I'll help get started. I will start with TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter.Anime And Manga by posting the Bleach folder. I want to see what others think of this.
- Bleach
- Tatsuki Arisawa is a close childhood friend of Ichigo and Orihime, having been Ichigo's sparring rival in Karate classes and protecting Orihime from bullies who didn't like her hair colour. Although she initially began developing spiritual awareness along with the other characters, she never developed beyond spiritual awareness and was sidelined for most of the story, even after Ichigo eventually let her know about the spiritual wars and societies he and Orihime had become involved with. In response to fan frustrations about Tatsuki's lack of development, Kubo explained that her role was reduced because Shueisha wanted to focus on the Shinigami.
- Kon's introductory arc paints him as a considerably more serious character, refusing to take life as a result of having lived in fear of being discarded. After this, though, he's mostly portrayed as perverted comic relief and occupies Ichigo's body whenever he goes out as a Soul Reaper. Although he's used in a lot of supplementary material, some people feel that Kon could be used for so much more.
- Many of the Arrancars were unexpectedly popular with readers both domestic and abroad, so Kubo was pushed by his editors to give each one A Day in the Limelight to please the fans. Unfortunately, since the Arrancar were villains meeting the inevitable shonen defeats, this also meant many fans were disappointed by how quickly most of them were killed off after receiving the required amount of backstory.
- Rudbornn Chelute, the head of the Exequias, is the only Arrancar with a fully intact mask. The point of being an Arrancar is that they have broken masks, so he's quite the enigma. He's the leader of the Exequias, a group of Faceless Goons who have the same type of skull; they're spawned by Rudbornn himself, making him a non-video game version of a Mook Maker. He apparently kills off a few minor antagonists once they've outlived their usefulness and sort of disappears for a little while. Toward the end of the Hueco Mundo arc, he has a brief fight with Rukia in the manga, a full-episode fight against Rukia, Renji, and Chad in the anime... until he's smashed to pieces by Yammy before we find out anything really significant about him.
- The Privarons are former Espada who were demoted in favor of the newer, more "enhanced" ones that everyone knows about now. They consisted of Dordoni Alessandro del Socaccio, Cirucci Sanderwicci and Gantenbainne Mosqueda, each with their own distinct designs, abilities and personalities, with Dordoni and especially Cirucci being the ones that fans latched onto. Gantenbainne disappeared after his fight while the other two were killed by Rudbornn and experimented on by Szayelaporro and later Mayuri.
- A lot of fans felt that the Fullbringers' arc was little more than filler, meant to restore Ichigo's powers, although most got a backstory and even some Character Development before they left the map. Three of them were revealed to be alive and training under Kukaku Shiba, but that plot thread was never mentioned again. Their arc was widely seen as a sub-par sidetrack to the main plot, which may explain why they've been Put on a Bus.
- Retsu Unohana was a calm woman with a gentle smile that terrified others. Supplementary books listed her as one of the strongest and oldest captains, and a master swordsman. However, she remains on the sidelines throughout the story as a medic until it is eventually revealed that she was an atoning criminal, the first Eleventh Division's first Kenpachi and the reason Zaraki loves fighting so much. To counter the final Big Bad, she sacrifices her life to unlock Zaraki's full potential, leaving fans to feel like the motherly healer image was ruined, and that her death was based on faulty in-universe logic and real life sexism in Shonen manga to empower a character fans felt was already too powerful.
- Gremmy Thoumeaux and his pawn, Guenael Lee. Guenael had a very interesting power that was used solely to show off Yachiru's shikai before Gremmy killed him and took over the fight. Gremmy was an extremely powerful Reality Warper whom other Sternritter seemed to fear. He was introduced creating Guenael from his imagination and then killing Rose and Kensei just by imagining them dead. All he ends up doing is fighting Kenpachi where he doesn't use the creative possibilities of his power, has a straight battle of power and kills himself in a way that's so stupid even Kenpachi lampshades the ridiculous nature of it.
- Robert Accutrone demonstrates himself to be the equal of Captain Kyoraku, the second strongest Shinigami after Yamamoto. After taking Kyoraku's eye, he disappears from the story for a while before being easily defeated to show off Byakuya's Shonen Upgrade. When he next appears, it's simply to show how Yhwach kills suing his special Auswahlen Life Drain ability. Despite the build up given to Auswahlen, including it being the reason Ichigo and Uryuu's mothers died when they were children, Robert is the only Quincy who is ever instantaneously killed by it, and his Schrift ability is never revealed.
edited 27th Jun '17 1:38:01 PM by SatoshiBakura
Has there been any decision on whether a character can count if it only applies to specific adaptations. Say a character is important in the original, but in the remake only has voiceless cameos?
Also what determines if a villain is important or not, its possible they were just intended to be done after their death?
Checking the Laconic page, it only says
"A character doesn't get nearly as much exposure as you think they deserve."
edited 27th Jun '17 7:12:55 PM by Monsund
I've been thinking, and I've got two criteria.
- Character has to have relatively not that much screen time. The character has to not have much screen time compared to most of the other characters. If they have a good amount of screen time, they don't count.
- Character actually has to have interesting potential that isn't explored. There needs to be something brought up and shown about the character that is interesting, but they don't focus upon that. If there is focus on it, then they don't count.
Both of these criteria need to be met in order for an entry to count.
Honestly, I'm not really sure how possible it is to do a cleanup thread without a deeper look (i.e., probably TRS thread) into what the heck the page is actually supposed to be in the first place - because I'm still not sure that the concept as it currently seems to exist is tropable even in the YMMV sense.
We've got Ganondorf from Twilight Princess as a Wasted character by adaptation.
Speaking of which, is a wasted character by adaptation/installment allowed? Like a character whose important in one installment, yet voiceless cameos in the later sequels? I've heard one person say it isn't, but I've haven't heard from anyone else?
I don't think it would count unless the character actually has notable potential that isn't used.
Cut Ganondorf. He's used even in that game.
edited 28th Jun '17 3:54:21 PM by SatoshiBakura
No, the other one.
New work, new set of characters. What and how they were in previous installments is irrelevant. For something like a book series, with a distinct plot going through it, rather than the books being more self-contained (relatively speaking, as all books are self-contained to a degree), there could be a point in looking over several works in the series. However, in those cases the examples would still fall under the series as a whole, rather than under the distinct following books.
I think the key aspect is that a character is introduced but left unexplored within the same work. It's about the whole character, not just specific traits or background elements. It should fall afoul of The Law of Conservation of Detail.
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Ganon seems like a cut.
Would Yamcha count for example? While he's a supporting character in the original series he becomes a Living Prop who rarely gets even 1 line and never gets any sort of conclusion to the goals he was firmly established as having. This was pointed out by a friend of the author and the author of one piece.
Another potential in a Batman Beyond two parter, Zander, a villain is introduced with a human side and a friendship with the protagonists but in the second half of the two parter, this aspect of the character vanished. While still important he was just a standard villain who turned into a monster and died. A coworker of the episodes writers critiqued this. Think that could count?
edited 28th Jun '17 7:07:47 PM by Monsund
Actually, the thing that most sounds plausible about those examples is that there's semi-prominent people bringing them up instead of just unknown disgruntled fans (or fan). I wonder if maybe going the citation route used by Unfortunate Implications is a good idea here.
RE: Nrjxll
That could work, it makes it clear that its something thats critiqued by people of note rather then just a fan on the internet feeling their character doesn't get their deserved screentime.
edited 28th Jun '17 7:10:36 PM by Monsund
It is possible, though it might be difficult.
Tried to remove some misuse on YMMV.Dragon Ball Super, but they were added back.
The Unknown
There are a bunch of examples on YMMV.Fire Emblem Gaiden that look like shoehorning, but I don't know.
Here's the entire thing.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- While Echoes does have Support Conversations to help flesh out the characters, the number is extremely limited compared to previous games, with many units only having one or two people they can support. Even more baffling is that many characters with established relationships, like the siblings Clair and Clive, can't support. While the voice acting, base conversations, and support conversations that do exist are enough to prevent the cast from being Flat Characters, there could have been many more without ever leaving the realm of likely interactions.
- The one who suffers most from this is Genny, with no story dialogue after joining, no memory prism, and a single support with one of two Mutually Exclusive Party Members (Sonya), meaning that about half of players will never get to hear her speak outside of battle quips, base conversations, and the three or four lines she gets before recruitment. Many have raised the question of why she can't support with Saber, given Genny's preference in men and expanded backstory in Echoes as a child left abandoned at the priory by her mother, as well as Saber's mention of a younger sister he lost contact with years ago.
- This is also how some people feel with Faye. Her fixation on Alm is one of the most contested facets of her character (see Base-Breaking Character above), but one aspect about her and Kliff is that they can be recruited by Celica should the player intentionally not recruit them and go out of their way with Celica. However, their active supports are in Alm's army — despite having passive supports with Celica, they don't support anyone on Celica's route. Given that Kliff and Faye both knew Celica when they were young (justifying why they would join her if she talks to them in Ram Village), it seems weird.
- The inverse happens with Silque, as, unlike Kliff and Faye, Celica cannot recruit her if Alm turns down Silque's offer to join him. However, should the player go to the Thieves' Shrine and talk to her,
they will be treated to the only instance of Celica holding a (visible) two-way conversation with a declined member of Alm's party, since Celica and Silque are both sisters of the priory on Novis Island and at least friendly acquaintances judging from the familiar tone of their brief chat. Coupled with a Memory Prism that shows Jesse, a later inductee in Celica's half of Act 3 who has passive supports with Silque, saving Silque from bandits while she was departing from Zofia Harbor, many have questioned why Silque cannot be added to Celica's group before the two parties merge at endgame.
- Sonya falls to this once again. Despite being the daughter of Jedah and the younger sister of Marla and Hestia, she remains an optional character with little plot significance. And while she does have a unique conversation with her father in Act 4, she does not interact with him or her sisters if she faces them on the final map. Her ending, which implies that she too eventually became a witch just like her sisters, has also left a sour note on many fans.
- On that note, Marla and Hestia. Despite their relation to Jedah, they still only serve as minor bosses and get very little development, despite their battle dialogue hinting at a potentially interesting backstory regarding their transformation into witches. They also notably lack unique battle models despite getting unique redesigns, instead using the generic witch model.
- Tatiana was orphaned as a little girl and raised in an orphanage run by the Church of Rigel, where she had many friends and was well cared for. In other words, she's a present-day Duma Faithful. A support with Silque, a devout follower of Mila, would reinforce the dichotomy between followers of Duma and Mila, as well as talk about how the church operates under Jedah or even the transition between Halcyon and Jedah. Yet, nothing is elaborated and instead focuses on Tatiana's fixation with Zeke.
- Seazas, a minor boss in the original, is the only character to be removed entirely from Echoes. Given there are several maps in the game that lack bosses and the potential to add mini-bosses, it's odd he was cut entirely.
- A more minor case compared to others, but the Whitewing sisters feel extremely underused by the game's story despite how interesting their appearance is. The three come from Archanea, which is likely somewhere most people in Valentia have never heard about, and since the events of Gaiden/Echoes occur after the War of Shadows, you'd think the similarities to their previous adventure would be a great way to get them involved in the story. Sadly, after Est is rescued, the trio falls into the background and are treated the same way the other characters are. Then there's the fact that the three never comment on Zeke, who they'd easily be able to recognize as their former enemy Camus, but because they only meet at the Final Boss, it doesn't lead to anything.
- Celica's army in general seems to suffer from wasted potential. Compared to members of Alm's army, who are able to branch out somewhat in terms of relationships between characters (Faye has support conversations with Alm and Silque, Clair has conversations with Gray and Delthea, etc.), Celica's army members are often limited to supports with the characters they're recruited alongside with and even then some of them don't get support conversations period. It's especially disheartening given some of the potential supports that could have happened based on personal backgrounds and things that happen in the story (both Boey and Atlas have brothers, Leon and Catria suffer from cases of unrequited love, Kamui joining Jesse's mercenary kingdom, etc.)
- Mila and Duma suffer this in both versions. Two siblings who rule the continent as gods, but have different beliefs on leadership and different powers. Despite this, and Mila being the reason Celica leaves Novis to begin with, they get little screen time, as Mila is abducted by Rudolf and sealed away within Duma Tower whereas Jedah, Duma's high priest, is the main driving force in Celica's story. Worse yet, Echoes reveals they're Divine Dragons like Naga and Tiki who were exiled long before the war with the Earth Dragons, making them very unique among the greater Archanea-Valentia setting of the first three games (and the Jugdral duology by proxy). Between the two of them, the pair only appears in person four times over the course of the game: a flashback cutscene detailing the Rigelian Army storming the Temple of Mila, an event in the final dungeon where Mila's spirit shows itself to Alm and Celica after bestowing the Falchion upon the former, the final battle with Duma, and another flashback via a Memory Prism. Keep in mind, this is in Echoes; in the original game Mila never appeared, and Duma only appeared once.
- There are a few non-party members in the game that are mentioned or appear briefly that feel like they should've been more involved than they are:
- Irma on Celica's route is a good example. She is a Cleric captured by Grieth but she knows quite a lot about Celica's mother and some information about Mila's darker side by extension. Despite how important she appears, she leaves once you reach the Mila Shrine and never reappears in the game for any reason. Worse yet she could of been a great secondary healer for Celica, since Genny is the only Cleric you get save for Faye but that requires not picking her up as Alm, but since she never joins Celica, she feels like a wasted character.
- Sage Halcyon. The former head of the Duma Faithful, who would have every reason to be invested in Celica's journey and saving Duma from his madness, and who also raised Conrad when he was a child. Despite how important he is, and how personal journeying with the party would be given he was ousted by Jedah, he appears only in the Sage Hamlet and gives no real impact on the story besides giving Celica some exposition and allowing Alm to promote to a Hero. Given how he is shown to be a nice guy, it would of made the Duma Faithful more complex by showing that Jedah was somewhat radical in his ideas, and would of given some justification for the group's existence. Instead he does nothing and feels like a pointless character when you get down to it.
- Lukas' older brother is a minor but still notable example. Lukas mentions him in a base conversation and explains that he was very cunning, and convinced Lukas to join the Deliverance. By doing so he set up a Xanatos Gambit; if the Deliverance succeeds, then he would be one of their benefactors and be seen as a hero, meanwhile if it failed, he could claim Lukas acted on his own and not suffer anything for it. Given how cunning this move is you would expect him to appear in game and be some sort of factor, like a boss later, or an NPC who interacts with the heroes. Yet, unlike even the two mentioned above him, he never appears in game. In fact, he never gets any mention outside of that conversation, which leaves his actions as almost an Aborted Arc.
- While Echoes does have Support Conversations to help flesh out the characters, the number is extremely limited compared to previous games, with many units only having one or two people they can support. Even more baffling is that many characters with established relationships, like the siblings Clair and Clive, can't support. While the voice acting, base conversations, and support conversations that do exist are enough to prevent the cast from being Flat Characters, there could have been many more without ever leaving the realm of likely interactions.
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Seazas definitely needs to be taken out. The guy is a oneshot boss who didn't even have any dialogue in the original game. No way was he ever meant to be anything other than a oneshot character.
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
Examples from Adventure Time:
- The Demon Cat is a one-shot minor antagonist who exists mostly for the joke of him getting the characters' names wrong. I don't think this one qualifies.
- Betty Grof also doesn't qualify. Sure, she doesn't show up often, but almost every time she DOES show up is accompanied by a major plot twist or reveal. It's almost certain that most of we want to know about her will be explained by the time of the show's ending.
- The entry for Orgalorg says that it is likely that he will return in the future, so he might not qualify. If he doesn't come back, he's absolutely an example since he was built up as a major antagonist who ended up being defeated within a few episodes, but it's hard to tell while the show is still ongoing.
- Young Bubblegum might qualify, as it's true that they could have done more with her before turning her back to normal.
- Marceline is absolutely NOT an example. She's one of the show's main characters, with several episodes worth of backstory. It seems like the complaint here is that she doesn't show up often enough, but that doesn't mean that she has wasted potential.
- Flame Princess as the ruler of the Fire Kingdom is dubious at this point in time. The show is still ongoing, so we can't know for sure that she won't get any more episodes in the future to explore her new position. I also think it's silly to say that she only had three episodes since then, when that number might go up in the future (in fact it has, she played a role in the Elements mini-series).
- Rattleballs... well, I might be biased since I wrote his entry, but I think he definitely qualifies as he could make many interesting plots, but has only showed up in a few cameos since his debut years ago.
My verdict is that all these examples should be cut, except for Young Bubblegum and Rattleballs. Once the show is over, maybe restore Flame Princess if she doesn't get enough episodes.
There are also examples that aren't on the show's YMMV page, only on the They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot page:
- Lady and Jake's children: each of them has had A Day in the Limelight, and it wouldn't be necessary for them to have much more. These are five minor characters, it would be unreasonable to expect all of them to get lots of screen time.
- Martin might count if he doesn't get any more episodes in the future.
- Mannish Man is a one-shot minor character who plays a role so small that I didn't even remember him. We know so little about him that there isn't much to explore. Would he have made a good mentor for Finn? Maybe, but that's less "untapped potential" and more "AU fanfiction plot".
Verdict: Cut them all except for Martin, and add those that weren't cut from the show's YMMV page. Add Martin to the show's YMMV page.
No, the other one.
A young version of a character would only qualify if it's a separate character, not the same character turned young.
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Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
That's true, Young Bubblegum might fit better under They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot since her becoming younger is a specific plot.
No, the other one.
Though honestly, I find that almost always when there's some kind of body or mind change plot in use, they could've done more with it, unless it's a major part of the work (like Ranma ½ or most therianthropic stories).
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"They could always have done more" with any aspect of a plot - which is why I'm still concerned about how possible a cleanup really is here.
Again, we can do the "cited examples only" suggestion.
Echoes personal thoughts:
- Genny could use more supports, but she's still in focus. I think her support with Saber is more They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot.
- Faye gets a lot of focus, so I'm saying cut.
- Sonya already gets a lot of focus in both original and remake, especially considering she's an optional character to begin with, cut.
- Marla and Hestia get a lot more focus then the original where they didn't even have lines. Their lack of unique models is related to an issue with Cantor and Witch models in general. I think cut.
- Tatiana gets screen time, but her role as a Duma Faithful isn't touched on much. I'm thinking more They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot, but she could potentially count.
- Silque being recruited by Cellica anyhow is a oversight the remake left in, cut.
- As should Cellica's army, its too general and her army gets plenty of focus.
- With Seazas, I think fans are just saying he could've retained his role as a minor boss in any map rather then be anyone important to the plot.
- Duma and Mila should be cut, Duma is the main villain, he's not wasted.
- Halcyon feels like he does get less focus then he should, you'd think he would get some memory prisms between him and Jedah at least.
- Irma mainly exists as exposition and played the same role in the original, so probably cut.
- Lukas brother, undecided on him.
- Whitewings are guest characters who get a lot of focus in Echoes already, not wasted.
I can trim these if everyone is ok with it.
Nevertheless, I agree with the citations of someone of moderate importance.
edited 30th Jul '17 2:17:13 PM by Monsund
Regarding the Bleach folder in the second post. I think all of the examples as written are just complaints about characters not doing or being what fans wanted.
The one potentially legitimate option from that list is Unohana, whose small time screen didn't allow for a proper handling of the two dramatically opposite sides of her personality and the significance of her back history. Tite Kubo said in early interviews that he wanted to tell the story, but later interviews indicated that he didn't know how to put it in without sending the story off on a tangent. That indicates, at the very least, that the creator didn't feel he could use her as well as he'd originally hoped.
One option that isn't there, and an answer to another poster who asks about the possibility of main characters disappearing from spin-off works, would be the Bleach Musical, which scrapped Uryuu Ishida from the cast. Uryuu place The Lancer to The Hero, so the musical probably felt he could be cut without changing the story. As it happens, Uryuu and Ichigo are probably the two most important characters from the main cast for the resolution of the manga's final Big Bad, with Uryuu's role in the Soul Society Arc (covered by the musical) also being very important for certain things that happen in the final arc.
On that note, the only character other than Unohana that may fall under the trope for the manga specifically, is Uryuu Ishida's father, Ryuuken Ishida, who is implied throughout the story to be keeping an important secret — that secret turns out to be the key to resolving the story, but he has almost no presence in the story and the reveal is heavily rushed at the end of the manga because the creator had very serious health problems and was trying to finish the manga before his declining health made that impossible (the story is essentially being completed in a series of novels by an author who is working under Kubo's guidance).
Beyond that, I'm not sure there are any real examples for Bleach. Honestly, it's going to be hard to identify genuine examples for this trope even after accounting for the YMMV nature of it.
edited 3rd Aug '17 2:19:53 PM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
How would you actually define a "genuine example" here?
Lost in Space
Frankly, I do not see how this is a trope, nor even anything classifiable as an audience reaction. It seems to fall squarely under complaining.
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Per Ask The Tropers, this thread is in serious need of a cleanup.
This is due to the constant misuse of this trope. They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character is for characters who don't have a lot of depth nor screentime. The majority of the characters listed as examples receive just enough screen time. Some examples are just complaining about certain characters not being portrayed the wayfans want them to.