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
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Seconding that, cut it.
I'm Sad Frogerson.
So The Simpsons apparently has so many examples that it needs it's own sub-page, but there are a couple of characters who are also listed as Unintentionally Sympathetic on the show's YMMV page. Now, I'm pretty certain these tropes are mutually exclusive, so maybe I can get some consensus on which ones to keep and which to cut.
First Ned Flanders:
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: Ned Flanders, sometimes when they're using him as a target to take jabs at religion, mainly because one episode implied his fundamentalism was a coping mechanism for dealing with his wife Maude's death.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Ned Flanders in later seasons. A sincere Christian who has recently been hit with adversity and struggles to cope, or a repressed fundamentalist with a hard life trotted out to either be Homer's foil or the butt of certain writers' jab at religion. He lost two wives and has had to put up with Homer's antics for decades. One episode even has him be the butt of a joke for the whole town despite earlier episodes implying he's a pillar of the community in Springfield. But he's also a self-righteous fundamentalist that seeks to correct any error anybody makes, even if it may destroy someone else's life and that person has already apologized over it, who kept his kids shut away in a restrictive religious school until Edna pulled them out and started sending them to Springfield Elementary, and if given any chance to nag people into changing he will do so until they actually change just to make him stop (he single-handedly became a puritanical Big Brother to the whole of Springfield in such a way in "To Surveil With Love").
- Also, in "Hurricane Neddy" when he blows up at the piss-poor job the townspeople do of rebuilding his home after it's destroyed. Except, he's the one who didn't buy homeowners' insurance—a thoroughly and grossly stupid and irresponsible decision—and therefore didn't have the funds necessary to purchase/build a proper house. And when he finally seems to be cured about his anger repression issues... he warns the rest of town that he's not adverse to running them over with his car if they ever piss him off.
Homer:
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: Homer can get this treatment as well (specifically if you don't consider him a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk Villain Protagonist [particularily in the later seasons], this even is used to justify his traits): Freudian Excuse, a menial job, being called out by everyone each time he does something wrong, and (earlier on) having Always Someone Better as a neighbor.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Many of the recent episodes that focus on Homer and Bart’s antagonistic relationship try to present Homer in a sympathetic light the problem with this is that throughout the show it is repeatedly shown that their antagonism is the result of Homer’s abuse and neglect so it’s kind of hard to feel sorry for him. For example in "Dad Behavior", Homer hires a handyman to take over father-son catch duties with Bart only to become jealous and start hanging out with Milhouse. The problem with this is that Bart generally did want to hang out with Homer, he only had a great time with Matt the handyman until he found out that everything was all part of a business transaction and tries to hang out with Homer again only to rebuffed. Homer claims that he likes hanging out with Milhouse because he’s hurt over the fact that Bart keeps calling him by his name instead of dad. But for someone who repeatedly tells his son he’s an unloved accident, pawns him off on someone else at the quickest opportunity only to get jealous at seeing how happy his son is and start hanging out with another child as some kind of childish revenge just makes Homer come across as a petty jerkass.
- All in all many attempts to present Homer as sympathetic just makes him come across as even more abusive and neglectful. "The Wreck of the Relationship" is a combination of the numerous "Bart becomes a better person if he is just gets positive attention" and a recycled script of "Boy Scoutz N The Hood". Homer & Marge decided to crack down on his behavior and the two are father-son relationship-building program. Just like all of the previous episodes of this time Bart becomes a much better behaved child and Homer’s jerkass behavior nearly gets everyone killed. The difference is that Homer refuses to stop until Bart listens to him essentially throwing a temper tantrum. So Homer has no intention of treating Bart any better yet still demands his respect and obedience.
Seymour Skinner:
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: Seymour Skinner. So what if he's an uptight authority figure who can't run his school worth beans? Look at the way his mother treats him! That's not mentioning the horrors he witnessed back in Vietnam.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Seymour Skinner is a broken-down Extreme Doormat Momma's Boy, but any sympathy felt for him can wear thin when he's repeatedly offered a chance to change his circumstances and shoots it down (or he tries to bring discipline to Springfield Elementary, but being The Bore he cannot seem to understand the difference between this and "Day of the Jackboot"). The biggest offender was his relationship with Edna Krabappel, whom he drove away with his fear of change and commitment; while his subsequent trying to win her back could be seen as a My God, What Have I Done?, it could get grating when the viewers realized he probably wouldn't try any harder than he had before.
Patty and Selma:
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: Patty and Selma. They're almost always portrayed as the villains when they're involved with conflicts with Homer, but they just want the best for Marge and while they can be legitimately mean when you consider the way Homer treats her sometimes you have to agree with them.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Patty and Selma. These are women are not just the Obnoxious In-Laws from Hell, but miserable and disgusting human beings who will most likely override any sense of loathing towards them like a hate magnet if they are depicted on screen. Not only do they want the Simpsons (and especially Homer) to drop whatever they are doing and help them (such as helping Selma pass the adoption screening so she'll get a kid from China - - and a following episode showcases she is an abusive mother), they are unforgivably hair trigger annoyed at the drop of a hat and disgustingly vile, unhelpful, and wretchedly depraved spinsters who live far from reality with unrealistic expectations and an extremely tarred up grimy pathetic outlook on the human condition in turn with not even a good look at themselves. Regarding their brother in law, they'll do anything and everything possible to try to force Marge to divorce Homer and seek another husband — even kidnap Homer and lock him up, SAW-style, in a rented bathroom where he will stay until he decides to leave Marge or most probably drop dead (and will probably scare the living hell out of whoever rents the building in the future—they are moved by Homer's vows to Marge, but we never find out if they would have decided to let him go because Bart and Lisa blackmail them into doing that and paying for the Simpsons' second marriage ceremony). It says a lot that other people who hate Homer (including Marge's own mother) think they are taking their dislike too damn far.
Now the Homer example seems to focus more on how unsympathetic he comes across in the Homer-Bart episodes, but the others seem to directly contradict each other. Each character has a mix of positive and negative traits, and the audience's sympathy can vary depending on the episode. Any thoughts?
No, the other one.
I had a post written, but the forums ate the post. Don't have the time or energy to rewrite it. Anyway.
Homer's example is good other than the second bullet point, which fails to explain how he's supposedly portrayed as sympathetic at all.
The rest are crap. Ned flip-flops all the time, and the example tries to conflate all that to a single portrayal. Seymour's example doesn't explain how he's portrayed sympathetically. Then there's the mess of the last two, who're described as villains thorough and yet it's "unintentional".
Check out my fanfiction!
I'm Sad Frogerson.
I removed any duplicate entries and left a link to the thread in my edit reason. I kept the Homer example due to it specifying he's only that way in certain episodes, and deleted the second sub-bullet like you suggested.
The same troper who cut this
for YMMV.Mass Effect Andromeda added it back.
I'll PM them and invite them here to discuss this. Should I re-remove it meanwhile?
There was recently an kerfuffle over this under YMMV.Super Paper Mario:
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Despite their Anti-Villainy and eventual Atoner actions, some players still see Count Bleck and his minions (sans Dimentio) as this for being willing to invoke The End of the World as We Know It in the first place.
They were treated as villains because of this until they repented. I think this trope requires explaining WHY they were supposed to be sympathetic despite they're antagonism or flaws. Cut?
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Feb 26th 2019 at 10:51:42 AM
Goku Black
Cut that.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Count Bleck was brought up in this thread and removed before since a lot of fans do find him sympathetic so it isn't something most of the fandom agrees upon. Cut.
Edited by ADrago on Feb 26th 2019 at 1:57:30 PM
@ADrago:
Not to mention how some of the prior edits contained absurd misinformation (e.g. — claiming that Bleck never tries to undo his damage, calling him a Karma Houdini because he ends up Together in Death with Tippi after all, etc.).
Edited by Peridonyx on Feb 27th 2019 at 12:17:51 PM
This one's from Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald:
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: The film doesn't fully demonize Jacob for not marrying Queenie, but they sure do paint him as being wrong for not doing so early on in the film. While they both love each other and would happily get married if possible, Jacob correctly points out how, because he is a Muggle, them getting married puts them both at serious risk of being targeted by both enemies, and the Ministry itself. The fact that Queenie used her magical talent to take advantage of him to get what she wanted makes her even less sympathetic. Finally, Jacob spends the rest of the film trying to apologize to her, while Queenie never even remotely apologies for drugging him against his will.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: In contrast to Jacob being Unintentionally Sympathetic, Queenie becomes unsympathetic. Trying to bewitch him with a love spell to force him to marry her and then never apologizing is bad enough, but then the movie acts like Jacob is in the wrong for thinking "She's crazy," because Queenie read his mind. It doesn't help that Corvus Lestrange did something similar to an unwilling person in the backstory, and it's portrayed as proof of him being a monster. It gets worse when Queenie is easily converted to Gellert Grindelwald's side, even though a) Grindelwald makes it abundantly clear he's racist against Muggles like her boyfriend and plans to turn them into servants for witches and wizards at best, and b) Grindelwald tried to murder her sister in the last movie. Her fall to evil is meant to be portrayed as a tragedy motivated by love, but instead it just makes her look impossibly naive and incredibly disrespectful to the man she supposedly loves.
"Okay, so...I'm not really disagreeing with either of these in terms of where my sympathies lie, but it's the "Unintentional" part that bothers me. The movie never says Queenie is right to join Grindelwald; it doesn't even say why she ultimately does it. Jacob calls her crazy just before she crosses over, she was acting pretty crazy at the time...I just think that by the end of the film, her motives are definitely open to more interpretation than "She's just doing this because she loves Jacob and still wholeheartedly wants a world where they can freely be together, and is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons."
TL;DR — I don't think the movie was saying that Queenie was right and Jacob was wrong, since he's properly portrayed as a victim who's trying to balance his love for her with keeping both of them out of legal trouble, and she's portrayed as being more than a little screwy for walking out on Jacob at the start rather than staying and talking things out, and for choosing to join Grindelwald as the best way to achieve her goals - nevermind that we don't know how much she's interested in those goals anymore. She could've just become fed up with Jacob at the last minute and saw crossing over as the only way to survive.
Edited by Tippetarius on Feb 27th 2019 at 11:22:13 AM
Also, responding to the bit about the villains in Super Paper Mario a few entries up, the issue I have is that O'Chunks, Mimi, and Nastasia aren't shown to have repented or made up for what they helped do. Count Bleck willingly gave up his existence to reverse everything he'd done (even if he ended up surviving, the fact that he thought he wouldn't is what counts), but unless there's something in the game that I'm looking at the wrong way, his minions don't undergo any such redemption, or even show that they feel bad about what happened. The only time that they help the heroes is by repowering the Pure Hearts, which was only accomplished indirectly due to their loyalty to each other and Count Bleck — the same loyalty that's bound them together throughout the rest of the game when they were villains.
And while this doesn't matter as much, O'Chunks is the only one of them whose backstory remotely justifies his turn to darkness, as he was a general who was betrayed by one of his subordinates, causing him to be defeated by the enemy. Nastasia was only following Count Bleck because she'd fallen in love with him after he saved her from a trap, and we don't know anything about Mimi's past before she went evil.
Regarding the Crimes of Grindelwald entries, I agree with everything that Tip said. I'll wait to see if anyone else wishes to chime in. But otherwise, I'm personally in favour of cutting those entries, as I feel that they miss the "unintentional" part. The movie itself very much paints Jacob in a sympathetic light, while Queenie is making some clearly questionable choices by putting a love spell on Jacob and then siding with a dark wizard.
Edited by StardustSoldier on Feb 28th 2019 at 2:15:53 AM
That's Easily Forgiven, a different issue. This trope requires explaining why they were supposed to be seen as sympathetic despite their flaws or evilness, then why audiences digressed. Listing the part about them that was intentionally unsympathetic (why they were villains until they repented from that), which is what the entry did, is not this. Also, The characters in question being popular with fans suggest not enough see them as unintentionally unsympathetic to count.
Cut because while there may be issues, it's overwhelmingly intentional.
UnintentionallyUnsympathetic.Anime And Manga:
- Altair/the "Military Uniform Princess" of Re:CREATORS wishes to get even with a world that bullied her Creator relentlessly and then drove her to commit suicide. OK, that in and of itself sounds sympathetic... except that she goes all Omnicidal Maniac about it and tries to cause a Negative Space Wedgie that would wipe out the planet and everybody in it (even the people said Creator loved), goes psycho and overkills the living hell out of the one Creation on the protagonists' side that tried to reach out to her and understand her (for having the gall of trying to understand her), and essentially weaponized Popularity Power In-Universe to manipulate reality and become an In-Universe Villain Sue that killed most of the cast via curb-stomping and then, in order to appease her, had to be given a twisted variation of Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending by the shell-shocked Creators of the people she killed and thus allowed to go away as a Karma Houdini. As a result many viewers felt the series had a tremendously disappointing finale.
Then there's this under DeconstructedCharacterArchetype.Anime And Manga
- Altair/the "Military Uniform Princess" from Re:CREATORS can be viewed as the deconstruction of Draco in Leather Pants and Evil Is Cool. Despite attacking the main characters, she was all but mysterous with ambiguous motives and wore a very stylish suit, hence her nickname. These are all traits of popular antagonist characters. Her popularity dropped when she brutally murders Mamika for trying to help her cope with her Creator's suicide, but then she manages to ascend into a full-blown In-Universe Villain Sue thanks to the fact she had a Hundred Percent Adoration Rating of those who were viewing the "Elimination Chamber Festival", and ultimately gets what she wants in the end and escapes punishment (because there is absolutely nothing the other characters can do to stop her other than facilitate this). After all, who cares about all the other characters that she murdered and/or traumatized if the most badass character gets their happy ending?
It sounds like we were supposed to be pissed off at Altair for those reasons as part of the metafiction. Cut?
Google "big ears"
I don't ever think Altair was ever written as a deconstruction. If it was, people were pissed anyway that she basically got everything she wanted and got away scott free. So at least i think the Unintentionally Unsympathetic still applies to her, because the last episode is written in a way that you are supposed to feel sorry for poor Altair. Or at least that's the way i see it.
Then there is issue if she is a Base Breaker or a Scrappy but that should be handled in another thread.
Edited by fasoman1996 on Mar 1st 2019 at 10:44:34 AM
Uni cat
While i never watch the series coherently and only in tidbits, the way its written is supposed to be sympathetic despite the contrary. The biggest being she doing this because of her creator yet she shows nothing for Creations and how their Creator's feel.
Transcender of Gender
Hi there, I'm planning to do a general clean-up of the YMMV page for The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and noticed that this has been added to it:
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Skull Kid. You are expected to pity him for being posessed, even though the whole plot could have been avoided if he didn't steal from the Happy Mask Salesman.
I don't believe this fits since the game makes it clear that SK was wrong to steal from the Happy Mask Salesman. Being possessed is an entirely different matter that SK couldn't possibly have foreseen happening. The game does expect you to feel some sympathy for him, but it's for a different matter (he's lonely and drives people away with his mischief that he takes too far).
Moreover, this comes off more as a personal opinion rather than an audience reaction since I haven't actually seen this viewpoint expressed by people in the fandom, let alone in a way that's widespread enough to qualify for the trope.
they/them || "Forgive me, regent of queer amphibians" - Lt.BGob
That example should be cut for the reasons you stated.
Multiverse Madness
I would like to re-add Wallflower Blush to the YMMV page of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Forgotten Friendship for Unintentionally Unsympathetic. I propose adding it as such:
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Wallflower Blush is sick of people not noticing her, so she ruins all of Sunset's friendships that she worked hard for - potentially permanently - by using the Memory Stone to erase everyone's good memories of Sunset. However, when Wallflower gives her Freudian Excuse during a Motive Rant that it was because no one ever noticed her, Wallflower also admits that she erased small memories of herself from other people. This makes Wallflower's claims of not being remembered hypocritical when she admits that she's actively deleting herself from everyone's collective memory. It comes across less like Sunset being a bad friend and more like Wallflower being the source of all her own problems.
Wallflower's Establishing Character Moment was her trying to get Sunset's attention for a half-hour, but was ignored, showing this is a problem without the Memory Stone. And her memories show she was being ignored long before she found the Stone.
We don't know how much of this was self-inflicted, but there's enough evidence otherwise that it's not enough to call her this on that alone.
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Mar 17th 2019 at 9:52:20 AM
YMMV.My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic S 2 E 23 Ponyville Confidential
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
- The residents of Ponyville are expected to be sympathized with because they were gossiped about. While the CMC's actions were no doubt wrong, the townsfolk behave downright cruelly towards three innocent children. Also, the fact that they contributed just as much to the gossip by enjoying it until they were written about but receive no proper scolding or any sort of consequences makes it hard to feel sorry for them.
- Rarity, if it can be believed, may be worse. You're expected to side with her when she talks things out with Sweetie Belle but before that, she didn't object to the gossip at all (even with her friends upset by it right nearby) until her diary was published. Even worse, she comes off as a hypocrite in doing so because she had intentionally gone through her sister's knapsack despite knowing she shouldn't.
I'm cutting the residents of Ponyville since the ending calls them out for there hypocrisy and the did forgive the CMC as soon as they apologized. Any objection?
Rarity is also listed under Draco in Leather Pants, which to me seems the opposite, incompatible audience reaction. Thoughts?
UPDATE: cutting this per mod recommendation.
UPDATE UPDATE: adding back residents of Ponyville per this. The episodes writer admitted they came off as this and why, so that enough to re-qualify them.
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Jul 25th 2019 at 9:42:19 AM
I'm pretty sure it's like Rainbow Dash in The Mysterious Mare Do and Well as well as the Mane Five as they are both in the wrong. The problem with Merriweather Williams and Charlotte Fullerton's episode (yes I understand Ponyville Confidential was written by M.A Larson) is there's no clear side to root for. And keep in mind all of the characters apologized and were significantly nicer in other episodes. I'm not a fan of PC. I think it's kinda like The Boys of Bummer from the Simpsons where a character does some minor offense and the town reacts pretty mean.
I think it's meant to show that no one is perfect.
Speaking of which...
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy tend to be unfavorably viewed in this episode by a lot of the audience. While they at least saved several ponies' lives as Mare-Do-Well, they were never shown just talking to Rainbow Dash and explaining their concerns about her boasting being a problem, and instead jumped straight into a plan to deflate Rainbow's ego by mercilessly beating her at something she took great personal pride in. Their actions were very thoughtless and hurtful, actually making Rainbow's behavior much worse, and they didn't let up even when it was clear that their friend wasn't reacting well, even deliberately mocking her as being jealous, all of which made them seem like jerks. In the Sugarcube Corner scene, Applejack talked about how modest and humble Mare-Do-Well is, while she and the others bragged about their own accomplishments as the masked heroine, making them all look like massive Hypocrites. They directly confronted Rainbow about her bragging problems only after she discovered Mare-Do-Well's identity, leaving them with no option but to come clean. For many people, this gives the impression that the other Mane Six just wanted to bring down Dash because of envy at the attention she was getting, and that they failed to think through the effects their plan would have on Rainbow's attitude and only succeeded in making things worse.
I actually think we weren't meant to feel sorry for either side here as they both went to an extreme to either be a hero or rubbing their accomplishments in RD's face.
Edited by Klavice on Mar 19th 2019 at 6:24:27 AM
The Mare Do Well could be a valid if reworked and condensed. I believe they were supposed to be sympathetic because the were invoking Deliberately Bad Example to show Rainbow how unlikable she was acting. But there were the following problems.
- They seem motivated by Rainbow's ego, not that it was putting others in danger.
- They had no clear strategy to make Rainbow realize this, which meanwhile made thing worse.
I assume we're meant to side with then since Rainbows flaws are called out but there's are't.
Maybe Eight Deadly Words is the better trope for this since both sides were unlikable.
There is a dubious example in YMMV.The Flash 2014:
Unintentionally Sympathetic: Barry locking Nora in the pipeline is meant to come off as an overreaction on Barry's part, but given that Nora has been working with the man who killed his mother and lying about it for months, quite a few viewers were on Barry's side.
It is important to hear Nora West-Allen's version of the facts, but the reasons he imprisoned her are at least understandable. In that series, Barry has already been betrayed gravely in more than one occasion, and the series makes no secret that finding that his daughter had deceived him all along is painful.
Cut then.
YMMV.My Little Pony Equestria Girls Spring Breakdown
- Unintentionally Un Sympathetic: Rainbow Dash. We're meant to feel sorry for her, because none of her friends believe her when she claims there's evil magic. However, considering she got Pinkie banned from the buffet, chased off the animals Fluttershy wanted to befriend, and caused Applejack to throw up when she was sick, it's hard to feel sorry for her and see her as an obnoxious Jerkass whose ruining her friend's vacation. Not helping is how when she believes she sees evil magic, she pulls twilight aside. Which ruined the engine and later puts the people on the cruise in danger. If anything, Twilgiht's What the Hell, Hero? is well deserved.
I cut since her getting a What the Hell, Hero? means it's not unintentional (as written at least). Any objections?
