Quotes / Flanderization

Live-action TV

Robot Tahani: I'm Tahani Al-Jamil, a vainglorious attention-seeker with enough jealousy to power Elon Musk's underwater mansion—which I've been to, by the way. It's remarkable.
Robot Chidi: I'm Chidi Anagonye, or maybe I'm not. I can't decide anything. Or maybe I can. Ahh, I can't decide. My stomach hurts.
Robot Eleanor: I'm Eleanor Shellstrop. I mock others to distract myself from the emptiness inside me.
Robot Jason: I'm Jason Mendoza. Duuuuuuuuh.

— The Good Place, "Rhonda, Diana, Jake, and Trent"

Jeff: Britta, when we met, you were an eclectic anarchist. How did you become the group’s airhead?
Britta: Thank you?
Jeff: And Shirley, you’ve gone from an independent divorcee striking out on her own, to a bankrupt fry cook hoping for a call from her husband. Troy, your entire identity has been consumed by your relationship with another man.
Troy: You found my Clive Owen Tumblr.
Jeff: And what happened to Annie, the unstoppable go-getter?
Annie: Well, there was that gas leak last year...
Jeff: Oh, don't blame it all on the gas leak year. This was a four-year process. We went in one end as real people and out the other end as mixed-up cartoons.

— Community, "Repilot"

Web Original

"While self-sacrifice has long been part of the Spider-Man story (the entire responsibility shtick wouldn’t mean much without it), it’s gone past the point of all reason. It’s gone from Gwen Stacy dying (shocking because it was unexpected, because it was the taste of death close at hand many must go through at some point) to Peter being the person people die around. It’s gone from Peter having trouble explaining himself to the person who can’t be trusted with even the simplest tasks—and in fact, he has become truly forgetful and neglectful a great deal of the time. He’s gone from a whiz-kid who has to take pictures of himself to pay the bills because of his aunt to the 250 I.Q. mega-genius who can barely scrape by, an empathetic naturally good-humored friend who can’t hold a relationship, a trouble-magnet whose luck once explainable by his own mistakes and misfortunes can at this point only be explained by witchcraft. He’s become the loser he was always afraid he was. What are we supposed to learn from this irresponsible schmuck, exactly?"

—David Mann on Peter Parker's character by the end of the Superior Spider Man saga, Spider-Man Was Never Just the "Lovable Loser", Sequart Organization

Web video

"Then he makes an appearance in Green Arrow, where 90% of his dialogue is, "Rape, rape, rape, I like to rape!"

— Linkara on Dr. Light, Identity Crisis (2004) review

"Sonic and his friends have more character than ever before. It's just too bad said character is grating and cliched. Sonic is a self-absorbed prick, Tails' dialogue is distractingly strained and verbose, Knuckles now has the I.Q. of a mushroom, and Amy's classic obsessive personality has been replaced with one that can only described as "Generic NPC Woman". Once again, I get that this crew is supposed to be totally different than the characters that we grow up with, but these guys are as one-dimensional as they come."

— The Completionist on Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

In The Sampsons Epasode 164755.7, the most agency Homer can exercise is the simple fact that he has memories: fragments of time, seconds of tenderness amidst a near-infinite stream of daily trivialities and petty details. Lost in memory, because the present moment, a crushing of him and his loved ones into grotesque caricatures, is too hard to take. This Couch Gag argues that this fate isn't a possibility, it's a virtual guarantee. Through a fog of episodes, each character becomes a walking shell of itself, filled not with thoughts and passions, but with our collective memories of what it once was. The burden of other people's thoughts, blocking out every other speck of light until just outlines remain.

—Jacob Geller, "The Best Simpsons Intro Is About Losing Everything You Love"

X's struggle with violence has always been there, but there was more depth to him than that, because, even though he didn't want to fight, he knew that sometimes you can't protect peace without stopping those who spread war. X7, on the other hand, reduces him to a pussy ass bitch who won't stop whining about violence. Even when he rejoins the battle, his dialogue with the bosses is just whine, whine, whine.

— The Quarter Guy on Mega Man X in Mega Man X7, "The Q Review - Mega Man X7 (Patreon Milestone!)"

"Right off the bat, it’s pretty clear that this game wants to remind you that Sonic and Knuckles… used to be rivals. Instead of Knuckles just being an ignoramus, there’s a bit of back-and-forth. Oh, that’s kinda charming! In fact, it… really wants to remind you that they are rivals. Like, holy cow, I think we get it. Okay, well, now that you’ve put a giant spotlight over it, I do… kinda have to ask. Do we… remember why Sonic and Knuckles even had a rivalry going on?

"The whole schtick was that Knuckles is a really self-serious kind of guy and Sonic is the opposite of that, so Knuckles would view Sonic as a sort of troublemaker while Sonic would view Knuckles as… someone who needs to get a clue. But it was the kind of thing where they were generally on good terms, they just had a way of getting on each other’s nerves due to conflicting priorities. Maybe a bit of a grudge too. That’s the key, though, it was kinda… incidental. Sonic doesn’t just see Knuckles and go like, "Oooh, time to mess with him!" That was more… Rouge’s style. Sonic Frontiers has them constantly mugging at each other for just existing and that’s… a little weird. It makes their dynamic more one-note and less interesting to me when every major cutscene needs to include "the Sonic & Knuckles quips" … even when there’s really no reason to."

— JebZone on Sonic Frontiers, "The Cyber-Corruption of Sonic Stories"

Western Animation

"Aw come on, Double-D, I don't say 'gravy' all the time."

— Ed, Ed, Edd n Eddy ("Mirror, Mirror, on the Ed")

"I used to be a scientist. Do you remember that? I was the one who warned the town about a volcano. I warned them about the day after tomorrow. And then... It all became about weed. When did that happen, Stan?"

— Randy Marsh, South Park: The Streaming Wars Part 2

Real life

It's not the characters turning into morons and jerkasses that I mind. It's something you have to deal with when a show like The Simpsons or Family Guy is always trying to one-up itself. It's not even the occasional bones they throw, as if they're trying to persuade us that Lois Griffin loves her children or has the capacity for shame when nine episodes out of ten she displays all the empathy of a weak bladder. It's the way the writers expect us to buy it.

— YouTube Poster

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