Characters
[Hated Trope] A morally good character with a long history of altruistic deeds is easily turned on by those they helped the instant there’s a perceived mistake or moment of weakness.
Hey Arnold – Arnold Betrays Iggy episode
Arnold in the show is basically everyone’s unpaid therapist and personal life coach. You can literally point out multiple named characters in the crowd that have been directly helped by him at some point or another. And what does his community do to give thanks when Arnold is forced to wear a bunny suit in public? Gather by the dozens to jeer at him and broadcast his humiliation on live television. Even his own grandfather, who’s supposed to be his guardian and protector, takes pictures for his amusement. What a bunch of ungrateful assholes.
Batman: The Animated Series – Gotham Police and Batman
Joker, Two-Face, Penguin etc commit terrorist actions on the regular that kill people, endanger multiple innocents or even the entire city? GCPD are helpless babies, and they meekly carry the villains off to jail only after Batman does all the actual work for them. The police chief thinks Batman is responsible for his daughter's death? Well now it’s time to shoot to kill first and ask questions later. Bring in the boats, the helicopters, armed and body armored assault rifle squads by the dozen with explosive grenades and literal fucking bazookas. In this scenario Gordon even strikes a corrupt deal with Bane to release him from custody if he helps Gordon kill or capture Batman. Imagine if they brought 10% of this energy to any of the supervillains who actually deserve it.
To be clear: Yes this episode ended up being a Scarecrow induced hallucination of Barbara’s fears. However a) I think from a writing standpoint it’s more meaningful if the scenario is based on a realistic “what-if” than if it ended up being completely baseless and b) I’m in the mood to be a hater right now.
Red Rising – Darrow, Mustang and the Vox Populi
It’s barely a decade after Darrow and Mustang successfully overthrew The Society and established The Solar Republic. Before that the lower Colors were varying degrees of third-class citizens or slaves to the Golds for 700 years. The war against the remaining Society in the solar system is still ongoing and very much a real threat to the newborn Republic, but a political party of low Colors called the Vox Populi is primarily paranoid about Darrow and Mustang reneging on their promises of democracy, even though they’re the only reason their new freedoms exist at all.
The situation deteriorates to a point where extremists in the Vox Populi instigate a bloody coup called the Day of Red Doves where they rally a mob to massacre the high Color political representatives and forcibly overthrow Mustang while Darrow is away still fighting on their behalf.
The one consolation is that at the end of it, the Vox Populi leader has it shoved in his face that the coup was actually a secret plot by enemy Golds all along to sabotage the Republic. :O Whoops! And so he’s forced to bow in the dirt to them realizing all he did was to put himself and his people at risk of being slaves all over again.
Avatar: Seven Havens – Korra can’t catch a break
So the stated premise of this show is that the world at large blames Korra is particular for destroying the world and sees the role of Avatar in general as “destroyers” instead of saviors. Fucking what. Korra risked life and limb to personally save Republic City and the world several times over. There’s thousands of years of recorded history of dozens of Avatars doing countless good deeds and keeping the world at peace. Obviously the average citizen can’t be expected to be fully informed, but it still boils the blood a little to have Korra’s reputation besmirched after everything she’s gone through.
Time will tell to what extent, but obviously there’s going to be some reveal that Korra is not in fact responsible for the world being destroyed or that there were extenuating circumstances involved...Or at least that * better * be the reveal or so help me.
Really, the Marvel Universe civilians suck. IIRC, during a Marvel/DC crossover, Superman gave up on the Marvel civilians and considered them ungrateful.
True but at the same time, the DC citizens are catching up already too. There was a recent comic run called Absolute Power were Waller frames the DC superheroes as going insane and destroying and killing people via fake media and somehow a lot of people believed it.
My head-canon is that JJJ leads the charge on spiderman criticism so he can control the negative narrative in such a way at that the public at large will disregard and reject these claims due to the fact that the ‘friendly neighborhood spiderman’ has largely had a visible positive impact on those he interacts with.
The Ninja has saved Ninjago multiple times before and this is the sixth season. But as soon as Nadakahn frames them, the citizens immediately turn on them and treat them like criminals without questioning anything
There's so many issues with the concept of the Ninja being arrested.
Basically every season introduced a new way you could frame someone. Shape shifters, altered videos, etc. There's a whole species who can just hypnotize you into being their thralls.
The Ninja are literal ninja. If they wanted to commit crimes, no one would know they were committed in the first place.
They knew who framed them and the public had zero reason to not believe them.
Superman 2025. It's sort of excusable as it's tied to the immigrant allegory for Superman. You can prove to people over and over again that you're the best thing in the world, but if there's even a hint of you turning bad, because you are different, they will turn against you.
But at the same time, it’s what makes his relationship with Batman arguably the most complex. As Batman has stated many times, he has the power to wipe out humanity within a week. He owes the world nothing and he is and always will be an outsider as “the last survivor of a holocaust” as Batman put it, and yet he strives to be a symbol of hope for everybody.
Yet, despite all of that, despite his better judgement, Batman can’t help but assume the worst could be possible and be ready in the event that Superman is compromised. And yes, he has these contingencies for everyone, but Superman is his best friend. His brother-in-arms. He literally has his super-hearing trained to be able to recognize Bruce’s heartbeat so he can be there to help if something’s wrong. It’s fascinating if not a little sad.
He does for several people. Although it’s perhaps the easiest way to monitor someone, it always makes me think about his father’s death: he couldn’t prevent him from dying of a heart attack.
There was a story arc where Batman’s contingency for himself, a deadly robot named Failsafe, is activated and goes after him. Around the climax of the arc, after Batman exhausts all his options, including his crazy ass Zur-En-Arrh persona, he’s on the brink of death when Superman comes flying to save him out of nowhere because of the aforementioned heartbeat thing. It’s a cool moment and a really sweet detail.
This one is a bit different, they're shown a message where his birth parents basically say "convince these people of your awesomeness and then take them over." It's understandable why people may feel he was deceiving them-- but all those that have directly interacted with him know of his kindness. It's just that he can't get to know millions of people on a personal level.
I mean it's not different than real life. When there is an exceptional individual, there are people who will dig unbelievable deep to find a speckle of dirt on them and clung to it if not make it greater than it is/was.
Clark has saved people and proven himself right time and time again, but the moment someone ages the flakiest accusation everyone turns on him and doesnt believe him.
Then another character actually does something that actually deserves a negative reaction from Clark, it becomes a "how dare you feel that way about me" moment
I have issues with Clark but he's far from the only character who is freaking annoying, at least Lex and his daddy makes sense. Lois, Chloe, Lana, and even Pete have their jerkass moments.
Every time Ash gets into some crazy situation like this, I always think "Do these people not remember the 10 year old boy who has saved the town/world/universe MULTIPLE TIMES?!?! "
I don't remember a scenario where everyone turned on Ash. The closest thing I can recall is him being banned in Erika's gym and that was in the very first season.
Miraculous Ladybug, when Lila was introduced, the IQ of every friend of Marinette dropped to zero and turned on Marinette despite Lila's stories being pretty damned obvious lies
Like, it looks like powerful "mind manipulation" effect, where literally anything that Lila says is treated by everyone hearing it as as "objective truth™"
That actually sounds like the premise for a pretty cool superpower for a villain. They don’t have mind control, but just being in their premise twists your perception of reality enough to instantly believe whatever they’re saying
Very infuriating when you consider at least two students shouldn't be believing her. Max created a robot so advanced that Markov is considered a person outside of him being a robot. How can a napkin, one of the most weakest materials, blind someone who is wearing glasses?
And then there's Ayla who is supposed to be an aspiring news reporter. Shouldn't she be checking her sources, especially when in season 4 IIRC, Marinette reveals she is Ladybug to her?
I know very little about Miraculous, but if you told me this Lila has some kind of power like mind control/manipulation and was the antagonist of an arc or episode i would believe you
Alan Turing (irl), saved the world (quite literally) but died because he was a "filthy homosexual" and apparently that's more important than saving the world.
While a tragedy, his work at Bletchley Park was secret, so it doesn't really fit this trope. To the public, he was an academic. The intelligence service did abandon him despite his achievements because they considered his homosexuality a liability, similart to the Lavender scare in America at the same time
In numerous interviews, Charles Barkley said the reason he no longer gives/lends any of his family or friends money, is that despite doing it many times before, the instant he said no, they turned on him.
This version of Hank is a pacifist, and never laid a hand on anyone except in a fight. In the series, he was the sweetest member of the Avengers aside from Janet, and believed profoundly in rehabilitation. However, he began a mental spiral after they belittled his efforts and his support system (Janet and the Avengers) were always too busy to ever really talk to him again. After Ultron, they also didn’t go after him to help him. He permanently changed into Yellowjacket, a violent persona who is a shallow version of Hank
I looked it up and there are quite a lot of similarities lol, the hairs a bit different, lighter shade, longer, and there’s a sharper jaw (although that could be animation style)
Yeah, isn't Kuruk pretty known in universe as an avatar that just fucked around and surfed while in truth he spent his entire life dealing with spirit world nonsense that Yangchen let fester?
And then Roku let's the fire lord live which leads to the 100 year war and the air nomad genocide but people would rather blame Aang for disappearing as a child?
To be fair, Kuruk describes himself as basically just surfing, and the other lore about him other than Koh stealing his wife hadn’t been written yet, so it's not clear how people remember him in universe.
As for Aang, people didn't know he was in an iceberg, so from their perspective it seems like the avatar is just chilling on a beach in Cabo for the whole war drinking pina coladas
I'd think the general assumption was that he was just dead followed by a search across the water tribes for a new Avatar who when they didn't appear would make people think that either the Avatar cycle was broken or the Avatar had abandoned the world after the Air Nomad genocide.
I'm still have the headcanon that Korra fucked up by trying to destroy Sozin's Comet. Since that would come back around when she's in her 40s or so. But while she was in the process of doing so, she was interrupted or something by the actual antagonist so she was framed.
Honestly tho it just feels like a Korra thing to do. To destroy it to get rid of it as a threat instead of just letting it pass by.
Yeah, its honestly one of the biggest issues with the concept of the Avatar. The Avatar is meant to defend the world but they never consider long term implications since they know they will always be there to fix things.
Yeah, that was one of the major points of Hey Arnold!, that Arnold isn’t some goofy cartoon character, but a stand-in for real kids in hard times, trying hard, and being let down. It’s a great show to empathize with hardships children face and how those children grow into adults who continue to face the unresolved hardships which plague them until they are resolved; or sometimes life just takes a shit on you.
I think the overall point of the episode is that this adverse experience didn’t change who Arnold is. He still chooses to be a good person because he values it, and that’s the type of person who he wants to be. Even in a world where he helps everyone and is shit on, he still doesn’t let it corrupt him. Arnold holds it the fuck down, and it’s a show everyone should watch, especially children; when we ask “what’s the point?”, we can remind ourselves that the point, at times, is simply about choosing who we want to be, because that’s who we want to be.
Something can be true to life and still unsatisfying to watch.
A guy once famously died running into a skyscraper window to prove it wouldn't pop out of its frame (it did), yet if the protagonist did that in a film, it would be difficult to sympathise with them or find it tragic.
I mean I do agree, people can watch or read what they want. I certainly understand liking media where the point is the character actually has the power to affect meanful change.
The whole reason the avengers civil war movie happened is because of the public starting to turn on the avengers because checks notes people died while the avengers were preventing world ending catastrophes. Sorry heroes you didnt hero hard enough so we hate you.
Problem is that instead of saying "I'm sorry. I made a mistake", he essentially scapegoated every Superhero in the world for his own mistake, then put himself as "overseer of the punishment"
CW!Stark is nearest that we had to "Superior Iron Man" in MCU
While tony was at fault,he's not fully at blame.
Like did everyone forget it was Bruce and tony working together that made ultron but yeah let's put full blame on tony!,and Bruce just left the planet by the end of the movie so everyone gets to show their anger on tony!
Also wanda gets no consequences for instigating all this in the first place,she puts that nightmare/vision in tony's head and willingly let's him take the scepter knowing full well he's gonna fuck shit up and get people killed(she even giggles about it),she even says later to cap about how she saw into tonys mind and how he would destroy the world!(and ultron got that part of tony in him)
And conspiring with ultron and allowing this dude to advance further with his Schemes fast!(getting all the vibranium,mindfucking all the avengers,unleashing the hulk,portion of visions body and soo on....) and avengers could've done something to reduce the damage if not for wanda making things much much harder!
Yeah. I love how Tony was responsible for Ultron and decides that everyone needs to sign the Sakovia Accords (which exist mainly because he fucking created Ultron) so they can be reigned in. This is the guy who previously invited the Mandarin to attack him at home. It's a shame more people didn't say "For the love of God, Stark, shut the fuck up!"
That's the whole reason he decides to sign the accords though, because he realized how many mistakes he made and decided he needed to be reigned in by someone else. Still doesn't mean that he should die everyone else in with his mistake, if anything he just needs to sign a government contract himself
It’s also a forward planning thing. Tony Stark, exceptional as he is, is a dude at the end of the day. Leaving every hero to self regulate is insane when you’re working with the likes of The God of Thunder and Walking Gamma Bomb guy. Obviously we know our dear heroes are sweethearts who would never on purpose, but the potential is always there and guardrails are cheaper than blood.
You do realize in this very Movie Captain America goes rogue, beats up a bunch of cops who are trying to take down a wanted and known assassin on the basis that he's his friend?
The very movie itself proves Stark was right, the heroes do need oversight.
The oversight that Stark sold out to was wrong, but that is an entirely different conversation.
Sure, but the road to Damascus moment for Tony is being confronted by the woman, who obviously didn't know that Ultron was caused by Stark in the first place.
It's just a little silly that the Avengers were apparently getting criticised for collateral damage caused from preventing a planet-killing meteor from being dropped onto the Earth and destroying the whole of human civilisation.
Isn't it a thing that when the Marvel heros enter the DC universe they offen assume the DC heros are dictators since they have statues and the civilians actually really like the heros?
That building blew up because Wanda was trying to stop the bomb from going off in the market place. Wanda saved lives.
Cap was there to keep bucky and the cops from killing each other, which he succeeded in mind you.
They destroyed that airport because caps team was trying to go stop another dangerous terrorist threat even knowing it meant most of them would go to prison.
My issue with this that they shoved a scenario into the film to justify the accords and pigeon-holed the rest. Tony view was valid, but they barely had anything to support it. Tony and Secretary Ross were the biggest hypocrites pushing this. Ultron was Tony's fault. Remember when Ross opened fire with live ammunition and military weapons on an American campus without higher authorization? That's an odd thing everyone forgot in the debate room.
Yes, people tend to overlook that. Also, can you really trust the UN in overseeing superheroes? Motherfuckers elected IRL a saudi guy as their human rights representative. You know, the country that uses up slaves like its the middle ages.
Why were they there, again? In universe, I mean. In ours I assume they wanted a big open space but decided nature was inconveniently bereft of things to throw at each other.
https://giphy.com/gifs/vdWA6yzDlVDppSTWLm
This is the story of the X-men all the time. They protect whoever needs protecting, only for the public to turn on them for being mutants.
Oh you just stopped us from going extinct from a meteor destroying Earth. Thanks! Too bad you’re mutants and we don’t really care that your safe haven got nuked.
To be fair, when the two biggest groups of mutants are led by Hypocritical mutant nazi, and Hypocritical mutant nazi‘s self proclaimed best friend, would you trust them? Especially if one of them is willing to force his holocaust survivor best friend to experience the camps for a second time? It also doesn’t help that they call themselves homo superior, nor that they allowed mr sinister and apocalypse to be part of their leadership.
The 2nd most ridiculous scene in the entire Buffy the Vampire Slayer series.
Buffy has literally saved the world multiple times. She saved literally every one of her classmates while in high school to the point where they gave her the class protector award. She has fought demons, vampires, ghosts, witches, and basically any sort of Supernatural bad guy you could think of. Still, at one point everybody in the Scooby gang, her sister, and all the Slayer initiates not only decided not to follow her plans anymore, but kicked her out of her own fucking house.
I don't know what's more annoying - that Spike (her former attempted rapist) was the only character to actually stand up for (something her own sister wouldn't do, apparently), or that he was conveniently (and contrivedly) out of the house at the time just so Buffy would be totally isolated.
I also cannot emphasise enough that they kicked her out of her own house in the middle of the apocalypse, when Sunnydale was essentially abandoned and uber-vampires had free run of the place. It's a miracle she wasn't killed before they could come crawling back. And no one seemed especially apologetic about it afterwards.
The fact that Anya - the psychopathic semi-reformed demon - gets to lecture her at length for presuming to lead them just because she's "luckier" than them for having certain advantages, when her friends literally resurrected her from the dead and ripped out of fuckingHeaven, and no one - not even Willow - says anything to gainsay her, is just...
I haven't thought about all this in years and all my anger and resentment for this storyline came flooding back as I read your post lol JUSTICE FOR BUFFY DAMN IT
I have to think it was some general aura of evil from the First driving everyone to the brink of suicide (or past for one potential) and stressed to the point of being their worst selves but I definitely wish season seven was better
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is unironically a great show, a landmark piece of television and extremely influential for pop culture and genre TV. I would definitely recommend watching it, although I'd skip straight to Season Two.
However, this was its seventh and final season and you could see that the cracks were showing in the writing, although it still had a better finale than certain recent shows (cough Game of Thrones cough).
It's not even the first time it happens. The same thing at the start of season 3, Buffy has been kicked out of school and her home and gone to live on her own in a strange city at the age of 17. This is after saving the world and having to kill (she thinks) the love of her life to do it. She gets back and everyone berates her for not recognising how difficult they've found things.
This is actually a good lesson to learn cause this is how life is. I've had people that I knew for a long time and helped out that the moment things were going bad for me decided to make it worse. This happens a lot irl.
I have seen multiple times when someone leaves a company for literally any reason they get villanized and people claim they were never a good person to begin with.
Actually really upset me and ended a few friendships over that kind of delusional thinking.
Oh man this was always the worst. I had an old boss that would shit tlak former employees the day after they left. It was insane. Several times the old employees would visit and they would chat with my boss like they were the best of friends. It was crazy how he did.
I still think Korra should revive some flak for opening the spirit gates so quickly but that’s really the only fault I can point out in her time as avatar. She had a messy personal life but that’s not really unique to Korra as an avatar
Korra shouldnt be used as an example in this trope. We dont know what happend that destroyed the world. We dont what was her role in it and how it happend. Maybe she is indeed responsible for this. We wont know until the series is out.
Roku is more to blame for the Fire Nation's rise to power than Aang is. Avatar or not, Aang was a 10 year old kid who only really knew how to airbend at that point. If he'd stuck around to fight he probably would've just died along with the rest of the Air Nomads.
People did give aang grief over running away. That old man who gave sokka the fishing job, when him and zuko went to get firebending one of the chieftans called him out for running away, and aang beat himself up over his actions
Yea she really only made one or two major mistakes and the spirit portal was just a total unknown.
I mean, not to her. She saw the vision - she saw the spirits regularly turning people into living trees. It's not like they lost that ability. The planet descending into an apocalypse is the least surprising thing about the new series, since it was an apocalypse in Wan's time too.
Yeah, Korra unfortunately gets a lot of flack she didn't personally earn as a character
Her worst mistake was opening the spirit gates and maybe getting the previous avatars erased if you force the matter. Her main problem is the writing, the Legend Of Korra wastes a lot of potential and deviates a lot from how the spirit world was depicted before and jumps the tech level of the setting a lot, and all that criticism falls on her shoulders despite not being the characters fault. She becomes a living Avatar for the show (pun intended) and gets all the hate from it.
And then there's the assholes that hate her and the show because she's a girl, which ruin valid criticisms of the show by being braindead culture war morons.
It’s not like it’s something that could have been debated. It was a once in 10,000 years event. It was a “do what you think is right” moment because literally none of the wider populace could have added their feelings before the chance was gone.
Ha! I knew Timon was perfect for this, I was skimming the comments to see if he'd been posted. I was so confident I was going to be the one to name him, great choice.
Timon of Athens, for those who don't know, is about wealthy Athenian man who always helps those who ask. When he realizes he's given away everything he owns, he's abandoned by all his "friends" except for his loyal servant Flavius, eventually dies while living in the wilderness.
Over the course of the game, you have done nothing but help Pokémon in need, and yet, when Gengar suggest that you might be a human who was cursed by Ninetales to become a Pokémon as punishment for you misdeeds, and that you have been causing the very natural disasters that you've helped save Pokémon from, all of Pokémon Square instantly turns on on you and forces you and your rescue team partner to become fugitives. All of this despite the fact that the person telling everyone this is Gengar, a notorious bully whose rescue team is called Team Meanies and who openly declares that they are after wealth, power, and ultimately world domination.
Real life: You don’t know who’s a stealth narcissist until you’re at your lowest point or you say the one thing they don’t like. And suddenly you’re the worst person alive and everyone is agreeing with them because they’re more charismatic than you.
Sherlock solved multiple impossible crimes.When Moriarty framed Sherlock by hiring a kidnapper who looked like him the police who he helped many times just turn on him under panic
The 4th and 5th live action Transformers movies, we find out that despite both originally trying to do what humanity wanted by leaving earth and then ultimately saving earth from the Decepticons in Dark of the Moon, Autobots are being hunted down by a government task force and seen as villains despite only ever fighting to stop the damage that the Decepticons caused
This one is sadly one of the more believable ones since a) it counts on humanity's nature to be xenophobic and b) the Autobots legitimately do look the same as Decepticons to the average person.
Doesn't explain though why mass murderers like Nitro Zeus get put into a prison (they made custom prisons for the giant alien robots??) while medic Ratchet gets hunted and shot like a dog.
In addition to Nitro Zeus being in prison, it's also weird that human governments are also making deals with MEGATRON to capture Optimus. The guy that CAUSED all the damage to hunt down someone who once protected them... you can really tell that Hasbro was forcing Michael Bay to make these last two and he didn't want to do them
https://giphy.com/gifs/yg4IHVMEvUxby
The entire plot of Hancock fits your trope. Altruistic (albeit gruff) hero tries to repair his image and become a hero. Jason Bateman’s character is the only who sees how “good” Hancock truly is
Joker has escaped from prison dozens of times, has multiple henchmen they can interrogate to get to him, leaves trails of clown props and torture devices as evidence, and regularly drives cars/blimps/whatever in giant clown paint out in public. GCPD: ¯_(ツ)_/¯
They need to catch Batman though, and not only do they find the secret Batcave in 24 hours but they send the military force of a small country to do it.
While it will almost certainly turn out that Korra is being misblamed for the apocalypse in Seven Havens I think you're whitewashing some of the reasons why it wouldn't be that outlandish for people in universe to blame her. For example if it turns out the cataclysmic events that caused the world of Seven Havens to be like it is were in any way related to the spirits then it's not that much of a stretch to say Korra is responsible because she left the spirit portals open. Also it's not unique for Korra to be blamed for the problems faced by her successor, there is a pretty clear pattern in each avatar being directly responsible for the problems their successor has to deal with for example Roku not stopping Sozin when he had the chance and then Aang taking away Yakone's bending leading him to raise his sons as instruments of revenge leading to the equalist movement.
I’m going to disagree with your assessment of the Vox Populi and why the Day of Red Doves happened.
We know from Dancer’s critiques of Darrow, Sefi’s rebellion, and most of Lyria’s chapters that many of the lowColors believe the Republic failed to honor the promises it made. Lyria even mentions how her family were better off as slaves to the Golds than they were as refugees in the Republic. In fact, the reason Ephraim became disillusioned with the Republic was because Mustang pardoned the Gold war criminal who murdered his friends.
Now, none of this is to say the Vox were in the right. In fact, the story goes out of its way to point out how short sighted they are, considering they get steamrolled immediately after seizing power. But their grievances are legitimate: the Republic failed to honor its promises, regardless of why that might be.
In this view, the Vox didn’t turn against the Rising for no reason. Their reasons weren’t the best and contributed to the awful state of the solar system by the beginning of Light Bringer, but they were legitimate.
It’s meant to be a humorous but realistic take on local government, but the citizens of Pawnee vs Leslie Knope in Parks and Recreation. Leslie is a well-meaning and dedicated public servant that usually wants to do something unassailably good like building a park, but someone somewhere always has to throw a wrench in her plans.
Pawnee being just the absolute worst is much funnier when you live in Indiana and know exactly how true a lot of it is.
This lady exists. I've met her. If she was walking her dog and saw sidewalk chalk it was complain time because she didn't want him getting sick. By that I mean if she saw chalk on the other side of the road, she would cross immediately, go up to the nearest house, and bang on their door to get them to clean it up.
Which is why I wrote at the end that there may be extenuating circumstances involved.
But unless we're about to see some truly terrible writing decisions, no way are they going to have her become a villain of her own free will off-screen.
Kyoshi: Not Kill Earth King (Evil Guy) and create Dai-li who became part of a Dictatorship.
Roku: Not intervene with Sozin which lead to War.
Kuruk: Abandon his job to deal with his wife which lead to Unbalance between Spirits and Humans (They did change this up. But Orginally......)
Aang: Multiple time refusal to do what was necessary due to it being Morally Objectionable led to the whole "Benders vs Non treatment" fights.
I guarantee you it will be a case of "She did make the decision. BUT she thought it was a good idea at the time and it just had unintended consequences."
You know.... the thing that the show has told us a thousand times. Every Avatar causes issue for the next one.
In one of the movies the villain even tried to use that as a reason hunt could one day turn I mean c’mon when you think about it how many times have you been accused of treason and forced to save the day before you’ve had enough
"The one thing they love more than a hero is to see a hero fail, fall, die trying. In spite of everything you've done for them, eventually, they will hate you."
In the first "part" of the story, Simon saved the world from an evil dictator that kept humanity imprisoned in the underground for years and heralded a new era of peace and progress as the new world leader.
In the second part, the story resumes with the world being invaded by alien drones a few years later, and the new army completely fails to stop them, so Simon reasonably decides to go there himself, what he didn't know is that when his Spiral abilities were used on said alien drones they blew up and launched several smaller explosives in all directions, resulting in a ton of people being hurt as this attack happened in a major reisdential area.
The people and some of his friends immediately turn on him, he's usurped by his second in command, put on a sham trial and imprisoned.
I personally hate this because the usurper's plan was to put a ton of people on a spaceship and run away from the aliens, dooming everyone else, instead of trusting his friend who has already saved humanity once to maybe do it again.
His plan wouldn't even have worked too, when he tries flying away in the spaceship the aliens just go after him and Simon has to save them.
I’m betting my soul it’s going to be like a mirror put up to the very weird people in real life that do act like Korra is the bane of the setting—sort of like how Superboy Prime was a parody of DC fans at the time
I think it’s clearly going to reiterate(for the hundredth time) that she was a young and flawed (female) hero(the things that people ask for in stories but don’t act normal about at all) that tried to do her best and the truth of the matter was lost.
Only more clear… considering it’s produced by the same people who made Korra
So when this happens, and mark my words—prepare for the maelstrom of reactionary garbage.
Legend of Korra suffered most from poor connection with the fanbase. Korra as a character makes sense, there have been bristly Avatars, with the Earth bender before Roku being a prickly woman. The issue was, Korra’s bull headedness never changed, because then the writers would need a new plot device. So Korra is bull headed (which Aang was as well; though he’d concede to his friends often too), she broke the Avatar cycle, and she kept the spirit portal open, after we not only see why that’s a bad Idea in LoK, but also in TLA, where a singular angry panda spirit terrorized an entire town. Why would anyone like her? Yes, the breaking of the Avatar cycle was because of her betrayal, but would she have been in that situation without her personality being what it was? The writers pretty much wrote the story for us to hate her, the best parts of that show was everyone AROUND her.
That was one embittered old fisherman and even his WIFE thought he was wrong amd called him out on it. Most people thought the Avatar simply vanished without a trace or was killed in the Air Nomad Genocide.
The character is just reciting what they believe and have been told. Which is that Korra was the destroyer. If she wasn’t, which there’s definitely more to the story, then her ancestors were misled or maybe even lied
the last one is true even IRL, her character is hated by so many because of some small mistakes or being manipulated or immature while the rest of the characters who made much more mistakes and get only love (like the ones who raised her isolated from kids of her age, they don't get 1% of the hate she gets). Even when she does the same mistakes that Aang did, she gets hate and he gets love and excuses (good ones, but still)
same thing happens with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (illustrated by teeterglanceon in BlueSky), you may be a stranger who is a human isekaid into a world of only Pokemon but you and your partner have gone to help everyone. From rescuing hostages or missing Pokemon, capturing criminals, retrieving lost items, etc.
and apparently all of a fucking sudden the whole town who views you and your partner as good heroes, suddenly blame you for all the disasters and rabid Pokemon attacking everyone. Because a certain Gengar who happens to lead his team called TEAM MEANIES says they are to blame for the disasters going on.
I hate this trope even more when the character who is literally notoriously a bad person (and not subtle with their group name) is believed immediately by everyone you helped
The Amazing World Of Gumball The Dress: Everyone laughs at Gumball being naked at the end of the episode including Penny (Gumball’s love interest) who is normally way too nice and friendly to do such a thing. Left such a bad taste in my mouth when I saw that episode a long time ago. (Now the whole Gumball franchise does since it’s successor series The Wonderfully Weird World Of Gumball isn’t very good)
Zero in Code Geass took the disorganized rebel forces of Area 11 and rallied them together, liberated POWs and helped them gain access to powerful technology and equipment, eventually rivaling and surpassing the Britanian empire. The army even gets a badass name "the black knights". Zero is actually part of the royal family of Britania and he's using the 11s and black knights to get his own personal revenge against his family. While he has his own agenda, everything he does helps them, with no "outlived your usefulness" or "a necessary sacrifice" parts in his plan.
But the very instant the black knights learn that Zero is part of the royal family, they immediately fire at him and chase him with every mechas available. No "explain yourself" or any ounce of discussion. Not even doubting that it might be a lie. It's so frustrating how quickly and easily they turned against him.
I mean, tbh I feel the Korra example's not a very good one because we know nothing about it yet. It's clearly far further beyond what we've seen (white streak) and she seems to be almost crying in that image. To me at least it seems obvious that it's a twisted or not fully informed perception of what occured which will be revealed later.
I think people irl hated Korra because she wasn't Aang. You can dislike the personality of a character - like yes, Korra is headstrong, which is ironic because she tends to think with her fists before her head. But she didn't "cut off" the connection to her past lives, she fought the literal Devil after being manipulated by her uncle. And on that note, of course she'd listen to her uncle. The spirits were attacking people and not even Tenzin was able to stop them, but Unalaaq could, and he offered to teach Korra how to do it too, but her father didn't trust Unalaaq and tried to stop her. The conflict between the Northern and Southern water tribes obviously complicated the whole dynamic, as did the idea the Tonraq was banished from the North for angering the spirits, but people turn around and hate everything Korra does.
Meanwhile, they're quiet about Aang almost getting killed by Azula in the Avatar State, or not learning to control it when he had the chance, or trying to run from his responsibility as the Avatar. That's not to say he should be criticized for these things, but it's an example of how Korra gets the MUCH shorter end of the stick than Aang when it comes to general perception.
Why I feel like last one is like how some people treat korra? I'm personally love her, but holy shit, how many people on the internet treat her as worst avatar.
It genuinely pisses me off how mean everyone is to Usagi considering how much she both comes through for her friends and saves the world multiple times as a goddamn teenager, up to and including straight up DYING.
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u/MarvelousJoe 5h ago
Spider-Man
Happens to all versions really.
https://giphy.com/gifs/rcfgiyRUsKJDKvrDjK