When has something been too mean-spirited or cruel for you to enjoy?

[Erttheking]

Seriously, screw The Departed. I don't care what anyone says, that was one of the most abrupt and crappy endings I ever had the displeasure of viewing. I mean what the hell was even the point of it then?

A-fucking-men. That damn thing came out like a punch to my dick. Hey, if you want to have an everyone dies ending, what's wrong with with building up to it? Having it make sense! That's freaking MORE depressing because when you're sitting there, reeling from the shock, a tiny voice in your head says "There was no other way this could've gone is there..."

OT: Any dark fantasy that thinks dark fantasy means "Have there be lots of gore, swearing and rape, and shoehorn in racism any have everything be miserable and everyone's an asshole because we're SO DARK!". I think part of the reason I love Dark Souls so much is that it sidesteps those pits. I just couldn't get into the Witcher because I asked myself "If every single person died, would I care?" The answer I came up with was only for Siegfried. I loved him. You know why? Because he wasn't a miserable asshole, he was a decent person who wanted to do the right thing, and in a world where 95% of the people were assholes, I freaking adored him. You can write nice characters dark fantasy authors! From Software put Solaire of Astora in Dark Souls and that worked out wonderfully! People fucking love him!

Also I could never really get into House because House was a twat. I know he's supposed to be a twat and that it ruins his life, but I still don't want to be stuck with him for sixty minutes minus commercials.

 

[Megalodon]

You should really check out extra histories videos on the first crusade - one element of the Peoples Crusade couldn't wait to get to the holy land before killing people, so began slaughtering Jews along the way and looting their belongings.

Oh please, that series was just garbage. It was just as 'Crusaders suck, poor Muslims' as Kingdom of Heaven (if not more so). According to extra credits the Turks were pure innocents, invaded by that nasty Pope and his Crusader barbarians. Completely glossing over the previous centuries of Islamic aggression and expansion. Now I'm not saying the People's Crusade was a good idea, or that the Crusaders were angels. They weren't. They were 11th Century Warlords, and acted like it. But so did their Saracen enemies. It was a brutal age for everyone, Cross or Crescent.

They do the a similar thing with their more recent Suleimann series. In which they present him as this enlightened, wise figure. While glossing (to varying extents) over the fact that we was an aggressive expansionist conqueror, utilising slave child soldiers in his wars (the Janissaries) and murdered his children and advisors out of rampant paranoia, yet they're still trying for a sympathetic portrayal. Now was he a positive influence/"good" Sultan? In some ways yes, there's a reason he's remembered amongst the Turks for his legal reforms, not expansionist conquest. But he performed deeds similarly morally reprehensible by modern standards as the Crusaders, yet the EC crew aren't interested in telling that story.

Um, you really should watch the latest episode before you accuse them of 'glossing things over'. They address the whole paranoia aspect and its results.

Oh I did, and I stand by my previous comments. Despite the paranoia and filicide, they still present him as a sympathetic character. Especially with the framing device 'look at this poor, regretful old man', while still essentially overlooking the nature of the things he regrets, ie. killing his own children and not conquering enough new land for empire and Allah. Do you really think they'd be so charitable if a Crusader like Bohemond had killed is kids out of dynastic paranoia? No way, he's be presented as the devil incarnate.

 

[The Raw Shark]

Any dark fantasy that thinks dark fantasy means "Have there be lots of gore, swearing and rape, and shoehorn in racism any have everything be miserable and everyone's an asshole because we're SO DARK!". I think part of the reason I love Dark Souls so much is that it sidesteps those pits. I just couldn't get into the Witcher because I asked myself "If every single person died, would I care?" The answer I came up with was only for Siegfried. I loved him. You know why? Because he wasn't a miserable asshole, he was a decent person who wanted to do the right thing, and in a world where 95% of the people were assholes, I freaking adored him. You can write nice characters dark fantasy authors! From Software put Solaire of Astora in Dark Souls and that worked out wonderfully! People fucking love him!

This so much.
I can only mildly tolerate The Witcher's world mainly because of how you and your companions are usually just some carefree jackasses that get tasked with solving problems you really don't care about.

Otherwise these tropes are getting so overused it's tiring.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, specifically Vader becoming a mass child murderer. I knew things were going to be grim, but Christ that's fucked up. Even worse, this was the SECOND time he's personally sliced up kids (I refer you to the Tusken Raider camp in AotC).

Not only did it irrevocably destroy any possibility of Anakin being even a tiny bit likeable, but it also cast a pall over the far better portrayal of his character in the Clone Wars series and even his redemption in RotJ. They could have skirted around the whole issue by simply having Vader order his troops to "kill everyone" and leave it at that.[footnote]Or better yet, not have Jedi "younglings" in the first place. The very concept's messed up if you ask me; the Jedi Order essentially kidnaps toddlers and brainwashes them not to feel emotion. Who's supposed to be the bad guys again?[/footnote] But no, they had to have him personally cut children to pieces with a lightsaber. It's a big reason why I refuse to regard Episodes II and III as canon, official continuity be damned.

Does it reflect badly on me as a person if I find that scene funny? The prequels contained ridiculous scenes of juvenile comedy (seriously, fart and poop jokes in Star Wars, seriously) then all of a sudden they get all grim-dark and expect me to take it seriously when Anikin "I'll try spinning, that's a good trick" Skywalker with his frowny face and cliche monster eyes (what the hell is up with that?) murders a bunch of twerps off screen. Doesn't work for me. Not that I'm expecting or asking for it to be all serious and grim from the beginning, but the extreme childishness of much of the prequels doesn't provide effective juxtaposition, it just makes it funny when it suddenly tries to be serious. It's like trying to watch Shadow the Hedgehog and not laugh your arse off at the adorable edginess.

As for the subject matter itself, I don't really care if he kills children. He kills plenty of other people, and I don't see the murder of children as any worse than the murder of any other innocent person, no matter how many times people talk about how they can't defend themself (as it's any more noble to murder an someone who can).

 

[McElroy]

I have gone past the point of a single thing not being entertaining in one way or another, if it's in a work of art. Though I still enjoy (or draw enjoyment out of) lots of horrible real stuff that happens, I do draw a line or two.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

...

Here's one: Game of Thrones

I stopped reading the books for just this reason, it's just too relentlessly cruel and violent. Any time anything even remotely good happens to a character it just makes you feel dreadful because you just know it's building towards something far more terrible down the road. There's no hope, no optimism, it's pure unhappy angry and often foul people being angry and foul to each other.

If I want unending cruelty and unhappiness I can examine facets of real life, so no thank you to having that in my fantasy as well. There was just this point mid-way through one of the books where I realized I was just miserable reading it as it was making me feel sad, after realizing that I put the book down and have never touched it since. Haven't seen the show either. Why bother? I already know how it's going to end: Miserably.

It hit a low point for me when they did the rape of Sansa Stark and Theon was made to watch. I just got to the point of thinking "Jesus George, what's with all the rape?" - its like its the only way he knows to make his characters reprehensible.

...

To be fair, a lot of the rape in the show isn't there in the books, or is handled differently. The scene where Jamie rapes Cersei in the temple, next to the body of Joffery (seriously, what the fuck) wasn't in the book, nor was Sansa's rape (Sansa wasn't even at Winterfell during that storyline). For some reason they even depicted that scene of Daenerys and Drogo with weird, rapey undertones on the show.

While I have no problem with sex and violence, it really feels like they're using it for shock value. While the books did (I'm pretty sure) imply that Ramsay Bolton had done basically the same thing to Jeyne Poole (the person in the books who Ramsay weds at Winterfell), it seems to be handled with a bit more tact.

 

[Hades]

A similar complaint can be made at the Kingdom of Heaven. That movie just HATES the Christians. If a crusader isn't a time traveling atheist then he's going to be depicted as a terrible person who just can't wait to kill all Muslims and flaunts all the laws of god when not doing that. When the movie runs out of Templars to bully it just mutates a Bishop who offered to ransom himself for the common men into someone who wants to flee Jerusalem at the first sign of trouble and just abandon all the citizens to their fate.

You should really check out extra histories videos on the first crusade - one element of the Peoples Crusade couldn't wait to get to the holy land before killing people, so began slaughtering Jews along the way and looting their belongings.

I did watch that extra credit series. Kingdom of heaven takes place quite a long time after the first Crusade. Medieval times were awful times and at war everyone was awful. Both Christians and Muslims sacked citiesof their enemies that did not surrender in time and Saladin not doing so in Jeruzalem was the exception, and even that only because it got him for favorable terms.

I don't mind the Christians being depicted as the worse side, there are legit reasons for going that way but you can get that across without making them cartoon villains and making the Muslims so much better then them.

 

[Hades]

I've mentioned it in other threads, but I felt that the scene where the assistant got killed in Jurassic World was pure cruelty for the sake of it. I got real uncomfortable watching that, it was so pointlessly mean.

It's also what turned me off on Elfenlied when I saw its first episode. Notably when that random secretary or something got her head twisted off and used as a meatshield. I then turned off the show and never looked back.

Oh and 12 Years A Slave reveled a bit too much in its physical torture as well if you ask me. An excellent movie otherwise.

A similar complaint can be made at the Kingdom of Heaven. That movie just HATES the Christians. If a crusader isn't a time traveling atheist then he's going to be depicted as a terrible person who just can't wait to kill all Muslims and flaunts all the laws of god when not doing that. When the movie runs out of Templars to bully it just mutates a Bishop who offered to ransom himself for the common men into someone who wants to flee Jerusalem at the first sign of trouble and just abandon all the citizens to their fate.

Really? I can only think of one small batch of Christian characters being villanous, and that's the main Templar guys. That bishop was just cowardly which is a different beast entirely. All the other Christian characters, from Liam Neeson's band at the beginning to Jeremy Iron's character and of course the main character, were all pretty awesome. If anything I felt that the movie was real clear in its message that only a minority of Christian crusaders were real "murder all infidel Muslims" type people and that the most of 'em just wanted everyone to live together and somewhat get along.

Mind you, this is going on the Director's Cut. Aka the only cut worth watching. It's been ages since I've watched the theatrical release, I won't be surprised if they fucked around with the characterizations there.

I'm going by the regular cut and there it really seemed like the Christians were just itching for their wise king to die so they could get a war started. The templar guys are depicted as the dominant faction and comments that the allies of the main character make implies that their way is pretty much the norm in the holy land

I wouldn't include the main character as an awesome Christian because he's not Christian. He's a time traveling Atheist and so are the ones who agree with him that ''war for religion is bad bro''.

 

[Jandau]

Last thing that comes to mind is Jessica Jones. After around 5-6 episodes of watching Krysten Ritter get humiliated, abused and psychologically tortured, I just called it quits. The show wasn't doing anything for me. If the message was "Sexual abuse and rape are bad, m'kay", great, I got that. In the first episode or two. No need to hammer on about it and do very little else. When the main character wasn't being horribly abused, some other poor schmuck was being violated in some way. The show was going nowhere rapidly, and each episode was just 50 minutes of misery. Like a season-long snuff film.

Shame, really, as I think Ritter put in a really solid performance, and the show did sell me on Luke Cage as a character. It also didn't help that I find David Tennant mildly annoying at best...

 

[Cowabungaa]

I'm going by the regular cut and there it really seemed like the Christians were just itching for their wise king to die so they could get a war started. The templar guys are depicted as the dominant faction and comments that the allies of the main character make implies that their way is pretty much the norm in the holy land

I wouldn't include the main character as an awesome Christian because he's not Christian. He's a time traveling Atheist and so are the ones who agree with him that ''war for religion is bad bro''.

The original cut is an abomination that rightfully flopped. The director's cut is an almost entirely different film. In it the Templars are a smaller faction, only dominant after certain plot developments. It also clearly defines the main character's motivations to go on a crusade as clearly Christian. Lastly it shows both Muslim and Christian sides as more reasonable, and the Templars feel more like outliers.

And, y'know, the plot and characters suddenly make flippin' sense. That helps.

 

[MCerberus]

Im going to say call of duty modern warfare 3. There is a part in the campaign where you are attacking a russian open pit mine, you take control of a drone and missile the crap out of people there. At the end of it the drone missiles a door and you storm this area to save the president. There are a bunch of shell shocked guys stumbling around, instead of taking them prisoner or something you are expected to shoot them, if you don't your ai teammates will. At this point in the campaign I'm kinda feeling battle fatigue anyway so the killing of enemies who are unable to fight back just makes me feel unpleasant even if I'm not the one doing it.

Whats really interesting is that I've replayed the campaign a few times and things always end up the same at that point, and the last 20 min of the campaign just becomes a slog to finish up.

At some point CoD became Edgelord's time traveling adventure. Probably the last time the explicit war crimes was in any way dramatic or made sense was the prisoner Molotov in WaW. Ever since then it's just been a parade of unnecessary hate with worrying fascist undertones. Spec Ops made me ill, but it didn't leave me as dirty as CoD games, since it had a point and lead somewhere other than "shoot the brown people".

Mine would have to be Bat-Miller. I consider that character to be the emblem of everything wrong with the Dark Age in comics. Oh, and along with that but later has to be what Marvel's Ultimate-verse turned into. We're talking everything from civil war to the Deadpool that Origins took its cues from.

I've also come to "get" why my mom hated Ren & Stimpy. When it got mean, it was for really no reason, like the staff just became unhinged. It was to the point where 75% of episodes were crueler than that one Zim episode with the time traveling pigs(which had an actual plot even if it was supremely fucked up). The show also didn't have the parody excuse. Well it did, but in the lazy "If I call it parody it's a shield no matter how much it doesn't apply".

 

[MysticSlayer]

I just couldn't get into the Witcher because I asked myself "If every single person died, would I care?" The answer I came up with was only for Siegfried. I loved him. You know why? Because he wasn't a miserable asshole, he was a decent person who wanted to do the right thing, and in a world where 95% of the people were assholes, I freaking adored him. You can write nice characters dark fantasy authors!

Honestly, I thought you were talking about the Witcher 2 until you mentioned Siegfried. Did you ever make it far into Chapter 2? Because while Chapter 1 tends to make everyone an asshole, Chapter 2 tends to make characters less of an asshole and at worst untrusting of Geralt initially, and that style sticks throughout the rest of the game. Sure, the game never really is the happiest game around, but it does take time to realize that not everyone is an asshole and that life isn't totally awful. In fact, one thing I remember liking about the first game (especially compared to the second) was that it didn't try so hard to be depressing and "mature". I would even argue that the game eventually comes to a point of viewing most people as having good intentions (just misguided) and the world as being mostly good. Geralt just can't enjoy the better parts of life as much because his work requires him to interact with the worst parts of it, but even then, he still manages to maintain a surprising amount of hope in the world (considering his generally emotionless nature anyways).

 

[Erttheking]

I just couldn't get into the Witcher because I asked myself "If every single person died, would I care?" The answer I came up with was only for Siegfried. I loved him. You know why? Because he wasn't a miserable asshole, he was a decent person who wanted to do the right thing, and in a world where 95% of the people were assholes, I freaking adored him. You can write nice characters dark fantasy authors!

Honestly, I thought you were talking about the Witcher 2 until you mentioned Siegfried. Did you ever make it far into Chapter 2? Because while Chapter 1 tends to make everyone an asshole, Chapter 2 tends to make characters less of an asshole and at worst untrusting of Geralt initially, and that style sticks throughout the rest of the game. Sure, the game never really is the happiest game around, but it does take time to realize that not everyone is an asshole and that life isn't totally awful. In fact, one thing I remember liking about the first game (especially compared to the second) was that it didn't try so hard to be depressing and "mature". I would even argue that the game eventually comes to a point of viewing most people as having good intentions (just misguided) and the world as being mostly good. Geralt just can't enjoy the better parts of life as much because his work requires him to interact with the worst parts of it, but even then, he still manages to maintain a surprising amount of hope in the world (considering his generally emotionless nature anyways).

I got mid way through chapter 2 before I stopped playing. To be fair, my stopping had less to do with the tone and more than the mystery of that chapter was obtuse and frustrating. I felt like I was reading a mystery novel with half of the pages ripped out, being made to go question people I didn't know, being able to accuse the investigator when I had no idea why I should, eventually I just gave up and went for the obvious suspect that was so obvious it was clearly a red hearing and I couldn't even beat him because the combat in that game is ass. So yeah, bit of a rage quit. That and I was getting annoyed with Geralt, mainly because he came off as less jaded and more emotionally dead, considering he couldn't even bother to break out of his dull monotone when accusing someone of being a rapist. That at the very least calls for raising your voice.

But yeah, things were pretty fucking miserable in Witcher 2 as well. I did get Witcher 3 though, I hear that it lightened the hell up, so I'll get around to playing that sooner or later.

 

[09philj]

I generally like things which are nasty. Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, No Country for Old Men, the lot. However, I don't like torture porn, because there's nothing tense or exciting in watching somebody being dismembered; it's just nasty. The only other piece of media I felt was too unpleasant for it's own good was A Simple Plan. It's just so grim and filled with characters who are unpleasant, but not fascinatingly so.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

DC's "New 52" line, and it's recent movies have turned me off by just how dark and depressing it all is, with little-to no levity or fun. I can't wait until they retcon this shit away.

Also, I've have certain issues with certain third movie installments of certain anime franchises.

Spoiler: Click here for spoilery rants

Neon Genesis Evangelion 3.0 - Basically the world is fucked due to Shinji's actions in the last movie, and things only seem to be getting worse. And while I'm not a fan of Shinji, I won't lie and say I didn't want to give him a hug after all the crap he went through. After all, he was trying to save someone he cared about and it blew up in his face. Also, why did the third movie take place 14 years after 2.0? That seems a bit much... And considering how the ending of 2.0 was turning out, I can't help but wonder if there was a different outcome planned, or maybe it was a lie? Goddmanit Anno, do we need to have a talk?!

Puella Magi Madoka Magica - Yes, this again. I wouldn't have such a problem with this movie if the end didn't piss me off so much. Long stor short, Homura went Witch due to the machinations of the Incubators (...Bunnycat is such a dick), but after some shenanigans the other characters are able to stop her rampage, and Madoka prepares to take her to Magical Girl Heaven... only for Homura to become a devil or something and trap them all in a dream world. What. The. HELL! I think the point was that Homura was driven to madness and obsession by her experiences (not that I blame her), but still... I'm not sure, but the ending was meant to either deconstruct the notion of a happy ending and/or fanworks that depict happy endings, or it was meant to lead up into a follow-up series - something that hasn't shown up yet. This strikes me as needlessly mean-spirited and morally despicable, not to mention the fact that this change-up ends up removing Madoka's character development. It ticks me off so much, even seeing the Incubators getting their just desserts in the end can't get the bad taste out of my mouth.

Oh, and the finale to Digimon Tamers is bullshit. They save the world, but the partners all have to go back to the Digital World? Haven't these guys been through enough?!

...Yeah, I have a problem with mean-spirited endings, what of it?

 

[Benny Blanco]

The original (UK) version of The Office. Too cringy and mean-spirited for my taste.

Oddly, didn't find the same thing with the US version w/ Steve Carrell. Maybe it's that he might as well have "Cast me in a comedy straight man role" stamped on his face, maybe the cultural distance, maybe the writing, maybe that Ricky Gervais has given me Grade 3 douchechills ever since the 11 o'clock show...

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Torture porn movies. Nothing pleasant about skinny white girls being tortured, or some clown psycho engineering oddly karmatic ways to punish people using over-the-top death traps.

Also social media, which may be worse thing ever. Tumblrs, slacktivists, hashtivists, YouTube drama, twitter wars and the court of public opinion.

Oh fuck me raw, the court of public opinion is absolutely disgusting.

 

[BrawlMan]

Family Guy is this for me these days and for the past few years. I mean the constant referrals to anyone on the right as a nazi for the longest time (which only stopped after Seth McFarland and Rush Limbaugh became friends), the use of stereotypes as jokes in-and-of-themselves (often times that didn't even make sense) and the poor attempts at mocking people McFarland disagrees with just turned me off, even more so then the gross-out ever did.

It feels these days that Family Guy is trying to be South Park on a lower TV rating, only with none of the wit.

That's why I stopped watching around season 7. Seth and whoever writes for him can eat a bag of shit.

My list:

Shaman King (the manga version) - When it gets towards the end. Watch the TV adaption, it's a lot more positive and way less insulting.

Gurren Laggan - Similar to the example above, the ending ruined the entire show for me. It was like the writers of Evangelion stepped in to screw over the characters as much as possible. When Kill La kill, which had a rough start in telling its story, does a way better ending than your spiritual predecessor, then you know there a problems with the writing. The ending in Gurren contradicted the messages and themes in the show. Originally, I was going to get a box set of the show, but backed out every time I thought about t he ending.

A Wind Name Amnesia - Crappy and wasted of a good concept from start to finish.

Black Lagoon - I couldn't get pass the third episode. Revy's constant wangsting about how much the world sucks and how God is dead was super aggrevating, and made me want smack her with lead pipe wrapped in barbwire.

Elfen Lied.... Nothing further.

Love Hina - No really. Even though it's a comedy, a majority of the cast is unlikable and needs a reality check.

Evangelion - Yep.

Attack on Titan & Walking Dead - Every supporting characters dies, and is just straight up misery porn.

Most mafia movies, all prison movies, and Menace II Society. There is really not much point in getting attached to the characters, nor caring what happens in the story.

DmC: Devil May Cry - Everybody knows the score. Fuck you Capcom and Ninja Theory.

Ed, Edd, Eddy - Unless it's the Big Picture Show. I suggest once you finished the movie, you never go back to the series again.

 

[Animakuro]

The Corpse Party anime. Whilst staying true to the games at all meant it was going to be full of suffering and and torture, the anime relishes in depicting the most horrible events in that universe (Children having their tongues cut out and being stabbed in the eye until the eye becomes "Soup-like in consistency" - the actual description from the game) in the most prolonged and gory manner possible, whilst adding many new horrible deaths that weren't in the games at all, just for the sake of being shocking.

The new Seth Rogan animated film Sausage Party (Apparently I just hate parties) is something I'll skip. The premise of the film being that food is actually sentient and self-aware (Much like the toys in Toy Story) and that much of the humour comes from them being killed and tortured as they are prepared for consumption. I'm really not comfortable with the scene of baby carrots (So basically, young children) panicking in their bag then screaming for their parents before being eaten alive.
I'm also not someone who would judge others for finding something amusing that I don't or working on such a thing, but I must admit I'm struggling to get inside the mindset of the people who made this film. I'm wondering if during the recording the voice artist was given directions like "Okay, that was great, but I still don't feel like the tone really captures the emotion of those childrens terror and anguish as they're being eaten alive. We're going to have to work on that a bit more, okay?"
I also have to wonder what it was like to animate said scene.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Not sure if they were doing it on purpose, but this really rubbed me the wrong way.


You know, I don't mind some racial humor here and there. I see what they were going for, the whole black people on welfare and racism in law enforcement, that can be funny when handled right but I think it has to do with the way this animation ties it all together that really bothers me.
It especially doesn't help when his face gets smashed in either. I don't mind graphic violence too often, this would be one of those times that I do.