Designated Hero/Villain cleanup and maintenance

Not quite an edit war since a differnet person added it, but pinging ~Joe Mere to this thread to discuss. It was previously removed because Designated Hero is for characters who are marketed as "good" to the audience but actually do bad things; however, the narrative makes sure to portray Endeavor as a bad person trying to be better.

I found this under YMMV.Peanuts

• Designated Villain: Mr. Hennessey, the hardware store owner from Charlie Brown's All-Stars, who offers to sponsor Charlie Brown's team. He received some (justified) hatred for telling Charlie that in order to receive the uniforms, the girls and Snoopy must be kicked off the team. It's made worse since he's forced to adhere to the league's sponsorship rules.

This seems to argue against itself. Like, is he actually the bad guy here or is he just treated that way because of the league rules that he has no control of?

From YMMV.Calvin And Hobbes.

• Designated Hero: Hobbes can come off like this at times. He's generally portrayed as a smarter conscience to Calvin when the latter is about to misbehave or do something foolish but often doesn't live up to his moral standards, is just as prone to foolish activities as he is and doesn't hesitate to make Calvin suffer. While his aggression towards Calvin can sometimes be mitigated by the fact that he's acting on tiger instinct and it's more often than not a justified reaction whenever Calvin starts the fight, he occasionally bullies him at next to no provocation as well. In addition to physical attacks, he purposefully inconveniences and takes advantage of Calvin despite the latter doing little to deserve it in those situations (e.g. when Calvin was tied to a chair and in another arc where a bee landed on his back) and remorselessly delighting in his misery. Unlike Calvin, who almost always pays for his mischief and selfishness, Hobbes faces virtually no comeuppance and yet you're expected to side against Calvin in the instances where it was uncalled for.

Since this is basically the same complaint copy-pasted into two different entries, I'm just gonna link my opinion from the Values Dissonance thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=15943768520A49909700&page=33#comment-816

Hobbes may be a Karma Houdini most of the time, I don't think that his actions are ever portrayed as "heroic" or "good". And whenever he picks on Calvin, I've always thought that Hobbes was meant to be unsympathetic. Maybe the entry should bring up specific instances and not be a general example

Edited by magnumtropus on Mar 1st 2022 at 4:52:37 PM

Here's a couple of Designated Hero entries on the Total Drama page.

• While Shawn is treated as one of the main heroic contestants of Pahkitew Island, some feel that he comes off as a Designated Hero due to his zombie schtick getting old very fast and making him occasionally very selfish and cowardly or excessively paranoid, as well as him being partially at fault for ruining his relationship with Jasmine, and being extremely reluctant to split the million dollars with her.

This entry is similar to an Unintentionally Unsympathetic entry for Shawn that I removed, particularly the part saying that his zombie schtick gets old fast, which is something people would find him annoying for but isn't relevant to his qualification for this trope as it has nothing to do with his heroism. Plus he's not meant to be seen as in the right for lying to Jasmine about spitting the money as the latter is shown to be rightfully upset when learning that he was lying. Also, Shawn and Jasmine are still together in both endings, so he didn't ruin his relationship with her.

• Mike, particularly in All-Stars when he hides his evil alter Mal. He seems to have absolutely no problems with keeping damaging secrets from others, only to hurt them even more than he did when he revealed them.

Mike wasn't hiding Mal though. He wasn't even aware that Mal was back until after he had been trapped in his own mind. He was aware something was going on with himself when he learned he was breaking people's things without knowing, but he didn't know it was because of Mal because thought he had gotten rid of Mal after juvey. Not sure about the rest of the entry though.

Can I get some input on the entries above?

From Quotes.Designated Hero:

MLP cleanup agreed this is not an example as it's a fringe at best opinion that twisting/ignoring events and context such we can't tell if it's supposed to be serious.

Do we want to remove then as misuse? Or is one or both worth keeping as discussing/illustrating the concept even if not actually examples?

From DesignatedHero.Live Action TV:

• 24 had several occasions where the good guys acted like ruthless Knight Templars and/or just extremely incompetent. CTU has tortured innocent people, including one of their own who was then fired for complaining about it, and frequently succumbs to Tyrant Takes the Helm; their agents- including Jack Bauer- very often let family matters and personal vendettas get in the way of their job (occasionally to the point of treasonous or even terroristic activity); almost every single season involves this premier counter-terrorist agency (or in one season, the FBI) failing to prevent multiple terrorist attacks on American soil. The government is not any better and have done such things as framing a reformed terrorist for the attempted murder of a sitting President (when said ex-terrorist actually saved the President's life) to cover up that the actual culprits were extremists within the government (worse still, this becomes an Aborted Arc- hunting these traitors down is NEVER brought up again, though the last mention of them implied they are to be executed, despite one of them attempting to weasel his way out of it by discrediting one of CTU's most decent leaders); much of the drama in several seasons comes from the Cabinet and the President arguing about whether or not to NUKE countries they think, might be guilty before the day is up without planning on organizing a thorough investigation first (with the most frequent excuse being that the don't want the rest of the world to think they are weak- they will kill MILLIONS of people just to look scary)- the Cabinet has been willing to impeach a President for backing out of this. The President Evil on the show is actually one of the saner ones in that regard; all he did was try to kill some proven terrorists and then cover it up when the plan failed (and try and kill Jack, but even good Presidents have attempted that).

I know this show it counts though it might be to general. However, does this need to be 321 words.

It is too general. It has gratuitous emphasis as well. It's needs to target specific characters. It's been a while since I've watched the show, so I wouldn't want to take a stab at it without first re-watching.

So, should I cut it?

Yeah, you should cut it. 24 is a show about anti-heroes, heroes who do the wrong things for the right reasons.

Gamera 85 (I tried to contact him but he didn't answer) defended Carol with the following argument: "So here's the issue here. Beyond blaming Carol for deaths she did not commit, not even indirectly as Thanos and Hawkeye killed Rhodey and Bruce respectively, as well as ignoring the fact the "innocent" woman she accused turned out to be a superhero hating extremist all along and the wider context of the crime Miles was predicted to commit (And how pursuing an investigation for it could've stopped a certain Hydra Double Agent), and even ignoring the fact that precognition is not a theory in the Marvel Universe, but scientific fact as evidenced by time travel, psychics and machines that can even predict the future, let' focus on a key detail. Tony Stark ATTACKED Carol in a suit that looked like her dead boyfriend. He fired lethal weapons at her. Repeatedly refused to stand down when asked to by Carol. He had earlier committed Terrorism by attack the Triskelion. He has assaulted Carol twice now and is clearly trying to kill her... and she's in the wrong for defending herself? Really? That makes her the designated hero example?"

"I guess we're ignoring the fact Tony kidnapped a man and tortured him, all to get those experiment results which are tainted as a result of said torture. And he assaulted a head of state to do it by tresspassing on their sovereign territory. But the Inhumans are jerks I guess, so they deserved it huh? Yeah, I have a bone to pick with the Inhumans vs X-Men entry too, as it ignores the fact the Inhumans are trying to find a cure for the X-Men, trying to keep them from being harmed by the cloud and the mutants do not explain that they're already out of time to find a cure and just attack them outright with no provocation. The entry even ignores how the crossover ends, with Medusa herself learning that the cloud is about to saturate the atmosphere and kill all mutants... and then she instantly kills the cloud herself because that's the only solution obviously, basically revealing this entire war could've been avoided if the X-Men just told the Inhumans the truth."

"But hey, better to find an easy person to blame in both cases, right? And both events do suck, a fact I won't argue, so who cares if we leave out other details that kinda show that this tropes more easily applies to the other side of the fighting. Frankly, I haven't heard one solid defense for what Carol should've done when Tony attacked her. And if we're using alt. Universes to justify the Mutants actions in Iv X, then fine! In another universe, as detailed in the lead up to Infinity Warps, Carol broke off her engagement with Tony to free Miles from his prison bubble thing... and took what appears to be a mortal blow from Tony's Carolbuster suit in the process."

"Tony. Was Trying. To Kill. Carol Danvers. Period. I find this continued attempt to blame Carol for putting the guy who ASSAULTED HER into a coma very "Victim Blaming" of its proponents. Like if a wife puts an abusive husband into a coma, suddenly she's a criminal too I guess? Next woman who knocks out her rapist and gives him brain damage, charge them with attempted murder, right? And sure, Tony didn't do anything nearly as bad as that... but he did commit Kidnapping, Torture and Terrorism in a short span of time. Yet he does not pay for a single one of his crimes and the comics community forgives him just as easily it seems."

"Tony deserves to be called what he is in the story, as the comic is clearly on his side and even ends with Carol throwing herself onto her sword in anguish over her mistakes while Tony's "death" is lamented as a tragedy. It's not, he attacked her, he got what was coming to him. He's the designated hero of CW 2, not Carol. Carol was presented as the misguided antagonist at best while Tony was allowed to run rough shod over her and scream on his soap box. She never got a chance to present her case! EVER! And we keep blaming her for things that other people did! It's ridiculous!"

"The entry should be switched around, the comic clearly sides with Tony Stark. By definition of trope, the author isn't trying to excuse Carol's actions, they are trying to excuse Tony. He suffers no real lasting consequences for his actions, while Carol has to repeatedly blame herself for things she didn't do! And the same goes for Iv X, as that comic is very clearly on the mutant's side. Neither entry fits the trope and is just someone complaining about characters not being perfect. And the implication that Carol should've let Tony punch her face into the pavement and not defend herself, while ignoring everything he did, SCREAMS sexist bias in my opinion."

"Those are my criticisms, feel free to discuss."

So, what do we do here?

By the way, I already asked this question at Is this an example? to get a proper consensus.

Edited by MasterHero on May 16th 2022 at 8:47:55 AM

I'm going to have to give my two Simpsons Recap examples I put down a bit ago to see if they're actually valid, first Designated Hero on YMMV.The Burns And The Bees

• Designated Hero: While Lisa's intentions were pure throughout the episode, the same cannot be said for Homer who originally only cared for Lisa's attempt to save the bees when his daughter pointed out their deaths would mean no more honey. While Homer eventually shifts to a more selfless attitude when he finds Lisa saddened by the destruction of her bee sanctuary thanks to the stadium Mr. Burns built, he responds by mixing the queen bee of Lisa's former sanctuary with Moe's Africanized bees, whose offspring immediately go to the arena when released and get everyone inside badly stung as a result. With all this said it is easy to see Homer rather than Mr. Burns as the true villain of the episode.

Next, what I put down upon the YMMV.A Star Is Torn page.

• Designated Hero: Homer revealing that he became Cameron's manager not to spite Lisa for firing him but to sabotage the boy can come off as less heartwarming and more sleazy, as Homer violated Cameron's trust by giving him a song he'd know would be unpopular.

EDIT: Thinking about it, the Designated Villain entry on YMMV.The Burns And The Bees seems a bit complainy at the end.

• Designated Villain: After witnessing the antics of Mark Cuban at a Dallas Mavericks game, Burns tries to win over Springfield basketball fans with his own antics. Burns fails miserably, and decides to build a luxurious sports arena. The problem is that he decides to build the stadium at the site of an abandoned greenhouse which Lisa wants to use as a bee sanctuary. Burns is treated as the villain of the episode even though he didn’t do anything wrong. The town allowed him to build the stadium and all he wanted to do was be liked. However when Homer accidentally unleashed a hive of Africanized bees on the stadium, Burns had to pay for the damages (and presumably lawsuits) which knocked him out of billionare status and as a result, got him kicked out of the billionaires' retreat. In contrast Lisa and Homer not only get off scot-free but get exactly what they want as the arena is declared a bee sanctuary, enabling the bees to survive.

Edited by JustaUsername on May 23rd 2022 at 9:29:47 PM

Can anybody give some input on the above Total Drama entries?

Hey, ~mightymewtron, you made the edit to Mike's entry above that I'm wondering about, so is it okay to ask for your opinion?

Edited by GenericGuy2000 on Jun 14th 2022 at 1:00:42 PM

I only added to the Mike entry cuz it was low on context before. I don't really agree with the criticism anymore but I used to and I know there are people who took issue with him hiding his alters. Personally I think there's a decent sympathetic argument in the show aa to why he does it (he doesn't want to be ostracized for his disorder), and like you said, he had no clue Mal would resurface and very limited agency trying to stop him. Blaming him for Mal's actions kind of has Unfortunate Implications to me.

As for Shawn, that entry seems like irrelevant shoehorned complaining and the show never argued that he was sympathetic for what he did to Jasmine. In fact he's only sympathetic in the end because he makes up with her and agrees to share the money, and they end on a good note. So he didn't ruin their relationship after all.

How's this for a distinction between Designated Hero and Unintentionally Unsympathetic?

A Designated Hero can be intentionally unsympathetic (get called out for such, be Nominal Heroes) or even be legitimate Nice Guys unwittingly causing harm, but audiences feel they do more harm/evil than good despite the narrative overlooking such/portraying otherwise?

Considering the two tropes often overlap, yeah, we need a distinction.

Aside from the fact that a collective group, rather than a specific individual, is being hit with the Designated Hero label, this entry convenient leaves out the fact that the protagonists are unable to explain that the titular Matrix is a simulated reality and that humans are unwitting prisoners inside the Matrix, lest they will get called crazy. The reason they get hunted down by Agents is because they risk breaking The Masquerade. This is why Neo's character arc in the first Matrix is so meaningful. He willingly searches out the truth about the Matrix and once he discovers the truth, he can't bring himself to get back into the Matrix, lest he would spend the rest of his life in a lie.

So, what do you think?

Edited by MasterHero on Jul 9th 2022 at 10:01:58 AM

Do you all think this is an example?

• Lester Burnham of American Beauty. The whole movie is supposedly him learning how to live his life again after being crushed by a boring, soul-crushing job, hyper-critical wife, and moody teenage daughter, but in doing so he makes everyone around him miserable. After developing a highly creepy and inappropriate crush on his daughter Janie's best friend, Angela, Lester decides he wants to get in shape because he "wants to look good naked". Then he quits his job and blackmails his boss into giving him a severance package, plus benefits, and tells his boss he'll accuse him of sexual harassment if he doesn't comply. When Carolyn calls him out for making her the sole breadwinner and quitting his job without even telling her beforehand, Lester counters that he already has another job...but it's working at a burger joint. Even if the family are fine for a while because of the money Lester blackmailed out of his boss, he's still working a minimum-wage job because he wants to feel like a teenager again and violently throws a plate at the wall to scare Carolyn and Janie into shutting up when they challenge him on it. (Not to mention the company could easily disprove his sexual harassment accusation, since the burden of proof would be on Lester and he made it all up.) This is framed as Lester standing up for himself, but Carolyn was right no matter how abrasive she was being about it. Then there's the fact his newfound "freedom" involves him regularly insulting his wife and daughter, buying weed off his teenaged neighbour, Ricky, who has an extremely controlling father who already sent him to rehab once and having sexual fantasies about fifteen-year-old Angela. Carolyn is so frustrated and upset by her own mundane life and by Lester's behavior she retorts to having an affair with Buddy King, which Lester acts all superior over when he catches them despite, you know, leching on teenager and accusing his wife of being frigid and bloodless for not putting out when he wants her to. Meanwhile, Janie gravitates towards Ricky because Carolyn undermines her constantly and Lester outright ignores Janie while lusting over Angela. When Janie calls Lester out on how disgusting his crush on Angela is, he tells her she's "turning into a real bitch - just like your mother!" (which is the last thing in the movie he says to her, by the way). Lester only doesn't outright cross into Villain Protagonist because he declines to sleep with Angela when the opportunity presents itself because he finds out she's a virgin, but even then he was still willing to get a very vulnerable, emotional teenager naked. Despite all this his death at the end of the movie is framed as a tragedy and arguably it's only somewhat unfair because Frank killed Lester over being rejected and terrified he would be outed as gay - if it had been Carolyn or Janie, it would have been hard not to cheer them for it.

Whopping Five Hundred words. I'll try my best.

• Lester Burnham of American Beauty. The whole movie is supposedly him learning how to live his life again after being crushed by a boring, soul-crushing job, hyper-critical wife, and moody teenage daughter, but in doing so he makes everyone around him miserable. Lester develops a highly creepy and inappropriate crush on his daughter Janie's best friend, Angela. Then he quits his job and blackmails his boss into giving him a severance package, plus benefits, and tells his boss he'll accuse him of sexual harassment if he doesn't comply. When Carolyn calls him out for making her the sole breadwinner without even telling her beforehand, Lester counters that he already has another job...but it's working at a burger joint for minimum-wage because he wants to feel like a teenager again and he violently throws a plate at the wall to scare Carolyn and Janie into shutting up. Then there's the fact his newfound "freedom" involves him regularly insulting his wife and daughter, buying weed off his teenaged neighbour, Ricky. Carolyn is so frustrated and upset by her own mundane life and by Lester's behavior she retorts to having an affair with Buddy King, which Lester acts all superior over when he catches them despite, you know, leching on teenager and accusing his wife of being frigid and bloodless for not putting out when he wants her to. Meanwhile, Janie gravitates towards Ricky because Carolyn undermines her constantly and Lester outright ignores Janie while lusting over Angela. When Janie calls Lester out on how disgusting his crush on Angela is, he tells her she's "turning into a real bitch - just like your mother!". Lester only doesn't outright cross into Villain Protagonist because he declines to sleep with Angela when the opportunity presents itself because he finds out she's a virgin, but even then he was still willing to get a very vulnerable, emotional teenager naked. Despite all this his death at the end of the movie is framed as a tragedy and arguably it's only somewhat unfair because Frank killed Lester over being rejected and terrified he would be outed as gay.

Edited by randomtroper89 on Jul 19th 2022 at 2:01:59 PM

Hey I noticed the entry I added for Zoey under Designated Hero was cut. I'm curious as to what specifically makes it misuse. Zoey is the female protagonist of the season and All-Stars and in a few cases ("Up Up and Away..." and "The Enchanted Frankenforest") is depicted as a good-natured savior, which I assumed qualified her as a hero. I listed stuff that wasn't just "character flaws" but specifically contradicted her most "heroic" quality, her ability to make friends and help people — i.e. the way she talks badly about her fellow teammates without making many other friends, and the fact she was too focused on her romance problems to pay attention to what her teammates were doing in a challenge, yet she was treated as a victim because Anne Maria pushed her off the hose to save Jo. Her being saved by Mike frequently was cited to show that she doesn't hold up as a strong protagonist for the first half of the season, which I can concede is maybe just a character flaw. The bit about her being stupid in All-Stars wasn't part of my original argument.

This is all stuff that certain fans have said about Zoey for a decade, BTW — she's a Base-Breaking Character. Would this better belong somewhere like Unintentionally Unsympathetic?

For the record, there are other entries for TD both on and off page that seem like misuse (the Grips are not shown as in the right for blackmailing Gwen, as Justin's behavior is framed as sinister and Gwen is treated as sympathetic; Duncan is an immature bully and isn't really treated as a hero even in All-Stars given how his arc ends, he's a Nominal Hero at most; Mike has a sympathetic reason to hide his disorder and I'm unsure for above-mentioned reasons if he truly counts; Shawn as I've already discussed is mostly just complained about for being annoying; Sky's entry seems to miss a lot of context to her arc and just compares her to two different characters).

Edited by mightymewtron on Jul 22nd 2022 at 11:49:11 AM

She was cut because she didn't fit the part about the character taking part in morally ambiguous or villainous actions. Also, in case I need to say this, her nearly suffocating Jo doesn't count as that was unintentional.

Okay, thank you! I was confused about the scope of that, as I thought it included characters who were heroic but acted rude or entitled as well. In that case I think many of the other characters would thus not qualify, right?

Would parts of the entry (i.e. about the love triangle and her treatment of others as opposed to the intended sympathetic portrayal of a Friendless Background) instead fit at Unintentionally Unsympathetic? I'm clearing it up before progressing so I don't edit war.

You're welcome. To answer your question, I actually think several of them count, sans the stuff in Heroic Hamsters. Also, I'm not completely sure if the other stuff you mentioned with Zoe can fall under Unintentionally Unsympathetic; you may want to take that to its cleanup thread.

I don't remember Revenge very well and didn't see any season after that so I'm not sure if I know enough about Zoey, but my gut tells me that UU would probably make sense.

I think it does too.