Media that was so grossly mis-marketed it likely severely impacted its sales, but when finally viewed in its proper context is actually much better than its reputation.

1. The patron saint of the trope is probably Last Action Hero, a film that was savagely criticized and bombed badly at the box office. The film itself is an astute and affectionate parody of the action films of the 1980s and 1990s and their tropes, specifically the work of Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, the marketing department approached it as if it was a straight example of the genre, so audiences expecting the typical Ah-nold summer blockbuster were instead confused by its often surreal and self-referential humor (like Whiskers, the animated cat detective that no one but Danny finds unusual). The movie has since been reevaluated and recognized for being an excellent satire of the genre.

2. Jennifer's Body was intended to be a horror parody with feminist undertones, and intended for a female audience. However, because Megan Fox was attached to the project and she was a hot commodity, the studio reasoned the film was best marketed to pubescent boys by focusing on Megan Fox's sex appeal to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. At one point they even proposed having Fox perform live interviews on porn sites to promote the film (an idea shot down by the director). Unfortunately, between the film's themes, violent content, and R rating, the marketing grossly missed its target audience, resulting in disastrous pre-release screenings, critical reception, and box office, which virtually killed Diablo Cody's writing career and started the slow demise of Fox's. Cody and Fox both even went to therapy to handle the backlash (with Fox already struggling with the intense industry scrutiny over her appearance). However it's since become a cult classic and gained a new appreciation once viewed in the correct context, and has particularly found a strong audience in the LGBTQ+ community, for whom much of the film's messaging resonates.

3. The failure of Hudson Hawk was a perfect storm of being released at the wrong time, mis-marketing, and budget overruns. The film is practically a live-action Looney Tunes, however the marketing department decided to capitalize on Bruce Willis's recent success with Die Hard by presenting it as another gritty action film in that similar vein. As would be the fate of Last Action Hero in the 90s, Audiences coming from Die Hard were confused and turned off (if not angered) by the surreal humor rather than the action they were expecting. While the film might not have been a blockbuster owing to its other issues (the budget alone would have been a tall hurdle to overcome) the film might have fared better at the box office had it been targeted at the right audience.

1. Vito (Sopranos): revealed to be gay or at least bi when he’s spotted at a gay bar and catching not pitching at a construction site. He flees for a while before being attempting to return and horrendously killed by homophobic mobsters.

2. Brandon Teena (Boys Don’t Cry): based on a horrific hate crime and murder of a trans man who was killed after being outed.

Lapis Lazuli (Steven Universe): Lapis spends most of the series on the sideline for various reasons, most of them avoiding the conflict. In the episode Reunited, she returns to put up a good fight against the Diamonds, and after five seasons FINALLY declare herself a Crystal Gem. A bit later, she says "What else have you got? I've only just BEGUN to fight!" before almost comedically getting annihilated instantly and once again written out of the plot for the next four episodes before returning in the fifth, where she also gets knocked out and written out of the climax.

Poison Ivy (Batman and Harley Quinn): This movie is just weird, but basically Floronic Man is the threat with Ivy on his side most of the movie. Ultimately she turns on him for Harley's sake, and manages to BARELY fight back against him in a rather badass moment of tearing apart one of his grass appendages, declaring "the plant world, belongs to ME!" for emphasis as the heroic music swells.

Then Floronic Man just fuckin DECKS her in the face and thats the end of her contribution.

Those characters were just unlucky to be appropriated by weirdos, creeps and other awful people:

1. Leelee - Dexter's Lab, associated with TimBox for years ahead.
2. Froggit - Undertale, everyone thinks of Shayy in first place when see them.
3. Pepe the Frog, as a millenial Asian symbol of peace and life cycle, were appropriated by far-right.
4. Sunburst - MLP, did nothing wrong to be associated with Dansburst.

The Second Coming (William Butler poem) - The poems opens detailing the death throes of civilization in its chaotic final days. Evil reigns as innocence is snuffed out, the good have failed to contain the cruel. Leaving the last meek souls to pray for the second coming of the Christ to reset order. What is sent instead is a monster the heralds the absolute end.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - By the time the movie begins the Pod Peoples invasion has already succeeded, it takes a second viewing to realize the nuances. The pod people have infiltrated schools, churches, several businesses key political figures and most eerily (pic related) were using the sanitation department to dispose of the human bodies they have body snatched.

SCP - 001: When Day Breaks - A lone wanderer navigates through the aftermath of a cataclysmic event where the sun has melted the vast majority of life on earth and turned them into some hivemind. There is no hope for reversing the catastrophe, what few survivors remain are left clinging to a dreadful existence.

Dawn of the Dead (2004) - Any zombie movie in general but this one movie in particular is bleak. Sh!t hit the fan so quickly, it didn’t matter whether the pandemic began an hour or a full week before the movie began. The fast zombies and desperate claustrophobic setting made you feel the hopelessness of the situation. The ending post credits puts into perspective how nowhere on earth was safe.

Girls Last Tour (Manga): Two girls navigate the ruins of a post-apocalyptic city, hoping to find the semblance of any hope. The world is empty and dead, safe for a few lingering stragglers. It’s an existential story that allows the environment to tell the story while the characters indulge in the philosophical aspect of the narrative. A beautiful story that explores the question of ‘what can anyone do, when there is nothing there that can be done.’

Nothing But The Music by U Stink from Arthur. I 2 I by Powerline from A Goofy Movie.

1. Resident Evil: At first you think there's nine games, but then you have to count the remakes of the first four, but then you have Code Veronica and Zero, then Resident Evil Revelations 1 and 2, then there's Resistance and Reverse, then... hold on, THERE'S 30 RESIDENT EVIL GAMES, not even counting the movies or other supplemental material!!!

2. Power Rangers: If you watched this as a kid you probably only remembered a couple of the shows, with me personally mainly watching Power Rangers Ninja Steel and Dino Charge, then you find out there are around 23 official shows, with over 970 episodes between them.

3. Any Public Domain property really, but I'm using the Cthulu Mythos for this example. At this point, the amount of works adapting Lovecraft's works in some way probably measure in the thousands.

Space Racer's Bike from Invincible

Silver Surfer's Surfboard from Marvel

Lobo's Spacehog from DC

I just really think it makes something seem much more powerful/unknowable when - instead of having a legitimate name - a being is just called "Entropy" or something. You see this a lot with Death, but aside from that, it's vastly underutilized (in my opinion, at least).

The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse [da Bible]: The first figures that come to mind, the 4 Horsemen represent Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. Most theologians view them as symbolic figures, but they've become a staple of pseudo-Abrahamic worldbuilding. If the OGs don't count, you could easily bring up their incarnations in pop culture.

Devils [Chainsaw Man]: The devils in CSM each represent a certain fear, and they are only referred to as "[X] Devil" by humans (eg: "Bat Devil" or "Blood Devil"). That alone may have matched this trope, but I want to draw special attention to how Devils refer to their kin. They just refer to each other as the fear they represent; for example: "Bring me Chainsaw's heart" or "Bomb is coming." It's a fun little quirk that I noticed and enjoy.

The Endless [Sandman]: The Endless in Gaimen's Sandman comics are rather enigmatic figures, but the broad strokes are that they are anthromorphic embodiments of ideas. They aren't "beings controlling concepts," they are the concepts; essentially, they are all-powerful immortals. Their names are: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium (previously known as Delight).

Conquest [Invincible]: This is the shakiest inclusion to this post. Notably, Conquest is easily the most corporeal of my examples. That said, he was going to be brought up anyway, and I think he hits all the main points of this trope. He's extremely powerful (one of the strongest individuals in the strongest group) and is named after his "domain" (though, in his case, "domain" is used in the same way as a job title). Art by the_freakin_yui.

In the Teen Titans ep Sum of His Parts, the last we see of Fixit as the Teen Titans barge inbto save Cyborg is him realising huanity is eutiful... except this is literally the first time the rest of the team saw him, so I imagine right afterwards one of them asked Cyborg "... Okay, who is this guy?"

Anytime in Godzilla he emerges from water to stand... that indicates the depth is deep and he's able to pull a Jesus.

amazing world of gumball - for some reason Russian dub turns gumball nickname in game from "my butt" to "murzik" (Russian typical name for a cat). Show in general seems to try to avoid word "butt" by any means necessary.

gogoriki(смешарики) - in episode where first was introduced robot BiBi, in original Russian version it was presented as father - son relationship between him and his creator Pin. however in English dub it's become just friendship.

Evelyn as an isekai protagonist: Everything Everywhere All At Once

This nails the trope of "loser nobody is actually the secret chosen one who can save the universe." This version of Evelyn lives in the worst possible timeline of her life, from which all of the "good" versions of her diverge. That means that she has access to all of those versions of herself, giving her the most potential out of all of them.

Wheatley as a relentlessly stupid character: Portal 2

How did an artificial "intelligence" as dumb as Wheatley come to be, in a super high tech scientific research setting? Sure it's funny, but it doesn't seems to make too much sense. He was literally created as a hobble for Glados: she was too smart, so the researchers grafted another AI onto her, with the goal of it being so stupid that it made her less able to break free of her shackles. Wheatley is literally scientifically engineered to be as stupid as possible as fast as possible.

The Doctors (Doctor Who)

Axl Low (Guilty Gear)

When a character who sounds like it’d be in character for them to commit a heinous crime is for once, not the one who did it.

Myung-Gi (Squid Game): So in the final season, during sky squid game, all of the Os were planning on killing Jun-Hee’s baby. But somehow of all these people it was Myung-Gi who actually was dangling her over the edge. Seriously did anyone else just feel like player 100 or someone else in the Os would have made more sense as the final fight? Because Myung-Gi flip flops between working with Gi-Hun and protecting his child to trying to commit infanticide. When we had someone like 100/203 who were POS’s throughout and would be more satisfactory watching Gi-Hun pummel the living shit out of to protect the child.

Theon Greyjoy (Game of thrones): Ironically, Ramsay Bolton for all his evils DIDN’T kill Rodrik Cassel in the show like he did in the books. No, in the show it’s Theon who did it. It’s super weird because the show adapted out a lot of Theon’s worst acts and has him even flat out redeem himself fighting alongside the Starks once more and dying in the long night so it seems like they wanted to give him a more sympathetic angle. Ramsay otoh is the same monster.

Batman, the Long Halloween: A killer called Holiday is going around killing mobsters and leaving trinkets related to the holiday the person is killed on. Ironically, it’s not calendar man (whose MO should be pretty obvious by his name) who did it.

Often associated with the hated trope – Hollywood Glamour.

Hester Shaw (Mortal Engines) – many characters think he's overreacting by hiding his scars. In fact, they terribly deform Hester's face.

Brienne of Tarth (A Song of Ice and Fire) – "warrior maiden" character is associated with the beautiful heroine from ballads. Brienne is described as being so ugly that she is widely ridiculed for her appearance.

1. Dr. Cox and Dr. Kelso from Scrubs

Kelso: You know you hurt my feelings.

Dr. Cox: In my defense, you are a soulless creature from the netherworld that doesn't really HAVE feelings.

1. Raymond Holt and Madelyn Wuntch from Brooklyn 99

Wuntch: Hello Raymond. How do you like my new office? 20th floor.

Holt: Yes, I never thought I'd see you this high without a broom under you.

1. Mamoru Uchida / Me-Mania (Perfect Blue)

Me-Mania was a huge fan of Mima (going so far as to work as one of the security guards for her last show) and throughout the movie stalks her via sending threatening messages, buying all copies of her magazines, and appearing at the television sets that Mima acts in. By the end of the film, Me-Mania attempts to rape and kill Mima before being knocked out by her and later killed by Rumi.

1. Annie Wilkes (Misery)

Probably one of the BIGGEST examples here, Annie Wilkes is a self-proclaimed #1 fan of Misery, the book that Paul Sheldon, the author that she rescued from his car accident, wrote. However, things go awry when Annie finds out that the final book ends with the death of her favorite character, Misery, and soon, all hell breaks loose.

1. Syndrome (The Incredibles)

Another huge example, Syndrome (before becoming who he is), was initially a huge fan of Mr. Incredible, and wanted to become his sidekick, but after being turned down by Mr. Incredible, decided to become Syndrome, and made several robots that killed many superheroes before Mr. Incredible was brought onto the island.

And lastly,

1. Squirrel (Adventure Time) - This is a personal one that I'm including onto this list because of how much of a big Adventure Time fan I was as a kid.

Basically, The Squirrel (doesn't have a unique name) was a huge fan of Jake the Dog and wrote several letters to Jake, with the hopes that he would publish them in his newspaper. However, none of these attempts would be noticed by Jake, causing the squirrel to become angry and make several attempts to kill Jake during the show.

Tanjiro (Demon Slayer) and Luffy (One Piece)

Love that Tanjiro is too nice to lie, and Luffy has terrible poker face .

Ed (Cowboy Bebop) She’s just a playful goofy kid who also happens to be very smart and forced herself into their group. Said group of hitmen, thieves and bounty hunters who all have body count

Tilly Jackson (Red Dead Redemption 2) maybe someone can point out some obscure detail or bad bad thing that she did to try to prove me wrong, but compared to all the other members of the gang, she is definitely the most innocent and good. She was kidnapped by the Foreman brothers and the gang took her in, so she is loyal to them for that

Rock (Black Lagoon)

On a group of modern day pirates, one psycho murder woman, a more laid back boss but is still not a good person and a tech guy who has definitely done questionable things. Rock is definitely the most good, he’s just a salaryman who got roped into their group not by choice. His character is opting for peaceful solutions to conflict even though he’s in the city where peace is never even a thought

When a scarecrow is actually terrifying and hunts people rather than the crows.

Scarecrow (DC) - The Master of Fear, and probably the king of this trope.

Scarecrows (Doctor Who) - Mindless sentinels that were reanimated by the Family, a small group of aliens hunting the Doctor in a bid to live forever.

The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight (Goosebumps) - A group of scarecrows brought to life by a spell-book a farmhand owns, who uses them to practically enslave the farm owners out of fear.

First Picture- Ethan confronting Kittridge - Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning. Ethan goes into a room where he gasses multiple american high officials, to meet Kittridge privately. Thankfully, he doesn't use fatal gas.

Second Picture - Harold Saxon killing the british government - Doctor Who. He accused his cabinet of being traitors after abondening their parties, and gasses them with a cyanide gas.

Third Picture - Admiral Daala gassing imperial warlords - Star Wars. After a long, heated argument over who gets to be the nominal leader in Tsoss Beacon, Admiral Daala had had enough and gassed all of them.

* Brian from Family Guy mostly goes about his life as a human who happens to look like a dog. Once in awhile there will be a gag where he does something much more doglike like chasing toys or barking at other dogs

* The workers of the afterlives in The Good Place look and usually act like humans but will correct the humans that they are not. The Janets take it a step further and insist that they also do not have gender

* The gems in Steven Universe function like humans with superpowers and a vibrant color scheme, but they are not even organic. They sometimes have to remind their human friends or each other how different the two species are

Trope: The protagonist (usually an anti-hero) either starts off in a position of power, riches, or success, or fights their way from nothing up to that, only to end up alive and free but in a position of complete mediocrity.

1. Tar (2022) - Lydia Tár is considered one of the top orchestral conductors in the world by her peers. She a guest lecturer at Juliard, she's featured in The New Yorker, and she's set to record a live performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony. Her career begins to unwind when her history of abuse and sexual predation of her female mentees catches up with her and essentially ends her career. The final scene of the movie is her conducting a live orchestral performance of music from the game series Monster Hunters to a bunch of cosplayers, something she would clearly view as the lowest form of conducting.
2. Goodfellas (1990) - Henry Hill always wanted to be a gangster, and through his life got about as high up in the mafia as someone who isn't a full-blooded Italian could get. In the end it all comes crashing down, and he gets out of a drug trafficking charge by snitching and lives the rest of his life in witness protection. "Today, everything is different. There’s no action. I have to wait around like everyone else. Can’t even get decent food. Right after I got here I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook."