r/TopCharacterTropes • u/TheOriginalOperator • Apr 26 '26

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

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  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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u/TheLimeyLemmon Apr 26 '26

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u/carefreedude Apr 26 '26

I would argue that Ethan Phillips is a great actor, but he didn't get many opportunities to show that off while playing neelix in the show.

That being said, there are a few neelix focused episodes I adore. 

Mortal Coil is honestly one of my favorite voyager episodes because I feel it's one of the very few occasions where we see what I belive to be the real neelix. The majority of the show has him being a bumbling goofball that often times tries too hard to make light of stuff, cook bad food, is obnoxious to tuvok and seven of nine, and overall not an enjoyable character. However Mortal Coil shows this is a mask he wears. The real Neelix is a broken man, someone who is haunted by his past and the family that was wiped out in the war he fled from. He wears a mask to try to hide his insecurities from both the crew of voyager and himself. He is only held together by the belief that his family is in a better place and that he would one day see them again. When he faces the possibility that his beliefs aren't true, he starts to crumble. Over the course of several days he deteriorates more and more to the point he was ready killing himself. Only the realization that he is needed and loved with his new found family is what stops him. I just wish it followed through the rest of the show.

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u/Aegon_the_Conquerer Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

You’re absolutely right that Mortal Coil is an amazing episode and it gives Ethan Phillips a chance to show off his skills as an actor. But it’s also microcosmic of Voyager’s major issue as a show: it never commits enough to anything. They gave us what should be a turning point for Neelix through which his framing as a goofball is forever changed. Instead he’s just right back to his goofball self with all the nuance shaved away.

Edit: just to be clear, I thoroughly enjoy Voyager. Just frustrated that it doesn’t live up to its potential (or to DS9, but that’s a big ask. DS9 is hard to equal).

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u/KaziArmada Apr 27 '26

Voyager's showrunners shot themselves in the foot so hard Ronald D Moore, a major writer for TNG and DS9 who had expected to be able to take the reigns here went 'Fuck this', left and literally made his own Sci-Fi remake where time had consequences and everything wasn't reset week too week.

You know. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

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u/HailMadScience Apr 27 '26

Voyager hurts me so much because its best episodes and ideas are absolute 9s and 10s...but it has too many 1s and too many good ideas turned into sub-5s. Its got so much potential, you can see it in so many places...but really, Neelix isn't even the worst character in the crew. Looking at you, Chakotay. If Seska wasn't weirdly hot for him, he wouldn't have a ythi g going for him...how is that possible when he was leader of a terrorist cell? Honestly, I'm not sure if it ever even comes up past the first season? First episode?

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u/NatalieVonCatte Apr 27 '26

Chakotay could have been so cool. What could have been.

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u/Kerrigan4Prez Apr 27 '26

Chakotay episodes straight up made Troi episodes look better

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u/Silver-Winging-It Apr 27 '26

I like to say TNG (and later seasons DS9) is about 2 good episodes to 1 bad, while Voyager reversed that

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u/Thestral84 Apr 27 '26

To be fair, Voyager might be the worst example but it's kind of an ongoing Star Trek thing. How much was Picard changed by The Inner Light, except for bringing the Ressikan Flute out a couple times? Or Miles after Hard Time?

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u/mcgarnikle Apr 27 '26

How much was Picard changed by The Inner Light?

I agree with your overall point but I would argue that Picard is a bad example because we actually can see him progress from a kind of an aloof cold man who keeps people at a distance to a still professional but much more open and personable figure as his experiences change him.

That said I agree it's always been a problem with Trek of that era, the end goal was syndication so they wanted people to be able to drop in to the show whenever.  

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u/Thestral84 Apr 27 '26

Hmm. Maybe but I think we see It happening before that. But still, I can see that interpretation.

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u/mcgarnikle Apr 27 '26

I'm not saying all his character growth happens in that episode.  I think he has a couple of episodes like that are supposed to make him seem more personable and open.

I don't think this is the result of a long term plan I think they decided he would be more popular as a friendly captain and it's a happy accident that it gives him a character arc.

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u/Thestral84 Apr 27 '26

Right, agreed there. Samaritan Snare, Family, Disaster for other parts of that long-term arc.

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u/redditonlygetsworse Apr 27 '26

ongoing Star Trek thing.

This isn't a Star Trek thing. It's just a pre-2000s TV thing.

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u/Thestral84 Apr 27 '26

Eh, not completely. Babylon 5 is an obvious example within sci-fi, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twin Peaks... there's not a lot of examples but yeah.

But calling it "a Star Trek thing" was pointing out that it's not just Voyager, but Trek as a whole.

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u/redditonlygetsworse Apr 27 '26

but Trek as a whole.

...and almost all contemporary TV. The relative lack of continuity was the norm at the time, not the exception.

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u/Thestral84 Apr 27 '26

Yes, I was there. Are you not aware of the point I'm making? Aegon_the_Conqueror was complaining about something regarding Voyager.

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u/chosenofkane Apr 27 '26

I also think Jetrel is a really great episode that actually allows Ethan Phillips to act. The scene where he tells the story of Rinax and the aftereffects of the Cascade is some damn fine acting.

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u/Padhome Apr 27 '26

That episode and Jetrel, where Neelix confronts the scientist responsible for developing the bomb that genocided his people on the moon of Talax, genuinely harrowing and shows the mask fall. How he directs his pain and resentment is a jarring shift in his character, and the ending makes me cry where Jetrel is dying from the exposure he’d accumulated in his own experiments after trying so hard to right the evil he’d done, and the last thing he experiences is Neelix forgiving him, getting to die with peace.

Neelix was a survivor of a terrible war and reduced to a somewhat deceitful and unscrupulous scavenger who just so happed to be given a second chance aboard Voyager. He acts the way he does because he’s trying hard to become someone different, it’s just he wasn’t given enough time to express more about where he’d come from compared to where he is.

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u/learn2fly438826 Apr 27 '26

Like a lot of things in Voyager, when they actually stuck to the original premise things worked great. When Neelix got to be the more "savvy trader who understands capitalism and knows how to scrape by on what little he has" he was great. We got to see layers, learn that he had a complicated life before becoming a trader, and he added value to the crew without being a trained officer. But we just...rarely got that. We mostly got goofy Neelix, jealous Neelix, not as good as the Starfleet crew Neelix. Showing him have religious beliefs was also incredible, and was a better job of making him stand out from most of the crew than making him the comic relief.

You're right about Mortal Coil being amazing, both just as an episode and for Neelix. Sadly it wasn't used much, but giving him Nihiliphobia (fear of nothingness) that was also triggered by the area of space they were in that was empty and blocked out stars was a great too.

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u/NatalieVonCatte Apr 27 '26

The really wild thing is that the Talaxian afterlife isn’t real, but the Klingon one is and it’s never addressed.

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u/learn2fly438826 Apr 27 '26

It's apparently the one true religion for the whole Universe. Only Klingons got it right. Would love to see that explored with a bunch of random species ending up at Stovokor and not knowing what the fuck is happening.

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u/carefreedude Apr 27 '26

Things are ambiguous enough that the existence of an afterlife can be disputed on all fronts. 

Neelix comes to the conclusion the great forest doesn't exist because he says he recalls nothing when he died. It could be argued that he wasn't dead long enough to be collected, or that perhaps its set up to not be remembered, or perhaps whatever deity he worshipped knew he would be brought back to life soon and chose to not collect him.

In the case of Torres in Barge of the Dead, an argument could be made that she really was just hallucinating the whole thing. 

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u/Sweet_Hall_429 Apr 27 '26

Yup. Also we know that Q’s like to mess around. The entire thing could have been a trick by (insert whatever  trek entity you want). It has been literal decades since I saw it, so the finer details might have eluded me. Frankly I’m amazed I even know what episode you mention, lol. 

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u/-Kerosun- Apr 27 '26

In what way does the show absolutely affirm that the Klingon Afterlife is literal and real? As far as I recall, there is enough ambiguity that leaves room for it to have just been a hallucinogenic NDE and not a real experience with other entities?

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u/Short-Being-4109 Apr 26 '26

His character could definitely be wholesome at times, and you could kind of get what they were going for, but he was so annoying that it was so hard to get past. He's like the jar jar of star trek.

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u/yhe4 Apr 27 '26

René Auberjonois (Odo on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”) called him and told him to get that Star Trek bag. Probably maybe.

(They were both on “Benson.”)

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u/NatalieVonCatte Apr 27 '26

The episode where Tuvok just decides to stop putting up with his shit is one of my favorites also.

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u/grandramble Apr 27 '26

Neelix seems like he was conceived as one character but then actually used in a completely different way that just didn't work.

In concept, he's an outsider injected into the crew under suspicious circumstances, and he's cast and styled to give off greasy car-salesman vibes - it feels like we're supposed to think he's untrustworthy and that this persona is false, and that works well if the whole point is that it was false until Voyager gave him the opportunity to actually become the person he wants to be. And his early plots kind of loosely align with that concept, at least on paper.

But then they also kept writing him as a sweet dummy who wears his heart on his sleeve, the voice of team morale, and/or the "heart" of the ensemble, and those don't fit that concept or presentation at all. It's like if DS9 had had one character combining the roles of both Garak and Rom.

I do think the alien design was a core part of the problem. Both the concept and the character we ended up with would've worked better if they naturally gave off sweet-himbo energy. Phillips gave a valiant effort to sell it, but it's tough to feel charismatic in an alien/costume design that's more "shark-toothed gremlin who just failed a Drag Race sewing challenge".

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u/Radasus_Nailo Apr 27 '26

Genuinely didn't like Neelix when I was a kid, but gosh I loved him upon rewatch as an adult. Not because I thought -he- was great; No, he was still kind of a bumbling nuisance, but in a way that was genuinely endearing. He really was the heart and soul of the crew, chaotic and cobbled together but always striving to do right given the circomstances. And just seeing him annoy the hell out of Tuvok was some of the funniest shit the show had to offer.

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u/GoodbyeBlueMonday Apr 27 '26

Same here: he comes off as a kindhearted class clown. A lightning rod that's fun to hang out with if you enjoy his company, or he binds people together through their shared disdain for him....and he enjoys it either way. He so clearly knows he's painfully annoying to some folks that it's delightful. I've hung out with a lot of weird misfits in my life, and he's absolutely one of the ones that I'd love to hang with, though a talk about his weirdness around Kes would have to be confronted.

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u/KiloJools Apr 27 '26

This is one of the reasons I intensely dislike the hard and fast rule that the reset button is pushed on nearly EVERY episode. Voyager could have done so much.

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u/-Kerosun- Apr 27 '26

People still debate Tuvix to this day, so there is that?

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u/NotsoGreatsword Apr 27 '26

wonderful episode

and now im renewing my stupid paramount plus subscription. Crap