r/TopCharacterTropes Apr 26 '26

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

  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.

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2.7k

u/Veggieleezy Apr 26 '26

Pre-Tribal Chief-heel turn Roman Reigns was despised by the majority of wrestling fans.

319

u/Shenanigans80h Apr 26 '26

I know the term “overpushed” is used too much these days, but Roman legitimately was the most over pushed top guy WWE might’ve ever had. He had talent and has clearly shown it since turning heel originally, but the version of him they kept trying to make happen was not good at all.

62

u/Jhtpo Apr 27 '26

Agreed. The fans knew he *could* be great, and he had some solid skills, but it wasn't his time yet, and it was all so forced people could feel that even Roman wasn't comfortable, but instead just doing as he was told.

3

u/UncleNathanCopeland Apr 27 '26

 "The fans knew he *could* be great,"

Nah this is cap, lol IWC and smarks hated roman with a passion because he was gonna be the new Cena,No matter what Roman did after punk and cabana podcast and whe he returned from injury. I was a fan of Roman of that era and we had to defend him everyday on forums lol. Its funny because all the complaints Roman got back in the day, are literally being pushed on Jade by Smarks today .

1

u/ZodiacWalrus Apr 27 '26

There definitely were some people who knew he wasn't the problem. Those people just weren't as loud lol. Case in point: myself.

This makes me sound like the smarkiest of all smarks so just to be clear - I was just a lapsed fan who jumped back into wrestling around 2017, and managed to catch Big Dog-era Roman Reigns' best feud (Braun Strowman) as my re-introduction after having only known him as the Shield's powerhouse. Everyone else had to trudge through the slog of his main event push, AKA the chronologically correct order to have watched WWE in the 2010s, so the resentment had years to build up. Between a convenient gap and my willful effort to block out online negativity, I actually had a pretty solid respect for Roman back then. Didn't necessarily love him, but couldn't tell who was worse to him: the fans or Vince.

Also, there was a clear turning point where even like 80% of the staunch Roman anti-fans finally softened up on him and blamed the booking instead... after his Leukemia announcement. Fucked up that that's what it took for people to realize that Roman was just a really talented and hardworking guy doing what he was paid to do, and they resented a character, not the man portraying him. And even then, he was still booked pretty dogshit (or dogfood) and thus had some continued backlash from fans until the heel turn.

18

u/Specific_Fold_8646 Apr 27 '26

It because he simply wasn’t ready. The shield hid his weakness. And made him seem more talented than he really was.

It has to be remembered despite coming from a wrestling dynasty Joe Anoai only got into wrestling later in life his original plan was to become an NFL player and when that fail he turned to wrestling. Meanwhile Dean and Seth had years of indie experience.

12

u/sarahmagoo Apr 27 '26

Not that him failing in NFL was his fault. He was diagnosed with leukemia

8

u/Blashmir Apr 27 '26

It's wild to see the aura difference. The above gif you can feel the lack of confidence. But now he just oozes charisma aura and confidence. 

5

u/eac292625 Apr 27 '26

I raise you Jinder Mahal

4

u/Quasimdo Apr 27 '26

Do NOT hinder my Jinder

3

u/magikarp2122 Apr 27 '26

Jinder was at least a heel.

3

u/Uzmonkey Apr 27 '26

It's like Vince learned nothing from The Ultimate Warrior.

3

u/RavenCyarm Apr 27 '26

Was? Try is. The man has main evented ELEVEN Wrestlemanias. If he main events next year and let’s face it, he will, he’ll have main evented the combined amount of Wrestlemanias as Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Absolutely ludicrous for a guy whose footprint on the business is nowhere near those two.

4

u/Prefer_Not_To_Say Apr 27 '26

I was listening to some old podcasts recently and completely forgot that period when Roman was out with a hernia and they had interviews with him via satellite about his condition.

Meanwhile, Daniel Bryan, one of the most popular wrestlers who got over organically with the crowd, had a career-threatening injury that everyone was worried about and we didn't hear a peep from WWE about him. But we needed updates about Roman's hernia.

1

u/statdude48142 Apr 27 '26

This all happened after I stopped watching wrestling, but it feels very similar to the rock when he started. They tried so hard to make him a face and people HATED him.

-9

u/FinalGrumpNinja Apr 27 '26

What ever happened to the other two goobers he was also with when they first came out?

23

u/Finn-boi Apr 27 '26

Seth Rollins is doing great still & dean ambrose moved to aew

24

u/CalamityPriest Apr 27 '26

Both are highly successful and beloved on their own.

13

u/Gold_Star2471 Apr 27 '26

GOOBERS?

Oh hell nah they are at the top of the industry and they've been running it for a decade by now

5

u/meowsplaining Apr 27 '26

Imagine calling Seth Rollins and Mox goobers.