r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Morr4Seiya • 17h ago

Hated Tropes (Hated)changing somenthing to be more "progressive" ends up being a bad thing

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Now to be clear,i am not one of these "anti-woke" losers that complain some people exist,and i am also not the type to complain about changing somenthing in a new version or adaptation,however there are cases where it did ended up being a bad idea.

-In the anime of Cowboy Bebop there is the character Gren,despite being short lived the character is very memorable specially thanks to his tragic story.Basically his story was that he was a soldier from the titan war who was a great friend with Vicious(the main bad guy)after the war he was emprisioned thanks to Vicious who testified against him and he was forced to take a experimental drug that caused him hormonal problems,giving him a feminine appearence and even breasts.

In the Netflix live action,for some reasons they decided Gren was going to be non-binary,which wouldn't be a problem(some people believe he was gay in the anime)if it wasn't for the fact that they also removed all the nuances and complexities that made the character memorable and interesting,instead of a tragic war veteran that was betrayed and had his body changed against his will,Gren is just kinda there.

-The original Rugrats cartoon had the couple Betty and Howard,Betty was a big and masculine woman while Howard was a smaller and nervous man,it was a genuine interesting relationship that stood out from the other couples who were the standard straight couple.

In the new series however they replaced Howard with a woman named Trish,two things,first off why?What was the problem with having a woman being the stronger in a straight relationship?Second why does Hollywood seem to think that every tomboy or masculine woman is a lesbian?

Overall not the worst thing but it is jarring that they had a gender reverse roled that was progressive and decided that wasn't enough.

-Oh man,this one pisses me off the most so i am gonna have to break it down

So back in the late 80s and 90s there was this anime called Saint Seiya also knows as Knights of the zodiac,it tells the story of knights who fight for the Goddess Athena to protect earth,being divided in the golden,silver and bronze knights,the anime was a huge hit in latin america and Europe and while it floped in the US it still has a loyal fanbase.

Being a fan myself i can't recommend it enough,now granted the story does have a fair share of flaws,and that's because the author was honestly just making stuff up as he went along(also a lot of side characters are poorly used or even forgotten about)still it is a great story you should check out

But then a couple of years back Netflix got the rights and decided to a 3D reboot,in this reboot they decided to make the story more "american" to try to bring more american viewers,now i could go on and on a big rant about how that was a bad idea and the execution was so terrible that it made me want to strangle someone but this post is about one specific change.

So Saint Seiya has five main characters,those are Pegasus Seiya,Dragon Shiryu,Cygnus Hyoga,Phoenix Ikki and finally Andromeda Shun.

While the other four characters were the standard masculine and brute male characters who were always ready to throw punches,Shun was smaller,more sensitive and even feminine looking,a pacifist who didn't liked fighting,but don't mistake that for weakness because Shun was loyal to his friends and was extremely powerful.

Then Netflix decided to change Shun into a girl named Shaun.

So wait,you have a male character who goes against every male stereotype and you turn him into just another generic female character?

When asked about it,the showrunner Eugene Son said he made that change because there was no girl in the group and having a all boys group wouldn't be acceptable nowadays

First off that's not true because Athena was also part of the main cast,yeah she wasn't the fighting type but she still helped quite a lot in the story even saving the knights on several occasions,second if you wanted to add a girl to the main group why not use Marin or Shaina?Hell,if you were going to change the story anyway why not turn Seiya sister into a knight?

Thankfully this monstrosity was cancelled(so much for trying to bring more fans)

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u/Daniilsa209 17h ago

Mulan 2020

The original and the Disney adaptation make the point that, through effort, you can achieve anything regardless of your gender, but in the movie adaptation, they gave her special magical powers.

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u/DeUnderCaker 16h ago edited 14h ago

Made worse when they gave her a sister that was later matched by the end of the movie lol, pretty much saying that unless your ass was born special you deserved to remain under the patriarchal societal roles the women of their time are subject to.

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u/Longjumping-Ear-6248 16h ago

In a interesting irony, during times when Mulan takes place, Mongolian women had more rights in Mongolian Society than Chinese women had in theirs.

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u/TandrDregn 15h ago

This seems to be a thing in a lot of very warrior-like cultures. Another example are the Spartans who treated their women better than most of the other polis did. I think it’s tied to the fact that they couldn’t MAKE new warriors without them, so they naturally tend to respect them more, as opposed to, say, the Athenians who were apparently pretty damn shitty towards their women.

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u/thetrustworthybandit 15h ago

It's less about the making new warriors (after all, having heirs is important in pretty much every society) and more that when men are out fighting wars it's the women that have to keep society going, and for that they need to be able to be more independent/competent/educated

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u/MagnusIsABird 14h ago

Also, harsher climates mean more people have to work outside just to survive. A mongolian camp wouldnt survive if the women didnt work alongside the men.

In more settled agrarian societies you have a surplus of resources (usually) and you can pushh women into household chores. So they tend to be more patriarchial

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u/ManiacalShen 13h ago

Don't undersell the amount of farming women would do. You'd have to be pretty well-off to be able to be confined to household chores, which themselves could be pretty backbreaking compared to today (eg laundry). In feudal societies, lords weren't exactly excusing female peons from field work.

But if you are landed gentry or a homesteader and have that big, settled property, you can make the farm the wife's problem and sequester her there with the kids while the husband does any business that's elsewhere. So she ideally needs to be skilled enough to manage the land but not bold enough to disobey his orders about it.

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u/Akhevan 9h ago

Actually the Mongolian grazing-based economy required about 20-30% of the population to be engaged in herding, when most agricultural societies of the time had about 75-85% of population engaged in agriculture. You should read on the subject instead of making silly assumptions on the level of "harsh climate makes harsh women".

Also it's not as if the women in said agricultural societies didn't work all their spare time (on top of doing "household chores" and farming work), weaving alone was a black hole for labor until the advent of the mechanized loom.

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u/Notte_di_nerezza 14h ago

See also: the Norse.

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u/thetrustworthybandit 9h ago

See also: the world during and post WWII.

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u/nagrom7 13h ago

Yeah, the same even happened in our societies whenever we'd engage in total war. Both world wars were massive advancements in the rights of women because they basically had to run everything back home while all the men were off fighting, and as such jobs and roles that they were previously forbidden from even applying for, were straight up begging for them because they had no workforce otherwise. And then even after the war was over, most of those young men that were fighting came back with no relevant experience in those fields, while all the people who did have experience were the women who'd spent the last several years doing those jobs.

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u/my-name-is-puddles 9h ago edited 9h ago

more that when men are out fighting wars it's the women that have to keep society going

This was true for other Greek city states too, though. It's not like Spartan men were going to war significantly more than other Greeks. Contrary to popular belief, Spartans were NOT professional soldiers. They were specifically profession-less. During times of peace they didn't do military drilling or anything like that; when war broke out they mustered, drilled, and marched off to war much like every other Greek city.

Also keep in mind, "Spartans" made up a small minority of the people in and around Sparta. Spartan citizenship was a very exclusive club. Most of the actual population were perioikoi (free, non-citizens) and helots (state-owned slaves/serfs). At Sparta's absolute peak there were only about 9000 male citizens. They were greatly outnumbered by the perioikoi and helots. Women in those groups did not have the same privileges as Spartan women. And it'd also be very wrong to imply Spartan society was anything close to being egalitarian between genders (not saying you were implying that). If you were born a woman in that time period in Greece you might wanna be born Spartan, but that's mostly because if you're Spartan you're already basically in the "1%". You would not want to be born a woman born in basically the same place just not a Spartan citizen.

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u/blacksoxing 9h ago

Without typing a novel us Americans have a history lesson of our own regarding WWII and how women were treated while propping up the economy and their persistence to not return back to the house...

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u/TheAmplifier8 14h ago

It typically has a lot more to do with the fact that you cannot keep a nation running if all your men are off fighting and all your women are incompetent. So women naturally take on more skilled roles to fill the gaps.

Look at labor during WW2 in the US for a more modern example of this.

In some cases it is also a scarcity thing. So for example Scandinavia, where you needed everyone to chip in to get the two through tough winter weather.

Sparta is a bit of an odd situation since they had a fairly unique culture with a high dependency on helots. This likely exacerbated the need, as there was a risk of revolt while the army was away.

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u/Spider40k 14h ago

>I think it's tied to the fact that they couldn't MAKE new warriors without them

Well on the other side of the coin, they couldn't HAVE an entire martial society if it wasn't for their overwhelming slave population; but they very much didn't respect the Helots at all

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u/TandrDregn 14h ago

There’s a reason I said the Spartans were better to their WOMEN than the rest of Greece. They were still absolute dickheads that surpassed the rest in most other forms of phallo-cranium syndrome.

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u/ny00t 14h ago

I'm definitely simplifying things a lot here because reality is obviously way more nuanced, but one thing i notice is that a culture/society that grew up in hardship tend to be more "equal" because everyone needs to play a part in order to thrive. Men, women, the elderly, children, etc. Everyone plays a role and has a niche and respects each other for it because if one fails, all collapse. Likewise, culture/society that's living relatively easy life (especially one with cities in ancient times) tend to go for the dominance route towards anyone that shows even the slightest of disadvantage

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u/kaian-a-coel 13h ago

the Spartans who treated their women better than most of the other polis did

It should be noted that "the spartans" everyone thinks about were the litteral 1%er of sparta. Like yeah, athenians did keep their women pretty much locked at home, but maybe wealthy slave owner wives aren't a very good metric for women respecting in a society that was made up of 70% slaves.

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u/AreYouThereSagan 14h ago

The Spartans wanted their women to be strong and intelligent to increase the odds of their children being strong and intelligent.

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u/FuzzyFrogFish 12h ago

Another example are the Spartans who treated their women better than most of the other polis did.

That's pushing it as an example, really pushing it. Spartan women were very much still property, and we're treated like sexual commodities

As for making new warriors. Spartans were the leisure class, they were not trained warriors any more than any other polis, and if you didn't have money you got booted out of that leisure class pretty fast. Sparta was an oligarchy

The understanding of Sparta has changed wholesale in about a decade, and most of the rubbish peddled by Cartledge and those before him has been debunked by his own PhD student.

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u/ScyllaOfTheDepths 8h ago

Look up what the Mongols did to the women and children of the people they slaughtered. They were absolutely not paragons of gender equality, they simply treated their own women slightly better than the average of the time. They viewed the women of their opponents as the spoils of conquest and horrifically brutalized them.

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u/TandrDregn 8h ago

Yeah, probably should have specified I meant their own.

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u/CelioHogane 3h ago

Of course the fucking Athenians were shit towards women, that makes so much sense...

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u/[deleted] 15h ago

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u/TumbleweedPure3941 14h ago

Mulan was a Northern Wei soldier fighting the Rouran. There were no mongols.

Also mongol women had better rights than Han women literally all the time. Han Chinese culture was far more misogynistic than any of their neighbours from as far back as records began. Han culture was so misogynistic, it even managed to influence the deeply matrilineal cultures of Korea and Japan; turning Korea, what was once one of the least misogynistic cultures in the world, into one of the most by the late Joseon dynasty.

I mean they invented foot binding for crying out loud.

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u/AnalysisOk7430 10h ago

Yeah, the right to die of starvation along with her children, when their husband got killed by another man, or prostitute themselves. Gee, how progressive.

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u/Secuter 6h ago

This is a general theme with settled vs nomadic societies. The more settled they became the less gender equal it became. 

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u/Savings_Surround_547 16h ago

It’s even weirder that the sister (apparently) has a personality akin to the original film’s version of Mulan, being soft spoken & clumsy, but also clever, kind & extremely resourceful & resilient, the traits that made that Mulan a badass.

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u/Armantien 13h ago

It sounds like someone inserted their OC into the original story who overshadows the original main character. Lol

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u/Ok-Garden-8391 14h ago

They really made it seem like women could only break free from society’s expectations if they were born with special powers, which completely undermines Mulan’s whole message.

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u/Carbon839 15h ago

Disney was on a streak about that lol. The Sequels had a vibe of highlighting the fact that despite not knowing her parents, Rey was capable of great things! Bloodline, who your parents were, etc didn’t matter!

Oh wait… she’s a Palpatine… the most powerful force user in the galaxy…

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u/JustSomeM0nkE 15h ago

Basically this

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u/rumande 14h ago

I like a Knight's Tale for this. You need noble blood to be a knight, Ulric don't have shieeeeeet but he impressed the right people who came in at the last minute with some (presumably) made up noble ancestry

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u/rogue12277 7h ago

Oh, I don't think there's any presumably about it lol. I'm quite confident the Black Prince was basically saying "yes, I'm completely making this shit up, but not a one of you is gonna try and call me out on it".

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u/ukezi 6h ago

Yeah, "I'm the prince and I declare it's true and none of you is going to protest, or else."

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u/NewBuddhaman 5h ago

It was “beyond contestation”. One of the few lines I remember from that movie. But yeah, don’t challenge it because the prince said not to.

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u/rogue12277 3h ago

Yeah, after he's knighted Will, he just has this real shit-eating grin on his face that just screams "You're damn right I totally got away with that and I am enjoying every moment of it" haha. Cause what's anyone gonna do about it?

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u/LongChampionship8569 1h ago

That's exactly what it was. What a phenomenal movie.

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u/jkoudys 6h ago

I hated the finale of GoT, and this scene was awful, but Bronn makes a good point about how every king and lord who started a noble bloodline simply killed enough people to get to where they are.

Obviously Sir William Thatcher wasn't a killer, but if you think about it his nobility is no more fake than any other lord's. Every family at some point got to where they were by convincing the right people. He was the best at the sport of knights, therefore he must be a knight.

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u/Intelligent-Luck-954 6h ago

William*

Or “the knight of your heart”

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u/Downtown8Cat 14h ago

Reminds me of Naruto

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u/wakito64 14h ago

Or One Piece. Or Bleach. Or Dragon Ball. Really most mainstream battle shonen have the hero be secretly the heir/reincarnation/wielder of the strongest ever in their verse

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u/Interesting_Food_920 14h ago

Not Dragon Ball Goku's A Normal Saiyan

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u/nagrom7 13h ago

Not just a Normal Saiyan, a "low class" Sayian. Nappa was more of a "normal" Sayian, and Vegeta was literally the heir to the throne (technically he should be King, but he's never claimed the title given there's only a handful of Sayians left, still calling himself a "prince" instead). The whole thing of Dragonball Z is Goku not being some kind of special chosen one born super strong, and through hard work, overcoming those who are, like Vegeta or Frieza.

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u/jiango_fett 8h ago

You know his bloodline isn't important because they never talk about Raditz again lol

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u/poop_snausages 6h ago

I kinda get what you're saying but this like saying "Hercules isn't a even a full fledged god, he's just a demigod!"

Like yeah, maybe Goku isn't the most special Saiyan but there's like an entire 153 episode anime where Goku is proving that he's the greatest warrior on earth and it turns out it's because he's got super special alien blood.

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u/no_one_important322 5h ago

But that alien bloodline didn't matter for most of OG DB. Goku was never trying to prove he was the strongest human he just liked fighting and wanting to get stronger. The entire reason Roshi joined the tournament as Jackie Chun was to beat Goku and Krillin so that they would believe there were still people stronger than them.

And it's not like Goku being a Saiyan changed his journey in OG DB. If you turned Goku into a human, outside of Pilaf arc, none of the other stories change

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u/EmXena 14h ago

He really is. Goku just happened to be the Saiyan that approached training differently and lived a life of being good. Growing up as a Human is the only difference Goku had as a Saiyan versus the rest of his race.

Unless the commenter meant that him being a Saiyan to begin with was what made him "Special," but we already knew he came from not-Earth. Not sure why it's such a surprise, or a bad thing.

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u/Interesting_Food_920 14h ago

In Fact He Was Below Average

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u/The-Green 13h ago

he wasn't born special, he became special thanks to his good nature and resolve. he kept developing and growing in a way that he beat Broly, the latest actual "legendary super saiyan," to the punch of becoming the first super saiyan in a thousand years. all because his true power is giving a shit about others and wanting to always become stronger than any threat to his friends and home planet.

Goku isn't special so much as he is a complete anomaly.

it's also rather telling that Broly is also a nice person at heart too

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u/EmXena 13h ago

I know. Which is why I was saying he wasn't born special at all.

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u/The-Green 13h ago

yeah, that's, kinda why i was agreeing with you and expanding on your point lol

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u/the_ghost_of_bob_ros 13h ago

Yep in OG dragon ball he was still a monkey tailed freak child, and even then he was still getting beat by more experienced fighters like Jackie Chun and Tien.

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u/wakito64 14h ago

He is still a Super Saiyan and the first in a thousand years because his body has an unnaturally high amount of S-cells thanks to his gentle nature (yeah I know that's dumb but Toriyama said it).

Gohan also got an entire "chosen one" arc until Toriyama changed his mind and brought back Goku for the final fight against Buu.

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u/Interesting_Food_920 13h ago

Except They Don't Portray It Like That Goku's Naturally Ungifted If It Was The S-Cells Then He Would Have gone Super Way Earlier

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u/uwubonic 10h ago

ok, but why didnt you capitalize the word gone?

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u/NakedEyeComic 14h ago

Demon Slayer subverts this slightly by having Tanjiro be the descendant of the friend of the most powerful Slayer in history (Yoriichi), who passed down his training methods to Tanjiro’s family.

However, even with accelerated training and his family’s history, Tanjiro is still far weaker than Yoriichi by the end point of the story and it takes the power of teamwork from the entire Demon Slayer Corps to defeat Muzan, the big bad.

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u/Dave_the_duck_kh4 13h ago

Also it while it does a decent job push the narrative of effort bring success (Tanjiro and Zenitsu trained their but off) it doesn't dismissed the fact that talent are important and you need to do thing that fit you specifically. (Inosuke wild boar style)

Fire breathing, Flame breathing and Sun breathing are distinct technicality specifically made for the body of the user. Tanjiro can only utilize Fire breathing because he isn't a direct descendent of Yoriichi, he doesn't have the same super senses, body ratio and talent for the technique. He can only use a style that is close to Sun breathing, which itself is similar with Flame breathing.

Don't blindly copy what other great people do, you have your own talent, your own skills, learn what useful for you and become great by your own efforts.

The final battle was won by a mixture of multiple people, each with their own interpretation of their technique. Those couldn't fight contribute by maping the entire dungeon, or provide medical aid. Everyone is important. Every effort count. Not the usual "only the chosen one can end the vilain"

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u/SmoothDiscussion7763 9h ago

who passed down his training methods to Tanjiro’s family

nah bro it wasn't even that lol. his dad had to transform it into a dance because he wasn't even able to comprehend the training method, which makes the "transferred power" much weaker

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u/NatAttack50932 14h ago

I don't think bleach fits here. Like yes, Ichigo is clearly a special boy, but the narrative never tries to obfuscate that. It's made very clear from the first chapter that he's unique.

If anything, Renji, Rukia and Kenpachi are the ones that prove anyone is capable.

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u/UnquestionabIe 14h ago

Good point, Ichigo is very much framed as special from the first chapter. That it turned out he's like half a dozen other kinds of special is hilarious on the surface but does a surprisingly good job of justifying it in story. I remember looking up to see how much of all that was planned in advance and Kubo said that for the most part all he did was revisit the earlier parts of the story and looked for stuff he could expand on to make the later parts feel more justified. Personally I think he did a solid job, even if the manga pacing was pretty rough.

But as you pointed out Bleach does a good job of showing a mixture of natural talent versus hard work. It's not a major theme but even later on most cast members get a moment to shine, it doesn't feel as if most of the characters cease to matter unlike a certain ninja themed series

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u/myrmonden 13h ago

LOL OL
ICHIGO is 50% hollow 50% human 50% quincy and 50% shinigami

he is freaking GOD, he is the MOST SPECIAL of all the specials

but yes its not a TWIST (except 50% quincy and 50% hollow kinda )

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u/SmoothDiscussion7763 9h ago

i think we clued into how he was half hollow pretty early on when urahara was like "wow, he's reacting a little different than i expected"

and then he got his shinigami powers which i think technically all souls could right?

the real asspull was the quincy reveal though, they had to go waaaaay back to explain how his mom was involved and shit

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u/myrmonden 7h ago

I love the quincy twist do, it was so studily peak bleach

Ywach blut prison is impossible to escape

Ichigo just casually is immune to it

Evil Grandpa is like

OMG ??!??!?? You have to be my long lost grandson !?!??!

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u/SmoothDiscussion7763 6h ago

oh yeah btw, your zanpakuto is actually NOT your zanpakuto

you were white all along! oh shiettttt

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u/jiango_fett 8h ago

Except it's part of the setting that you have to be born/reincarnated as a special magical person to have powers, otherwise you're stuck living in the poor part of town for your entire afterlife. 

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u/NatAttack50932 5h ago

I mean that's just the Ratatouille lesson, isn't it? It's not that anyone can cook. It's that a great cook can come from anywhere

Also, you don't even have to be born or reincarnated with that power. Rookie is from the world of the living. She and her sister died as died as young people

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u/jiango_fett 5h ago

When I say reincarnated that's what I meant, when you start your after life in Soul Society, but that was the wrong word on my part. The point is that you have to be born with it or you're out of luck.

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u/awaythrowthatname 12h ago

One Piece has to be the most disappointing of the Big 3 for me on this. Ichigo was special from the start, and I actually wasn't super invested in Naruto, but Luffy was cursed with a mid ability that he made able to compete with those with amazing abilities through sheer determination.

Sure, he was always *around* special people like Shanks, and we knew his grandpa was someone important in the Navy, but neither of them had any bearing on Luffy's training or grit, and he was actually wholly opposed to his grandpa's side, who was barely in his life anyway.

The it turns out NOPE Luffy is actually a reincarnation of Joyboy who we have been hearing about this entire time instead of just having parallels to him. And OH, actually the Ability that we have been telling you for 20 years is just rubber? We lie Luffy actually ate a Fruit that turned him into a God that literally eveyone on the planet recognizes but no one ever mentioned anything about until just now.

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u/ShadowKitten327 12h ago

Eeh, I haven't watched One Piece in a long time but there's been hints of Luffy being the sun king from the very start, that's not a new thing.

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u/awaythrowthatname 12h ago

As someone who started reading One Piece the month after it was first published and kept up with it all the way through to Wano, no, there wasn't. Stuff got retconned in that kind of sort of fit, but it was not foreshadowed more than maybe...30 chapters before the reveal at most, and definitely not connected in as well as some of Oda's other foreshadowing examples. Not hinted at from the start at all

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u/Dranulon 12h ago

He's got the same kind of vibe a joyboy. 

The fruit found him because he had the right mind set.

There were clues all along of his cartoon logic.

He put the work into bringing out the full form of the fruit.

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u/miukiyo 12h ago

Luffy, not for a single second, thinks he’s a god though.

He is, and will always be, “just Luffy”.

All the Nika stuff is just lore to tie the story together imo.

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u/LiftingRecipient420 9h ago

I mean I don't get why people complain about one piece telling a story in a bad fashion.

It's always been bad, it has been bad for over a decade, why are people even surprised any more?

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u/CelioHogane 3h ago

The it turns out NOPE Luffy is actually a reincarnation of Joyboy who we have been hearing about this entire time instead of just having parallels to him.

he is... not.

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u/Downtown8Cat 10h ago

But there was never a theme relating to hard work about ichigo

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u/CelioHogane 3h ago

One Piece doesn't really have that, Luffy isn't really a special being, he just got lucky gacha on the devil fruit.

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u/5050Saint 14h ago edited 12h ago

I was about to bring that up. Before Shippuden, Naruto had strong themes of hard work and stubborn determination can overcome having abilities from a strong bloodline. Naruto's stubborn dedication put him on the level with Sasuke the child prodigy from the clan with genetics so dangerous they were culled to curb their power. Rock Lee's insane dedication to physical jutsu to compete with Neji's inherited Byakugan was another prominent example..

Then, nope. Naruto is the son of both the powerful Fourth Hokage and a bloodline known for having immense chakra reserves.

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u/ChaoCobo 12h ago

>and a bloodline known for having immense chakra reserves

While true, you’re vastly understating it. Spoilers ahead for anyone else reading

Iirc, he is a reincarnation of the original chakra user’s son (with Sasuke being the other son’s descendent). The original chakra user is the person who ate the chakra fruit that contains all chakra, so all the chakra originally comes from her, and she had two sons. This would be like if the Christian god had two sons instead of just Jesus. The easiest way to put this is Naruto is a reincarnation of Ninja Jesus, in a way.

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u/ukezi 6h ago

He had the "evil in a can" the whole time that have him thematic power ups.

Also he always had more chakra than anyone else around that allowed him to brute force problems, like deploying hundreds of clones where most can maybe do one or two.

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u/miukiyo 14h ago

Naruto had a LONG struggle arc though. Literally half of the original Naruto series was him being weak and figuring out things through actual hard work.

It does kinda give the message that everyone has talent at something, you just gotta find it and don’t let it go.

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u/LiftingRecipient420 9h ago

Reminds me of basically every piece of fantasy media in existence.

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u/OrdinaryIntroduction 47m ago

Naruto being an underdog socially was interesting, but then they added the god child reincarnation crap. Really made him feel unreal afterwards.

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u/PantheraAuroris 7h ago

The thing that gets me about this comic is that Theophilia Wallace is still clearly a Special. She "discovers" her abilities. She was born with them. There's no "she worked hard and caught up with the Specials." Also her name is the most egregious Mary Sue thing.

What I'd learn from her as a kid is that you have to be born with an obvious talent or you're a Poo Person. Hard work is nothing.

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u/OrdinaryIntroduction 40m ago

Stories rarely ever want to explore systemic oppression. I wish characters like Theophilia Wallace would discover their powers, and then uncover that everyone has abilities that have been suppressed. She just got lucky in accidentally activating hers but across the world people are actually capable of unlocking these abilities.

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u/Ok_Ad_1232 6h ago

shows love to do this alot and it's so tiring

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u/RynnHamHam 4h ago

Naruto kind of falls into this as well. Being a jinchuriki and the 4th Hokage’s son weren’t really mind blowing. Being Minato’s son doesn’t actually grant Naruto any special powers, and only really explained why he became a jinchuriki. But later revealing that he’s this reincarnation of an ancient hero and is a matter of objective fact the chosen one, kind of knocked the wind out of his efforts even more than broken 9 Tails Chakra mode.

1

u/romanichki 2h ago

Reminds me of Deku from MHA. I think it would have been better if he had no powers the entire time and still kicked everyones ass somehow with his brain and logic

11

u/kaian-a-coel 13h ago

The only reason people were theorising who her parents were was that TFA kept pointing out how important they were.

3

u/Full-Aid 9h ago

And she was too overpowered for an untrained person born in an ordinary family.

3

u/Allen_Koholic 13h ago

Yea, it was clearly being setup to be a major plot point, but Johnson was like nope, fuck that.

7

u/CannedCalamity 11h ago

I think if they had stuck with Johnson’s angle, the setup would have still worked as a subversion of expectations. When Abram’s went back on it he only highlighted that across the trilogy they had no fucking plan. It came off as just caving to the complaints of the fans. And the complaint that she had to have powerful parents never made any sense. Obi Wan is an incredibly skilled Jedi and we don’t know shit about him having any special lineage or being some chosen one.

As a side note though, I really enjoyed the dyad in the force stuff from Rise of Skywalker though. I thought it was one of the few interesting ideas in an otherwise clusterfuck of a movie.

3

u/Allen_Koholic 8h ago

Rise of Skywalker is a great movie, but a horrible Star Wars movie.

2

u/kaian-a-coel 8h ago

Obi Wan is an incredibly skilled Jedi and we don’t know shit about him having any special lineage or being some chosen one.

He did have a lifetime of training.

2

u/CannedCalamity 6h ago

The training argument is a fair side of it. From a writing perspective it’s tough to really condense that range of power growth to such a small gap between films but it doesn’t make it any less jarring when you see just how much training Anakin or Ahsoka had to endure throughout the clone wars.

2

u/kaian-a-coel 6h ago

it’s tough to really condense that range of power growth to such a small gap between films

This is irrelevant to Rey's power level in TFA alone.

3

u/ReaperReader 7h ago

To be fair, the OT already gave us Han and Lando, who not only didn't have important parents, but also didn't have Force powers either. And were still awesome heroes.

2

u/HowDareYouAskMyName 7h ago

To be fair, most of the Star wars fandom was also pissed that she was a force user that didn't have some pre-existing lineage or ties to the OT / EU. The problem is that J.J. Abrams is a hack and actually listened to the fans (huge mistake), so that complaint got memory-holed after tRoS came out

-6

u/elianastardust 11h ago

Rey is the daughter of a not-force-sensitive clone of Palpatine. Not actually Palpatine's granddaughter, and absolutely the daughter of people Palpatine would have considered to be nobodies. 

So it actually fulfills the theme from The Last Jedi.

But media literacy is difficult, apparently. 

472

u/dyaasy 15h ago

Don't forget that "Mushu is unrealistic!"

Introduces chi powers, shape shifting witch...

https://giphy.com/gifs/13cIaMunE7nvgI

255

u/Logitech0 15h ago

They also triggered the Chinese with his removal and switching to a random phoenix, after all the dragon is the symbol of both China and the emperor, and Mushu being there can be read as China manifest destiny defeating the foreign invaders.

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u/VulkanHestan321 15h ago

Also, the phoenix is a western creature, there exists a vermillion Bird

42

u/jebberwockie 15h ago

Fenghuang in china

34

u/Konkorde1 13h ago

Actually... adjusts nerd glasses as he double-checks Wikipedia

The Vermillion Bird, known as a 'Zhūquè', is the constellation that represents the element of fire and the direction south.

The bird you're referring to is the Fenghuang, which is the most similar to the Western/Persian Phoenix.

9

u/CrackIn_TheEarth 14h ago

Just wanna say I love the way you structured the end of your sentence

6

u/WyldBlu3Yond3r 12h ago

China and the Middle East area were involved in the Silk Road trade, so sharing folklore stories like the Phoenix isnt a stretch. Damn near same critter, just a different name.

8

u/APreciousJemstone 12h ago

The Fenghuang does *at least* represent the Empress (compared to the dragon representing the Emperor), but Mushu is much more fun

3

u/WyldBlu3Yond3r 12h ago

I read once the Phoenix was also a symbol of the Empress. I could be off.

1

u/JManKit 5h ago

They are definitely both creatures that exist within Chinese mythology. A lot of the restaurants I went to growing up had a Chinese dragon and Chinese phoenix as the background for the main stage seating area. I remember being admonished for trying to touch them every time lol

301

u/Chachkhu2005 16h ago

This movie managed to suck so fucking bad. How, how I ask, do you manage to make an action movie with Donnie Yen and Jet Li in it with a Disney budget, BORING? HOW? And how do you mess up a plot as simple as Mulan's? There's nothing there that's subtle to interpret.

205

u/MyneIsBestGirl 16h ago

Pandering to a Chinese audience without understanding that glaze will only bring one so far, exacerbated by an unwillingness to let protagonists have serious flaws (intentionally) and a wack ass desire to turn an animated partially comedic movie into a serious drama without doing half the work.

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u/ShadySands2189 16h ago

And even the Chinese audience didn't like it which is hilarious

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u/MyneIsBestGirl 16h ago

Because, even a very nationalistic audience can tell what a bad story is and have standards. Mulan made a non-compelling story while harkening to their previous more influential and beloved classic. If they had adapted the story from the legends straight it would be better, but they couldn't even do that.

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u/ShadySands2189 16h ago

Exactly this, they tried to change an actual good and empowering story into a low quality power fantasy that shits on everything the OG movie tried to do, like you said, if they just adapted the actual story 1:1 they'd have made bank

AND to add to this, the fact they changed Mushu from a dragon to a phoenix which adds insult to injury since in Chinese culture there is no phoenix, the Vermilion Bird while a fire bird, isn't a phoenix, that's a Western mythology creature with wildly different characteristics, so changing what is one of the most famous and influential creatures in China to a Western beast feels like an insult

2

u/nofpiq 5h ago

AND to add to this, the fact they changed Mushu from a dragon to a phoenix which adds insult to injury since in Chinese culture there is no phoenix, the Vermilion Bird while a fire bird, isn't a phoenix,

This isn't entirely true, Chinese culture has a fenghuang, the King or Empress of Birds, frequently referred to as a Chinese phoenix. This however shows a number of different problems that the Disney adaptation has.

The shape of the creature is a bit closer to the fenghuang, but still more similar to a a Western coded phoenix, particularly in the coloring.

Among the many, many temporal anachronisms the movie has, at the time period when the story of Mulan takes places, Chinese culture had masculine feng and feminine huang, they weren't merged into a singular feminine fenghuang until ~800 years later. The feng and huang were almost always seen/depicted together.

In the film, Mulan first sees the phoenix near the beginning of the war, when she is first heading off to take her father's place in conscription. Unfortunately, fenghuang as omens generally represent either the beginning of a new era and lineage of leadership - what Mulan is explicitly going to help a war effort to prevent from happening - or fenghuang sightings symbolize the start of a new time of peace and prosperity.

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u/KommissarJH 15h ago

I've read a while ago that Mulan is the most adapted legend/story in Chinese media and the market is pretty much saturated with adaptions that stay more or less true to the legend. That's why the OG Disney adaptation is pretty well liked. It changes things up while still being true to the story.

The new one... Not so much.

13

u/Birdbraned 15h ago

Chinese media is saturated with many many reskinned stories about old legends and the like and those productions still make bank.

12

u/brezieee 14h ago

To be fair, we’ve had a new Odyssey very recently, and is fair to say that every story is, at his core, a retelling. I totally get what you mean though

22

u/No1LudmillaSimp 15h ago

China already made several live action Mulan films itself that were much better than Disney's botch job.

9

u/Pabst_Blue_Gibbon 14h ago

There’s like 20 of them lol. I like “Mulan joins the army” (1939) the best. The 2009 and 1964 ones are good too. Not to mention all the TV adaptations.

2

u/hidelyhokie 6h ago

Having no Chinese writers is a bad idea for telling a culturally Chinese story using one of chinas most well known heros. Who would have thought

1

u/Ombric_Shalazar 7h ago

shit was banned from airing in china for a time lmao

1

u/hidelyhokie 6h ago

It was a movie trying to appeal to China written entirely by white people what could go wrong?

1

u/MyneIsBestGirl 6h ago

Going for appeal always quality will almost always fail, since it falls on the premise that pandering will achieve anything more positive than mindless clapping in a theater, especially compared to a whole audience who will not get pandered to.

37

u/ShadySands2189 16h ago

Mind you, sucked so badly that it actively got BANNED from China for how bad it was, and the movie was filmed there to boot!

7

u/SquareTaro3270 15h ago

Wasn’t that because of the filming location? The Chinese government didn’t like that the studio filmed near a nation they were trying to erase from public consciousness

2

u/elianastardust 11h ago

... Why would China be trying to erase a popular tourist destination and important economic region from public consciousness?

Sinophobia is so weird.

1

u/SquareTaro3270 11h ago

If I remember correctly, they filmed next to a concentration camp… so…

1

u/JManKit 5h ago

The best/worst part is that it wasn't just a departure from the animated version but also a departure from the actual folk story that almost every Chinese person knows. In it, Mulan is not magical but rather just a filial young woman who takes it upon herself to spare her elderly father and younger brother from the dangers of conscription. The folk story doesn't even really give that much detail of her time as a soldier but the fact that she not only survived twelve years of fighting and acquitted herself so well that she was honoured by the emperor tells you that she was brave, capable and incredibly determined. All those characteristics were evident in the animated film, which is likely why Chinese audiences liked it so much

1

u/za_shiki-warashi 3h ago edited 3h ago

Donnie Yen

Speaking of, I was also disappointed with his character in Star Wars, so Disney let him down twice now. I wonder if John Wick is him going, 'let me show you how to do a cool blind fighter as old school wuxia intended'.

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/KrimxonRath 16h ago

Execs missing the point of a story about skill and prosperity earned through effort? Making it into a story where the protagonist is the chosen one?

I’m SHOCKED they don’t understand???

Actually wild outlining the parallels lol

5

u/AreYouThereSagan 14h ago

Can't have the people thinking that hard work is supposed to lead to climbing society's latter--they might realize we didn't do anything to earn all of our wealth and influence!

7

u/BenignPharmacology 14h ago

Meh- every executive thinks they’re where they are through effort and skill. Literally not one of them ever acknowledges their own luck or born-in connections. Thats kind of their thing.

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u/Savings_Surround_547 16h ago

It doesn’t help that this version of her has less personality than a plank of wood.

2

u/GwyneddDragon 13h ago

Well, the animated version of her was voiced by Ming Na Wen who has been a surgeon, a Star Wars assassin, a Marvel superhero and a senator in various roles.

The live action was voiced by Crystal Liu Yifei who is known for having a pretty face and having the screen presence of a block of wood.

8

u/Ok_Astronomer_6501 15h ago

Can't expect anything else from nepo babies tbh

1

u/Ohmec 13h ago

The thing is this remake was actually closer to the original myth and it was the Disney version that was a departure.

106

u/Jazzlike-Equipment45 16h ago

Really I keep wishing Disney will learn their lesson with live action and then remember they are insane and can't learn.

73

u/jumolax 16h ago

It’s because they keep inexplicably earning them a billion dollars each.

24

u/Jazzlike-Equipment45 16h ago

You can't blame them seeing the audiance as pigs when they eat said slop they serve.

15

u/Wuskers 15h ago

I still find it so bewildering that people are so eager to lap it up, is it even possible for people to finally be tired of it? Even if people did stop watching them how many flops would it take for Disney to give up on the concept? I feel like the only thing that will potentially end it is when they run out of movies, there's a finite amount of movies to live-action-ify so what are they gonna do when they've done them all? are we gonna get remakes of remakes?

8

u/SquareTaro3270 15h ago

Dude we’re already getting remakes or remakes

1

u/FourChicksInGreen 9h ago

Seriously? Like for real?

5

u/Spider40k 14h ago

Being hopeful, Disney's chepquels era only lasted like 12 years; maybe we only have one year left of the lame action era?

1

u/Lluuiiggii 8h ago

I think it really comes down to newer parents nowadays being ones that grew up watching these original cartoons, and so they know the original story is good enough to keep their rugrats entertained for an hour or two while they zone out and eat the 'member berries.

I think this is why the live action Moana kinda flopped as well. The original is not old enough for the kids who loved the original to have kids they want to ignore yet so it really didn't do that well.

1

u/Eveningstarburst0 1h ago

The Disney cycle

  • New trailer comes out
  • people hate it/complain/Youtube videos about how much it sucks
  • movie comes out & Disney makes bank.

13

u/callmemarjoson 16h ago

That's because people will give em money regardless

11

u/FinalXemnasV 15h ago

I feel like they almost did once the Snow White live action came out and made them lose 170 million dollars. But then the Lilo & Stitch live action came out months later and undid all of it.

188

u/solrua 16h ago

And the special magical power she gets are Male ONLY powers. So she's a special, powerful women because she's like a man. And she was born with them. The movie makes clear that all other women who were born without Man Powers will never be special like her.

2

u/laurel_laureate 1h ago

And that's not to mention they took out the entire plotline of Li Shang's journey of discovering his sexuality.

The live action removed Li Shang due to MeToo movement and how he is her love interest yet commanding officer.

But... the man literally changed and came to terms with his sexuality twice for Mulan.

That's exactly the kind of thing I'd have expected a more modern adaptation to focus on- Li Shang learning he might be gay or even demisexual.

42

u/Content-Explorer5468 16h ago

The chi in this movie is pretty much the force

23

u/Gimetulkathmir 15h ago

Also, Mushu was removed from the movie because they claimed they were making a movie that was more realistic.

32

u/KadajjXIII 16h ago

There's only 1 thing I like about this movie, it annoyed an actual Chinese person so much they initially made a YouTube channel to diss on it lol

Xiran Jay Zhao is their name

13

u/SquareTaro3270 15h ago

Are they the one with the impeccable hair and makeup who wrote a book and got banned from the Chinese internet?

6

u/Professor-Xivass 14h ago

I believe so

1

u/KadajjXIII 9h ago

Only part I'm not sure of is the banned from Chinese Internet bit

18

u/AlansDiscount 16h ago

I just wanted her and the shapeshifting witch to kill everyone else and take over China.

4

u/SquareTaro3270 15h ago

It quickly transitions into toxic yuri

15

u/NanoY2 16h ago

The point that women shouldn't be seen as equals still stands. I just dropped the movie shortly after they said she was special I think.

4

u/Lumpy-Yam-4584 13h ago

And remember cartoon-her having the hots for her captain, who, in turn, for a short time, questioned his sexuality?
You, know: HER, comming on to HIM?
Removed: Because of MeToo
https://www.cbr.com/mulan-li-shangs-removal-was-influenced-by-metoo-movement/

3

u/hokuten04 15h ago

She was like already a spiderman, and didn't start as a peter parker.

3

u/k1deki 15h ago

Due to language barrier I can’t express how I hated this movie so just believe me

3

u/SeriousFinish6404 15h ago

I also this they killed all emotions with her. Movie Mulan was always emoting while this Mulan even had a joke about how emotionless her actor made her.

3

u/JumpingJacks1234 14h ago

How was this an attempt to be more progressive? It was a change for sure, but a regressive change.

3

u/ViperKira 14h ago

What, little girl, you want to be special? Well fuck you! If you're not born special, you'll die mediocre!

I fucking hate this remake, man....

3

u/Ok-Garden-8391 14h ago

That’s what made the original so powerful, Mulan earned her place through hard work and courage, not because she was born with special powers.

3

u/Real_Mokola 14h ago

"It's easy for a woman to stand up for herself, just have magic powers"

3

u/ThrowawayOnAHike 14h ago

this isn’t more progressive at all though and didn’t pretend to be. this is less progressive/a less political message bc disney was trying to appeal to their international chinese audience by using more traditional asian storytelling tropes

1

u/za_shiki-warashi 3h ago

by using more traditional asian storytelling tropes

But are they even doing that? Jin Yong's wuxia works remain highly popular in China (and Asian countries with significant population of Chinese descent) and his works set the blueprint for contemporary pop cultural awareness of wuxia/ kungfu as a genre.

His works tend to be about protagonists who started out normal, but while lucky enough to encounter some super powerful teacher to teach them stuff or get their hands on scrolls containing special martial arts technique, they still have to work to get good at learning the skills. The old Disney cartoon actually follows traditional tropes more.

3

u/anonymausssss 13h ago

"You can achieve great things and defy all odds...if you're special."

2

u/Piorn 15h ago

They also turned the Hawk from the original into a woman and then killed her💀

2

u/drafan5 9h ago

So mushu was unrealistic but this wasn’t?

5

u/whatthewhythehow 14h ago

WHAT!?

That movie had its problems but its gender commentary was so excellent for a children’s movie.

Mulan struggles with hyper-femininity AND hyper-masculinity. Her turning point comes when she uses her intellect to figure out how to get to the top of the pole!

Then, throughout the rest of the movie, she uses her intelligence to adapt both masculine and feminine traits to the situation! She causes the avalanche with the canon, and disguises the troop as women to get into the palace.

That’s the whole thing! The whole thing is the rejection of harsh gender binary but not a rejection of the gendered traits! And it is because she is smart!

I never saw this movie but like. What is even the point, then?

1

u/DrummerMiles 13h ago

Damn, good one. This was more about cowing to the Chinese market (even though it backfired) than false progressivism, but still, what a shit adaptation.

1

u/Funkycoldmedici 10h ago

Fuck this movie, but I don’t think this fits. How was this “changed to be more progressive”?

1

u/tsun_abibliophobia 9h ago

The erased my bi awakening king Shang-Li and I will never forgive them for that. 

1

u/FerociousTea 8h ago

I refused to watch this one . Mostly when they went no magic , no Shang , no Mushu , but immediately in the trailer you see a shape shifting witch. The live action just eh ... Didn't really have the same impact as the original .

1

u/dontbajerk 8h ago

This isn't really attempting to be more progressive. It's just badly written.

1

u/aboysmokingintherain 8h ago

TBF, this movie was to appease Chinese media. The character is more in line with the fable. That is why the witch is also present. They also wanted to include wire fighting which also was a choice.

1

u/MammothPenguin69 5h ago

It's been speculated that the reason the Mulan live action movie is so weird is because it was essentially ghost-written by CCP propagandists. Chinese audiences have no emotional connection to the original movie. The CCP propagandists wanted a movie to push a message of China's "special place" in the world stage. In the remake, Mulan is such a nothing character because she has to represent China and the Chinese spirit. That's why she's shown to always have super powers, which she is made to conceal and then unleashes her full special power once she no longer has to conceal who she is.

1

u/Bubbles00 4h ago

That pissed me off the most about the adaptation. I loved that animated mulan used both her brains and her grit to beat out the boys but in the live action, early on in the film they just straight up call her a Mary Sue by saying she was just born with more chi than regular people. Completely missed the whole point of Mulan as a character

1

u/KayfabeAdjace 4h ago

OG Mulan is even more nuanced than that since Mulan doesn't achieve everything the same way as men do or necessarily even have big setting shifting goals. The movie isn't about her becoming something else, it's about her already being something valuable and people not seeing it because their definition of womanhood is small. The movie succeeds to the degree that it understand it's about Mulan and that she has a story about a woman that many can relate to--even men--rather than trying to make Mulan a story about All Women and doing it clumsily. More art about women is infinitely better than trying to create art that's the last word on women.

1

u/Here_to_rp_2 3h ago

And also filmed it in the province with all the concentration camps.

1

u/Athena-80 3h ago

What really gets me about this is that they cut Mushu and the songs to make it more realistic but her having powers and there being shapeshifting is more realistic. Ok. And they used the original songs in the new movie which really just made me want to watch the original movie instead of the mistake it was.

1

u/DrkSpde 2h ago

I felt like if they had completely left out all the mystical crap, this could have been a really good movie.

1

u/Stumpsthewarwalrus 2h ago

Magic?

That's just Kung Fu!

1

u/Abject-Evidence855 14h ago

Her dad looked very familiar too.

0

u/EquipmentAdorable982 9h ago

they gave her special magical powers.

Disney made the exact same mistake with Rey in the Star Wars movies that don't exist in my head.