The Scrappy
The more astute readers among you may have noticed that I haven't yet gone so far as to give anything an actual "F." That's not out of any kind-heartedness on my part, it's just that every time I got ready to give one out, I would ask myself, "is it really that bad, compared to the verminous, soul-tainting badness of Scrappy-Doo?"—Lore Fitzgerald Sjoberg, The Book of Ratings
Popular characters have fandoms. But sometimes, there is a character who has a hatedom. We'll call this guy The Scrappy, or more formally the Fan Unfavorite. This is not to be confused with the Hate Sink (which is a character the audience simply wishes to root against), though it can overlap if poorly written.
While much usually depends on execution, certain kinds of characters have a much higher probability of being hated:
- The Ace, when used for the wrong situation.
- An Annoying Younger Sibling, a Bratty Half-Pint, a Bratty Teenage Daughter, an Alpha Bitch, a Spoiled Brat or a Royal Brat, especially if they don't grow out of it.
- A Cousin Oliver is very likely to irritate the fans by upsetting the standard character dynamic. Even worse if it is also a Kid Appeal Character inserted in a work not initially directed towards younger viewers.
- A Complete Monster, though that character may be designed to be hated.
- A Dirty Coward and especially if it makes them an Action Survivor.
- An Entitled Bastard that causes harm to the heroes but expects to be rescued by them.
- An Exposition Fairy that tries to be helpful but winds up being annoying.
- Someone who performed a Face Heel Turn may earn ire to the fans who really dislikes the term 'traitor', unless they are forced into it or are not very happy about it.
- A Deadpan Snarker that's too abrasive and insufficiently charismatic.
- A Manipulative Bastard but not a Magnificent Bastard.
- A Karma Houdini, depending on how horrible they were.
- The Load, who needs the heroes to take care of them without contributing anything useful in return. Including a personality.
- A Spoony Bard, a gaming equivalent of The Load.
- The Millstone, one step worse than the The Load, who is an active liability to the heroes and still doesn't contribute anything useful.
- A Mary Sue, including common official varieties such as Invincible Hero and Spotlight-Stealing Squad. Note that a Marty Stu has a tendency to get away scot-free.
- A Pointy-Haired Boss who isn't sufficiently funny.
- A Smug Snake, especially if he/she does something so heinous they stop being "cool", though most are made this way on purpose.
- The Suspiciously Similar Substitute will undoubtedly be hated by fans of the beloved character they replace.
- An overly recurring villain.
- An Unwitting Instigator of Doom. You can practically touch the markedly-better alternate universe that could have been, if they hadn't been doing that thing in that place at that exact moment.
- This Loser Is You. Sometimes an attempt to make an incompetent main character that the audience can relate to ends up in a character that the audience wishes was anyone but the main character.
- Any character that is rife with Unfortunate Implications.
- An Ungrateful Bastard.
- A Nice Guy / Nice Girl when not given any interesting personality traits other than being nice to everyone.
- An Entitled Bastard.
- In video games, That One Boss when it's especially frustrating.
- A character with too much Angst Dissonance.
- A Soapbox Sadie.
- An Insufferable Genius.
- Someone who torments The Woobie willingly.
- A Villain Protagonist, especially if heinous, as well as that most are Karma Houdinis.
- A poorly-written Only Sane Man or Straight Man, especially in situations that don't call for one.
- A Straw Loser, especially if the person they're the straw loser to isn't much better.
- Any character that reeks of Positive Discrimination.
- The Generic Guy in a cast of unique characters.
- Someone who likes another character who is either a disliked character or just shows that he/she doesn't care for the former, will often be lauded with ridicules and dislikes, with some camp calling the first character stupid, or even consider them as another Scrappy.
This is a very subjective trope, more based on the fandom than the character itself. The visceral response to The Scrappy can baffle other fans who don't take the character as seriously, or even sympathize with him or her. Often it's subjected to Double Standards particularly against female characters, somehow negative traits are often seen as less forgivable in a female character than a male character. Please only post examples of the fandom hating a character; posting Personal Scrappies could get messy, especially if the Scrappy is in at the center of a Fandom Rivalry. Die for Our Ship entries should also be placed on that trope page only, though someone could be a Scrappy because of that reason.
No real life examples, please; this is an subjective audience reaction trope.
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