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

[u/Morr4Seiya]

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)

[u/Silent_Biscotti_9832]

Severus Snape being black in the new Harry Potter tv show

Could have been anyone else. But they had to choose the guy who got hung from a tree, and was bullied by James, Peter, Sirius and Remus in the 1950s ish

[u/Go_Water_your_plants → u/Silent_Biscotti_9832]

I will Die on that hill: they should have made dumbledore black.

They could have leaned into it and he could have been absolutely dripped out in colourful (wizard version of) traditional African robes (I’m aware africa is not a country but multiple countries in Africa have cool traditional clothings so I don’t want to exclude possibilities just because im personally more familiar with the Nigerian drip)

Like fuck it, give him the accent too! How much better of a representation would it be if the most powerful wizard in the franchise was African

[u/MarvelousThings07 → u/Go_Water_your_plants]

I thought race-swapping McGonagall could be interesting if done correctly.

[u/NinjaBreadManOO → u/MarvelousThings07]

Yeah, I feel like McGonagall would be a good option. Also oddly I can see Neville working too.

[u/Spurioun → u/NinjaBreadManOO]

Neville could be cool, but the fact that he fit all the traits of the chosen one prophecy but ended up not being the chosen one could make the narrative a bit gross. Plus, he gets pushed around a lot.

[u/Grosbie → u/Spurioun]

Neville is not possible because he is a pure blood from both sides of his parents. And you know what about the pure blood family? It connects to the Black family and most of the characters in the series are related to them somehow. You'll have to make everyone biracial at that point.

[u/Go_Water_your_plants → u/Grosbie]

But you could just have pure bloods for other parts of the world…

Like yes it’s an allegory for white supremacy, but it doesn’t need to be on the nose and actually include irl race into the pure blood schtick. The Blacks aren’t the ONLY pure blood family (that would bring some Targaryen implications)

[u/bobboman → u/Go_Water_your_plants]

did you read the books at all? it was heavily implied that every pure blood wizard in magical Britain were related to each other, Both Molly and Arther Weasley were related to the blacks and were noted somewhere on the tapestry of the black family tree, there is a reason the Weasleys were refered to as blood traitors

[u/Go_Water_your_plants → u/bobboman]

Well yeah I know it’s related because they marry each other and stuff

It’s still like… more than one family.

Like obviously pure wizards exist outside of the one British family. The Blacks didn’t fucking invent magic

[u/NinjaBreadManOO → u/bobboman]

Sure, but if we're bringing up the books I believe it's Arthur or Hagrid say's it's stupid because every "pure blood" family has a muggle if you look hard enough. Also as u/Go_Water_your_plants said maybe Neville's grandfather is just from an African pure blood family.