Incompetent Protagonists

[ThePurpleStuff]

Has there ever been that one show you completely gave up, simply because you hated the character the show decided to follow? That was me, for Pokemon.

I stopped watching the show WAY back during the gold and silver era... also there was probably other BS that drove me to stop watching, but can't remember. Probably 90s era junk that was shoved into everything back then. (Also 4kids)

Ash I never liked or related to in any way as a kid, ANYONE could do a better damn job in his place. Hell, Plank from 'Ed Edd and Eddy' was more relateable than him. I'd be a better trainer, treat my pokemon better and actually win major tournaments. I haven't followed the show, those that have can you tell me if hes ever won anything?

I also hated in the movies where he was treated as the most important character, like the second pokemon movie, Pokemon 2000, where he was the 'chosen one' when the female supporting character (Not Misty) was stronger, and could fucking call upon Lugia with her magic flute. Ash was helped every step of the way, even by team rocket, so this chosen one bullshit was completely pointless and underminded all the other's efforts.

I blame 4kids as well as pokemon's creator for the translations and keeping Ash around, since he wanted a protagonist that kids around Ash's age could relate to...

Sure, having a character that was perfect, won every fight, did everything right, would be boring and leave the viewer with no suspense. But you have to counterbalance everything.

Can you think of a protagonist you just completely hated, found too annoying to deal with? One that never developed in positive ways and actually learned from their mistakes like a real character should, all for the sake of 'relating to the target audience'?

 

[wetnap]

Its just lazy writing, the dumber the protagonist the more you can pad out scripts. Pokémon just cranked out the episodes, so its kind of a given its going to just be factory script trash after a while.

Better example is the star wars prequels.
http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/
Those reviews point out just how stupid everyone in those story are....not quite sure who's the "protagonist" in those films though

 

[Ryotknife]

Square Enix seems to have quite a few that fit this bill

Edge from Star Ocean the Last Hope. Everything he did he F'ed up, at least for the first....90% of the game. He blew up Earth....well A Earth.

Rush from the Last Remnant. This guy defines the word "doofus." Even though he is the main character, he has very little impact on the story (ie you can cut him out completely and nothing really changes until the very end). Thankfully, Lord david (whom the story revolves around) is a great character. Rush is so incompetent, that when he goes to rescue his sister, she has to rescue him while she is still a hostage and thereby blow her best chance to free herself.

Tidus from FF 10

Vaan from FF12, although he is the most tolerable of the list.

 

[shootthebandit]

Speaking of pokemon and ash. I found team rocket to be better trainers and actually much more rounded characters plus jesse was hot. I loved team rocket. These guys managed to train a pokemon to talk nuff said

Ash was a cocky little shit he was slightly more bearable because pikachu kept zapping him when he was a knob. The other thing that made him slight more bearable was that Gary (or twatface as hes called in the game) was a colossal bell end

Edit OT: basically any disaster movie where they have to make a decision

Cue armaggedon:

NASA guy: "hey mr president theres like this big asteroid thing going to hit earth and kill everyone"

President: "oh shit. Is there anything we can do?"

NASA guy "we can send a crew onto the asteroid and drill a hole and put a nuke in it. Its a long shot but it could work"

president: "how do they land on it?"

NASA guy: "it'll take some of our best astronauts, they need to slingshot around the moon at the exact timr and they should match the speed but it'll take a highly trained astronaut"

President: "ok ill get some guys who are good at drilling they should be able to a drill a hole. We can train them to be astronauts. It will be very hard for us to train the astronauts to use a big drill"

NASA guy: *faceplam*

President: "ill just randomly get liv tyler to stand and watch so we could get her dad to do the theme tune"

 

[Scarim Coral]

Two protagonists come to me mind-

Kicker from Transformers
He is a very inconsistant character but in saying so the show was inconsitant [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers:_Energon_%28cartoon%29#Conceptual_and_storytelling_flaws] aswell. In the first two episode he was somewhat edgy for hating the Autobot and it was never explained why he hated them. After those two episodes, his hatred for them was competely gone as he hang around with Optimus and co. Speaking of who, Kicker was not interesting at all compared to all the other Autobots that appear.

Marcus from Digimon Data Squad
He is literally the most generic "shonen arrogant/ hot headed kid character" of them all! By god I have seen quite a few arrogant characters but he just take the cake! There was nothing unquie about him among the other hot headed character other than he was stupid in a bad way. In one episode he had a fall out with his Digimon and he claim he can still fight another Digimon on his own! All he did was fight some random bullies and when he come to fight a Digimon on his own, he used his fist. A real moron that character is!

 

[Zontar]

Kirito from Sword Art Online.

He get people killed directly threw his actions and inactions for the whole first half of the show. Then, in the second half, when he has incriminating evidence against the antagonist for that arc, instead of going to the police, he hoops into a game where for all he knows he's going to be trapped forever because he has no control over the program that the antagonist has complete control of (this was in the first episode of that arc, mind you). And then, to top it all off, he spends days, whole days, of his 6 days to accomplish what he is doing getting involved in the politics of a video game instead of doing what he entered the game to do in the first place.

Oh yeah, he also took a system which killed 4000 people because of how it was designed, and RELEASED THE SOURCE CODE FOR IT ONLINE TO EVERYONE! He has made it so that another incident where thousands is likely, not possible but outright likely, to occur again. This does couple in with the government being incompetent, since the equipment used to run the programs has not been banned despite the fact in any realistic setting they would (though even if not in a realistic setting they also would have their market collapse since no sane person would touch them).

And to top it all off, after becoming a sadistic monster who tortures someone to near death (the guy was a bastard, but still what the hell? He'd already won, the guy was going to be heading to jail, after the hospital visit he already needed by that point) he then recreates the program that nearly killed him multiple times, was his prison for 2 years, killed 4000 people and has caused him to have PTSD, just so he could "finish" it.

Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[sextus the crazy]

Pokemona anime

Yeah, every season, they have to reset Ash's power levels and make him stupid again just to keep the show running.

That's what I like about the manga; they have new protagonists every generation so that this sort of stuff makes sense. They just bring back the older crew for the remakes and for team-ups and stuff.

 

[DerpLordSnuggy]

Shinji from Evangelion. I don't feel I have to explain myself here.

 

[ExDeath730]

Shinji from Evangelion. I don't feel I have to explain myself here.

Same, watching him i wanted to be in the 40k universe, and to also be a Comissar, i would love to shoot him. Another one from Mecha shows? Shinn Asuka from Gundam Seed Destiny, while Kira, the one from the first show is the Reluctant Warrior, and become a very well-rounded character, Shinn is just...Well, he is a red-blooded jerkass. Really, it's bad, and actually it kept getting worse.

 

[spartan231490]

This very nearly relates my reaction to shinji of evangelion. what a pointless character. Do you want to drive this gundam? No, I'm a giant fucking pussy with no value whatsoever.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

I was too old for Pokemon so all this talk of Ash makes me think of Evil Dead. That Ash was far from incompetent!

Speaking of horror movies, just about everyone in slasher flicks is an incompetent moron. One of the only pillars of the genre to buck that trend was the first Nightmare on Elm Street. The first two Hellraiser movies also had a satisfying dearth of character idiocy. Every character who fucked up did so either with willfully evil intent, or they got caught up in consequences they didn't foresee despite their perfectly rational motives.

Contrast that with the morons in Paranormal Activity. Any of them. The two Grave Encounters movies were infinitely superior in the found-footage sub-genre.

 

[Vault101]

In "One flew over the cuckoos nest" I spent most the time thinking "this guy is just a fuck up" and "nurse Ratchett isn't THAT bad"

 

[J-meMalone]

Square Enix seems to have quite a few that fit this bill

Edge from Star Ocean the Last Hope. Everything he did he F'ed up, at least for the first....90% of the game. He blew up Earth....well A Earth.

Rush from the Last Remnant. This guy defines the word "doofus." Even though he is the main character, he has very little impact on the story (ie you can cut him out completely and nothing really changes until the very end). Thankfully, Lord david (whom the story revolves around) is a great character. Rush is so incompetent, that when he goes to rescue his sister, she has to rescue him while she is still a hostage and thereby blow her best chance to free herself.

Tidus from FF 10

Vaan from FF12, although he is the most tolerable of the list.

Damnit, ninja'd! I didn't think anyone else would remember the Last Remnant.

OT: Eren Jaeger from Attack on Titan. No where near as talented as the rest of the cast and

Spoiler

He's barely controllable in his titan form, especially compared to other shifters.

All he's really good at is getting angry and not giving up.

 

[FPLOON]

Speaking of Pokemon, would you believe me if I told you I only still watch Pokemon for Team Rocket?

OT: Actually, during the Black/White arc of Pokemon, I could not STAND Iris for the life of me... I fucking get it, Iris! Ash's is "such a kid" because he "kinda" sucks as the series' protagonist... But, will you just shut the fuck up about it and stop bringing it up every fucking episode?! FUCK!!

I am SO glad Team Rocket was pretty badass during that whole arc, otherwise I would have stopped watching all of the current episodes for good... and would have only came back to watching the current episodes if Brock came back... (Glob, I fucking miss Brock...)

Note: Yes, I know Iris was not the MAIN protagonist, but she still was a protagonist nonetheless during the Black/White arc...

 

[Piorn]

A good example is Rincewind, who's only talents are getting in trouble and running away very fast.
It's not frustrating to read compared to others incompetent Protagonists, because it's not his fault, he just wants some peace and quiet.

 

[DocMcCray]

Square Enix seems to have quite a few that fit this bill

/snip

Tidus from FF 10

Vaan from FF12, although he is the most tolerable of the list.

Lightning and Serah from the FF13 trilogy. Just...bleh. Although I thought Fang had some credibility, despite what SE did with her.

Main character in FF9, whatever his name was....

And Squall...fucking mopey emo kid.

 

[shootthebandit]

I was too old for Pokemon

No one is ever too old for pokemon.

Basically ash is a kid whos a bit wet behind the ears. He decided to be a pokemon master so he sets out on his journey. However he knows jack shit about pokemon and he has even less common sense. He does things like "hey ill use this electric pokemon against this ground pokemon...oh its not worked....ill just try that shit again and again". He has to get the gym badges before he progresses but literally every trainer he beats by default

Contrast that with the morons in Paranormal Activity. Any of them. The two Grave Encounters movies were infinitely superior in the found-footage sub-genre.

Im not a huge fan of horror. I suppose its probably because most of them are just badly made. Ive also got a pretty logical brain so it doesnt really get to me. I know that paranormal activity is particularly bad because its the first time I ever feel asleep at the cinema. 5/10 for effort in building up tension but you need to keep the viewers interest

I loved Dale and Tucker vs evil. Such a good black comedy take on the whole dumb college kids cliche.

 

[Varrdy]

Although not quite a protagonist, Jar-Jar Binks (pardon my French!) springs to mind...sadly!

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I see from some previous posts that people mix up the word "incompetent" to mean "I don't like them". While some folks may be whiny emo-douchebags who seem incapable of realizing they're not useless tools, they are in fact not incompetent just dumbasses. If they were incompetent, they'd be useless baggage (like at least 1/3 of every JRPG's cast).

Incompetent means not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully. None of the previous sentence applies to personality, likability, or social skills (unless said social skills actually translate into putting the rest of the cast in a bad position or get someone important killed). Being an unlikable douchebag doesn't mean someone is useless, even douchebags can be useful and good at some task.

Tidus gets mistaken for incompetent when he's really just clueless, but he can still fight. Wakka would be more along the incompetent range as he's a failed BlitzBall player and useless party companion beyond the first few areas. Its not worth spending points on his sphere grid at all.

I'll also second Walter White. His arrogance is a sign of his incompetence as a drug lord. He's got no power base, no protection and no credibility because he cannot have a working relationship or recognize someone who's smarter than he is about how to run a drug ring. His interactions with Gus Fring show just how incompetent he really is. Yeah Walt can cook meth like a boss, but he's just a bumbling fool right to the end.