Topic on Talk:Designated Hero

When I think about it, there's another reason for my antagonism against Meggy in The Mario Mafia: The plot uses Wendy O. Koopa as a Sacrificial Lion to show how Badass Meggy is, without giving a proper justification for attacking her in the first place. It seems like Wendy is a bit of The Unfavorite of the guys behind SMG4. The Koopalings don't appear often, but when they do, they tend to be either Butt Monkeys or Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains, and when they receive crap, it seems that Wendy always gets an extra portion. (See Bowser loses custody of his children and Stupid Mario World, for other examples.)

I can understand this, as some Canon material from Super Mario Bros. characterizes Wendy as an utter narcissistic Jerkass who is angry all the time and has absolutely nothing sympathetic or even feminine to her.

However, these are not my favorite characterizations of Wendy, as I think they have Unfortunate Implications as, you know, girls can only do evil things when they behave like boys. Evil is masculine and a Girly Girl is automatically Incorruptible Pure Pureness. Plus points for Evil Makes You Ugly, as the most Jerkass depictions of Wendy also tend to be the most physically ugly ones (safe from Super Mario Adventures, where she's actually cute but only When She Smiles, unfortunately a thing that almost never happens there.)

I prefer depicitons like the one in New Super Mario Bros U, or the Fanfics from Eric Forte and Super Mario Richie, where she is a fair mix between the angry Tomboy and the girly Drama Queen. (Also, she's still narcissistic but not completely obnoxious.) If I were to write Fanfic about the Koopalings, that's where I would put Wendy, too. Definitely less Gender Stereotyping involved, although one might argue that a melodramatic depiction is also somewhat "sexist" because, you know, all girls are Drama Queens... It's difficult when there is only a single female character in the cast...

You see, the mere fact that I think about how to best characterize Wendy O. Koopa already shows that I find her somehow interesting. Then if some movie treats her like shit and pretends as if she deserves it without having her do anything plot-relevant before, this results in a Designated Monkey. Especially if her characterization in said movie is actually close to how I would depict her.

Revisiting the Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes and assuming that Mario is one, I would classify him as type 5 while Meggy, Steve and Toad are Type 4. Luigi is Type 3 at most, since he is more of a Butt Monkey to the rest of his gang than anything else. (But his suffering gets acknowledged, unlike Wendy's.) Bob and Boobkins are mostly "Ineffectual Sympathetic Antiheroes", if that trope exists. (Bob as a Type 5, while Boobkins is rather Type 2.) And Po... another Designated Monkey. We never know what he would be like because he gets injured before he can come into action, and subsequently his Jerkass "friends" just let him die...

Lastly, there is this moment where Lemmy Koopa says he has "crippling depression". And at the end he appears to get killed, like his siblings. To people familiar with depression, this can be a bit of Dude, Not Funny because in real life, it's really no fun to be severely depressed. And thoughts about death and suicide are common when you are in such a state.