Hate Sink cleanup

I think one example of misuse comes from Jerry. The description reads as follows:

• The other one, Played for Laughs, is Jerry. Jerry is The Friend Nobody Likes, and is designed to be obnoxious as shit no matter what path you're taking. Pacifists find that Jerry can't be properly spared, only ditched, and he'll come back after a couple of turns if the battle isn't over by then. Murderers find that Jerry is a Stone Wall with massive HP and Defense, so even with their massive attack stat they have to hit him several times before he finally dies. Luckily, you can ditch him without aborting a genocide route.

First off, he is entirely Played for Laughs. I feel like that is already misuse, since his negative qualities are meant to make him funny. It also spends most of the description talking about gameplay, even though Hate Sink is strictly a narrative trope. If Jerry is supposed to be an annoying enemy, intentional or not, then he belongs on Demonic Spiders, not here.

Edited by cwallace135 on Aug 4th 2023 at 6:15:50 AM

Huh. I checked the character page and it doesn't say "played for laughs" on the Hate Sink entry in the character page for Jerry.

That seems suspicious, but first it would be best to judge for negative personality and traits. Yes, it is a Jerkass, and it wastes the time of both you and the monsters' side. It is also with an assigned And There Was Much Rejoicing and Asshole Victim tropes... wait, does people actually being happy with this jerk dying implies and enforces it as a Hate Sink?

Also, Jerry is a Stone Wall and meant to stall your attempt of killing it, so definitely not Demonic Spiders, no. If anything, Jerry still can go to as one of the Goddamned Bats. Oh wait. EDIT: uh, Goddamned Boss?

Actually nevermind, this is a joke anyways. Disregard what I said aside from, he is definitely not a Demonic Spider

Edited by JustNormalMusicLover on Aug 4th 2023 at 11:00:45 PM

I don't believe individual characters can count as Goddamn Bats...

(x3) If I recall correctly, he's too comedic to count, so I believe he should be cut.

Huh. Yeah, I'm surprisingly this one is actually a correct judgement.

Speaking of which, I think it might be helpful to clarify that it is nearly-impossible (if it is even possible) to make a Hate Sink that is played for laughs, honestly. But then, I have a question: how is it even logically possible for making one example of case that is meant to be "funny"? Doesn't "funny" tropes or factors would push a character away from unlikeability? But again, consider how everyone wants to get rid of him because he's "annoying"...

Edited by JustNormalMusicLover on Aug 4th 2023 at 11:24:53 PM

Is Meryl worth keeping? From HateSink.Live Action Films

• The Truman Show: Meryl Burbank is Truman's wife in the show but in the movie's reality she is the Rich Bitch known as Hannah Gill. While her Jerkass attitude can be explained from being forced to sleep and pretend to marry a man she does not love, it does not excuse her being a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. She absolutely does not care about Truman's well-being and doesn't even try to support him even when he's distressed. Even Christof can be somewhat admired for his technological/showrunning genius, Meryl is just unpleasant through and through.

I certainly think so.

Quick cut. Frank from one of my favourites Once Upon a Time in the West:

• Hate Sink: An utterly despicable Child Hater who has no redeemable or likable traits whatsoever. Years ago, he killed off Harmonica's brother in probably the most sadistic way possible, and now he goes and kills off a farming family, including their youngest son. Then he advances on the widow. He is clearly meant to garner much of the viewers' hatred and revulsion as possible.

No redeemable traits? Absolutely! No likeable ones? Hell, no: the guy's a dreaded badass even as a sadistic killer and rapist played by Henry Fonda who gets tons of great lines and he's the ultimate Big Bad brining the other protagonists together to stop his schemes. Way too much of an awesome presence and way too much villainy tied to making the plot happen.

Edited by 43110 on Aug 8th 2023 at 9:07:19 AM

I wanted to bring this one up because I personally felt this one was a bizarre example. It's Lex from the Jurassic Park novel.

• Hate Sink: Lex spends all her time being rude and nasty to Tim, then whining and interrupting the adults talking, then screaming and being completely useless in a crisis, later taunting some dinosaurs and putting everyone in danger, and generally being annoying as possible to absolutely everyone.

If I recall, a Hate Sink is supposed to be a character that's meant to be hated, but while I can see grievances in Lex being annoying, I'm not sure if these are meant to be an example of rooting against her, which is also relevant in HS examples.

Lex is supposed to show what happens when you bring a young child into a dinosaur-infested island and they have no idea how to survive, highlighting how Hammond's determination to open the park is not simply going to get adults killed. As for Lex herself, she's a The Millstone but if she were really a Hate Sink, Crichton would have had Rexy eat Lex and it's not played for tragedy.

Edited by Shadao on Aug 8th 2023 at 8:14:57 AM

Cut Lex, Cut Frank.

New to this thread, so bear with me here. I have two Zelda characters, one I wanna propose, and one (or, rather, a group) that should be cut. I’ll start with the latter. This concerns the Yiga Clan from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom (SPOILERS FOR BOTH GAMES AHEAD):

• Hate Sink: Although Calamity Ganon is the Big Bad of the game, it is more of a mindless force of nature rather than a character, and the monsters it controls don't have any greater agenda beyond hunting and pillaging. As such, the fanatic, murderous and thieving Yiga Clan are the only enemies that players could truly hate, and they don't disappoint in that area, especially if you partake a Shrine sidequest involving the Sheikah Dorian. As it turns out, the Yiga Clan murdered Dorian's wife and threatened to do the same to his daughters, Koko and Cottla, if he doesn't give up information about Link and Kakariko Village. The loss of Dorian's wife left emotional scars on the two daughters, and they would have lost their father as well had Link not given the Yiga Blademaster a well-deserved ass-kicking.

So, the thing about the Yiga Clan is… they're funny. Like, really funny. In BotW, they were taken seriously enough as a terrorist organization that’s willing to kill families in service of Ganon, although the cracks begin to show with their bizarre banana obsession and the reveal that their leader, Master Kohga, is a bumbling idiot who gets his ass handed to him by Link without much effort on the latter’s part.

TotK amps up their comedic traits, bringing them more in line with Master Kohga himself, while also humanizing them a bit. They participate in Kohga’s overdramatic dance introduction, they get sidetracked thinking about bananas in their diary entries, they have perfectly normal conversations with Link before trying to kill him (whereas their conversations with Link in BotW were always off-putting and vaguely threatening), they’ll get enraged if Link damages their precious bananas, they spend their time building ridiculously elaborate vehicles and setting up convoluted traps in efforts to one-up each other and defeat Link, and the list goes on.

On top of that, there’s a fairly beefy sidequest where Link goes undercover and infiltrates the Yiga Clan. He’s mentored by a Yiga Blademaster, who is very polite and encouraging, offering him wisdom about the Clan’s values and traditions. As Link completes each task, the Blademaster congratulates him and compliments his skills, making it clearer and clearer just how much work the Yiga had to do to be inducted into the cult as children. After Link finishes everything, the Blademaster happily allows him into the Yiga Clan Hideout. Instead of your typical Apocalypse Cult worshipping a dark god and hatching diabolical schemes, Link finds what’s essentially a bunch of overgrown children competing with each other, training, eating bananas, and trying to get through the day. It becomes clear that most of the Yiga Clan members are just immature Punch-Clock Villains doing their jobs, and trying to assassinate Link and Zelda and destroy the kingdom of Hyrule is as normal to them as working a 9 to 5.

So, all in all, Tears of the Kingdom plays up the Yiga Clan’s comedic traits and more down-to-earth qualities, to the point that they don’t qualify as a Hate Sink group, especially compared to the Complete Monster they worship.

Edited by Remnant43 on Aug 9th 2023 at 5:21:01 AM

I don't think Yiga Clan count, I recall them being rather comedic.

Quick question: What's your current stance on General Lunaris from the DuckTales revival? On one hand, he's a Complete Monster and a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist, but on the other hand, he an excellent strategist and fighter with a lot of Evil Is Cool factors for him.

I haven't seen the show so apologies if I get some stuff wrong. From what you've spoken about, if Lunaris is meant to be a Hate Sink, then would need to be very openly contemptible and unpleasant even by the standards of other Big Bads. Having a good number of Evil Is Cool moments is a big negating factor in someone's credibility as a HS and if that's the case, then I don't think Lunaris would qualify.

Gonna bring up someone else now, this time being Marlo Stanfield from The Wire. Here's his entry...

• Hate Sink: Given that the series previously operated under Grey-and-Gray Morality, it became abundantly clear that Marlo was intended to be hated. This makes sense, as Marlo is cold, ruthless, self-centered and unsophisticated.

As someone who has seen the show, I'm... not really sure he qualifies? He's definitely the evilest gangster in the show and while he has his moments of unpleasantness, he's never overtly rude, obnoxious, or arrogant, as seen with other HS examples like Bird, Cheese, and "The Fiend", who definitely qualify. From what I've seen, he's always treated as a threatening and intimidating force of evil, but there's strangely very little he does personally that screams "Hate Sink" aside from murdering innocents in cold blood.

Also, even if I was to be contested, I'll still state that his HS entry, as seen above is not well-written and doesn't go into enough detail on why Marlo is a hateable character. So basically, if he doesn't count, we can remove him, and if he does count, I would suggest a rewrite of his entry.

Oh yeah, Cut the Yiga Clan.

Edited by CrimsonShark on Aug 9th 2023 at 11:19:40 AM

As for Lunaris, keep. He’s pretty clearly meant to be seen as egotistical douchebag by the end, to the point that his own people turn against him after he tries to annihilate everyone on Earth and the Ducks are perfectly fine leaving him to a Fate Worse than Death. Sure, he’s a competent fighter, but personality-wise, he’s just an asshole, which is what the main focus of his character is on.

Yeah the Yiga clan are villainous comedic relief. Like infiltrating them reveal their a pretty friendly group to you know their own member's. I don't think it's an example either.

The Yiga Clan entry was written before Age of Calamity and Tears of the Kingdom came out and fleshed the Yiga Clan as something more than just an evil cult. Also back before Hate Sink started having problems of definitions. It's a cut for being outdated.

On the other hand, I’ve been thinking about adding Ganondorf from Tears of the Kingdom, but I was afraid that might cause some pushback or edit warring. Instead, I decided to come here and list the potential reasons for and against his status as a Hate Sink, since this category is… confusing to me at times.

• Evil Is Cool is definitely a factor to consider. This version of Ganondorf is an absolute badass in battle, being by far the most powerful enemy in the franchise (aside from maybe Demise and Majora), is able to command legions of monsters to carry out his will, has some cunning strategies up his sleeve, and is voiced by Matthew Mercer. He’s also Rated M for Manly and has excellent fashion sense.

• On the flip-side, when he’s not in battle, literally everything about his character is absolutely deplorable. He’s a Narcissist and a Sadist who insults resident Nice Guys Link and Rauru for being “weak” and “arrogant”; calls the people of Hyrule “peace-loving cowards”; and murders Queen Sonia, laughs hysterically while watching Zelda cradle her body, and mocks Rauru when he sees his wife dead on the floor. On top of that, it seems like the writers of Tears of the Kingdom went out of their way to make this Ganondorf more despicable than the original. He lacks the Freudian Excuse established in Wind Waker, shows zero respect to Link in any of their encounters (a far cry from the OG Ganondorf, who was willing to compliment Link and even spare him if he felt it was warranted), and seems to be doing everything he does both For the Evulz and because Despotism Justifies the Means. To make matters worse, he sends his monsters to slaughter the Gerudo, his own people, as if the writers specifically wanted to show us that this Ganondorf doesn’t care about them at all (the OG started his path to villainy while trying to gain a better life for the Gerudo). He also responds to losing the final battle by transforming into a dragon to destroy the world, just to spite Link.

As superficially cool as this Ganondorf is, everything about his personality makes it seem like the writers wanted him to be a sadistic, arrogant, and irredeemable Jerkass who spends most of his screentime trying to Kick the Dog as many times as possible. I think he qualifies, but I wanna check and see if this thread agrees so it doesn’t just get taken down if I’m wrong.

Honestly, I say cut Lunaris— he has entertaining moments and is a strategic genius. Cut the Yiga Clan too, and I would not be down to place Ganondorf ad this. He is a badass Blood Knight with lots of Villainous Valor and determination. We are trying to avoid the mentality of "But they're really evil" causing non-keepers to be shoehorned.

Edited by Riley1sCool on Aug 9th 2023 at 4:00:54 AM

Cut the yiga clan. Don't put up Ganon. You know I've been thinking I once argued to keep Flowey. But given the rash of cuts for villains which are intimidating badass threats if nothing else, I'm wondering if Flowey's boss fight disqualifies him. Undertale as a game is very big on Gameplay and Story Integration and meta analysis, so I couldn't say something like he's a story Hate Sink but not a gameplay one. Those things are too heavily intwined for me to even considering. The thing is unlike someone like Hugo who's very badass in his threat and his threat is largely based the forces he commands and how he can turn into a huge giant stone badass, Flowey's entire villainy is based around being a dick. Yes he does have that awesome boss fight, but mostly his personality is based around being a prick. Even Hugo loved Benedikta.

Thoughts?

Edited by jjjj2 on Aug 9th 2023 at 7:29:24 AM

Likewise don't think TOTK!Ganondorf hits this myself. I'd say cut Lunaris, the Yiga Clan, and honestly probably Marlo, too. He's a Complete Monster and unfeeling bastard, but he's got some pretty memorable quotes, strategies and I feel would fit moreso in Love to Hate than someone designed by the creator to be hateable.

As for Flowey? I could go either way on him, he spends the game being a major douche (if a bit of an entertaining one) but his boss fight at the end is amazingly unique and awesome...yet even during it he's still being an absolute dick to the player. But he's also got some tragedy to him, so...

Edited by Ravok on Aug 9th 2023 at 4:25:08 AM

Likewise unsure on Marlo. He's certainly the most unlikeable of the head gangsters, and he can be extremely petty. But he's not without cunning or Bond Villainy. Him dissolving the coop was pretty intimidating.

At this point I'm leaning towards a cut for flowey. A huge Creepy Awesome factor as well.

Cut both Mario and Flowey.

That all makes sense. I’m glad I consulted this thread first.

Oh also, Flowey? I think a cut on account of him being a Tragic Villain with a pretty disturbing backstory, and his defeat is a major Alas, Poor Villain moment.

Edited by Remnant43 on Aug 9th 2023 at 8:19:03 AM

Yeah... I'd sat we cut most of the comedic South park examples too. As Cartman and Gerald are too Laughably Evil and generally too funny to hate.