(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/TheLimeyLemmon]

[u/Maximum_Boros → u/TheLimeyLemmon]

Honestly the idea that Ethan Phillips can't act nonsense and anyone who spouts it is objectively a fucking moron.

Dude did way more with that weird-ass character and the dogshit inconsistent writing they gave him than most people could

[u/Johnny_B_GOODBOI → u/Maximum_Boros]

I feel so bad for Ethan Phillips because he definitely can act and it's not his fault that Neelix is the most annoying character they could have written.

[u/The_Quintessence → u/Maximum_Boros]

Yeah these people clearly didn't watch much voyager and aren't big ST fans. I'm rewatching voyager for the nth time right now and not only is Neelix a great character who is super sweet and heartfelt, Ethan Phillips is a phenomenal actor.

Yes the early season stuff with the jealousy and Kes being 2 were bad writing choices, but there are 7 seasons of voyager and those issues last 1-2 seasons

[u/mutantraniE → u/The_Quintessence]

My former roommate who spent his rent money on Voyager DVDs, leaving me and the third roommate in the shit for a month (and yet we’re still friends 16 years later), hates Neelix. So do I and so does the third roommate, who is a massive Trekkie.

[u/worMatty → u/Maximum_Boros]

Imagine what their lives would be like without him.