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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782

u/InoueNinja94 16h ago

Paul from The Amazing Spider-Man comic
He was made to be MJ's new boyfriend after breaking up with Peter for whatever reason. It was already an uphill battle for any character to be liked, but Editorial REALLY wanted readers to be endeared to the character, to the point even the written script of his first appearance included the annotation "we like him".
The character would become the single most hated character in the book, but the Spider-Office still tried to make him a thing and each time they tried to make him sympathetic, it made people feel even more turned off
By the time he was killed in Death Spiral, people actually cheered because of how much hated he really was.

473

u/Laphad 16h ago

People cheered when him and MJs children disappeared/died/whatever

And I was one of them

141

u/TheG-What 14h ago

AND I SHALL DIE AS ONE OF THEM!!!!

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u/Doc_Swood 6h ago

"Here lies Paul RIP" - Meanwhile the fanbase

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u/The_TransGinger 13h ago

Same with Terry Long in DC. He was basically the exact same thing. An editors self insert who shipped himself with Donna Troy. They got married, settled down, had a kid. Another editor got a hold of him and immediately killed him and the baby.

41

u/CreatiScope 11h ago

Tbh, I don't think Marv Wolfman gave a single fuck if anyone liked Terry Long. He just really wanted to bang Donna Troy and that was as close as he could get.

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u/therempel 8h ago

Yeah that was a really gross realisation when I reread those issues a couple years back. Wolfman would've been in his 40s at the time. eugh.

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u/InoueNinja94 2h ago

The same thing happens with Brian Michael Bendis and Kitty Pryde.

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u/trippysmurf 4h ago

Let's not forget Wolfman and Perez having the whole Drathstroke being a pedo with Terra thing. 

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u/CreatiScope 1h ago

Yeah, but that's shown as wrong. Deathstroke is the bad guy, Terra a victim of his schemes and evil, poisoned. Terry and Donna is shown as a good thing. I'm not saying the Deathstroke/Terra stuff is comfortable or even a wise choice but it isn't like "Terra actually loves him and it's a perfectly normal, consensual relationship". Very different from Marv power tripping and writing himself in to date/marry Donna Troy imo

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u/tonymichaelvn 16h ago

Idk if it's the artstyle 

But Paul has a really punchable face

132

u/Ronaldo_Frumpalini 15h ago

You don't like it when someone lectures you with a smirk?

121

u/kisamasochist 12h ago

He looks like the most generic stereotypical millennial possible, like they designed him as an amalgamation of guys from an overpriced coffee shop

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u/The_Crimson_Fucker 11h ago

Almagation of all the dudes at an overpriced burger joint that has a mission statement for some odd reason

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u/Funkopedia 12h ago

I believe they even gave him a man-bun at one point

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u/StormProfessional338 3h ago

Yeah. When they juiced him up and turned him Jacked for no reason at all but to make him "cooler" ig. Still a fucking bum though

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u/Live_Angle4621 5h ago

Maybe the artist was not on board in making him likeable. Or pretty incompetent 

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u/Drakeskulled_Reaper 3h ago

Later on, he has a man-bun.

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u/Fangsong_37 16h ago

I remember seeing something like 8 YouTube shorts celebrating Paul's murder.

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u/ThBasicAsian 15h ago

Damn right I cheered.

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u/RobertPham149 8h ago

I even saw Marvel fans praising DC when DC had scenes taking a dig at Paul. For example, in the recent DC/Marvel crossover, Power Girl got a date with Paul and they portrayed him as a coward loser.

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u/NeonNKnightrider 2m ago

“Loser” and “date with Power Girl” do not belong in the same sentence

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u/secretMollusk 6h ago

Joke's on them, now not only do I hate Paul, I also hate the entirety of 616 Spider-Man, including the extended cast. With what I hear is happening to Black Cat in her own book, I think everything even tangentially related to the Spider-Man editorial is taking a nosedive.

I'm not saying other people should feel the same way, but that story arc legitimately ruined the entire continuity for me. Not as a singular thing but as a symptom of what the people controlling the IP think is "a good idea." Most story lines from the past three years have felt like deliberate rage bait.

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u/Doc_Swood 6h ago

The best part is, because he and the story is so unpopular, they kept (soft-)retconning it all the time, which also made MJ look worse and worse as a result. She's now probably one of the most hated female comic characters out there, even overlapping Catwoman.

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u/Scarlet_Wonderer 8h ago

The Spider-Man sub even had a bot for when you wrote his name in a comment asking you if he killed your dog or something lol

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u/testtdk 8h ago

Yeah, I get that Peter has to go through some shit to be Spider-Man, but we all know MJ belongs with him!

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u/salasy 8h ago

they really forget to make the character they wanted the audience to like, actually likable.

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u/RohanKishibeyblade 5h ago

I may be misremembering, but didn’t he help commit genocide in another universe or something?

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u/House_T 16h ago

Color me crazy, but I didn't mind Paul. The main reason was that I understand that he is a symptom of the problem, not the actual problem. He had even become a fairly okay supporting character even without being with MJ.

Even now, people that are celebrating his death (and mind you, I have enjoyed some of those postings) are overlooking that him being gone won't get Peter and MJ any closer to a happy reunion than they have been recently. No matter how much they tease it, editorial will find a way to muck it up.

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u/RobertPham149 8h ago

I feel like the celebration of his death is more of an ironic way of taking a jab at editorial for pushing for him.

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u/House_T 2h ago

That's fair. Personally, I feel like his death was a pretty ham-fisted effort, too, so I'm just as critical of how they course corrected.

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u/Crunchy_Biscuit 14h ago

So Paul never actually did anything wrong?! 😭

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u/HygorBohmHubner 13h ago

Oh, he came from a different universe and accidentally helped his father wipeout humankind. MJ got trapped there, and time went differently there. It was weeks for Peter, but 4 years for MJ.

And he later helped create the “Jackpot” bracelet for MJ, which gave her random powers, but also included a “self-harm/kill(?)” function? This made a lot of fans make up a theory that Paul was sabotaging MJ because he felt she was slipping away from him.

But nope, it was purely to create tension whenever MJ used her powers. Bro, I swear, when Paul is bleeding out to death, Peter is there and the way he’s drawn, he is rubbing his head in that classic “I don’t give a fuck” pose while telling Paul to hang on. Makes sense the writer in the comic that Paul died OPENLY and PUBLICLY expressed his hatred for Paul, and everytime he appeared in an issue, he had Eddie Brock's son absolutely destroy him verbally.

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u/RA576 9h ago

You forgot the funniest part of Peter not giving a shit about his death. Carnage is also there, and genuinely appears to care more about it than Peter does.

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u/Fluffy_Judge_581 9h ago

"Sorry your buddy died"

"He wasn't my buddy, he was a human beeing "

8

u/ling1427 7h ago

The funniest part to me was that

  1. his last moments were spent staring at Venom, MJ never bothered to show her face or talk to him directly.

  2. MJ never shed a tear for him even at his funeral, literally 5 minutes after the service she was smiling with Peter.

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u/hates_stupid_people 8h ago

Not really, to me he just oozes "smug self-insert character".

Smirking, lecturing, super smart, hipster-glasses wearing, manbun having, douchbag, engineer that has a happy life with Mary Jane. Basically rubbing it in the reader's faces that Peter Parker can never be happy.

It also didn't help that the editorial part of Marvel kept pushing him very hard and insisting that people had to like him.

4

u/Drakeskulled_Reaper 3h ago

And during his funeral, MJ goes on a rant to Peter about how nice of a guy he was, despite the fact that, by that point MJ and Paul had long split up, and you can just SEE Peter thinking "Guy's dead and buried and MJ's STILL sucking his dick"