Most divisive piece of fiction you've encountered

[Casual Shinji]

Yep, definately NGE.

You drop that title anywhere in a geek community and something explodes.

I guess the best way to measure which ones are indeed the most devisive, is to see which will spawn their own little arguements in this very thread.

I would say, contrary to popular opinion, The Last of Us. While most critics and gamers agreed it was a superb game, there is a LOT of hate towards this piece of software, it just isn't as public as some other examples. Bringing this game up in some forums can start outright flame ARMAGEDDON, and most of it comes down to this:

1-People thinking it's alright, if overhyped.
2-People thinking it's a horrible pretentious piece of shite, and very overhyped.
3-People disagreeing that it should have won GOTY from as many publications and websites and what have you as it did, thinking it should have lost out to the likes of Bioshock Infinite, GTA V, Saints Row IV (Seriously, not one other person, FFS), or Assassin's Creed IV, to name a few.
4-People who got super butt-mad that it was a PS3 exclusive and decided to use that upset-ness as fuel for an unfair fire as they looked forlornly at their 360s and Wiis and PCs....
5-Any combination of the above.
6-People who just didn't like the game, and state why in a calm, fair manner, and are immediately washed away in a torrent of any of the above.

Nah, I'd say this is more a case of backlash. Anything that gets immensely popular or praised over a short period of time will eventually get people who are annoyed with said popularity and praise up in arms. Same thing happened with Bioshock: Infinite. As soon as that all dies down, it'll be just another game some people like and other people don't. I think we've already reached that point somewhat.

 

[teqrevisited]

Here I go then.

I liked Final Fantasy 8.

Yeah the drawing system can be tedious, the plot goes into contrived crazy on the third disc and everyone seems to hate Squall for being disinterested, but I love the soundtrack, the card game, the world, the GF designs and the characters for the most part.

I think the Final Fantasy fanbase is probably the most divisive there is though. No one can agree on what is "good" and what isn't. I, myself, am guilty of only recognizing the first ten as proper entries.

 

[CelestDaer]

I'm gonna go with Ender's Game, I read the book years ago, and enjoyed it at the time, and then I found out about Card's anti-gay stance, and active campaigning... and it really took away a lot of the goodwill the book had built up for me. And you just can't discuss the book without someone bringing up Card's beliefs, even if you didn't already know.
I'll second that 'No' on Neon Genesis Evangelion. It's a story about a kid learning to come out of his shell that just so happens to have giant aliens and fighting robots. It still feels like Gainax just threw 'symbolism' in to have symbolism.

Spoiler

Why do the aliens follow a religious theming? Big old shrug. Why is Rei a clone of Shinji's mom? Who knows. Why are the Evas alive? Because... The hell were the last two episodes about? Gainax will only deign to shoo you away for asking about them.

 

[Eamar]

Despite never having watched it, I'm going to go with MLP too. I know I'm speaking from a place of ignorance, but surely it can't be that good, or that bad?

MLP (if you like it, good for you, don't shove it down my throat)

I've never understood this. MLP is (as far as I know) mostly liked by nerds. Nerds are known for showing off their fandoms, be that through avatars or making threads on sites like this, talking about it, or wearing branded clothing (I personally own a huge selection of nerdy t shirts, and my default hoody has an N7 design). So why does MLP get singled out for complaints? Hell, that's the same (bullshit) argument people make about homosexuality. Is MLP really that big of a deal to you? If so, why?

 

[Caiphus]

I dunno. Any reboot? People got pretty mad over DMC.

Or some of Bioware's most recent work. The ME3 ending fiasco was the most explosive I can remember.

Twilight? I'm friends with a few girls who think it's the bestest thing ever. Some of them are even intelligent.

People are saying MLP. MLP could take it. Outside MLP I don't recall seeing gamers treat other gamers like untouchables, as though they were part some sort of Indian caste system.

 

[Therumancer]

Stranger in a Strange Land

It's one of the most popular sci-fi works of all time. Hugely influential in pop-culture, inspired its own pseudo-religious movements. Everyone that i've ever encountered having read it either loves it or thinks it is absolute crap.

Oh and it IS crap.
Honestly, I have read the first left-behind book. I have read the sword of truth series and I have read the first fifty pages of Atlas Shrugged. Stranger is worse then all 3. Combined! The characters are all complete douchnozzles, the plot is badly structured, the sex scenes are just terrible, every female character is pretty-much interchangeable with every other, the tone is all-over the map. Oh and did I mention the characters? Oh I did? Good.

Another thing is that considering 80% of the novel is just the author patting himself on the back about how progressive and enlightened he is compared to everyone, dear lord is it anti-gay. I mean, yeah it was written in the 60's but still. It goes so far as to imply that all gays are pedophiles.

And I say all this as a fan of Heinlein. Honestly, if you have not yet read "the moon is a harsh mistress" you should go do so right now. (I will wait)

I think "Stranger" was pretty decent and honestly I can't consider that one especially divisive since there aren't enough people who think it's "bad" or "crap" to be really divisive. It's pretty much been turned into a classic, and even shows up on some reading lists for classes in High School and College. I don't consider something simply having strong haters to qualify it as being divisive since everything has strong haters.

Now if you want a Heinlein book that probably fits the bill that would be "Farnham's Freehold" or "Sixth Column/The Day After Tomorrow"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnham%27s_Freehold

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Column

The reason being that these both explore racism in unusual ways, with whites being put in the role of the oppressed and showing other "minorities" to be as bad, or even worse, if given power. The criticisms of course come from the fiction elements such as the Cannibalism present in "Freehold" combined with the black support of Eugenics to pacify the white race to ensure it could never rebel (ultimately being far more reprehensible than anything whites ever did), to the whole concept in "Sixth Column" of the good guys not only using religion, but also scientifically created psi-powers that work to kill only Asians (after Asians take over everything in a series of events which ironically loosely mirror some of the threats we see brewing today, albeit this was written after Pearl Harbor).

Heinlein touched on some of these issues in other books like "I Will Fear No Evil" which mostly focuses on gender issues (a dirty old man in the body of a hot young lady after an accident), but also involves a world where blacks have again taken over and are racist against white people, making many of the same claims about "Honks" that you would see made about blacks. The protagonist (who is white in both forms, and still very rich) winds up fleeing the economic devestation of earth to space colonies while pregnant.

Is Heinlein a racist, a social theorist, right or wrong? Let's just say if you actually read these and how he articulates his arguments and the events it becomes debatable... and unlike say "Stranger In a Strange Land" these are books that never hit "Classic" status because they are genuinely divisive in what they say without clear majority approval.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

Other than NGE, one that springs to mind is Sword Art Online.

People either absolutely love it or hate it with a fucking passion. I can see both sides, but the extreme end of both is what bothers me. I don't think it's a masterpiece, but I certainly don't think it's one of the worst anime ever made. I personally think it's an enjoyable anime. The show has good points, and it has bad points, but the bad stuff don't really bother me as much as it does others.

Kill la Kill seems fairly divisive, but the general consensus seem to lean more towards positive, at least coming from the people who stuck with it to the end.

Madoka Magica: Rebellion I thought was gonna be very divisive between Madoka fans, but the general consensus is still extremely positive.

And speaking of NGE, Evangelion 3.0 is pretty divisive even among EVA fans. I hated it, but I've seen quite a lot of people who liked it.

 

[Werewolfkid]

BioShock Infinite. Never have I seen a game or even a movie that evokes such extreme love and extreme hate towards it. I don't care whether you loved or hated it, but you cannot deny that it got people discussing and thinking about it. So yeah I would say BioShock Infinite is the most divisive piece of fiction I have ever encountered.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

]

Kill la Kill seems fairly divisive, but the general consensus seem to lean more towards positive, at least coming from the people who stuck with it to the end.

The rampant fanservice, even if it's woven into the plot, is still fanservice. I'm just glad that it's equal opportunity and the ladies have something to gawk at too a lot of the time. I still like it though, almost as a kind of guilty pleasure that has good character drama and doesn't stick around too long.

OT: Pop music in general. There are some who hate it with the intensity of a billion suns, but most like it, why it's called pop music I guess. The great thing is the diversity of reasons for the hatred. Some hate it just because it's popular and they want to be different. Some hate it because it's mostly formulaic and generally lazy composition. Some hate it because of the typically shitty message. Some people just hate love songs which make up like 80% of pop music(that's me!). While those who dislike pop music are definitely in the minority, I can say that the intensity of our feelings must be taken into account.

 

[gagagaga]

]Other than NGE, one that springs to mind is Sword Art Online.

People either absolutely love it or hate it with a fucking passion. I can see both sides, but the extreme end of both is what bothers me. I don't think it's a masterpiece, but I certainly don't think it's one of the worst anime ever made. I personally think it's an enjoyable anime. The show has good points, and it has bad points, but the bad stuff don't really bother me as much as it does others.

Kill la Kill seems fairly divisive, but the general consensus seem to lean more towards positive, at least coming from the people who stuck with it to the end.

Madoka Magica: Rebellion I thought was gonna be very divisive between Madoka fans, but the general consensus is still extremely positive.

And speaking of NGE, Evangelion 3.0 is pretty divisive even among EVA fans. I hated it, but I've seen quite a lot of people who liked it.

I think a lot of the complaints about SAO come from the second season, don't they? From what I heard it completely went to shit.

Rebellion is definitely divisive. I certainly wouldn't say the consensus is "extremely positive". The ending drew a lot of complaints - I can't count how many times I've seen "man this would have been awesome if you took out the last 15 minutes, those totally ruined it." Of course then you have the people who are screaming MADOKA IS RUINED FOREVER. Thankfully there aren't too many of those.

Yeah... 3.0 is real divisive, no doubt about it. I'm still waiting for the dub to come out.

 

[Tenkage]

The bible is the Most divisive piece of fiction I've encountered.

Pretty sure the Qur'an is an equally divisive piece of fiction. Personally I'm waiting for the sequel 'Mohammed strikes back' and the epic crossover where they have to put aside their differences to fight the evil menace known as Ay Theest.

Ha good one. I'd pay money for that LOL

 

[agent9]

transformers, air gear, attack on titan manga fans, gundam seed, and sonic the hedgehog (all of it). transformers and sonic just draw ire from all sides of the fence. both air gear and AOT have a division between the manga and the anime. IMO the anime is good in its own right but at the same time i hate it when the anime diverges too greatly from the manga.

 

[Master_of_Oldskool]

The Great Fuckin' Gatsby, full stop. I hate, hate, hate this novel and everyone involved in its creation. It's boring, it's depressing, it's pretentious, and the prose is arse, and yet every literary enthusiast I talk to thinks that it's the greatest thing since sliced sex. "The Great American Novel." I have genuinely heard this title applied to this book, and it irks me to no end. It wouldn't so much, if not for how aghast my English teachers and forum friends always are when I tell them that I didn't like the damn thing. My classmates in high school hated it as well, but then, they were all illiterate fucktards who hated all of our reading assignments, so I guess that crowd doesn't have the most objective opinion. I've heard tell of a far-off land where relatively normal people have gathered together in their bemusement toward this thing, but I've yet to encounter it.

 

[TristanBelmont]

and Eva (still need to watch it)

Eh. No you don't.

6-People who just didn't like the game, and state why in a calm, fair manner, and are immediately washed away in a torrent of any of the above.

I felt the clickers were arbitrary and unfair, I've never been a fan of instant-death enemies, coupled with the unreliable enemy detection it just made the game pointlessly frustrating, I thought Joel was......FWAAARRRRSH ANGRY OPINIONATED ILLITERATE ALL-CAPS GRRRR

You mean like that? Come on, that never happens. Everyone on the Internet is calm, balanced, and articulate.

I meant more along the lines of their fair review of the game being buried under all the negative reviews in all caps, but I never stopped to consider that this happens as well.

 

[Drizzitdude]

"Atlas shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. Works of fiction with heavy bias leaning to Pro-Capitalism and beats you over the head with it. These start the two worst types of debates, religious ones and political ones. Everyone flips out one way or another about these books, either thinking they are mindless drivel, a stroke of genius, or a tool for brainwashing youths. I personally love both of them (also for those of you who aren't aware "Atlas Shrugged" is what inspired the game world of Bioshock) and they are definitely worth the read even if only to take as a work of fiction.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

]

And speaking of NGE, Evangelion 3.0 is pretty divisive even among EVA fans. I hated it, but I've seen quite a lot of people who liked it.

[Insert my obligatory routine of ranting why 3.0 is the worst thing to ever come out of the franchise and anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot] Also, it's interesting how perfect the split would seem in the case of that film. If you look at user reviews on IMDB for example, nearly all have an equal amount of likes to dislikes.

I'll parrot others and give another vote to NGE. Second pick would perhaps go to Man of Steel. I don't think I've seen anyone express their opinion as merely "meh". It's either really good or the worst thing to happen since AIDS.

Also, I'm a bit surprised to see GoT mentioned here. Isn't the universal consensus (on the show at least) that it's now the best thing on television now that Breaking Bad is over?

 

[AustinN]

Despite never having watched it, I'm going to go with MLP too. I know I'm speaking from a place of ignorance, but surely it can't be that good, or that bad?

MLP (if you like it, good for you, don't shove it down my throat)

I've never understood this. MLP is (as far as I know) mostly liked by nerds. Nerds are known for showing off their fandoms, be that through avatars or making threads on sites like this, talking about it, or wearing branded clothing (I personally own a huge selection of nerdy t shirts, and my default hoody has an N7 design). So why does MLP get singled out for complaints? Hell, that's the same (bullshit) argument people make about homosexuality. Is MLP really that big of a deal to you? If so, why?

Bronies have a reputation for being way, way worse about it than most fans. It hurts that it's not something accepted by the casual public, like Star Wars or Star Trek. When it comes to fan created content, Bronies are more prolific than any fandom you'd care to name. This makes it harder to get away from it, particularly on image boards. Some message boards have banned pony content, because some people just wouldn't stop posting them.

There's also a lot of maladjusted people in the fandom, even compared to other fandoms. It also seems that there are a lot of autistic bronies, and they natually find it harder to judge when certain subjects are inappropriate. There's also the autistic tendency to obsesss over small details, and there are a lot of bronies who read way too much into the show.

Some people might say "but there are bad people in every fandom." And that's true. But that doesn't mean that some fandoms aren't worse than others. Not every fandom get the kind of reputation bronies do.

 

[Meinos Kaen]

Despite never having watched it, I'm going to go with MLP too. I know I'm speaking from a place of ignorance, but surely it can't be that good, or that bad?

MLP (if you like it, good for you, don't shove it down my throat)

I've never understood this. MLP is (as far as I know) mostly liked by nerds. Nerds are known for showing off their fandoms, be that through avatars or making threads on sites like this, talking about it, or wearing branded clothing (I personally own a huge selection of nerdy t shirts, and my default hoody has an N7 design). So why does MLP get singled out for complaints? Hell, that's the same (bullshit) argument people make about homosexuality. Is MLP really that big of a deal to you? If so, why?

Bronies have a reputation for being way, way worse about it than most fans. It hurts that it's not something accepted by the casual public, like Star Wars or Star Trek. When it comes to fan created content, Bronies are more prolific than any fandom you'd care to name. This makes it harder to get away from it, particularly on image boards. Some message boards have banned pony content, because some people just wouldn't stop posting them.

There's also a lot of maladjusted people in the fandom, even compared to other fandoms. It also seems that there are a lot of autistic bronies, and they natually find it harder to judge when certain subjects are inappropriate. There's also the autistic tendency to obsesss over small details, and there are a lot of bronies who read way too much into the show.

Some people might say "but there are bad people in every fandom." And that's true. But that doesn't mean that some fandoms aren't worse than others. Not every fandom get the kind of reputation bronies do.

Not all fandoms get attacked by conservative christians and more on live television or generally ridiculed because of it. Not saying that some of the fans of the show aren't excessive about it, but I think that most of the reactions are because of the level of hate aimed against them before they even did anything of the stuff you mention.

... Then, there are the ones who marry their Twilight Sparkle pillows or something. I only have a Ditzy Doo plushie which I keep on my cupboard and that's enough for me to be happy.