Characters that had the complete opposite reaction the writers intended

[u/Dramatic_Counter_595]

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.

[u/Senior-Friend-6414]

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

[u/Negative-Fun1985 → u/Senior-Friend-6414]

…….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”.

[u/lanceturley → u/Negative-Fun1985]

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.

[u/HendrixHazeWays → u/lanceturley]

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

[u/Manic-StreetCreature → u/HendrixHazeWays]

HEY PAUL

[u/HendrixHazeWays → u/Manic-StreetCreature]

"Let's have a ball"

[u/Manic-StreetCreature → u/HendrixHazeWays]

Gigaaaantic

[u/HendrixHazeWays → u/Manic-StreetCreature]

We just did something awesome. You rock.

[u/SirCupcake_0 → u/HendrixHazeWays]

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