39,327
edits
Flanderization: Difference between revisions
m
cleanup categories
m (update links) |
m (cleanup categories) |
||
Line 10:
Note that the key to this trope is in how the process is a gradual thing, the character starts relatively normal then gains a few quirks, the quirks become more prominent and then gradually ''become'' the character. If it is simply about how the character is different early on before the writers know what to do with them, that is [[Characterization Marches On]]. Flanderization doesn't have to be a bad thing - sometimes it can be used to expand on a background character's personality when they are brought to the foreground, or make an otherwise bland character stand out more.
When Flanderization occurs as the result of adaptation from one medium to another (manga to anime, for example), it's [[Character Exaggeration]] and frequently a sign of [[Adaptation Decay]]. May sometimes be related to [[Lost in Imitation]].
See also [[Never Live It Down]] for when the character is more associated with some action or event than the character actually changing, and [[Unintentionally Sympathetic]], when realistic quirks are mishandled by the writers.
See also [[Took a Level In Dumbass]], [[Trope Decay]]. Not to be confused with [[Stupid Sexy Flanders]] or the act of changing the setting and characters of a work to be in [[A Worldwide Punomenon|the Flemish part of Belgium]]. [[I Thought It Meant|Also has nothing to do]] with a [[Touhou|certain vampire girl]]. [[Planet of Hats]] can result from applying Flanderization to an entire population. Compare [[Rescued From the Scrappy Heap]] when this is done because the original characterization sucked, and please remember that [[Tropes Are Not Bad|Flanderization is not Character Development You Don't Like.]]
Line 42:
* Happened to [[Peter Sellers]]' Inspector Clouseau in the ''[[Pink Panther]]'' series. His French accent was originally straightforward, though ''A Shot in the Dark'' introduced odd accent-based pronunciation quirks ("beump" for ''bump'', for example). When he revived the character in the mid-1970s, the accent was significantly thicker and the mispronunciations were more frequent ("minkey", "rheum", "leu"), etc. Other ''Shot in the Dark'' elements became [[Running Gag|Running Gags]] too: he donned more bizarre disguises with each film, and Cato's attacks grew increasingly destructive, as did the slapstick in general for the whole run of films. However, this went over like gangbusters with audiences and it didn't violate Clouseau's [[The Fool|basic character]], making it one of the less destructive examples of Flanderization on this list.
* Probably the best-remembered characteristic of Chinese detective [[Charlie Chan]] is his use of [[Ice Cream Koan|pithy "Oriental" aphorisms]] -- a trait which comes directly from the Warner Oland film adaptations, and which were the only aspect of those adaptations that Chan's original author Earl Derr Biggers himself heartily disliked.
* Eddie Wilson in ''[[Eddie and the Cruisers]]'' started out as a serious musician who wouldn't sell out. By the end of the sequel, his only emotional response was to run away from anything that might be critical of his music.
* Agent Tom Manning from the ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]]'' series. In the first film, he's a competent bureaucrat, though a bad field leader; he and Hellboy butt heads but eventually come to respect each other. In the second, he's comically incompetent, and the only way he can keep Hellboy in line is by bribing him with cigars.
* The ''[[Lethal Weapon]]'' series gives us Dr. Stephanie Woods, who, in the first film was a competent psychologist with legitimate concerns about Riggs' stability. By the third film, she was an inept, touchy-feely shrink who served as little more than comic relief.
* Yoda's diction in the original ''[[Star Wars]]'' trilogy for the most part simply [[Strange Syntax Speaker|swapped nouns and verbs in certain situations]] in a manner similar to some Earth languages. This was exaggerated in pop culture leading the writers of the prequels to make up lines such as "[[Narm/Star Wars|Not if anything to say about it, I have!]]".
* [[James Bond]] in the original novels was pretty much a working stiff assassin who had some taste in luxury items (and welcomed the opportunity to treat himself while on missions), and who had a varying amount of knowledge of non-assassin related subjects. The movies definitely played up these aspects from the beginning, presenting him as a [[Cultured Badass]], but as the movies got campier, this was exaggerated to the point that Bond became and over-the-top [[Quintessential British Gentleman]] and basically [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist|knew everything about everything]].
** The series itself became notably Flanderised from about ''[[Goldfinger]]'' onwards. At first the gadgets introduced were those a spy might conceivably carry on his mission and were technologicaly possible for the era. Puns were either occasional comments from Bond to defuse the tension of killing someone ("He got the point") or part of a clever attempt to [[Get Crap Past the Radar]] (Pussy Galore). By ''[[Die Another Day]]'', nearly every other line from every character was a pun or double entendre, we had characters such as an assassin called Mr Kil and gadgets such as an invisible car. Fortunately, ''[[Casino Royale]]'' rescued the franchise.
* In ''[[Freddy vs. Jason]]'', [[Friday the 13th (film)|Jason Voorhees]] is taller, slower and more stupid than ever, possibly in order to more sharply contrast with Freddy.
* In ''[[The Hangover]] Part II'', Alan's [[Adult Child]] traits are driven [[Up to Eleven]].
* In the first ''[[Rush Hour]]'' movie, Chris Tucker's character (whose [[Butt Monkey]] status stems from his [[Cowboy Cop]] tendencies alienating everyone around him) is actually a fairly competent detective, but simply not as combat effective as [[Jackie Chan]]'s character. In the sequels, his character's competence is completely jettisoned, he becomes a classic [[Ted Baxter]], and much [[Uncle Tomfoolery]] ensues.
* John Rambo from the ''[[Ftanchise/Rambo|Rambo]]'' series killed precisely one guy in the first film (it was even unintentionally and by accident). From ''[[Rambo First Blood Part II]]'' onward, Rambo was a [[Badass]] who made lots of bodies out of anyone in his way. Plus, the first film's kill is accidental and arguably [[Karmic Death]] as well, since Galt, the guy who was killed, was going out of his way to antagonize Rambo.
** This becomes even more so when you think that Rambo killed Galt by throwing a rock at a helicopter, making the pilot swerve and so causing Galt to fall out the door. There's no way Rambo could possibly have expected such a thing to happen; it's a pure desperation move on his part. So even the one person he kills is just a dumb accident.
Line 65:
* In the ''[[Star Wars]]'' [[Star Wars Expanded Universe|Extended Universe]], apparently all Corellians find statistical analysis abhorrent, due to the method in which Han Solo told C3PO to shut up in ''The Empire Strikes Back'' ("Never tell me the odds!").
** Nearly everything mentioned in the Star Wars movies as a side-note is turned by the Expanded Universe into the main characteristic of whatever subject. Another example: "You look strong enough to pull the ears off a gundark." The Clone Wars had its gundarks modeled with ridiculously huge ears. The explanation for one of the designers was "We know about the Gundarks that they have huge ears, so they have to be visible".
* A similar, if less deliberate, thing happened in another one of K.A. Applegate's series, ''[[Everworld]]''. In the first book, ''Search for Senna'', the titular character was a quiet, withdrawn, and somewhat [[Cloudcuckoolander|strange]] [[Emotionless Girl]] who had a mostly positive romantic relationship with [[The Hero|David]], and demonstrated genuine concern for others on occasions. As the books went on, her negative traits were repeatedly emphasized and expanded, though this was initially saved from being Flanderization by her character also becoming more complex and interesting. In the last two books, her goal of overthrowing the powers of Everworld and crowning herself took over her characterization, and just about all of her other personality traits were thrown out in favor of it. She became an outright sadist, a tyrannical and megalomaniac [[Evil Overlord]] who no longer cared at all for how much death or pain she caused if it got her greater power.
* Jacob Black from ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]''. Over the course of the saga, his initially fairly healthy and respectful affection towards Bella was [[Flanderization|Flanderized]] into obsession, probably done to sway "Team Jacob" shippers to be more sympathetic to Edward.
* In the [[Star Trek Novel Verse]], some accuse the [[Star Trek: Vulcans Soul]] trilogy of flanderizing the relationship between President Zife and Koll Azernal, with Zife being an ineffective president relying on scheming Azernal to run the government for him. It is certainly more obvious in this trilogy than in [[Star Trek: A Time to...]]. The [[Brains and Brawn]] partnership of Rehaek and Torath from [[Star Trek: Titan]] is arguably flanderized by this trilogy, too.
* In ''[[Warrior Cats]]'', Hollyleaf starts as the [[The Smart Guy|smart one of the group]] who tries to respect the Warrior Code. By the end, she is completely consumed by the Warrior Code, freaking out if someone even mentions breaking it. This culminates with her {{spoiler|finding out her mom severely broke the code and going on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|murderous rampage]].}}
** Far earlier, in the first series, Fireheart's sister Princess is a kittypet who is curious about Clan life but wouldn't want to live that way, and who makes one or two comments on how Fireheart doesn't look like he's getting enough to eat. By the end of that series, she's become a hysterical worrywart terrified of the forest.
* In Neal Shusterman's "[[The Skinjacker Trilogy]]", Shusterman unveils a world between life and death, where your appearance is based entirely on your memory of yourself. This leads to such effects as remembering only the chocolate smudge on your face and turning entirely into chocolate, or remembering your acute sense of smell and gaining nostrils that extend to your feet. The [[Lawful Evil]] villain even encourages this trope as her thousands of followers reenact their "perfect day" every single day (when they're not fighting our protagonist). This example takes the trope in more of a literal sense, as you may have guessed, rather than the degeneration of a character's demeanor.
* All of the Flock from ''[[Maximum Ride]]'' suffer this. In the first book at least they were a bit more realistic and believable. Now however, Nudge has gone from an extremely talkative young girl to a materialistic celebrity-obsessed tween, Angel is a manipulative [[Karma Houdini]], Total is now even more of a cartoonish sidekick figure than he was originally and Iggy seems to be getting dumber and more childish in each book. Where in the first three he was treated by Max and Fang as one of the older kids, now he appears to have a mental age of twelve and spends most of his time with Gazzy, who admittedly has a similar outlook and personality, but is way younger than him. Fang too used to be a bit more of an interesting character (in the first book Nudge worries about whether he'd ever decide to leave the Flock) but now he's lost all the interesting sides to his personality. As for Max, she's recently started to use [[Totally Radical]] slang and seems to be occassionaly chanelling the spirit of Bella Swan, in the author's clumsy attempt to cash in on the teen romance success of late.
* ''[[Don Quixote]]'': In the first part of the novel, Sancho Panza gives a [[Hurricane of Aphorisms]] only ''once''. In the second part, he gives it [[Running Gag|continuously]], and so do [[Lamarck Was Right|his wife and his daughter]].
Line 83:
*** Overlaps a bit with [[Truth in Television]]: when asked what would they do with the money they made in [[A Hard Day's Night]], George simply asked the reporter "What money?".
* [[Elvis Presley]] has been shamelessly flanderized after his death by Elvis impersonators. In his youth Elvis actually was slim with boyish good looks and a pleasant smooth tenor voice with only a little shaking in it. If he was anything like most of his impersonators he would not be nearly as popular as he was in the late 1950s.
* In the 70s 80s and early 90s when the name [[Michael Jackson]] was mentioned people thought of his great voice and wild dancing; and while in the late 80s and early 90s there was some talk about his cosmetic surgery and alleged child molestation those were decidedly not his main defining traits. By the end of the 90s however, his child molestation allegations and plastic surgery problems had become by far his most defining characteristics.
** Has become somewhat averted after his death, when there was a surge of remembrance for his music again, probably in part due to being mere weeks away from starting his big comeback tour, of which footage was used to create a documentary tribute to him. Time will decide which one, if not both, will settle in the forefront of the historical record.
* [[N.W.A.]], on the album ''Straight Outta Compton'', mostly stuck to an aggressive [[Gangsta Rap]] style they called "reality rap", and used quite a few songs to explicitly criticise the conditions and harrassment endured by the black population of [[Los Angeles]]. Then [[Ice Cube]] bailed, and they became ridiculously over-the-top, violence-celebrating [[Horrorcore]] with ''Efil4zaggin''.<ref>Basically, they went from [[Gangsta Rap]] Type 1 to Type 3.</ref>
Line 157:
** And of course there's now the [http://www.herogames.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-22741.html Benevolent Ruler List]
* Germaine from ''[[Neurotically Yours]]'' was a teenage goth chick that, while absolutely loathing people in general, had a good head on her shoulders and had some common sense while just wanting her poetry to get more attention. As the series went on, she slowly slides into a blatant whore with a lot of sexual fetishes that she routinely denied when Foamy called her out on it and it grew to ridiculous levels when she gained a ton of weight to get men to stop treating her like a whore, only to become a bigger whore with the crowd that loved how fat she gotten, along with her butt and breasts, and tried to justify it by saying the money helps pay the rent. The series' creator explains this was Germaine's [[Character Development]] all along and it's starting to show since Germaine had woke up to the truth and started to take control of her life, putting the trope in reverse.
* Jake from College Humor's ''[[Jake and Amir]]'' went from being a regular guy having to deal with Amir's antics to being somewhat of a [[Jerkass]].
* ''[[Tales of MU]]'' does this to gnomes (its version of [[hobbit|hobbits]]) to a certain extent, when comparing the species to the one from Middle-Earth. The latter are respectable to a fault and don't think much of people who travel too much or have adventures - the former literally consider "adventure" a dirty word and take pains to use an [[Unusual Euphemism]].
{{quote|'''Hazel''': What I mean to say is that she’s an... a lady of wandering interests [...] You know, prone to seek out, ah, random encounters.}}
Line 169:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Tropes of Legend]]
[[Category:Character Derailment]]▼
[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]
[[Category:Bad Writing Index]]
Line 176 ⟶ 175:
[[Category:Sturgeon's Tropes]]
[[Category:Esoteric Trope Names]]
▲[[Category:Character Derailment Tropes]]
| |||