Characters love for whom you don't understand

[Scars Unseen]

Arya Stark, from Game of Thrones (the TV show). I'll grant, I haven't read the books. But do I have to have read them to like the character in the show?

I don't buy that The Hound has decided to take her on as basically his adoptive daughter and risk his life to protect her for what will almost certainly end up being no money (he's got to know he might not get anything from her aunt, right?), she's delusional about her abilities as a fighter (it's only recently that she's even been able to take a random dude in a fight, let alone a trained soldier), she has no apparent personality traits aside from 'spunky,' she's been awful about keeping her identity a secret, and I don't think Maisie Williams has enough range as an actress to play her convincingly. A little bit of a sense of humor might give her some depth for example. And no, I don't think the hollow laugh from the last episode counts as 'humor.'

Also, it bothers me that people are so 100% sold on her (and Daenerys, but that's a different discussion). Is it just because she's a little girl and isn't doing girly things? I don't see why that makes her much less of a cliche: instead of doing generic girl things, she's doing generic boy things. How progressive!

The problem with Arya in the show is they have done an incredibly poor job of foreshadowing what is going to happen to her in comparison with the books. I mean there are vague hints, but... well I'll just say that things happened a little differently in Harrenhal in the books. Hopefully in the next couple of episodes, they'll stick a bit closer to what happened in the books or her character will be completely off the rails.

What I don't buy about the 'but cool stuff happens to her later!' line is the idea that there's some plot event that will make Maisie Williams a good actress or give her portrayal of Arya any depth, because those are things that require external intervention in the real world (like studying acting beyond making grim faces in the mirror, or thinking about Arya's motivations beyond the internal monologue of the space marine in the Doom comic). I think that somebody could have played an interesting version of Arya (in the same way that I could easily imagine somebody doing a very poor job playing Sansa Stark, who's one of my favorite characters in the show at this point), but that's not how things have gone down so far.

Okay, I'll accept that, but your problem then seems to be with the actress, not the character. That's a completely different issue, and one which could very well apply to other TV representations of the characters just as easily. Still, I'll hold my opinion on TV Arya until next season, which is when she should start changing for the better if they don't diverge from the books completely.

 

[lord canti]

Hinata Hyuuga from Naruto, I for the life of me cant understand why so many fan boy's love her. She's boring and the entire series could have been done without her.

 

[Tiamattt]

Hinata Hyuuga from Naruto, I for the life of me cant understand why so many fan boy's love her. She's boring and the entire series could have been done without her.

Note*This is before the time jump, I'm sorry I tried but the series wore me down before I could reach it*

If I had to guess, it's because she's pretty much a injured puppy in little girl form which a double whammy for people to sympathizes with. On top of that she gets extra sympathy points from a sad backstory, and the cherry on top is cause she's fallen for the clueless hero that barely notices her since he's too focused on another girl who's totally in love with another guy. (good god how did I manage to watch so many seasons of this????!!!)

To her credit though she does have close to if not the best power out of the female kids and thanks to her quiet nature is much less annoying then her more...vocal comrades. Again this is pure speculation on my part but considering she's really minor character in the pre-time jump portion of the show and never really did anything remarkable enough to get a lot of fans, I'm going to stick with the idea that the fans are actually a bunch of nice guys that's making her sound great since it's a lot better than the story treats her.

Unless of course all the fans are of her post time jump, where for all I know she became a actual great character worthy of all the fandom. Kinda sad that I don't care enough to do the few minute google search to find out.

 

[Ryallen]

I have a few that really bug me that will piss off everyone that reads this, but regardless.

First is Mikasa from Attack on Titan. She has all the character and personality of a brick, having one thing that happened to her and one personality trait that keeps her from being the ultimate Mary Sue, and that is her obsession with Eren because of the whole slaver deal. She kills a man at age 10 after her parents are killed and suddenly she loses all personality and yet is more athletic, intelligent, and just better at everything than every other character in the anime? No, that's where I draw the line. Her entire existence is 1/3 of the reason that I hate Attack on Titan, and yet everyone who watches the show talks about how cool and badass she is. I hate it when characters in any sort of narrative medium are written like this.

The second is Ellie from The Last of Us. Frankly, I never liked this game. I liked the gameplay, the graphics, voice acting, the soundtrack, and the atmosphere, but I couldn't get past how badly I saw each character was written. Joel was a stereotype, with his actions being able to be predicted a mile away, Tess was the biggest ***** I had ever seen in a fictional medium, Sam and Henry... what is there to say? But Ellie? Not a stereotype, mind you, but uninteresting nonetheless. The one thing that I liked about her was her joke book and she quit one third of the way through the game. After that, it was just the generic growth and proof that she could take care of herself that I had expected. What REALLY pisses me off, however, is how Naughty Dog handled her reveal to be gay, or at least bisexual. I hate this about this game. I hate it when someone comes out like this, like it's some big thing, when as far as I can tell, we are in an era that accepts gays as they are, and anyone who doesn't isn't listened to anyways. I don't know a single homophobe, nor have I ever met on, online or offline. When I find out that someone is gay, I don't care. I couldn't care less. Want to know why? Because it affects absolutely nothing at all. Coming out is the exact same thing as confessing to your parents that you are black. Do you know how annoying it is when someone reveals that they are gay? Why should I care? Will affect anything related to me or anything else? Will this prevent you from being a civilized person in society? No? Then why bother talking about it?! I don't care that Ellie is gay, and yet everyone can't seem to let it go! Why couldn't Naughty Dog have handled it like they did with Bill, where they just off-handedly mentioned it?! Why was it a big reveal?! It makes even less sense in their context because no one ever oppresses gay people in the game!

Sorry I went into a big rant, but I just needed to get this off of my chest.

 

[Riot3000]

For me it was the crazy love that the Fire Emblem Awakening Fanbase had for Tharja when Sully was obviously the superior waifu.

Rei from Evangelion. Seriously, I don't get the fanboy idolization of this character...it just eludes me entirely. All I know is that Rule 34 really went ape-shit with her. *shudder* The things I've seen...... >.>

That's the wonderful irony behind her character; She was created as a way of saying 'This is what a fantasy girl would be like in real life, and it's not a good thing'. And then fans proceed to idolize her for being the perfect fantasy girl.

I think that is what Anno tells himself but really I think he was just being a bit too high on his horse with his otaku distain. I think he overlooked that hey maybe these guy like Rei for her character and still buy body pillows of her not because they didn't get it.

Mind you that Anno was going through some major depression and aimed it at "otaku lifestyle" but depression is never that simple whatever message he was trying to make I believe got pretty much lost in translation as the show went on but I still got love for Eva regardless. Also #teammisato

 

[pspman45]

On Adachi

Spoiler

The reason I found him so interesting was that his story seems similar to that of the other members of the cast, he was unhappy with his situation in life and didn't know how to show it or who to show it to; unlike the other cast members, however, he gains his powers without having to face himself and the situation he's in.
Adachi reeks of capitulation, he just decided that his life could never improve on its own, that the world had abandoned him. You can see this in his interactions with Dojima and the Old Woman from his link, when the woman thinks Adachi is her son and gives him food, he calls her as a crazy old woman. After he was caught, Adachi refused to see Dojima, the only other character who treated him with some semblance of respect. He wanted to think that everyone looked down on him, so he blocked off those who didn't. What is so intriguing is that the power of Persona was given to those who had earned it through facing who they really were and taking the first step to self actualization, but Adachi just got the power after he had already given up.

OT: Claptrap from Borderlands. Fuck that annoying hunk of garbage and all his "jokes"

 

[ExtraDebit]

Peter Parker

He was supposed to be a prodigy and genius, and what does he do with it? he squander it to fight petty crimes. When he's not fighting crimes what does he do? He takes photographs OF HIMSELF to sell it for money. Doc Ock open a company in his name during superior spiderman with hundreds of employees looking up to him, when Peter Parker returned and was overwhelmed by his RESPONSIBILITY to the company and its employees you know what he did? He ran and swing around the city like a child.

He is everything that's wrong with super heroes. One day I'm gonna make a comic with the villain as the protagonist, fighting superheroes like spiderman.....AND WIN! Because really, heroes like Peter Parker doesn't deserve to win.

You...you do know Peter Parker's a teenager, right? He might be a genius, but he doesn't have adult sensibilities, and one of his biggest establishing character moments is inadvertently allowing his uncle to die because he was pissed off at a fight organiser screwing him out of his money.

Something like that is why people like Spider-Man so much. Because he's not an infallible Comic Book Jesus like Superman, nor is he a privileged rich boy like Batman. He's a grounded teenager who made the same mistakes we all did, and is still figuring out things. He's not in it for money, and when he does get money, it's purely to support his aunt.

You're trolling me aren't you? Sure I'll bite, You do know Peter Parker hasn't been a teenager for years right? The dude literally got married and had the devil erased his marriage. He's been doing the same shitty job and talking like an idiot for years!

He may not be infallible or a privileged rich boy, but his character is just as unbelievable and stupid. "With great power comes great responsibilities", yet all his actions are a direct contradiction to that quote, he could do great with his powers and intellect but he chooses to be mediocre and immature. Doc Ock took over his body for 30 issues and did more with his life in those 30 issues than Peter Parker ever did since his conception.

Perhaps marvel not having the rights to spiderman movies is a blessing in disguise.

 

[ecoho]

Garrus Vakarian or Urdnot Wrex.

...I really don't get why people like these characters.

I knew Wrex was going to be a liability the second I laid eyes on him and chose to *not* enlist his help...and consequently the mission on Virmire went off without a hitch. Upon subsequent replays I found him to be pretty dull "Grr...I'm such a badass, look at my badassiness."

Garrus was...okay. Frankly I didn't really think he had anything interesting to say (and I'm a sucker for dialogue). Let alone any reason anyone would want to touch his...*shudders*.

To be totally honest, Ashley Williams is my favorite character...I ain't even trollin'.

truthfully it comes down to two thing
1. they are great in your squad, Wrex kills everything in ME1 and garrus does the same in ME2/3

2. theyre both a lot more fleshed out then most of your other companions if you take the time to talk to them.

 

[cojo965]

I have a few that really bug me that will piss off everyone that reads this, but regardless.

First is Mikasa from Attack on Titan. She has all the character and personality of a brick, having one thing that happened to her and one personality trait that keeps her from being the ultimate Mary Sue, and that is her obsession with Eren because of the whole slaver deal. She kills a man at age 10 after her parents are killed and suddenly she loses all personality and yet is more athletic, intelligent, and just better at everything than every other character in the anime? No, that's where I draw the line. Her entire existence is 1/3 of the reason that I hate Attack on Titan, and yet everyone who watches the show talks about how cool and badass she is. I hate it when characters in any sort of narrative medium are written like this.


Sorry I went into a big rant, but I just needed to get this off of my chest.

That thing with Eren is why I never got beyond, "attractive lady that kicks Titan ass without being a big tittied hooker." She is an absolute doormat that never does anything unless Eren does it first. Speaking of which, Eren is a guy who desperately need more kicks to the face, while Armin should stay off the front lines.

 

[putowtin]

Garrus Vakarian or Urdnot Wrex.

...I really don't get why people like these characters.

Nope not going there, it a monday morning and work is already stressing me out

Spoiler: Caution. Extreme cursing about Assassin's Creed 2 ahead

Ezio fucking Auditore da FUCKING Firenze!

Spoiler: Caution. Extreme cursing about Assassin's Creed 2 ahead

Man do I ever agree with this.

Spoiler: Caution. Extreme cursing about Assassin's Creed 2 ahead

Snipped for time and my sanity

Seriously? A guy who is, admittedly, immature at the beginning, but that's because he was a spoiled noble, who had to do very little in life. In a moment his life is turned upside down and has to watch his father and brothers murdered because he gave the evidence of their innocence to someone he thought could be trusted. His desire for revenge can be understood, but over the course of near twenty years he learns that revenge is not the answer and that's just the first game?

 

[Gameguy20100]

This git
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Boba_Fett

Honestly whats the deal with this guy?

He does fuck all in these films and yet there are over 600 fanfics about this guy?

He's like the Derpy of Starwars.

 

[Joseph Alexander]

OT: Superman. The guy has zero personalty, does not have any human flaws, overcomes his weakness to kryptonite through the power of bullshit writing 'love' on a daily basis, and by far one of the most overpowered motherfuckers in fiction. I do not understand how can anyone like this bland character.

so i can immediately tell you've never read or watched anything done competently involving Superman, in-fact i would dare guess that your experience is solely exclusive to 'man of adspace' last year.
watch Superman vs. the elite, to see why you are wrong.
or All-star Superman, to see why your are wrong.



ok, back OT:
Batman, Ironman, and this absurd obsession with "realism" and "dark and gritty".

Batman is boring, literally everyone else around him is more interesting, and yes I'm counting Calenderman.

Ironman is a irresponsible drunk-jackass who flies around in tank-suit, and whats funny is that one of the times hes MOST needed(in the MCU cap2:TWS) his stupid decision to stop being a hero(same reason Nolan's batman is a moron) nearly got MILLIONS OF PEOPLE KILLED.
and DON'T even get me started on the main comics Tony Stark and all the bullshit hes pulled, civil war comes to mind.

it frankly stinks of the immature playing at maturity that people consider things like the works of Frank Miller as anything other then bad comedy, look up 'all-star: batman and robin' 'the dark knight returns'(both parts) or 'holy terror' if you want a good laugh.

 

[Itchi_da_killa]

Hinata Hyuuga from Naruto, I for the life of me cant understand why so many fan boy's love her. She's boring and the entire series could have been done without her.

I agree with you... mostly, but to say the series would have been fine with out her is a bit of a stretch. Just my opinion.

 

[Itchi_da_killa]

This git
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Boba_Fett

Honestly whats the deal with this guy?

He does fuck all in these films and yet there are over 600 fanfics about this guy?

He's like the Derpy of Starwars.

Yeah I totally know what your saying! His costume doesn't even look very cool either. Some people are so easy to "woo". Just stick a helmet with a tinted visor on some nobody with a laser gun, and everyone is like, "wow"!
Cracked has a pretty good video about this very subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syYge8MJTN0&feature=kp

 

[Thyunda]

Mordin Solus

I just don't get it

He's an annoying Hollywood "nerd" stereotype (like those two dimwits in Pacific Rim) and he's a fucking psychopath to boot.

I was glad when he took a bullet in the suicide mission and I made a new save in ME3 just so that I could kill him myself.

He's the Jar Jar Binks of Mass Effect.

Hollywood "nerd" stereotype + fucking psychopath to boot = Clearly not a Hollywood "Nerd" stereotype.

Hollywood nerds have allergies and are about as useful in a confrontation as a collection of greasy tissues. Mordin Solus was extraordinarily clever and the scientist of the team and that's as far as the cliché goes. He has layers of depth if you care to look for them, but beyond that, he's a soldier. That's what you seem to have missed.

You find me another Hollywood nerd that will shoot on sight with deadly accuracy and isn't portrayed as a villain.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

I'd love to jump on the Sephiroth hate wagon, I really would. He's the very definition of 'over-rated', only popular because he appeals to power-gamers and fanboys that thought that scene where he turned around and walked into the flames was kewl. It didn't matter what illogical actions he performed or that he lacked an interesting character arc (and VII set the bar pretty low), people just love this guy because it's constantly shoved in our face how powerful he is. I mean, he's the hardest boss battle in Kingdom Hearts II, then he just brushes you off after you defeat him as "not being the one that is meant to defeat him." WOW. So badass. So COOL. He reminds me of every original character any young teen who writes fan-fiction has ever come up with. I guess if Golbez had long, flowing hair and an impractically long sword (and not just any sword, needs to be a KATANA), he'd be pretty cool too. Most people argue they love him as a villain because they hate him... right. Why? Sure he burned down Cloud's home town, but that sin, in the minds of the fanboys, is NOTHING compared to the business with Aerith... Which brings me to my original pick!

Aerith.

Never mind Sephiroth, because I can at least wrap my head around why people who like shows like Bleach and Dragon Ball Z might like earth's mightiest-genetically-engineered-super-soldier-turned-villain-for-no-real-reason, but what I have a hard time understanding are the people that think he's a greater villain because they loved Aerith and he killed her. People really seemed to care about Aerith and I don't get it.

Sure, I'd be sad if the healer died in any other RPG where someone else couldn't easily and immediately take over their role. But on an emotional level, I still wasn't fazed by it. Aerith was a generic 'special girl', someone for the white knights out there to pine over so as to even further project themselves onto Cloud, which had to bring that familiarity home when she basically ends up friend-zoning him, because it's obvious that Aerith has no romantic interest in him, and what little she expresses is usually only to get Tifa riled up, because Aerith herself has ultimately settled on another person. Hell, even in death Cloud continues to pine over this woman and I just don't get why or what made her more likable than anyone else in that particular game. She's just a martyr on a suicide mission who has every intention of following said mission's itinerary. That's not interesting, that's stupid. Yuna at the very least grapples emotionally with an extremely similar mission and was much better characterized for it. Aerith just does this weird Obi-wan thing and returns to the Planet, becoming more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

"Hey guys! Guess I'll just head north on my own and hope you don't follow me, even though I already know there's no fucking way Cloud isn't going to NOT follow me, I've seen to that with all of my endless flirting, so I guess I'll just go alone instead of with my party and increase my chances of getting killed by 800%." Then you show up and Mr. Awesome slays her conveniently just as the the group happens upon her.

So... ahem. Yeah. Not sure why so many people love the flower girl that got exactly what she went looking for on the business-end of Sephiroth's super-kewl sword.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Kratos

Yell yell yell angry angry muscles kill yell muscles yell angry

Are there story reasons for why he's like this? Yes. Does that make him any less insufferable? No.

 

[NortherWolf]

Oooh, so very many picks to choose from! It's like a candy store of shit!

So I will pick two of my own as there's been quite a few I agree with already. (Supernatural, Sasucke and GoT).

Wolverine: I've not liked this guy since I was like 12. He's a grumpy trucker drunk abusive asshole with a limited vocabulary that goes country-hopping because he's so awesomebadass supermanly megafighter-dudy.

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: Oh hell...Now, I know there's a lot of hate towards this character but considering she's one of the most iconic characters of the Supernatural Romance genre I consider her fair game. She's a rapist, an asshole, a hypocrite and a murderer. And not like "I shot a few people too many." but in the "So you won't fuck me? Fine, I brought this blue-haired punker guy here to rape-kill you and your wife. Toodles."
Quite simply put, she's the absolute bottom scum of anything I can think up. Fanfic Mary Sues written for weird fetish kinks are nicer than her.

 

[lord canti]

Hinata Hyuuga from Naruto, I for the life of me cant understand why so many fan boy's love her. She's boring and the entire series could have been done without her.

I agree with you... mostly, but to say the series would have been fine with out her is a bit of a stretch. Just my opinion.

My biggest problem with her is that all her fanboy's hate Sakura for being useless, when Hinata is far more useless than Sakura is.

 

[lord canti]

Hinata Hyuuga from Naruto, I for the life of me cant understand why so many fan boy's love her. She's boring and the entire series could have been done without her.

Note*This is before the time jump, I'm sorry I tried but the series wore me down before I could reach it*

If I had to guess, it's because she's pretty much a injured puppy in little girl form which a double whammy for people to sympathizes with. On top of that she gets extra sympathy points from a sad backstory, and the cherry on top is cause she's fallen for the clueless hero that barely notices her since he's too focused on another girl who's totally in love with another guy. (good god how did I manage to watch so many seasons of this????!!!)

To her credit though she does have close to if not the best power out of the female kids and thanks to her quiet nature is much less annoying then her more...vocal comrades. Again this is pure speculation on my part but considering she's really minor character in the pre-time jump portion of the show and never really did anything remarkable enough to get a lot of fans, I'm going to stick with the idea that the fans are actually a bunch of nice guys that's making her sound great since it's a lot better than the story treats her.

Unless of course all the fans are of her post time jump, where for all I know she became a actual great character worthy of all the fandom. Kinda sad that I don't care enough to do the few minute google search to find out.

As I said to another poster, My biggest problem is that her fans hate Sakura for being useless yet somehow raise Hinata for every little thing. In fact Sakura is probably the most developed character in the series.

P.S Be glad you got out when you did, The series is dragging it's corpse around and the only reason I'm still reading it is because I've invested to much time to quit so close to the end.