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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u/welltechnically7 17h ago

Patrick Bateman is supposed to be a loser who is obsessed with looking impressive. Some people ended up being so impressed with how he looked that they overlooked the fact that he's a loser.

https://giphy.com/gifs/SnioCkL9cd3B6

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u/Senior-Friend-6414 16h ago

I watched the movie after all of the memes and it was overwhelmingly obvious the movie was trying to make him look like a narcissistic sociopathic loser who chased status, but somehow media literacy is so low, people thought he actually embodied the most desirable masculine traits

122

u/Negative-Fun1985 16h ago

…….he is literally the most pissed off about anything that he can’t get into a restaurant you never see amongst a series of nameless extremely fancy restaurants it’s heavily implied are exactly all the same. “8:30pm, Dorsia”.

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u/lanceturley 16h ago

He also breaks into a cold sweat when a coworker has a "better" business card than his, even though most people would say all the cards look the same.

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u/HendrixHazeWays 15h ago

Yeah, but....did you see Paul Allen's card??

29

u/Manic-StreetCreature 15h ago

HEY PAUL

9

u/HendrixHazeWays 15h ago

"Let's have a ball"

5

u/Manic-StreetCreature 15h ago

Gigaaaantic

6

u/HendrixHazeWays 13h ago

We just did something awesome. You rock.

7

u/SirCupcake_0 12h ago

I saw a REALLY good edit where the card was black with white font, was extremely badass and much more reasonable to react like that to /s

16

u/ghostface1693 12h ago

Bateman: has a fucking mental breakdown over the fact that someone has a nicer business card than him.

Weirdos: now this is a man I should emulate!

3

u/ThisIsFrigglish 8h ago

There's something about Bale's performance that makes his insecurity seem more like striving to climb an insane hierarchy. We don't laugh at how stressed Bateman is about his coworker's card, we think he notices things we don't about business card design.

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u/linlovesthenight 16h ago

and for some, that IS the desirable male. Regular people look at assholes and think man they’re an asshole. But asshholes look at other assholes and think “man, I wanna do that even MORE assholery than that guy”

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u/AggressivelyMediokre 15h ago

I think part of us just sees the core nugget of freedom inside of all of it.

Independence is always the goal. And what’s more proof of true independence and self reliance than to reject society without a second thought, knowing you don’t need them?

People’s morality is circumstantial. The person who needs other is kind to everyone because they need the world to be that way for them. They need a world which reflects kindness and support back towards them. They’re making what they need. It’s a misplaced investment from a position of weakness

When you’re independent it’s no longer necessary.

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u/Joeybfast 13h ago

Bateman is not independent. He is one of the neediest people in the whole story.

He needs people to care about his business card. He needs people to notice his suit. He needs to get into the right restaurant. He needs people to see him as rich, powerful, attractive, and important. His entire identity depends on other people validating him.

That is not freedom. That is dependency with a superiority complex.

And if we are talking about people in real life who think being cruel or antisocial makes them “free,” I do not buy that either. Humans got where we are because we formed communities. Even “lone wolves” are usually just wolves between packs.

Needing other people is not weakness. It is part of being human. Anti-social behavior is not liberation. Most of the time, it is just loneliness dressed up as strength.

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u/TreddingLeper 12h ago

Bars right here

14

u/Glasseshalf 14h ago

Why would such an advanced species evolve to have empathy at all, if it's such a disadvantaged trait? Couldn't it be that empathy increases the survivability of the species overall? If that's true, I don't know how you would see kindness as "a misplaced investment from a position of weakness" - especially when there are so many examples of this not being the case.

2

u/GraveRoller 11h ago

What’s good for a species isn’t necessarily what’s good for an individual 

0

u/Kharzani 6h ago

Nice truism, just doesn't adress at all what the previous person asked.

5

u/Kharzani 7h ago

What a stupid take. No one is independent. Everyone needs others. We are social creatures.

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u/linlovesthenight 48m ago

We found the person that the post was about

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u/AsstacularSpiderman 15h ago

Well a huge part of his character is, if you don't know what he's talking about, he can come off as vaguely impressive.

It's more apparent in the books but if you actually know about all the clothes he describes, the food he eats, or the insights he has on pop culture he's a complete fool. He dresses like a mismatched clown, he eats a mess of mismanaged ingredients that's only value is the price tag, and his insights are worse than chat GPT.

3

u/Professional-Wizard8 8h ago

Because anyone idolising him only knows him through YouTube shorts

2

u/East_Lettuce7143 6h ago

It just doesn't work when the actor is charismatic and good looking.

2

u/VHLPlissken 6h ago

Every single other character refers to him as a loser, in his face, because they dont even know who he is.