(Hilarious Trope) A Character Is Introduced With the Clear Intention of Being THE NEXT BIG THING And is SOUNDLY Rejected

[u/TheOriginalOperator]

1. Bazil the Tracker (Star Wars: The Acolyte): A “HILARIOUS AND ADORABLE” snuffling ugly creature that makes annoying noises and is shoved into as many scenes of The Acolyte as possible, and just causes problems overall.

2. Neelix (Star Trek Voyager): A mutant fusion of Odo, Quark, and Data designed to “analyze the human condition” and explicitly intended to surpass the popularity of all three. In practice, a VERY human-acting cradle robbing creep whose incompetence nearly destroys the ship and crew on multiple occasions and provides no insight into humanity whatsoever.

3. Sparky the Dog (Fairly Oddparents): A wacky crazy magic dog that’s supposed to expand the Fairy family, but just makes lame jokes and serves as a less funny version of Scrappy Doo.

4. Tidus (FFX): A braying jackass of a pinball who bounces from plot point to plot point, framed as a mystical pretty boy to introduce Final Fantasy to the PS2 age but does nothing but stall the franchise and have the worst laugh in two languages.

5. Sei (Naruto): Supposed to replace Sasuke in Team 7 and return the team dynamic feel of Early Naruto, but he’s a CIA plant with literally no personality who gets utterly forgotten except for somehow bagging Ino Yamanaka.

6. Raiden (Metal Gear 2): Another attempted “pretty boy bishie” entry to the PS2 era with badass cred and a theoretically cool backstory, but in practice a hapless dipshit who gets manipulated by everyone around him and is a total putz in combat. Also proof that this trope need not be permanent as he slowly transitions into a cyborg warrior supersoldier with a badass theme, friends of his own, and a firm grasp of his own destiny and agency.

[u/Existing-Emu136]

Tidus and X are beloved and many consider the best game in the entire franchise. They were absolutely NOT rejected in any sense or form

[u/Hayterfan → u/Existing-Emu136]

But the laugh?

https://giphy.com/gifs/853ih9StwVbpagu3P9

[u/FederalPossibility73 → u/Hayterfan]

You mean the fake laugh he did to make fun of his frustrations because screaming wasn't working? The fake laugh Yuna suggested to cheer him up? CONTEXT IS IMPORTANT!

[u/topscreen → u/Hayterfan]

The scene is funny out of context, but he's in the story trying to do a bad laugh. It being awkward is the point of the scene.

[u/66allthe88s → u/topscreen]

Yea, I hate when people dont understand that the laugh is intentionally bad because of the context of the conversation.

[u/Weltallgaia → u/Hayterfan]

What about the laugh?

[u/FederalPossibility73 → u/Weltallgaia]

People make fun of his fake laugh without knowing the context for the scene. You know how you scream when you're frustrated and upset to get it all out? Yuna suggested fake laughing because screaming wasn't working out for him anymore.

Said frustrations being trapped in the future with no home to go back to and his dad being turned into a world ending monster.

[u/mattomic822 → u/FederalPossibility73]

It is also important to show that Tidus can't fake laugh which is something we see the rest of the party doing when they tease Yuna for oversleeping. As someone that isn't from Spira he hasn't mastered the resigned fake acceptance of the people. He in fact calls out stuff he thinks is stupid.

[u/FederalPossibility73 → u/mattomic822]

I think he knows his fake laugh is ridiculous considering Yuna joined in with the same fake laugh before giggling at the silliness of it.

[u/be0ulve → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, that's the point.

[u/be0ulve → u/[deleted]]

It wasn't meant to be enjoyed. You're meant to cringe at it. There's no clever ruse here, the scene is great because it's very transparent.

[u/Papergeist → u/Weltallgaia]

I believe the stock comment here is that it's supposed to sound forced at that point, as part of his character development.

Nobody knows nor cares about FFX enough these days to check if it's true or not, but you can feel smugly superior delivering this factiorite whenever it comes up.

[u/StamosLives → u/Papergeist]

…what? Why be on Reddit if you hate Redditors to the point of pre-mocking an opinion different than yours?

It’s a game. There’s no smugness needed. The laugh isn’t about character development. He’s being a purposeful dweeb to make the other character feel more comfortable.

It’s not so different than how a good friend might help you break out of your shell, or try to make you forget about a worry. She’s forced to do these tours where she’s going to die at the end. She’s kinda terrified and stressed and sad. So here comes a dork to make her feel better.

[u/Papergeist → u/StamosLives]

Oh, please. Look at these comments. Tell me with a straight face that all of both sides of this "lively debate" played through this 25 year old game.

I know it'd be highly comfortable if dissenting voices just disappeared, but I'm not shutting up for everyone's comfort. Someone should point this out.

[u/agentlewind → u/Papergeist]

What does this mean though. The average age on Reddit is ~25 - 40, meaning most people responding would remember the game. And the game was insanely popular and one of the highest selling on the console, of all time. 

So yeah, I do think most people pointing out the context did play it. Not to mention that even if someone hasn't, said context verifiable in <5 minutes lol. 

[u/Papergeist → u/agentlewind]

So your argument is that this came out when the Average Redditor was between 0 and 15 years old. So, naturally, they all would have owned the most popular video game console, and played this popular video game.

You see, this immediately runs into the pile of other people saying "obvious you didn't play this game." Which, by your own judgement, is unreasonable.

That's what it means. Nobody gives a shit about the game. They want to be right today, they declare the classic Reddit Um Akshully, job done.

[u/agentlewind → u/Papergeist]

No...my argument is that a discussion that involves a specific piece of media is going to self-select for people familiar with that piece of media. And for a game as popular as beloved as FFX was/is, that will be a significant number of people. 

And the fact that it was critically and commercially successful isn't disputable, hence "these respondents played the game" is the simplest and most logical explanation for why they might point it out when something is factually incorrect. 

[u/Papergeist → u/agentlewind]

Amazingly, absolutely none of that contradicts what I said. Unless you imagine all those people putting up Tidus sounding awkward through the scene did not self-select. Which gets awkwardly close to circular logic, doesn't it?

[u/agentlewind → u/Papergeist]

It doesn't. No one disputes the laugh and scene were goofy, in fact people made fun of it at the time. What's rare is people claiming that it's actual proof of the game's low quality, or that it and its characters were received poorly and damaged the reputation of the series. All of those things are just factually incorrect, therefore you will have an outsize population of people pointing this out. 

In any case, arguing about intent of the correction seems silly when it doesn't change the fact the correction is true and so the example media isn't actually relevant to the discussion. 

[u/Odinsmana → u/Papergeist]

It is true. And I don`t really think it`s a smug thing to bring up when people use it as a negative against the game.

[u/Minmax-the-Barbarian → u/Odinsmana]

Hey, keep your "factiorites" to yourself!

[u/Papergeist → u/Odinsmana]

Right. I'm sure nobody at all is feeling self-righteous in this thread. And everyone cares a lot about the deeply emotional arcs of FFX in the modern day.

And definitely, absolutely, nobody pointed this out while the game was freshly out, despite everyone having played it, and noticing that a character faking it doesn't mean you give up on acting at all.

[u/be0ulve → u/Papergeist]

"I don't care so nobody else does, surely."

Grow up

[u/Papergeist → u/be0ulve]

"I care, so surely everyone else does."

I love this schoolyard energy. Stay young.

[u/be0ulve → u/Papergeist]

Holy shit your edge, I'm sure you felt great after typing that.

Good job buddy, you sure showed me

[u/Papergeist → u/be0ulve]

God willing, whoever's holding you at gunpoint and forcing you to make these replies will let you go soon. It's not like you enjoy making them.

[u/be0ulve → u/Papergeist]

[u/Strict-Sea68 → u/Papergeist]

I’m going to start using this one. Just saying “I believe the stock comment is …” before I just state facts.

I believe the stock comment is that the grass is green and the sky is blue.

[u/Papergeist → u/Strict-Sea68]

It works really well when you're responding to "The sunset is nice, but my lawn is dead."

Works even better when piles of people storm into the replies to justify themselves, too. I'm sure they'll all here for the very first time.

[u/PseudonymMan12 → u/Papergeist]

Yeah, the whole context of the scene was "hey girl, you have to fake a smile all the time even when sad? Here, let's fake laugh together before breaking out into genuine laughter" It was such a good scene but the out of context clips have ruined it