Too Bleak, Stopped Caring

Given the series is internationally popular and award winning, and the example seems to just say "the end is dark and that's bad" with a lot more words, yeah I'd say its misuse.

On YMMV.The Xs:

• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: While the idea of a spy family was interesting, some think the show executed it very poorly. With the family's ridiculous actions, and lack of skill when it comes to fighting crime, and their Jerkass personalities. Not to mention their ungratefulness towards Homebase and treating him like garbage.

To my memory, The X's was not a bleak show in the slightest. It's just kind of a typical Nickelodeon cartoon with typical Nickelodeon cartoon humor and character archetypes. It's probably less "bleak" than, I dunno, Invader Zim, which I think also would not count. Cut?

That doesn't even sound like TBSC, it's just listing a bunch of different flaws.

Cut.

I wanted to add this to YMMV.Secret Invasion 2023:

• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: One of the biggest criticisms of the show is how hopeless it seems compared to the MCU's other fare. Many thought Nick Fury came across a Designated Hero, with the reveal that he became a famous spy due to using Skrulls to do his dirty work by leveraging their desire for a new world and generally looking incompetent without improving himself. The rogue Skrulls themselves, despite being intended to have a layer of sympathy to them, came across as no better than the Kree, since they still planned on engineering a nuclear holocaust. Additionally, Talos, one of the few hopeful characters, is killed off by Gravik in the fourth episode. Unlike the Humans Are Flawed approach of the MCU, Humans Are Bastards is in full effect, thus making the conflict seem pointless due to a lack of sympathy.

I think TBSC needs people to start caring and then stop.

Secret Invasion was pretty much a misfire from the word go.

If it's part of a larger franchise that people did care about, then would it count there?

that's a good question. I know there's been some back and forth about that sort of thing recently with other audience reaction tropes, and how they should be applied to a portion of a franchise.

My first instinct is to say no, such a reaction trope should only apply to the work itself, because once you start allowing such things that need to be measured in some way, even if it's imprecise, apply to something as big and massive as the MCU, you open the floodgates to all sorts of vague, meta examples.

But others might feel differently.

Edited by ArthurEld on Dec 21st 2023 at 12:52:05 PM

We should be cautious of the desire to apply Too Bleak, Stopped Caring to works that we don't like, regardless of whether they satisfy the actual criteria for the trope. If we root for any of the characters, or if the heroic side achieves meaningful goals, then it's not TBSC, even if you, personally, didn't care about the story.

Secret Invasion fills some of the criteria: it kills off characters in ways that seem meaningless and fails to fully resolve its larger conflict, but there is a clear victory against the main villain and the ending contains hopeful tones.

Edited by Fighteer on Dec 21st 2023 at 2:22:41 PM

I feel like secret invasion isn't an example for the reasons that if people didn't csre. They woudkt have reacted so badly when it crashed and burned like game of thrones.

I genuinely think we're too strict with Too Bleak, Stopped Caring in ways that constrict us from talking about genuine, notable fandom reactions

The problem is it's a beacon for complaining, just like Narm.

Restrictions are needed so it doesnt apply to just about everything with a "dark" premise, from The Sopranos to GTA.

Many examples of misuse that are currently still on the wiki dont even attempt to document fan reactions as a whole. They just list things like "the characters on this show are jerks" "things go from bad to worse on this show" and "after X seasons, the characters have gone through so much trauma you just want to give then a hug."

D.O.A.:

• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Probably one of the most depressing of the Film Noir at the height of the genre, in which the protagonist is already murdered and his death was a Senseless Sacrifice.^note Detour was probably the only one more alienating.

Not only is this example light, but it just seems to be complaining that film is dark.

Edited by SharkToast on Dec 23rd 2023 at 4:14:10 AM

Cut. Just more "dark movie is depressing" misuse.

From Mistborn: The Original Trilogy

• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: At the beginning of The Hero Of Ages, Ruin has returned and is poisoning the minds of everyone with a Hemalurgic Spike, the Mists are slowly starving the already paltry crops of the empire, the Steel Inquisitors have an army of 300,000 koloss, and the entire world is slowly being smothered in ash. The heroes are trying to fix all this, but only have some faint leads on how to. Happy days.

So I added part about the heroes trying to fix things not knowing about this thread, now that I do, this isn't an example.

There's plenty of cool, heartwarming, and funny moments in The Hero of Ages for this to not count. It also has a bittersweet, but mostly happy ending. From the reactions I've seen I don't even think there's Angst Aversion, let alone story-ruining darkness. The only "I put the book down" reactions I've seen are because people got invested and needed a minute after an emotional beat, not lack of investment. The trilogy is well received critically and in the general fandom.

The only thing close to a too bleak reaction actually comes from the previous book, The Well of Ascension where some did not like the villain, Staff Venture, who is quite prominent and even gets a bit of his own POV story line, because he's both a Hate Sink and Complete Monster, and effectively some found that he was so vile he was boring. Also the ending of that book features A potentially redeemable villain failing to redeem and dying, the heroes attempts to hold off Straff from attacking a city failing, with him siccing and army on the city resulting in mass slaughter and abrupt and brutal deaths for several named characters dying in rapid succession, with The Heart of a team having a full-on breakdown as a result. (Though Straff gets a cathartic death during that) Finally, the main heroine makes a choice that would result in her love interest dying (though he ends up surviving) to seal Ruin away, except that's exactly what Ruin wanting, with what she did actually releasing Ruin and starting the apocalypse. This isn't to say that that book should get this trope, it doesn't seem to get the reaction for that, and I personally found the ending effective. This is to say, if the trilogy's darker content would turn you away, you would never have even made it to The Hero of Ages.

Overall its the last book of a fantasy trilogy, that while not really all that dark, goes to some dark places. The situation will be dire. Cut.

I originally added this on YMMV.Metamorphosis 2013:

• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: A common criticism is that it's such a relentlessly depressing story that it's hard to finish (no pun intended) or even get invested in from the get-go. The reworking of the ending into a Show Within a Show was a direct response to this sentiment.

However, the page also has an Angst Aversion entry that's essentially a ZCE:

• Angst Aversion: Unsurprisingly, those who already know what happens prefer not to read it.

and I'm wondering if the TBSC entry should be struck and its text used to replace that of the Angst Aversion entry.

Someone just put Miraculous Ladybug on the Western Animation category. I don’t think it can count, can it?

I doubt it would. As an outside observer, it does not seem darker than any other 'teen superhero action show'. Easy cut.

From YMMV Dune

• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: People who are only familiar with the film or video game adaptations are very likely to suffer this when they start to read the novels, as, unlike the films and the video games, the novels have very few, if any, genuinely likeable characters, with the Atreides family and the Fremen becoming more ruthless as the series goes on. Not to mention Leto II turning pretty much into a tyrannical and self-loathing Villain Protagonist in order to save mankind from stagnation.

• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: The world of Dune is a bleak, deterministic universe full of unsympathetic heroes and villains. Paul Atreides is a Manipulative Bastard and Dark Messiah who embarks on a genocidal quest for revenge following the massacre of his household using an army of religious fanatics who slaughter billions across the galaxy in his name- he is the protagonist. Paul's enemies are House Harkonnen- depraved, power-hungry psychopaths and sexual sadists with next to zero sympathetic qualities- and a hodgepodge of corrupt politicians, secretive cults and crooked drug-peddling business mutants. It is firmly established that Paul is both horrified by the atrocities he has unleashed on humanity and at the same time a puppet of millennia-spanning plans and his own supernatural prescience, meaning his own agency and those of every other character is constantly in question, which arguably results in a Broken Aesop as Paul is meant to be a warning against blindly following messianic religious saviours yet his own attempts to avert becoming just that either fail or make things much worse.

So not only did someone add an overly long second entry under the old trope name about a week back, but I feel like Dune is too acclaimed for this, right? It's a dark series, but it's spoken of very highly, and considered a definitive and classic series. This feels more like Angst Aversion.

Yeah, it's a definite cut.

It's also a bit insulting in the sense that it is essentially saying "people who come to the movies first won't like the books at all, cause they're different."

Except...plenty of people who read the books first also liked the movie, which is different. There's absolutely no reason to think there wouldn't be a transfer in the other direction.

That's about what I thought. Though should I put an Angst Aversion entry or no?

Also any thoughts on the Mistborn entry I brought up in post #639? It's been ignored.

Um, I dunno. Most of the conversations I hear about the Dune books to potential new readers has more to do with the political nature of the plot, the somewhat dry, old fashioned nature of its prose, and how wild things get after the first book.

There's really not a lot about "be warned about the darkness of the endings" or anything like that. It doesn't really have a reputation for angst in that way.

yeah, i'm seconding that. it doesn't need an Angst Aversion entry.

Edited by fullmusicbard on Mar 13th 2024 at 8:35:09 AM

Those are grossly insulting entries that should be removed with prejudice.