Characters you thought "deserved better"

[Furbyz]

Tien seems very popular among the DBZ fans as an underused character. While Yamcha and Krillin are usually viewed as the weaklings that they are, Tien has been often seen as the strongest human of the series and much better than the other two mentioned. Also, some fans get pretty angry that he never really had his moments to shine like a lot of the other heroes, so yeah, a lot of people think he deserved better from the series.

I wouldn't say he never got a moment to shine. He never really got a moment to be the big damn hero and save the day, but speaking as a person who doesn't particularly like DBZ anymore, Tien holding Cell back for as long as he did by literally spending his own life bit by bit is one of the moments I still look back on fondly.

 

[klaynexas3]

Unalaq from Season 2 Legend of Korra. He could have been what Zaheer is. In fact, I feel more and more with each passing episode that Zaheer's existence is purely to make up for what a shitty villain Unalaq was. He started off pretty transparent to the audience, while in their world probably still seeming relatively like a good guy at the start. It could have been a chance for them to prove the audience wrong, that obvious villain guy was actually a pretty good person, or maybe a Darth Vader type dude, or something of the like. But nope, he's just the antichrist. God I hate last season. Maybe that's not what you were asking for, but I see that as a suitable answer.

Every person ever met in Sword Art Online that isn't a main character. They all just kind of disappear. Maybe they'll reappear like once or twice just for the hell of it, but they never really do anything. It's all about Kirito and his love and blah blah blah(the more I think about SAO, the more I just begin to hate it).

 

[Skatologist]

@Furbyz: Well, I did say moments, not moment, and a few fans have told me that that and his fighting scenes with Nappa were the two things that really stuck with them, but other than that, he is generally viewed as underused and probably the strongest "human" among the cast from many fans.

 

[Something Amyss]

Yar got off light. Just think about all the characters who were around for the whole series (or most of it).

Anyway, I'm going to go with somewhat of a weird one. Peter Parker. Pete is still alive (in the main continuity, anyway), and he's a starring character. But that seems to be part of the problem. It's just that the writers or editors or whoever really seem to hate him and spend most of their time trying to revise or reinvent him. And I don't just mean Civil War/One More Day (though those don't help), as they've been doing this for decades now. I sort of wonder if they know the difference between "underdog" and "whipping boy."

Many of Star Wars' villains. Darth Maul, Grievous, Boba Fett. They're always introduced as the most awesome thing ever yet are dispatched with relative ease.

Star Wars seems to operate under a law where the popularity of a named character is inversely proportional to their screen time. Even better if they don't speak. The main exception, of course, is Jar-Jar. Though even he gets more popular the less he appears. Just for different reasons.

But Maul and Fett are especially interesting cases because their popularity started before they were even named characters. Boba already had a fan base from some production stills from Empire.

 

[Something Amyss]

Sticking on the Star Trek theme, what they did to Kirk in Generations.

Oh God yes. Kirk going out would have been an interesting book end to the original series and a great way to "pass the torch" to the new TNG movies.

Kirk going out the way he did had younger me facepalming so hard I think it may be the reason I need glasses.

 

[WindKnight]

Cima Garahau, a supporting villain in Gundam 0083, especially when you learn her backstory.

A zeon loyalist to the core, she and her men took on any job they were given, even ones other Zeons considered themselves too proud for, and was even tricked into committing a war crime when the knockout gas she had been given to pacify the population of a space colony (the one used in Operation British) turned out to be a fatal nerve gas instead.

Her home Colony got converted into the Colony Laser by the Zeon rulers, leaving her homeless, and in the Zeon retreat to Axis, her superiors (including the one who had ordered the gassing of the original colony) made it abundantly clear she and her men were not welcome there due to the gassing, leaving her and her crew to fend for themselves and leaving her with a bitter hatred for her superiors.

In the show, she starts as an antagonist to the heroes, ultimately trashing the main gundam (it was a ground combat prototype and hadn't been adapted for space, a fact everyone told the hero and he kept ignoring) and forcing an extensive refit on it, and contributed to the death of the hero' s mentor.

Spoiler

Ultimately she turns on zeon as their plan seemed to be coming to fruition, doing her best to help the federation turn a victory into humiliation defeat for Zeon.

Unfortunately for her, even after she switched sides, the hero was too obsessed with taking his revenge on her, ultimately killing her and wiping out her crew.

 

[Gizmo1990]

Well, A Song of Ice and Fire springs to mind instantly. Particularly Brienne in A Feast for Crows, which is basically one big book of George Martin taking a big, greasy, steaming shit on her face (and then having a cannibal bite a part of that face off). Also, Tyrion in A Dance With Dragons, in which it becomes readily apparent that Martin has come to despise Tyrion, probably because of how popular the character is, but at the same time can't kill him off, again, because of how popular the character is.

Next would probably be a ton of people in The First Law and other Joe Abercrombie books, but when you stop and think about it, most of them either had it coming or didn't end up quite so bad. The one exception might be Shivers, who was one of the few truly decent people in the books, but got screwed over so hard and repeatedly that it was tragic to watch. Used to think Bremer dan Gorst got it pretty bad, but then I read Heroes and any sympathy I might have had vanished...

Finally, Malus Darkblade, simply because COME ON, give the guy a break. Also, more books.

I love that your examples are from books and yet, considering your profile picture, you don't mention any of the many characters that get a raw deal in The Dresden Files.

OT:

Ironicaly I will not be giving any examples from the Dresden Files because there are simply too many. Hell every book normally has someone getting fucked over who simply don't deserve it. I guess the biggest one would be Susen. And to a smaller extent Michael (but he seems to be cool with it).

Another series would be the Night Angle Trillogy. A good 90% of the characters in that series don't deserve what happens to them. Except for the bad guys obviously. And this character:

Spoiler

Elaine. She deserved her fate simply because she annoyed me and made a big chunk of book 2 kind of boring

Edit:

Just remembered another one! How to train your dragon 2. Anyone who has seen it knows exactly whom I am talking about. I shed a single manly tear when it happened.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Well, I got a couple. From the Sly Cooper games.

Warning for any who haven't played those games: 1. Spoilers below. 2. You better play the first three games, or a racoon is going to beat you with a cane! ;p (just the first three)

First, Bentley. For starters, he's an orphan like Sly and Murray(his friends and team mates), but that's hardly uncommon and he does have his friends.
However, he later gets crippled in the second game. You don't find that out until the third game though, and honestly, he kind of comes out better than he was before.
What really gets Bentley though is what happens with him and the other character I picked.

Spoiler: Spoilers for the latest Sly Cooper game. Do not worry, I wouldn't recommend playing it anyway. Also, the other character was Penelope.

Penelope is the second character who really gets screwed. In the 4th game at least.

In the third game she joins the team after they prove themselves by beating her in a dogfight competition (Airplanes, not dogs).

She later ends up dating Bentley. At the end of the game they are together working in their own lab (I assume in the Cooper vault) and have been left in control of the Cooper Vault (where Sly's family holds all their treasure). Sly and the rest have gone their separate ways and the gang is kind of retired.

In the 4th game, it starts with Bentley and Penelope working in their lab, on time travel. Then, out of no where Bentley finds that Penelope has disappeared and pages in the Thievius Raccoonus (the book that holds all the thieve secrets of Sly's family) is going blank, page by page.

Short story: Bad guy causing tomfoolery in the past using time travel to destroy the Cooper family's legacy.

Anyway, what dose this have to do with Penelope? Well, the gang finds out that Penelope has been helping the villain of the game to destroy Cooper's family. Not only that, but she was the one who gave them the time travel technology and is planning on killing Sly.

Why? Has she brain washed to work for the other side? (the did happen to have another villain who can mind control people like in the second game)

Nope! She's just an evil greedy ***** and thinks Sly is holding Bentley and her back from "making billions in weapons design". Actually, no! When asked if she sold out for the money, she states "It's not about the money! It's about use having the potential to change the world!"

Keep in mind, Sly is no longer with Bentley/Penelope, they are the ones left in control of a vault with literal mountains
of gold inside, and they were working on F@#KING TIME TRAVEL!

Not only does this wreak was was just an alright game, but it messes with the third(and best) game too.

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

From JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, parts 1 and 3:

Spoiler

Jonathan Joestar. He sacrifices himself to take Dio down in the sinking ship with him, and yet Dio still possesses his body and uses it for evil later in part 3. I thought it was a cool plot point, but it really feels like an ignoble way to go for Jonathan. He's the one in his bloodline that started the family tradition of fighting evil and bizarre adventures (hooray for title drop), and yet he has the shortest part to star in, and his body ends up as nothing but a tool for the villain.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

While this anime is a piece of crap and the character herself isn't that great, the main character in Master of Martial Hearts, and that whole final episode:

Spoiler

Everything that happened to Aya in that episode is completely undeserved. You have a character who is shown to be a pretty nice, sweet girl, who happens to also know martial hearts, who enters the tournament to save a friend. Although there are times where she'd get angry and beat the living crap out of some of the competitors, she still had good intentions, and I kinda liked her. But then for the last episode, the series takes a sudden dark turn. She is betrayed by everyone; Her best friend, the friend she tried to save, the man she had a crush on. She learned the fate of the fallen contestants, who have been drugged and are ready to be sold, and is told that this was all a revenge scheme to get back at her family, and call her a monster who deserves to suffer. It basically breaks her, mentally and emotionally. This was one of the most disgusting, mean-spirited endings I've ever seen, and there was no hint of this anywhere. Maybe if they written Aya's character differently, maybe play up the anger issues or show that she can be cruel at times, maybe it would work a little better (the motivations are still stupid), but as is, it's completely uncalled for, and is nothing that character deserved for everything she's gone through.

Also, Shu from Guilty Crown:

Spoiler

The series never give the kid a break. He's constantly getting his life endangered or threatened, getting betrayed by friends while also tragically losing some, and even gets his arm cut off. In the end, the girl he loves dies, and becomes blind and crippled, while none of his actions seem to be recognized. That's his reward for basically saving the world. He has even less than what he started with. While he wasn't the most likable character, I didn't hate him, I wanted to see him succeed. He does try his best to be a hero and at one point a leader, so I feel the ending he gets is a bit backhanded.

 

[DirgeNovak]

Spoiler: The Walking Dead TV show Season 3 spoilers

Andrea.
She was a great character in the first two seasons. She had a great arc with Amy in season one and she only got better in season two in her relationships with Dale and Beth. She then suddenly became an absolute moron in season three. It wasn't enough to choose the Governor over Michonne early in the season, she accepted every half-baked justification he served her for almost the entire season, and then once she finally wised up, didn't kill him when she had the opportunity because "she still wuvved him aaaww". And don't get me fucking started on the finale, in which she took ages to free herself from the chair for no reason whatsoever and ended up bit. A stupid, meaningless death.

Spoiler: Dexter Season 8 spoilers

Deb.
I'm not mad about the fact that she died, in fact I expected it. I do have a major problem with how her story was handled in the second half of the season, though. Unlike a lot of people I actually loved the first half of season eight. Deb quitting the police and rejecting Dexter after killing LaGuerta made sense and was very interesting. Her PTSD therapy with Vogel was close to fascinating. Her trying to kill herself and Dexter after learning of Harry's suicide was heartbreaking. Great stuff.
And then the writers decided that the second half of the season had to be about fucking Hannah, so all that interesting psychological stuff about Deb was quickly swept under the rug inside one episode where Deb somehow accepts to help Dexter murder yet another person and then her and Dexter are suddenly best buds again so they can focus on that fucking stupid Hannah plot.
Then she's barely involved in the story aside from harboring the woman who tried to kill her months before and then gets unceremoniously killed off by the absolute worst villain in the series' history. Yuck.

Doakes got the short end of the stick in Season 2 of Dexter. It was sad. He was far from my favorite character, but it seemed unfitting if not bad exactly.

Spoiler

He found out that Dexter was the bay harbor butcher, so Dexter framed him and then in the finale he was killed by Lila. The body was found and he went down in history as being the butcher. It was shit

I'll have to disagree on that. It was the best possible solution.

Spoiler

Dexter couldn't have killed Doakes himself, because he still followed the code pretty much to the letter at the time. He also couldn't let the investigation continue, as that would have eventually exposed him. If everything had gone according to Dexter's plan, season 3 would have basically become a boring courtroom drama, so the frame work had to work and Doakes had to go.
While I agree Lila killing Doakes wrapped things up a bit too neatly, it had to be done. Honestly I'm more disappointed that Dexter killed Lila. I would have loved her to come back a few seasons later.

 

[Harpalyce]

The duo popularly known as Bryke get on my tits for this on a near-constant basis, but I'll try to limit myself to a few instead of going on a long rant about how all of the characters from ATLA have been replaced by doppelgangers in LOK apparently made of wet cardboard and failure...

Koh the Face-Stealer. Amazing villain. Wonderfully ambiguous. Obviously up to far more than he lets on. Genuinely horrifying and damn clever character design. Surely this is the first glimpse of something larger, right? Maybe his machinations have been behind it all for the past hundred-plus years!

...And then we never see him nor hear from him again past that one episode.

That missed opportunity makes me want to scream and then chew off one of my own limbs in frustration.

Also, I can probably write you at least a five-page essay on how the finale episodes of Season 1 of LoK took a basket of great character development opportunities, perched on a diving board eight feet above a beautiful sparkling pool of success, then did a double backflip right onto the concrete, missing the pool entirely and making a hell of a mess. But let's summarize with "Amon deserved better".

 

[Storm Dragon]

A few months ago, I watched an anime on Netflix called Kaze no Stigma. Overall, I think the show was mediocre at best, and I would have stopped watching it pretty early if I hadn't liked the main character, Kazuma, so much; the dude was a grade-A badass. Short version: He was born to a family of fire mages, but he couldn't firebend, so his family disowned him. He disappears for something like a decade, then returns as a preposterously powerful wind mage who can kick a person's ass without even taking his hands out of his pockets. He was also a snarky troll who had a sarcastic quip for just about everything. The father (or maybe grandfather, I can't remember) of the show's female lead (I can't remember her name, so I'll just call her "Stereotypical Hotheaded Tsundere Would-Be Love Interest") tries to play matchmaker and pair up his (grand?)daughter with Kazuma. Stereotypical Hotheaded Tsundere Would-Be Love Interest, being a stereotypical hotheaded tsundere would-be love interest, pretends to hate Kazuma and lashes out violently at him for the slightest perceived transgression, but she can never lay so much as a finger on him because the dude so vastly outclasses her in combat skills. What's more, Kazuma will say and do things to intentionally make Stereotypical Hotheaded Tsundere Would-Be Love Interest fly off the handle, because her impotent rage amuses him. Here's an example: Kazuma says a thing, S.H.T.W.B.L.I. takes offense and tries to kick him in the face, Kazuma catches her ankle with one hand, then comments on how it might be a bad idea to try to deliver a high kick while wearing a skirt.

So in answer to the original question: I think Kazuma deserved a better anime to star in.

 

[Vault101]

Yar got off light. Just think about all the characters who were around for the whole series (or most of it).
.

really?

the only thing that would come close to that level of bullshit were if the enterprise ended up in westeros and wesley got replaced by Joffrey and everyone had wear those season 1 lycra costumes FOREVER (they were apparently terribly uncomfortable)

unless you're talking about the movies...they can be ignored...

and no I've only just start season 5

 

[Something Amyss]

really?

the only thing that would come close to that level of bullshit were if the enterprise ended up in westeros and wesley got replaced by Joffrey and everyone had wear those season 1 lycra costumes FOREVER (they were apparently terribly uncomfortable)

unless you're talking about the movies...they can be ignored...

and no I've only just start season 5

Well, honestly, the entire crew gets put through so much crap. I'd feel bad for them, except they're mostly bland Mary Sues and the occasionally interesting Mary Sue. Which is ironic, given that they're also all incompetent.

The movies are part of it, but mostly only for Picard. I think Jean-Luc just snapped at some point between the series and Generations. On the one hand, it meant he developed a personality other than "French guy with British accent and unexplained nationalism," but on the other hand, it wasn't a really good personality.

Better to think of Yar as too good for this crap sack world.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

The elf guy in The Two Towers (movie). In the books he's just a side character who gets off OK, in the movie he gets promoted to Red Shirt so he can amp the kill count and fabricate some very superficial drama. Tough luck Haldir.

Saruman also deserved way better than his non-appearence in Return of the King. I know this gets fixed in the extended edition, but still. This was arguably the main villain in the preceding two movies, you can't just handwave him like that.

Continuing with the Lord of the Rings, I'd like to add another. Hama, the right hand of King Theoden. In the book, he dies defending the gate at Helm's Deep. You don't get to see the actual fight, but when they find his body, it's clear that he went down fighting and probably had a better last stand than Boromir. Theoden is heartbroken at his death. However, in the movie, Hama gets his head bitten off by a Warg and that's it. For some reason, Gamling gets to do all of his stuff, only Gamling doesn't die. I never understood this decision.

Stepping outside of that, I'm going with two characters from Naruto. Most of the supporting casts get the short stick in the series, but Hinata and Tenten are the worst. Now, I'm bias on the Hinata front for sure, and I loved that the anime actually allowed her to show that her training has paid off, but that was the only time. All the other times she is either captured, taken out of the fight, or defeated before the fight even begins.
But that doesn't hold a candle to Tenten. The poor girl is literally just there to explain the situation. The fight between Sakura and Ino? Tenten talks about how just because they're both girls doesn't mean they can't fight. Ninja war? Spends her time hiding up on cliff narrating the battle between the black Cloud Ninja and the brothers. Gets a powerful ninja tool and thus might finally get a chance to do something? Gets put to sleep along with everyone else. This is a girl who, if used properly, would be a terror on the field and amazing to watch. Summoning weapons out of the air allows her to switch instantly between close and long range combat. And seeing as she specializes in weapons, we know she much be good at hand-to-hand and I'm certain she could use her actual scrolls as weapons, or at least diversion. But every single time her chance comes up, all she does is sit there talking about what's happening before her. It's maddening. I actually thought she might step up and save the day, or at least Naruto, when she got that jar, but nope. Foiled again.

 

[Vault101]

Well, honestly, the entire crew gets put through so much crap. I'd feel bad for them, except they're mostly bland Mary Sues and the occasionally interesting Mary Sue. Which is ironic, given that they're also all incompetent.

lol...

well I could sort of understand that except Yarr's pathetic run was never really all that dignified, in episode 1 she gets frozen....XD

I mean FFS one of the few episodes that feature her has her fighting another women to the death over being another mans consort...and she's not even botherd by it because..sexist writing and all that

...actually

maybe being a consort is Yarr's secret fetish

yeah

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

Just about every one of these is a spoiler, so I'll break it up into sections so that nobody sees one that they don't want to.

Spoiler: Breaking Bad

Hank - Breaking Bad

I hated this one SO much. Though it would have been anticlimactic seeing Hank haul Walter's ass to prison, he deserved a better ending. His death (and eventually Walter's) left two widows, left two kids without a father and an uncle, and probably scarred Walter Jr. for life. Jr. not only has to reconcile losing both his dad and his uncle to Walter's illegal activities, but he has to live with the last words he ever said to Walter - wishing that he would die. Considering that his only remaining family is Skyler (widowed), Marie (widowed), and Holly (who's too young to remember anything that happened in the show) he probably won't get the emotional support he'll need from his relatives. If Hank lived, Jr. might have got what he needed from Hank and Marie.

Spoiler: Six Feet Under

Nate - Six Feet Under

Did he really have to die after suffering so much during the series' run? He had to cope with a fucked-up girlfriend, her fucked-up brother, siblings who hated his guts for living his own life away from the funeral home, a mother who can barely keep things together, fighting off a hostile takeover of the business... and then, when things started looking up, BAM! He's dead.

Spoiler: Grey's Anatomy

Lexie Grey AND Mark Sloan - Grey's Anatomy

Shonda Rhimes really has a bloodlust when it comes to writing anyone out of the show, but the one-two punch of Lexie and Sloan was far too much to take. This one is tough to call, though, because Chyler Leigh wanted to quit the show at the end of season eight to be with her family, and then Eric Dane decided he wanted to move on during the break between seasons eight and nine. However, Shonda (being Shonda) just HAD to write Lexie out of the show by killing her in the season eight finale, with Sloan surviving (barely) the plane crash. Then Sloan succumbed to his wounds in the season nine premiere because of Eric Dane's between-seasons decision to leave. So I guess Sloan's death was almost a mercy killing, but if Shonda hadn't already killed Lexie, maybe the couple (the best romantic couple in Grey's entire run) could have had a happy ending. But no... they both got dirt naps instead.

 

[Something Amyss]

lol...

well I could sort of understand that except Yarr's pathetic run was never really all that dignified, in episode 1 she gets frozen....XD

I mean FFS one of the few episodes that feature her has her fighting another women to the death over being another mans consort...and she's not even botherd by it because..sexist writing and all that

...actually

maybe being a consort is Yarr's secret fetish

yeah

Well, I have it on good authority that women love to be subservient slaves. This one girl on YouTube said it, and a bunch of MRA gender skeptics linked to it, so it must be true.

Seriously, it's far from dignified, but I'm not sure she has it any worse than the rest of the women on the crew. And the men don't exactly get a lot of dignity, either. Worf gets knocked out every other episode, like he's the designated red shirt. Gerodi is about two episodes from joining Reg Barlkley in holo addiction, and Riker may be the worst first officer ever.

And the less said about Deanna Trois, the better....

 

[Souplex]

Spoiler: How I Met Your Mother

How I met your Mother is a Show about this awesome guy named Barney, this awesome gal named Robin, and this obnoxious asshole named Ted.
For some reason the show keeps trying to convince us that it's about Ted.
The final season's story arc is about Barney and Robin realizing that they are the only human beings awesome enough for each other, and getting married. The second to last episode ends with their marriage.
Then in the final episode we cut to ten years later. Barney and Robin's marriage falls apart for no reason, and Ted and Robin get together.
Bullshit.