This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
From You Know That Thing Where:
Inkblot: Does anyone else thing that The Scrappy is an Overly Original Name, and should be replaced with something that better describes the trope, like Fandom Chew Toy?
Superlagg: Not really, Scrappy is a fairly popular recognizable character to most cartoon-watching kids over about 12. Also, the trope sounds only somewhat ambiguous at first, it's one of those tropes where just a few lines in you'll know exactly what they're talking about. Heck, the picture alone tells enough about the trope (Pint-size cartoon character, can only be one of a couple horrible things). And besides, there are a bunch of other Scrappy tropes that'd need a witty rename. Ethnic Scrappy just goes so well together.
Somebody give this trope a better name then The Scrappy, like Mr. (or Ms.) Annoying, or The Glutton for Hatred, or even The Fictional Stepping Stone
Andyzero: Okay, I've got one for Commentary Terms, as this isn't so much intended by the writers, as it is a fandom reaction. Yes, it's rather subjective.
Basically, a character is introduced that generates massive quantities of hatred among a group of the fans. This will often divide them up with others who are sympathetic, or even like the character. If the writer has a softspot for them, and gives them just a bit of Mary Sue this will make the rift all the more virulent. Examples include Scrappy from Scooby Doo, Chachi from Happy Days, Joxer from Xena Warrior Princess Wesley Crusher from Star Trek The Next Generation and Chibiusa (especially her Western incarnation "Rini") from Sailor Moon The key element is how this character drives some formerly rational fans to the lowest levels of foaming loonydom in their hatred. I've seen it. It's not pretty.
I need a good name, though.
Dark Sasami: How about The Man You Love To Hate?
Gus: It's really more about the phenomenon, right? Not so much the character. I know that there was a group that described themselves as "Scrapiphobes" — from a dislike of Scrappy, and some 24 folks were "The Anti-Spawn Brigade" (Kim Bauer-haters) for awhile. Andy Z, if that's the sort of thing you are on to, you might go with Anti Fan.
Airbud: A lot of tropes are named after their first or most famous example. It could be called "The Scrappy" or some such.
Tabby: The mental image that immediately springs to mind is the audience violence during the Two Minutes Hate in 1984. Don't know if it would be clear enough as a title, though.
Silvercatmon: Reminds me of Jason Todd, the 2nd Robin in comics.
Ununnilium: I like The Scrappy.
Barratsoss: I favor The Scrappy over all other suggestions. If at all, I would offer The Jar Jar as an equally intuitive name for this trope.
Steel Beast 6 Beets: Why is the Final Fantasy XII example gone?
BT The P: What about the characters that polarize the fandom, with a camp of likers and a camp of haters? A lot of times, these end up being the animal mascots, like Daxter in the Jak series (the haters got him dropped from the title!) and Rufus from Kim Possible (a lot of the 15-up fans can't abide him, but I think he's okay). Is there an entry here, or should I make this a note on The Scrappy?
Ununnilium: I think that's a bit too complex for either option. Needs to be clarified and boiled down to the essentials before we can get a trope out of it.
Morganite: Chibi-Usa might be an example of this too. I've run into a lot of people who reallly like her, and a lot who really hate her, but very few who are neutral.
Scrounge: Frenzy from the live-action Transformers movie is another one like that... People seem to either love the babling little slaughter machine or hate him. Actually, the franchise has served up quite a few of these polarizers, Waspinator and Jetstorm to name just two more... Huh, The Polarizer might actually work as a name.
Ununnilium: That might be worthwhile.
Ununnilium: Awesome quote! Yay Lore!
Morgan Wick: Has anyone else noticed that a lot of these examples also appear on Cousin Oliver? (I just added the line on that article.) I wonder if there's a connection.
BT The P: Oh, most definitely. I'd say that any Cousin Oliver, added to the cast in a crass attempt to invrease viewership, has a very good chance of being The Scrappy, by pissing off fans; The Scrappy doesn't have to be a Cousin Oliver, he could be a character that's been in for a while. General classes of characters likely to be The Scrappy: Non-Human Sidekick, The Unintelligible, etc.
Ununnilium: "anti-orkut communities"?
Later: I still want to know what this is.
Fast Eddie: An Orkut
community is a friend-of-friend net that aggregates around a common interest. If the commonality is negative (Broccoli Haters, Tax Foes, etc.), it is called an anti-orkut. Just to make things confusing and inconsistent, a "pro-orkut" community is focused on a specific profession.
Ununnilium: Oh. Huh, neat!
Tanto: "Characters as Device"? I don't think so. Nobody intends for a character to become The Scrappy. It just kind of happens. Characters as Device is for characters and aspects of characters as plot devices.
Ununnilium: I dunno. Characters as Device seems to encompass more than that - the building blocks of a character, wether intended or not. Hmmmmmm.
Tanto: The Scrappy's a judgment call, though. It's in the eye of the beholder, completely out of the hands of the creator. That seems like the very essence of Fan-Speak to me.
Ununnilium: Hmmmmmm. Good point.
Tanto: Gah, it's back. No, dammit! Characters as Device implies creator intent. The Scrappy is never intended. It is 100% in the hands of the fans, and thus is Fan Speak incarnate. Deleting, again.
herofangirl66: Is this part of character bashing?
Willy Four Eyes: I was wondering whether or not I should put Mai-Otome's Tomoe on this list. From what I've read on this site (and others), the writers seemed to be aiming to create another Shizuru, since she's hella popular among fans of Mai-HiME. However, it looks like they forgot to add the favorable qualities that made Shizuru a fan favorite, but instead made Tomoe's character as unlikable as possible (surely not intentional, I hope). And since the writers like her so much that she's been turned into Plucky Comic Relief in the OVAs, the only thing I have left to say is: "Uh-oh".
The next morning: Yup...Google searching for "Mai-Otome" "hate Tomoe" brings up quite a bit of results. Her fate has been sealed.
Um, why is Trip from Enterprise on here? The vast majority of the fandom, from what I've seen, regards him as their favorite character in the series. If anything, someone else is the Scrappy-fans tend to hate Captain Archer, T'Pol, and those three other characters no one ever remembers. The, um...okay, I think one was black. Pretty much everyone other than Trip and Phlox, really.
Morgan Wick: I'm surprised we got this far without the Microsoft Office "paper clip guy" being mentioned. I'd bet anything we had it before The Great Crash. I'm not sure what heading to put it under, though.
Scrounge: Took out
- So far, in this troper's opinion, Sari of Transformers Animated has avoided this fate, because she reacts like any normal human kid would when she makes friends with the giant robots: by abusing it endlessly for her amusement. Animated's version of Bumblebee, on the other hand...
... Because it was Discussion On The Main O Page, and added a more conscise mention of Sari. Also, not sure what the general consensus on Coby, Lori, and Bud from Cybetron is.
That Other 1 Dude: Rodimus Prime is more of a Replacement Scrappy from what I see.
Trogga: I've never heard Diddy Kong described as a Scrappy (well, expect from this one magazine).
Willy Four Eyes: Some people on Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Rareware fansites don't like him. Personally, I have no problem with Diddy...My Scrappy would have to be Kiddy Kong. Luckily, they only added him to Donkey Kong Country 3. Meh...diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, I guess.
Tanto: I've always rather liked Diddy. He's in the unfortunate position of being the scapegoat for most of Rare's post-Goldeneye output among the Nintendo purists, and that's really not fair... The whole Donkey Kong Country series is, really.
But he's the protagonist of the single best 2-D platformer of all time, with the exceptions of maybe Super Mario Bros 3 and Yoshi's Island. Plus, he steals every scene he's in in Subspace Emissary. So he's got that going for him.
Willy Four Eyes: Zapped an unmarked character death spoiler for the Rozen Maiden selection.
Nerem: I'm pretttttyyyyy sure the Elf Hate was around loooong before World Of Warcraft. The 'Elf Hate' you see of players despising World Of Warcraft's elf races probably come from hating ALL elf races already from earlier sources... like D&D, which is a huge and much older offender.
Dausuul: Elf hate dates back to at least the early '90s. See for example the Talislanta RPG, whose chief advertising slogan was "NO ELVES."
Willy Four Eyes: Zapped the entry for Tink and moved it to Butt-Monkey. In retrospect, I should have put it there, first.
That Other 1 Dude:
- Waluigi. 'Nuff said.
Trogga: I may not hate him, but I know a lot of fans and critics who like to pick on him.
Austin: Why on earth would the city guards from Order of the Stick be considered Scrappies? They've barely done anything, and certainly haven't taken up much spotlight time.
Willy Four Eyes: I have no idea. They don't seem that bad...it's probably because those that don't like them expected them to be nameless Red Shirt NPCs who get killed off to advance the plot.
Fabu Vinny: There is a faction of the fandom that dislike the current lull in the main plot and feel that the Azure City characters have run their course. That's the only reason I can think of.
Fabu Vinny: The Pokémon example is questionable. Tracey isn't the most popular character but he isn't particularly hated either. Just from the main characters, Max gets hate from more people. The most hated character and potential Scrappy would be Richie.
Trogga: Yeah, Tracey's more of a Replacement Scrappy.
Willy Four Eyes: True...though I thought he was a bit of a dull addition to the team. For the record, I also undid a lot of the entries that belong in Die for Our Ship.
Austin: I've heard that Scrappy's creator once publically apologized for creating him. Can anyone confirm this? It'd be a good way to show just how hated he was.
Willy Four Eyes: I fail to see how Kang and Kodos count as Scrappies. First, they're only included in the Halloween Episodes; and second, the segments with the alien duo in them are usually regarded as the funniest bits in the show.
Aliaras: How much fan hate is required for a character to be a scrappy? I'm specifically thinking of the Sara Sidle from CSI example here, as I know there is a part of the fandom which does like her (witness large letter-writing campaign etc when Jorja Fox announced her departure). However, I don't want to be an ass and just pull something because I happen to like the character a lot.
Gloating Swine: I've rendered the Code Geass entry down to something a little more manageable, and less reliant on spoiler tags, since it was getting a bit sprawling. Preserving it here, as it ably demonstrates how we appear to hate everyone on the show, and somehow still keep watching.
- Nina Einstein, the socially awkward and unrepentantly racist Psycho Lesbian from Code Geass is without a doubt the most unpopular character on the show, consistently ranking dead last in popularity polls. The main reason for this is because she was willing to set off a bomb that would kill tons of people, including her friends, just to get revenge on Zero after the events of EP 24-25. Then there was also that incident with the table in the darkness. *shudder* Though she's had a graphical redesign for Code Geass R2 (sexy uniform and more adult hairstyle included), Nina still refuses to change her ways, and thus remains as Scrappy as ever. Recently shot up the scrappy poll along with Suzaku in Episode 18 due to her invoking (unintentionally) Suzaku's geass, "Live", which resulted in the deaths of several secondary characters (Sayoko, Guiliford) and a major character (Nunnaly) via detonation of a nuclear missile.
- In the same series, major character Suzaku Kururugi gets a lot of accusations of Scrappy-ism. To summarize: he begins the show as a Wide-Eyed Idealist who wants to reform The Empire peacefully, a goal many fans already found unrealistic and foolish. When it's revealed that his nice-guy exterior is a mask for his alternating desires to justify or be punished for his murder of his father, and he's really a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, the accusations lessened. When Lelouch's killing of the woman he loved turned him into a raging berserker, some even felt that he was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, because even though he was opposing the Draco in Leather Pants protagonist, at least he was being honest with himself and did really feel pain over his loss. Then along came the second season, where he willingly hands Lelouch over to the Emperor in exchange for a promotion, then one year later sticks a metaphorical knife in his former friend's back by revealing that his missing sister Nunnally is a pawn of Britannia - done with a cold, unrepentant look on his face. Of course, some fans feel that A) he's justified now in seeing Lelouch as an enemy, given the above spoiler, B) He's better as an amoral jerk, C) he's giving the Magnificent Bastard of the series a taste of his own medicine, and D) his new memetic status as "Spinzaku" has some... charms. Not to mention, well, Lelouch has steadily remained as a HUGE Draco in Leather Pants, commiting several Kick the Dog and Rape The Dog acts but staying adored by the fandom.
- And then, in R2 episode 14, he plans on using a horribly addictive psychotropic drug on former classmate and friend Kallen, to try and confirm that Lelouch is the new Zero. At this point, some have turned his Memetic Mutation from "Spinzaku" to "Drugzaku", conveniently forgetting that in episode 15 Suzaku decided to NOT use the Refrain on Kallen after she pulls a What the Hell, Hero? on him.
- Suzaku's scrappy points sky-rocketed up a level in Episode 18, when he fired a nuclear missile into the Tokyo central palace during the rebellion, possibly killing several secondary characters in the process (Sayoko, Guiliford included), along with Nunnaly, Lelouch's sole reason for starting the rebellion in the first place.
- Keep in mind that people do somewhat aknowledge that Suzaku fired the bomb because of the effects of the "Live" Geass Order he was given by Lelouch... who *forgot* about that and ordered Kallen to ''kill'' Suzaku, activating it.
- This Troper is waiting eagerly for "Nukezaku" to start making the rounds.
- After episode 13 of R2, the fan hate for Rolo Lamperouge is rising as quickly as this troper had not seen in years because he killed Lelouch's friend Shirley for knowing too much about him . Really, he went from The Woobie to The Scrappy in practically no time, and the troper thought he'd have it easier since Shirley wasn't really popular...
- In the same series, major character Suzaku Kururugi gets a lot of accusations of Scrappy-ism. To summarize: he begins the show as a Wide-Eyed Idealist who wants to reform The Empire peacefully, a goal many fans already found unrealistic and foolish. When it's revealed that his nice-guy exterior is a mask for his alternating desires to justify or be punished for his murder of his father, and he's really a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, the accusations lessened. When Lelouch's killing of the woman he loved turned him into a raging berserker, some even felt that he was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, because even though he was opposing the Draco in Leather Pants protagonist, at least he was being honest with himself and did really feel pain over his loss. Then along came the second season, where he willingly hands Lelouch over to the Emperor in exchange for a promotion, then one year later sticks a metaphorical knife in his former friend's back by revealing that his missing sister Nunnally is a pawn of Britannia - done with a cold, unrepentant look on his face. Of course, some fans feel that A) he's justified now in seeing Lelouch as an enemy, given the above spoiler, B) He's better as an amoral jerk, C) he's giving the Magnificent Bastard of the series a taste of his own medicine, and D) his new memetic status as "Spinzaku" has some... charms. Not to mention, well, Lelouch has steadily remained as a HUGE Draco in Leather Pants, commiting several Kick the Dog and Rape The Dog acts but staying adored by the fandom.
jack: Code Geass The Scrappy definitions could be reliably cross-indexed to who happenned to be an obstacle to Lelouch at the time, while Rescued from the Scrappy Heap could be reliably cross-indexed to who had just switched from being an obstacle to Lelouch at the time...
I say scrub them all and put up a link to Broken Base.
Rebochan: I pulled the last three Doctor Who entries because they're just not Scrappies! 1) Rattigan: You were *supposed* to hate him for being an obnoxious jerk. Plus he was a one shot villain. I also haven't seen any wide-spread fan revolt on him because of those two reasons. 2) K9 is definitely not a Scrappy and the natter the entry was collecting proves that. 3) Adam Mitchell is, again, someone you were supposed to hate and the show expected you to. A Scrappy is someone you're supposed to actually accept. Also the entry was mostly blathering about the author's opinion that he got a raw deal and less of an argument for Scrappyhood.
Dausuul: Reorganized the main entry and tightened up the wording. Also took a lot of the editorializing on Scrappy-Doo himself and moved it down to his example entry, since I didn't feel the main entry needed to spend that much time on the Trope Namer.
theorc: Removed the Martha Jones stuff, as she is liked by quite a bit of the fandom and the entry seems to be just complaining about a character they don't like.
And I just had to do it again. Look, Rose and/or Martha may be disliked by some people, even many. But neither fit this trope and both have many fans. If you don't like one, tough, but leave it out of the entry.
stars: Adding the Martha Jones and Rose stuff back because - much as you may want to deny it - a LOT of people hate Martha and Rose and consider them to be examples of why the new show is crap. Not me. I love it! But I talk with enough Who fans who feel this way I think they should have their viewpoint expressed.
I personally know several Who fans who refused to buy the Series 3 DVD set because they find Martha to be annoying and whinny. And if you check the Who discussion boards with any regularity, you'll find a whole army of Who fans who hate Rose and refuse to watch the new series because of the feeling that she's a Mary Sue who saved The Doctor, got him to fall in love with her (the producers admit it, even if he won't) and got a human Doctor clone for her trouble... and that the whole sordid mess just RUINED The Doctor for them.
theorc: I know both have a good deal of haters. However, both have in my mind too large a fanbase to be Scrappies. Scrappy's someone *everyone* hates, or at least almost everyone. The examples before? Yeah. Even mentioning Donna is okay, even though she was rescued from it later on. But them? No.
Cynthia Wakefield: Somebody here REALLY, REALLY loves Donna Noble and keeps editing to back it up. She is NOT as universally liked as this person is claiming — she's a fanbase polarizer, love-her-or-hate-her, and the vitriol she receives from her detractors definitely qualifies her as a Scrappy. The reasons for hating Martha are also very much more Die for Our Ship than they are The Scrappy, but I'm leaving her her — I am, however, trimming the entries to try to avoid "rebuttal edits."
theorc: It's better now, but honestly if we judge by Who's Unpleasable Fanbase to add someone as a Scrappy, we'd probably list every single companion. A few do fit this role, but I'm not sure all three belong here, still.
Michael: Do we need another trope to cover situations like this, where an unpleasable fanbase loves and hates characters at the same time? You'll have a much harder time finding (even ex-) Adric fans than Donna, Rose or Martha fans.
Austin: I think a lot of people look at this trope the wrong way. There're at least two ways to judge a character; as a character and as a person. If a character is a total bitch, but she's supposed to be a total bitch, the other characters treat her like a total bitch, and she fulfills her role as a total bitch, then there's no reason to hate her. Miko from the Order of the Stick is one example, she's an utterly deplorable person, but as a character she did what she was supposed to.
Rogue 7: No, this trope is about the simplest way to judge a character- do you like them or not. Example- Mei Chan from Fullmetal Alchemist. She's not a bitch, she's got redeeming qualities, she's a skilled fighter, and she annoys the living hell out of me. Seriously, I can't stand her. When that sentiment is common about a particular character in fandom, they're The Scrappy.
Trouser Wearing Barbarian: However, a lot of people do mistake the former for the latter.
Bob: Cut for not being as universally hated as would be required for a proper The Scrappy.
- One thing just about all Mass Effect fans can agree on: they don't like Kaidan. At all.
- This Troper and Mass Effect fan would like to disagree on that.
- Likewise this one.
- This Troper has observed that the most common reason for fan hatred against Kaidan is simply because he is voiced by the same actor as Carth Onasi from Knights of the Old Republic, the Scrappy of that particular game. Unfair comparisons between the two characters, coupled with Kaiden's in-game uselessness due to his class, have resulted in a general dislike for the character. It's because of circumstance rather than his personality or anything he did.
- His class of Sentinel, though, is probably fair game for being called the Scrappy Class of Mass Effect. Sentinels get an okay mix of tech and biotic skills, but they have no armor or weapon skills except those unlocked as a bonus through Achievements. The Sentinel main class skill adds pistol accuracy, but it's not quite enough to keep playing as a straight Sentinel without a bonus weapon skill from being something of a Self-Imposed Challenge. As this relates to Kaiden...well, his personality is just fine but his party utility is a bit overshadowed by the dedicated techy/biotic characters, or the characters that have the more immediately useful tech powers while still possessing serious direct combat skills. This troper likes Kaidan...but he also almost never used him after the early game.
- Ashley is also shockingly annoying. She's sarcastic, whiny, racist and sometimes overly submissive. Her habit of insulting Liara drove many tropers to pick the Green-Skinned Space Babe instead of Ash.
- Most of her "racism" is simply her being dead serious about ship security. Considering the crew includes a krogan mercenary, a quarian drifter, and the daughter of the Big Bad's second in command, her concerns are slightly justified.
- I fail to see how being "sarcastic" is really a bad thing, considering the relative lack of snark among the rest of the crew (save Wrex's grim cynicism) Also, "overly submissive"? Last time I checked, she is submissive toward Shepard because s/he is her commanding officer. Not being that way is what most folks call "insubordination." That is a Bad Thing on a military vessel.
- This troper feels personally hurt, as Ashley was his favourite squad member in the game.
- This Troper and Mass Effect fan would like to disagree on that.
Igordebraga: also hated by just one guy.
- Cassandra Cain. The one true Batgirl is Barbara Gordon.
- Last time I check most comic fans loved Cass.
- I'm a comic book fan and I hate her. Batgirl is dead. Alan Moore killed her. No matter how good Watchmen is, I'll never forgive him for ruining the character of Batgirl. That's why I hate him, too.
- Last time I check most comic fans loved Cass.
Steel Beast 6 Beets: Moving the future natter to where it belongs:
- You sure Tear can be considered Scrappy when her huge Scrappy points are just on the fault of the VA misplaying her role? She must be perfectly normal, non-Scrappy quality in Japanese version, if this is what you are insinuating (or as you said: followed the Defrosting Ice Queen trope to a T).
Well, while Tear's Dub VA butchering her sensitive moments played an integral role in her current scrappy status we also have the fact that her hypocrisy knows no bounds (*To Luke* "If you were to stop me from wanting to die to save the planet, I will never forgive you!" *later* "Luke, you're stupid to want to die! If you do that to save the world, I will never forgive you!"). She didn't think twice on joining Anisse and Jade's efforts to turn Luke into the party's punching bag either. On the top of that, Tear never got called on this, unlikely the rest of the team which only added salt to the injury.
I should have mentioned that people use her as an example of the Tales Team's inability to make a likable female lead too.
Chris X: We never know. Tear's so-called 'hypocrisy' may be a product of American localization, it could be that in Japanese, she was saying something different...
Anonymous: What do you call a character that is a Scrappy for the cast and not just the viewers? e.g. Excalibur from Soul Eater? His entire "comedic" value comes from being endlessly irritating to any character he comes in contact with.
Guy Smiley: Not grasping the "Kagome and Kikyo are same character" argument. Sure, you get reincarnation and all that but functionally they're different characters with differing motivations, tempraments, etcetera. Compare say Shirou and Archer, who are the same person with no death stuff involved, but still act far differently. One can be a Scrappy and the other pretty good, in theory.
Freezer: Clipped the following:
- Danny Phantom's Opposite-Sex Clone Danielle "Dani" Phantom certainly applies.
I don't see how she applies: She's a pretty popular character who doesn't come close to overshadowing the main cast. (...Well, maybe Tucker)
Willy Four Eyes: We really need to cut down on the Fan Cruft and Die for Our Ship-related entries. I'm going to try (and fail) to separate them, but I'll need some help.
nobody: For the record, not only did I LIKE Scrappy-Doo from Scooby-Doo, but he was my favorite character, and the favorite of a lot of people I know. I hadn't a clue he was supposed to be hated until I came on tvtropes.
SpiriTsunami: I was neutral on the character before I came here—hell, still am. But you get a Made Of Win for that because I understand the feeling (didn't know I was supposed to hate The Inheritance Cycle before I came here), and also because I'm campaigning against the useless renaming of tropes.
Steel Beast 6 Beets: Perhaps bringing back the bit about Persona3 wasn't such a good idea after all...
... NOT! *Evil Laugh*
Peteman: Does anyone else feel this way about Tory from Battlestar Galactica?
I know he's probably meant to be written this way, and he's treated like one in-universe, but seriously, Law and Order SVU CSU tech Dale just needs to be written out. And I won't celebrate his removal, since he was jammed ham-fistedly in there to have a punching bag for the characters.
Hello, could someone add the character of that one detective's wife from Southland? You know what I'm talking about. Thanks.
Heartbreak: The examples in the wrestling section would be more appropriate under It'sPopularNowItSucks because they are some of the most beloved figures in wrestling that only a small percentage of fans seem to dislike after they became main eveners’. There are some examples in wrestling of widespread fan rejection like Bret Hart at wrestlemania 13 but judging from what happened when some guy tried to put it on the wesley page I will not try to add them here. I hate seeing bad information it makes my heart break
McJeff: OK, first of all, you were that editor trying to claim that Bret Hart was a Wesley. And you got shouted down by five different editors. Also, utterly disproving the claim that only a "tiny portion of internet fans" dislike John Cena.
HeartBreak: No, I agreed with that guy and supported him because his argument made since and the numbers backed him up. Also the only people who disagreed with that along with my own assertion that Hogan was not a westly based on the fact that he turned around a struggling company, were you and the Heart Burn Kid who I suspect are the same guy sockpuppetting. As for the Cena video it took place at one night stand and hardcore ECW fans typically booed whoever was popular with other companies and is not a typical reaction for him.
McJeff: First of all, you're wrong. In that very video I linked, Tazz says that "it's not unusual for Cena to get mixed reactions". Even the WWE acknowledges that a lot of people dislike Cena. But even if not a single mark disliked Cena, he would still be a type of Scrappy called The Barney, meaning a character who is hated outside its target fan group.
As far as sockpuppetry goes, it's easy to prove that 1) Heart Burn Kid and I are not socks, and 2) that you and RAF are/were. Just check the discussion history over at The Wesley, and find the part where you accidentally posted as RAF from Heartbreak's IP.
Heartbreak: I post from public computers at an on campus library were thousands of students use the computers every day. There are dozens of other wrestling fans here and one of the others most be RAF. Also I am pretty sure that you and Heartburn Kid are not the same person but you do share similar views and ignore popular fan reaction in favor of the Smark opinion on certain wrestlers
If you think Cena is The Barny put him there because he is far to popular to be a straight up scrappy with the majority of fans. There has always been backlash against popular superstars, if this was the 70’s you would have probably put down Andre the Giant and the Spoiler in this section and like I said almost any wrestler could go here.
Cut this
- Definitely Peggy Hill. Self Important, Overbearing, Overreacts, Cannot do wrong (in her mind), idiotic, and is a stupid redneck. Hank is just messed up thanks to his father, but Peggy has no goddamned excuse.
Because frankly this is the first time I (a long time King of the Hill fan) have ever heard of people hating her that much. While she isn't the Ensemble Darkhorse of the show she scarcely has a hatedom large enough to warrant inclusion on this page.
Shini: I Cut Slappy The Squirrel from the Animaniacs example - I have never seen any significant hatred towards her, if anything people are more annoyed by her nephew Skippy. Also added reasons why Katie Ka-Boom and Hip Hippos were scrappies.
Barratsoss: Why exactly is Abigail Whistler from Blade: Trinity considered a Scrappy ? Jessical Biel became very popular afterwards (though not necessarily because of this movie exactly), and her character didnt behaved in any Scrappy-like way except for the really stupid and uncool idea of hearing music (the boring mainstream type, no less) while fighting vampires who should actually kill her off easily for she's just an ordinary human being, not some superhuman being like the half-vampire Blade.
Solandra: Er, is Poland really The Scrappy? Okay, he isn't one of the Ensemble Darkhorses and I can see how his personality could be grating to some, but he seems to have his share of fans and I don't see any fans out to get his blood or even any general consensus on how annoying/sucktastic he is. The entry sounds a bit like Complaining About Characters You Don't Like, IMO. (The South Korea example is more understandable, although I think the furor's died out by now.) Most Hetalia fans seem to like the entire cast, and merely like some characters more than others.
MikoGalatea: Heh, I was thinking the same thing. Maybe it's just the fandom circles I've hung around in, but the worst I've ever seen people say about Poland is that he's not a very flattering portrayal of the country... and that tends to come from fans who like him. He also seems to be reasonably well-liked in Japanese fandom, if pixiv is anything to go by. So Yeah... *shrug*
Thesunisup: Overhauled the Claymore example to be a bit more fair to the character. The old example read as follows:
- Raki from Claymore seems to be ascending to this status with astonishing speed since this series came out in the West. He's clingy, irritatingly prone to being held hostage in some manner, and utterly useless in any way conceivable. That alone would be tolerable. Unfortunately, he also has a tendency to throw himself into dangerous situations, even after Clare expressly tells him not to, leading to a number of instances where Clare is forced to go out of her way to save him. Additionally, his blatant Ascended Fanboy character type rubs many people the wrong way in a series otherwise full of kickass females, and his presence seems to be purely so male readers of the manga can put themselves in his shoes. With recent developments in the manga, this may be subject to change.
9/14/09: I removed the following examples, which don't belong for one of these reasons:
- Not being a character. Songs, entire books, authors, and (seriously, people!) computer hardware aren't Scrappies.
- Entire long lists of characters. This becomes more a question of people hating the entire show, book, or whatever. The Scrappy should be a character (or maybe a few characters) in an otherwise liked show. Unpleasable Fan Bases also don't really count.
- Excessive discussion, especially around characters like The Wesley that are discussed in more depth in another page, and Flame Wars about whether or not a character counts. T Here's also a point at which listing more reasons to hate the character becomes unnecessary.
- Characters who aren't hated enough. The Scrappy should be a character that has a significant hatedom, not just one that has at least one antifan. Also, characters that have some hatedom but a strong fandom don't necessarily count. Basically, entries that said "Not really a huge hatedom, but..." or "Although he also has a strong fanbase..." got the ax.
- Code Geass reached a point in its second season where calling any single character The Scrappy became pointless, since between Ship-to-Ship Combat and Magnificent Bastardry giving way to just plain old bastardry, damn near every single plot-important character was now the proud owner of an internet Hatedom. Only Lelouch's spectacular leather pants save him from the worst of it. In the end, however, most seem to agree that the character they dislike the most isn't Suzaku, or Nina, or Rolo, or Nunnally, or Kallen, or even Schneizel, but...Kaname Ougi, who lost his Darkhorse status after a certain point in the second season.
- Let's put it this way. During the summer of 2008, the airing time of Code Geass R2, this entry would change nearly every single week.
- Gino still seems to have one due to the fact that his character received no character development, and frankly makes no sense. He still wishes that the evil racist Britannia was still around while all of his friends (except Anya) are Japanese. Basically, imagine a Neo Nazi whose friends were all Jewish.
- It's a result of Alternate Character Interpretation.
- Even Lelouch hasn't been safe from this, due to the fanbase pulling for Britannia, or at least anyone on its side, most notably Schneizel. Broken Base much?
- One doesn't necessarily have to be Rooting for the Empire in order to dislike lelouch. Especially in the final arc, when Lelouch intentionally becomes a Complete Monster.
- Suzaku, for his moral inconsistencies that clash with his idealism.
- Rolo, until he saved Lelouch. At least for those who still don't hate him for murdering Shirley.
- Actually Shinji may have gotten one awesome moment: killing Zouken with Gilgamesh in UBW. However we never get to see this, or even know if it really happened, but if it did...
- Sakura herself isn't free of some hatedom due to people viewing Dark Sakura's actions more negatively than was really intended. Specifically, Dark Saber and the bad end where she inflicts her life with the Matou's on Tohsaka, while calmly noting that Tohsaka is already crying on the first day because she was a virgin.
- Let's not forget Ash. Like with Miaka, being the main character doesn't save one from being a Scrappy.
- Although, no one completely despises Ash since he is the reason the show exists and therefore, is one the those characters the haters accept to suffer with.
- Paul. For every fan who worships him for being a Bad Ass, there's one who hates him for being a Jerkass.
- Let's just say that to some group of people any or at least one character is the scrappy.
- Except Team Rocket. If you hate Team Rocket you have no soul.
- Not really, because sometimes you really get bored with all of it...
- However, the Team Rocket trio is among the most developed characters of the series, with a good deal of episodes and flashbacks detailing their lives before the timeline in which the show takes place, especially in recent episodes. Seems the writers don't want them to just be nothing but an Overused Running Gag after all.
- Let's not forget Ash. Like with Miaka, being the main character doesn't save one from being a Scrappy.
- Feliks/Poland isn't extremely well-liked in fandom either, due to both Die for Our Ship reasons (Russia/Lithuania fans are to blame mostly) and how his somewhat self-centered, flighty personality rubs people the wrong way.
- Even worse, ruining the best thing about Beverly Hills Cop: The opening number "Axel F".
- The ire in the rock music community was even greater, as it beat Coldplay's "Speed of Sound" to number 1.
sums it up.
- Imagine yourself being a PC gamer in the late 1990s. Every game is run in fullscreen and WILL crash if you Alt+Tab out of it. Back in the days, using the keys Ctrl, Alt and Shift to play was the norm, so you adapted a kind of specialised grip on the keyboard just for gaming. Now imagine a new key that sits JUST in-between Ctrl and Alt, leading to quite a few slips of the finger that result in pushing that key, and watch as your game crashes (probably at a boss or a particularly hard part of the game, because being nervous leads to you making mistakes) and after about 20 seconds of computer lock-up, pops up the Start menu, as if the computer is mocking you. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you, the Windows Key, the only key that says "press here to lose!"
- "Specialized grip" indeed. Even under DOSBox, trying to remap CTRL and ALT to Z and V to get the key distance right yet still avoid the Windows Key.
- This is so well-known that some keyboards have incorporated a "game mode" switch that has the sole effect of disabling the Windows key.
- Let alone the fact that the key was pretty much guaranteed this since it incorporates a Microsoft logo, and now appears on almost every keyboard one can buy, even though the computer they're plugged into may not have Windows on it at all. Given the existing negative feeling towards them, the key was pretty much guaranteed this status for some people.
- Somewhere, the person who decided that keyboards should have 'power', 'suspend', and 'sleep' buttons waits. He waits in fear. He cannot sleep for more than two hours at a time, as he constantly shudders into alertness, knowing that the moment he lets down his guard, his head will be bashed open like a ripe melon by a user who hit these buttons one too many times.
- Almost as bad is making them into normal keys, putting them where the 'Print Screen', 'Scroll Lock' and 'Pause' keys should be, and moving all the keys below them down in order to fit. To be dealt with all 4 offending keys in the appropriate fashion: pry them off the keyboard with a screwdriver.
- Windows Vista's excessive Copy Protection and other flaws have gotten it a reputation as The Scrappy of operating systems, especially before the release of Service Pack 1.
- Even though as of 2009 most problems regarding Vista are a thing of the past (either they don't exist anymore or are easily tweaked), many users still refuse to upgrade from older versions, either because of the aesthetic and functional changes (which are not that big) or because "their amateur computer whiz friend told them it was bad", leaving a small percentage truly unsatisfied with said operating system. Even so, it is still quite resource-hungry and some manufacturers insist on selling it preinstalled on underpowered machines. The up and coming Windows 7 promises to fix this.
- Having used Windows 7 for the better part of 6 months now, I can definitely say that Microsoft has Rescued the Vista base code from the Scrappy Pile
- Before Vista, Windows ME (known as Mistake Edition) was incredibly unpopular for its tendency to flash a BSOD (and not the heroic kind) on a
near-daily basis. - Windows in general is generally The Scrappy of operating systems, with 3.x 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, and Vista all equally hated at one point or another, XP is the only one comes off relatively well.
- Even though as of 2009 most problems regarding Vista are a thing of the past (either they don't exist anymore or are easily tweaked), many users still refuse to upgrade from older versions, either because of the aesthetic and functional changes (which are not that big) or because "their amateur computer whiz friend told them it was bad", leaving a small percentage truly unsatisfied with said operating system. Even so, it is still quite resource-hungry and some manufacturers insist on selling it preinstalled on underpowered machines. The up and coming Windows 7 promises to fix this.
- DRM. Among the worst offenders:
- A previous version of Starforce in the worst-case scenario could cause physical hardware failure. Somewhat effective as Copy Protection, actually, since people can't use their CD drives to copy a CD if you break their CD drive first.
- Except under US law, at least, a legitimate user has the right to make a backup copy, So Yeah.
- SecuROM, to which the frequent piracy of Spore is often attributed, and also led to a class-action lawsuit against EA.
- The Sony rootkit scandal.
- A previous version of Starforce in the worst-case scenario could cause physical hardware failure
(Jar Jar Binks)
- More annoying his one line in Episode III sets up the creation of the frickin' Empire!
- And the worst thing is that he survives all the way throughout most of the Star Wars EU. He even gets to have kids!
- As the series neared its ultimate conclusion, Harry Potter reached a point where calling any single character The Scrappy became pointless, as Ship-to-Ship Combat and Alternate Character Interpretation made damn near every single plot-important character become the proud owner of an internet Hatedom. Dolores Umbridge could count, as fans hate her more than the Big Bad Voldemort, but then again, she was written for the sole reason to be despised.
- Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, Twilight, the Scrappy of books. People read the series just for the purpose of being able to make fun of it more effectively.
- For an author example, C.S. Goto, a Warhammer 40000 writer who is generally described across the Interwebverse as "I bought [insert Goto book here], I regret it, it's terrible, I wish I'd given the money to
- For another, Karen "Boba Fettishism" Traviss, who is generally seen as (pick one):
A) One of the worst Star Wars authors of all time
B) Dangerously obsessed with Boba Fett
C) The ultimate scary Mandalorian fangirl
D) The Queen of Character Derailment
E) All of the above.
(Wesley Crusher—this line removed because he's discussed more on The Wesley)
- Though Wesley was Gene Rodenberry's name so it was hard for anyone to oppose the character when the Great Bird was alive, of course once he dies Wesley was put on a starship.
- Well, to be fair, she'd also kill an innocent man if she continued to kill Mohinder.
- Mohinder does have to talk over the beginning and end of each episode, so he has a large presence, even when he was sedated for three episodes.
- As perfect evidence of the notorious case of Unpleasable Fanbase afflicting Doctor Who fans, every single one of the new series' main female companions (Rose, Martha and Donna) have suffered hatedoms from different (or in some cases, the same) parts of the fanbase. In these cases, there is often more than a hint of Die for Our Ship involved, as most of the bad feeling towards them seems to come mainly from the increased romantic subtexts that the producers have infused the show with and debates about whether the character is an appropriate romantic foil for the Doctor. There is also an increased tendency for characters to engage in Shilling the Wesley for other characters that the production team are obviously very fond of (Rose and Donna in particular have been accused and criticised because of this), which doesn’t help. It should be noted that all three characters also have their fans, many of whom can be equally devoted to them.
- Adric is so widely hated that a Doctor Who fanfiction community has an ongoing Meta Fic series in which the character was repeatedly killed off in as many ways as the authors could think of (which, oddly enough, actually made him quite an endearing character, in a woobie sort of way).
- To be fair, Conner was a terrible example of a full-grown Bratty Half-Pint when he returned from the Quor-Toth all the way until the end of season 4. When he returns in season 5 he becomes a likeable character, but during season four, deep down everyone knows that they would have loved to have seen Faith beat the crap out of him non-stop for an episode or two.
- After rewatching the fifth season, [[spoiler: the descripton of "you won't let me be there for you" would
- Two words that will strike fear into the hearts of thrashers everywhere: St. Anger.
- This troper would disagree with that, I like the album, but it is best listened to after watching their two hour therapy film.
- Fan Dumb elements, particularly of the Willfully Blind variety, like to try and claim the anti-Cena fans are a tiny minority. Obviously, they've never been to ECW Country.
- In all honesty, even a good subsect of hard-to-please "Smart Marks" are willing to give Cena his due for being a workhorse for WWE and for his dedication to the business. They just hate his current (not-even-really-a-)gimmick and the way he's booked. Many feel a Face–Heel Turn would do wonders for freshening up his character, but with Cena being a money-making juggernaut for WWE, this is unlikely to happen any time soon.
- The funny thing is, one of the main reasons the smarks warmed up to Cena was because he took his Scrappydom like a man and kept on wrestling instead of mailing it in (like Brock Lesnar did on his way out) or insult them in a bitter fury (like Bradshaw did).
(bill collectors)
- Unfortunate, because they're just doing their job, and have families too. Their scrappy status goes even all the way back to the days of The Bible, where every mention of "tax collector" could be replaced with "society's Scrappy" and still make sense. Since in Bible times, tax collectors were usually Jews who had chosen to work collecting tribute money for the Roman Empire from their own subjugated neighbors, it was more justified.
- Most bill collectors are crooks. Just run an internet search on Pallisade Collections, a typical debt collection agency and see what happens. Also this link to a multipart special about them. Be warned, some of the actions you are aboout to witness are borderline Moral Event Horizon level evil acts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN0RButoRi4&feature=related
- Bill collectors (and their even worse UK equivelant, bailiffs) exist to bully poor people out of money they don't have. The profession has been proven numerous times to encourage fictional fines, non-existent charges and habitual law-breaking. Describing them as The Scrappy is actually being kind, Complete Monster would be more appropriate.
(Tingle)
- Not the worst of it, that game is getting a SEQUEL! Tingle has become a bonafide FRANCHISE!
- Pretty much any new character in a Sonic game will be hated upon until proven otherwise (case in point, the initial reaction to Chip in Sonic Unleashed). The exception to this rule is Blaze the Cat from Sonic Rush, who was neither hated upon initial reaction nor upon being proven to be a decently decent character.
- You are not the only one that hates him due to his personality.
- You are not the only one that
- Which is rather odd since Axl fits in more in the Megaman mythos than Zero does. Hell, his abilities gameplay-wise are practically another way of looking at what X (or Megaman) do. Getting a new gun when defeating a Boss? Pretty much like X does when he defeats a Boss. Shapeshifting into enemies/Bosses? That's taking Mega Manning to the next level. Alas, he is hated and dumped in favor for...
- If you play as Grey in Mega Man ZX Advent, Model A has a cocky attitude and a voice that sounds suspiciously like Axl, which can be construed as a thinly veiled Take That! (or Discontinuity Nod) on the part of the creators, acknowledging the negative fan reaction. However, the "A" really stands for Albert. Ashe's version of Model A, though using much of the same dialogue, has a female voice.
- There was a time that Zero was The Scrappy of the Mega Man X series, being a relatively minor character who was brought back from the dead (more than once), given a Mysterious Past involving Dr. Wily & constantly stealing the title character's thunder. Still, his own Megaman Zero series was pulled off so well that you can't help but love the guy, and Capcom seems to have dialed back his spotlight hogging in the more recent games.
- Uh, no, I think you got it in reverse. Zero's become quite the opposite, popular with the fans and even possibly his designer (he originally planned for Zero to be the "real" Mega Man X). It was because of that popularity, and Inafune's decision not to turn his back on Zero, that he made the Zero series in the first place.
- Which lead to a Your Mileage May Vary case when dealing with Zero. X/Megaman Purists find Zero to be garbage and Axl to be fair game, while Zero Fans go by the trifecta of Love Zero/Ignore X/Hate Axl. In contrast to Axl, Zero makes less sense with the Megaman Mythos. He is worshipped for what we assume to be the reason in this case: He has a SWORD!!111!!1! Cue Face Palm&Sigh
- This still doesn't make Anomen really likeable, or make you want to take him with you more. There's a reason Kivan's mod is so popular. Of course Anomen's case wasn't helped once fans found out Haer'Dalis and Valygar were also supposed to be romancable, and then the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from the fremale fans came for Black Isle's lame excuse for not continuing them.
- Reportedly the only way to actually turn Anomen "nice" is to start the female romance with a female main character with him. His author, David Gaider, once stated he would have written Anomen a lot differently had he initially known that Anomen would end up being the only female love interest. It should be pointed out that it is possible to turn Anomen, who is lawful neutral in the beginning, into chaotic neutral and, if either Keldorn or Aerie are in the group, into chaotic evil (he kills either of the two for that). This however will stop the romance, so evil female main characters dont get a romance at all. Fanmods can help out there, though.
- Anomen gets more tolerable if you navigate a certain sidequest properly, but considering the structure of the game during Chapter 2, it's easily missed, so it doesn't really matter anyway. Even those that find him annoying will take him on and do the quest since even with the shift to Lawful Good and the increase of WIS scores to good levels, he still has the Neutral Character's spell list (meaning he can cast both good and evil spells).
- The events between Aerie and Jaheira also seem to evidence an averted scrappyhood for Jaheira, even when people like Aerie. Because there's certainly another way of putting the above; the reason Aerie takes a low blow is basically because she has taken several rounds of beating to the head from a heavyweight champion who's refusing to admit there's a match on. Of course, if you think Aerie is an annoying whiner, you'll probably just be happy when someone tells her off for it even if it's really out of jealousy and wouldn't happen if Jaheira wasn't attracted to the player character. But even those on Aerie's side don't seem to fancy hating Jaheira.
- Waluigi tends to get this because of his lack of involvement in any of the Mario games other than the spinoffs, and a reason to give Luigi an Evil Counterpart (a la Wario).
- Of course both characters also have their own fanbases so this case seems to be subjective.
- And to be fair, both characters have their moments. Daisy is sometimes cast as a badass tomboy who once
- Not that much of a huge hatedom, but Anise Tatlin from Tales Of The Abyss gets a lot of flak for making a lot of snide comments to Luke after his haircut and realization of his jerkassness, which is pretty close to 'You can die for all I care'. Then it got worse when she caused Ion's death when she could've stopped it, then gets Easily Forgiven. The last straw would be her resolve to kill Arietta, by... not telling her the truth about Ion, and kills her in cold blood, dooming her to a tragic death without knowing the truth.
- Tear Grants deserves a mention too. A Defrosting Ice Queen gone horribly wrong, she was supposed to follow the trope to a T. Unfortunately her Dub VA butchered her sensitive moments making her look like a cold, uncaring bitch that couldn't go more than two or three scenes without being a huge hypocrite. By the end of the game, many people just wanted Luke to regrow a spine and knock some of her teeth out.
- And there's Luke himself, who is commonly hated for being an arrogant, abrasive Jerkass prior to his Important Haircut, and/or often Wangsting and lacking self confidence in the later game.
- Princess Natalia Luzu Kimlalsca Lanvadear is not too popular with the fans either. She is a Dumb Blonde at moments, arrogant when you first meet her, teases poor gynophobic Guy, nags her fiance Luke, and even blackmails him to let her join. She does apologize for her actions later on in the game, but the development becomes overshadowed when she gets even gloomier than Luke when she finds out she isn't a true princess and distresses over fighting her father Largo. and almost immediately fawns over Asch when she finds out he is the true Luke who proposed to her as a kid and pretty much ignores replica-Luke . She really is just a sentimental and emotional young woman with love problems, but things aren't always great for the princesses of video games.
- ...So basically what we're saying is, every character in Tales Of The Abyss has some hatedom, with the exception of Guy and Jade.
- Because allowing the other party members to undo the MC's sealing of Nyx, and thus doom the world, would've been so much better.
- Unsurprisingly, the presence of two eligible females both in love with the Main Character results in major pairing wars between MC/Yukari and MC/Aigis fans, sometimes resulting in DieForOurShip. Atlus doesn't help, since different points of view make it possible to justify the actions of either of them.
- She came out of nowhere. Yes characters who come out of nowhere can develop well, but...
- She also joined when most of the game was already done. Late joiners again can be developed, but it was another unfortunate nail in her coffin that made this a bad thing.
- The other characters just didn't really give her a chance due to their roles constricting her breathing space. So she remained annoying throughout the game.
- And some players of the game also felt that the light Dragoon Spirit was worthless anyhow. Sure she didn't throw off anyone's strategies, but due to Shana and Miranda not having any real combos, some saw them as a gimmick and preferred using Meru or healing items over her.
- Some people also hate Shirley because she joins at the start of the character quest, takes quite a while to develop her full arsenal of magic (Whereas Will and Norma have about 60% of their arsenal...and Grune's Bloody Howling is considered to make up for only having three or four spells by that point) and all but one of her spells is learnable by other people, even though this troper used Shirley in the final battle because Tidal wave was actually pretty powerful on the final boss with a weakness to sea. Plus she's also a semi-ranged attacker and is the only mage who can efficiently combo in the game. (Will gets beaten up when he comes too close...don't let that giant hammer fool you)
- The dump truck from Blast Corps. Hard to handle and use, being forced to use it is an exercise in frustartion.
- For the Sim City fandom (considering you're playing a game you're looking at buildings most of the time), most of the "Maxisland" buildings are kind of bland and bad, but none stands out quite more like Wren Insurance, mostly due to either a glitch or a program intention that causes the building to "spam the skyline" more than others, even with custom made buildings. A game mod called "Go Away Wren" helps fix this glitch and allow it to be less presistant, but this scrappy has actually managed to ascend itself to the archecticual version of a Butt-Monkey and meme fuel.
(X Men Evolution)
- Scott also tends to get this treatment from a lot of the fanbase, but some people actually do like him. The same cannot be said for Spyke.
Wow. I need a drink.
I added Necropolis and Death from Ravenloft, considering the Gothic nature of the series, the domains are practically a character onto themselves. I just noticed from browsing in forums how many D Ms complained it's unplayable, or how they chose to excise/completely rewrite it, and players that hated getting dragged there.
And person above me, seriously - you need to chill.
So let me get this straight: It is acceptable to explain why a character can be Scrappy but when you present criteria explaining how the character has better influence within their medium, it is immediately edited out?
Apparently anyone can remove information or commentary based on self-thought rules. That is: "I removed the following examples, which don't belong for one of these reasons:
- Not being a character. Songs, entire books, authors, and (seriously, people!) computer hardware aren't Scrappies.
- Entire long lists of characters. This becomes more a question of people hating the entire show, book, or whatever. The Scrappy should be a character (or maybe a few characters) in an otherwise liked show. Unpleasable Fan Bases also don't really count.
- Excessive discussion, especially around characters like The Wesley that are discussed in more depth in another page, and Flame Wars about whether or not a character counts. T Here's also a point at which listing more reasons to hate the character becomes unnecessary.
- Characters who aren't hated enough. The Scrappy should be a character that has a significant hatedom, not just one that has at least one antifan. Also, characters that have some hatedom but a strong fandom don't necessarily count. Basically, entries that said "Not really a huge hatedom, but..." or "Although he also has a strong fanbase..." got the ax."
If this is the case, then any person can outright delete the page and put down "Because I can, and y'all are nothing to me." Why even have a page discussing a concept when you can't even add to it? Whether it is unneeded or not isn't the point, but to understand why and how that character is considered this or that. It makes it more annoying having to see an entry and then try to find the reasoning behind it, only to find no actual input but a sentence and going to another page entirely to find out why. The reader will not go look at another page if they only want to know about such&such (i.e. Going from The Scrappy to the The Wesley for info on why the character is scrappy in the first place).
This is all lousy judgment, poor editing, and bad web design in one place.
Thinks Too Much: I will trust the opinions of the other tropers, but would just like to mention that I loved Ahsoka when I saw Star Wars The Clone Wars. Ditto Kairi. Maybe I'm just strange?
Some New Guy: Removed the Aigis example because leaving Minato as the seal of Nyx and Erebus was shown pretty clearly to be the right thing to do, since undoing the seal would undo everything SEES went through and cause The End of the World as We Know It.
Raven Black: Just wanted to say "thank you" to Peteman for nuking my errant Torchwood entry. Apparently frantically clicking on the cancel button didn't stop it from going through after all.
DT: I've been thinking recently about a concept I refer to as a "Strawman Scrappy." Essentially, the concept refers to characters who are widely hated, but when you ask the people who hate them why they hate them you start to realise that their perception of the character is so utterly distorted that they bear absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to how the character in question is actually portrayed.
There are basically two main thngs that worry me about this concept. One, trying to write an entry that does a good job of explaining it, and two, preventing it from being abused (as I worry about it being used in cases where the view that a certain character is a scrappy actually has solid grounding in how the character is actually portrayed).
Anyone interested in discussing this?
Seikai: Isn't there already a trope like this, called Ron the Death Eater?
DT: From what I can see, no. That trope seems to be about turning character into villains and is very fanfiction focused. The trope I'm proposing is much, much more general. It refers to basically any character where, for whatever reason,is hated as a scrappy based on massively, massively distorted impressions of the character.
Unfortunately, I'm having trouble thinking of widely recognisable examples due to the fact that I'm mostly an anime/manga fan. The two characters I can think of who I consider good examples of the proposed trope are not exactly extremely well known.
DT: I toyed around a bit with trying to write a description for a page describing what I'm talking about. Anyone got any thoughts?
"So you’ve got a part of a fandom that hates a character. Really hates a character. They like to talk at length about what makes this character so unbearably awful, and are very vocal about their opinion of him or her.
Problem is, the character they’re talking about doesn’t really resemble the character they say they’re talking about very much.
You’ve just discovered a Strawman Scrappy. What defines a Strawman Scrappy, and sets him or her apart from a regular Scrappy, is the fact that the hatedom’s perception of a Strawman Scrappy is so distorted by their hatred of the character that their version of the character bears little resemblance to the way the character is actually portrayed. It’s basically to the point where rabidly hating the character is a requirement for being able to see the character that way."
Seikai: If you're planning on making a new trope, you probably would get more feedback if you were to put it up on the YKTTW section...
As an aside comment, this trope is probably going to take a lot of work to get it so that it doesn't have a lot of people arguing about whose perception about the character is "correct." I can already imagine all the natter and people yelling at each other about whether that character's personality was warped or if that character really was that way.
DT: Yeah. I have to admit I'm of two minds about this. On one hand, I think this trope describes an actual phenomenon (or at least is close to it -I'll admit I'm not sure I quite managed to nail things with the description). On the other, I am very much aware of the Pandora's Box nature of the whole idea, as I'm pretty sure the fact that most scrappies have at least a few fans would result in quite a lot of characters being put forth as examples when they don't deserve to be. And that would likely results in a lot of arguments...
Be: Ron the Death Eater is a fan misrepresenting canon actions to make the character in question seem evil. Straw Scrappy sounds like a fan misrepresenting canon actions to make the character sound more irritating than he/she is. If it turned out that Bella really didn't gush over Edward's beauty as much the fans claim she does, that would make her a Straw Scrappy (unfortunately, she does, but I'm just using the hypothetical). As for the trope itself, go for it.
Be: I am quite sad that people are serious about wanting this trope renamed. Who wants to join me in a countdown until it becomes "That One Character" or something equally as bland?
