brushed aside and forgotten, especially since she didn't do anything like that after Volume 4."
In-universe, the behaviour between Blake and Sun didn't have solid witnesses, so only Sun could call her out — which he did at the time, and Blake ignored. When she has a go at him after his stabbing, he outright calls her out for her behaviour, point-blank telling her she's being selfish and is hurting her friends far worse than their enemies are. This time she listens. A volume later (Volume 5), she thanks Sun for pulling her out of that dark place and refusing to give up on her — as a result, she intends to save a friend in the same way Sun saved her.
The edit reason seems to be complaining that events didn't unfold the way they wanted and ignores the fact that Unintentionally Unsympathetic is not an objective trope: it's about audiences has a different reaction to the creator's intention, and the creators here have confirmed that Blake's behaviour was toxic and shouldn't be viewed sympathetically.
As for people disliking Blake, she's already listed on the YMMV page as a Base-Breaking Character, which has a more accurate summary of the fandom's AR.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
- During Volume 4, when Blake ran away to return to Menagerie, Sun was discovered to have followed after her. Following a fight against the Sea Feilong, Blake slaps Sun across the face. At other moments throughout their time at Menagerie, Blake continues to yell at Sun and upon accidentally interrupting a moment between her and Ghira, she proceeded to slap Sun numerous times and when he tried to show her a picture on his Scroll of a White Fang member, she threw it into the trees. Even upon waking up after being stabbed by Ilia, Blake proceeds to yell at him. While her yelling was most likely intended to be Anger Born of Worry, fans felt she came off as rude and unconcerned about Sun possibly dying. It was pointed out how Blake acted like an abuser, with Arryn saying that abuse victims can act like their abusers. But Blake never gets called out for her abusive actions, nor does she apologize for how she treated sun. Because of these scenes, many people view Blake as being just as abusive as Adam and undeserving of either Sun or Yang and by extension, made several people dislike Blake.
Edited by Wyldchyld on Oct 15th 2022 at 3:34:01 AM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
In addition to my posts above, I do have one more question. Would this character count as an Unintentionally Unsympathetic example, or should it just remain under The Scrappy?
- The Witch and the Hundred Knight: Belda, the appropriately named Scum Witch, commits atrocities throughout the game that would have made her a Hate Sink if the game didn't give her a Freudian Excuse (she was bullied and only Heintz showed her kindness) that felt forced and quite frankly was too little too late by the time it was revealed. While Heintz discarding Belda is played as a Kick the Dog moment, the fact that Belda still remorselessly committed so many crimes and sold out her fellow witches in an attempt to earn his favor, even when it's obvious he's just using her, makes this come off as more of a Kick The Son Of A Bitch and Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves. The fact that she shows no signs of having changed for the better even after being resurrected, whereas even Heintz himself showed a moment of kindness towards a resurrected Mitten, certainly doesn't help Belda's case.
Edited by Mattman_the_Storyteller on Oct 16th 2022 at 6:39:16 AM
Killing is my business
Saw this on Halloween Ends [SPOILERS BELOW]
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Corey is meant to be portrayed as a victim eventually snapping under stress, pressure and persecution. While his killing the child Jeremy is an accident, Corey devolves into a genuinely brutal, sadistic killer with surprisingly little pressure and demonstrates possessively misogynist attitudes towards Alyson. There's ultimately very little good to say about him as a person.
A quick search on youtube and twitter would show that Corey does most definitely does not fit the criteria for number 4. The loads of thirst videos and fangirls simping for him alone shows that there's a sizable audience that are on his side. Plus he ends up as a villain anyway and his moments of possessiveness are meant to be the first signs of him Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, and that he's been shown to suffer abuse regularly after the incident.
"I'll show you fear, there is no hell, only darkness." My twitter
Hello. I want to bring this example here.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While Lisa's desperation to make friends is a sympathetic goal, her rather underhanded method of keeping Bart from upstaging her makes his anger towards her at least slightly relatable. It doesn't quite fall into Unintentionally Sympathetic for Bart, since his stakes are much lower than Lisa's, given he already has plenty of friends (and one with him during the vacation) and him trying to sabotage Lisa's one group of peers in response is incredibly petty, though he is obligated to feel that her spreading Malicious Slander to keep him out of her group, while claiming his personality as her own, is kind of a Jerkass move.
Regardless if you might agree or not that Lisa is this in this episode (I don't), the example itself focuses more on how Bart is NOT unintentionally sympathetic rather than how Lisa is unintentionally unsympathetic
From 'Ell's 'eart Oi stab at ye!
Yeah you can cut that.
She / Her
I'd cut or maybe rewrite it.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
This entry from YMMV.Stranger Things:
- Nancy's snobbish attitude towards Robin in season 4 is supposed to be seen as justified due to her lingering feelings for Steve and she acts like she should be treated as a saint for putting up with Robin’s company, the thing is though Robin has spent most of her screen time going out of her way to befriend Nancy and more importantly provide genuine help in the gang’s mission to take down Vecna! Her jealousy of Robin and Steve's (imagined) relationship comes across as quite petty considering she’d already dumped Steve after professing her love for Jonathan and there was nothing that Robin did to indicate any romantic inclination’s towards Steve besides being his friend and be a girl… Uh Nancy, Steve's allowed to have female friends!
First off I am reasonably sure that Nancy is supposed to be in the wrong here and her having feelings for Steve doesn't scream that she was supposed to be sympathetic. Also is it just me or does this entry read a bit complainy to anyone else? Is it just me?
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
She / Her
I agree it sounds like complaining and this isn't an example. I also feel it should be cut personally.
Edited by RandomTroper123 on Oct 21st 2022 at 1:13:08 AM
Yeah, that's just badly written-any example that ends with the editor addressing the characters should get cut. Nancy is a little jealous, but quickly bonds with Robin in season 4 anyway.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Okay I removed it with a link here.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/HouseOfTheDragon
Rhaenyra Targaryen. Despite her good qualities and portrayal as the protagonist, Rhaenyra has still slept with a Kingsguard (for which the punishment is traditionally a brutal death and castration), favors bullying inexplicably carried out against the very young boy Blackwood during her quest to find the most ideal consort, passed off all her bastards as trueborn (which is considered high treason), and casually sacrificed an innocent guard to help her husband Laenor fake his death. She also casually calls for her younger brother (who lost an eye thanks to one of her children) to be tortured for telling the truth about her bastard sons.
Now I don't watch HOTD or GOT, but I'm pretty sure everyone is meant to be morally grey and still tragic right?
I cut up one dozen new men and you will die somewhat, again and again.
Yes, and there's also some obvious editorializing in that post anyway.
"casually calls for torturing" seems to be code for "calls for formal questioning." The exact words she used were "sharply questioned" and no one else in the scene seemed to think she was advocating torture...probably because she wasn't. You can see that "casually" gets used elsewhere to just mean "does a thing." Both situations were rather extremely serious.
The whole beginning premise is weird. "Despite being the protagonist, she does bad things."
All of which is putting aside that these things were all intentionally done by the writers. I would just cut it all.
Okay thanks!
I cut up one dozen new men and you will die somewhat, again and again.
Yeah, Rhaenyra is not meant to be a moral paragon here.
She / Her
Yeah, I'd cut her too.
