A bunch of discussion topics

[sarajayechan]

Meta on fandom's fetish for "calling out" characters. Written ages ago but thoughts are appreciated.

Comments

[ext_396781]

I think the problem when it comes down to it is that people hate seeing someone who's more successful than they are, let alone continuously. And fictional characters are no different in that respect.

For those characters who seem to have it rough, those same characters that fans seem to give a free pass (if not outright condone or even cheer) for his/her (at best) morally-ambiguous actions? They feel they can relate to them as they know what they're going through/what it's like to be in his/her position and most people would want to DILP a bad guy as they'd like to be (or at least aligned with) the character because lets face it: As good people we may be, deep down we all have a jerk side we like to express occasionally. And when there's another character that seems to overshadow/outperform/undermine/steal the spotlight from that character, those fans seem to take it personally regardless of the reason/justification as those characters seem to be a representation/surrogate of them. So in that sense, it's not just offending the character, but offending them as well.

For example, I absolutely despise Sam Puckett of iCarly (Mostly due to the female-on-male abuse that I absolutely hate among other things) and I don't understand for the life of me why anyone would want to pair her up with Freddie, her glorified punching bag. And over the years I've started to dislike Seto Kaiba for all the crap he pulls and gets away with (whether in universe or by the fandom) and yet somehow Tea Gardner is one of the most despised characters in the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise? Yeah, I may support same-sex marriage, but I despise Yaoi (which seems to be the biggest justification for her hate) mostly in combination of not liking to see two guys kiss (let alone...you know) as well as slash fans who hypocritically bash on heterosexual relationships. But a sweet character like Tea is often derailed into a bitchy, selfish, (and given the reason for her hate) homophobic harpy while Kaiba is glorified if not outright praised/admired for his jackassery?

And add me to the "Angst does not make anything better" club. Cause if you really think that Darkness and Angst makes everything better, then you need to evaluate yourself because clearly there's something that you need to get checked.