What Measure Is a Non-Badass?: Difference between revisions

* [[The White Prince|Mytho]] from ''[[Princess Tutu]]'' sometimes gets flak for this from the fandom, thanks to being a [[Dude in Distress]] for most of the first season... despite the fact that in the second season {{spoiler|once he regains most of his heart}} he's revealed to be a better, more capable swordsman than fan-favorite [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|Fakir]]. {{spoiler|Given the ending, it's possible that the way this gets fans to prefer Fakir is intentional.}}

* [[Unlucky Everydude|Ganta]] from ''[[Deadman Wonderland]]'' is often lamented to be a useless, cowardly pansy, with many fans much preferring [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Crow]] (who is often declared the most [[Badass]] character in that series). They seem to be ignoring the fact that Ganta is only 14 (compared to Crow, who is obviously much older than him) and was just a normal student who never really got into fights, and who is also ''new'' to Deadman Wonderland.

* Canada from ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]''. Partly as a case of [[Misplaced Nationalism]], many Western fans have a tendency to turn him into a [[Memetic Badass]] and [[Deadpan Snarker]] instead of the fairly nice, unassertive guy he is in canon.

** China is also bashed once in a while because of his "girly" looks and voice, and he also gets some "revision" to make him more snarky and assertive (though not nearly as much as with Canada). Even though he's shown to [[Cute Bruiser|have martial arts skills]] in canon and ''[[Super Strength]] rivaling America's'' in the anime.

* A complaint regarding a number of [[Demoted to Extra]] characters from ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]''. Prime example is Yuuno Scrya, but many would also level the complaint regarding Chrono Harlaown, who has shown himself to be genuinely [[Badass]] on occasion. Some people would even say this about Nanoha herself, because she seems to be nonlethal no matter how much property damage she ends up inflicting, up to and including blowing through a large portion of a warship from inside. It's actually supposed to be a sign of Nanoha's power that she has enough self-control to only inflict nonlethal but very, very painful magical damage.

* Many parts of the ''[[Naruto]]'' [[Fan Dumb]] utterly embody this attitude as applied to pretty much ''any'' character: any time a character appears to be something less than a [[Badass]] who accomplishes everything without any effort whatsoever, you have hoards of people saying how they must suck as a character because they are "weak". In the rare occasions where they don't, they'll bitch that the writer sucks for not making them "badass enough" or turning them into [[Mary Sue]]s.

** Uzumaki Naruto, due to a combination of this trope and [[Moral Dissonance]] spanning from his upgraded role as [[The Messiah]], started suffering from this sometime around chapter 450. Which is funny considering that 10 chapters previously, he beat {{spoiler|Pain, who was ''very'' powerful}}, and in his next fight he {{spoiler|[[Curb Stomp Battle|stomps]] the [[Eldritch Abomination|Nine-Tailed FOX]]}}. He hasn't lost any fighting power; he's just become a [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass|Crouching Messiah, Hidden Badass]].

* Orihime of ''[[Bleach]]'' gets a similar treatment, being bashed for being [[The Medic]] and a largely non-combatant. Though this likely stems partially from the fact that her powers are much more amazing and she isn't using them to her full potential, and probably more so [[Die for Our Ship]] related reasons.

** Shinji was the audience stand-in with some wish-fulfillment thrown in. He was expected to grow into a badass, as with other shounen leads. When he didn't meet audience expectations, some audience members saw it as [[Take That|an attack]] [[This Loser Is You|against them]]. This would also explain why there are so many fix-fics where Shinji turns into what's expected from a shounen lead. One critic even pointed out that if Shinji had been female, Shinji would be far more popular and sympathetic (with Japanese audiences at least).

*** It also may explain why female EVA fans sometimes tend to be more sympathetic to Shinji's plight than male fans. [[Ho Yay|That, and there's Kaworu...]]

** Also, Sakura in the VN. She is a [[Damsel in Distress]] in her route she didn't kick ass like Saber/Rin, but that doesn't mean it's her fucking fault that she's horrifyingly abused by the Matou family, {{spoiler|as well as raped constantly by her stepbrother Shinji}}. And yet the stupid "feminist" fans keep slutshaming and bashing her, saying it's her own fault that she's an abuse {{spoiler|and rape}} victim!

* Madoka Kaname from ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'' is [[The Scrappy|condemned by the fanbase]] for being [[Wangst|emotionally crushed]] by all that happens to her and not react with violence or bitchiness, as well as hesitate in becoming a [[Magical Girl]] after {{spoiler|her big sister mentor Mami dies ''horribly''}}. The fanbase just ignores the parts on the fact that being a Magical Girl involves a [[Deal with the Devil]] and a lifetime of servitude {{spoiler|and as we eventually realize, turning into an [[Eldritch Abomination]]}} for a single wish that [[Be Careful What You Wish For|you are very likely to screw up]], and how Homura actively keeps Madoka from agreeing to such. Oh, and when her emotional breakdown reaches its current peak in episode 6 where she loses it and {{spoiler|tries to stop Sayaka from fighting Kyouko by throwing away her Soul Gem, not knowing the effects of said action}}, the [[Fan Dumb]] calls her out as a "stupid bitch".

** Parodied in ''[[I'm a Marvel And I'm a DC]]'', where Dan and Cyclops discuss this trope.

* Speaking of which, Scott/Cyclops himself seems to fall into this trope. Holds his own against Wolverine in hand-to-hand combat, takes out the entire team when they're brainwashed and he's injured, beats up six men at once with his eyes shut, pulls off impossible trick shots, ''earns'' the nickname Fearless Leader... and a lot of ''[[X-Men]]'' fans still think of him as a pussy, because he dares to not get along with [[Anti-Sue|Wolverine]] (which, [[Fridge Logic|when you think about it]], is pretty badass in its own little way).

*** Also, for the young teen male fan demographic (which, let's face it, is a large chunk of the audience for comics, stereotype or not), Scott's powers don't look like ''fun''. Yes, they're potent, yes, they can be used to take down most targets...but the constant, unremitting ''self control'' they demand looks more like work than fun. Which it is, by any reasonable standard Scott's mutant ability is a curse, because he can't control it other than by use of his visor. Thus, even though Scott has, at times, displayed every single identifying mark of the Badass (he is, in fact, a major Badass), he's not the kind of badass a 13 year old boy wants to be.

 

* This trope is behind much of the [[Fan Dumb]] dislike of characters (especially the women) in George R.R. Martin's ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''. Badass characters can get away with murder, while characters who are decidedly not, such as twelve-year old Sansa, incite a negative fan reaction from the moronic fanboys.

** And the misogynistic fangirls who believe that [[Real Women Never Wear Dresses|it's anti-feminist to be girly and like it.]]

* ''[[Fight Club]]'' is supposed to be a deconstruction of this. ''[[Misaimed Fandom|Supposed]] [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing|to be]]''. The movie less so.

 

* Eight words: [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?]]?

** Subverted with [[Heart Is an Awesome Power]].

* This is one of the reasons why the tropes [[Badass]] and [[Jerkass]] are often synonymous with each other on [[This Very Wiki]].

 

*** However, if you take into account the final weapons, it may have some level of credibility since the other two lords are more than capable of using their strongest weapons (Sol Katti is not very hard to equip and Armads doesn't hurt Hector's speed too much considering his bulk) but the Durandal pretty much sets Eliwood back a long way because it lowers his number of attacks to 1 vs NORMAL enemies and hinders his ability to evade.

** Roy and Eliwood are pretty much the same pre-promotion and Roy is a complete beast and better than his father post-upgrade. Of course, YMMV and it also depends on whether you got lucky with the random number generator level system.

** The aforementioned Eirika is often put under the microscope, nitpicked and/or downright bashed for being a sensitive Nice Girl aside of [[The Messiah]] and the [[Action Girl]], with some even openly ''denying that both she and Ephraim are the protagonists of the game''... saying Ephraim is the only lead. WTF.

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'''s Raiden got a lot of flak from fanboys, mostly for being a [[Replacement Scrappy]] for Solid Snake, but attributed to him being a "weak, [[Bishonen|overly-feminine]] character" (despite the fact that he fought well, ''taking down several Metal Gears, killing the [[Big Bad]]'', and did far better than most people could have done in his [[Gambit Pileup|profoundly shitty situation]], leaving with renewed purpose, the [["Well Done, Son" Guy|respect]] of his mentor, a renewed relationship with the woman he loved, and with the child of a castmate still alive). ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'' reinvented him to be a cyborg ninja, and these days, he's a lot more popular - even though his ninja self spent half of the game dying slowly of kidney failure and the other half whining about his awful situation (something which in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 2'' he would have tried to deal with) and taking orders from a little girl. It just goes to show how shallow this trope (and/or people's standards of Badassery) is; Raiden was judged pathetic because of his [[White-Haired Pretty Boy|appearance]] (his actions apparently did not matter).

* The main reason people hate Edward/Gilbert in ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]''. Rosa suffers from this too.

** Despite the fact that Rosa's Holy/White spell does almost as much damage as Meteo, but only to a single target, and takes far less time to cast. She's also the best, if not only, healer/support in the game and does more physical damage (sometimes insane damage) than any other mage-type character in the game.

* ''[[Touhou]]'' has Rinnosuke, the only named humanoid male character in the entirely of Gensoukyou that isn't missing or dead who happens to completely lack any combat ability. If he isn't ignored entirely in favour of more badass characters, the fandom almost constantly portrays him as a [[Memetic Badass]] (known as MANnosuke) who all of Gensoukyou fears and/or a [[Memetic Sex God]] who is the constant target of everyone's affections (though granted, it is never certain whether ''Touhou'' fandom is joking or not). Furthering the trope, this may be linked to how Rinnosuke is the oldest and closest friend of Marisa (regularly considered the manliest character in the series), and a badass character having a non-badass friend is ''clearly'' blasphemy.

* In ''[[Pokémon]]'', there is a small but vocal group of people who will not stand for anyone who uses non-attacking moves in their monsters. There seems to be a continuum here; one example of disagreement among this group is whether or not Sleep moves are acceptable.

[[Category:Badass]]

[[Category:What Measure Is A Non Badass]]

[[Category:What Measure Is an Index?]]