This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Bring The Noise: Cut - * Expy: The titular character is similar to Hannibal King of Marvel Comics.
Takes a bit more than similarity to make an Expy.
Peteman: Can Connor be considered Rescued from the Scrappy Heap? I hated his fourth season portrayal, but he comes across as actually sane in the fifth. But I need to know if opinion against him is that strongly aligned.
alliterator: No, I think a lot of fans disliked how whiny he became in Season Four (well, certainly Strega did) and the well-adjusted Connor of Season Five was a welcome relief to all the angst (even though he was only in two episodes).
Reverse: It's good that the entry for The Wesley was edited, but it still didn't make a whole lot of sense. Didn't add anything to the plot? Then she wasn't The Wesley. I've never actually heard anyone refer to Fred as 'Fred Sue', and from reading the TWOP thread, the only people that started warming to her in Season Five did so retrospectively after she died. While there's probably some Author Appeal and Creator's Pet going on there, Fred never earned anything approaching universal vilification from the fanbase (heck, even TWOP was ambivalent) and hardly devoured the story as a whole. I think Scrappy and Wesley are both a little extreme in this case, so I removed them both.
Majin Gojira: I concur with Reverse's assement. Even outside TWOP, Fred is considered Netural to Good overall.
BritBllt: And the Fred entry apparently returned as Mary Sue. Removing...
- Mary Sue: Fred Burkle was this to many fans. Her character didn't add anything useful to their group or the plot as a whole, which she even lampshades in one episode. Still, she got more and more screen-time and all the characters (and Joss Whedon) fell in love with her, which lead to fans dubbing her 'Freddie Sue'. Having two main characters rift for a time because they were both in love with her didn't help. Even after she died, the main characters endlessly grieved her death, even Spike who barely knew her. The other deaths (including longtime group member, Cordelia) seemed to some to be shrugged off in comparison.
- Well, to be fair, since Fred was the only person who actually wanted to help Spike regain his corporeal form after he came back from the dead and seemed to genuinely care about him, it would make sense that he'd be a bit upset when she died.
- There's also that if you look closely, S5 Fred bore a nontrivial resemblance to Drusilla — minus all the evil, insanity, and (pre-siring) pathological guilt. Why shouldn't Spike have been best friends with her? Even after he's moved on, romantically, that doesn't mean the qualities he finds attractive in women have all changed.
- Well, to be fair, since Fred was the only person who actually wanted to help Spike regain his corporeal form after he came back from the dead and seemed to genuinely care about him, it would make sense that he'd be a bit upset when she died.
Mary Sue should at least be something the fandom agrees on, and the natter on this one shows that's not the case (and technically, since Mary Sue is labeled as a Subjective trope, it really shouldn't be listed on a main page at all). I'm also a longtime fan of the series, and have never encountered any sort of fandom-wide disdain for Fred's character. The entry comes off as one troper's seething, personal grudge.
By the way, I've been reading over 68.41.36.110's edits, and the edit reasons really aren't making the case that this isn't one angry fan's rant. If that troper really needs to express their hatred of all things Fred, the Mary Sue pages will be happy to accommodate. But this is the show's main page, and it doesn't belong here.
Dolt Boy: I have myself encountered several Fred haters, but she certainly doesn't draw the kind of hate that, for instance, Connor does. I myself am a fan of Fred, so I tried to tone down the hate here, but it was still pretty bad.
BritBllt: Yeah, I guess so, but in an ensemble show like Angel, it's hard not to find online hatred for any one character. Spike and Angel are both massively polarizing characters, some people like old Wesley and some like new Wesley, some people hate Lorne, some think Cordelia is a Sympathetic Sue (and she has a little bit more of a claim to it than Fred, though I like Cordelia), some people think the last season derailed Gunn. About the only character I know of who doesn't have some kind of hatedom going on is Doyle, and that's probably because he died before they could really get started. :) While Fred has some haters, I don't see her standing out more than, say, Spike, who garnered lots more controversy by joining the cast (though again, I liked him!).
KJMackley: There are some tropes that are so broad you could make an argument to include almost any character or storyline and only the "watch every episode, visit every forum" fans would know the difference (Wall Banger and Mary Sue are among those tropes). I can see Fred being disliked because I wasn't a fan of Wesley and Gunn fighting over her in the third season, but the character and Amy Acker were just so adorable I couldn't hate her.
Should Gunn be listed as anyone can die. I mean if the Canon based season six is any indication he did flatline. He just walked around a bit before he got better.
