Scratched record ahoy

[taotrooper]

You Are a Pear

You are independent, intelligent, and a free thinker. You can accomplish great things, especially when you do them on your own. You are direct, honest, and sometimes even a bit brutal. There's not much that gets in the way of you and your ambition. While you are hard nosed, you do have a much sweeter side to you. It takes times for you to soften toward someone, but once you do, you'll be their friend for life.

What Type of Fruit Are You?

Same story as usual. I feel like throwing a hissy fit whenever I see icons, youtube/niconico comments, whatever stating than one of my favorite characters is teh ebol or that they should return to [insert place of origin here], regardless of the fact they're essential to the fucking plot and they help the main character like whoa.

Let's take the following kind of character, shall we? Let's say it's a he for simplification, but could also be a female or asexual. From practically his first appearance, it's not a secret he's shady with an agenda yet to be revealed. The sidekick or the love interest might distrust him, giving the audience a reason to hate him: such a good friend of the main character can't be wrong! He might have a creepy smile or secret face when the regular cast isn't looking. And he actually happens to be an antagonist force for either a short time or most of the canon. He even challenges main character to fight him without holding back, once or twice, and may even tease the main character's abilities on their face to push them further.

Now, let's take some subcategories of this archetype. Okay, there are the ones who ARE evil and are either opposing the main character or using them (Xelloss from Slayers comes to mind, I guess). Then we have the neutral ones who aren't good or evil, but just there to watch and see what side to root for. And then the redeeming type, who after fighting the protagonist he realizes he was wrong, or he actually grew fond of one of the main characters (Tao Ren from Shaman King, Ken from Digimon 2, in some degree Ishida from Bleach).

But see, there's another subcategory, the one I love the most. It's the kind of pseudo-antagonist who turns out he was supporting the main character from the beginning. He's actually either a nice guy, or at least considers himself one of the good guys. His actions look extremely jerky and contrasting, but he has justified reasons to be so rude and crude to the naive main character. As a matter of fact, his whole raison d'être is helping the main character from the shadows, pushing them to their fate/the right direction, even risking to be hated by them. So in reality, he loves and admires and trusts the main character so much; he believes the character will win and have their happy ending, and his own happy ending depends on that by extension. Probably the reason he smirks that way when they fight him is because it makes him feel alive, or it's surprising to him, or he can see they're improving so much. But truly, his love -platonic, romantic, whatever- is just amazing. He's not a saint -hell, he even might be a complete asshole sometimes- but he's far from being the devil. And if the main character gets to acknowledge that, why can't the fandom?

This message is sponsored by my two main RP/fanfic muses. If I got a dollar every time I see an Eriol icon with the word evil on it, or a niconico comment saying "月へ帰れ" when Ushiwaka pops in a video... Siiiiiiigh.

Comments

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

You know, I often do love this type of character as well. (actually any time a character as their Eyes Always Shut and a Cheshire Cat Grin, and has a double or triple agenda and is hiding things, I'm pretty much garanteed to adore them ^^ (and I don't much care if they were neutral, evil, or good)

And the cranky, Rival/Antagonist turned Lancer type is usually of among my favourite as well (even if I usually like to mock them ^_^)

I've no idea why such character gets hatred, but character bashing in general puzzles me. Usually it comes from idiots and very young people in my experience, but I understand it being wearisome and annoying especially when you keep seeing it again and again :( that's why sane_insertfandomname_fan communities are made for. One should have more of those types of comms.

[rainmage.livejournal.com]

I do like the good ones a bit better, because I appreciate the twist. They're rare, particularly the ones who do stuff for the main characters' sake like Eriol. Maybe it's because the first character of this kind I met was one of the evil ones -but I still like Xelloss quite a bit :3

Usually it comes from idiots and very young people in my experience.
I've seen people older than me bashing characters like they're thirteen ;_; And not precisely two or three. I'm more lenient to the younger ones because I also bashed when I didn't know better, but if they're adults and have been in fandom for ages and still behave like that? Damn.