Worst examples of writers wanking off a character?
- Thread starter DragonSJG
- Start date
Yeah, that's where I dropped the series too and just checked out Wiki summaries and reviews for Desert God and Pharaoh. I think The Quest is the point in which he hired a ghost writer to churn these novels out.
Dwight Schrute in the later seasons of the US Office really annoys me. He goes from being an insufferable tryhard that actually sucks at most things he tries to do to a super manly man with 10000 hidden skills that can pick up hot girls with ease. They forgot that the joke was that Dwight wishes he was a badass and just actually made him one.
Did he do that to Hal too? In the big fight scene where he dominates the Justice League he does it to Kyle.
Lana Lang in Smallville.
Everyone tripped over themselves whenever she showed up, claiming how great she was (even if this was their first time meeting her, such as Tess Mercer in season 8), despite the fact that she rarely contributed anything other than being kidnapped, and when she wasn't doing that she was getting up to blackmail, theft, attempted murder, faking her own death, and a bunch of shit.
Eventually, the actress decided to leave the show. Immediately the showrunners quit too.
Everyone tripped over themselves whenever she showed up, claiming how great she was (even if this was their first time meeting her, such as Tess Mercer in season 8), despite the fact that she rarely contributed anything other than being kidnapped, and when she wasn't doing that she was getting up to blackmail, theft, attempted murder, faking her own death, and a bunch of shit.
Eventually, the actress decided to leave the show. Immediately the showrunners quit too.
I would like to counter with the people of Skyrim are so stupid. I think almost any outsider could come in and be every groups chosen one given time.
I like his personality but I hate how he's written and treated by the rest of the cast
I refuse to believe anyone liked Ramsay.
Fucking Ramsay could do wrong for the longest in GoT
The Hood was a very good character that Brian K Vaughn created for Marvel, then Brian Michael Bendis decided to shoehorn him into every. single. Avengers story. He also transformed him from a reluctant criminal who couldn't bare to kill people to feeding his enemies to dogs.
Shirou is also a huge Mary Sue that the entire Nasuverse sucks off IMO. The dude constantly does other people's work for them, cooks delicious food that makes people go crazy for him, collects a fucking harem of waifus and when he is literally confronted by the manifestation of his future that tells him that his optimism and naivete are going to get him and others killed in the future he just doubles down and says, "nuh uh, I'm different" and it fucking WORKS!
Nero from the Fate Series, in both Fate/Extella and FGO Nero is wanked to be the best emperor in all of Rome to the point that in the Septem chapter where she is your main companion Spartacus (who literally is against all forms of authority no matter how small or irrational it is) and Boudica (you know the one who was raped and had her daughters slaughtered during Nero reign) are cool with her, in fact literally every single character mentions how special and perfect she is
In Fate/Extella even through the game is billed as having 3 routes with a different heroine Nero is the one who not only has the most loyal followers but also is the focus of the True Ending having a new special form to defeat an alien creature that no one can defeat
Also in my personal opinion doesn't help that her design sucks, is literally a smaller, bustier and less dressed Artoria/Saber
Then, when he's confronted by Gilgamesh, canonically one of the strongest servants in the goddamn universe, he fucking manages to kill him. (Granted this is partly because of Gil's hubris, but still...)
That's not even accounting for Muramasa which is a whole other can of worms to open.
UQ Holder
While Negi from Negima still had a personality, Touta is the typical clueless LN protagonist:
While Negi from Negima still had a personality, Touta is the typical clueless LN protagonist:
Well, I guess it's clear why:What are the worst examples when a writer wanks off a character in order to show how awesome they are but its done in such an obnoxious way that you can't help but roll your eyes at it. For me, It's Bakugo in the upcoming arc of the anime and the JT arc from the manga:
So in this arc, Class1A and 1B are doing training rounds against each other. In Bakugo's round, he beats a recommended student and pretty much manhandles everyone with no one on his team losing and this is all done in 2 chapters while everyone is praising him for doing what others have done from the start.....cooperation. I mean Todoroki, like one of the class's strongest struggled and got knocked out along with Tokoyami in the round before that. It's even more jarring when after that, All Might says Bakugo is a good childhood friend/good friend, despite him doing nothing but bully Midoriya for most of that and having done nothing to show any kind of good friend behavior. Yeah this was pretty bad
He's the cute bully now.
Rean Schwarzer from Trails of Cold Steel
Only one more game with him I have to play... Just one more game...
What? There is another one after CSIV? ;_;
Oh I completely forgot Harley Quinn. The worst DC character ever. She was great for a long time but the writers decided to make her nigh invulnerable, capable of competing with almost every super powered character and she somehow is worthy of being one of the only Suicide Squad members with no abilities and no weapons other than a giant ass mallet she pulls from ass
I will give Kirito credit for one thing, and one thing only: He knew who he liked (Asuna), got into a relationship with her quickly, and has never strayed from that. In a genre where even the good stories are plagued with endless teasing and will-they-or-won't-they, Kirito's sheer efficiency and decisiveness of locking down his desired relationship could almost be called brilliantly subversive (ugh...)
SAO is honestly a very bizarre example of a harem anime where the main character firmly rejects even the slightest possibility of any girl having a shot at "winning". I don't have the slightest idea why the author made such a choice in the first place or what the appeal is in watching harem comedy relationship drama for season after season when it effectively concluded in the first few episodes.
To be fair to the other heroines, at least they actually get to do things with their third of the protagonist and aren't constantly blocked by either plot events taking priority or someone else walking in on them. I think Tamamo has like three or four scenes that imply some serious intimacy going on and Altera has at least one or two, but Nero doesn't have any at all.
lol it was for a few minutes with alongside Deku and doesn't remember anything after beating the big bad, but yeah he got it and instantly acclimated to it. I was fine with it but I had friends who were LIVID
I like MHA but if you forced me to look carefully at the characters, I couldn't tell you why.
Bakugo has already been mentioned (and I'm surprised the defense force isn't out in this thread yet). But I will admit he had a cool moment in the last arc.
I can't see ever being sympathetic to Endeavor no matter how the author tries.
Even Deku has the Naruto syndrome where the outcast who starts off down on his luck just becomes uber powerful and well liked and you're like, how did he get this way? Certainly not just through hard work. But that's the shonen jump standard, also see Asta from Black Clover.
Bakugo has already been mentioned (and I'm surprised the defense force isn't out in this thread yet). But I will admit he had a cool moment in the last arc.
I can't see ever being sympathetic to Endeavor no matter how the author tries.
Even Deku has the Naruto syndrome where the outcast who starts off down on his luck just becomes uber powerful and well liked and you're like, how did he get this way? Certainly not just through hard work. But that's the shonen jump standard, also see Asta from Black Clover.
Zoro motherfucking roronoa
Even when the guy loses he wins
this is allowed tho
Rean Schwarzer from Trails of Cold Steel
Was in the middle of typing up a post on this since I hadn't seen him, but glad to see he got mentioned. He's like 'what if parody of JRPG OP protagonist, only we're totally serious about it.'
By the end of the arc, basically every major female character is in love with him. This ultimately severely hurts the development of a lot of female characters, IMO, because the writers are obsessed with making sure the Best Girls are all available for Rean at any time. This also prevents most of the other major male characters from forming particularly deep relationships with the major female characters; the games generally pair them off with more minor background characters, but it really, really hurts the sense of cohesiveness the games were going for with old Class VII. There's like one exception to this, and I kind of don't want to count it--
Millium is kind of a waifu option in the first game, but long term the story actually pairs her up with Jusis. This is a big deal! but lol nah, because akshually she's going to get killed off and spend most of game IV dead until she's resurrected via mumbo jumbo in the final battle. So the one major female character that gets a non-Rean romance option seems to get it just because she's not going to be around for the final game. Which would kind of be a relief, since she's only actually been alive for a couple years and her body is like parma-locked at 11, but lol the games introduce her younger 'sister', similarly parma-locked to pre-puberty, and Altina is an option.
His personality is also bland as shit, so it's like the game is constantly trying to shove his awesomeness in your face to cover up that they left him as vanilla as possible for maximum identifiable ness. I swear if the Cold Steel anime's game is also another entry in the saga of Rean...
God can basically do no wrong.
Kvothe is so pretentiously jerked so often the dude must have pressure ulcers on his dick. I still can't wait for book 3 though.
Kvothe is so pretentiously jerked so often the dude must have pressure ulcers on his dick. I still can't wait for book 3 though.
I recently started reading this and I thought it was just me heh. I'm about one third into the book and Kvothe is really rubbing me the wrong way. Looks like I'm in for quite the ride then.
To be fair, the Suicide Squad had previously established their propensity for hiring powerless, low-skill psychos into their ranks with Punch and Jewelee, but I agree with your overall sentiment. I actually still like Harley, but watching her go from street-level Gotham baddie into person who can apparantly hang with the Justice League has been tough to swallow.
It seemed like the series was going in the right direction when they had him join the army that commits a bunch of war crimes.
But then it turned out that he actually spent the whole time saving women and children from other soldiers.
Book 2 is on a whole other level compared to Book 1.
This is what pissed me off the most in Cold Steel 4. I hated how almost every female character was written to be waifu fodder for Rean. I refused to spend time with any of the female characters after
the scene with Laura where she randomly kisses him in a cave, even though I didn't romance her at all in the previous games and there were no signs of her having feelings for Rean.
I am the same way. I like Harley and I like what they can do with her as a comedic anti-hero but seeing her fight in wars with just a bat or literally face off against someone who could flick her head off with their pinky is really boring and it shouldn't be. We all know WHY the writers treat her as they do but it's not on the same level of Batman in my opinion.
With Batman we can see him do all of his prep time bullshit and still go home battered, bruised and barely holding onto his psyche.
Glad to see this thread is about the British "Wanking Off" and not the American definition, wasn't sure if I should enter it.
Took me a second to figure out what exactly the OP meant still, as I wasn't sure how to apply the definition of it.
Took me a second to figure out what exactly the OP meant still, as I wasn't sure how to apply the definition of it.
Zoro was always my favorite Strawhat but I feel like he's due for a loss or more well-developed backstory. I'm not fully caught up with the manga yet so maybe that's been happening but as of Act 2 of the current arc, he has the least character development out of every member of the Strawhat crew.Zoro motherfucking roronoa
Even when the guy loses he wins
And that makes me sad.
There is no American definition. "Wanking off" isn't a thing here.
That said, we had a kid from the UK as a classmate using it and we all turned and looked at him funny. He told us it meant exactly what we thought it did. And then he did the hand motion.
...I'm guessing that's it's been recontexualized in slang, this instance as a creator giving one character "way too much love and overexposure".
I guess it's just me. I watched every episode of the anime. Despite the wounds he takes, he's a walking wank of power.
Omi in Xiaolin Showdown. I loved that by the end of the series they kind of kind of take care of that and address it. It is too bad that the sequel series loves him so much that they make a new character that is a carbon character of Omi and then go crazy for him.
Yeah, and batman also at least has one-two punch narrative cop-out of his infinite resources and his years of swiss-army-knife training all over the world. Harley has none of those things in her backstory and yet she's apparently important enough to include amongst the people present when Superman revealed his secret identity...
I don't really see how Tanjiro fits the example. He can't really keep up with any of enemies and barely gets by when he does.
No. Tanjiro can't beat any demon of worth alone the entire run of the manga 🤣
🤣😭. Keep telling ppl stop putting this man in versus match ups. He's one of the weakest Shonen Mc in a battle manga and I love the guy
Here's an unpopular one
A lot of the time Steven Moffat wanked the Doctor in terms of his signifcance to the world.
A lot of the time Steven Moffat wanked the Doctor in terms of his signifcance to the world.
Are there two definitions? Never heard an American version that means anything different than the British one. It is just a matter if you want to take it literally or figuratively.
I've never gotten Bakugo tbh. I find him remarkably uninteresting and any recognition he has doesn't feel earned at all.
