Discussion Main / TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter

Link to the cleanup thread in case it falls off the first page of Short Term Projects and becomes hard to find:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=14984871570A03290400

Edited by Blegh

I'm not sure about how Hero of Another Story is defined here - its own page says nothing about them needing to be the main character of another work.

Here's one example that could qualify: Zuma's Fear -

• Zuma's Fear: Zuma's human parents fell prey to this because they died in Zuma's past when they could've been major characters in the fanfic.
  • Same could apply to Zuma's Sister, too, but in the second segment, Frisk is implied to be her. potentially subverting this trope for her.

Edited by Richmountain112 2 Kirbies went to a Target and ate all the food. The very next day, the store went bankrupt. Looks like we’re eating Kirbies for dinner.

Is there any clarification on whether or not this can qualify if it applies to specific installments?

Say a character was important in one series, then in the sequels is just a voiceless extra?

Why does noboby talk about Flame Princess here? I just added an example of her there, but now it's removed.

Hide / Show Replies

"Mary Watson, née Morstan, in Sherlock Holmes. Despite playing a major role in The Sign of Four, having quite a bit of genuine detective skill herself, and ending up married to Dr. Watson, she's never used again except in cameos, and during the Time Skip between "The Final Problem" and "The Empty House", she's killed off."

A totally unexplored point: There's one case where Holmes is the narrator, and helps out a client who was wondering why he wasn't being allowed to see an old comrade-in-arms. Holmes mentions the reason he worked the case alone was because Watson had obligations due to being married at the time. In an interesting side comment, Holmes refers to Watson getting married 'the only selfish thing he ever did'.

So Doyle not only ignored Mary as a character, he ignored her interaction/sort-of-rivalry with Holmes, which could have had a very interesting plot. It probably wouldn't have worked within the Strand's format, but in a novel like The Hound of the Baskervilles, it could have been explored.

(The family thought the guy had leprosy; he had a condition that looked like leprosy but wasn't contagious, and was thought to be brought on by stress.

Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett

Removed these examples. They need to be rewritten.

• Pan? You missed 4/6 members of the GT fighters who totally weren't touched. Granted she basically got written out of what really should have been her show, but come on! Gohan was the Chosen One who had a huge nature and nurture dynamic not only due to his mixed heritage but also his mixed upbringing (Studying and Martial Arts). He takes the third option, but that's aluded to. Majuub gets it worse. He's hyped up in the last episode of the previous series to be the only rival to Goku and his successor. Then when a genuine threat shows up and he gets to shine, he gets a major power up only never to win a major fight. And let's not get started on Goten and Trunks. Fusion and the power of friendship? Nope just Goku. Syncronized movesets from a pair of bash brothers? No just Goku. Natural Super Saiyan skills and incredible potential, as well as record breaking powers at a young age? Nope, just Goku. At least Vegeta gets to be plot relevant in the final battle, at least while he's fused with Goku.

• Of all the complaints frequently lobbied by My Life Me's immense hatedom, one of the most common is "Why is this show about an annoying weeaboo bitch and not Mr. Towes?"

Would Matt from Death Note count? He just seemed to have a lot of potential, as a Deadpan Snarker foil to Mello.

Removing this...

• Avatar:The Last Airbender has Suki who was such an interesting exotic character but ended up being Sokka's girlfriend who could kick ass in a world where Action Girls are rampant. Also this troper felt that King Bumi was much too smart,too funny,too interesting to only be in 3 chapters.
  • To be fair, Suki was intended to be a one-off but became recurring after the writers saw how popular she was - the same thing happened to Jet, who got a four-episode arc in Book 2 before being killed by Long Feng to emphasise the darkening tone of the story (and lead in to Aang's temporary death at Azula's hands, quite effectively as well). The writers just didn't have the time, nor the episodes, to really let Suki have an enormous impact on the plot since the three Books were planed out from the start and things were constantly being adjusted anyway. But at least she got a Big Damn Heroes moment in the finale, - to say nothing of her presence shown affecting the climax of Book 2, and holding her own against Ty Lee, who had previously taken out multiple Kyoshi Warriors single-handed (mind you, this was after a month or so imprisoned in the Avatarverse's version of Alcatraz!).
  • As for Bumi, I agree that he was really entertaining, but what could honestly be done to give him more impact on the story? If he appeared too much, he'd overpower the opposition far too easily - he's also better in small doses so we can cherish his appearances when they did occur ... on that note, there are a few great one-shot characters who didn't make the cut and could've been used more, but like I said, the plot was carefully built around the core cast and couldn't be modified too much without potentially losing important events and characterisation - worse, it could've become hard to follow and effectively jumped the shark. You may as well complain that they didn't plan two books for each Season/Bending-Discipline/Element, and even if they had we'd get even more characters we want more of. The show did a fairly good job with the characters it has.

...which is basically just someone putting forward a very subjective example and someone else explaining why it ain't so. The trope's a bit fuzzy.

Edited by LongLiveHumour

Passed the description through YKTTW. Gained some examples, saw some confusion with the old, too subjective, definition, and saw some with Ensemble Dark Horse. I think cutting out the spewing of many tropes at people may help. We don't need to make the characters sound like they must be the most awesome ever and there is no need to have the largest section be devoted to simply pointing out that this isn't a character type. The focus should be on missing screentime.

... I got a strange feeling this trope will not end well.

Experience has taught me to investigate anything that glows. Hide / Show Replies