r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Character_Growth_397 • 4h ago

miscellaneous Everyone went through rough stuff, that doesn't give you the right to be a dick

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When characters call out the fact that having a sad or traumatic story doesn't give you the right to be a dick

Guardians of the Galaxy - Rocket Rackoon says to Drax "I don't care if it's mean. Everybody's got dead people! But it makes no excuse to letting everyone else around get killed along the way!", which he is correct

BoJack Horseman - Todd tells BoJack: "You are all the things that are wrong with you, it's not the drugs or the alcohol, or any of the things that happened in your career and childhood". While BoJack is shaped by his trauma, it's he who he keeps making awful decisions again and again, and trying to externalize it won't make things better

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u/Few-Improvement-5655 3h ago edited 3h ago

I think one thing I will say is... sometimes trauma hits people differently and specific traumas affect people more deeply and some people just end up broken.

While there are limits, if you're too quick to jump to this trope's way of thinking then you might be hurting your own ability to feel empathy.

Edit: I think the silent downvotes for empathy or maybe trying to have an interesting discussion says all that needs to be said for this maladjusted misanthropic sub.

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u/BlaxicanXIX 3h ago

It's never unempathetic to hold people accountable for their behavior. Infantilizing a person with trauma by treating them like they have no agency is more harmful to said person in the long term

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u/Few-Improvement-5655 3h ago

Fundamentally mental health issues rob people of their agency. It's not infantilising, it's caring enough about someone to actually help them.

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u/newX7 2h ago

But that's not what they're doing, they're aren't being empathetic by holding people accountable. They are equating everyone's traumas as being the same and then talking down to someone who may or may not have had a significantly more traumatic life.

Also, how is "holding a person accountable" by telling them to get over their trauma helping them in the long term?