Harley Quinn / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Harley simply another victim of Joker's abuse, who has been led down a path of wrongdoing and deserved to become an Anti-Hero who is more-or-less on friendly ground with a good chunk of the DC universe, or is she really just another psychopath, who was all too eager to go crazy in the first place? While writers in general seem to prefer the former, several readers have pointed out in recent years that someone who fell in love with and actively emulates the Joker obviously shouldn't be seen solely as a sympathetic character. A great deal of this is Depending on the Writer; it's hard to believe that she's the same character sometimes between volumes (e.g. her murdering hundreds of children with bombs disguised as game consoles in one issue, and then being jovially embraced by the superhero community in the next).
Base-Breaking Character: Originally an Ensemble Dark Horse who became a Canon Immigrant for exactly that reason, Harley became a very divisive character roundabouts the New 52 era, which rebranded and redesigned her heavily to push her as an independent anti-heroine. This pushing paid off in dividends, in large part thanks to Harley appealing to female fans, and pushed her easily into the A-list, but it also resulted in her becoming a rather divisive figure. Fans view her modern characterization as a well-executed female Escapist Character with a lot of charm and fun, deepened by a tragic background and a ton of baggage. Detractors see her as an annoying, overexposed Creator's Pet who's become completely divorced from her original characterization. Two factors really exacerbate these problems, with the first being the accusations that Harley has become a Karma Houdini for her worse actions as a villain (the most infamous being the game console bombing, which has mostly been quietly ignored since), and the second being that, as a character who mostly features in comedic stories, Harley's stories tend to be fairly irreverent, which inevitably pisses off diehard fans of other characters who see that irreverence as disrespect.
Cant Unhear It: It's rather jarring to not read Harley's lines with the voice of either Arleen Sorkin or Tara Strong.
Crossover Ship: She's commonly paired with the rather fitting character Deadpool.
Diagnosed by the Audience: While not mentally sound, it's never been outright stated what her mental illness is. A special feature in Batman and Harley Quinn makes a point to mention Harley shows symptoms of Histrionic Personality Disorder. She might also have some PTSD from her history with The Joker.
Draco in Leather Pants: Harley unsurprisingly gets a fair amount of this, due to her very sympathetic backstory, along with being really cute.
Fandom Rivalry: The "Solo Harley" fanbase don't get along with the Joker fanbase, due to the characters' romantic history. The former like how Harley is now and champion her status as a Wild Card, while the latter would prefer her to remain Joker's sidekick. The fact Joker is explicitly abusive towards her makes that a horrifying idea for the former, while the latter don't mind because you're not supposed to agree with the Joker, even though many Joker fans then like to praise how entertaining and cool he is and how right he is about society and consider the abusing Harley aspect to be darkly funny. Because of that Misaimed Fandom, some Harley fans can get the impression that Joker fans just hate her for having escaped "her place", and they just want Joker to have a hot girlfriend they can abuse without consequence.
Harsher in Hindsight: In Harley's Little Black Book Issue 1, Harley reveals that she has always been a fanatical Wonder Woman fan. If you've read that comic before playing Injustice 2, then it makes what happens between Harley and Wonder Woman in the game even worse for Harley herself (not that she shows it).
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Some fans loved to ship Harley and Deadpool. So, New 52 Harley meets a Captain Ersatz version of him (named Red Tool) and they have a brief relationship.
- The infamous bathtub panel was understandably nixed... yet Margot Robbie would later gain mainstream fame for both a Bathtub Scene in The Big Short and for playing Harley in Suicide Squad (2016).
Just Here for Godzilla: The issues (in Volume 3) with the backstory written by Paul Dini with the classic Harley and Joker versions from Batman: The Animated Series. Lampshaded by the cover of the issue 19◊.
Moe: Harley Quinn is pretty much this due to her sweet nature, her love for animals , her fun loving nature and caring about her friends in the most adorable way possible.
Misblamed: Sam Humphries got some hostility from Harley/Ivy shippers for not depicting Ivy enough in his run, with accusations that he was part of a homophobic plot by DC to "de-gay" Harley.^note In a fan Q & A, he said that he wanted to feature Ivy, but was ordered not to by the editorial department because she was being used in other comics.
Never Live It Down: Many fans will never forgive her for the infamous moment in Detective Comics 23.2 in which she ends up murdering a bunch of children by giving them bombs disguised as video game consoles, which many understandably saw as a morally reprehensible act that, in the eyes of some, has rendered her irredeemable and on par with Mistah J, no matter how much good she has done since. It doesn't help that Harley has never faced the consequences for this act, with DC opting to quietly bury and ignore it instead.
Older Than They Think: Harley's modern characterisation is regularly accused of ripping off Deadpool, including some of the more notable Deadpool-like traits of her frequently mentioning hearing voices, having a cartoonish view of the world, and being able to use Confusion Fu to defeat people way stronger than her. A lot of this however was first codified by the early 2000s Harley Quinn comic book, where she was a genuinely mentally unwell sympathetic anti-hero, was unable to perceive the violence she wrecked because she saw everything as a cartoon, and was once able to fight Cassandra Cain, Tim Drake, and Dick Grayson successfully by just being too confusing for them to handle. It was just kind-of forgotten by certain recent works that popularised Harley as 'Joker's deranged sexy girlfriend'. Likewise, Deadpool himself was still codifying these characteristics at the time and so a lot of their similarities are just genuine coincidences, and only became clear as the two got a massive bump in recognition in recent years.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: How some of Harley's detractors feel, concerning how certain writers have handled her descent into madness via Joker. The problem comes somewhat from writers depicting Harley as having pre-existing psychological issues which the Joker preyed upon, but because they conflate illness with psychopathy, her pre-Joker issues are depicted as making her overly violent. Combined with how little focus is used on exploring how Joker seduced Harley, since abusers would usually need to put up a serious front of being a Nice Guy to ensnare their victims, and it would just be too out of character to see Joker spend a length of time being genuinely charming and sweet. The result though is it makes it seem like Harley was always looking for an excuse to break bad and Joker just gave her the excuse, rather than her having been an innocent woman whom he manipulated, gaslighted, and seduced.

YMMV / Harley Quinn

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