Wasted characters.
- Thread starter CastletonSnob
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Mentioned this in another thread, but after watching The Suicide Squad, I was disappointed with how underutilized The Thinker was. Peter Capaldi's a really good actor, and not exactly a small name, but his role in the movie is basically exposition exposition-way into the facility-more exposition-herk bleh. There was not really any point to his character beyond plot convenience and exposition, both of which could have been done with other characters.
- Yourichi from Bleach. A good character that doesn't get much use after the first Arc. Other than the final battle with Aizen, she's mostly there for minor support or funny gags.
- Hao Asakura from both versions of Shaman King. The first anime adaption barely gives him a back story and he almost comes off as a generic doomsday villain. He's given some minor depth, but thankfully you're not supposed to sympathize with him. The original Manga version has the opposite problem and gives him too much to the point that you think the author was trying to make Hao the protagonist at the 2/3 point in the story. It doesn't work because he's an unsympathetic butthole and is nothing more than a glorified Sephiroth clone when you stop and think about it. Just take out the Sci-Fi elements and replace it with Ghost and reincarnation. Seriously, fuck this character.
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My friends commented about wanting more Capaldi, but personally, I think they kept him minimal to try and reduce the "...wait..this plot is about as silly as a Doctor Who episode." reaction in the audience. Because I sure as hell had that reaction once the starfish put all of it's little offspring on everyone's faces, and they started goofily shuffling about. My instant reaction was "wow, I feel like I'm watching Doctor Who"
I found the Starro and spawn scenes hilariously awesome, and I'm not even that big of a Doctor Who. I saw a few episodes of that show back in 2012 or 2013, but it just couldn't grab me.
Yeah I stopped watching the show right around the time Capaldi took over as Doctor. Which is a shame because I genuinely liked him as Doctor, but the writing at that time was kind of terrible. I wish I liked that film more but, it just felt underwhelming for me.
I'd also say Rangiku qualifies given her history with not only Gin but Icihigo's father.
True, but I did not find her as interesting. She suffered a similar problem as well, but the comedy is mainly "BEWBS"! Gin can eat a bag dicks. While I heard about the backstory, apparently your suppose to sympathize with him. He's such an asshole that I don't and I rather sucker punch him a 1000x in the stomach and groin with electrified gauntlets.
If you want a story where they do a lot with all of these characters. There is fan fic called Soul Chess and is a crossover with Code Geass. It's a door stopper, so fair warning.
She had history with Ichigo's dad? Was she his sub-captain or something? Been a while since I read Bleach (stopped in high school I think), although I did check out the new series' first issue.
OT: This is a little cheating, since the characters I'm talking about are more of versions of the original characters, but Batman and Superman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Ultimate Edition. An old, bitter, more ruthless Batman is always fun, and Ben Affleck surprised everyone with his performance. Henry Cavill's biceps alone contain more charisma than the average man, I think he was a great choice for Superman.
But of course they needed to be stuck in a movie with the wrong director, bad writers, and a terrible studio. This was the first time we'd ever see Batman and Superman together in a movie. The first time we got such an accurate Batsuit. The first time a hero actually died in his own movie. Fuck, it was even the first time we saw the DC Trinity/Wonder Woman's in a movie! We'll never have the same experience again, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. By all rights, this should have been a story to tell your grandkids.
Instead, we got 3 hours of somehow too much artistic vision and studio interference. I know some people like the movie, love it even, but you cannot deny that it could and should have been so much better. What makes it even worse is that instead of learning from their mistakes and finally putting the solid cast to use, they proceeded to make either mediocre or worse movies. Gotta love WB and DC.
I figured you were supposed to feel more sorry for Rangiku losing her friend than for Gin himself dying. YMMV.
She was his lieutenant when he was a captain.
About that....
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I don't know how it took me this long to bring this one up, but almost everyone in The Last of Us 2, though especially Ellie. Let's take this character who thought she was going to save the world but didn't, due to the interference of someone she loves and trusted. And instead of exploring what this does to her and how she is to process this betrayal, she gets turned into an edgelord with daddy issues. If this was in response to Joel's betrayal it'd still be awful, but no, it's in response to him getting killed. (At this point everyone already knows what happens, but I'll put a spoiler on it anyway.)
This game was supposed to be about Ellie, but instead it's about Ellie's seemingly blind loyalty to Joel's memory. Not only does this contradict the ending of the first game - that after everything Joel and Ellie have been through and grown as close as a real parent and child, Joel would perform an act that would fracture their relationship forever simply to keep her with him - it turns Ellie who was a victim in all this into some ruthless butcher, and turns Joel who was not only the instigator in all this, but also lied and gaslighted Ellie (his daughter) for years, into this sad, kindhearted papa bear. And Naughty Dog did this with a completely straight face. Just when I think I'm not really pissed off about this anymore...
This game was supposed to be about Ellie, but instead it's about Ellie's seemingly blind loyalty to Joel's memory. Not only does this contradict the ending of the first game - that after everything Joel and Ellie have been through and grown as close as a real parent and child, Joel would perform an act that would fracture their relationship forever simply to keep her with him - it turns Ellie who was a victim in all this into some ruthless butcher, and turns Joel who was not only the instigator in all this, but also lied and gaslighted Ellie (his daughter) for years, into this sad, kindhearted papa bear. And Naughty Dog did this with a completely straight face. Just when I think I'm not really pissed off about this anymore...
Usually, I see people hating this game because of it crapping on Joe. You're the first person I've seen accuse it of valorizing him to much.
There is a portion of the gaming crowd that point out that Joel was a horrible person for what he did in the events of TLoU 1. I personally think he did the right thing by not letting the post-apocalypse wackos cut her fucking brain open and killing the ONLY person they know of that has this immunity, as Option Fucking ONE. That's just stupid. What if the thing about her immunity isn't just a thing about her brain, and it was a very complex aspect of her biology that you guys didn't fully understand? Well, fuck all, too bad, 'cause she's dead because we cut her fucking brain out. In the film Children of Men, when they learned they had a woman who was still capable of becoming pregnant, EVERY faction in that film, didn't decide "let's cut her open and see what's going on." They did everything they could, including a complete cessation of combat in a warzone, to protect her and get her to safety.
So I don't really fault Joel for what he did. I doubt HIS reasoning was that, and that it was definitely more personal, but, I can't really fault the results of his actions, if not the motivations.
I would ask those people to name me one scene in TLoU2 where Joel isn't framed like the most charming, sensitive, and huggable manly man. Because they can't. The only reason people say Joel was done dirty is because a) he gets brutally killed, and b) he walked into a trap, which he apparently should be smart enough to see coming, eventhough he walked into traps constantly in the first game. These people also seem to forget how Joel gets idolized to high freaking heaven after he gets murdered.
It just really puzzles me why people are so quick to decry the validity of this cure or the process of aquiring it, but have no problem suspending their disbelief that a zombie fungus can exist within the same world. The zombies exist because a fungus mutated and is turning humans into zombies, and a cure can be made because a mutated version in someone's brain is making them immune. That's really all there is to it. This was never a story that prided itself on medical accuracy, Joel survives getting run through for pete's sake. Ellie is immune, she get protected till she gets to the hospital where her condition can be properly studied, they find out that the infection in her brain has mutated, making her immune, and removing that infection is the key to enginering a vaccine, which can't be done without causing critical damage to Ellie's brain. How is this suddenly too far fetched in a world with fungal zombies?
You can argue whether it's worth it to sacrifice a child to obtain a cure, but at no point does the game give even a hint that due to Ellie's sacrifice that this cure isn't a certainty.
Yes, and it was based on a real world fungus that does this very thing to ants. So it's not really a suspension of disbelief, so much as just extrapolating it to a more complex organism.
I question the accuracy of the information a group of people in a post apocalypse setting, operating out of decrepit medical facilities, seeing as they have zero actual evidence on how this fungus works, how Ellie is immune, have had zero tests to actually confirm any of their theories about how to combat it, and the best method by which to do so, and yet they are just oh so happy to kill the only human they know for certain, is immune. They aren't doing any testing, or anything, we're just supposed to take these people at their word? Why should we do that? From what we are told in the game, they're just theorizing on how to extract what is needed, and that it will work. They are working off zero empirical data at this point, so yeah, I find the idea of just murdering the only source of actual data about the cure the second she's taken off the bus, to be a bit rash and impulsive.
There are women alive today, that are immune to HIV, and they live in an area that is highly infected with that virus. You know what the scientists and doctors that are studying them AREN'T doing to learn about why they are immune/resistant? Killing them and cutting them open like lab rats.
It doesn't though. It makes ants and other insects act a bit wonky and then climb to a high place to die and release spores. It doesn't turn them into aggressive cannibals that hunt in hordes and infect other insects through bites. The real world fungus is only used to grant it some fresh credibility, but it's ultimately just zombies.
Unless you want a detailed medical dissertation on this fictional zombie fungus, I don't know what more information you would want that the game isn't already giving you. Take them at their word? Well yeah, kinda. What reason would they have to go 'ah fuck it, just cut her open' considering all the sacrifices they made so they could get Ellie there?
You see old X-rays at the university and the tape at the hospital explains how Ellie's infection is unique compared to all the other infected subjects they've studied. This shows they've been studying this for a long time. There's also scanners in this world that can trace the infection showing they have pretty substantial evidence on how the fungus works, as well as pamflets that were given out to the public with basic information on the infection. There was already a lot of common knowledge out there.
So they very clearly have done loads of tests and do have plenty of information on how the fungus opperates. Unless literally everything they've said is a total lie, which again why? You can criticize the sort of shorthand writing of the game for not wanting to bother with the intricacies, same as how it didn't want to bother with the intricacies as to how Joel survived getting his stomach run through by a rusty rebar. All that matters in that moment is that Ellie is dedicated to his survival regardless and saves his life, not how she was even remotely able to do so. All that matters in that moment in the hospital is that a cure can be extracted but it'll kill Ellie. That's where the explaination of this fictional cure for this fictional zombie fungus halts. Marlene talked to the doctors and the doctors assured her that Ellie is the last missing piece, and that this cure will happen if they proceed with the surgery - that's all the information you need within the story. And it is never suggested by any character or by any information on the subject that this is a lie or them just talking out of their ass.
Im not really sure if "wasted" is the right word, but im playing through the Dragon Age games, and coming from Mass Effect, im really surprised at how little your companions show up, outside of their primary game.
Sure, Leliana and Morrigan have somewhat major roles in Inquisition, and Varric is a companion in DA2 and DAI, but most of your other companions seemingly disappear from relevance, many of which never appear again.
In Mass Effect, someone like Wrex who only appears as a squadmate in ME1, is still a significant figure in both ME2 and ME3, whereas someone like Oghren disappears without a trace after the events of Origin's Awakening expansion.
I just find it strange.
Sure, Leliana and Morrigan have somewhat major roles in Inquisition, and Varric is a companion in DA2 and DAI, but most of your other companions seemingly disappear from relevance, many of which never appear again.
In Mass Effect, someone like Wrex who only appears as a squadmate in ME1, is still a significant figure in both ME2 and ME3, whereas someone like Oghren disappears without a trace after the events of Origin's Awakening expansion.
I just find it strange.
It's because Oghren is shit and Varric is a dramatic improvement. He make Zevhran (or however you spell it) seem like a well rounded character