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Scapegoat Creator: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|"In a ''good'' story, we're angry at the villain. In a ''bad'' story, ''we're angry at the creators!''"|[[Atop the Fourth Wall
In TV shows or other works produced by a team of people, or where a [[Long Runner]] has a long succession of different creators, the fandom or part of it sometimes decides to hate one individual creator to an unhinged degree and blame him or her for everything that ever went wrong with the work. Often, the alleged flaws in the person's run/episodes are more generally present in the work as a whole, or habitual to the genre. Still, it is easier to focus the rage upon a single entity, than to admit to that.
Often the result of actual or perceived [[Pandering to
Of course, if you set yourself up as the public face concerning a work, franchise or even a particular decision, you have to expect this to come with the territory. And if you've made a habit of deliberately needling fans in other areas, it is not wise to expect much charity from them.
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== Anime ==
* An odd example is ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam
* Much like the Fukuda/Morisawa case above, Chiaki Kon is to blame for most of the problems that plagued the anime adaptions of ''[[Higurashi]]'' and ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro
* Many ''[[Bleach]]'' fans hold Kubo Tite responsible for the anime fillers (and for the anime in general, including openings/endings), despite the fact that he has nothing to do with the anime aside of sometimes designing characters for fillers. Probably because he's said he's "more involved" with the anime than normal mangakas. But that doesn't mean he has to be much more involved.
* For that matter, similar to the ''[[Bleach]]'' example, manga authors are often credited with/blamed for anything that happens to the animated version of their work. Yes, some like Kubo Tite actually ''do'' have involvement with the anime, but sometimes, they're often blamed for parts of the anime that they don't have any control over, ''especially'' fillers and pacing.
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== Card Games ==
* While Richard Garfield is largely exempt (he even had a card made of him with the art portraying him as Jesus) from the RAGE of the [[Unpleasable Fanbase]], the current head designer of [[Magic:
** This is especially funny because he's only the lead designer, not the lead of all of R. And while design tries to get in the general area, it's really development's job to hone the balance to just right.
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== Film ==
* [[Steve Kloves]], the screenwriter of all the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' [[Harry Potter (
* Despite the many, ''many'' times that he's apologized and felt shame for what he did, [[Joel Schumacher]]'s name is synonymous to Satan in the ears of many [[Batman]] fans. Most of the blame can be given to the [[Executive Meddling|executives]] for trying to shove [[Merchandise-Driven|product placement]] into the movie, and Akiva Goldsman for creating the blizzard of puns that Mr. Freeze spouted.
** [[Joel Schumacher]] has also stated that the Batman films were so heavily storyboarded before hand that his creativity as a director was limited.
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** Although given how many directors have promoted the 'auteur theory' (in basic terms, the idea that the director is the primary or even sole guiding force for the movie's creative vision, regardless of how many people may have been involved in it's production), this could be considered a case of bringing it on themselves. You can see why this theory is promoted, as it's very flattering to a director's ego; they get to be considered the revolutionary genius with a unique creative vision, regardless of how many people may have contributed to either and may be getting stiffed on the credit in the process. But that's only if the movie ''works'', however; if it bombs then according to this same theory it logically stands to reason that the creative failure of the movie ''was'' the director's fault, and thanks to this theory there's no one else they can hide behind; they're the sole creative guiding force, after all.
* Then, of course, there's [[George Lucas]], who has ''[[Ruined FOREVER|ruined]]'' [[Star Wars]] ''[[Ruined FOREVER|FOREVER]]'' every day since the 1990s and twice on Sundays. Undoubtedly, this is due to his taking the stance that any unpopular changes to the trilogy are specifically consistent with his original vision, leading many to assume he has a hand in unpopular spin-offs he had nothing to do with, besides cashing the checks.
** In any film where he and [[Steven Spielberg]] collaborate, he takes blame for whatever people didn't like about it far more than Spielberg does. In the DVD extras on ''[[Indiana Jones and
** And just to add to the pile, Lucas generally gets the blame for ending the "New Hollywood" of daring, auteur driven films with his crappy little sci-fi megahit among film snobs. Somehow those arguments tend not to bring up Spielberg, who pioneered the summer blockbuster, or right around when Star Wars came out, the directors that defined the '70s weren't exactly hitting critical home runs.
* Tim Burton received flak from ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' fans over [[Alice in Wonderland (
* Brett Ratner picks up a ''lot'' of hate from fans of the X-Men for his role in directing ''[[X-Men (
* Catherine Hardwicke got this on the first ''Twilight'' film, though most of the film's problems were beyond her control (such as the writing and the lack of a budget to work with). She was later fired by the studio after signing on for the sequel because she asked for a higher budget.
* Pretty much anyone (not just the [[Fan Dumb]]) who didn't like the [[Transformers Film Series|live action Transformers]] films will heap most if not all of the blame on director [[Michael Bay]], to the extent that the series was nicknamed "Bayformers" by its detractors. This is particularly unjustified in the case of ROTF, where a lot of issues completely beyond Bay's control (such as a writer's strike) played a significant role in the end result.
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* A large portion of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' fandom, long after the series' conclusion in 2003, can still be guaranteed to meltdown at the name of Marti Noxon, whom they believe personally ensured that Season Six sucked. David Fury and Steven DeKnight sometimes also get this, although in their cases it's more down to off-screen interactions with fans that went bad.
** And some fans squarely place the blame on [[Joss Whedon]] for dissatisfaction with the UPN years. Or [[Broken Base|anything else]].
* ''[[
* For different factions of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' fans, either John Nathan-Turner, Eric Saward, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy or Bonnie Langford are personally responsible for everything that went wrong with the show in the later 1980s, up to and including the cancellation in 1989. In the new series, certain old school fans believe that [[Russell T. Davies]] personally planned his every sentence to defecate on their cornflakes (despite the fact there wouldn't ''be'' a new series without him).
** The John Nathan-Turner example is particularly odd, as he was producer for a whole decade and there are nearly no fans who hate every single episode of that time. Amazingly, though, they find weird ways to argue JNT only had significant influence ''on the episodes they didn't like''. Stuff like "Oh, for the first couple of years he was finding his feet and had a lot of help. For the last couple of years he'd given up and Andrew Cartmel did all the work." It's all a little far-fetched.
** Some of the 'blame JN-T / Colin Baker for everything' stems from an interview Eric Saward gave to a fanzine in 1986, in which among other comments he basically called Nathan-Turner a complete incompetent and outright said that he thought Colin Baker was terrible in the role of the Doctor and should never have been cast. Fans were quick to use this as evidence that Nathan-Turner and Baker were complete incompetents who were deliberately ruining the show, apparently not stopping to consider that not only were Saward's actions incredibly unprofessional but that, as script editor, he had his own axes to grind and responsibilities for what was going on behind the scenes, both of which were curiously downplayed.
** Naturally, now that Steven Moffat has taken over, the official role of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' Chief Scapegoat has passed to him. As well as the old-school types who blamed Russell T. Davies for absolutely everything bad ever, they're now joined by a certain subset of hardcore RTD fans who seem to feel that he's destroying everything that RTD worked for and planning every single change he makes to what went before to destroy the show and spite them personally.
* A sizable proportion of ''[[Star Trek]]'' fandom hates and despises Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. They are referred to jointly as "Bermaga", and if it weren't for the [[Fan Dumb]] throwing a hissy fit over the [[Star Trek (
** Oddly enough, the Berman-hating fandom didn't say a ''thing'' when Berman quit as head of Star Trek, about a year after ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'' was cancelled. You'd think there'd have been jubilation and dancing in the streets, such was the strength of the Berman-hate, but in fact almost nobody even ''noticed'' that he'd gone. As late as eighteen months later, elements of the [[Fan Dumb]] could ''still'' be found here and there on the internet complaining about how Rick Berman was in the process of killing Star Trek.
** And now JJ Abrams is getting the [[Ruined FOREVER|same kind of crap]] from the [[Fan Dumb]] over the new movie
** You forgot Ronald Moore. The guy's done ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' and ''[[The Dead Zone]]'' and still gets called a hack.
** Some people hate Ira Steven Behr for taking a franchise about exploration and science fiction and turning it into a [[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|space soap opera]].
** Fred Freiberger inherited ''[[Star Trek]]'' from [[Gene Roddenberry]] for its 1968-1969 season. Yes, season three, which OPENED with "[[Star Trek
** Gene Roddenberry has been spared this, though his passing may have something to do with that. The two areas he had the most control of post-TOS were the first movie and the first season of Next Generation, and they are reviled by most fans. Yet most Trek fans seem to mostly forgive him for these (at least compared to what many Star Wars fans think of George Lucas).
* Of both ''[[Stargate SG
* Jim Mallon came in for a lot of this during ''[[
** Mallon earned a [[Hatedom]] to the point where, when ''[[
** And Mallon has recently gotten heat for starting an [[
* Doug Naylor gets bashed to no end for series VII and VIII of ''[[
** A rather more charitable -- if still probably somewhat simplistic -- interpretation is that Grant was responsible for more of the 'comedy' aspect of the series whereas Naylor focussed more on the 'science fiction'. It's notable that these seasons (and season seven especially) tend to focus more on the science fiction concepts than the humour.
** Alternatively, it could just be that they work better as a team than apart; it's worth noting that Grant's post-''[[
* Ryan Murphy, one of the three creators/writers for ''[[Glee]]''. To be fair, he arguably screws up the worst and he's appears to play [[Lying Creator]] the most.
** Not helping is the fact that if an artist turns down having a song on "Glee" for whatever reason, Murphy tends to...[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/26/glee-creator-ryan-murphy-talks-masturbation-says-f-you-kings-of-leon_n_814114.html overreact somewhat].
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== Video Games ==
* Any poorly received game that is released on any console or format is automatically blamed on Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft, regardless of whether or not they had any say in the actual creation of the game beyond funding and maybe localizing it. Likewise, any game that they publish is considered their responsibility. This also happens with other companies that have been known to work with indie or second-party game developers like Square-Enix. To further confound the cycle of hatred and blame, Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft often get blamed for [[No Export for You|games that don't get released elsewhere in the world]] when it's not ''their'' doing. (However, [[Your Mileage May Vary|they aren't entirely blameless in at least THAT regard]])
* Surprisingly [[Inverted Trope|inverted]] with ''[[Metroid: Other M]]''. Some uninformed reviewers blamed [[Team Ninja]] for most of the game's controversial bits, when in reality, it was Yoshio Sakamoto, the series co-creator, who was responsible.
** Also played straight with the same franchise and the same guy: because of the [[Broken Base]] that developed around ''Other M'', people are now trying to retroactively label whatever troubles or continuity errors the ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' subseries experienced as Sakamoto attempting to "sabotage" the games for not fitting with his "vision". Sakamoto wasn't even involved with the ''Prime'' games ([[Retro Studios]] contacted him once in a while, and that's it). Further more, they have even tried to retroactively suggest that he has been killing the series as early as ''[[Super Metroid]]'', widely considered the crown jewel of the franchise, as well try to deemphasize his actual involvement in any other Metroid game for fear that it might paint his career and abilities in a better light than they're willing to admit.
** As of 2011, Team Ninja was really let off the hook by the fanbase after the head of Team Ninja (Yosuke Hayashi) said his hands were tied by Sakamoto's control of the project and that he, himself, was a life long Metroid fan. Then when the 25th anniversary came and neither Nintendo or Sakamoto did anything about it, Hayashi and Jessica Martin (Samus's VA) both recorded personal messages of congratulations for the series. In addition, Martin, who's acting was controversial at the time, became an active member of the fandom, even recording a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|Happy New Years message for the 10/11 New Years to the fandom]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|at the height of the backlash to her acting]], really led to fans warming up to her. Those two things combined really forced the inversion of this trope on it's head and got it all redirected back towards Sakamoto, creating the [[Broken Base]] as seen above.
* An arrant case is the hatred towards Square-Enix over the ''[[Lufia]]'' remake. The fact that Neverland is ''developing'' the game seems to go unheard of to must fans, who somehow believe the same team that's working on ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' or ''[[
* The [[Hate Dumb]] of ''[[Pokémon]]'' would have you believe that [[Shigeru Miyamoto]] personally designs every single Pokémon and creates every single game - no mention of Game Freak, the company that ''DEVELOPS'' the games. He helped produce the Generation I games and was a friend and mentor of the actual creator Satoshi Tajiri, (a name that most people outside of the Pokemon fandom probably don't seem to recognize) but that was back in the nineties.
** Nintendo also gets yelled at for ''not'' having ''[Insert Game here]'' on the Wii's Virtual Console, despite the fact that the submission is the original publishers' decision and permission. Nintendo merely licenses more games than it actually publishes and develops.
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** This isn't to say they are never responsible. Sometimes they screw up marketing. "[[Brutal Legend]]" is a perfect example. It was supposed to be an RTS, but EA marketed it as a straight up action game. The game did horribly and EA blamed everything on "[[Double Fine]]", the company that developed the game, nearly causing them to go out business.
* Statesman, also known as Jack Emmert, former lead designer of ''[[City of Heroes]]'', is pretty much the de facto hate target for anything anyone dislikes ([[Nerf|power changes]], necessary or not, game direction, AT design, you name it) until roughly Issue 13, even after Issue 7 when he stepped down to focus on other things. To this day, he ''still'' is reviled, and his habit of being blunt to the point of club didn't help things any.
** This perception of him hasn't improved since he started work on another superhero MMO, ''[[
** Castle is rapidly becoming the new Hate Target for the playerbase, being the guy who works on (and consequently sometimes makes [[Nerf|downward changes]] to) Powers. Keep in mind that eventually, pure distilled [[Fan Dumb]] drove the previous powers guy away from the forums, and Castle is trying really hard not to let that happen to him.
** And now, the trope has come full circle - Matt Miller, AKA Positron, is now being blamed for everything bad about the game.
** MMORPG lead devs in general are likely to end up targets of this. It's perhaps for this reason that the lead developer of Clichequest, the fictional MMO in ''[[The Noob]]'', is portrayed as a [[Ted Baxter]], [[Jerkass]] and [[Pointy-Haired Boss]].
** Speaking of which, Jack Emmert has teamed up with Bill Roper of ''[[Hellgate London]]'' infamy for a double dose of extra [[Fan Dumb]] for ''[[Star Trek Online]]''.
* Reggie Fils-Aimé, president of Nintendo of America, tends to get a lot of (mostly) undeserved flack from the ''[[
** Some [[Fan Dumb|fans]] also claim that he was actively trying to prevent Xenoblade, [[The Last Story]], and [[Pandoras Tower]] (the "Operation Rainfall games) from reaching North America. Just look at the comments made on Nintendo World Report's news page about [[The Last Story]] being published by XSEED for a North American release... Some fans take it even further, and claim that it's all Reggie's fault that there weren't a lot of games released for the Wii last year, despite the fact that NOA ''doesn't make the games.''
* Not one of the more high-profile examples, but there are those who blame any bad bit of level design in ''[[Doom]] II'' on Sandy Petersen. He also worked on quite a bit of the original ''Doom'', but that game is generally more highly revered than its sequel.
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** Nevermind, either, that Activision-Blizzard is still essentially two distinct entities that are united on paper for record-keeping purposes. Neither group is in charge of the other, and both operate independently. The most that they share besides a letterhead is likely a pool of playtesters and artists.
** And likewise, ''[[Diablo III]]'''s "Always online". look at all the comments and you'll see "It's Activision's fault." No, that was ''Blizzard's'' choice.
* Most people who voice disappointment at later ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games tend to heap their scorn on Tetsuya Nomura, despite the fact that Nomura was only the character designer for most of these games and not the director. And even then, he wasn't the sole artist, or even the art director for these games that he's credited with directing. They will even blame him for games he wasn't even involved in, such as ''[[
** This is probably because of at least one interview in which Nomura ''himself'' claimed responsibility for a huge array of overall design decisions in the ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series, despite many of them being nothing to do with character design (and almost certainly nothing to do with him). Scapegoating from within the company, perhaps?
** The same thing happens with the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' series (though there he is at least the director), and some of the [[Hate Dumb]] even seems to claim he does the art for ''[[Dragon Quest]]''. Chew on ''that'' for a little while.
** This especially got bad for people saying ''[[
* The ''[[
** Similarly, everything wrong with ''[[
* John Romero gets a lot of flak for his blunders with ''[[
** Not to mention the people calling him some sort of [[Small Name, Big Ego|egotist]] for the tag line "[[John Romero]] Is About to Make You His Bitch", even though that and the general exaggeration of his involvement/how much he did was more marketing than anything else.
** All of this culminating in a ridiculous event where ex-Romero fans rallied behind Ion Storm's marketing director for insulting him over the phone in an over the top way...even though the marketing director was ''one of the people responsible for running Ion Storm into the ground and putting the game into [[Development Hell]].''
* You know the 2008 ''[[Prince of Persia]]''? If you're one of the [[Love It or Hate It|fifty percent that didn't like it]], odds are you blame or know people who blame Ben Mattes for this. For most [[Sarcasm Mode|true PoP fans]] Ben Mattes has been a curse to the franchise ever since he came in with The Two Thrones, and built fan expectations for the 2008 game just so he could crush them with the actual product. The kicker? [[Did Not Do the Research|He's the producer!]]
* Yuji Naka may be responsible for a number of ''[[
* Natsume is often blamed for every bad thing in the ''[[Harvest Moon]]'' franchise. While their localizations do tend to have glitches the originals don't, features are sometimes taken out, they [[Bowdlerise]], and their translations are far from perfect.. They ''do not'' make the games. Marvelous does, and even then they began with the [[Game Boy Advance]] (before it was in the hands of ''Pack-In-Video'' and later ''Victor Interactive Software''; the latter which was eventually acquired by Marvelous).
* LJN Toys is blamed on the games they published, even though Rare made them.
* David Gaider is this to certain portions of the Dragon Age fandom, mostly because he is the most well known person involved with the franchise (having written the accompanying books and well as writing for the games). Despite the fact that he is a writer, he will often be blamed for programming mistakes and blamed for characters that he didn't write. When fans aren't blaming him for every fault in the story anyway.
* Insomniac Games have been blamed for ''[[
== Western Animation ==
* This phenomena, a lot like what happens in [[Real Life]], is lampshaded in ''[[A Bug's Life
{{quote| '''Hopper''': "First rule of leadership: ''Everything'' is your fault."}}
* [[John Kricfalusi]] is widely blamed for the failures of [[The Ripping Friends]] and [[Ren and Stimpy]]: Adult Party Cartoon--ignoring that the former show suffered from horrific meddling (which included throwing out all of the custom poses that Spumco is known for), and the latter show was pushed to be [[Darker and Edgier]] due to Spike TV wanting it to be another money maker along the lines of [[South Park]].
* Showrunner Mike Scully is usually blamed for ''[[The Simpsons]]''' nadir in quality and [[Flanderization|characterization]] in seasons 9-12. Of course, the fans have been saying the most recent season is the worst ever more or less since the series began (Comic Book Guy's catchphrase "worst episode ever" was coined in relation to ''[[The Simpsons]]'' in response to a fourth season episode, the fourth season now being considered to be something of a Golden Age). Also, the last episode he wrote was "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation" - which first aired in ''2002''.
** Creator Matt Groening also gets a big heap of blame from unhappy fans. The primary complaint is that he should have ended the show years ago. But Matt was complaining as early as season 5 that how long [[The Simpsons]] continues is totally out of his hands. He doesn't have the power to end the show and never did. That's Fox's call. He instead went on to create Futurama and be heaped with praised for taking a more hands-on approach.
** Current showrunner Al Jean gets a lot of blame for the latest quality drop, especially considering the fact that he has been the showrunner for over seven years, far longer than anyone else, not to mention that Al Jean was, with then partner Mike Reiss, showrunner on Seasons 3 and 4, as well as some episodes produced on the side for Season 6 when they did ''[[The Critic (
* ''[[Transformers]]: [[
* [[Seth
** You know "Not All Dogs go to Heaven"? The one that's most criticized here for being an [[Author Tract]] for Macfarlane? [http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/Not_All_Dogs_Go_To_Heaven Yeah, he neither wrote nor directed that episode.] Same with the second-most-criticized episode, [http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/Road_to_the_Multiverse Road to the Multiverse.] Both episodes were directed by Greg Colton, and the writers of "Heaven" and "Multiverse" were then showrunner Danny Smith and Wellesley Wild, respectively.
** Whether or not he's credited as writing or directing an individual episode isn't as important as one might think. As the executive producer, he oversees the creation of the scripts and approves them before they enter into production, sometimes rewriting them. That said, the original writer(s) tend to escape any blame in favor of targeting Seth.
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** Of course, some of the films he ''was'' responsible were almost as bad, so it's not surprising that people would be unable to tell the bad writing from the other bad writing.
*** Though in those cases, there's a lot of [[Executive Meddling]], so it's still played straight.
* [[My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic (Animation)/Recap/S2 E8 The Mysterious Mare Do Well|"The Mysterious Mare Do-Well"]], a major [[Base Breaker]] episode of [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
* [[Pixar Regulars|John Lasseter and Ed Catmull]] have recently fallen into this among some [[Pixar]] fans and especially [[Disney Animated Canon]] fans sometime after ''[[The Princess and
{{reflist}}
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