r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Morr4Seiya • 19h 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 18h 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/Carbon839 17h 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 17h ago

Basically this

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u/rumande 16h 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 9h 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 8h 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 7h 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 5h 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 3h ago

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

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u/jkoudys 8h 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 8h ago

William*

Or “the knight of your heart”

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u/Downtown8Cat 16h ago

Reminds me of Naruto

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u/wakito64 16h 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 16h ago

Not Dragon Ball Goku's A Normal Saiyan

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u/nagrom7 15h 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 10h ago

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

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u/poop_snausages 8h 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 7h 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 16h 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 16h ago

In Fact He Was Below Average

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u/The-Green 15h 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 15h ago

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

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u/The-Green 15h ago

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

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u/EmXena 14h ago

My apologies. I am rushing around at work and misinterpreted your comment.

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u/the_ghost_of_bob_ros 15h 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 16h 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 15h 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 12h ago

ok, but why didnt you capitalize the word gone?

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u/MarchRoyce 58m ago

Him being a Saiyan at all is the special boy part. 

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u/NakedEyeComic 16h 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 15h 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 11h 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 16h 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 16h 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 15h 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 11h 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 9h 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 8h 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 10h 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 7h 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 7h 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 14h 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 14h 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 14h 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 14h 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 14h 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 11h 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 5h 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 12h ago

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

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u/CelioHogane 5h 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 16h ago edited 14h 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 14h 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 8h 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 16h 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 11h ago

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

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u/OrdinaryIntroduction 2h 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 9h 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 2h 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 8h ago

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

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u/RynnHamHam 6h 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.

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u/romanichki 4h 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

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u/kaian-a-coel 15h ago

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

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u/Full-Aid 11h ago

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

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u/Allen_Koholic 15h ago

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

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u/CannedCalamity 13h 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.

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u/Allen_Koholic 10h ago

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

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u/kaian-a-coel 10h 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.

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u/CannedCalamity 8h 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.

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u/kaian-a-coel 8h 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.

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u/ReaperReader 9h 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.

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u/HowDareYouAskMyName 9h 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

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u/elianastardust 13h 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.