A bad idea. "Misguided Fandom" sounds pejorative—implying that these dumb fans are having the wrong opinions about the work.
For that matter, the current title isn't the best either; I'm not even sure what "misaimed" is supposed to mean ("misaim", per dictionaries, is simply "to aim incorrectly"; who is "aiming" here, and at what?).
Pensive Wright
Having seen Saw X, I’m not so sure this fandom is misaimed, at least anymore.
- The Saw franchise has a disturbing number of fans who believe Jigsaw's methods of torturing people into appreciating life is actually beneficial. This is despite him being a manipulative, vindictive sadist who's crippled countless people and killed far more, many of whom were innocent even by his standards, and has even endangered children. Quite a few characters actually call him out on this throughout the series, including his own henchmen. Granted, these moments tend to be fleeting compared to how often the films' portray him as fundamentally wise, charismatic and sympathetic, emphasize his philosophy as something important, or focus on his victim's failings. According to one of the later films directors, it's not just the fans who sometimes think this way, either.
First issue with this entry is that the question of whether or not Jigsaw’s methods improve his traps’ survivors’ lives is kind of just one aspect of the broader fandom opinion; that John Kramer is the good guy. Some say that it’s that his traps improve people that makes him the good guy, but most who claim that are of the opinion that the deaths of people he puts in his traps aren’t murder since the victims have a possibility of living and those who die in them deserve it, both for whatever crimes made John target them, and for not trying hard enough to win their games.
And broadly speaking; I think that the franchise generally agrees with both sentiments. When the franchise started, John was meant to be a Theme Serial Killer with a vendetta against people he saw as wasting their lives (not people who committed crimes). But as the films went on, he was portrayed more and more sympathetically and his actions in a better light, especially after the original creators left the franchise. We know at least some prominent creative minds behind the series deny that John is a villain, and agree that the people who died in his traps killed themselves.
This effort to paint John Kramer as an anti-hero effectively culminates in SAW X, where he’s the main character who we’re repeatedly made to feel sorry for, and the primary figure in his traps goes beyond being an Asshole Victim into being an outright monster, who kills the most sympathetic character in the traps (who John wanted to release and give medical attention,) and tries to torture an innocent child just to spite and horrify John, which works.
As for the question of whether or not the games improve the people who survive them? The films also leaned more towards “yes” after the third film; Simone from the 5th and 7th movies is furious at the idea, but she’s depicted as a deeply selfish person, who only says the only good thing she got out of her trap was disabled parking, to Sidney, who claims her game was the best thing that ever happened to her, and in a room with Brit and Mallick, who are implied to have learned the value of altruism from their game, and Brad and Ryan, who were so glad that their game got them out of their toxic love-triangle that they joined Jigsaw. Simone’s opinion seems meant to add nuance to the idea that Jigsaw’s games improve all their victims (or that all victims appreciate how they were improved), not to invalidate it.
Overall, I think there’s just too much in the films and their framing, and in Word of God validating John Kramer and his actions and philosophy, and too little challenging it to say that the audience agreeing with him is wholly unintended. Audiences can debate the ethics and hypocrisies of John Kramer all they want, but fandom can only be misaimed if it goes against what the text says and was unanimously intended to say.
Edited by Ansongc2000
It occurs to me that there's a bit of a definitional problem with this trope.
Both the name and description basically portray the audience as clueless - the fandom is "Misaimed" because they don't understand the creator's intended subtext, focusing instead on some random aspect of the text itself (like if the villain is sexy, or sympathetic). Trouble is, in many cases, the audience is actually more clued-in then the creator was, and has picked up on subtext that he/she missed.
Just as a random example, consider Star Wars. George Lucas has said that the light side of the Force is supposed to be perfect, selfless good, and tried to portray the Jedi Order as being unambiguously positive. However, if Anakin had been allowed to openly pursue his relationship with Padme in the prequels, he never would have needed to betray the Republic and presumably would not have fallen to the dark side. This can be taken as a lesson about the dangers of selflessness, and is one of the reasons Star Wars has a Misaimed Fandom in the first place.
Edited by Chyre
I edited the entry about 'Firefly,' removing natter which 1) didn't relate to the topic, 2) bashed the creator needlessly and dubiously, and 3) came across like the troper who added it fit into the description of the misaimed fandom, and was complaining about it.
Edited by Bionicman Hide / Show Replies
The day the word "fandom" can be used of this troper's reaction to Firefly is the day he ends his life, no matter how well-aimed that fandom is.
It's not "dubious" to say Whedon's a simplistically feminist hack whose works are full of Straw Misogynists—his fans concede that, except for the "hack" part.
And it is not Misaimed Fandom to like Jayne better than, say, Mal, whose status as an antihero is a very thin veneer over, in essence, Alan Alda. People are allowed to react differently to characters. Emphasizing the good points of an obvious strawman—like Jayne, or any Whedon male who isn't an Author Avatar—is a useful exercise, and would keep creators honest, if they could hear the alternate interpretation over the deafening applause. Besides, it wouldn't take much character development to turn Jayne's relationship with River into Slap-Slap-Kiss; if the show had lasted longer it would be an almost obvious development, if Whedon could be bothered to flesh out his Straw Misogynist.
Still, the response did roughly count as Natter, this troper concedes the point—and tries to come up with a better way to put it.
Edited by TominAZ
The example writers should point out more often that sometimes it's the *author* that's to blame for doing the bad aiming.
Smallville P.S.A
If someone tells you to skip seasons 1-3 please do not be a follower. Seasons 1-3 are the highest rated for a reason. It's when all 3 main characters are friends, and it build their relationships and the dangers they face. If someone tells you to skip seasons 1-3 it's either because they don't like Lana, Lex, their friendships with Clark and are trying to make you not like them as well. They also may be obsessed with Chloe, who is pining after Clark in season 1, but tries to find out Clark's secret in 2, and teams up with Lionel Luthor in 3. Please don't let their biases stop you from enjoying the highest rated seasons.
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Remove Redirect for , started by Premonition45 on Oct 9th 2011 at 8:44:28 PM
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Complaining, started by Nazo on Jul 24th 2017 at 5:12:24 AM
Stormblood Mondegreen
Before I discovered this wiki, I came up with a term called "Catching Flies with Honey". The more affable you are to the audience the easier it is for them to overlook or even excuse your less savoury aspects.
I think this might fit as a form of misaimed fandom better. Where the author intends to show that the "good guys" do bad things, but the audience considers them good or justifiable, as people generally find it easier to relate to someone who is polite.
But I don't want to add things willy nilly, so what do you think? Is it already covered and I misunderstood, should it be a different YMMV article, or what?
I think the subpages need some serious revision. As I understand it, the key point is that the audience likes a character (or something else) that the author didn't intend them to like. There seem to be a lot of examples where the audience, say, likes a character who is a major Jerkass, but the author pretty clearly intends them to be liked.
For example, Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother. Yeah, on paper we shouldn't like him given the way he treats women, but we do, and I think it's obvious that we are meant to like him.
The trouble may be divining what the author intended, especially is the author is dead. Maybe we should tweak the definition? Or just remove the examples where the author obviously intended the character to be liked?
What about the son "Make a Man out of you" from Mulan? I see that used in AM Vs and quoted a lot in contexts that clearly seem to forget it's an Ironic part of a Feminist movie.
Any chance of getting a Misaimed Genre/Target Audience Fail trope?
Like for example, say there is a comic that was aimed at young men & it not only attracts mostly women but makes most men squick. (It doesn't help that most of these series are actually written by women either). Sometimes the publishers are smart & change the target audience, though most figure that the same costumers will continue to buy reguardless & don't touch it.
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Periphery Demographic.
You watch me, just watch me. I'm calling- I'm calling. And one day all will know...
Could somebody change the trope image? Maybe it's just me, but I don't feel that either the image or the caption describes it very well. Sure, you might think that since he's a historical figure, everyone on the entire planet Earth might know him, but that's not the case. Think of those who never even heard of him!
Edited by SamMax Hide / Show Replies
Whether or not they know who he is(Castro, right?), I find the image and its text quite insulting to communism and communists like me.
It's Che Guevara. Anyway, it's not anti-communist, it's anti-hypocrite. Making a profit off giving people pro-communist items is called "capitalism."
I'm a Troper!!!
Except that is is in fact a Flanderization of Comunisims and/or Socalism to suggest they are all entirely against all buying and selling.
Technically, it's a strawman, not flanderization.
Flanderization requires a minor aspect of something to be exaggerated. But "against buying and selling" is not part of either socialism or communism at all.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Would this cover examples of "Misaimed Hatedom" for those that hate something for something that either isn't true or isn't their fault?
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them. Hide / Show Replies
"hatedom" and "fandom" are different things. Beyond this, this is not about if something is not true or is not their fault, but yes things that the fandom interprets differently of the form that the author intended.
Edited by 200.187.118.2
Personally one example of misaimed fandom I often see is with the "fans" of yuri series such as Strike Witches. On fanfiction.net I constantly see people denying that its a yuri series ignoring character relationships and instead hooking them up with a gary stu self insert. Its not just related to Strike Witches either I have seen this sort of thing with pretty much every yuri series where yuri isn't the main element. I guess it doesn't help what the overall attitude towards yuri in Japan is like either since they have the attitude that its stupid and childish so yuri is delegated to subtext usually and there is often the implication that the school girl lesbians "grow out of it" and get into a "real" relationship. Ugh this bugs me e.e
I don't think the Misaimed Hatedom redirect suits this trope. Misaimed Fandom is all about works that are loved in a manner not intended by their makers.
Misaimed Hatedom implies that a work is hated in a manner not intended by the maker, which sounds like Periphery Hatedom aka The Barney. So Misaimed Hatedom is more suitable as a redirect for that trope.
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Misaimed Hatedom doesn't make any sense. Misaimed Fandom means it's loved in a manner not intended by the maker, as you said, but Misaimed Hatedom is then redundant since presumably a creator does not aspire to be hated in any manner.
I'm a Troper!!!
From the main page: "Of course, while fans are entitled to their own interpretation, that does not mean they are always right. The writer's original intention should usually be considered first; they're the ones actually putting their thoughts down and getting them published, after all."
I don't see how this logically follows. Isn't this more of an opinion than should go into the introduction? Even though it's tempered later, I don't think it goes far enough in being neutral. I don't think it's obvious that the writer's original intention should usually be considered first, or that it should be consulted at all.
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Over at the TRS for Draco in Leather Pants, it was decided to convert said trope to a fanfic only trope, a decision made for Ron the Death Eater, and move all examples from both elsewhere. I just wanted to know if they could be moved over to this trope, as they are character oriented examples.
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The best place to ask would be in that TRS thread.
That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.
Regarding the Taxi Driver example in the Film sub-page... ...the hell is the "W-word"?
I deleted
For those who don't know, Bellatrix went into a loveless, arranged marriage with her husband, and only because it was expected of her.
It is a common fanon theory, but it ain't in the text
Sax Machine
I'm doing a bit of cleanup on this page. The list of related tropes is freaky long. I stuck it in a folder. Is that all right?
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Cut this from the film section:
- There are several interviews with Glenn Beck where he, explaining his popularity, compares himself to Howard Beale. No interviewer has yet to ask him why he wants to be seen as a suicidal madman whose mental breakdowns are turned into ratings gold by an amoral corporation.
Mentioning Glenn Beck is just asking for natter, and it doesn't really add anything to the example.
Cut from Literature (Lolita):
- Members of the "loud fandom", who think the book is a celebration of older man/teenage girl relationships, apparently miss or ignore the scene in which Humbert plans to impregnate Lolita — so that by the time she's aged beyond his interest, he will already have Lolita 2.0 coming up.
- Or maybe they just don't see a problem with that?
- Members of the "loud fandom", who think the book is a celebration of older man/teenage girl relationships, apparently miss or ignore the scene in which Humbert plans to impregnate Lolita — so that by the time she's aged beyond his interest, he will already have Lolita 2.0 coming up.
I don't think that's a critical part of the example. The second point especially.
I got to halfway through the music section. There are still a couple of things I wasn't sure about (Marvel Civil War, Warrior Cats, The Shield) because I'm not familiar with the works in question. I didn't even bother going through Anime and Manga, because I'd be hopelessly lost. I leave that in the hands of some other intrepid editor.
Er, I think the page image could stand revision. It looks to be a Fandom Secret, and the whole point of those is that they aren't something you can openly admit to in fandom due to being Fetish Fuel or the like. They realize it's not intended by the creators or healthy, that's why it's a secret.
(Sapphire Redux) What are the other ethnic slurs used in Michael Jackson's "They Don't Care About Us"? I've heard the song many times and read the lyrics, and the only ones brought up were the anti-Semetic ones.
Can I point out that outside of North America the Official Nintendo Seal is still called the Seal of Quality? (at the very least in Europe)
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Yes you may, here in Holland it is still on the product. I've seen it pretty much all of my life.
Well, since the NES came around that is.
Hello new friend, my name is Fred the words you hear are in my head. I say, I said my name is Fred, and I've been... very naughty.
Should this be shortened to Misguided Fandom?
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