The Broken Base cleanup thread discusses about examples in Broken Base, but this talks about examples in YMMV pages of works containing Base-Breaking Character, (despite being an Example Sectionectomy, this can still be seen in the YMMV pages of works) where the details on what is suitable is also vague.
Here is the criteria for Base-Breaking Character:
- A long-term, sustained conflict: Characters that were simply hated and loved, then had their interest evaporated away (both positive and negative) after a few months doesn't count. Characters in upcoming works also don't count.
- A vicious conflict: Factions that have little problem co-existing and doesn't mind about what the other faction likes or dislikes about the character doesn't count. If it's not particularly vicious and heated, then it would be cut or be listed as a Downplayed Trope.
- Two (or more) vocal, almost equally sized factions: A tiny Vocal Minority that doesn't shut up their pet peeve, whilst being outnumbered by more reasonable fans don't count. Nor does a Silent Majority who doesn't make a big deal with the other side count. If one of the hating factions is significantly bigger than the other, it would be classified as The Scrappy or an Ensemble Dark Horse.
- Little to no Middle ground: Scenarios where most of the fandom doesn't care about the character, don't count.
Base-Breaking Character is when half of the fandom likes a character, yet another equally sized half dislikes it. Now that happens, but the problem is, some entries aren't really contentious (thus not resulting in flame wars when someone says they "liked that character"). Also, several entries are one-sided towards the negative or the positive side describing that only side in detail, but then wrapping up with a single line saying "But the other half likes that character". A correct way would be describing it like "a split in the Fandom on who likes it or not", with details on both sides why they're liked and disliked.
Here's an example from YMMV.Undertale:
- Alphys. A lot of players find her character gimmick of constant messages and attempts to help more annoying than funny, especially on repeat playthroughs. And even though she has sympathetic reasons, the reveal that she's been experimenting on sick monsters to create the Amalgamates and manipulating the player to feel better about herself doesn't help, especially since she never directly apologizes for the latter.
While it may have annoyed players due to these reasons above, there has been a considerable amount of fanarts and comics or her, and not only that, the like-dislike situation hasn't been so contentious (compared to Sans, whom he's popular, now he sucks.)
edited 21st Feb '18 1:46:31 PM by AppleGates
I also believe that DJ from the Last Jedi could also qualify. Some people find that he offers interesting social commentary on the morality of both the good and the bad side. Others have felt that he was too cartoonish, in addition to being seen as a pointless and unnecessary character.
Edited by SithPanda16 on Jul 8th 2018 at 5:18:18 AM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Nix the speculative language. Nobody in the film ever states or implies that she witholds information from Dameron out of fear of spies.
Yes. The divisive nature of The Last Jedi, plus it's characters, including Holdo, DJ, Luke and Rose makes it a suitable entry. Just add the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement, since this was one of the causes of the General Star Wars Thread locking, from a Flame War.
Also in YMMV.Transformers Dark Of The Moon, I've found these:
- Base-Breaking Character:
- Sentinel Prime tends to divide moviegoers into two camps, of which the first sees him as a surprisingly complex character with a really cool design and one of the biggest badasses of the entire franchise, while the other hates him for brutally executing Ironhide and sidelining Megatron as the Big Bad.
- Megatron himself veers sharply into this territory. While his Badass Decay is generally agreed to be at its worst here, the fact that it's very much an Invoked Trope that fleshes out his character more redeems him in the eyes of some. In addition, being forced to sit out of direct combat allows him the opportunity to mastermind the impressive Batman Gambit that makes up the first half of the film. That said, the fact that Optimus takes him down with the absolute greatest of ease is generally seen as a slap in the face to the character, especially considering that the alternate ending is seen as a far more redeeming and rewarding one for him that reestablishes him as a badass. Despite this, Transformers: Age of Extinction shows why DOTM has the ending that it does— it's so Megs can stay the badass conqueror he always was and return as Galvatron—which, while not as "clean" as the alternate ending, at least allows him to persist as the franchise's flagship villain.
- Megatron's aesthetic, particularly his altmode and cloth cloak, is itself divisive. Reactions range from "very cool in a rugged sort of way" to "does a good job capturing his fallen-by-the-wayside characterization" to "silly as hell".
- Even on this very wiki, there's no real consensus on whether Jerry Wang is a Crazy Awesome Ensemble Dark Horse for taking on Laserbeak with twin pistols or a tasteless Ethnic Scrappy used to set up a gay joke. Or both.
Jerry Wang is very contradictory, as there are entries of Crazy Awesome and Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Crazy Awesome: Jerry Wang.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Jerry Wang, due to his status.
Does the Jerry Wang entry count, or to a lesser extent, the other entries?
Reposting from the previous page
, so it doesn't get lost:
Bringing up these examples from Fantastic Four (2005):
- Base-Breaking Character:
- The Human Torch: funny or annoying? For the latter, is it because Chris Evans did a good or bad job at acting for making him come off that way?
- Ditto for Doctor Doom. Some like how he's been reimagined as a Corrupt Corporate Executive, feeling that this is a good update of the character. Others disliked this change, claiming that it was unnecessary and turned Doom into a Captain Ersatz of Norman Osborn rather than well, Doctor Doom.
On the subject of Holdo, is there concrete evidence that there is very little or no middle side? That part is a very important part of the Base-Breaking Character definition.
I tried bringing this up in the Scrappy Cleanup forums, alot of tropers dislike her, but others state that she has a decent amount of defenders. It did go a little bit into a heated argument though. It's very likely she's a Base-Breaking Character
Edited by SithPanda16 on Jul 10th 2018 at 3:19:37 AM
It's not the number of haters or fans that I'm asking about. I'm asking about if the number of people who don't really mind or care either way is small enough for the character to qualify as a Base-Breaking Character. Remember, the bit about there being little or no middle ground is important.
Sorry to distract from the Holdo discussion, but I noticed this on The Legend of Korra:
- While Korra has generally been well received, she has proven to be a very divisive and polarizing protagonist, especially in the earlier seasons. She's either a good and very believable character with plausible flaws and great Character Development over the course of the series, becoming a wiser person in the process, or a whiny, unsympathetic, selfish cookie-cutter tomboy female protagonist and an unworthy successor of Aang as Avatar. The fact that Korra has been confirmed to be canonically bisexual just makes her that much more polarizing.
My main question is whether people who outright hate the main character can be considered part of the "base" at all, as it's hard for me to imagine someone who hates Korra but is still a fan of the show.
Edited by TheMountainKing on Jul 10th 2018 at 6:49:42 AM
I feel like if she's been "generally well-received," she can't qualify because that suggests to me that she has quite a bit more fans than haters, which doesn't "break the base" like a Base-Breaking Character should.
That entry also doesn't really convince me that the writer spent that much time confirming that there is very little to no middle ground whatsoever.
This is a... tricky question, because while there's certainly people who fall more towards the middle, some of the people who hated The Last Jedi are so ridiculously terrible - and, conversely, some of the people who loved it are too quick to treat them as the default - that it sort of creates a fault line even there. Dunno how that applies to specific areas of the movie, though.
I admit I try to avoid The Last Jedi arguments, but honestly, I think Holdo might be a scrappy instead. From what I've seen most of Holdo's defenders aren't really fans of her per-say, just people who think the hatedom against her is SO overblown and toxic that they have to step in. I haven't seen anyone say that they "loved her," or anything similar. Base-Breaking Character is for love-it-or-hate-it characters, but with Holdo I mostly just see "hate it" and "she's fine, you guys are overreacting."
Gonna have to disagree, outside this website I've seen plenty of people who say they like Holdo. Heck I'd even say I've seen mostly love for the character and only some hate.
While my experience matches Anddrix, isn't it a moot point? Doesn't the definition of The Scrappy require that most people dislike them, as opposed to "some people dislike them and some people have no real opinion"?
Edited by nrjxll on Jul 11th 2018 at 2:45:24 PM
So it's been about 3 days, any chance I could get a response to the examples I posted above.x10
No, the other one.
I don't think Korra qualifies. First I'm pretty sure she has a ton more fans than haters. Second I'm pretty sure that as the main protagonist there are tons and tons of people who have an average or decent opinion of her.
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My experience has been the opposite, that 1 or 2 people like her and the majority dislikes to flat-out hates her. So it really depends what circles you're in.
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That's true of everything, but the question is, can those people be considered "fans" of the show? It seems to me they would have to hate the show as an extension of hating her.
Noting that I just added (and pulled, once I saw this thread) an entry for Holdo:
- Holdo, Holdo, Holdo. While the fandom has near-unilaterally loathed her decision to not tell Poe (or anyone else) her plan (or even that there is a plan), her lightspeed Heroic Sacrifice is one of the film's Signature Scenes and to many enough to swing her back into being a good character. Others, however aren't so quick to forgive and still hate her.
I like it
Concerning My Hero Academia, I bring forth this entry on Eri.
- Eri. While she is, for the most part, loved by the fandom due to being an adorable Woobie, there are others bothered by how she acts as Midoriya's primary motivation in the story for both the Hassaikai and Cultural Festival Arcs, despite spending most of the story offscreen. Her being adopted by the teachers of U.A. is also a source of annoyance, because they already have quite a lot to deal with without having to worry about a small child as well, and her appearances are starting to slow down the narrative.
This sounds more like one sided complaining rather than actual Base-Breaking Character levels, as it doesn't point out the positives people often see. She is beloved, but the entry doesn't illustrate that aside from the initial sentence.
Should this be scorched?
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I also mentioned Eri in the YMMV discussion thread. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/remarks.php?trope=YMMV.MyHeroAcademia
Specifically, I think she actually does qualify as a valid case of Base-Breaking Character , but that the entry is blatently one-sided and needs to be rewritten.
Sounds perfect. Keep that one for Holdo
Edited by mrbits on Jul 12th 2018 at 5:59:02 AM
I mostly agree, but think Holdo's been establied as too divisive to call her widely anything. Here's my proposal:
- Holdo. Fans are heavily divided on if her decision to not tell Poe or anyone else her plan (or even that there is a plan) was justifiable or stupid to the point of undermining her intended character, and if their Signature Scene-worthy Heroic Sacrifice redeemed them or not.
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Jul 12th 2018 at 7:10:42 AM
So it's been about 6 days, any chance I could get a response to the examples I posted above. x19
I see no reason that they are incorrect, so I'd say leave them.
Any objections to my Holdo entry?
I do think Holdo could make a strong contender for a Base-Breaking Character. She disqualifies as a scrappy due to her having several defenders. Here is what I wrote about her.
Tell me what you think of this?
Edited by SithPanda16 on Jul 8th 2018 at 5:01:46 AM