Unintentionally Unsympathetic and Unintentionally Sympathetic Cleanup

YMMV.Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Spirit Of Justice

• The true culprit of the DLC case. His whole reason for wanting revenge against Sorin largely came about due to his own idiocy, which he doesn't acknowledge, and he flat-out ignores the fact that Sorin has his own painful experiences to deal with from the same incident. And yet when he's exposed in court, he's treated as a Tragic Villain rather than a murderous hypocrite out to ruin Sorin's life even further because of a misplaced sense of vengeance. To explain; after his fiance and Sorin were both caught in a car crash, Nichody agreed to perform lifesaving surgery on Sorin first, at the request of his even more badly injured fiance. Sorin meanwhile lost his sister (Nichody's fiance) in that same crash, and is literally unable to remember anything that happens after said crash!

Bad example, because Nichody is meant to be the case villain. And his stupidity was only because he cared about his fiancée more than himself so naturally when she said "Save Sorin" he didn't hesitate. I don't think you're generally meant to feel for villains because... well... they're villains!

Edited by Klavice on Aug 1st 2019 at 10:02:59 AM

Troper Hikaru Hyouishi wrote some lengthy arguments for Unintentionally Sympathetic and Unintentionally Sympathetic about Anna and Shingetsu in the YMMV of Granbelm.

Spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't watched the show.

• Unintentionally Sympathetic: ANNA, dear lord. While she is one of the major antagonists of the series, thanks to her backstory during episode 6, many fans ended up siding with her due to Shingetsu (one of the protagonists) and her own mother keeping the truth about her lack of power from her for years. While The Stinger at the end of the episode showed that not only did she attempt to murder her own mother, but that she stole her family's crystal to do nothing more than to torture Shingetsu until she saw fit, her sympathy shot through the roof in the very next episode thanks to Shingetsu's utter lack of understanding that not only was her complaining about how she didn't like being a mage and wanting to get rid of the magic to save Anna from the burden of expectations basically crushing the latter's dreams of being The Witch because she personally didn't like it (while being ignorant of the fact that Anna actually wanted to be that powerful for her family's sake), but her "help" in getting Anna to stop fighting in the GRANBELM and remind her that her family still loves her was basically throwing the great difference between their strengths in Anna's face (which was one of the major reasons for Anna's hatred towards Shingetsu in the first place), as shown by the fact that during their final battle, she deliberately stalled the final blow twice before finishing Anna off with the third one. Because of these reasons, Shingetsu ended up coming off as not only hypocritical of why she wanted to help Anna but also ignorant of how her selfish actions ended up tearing Anna's once loving family apart. That ended up leading her to be...
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While Shingetsu's burden of having high expectations due to her potentially high magic is understandably rough and that getting rid of said magic because of the potentially dangerous misuse that anyone can do with it is also an understandable goal to have, what started to put fans against her was the fact that she basically kick-started Anna's spiral to the mess she is today by secretly helping her perform a technique that her mother and grandmother couldn't do out of good intentions...which led to Anna believing that she was more powerful than she was. That ended up making Anna's own mother and Shingetsu telling her that she could never beat the latter without telling her why out of their love for her, making Anna think that they valued Shingetsu more than her. This went on for about a decade before the truth was finally spoken...with nearly disastrous results During the battle between her and Anna in the next episode, we're shown that she does feel remorse for her actions and that she wants to make amends, but what rallied fans against her even more was that for all that she said about loving Anna and not wanting to put any burdens on her, it was her utter lack of understanding that for all her complaints about her magic, she never really understood that what she had was all that Anna had ever wanted, and to see that in the process of being thrown away forever because she personally didn't like it felt like a slap to Anna's entire reason for living. It really didn't help that her method of getting Anna to back out of the GRANBELM and realize that there was more to life than being a mage was to throw the huge differences between their strengths in her face.

While I admit Hikaru does make some arguments, these entries look a bit too long to be taken seriously and come across as a bit biased. I'd like to remind everyone here that TV Tropes is not an echo chamber people can use to say whatever you want and not expect any consequences. I do believe there is a time, a place and a way to express those feelings, but this is not one of them.

Could someone take a look at Fire Emblem: Three Houses? The examples there are all really questionable. I don't think any of the characters listed are meant to be 100% sympathetic, if they are sympathetic at all, and the first example feels more like Dub-Induced Plot Hole if anything.

Here are the examples in question:

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • The English version of Edelgard's response to a pretty valid question from Dimitri comes off as rather graceless, especially since it occurs in her own route. While the original Japanese text has her asking him whether continuing to fight an already lost war will "sate" him, her localized quote below borders on Insane Troll Logic for some, as it comes off as her asking him why he's defending himself.
    Dimitri: Must you continue to conquer? Continue to kill?
    Edelgard: Must you continue to reconquer? Continue to kill in retaliation?
  • In general, Edelgard's actions might not come as sympathetically as intended to some players. Her goal of ending Crest-based discrimination and the rule of a Corrupt Church is noble, but she quickly makes it clear in other routes that she is willing to kill anyone in her way. She might openly voice disgust with and disapprove of the actions of Those Who Slither In The Dark, and in some cases actively sabotage them, but in other cases she helps them, such as loaning them the Death Knight and stealing Crest stones to create Demonic Beasts. She was also the one to hire Kostas to indirectly try to kill Claude and Dimitri in the beginning of the game.
  • Rhea can be this as well. While we are likely meant to sympathize with her character and motives behind her actions, especially in Church route and somewhat at the end of GD, it’s difficult to ignore her censorship and distortion of human history, as well as her tampering with Fódlan's progress towards modernity for reasons that at the best of times lean towards the selfish. Add in her tendency to meet opposition with lethal force, her willingness to order executions without proper investigation or trial, her sending out the knights to massacre the whole of the Western church without first determining who was and wasn’t involved in the uprising, and the fact that she’s downright ''eager’’ to inflict Death of Personality on the avatar, and suddenly, supporting Edelgard against her becomes much easier.
  • The emphasis on Kronya's pain during her death looks like an attempt to cultivate sympathy from the player. Considering that Kronya killed Jeralt, remorselessly turned students into Demonic Beasts, whined about losing, tried to run for her life, and only minutes before called Byleth "a filthy creature", fans instead see the scene as her just desserts.

Edited by katethegr8 on Aug 26th 2019 at 2:37:42 PM

From YMMV.Young Justice

• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Brion killing his uncle is treated as a Moral Event Horizon, but considering he flat out stated he would never give up so long as he drew breath, not to mention his immense list of crimes towards both his own family as well as the global community at large for his treatment of metahumans and refugees alike, most viewers do not blame Brion in the slightest. That Zviad Baazovi also goaded him psychically adds to the mix.

However, since Brion is being mind manipulated and being the Lights puppet, he still treated sympathetic.

x2

Fourth is misuse. Kronya's a villain from the Hate Sink faction of the game, so we aren't meant to sympathize with her at all.

Edelgard examples can be axed as well, since Edelgard isn't meant to be sympathetic on the Blue Lions, Golden Deer and Church routes; she's a villain in all three. First is a difference with the localization writing as mentioned. Second is again about Edelgard on non-Black Eagles routes, where she's villainous and not really meant to be sympathetic.

With Rhea I'm leaning toward cut as well. The motivation for her actions is sympathetic to a degree^note Wanting to revive her dead mother and all, but in most of the routes she's not portrayed quite sympathetically, since even early on it's made clear that there's something shady and off about her through Jeralt's diary.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Sep 1st 2019 at 12:05:08 PM

YMMV.The Dark Crystal Age Of Resistance

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Seladon gets redeemed at the end despite taking the Skeksis side for her mothers death, even after they reveal to he they were draining Gelflings. After they strip her down and send her to a cell she still blames her mother and sister for what happened.

I don't see what's unintentional here. She only redeems herself after this which she becomes The Atoner for.

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Sep 5th 2019 at 11:57:03 AM

YMMV.Steven Universe The Movie:

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Spinel for some. While her backstory does elicit a lot of sympathy from most, some feel like she got off too easy, mainly because she destroyed most of Beach City and left without helping to fix it. Although most of the ire she gets is for the first act, where she acts more like a gleefully psychotic Card-Carrying Villain than a broken, rage-filled Tragic Villain and enacts her destructive plan to start with out of pure spite, whereas at least her third act villainy is the result of a tragic misunderstanding.

More than half of it is arguing against itself, what's left is Easily Forgiven. Cut?

YMMV.My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic S 9 E 15 Two Four Six Greaaat

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: At one point Smolder fed up with Rainbow Dash tells her the problem they have is that "It's not that we're bad, it's that you didn't try to make us better" except Rainbow Dash has repeatedly pointed out she doesn't actually know anything about cheering, so she had little to no knowledge of how to make them better, making Smolder look like she's blaming Rainbow for something out of her control.

This might be a keeper, but I'd like a second opinion. Are we supposed to sympathize with Smolder when Rainbow is technically the antagonist?

That's redundant with Rainbow Dash being Unintentionally Sympathetic. Cut.

I removed the following from Borderlands 3:

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Ava has caught flak for essentially being directly responsible for Maya's death. Rather than actually admitting any sort of fault or reflecting on her actions, Ava immediately blames Lillith and the issue is never addressed again. It also doesn't help that Ava later inherits Maya's powers, making her a Replacement Scrappy for Maya.

If fails to explain why she was supposed to be sympathetic. And there's other knee-jerk backlash against Ava making complaints against her suspect.

I've argued against this character before, as her entries failed to explain why it was unintentional as opposed to why she the villain. But after consideration I've isolated the unintentional parts.

• Wallflower Blush from Forgotten Friendship was supposed to be sympathetic due to years of resenting being ignored and forgotten boiling over when Sunset Shimmer's disregard made them think Sunset was undeserving of her redemption and popularity. But aside from her introduction where it's unclear how hard she tried, Wallflower was never shown trying to get noticed, and admitted to erasing embarrassing memories of herself making their problems seem self-inflicted. Sunset was never any more guilty of disregarding them than rest of the school, causing some to go so far as to compare singling out Sunset, then her friends, out for random revenge with a dangerous item to a school shooting. %%Entry approved at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=15194292110A03429900&page=9#comment-211 Don't edit without approval

The school shooting thing is the most radical of the criticism, but they are out there. Should it have a Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment warning? Is there a more appropriate way to put this?

That, plus the entry having been previously contested, is why I think it needs a warning against editing.

UPDATE: tweaked some of the words to hide spoilers.
UPDATE: Removed ROCEJ pothole per this.

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Aug 17th 2020 at 7:32:05 AM

RCEJ

Edited by MasterJoseph on Sep 28th 2019 at 12:30:35 PM

I think you isolated the parts that made Wallflower Blush unsympathetic quite well here. It gives exactly the right amount of detail, and doesn't seem like it's being nitpicky. I'd say it's good to go as-is.

Done. I tweaked a few words for the sake of spoilers.

UPDATE: I forget to add "nor showed the character flaws meant to explain this". Any objections to adding?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Sep 29th 2019 at 3:43:42 AM

From YMMV.Batwoman 2019

In the first official trailer, Kate says she doesn't want to "let a man take credit for a woman’s work", referring to the public thinking she's Batman. Though likely intended to sound cool, the line received much flak online due to the perception that Kate was doing nothing but co-opting Bruce's tech and facilities and showing disrespect to her predecessor, unlike most other successors to established superheroes. It also doesn't help that it makes her sound like she just does this for the recognition, rather than actually caring about the people.

This is entirely base on a trailer and nothing shown in the series itself. Also, i tjink its complaining.

Considering the show hasn't aired yet, remove that. It's unfair to make these judgements based on promo material.

Edited by chasemaddigan on Oct 3rd 2019 at 8:37:13 AM

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Marge, to some. Many fans saw her as being preachy.

i removed this from the YMMV page on "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge", i don't think she was meant to be sympathetic in that episode.

What do you think?

It's a ZCE with weasel words.

I found this on 7th Sea:

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The Goode Folke are clearly supposed to be somewhat-sympathetic. Their coming back into the world is important for the well-being of both Avalon and, given the nature of the barrier they created to keep the Thalusi Syrneth at bay, the rest of Theah. And two of their three rulers, plus Jack O'Bannon, all have the highest possible ratings on the Karma Meter. It's unfortunate, then, that the entire race are sadistic, often-murderous parasites who hurt and kill human beings for fun, and the books' attempts at trying to put them beyond morality (unlike other such characters, the Sidhe do have hero/villain demarcations and Reputation scores, and the descriptions of their personalities describe developmentally-stunted and empathy-impaired human beings, not unknowable aliens) or to clumsily justify their mindset (they allegedly don't understand death, but the same book describes their wrath at the family that figured out how to kill them permanently, so they clearly understand it enough) collapse under basic logic. Also, hurtfully, the book includes a few "bait" options for a player who might dislike them enough to specialize in killing them, but then tells the GM to never let the players best them in a contest of arms, and to have them hunted and killed even if they win, so not only are they beyond justice, a player could easily have wasted an entire character concept on an idea he didn't know the book told the GM to punish him for having!

I'm not too familiar with the tabletop RPG (I'm still reading through the books), but this reads less like a documentation of general opinions and more like a single troper has an axe to grind with this particular part of the game.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Oct 5th 2019 at 1:21:24 AM

"It's a ZCE with weasel words. "

So should it be kept deleted?

Regarding the Marge example, the conflict is portrayed as morally gray. While she isn't really vilified for trying to censor Itchy & Scratchy, it's shown that her actions only served to make the show boring and unappealing to children. The episode concludes by pointing out her hypocrisy for not wanting to censor Michelangelo's David, and admitting her protests may have done more harm than good.

I'd say cut it.

From Unintentionally Sympathetic:

• Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon come off as this in the same episode. After entering the episode with their typical "Blank Flanks" bullying routine (which is what leads to Babs joining them so that she won't be bullied herself), they don't really do much of anything except laugh about the bullying that Babs is doing to the CMC. Yet at the end of the episode when Babs tells them off for picking on the CMC, they fall into mud and get laughed at by Babs and the CMC. We're supposed to see this as their comeuppance, but not only did it not feel earned but it creates a Broken Aesop since Babs and the CMC are now bullying the bullies, the very thing that was framed as being wrong when the CMC tried to do it to Babs (and what made them Unintentionally Sympathetic.)

I'd be inclined to cut since: 1. They were not viewed as sympathetic by fans because they were widely disliked outside that episode. 2. The problem is Babs' was Unintentionally Unsympathetic due to the Double Standard and Broken Aesop as opposed to DT an SS being seen as sympathetic. They still encouraged Babs' actions and didn't try to rein her in despite it being worse than their normal bullying.

Should Unintentionally Sympathetic get it's own cleanup thread?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Oct 12th 2019 at 10:51:52 AM

UnintentionallyUnsympathetic.Literature

• In the eyes of many fans, Luke Skywalker became this toward the end of the Star Wars Legends continuity, frequently sanctioning drastic measures such as torture and assassination to stop villains. The intent was to show the character growing increasingly cynical with age, but the fans argue back that even so, that's not a very good way to write Luke Skywalker.

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: To some, the heroes for sending Cozy to Tartarus without a single hint that she would ever be freed by them, when a temporary placement in a juvenile mental facility would have worked fine.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S9 E25 "The Ending of the End – Part 2"
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Discord, Celestia, and Luna get this from some fans for reasons related to the Moral Dissonance mentioned on the main page (them turning the trio to stone despite the fact that they were technically victims of entrapment. Cozy Glow and Tirek especially due to the fact they were already serving time in Tartarus until Discord broke them out and the princesses and Discord turn them to stone instead of sending them back there).

I believe Unintentionally Unsympathetic has to explain why the characters why they were supposed to be sympathetic in those situations, not just the complaints. Luke I say cut because it complains about his character direction as opposed to intended portrayal. Pony examples state "for some" which is Weasel Words, and the complaints against them are covered under Unintentionally Sympathetic and Moral Dissonance, and was contested here.

TBH with Luke, I'm actually not certain whether "growing cynical with age" was his intended portrayal, or merely a rationalization by fans who were still on board with the books. It doesn't help that the late-era Expanded Universe suffered very heavily from Depending on the Writer, so one author's intent isn't necessarily another's.

I think it’s fine if this thread also addresses Unintentionally Sympathetic, considering it’s easy to also have it follow the same criteria as its sister trope. Can this thread be renamed to reflect this?

Anyways, I saw this on YMMV.My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic S 2 E 8 The Mysterious Mare Do Well

• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Rainbow Dash tends to be favorably viewed in this episode by a lot of the audience. She saved several ponies' lives at the beginning of the episode without any expectation of reward, and only let her pride go to her head as a result of the townsponies heaping overwhelming praise on her. Later, as her arrogance began to hamper her attempts at heroism, Rainbow still tried to save people and failed more because she lacked the skills to handle every emergency on her own rather than because she was too boastful. When she tried to regain her reputation through ill-planned but still genuine efforts at being helpful, she got beat up by Granny Smith, then mocked and insulted by the entire town, all for trivial reasons. She then went into a depression, which none of her friends (except possibly Scootaloo) bothered to notice and help her with. Instead the whole town focused on praising Mare-Do-Well, who by this point was the prime source of Rainbow's confidence issues. For many people, this gives the impression the episode is fine with pinning everything bad that happened on Rainbow Dash, even when it appears the townspeople and her friends at least share part of the blame for either ignoring or exacerbating Rainbow's attention-seeking problems.
• 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.

First of all, dear god that is a giant wall of text for both entries. This really needs to be trimmed down significantly. It also teeters on the second rule due to the wall of text making it seem like a rambling on their opinion of the episode.

Secondly, these entries break the third rule of the trope, as the loooooong Broken Base entry states that there’s conflict on how you view the actions on both Rainbow Dash and the rest of the Mane Six.

Any ideas on what to do with these?

Edited by PlasmaPower on Oct 29th 2019 at 6:22:51 AM