Characters you thought "deserved better"

Piorn

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Zachary Amaranth said:
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.
Kirk has got to be one of the biggest contesters for this thread, I'm sure.
Sure, he needed to die one way or the other I guess, but he should've died as a captain, doing something Captainy only he can do, not in a fist fight with some guy in the desert.

And I hated that Data died, that was just stupid and illogical. He just traded his life for Picards, who's an old man himself and was prepared to die in the first place.
I always imagined Data ending up like R. Daneel Oliwav, watching the rise and fall of Civilizations and helping to delevope Psychohistory or something. But then again, Daneel would've been bound by the 3 Laws and would've propably done the same as Data did in that situation, so whatever.

These movies in general are pretty awful, they work neither as Star Trek, nor as Sci-Fi action movies. Personally I wouldn't object to retconning them all.
 

ISearchForTraps

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Commander_PonyShep said:
Trust me, you don't know useless unless you look at Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. As I said, they had such interesting key episodes, not just because they collected keys, but also because they learned valuable life lessons about their own Elements of Harmony. But once Tirek absorbs all of ponykind's magic and Twilight absorbs Celestia, Luna, and Cadence's, all of a sudden the Mane Five are even more useless than Spike and the breezies combined.

They learned life lessons and grew and developed as characters, just to have all that character-development squandered and thrown into the garbage, just to make way for Twilight's godlike power levels!
At least they got the Rainbow Powers along with Twilight, and at least they GOT keys. Spike sure didn't, the show even ADDRESSES his uselessness, they had to turn the Mane 6 into idiots in 'Power Ponies' (they all charge headlong at The Maneiac AFTER being told her weapon will leave them helpless AND after Rainbow Dash gets taken down.) JUST so Spike can be useful, otherwise he accomplished nothing and wouldn't have been needed at all.
 

MetalShadowChaos

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Kaori in Akira.

She spends the entirity of the events attempting to stay by Tetsuo even as he abuses her repeatedly, clearly suffering through it all for personal reasons, and rather than being given any release by the end, she's unceremoniously crushed by Testsuo's organs. She died in fear, having been nothing but a whippin girl through the entire thing.

I love Akira, but her death wasn't even necessary. At least if it had ended with her depressed and alone it would suggest hope for her with the remaining survivors. It felt a bit shit.
 

Imp_Emissary

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GamerMage said:
Imp Emissary said:
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.

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.
I KNOW, right? That was the main thing about the game that bothered me! Penelope wasn't evil or greedy in the last game, this wasn't like her; and to this day, I say the whole "Black Knight" boss to be a total LOAD.
And while I'm on the subject of characters I once enjoyed getting screwed over, Freaking Anders from Dragon Age 2. This guy was so lovable in Awakening, a sarcastic mage apostate that escaped the Circle Tower 7 times, who while he didn't exactly like how mages did things, he REALLY hated how Mages were treated by the Templars. I still remember finding that tabby kitten and givingit to him.(He named it Ser Pounce-a-lot. So adorable.) If anything, he was more like Varric. And in the first Act of DA2, he DOES act like the Anders I remember. A few things to prepare you for my next statement. 1. Anders had let the Fade Spirit of Justice possess his body to help in his quest etween to free the Mages. Ok, cool, BUT! Anders was lacking when it came to self-discipline, and by his own admission, his anger was what caused Justice to be warped in Vengeance. Not only that, but that very spirit is what screws him over, so much so, in the third act, he goes terrorist, and blows up the Kirkwall Chantry. With the Grand Cleric inside...the only one aside from Hawke that was able to keep the peace between Meredith (Well-intentioned Extremist Templar) and Orsino (First Enchanter of Kirkwall's Circle. Protects against Templars when claimed that the majority are Blood Mages. A real Idealist...and yet, he helps the Kirkwall Killer with his research. Who, if you didn't know or remember, frankensteined your mother with various other parts from women he killed to bring back his dead wife. At Irving's level of credibility, he is not.)
Yeah. The salt in the wound is the boss fight was kind of lame. In fact, most of the game can be summed up saying, "Alright, but not as good as 2 or 3". I noticed this early on, but was forgiving them because it was their first go at a three game long series.
Then we found out about Penelope. -_-
There were some plot holes in other parts too. I was really shocked how bad the story was over all. I mean, it seemed like at least some of the people making the games played/knew about the first ones, but over all the whole thing just feels like someone else trying to make a Sly game. Then not doing very well.

I mean, even the first Sly had better boss fights than this one. Ugh. Enough about that game. ;p

As for Anders in Dragon age. I agree. His betrayal was done well. They took a character we already knew, changed him over time, while letting use see the change(mostly), and gave him understandable(if not really agreeable) reasons that fit what the character had become.

Though, even though I now hate Anders, I don't hate Bioware like I hate Sanzaru Games. Because they made it work with the character. Even in Awakening I can kind of see how Anders kind of was more of an A-hole than I first thought he was.

Except for one part when you're talking to Wynne and he agrees that the cycle just leaving the chantry would be a bad idea. That was really reasonable.
xD Oh the narrative irony.

Also, they really messed up on a few betrayals too. Like Grace hating you even if you're helping the mages, or Orsino killing himself even if you're on his side easily winning the fight. ;p
 

Scarim Coral

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MetalShadowChaos said:
Kaori in Akira.

She spends the entirity of the events attempting to stay by Tetsuo even as he abuses her repeatedly, clearly suffering through it all for personal reasons, and rather than being given any release by the end, she's unceremoniously crushed by Testsuo's organs. She died in fear, having been nothing but a whippin girl through the entire thing.

I love Akira, but her death wasn't even necessary. At least if it had ended with her depressed and alone it would suggest hope for her with the remaining survivors. It felt a bit shit.
I second this.

OT- I suppose the only suitable character I can think of is maybe Lucy from Fairy Tail.

Sure while she is the useless female character in a shonen show but given that she is the main character (the first character introduce in the very first episode) she should be more useful. So far I am viewing her as the fanservice character (which I don't mind) and also a punching bag. Seriosuly that poor girl, she just get a beating like from Flare and Minvera, she can't catch a break. Ok sure it has been address that she is the strongest Celestial Spirit Wizard there is but she is no where badass compared to Grey, Elza or even Wendy!!
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

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Vault101 said:
I'm talking about a character in whatever work of fiction that you felt got the short end of the stick, both in-universe or out-universe

maybe a shitty death or not even the privilege of a death at all, maybe they just disappear randomly, maybe they get mangled by an adaptation, mabye they just seriously cannot catch a break


MY example....one that I've been somewhat bothered by after I finished the Star Trek TNG episode :Redemption part 2 (about half an hour ago) is Natasha Yar

who the fuck is Natasha Yar? you might ask...good question, she's a character who was around in season 1 and...around and then she dies, I know the real life reasons as to why that charachter was killed off but anyway:

[spoiler/]Yarr's death was a crappy one (it WAS season 1 afterall) which was bad enough...but then in one of the most memorable TNG episodes "Yesterdays Enterprise" she gets her own moment and a death thats actually fitting...all good right?

WRONG

oh no...see as we find out in the season 5 episode I mentioned she got captured by Romulans and as an alternative to death had to be a Commander's..."consort"...then she has a child....

one night she tries to escape with the child only to be found out (the kid didn't want to go) and executed (the daughter tue to timey wimey whatever is able to tell picard this)

....but she got a baby out of it all right? babies make everything better?

seriously am I the only one not horribly disturbed by this?? maybe that was the point BUT STILL, its almost hilarious how much of a raw deal this character got, when she's not doing not much or giving Wesley saturday morning special talks about the dangers of drugs she's constantly having to reaffirm her heterosexuality (see episodes code of honor and the naked now) if the actress hadn't have bailed in season 1 mabye she would have developed into an actual "strong female charachter" instead of the confused mess

*siiiiggghhh* [/spoiler]
Can't blame Yar's lack of development on anyone but Denise Crosby, who in essence put a phaser on kill and shot the character's future because apparently she was allergic to money. Before you say recast, the series was already a big risk and recasting her may have put TNG in an early grave if they screwed it up. So instead they decided to use her as the "anyone can die, not just redshirts" example. Sucks, but that was how things worked.
Considering all the social and civil boundaries that Roddenberry pushed over the years with Star Trek, I don't believe one can really get down on any of the pre-Abrams timelines for slight missteps they've had. I mean it featured women in high positions, the first interracial kiss on TV, spoke volumes on race relations, politics, etc. (Star Trek VI is one of my all time favorite political commentaries still relevant to today's world).
Anyway, Denise Crosby f'ed up Yar, and the writers more or less did what they could with her in the alternate universe and Sela story. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't supposed to be. It was designed to get in your face and show you how screwed up and immoral the Romulans are.
 

Ishigami

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Sarah Kerrigan

How come?
Well her legacy of being, and I quote here, ?queen ***** of the universe? got butchered by Blizzard themselves.
For me Kerrigan was a masterstroke in StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War. Apparently I?m not alone as Kerrigan ranked amongst the highest villains in video game history in several outlets.
SC:HotS changed all that. Before HotS Kerrigan herself was on a merciless killing spree for revenge and control.
HotS destroyed that by blaming the Zerg infestation for her outrages behavior. It was no longer Kerrigan doing all that. They made the queen ***** a manipulated, confused women with love angst on a teen level because they didn?t know how to make their fucked up sequel work with the player being in control of an actual villain.
And I say Kerrigan deserved better than this!
 

Imp_Emissary

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GamerMage said:
Imp Emissary said:
GamerMage said:
Imp Emissary said:
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)

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.
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.
I KNOW, right? That was the main thing about the game that bothered me! Penelope wasn't evil or greedy in the last game, this wasn't like her; and to this day, I say the whole "Black Knight" boss to be a total LOAD.
And while I'm on the subject of characters I once enjoyed getting screwed over, Freaking Anders from Dragon Age 2. This guy was so lovable in Awakening, a sarcastic mage apostate that escaped the Circle Tower 7 times, who while he didn't exactly like how mages did things, he REALLY hated how Mages were treated by the Templars. I still remember finding that tabby kitten and givingit to him.(He named it Ser Pounce-a-lot. So adorable.) If anything, he was more like Varric. And in the first Act of DA2, he DOES act like the Anders I remember. A few things to prepare you for my next statement. 1. Anders had let the Fade Spirit of Justice possess his body to help in his quest etween to free the Mages. Ok, cool, BUT! Anders was lacking when it came to self-discipline, and by his own admission, his anger was what caused Justice to be warped in Vengeance. Not only that, but that very spirit is what screws him over, so much so, in the third act, he goes terrorist, and blows up the Kirkwall Chantry. With the Grand Cleric inside...the only one aside from Hawke that was able to keep the peace between Meredith (Well-intentioned Extremist Templar) and Orsino (First Enchanter of Kirkwall's Circle. Protects against Templars when claimed that the majority are Blood Mages. A real Idealist...and yet, he helps the Kirkwall Killer with his research. Who, if you didn't know or remember, frankensteined your mother with various other parts from women he killed to bring back his dead wife. At Irving's level of credibility, he is not.)
Yeah. The salt in the wound is the boss fight was kind of lame. In fact, most of the game can be summed up saying, "Alright, but not as good as 2 or 3". I noticed this early on, but was forgiving them because it was their first go at a three game long series.
Then we found out about Penelope. -_-
There were some plot holes in other parts too. I was really shocked how bad the story was over all. I mean, it seemed like at least some of the people making the games played/knew about the first ones, but over all the whole thing just feels like someone else trying to make a Sly game. Then not doing very well.

I mean, even the first Sly had better boss fights than this one. Ugh. Enough about that game. ;p

I agree. His betrayal was done well. They took a character we already knew, changed him over time, while letting use see the change(mostly), and gave him understandable(if not really agreeable) reasons that fit what the character had become.

Though, even though I now hate Anders, I don't hate Bioware like I hate Sanzaru Games. Because they made it work with the character. Even in Awakening I can kind of see how Anders kind of was more of an A-hole than I first thought he was.

Except for one part when you're talking to Wynne and he agrees that the cycle just leaving the chantry would be a bad idea. That was really reasonable.
xD Oh the narrative irony.

Also, they really messed up on a few betrayals too. Like Grace hating you even if you're helping the mages, or Orsino killing himself even if your on his side easily winning the fight. ;p
Hmm...How so? While I agree that the "40 Thieves" level could have been replaced with something like say, either the Pirate Cooper or even Thaddeus Winslow Cooper the Third. I mean, could imagine a Sherlock Holmes version of Sly?

Yeah, and it certainly doesn't help he's wearing a Tevinter robe later on. Or that he suddenly gets serious in a conversation with Varric in the third act. Or to be honest, practically ANY party conversation with Anders during this act. You already have a bad feeling of where this guy's head's at now, especially when you find out the real reason he had you get those ingredients. Because when I first found out...I was frakking horrified. This guy you've come to like, suddenly bombing a church to incite a war between the Templars and Mages. And let's not forget, this goes BIGGER than the Circle Tower takeover by Uldred, this is become a full-out WAR. And, the first tiem through, I couldn't kill Anders and sided with the Mages. But last time? I killed Anders. I saved this bastard from the Templars, destroyed his phylactery, defended him from the A-hole Templars that tried to kill him, gave him that cat he loved so much, and THIS is how he repays me?! REALLY?! URGH! (Throws hands up) I'm sorry, it just...bothered me so dang much. No kidding,the irony there. Not to mention the juxtaposition of the kind, experienced Wynne, with the Sarcastic, likeable, yet somewhat head-strong Anders.
How was Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (Sly Cooper: TiT ;p) less than the three games that came before it?

Well, there's the general "feel" of the gameplay. Was a lot more fluid in the others. For one, they had triangle work as a changed attack AND the button to hit the enemy up. In TiT, you have to get close enough to the enemy for it to hit up when you press triangle. In two an three you could just hit triangle when you wanted and this let you even "juggle" the enemy.
In Tit, you have to be close to the enemy or it just starts charging. There's more but I'll just give you a list.

The gameplay, the villains, the levels, the story, the upgrades, the combat, the boss fights, Bentley's hacking mini games, and pretty much anything you can name. Was better in the other games.

That's not to say that TiT was "bad", just not as good. Except the story. That starts out alright, but goes very bad around the black knight level and after. I liked the ancestors (favorite was Tennessee Kid Cooper) and the abilities of of the outfits, but that's the only pure good they had going for them.

As for Anders, the war didn't actually even start right after what he did anyway. It quieted down for a while, then kicked off later.

In the comics they explain. It involves Wynne and that meeting she was talking about in Awakening. You also have Shale, Leliana, and Wynne's son.

Spoilers ahead.
Wynne's son helps her figure out what the circles want to do. Break away from the chantry or stay.
Along the way, they also find a way to reverse tranquility, and we find out that Wynne had her son with a templar.

In the end, Wynne dies to save her son Rhys's templar girlfriend and Rhys takes over her spot in the College meeting.
Wynne was against separation Rhys was for it. Though, he did come to see it Wynne's way before she died.
However, he reluctantly agrees that the circles should leave the Chantry.

The head templar there tried to kill them all because they found a way to change tranquil mages back to "normal"(not sure it they can use magic again, or if they just get to have feelings again).
He is later presumed killed by a sprite that was helping Rhys during the story. That or it possessed him. Kind of a cliffhanger ending on that.
 

Canadamus Prime

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Vault101 said:
I'm talking about a character in whatever work of fiction that you felt got the short end of the stick, both in-universe or out-universe

maybe a shitty death or not even the privilege of a death at all, maybe they just disappear randomly, maybe they get mangled by an adaptation, mabye they just seriously cannot catch a break


MY example....one that I've been somewhat bothered by after I finished the Star Trek TNG episode :Redemption part 2 (about half an hour ago) is Natasha Yar

who the fuck is Natasha Yar? you might ask...good question, she's a character who was around in season 1 and...around and then she dies, I know the real life reasons as to why that charachter was killed off but anyway:

[spoiler/]Yarr's death was a crappy one (it WAS season 1 afterall) which was bad enough...but then in one of the most memorable TNG episodes "Yesterdays Enterprise" she gets her own moment and a death thats actually fitting...all good right?

WRONG

oh no...see as we find out in the season 5 episode I mentioned she got captured by Romulans and as an alternative to death had to be a Commander's..."consort"...then she has a child....

one night she tries to escape with the child only to be found out (the kid didn't want to go) and executed (the daughter tue to timey wimey whatever is able to tell picard this)

....but she got a baby out of it all right? babies make everything better?

seriously am I the only one not horribly disturbed by this?? maybe that was the point BUT STILL, its almost hilarious how much of a raw deal this character got, when she's not doing not much or giving Wesley saturday morning special talks about the dangers of drugs she's constantly having to reaffirm her heterosexuality (see episodes code of honor and the naked now) if the actress hadn't have bailed in season 1 mabye she would have developed into an actual "strong female charachter" instead of the confused mess

*siiiiggghhh* [/spoiler]
You have to admit though that death by execution is still better than death by blob monster like a bloody Red Shirt
Happiness Assassin said:
Most examples I was going to go with have already been chosen, so I will go with one I just became aware of.

I recently ran through Sword Art Online and I got to go with Asuna in the second half of the first season. Going from the 3rd most powerful character in the show to a straight up damsel-in-distress (though with a lot more sexual assault) was just awful. She does NOTHING the entire time she is captured, only escaping once to be promptly captured again by the tentacle monsters (who, while on-screen, I was just hoping they would refrain from yet more sexual assault or worse). This was just one of the many problems I had with the second half, I would have to say it is one of the biggest (along with the creepy as fuck sister/cousin/whatever subplot).
Yeah it was kinda crappy that they reduced Asuna to damsel in distress in the second half, since she was one of the most badass characters for the first half. However she was one of the most defiant badass damsels in distress I've ever seen.
As for the whole cousin thing, yes it was kinda weird, but I just had to keep in mind Japan.
 

ABLb0y

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Lives in a self inflicted hell with a wife obsessed with appearances and an apathetic daughter, and when things finally start to turn around, he's murdered by his homophobic neighbour.
 

TheRiddler

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The kids on The Wire. Goddamn it...

[spoiler/]
Randy's pressured by the police into being a witness for a crime. The police don't keep it confidential, due to one asshole cop. Randy's foster mother is hospitalized. He's sent back to the group home, where he gets beaten and harassed for being a snitch. You see him a season later, and he's a cold, hardened, violent thug.

Michael joins the gangs to get rid of his abusive stepfather, Dukie has no place to go and becomes a heroin addict. Really, only one of the kids (Namond) gets a happy ending, and you really see the kind of struggle that takes place for him to leave the urban crime environment.
[/spoiler]

I'm not saying the show did a bad job. It's just... those kids certainly didn't deserve what they got.
 

Not G. Ivingname

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Uriel_Hayabusa said:
A whole bunch of characters from A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones.
 

Zipa

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Gordon_4 said:
Twinrehz said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
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.
I assume you know the technical reason to Saruman being cut like that, the length of the film, having to cut out stuff that doesn't directly affect the story, blah blah blah, but anyway. I'm gonna go and put this in a spoiler, in case someone hasn't read the books yet, and wants to do so without having their shit ruined.

After Saruman get's exiled from Isengard, he actually proceeds to go and terrorize the Shire (probably got a thing against hobbits by now), and there's a lot more character development. He is then, at the end of this little spin-off story, murdered by Wormtongue, as in the extended edition of the film, and his tyranny is put to an end at last. He doesn't fall off a huge fuck-off tower landing on a spiked grindstone wheel (or whatever). But like Tom Bombadil, the arguably most powerful thing in all of Tolkien's universe, he gets the boot because it doesn't directly involve the overarching story. The only glimpse we get of this is when Frodo peeks into the mirror of Galadriel

Vault101 said:
Just wanted to throw myself on the TNG-train, having after all managed to watch all seven seasons of it. And I can say that after having watched all that, I never want to see it ever again. It was exciting at first, I remembered how much I liked it when I was younger, and saw occasional episodes that popped up on TV, and decided it was finally time to watch. I wasn't immediately disappointed, there are some really good bits, but they're more than overshadowed by what I believe to be the biggest fallacy of the entire series. I suppose it comes down to formula, but it gets so predictable it's disappointing.

The formula of Star Trek: The Next Generation being this: Every episode sets up a villain, be it romulans, klingons or space itself. And they have exactly 42 minutes to get trapped, figure out the problem, and then return everything to status quo. Even in the above average interesting encounters with the Borg they do this, although stretched out over two episodes, so it can get some proper fleshing out. Everything else gets shamelessly stripped down to its bare functional elements, so very little flesh remains.

The episodes with Q, the aforementioned Borg, and the times when they mess up time and space completely were the really golden moments for me, for instance the episode where several hundred thousand enterprises from parallel universes appear at the same time because of several spectacular cock-ups were hugely interesting, and I felt the series truly come alive at that point, actually dealing with the UNKNOWN, rather than some far-off settlement that is being terrorized by some menacing klingons or romulans. I actually cheered every time the borg showed up, because I knew shit was about to go down.

To sum it all up, I had some fun with the series, but towards season 5 I started to get the feeling that I'd seen it all before, and the imagination of the series had long since run out. I feel slight disappointment, because of the wasted potential of the series, having so many threads to yank on, but only using the most boring and predictable ones. Of course Q can't be in EVERY episode, that would probably kill the character completely. I think they should have run cross-episode events, flesh out the story some more, so the ending didn't feel rushed, which it does at times. Very often the whole setup of the episode takes so much time they have like 5-10 minutes to solve everything and carry on with their journey, the villain often becomes roadkill instead of having some interesting way to solve the situation.

In an episode where Q is supposedly punished by the Q continuum, and sent to be human on the enterprise, where they deal with an asteroid threatening to wipe out an entire planet. The episode is meant to be more for Q, giving him some character development and a bit of screen time, but like other episodes, it pulls the fast one at the end, where Q is restored to his position in the continuum, and pulls an ex machina out of his ass and saves the planet, by playing havoc with the laws of physics.

We're given an example of how powerful Q can be, but it would be more interesting to see where the limitations of his powers lies. I suppose that's the thing with the Q continuum though, they don't really have limitations. They're extradimensional entities that can move back and forth in time as they please, seldom offering a thought to anyone in the universe. Some has theorized that it was because of Q that the Borg found earth in the first place, their first encounter with them was thanks to Q knocking the ship some 8000 light years off course to introduce them to the Borg, all because Q wanted to give Picard a serious challenge.

Whew, that was longer than expected.
But we can agree that scene with the Mariachi Band was hilarious right?
I think its the way John De Lancie sold it that really gave it so much humour, though he played Q really well overall, heck he knew the character better than some writers, some of his improvs were far better than what was written and suited the character better.

Its a shame Voyager reduced Q to jar jar binks levels of played for cheap laughs.
 

lord canti

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May 30, 2009
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Scarim Coral said:
MetalShadowChaos said:
Kaori in Akira.

She spends the entirity of the events attempting to stay by Tetsuo even as he abuses her repeatedly, clearly suffering through it all for personal reasons, and rather than being given any release by the end, she's unceremoniously crushed by Testsuo's organs. She died in fear, having been nothing but a whippin girl through the entire thing.

I love Akira, but her death wasn't even necessary. At least if it had ended with her depressed and alone it would suggest hope for her with the remaining survivors. It felt a bit shit.
I second this.

OT- I suppose the only suitable character I can think of is maybe Lucy from Fairy Tail.

Sure while she is the useless female character in a shonen show but given that she is the main character (the first character introduce in the very first episode) she should be more useless. So far I am viewing her as the fanservice character (which I don't mind) and also a punching bag. Seriosuly that poor girl, she just get a beating like from Flare and Minvera, she can't catch a break. Ok sure it has been address that she is the strongest Celestial Spirit Wizard there is but she is no where badass compared to Grey, Elza or even Wendy!!
Hopefully they'll do something with her now since it seems she has Aquarius's magic.
OT: For me it has to be Vegeta. This is a character who constantly get shit on through out the series, He trains harder than anyone else and yet he constantly falls behind Goku and Gohan. During the Cell fight he see his own flesh and blood get killed off in front of him and yet he only get slightly stronger. Gohan see the android he barely knew get killed and that was enough to make him ascend. Vegeta should at least have been able to reach super saijin 3 during the buu saga.