What is the dumbest case of fandom infighting you have ever seen?

[Darren716]

I think the dumbest, yet most hilarious, case of infighting was with MLP and making Twilight a princess, now I don't engage with the community too much and it is mostly because of the amount of drama they kick up over the slightest thing which is pretty funny to watch from a distance. We knew about the change months before hand because of info from episode synopses and it was impossible to avoid spoilers for the season 3 finale where she does become a princess. Before the episode even aired massive amount of people stopped watching the show out of fear of how much it would change, despite assurance from the creators that the status-quo would be maintained. Fast forward a few months to season 4 and absolutely nothing has changed for the most part, hell in most episodes during season 4 you could have removed Twilight's princess-hood entirely and nothing would be different from the episode.

 

[JayRPG]

It's never got to anything approaching gaming flamewar levels, but I've seen heated arguments about what colour Legolas' hair should be (Tolkien never explicitly states it). Basically there's a passage that can sometimes be interpreted as showing he has dark hair, but there are equally strong indications that he's blond. Short of finding a hidden manuscript or something, there is literally no way anyone could prove it one way or the other so the whole thing is completely pointless.

It's so true.

He is a Sindar but that only means his hair color can be dark or silver.

The only thing one can logically assume is that he definitely *could* have had blonde hair, just like his Father Thranduil who definitely had blonde hair.

I like to think his hair is blonde/silver, all the coolest elves have blonde/silver hair.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I try really, REALLY hard to avoid fandoms but if we consider The Escapist as a whole as fans of entertainment in general, I have one example. A few years back when Extra Credits left it felt like a lot of regulars here on the forums were either siding with the site as a whole or, EC. If I recall right a lot of people left with EC.

Oh wait, I got another one! The Sonic Boom reveal though that was a lot funnier than anything...and I don't think there are many people who defend the new character designs...never mind.

 

[Fox12]

Shipping is the cancer that kills fan love.

Pretty much this, it can get pretty ridiculous. I guess I can understand it if the story doesn't have any romance (in which case it doesn't really matter anyway) but there are situations where the fans disagree with the AUTHOR of all people.

Also, great Avatar.

Do Balrogs have wings or don't they have wings? Do they have them but cannot use them? Can they use them but won't they? Won't they use them because they don't get a chance? The source of conflict comes from the Khazad-dûm chapter where the Balrog's shadow "reached out like two vast wings" and, further down the text, "its wings were spread from wall to wall", leaving it unclear whether this is a continuation of the shadow metaphor or it is truly deploying wings. The fact that a lot of Balrogs seem to plummet to their deaths (Glorfindel vs. Balrog, Gandalf vs. Durin's Bane) doesn't help the wing scenario. To further confuse things, Tolkien described the Balrogs in The Silmarillion as moving "with winged speed" (is their speed "winged" because it's really fast, or because there are literal wings?).

I'm fairly certain that they would have to have wings, since Morgoth called them to fight ungoliant (I'm such a geek) in the mountains. Or maybe their like Sauron, and can take on multiple forms. Didn't the Balrog change forms when he fought Gandalf in the books?

 

[direkiller]

Light Side Sith

You've never seen an argument until you've seen THAT argument.

Evil Paladins.
The passion involved on both sides of these arguments borders on the scary

Paladin of an evil god or a Lawful good bad guy?



40k-Matt ward Necrons
Everyone agrees that they are bad overall, It's just fighting over if they like parts of it.

 

[dragonswarrior]

I'm fairly certain that they would have to have wings, since Morgoth called them to fight ungoliant (I'm such a geek) in the mountains. Or maybe their like Sauron, and can take on multiple forms. Didn't the Balrog change forms when he fought Gandalf in the books?

Not really, after they fell into the subterranean lake Gandalf described the Balrog as now being a creature of slime and filth or somesuch. It wasn't really a shapechange from what I could tell, more like he went from flame to falling into water and being all slimy and gross then back to flame again.

 

[balladbird]

As a long time shipper, I have to agree with those that say that shipping can be a deceptively dark, incredibly hateful community. You guys who only see it from the outside don't even see the whole thing,when you're mired in a ship fandom you start to see ugliness, personal attack, and shadenfreude to make 4chan proud... all because of differing tastes in pairings.

I still have nightmare flashbacks of the old days when I was neck deep in the Ichigo x Rukia versus Ichigo x Orihime wars, despite not really being involved with either camp. Ulquiorra x Orihime for life!

 

[bigfatcarp93]

Just about everything between Bioware fans... which may seem hypocritical, as I usually get involved in it. In my defense, though, I mostly try to get everyone to get along, and only really argue against the really dumb things they say (Such as "DURE, STARCHILD'S LOGIC IS BAD, MUST BE PROBLEM WIT DA ENDING... AND NOT, YOU KNOW, DA FACT DAT HE'S DA VILLAIN AND SUPPOSED TO HAVE LOGIC YOU DISAGREE WITH, HURE.")

From what I have seen, most peoples issue wasn't that it's logic was bad, but that Shepard made practically no effort to refute it. The problem was that the game originally never gave you an option to do anything but go along with it. Considering this wasn't the case with Sovereign or The Harbinger, it made little sense that Shepard would suddenly meekly follow it without a fight.

Yeah, but with the Extended Cut, Shepard CAN refute it, and people still *****. And I've seriously seen plenty of fans complain very explicitly about the bad logic. It's just so moronic... I mean, by this logic, Halo sucks because 343 Guilty Spark is insane.

 

[Frission]

Just about everything between Bioware fans... which may seem hypocritical, as I usually get involved in it. In my defense, though, I mostly try to get everyone to get along, and only really argue against the really dumb things they say (Such as "DURE, STARCHILD'S LOGIC IS BAD, MUST BE PROBLEM WIT DA ENDING... AND NOT, YOU KNOW, DA FACT DAT HE'S DA VILLAIN AND SUPPOSED TO HAVE LOGIC YOU DISAGREE WITH, HURE.")

From what I have seen, most peoples issue wasn't that it's logic was bad, but that Shepard made practically no effort to refute it. The problem was that the game originally never gave you an option to do anything but go along with it. Considering this wasn't the case with Sovereign or The Harbinger, it made little sense that Shepard would suddenly meekly follow it without a fight.

Yeah, but with the Extended Cut, Shepard CAN refute it, and people still *****. And I've seriously seen plenty of fans complain very explicitly about the bad logic. It's just so moronic... I mean, by this logic, Halo sucks because 343 Guilty Spark is insane.

You're falling into the trap of starting fan drama, the very thing that everyone is complaining about. You know that right?

Just thought I should let you know.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

Let's go classic: Early Beatles or later Beatles? Furthermore, regarding the later Beatles, Paul's pop songs or John's dirty rockers?

Personally, I love the later Beatles and gush over John's raunchy vocals and choppy guitar. His lyricism far outstripped Paul's little ditties during that time period as well, as if John came out of his 1966/67 doldrums with a determination to do his own thing, public opinion be damned. Not that he wasn't outspoken before that, just that it didn't creep up so much in his music.

It's too bad George is often overlooked in discussion about Beatles songwriting, because I think he blossomed more than any of the others.

 

[Something Amyss]

One that made me recoil was fans trying to start the whole "Team ..." bullshit with The Hunger Games series.

"Are you Team Gale or Team Peeta?"

Screw your team shit! Romance is the least important thing about this story! How in the hell can you watch kids being forced to fight each other to the death and the only thing you take away from it is "Which guy is she gonna end up with? ^.^" It annoys me to no end that the core messages of that series have been completely ignored in favour of the same horse-shit love-triangle that plagues absolutely everything these days.

The author wrote that stupid love triangle, though. It's hard to fault people for picking up on it. It's kind of crammed in your face and made a focal point.

 

[Mangod]

It's too bad George is often overlooked in discussion about Beatles songwriting, because I think he blossomed more than any of the others.

"I got my mind set on you
I got my mind set on you
I got my mind set on you
I got my mind set on you

"But it's gonna take money
A whole lot of spending money
It's gonna take plenty of money
To do it right child

"It's gonna take time
A whole lot of precious time
It's gonna take patience and time, um
To do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it
To do it right child

"I got my mind set on you
I got my mind set on you
I got my mind set on you
I got my mind set on you"

Nothing personal against George, but that song killed a part of my soul. The fact that it's a cut down cover only makes it hurt more...

 

[Mook_StyFawker]

MLP fandom/bronies. I don't take part in terms of interacting with people in the fandom, but I've seen some completely deplorable stuff from people over the most trivial things. It's a reason I stopped calling myself a brony and simply go as a "fan of the show." I don't want to be lumped in the same category as those psychos, though it's kind of impossible, I guess.

 

[Rariow]

The color of Sonic's eyes in Sonic 4. I mean, the fact that someone at some point complained about the fucking eye color of a cartoon hedgehog is mind-bogglingly stupid enough, but that then led to people who liked the new eyes to complain back, which eventually led to the creation of threads on Sega's forums where people yelled at each other about this is... just beyond words.

 

[Mangod]

Star Trek

Is the Federation good, or the Evil Empire with a really good PR department?
Is the Prime Directive meant to protect insufficiently advanced species from explotation, or just an excuse to let people die?
Captain Kathryn Janeway; Prime Directive fanatic, anti-Prime Directive pragmatist, genocidal lunatic, or the broken shell of a woman with too much on her plate who continues to struggle to bring her crew home?

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

Nothing personal against George, but that song killed a part of my soul. The fact that it's a cut down cover only makes it hurt more...

I was focusing more on his Beatles (and Beatles-era) output, not solo stuff made 15 years after they disbanded.

To hear his full talent, listen to Within You Without You, It's All Too Much, Savoy Truffle, Old Brown Shoe, Taxman, and Here Comes the Sun. Actually, throw If I Needed Someone into that mix from the band's middle period.

The Hollies did an amazing cover of that last one too...

-------------------------

EDIT - George Harrison also had the good humor to do crazy stuff like playing cowbell (and only cowbell) on Harry Nilsson's song, Daybreak; appearing in Eric Idle's Beatles spoof, The Rutles; and creating HandMade Films specifically to fund the making of Monty Python's Life of Brian after all other financial backers pulled out. He was also the only one who pushed for years to get the Beatles' back catalog remastered rather than lazily relying on the shitty-sounding '80s CDs. That project didn't come to fruition until eight years after he died.

So yeah. George rocked something fierce.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

Just about everything between Bioware fans... which may seem hypocritical, as I usually get involved in it. In my defense, though, I mostly try to get everyone to get along, and only really argue against the really dumb things they say (Such as "DURE, STARCHILD'S LOGIC IS BAD, MUST BE PROBLEM WIT DA ENDING... AND NOT, YOU KNOW, DA FACT DAT HE'S DA VILLAIN AND SUPPOSED TO HAVE LOGIC YOU DISAGREE WITH, HURE.")

From what I have seen, most peoples issue wasn't that it's logic was bad, but that Shepard made practically no effort to refute it. The problem was that the game originally never gave you an option to do anything but go along with it. Considering this wasn't the case with Sovereign or The Harbinger, it made little sense that Shepard would suddenly meekly follow it without a fight.

Yeah, but with the Extended Cut, Shepard CAN refute it, and people still *****. And I've seriously seen plenty of fans complain very explicitly about the bad logic. It's just so moronic... I mean, by this logic, Halo sucks because 343 Guilty Spark is insane.

You're falling into the trap of starting of creating fan drama, the very thing that everyone is complaining about. You know that right?

Just thought I should let you know.

You're right... I'm sorry... I'll stop.

 

[tokae]

Do Balrogs have wings or don't they have wings?

(Quoting from 1959 edition)
Yeah, I see that discussion way too often.
Tolkien-fandom in general is just a whole bunch of fighting. Depending on which books they have read, what print they were, what translation it was, it's actually a pretty big difference between them. And since no one is a bigger/better informed fan then the one currently writing it can get pretty bad.