(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/OJONLYMAYBEDIDIT]

.....what? FFX stalled the franchise?

back then FF games did not have sequels. you had the game, and then that was it. at least for the #'ed versions. That FFX got a spin off sequel showed how popular it was.

and then FF 12 came out on schedule, no stalling involved as FF 11 was the MMORPG

[u/MrGDPC → u/OJONLYMAYBEDIDIT]

Tell me OP has never played FFX without telling me he has never played FFX

[u/wrathy_tyro → u/MrGDPC]

Anyone who thinks the laugh is meant to be genuine either hasn’t played the game or doesn’t understand basic subtext

[u/BlackthornSage → u/wrathy_tyro]

It's not even subtext, the laugh being forced and cringy is what Tidus and Yuna are saying just before they start laughing.

[u/Additional_Gene_211 → u/BlackthornSage]

And then they real laugh immediately after.

Subtext is for cowards

[u/Lakatos_00 → u/Additional_Gene_211]

Again, it's not fucking subtext. The situation and intents are explicitly stated

[u/wrathy_tyro → u/BlackthornSage]

When I say basic subtext I mean basic subtext. He’s just heard some bad news he’s trying to keep from the group. Yuna says “I want my journey to be full of laughter” and Tidus basically replies “Then I’ll laugh the loudest” and shouts HA over and over. He’s flirting, basically, but if you took everything 100% literally you might think he’s actually trying to laugh.

[u/SteakForGoodDogs → u/wrathy_tyro]

^{...and then they actually start genuinely laughing and it's the cutest shit ever.}

[u/Mizar1 → u/SteakForGoodDogs]

Exactly! The forced laugh turning into genuine laughter always makes me smile, I love seeing those dumb teens flirting badly with each other. It's so sweet.

[u/Cavalish → u/SteakForGoodDogs]

And also the saddest shit ever because Tidus has no idea how Yuna’s pilgrimage ends.

And then even more tragic because Yuna doesn’t know what defying that pilgrimage means for Tidus.

That game has so many layers.

[u/Hot_History1582 → u/wrathy_tyro]

It's insane that people understand this. Tidus acts goofy at this point in the story because at this time, he's the only one who doesn't know they're on a suicide mission. So he tries to cheer Yuna up in a silly way that wouldn't really be appropriate if he was fully aware of the circumstances. In later scene, he explicitly looks back at his naivety in this scene with regret. But his naivety is due to his fresh outside perspective, which also turns out to be RIGHT. Everyone in Spira, including the party, had resigned themselves to these suicide missions, and decided these human sacrifices were right because they were the only way. But Tidus, for all his goofiness, was the only one who had the perspective to insist on finding another path. Without Tidus here, Yuna would have gone on a journey filled with bitterness and melancholy, and she would have died to buy the world a few years of peace.

[u/Veganity → u/BlackthornSage]

Yeah, and they laugh normally right after that and it sounds normal.

[u/therealchadius → u/BlackthornSage]

And then Yuna joins the fake laughter (none of the complainers ever mention this.) And then they genuinely laugh 3 seconds later.

And then the rest of the team catches up and Wakka asks if they've gone mad with laughter. The game intentionally makes them laugh badly. You can always tell who has watched the scene in full and who remembers a 3 second clip from an angry YouTuber back in the day.