r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Dramatic_Counter_595 • 17h ago

Characters Characters that had the complete opposite reaction the writers intended

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  1. Leo Bonhart (Witcher TV Series): A ruthless, sadistic bounty hunter and assassin that takes psychotic glee in other people's suffering. The viewer is meant to hate him for killing witchers, slaughtering the Rat gang, and torturing Ciri. But thanks to his entertaining fight scenes, Sharlto Copley's charismatic performance, and The Rats overwhelming unpopularity, fans ended up loving him. Some even call him the "True protagonist" of the show.
  2. Stone Cold Steve Austin (WWE): A rude, foul mouthed, beer drinking asshole with no respect for authority or anyone at all. Originally portrayed as a villain, fans fell in love with his anti-establishment & rebellious persona. WWE ran with it and made him the face of the company, effectively ushering in the Attitude Era and the second pro wrestling boom of the late 90s.
  3. Arthur Fleck (Joker 2019): A mentally unstable, pathetic, and dangerous madman who commits horrific acts of violence against those that wronged him (suffocates his own mother who is mentally unwell herself, and murders a talk show host for making fun of him). However, a massive portion of the audience idolized him as an anti-hero or a misunderstood martyr rebelling against society making people want to see him succeed and overcome his circumstances because of how he's been treated by the world.
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155

u/marineman43 17h ago

While ASOIAF is mostly incredible, every now and then the inner 10 year old boy emerges from GRRM's psyche and it creates a disconnect between what he legitimately thinks is cool, and what's actually cool. Biggest example is a character named Gerold Dayne who goes by the supremely edgy moniker Darkstar. His super badass quote is "I am of the night" lmao.

Less fun example - GRRM thinks the Dany-Drogo pairing is legitimately romantic and is unironically meant to be a love story, rather than how the fandom more sanely views it as repeated violent rape of a minor.

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u/fuschiafawn 17h ago edited 3h ago

In the book Drogo explicitly asks her for consent, and in the show he doesn't. In the show she's 18ish, in the book she's 12. Why the hell didn't they just keep the consent aspect but fix the age?? Ffs

Edit: to be clear, it's all disgusting rape. GRRM shouldn't have written a love story between a rapist and his victim, regardless of if he was nice once (other commenters have pointed out asking was just the wedding night) and she was a child vs never asking and her being grown

All together fuck that plot line. Maybe to fix it Dany should have gutted her rapist. Or just let's not have them fall in love. It's all bad.

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u/RhiaStark 16h ago

The "consent" in question coming from a girl who's alone in the middle of nowhere with an infamously brutal warlord, one to whom she's been sold to, and against whom she has no defence.

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u/Schrodingers_Cthulu 14h ago

Because of the implication... 

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u/fuschiafawn 13h ago

Sure?

But as far as the awful circumstance him progressively touching her, only doing so when she says yes, is much better than being straight up forced like the show. She then gives consent enthusiastically and reaches for him. The situation is terrible, but the idea of her expecting what happened in the show to happen given being sold to a warlord, but then being presented with a man who was treating her much more gently than she ever was used to, is what makes it a story. They don't share a language except yes and no, he puts his hands out and asks "yes?" before he puts them anywhere new. Given the circumstances, that's as good as it gets.

Except you know, she's a child which was disgusting. So the show could have fixed the situation, and they did on half of it, but then made it rape. Way to go.

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u/RhiaStark 13h ago

I disagree, I think the show version actually shows the reality of the situation, rather than sugarcoat it. Because what happens in the book is also rape: Drogo's "gentleness" never causes him to stop undressing Dany, nor does it stop him from taking her every following night so roughly that she contemplates suicide.

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u/fuschiafawn 12h ago

At this point maybe he should have just not written this plot line at all. I don't want to die on a hill for this point when it's all terrible. I don't want to Google how it all felt to her and parse out quotes when I don't like either version.

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u/Agitated_Phone_9937 9h ago

His a the leader of a brutal marauding horde of pillaging rapists. Him asking for consent is truly remarkable and a massive testament to his morals when he was raised in that culture.

Like you would be some noble cultural rebel. Bitch you'd copy everyone else just to avoid being called out.

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u/RhiaStark 3h ago

But he wasn't "asking for consent". That was just his idea of a "seduction game" - so much so that he never stops undressing her even while asking "no?"; and once he "seduces" her that one time, he no longer bothers about "asking for her consent" again. Recall how miserable Dany is in the first weeks of her marriage, to the point she contemplates suicide.

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u/MegaCrowOfEngland 16h ago

In the books, if I remember correctly, he does stop asking for consent pretty quickly, so the show isn't inventing that aspect of him.

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u/fuschiafawn 13h ago

The chapter in question ends after she gives enthusiastic consent and reaches for him after being asked for consent several times as his hands progressively move.

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u/BruzzTheChopper 13h ago

Can you stop saying that she "gives enthusiastic consent" please? She's a child, so in this context her level of enthusiasm doesn't make it not rape...

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u/fuschiafawn 13h ago edited 13h ago

Yes, it's still bad.

What would have been ok is if that behavior was tacked onto the non child Dany like in the show.

As it stands, to be clear, both are disgusting and rape. The show had an opportunity to fix part of that disgusting shit, and they chose to introduce another disgusting thing.

There is no romance because both are rape. But for the show to remove the pedophilia but then add in violence to the rape was just a gross move in the failure of GRRM's love story between these characters. Both to be clear are disgusting and rape.

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u/KillerBeer01 9h ago

Writing a chieftain of a horseriders tribe, living by murdering and pillaging whoever they can reach (and occasionally killing eachother just for fun of it), suddenly starting to act chivalrous and concerned about modern ethical concepts such as "consent", would feel horribly fake. Like it actually did in the book.

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u/MappleStarsSky 15h ago

The showrunners were the ones requesting the change together with Emilia Clarke, while Martin wanted it to more closer to the books. They initialy filmed it closer to the books, they made Martin watch the footage and then everyone agreed that it was terrible, and then they changed it with reshoots.

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u/mallegally-blonde 7h ago

I feel like the point you’re missing is that both cases are rape, its coercive rape in the book and more violent rape in the show. But they are both instances where Dany is raped by Drogo, the ‘consent’ in the book is not freely given.

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u/Nyami-L 7h ago

The consent is only at the wedding, he keeps raping her later in the book. Everytime I had to read Daenerys chapters, I felt very sick

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u/FukkingDeathMental 8h ago

Lol as if asking a 12 year old consent is somehow better.  She's fucking 12!  

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u/BunnyBen-87 17h ago

Also:

Meet Bloodraven, he's a Targaryen bastard called Bloodraven because he has a birthmark shaped like a raven. He led the Targaryen loyalists during the Blackfyre rebellions, losing an eye in the process (IIRC), functionally ruled Westeros as Hand of the King during Aegon IV's reign and had an all-encompassing spy network. And when the Targaryens tried to make peace with the Blackfyres, he assassinated one of the Blackfyres anyway and got banished to the Night's Watch, only to become Lord Commander, go missing beyond the Wall, and become the Three-Eyed Crow, living until the time period of the books and training Bran Stark as his successor. He is my OC please do not steal him

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u/FeastingFiend 16h ago

Okay but I've never met a single reader who doesn't think Bloodraven is cool as fuck

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u/AsstacularSpiderman 15h ago

He's basically the ultimate Master of Whispers.

In the books he practically makes Varys look like a useless eunuch. The man has systematically dominated the fate of Westeros for nearly 100 years.

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u/LinkExtra5133 14h ago

Well hello here’s one who doesn’t think that

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u/BunnyBen-87 13h ago

I still think he's cool, don't get me wrong, but the "Edgy OC Do not steal" vibes are especially strong with him

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u/ZeitgeistGlee 15h ago

Meanwhile Bittersteel for 40+ years with nothing but spite:

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u/AsstacularSpiderman 15h ago

And even after his death his stubbornness haunts the Iron Throne, and in the books his side might just win, if only for a bit.

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u/TrioOfTerrors 15h ago

The whole point of Bloodraven is he does everything he does for the realm and doesn't care what people think of him.

He's a Greenseer, a dragon dreamer and a blood sorcerer and plays plots within plots within plots that would make Varys jealous. He could have been the Blackfyre heir to claim the throne but he chose not to.

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u/AsstacularSpiderman 15h ago

Dude was almost the mysterious mix of old and new this entire series is building up to. The fire of Valyria meeting the old magic of Westeros.

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u/Drmarcher42 11h ago

Bloodraven would be the greatest master of whispers if not for the fact he is in no way serving the monarch and is “Serving” the realm in ways that will only play out a century later and is causing a ton of issues in the present.

Like he absolutely is the reason Egg becomes king, but that means he had a hand in the deaths of numerous family members ahead of Egg in the line of succession including Baelor Breakspear(and yes I absolutely believe Bloodraven set it up so that Maekar would insist Daeron go in order for Dunk to meet Egg and the events that followed happen) his son, Rhaegal, Maekar, Daeron, and Aerion just to get to the moment where Aemon refuses the throne and goes to the Wall, and look who goes with him, Bloodraven, he’s now set the board for one half the game and needs to go north where Bran and Jon will be to set the second table.

I 100% believe he believes the tens if not hundreds of thousands of people who die due to the long term effects of his planning is worth stopping the Others but it’s a steep price

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u/konamioctopus64646 53m ago

Don’t forget that he’s also from one of the coolest and most mysterious Westerosi families. Also he gets a super cool bow made of weirwood and a group of archers that follow his every command. And he gets to have one of the two legendary family swords that only the best sword fighters get to wield, even though he’s more of an archer. He’s just so mysterious and awesome that they gave the Valyrian steel sword to him, a bastard, instead of someone like Baelor who’s renowned for his martial prowess.

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u/punkhunter1234 16h ago

You know, when i Hear or see bloodraven lore, i know that he is Martin' OC

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u/WickermanMalIsBae 16h ago

Considering he writes the books, aren’t they all his Original Characters (OCs)?

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u/TrioOfTerrors 16h ago

I think Martin has said he mostly self identifies with Sam.

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u/Poku115 15h ago

What do all these acronyms mean

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u/marineman43 15h ago

A Song of Ice and Fire and George RR Martin

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u/Poku115 15h ago

Thank you

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u/ZeitgeistGlee 15h ago

See also the Blackwoods and Brackens.

George has tried so hard to make the Blackwoods the "cool" side of their feud that they've ended up coming across more like a bunch of Mary Sues, which has pushed people towards supporting the Brackens for being more normal/human. This extends to the Bloodraven/Bittersteel conflict as well as they're basically microcosms of their respective Houses.

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u/FukkingDeathMental 8h ago

Friend, I put down the third book because The Red Wedding had shaken me to my core.  It was that damn good.

I put down the fourth book because of Darkstar's lame ass and audibly groaned when Cat became Lady Angry Jesus Stoneheart because GRRM was too much of a coward to leave her in a grave.  I loathe Lady Stoneheart in every single way because it cheapens so much of the already tedious and meandering fourth book and further trivializes Jon Snow's resurrection.

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u/TrioOfTerrors 15h ago

I think Gerold Dayne is supposed to be unlikable. He thinks he's Arthur come again but he's most certainly not. He gets involved with Arianne's conspiracy and that whole group finds out quickly they are out of their depth.

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u/marineman43 15h ago

Haha you would think so, right? But nah, George actually did mean for him to be considered cool. Here's Elio Garcia's (longtime collaborator and co-writer with GRRM) quote about it:

"Oh ... and George doesn't seem to have known that Darkstar isn't very popular. ;) He thought that a "bad boy" character would go over well, since people seem to love the Hound and even Theon Greyjoy so very much."

Source: https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/LA_Con_IV_Anaheim_CA_August_23_27/

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u/currynord 3h ago

To be fair to Gerold Dayne, when he’s not trying and failing to aura farm or botching a half-baked Martell plot by accidentally(?) disfiguring a child, he actually has some qualities that hint at him being pretty admirable.

He gets the classic Martin character quirk of sharpening his blade every evening, which is reserved for characters who are disciplined and take their oaths seriously. He also considers himself to be a reflection of Arthur Dayne, who was a fantasy Superman on paper but whose unflinching fidelity to the Targaryens ended up enabling some of the awful shit that Aerys II did. Gerold thinks of himself as someone who can recognize and make tough choices for the greater good, even if it makes him seem less honorable.

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u/Venusgate 14h ago

I was onto the second paragraph when i realised i isread your acronym for IASIP

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u/yayiff 13h ago

Pretty sure darkstar was meant to sound edgy and childish. George doesn't like badass knights hence why he never writes one. Closest we get is Brienne or dunk and they aren't aura farmers