Discussion History Film / PacificRim

\\\"I\\\'m sure you have a difference of opinion, and I can respect that yours can differ. But we\\\'re only talking about whether this fits the trope of Designated Hero, and given the definition, she fits very easily.\\\"

Which she does not except in this weird warped reality you live in where Daria, a flawed protagonist who is not portrayed as a heroic character we are expected to worship, is apparently a paragon of morality despise being the epicenter of moral decay.

This is not a trope dedicated to bashing protagonists you don\\\'t like.

\\\"I\\\'m pretty sure this is the show you mean, so I can talk about Daria\\\'s character, who was frequently rude, obnoxious, and supremely arrogant to everyone she met. \\\"

Except that every time you do, you grossly exaggerate the character\\\'s perceived moral failings and also conveniently rewrite your \\\"proof\\\" to remove any justification for Daria\\\'s behavior (such as other characters giving her a reason to be upset with them.)

\\\"To sum up the specific examples, her best friend Jane became interested in track and field [See Jane Run], to which Daria insulted her at their pizza parlor hangout, then stared moping around the house.\\\"

You mean the episode where Jane, the only person Daria had ever gotten close to and had a friendship with, found another hobby and life without her and Daria had trouble coping with it? And Jane, after having joined Daria in criticizing the school\\\'s corrupt system of letting atheletes take \\\"passes\\\" to keep their grades up, wound up compromising her own principles and participating in that very system while knowing full well that the system was unfair to people like her own best friend? And let\\\'s not forget that despite the obvious signs of Daria feeling lonely and put out, Jane\\\'s response is to further cut her off.

Yea, Daria was rough. So was Jane. they were both in the wrong, they had to work it out. That\\\'s what human beings do.

\\\"When Jane later got a boyfriend [Jane\\\'s Addition], Daria continually berated him to the point where he had to beg her to stop because of the way she was treating Jane.\\\"

In an alternate universe, sure.

Now, in the real world, Jane\\\'s Addition was an episode where Daria, who by this point we\\\'ve established has trouble adjusting to being lonely again, was put in a position where she felt Tom was dominating her friendship with Jane. And let\\\'s not forget that in the \\\'\\\'same episode\\\'\\\', Jane had completely ditched Daria at a club to hook up with Tom (a complete stranger at the time), so Daria being upset with her priorities \\\'\\\'is perfectly reasonable.\\\'\\\'

And no, Tom did \\\'\\\'not\\\'\\\' \\\"beg her to stop\\\", he met with Daria like a mature person and convinced her that he was not trying to compromise her relationship with her best friend.

\\\"The 5th season has Daria berate Tom for supporting her for an entire episode for encouraging her to submit a writing anthology [The Story of D].\\\"

No, she got angry with him because she got a rejection letter and took her frustration out on him.

And then had to eat crow because yea, she \\\'\\\'had\\\'\\\' treated him poorly. That was the point of the episode. Surely by the fifth season you picked up on Daria\\\'s issues with rejection and her flaw of overcompensating for it?

\\\"She then calls him out for forgetting their anniversary when she also forgot it [Sappy Anniversary]\\\"

So in other words, two guilty parties again.

\\\"forces the issue of sex upon him only to back out at the last minute without a word [My Night at Daria\\\'s]\\\"

Wow, way to miss the entire point of the episode. Daria did not \\\"force\\\" the issue on him - she felt pressured by other people\\\'s expectations that she have an active sex life now that she was dating and felt even more insecure about it when Tom revealed he wasn\\\'t a virgin. The whole point of the episode was Daria coming to terms with not needing to have sex if she wasn\\\'t emotionally prepared. Maybe you were never a teenager, but the pressures related to both sex and celibacy at that age are immense and full of stress and the episode was basically answering the question of how Daria would have to navigate that.

And she did not ditch him \\\"without a word.\\\" She left him a note the next morning with an apology, fully expecting him to break up with her over it. She knew she was wrong when she did it, but she didn\\\'t back out because she was trying to hurt Tom - she backed out because she lost her nerve. Tom kept dating her because \\\'\\\'he knew that.\\\'\\\'

\\\"and finally, the Grand Finale [Is It College Yet?], in which she projects her failure to get into her college of choice onto him,\\\"

And this is where I again question if you watched the same show as I did. Daria\\\'s \\\"choice\\\" of college was not the elite school Tom was going to. She was interviewing them due to their reputation, but it \\\'\\\'wasn\\\'t\\\'\\\' her only option and she \\\'\\\'did\\\'\\\' get into her other choice. And I noticed you conveniently left this out in your edit, but the other reason she was angry with Tom was because he was extremely insensitive to the fact that Daria, coming from a different social class than him, had to work significantly harder to get into a good school. In contrast, Tom\\\'s college interview was merely a formality because he was the son of a rich family that had all attended the school. Where Daria had to legitimately work and prepare and deal with the chance of rejection, Tom already knew he was passing his interview and didn\\\'t have to experience that fear.

The whole point of the college interviews was to highlight that Tom and Daria were not going the same places in life and they were breaking up over it. How you got \\\"Daria is an evil ungrateful bitch\\\" from that is beyond me.

\\\"blaming his legacy for his success while utterly ignoring the fact that she had a terrible interview. \\\"

But his legacy \\\'\\\'was\\\'\\\' the cause for his success. Somebody who knows his interview is simply a formality doesn\\\'t have to prepare or worry about his appearance - he just has to show up.

\\\"As for her parents? There was the time she was grounded for breaking the rules, then played the harmonica to annoy them into stopping the punishment [The Road Worrier],\\\"

You mean she thought up a clever way to get out of a punishment by her parents? By your standard, Yogi Bear and Ferris Bueller are history\\\'s greatest monsters.

\\\"or all the problems she caused as a child,\\\"

Which you didn\\\'t list, thanks.

\\\"not to mention running away from home [Boxing Daria].\\\"

Oh wait, you mean the problems where Daria\\\'s parents put so much pressure on her to be more openly social like her sister that she was in \\\'\\\'therapy\\\'\\\' trying to cope with it? You mean the problems where her parents had openly fought so loudly about how to raise her that Daria \\\'\\\'crawled into a box in the rain to escape their fighting?\\\'\\\'

And her \\\"running away from home\\\" was caused by her parents revealing that her personality had caused them a fight, causing her to leave \\\'\\\'because she felt so guilty for hurting them with her own attitude that she wanted to leave and not hurt them again?\\\'\\\'

My god, Hitler himself could not top such cruelty!

\\\"She also does this to Jodie Landon as well [Partner\\\'s Complaint]\\\"

You mean calls Jodie out on her duplicity in being offended that she was treated poorly by a bank due to her race, then used her family connections to prevent it a second time?

Daria had to apologize, by the way. They learned that while they didn\\\'t see eye to eye on everything, they both had their own ways of navigating a world that didn\\\'t respect them.

\\\"as well as attacking her sister at the end of [The New Kid] \\\"

Because her sister stole something that was intended for her. Also, are you not aware the show is a comedy with dramatic elements? You are aware of \\\"jokes\\\" right?

\\\"Her self-centered attitude is best described in the Jane and Tom examples,\\\"

Where she acts mostly justified or has to come to terms with being the source of her problems. I see.

\\\"but the Negative Continuity of the show\\\'s first two seasons didn\\\'t do her any favors. \\\"

Oh good, you don\\\'t know what \\\'\\\'that\\\'\\\' trope means either.

\\\"She may be called out for her behavior, but the multitude of examples shows she not only doesn\\\'t learn from it very well, but it\\\'s a consistent aspect of her character.\\\"

The whole point of the show is Daria both mocking the inanities of the world around her, and eventually coming to realize that while her attitude made her stronger, it probably hurt her as well. That was the entire point of Boxing Daria, the episode you used as an example of her being a cruel and evil person when it is the exact opposite.

\\\"That\\\'s pretty much a textbook example of Designated Hero.\\\"

No, that\\\'s a three-dimensional character. Also, a snarky comedy protagonist. You are aware this is a comedy (with dramatic elements) right?

\\\"Sure, there\\\'s other episodes when she calls out people like Val, but it\\\'s pretty much token goodness in comparison to the horrible things she does to others.\\\"

So far the worst you\\\'ve come up with is a teenage girl having a fight over software with her sister. In which case, this page is going to include \\\'\\\'every single protagonist in children\\\'s television.\\\'\\\'