While much usually depends on execution, certain kinds of characters have a much higher probability of being hated for unintentional reasons:
- A '90s Anti-Hero who is just way too mean, nasty, and/or violent to be likeable and/or sympathetic. Especially if they end up being just as bad (or even worse) than the villains they're up against.
- The Abusive Parents, if they aren't already the Hate Sink and if the story doesn't focus on or even if it is acquiescent with the mistreatment they infringe upon to their offspring (a frequent case in Hilariously Abusive Childhood situations).
- A character who refuses to forgive a remorseful perpetrator for their past actions, or let them forgive themselves.
- The Ace, when used for the wrong situation or when made way too skilled and never fail once.
- A character who has undergone an Adaptation Personality Change. There are too many examples to list here, but it's worth noting that sometimes audiences may not like a character's new personality if it makes them even worse or more unlikeable. Or, it's because the audience knows the author is trying to force them to like/hate a character that they don't want to. Though it's also equally important to note that this can be a mixed bag, as personality changes can sometimes actually have the opposite effect on an existing scrappy.
- An Aesop Amnesiac who keeps making the same mistakes and never learns from them. Especially if it causes all kinds of unnecessary problems for the characters and/or frustrates the audience.
- An Aesop Enforcer who is needlessly punitive and cruel to a character to teach a lesson or correct a bad behaviour. Especially if they victimize innocent people to get their point across.
- Even if an Alpha Bitch is not written as a Hate Sink, she can still come across as too conceited and bitchy. The same goes for her Beta Bitch and Girl Posse.
- A character with too much Angst Dissonance.
- An Animate Inanimate Object or a Gratuitous Animal Sidekick just added to appeal to kids and that is otherwise unappealing.
- An Annoying Younger Sibling, a Bratty Half-Pint, a Bratty Teenage Daughter, Dumbass Teenage Son, a Spoiled Brat, a Rich Bitch, or a Royal Brat, especially if they don't grow out of it.
- An Audience Surrogate character who really doesn't really represent the audience at all.
- If the surrogate is too cool, smart, or badass, the audience can't relate to the character and might even be jealous of them for having it so good (especially if the character complains about it).
- If the surrogate is too stupid, whiny, or pathetic, the audience won't want to relate to the character and might even feel insulted by them.
- A character who delivers Author Filibusters.
- A character who is intended to be an Awesome Ego, but their arrogance comes off as more obnoxious than endearing. Particularly likely if the character is also a Jerkass or a villain, especially if they never get put in their place at least once.
- Any character who is the primary lead in displaying an unhealthy case of Belligerent Sexual Tension. Especially when they have lashed out at that person one time too many for there to be a peaceful and stable romance.
- A Big Bad Wannabe who wastes the audience's time by acting like the Big Bad when they're clearly not.
- A Bit Character who just does or says the same thing over and over again while having no other purpose than just doing a repetitive joke or catchphrase. Especially if the audience finds the character/joke/catchphrase annoying, pointless, and/or intrusive to the story.
- A Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, especially when they hide their bitchiness (which is usually extremely nasty) for a very long time, since they make the audience regret they buy into their 'fake' sweetness only to reveal that they are actually nasty. Naturally, the inverse is rarely subject to this.
- A Boomerang Bigot or a character who betrays their own people/identity to be on another group's side and doesn't get a Character Development or realize their own hypocrisy.
- The Bully, if they're not an outright Hate Sink. May be a Big Brother Bully. Gets worse if they're Bullying the Disabled. Overlaps with Jerks Are Worse Than Villains.
- A Bully Hunter (or a Wife-Basher Basher, a related trope) if their methods are overly harsh and extreme and/or if they target innocent people who really don't deserve it. Especially if the narrative actually treats them as right for doing so.
- A Bumbling Dad who is too much of an idiot and a jerkass, especially when he treats his family like trash.
- A Canon Foreigner or Canon Immigrant if they distract from the story or are just unnecessary for it. Especially if they commit any of the offenses listed on this very page. Or, sadly, sometimes Canon Foreigners/Immigrants can be hated by the audience just for merely existing.
- A particularly blatant Card-Carrying Villain, especially if other villains among the cast have more complex personalities and motivations—proving that the writer can write more realistic villains and actively chose not to for this one—and/or the work is aimed at older audiences (unless it's a comedy, where a Card-Carrying Villain's cheesiness suits the farcical nature).
- A Caustic Critic who is needlessly cruel to undeserving characters or just obnoxiously whiny. Especially if they end up emotionally destroying a character with a cold-hearted snark.
- A Cloudcuckoolander character who is more annoying and/or distracting than they are funny or fascinating. Especially if they cross the line into Chaotic Stupid or Lethally Stupid territory and end up causing unnecessary problems for or even endangering the other characters.
- A Cousin Oliver is very likely to irritate the fans by upsetting the standard character dynamic.
- A character who actually complains about having special (or at least useful) superpowers that the audience would give anything to have.
- A Damsel in Distress, Distressed Dude or Designated Victim who makes the audience think "he/she just isn't worth all the trouble". This can easily happen if the character is useless or a liability, especially if they keep getting into trouble and never learns from their mistakes. Even if the character does make some useful contributions, the audience may still think they don't outweigh all the trouble the main characters go through to save this character — especially if their personality isn't particularly likable either (who wants to watch the heroes go on a dangerous adventure just to save a bland or annoying character?). See Damsel Scrappy.
- A Deadpan Snarker that's too abrasive and insufficiently charismatic.
- A Designated Hero, depending to how much extent is their "designated" status of hero and how much the audience think that their hero status is undeserved.
- While a Designated Villain is not likely to become a scrappy, it is worth noting that if the audience sees a character as one then other characters might indirectly become scrappies if they treat the DV character badly (i.e. punishing them too harshly, punishing them if they didn't deserve it, or just randomly picking a fight with them for no reason).
- A character who only shows up to ruin everything that goes right for the main character.
- Dirty Cowards in general, especially if it makes them an Action Survivor.
- A Ditz whose stupidity is more annoying than funny.
- A woman who Does Not Like Men, if they take their dislike of men too far while still being treated as a victim by the narrative. Overlaps with Unintentionally Unsympathetic.
- The Eeyore, if they're particularly whiny and won't shut up about it.
- The Elimination Houdini in Reality Shows, especially those who stayed over strong, superior and deserving contestants.
- Any character who bullies, abuses, messes with, or (worse) kills off a character who is considered an Ensemble Dark Horse or Sacred Cow by the audience.
- An Entitled Bastard that causes harm to the heroes but expects to be rescued by them.
- Any unfortunate NPC that happens to be at the center of an Escort Mission, especially if it happens to be That One Level.
- An Etiquette Nazi or Grammar Nazi who is annoying, condescending, or abrasive to other characters (especially over minor offenses where the correction may not be necessary). Bonus scrappy points if they are overly punitive about correcting people and/or if the author uses this character as an excuse to be Anvilicious or deliver Author Filibusters.
- An Exposition Fairy that tries to be helpful but winds up being annoying.
- A villain whose motivation(s) is petty, if they're not written as a Hate Sink.
- Someone who performed a Face–Heel Turn may earn ire to the fans who really dislike the term 'traitor', unless they are forced into it or are not very happy about it.
- A Failure Hero who is too incompetent and not sympathetic enough.
- A Faux Action Girl, especially if there are genuine Action Girls in the cast and the story focuses mostly on her, also a Neutral Female when it's not justified.
- A particularly blatant Flat Character or Static Character that gets more screen-time than the audience believes they deservenote . Bonus scrappy points if they are part of a cast that has many fully fleshed-out characters, because that proves the writer can write well-written characters and just chose not to.
- A Flawless Token, especially if the writer is Anvilicious about it.
- If there's a friend nobody likes in-universe, chances are fans won't like them either.
- The Gadfly, especially if they are more annoying than funny. Or worse, if they get away with it and/or get an innocent character in trouble as a result of their taunting and provoking.
- A Generic Doomsday Villain without a notable personality or understandable motivation for their evil.
- The Generic Guy/Girl in a cast of unique characters.
- Greek Chorus character(s) if they distract/annoy the audience or if they side track the plot. Especially if they're randomly interrupting the story just to sing a lot.
- A Hair-Trigger Tempered character who flies into rages at the slightest provocation, especially if they then inflict punishment in ways that the audience considers to be Disproportionate Retribution or don't have Character Development that calms them down.
- A Harsh Talent Show Judge on a talent show or reality show if they are needlessly cruel and mean to contestants to the point of senseless dog-kicking. Especially if they are picking on the Ensemble Dark Horse or if they Break the Cutie. Even worse if their harshness leads to a well-liked contestant getting eliminated or quitting.
- The Hate Sink will not be this trope, as they're deliberately created to be unlikable. But any of their associates are susceptible of being this trope. Regardless of the reasons or sympathetic values that might exist, fans are going to hate those who follow the Hate Sink, with reasons like 'being an idiot to follow an unlikable character', etc.
- A character who performs a Heel–Face Turn after doing really horrible and despicable things that the audience just cannot forgive or excuse them for. Especially if they get Easily Forgiven by the other characters in spite of all this (which can make the forgivers into scrappies by association).
- A Horrible Judge of Character who is not called out for their poor judgement, and/or never learns from it.
- A Hypocritical character or a character who suffers from Moral Myopia.
- An Idiot Hero who is too much of an idiot (especially if they cause too much collateral damage and/or hurt innocent people as a result).
- A character who is Immune to Slapstick if it ends up toning down the work and makes it lame and unfunny. It's worth noting however, that female characters get more of a pass here due to wariness to placing them in violent situations.
- An Innocently Insensitive character if they cross a line and become legitimately rude and disrespectful or become frustrating and aggravating to the other characters and audience (to the point where it's inexcusable regardless of their intentions). Or, if they simply don't apologize for their sensitivity when it's pointed out to them.
- An Inspector Javert or Inspector Lestrade who constantly gets in the hero's way while the real villain escapes. Bonus Scrappy points if they are particularly rude or abusive to the heroes.
- An Invincible Hero and/or an Invincible Villain.
- An Invincible Hero can be hated by the audience if they lack any character development and/or if they are too boring and predictable.
- An Invincible Villain can be hated if they are overly cruel and/or if they make the story too dark to the point where the audience stops caring and gets driven away.
- An Invincible Incompetent character if their survival is reliant on a lazily-written Ass Pull or Deus ex Machina. Especially if innocent bystanders get hurt/killed due to the character's incompetence and/or if they "steal" a victory/reward from a more-deserving character.
- An Insufferable Genius.
- An Insufferable Imbecile.
- A Jerkass who is not funny enough, takes up too much of the spotlight, has no redeeming or sympathetic qualities, has no humanizing moments (or does but the audience feels they fall short), and/or rarely (if ever) gets any comeuppance. May be a Jerk Jock or a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk. Overlaps with Jerks Are Worse Than Villains.
- A Jerkass to One, especially if their target is The Woobie, the Ensemble Dark Horse, or an undeserving Butt-Monkey / Chew Toy.
- The Jinx or The Klutz (both tropes are related) if they cause just too much trouble or mayhem for the other characters or innocent bystanders (regardless of intentions, if the collateral damage is bad enough). Especially if they evolve into a Lethal Klutz or Walking Disaster Area and characters start dying because of their actions or inactions.
- An annoying Jive Turkey character. If they're black, they might be an Ethnic Scrappy too.
- Someone who abuses another character through Kafka Komedy or No Sympathy, particularly if the audience sympathizes with what the often good-natured character has suffered, which is frequently no fault of their own.
- A Karma Houdini or Idiot Houdini, depending on how horrible they were.
- A Knight Templar, when not played sympathetically, can easily be this due to a combination of being portrayed as self-righteous Hypocrites.
- The Load, who needs the heroes to take care of them without contributing anything useful in return. Including a personality.
- A Spoony Bard, a gaming equivalent of The Load.
- The Millstone, one step worse than the The Load, who is an active liability to the heroes and still doesn't contribute anything useful.
- A Lethally Stupid character who is so dangerously stupid it eventually becomes annoying. Especially when they feel no remorse for what they do.
- A Lonely Rich Kid who complains much more than the audience feels they have a right to.
- A Love Interest or potential love interest who has no other defined personality traits outside of being somebody's love interest, and/or whose romance ends up eclipsing the actual plot — especially if the romance itself is forced.
- A Manipulative Bastard who is not a Magnificent Bastard.
- An Invincible Hero or Spotlight-Stealing Squad. Note that males has a tendency to get away scot-free.
- A recurring villain who constantly sticks around to the detriment of other villainous characters. Especially if he or she survives in defiance of all logic for the sake of continuing a franchise.
- A Mr. or Ms. Fanservice who has no other personality traits besides being attractive. Especially if they act, look, dress, or talk in a suggestive/seductive manner that's inappropriate, creepy, or just distracting for the situation. Can sometimes overlap with Fetish Retardant.
- A character who doesn't take any responsibility for their own actions and blames others.
- A Nice Guy/Nice Girl when not given any interesting personality traits other than being nice to everyone.
- A character who is just constantly shouting and yelling all the time. Especially if it's not necessary for the story or not funny to the audience.
- A character who always show No Sympathy for other people's suffering.
- An Obliviously Evil character if their actions are too violent, cruel, or destructive to the point where their "obliviousness" doesn't give them a pass from the audience (especially if the narrative weakly tries to excuse the bad behaviour).
- By extension, this also can include a poorly-written Nonmalicious Monster for the same reasons. Especially if they hurt/kill innocent bystanders (regardless of the monster's intent). And, the narrative tries to portray them as a victim of circumstance but the audience just isn't going to excuse them for the death and destruction they cause.
- A poorly-written Only Sane Man or Straight Man, especially in situations that don't call for them.
- The wet blanket parents who try to keep the protagonists from doing their thing.
- A character that relies too much on Plot Armor to survive instead of actually doing something smart and/or heroic to escape a dangerous situation or solve a problem. Especially if it leads to an Ass Pull or an Anti-Climax.
- A Plot-Irrelevant Villain that was thrown in for the sake of having a villain. They could have been edited out, and the story would work just as well, if not better without them.
- A poorly-written Plucky Comic Relief, who is more annoying than funny, or fails at trying to be plucky and/or funny.
- A Pointy-Haired Boss who isn't sufficiently funny.
- A character who is constantly crying, panicking, not knowing how to act, or is prone to making fatally stupid decisions in the face of immediate danger in a way that's supposed to make them seem realistic, but it makes the audience go "What an Idiot!" instead.
- A Psycho Lesbian, Depraved Homosexual, or even a Depraved Bisexual especially if they're the only LGBT characters.
- A blind and preachy Principles Zealot.
- A Reckless Sidekick (like the original Scrappy-Doo) risks becoming this if he or she contributes nothing to the action except acting stupid and getting captured all the time, especially if he or she never learns from his or her mistakes.
- A character who seeks Revenge against another for a transgression the audience doesn't think is worth becoming so hateful over, but the narrative treats as justified. This becomes especially so if the revenge-seeker targets their victim's innocent loved ones and/or takes pleasure in tormenting their victim.
- Someone who likes another character who is either a disliked character or just shows that he/she doesn't care for the former, will often be lauded with ridicules and dislikes, with some camp calling the first character stupid, or even consider them as another Scrappy.
- A Sickeningly Sweet character if they are so overly friendly and sappy to the point of being annoying or just too perfectly nice to be believable. Can overlap with Sweetness Aversion.
- A Sidekick Creature Nuisance who annoys and/or causes all the bad things to happen to the protagonists.
- A Smug Snake, especially if they do something so heinous they stop being "cool", and nobody scolds them for that and/or does not receive any punishment for it.
- A Soapbox Sadie who is preachy and/or advocates Disproportionate Retribution "solutions" to societal conflicts, and is not called out for their actions (or worse, treated as if they are in the right).
- A Straw Character that exists solely for the purpose of insulting the audience, critics, or a certain demographic and has no other characterization outside of being a jerk and/or idiot. Especially if they horribly misrepresent the targeted demographic to the point of slander or libel.
- A Straw Loser, especially if the person they're the straw loser to isn't much better.
- The Suspiciously Similar Substitute will very likely be hated by fans of the beloved character they replace.
- The Team Mom/Team Dad who is too abrasive, who becomes exceedingly bossy or butts into disputes that do not concern them and doesn't give their team members the freedom to settle their own hash.
- In video games, That One Boss when it's especially frustrating. Similarly, the Goddamned Boss if they're particularly annoying to fight.
- This Loser Is You. Sometimes an attempt to make an incompetent main character that the audience can relate to ends up in a character that the audience wishes was anyone but the main character.
- A High-Tier Scrappy or Low-Tier Letdown can get this reaction, especially if their personality happens to meet the criteria on this page.
- A Toilet Humor character who has really bad hygiene and/or does really disgusting things that legitimately gross out the audience.
- A Token Evil Teammate if they are too bad, flawed, and jerkish to the point of becoming a liability to the heroes. Especially if the other characters or the narrative just gloss over the Token Evil Teammate's bad behavior and gives them a pass for it.
- A poorly-written Tsundere or Yandere.
- A character who's frequently involved in Trapped by Mountain Lions subplots.
- A character who doesn't apologize for their actions.
- Any character that is rife with
Unfortunate Implications, e.g. an Ethnic Scrappy. - An Ungrateful Bastard, or an entire town full of them.
- An Unintentionally Unsympathetic character is at high risk.
- The Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist who treats the Token Girl/Guy like garbage.
- An Unwitting Instigator of Doom. You can practically touch the markedly-better alternate universe that could have been, if they hadn't been doing that thing in that place at that exact moment.
- A Villain Protagonist if they are extremely heinous and don't have any positive and/or sympathetic traits (and even then, the audience supposedly have to sympathize for them), as well as that most are Karma Houdini's.
- A character with too much Wangst who whines over things that are not worth whining over, especially if he or she doesn't grow out of it.
- A character who believes they deserve exclusive privileges for mundane acts of goodwill, especially if this is accompanied by Character Shilling.
- A character who quickly forgives their abuser(s) or readily goes back to someone who was nothing but a dick to them, especially when forgiveness in these situations is treated as a great virtue and there's no convincing justification for why the character chose so.
- Someone who torments The Woobie willingly.
- A character who is supposed to be a tough badass, but they always fall victim to the Worf Effect. Aside from becoming predictable and annoying, a character who gets constantly worfed can make the audience wonder what they did to qualify as an alleged "badass" in the first place. If Worf Had the Flu then it could somehow Handwave this, but don't count on it if it happens too frequently.
- An authority/military figure who pulls rank over the protagonist or someone of pure intentions.
- A character who has an annoying voice and/or makes other annoying sounds.
- Also, a character who is always yelling at others for no good reason and it's not Played for Laughs and it sounds annoying.
In addition, if the writers begin relying too heavily on an already-present character with some potentially annoying quirks (like The Unintelligible or the Non-Human Sidekick), the viewers may begin to find them very annoying indeed. Sometimes even a very popular character is at risk of becoming a Scrappy when he or she wears out his or her welcome by being overexposed.
Occasionally, a character intended as a Butt-Monkey will backfire and become a Scrappy, too. This usually happens when a writer attempts to make his or her mishaps even funnier by making him or her an unlikable person to whom it's very satisfying to see horrible things befall. A great idea, but sometimes it backfires when the Butt-Monkey becomes so annoying that whatever happens to him or her in the story, audiences are haunted by the feeling that it will never be enough. An especial risk when the Butt-Monkey gags are prolonged, after which even a character who's not inherently unlikable can stop being funny and become a Damsel Scrappy. It also comes full-circle in a way; note also that many Scrappies can easily become Butt Monkeys when touched upon in fan discussions and literary parodies. In any given Hate Fic, and even in the occasional straight-up Fan Fic, the author may very likely go a step further than making The Scrappy into the Butt-Monkey, killing him or her off (often brutally), or giving a "hero" Scrappy a Face–Heel Turn so he or she becomes the villain - after which he or she again will likely be killed off.
Strangely, at the other end of the spectrum lies another common scrappy, the Author Avatar. Unlike a Butt-Monkey, they lack any sort of shame on principle; instead serving as the voice of reason, or whatever contrived argument the writer thinks is reason. If bad things happen to this character, it will be to prove that everyone else is allegedly stupider.
Scrappies also often fall under a Double Standard, when popular characters are more likely to be whitewashed and get away with actions that fans would slander an unpopular character for doing. For example, some audiences may dislike David for, say, making fun of people's trauma, but brush off Tyler doing the same thing because, well, "Tyler looked good doing it!" or "Tyler is funny while David is just annoying and insensitive". Or, a horrible-looking pedophile could be hated for their pedophilia, but another pedophile who happens to have good looks in the same story might be liked because, in this case, evil can be hot and even if the other is immoral too, at least they are attractive.
Protagonists are unlikely to be Scrappies for two reasons: The first is simply that the definition of a Scrappy requires fans of the work to dislike the character, and someone who dislikes the protagonist is likely to dislike the work as a whole. The other is that writers know that an unlikable and uncompelling protagonist is likely to drive people away, so they try extra hard to avoid that.
