Jerks Are Worse Than Cleanup Threads

Found under Films — Animation:

• Chicken Little: The title character's father, Buck Cluck, who wants to do right by his son, yet is guilty of continuous Parental Neglect as his son suffers from All of the Other Reindeer. Even though the actual antagonists are aliens trying to conquer Earth, many fans see Buck as a detestable Abusive Parent of the caliber of Lady Tremaine and Claude Frollo.

The bolded portion seems like an exaggeration. I know the character is hated, but I don't think he is as hated as this entry is saying. Should that portion be rewritten? If so, to what?

I'd say just stop it at "detestable Abusive Parent".

Thanks, I've edited the entry as such.

Again, I want to bring up if an Abusive Parent goes beyond being a jerk, as I brought up in the Kindergarten Cop entry.

Well, there's some fans that certainly think that if someone felt the need to put that there. I'd keep that but maybe that's just me.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Mar 7th 2021 at 10:01:29 AM

I'd posit that actively abusing a child — as in, knowingly and deliberately causing them physical or psychological harm — goes well beyond most people's definition of a "jerkass". That, and in the specific case of Kindergarten Cop, the example outright says that the main villain is also guilty of child abuse.

Well, there's people who think D.W. from Arthur is a no-shit sociopath worthy of Complete Monster status, rather than a normally bratty preschooler. Naturally, those examples were removed. We don't have to repeat wild exaggerations and obvious bullshit just because someone somewhere ostensibly feels that way.

Not sure if this is quite the right place to add this observation (I’m still figuring out the forums), but to the points about a Vocal Minority, I don’t think that characters who are hated intensely by only part of an audience should be automatically discarded. I believe that this phenomenon is actually what causes the weird, focused rage that a lot of characters with irrational, focused hatedoms get. Any examples would just need to be written from the outside looking in on the hatedom, not as an excuse for complaining.

YMMV.Aliens

• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Aliens has two antagonists: the predatory Xenomorphs and the greedy and weak Weyland-Yutani representative Burke. The Xenomorphs are terrifyingly beloved for fans, while Burke is so hated even the actor's mother was pleased when he was killed in the film. The characters themselves also share that sentiment, as Ripley chews him out with: "You don't see them (the Xenomorphs) fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage."

Despite the lengthy writeup, it doesn’t explain why he’s hated. I’m more inclined to believe he’s hated for his actions, since he has a Complete Monster entry on the same page describing in detail what he did.

As a side note, The Humans Are the Real Monsters pothole is misuse, since it’s about the human species as a whole, not an individual. Not even the entry on the main page doesn’t give context as to if it applies to the film or not.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Apr 4th 2021 at 3:59:23 PM

I brought up the Aliens entry previously, questioning whether it's appropriate at all.

It didn't get any real discussion. (Post.)

The crowner has been up for months, I think we should finally call it.

I brought that up but I was ignored.

Related to your old post, I noticed that Humans Are the Real Monsters has drifted into being "any human that is eviler than a non-human", which I think is PSOC, rather than "the human race are evil compared to other races". I'm hoping to get a wick check started on that at some point.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Apr 18th 2021 at 3:59:20 PM

What if the jerk is supposed to be seen as worse than the villains? It seems non-YMMV and redundant with Hate Sink in that case?

Is it only for unintentional examples? Or are intentional examples allowed if the greater amount of hate seems irrational?

It's more about the audience reaction, but it does feel like an overlap of Hate Sink (where intentional) and Ron the Death Eater (where it's not).

I think you're right about that. The Wick check is probably a good idea.

I gotta ask, when is an example genuinely getting more hate than a villain and when is it just something that gets brought up more because it's relevant? Because if a movie say, has a supervillain who wants to blow up the Earth and a hero who cheats on his girlfriend without in being condemned by the narrative, it makes sense to me the critics would more often bring up the hero being unsympathetic over villain being objectively worse person and I don't think it's super noteworthy. In those cases it's not really "I hate him more", as much as "I hate him when I shouldn't".

That's more Designated Hero than this trope, and I'm not seeing why that subject would be more "relevant" to discuss. If it's all people can talk about, they probably do hate that hero more than they hate the villain, which is this.

It would obviously be more relevant, because it would be flaw in the narrative and unintended audience reaction. And see, that's the thing-hating a character you are supposed to hate isn't generally something people feel bringing up over hating character you aren't and I don't think it's necessarily sign of what the trope page talks about. Using an actual example, a common point of criticism Atlas Shrugged is how awful the supposed heroes are, which people bring up without adding "also, the cartoonishly evil strawman caricatures of the villains are also real assholes". To me, that's notably different than say, the audience more strongly hating a serial killer's abusive father than the serial killer himself.

But if they don't talk about hating the villain, why would you assume that they do?

Because to me, that's the natural assumption. Better question is why would you assume they don't? If it's because they don't talk about it, as I said, why WOULD they?

Well, fans (and audiences in general) are usually very vocal when it comes to things they hate or love. People not talking about something implies apathy or neutrality. So if they only talk about the unintentionally jerkass heroes and never the villains, there's a very good chance the hero is hated more than the villain is. It's just the way people work- we have a negativity bias, so we'll remember things we dislike. I guarantee that if people genuinely hate a villain, they'd talk about how much they hate that villain. People just enjoy discussing things they hate- look at any Caustic Critic or negative YMMV trope for proof of that.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 4th 2021 at 2:12:28 PM

x4 Haven't read Atlas Shrugged, but it sounds like the villains are not actually characters in that case, just background scenery that exists to set the stage for the main characters.

I'm still wondering whenever the Aliens example qualifies at all. He seems like the main villain and is Love to Hate more than anything.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Jun 7th 2021 at 11:58:37 AM

Thought, make it only apply when the jerks are still treated as antagonists, (Villain Protagonist is exempt because they're point is to embody the traits that make villains too entertaining to dislike as the jerks in question are), even and/or only if minor ones compared to the villains in question.

My sense is this trope was supposed to be the opposite of Realism-Induced Horror, when rather than root against the too out-there and entertaining villains we're supposed to we more root agains the jerks because they are more realistic and grounded. Is that the case or what?

Actually, Realism-Induced Horror is the reason this happens. Because the jerks are more grounded, they're more realistic and fans find their actions a lot more personally grating because they can relate to the hero when they're being yelled at by their boss or slapped by their boyfriend. With that post, I'm wondering if you actually understand this trope or Realism-Induced Horror, since this is a subtrope of that.

Limiting it to Antagonists is hard because Unintentionally Unsympathetic characters evoke this reaction, too.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 7th 2021 at 2:21:48 PM

Apologies for my misunderstanding. I see now how it's supposed to be seen as a sub-trope, but how is JAWTV supposed to be distinct such it warrants a separate trope.

I've never seen this trope used for UU as being a jerk is a strike against it being unintentional. Valid UU entries I've seen (I frequent UU cleanup) are not reasons fans are biased against them (which JAWTV would evoke), but objective narrative shortcomings such they would count even if JAWTV was factored out.

To me JAWTV seems closer to Misaimed Fandom unless it's intentional, then it's redundant with Hate Sink. That's why I think it being when the jerks are supposed to be lesser antagonists but seen as eviler is a key distinction.

Is there anything else about this trope I'm misunderstanding in my assessment?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Jun 8th 2021 at 1:07:07 AM

JAWTV is distinct because it's a specific phenomenon in audience perception and reaction, thus it's worth splitting off.

My stance on including UU characters is that not every jerk is a jerk intentionally. Take, idk... Edward Cullen. He's a classic model of an abusive boyfriend, but he was never meant to be, and some readers found him realistically horrifying as a result and hated him more than they hated the actual villains of the books. Bad writing can make characters into jerkasses without the writer intending them to be jerkasses, and those unintentional jerkasses usually garner more audience hatred than the normal villains do...same as an intentional jerk would. Then again, I also generally feel that for YMMV author intent really doesn't make a difference- whether or not they meant to write a jerk, if they still wrote a jerk, it's viable. I'm not sure how you can "factor JAWTV out" of the equation, since the concepts overlap, and they don't otherwise affect each other.

As for Hate Sink, I mean, those usually exist to fill the void of there not even being a villain to hate, so I'd say that trope is distinct mostly because it usually exists in works where they need a hatred lightning-rod and don't have anyone actually evil around, or don't have any villains that the audiences can properly latch onto. The villains should at least have a character that we can point to for the contrast; they can hardly be hated or liked if they're barely a character at all.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 8th 2021 at 4:17:34 AM