They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot Cleanup

Yes, my main question is if they would count since a few pages back it was stated "Saying they wasted a character that didn't actually appear is misuse." And both these characters were the focus of their respective episodes, but were later Demoted to Extra.

The reason "a character should have appeared" is misuse is because it's playing off fandom desires, not the content of the work itself. If the character did appear, that's different. But I agree it may work better on the general pages.

Okay, that makes sense. And I think I would move the examples to the general page.

Also, my doubt was due to another example, in Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling, of a similar nature.

And the page also has an example of "wasted plots."

The latter outright says it is "justified" that they didn't due to time constrains basically. And the former is based just on a single scene making fun of gritty reboots, not an actual plot. So it basically sounds like, "They should have derailed the plot to make sure to complain better aboutt his thing."

Yeah, those first two are blatant "wish fulfillment" episodes, especially because most of those characters appeared to have only appeared in one episode, so it's not like they were so major you'd expect them to return.

I can kind of get the last one, since the special discusses but does not show this, but it was a plot point that we didn't see Rachel's journey — it was a mystery where she had gone. I could rework it as a Fanfic Fuel entry? NVM it's already listed.

Edited by mightymewtron on May 21st 2022 at 1:51:52 PM

I didn't get any further feedback on my post here, so I've tried to rewrite the entries as follows. Any feedback? (The originals are in the folder below.)

• The White Fang racism plot was set up at the beginning of the show to not just be important for Blake's background, but also for Weiss's, given her family's role in perpetrating Faunus inequality in Atlas. The writers acknowledged they struggled to handle racism well, and eventually wrapped up the storyline at the end of Volume 5, with Blake's connection (Adam) being wrapped up at the end of Volume 6. However, the wrap-up reveals the importance of Atlas and Weiss's family to Adam's story and the earlier racism plot just before the Atlas Arc begins; this suggests the storyline ended too early, shying away from an on-screen exploration of its origins in favour of a storyline about Mantle's economic inequality with Atlas.
• In Volume 6, Team RWBY learns the Awful Truth about Salem first, and Team JNR learns it later on. Both occasions focus on their reactions rather than Oscar, who receives abuse as characters lash out at Ozpin. Oscar disappearing after Jaune attacks him seems like a set-up for exploring Oscar's reaction and Loss of Identity situation, but instead is a plot device for Team JNR — Jaune especially — to come to terms with the loss of Pyrrha while Oscar is handled off-screen. Although his storyline kicks off in Volume 7, Volume 6 appears to set up and then avoid a storyline about how Oscar comes to the decision to accept his fate and find his own place in the team, one that's independent of his connection to Ozpin.

Edited by Wyldchyld on May 22nd 2022 at 3:40:14 AM

This example I removed was brought to ATT.

• Wanda's story marks the first time an MCU Avenger has ever done a true Face–Heel Turn, but the change happens almost entirely offscreen between the end of WandaVision and the beginning of this film, except for one 30-second tag scene of her reading the Darkhold and hearing her children's voices.

I removed it as WandaVision was that plot, showing how the trauma she went through throughout the MCU drove her to that change, with the children just being the thing that pushed her over the edge. Can't say it's unused if a whole prior series (if it was an after the fact response to TWAPGP complaints it would count but this isn't the case) was dedicated to it.

ATT currently leans to cutting over, but said to take here over questions about the scope of TWAPGP.

We're not entirely certain what the scope of the trope actually is, but yeah, it sounds like that should be cut. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has become more like the Marvel Comics Universe than a traditional film series, and Multiverse of Madness is as much a sequel to Wandavision as it is to Doctor Strange.

The Psych example from a while back is also inaccurate. A recurring character does die.

The reason I brought up that ATT is that WandaVision does not in my opinion explain that fall to Darkness at all. The End of WandaVision is more hopeful, in that she stops what she's doing and gives up Vision and her kids for the greater good when the fact she's hurting people breaks through her denial and she realises what she's doing.

So it feels like a valid complaint about the movie (at least for YMMV not everyone will agree) but it depends if it should fall under They Wasted A Perfectly Good Plot or not.

I don't think it does just because the plot happened... just off screen.

I don't know enough about the MCU to comment but things happening offscreen and not being explored should still count as TWAPGP cuz it doesn't actually get a proper plot. However, if the plot gets explored in a spinoff, then it shouldn't be TWAPGP.

WandaVision actually ended with the exact opposite implication, that Wanda was learning to handle her grief in a healthy way.

Well, that will teach me to opine on Wandavision without having watched it.

Still, it sounds like this particular example is Character Derailment rather than TWAPGP.

So the problem is that Wanda's character has changed considerably between films, but the event that caused the change happened off-screen? This may be Fanfic Fuel: "Many times a creative work will leave large gaps in a character's Backstory, or not mention what happened between two instances of seeing a character, or object or place. (...) Anything in a work of fiction that leaves inviting gaps can be seen as fanfic fuel. The more outrageous or open for interesting plot developments, the better."

I'd agree, Fanfic Fuel or Character Derailment is more fitting here.

Edit: I will say that it is still a sequel to the show because of just what Wanda's goal in the movie is, how she became the Scarlet Witch, and how she got the Darkhold. It's just that what the audience took as a sign of good change in Wanda's future was actually foreshadowing her villainy.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 20th 2022 at 1:17:02 PM

I mean, Wandavision ends with Wanda reading the Darkhold. That's generally never a good thing. Like, never. Also, it ends with Wanda hearing her children cry for help...but her children weren't real in that universe, meaning she is being driven by her desire for a family she never actually had.

That definitely seems like a step towards "Wanda will use dark, dangerous magic (from the Darkhold) to find a way to get the children she wants (not her children)".

And that is basically the plot of Mo M.

So it's less that TWAPGP and more that people are saying the plot was inadequately explained. Which is different.

That's fair. I think the problem is that the ending was interpretive; I took it as her still doing some shady stuff but getting over her grief, and I assumed the screaming was evidence that the boys were still alive. Technically that wasn't wrong, but I think the ending was painted by my own desire to see Wanda get better and my desperation to believe she wasn't evil. Clearly, I'm not the only one who thought that she was getting better.

On Big Mouth:

• Having just three hormone monsters and some inconsistency regarding who can and cannot see them, instead of giving each character their own, unique hormone monster matched to their personality and deciding if only that character can see them or if every character going through puberty can see them or if everyone can see them. Later seasons try to fix this by introducing more hormone monsters like Mona and Tyler.

This doesn't really feel like a wasted plot point, more just a criticism of the execution (which seems to be just Rule of Funny). It's also outdated, as the entry explains, since later seasons do give characters more Hormone Monsters specialized to them.

YMMV.Alien Vs Predator:

• In early stages of the script, after Scar is impaled by the Alien Queen, he tries to stab himself with his dagger to take the Chestburster inside of his body with him, not without speaking for the first and last time to tell Lex her earlier line of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend", and in some stages he suceeded with Lex' help. It's unanimous that this would have been brilliant to see, with some believing it might have marked a significant difference in how the film ended up being received.
• People had a similar opinion on the final few minutes of the film as a whole, with the idea of a Predator and a human trying to survive in a Xenomorph-infested building, as it combined similar elements from both major franchises between the female lead rising to the occasion as a competent leader, the low-supplies guerilla warfare, and a commentary on how life is often commodified and thrown away for the sake of a select few's gain due to both why the building existed, and why the research team were investigating it.

The first isn't a plot, it's a plot-point, at best. The second lacks context as to how the plot was wasted, merely stating that the premise is good.

If the first one was scrapped from the movie, then it doesn't count. It is What Could Have Been. And as you pointed, the second doens't explain how that plot was wasated, jsut that it exists. Technically the second one can be commented out, but the first one should be deleted.

The thing is, the entire rest of the movie actually builds up to Lex and the Predator cooperating to survive in a Xenomorph-infested building.

From YMMV.Love Live Superstar

I'm rewriting this to:

Is this good enough to fit the new definition?

The Invention of Lying has this:

• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The second half of the film focusing heavily on deconstructing religion and love is seen by some as a waste of the premise.
  • It often comes off less like this is a world where no one lies, than a world where everyone is a complete Jerkass. Apparently not only can people not lie, they must say whatever comes to mind. There's seemingly no one whose honesty manifests in the form of empathy or compassion.
  • Generally, the fact that everybody seems to automatically believe Mark's words, even when there's evidence to the contrary, makes this play more like a movie about a man with generic mind control powers.

There's bad indentation, the main point is dubious and the last point might fit Fridge Logic better. Any input here? Really that whole YMMV page needs work.

Yeah, that's really just saying the story was poorly implemented, not that there is a better idea lurking within the story we got.

(Also, this is a world where people can't even conceive of "saying something that isn't". There's an early scene where Mark tries to demonstrate lying to his friends, but no matter how clearly false his lies are, they still believe him).

This has been added to YMMV.RWBY Ice Queendom:

• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Chapter 8 has Ruby get put to sleep and sent off to a nightmare-infested world of her very own, which has a ton of interesting potential. Unforunately, it doesn't last beyond a single scene between her and Weiss in the next episode as Jaune manages to wakes her up not too long after the scene ends.

I'm in two minds about it. Fans expected an exploration of Ruby's nightmares through a detailed dream-scape, just as was happening with Weiss. Instead, it was a single scene where Ruby talks to the real Weiss (rather than the corrupted Weiss the plot is focussed on), and then Ruby is saved by Jaune, wakes up, and it's back to dealing with Weiss's dream-scape. However, the scene seems to be used to foreshadow Jaune and Ruby's powers, which the audience knows about from the original show, but which have yet to awaken in the spin-off story. The Big Good even lampshades the foreshadowing with a comment about how battle can awaken powers, even ones that are hidden.

So, it certainly feels under-utilised from the perspective of fans who wanted a full-blown dream-scape storyline for Ruby, but it also feels like the creators just aren't out to tell that story and wanted it to happen for a different reason entirely. Ruby may be the main character in the original show, but Weiss is clearly the main character in this show.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Sep 2nd 2022 at 11:24:09 AM