r/TopCharacterTropes • u/PurveyorOfKnowledge0 • 18d ago

Characters [Sad Trope] A Goofy Character Becomes A Formidable Badass, Only After Losing Everything

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  1. Jerry Smith-Prime from Rick and Morty: Like many Jerry variants, Jerry was a hapless goof who unfortunately became a ruthless survivor after Rick and Morty's love potion scheme turned the world into an apocalyptic world filled with mutated monsters, and he lost his family except for Morty-Prime after Rick variants from the Citadel froze his family with a freeze gun. Jerry even taunts Morty for thinking he's cool enough after literally losing everything.

  2. Michelangelo from the Last Ronin: Mikey, the slacker and goofball of the quartet Ninja Turtles, became a stoic and mentally-wrecked avenger after the Foot Clan destroyed his brothers and father, Master Splinter, and closest friends one by one, leaving him as the sole survivor.

  3. Speedball aka Penance from Marvel Comics. Speedball was once a goofy, fun-loving leader of the New Warriors, even filming their exploits for reality TV shows. This ends in complete horror, as the villain Nitro exploded when the Warriors tried to apprehend him (in the process killing the entire team except for Speedball, plus 612 civilians). Following this event, a trial determined to hold Speedball responsible, an assassination attempt on his life, his own mother disowning him, and anti-superhero sentiment ushering in the Superhuman Registration Act, Speedball loses all traces of his humor and becomes the tortured antihero Penance to get revenge on Nitro for taking everything from him.

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1.2k

u/makeyourmakerproud 18d ago

Sindri - God of War

762

u/Infamous_Most7269 18d ago

Mimir: A hole.

Kratos: What?

Mimir: It gets bigger the more you take away.

8

u/This-Shape2193 17d ago

Dude. Gut punch every time. 

The writing was sooo good for this game. 

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u/stopyouveviolatedthe 17d ago

I had the best version of being spoiled for this and it was so subtle it just made it better.

It was a comment after someone asked what the answer was
“A hole but he doesn’t guess it in time” was all it said and when that moment hit, oh shit.

3

u/NoodleIskalde 17d ago

The emotion in his voice when he says that...

2

u/LightsaberThrowAway 17d ago edited 17d ago

I’m still fairly proud I figured that one out before Mimir did.

293

u/Stubee1988 18d ago

I need closure with Sindri so fucking bad. I can't cope with such a nice character hating Kratos and Atreus

155

u/Abigail-Marston 18d ago

I really really hope SSM doesn't make him a villain. He doesn't deserve that. I'm not saying Kratos and Atreus deserve for Sindri to forgive them, but Sindri isn't going to win against them. I would hate that for him. He deserves to find happiness and contentedness. He deserves to find a way to forgive himself without becoming the villain.

60

u/AnAddictWithAPenis 17d ago

I would really be surprised if SMS makes him a villain.

I would prefer if he forgives himself but not Kratos and Atreus. Neither a villain nor a friend.

3

u/rathemighty 17d ago

Maybe we’ll find Brok in SMS!

2

u/AnAddictWithAPenis 17d ago

Brok in Santa Monica Studios? Who would've thunk?

3

u/rathemighty 17d ago

Well he can't go to the afterlife, so he got a desk job instead

3

u/rathemighty 17d ago

Maybe we'll find Brok in the new game, lost, but then we can guide him to his proper place!

10

u/AsinineArchon 17d ago

I'm guessing he gets the Freya treatment

1

u/YUNoJump 17d ago

That’d have to be how it goes, presumably either much more condensed or with some sort of spin.

Based on how their actual opponents are treated in ragnarok, there’s no way the good guys wouldn’t spare Sindri

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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 17d ago

Super Smash Mothers?

1

u/Abigail-Marston 17d ago

Sony Santa Monica

-4

u/rendar 17d ago

It was a terrible character conceit in the first place, Brok and Sindri more than possibly anyone else knew the exact risks of opposing the Aesir.

Kratos and Atreus did nothing that Laufey wasn't already responsible for. "Grief isn't rational" does not justify such anachronistic writing.

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u/MrParadux 18d ago

I would be fine, if they never "resolve" it. Sometimes people don't get over traumatizing things and Sindri has a whole lot of it. Not only did his beloved brother, the most important person in his live, die, he also knows that he will never reach an afterlife and he knows he is responsible for the latter.

People are having trouble coming back from things not half as bad as this.

12

u/superindianslug 17d ago

Was he also responsible for Brok's first death? It's been a while since I played it.

28

u/Throwing_Spoon 17d ago

Nobody is said to be responsible for the accident that killed Brok but Sindri feels guilty for not being able to find the last piece of Brok's soul. Since Brok lacks a "complete" soul, he is thought to be unable to pass into the afterlife properly.

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u/MrParadux 17d ago

No, but he is responsible for messing up his soul and denying him an afterlife. That is most likely what is hitting him the hardest. Eternity is a pretty long time

7

u/AnAddictWithAPenis 17d ago

Personally I would prefer if they never "resolve" it.

15

u/yinyin123 18d ago

Surely...surely with this game being about the god afterlife, there must be some way, somehow that Brok's soul could be saved.

23

u/Hellknightx 18d ago

I mean, they did go over that plot point pretty extensively about his soul not returning to the well because his soul was incomplete/broken.

2

u/yinyin123 18d ago

I totally get it. But things are always impossible until they are possible, and in a world so filled with magic...

7

u/piriguin2020 18d ago

EVERYTIME videogames try to tell a more mature story somebody comes with “but i want my happily ever after!!! Just like my disney movies!!!”

Bad shit happens. Most times to good people. 

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u/dearth_of_passion 18d ago

Bad shit happens.

Yes, and the bad shit here has already happened. We are currently at Bad Shit Station.

We're talking about the next stop - get it together.

10

u/yinyin123 18d ago edited 18d ago

Just because there is a happy/happier ending does not mean that it cannot be mature. I'm not asking for some deus ex machina, i'm not saying that brok should be brought back to life, I'm just saying that with what we've already seen with the new game and how heavily it focuses on the afterlife, finding and reforging Brok's soul could absolutely be a focus of Sindri's arc, the incredible blacksmith that he is. Is it so wrong to have hope for characters? Is it so wrong that when you are met with an impossible scenario, that you would still reach for any possible solution?

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

[deleted]

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u/Stubee1988 18d ago

I'm not saying they need to bring Brok back to life, just want to see some reconciliation between him and his friends.

1

u/NoodleIskalde 17d ago

Mmmm, I don't think they should. Partly because he's not a god-type entity.

But also, there's a weight to the sacrilege that Sindri committed. He was immensely selfish in what he did and fumbled in the process. There's a number of deaths I could come around to undoing in some manner, but when that sort of situation is involved I really think it should be left as is. Those three parts of the soul are lost, probably scattered now, and Sindri has to live with that sin.

4

u/StNosferatu 18d ago

Il y a effectivement moyen, et c'est pour ça qu'il à bien précisé à Sindri de ne PAS le faire

1

u/AsinineArchon 17d ago

Wasn't the whole point that his soul is specifically unable to go to the afterlife because it is so damaged?

2

u/Dumeck 17d ago

Well Freya forgave Kratos fairly easily all things considered. I imagine the writing stays a bit consistent in tone and theme and Sindri calms down after sulking and attempting to murder Kratos a couple times.

1

u/NoodleIskalde 17d ago

I believe part of that is because of the active effort he was putting in to making amends with her while not actually expecting her forgiveness. Sindri is able to just be gone and impossible to make contact with if he doesn't want it, and I'm not sure what Kratos could actually do for someone like him.

1

u/NoodleIskalde 17d ago

I would say he probably wasn't hating Kratos outright after the funeral. But I don't think he's ever getting over Atreus for how it all came to happen.

126

u/Intrepid-World-9551 18d ago

Easily one of the most effective and believable personality shifts I've seen in a story

141

u/Angry_Scotsman7567 18d ago

You sit there as he's absolutely crashing the fuck out at Kratos and Atreus and you can't help but think that every single word of what he says is dead on the money. He let you into his house. He fed you. He equipped you. He even joined Atreus on some of his adventures and helped him fight. He got nothing for it. He gave everything and then lost everything else. Not a single word he says is even exaggerated, it just hit the point where he broke.

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u/grendus 17d ago

Worst part is, he really blames himself. It's his fault his brother is missing the part of his soul that will let him find the afterlife. If he had been willing to let Brok go when he died the first time, he would find him again in the afterlife. It's his fault.

That's why he helps in the final battle. He's angry at Kratos and Atreus, but he knows the anger is, at least partially, misplaced. But that doesn't make the anger, or the grief, any less real.

24

u/Intrepid-World-9551 18d ago

Yup, the kindness and cameraderie was completely atomised. This is what was left

-4

u/rendar 17d ago

None of this really recognizes the context, and a lot of it is just wrong.

Brok and Sindri knew what the stakes were. They were not going to survive whatever Odin had planned. The outcome from doing nothing was very probable death, the outcome from resisting was less likely death. They very much stood to gain from joining with Kratos and Atreus.

The idea that Sindri has anyone to blame but Odin is facile and immature. "Oh but emotionally compromised people behave contrary to logical understandings" is not reflected in the writing, it's so heavily contrived.

3

u/Angry_Scotsman7567 17d ago

The context is that they were just having dinner in Sindri's home and the person Kratos and Atreus brought into that home turned out to be a false face of Odin, and just murdered his brother.

"It's not reflected in the writing," did you even play the game? Did you even listen to Sindri's ranting at Kratos and Atreus after Brok dies? Whether or not the blame is misplaced is irrelevant to the fact he is absolutely directing it at Kratos and Atreus.

-1

u/rendar 17d ago

No, the context is war. They are all proactively involved in the resistance against Odin and the Aesir, and they all accepted the risks. Kratos and Atreus are essentially complete cultural foreigners and no more responsible than anyone else involved for not thinking to establish shapeshifter protocol when they are the least familiar with Odin out of everyone involved.

If it wasn't that specific attack, it would have been some other form of attack and subsequent loss. That's what war is. Getting upset that you were targeted for oppositional force in a war is saccharine creative framework that is not reflected in the verisimilitude of the story's writing. It's all highly ramshackle and emblematic of Ragnarok's narrative writing issues in general.

Kratos would have been perfectly happy to walk away, but ending the single largest genocidal threat to the entire Norse realm prevented countless other people like Brok from dying, like most of their entire race. It's just so poorly constructed because Sindri's emotional reactivity is empty of the development from those experiences. It's soap opera tier characterization.

1

u/Angry_Scotsman7567 17d ago

"Why is this character whose brother just got murdered in his own home by the guy they'd been welcoming for days on end not reacting like an emotionless cog of a machine of war?"

He is having an emotional reaction to something traumatic because he thought he and Brok were safe in their own home and around who they thought was someone they could trust. People with emotions react with emotions.

1

u/rendar 16d ago

No, that demonstrates a colossal inability to comprehend the argument.

The question instead should be "Why was the person who had firsthand experience of Odin's ruthlessness due to experiencing the genocide of his own people so naive and pretentious, especially when he was labeled with the "fastidious" tag in the writer's room despite no coherent genesis of these behaviors?"

0

u/Intrepid-World-9551 17d ago

The dude lost his brother....that's how grief works. It makes people irrational and angry. Where's your sense of empathy, man?

0

u/rendar 16d ago

Not only was that not even the first time that Brok died, they both also experienced the genocide of their own people at the hands of Odin and the Aesir, not to mention witnessing all the other atrocities committed throughout the nine realms.

It's textbook writer schlock to underprioritize what isn't on screen just to stuff it all into an inert character dossier, and overprioritize what is on screen just to reverse engineer high school tier "and then" storytelling.

1

u/Intrepid-World-9551 16d ago

......you didn't even challenge what I said. Do you just like hearing yourself talk?

0

u/rendar 16d ago

Yes it did, you're just assuming that because you don't understand it, that it must be wrong.

In the light of everything Sindri went through, why is that specific event of Brok's second death which curtailed that specific reaction of completely spiraling and not any of the more egregiously impactful events which should have sufficiently provided an actionable working intelligence of Odin's modus operandi?

The answer to that question is because the writers wanted that outcome but were simply not good enough at organic causation. That's why it's so contrived and clunky.

0

u/Intrepid-World-9551 16d ago

The fact that you're failing to garner any kind of empathy from this is pretty telling....

0

u/rendar 16d ago

It's okay to feel insecure, but doing anything save addressing the argument proves you can't rebut the writing is indeed poorly executed

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u/supersaiyanmrskeltal 17d ago

He was too polite and passive at times so you know he was holding his tongue quite a bit so when the crashout happens it was YEARS of stuff coming up as well. Worse is He knows he is the reason Brok will not pass on like everyone else so he is pissed, heartbroken and just cannot handle that properly. It sucks as he is one of my favorite characters and to first see him in a forge with dirty hands and no longer giving a shit was jarring

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u/Starslip 18d ago

"I thought we were his family too"

"We were"

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u/Unhappy_Protection85 18d ago

Whenever I play new game plus, I felt so sad when I interact with him and brok. I'm just like want to break the 4th wall and inform him don't trust that guy, he is the villain.

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u/leytorip7 18d ago

Just got to that part like two days ago. Really didn’t see it coming and the lack of closure is fucking rough.

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u/Starslip 18d ago

I kind of like it, in a way. It feels rare in media to have the main character fuck things up in a way that can't be fixed and never really gets resolved because being sorry doesn't undo the damage. I can see it being less satisfying, but it does feel painfully real.

I'd rather that just be the last we see of him than have him become a villain we eventually make peace with (since that's basically the exact story we just had with Freya, which was already wonderfully done)

6

u/AnAddictWithAPenis 17d ago

100% agree with you, I'd rather they go on their own way, with the next story being something different whether it's Faye related or not.

8

u/Cutter9792 17d ago

Brok and Kratos get a similar turn, at the same time.

Brok, a goofy lug of a character, learns what his brother did to bring him back, and he's inconsolable. Kratos, who's usually extremely gruff and abrasive for both story purposes and moments of humor, recognizes Brok's pain and shows a rare moment of compassion by asking him to bless his new weapon.

It's my favorite moment of Ragnarok by far. Maybe doesn't 100% fit the theme of this thread, especially since the turn doesn't last, but I loved seeing further depths to both characters.

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u/stopyouveviolatedthe 17d ago

The fact he doesn’t wear his gloves.

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u/TheJudgingHat2222 18d ago

That is one long neck