Forum - View topicProtagonists who you think are actually horrible people?
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Have you ever found yourself watching an anime where a character is set up and treated as the protagonist and more specifically as someone whom you're intended to at least generally think is a good person and whom you are clearly intended to root for in the story and yet...you don't...because they're horrible? I don't mean anti-heros or characters who are intentionally flawed or morally questionable. (For example: Alucard from Hellsing or Light from Deathnote). Nor do I mean characters who you just personally don't like or find annoying/uninteresting/etc. I'm referring specifically to cases where the show seems to be telling you: You should want this person to succeed and be happy because they are one of the 'good guys' and you think: 'Uh...no. I don't really think they are. They're actually just awful and I hope they fail/lose/die.'
My prime example of this is from the OVA 3X3 Eyes where I encountered a very jarring case of this. [Mild spoilers ahead] The basic premise is that there is this girl who is the last of a race of immortals and is seeking a relic that will make her human. Anyway, she has multiple personalities. The cute and bumbling Pai and her powerful alter ego Sanjiyan. Now Sanjiyan is an absolute, unapologetic bitch who is 100% selfish. That's no secret. Here's the thing though, Pai is played up as the sympathetic and helpless girl who naturally the hero feels compelled to help but she's actually just awful. She's perfectly happy to turn up on the main character Yakumo's doorstep and basically insist that he take her to China to find her magical maguffin just because she new his father. I guess that's not too bad but wait, did I mention that for no discernible reason, she keeps a staff that houses a giant monster? Of course, she promptly misplaces it and forgets about. Predictably, somebody picks it up and the monster gets out because it's just that bloody easy. It tears through the city putting numerous folks in danger. Of course she insists Yakumo go after it (because she's worried about her dear beloved pet monster). Inevitably, this results in Yakumo being fatally wounded. Now here's the kicker: She saves him with her magic which has the plot convenient side effect of making him immortal and also her slave. Yeah. So let's put aside that this act on it's own is rather questionable. We'll give her the benefit of the doubt that it was indeed for his sake rather than hers. It's still horrible since the whole mess is her fault to begin with thanks to her inexplicable recklessness, utter ignorance and willingness to dump all her problems on this poor stranger. Not to mention that after all this she shows no sign whatsoever of remorse or even understanding that this may be a problem for him and he goes right ahead and takes her to China. At one point later on, Yakumo finally gets frustrated and tells Pai off (very mildly) but not only does she completely shrug it off and continue on in utter ignorance, he actually feels bad about it afterward. This my friends is what we call a horribly destructive relationship. The one person is a borderline psychopath with no regard for the other or even an ability to understand that her actions affect others. The other person is in borderline denial and is so twisted around that this all seems acceptable to him. I'm actually tempted to finish this just to see Yakumo eventually snap and beat Pai to death because let's face it, with Yakumo being immortal that's the only way this relationship is going to end. 
So...that's my example. How about the rest of you? Ever encountered this situation? |
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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I am just going to go the obvious route and say Lelouch, while could argue that we are not supposed to agree with him, Okouchi and Taniguchi praise him, and in the series itself everyone instantly agrees with his actions even though they are completely insane.
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15575 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Most I can think of was the child hood friend in Nyan-Koi (forgot her name), she is pretty abusive of the main character. I know a bunch of viewers wanted her to be the winning girl, but she just looked mean to me, she hit hit him for practicly no reason, forces him to do things. And she acts like he is some bad guy despite her own behaviour. Yet we are meant to sympathise with her latter on because spoiler[when he was a small kid, he was showing another girl, the gift she made him, which she thought he was giving away.] And that this was enough reason to treat him like a delinquit.
Also didn't really like Re-l in Ergo Proxy, she was pretty bitchy for a great deal of the series, and treated Vincent and Pino like crap, a lot of the time. But I might just not have liked her character. |
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IncompetentOverlord
 Posts: 139 |
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Pretty much every Super Robot show protagonist ever created. They always manage to be inconsiderate not-so-nice-people despite having absolutely no character whatsoever. And on top of that, they always get the girl. I thought I stopped watching american action movies to get away from all this shit.....
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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Who can top Kanta "Desert Punk" Mizuno in this category? From the ANN review:
I couldn't have said it better myself. That said, it is a great anime. I only wish the story had followed Kosuna more, to see how she came out. |
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Eivion
Posts: 569 |
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doctordoom85
 Posts: 2093 |
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She's more of a second protagonist, but Naru from Love Hina is a total jerk. Punching Keitaro was understandable at one point when he was constantly caught in "not what it looks like" situations, but then he started getting punched for absolutely no reason, not to mention double standard rears its ugly head when she jumps into the bath with him and he doesn't punch her! And yet the series doesn't seem to expect us to hate her for it, considering Keitaro fell more and more in love with her. That's why I preferred Keitaro/Motoke, she acted similarly at the beginning, but was unused to being around men and she got better as the series went on, and only attacked Keitaro when it looked like he was being perverted.
Heero really pissed me off at the beginning of Gundam Wing, when it was insanely obvious that Relena had no intention of selling him out he still threatened to kill her anyway, I was really disliking him then. Thankfully character development soon kicked in, though part of me doubts he would have gone through with it anyway. I also don't agree with Goku's methods of forgiveness. Vegeta constantly showed he was struggling to not go evil again, and Goku instantly forgave every screw-up despite the countless people that either suffered or were endangered (yes, those random civilians and people do have feelings and emotions, you know). Things reached wallbanger-levels when Goku forgets an hour later that Vegeta blew up half a crowded stadium and put the whole universe in danger by demanding to fight Goku insuring Buu's release. The Buu thing is not immediately forgivable any way you look it even with Vegeta's actions (not sure why he assumed a BIG explosion would kill Buu, Buu's abilities were clearly more complicated than that), and the stadium sure wasn't. Dragonballs don't matter, the family/friends still had to endure all that pain and sorrow until they were resurrected (good lord, I'm sure plenty of children were killed in those blasts), and yet nobody calls Vegeta out on this other than a few angry yells while he was in the middle of doing it (and they were more focused on "we shouldn't fight, we'll release Buu!" than the obvious "OMG, you're psychotic, dude! Who goes around blowing up people for the lulz?! Bulma, why did you marry this guy?!"). And there's also the fact that Vegeta eliminated countless planets and races, which makes me also fear that Toriyama was unconsciously guilty of the "What Measure is a Non-Human" trope. I wouldn't call Goku horrible, but I do think he's naive to a fault and needs a reality check. This is more of a criticism of DBZ Goku, DB Goku didn't have this problem IIRC. Oh, and one insanely obvious non-anime example: Eragon. The boy who destroyed the canonically-stated 200-year peace of an "EVIL"  empire and spread mass-destruction to bring "peace"  (I preferred Murtagh's suggestion: keep empire, dethrone Galabortrix), acted like a massive jerk to poor spoiler[mind-controlled Murtagh], couldn't care less if people die but gets all emo when someone steps on an ant, finds it odd when people don't praise him the moment he's spotted (I wish I were making that one up, but it's literally in the book), and various other acts. The author never once suggests Eragon is anything less than a hero. Even some of the other characters have called Eragon out and one even said he was just as bad as the main villain, yet the story and overall feel never suggests Eragon should feel guilty over any of this or is in the wrong. UGH.
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Penguin_Factory
 Posts: 732 Location: Ireland |
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Amuro Ray from Mobile Suit Gundam. I didn't watch the whole thing so I don't know if he gets better, but in the 20 or so episodes I saw he acts like a whiny little bitch all the time and has some serious entitlement issues. The one scene where I lost all sympathy for him is he finds out he's going to be replaced as the pilot of the Gundam for disobeying orders and generally being a tool, so he steals it and runs off despite the fact that it's pretty much the only thing keeping White Base from being destroyed. He does go and blow up a Zeon mine, but that's still leaving all of his former comrades defenceless if they get attacked.
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ShinobiX
 Posts: 889 Location: NY |
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um Hei from Darker than black. Yeah the show is suppose to be gloomy an all but killing people out of revenge isn't a good enough reason. Well it's his job. Personally I like dark characters like these.
Oh another one would be Griffith. He's a strange character. He is either a hero, villain, or an antihero. He saves civilians. Then he kills his friends in order to "save the world." End justifies the means type guy. He adopts a little girl and unites a bunch of countries into one nation. Then he starts the apocalypse. Idk, but you could root for him because he wants to create a peaceful world. You don't have to root for him because he wants to kill everyone and everything that oppose him. |
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Dorcas_Aurelia
 Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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I don't know about Hei. In the first series, he actually makes an effort to protect the people he hasn't been specifically ordered to kill, and in the second season, we know that something serious has happened to change his attitude towards other people and make him a less caring person (thus in Gemini it's intentional that he's less likable). |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Is Haruhi Suzumiya eligible? She may not be an evil overlord . . . oh wait, she is. Repeated instances of sexually abusing poor Mikuru are enough to earn my scorn, no need to go into anything else like the blackmailing she does.
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Ikari1
 Posts: 531 Location: London |
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You forgot the drugging and phisical abuse of poor defencless Mikuru as well. There is Asuka from NGE as well but it's debatable as to wether or not she deserves to be blamed personally for her shortcomings. |
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amarielah
 Posts: 178 |
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Actually, I think that Luffy can be an enormous prick. I like him, don't get me wrong, but half the decisions he makes are impulsive, selfish, and some are downright morally questionable.
Like the fact that he refuses to kill any of the antagonists he fights. Yeah, they get humiliated or whatever, but these are people who are going to go on to kill people weaker than them. It's like the suffering of others doesn't matter unless Luffy can see it with his own eyes. On that vein, Goku was a negligent parent and spouse who didn't even have the decency to explain himself half the time. Yeah, he saved the world, but a lot the time it seemed like he was doing it out of the desire to fight, rather than out of the desire to protect. That's why he refused to ever fight dirty. Re: Haruhi I don't think we're supposed to see her as heroic, so I don't know if she counts. |
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Kimiko_0
 Posts: 1796 Location: Leiden, NL, EU |
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Gene Starwind from Outlaw Star was an obnoxious jerk, yet his friends keep fawning over him.
Hideki from Chobits is not only an obsessed pervert, he's also too stupid to live. Both anime would be a lot better without their respective protagonists. |
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Eivion
Posts: 569 |
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Pretty sure Hei falls into the intentionally flawed character category.
There couldn't have been an Outlaw Star without Gene Starwind. |
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