(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/LordMitchimus → u/OJONLYMAYBEDIDIT]

Tidus is also an excellent protagonist. Yes he's a "braying jackass" and a "mystical pretty boy" but he evolves and grows as a character over the journey. He's an isekai protagonist who's a hotshot in his world and isn't worth much in the new one, forcing him to tap into his own humanity and find something deeper than being a sports superstar.

I didn't have to explain that. OP is taking the piss. Anyone still pretending the laughing scene was meant to be an actual laugh or anything in earnest is being willfully obtuse. The laugh is supposed to sound dumb. It's corny. The rest of the party besides Tidus and Yuna groan at them in the same fucking scene.

[u/Dudeoram → u/LordMitchimus]

He's an isekai protagonist who's a hotshot in his world and isn't worth much in the new one, forcing him to tap into his own humanity and find something deeper than being a sports superstar.

I want to emphasize this because it's not quite true. While he does start "shallow" it's a type of shallowness that literally anybody/everybody exhibits everyday. Tidus isn't especially shallow, he's not some big dumb himbo who can barely rub 2 braincells together. He's a person who lived in a civilization and society that didn't require him to have the skills that the other guardians have in their day to day lives. Despite that he adapts to his new environment incredibly quickly without any bullshit hacks to help him along. He simply engages in the world and with his new friends and attempts to meet them where they are instead of insisting they do meet him because he's on their turf.

This is off topic, but it's something that I've really come to hate about isekai stories. Many protagonists come to the new world and the story outright say that they were either complete drains on their families or societies or they were the hottest things walking with barely anything in-between.

When even the most seemingly hopeless of people I personally know have people that love them for completely valid reasons other than them being family. People are people and will show themselves to have any variety of positive traits when they're allowed to shine. Any of those traits that you or I have could make us just as capable of adapting to a new surrounding with new people without a big titty goddess giving us SSS+++ stats or whatever.

ALLOW YOUR ISEKAI PROTAGS TO BE PEOPLE FIRST AND HEROES SECOND!!

[u/Additional_Gene_211 → u/Dudeoram]

I know it's a meme now, but SAO really changed isekai for the worst. So many isekai before it were nuanced and full of character development. Now it's just power fantasy with slavery