Your Most Hated Interpretation of A Character you like?

[Oroboros]

I would say Revan in SWTOR. In KOTOR s/he is a blank slate character that I can interpret however I want, which is okay for a featureless protagonist (look it up on tvtropes). In KOTOR2 s/he is given a personality, but much of what makes it work is that Revan is not present and what we learn new about the character is through other people and their experiences with him/her. In SWTOR they made Revan a he, which I guess is okay to give a canon gender/appearance after enough time in this kind of situation. But then we meet Revan in SWTOR and then there is the book where he gets captured by the Emperor. And well, you know that scene in planet of the apes where Charlton Heston sees the Statue of Liberty and yells. It kind of feels like that for me, "You ruined him, you ruined the character from my favorite RPG, damn you all to Hell".

That might not count as a interpretation, but it feels like an entirely different character interpretation to me.

This here.

TOR destroyed all of the (rather considerable) goodwill I had towards Bioware.

Read some material from Drew Karpyshyn where he basically admitted that they made Revan male lightside because it had a more generic appeal for when they cashed in on 'Old Republic' books & comics etc.

Doubly insulting because KoTOR 2-which was famously rushed *and* lacked a data import feature- *still* managed to put in a feature that let you choose Revan's gender and alignment.That TOR, a game with an infinitely longer development time and budget couldn't manage to pull that off is absurd.

 

[themilo504]

Is this solely limited to official works?

Because Touhou fans are absolute experts at ruining the characters just to make them fit their personal headcanon. You could argue that all fandoms do this, but the Touhou fandom is the absolute worst with it. Probably because Touhou lore as a whole is a bit on the vague side, but the way fans just completely disregard canon because it's not as they imagined it is...rather astonishing.

Here's how it works:
1. You take a character who has some established character traits.
2. You do away with pesky things like "depth" and "canon", pick out the specific traits you need and blow them out of proportion.
3. Done!

Interestingly enough I dislike both the canon and fandom character interpretations, I dislike the fanon interpretations because of the reasons you mentioned, and I dislike the canon interpretations because all of the characters are either unlikeable(reimu marisa youmu) evil(yukari sakuya mystia) or a waste of a good idea(the scarlet sisters yuyuko sanea everybody in the human village).

Touhou is a series with many good ideas and potentially interesting characters, and yet I find that both zun and the fandom really fails to deliver on that promise.

 

[themilo504]

If sequels qualify, especially ones handled by different companies, then Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. Yes, I'm talking about the family-friendly stealth game with anthropomorphic critters.

Spoiler

Penelope from Sly 3. Discounting her horrible design change, I'll go into her place in the story. She somehow went from a light-hearted geek to a sadistic, manipulative, uncaring Bond villain; a Doctor M 2.0, basically. In this case, it isn't the betrayal that disgruntled me, it was its execution. Her reasons for being a traitor don't even make sense. Money? She has it. Plenty of it from the Cooper vault. To change the world? Um, she had made a friggin' time machine and she was concerned of the gang "holding her down"? Seriously?

I especially dislike how the story treats her like she's just Bentley's girlfriend and not as a former member of the team. She was friends with the other characters too, not just "Our buddy's *****". They showed a strong degree of care for her when she got kidnapped in the third game. There was a healthy degree of platonic friendship and respect yet her relationship with Bentley was the only thing that carried over to the sequel. She got turned into an accessory for Bentley's character "development" all for the sake of a crappy plot twist.

Blaming Kerrigans heinous acts on the Zerg Infestation just destroys her legacy as a villain. Of course they had to do that because they fucking suck at writing.
They needed to ally all races for the imminent return/attack of the Xel?Naga/Hybrids. They couldn?t come up with a reason for the original Queen of Blades to join forces with Terrans and Protoss nor either of them to trust her so they pussified her and the Zerg alike by turning them into lapdogs.
Yea? fuck of Blizzard.

Blizzard seems to have a running trend with turning villains into misunderstood lapdogs for the sake of a "Battle of the Five Armies" type of conclusion. They did it with the Orcs in Warcraft 3 (it was the demons' fault!), though at least there was a bit of effort put in it. I can't wait for when the Burning Legion allies with the "good guys" to fight off the Old Gods or something.

I actually really like the orcs turning out to be good all along in warcraft 3, it?s the point where I feel that azeroth stopped being a generic fantasy world and got its own identity.

I do agree that Kerrigan turning good was rather poorly done, I think the problem is that they had her turn good during the game, blizzard is great at creating worlds and back stories but when they actually have to write a story things start going south.

 

[Twintix]

Is this solely limited to official works?

Because Touhou fans are absolute experts at ruining the characters just to make them fit their personal headcanon. You could argue that all fandoms do this, but the Touhou fandom is the absolute worst with it. Probably because Touhou lore as a whole is a bit on the vague side, but the way fans just completely disregard canon because it's not as they imagined it is...rather astonishing.

Here's how it works:
1. You take a character who has some established character traits.
2. You do away with pesky things like "depth" and "canon", pick out the specific traits you need and blow them out of proportion.
3. Done!

Interestingly enough I dislike both the canon and fandom character interpretations, I dislike the fanon interpretations because of the reasons you mentioned, and I dislike the canon interpretations because all of the characters are either unlikeable(reimu marisa youmu) evil(yukari sakuya mystia) or a waste of a good idea(the scarlet sisters yuyuko sanea everybody in the human village).

Touhou is a series with many good ideas and potentially interesting characters, and yet I find that both zun and the fandom really fails to deliver on that promise.

And that's a perfectly reasonable stance to have. If you dislike the canon characters, that's fine. I, too, think that there's some seriously wasted potential with some of the characters, especially ones like Wriggle or even the Aki sisters. (Oh, we have a bug girl who is a bit on the stupid side because she erases unneccessary information like an insect does? Well, fuck her, let's instead focus on this annoying, overhyped ice fairy that the fandom won't shut the fuck up about. (Seriously, fuck Cirno, fuck her overratedness and fuck the fact that people just shoe-horn her in everywhere)) He has all these interesting characters, and he chooses to completely ignore most of them.

(At first, I hesitated to call Yukari evil because personality-wise, she's more of a troll. But doesn't she deliberately let humans from the Outside World get lost in Gensokyo sometimes so that youkai can eat them? That's...kinda evil. She probably has her intentions, as she loves Gensokyo, but still, evil.)

The thing is, though, that I hate it when people decide that the canon personalities aren't canon because "That's not how I imagined it, and I clearly know these characters much better!". Like, just because you dislike this character's personality doesn't give you the right to just shit all over established lore.
And for this, I only have to name one character:

Momiji. I hate what the fandom did with Momiji, before and after Double Spoiler.

No, she and Aya clearly don't hate each other's guts, Momiji is obviously just tsundere for Aya, even though Aya clearly hates Momiji back. /sarcasm
And even before that, the fan interpretations of Momiji irked me. Pretty much all of them has Momiji be a spineless wuss who'd call Aya "Aya-sama", as if she was Aya's fucking pet. SHE'S AYA'S COLLEAGUE, NOT HER FUCKING SERVANT! SHE'S A WOLF, NOT A SMALL PUPPY!

(Honestly, I write fanfiction too. But I'm always very careful with the lore and the characters. I had some Sonic fan characters when I was younger, one of which was an echidna. But when I found out that echidnas are pretty much extinct in Sonic lore, I changed her into a porcupine. I'm not the creator of the universes, so who the hell am I to just change the rules that have been established?)

[HEADING=3]This post was brought to you by Twintix: Lore is serious fucking business! *explosions*[/HEADING]

 

[KissingSunlight]

I have to say Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. Everybody seem to pick up on how awful Batman was in the movies: The voice and the dumb decisions. It seems like I was the only one who picked up on how whiny Bruce Wayne was in the first 2 movies. He was telling anyone who listens, "I don't want to be Batman." Yet, a lot of people were surprised by the ending of The Dark Knight Rises.

The reason that Nolan's interpretation of Bruce Wayne annoys me could be summed in a scene in Batman Beyond. When Bruce Wayne had a device planted on him that made him think he was losing his mind. Terry asked him, "How did you know someone was trying to drive you crazy?" Bruce replied, "The voice kept calling me 'Bruce'." Terry asked, "How do you refer to yourself?" Bruce only gave Terry a knowing look referring to the fact that he still calls himself "Batman".

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

I actually really like the orcs turning out to be good all along in warcraft 3, it?s the point where I feel that azeroth stopped being a generic fantasy world and got its own identity.

I do agree that Kerrigan turning good was rather poorly done, I think the problem is that they had her turn good during the game, blizzard is great at creating worlds and back stories but when they actually have to write a story things start going south.

It's not that the Orcs turned out good that was bad, though. As a matter of fact, good Orcs/trolls/minotaurs were partially why I got into the lore more. It's just the whole "Demons made me do it!" thing that feels lazy. It would be more interesting seeing the Orcs go from a warlike lifestyle to a balanced, settled one. I guess WoD's story rectifies this but not with without major retconning and leaps of logic.

 

[Erttheking]

Kanji from Megami Ibunroku Persona 4.
When dumbshits go: "He's not gay!" or "He's bi!"
Bitches, he's gay.
DEAL.
WITH.
IT.

They explicitly say so in the original Japanese, they STRONGLY hint at it at the end of his social link in the english. (Which ATLUS of America said they toned down his gayness so as not to pull the ire of the right wing christian machine.)
And even ATLUS has said repeatedly that he's a homosexual.
Bitches need to stop being homophobic.

Oh that explains so much. They toned it down? That's why it sounded inconsistant...well I'm still pretty sure even though it's confirmed he likes men, I'm still pretty sure he likes women too...or at the very least he's Naoto-sexual. I have heard from a gay man that there was one person he thought was a boy for awhile and after he found out that person was a girl he was still attracted to her. Truth be told you don't have to be 100% straight or 100% gay. I could see Kanji as a 5 on the Kinsey Scale.

https://schnippits.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/kinsey-scale.png?w=645&h=231

Then again I suppose he could just be romantically attracted to Naoto and not sexually. That happens too.

Anyway, point I was trying to make is that he feels SOMETHING towards Naoto.

 

[themilo504]

And that's a perfectly reasonable stance to have. If you dislike the canon characters, that's fine. I, too, think that there's some seriously wasted potential with some of the characters, especially ones like Wriggle or even the Aki sisters. (Oh, we have a bug girl who is a bit on the stupid side because she erases unneccessary information like an insect does? Well, fuck her, let's instead focus on this annoying, overhyped ice fairy that the fandom won't shut the fuck up about. (Seriously, fuck Cirno, fuck her overratedness and fuck the fact that people just shoe-horn her in everywhere)) He has all these interesting characters, and he chooses to completely ignore most of them.

(At first, I hesitated to call Yukari evil because personality-wise, she's more of a troll. But doesn't she deliberately let humans from the Outside World get lost in Gensokyo sometimes so that youkai can eat them? That's...kinda evil. She probably has her intentions, as she loves Gensokyo, but still, evil.)

The thing is, though, that I hate it when people decide that the canon personalities aren't canon because "That's not how I imagined it, and I clearly know these characters much better!". Like, just because you dislike this character's personality doesn't give you the right to just shit all over established lore.
And for this, I only have to name one character:

Momiji. I hate what the fandom did with Momiji, before and after Double Spoiler.

No, she and Aya clearly don't hate each other's guts, Momiji is obviously just tsundere for Aya, even though Aya clearly hates Momiji back. /sarcasm
And even before that, the fan interpretations of Momiji irked me. Pretty much all of them has Momiji be a spineless wuss who'd call Aya "Aya-sama", as if she was Aya's fucking pet. SHE'S AYA'S COLLEAGUE, NOT HER FUCKING SERVANT! SHE'S A WOLF, NOT A SMALL PUPPY!

(Honestly, I write fanfiction too. But I'm always very careful with the lore and the characters. I had some Sonic fan characters when I was younger, one of which was an echidna. But when I found out that echidnas are pretty much extinct in Sonic lore, I changed her into a porcupine. I'm not the creator of the universes, so who the hell am I to just change the rules that have been established?)

[HEADING=3]This post was brought to you by Twintix: Lore is serious fucking business! *explosions*[/HEADING]

I freely admit that I ignore touhou canon that I don?t like, for instance even though canon clearly states that the average human living in gensokyo is weaker than the average youkai, I find it much more fun and interesting to have the human village consist of almost nothing but powerful humans.

However I would never claim that any fan fic I would write is loyal to canon, it?s a AU fic that uses canon as a base or even just a inspiration.

(I also dislike how cirno is so popular, she?s fine but I find mystia rumia and wriggle much more interesting.)

And yes the fact that yukari brings ordinary humans to gensokyo is the reason why I think shes evil, I guess you might argue she?s a well intentiond extremist but I find it hard not to view her as a bit of a monster, and it really annoys me how our supposed heroes never call her out on being responsible for the disappearance and death of possibly thousands of people.

 

[sageoftruth]

I know I had some, but I can't remember any, so I'll borrow one from my mom:
Faramir from Lord of the Rings. In the books, he was a very just, confident and likeable character who was portrayed as someone clearly deserving of the honor his brother Boromir received. She disliked how the movie had downplayed all of his strengths and portrayed him as a weak and embittered man crushed beneath his brother's shadow.

 

[Twintix]

I freely admit that I ignore touhou canon that I don?t like, for instance even though canon clearly states that the average human living in gensokyo is weaker than the average youkai, I find it much more fun and interesting to have the human village consist of almost nothing but powerful humans.

However I would never claim that any fan fic I would write is loyal to canon, it?s a AU fic that uses canon as a base or even just a inspiration.

(I also dislike how cirno is so popular, she?s fine but I find mystia rumia and wriggle much more interesting.)

And yes the fact that yukari brings ordinary humans to gensokyo is the reason why I think shes evil, I guess you might argue she?s a well intentiond extremist but I find it hard not to view her as a bit of a monster, and it really annoys me how our supposed heroes never call her out on being responsible for the disappearance and death of possibly thousands of people.

Hmmm...I guess that's fine, too. I always try my hardest to make my fanfiction as close to the original work as possible, though. AU is fine, I guess, as long as the changes aren't too drastic. Having more powerful humans isn't too drastic in my eyes, at least.

I still maintain that some attention to the canon is needed, though. And I still maintain that fanon Momiji ruins her (Admittedly vague) character. And Chen is also somewhat ruined in fanon. I know that she's got the intellect of a human 10-year old, but she's a youkai, for crying out loud: I really don't like how that translates into a weak, defenseless crybaby that can barely buy soy sauce without Ran's aid.

I can definitely see how it could be irritating how Reimu literally gives no fucks about how Yukari essentially lets innocent people become youkai food. Alternately, she doesn't know, but that could arguably be worse. Like you said, Yukari is a well-intentioned extremist at best, and she's a too youkai-like for other youkai to understand her as well.
You know, there was this recent tumblr post that I came to think about after reading your post:

Spoiler: The difference between liking a villain and excusing a villain.

 

[themilo504]

I freely admit that I ignore touhou canon that I don?t like, for instance even though canon clearly states that the average human living in gensokyo is weaker than the average youkai, I find it much more fun and interesting to have the human village consist of almost nothing but powerful humans.

However I would never claim that any fan fic I would write is loyal to canon, it?s a AU fic that uses canon as a base or even just a inspiration.

(I also dislike how cirno is so popular, she?s fine but I find mystia rumia and wriggle much more interesting.)

And yes the fact that yukari brings ordinary humans to gensokyo is the reason why I think shes evil, I guess you might argue she?s a well intentiond extremist but I find it hard not to view her as a bit of a monster, and it really annoys me how our supposed heroes never call her out on being responsible for the disappearance and death of possibly thousands of people.

Hmmm...I guess that's fine, too. I always try my hardest to make my fanfiction as close to the original work as possible, though. AU is fine, I guess, as long as the changes aren't too drastic. Having more powerful humans isn't too drastic in my eyes, at least.

I still maintain that some attention to the canon is needed, though. And I still maintain that fanon Momiji ruins her (Admittedly vague) character. And Chen is also somewhat ruined in fanon. I know that she's got the intellect of a human 10-year old, but she's a youkai, for crying out loud: I really don't like how that translates into a weak, defenseless crybaby that can barely buy soy sauce without Ran's aid.

I can definitely see how it could be irritating how Reimu literally gives no fucks about how Yukari essentially lets innocent people become youkai food. Alternately, she doesn't know, but that could arguably be worse. Like you said, Yukari is a well-intentioned extremist at best, and she's a too youkai-like for other youkai to understand her as well.
You know, there was this recent tumblr post that I came to think about after reading your post:

Spoiler: The difference between liking a villain and excusing a villain.

I would argue that changing the power level of the average gensokyo human is actually a fairly massive change from canon, it really changes the dynamic between humans and youkai and results in a much more unstable gensokyo, especially since I also ignore the spellcard rules(I feel that not doing so removes a lot of the stories tension).

I don?t think the problem with most fandom characters is that there not canon, it would be hypocritical for me to do so, the problem is that the characters are flanderized and reduced to stock characters(poor poor alice).

The problem with canon yukari is that they never really do anything with her kidnapping humans, a better writher(not saying I am one) would have made it a vital part of her character and the way people react to her, in touhou its just something she does sometimes when she?s not busy sleeping.

I want to like yukari as a villain or a anti hero, but she isn?t really presented as either of those or really anything for that matter, it?s the same problem I have with sakuya.