Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Difference between revisions
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* [[Values Dissonance|To a non-Japanese audience]], Momotaro from the [[Wartime Cartoon|World War II propaganda film]] ''Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors'' comes off as a [[Complete Monster]] rallying [[Beware the Nice Ones|adorable]] [[Killer Rabbit|animals]] together to go to war and brutally kill British soldiers.
* Haruna from '' [[Tenchi Muyo!|Tenchi Forever]]'' is supposed to be a sympathetic [[Anti-Villain]]; a woman dead before she can live her romance with the man she loves and whose soul feels so alone, than she is trying to recreate this love story with the grandson of her former lover. What many viewers see is a bitch who kidnaps, brainwashes and ''rapes'' a teenage boy.
* [[Broken Base|For many viewers]], Mahiru Inami of ''[[Working!!]]''. We're supposed to feel pity because [[Does Not Like Men|she can't help but punch any man that comes across]], but that's something really hard to sympathize with, especially as she doesn't seem to do much to fix it. She also gets a romance plot with the main guy that is supposed to be endearing, but fails because it just looks abusive (and when the guy complains about being punched, [[
* ''[[GE - Good Ending]]'' has Yuki, one of the main protagonists in the series. A good part of the manga is spent trying to get Utsumi, the protagonist, help her deal with her [[Broken Bird]] issues, only to have her throw everything out the window by asking him to rape her, in order to overwrite the bad memories she had with her previous boyfriend. Utsumi [[What the Hell, Hero?|calls her out on it]], so she dumps him because he's always too nice to her.
* ''[[Naruto]]'' falls into this sometimes as well.
** Sasuke seems to be meant to be seen as a morally gray character being led down the wrong path by his obsession with revenge, but to a number of fans his [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]],
** Similarly, the [[Belated Backstory]] of the legendary "Salamander" Hanzo, the ninja against whom the Sannin won their titles by ''surviving'' a battle with him sets Hanzo up as a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] who lost sight of his goals but is honored in defeat by his rival as a man who strove for peace. [[You Keep Using That Word|By starting a lot of wars and turning his homeland into an unlivable hellhole that produced the most psychologically broken, defeated human beings in the series, just because he was arrogant enough to think his strength could unite the world.]] Most fans still consider Hanzo an utterly unsympathetic character whose violent death at Pain's hands was richly deserved, as his claim of good intentions didn't make him any less of a paranoid warmongering dictator.
* The early ''[[Pokémon]]'' episode "Challenge of the Samurai!" has
* Even after Yukiha became just as evil as her own rapist in ''[[The Girl in the Library: Until The Pure You Falls From Grace]]'', the writer, Amare Are, still expected people to feel sorry for her even though she ceased to be a victim when she decided to be Masami's [[Sex Slave]] than with Aida who genuinely loved her.
* Todoroki's mother in ''[[My Hero Academia]]'' is viewed as this by half of the [[Broken Base]] surrounding her and her treatment of her son. Thanks to years of awful, sustained abuse by her husband Endeavor, she had a mental breakdown and mutilated Todoroki's face with boiling water due to mistaking him for his dad. While [[My God, What Have I Done?|she apologized the second she realized what happened]] and deeply regrets what happened years after the fact, many fans find that she was ''way'' too [[Easily Forgiven]] by Todoroki and his siblings due to the belief that no matter the circumstances that led to it, child abuse is vile and inexcusable. And it doesn't help that she didn't merely slap or hit him: she ''burned his face to the point of scarring''.
== Comic Books ==
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* Cirilo Rivera from ''[[Carrusel]]''. His [[All Love Is Unrequited|unrequited crush]] on [[Tsundere|Maria Joaquina]] sometimes bordered on obsession. He never stalked her—let alone hurt her -- [[Dogged Nice Guy|but he did not give up on her no matter how much she turned him down]]. And let's face it—she was out of his league, which has NOTHING to do with their being of different races or even socioeconomic statuses; she, well, just didn't like him that way. But '''he would not stop''', and kept showering her with gifts and attentions that she ''clearly'' didn't want and either upset her or creeped her out. Viewers were supposed to take Cirilo's side... but Maria Joaquina ended up [[Unintentionally Sympathetic|being the one often favored by the audience instead]], since in practice, nobody blamed her for not loving a kid ''that'' clingy (and borderline creepy) back.
* In ''[[All in The Family]]'', viewers were supposed to see Archie as unlikable, as he's a bigot and a rude, loud, nasty person. This means that in the frequent arguments he has with his son-in-law Mike, you're supposed to side with Mike. Problem is, Mike was something of a jerk too, his left-wing Liberal views often just as extreme - and just as absurd - as Archie's right-wing Conservative views.
* To many viewers, the ending of ''[[WandaVision]]'' utterly destroyed any sympathy they might have had for Wanda Maximoff thanks to these eight deadly words: "They'll never know what you sacrificed for them". {{spoiler|Wanda [[Mind Rape|Mind Raping]] an entire town full of innocent people into becoming her slaves so she could live out her ideal sitcom life with Vision was horrible enough from the outset. Having it be treated with all the horror that it deserved made it even worse. So for it all to be swept under the rug with Monica Rambeau insinuating that Wanda's victims were [[Ungrateful Bastard|ungrateful bastards]] for being angry with her felt almost like the show was vindicating Wanda for her selfishness}}.
== Newspaper Comics ==
* Anthony from ''[[For Better or For Worse]]'', so very very much. You're supposed to feel sympathy for him because his wife doesn't want their baby and he "doesn't have a home," but not only is it irritating, it rubs in the fact that he harassed her into having a child she didn't want in the first place. He lost even more ground when it came to light that he even ''promised'' that ''he'' would stay home with the kid, but had ''no intention'' of keeping that promise because he expected the magic of motherhood to kick in and somehow make his wife want to quit her job (which was heavily implied to make more than his did) and raise the kid anyways. But she's supposed to be the bad guy for wanting him to keep his promise and because she's not maternal.
** Toward the end of its run,
== Video Games ==
* A recurring problem with ''[[Pokémon]]'' villains introduced in later games is that while they skew towards the [[Tragic Villain]]/[[Anti-Villain]] side of the sliding scale of villainy, they tend to act in ways that invalidate their sympathetic treatment in the eyes of many a player.
** While Archie and Maxie's overhaul in ''Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire'' makes them easier to sympathize with in a way that ''doesn't'' cause them to run afoul of this trope, the same can ''not'' be said about other villains in the same games. Funnily enough, both examples are found in the post-game Delta Episode.
***
*** Depending on the game, Matt or Courtney start causing trouble to avenge their boss, who's bummed out after their defeat in the main campaign. While it isn't right, it's at least understandable. But what's a lot less understandable is the fact that they deliberately try to [[Disproportionate Retribution|'''destroy the world''']] over it. Despite inexplicably turning into [[Omnicidal Maniac|Omnicidal Maniacs]] on par with [[Pokémon X and Y|Lysandre]], they get off with a slap on the wrist and ''their bosses'' are the ones who have to apologize for their sudden descent into batshit insanity.
** The narrative of ''[[Pokémon Sun and Moon]]'' tries its best to
** In theory, {{spoiler|Chairman Rose}} from ''[[Pokémon Sword and Shield]]'' is a sympathetic, if misguided [[Anti-Villain]] whose patriotism and fear for the future cause him to take extreme measures to protect the Galar region from an impending energy crisis. But the attempts at making him sympathetic fall flat, not because he's too evil or crosses any major lines... but rather, because he's
* Rocket Raccoon from ''[[Guardians of the Galaxy (2021 video game)|Guardians of the Galaxy]]'' is presented as a [[Jerk With a Heart of Gold|lovable asshole]] whose heart is in the right place, but
* The fall of Repliforce in ''[[Mega Man X4]]'' is treated as a tragedy, one where its members are wrongfully accused of going Maverick and are killed thanks to the manipulations of Sigma and the paranoia of humans and Maverick Hunters alike. But while individual members like General and Iris ''are'' easy to feel bad for, that doesn't quite work for the rest of them. After suspicious circumstances place Repliforce at ground zero of a terrorist attack, Colonel refuses to disarm and come in for questioning. He instead decides to declare war, making him responsible for everything going wrong out of a sense of stubborn, pigheaded pride. Shortly afterward you have Repliforce start what's essentially a robot ethnostate in outer space, on an orbital space station with a ''planet-busting superweapon pointed directly at the Earth''. And when you go after members of Repliforce causing trouble around the world, they're usually outright ''giddy'' at the prospect of going to war and fighting X and Zero. In the case of Jet Stingray and Storm Owl, a few of them are even leading military assaults on civilian populations, with Stingray being noted to have destroyed an ''entire city'' before you get to him. It's really hard to buy Repliforce as victims of circumstance when they go out of their way to act like a bunch of murderous, warmongering assholes.
* ''[[Crusader of Centy]]'' paints its monsters as innocent, misunderstood victims of discrimination from humans, with the [[An Aesop|Aesop]] being not to judge or hurt those who are different from you. Now while you ''do'' see examples of monsters being unfairly attacked by humans ([[Hero of Another Story|Amon]] attacking the Slime family unprovoked, monsters being imprisoned in the king's dungeons without doing anything bad), the problem is that it's usually the monsters that are attacking people and animals for no good reason. Whether it's the Big Bad Wolf trying to kill and eat a defenseless old woman, the Puppet Master attacking and leaving Dodo for dead, or hell, ''every single enemy attacking you the second you're within their sights'', it's very easy to lose sympathy for their plight. Especially once the [[Humans Are The Real Monsters]] preaching goes in full-swing after the boss fight with Maldra, who you're shamed for killing all out of a lust for power... despite the fact that it's as clear cut of an example of killing in self-defense as it can get.
* This trope is why Therese is [[The Scrappy]] of ''[[Octopath Traveler]]'': despite knowing just how [[Oblivious to Love]] Cyrus is, she's so jealous of Princess Mary trying to make romantic advances on him that she decides to ruin his life out of petty revenge by spreading rumors of him being guilty of ''sexual misconduct''. This gets him fired from Atlasdam's Royal Academy, and while he's okay with it since it gives him an excuse to leave and set out on a hunt for a stolen [[Tome of Eldritch Lore]], it doesn't change the fact that, in her own words, she just "wanted to get (him) in a little trouble". Trouble that, given how Princess Mary is ''royalty'', could easily end with him scheduling a date with the headsman's axe if word of his "misdeeds" made its way to the king.
* Several of ''[[MegaMan Battle Network 4]]'''s tournament scenarios have this crop up a few times, likely as a product of the game's [[Sequelitis|infamously bad writing.]]
** [[The Scrappy|Chisao]] was already pretty unlikable in the previous game since he was an obnoxious [[Bratty Half-Pint]], but here, he's so much worse than merely being annoying and pushy. Because he doesn't want Dex, his older brother, to lose to Lan in their tournament match, he ''fakes his own kidnapping'' and forces Lan and MegaMan to go on a wild goose chase that's meant to waste their time, [[That One Level|the ''player's'' time]], and get them both disqualified via time out. While Lan and MegaMan instantly forgive him for his devotion towards Dex, most players don't even ''kind of'' share their sentiment. And why would they, when Chisao scares Dex half to death by having the "kidnapper" threaten to kill him, gets literal criminal Navis roped into his scheme, and generally shows [[Big Bad|Wily]]-tier levels of planning and scheming?
** Paulie is basically Chisao, but [[Enfant Terrible|''worse.'']] While Chisao's scheme was awful, at least it didn't involve him putting innocent people's lives in jeopardy! Paulie, however, does exactly that by draining the river supplying his Netfrican village with water and infesting the computer system that keeps it running with Viruses, essentially orchestrating a ''drought'' out of spite and jealousy towards Lan and MegaMan for beating them in the yearly Water God festival. Again, Lan immediately forgives him once he reveals his treachery and even '''apologizes for driving him to such an extreme in the first place.''' No wonder Paulie is considered to be a [[Scrappy]] on par with Chisao!
** And even less excusable than Paulie and Chisao is the elder of Raoul's tribe, who is both a grown man and outright ''murderous.'' Not wanting his tribe's representative to lose his tournament match with Lan, the elder goads the boy into netbattling him by threatening to slander him as a coward for refusing to challenge him. Upon being defeated, hits MegaMan with a '''voodoo death curse''' that quickly, painfully saps his life away. Raoul being the honorable man that he is, is annoyed by this underhanded bit of sabotage and helps lift the curse on MegaMan, and forces the elder to fess up to his crimes in the aftermath of his and Lan's match. Interestingly, the elder [[My God, What Have I Done?|is genuinely repentant and offers to let Lan punish him for what he did.]] But like with Chisao and Paulie before him, Lan and even MegaMan not only forgive him, but ''praise him for fighting with pride.'' You know, despite the underhanded attempts at sabotage, murder, and selfishly bringing shame onto Raoul and ThunderMan despite them being willing to lose as long as they fight with honor.
== Western Animation ==
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