The main concern of a Hate Sink is whether the narrative treats the character as someone intended to be despised.
The character in question must actually display detestable qualities, and be hated by other characters at least, or treated by the narrative like someone you are supposed to hate. The author's declared intent cements an example, but is not needed if the narrative itself treats the character as someone who is supposed to be hated.
A Hate Sink may have charismatic traits, a troubled past, or complexity, but in order for this trope to be in effect, such traits must be de-emphasized by the narrative in favour of their detestable traits.
Please note that we do not use Effort Posts.
Edited by gjjones on Dec 3rd 2020 at 7:43:25 AM
Characters in comedies can be Hate Sinks so long as their detestable qualities are emphasized above all else. Chew Toys can also qualify, considering the audience is supposed to enjoy seeing them suffer.
Edited by SkyCat32 on Oct 19th 2019 at 2:16:19 PM
Alright, will write up Athaliah up soon, but for now, decided to do this one.
Who is he? What has he done?
King Herod
or Herod the Great was a puppet king of sorts that was set up by the Romans as the Jewish leader of Judah. He was a man who...was largely disliked. I mean, you're talking about a guy who killed both of his own sons out of jealousy at their growing popularity and his favorite wife Miriam, so of course, he had that going for him. As far as the New Testament goes, he is mentioned in the Book of Matthew where he is alerted to the birth of the Messiah. Frightful of this potential challenge to his rule, Herod...appoints the Wise Men to report back to him when they found the newborn king so he could "worship him" for himself. But of course, this turned out to be a ruse and he was really intending on killing the baby.
But as you know, when the Wise Men go the other direction, Herod sends for his men to execute all baby boys two and under in Bethlehem in an event known as the Massacre of the Innocents. But he is thwarted when Joseph is alerted in a dream by an angel to take himself and his family to Egypt and remain there until he died.
What makes him personally despicable?
According to the scriptures, killing dozens of infants.
Complexity? Freudian Excuse? Evil Is Cool?
No. Practically no one in recorded history had ever had anything good to say about Herod.
Conclusion
Putting aside my personal feelings about the unlikeliness of the Massacre of the Innocents actually happening, the scriptures very clearly make Herod out as someone that was widely hated. Even outside of the Bible.
Edited by AustinDR on Oct 18th 2019 at 7:26:45 AM
First proposal on this site, and I'm getting this one from John Wick: Chapter 2.
Who's the candidate?
Santino D'Antonio, the main antagonist of Baba Yaga's second outing, and Italian crime boss head.
What does he do?
As a man wanting nothing but power, Santino attempts to abuse the Blood Marker he has on John to have his sister, a member of the High Table, assassinated and let him take her place. Since this was just a few days after John declared his retirement and fought off the Russian Mob to get his car back, he declines, so Santino blows up his house to force him into doing the deed. After John complies, he betrays him by abusing his new power tot put a contract on him, and unlike Iosef, with full knowledge of what he's capable of, all the while only relying on the other assassins to do the job while he's content to run and hide.
Personally despicable?
In a World of Badass rife with people who exude Evil Is Cool (Mr. Wick, most of the other assassins) or are too pathetic to hate (Iosef), Santino stands out as a Smug Snake and Dirty Coward who thinks he's way more powerful than he realizes just because he (seemingly) has the Baba Yaga under his grip. He's so much of a prick that John is willing to risk being excommunicado from the Hotel Continental and have every possible assassin out for his head just to finally shut him up.
Redeeming qualities?
Sure the rules say that a Blood Marker is to be honored, but Santino went too far with his methods all for the sake of power he knows he can never get on his own.
Verdict?
Yes for me.
Berserk Button: misusing Berserk Button
Santino.
I noticed that there are two drafts for Amon Goeth on the drafts page. Should the second one be deleted?
Also, after much delay, here is the Hopkins writeup:
- Sound of the Sky: Colonel Hopkins, the Demon of Vindt, eventually establishes himself as both the main antagonist and the embodiment of the cruelty of war. Though nominally on the same side as the heroines of the 1121st Platoon, as they are both in the Helvetian army, he is a vile man with a desire to destroy Rome for little reason other than his love of war. In the past, he had manipulated Noel Kannagi into releasing the Invisible Reaper, a plague that wiped three cities off the map, which haunts her to this day. In the present, he desires to execute the Roman soldier A'isha Aldola and blame her death on his superiors in order to reignite the war, mocking the girls as he takes over the platoon and boots them out for that purpose. He also espouses his twisted belief that War Is Glorious and advances human civilization, in direct contrast to the anti-war heroines. Upon learning that Rome has ordered a ceasefire, he takes the entire town hostage and later outright tries to murder the girls in frustration. Showing a disturbing willingness to manipulate and kill innocent girls to pursue his ambition, Colonel Hopkins is a sociopath willing to drag two nations back into war just to satisfy his craving for bloodshed.
Edited by MasterN on Oct 18th 2019 at 11:47:31 AM
One of these days, all of you will accept me as your supreme overlord.- Pulp Fiction: Zed and Maynard are two brothers whose favourote hobby is kidnapping and raping various men. When boxer Butch Coolidge and crime boss Marsellus Wallace end up in Maynard's pawn shop during an unrelated conflict, Maynard locks both in his basement and calls Zed in. The two elect to rape Waplace furst, referring to him by a racial slur when they decide, while forcing Butch to wait for his turn under guard if their personal Sex Slave the Gimp. The duo are so cruel that Butch can't bring himself to leave Wallace in their clutches despite the crime boss trying to kill him that same day.
Here's Jacques write-up. As always, feel free to edit.
RWBY: Jacques Schnee is Weiss's abusive and controlling father. Prior to the events of the show, Jacques married into the Schnee name purely for profit - a fact that drove his wife to alcoholism when she found out - and turned the Schnee Dust Company into a sweatshop that uses Faunus as cheap labor. In Volume 4, after an incident at a charity fund, Jacques slaps Weiss during an argument, and disinherits her from the family name and detains her in her own home. A greedy, cold-hearted sociopath, Jacques truly cares for no one but himself.
Edited by Connor2107 on Oct 19th 2019 at 12:54:20 PM
Well that depends on which you'll prefer. If you think that the top draft is better, I shall delete the bottom one. Vice versa, we may be open to combinations.
Herod and Santino.
Can a character be a Hate Sink for a single installment and then become sympathetic? I'm up in the air whether or not Sansa Stark in the first book of A Song of Ice and Fire was supposed to be seen as annoying and bullying, then is horribly broken when her father is executed and her betrothed has his guards beat her, among a bunch of other things. She's got The Scrappy label on the YMMV page for the first installment.
Edited by k410ren on Oct 19th 2019 at 9:29:59 AM
"I'll show you the Dark Side." CM actors and kills
to Jacques. While he slapped Weiss that only happened after Weiss said that Jacques will never be truly part of the Schnee family. And during the incident at fundraiser Weiss had almost killed an innocent if rude woman. Jacques is also treated as someone who sees the bigger picture. Someone who does the right things for the wrong reasons. He is basically the only one who opposes Ironwood's increasingly dictatorial rule. Plus Jacques' first appearance in the series is him evacuating his daughter from a place that was overrun by monsters, terrorists and hacked robots, because he was worried about her safety. Word of God is also that Weiss will see things differently regarding her family and from their POV. I think it is better to wait until the end of the Atlas arc, since by that point it should be clear what the writer's intention is for Jacques.
I would like to remove Yhwach from Bleach, whose character page has a Hate Sink entry. The reason for this is because the author himself considers Yhwach as someone who is an antagonist but not a villain. He also considers him and his faction to be equal morality wise with the Shinigami faction. But regardless of that, the manga states that Yhwach had noble goals, as he wanted to rescue his father from what is a fate worse than death and bring back the true, original world, where everyone can live without fear, and prevent that the main protagonist Ichigo will not be sacrificed by the Shinigami to suffer the same Fate Worse than Death as Yhwach's father. A series of novels that continue plot points the author was unable to finish in the mains series, due to his illness, reveal that Yhwach used to be hero but that being tortured for a million years corrupted him. Several Shinigami like Shunsui, Hisagi, Tosen or Aizen have sympathy for him, while the majority of the Quincy have undying loyalty to him, in some cases even literal.
Edited by bandersnitch on Oct 19th 2019 at 8:07:15 AM
Jacques is presented as a smug asshole who abuses his family emotionally, treats Weiss as a tool to control and comes off as horrible in general. I think he's fine to add right now.
I'm also kind of tired of "the manga states Yhwach had noble goals." The novels aren't the manga, and Kubo presents him as Hitler with a Jesus aesthetic.
Jacques first appearance in the series was evacuating Weiss from Beacon. Yang said everyone outside Beacon saw how the Grimm attacked it and that the last thing everyone saw before all transmission was lost, was how the Atlas army begun to attack Beacon. So Jacques hurried to Beacon to bring his daughter to safety. He is also presented as someone who makes valid points. Against Ironwood he rightly pointed out how his dictatorial policies are hurting Atlas and with scolding Weiss, he had a point since Weiss had almost killed an innocent civilian. Jacques has been portrayed in different light so far and as I said, Word of God is that Weiss is going to see things from the perspective of her family and maybe make up with them. Hence I think it is better to wait until the Atlas arc, where Weiss and Jacques will gain more prominence until we can make one final call.
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Word of God is that Yhwach is an antagonist but not a villain and that he is not worse than the protagonist side. That means that Yhwach was never intended to be hated. The novels are canon and show things Kubo intended to put in the manga but couldn't because of his illness. And the manga had presented Yhwach's goals as noble, because again he
a) tried to save his father from a fate worse than death
b) tried to prevent Ichigo suffering that same fate
c) tried to create a world where people don't have to live in fear and where he can live without having to kill people.
Yea to Herod, Santino, and Jacques.
So, seeing as the creators supposedly (I haven't found exactly where, I'd greatly like to find out) said Adam Taurus was supposed to become somewhat sympathetic in his last moments, where does that leave him in relation to this trope? Personally, I always had a bit too much sympathy for him (The bastard is clearly delusional) but that's self-acknowledged Misaimed Fandom and They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character.
New EP.
What is the Work?
Northanger Abbey is a Jane Austen novel published posthumously in 1817 and a satire of Gothic novels. It tells the story of Catherine Morland, a 17-year-old who is invited by her neighbors the Allens to
Who is the Candidate and What Does He Do?
John Thorpe is a friend of Catherine's elder brother James and brother of Isabella, who Catherine strikes a friendship with. Thorpe vies for Catherine's hand and sees another acquaintance of hers, Henry Tilney, as a rival. So Thorpe makes several attempts to sabotage relations between Catherine and the Tilneys, telling Catherine that they had left in a carriage when they were on their way to go on a walk with Catherine, and lying to the Tilneys themselves that Catherine had already agreed to walk with him, Isabella and James. Thorpe then deceives Henry's father General Tilney into believing that Catherine is the Allens' heiress, so the General, a typically stern, serious man, treats Catherine cordially to the surprise of everyone. James proposes to Isabella, and Thorpe leaves for London to help James choose a ring, crudely telling Catherine of his feelings before he leaves.
Thorpe is mostly absent for the second half of the book while Catherine is staying with the Tilneys at their home Northanger Abbey, and from what Isabella tells Catherine, he thinks that he made as good as an offer to Catherine. While on business in London, General Tilney bumps into Thorpe. Angry about Catherine rejecting his half-proposal, Thorpe lies to the General again, telling him that he was misinformed, and that Catherine's family are penniless and that Catherine is a Gold Digger. The General, in high dudgeon, races home at once and has Catherine thrown out of the house and forbids Henry from marrying her. Thankfully everything is settled when Henry's sister marries a Viscount and it's revealed that Catherine isn't as poor as Thorpe said she was (Henry, as a clergyman, holds the same job as Catherine's father), so the General can make allowances for Henry.
What makes him personally despicable?
He's a bad conversationalist as he talks of nothing but horses and carriages, swears in front of the women (verboten in Austen's time), and is a shameless manipulative liar. Most false leads in a Jane Austen Love Triangle have some veneer of charm (George Wickham) or redeeming qualities (Henry Crawford); Thorpe has none of those, and is the closest thing to a Big Bad in any of Austen's books as he is responsible for a good percentage of Catherine's problems (the other reason is that she thinks she's in a Gothic romance and sometimes makes wrong assumptions).
The ITV version takes this up a notch and makes him into a full-on Stalker with a Crush as he watches Catherine dance with Henry early in the film before he's properly introduced, and Catherine has a dream of Henry dueling John in the rain.
Freudian Excuse? Evil Is Cool? Mitigating Circumstances?
None, really. He's a male Gold Digger and that's about it.
Verdict?
He fits, in my point of view.
Edited by k410ren on Oct 19th 2019 at 4:24:44 AM
"I'll show you the Dark Side." CM actors and killsI think we can have Adam up as an example of growing out of this. He was clearly meant to be hated before V6.
In V6 he always came off as essentially a wild dog that needed to be put down. And his death scene, admittedly always gave me Alas, Poor Villain vibes. With Word of God saying that was the intention seeming to Solidify that.
Things are really about to get Fun around here

Yes to Maynard, Zed and Jacques Ass.
Can characters in comedies be Hate Sinks? Like I can think of one right off the bat, Jeff Fecalman from Family Guy who was a surprisingly chilling example of a male Domestic abuser. And he was removed from CM because Peter, Brian, and Quagmire do equally bad things but we're supposed to root for them. Or is he already up?