Hate Sink cleanup

Is Mysterio a keeper? I mean yeah he's a Complete Monster, but I don't think that in and of itself makes him a Hate Sink. He has some charisma, funny moments, and cool technology.

Being a Complete Monster has little to do with being a Hate Sink- you can be a fun character and a Complete Monster, or completely dislikable and yet not pure evil. This isn't really the sort of thread for example approval, we're trying to shift our attention on actual misuse or discussing confusing things.

I think they were questioning if he should be deleted not wether they want to approve him

We had a lengthy discussion about him back in the EP days, I'm also for holding off on deleting or rewriting and such til after a TRS thing

I know, but this still isn't really that kind of thread; you don't need thread approval to delete misused examples, though if it's really that murky then I guess it's okay.

I'm really just trying to keep the thread from descending into chaos.

I'm just asking if he should be deleted before I unwittingly start another edit war.

Yeah, he probably should. He's not utterly unlikable- he's just evil.

And I wasn't trying to jump on you specifically. This thread just has a history of being used in ways it shouldn't be and I'm trying to make sure it's not abused again.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 20th 2020 at 11:22:29 AM

Well. I unfortunately can't edit it out myself because I'm suspended...:/

I can take care of it.

Thanks pal!

I'm...gonna try to share those thougts tommorw, still feeling a bit, nervous and maybe unprepared

I shall be there as well. But for anyone that mentions endangering civilians with his Engineered Heroics, or performing Mind Rape on the hero and then revealing his secret identity to the world, I'm just gonna mention that Syndrome also did the former one while Scarecrow did the latter two and neither of them are Hate Sinks.

Edited by WoodsyGrabass2019 on Oct 20th 2020 at 1:10:11 PM

Right. It's not about being heinous so much as just being thoroughly unlikable and designed to get on the audience's nerves. Mysterio was a villain doing villain things- if anything that dude from Peter's class is more of a HS. You know the one. The one who tried to steal MJ. He's more unlikable on a personal level and that's his main contribution to the movie.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 20th 2020 at 1:12:19 PM

Kylo you got anything buddy or are you good to withdraw and we can work out whatever's going on with the TRS?

I was gonna ask about a character. If that’s not what we’re doing right now though, it can wait.

The one not named Flash? Because Flash was a Hate Sink in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Not Flash. Brad I think his name was. Flash was actually made sympathetic in Far From Home with the whole Parental Neglect thing.

Thanks for asking 43

Just...gimme a while, I do plan to share an objection to cutting Mysterio later.(I'm having a surprisingly busy day today)

Question....who exaclty is handling that TRS thing? I wanted to talk to them first but neither Jay or Sky are apparently doing it.

Edited by Snoketrope on Oct 22nd 2020 at 7:05:35 AM

Not sure, ccorb has started the wick check though to move this into a correction of misuse thread rather than one propagated with people arguing why someone is/isn't a Hate Sink. Do you think you can get this done soon? I get you've got stuff to do and are getting anxiety about the reaction but it's also unfair to the entirety of the rest of the thread to hold out doing things because one person has concerns. Your voice matters but we also can't completely halt everything indefinitely until you decide it's time to share your thoughts.

I understand, is this about the Mysterio objection or my issue on the EP thing?

Cover it all please. Jay just did a nice job laying out why much of the argument for keeping him falls in line with “Is the villain” as opposed to “The guy’s only purpose is to make you want to punch him.” Most of us are in agreement and we’re trying to move away from the and entertaining back and forth arguing ties into the concern most of us have that effort posts still have a supporter.

Well with Mysterio, I personally find this whole 'Purpose' thing...a bit flawed and overly complicated, make no mistake I can see where they're coming from, but the argument as far as I can see it(Admitedly I could be misunderstanding it and please correct me If I'm wrong) seems to be 'Other traits aside from hateable ones exist', which is a process I personally find very Flawed, I prefer to judge about where the emphasis is placed.

The spades king from Deltarune is the villain of Chapter 1 and has a pretty cool boss Fight and powers, and a slightly sympathetic past but the Emphasis is firmly in how he's an Abusive, Petty asshole.

Mysterio wasn't put up because he was Heinous, he was put up do to being a Spiteful manchild who gets really personal with his villainy.

I also disagree with Jay on private messages that the Film plays Quentins past as 'Sympathetic'

And then of course there's the EP thing....Well My issue is basically that this wasn't an easy Example being proposed with the EP format, it was a post saying a Non example counted that briefly alluded to what was up there, and I really disagree with the idea that how we used to do things is what led to that happening, people thinking this trope is just 'Charachter I dislike' is common

The big thing that Bugs me is that it just feels like a recurring issue to me of pinning any sort of problem on either the Format or the old days. Soon after it was taken down someone came over to still ask about if 2 charachters counted.

There we go....there is my thoughts, while I'm nervous I will not delay the thread for that fact.

Edited by Snoketrope on Oct 23rd 2020 at 7:42:31 AM

My concerns over Mysterio are:

• That the audience is capable of walking away not hating him, because as a villain he was really cool. If a villain is to be a Hate Sink, they need to be exceptionally awful and lack any Evil Is Cool qualities, but Mysterio was smart, strong, well-written, and impactful. As an audience member I left saying "damn" rather than "wow, fuck that guy".
• They did portray his backstory as sympathetic. Stark mistreating him turned him toward his life of crime. It established that as messed up as he was he wasn't without motive or tragedy.
• Finally, I still maintain that the only actual Hate Sink in the film is Brad, Peter's classmate. Mysterio was a complex and interesting villain that had a lot of cool scenes. Brad's only role was to stand in the way of Peter and MJ's romance and he was a flatter, less interesting replacement to Flash, who gained sympathetic traits in this film. You leave the film satisfied that Brad got rejected and knocked down a peg, while Mysterio can inspire fans due to being a genuinely cool villain.

This is why I think his worst traits and actions exist to establish him as a villain, not as a Hate Sink.

It also gives me less confidence in the EP method. It's too easy to overlook nuance if you're just trying to look at his actions in a vacuum. Granted, I'm generally opposed to EPs in general because while they have their place, they come off as too beaurocratic for me and have the tendency to isolate thread groups; a cleanup thread should be about finding bad examples and going over disagreements (like we're doing now), not for people to pitch examples. My concern has never been over the misuse of the trope itself (though it's definitely an issue), but instead over people having the idea in their heads that HS examples need to be approved, which isn't how cleanup threads are meant to operate unless in special circumstances. That can be blamed on the EP stuff.

Edit: Feels like some of the disagreement here is based on what our metric for "hateable" is. For me, the pettier and less competent a character is, the more hateworthy they are. Being able to back up their ego makes a villain so much more enjoyable and respectable than being a cowardly little jerkass- and for me that's what screams "Hate Sink". When a character can't even be enjoyed for the villain they are because you can't find reason to enjoy their scenes. That's not to say they need to be 100% irredeemable but the emphasized, hateworthy traits need to be hateworthy in a way that makes them a magnet for audience disgust and rage, while villains often end up being loved because their evil was balanced out by competence, coolness, or notability.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 23rd 2020 at 11:06:01 AM

Thankyou for laying out your argument in a respectful and reasonable way Jay...its really appreciated, On the EP situation. I actually sort of feel the opposite, the purpose was to avoid looking at Charachters actions in a Vacuum of sorts, and meant to give Full context when discussing things, atleast if it was properly done.

I also don't feel like the EP stuff is the reason, atleast far from the sole one, that there has been an issue with people feeling the need to come here for Approval, there are countless times people have came here to ask about charachters without making an EP for it.

On Quentin...his past of Becoming a mass murdering psycho as a result of feeling he'd been snubbed has always been something I feel is a big reason why he counts as this not a reason against. It emphasizes how much of a Petty Attention Whore he really is.

I also disagree with the Idea of a HS needing to lack any sorts of cool traits or anything the audience might find likeable...there's a number of charachters who have things that the Audience could find likable, but are still clearly intended to be hated first and foremost. Frollo has a badass villain song and some Complexity, but the writers have made clear he's meant to be a revoltingly evil Bigot.

Edited by Snoketrope on Oct 23rd 2020 at 8:24:30 AM

And yet, Frollo is one of Disney's most beloved villains for being the epitome of Realism-Induced Horror. See the issue here? Villains can get away with a lot of terrible things if the audience thinks they're cool or scary enough. For me, that's where Mysterio falls- he's just so damn badass in his fight scenes and so intelligent and powerful that it makes his villainy more tolerable.

For me, I can draw parallels to House Of Anubis. Villains like Rufus and Senkhara are vile and petty and unsympathetic, but fans love them for being fun and intimidating villains. The villains who get the hatred are ones like Vera Devenish, who was just Rufus's minion, and who is hated primarily for her Kick the Dog moments, creepy romance with Victor, and her lack of any entertaining traits- she's just not fun to watch, and that's what makes her one of the most hated characters in the show (by design), while Rufus and Senkhara are adored by fans despite being so much worse. Villains can be horrific and vile and abusive and still be liked by fans if they're entertaining or interesting enough. But if a character is awful to the point of making you dread their scenes upon a rewatch...

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 23rd 2020 at 11:34:38 AM

I think the issue is taking into account audience thoughts....What I prefer to do and what one of the good things stressed in the old days is to seperate audience reaction to what the writer actually intended

Edited by Snoketrope on Oct 23rd 2020 at 8:43:47 AM