Good Guys Who Get Away With Bad Stuff.

[rancher of monsters]

Now we all love our heroes, but sometimes you have to admit that they do a lot of bullshit that nobody calls them out on. Take for example Goku, the worst husband/father in the DB universe. I really can't see what Goku brings to the table in his family. He can't drive, he doesn't have a job and he dies like every three years. He also puts his son's life in danger (Ex. giving a senzu bean to Cell before his fight with Gohan). I know he saves the world and all that, but he's still kind of a shitty parent. Not to mention his absence from pretty much all of Goten's life, and abandoning his family to train Uub.

So what characters do you think need to be called out on their faults?

 

[Lukeje]

Surely this is best exemplified by the rampant kleptomania of most video game characters? You occasionally get called out on it, but most of the time it seems to be `I'm saving the world! Your stuff is now mine!'

 

[rancher of monsters]

Surely this is best exemplified by the rampant kleptomania of most video game characters? You occasionally get called out on it, but most of the time it seems to be `I'm saving the world! Your stuff is now mine!'

Sometimes you don't even have to be saving the world. I stole a lot of stuff playing the Pokemon games.

 

[Lukeje]

Surely this is best exemplified by the rampant kleptomania of most video game characters? You occasionally get called out on it, but most of the time it seems to be `I'm saving the world! Your stuff is now mine!'

Sometimes you don't even have to be saving the world. I stole a lot of stuff playing the Pokemon games.

I dunno, I do seem to remember stopping Team Galactic trying to destroy the world...

 

[Jordi]

Now we all love our heroes, but sometimes you have to admit that they do a lot of bullshit that nobody calls them out on. Take for example Goku, the worst husband/father in the DB universe. I really can't see what Goku brings to the table in his family. He can't drive, he doesn't have a job and he dies like every three years. He also puts his son's life in danger (Ex. giving a senzu bean to Cell before his fight with Gohan). I know he saves the world and all that, but he's still kind of a shitty parent. Not to mention his absence from pretty much all of Goten's life, and abandoning his family to train Uub.

Near the end of the DBZ series I was already starting to like Vegeta more than Goku, but him running off to train Uub really rendered me speechless. He was gone for I don't know how long and now that he finally had the ability to go live with his family, he went away again. What a dick move. Anyway, I agree fully with you.

So what characters do you think need to be called out on their faults?

I think Duke Nukem is a tad sexist.

 

[rancher of monsters]

Surely this is best exemplified by the rampant kleptomania of most video game characters? You occasionally get called out on it, but most of the time it seems to be `I'm saving the world! Your stuff is now mine!'

Sometimes you don't even have to be saving the world. I stole a lot of stuff playing the Pokemon games.

I dunno, I do seem to remember stopping Team Galactic trying to destroy the world...

True, but it's not like the game starts with some heroes quest. Your just a kid who wants to make animals fight who occasionally makes his animals fight the bad guys, usually after they've already started a fight with you. It's not like you go out of your way to find the teams.

 

[LordLundar]

James Bond interestingly enough. If you look at his track record, you'll realize that his "license to kill" is really a "license to get away with just about anything in the line of duty."

 

[MrJKapowey]

Well, if you watch any of the channel 5 American crime dramas then you may have noticed that:

(SPOILERS)

In CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Dr Ray Langston killed a serial killer by brutally beating him then throwing him off a balcony. He will almost certainly get off (even though he is a terrible character).

In The Mentalist, Patrick Jane shot Red John three times in the chest with a revolver in the middle of a shopping mall (Red John is the serial killer in the background every so often and who also killed Jane's family). He will get off.

In NCIS, Leroy Jethro Gibbs shot a drugs dealer from Mexico (like 10 years ago) with a sniper rifle after the guy killed his family. Why did the drugs dealer kill Gibbs' family? Gibbs screwed one of his plants over. Why did Gibbs do that? He was working as amarine sniper doing Black Ops work. He will get off.

 

[Kiefer13]

It's difficult to think of many games (especially RPGs) where a protagonist doesn't get away with at least trespassing, vandalism and rampant kleptomania on a regular basis.

 

[The Serpent]

Well these days every protagonist is checked and the re-checked for likability if the writers are at all good at their jobs. However I often notice a lot of selfishness in reluctant heroes. Take Aragorn for example. Moping around refusing to be king because he is afraid of...something.

Well have you considered that you are a much better king than Denethor and that Gondor might need a good king now that Sauron is "covering all the lands in darkness"? So why are we supposed to give a *beep* that you're scared? Don't you think the soldiers on the front lines are scared? Bet they wish they could mope around in the forest as a ranger instead. Guess Aragorn hasn't heard about the saying that those who have the ability to help, have the responsibility to help.

I also have a problem with how Batman handles villains. I get that he's going for the whole ?I can not decide who lives and who dies, because I'm so powerful and influential that if I become an executioner everyone is screwed.? I'm sorry Batman, but the villains you throw in Arkham are just going to escape and kill many innocent people. You're going to have to just deal with your inner demons and difficult moral choices because by being a wimp you are letting people die that you could have saved. I'm not saying that I'm for the death-penalty, but when someone is dangerous and impossible to control and the world is better with said person dead; they should be killed.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. And the needs of Batman.

 

[WayOutThere]

Having watched the first four episodes of Utawarerumono, I really hope the village gets called out on their ludicrously unjustified murdering of the local government in episode four. Damn, the show had been really good up until that point.

Also, sfdebris' YouTube channel is basically an archive of the the shitty things the characters of Star Trek Voyager and Enterpise got away with. As he says "Yes ladies and gentlemen, these are our heroes".

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I also have a problem with how Batman handles villains. I get that he's going for the whole ?I can not decide who lives and who dies, because I'm so powerful and influential that if I become an executioner everyone is screwed.? I'm sorry Batman, but the villains you throw in Arkham are just going to escape and kill many innocent people. You're going to have to just deal with your inner demons and difficult moral choices because by being a wimp you are letting people die that you could have saved. I'm not saying that I'm for the death-penalty, but when someone is dangerous and impossible to control and the world is better with said person dead; they should be killed.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. And the needs of Batman.

As smart as Batman is, why did he never use his extensive knowledge of, and ability to predict, his opponents to have Bruce Wayne design/create the ultimate escape-proof prison for the criminally insane? No, instead he just watched them keep getting tossed into some 18th-century excuse for a penitentary that probably had more tunnels and escape holes than a cubic parsec of Swiss cheese.

Personally I don't understand the draw of Pokemon. Not the games themselves, but the in-game-world practice of training creatures to beat up on each other and calling it a sport. I'm fairly sure that Yahtzee once called it a version of cock fighting (roosters, and get your mind out of the gutter, please) and I tend to agree with him. What's even weirder is that the Pokemon not only put up with some relatively-squishy human stuffing them in tiny balls until it's time to get whupped, but they actually LIKE it.

Also, sometimes The Doctor seriously cheeses me off. Yes, you're brilliant, but haven't you learned by now that locking your companions in the TARDIS (because they can't possibly comprehend your latest wild gambit) usually causes more problems than simply giving them a brief explanation and enlisting their help would entail?

 

[ABLb0y]

Travis Touchdown is technically a serial killer.

But, he's still a good guy, as he spares Shinobu, and treats his cat really nicely.

 

[The Serpent]

No, instead he just watched them keep getting tossed into some 18th-century excuse for a penitentary that probably had more tunnels and escape holes than a cubic parsec of Swiss cheese.

Indeed!

I know this has been discussed to death, but one of the main characters in Revenge of the Nerds kind of got away with rape.

 

[Kenami]

I love Mass Effect to bits but whenever I play it (2 especially) I always find myself wondering "How many bodies does Shepard rack up at the end of all this and if you're a Spectre do you really not have to answer to that..."

 

[Scarim Coral]

I guess the hunters from the Monster Hunter series count. I mean you only slaying the monsters just to make armours from their hides. Not once had those monster actually pose a threat to the human at all (well ok maybe the giant ones) and they only attack you for trespassing their territory. Not only time you kill the herbivours including the young one for their meat (well ok this is more about survival than being evil).

 

[The Serpent]

I love Mass Effect to bits but whenever I play it (2 especially) I always find myself wondering "How many bodies does Shepard rack up at the end of all this and if you're a Spectre do you really not have to answer to that..."

I really like that you thought that. Just goes to show how good Bioware are at world building. Because in any other video-games, cut-scenes that feature actual characters are normally completely separate from gameplay, where you (a silent protagonist) kill thousands of faceless attackers for no reason. I loved how in the end of Uncharted 2 the villain actually addresses the hundreds of people Drake kills through the game.

OT: Do we even dare mention Twilight in this thread? The so called "good person" that is the main character apparently manipulates, and connives like a Shakespeare-villain yet everyone adores her like a Mary Sue. Scary that this appeals to little girls.

 

[Kenami]

I love Mass Effect to bits but whenever I play it (2 especially) I always find myself wondering "How many bodies does Shepard rack up at the end of all this and if you're a Spectre do you really not have to answer to that..."

I really like that you thought that. Just goes to show how good Bioware are at world building. Because in any other video-games, cut-scenes that feature actual characters are normally completely separate from gameplay, where you (a silent protagonist) kill thousands of faceless attackers for no reason. I loved how in the end of Uncharted 2 the villain actually addresses the hundreds of people Drake kills through the game.

OT: Do we even dare mention Twilight in this thread? The so called "good person" that is the main character apparently manipulates, and connives like a Shakespeare-villain yet everyone adores her like a Mary Sue. Scary that this appeals to little girls.

Incredible you bring that up about Twilight because I always thought about this as well. Technically wouldn't this be labelled as molestation considering he's a thousand years older? Also one of the core reasons I could never find the appeal to this series is because I can never help but ask; What does a person whose lived for thousands of years possible have that allows him/her to relate to a girl of sixteen? What could they possibly talk about or share in common?

 

[The Serpent]

What does a person whose lived for thousands of years possible have that allows him/her to relate to a girl of sixteen? What could they possibly talk about or share in common?

Well yeah, the creepyness of the vampire is a whole other thing. I was talking about the female lead. I also can't help but wonder how the writer cheated to make the vampire compatible with the girl. I have only seen the first film so I don't really know. Logically if he has lived over a hundred years he'll have so much intelligence, wisdom and life experience that a teenage girl would seem like a toddler to him. Someone his age could probably be a great politician or actor. Someone her age could probably read all Twilight books without puking.

 

[standokan]

Ah well, it is still Dragon Ball Z, there is a reason why it is loved as much as it is hated.