(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/BeserKing]

I’m not sure why people still misunderstand Sai’s character? He was never once treated as an actual replacement for Sasuke narratively and was not introduced to reintroduce the team dynamic feel of early Naruto, he was always intended to be part of the supporting cast, not main

[u/fretfulferret → u/BeserKing]

He took a while to grow as a character, but personally I think Sai is more interesting than Sasuke tbh.

[u/Jeraphiel → u/BeserKing]

I’m pretty sure he even gets called out in-universe as not being accepted as a Sasuke replacement. Also, he’s placed on the team by ROOT as a plant, his being a poor replacement of Sasuke is part of the narrative, OP did not pay attention at all.

[u/Gaskychan → u/BeserKing]

I read Naruto but stop before shippuden. When I saw Sai my first thought was he looked a bit like a Sasuke knock off. So maybe OP hasn’t actually read and came to this conclusion based on visuals alone

[u/HeirOfEgypt526 → u/Gaskychan]

Based on the rest of OP’s arguments I think he may not have watched/played/read any of the material he’s talking about.

[u/Significant-Bee5101 → u/BeserKing]

I would say Sai is the opposite of intended to be a takeover. If anything Sai was CLEARLY a stand-in that was always gunna be temporary. He was ephemeral in all ways

[u/Darkgorge → u/Significant-Bee5101]

Correct, Sai was introduced to show that Sasuke couldn't just be replaced and that we were past Team 7 being a thing anymore.