A particular character in Berserk who if I say his name would spoil the death scene.
Judeau
He's a friendly chap who just like the rest of the Band of the Hawk gets transported to Hell to serve as a sacrifice for Griffith's rise to becoming part of the Godhand. Just like everyone else he dies, but he does so while trying to protect Caska. And as she tries to drag his shattered body to safety, Judeau's dying thoughts are of how Caska will never know that he loved her.
Pretty much all the characters in Berserk, really. Either live on earth, where plague, slaughter, rape, and torture are common place, or die and go to hell. There's really no escape, you can't even kill yourself, since it will only make things worse.
OT: Everyone from Evangellion. I don't think they necessarily "deserved" a happy ending, but they deserved closure. I want an idea of how things end, I want answers, but in the end we never get that. And we likely never will. Instead we get garbled up nonsense that we're supposed to "interpret for ourselves." Unfortunately none of it actually means anything, so it doesn't matter. I don't care if the endings horrible for the characters, but END the damn thing. The characters deserved more than to be Annos weird little guinea pigs.
[quote/]Well, I have it on good authority that women love to be subservient slaves. This one girl on YouTube said it, and a bunch of MRA gender skeptics linked to it, so it must be true.[/quote]
I'll admit its mostly my overactive imagination, can you just imagine living on a planet of people who probably don't like you, having to have sex with a guy you hate (even if he is nice about it and gives you nice shit its still rape) having no freinds, no one to turn too.... you still keep the starfleet communicator with you...some nights you hold it in your hand and try not to cry...for what you used to be...and for what you are now...
....christ I need a drink
Zachary Amaranth said:
Seriously, it's far from dignified, but I'm not sure she has it any worse than the rest of the women on the crew. And the men don't exactly get a lot of dignity, either. Worf gets knocked out every other episode, like he's the designated red shirt. Gerodi is about two episodes from joining Reg Barlkley in holo addiction, and Riker may be the worst first officer ever.
And the less said about Deanna Trois, the better....
and you forgot Crusher....for giving birth to Wesley
in all seriousness though those are typical inconsistencies that you get with these types of shows, the difference is at least the characters get to "do" things and get their own arcs and shit, oh yeah the female charachters not get much of a good run (especially Troi) though the Irony might be Yarr's best moments were after she [i/]died[/i]
Souplex said:
How I met your Mother is a Show about this awesome guy named Barney, this awesome gal named Robin, and this obnoxious asshole named Ted.
For some reason the show keeps trying to convince us that it's about Ted.
The final season's story arc is about Barney and Robing realizing that they are the only human beings awesome enough for each other, and getting married. The second to last episode ends with their marriage.
Then in the final episode we cut to ten years later. Barney and Robin's marriage falls apart for no reason, and Ted and Robin get together.
Bullshit.
MY example....one that I've been somewhat bothered by after I finished the Star Trek TNG episode :Redemption part 2 (about half an hour ago) is Natasha Yar
who the fuck is Natasha Yar? you might ask...good question, she's a character who was around in season 1 and...around and then she dies, I know the real life reasons as to why that charachter was killed off but anyway:
[spoiler/]Yarr's death was a crappy one (it WAS season 1 afterall) which was bad enough...but then in one of the most memorable TNG episodes "Yesterdays Enterprise" she gets her own moment and a death thats actually fitting...all good right?
WRONG
oh no...see as we find out in the season 5 episode I mentioned she got captured by Romulans and as an alternative to death had to be a Commander's..."consort"...then she has a child....
one night she tries to escape with the child only to be found out (the kid didn't want to go) and executed (the daughter tue to timey wimey whatever is able to tell picard this)
....but she got a baby out of it all right? babies make everything better?
seriously am I the only one not horribly disturbed by this?? maybe that was the point BUT STILL, its almost hilarious how much of a raw deal this character got, when she's not doing not much or giving Wesley saturday morning special talks about the dangers of drugs she's constantly having to reaffirm her heterosexuality (see episodes code of honor and the naked now) if the actress hadn't have bailed in season 1 mabye she would have developed into an actual "strong female charachter" instead of the confused mess
Ironic thing is if I recall correctly Yar was originally going to be a clone of Vasquez from Aliens. And the actresses who played Yar and Troi initially auditioned for the opposite part of the one they wound up in.
Though speaking of which I think Troi got a much worse deal. As Marina Sirtis has noted herself with some exasperation. Her role was reduced to being eye candy who occasionally said something anyone with a brain could figure out like "Captain, he's lying." or "Captain, they're hiding something."
Basically what happened was Whoopie Goldburg's guest starring part as Guinan stole Troi's role on the show. When a character ACTUALLY needed counseling they went to Ten-Forward, not the ship's counselor. And I can only think of a few Troi-focused episodes that weren't actually about Roddenberry's wife guest starring as her mother.
Oh and Troi was raped in one episode and it was never brought up again. Then she got raped again in one of the movies. Talk about a raw deal.
Doakes got the short end of the stick in Season 2 of Dexter. It was sad. He was far from my favorite character, but it seemed unfitting if not bad exactly.
He found out that Dexter was the bay harbor butcher, so Dexter framed him and then in the finale he was killed by Lila. The body was found and he went down in history as being the butcher. It was shit
Though speaking of which I think Troi got a much worse deal. As Marina Sirtis has noted herself with some exasperation. Her role was reduced to being eye candy who occasionally said something anyone with a brain could figure out like "Captain, he's lying." or "Captain, they're hiding something."
Oh I'll definitely agree there....you can tell she just doesn't have anything to work with, the Geinan thing is definitely true as well...I could argue the Trois relevance is perfectly valid off-screen....its just geinan got all the plot relevant counseling
I love that your examples are from books and yet, considering your profile picture, you don't mention any of the many characters that get a raw deal in The Dresden Files.
OT:
Ironicaly I will not be giving any examples from the Dresden Files because there are simply too many. Hell every book normally has someone getting fucked over who simply don't deserve it. I guess the biggest one would be Susen. And to a smaller extent Michael (but he seems to be cool with it).
None of my examples are from Dresden Files because I didn't find any examples in Dresden Files. The examples I did list weren't of characters whose story takes a sad turn or who might have had a bad hand dealt to them, they were of characters that were repeatedly fucked up the arse by life/author, mostly by events completely out of their control and in vast disproportion to what was called for.
So speaking of Dresden Files, Susan isn't listed because why would she be? Her getting half-turned into a vampire was a result of her constant ignoring of Dresden's warnings. She was arrogant and refused to listen and I'd say she got off fairly easy. Then she shows up during the whole Ortega thing and nearly gets Dresden killed. Then she again decides she knows better and instead of telling Dresden about his child, she hides her away in the middle of a continent pretty much under the Red Court's direct control and is all surprised when they find her and grab her with little trouble. And when she finally bites it, she takes all of the Red Court with her. Yeah, it was sad, but it's not like shit was piled on her over and over again.
As for Michael, I don't see your point. He got shot. He spent most of his life fighting bad guys and winning, and for once they got a few shots in. And he survived and gets to spend time with his family. It is heavily implied that a forced retirement like that was the only way he'd ever put down Ammorachius, and the man has a battalion of guardian angels keeping an eye on his family. Speaking of which, his entire family is alive, well and unharmed, with the possible exception of Molly, but that's a whole different thing. Oh, and he gets to have one more go at the action in Skin Game and he kicks all sorts or arse.
If I did have to put up someone from Dresden Files, I'd go with Murphy, simply because she gets handed a raw deal over and over again, to the point where even she realizes it's kinda her thing now...
It's weird how the characters I keep thinking deserved better would, in turn, completely change how I feel about how the show they came from would play out, thus making me like the show in question less than how I do now basically... Anyway...
OT: There are too many characters in Adventure Time, I feel, deserved better in just overall character knowledge... But, I'm not sure if it's too soon to call (given the show's general story-telling nature) or too late to wonder if it would have make anything better or worse overall...
However, I will say that, as of right now in the anime series Haganai, I feel like Sena (and kinda Yozura) deserved better, in terms of what happened during and after the second-to-last episode of Season 2...
You see, Season 2 (aka NEXT) was trying to push the notion that the main character, Kodoka, may or may not end up with either Yozura, the childhood friend from 10 years ago, or Sena, the forgotten "childhood friend" from birth that just so happened to be signed to be wed in their upcoming future thanks to their respected fathers that don't even remember the full details of said event happening at the time... Now, on the second-to-last episode, Sena decides to speak up and confess her feeling to Kodoka while still keeping focus on the game that she's playing... Everyone hears what she's saying "except" Kodoka, who then proceeds to leave the Neighbor's clubroom and, throughout the final episode of Season 2, chooses not to go back there to face the consequences...
Now, for most, we would assume Kodoka was being a dick to Sena by basically pretending to not hear her, let alone respond back to the Neighbor's Club at large after said incidence... until he spills the beans to Rika, who knew all along anyway, that all he was trying to do was not ruin the already establish dynamic between him and his fellow clubmates, since this is the closest he has to having "actual friends" since his childhood day hanging out with his childhood friend Sora, aka Yozura... From his standpoint, if he ever did try to be with either of the girls in the Neighbor's Club, especially either Sena (or Yozura), it would lead to the Neighbor's Club breaking up... In other words, he knows he in a "harem" situation, but chooses to not react to it like how most male protagonist would do (or won't do) to make the situation worse somehow...
Unfortunately, despite his best intentions, he still made the situation worse by not only handling the Sena situation poorly (since he could have just admitted to not wanting this general dynamic the club members have so far with each other to change this drastically, thus explaining most of his actions throughout the series so far especially through Season 2), but also through his actions (or lack of actions) may have caused Yozura to "temporary" leave the club, let alone the school, without warning or a proper explanation other than "she's going on a journey"...
Granted, I haven't picked up the LN that still continue where the series left off so far, so all that I said could have been proven moot point at this point...
Other than that... Despite the Ed boys from Ed, Edd, n' Eddy getting a satisfying series finale (in the form of a 90-minute TV movie without commercials), throughout the series Edd (Double D) deserved better for always being lumped into whatever bad thing either Ed and/or Eddy did overall... especially if Edd (Double D) had nothing to do with it in the first place, anyway...
I willl concede the point however (dresden spoilers)
After you point it out you are right about Susan, however I would still say that she did not deserve to die the way she did. I do see your point about Michael but as I said in my original post I was not 100% sure he counted.
I kind of see your point about Murphy but if I have one complaint about the books (which are easily my favorite series) it is her continued presences in them. With each book Harry has become more powerfull, expanding his knowledge of magic and his controle over it. However he is also attracting more and more powerfull enemies with each book. The same can be said for alot of Harry's friends. They all improve as the books progress, with the exception of Thomas but he is a vampire.
Murphy on the other hand, is still the same old mortal getting involved in stuff far beyond her abilities. If anything, by her own admission, she is starting to slow down due to her no longer being in her prime. In the last few books she has bcome more and more outclassed to the point where I wonder if she really has a place in the series any more, Skin Game being a great example.
I like Murphy but I personaly think it is time for her to no longer be a big part of the series. Plus I don't think her and Harry work as a couple but that is a whole other thing.
Saruman also deserved way better than his non-appearence in Return of the King. I know this gets fixed in the extended edition, but still. This was arguably the main villain in the preceding two movies, you can't just handwave him like that.
I assume you know the technical reason to Saruman being cut like that, the length of the film, having to cut out stuff that doesn't directly affect the story, blah blah blah, but anyway. I'm gonna go and put this in a spoiler, in case someone hasn't read the books yet, and wants to do so without having their shit ruined.
After Saruman get's exiled from Isengard, he actually proceeds to go and terrorize the Shire (probably got a thing against hobbits by now), and there's a lot more character development. He is then, at the end of this little spin-off story, murdered by Wormtongue, as in the extended edition of the film, and his tyranny is put to an end at last. He doesn't fall off a huge fuck-off tower landing on a spiked grindstone wheel (or whatever). But like Tom Bombadil, the arguably most powerful thing in all of Tolkien's universe, he gets the boot because it doesn't directly involve the overarching story. The only glimpse we get of this is when Frodo peeks into the mirror of Galadriel
Just wanted to throw myself on the TNG-train, having after all managed to watch all seven seasons of it. And I can say that after having watched all that, I never want to see it ever again. It was exciting at first, I remembered how much I liked it when I was younger, and saw occasional episodes that popped up on TV, and decided it was finally time to watch. I wasn't immediately disappointed, there are some really good bits, but they're more than overshadowed by what I believe to be the biggest fallacy of the entire series. I suppose it comes down to formula, but it gets so predictable it's disappointing.
The formula of Star Trek: The Next Generation being this: Every episode sets up a villain, be it romulans, klingons or space itself. And they have exactly 42 minutes to get trapped, figure out the problem, and then return everything to status quo. Even in the above average interesting encounters with the Borg they do this, although stretched out over two episodes, so it can get some proper fleshing out. Everything else gets shamelessly stripped down to its bare functional elements, so very little flesh remains.
The episodes with Q, the aforementioned Borg, and the times when they mess up time and space completely were the really golden moments for me, for instance the episode where several hundred thousand enterprises from parallel universes appear at the same time because of several spectacular cock-ups were hugely interesting, and I felt the series truly come alive at that point, actually dealing with the UNKNOWN, rather than some far-off settlement that is being terrorized by some menacing klingons or romulans. I actually cheered every time the borg showed up, because I knew shit was about to go down.
To sum it all up, I had some fun with the series, but towards season 5 I started to get the feeling that I'd seen it all before, and the imagination of the series had long since run out. I feel slight disappointment, because of the wasted potential of the series, having so many threads to yank on, but only using the most boring and predictable ones. Of course Q can't be in EVERY episode, that would probably kill the character completely. I think they should have run cross-episode events, flesh out the story some more, so the ending didn't feel rushed, which it does at times. Very often the whole setup of the episode takes so much time they have like 5-10 minutes to solve everything and carry on with their journey, the villain often becomes roadkill instead of having some interesting way to solve the situation.
In an episode where Q is supposedly punished by the Q continuum, and sent to be human on the enterprise, where they deal with an asteroid threatening to wipe out an entire planet. The episode is meant to be more for Q, giving him some character development and a bit of screen time, but like other episodes, it pulls the fast one at the end, where Q is restored to his position in the continuum, and pulls an ex machina out of his ass and saves the planet, by playing havoc with the laws of physics.
We're given an example of how powerful Q can be, but it would be more interesting to see where the limitations of his powers lies. I suppose that's the thing with the Q continuum though, they don't really have limitations. They're extradimensional entities that can move back and forth in time as they please, seldom offering a thought to anyone in the universe. Some has theorized that it was because of Q that the Borg found earth in the first place, their first encounter with them was thanks to Q knocking the ship some 8000 light years off course to introduce them to the Borg, all because Q wanted to give Picard a serious challenge.
Jonathan Joestar. He sacrifices himself to take Dio down in the sinking ship with him, and yet Dio still possesses his body and uses it for evil later in part 3. I thought it was a cool plot point, but it really feels like an ignoble way to go for Jonathan. He's the one in his bloodline that started the family tradition of fighting evil and bizarre adventures (hooray for title drop), and yet he has the shortest part to star in, and his body ends up as nothing but a tool for the villain.
I'll second that. Although you have to admit that his death was one of the most impactful for readers/viewers, simply because of how nice the guy was. Also, his rapid-punching moment is the SICKEST one in the whole series.
First character to go Super Saiyan 2, strongest non-fused character in the Buu arc by Toriyama's word (he's stronger than Super Saiyan 3 Goku), but if you saw him in anything post DBZ or any of the movies you would never guess.
This kid took on Freeza at 4 years old, attained Super Saiyan at 8, mastered it by 9, attained Super Saiyan 2 that same year and killed a being his father, one of the strongest fighters the universe had ever seen at that point, cold not. After some years of peace and lack of training, he gets a power boost that makes him so strong he's taking on a galaxy destroying monster without even using energy attacks.
What happens to him pretty much every instance onward? Slapped aside in one or two hits. The kid deserves better.
Saruman also deserved way better than his non-appearence in Return of the King. I know this gets fixed in the extended edition, but still. This was arguably the main villain in the preceding two movies, you can't just handwave him like that.
I assume you know the technical reason to Saruman being cut like that, the length of the film, having to cut out stuff that doesn't directly affect the story, blah blah blah, but anyway. I'm gonna go and put this in a spoiler, in case someone hasn't read the books yet, and wants to do so without having their shit ruined.
After Saruman get's exiled from Isengard, he actually proceeds to go and terrorize the Shire (probably got a thing against hobbits by now), and there's a lot more character development. He is then, at the end of this little spin-off story, murdered by Wormtongue, as in the extended edition of the film, and his tyranny is put to an end at last. He doesn't fall off a huge fuck-off tower landing on a spiked grindstone wheel (or whatever). But like Tom Bombadil, the arguably most powerful thing in all of Tolkien's universe, he gets the boot because it doesn't directly involve the overarching story. The only glimpse we get of this is when Frodo peeks into the mirror of Galadriel
This always bugged the hell out of me, it's actually soured me on the movies quite a bit. Since I think the actual ending of any story is a pretty important part of it. Leaving the Shire untouched takes away from the impact and bittersweetness of the ending. Which originally showed even the innocent childlike Hobbits suffered and died because of a war they had nothing to do with. Also without the need to stay behind to rebuild the Shire Frodo's long stay in it after coming back doesn't make much sense. Saruman wasn't the only one to suffer from that particular edit.
Twinrehz said:
Just wanted to throw myself on the TNG-train, having after all managed to watch all seven seasons of it. And I can say that after having watched all that, I never want to see it ever again. It was exciting at first, I remembered how much I liked it when I was younger, and saw occasional episodes that popped up on TV, and decided it was finally time to watch. I wasn't immediately disappointed, there are some really good bits, but they're more than overshadowed by what I believe to be the biggest fallacy of the entire series. I suppose it comes down to formula, but it gets so predictable it's disappointing.
The formula of Star Trek: The Next Generation being this: Every episode sets up a villain, be it romulans, klingons or space itself. And they have exactly 42 minutes to get trapped, figure out the problem, and then return everything to status quo. Even in the above average interesting encounters with the Borg they do this, although stretched out over two episodes, so it can get some proper fleshing out. Everything else gets shamelessly stripped down to its bare functional elements, so very little flesh remains.
The episodes with Q, the aforementioned Borg, and the times when they mess up time and space completely were the really golden moments for me, for instance the episode where several hundred thousand enterprises from parallel universes appear at the same time because of several spectacular cock-ups were hugely interesting, and I felt the series truly come alive at that point, actually dealing with the UNKNOWN, rather than some far-off settlement that is being terrorized by some menacing klingons or romulans. I actually cheered every time the borg showed up, because I knew shit was about to go down.
To sum it all up, I had some fun with the series, but towards season 5 I started to get the feeling that I'd seen it all before, and the imagination of the series had long since run out. I feel slight disappointment, because of the wasted potential of the series, having so many threads to yank on, but only using the most boring and predictable ones. Of course Q can't be in EVERY episode, that would probably kill the character completely. I think they should have run cross-episode events, flesh out the story some more, so the ending didn't feel rushed, which it does at times. Very often the whole setup of the episode takes so much time they have like 5-10 minutes to solve everything and carry on with their journey, the villain often becomes roadkill instead of having some interesting way to solve the situation.
In an episode where Q is supposedly punished by the Q continuum, and sent to be human on the enterprise, where they deal with an asteroid threatening to wipe out an entire planet. The episode is meant to be more for Q, giving him some character development and a bit of screen time, but like other episodes, it pulls the fast one at the end, where Q is restored to his position in the continuum, and pulls an ex machina out of his ass and saves the planet, by playing havoc with the laws of physics.
We're given an example of how powerful Q can be, but it would be more interesting to see where the limitations of his powers lies. I suppose that's the thing with the Q continuum though, they don't really have limitations. They're extradimensional entities that can move back and forth in time as they please, seldom offering a thought to anyone in the universe. Some has theorized that it was because of Q that the Borg found earth in the first place, their first encounter with them was thanks to Q knocking the ship some 8000 light years off course to introduce them to the Borg, all because Q wanted to give Picard a serious challenge.
Star Trek TNG's formulaic nature is mostly a product of its time. You saw 1 episode of a show a week. Unless you had the bread to shell out for VHS copies of shows which were rare and expensive. (Even blank tapes were expensive, about $6 a pop, probably more like $9 adjusted for inflation. And the quality went to hell if you wanted to record more than 2 hours on one.) TNG was made in such a way that the episodes could be watched out of order and still make sense. And you basically knew what you were getting into when you sat down to watch it. This kind of formula definitely isn't for everyone but I don't think it's fair to criticize any one show of the time for it specifically.
You might like to try Deep Space Nine if you haven't already. When it first started out it was episodic and somewhat formulaic as well. But by about the 3rd season, corresponding to the mid/late 90s, it had its sea-legs and become much more serialized. With a huge overarching plot and many long running subplots that lasted the rest of the show. This, along with an overall darker tone and themes, led it to be more of a cult series. Because it was not very accessible to people who might want to just catch the occasional re-run.
Saruman also deserved way better than his non-appearence in Return of the King. I know this gets fixed in the extended edition, but still. This was arguably the main villain in the preceding two movies, you can't just handwave him like that.
I know I'm going to be alone in this, but I actually prefer the theatrical version where you don't see him at all and his fate is left somewhat undecided. In the extended edition they just kill him off and never mention him again. I mean, he was basically the main antagonist throughout the first two films, and beyond that he was the head of Gandalf's order. And yet nobody so much as utters a word about it after he gets killed. You'd think this would have some kind of impact on the characters or events, but no.
And apart from that the actual exchange between the characters feels very flimsy, too. In the book you get a real sense of how dangerous this conversation is, because even defeated Saruman can fuck them up with his voice alone.
So the first feat we see from this guy is to push his friends out of the way and have a bunch of support beams hit him on the back. He gets up with no injury and just walks away, and this is before he gets his powers. He fights a hollow without being able to see it, and doesn't freak out at the fact that an invisible monster was killing people. When he gets his power he punches a hollow into oblivion. He had a cool Mexican heritage, and was a stand up guy.
After getting his powers, the only thing of note he did was take out a bunch of fodder, and take out a weak arrancar, only to get 1HKO from some one right after. He constantly trains so he won't be a burden, but amounts to nothing. Can't take out the weakest arrancar and almost dies, yet Rukia who has been powerless the whole series takes him out like a chump. Yammy beats the crap out of him. After taking out two nobodies, a powerful espada comes and takes him out with one hit. Over 50 chapters later he shows up again and does nothing. The next arc, he trains to not be a burden, gets brain washed to fight Ichigo for a little bit, then gets knocked out for the rest of the arc. In this current arc, the most useful thing he did was chuck Ichigo at a wall to stop his bitching. Had the potential to be an awesome character, and got Yamcha'd quickly. Worse part is Kubo is making it seem like he will do something, when I know it's not going to happen.
Saruman also deserved way better than his non-appearence in Return of the King. I know this gets fixed in the extended edition, but still. This was arguably the main villain in the preceding two movies, you can't just handwave him like that.
I assume you know the technical reason to Saruman being cut like that, the length of the film, having to cut out stuff that doesn't directly affect the story, blah blah blah, but anyway. I'm gonna go and put this in a spoiler, in case someone hasn't read the books yet, and wants to do so without having their shit ruined.
After Saruman get's exiled from Isengard, he actually proceeds to go and terrorize the Shire (probably got a thing against hobbits by now), and there's a lot more character development. He is then, at the end of this little spin-off story, murdered by Wormtongue, as in the extended edition of the film, and his tyranny is put to an end at last. He doesn't fall off a huge fuck-off tower landing on a spiked grindstone wheel (or whatever). But like Tom Bombadil, the arguably most powerful thing in all of Tolkien's universe, he gets the boot because it doesn't directly involve the overarching story. The only glimpse we get of this is when Frodo peeks into the mirror of Galadriel
Just wanted to throw myself on the TNG-train, having after all managed to watch all seven seasons of it. And I can say that after having watched all that, I never want to see it ever again. It was exciting at first, I remembered how much I liked it when I was younger, and saw occasional episodes that popped up on TV, and decided it was finally time to watch. I wasn't immediately disappointed, there are some really good bits, but they're more than overshadowed by what I believe to be the biggest fallacy of the entire series. I suppose it comes down to formula, but it gets so predictable it's disappointing.
The formula of Star Trek: The Next Generation being this: Every episode sets up a villain, be it romulans, klingons or space itself. And they have exactly 42 minutes to get trapped, figure out the problem, and then return everything to status quo. Even in the above average interesting encounters with the Borg they do this, although stretched out over two episodes, so it can get some proper fleshing out. Everything else gets shamelessly stripped down to its bare functional elements, so very little flesh remains.
The episodes with Q, the aforementioned Borg, and the times when they mess up time and space completely were the really golden moments for me, for instance the episode where several hundred thousand enterprises from parallel universes appear at the same time because of several spectacular cock-ups were hugely interesting, and I felt the series truly come alive at that point, actually dealing with the UNKNOWN, rather than some far-off settlement that is being terrorized by some menacing klingons or romulans. I actually cheered every time the borg showed up, because I knew shit was about to go down.
To sum it all up, I had some fun with the series, but towards season 5 I started to get the feeling that I'd seen it all before, and the imagination of the series had long since run out. I feel slight disappointment, because of the wasted potential of the series, having so many threads to yank on, but only using the most boring and predictable ones. Of course Q can't be in EVERY episode, that would probably kill the character completely. I think they should have run cross-episode events, flesh out the story some more, so the ending didn't feel rushed, which it does at times. Very often the whole setup of the episode takes so much time they have like 5-10 minutes to solve everything and carry on with their journey, the villain often becomes roadkill instead of having some interesting way to solve the situation.
In an episode where Q is supposedly punished by the Q continuum, and sent to be human on the enterprise, where they deal with an asteroid threatening to wipe out an entire planet. The episode is meant to be more for Q, giving him some character development and a bit of screen time, but like other episodes, it pulls the fast one at the end, where Q is restored to his position in the continuum, and pulls an ex machina out of his ass and saves the planet, by playing havoc with the laws of physics.
We're given an example of how powerful Q can be, but it would be more interesting to see where the limitations of his powers lies. I suppose that's the thing with the Q continuum though, they don't really have limitations. They're extradimensional entities that can move back and forth in time as they please, seldom offering a thought to anyone in the universe. Some has theorized that it was because of Q that the Borg found earth in the first place, their first encounter with them was thanks to Q knocking the ship some 8000 light years off course to introduce them to the Borg, all because Q wanted to give Picard a serious challenge.
Ah, now we move to a different question. And I kinda agree with you, Murphy is out of her depth when it comes to Dresden's current weight class, as demonstrated in Skin Game. But I wouldn't say she's useless.
As a character, Murphy is there to represent the best a "vanilla" human can do. And she IS the only real vanilla human among the major characters (since Butters started doing his Magic Batman act) and as such provides a degree of grounding to the overall tone, which is one of the reasons I love the series - fantasy grounded in the modern world. She's also Harry's moral compass, one of the few people who don't judge him or are constantly suspicious of him.
But also, the books seem to be moving her into more of a support role. Pretty much all the old cast kinda drifted away after the events of Changes and aren't quite as tied to Harry any more (the fact that he's the Winter Night and busy with Demonreach adds to this). Her role has been diminishing and will likely continue to do so.
As for the romance angle, Harry and Murphy are great as a not-meant-to-be couple, but that is getting a bit played out by this point. I suspect Molly might be the next romantic interest, as Harry starts to take her more and more seriously.
The most recent, and thus the only one I can remember, is probably Discord from MLP. He's meant to be a crafty trickster but he gets fooled in the Season 4 finale by Evil McEvilson with an "I'm evil" stamp on his forehead. I was just starting to warm up to him and they turned him into a giant idiot.
Now that I mention it, they did the same with Lin in Book 2 and 3 of LoK. They did such a good job of establishing her character in the first book, then promptly dacked themselves and shat all over it. They made her seem completely unreasonable and incompetent, and completely killed her character for me.
Speaking of Discord, no character has had a rawer deal than Spike. Constantly the butt of jokes and physical comedy (his first scene has Twilight accidentally hurt him TWICE), always shoved out of the spotlight during the big-event episodes, and shamed for his Dragon heritage (Dragon Quest). His crush on Rarity is played for laughs (Simple Ways), and often neglected by the Mane 6 for things he'd want to go to (Twilight's birthday party in Sweet and Elite.). His pain is used for cheap laughs (Return of Harmony, Part 2), and he often receives unfair treatment (Twilight's Kingdom, Part 1, Applejack smacks him upside the head for no good reason.) They even address this in 'Power Ponies', where Spike feels useless and relates to Humdrum feeling HE is 'the Humdrum' of his group of friends....Only for later episodes to completely ignore this and shove him right back into that role. Poor guy just can't catch a break.
Definitely Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash. Back then, they had such interesting key episodes, because it emphasized them learning valuable life lessons about their Elements of Harmony. But once Tirek rolled in and Twilight absorbed the other three alicorn princesses' magic, all of a sudden they're made into useless, disposable extras who might as well be murdered, just to over-empower Twilight Sparkle and turn her into Super Saiyan Goku.
That meant that, up until the end, the lessons they've learned about their Elements of Harmony stopped having any actual meaning, which meant they were built up as characters just to be cast down to make way for Twilight's godlike power levels.
That basically happens in EVERY two-parter, remember 'Crystal Empire'? Only Twilight did anything out of the Mane 6. Spike grabbed the Crystal Heart, but Shining Armor and Cadence stole his spotlight and defeated King Sombra with the Crystal Ponies. 'Equestria Girls'? The others aren't allowed to go through the portal for a cheap plot device, and Twilight gets friends who are human copies of them, showing her friends are ultimately interchangeable.
'Canterlot Wedding' was even worse, even Twilight is shoved aside so Cadence and Shining Armor can save the day, and that fight with the Changelings? Ultimately POINTLESS since they get captured anyway.
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