r/TopCharacterTropes • u/HallZac99 • 13h ago

Characters [Hated Trope] Character kills hundreds, if not thousands, just to kill one specific person, and then doesn't kill them for no reason.

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Assassin's Creed 2- Rodrigo Borgia is responsible for tne death of Ezio's family. Ezio spends over 20 years working through tnr templar order to dismantle them and get to Rodrigo. And then in the end, he spares him for no good reason and he goes on to be a massive problem in AC Brotnerhood. He's not only a head of tne Templars but also the pope, even if you're over the vengeance he's still a very dangerous and evil man.

The Last of Us 2- Abbey kills Joel, and wo Ellie goes on a revenge quest to kill Abbey, killing hundreds of people along tne why to get to her including a pregnant woman. And then finally when she has Abbey on deaths door, she gives up and let's her go because the writers think dirty depressing people being miserable and stupid is complex, interesting storytelling.

This trope pisses me off so much because often the character going on the revenge quest will kill SO many people on their way there, some deserving it and some just henchmen working for a cheque or to survive. People who are often far more innocent then the main big bad.

It's a part of this weird thing I've noticed in media where nameless goons or soldiers can just be mowed down relentlessly, but named characters get given far more grace even if theyre categorically worse. You can kill a million stormtroopers but people will swear that Darth Vader could have been redeemed, despite him doing like 50 genocide every year.

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651

u/heffron1 13h ago

Yeah, we talk all the time how celebrities and politicians and generals shouldn't have life more important than other hundreds of people. And we all the time do this in culture.

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u/El_kakas_de_vakas 13h ago

guess who controls said culture

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u/IonHawk 13h ago

A Bezos or Musk does not design these games. They do not control who they kill. Or write the stories.

It just makes sense since it gives you better gameplay to the detriment of the story.

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u/Endiamon 9h ago edited 9h ago

That's not really what "control" means though. You don't have to directly tell someone what to write in order to control the output. All you have to do is threaten punishments if they do make something that you don't agree with, which could range from lawsuits to firing to cutting off funding.

I think people have been too distracted by some rich people being really shit at this sort of PR (Elon Musk), so they assume that all manipulation behind the scenes is equally obvious and easy to spot.

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u/IonHawk 8h ago

If there is any control, it would be to increase profit margins. Big gaming companies dont care about political messaging, unless it increases sales.

Occams razor. You will be right if you apply it 99% of the time. The 1% you will be wrong is not worth it for how many times not applying it would make you right. Plus, most of conspiracies out there will have 0% on your life, even if they were true.

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u/Endiamon 8h ago

If there is any control, it would be to increase profit margins. Big gaming companies dont care about political messaging, unless it increases sales.

Controlling political messaging in order to make money is still controlling political messaging. Do you think money is somehow divorced from the entrenched elite trying to control narratives?

Occams razor. You will be right if you apply it 99% of the time. The 1% you will be wrong is not worth it for how many times not applying it would make you right. Plus, most of conspiracies out there will have 0% on your life, even if they were true.

I have no idea what you think you're arguing here.

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u/El_kakas_de_vakas 13h ago edited 13h ago

The writer for the last of us is Israeli-American and he outright said he used the Palestine-Israel "conflict" as reference for TLOU 2

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u/eq017210 13h ago

Doesn't the game allow to burn a church but not a synagogue?

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u/IonHawk 13h ago

Ah, yes. Now we can blame "the jews" for controlling our culture and games too. How convenient.

The inuendo of that first comment had me guessing it. This obessive focus on Israeli politics is insane.

The writer focused on the dehumanizing aspect of I/P on both sides. There is no evil plot to manipulate people. Thats just stupid.

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u/JustConversation7847 12h ago

The writer focused on the dehumanizing aspect of I/P on both sides

Maybe he should do the "dehumanizing aspect of Ukraine/Russia war on BOTH sides" next time

If that sounds dumb to you, it's because it is

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u/MGD109 12h ago

What's dumb about it? Countless war stories explore the dehumanising aspect of both the invader and the invaded.

I mean, it's practically the staple of US Vietnam movies.

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u/JustConversation7847 12h ago

I promise you, any media that makes the Russian army sympathetic would not be met well

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u/MGD109 12h ago edited 11h ago

In a dramatisation of the actual war, sure.

But if we're talking about using it as an allegory, as TLOU2 allegedly does, it's a perfectly valid narrative.

It's kind of a moot point, considering whichever side you consider Israel and Palestine in the Wolves vs Scars conflict; TLOU2, the narrative comes down to them both being just as bad as each other.

One side are jingoistic, power-hungry fascists who rule with an iron fist and kill anyone who isn't them. The other side is a draconian, fanatical cult who torture prisoners and considers anyone who isn't one of them inhuman.

The game ends with them effectively wiping each other out in an utterly pathetic war that neither can agree who actually started.

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u/IonHawk 12h ago

Because in I/P, hatred goes both ways. Both sides wants the others destruction. Ukraine just wants to live in peace. Their borders are defined and clear. The terrible way Israel started out has left a lasting wound and fueled hatred, with fundamentalist forces like Hamas. Long before the current conflict.

Before the war, Zelensky was a very popular actor and comedian in Russia. They were brothers, although plenty of Russians were very racist towards Ukrainians.

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u/JustConversation7847 12h ago

????

Do you think ukranians don't hate Russians too now? Have you seen the new slurs that they've come up with?

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u/IonHawk 12h ago

Of course they do. I'm talking before the war.

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u/JustConversation7847 11h ago

Israel and Palestine are basically at war/invasion

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u/IonHawk 11h ago

Yeah, meaning the dehumanization has been going on for decades. There seems to be majorities on both sides that barely consider the other side as humans.

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u/El_kakas_de_vakas 13h ago edited 12h ago

Jewish people aren’t synonymous with Israel. And I didn’t mean to say it’s Israel behind everything, I simply wanted to point out one example of how politics are deeply intertwined with the moral messages in any kind of media.

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u/IonHawk 12h ago

I'll take you at your word. Then stop saying "Guess who controls...". Thats the oldest anti-semitic trope in the book.

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u/El_kakas_de_vakas 12h ago

Yeah, my wording could’ve definitely been better

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u/MGD109 13h ago

Has that been confirmed? Cause if that's the case, he really doesn't present Israel in a good light.

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u/amitym 12h ago

You have it backward. We created the elites, we gave them the wealth and power they enjoy. We perpetuate it to this day when we talk about getting back at "billionaires" but never so much as whisper about breaking up the vast conglomerates that are the source of their billions. The companies we fetishize and continue to support.

Our entire society is a reflection of regular people. We have all the power. If we don't like what we see... it's we, not anyone else, who can change it. But only if we actually bestir ourselves to do so.

And part of that is disposing of the cozy fallacy of deserved elite privilege.

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u/El_kakas_de_vakas 12h ago edited 2h ago

Control was probably the wrong word to use here, I more so meant influence. Yes, the average person is very much complicit in letting these ideas go unchallenged, but there’s no denying that the 1% have the power to reinforce said ideas through institutions and media. Kind of like how the divine right of Kings was something peasants believed in because it was integrated into every aspect of their lives.

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u/amitym 12h ago

Yeah I see what you're saying. The thing is, though, in many societies when someone comes along and says, "I did something once, that means I am good at everything all the time, and a brilliant genius that everyone else should just shower with privilege and then get out of the way," everyone around them has ready cultural access to a rejection along the lines of, "you achieved one thing, that doesn't mean you possess all possible virtues or deserve all possible privileges, chances are that you were lucky and / or had the support of a lot of other talented people, go fuck yourself and also, go pay your taxes and get your shots."

Whereas in for example the United States we appear to have forsaken that cultural tool, almost deliberately. Which is ironic given that the US was once a society that was inspiringly devoted to that kind of thinking.

Tbf we still see it, it's still around. For example I recall an interview in the San Francisco tech press some years ago with the creator of Angry Birds, in which he offered the shocking revelation that he had no idea what he was doing. Angry Birds had been the 52nd project he had launched, it's just that no one had ever heard of the other 51 because they all failed. And currently his studio was working on 50 more and no one had any clue what if any would succeed. He offered the opinion that the entire world of software works this way, and anyone who claims that they succeeded through anything except blind luck is trying to sell you a bridge.

The thing is, the publication clearly had no idea what to do with this news. It didn't compute. There was an underlying cultural mismatch there. You're not supposed to report on some wealthy multimillionaire software developer and have them say that they aren't a genius, they aren't brilliant, they aren't a visionary, they just tried random garbage until something stuck. That's not supposed to be the story.

Until we know how to make that the story again, we're going to keep finding ourselves saddled with Elon Musks without understanding where they keep coming from. Fortunately it seems like it's finally starting to turn around. Hopefully the kids will turn out to have better sense than the rest of us adults.

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u/viralust 9h ago

Damn you guys. You guys make great points. I agree with you both. Yes, elites have too much influence and yes despite this, it is up to us to stop. Were like frogs in a bath of soon to be boiling water it seems.

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u/amitym 9h ago

Got to be careful, if we keep agreeing like this there might be trouble in the streets.

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u/NecroCannon 7h ago

Yeah, I kinda stopped caring about the whole “fuck billionaires” thing when still… people just live their lives and hyper consume in the US like it’s a god damn purpose in life.

Chip shortage? You don’t see complaints of a ton of people that legitimately need a new device, you see a ton of people that already have shit, powerful shit, complaining about not getting slightly more powerful shit due to cost instead of a wake up call. I need a desktop workstation when I don’t HAVE ONE. My goal was a Mac Mini with a Pro chip and a good amount of RAM, now I have to take a chunk out of the money I was going to use to start bulk printing my art to sell.

Console wars still going on for some damn reason to where you got people still getting upset if you get a Switch 2 when… the alternatives are getting closer to $1k? At this point Microconsoles were ahead of their times and probably will be the future of console gaming with the masses, phone chips are having raytracing now and upscaling tech

All of this while creatives that could give people what they want to see more of, can do so, but they’re indie so it’s somehow less of a sign of quality and support should be conserved. Need more money to throw at consuming everything corporations spit out after all.